On August 26th, the day in 1920 when the United States certified the 19^th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote, Americans observe Women’s Equality Day.

In other words, the country sets aside one day out of 365 days in each year to celebrate equality for half of humanity. Somehow it just doesn’t seem quite proportional, does it?

The Baha’i teachings call on mankind to implement full equality for womankind. In fact, the Baha’i teachings say that humanity itself cannot progress until both genders have equal rights:

Now in the two lower kingdoms of nature we have seen that there is no question of the superiority of one sex over the other. In the world of humanity we find a great difference; the female sex is treated as though inferior, and is not allowed equal rights and privileges. This condition is due not to nature, but to education. In the Divine Creation there is no such distinction. Neither sex is superior to the other in the sight of God. Why then should one sex assert the inferiority of the other, withholding just rights and privileges as though God had given His authority for such a course of action? If women received the same educational advantages as those of men, the result would demonstrate the equality of capacity of both for scholarship. – Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 161.

The world of humanity is possessed of two wings: the male and the female. So long as these two wings are not equivalent in strength, the bird will not fly. Until womankind reaches the same degree as man, until she enjoys the same arena of activity, extraordinary attainment for humanity will not be realized; humanity cannot wing its way to heights of real attainment. When the two wings or parts become equivalent in strength, enjoying the same prerogatives, the flight of man will be exceedingly lofty and extraordinary. Therefore, woman must receive the same education as man and all inequality be adjusted. Thus, imbued with the same virtues as man, rising through all the degrees of human attainment, women will become the peers of men, and until this equality is established, true progress and attainment for the human race will not be facilitated. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 375.

When we celebrate Women’s Equality Day, we often don’t realize that it took the American women’s suffrage movement almost seventy-five years of committed, painful struggle to achieve voting rights for women. A half-century before women could vote, a chance meeting on a train set the 19^th Amendment in motion.

At that point, the famous suffragettes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton had just drafted the simple, 29-word text of what would become the 19^thAmendment:

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Then, in 1872, Susan B. Anthony—Quaker, suffragette, anti-slavery activist and internationalist—met a Congressman from Nevada City, California, Aaron Sargent, and his wife Ellen Clark Sargent. Anthony’s fervent desire for a women’s suffrage movement convinced the Sargents to become supporters of the movement, and Aaron Sargent subsequently became the first person to ever utter the word “suffrage” in the United States Congress. Since women could not vote or hold office, it took a man to advance the 19^th Amendment:

God’s Bounty is for all and gives power for all progress. When men own the equality of women there will be no need for them to struggle for their rights! – Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 164.

Susan B. Anthony

Elected to the Senate in 1873, Sargent interceded with President Grant when Susan B. Anthony was jailed for registering to vote—his efforts secured her release. In January of 1878 Senator Sargent introduced the “Susan B. Anthony” Amendment—and for the next 40 years it would annually be introduced unsuccessfully in Congress, until it finally passed during Woodrow Wilson’s administration in 1919, forty-one years later.

From their home in Nevada City, the Sargents carried on the long battle for suffrage. A year after Aaron Sargent’s passing, in 1888, when the famed abolitionist, pacifist and suffragette Julia Ward Howe (the author of The Battle Hymn of the Republic) visited California, Ellen Clark Sargent hosted an important meeting in San Francisco that brought together some of the nation’s most powerful and influential women’s suffrage advocates—Phoebe Hearst, Sarah Dix Hamlin, Emma Sutro Merritt, M.D., and several others. Phoebe Hearst, one of the wealthiest American women and a strong supporter of women’s rights, became a Baha’i a decade later, in 1898. In that 1888 meeting the women formed the Century Club of California, often noted as the fulcrum of emerging female power in the West, and a major supporter and funder of the campaign to pass the 19^th Amendment.

During that same period, when most civic, political and religious organizations opposed, fought against or even criminalized the women’s rights movement, the Baha’i Faith strongly advocated the equality of men and women.

Abdu’l-Baha, who met with many suffragist leaders and spoke encouragingly to suffragette groups in Europe and America, clearly enunciated the Baha’i teachings on the question when he addressed a women’s suffrage meeting in New York City in 1912. He questioned, in fact, the underlying premise of any attitude that opposed the equality of the sexes:

Woman must be given the same opportunities as man for perfecting herself in the attainments of learning, science and arts. God has created the man and the woman equal, why should she be deprived of exercising the fullest opportunities afforded by life? Why should we ever raise the question of superiority and inferiority? In the animal kingdom the male and female enjoy suffrage and in the vegetable kingdom the plants all enjoy equal suffrage. In the human kingdom, which claims to be the realm of brotherhood and solidarity, why should we raise this question? – The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 167.

The great global movements for freedom, the Baha’i teachings say, never take place in a spiritual vacuum. Instead, Baha’is believe that the civil rights and women’s rights movements; the various movements for justice for workers; the anti-war and anti-nuclear movements and every other mass uprising that has called for peace, justice and equality since the mid-19^th Century all have their genesis in the deep spiritual principles revealed by Baha’u’llah:

Every age requires a central impetus or movement. In this age, the boundaries of terrestrial things have extended; minds have taken on a broader range of vision; realities have been unfolded and the secrets of being have been brought into the realm of visibility. What is the spirit of this age, what is its focal point? It is the establishment of Universal Peace, the establishment of the knowledge that humanity is one family. – Abdu’l-Baha, Star of the West, Volume 3, p. 4.

In the Baha’i Faith, the equality of women and men forms one of the great pillars of the oneness of humanity, the central prerequisite for peace.

The Baha’i teachings say “The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds …” – Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 156. What do these words mean for our everyday life?

The first thing that may come to mind is our relationship with other people. We strive to be courteous, loving, fair, and trustworthy with family, friends, co-workers, and strangers—although this may not always be easy to do.

However, in our age, living what the Baha’i Faith teaches encompasses much more. For example, many actions we take every day have a direct impact on the environment and then indirectly on people around the world, even on future generations. Using energy, driving a car, and eating meat all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions which warm the Earth.

For instance: when we buy a T-shirt, we are involuntarily supporting extensive water use for the irrigation of cotton (often in drought prone areas), the application of toxic herbicides and pesticides which harm farm workers and the environment, the exploitation of people who grow and sow the cotton for the T-shirts, and greenhouse gas emissions that escape throughout all the stages of cultivation, production and transportation.

Global warming causes massive changes in the climate all over the world: including unprecedented heatwaves, severe droughts which harm agriculture, devastating floods, and more severe storms. Glaciers are melting, making sea levels rise because warmer water expands, and because of the contribution of water from the melting glaciers. Large coastal cities all over the world will become unlivable because of higher storm surges and flooding.

There is no alternative—we must change. But we are not powerless in the face of such problems.

Have you heard of the new interfaith initiative called “Living the Change?” Its website says:

Earth is a blessing. She supports life and is the basis of all our economies. She conveys beauty and evokes our recognition of something greater than ourselves. She is our temple, our mosque, our sanctuary, our cathedral. Our home.

As people of faith, we are committing to make changes in our own lives. Together, we come to you with a call to adventure on a journey towards sustainable living. We invite you to join us in Living the Change.

Living the Change has a spiritual mission—it provides inspirational messages from different religions to motivate their followers to tread more lightly on the Earth. When you visit the Living the Change website, you can click on your own Faith to open a motivational note that relates some of your Faith’s teachings to taking climate action. You can choose Interfaith, Baha’i, Buddhist, Catholic, Evangelical, Protestant, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, and Quaker.

The Catholic motivational message, for example, is:

Addressing climate change and environmental destruction is an opportunity to fulfill the core values of our faith. As Christians, we are called to love one another, and especially the “least of these.” Our most vulnerable sisters and brothers are disproportionately affected by the climate crisis and environmental degradation. Solving it is a way to protect them, and our children and grandchildren after us, from increased sickness, hunger, and conflict. In Genesis, humanity is called to keep the garden God created, and Pope Francis teaches us that “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.”(Laudato Si’, 217) As the urgency to solve our environmental crisis grows, we commit ourselves to protecting creation our common home.

When you click on Baha’i, you will get:

Baha’is believe in the oneness of humankind, that we are all one family in the sight of God. We know that poor people are affected first, and that future generations will suffer the most from the devastating impacts of climate change such as more severe heatwaves, droughts, floods, storms, and sea level rise. It is our responsibility to do all we can to reduce the suffering of our family members all around the world. We can all strive to live more environmentally responsible lives and to reduce carbon pollution caused by our lifestyles.

Baha’u’llah admonished us to lead a simple life. He wrote that a true spiritual seeker must ”be content with little, and be freed from all inordinate desire.” Moreover, He emphasized justice: “Whoso cleaveth to justice, can, under no circumstances, transgress the limits of moderation. The civilization, so often vaunted by the learned exponents of arts and sciences, will, if allowed to overleap the bounds of moderation, bring great evil upon men… If carried to excess, civilization will prove as prolific a source of evil as it had been of goodness when kept within the restraints of moderation…” The Universal House of Justice warns us of materialism and consumerism and writes “Every choice a Bahá’í makes … leaves a trace, and the moral duty to lead a coherent life demands that one’s economic decisions be in accordance with lofty ideals …” “Let deeds, not words, be your adorning” inspires environmentally responsible actions.

The website allows you to write down your personal motivation to change your habits, and then provides information about the three areas where all of us can make significant reductions to our contributions to climate change: Transportation, energy use, and diet. You can then choose to make one or more commitments for change in those areas.

Then you can download and share a card on social media with a picture and a quotation from the teachings of your Faith, and another card with your commitment(s). In this way, you can inspire others to Live the Change!

Living the Change has collected all commitments and presented them at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, which was held September 12-14, 2018. It will continue to collect commitments and everyone is encouraged to participate. Then, from 7-14 October, all people of faith are invited to celebrate the Week of Living the Changewith local events in their communities around the world.

Of course, mitigating climate change also requires fundamental societal changes from the local and national to the international level. But the individual actions of millions of people will have a real effect on reducing carbon emissions and will help put in motion large social transformation. Would you like to become part of this global initiative? To make your commitment(s), visit the informational page about commitments for Living the Change.

In my dream last night my daughter and I heard loud and ominous rumblings outside. We hurried out in our bare feet, and in horror, looked up at the hills.

We saw an enormous and ostentatious mansion just above our house teetering on its foundation. The earth beneath it was preparing to give way, and we saw that the mansion’s foundation had begun to crumble. As the huge home started to tumble toward us my daughter asked, “Which way should we run?”

I grabbed her hand and said, “This way!” We ran down the street to the left and as we were running I remembered a powerful Baha’i prayer to be recited in times of calamity and natural disasters. I said it aloud:

Dominion is God’s, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation. – Baha’u’llah, The Most Holy Book, p. 172.

Soon we realized that we had chosen to run in the right direction, and had gotten clear of the destruction. We then found ourselves in a type of steel shelter. There were kind and compassionate people inside that had provisions for a short sojourn, and we knew we would be safe for this brief period.

I looked through the windows at large condos and homes nearby that were many stories high. I noticed that there were huge cracks going down their walls. I knew these homes would also come down very soon. The residents sat out on their balconies, looking on as if nothing was happening, even as homes around them crumbled and slid down the surrounding hillsides. I wondered: Why couldn’t they see that their homes would break apart next?

At the rather small shelter, our loving hosts prepared us for the move to greater safety. I looked down and saw that my feet were no longer bare—someone had given me shoes when I hadn’t noticed. I was grateful for this kindness, and realized that some sweet woman had sacrificed her shoes for me. We were then told that in a few hours we would be transported to a large farm where others were waiting, and where we would be safe.

Then I woke up from the vivid and harrowing dream and thought about what it might mean. I said a Baha’i prayer:

I beseech Thee, by the potency of Thy will and the compelling power of Thy purpose, to make of what Thou didst reveal unto me in my sleep the surest foundation for the mansions of Thy love that are within the hearts of Thy loved ones, and the best instrument for the revelation of the tokens of Thy grace and Thy loving-kindness. – Baha’u’llah, Baha’i Prayers, p. 125.

The dream reminded me of the state of affairs in the world. It seemed to me that the mansion and the other crumbling homes symbolized the materialism, ignorance and prejudice affecting our planet. Much of the public seemed completely unaware as they watched the decay and devastation. They thought they could ignore it and just go on with their lives. It reminded me of another passage from the Baha’i teachings:

… the pride and vanity of certain of the peoples of the world have made havoc of true understanding, and laid waste the home of justice and of equity. – Baha’u’llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 76.

In my dream, though, that small group of spiritual, mindful people persisted. These people wanted to get us out to safety and usher us to a better place. I think that those people represented all the souls here on Earth who work toward a new world of global unity.

This world could be a world of peace and prosperity for all humanity, the dream made me realize. The people would come from all races and religions to live in absolute harmony:

The Great Peace towards which people of goodwill throughout the centuries have inclined their hearts, of which seers and poets for countless generations have expressed their vision, and for which from age to age the sacred scriptures of mankind have constantly held the promise, is now at long last within the reach of the nations. For the first time in history it is possible for everyone to view the entire planet, with all its myriad diversified peoples, in one perspective. World peace is not only possible but inevitable. — The Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace, October 1985, p. 1.

The Baha’i teachings promise a future time of peace, when the oneness of humanity will be established, all the nations will come together, and all hearts will be connected:

In the divine Holy Books there are unmistakable prophecies giving the glad tidings of a certain Day in which the Promised One of all the Books would appear, a radiant dispensation be established, the banner of the Most Great Peace and conciliation be hoisted and the oneness of the world of humanity proclaimed. Among the various nations and peoples of the world no enmity or hatred should remain. All hearts were to be connected one with another.

These things are recorded in the Torah, or Old Testament, in the Gospel, the Qur’an, the Zend-Avesta, the books of Buddha and the book of Confucius. In brief, all the Holy Books contain these glad tidings. They announce that after the world is surrounded by darkness, radiance shall appear. For just as the night, when it becomes excessively dark, precedes the dawn of a new day, so likewise when the darkness of religious apathy and heedlessness overtakes the world, when human souls become negligent of God, when materialistic ideas overshadow spirituality, when nations become submerged in the world of matter and forget God–at such a time as this shall the divine Sun shine forth and the radiant morn appear. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 220-221.

Though alarming, my dream gave me hope that while the world now experiences a precarious time in our history, there are many loving and consciously enlightened souls coming together to work toward universal peace. I believe that if we turn away from the decay of materialism and prejudice, turn our eyes to the true teachings of God in all the Holy Books, and lovingly work toward the unity of all mankind, we will find our way home.

We human beings have four ways of knowing, the Baha’i teachings say—so let’s see if we can understand how each one works.

While any comprehensive analysis of this profound topic extends beyond the scope of this essay, what follows is a cursory sketch, hopefully sufficient for our purposes, of Abdu’l-Baha’s four ways of knowing.

1. The method of the senses.

This method of knowing relies on sense perception, usually referred to as empiricism in most discourse. Beginning sometime during the seventeenth century, empiricism has been closely associated with the epistemological basis of scientific research. Empiricism tends to define scientific endeavor as one of collecting and classifying various observable facts into an abstract formulation, merely to provide a convenient summary of these facts. It is believed by some that the study and observation of empirical phenomena is the sole basis for scientific research and determining the truth, often coupled with the conclusion that the empirical method is the one and only way to ensure that scientific knowledge remains pure and safe from subjective assumptions, philosophical speculations, and theological presuppositions. In the early part of the 20thCentury, describing the empirical method, Abdu’l-Baha said:

At present all the European philosophers hold this to be the most perfect criterion. They claim that the greatest of all criteria is that of the senses, and they regard it as sacrosanct. And yet the criterion of the senses is defective, as it can err. – Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, newly revised edition, p. 343.

Abdu’l-Baha used traditional philosophical examples of the unreliability of knowledge acquired through sense perception:

The eye sees a mirage upon the desert as a lake of water, but there is no reality in it. As we stand upon the deck of a steamer, the shore appears to be moving, yet we know the land is stationary and we are moving. The earth was believed to be fixed and the sun revolving around it … A whirling torch makes a circle appear before the eye, yet we realize there is but one point of light. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 21.

In brief, the Baha’i teachings maintain that the senses can only offer imperfect empirical data, and that observational data alone cannot provide adequate tools for generalization and/or interpretation of information—a truth clearly evident to any thoughtful and genuine scientist.

Despite any emphasis on the imperfection of the senses, though, the Baha’i teachings regard the empirical approach as a necessary mechanism for acquiring knowledge and understanding. Abdu’l-Baha clearly stated that empirical forms and symbols are essential for conveying intellectual concepts. From one point of view, it would seem that Abdu’l-Baha agrees with the Aristotelian approach, which contends that we need concrete particulars and sensible objects for the comprehension of metaphysical realities.

2. The method of reason.

This method of understanding reality, based on the logical and reasoning capacities of the human mind, finds its primary use in the field of philosophy. The debate among philosophers regarding the relationship between the mind and the senses is as old as philosophy itself. Generally speaking, rationalist philosophers remain unsatisfied with the proponents of scientific empiricism, who they say are content with partial and limited truths, all of which are contestable.

The empiricists, in turn, generally claim that these empirical truths are all we can know; dismissing the grandiose claims of the rationalist philosophers. For the most part, rationalists will argue that in order to achieve recognition and understanding of truth, we must go beyond empirical methods and include the findings to which reason, when set free from strict reliance on the senses, will lead us. However, the Baha’i teachings recognize that reason, by itself, is neither independently foolproof nor comprehensive. Abdu’l-Baha refers to debates among the ancient philosophers to illustrate this point:

They deduced things through the power of the mind and relied on rational arguments: All their arguments are based upon reason. But despite this, they diverged greatly in their opinions. They would even change their own views: For twenty years they would deduce the existence of something through rational arguments, and then afterwards they would disprove the same, again through rational arguments. …

It is therefore evident that the criterion of reason is imperfect, as proven by the disagreements existing between the ancient philosophers as well as by their want of consistency and their propensity to change their own views. – Abdu’l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, newly revised edition, pp. 343-344.

In one of his talks, Abdu’l-Baha remarked:

… great discoveries and announcements of former centuries are continually upset and discarded by the wise men of today. Mathematicians, astronomers, chemical scientists continually disprove and reject the conclusions of the ancients; … everything is continually changing because human reason is progressing along new roads of investigation and arriving at new conclusions every day. – Abdu’l-Baha , The Promulgation of World Peace, p. 21.

However, this assertion should not be misunderstood as a dismissal of reason per se; rather, it is clear and implied that Abdu’l-Baha’s critique of reason is essentially a critique of a fixated definition of the term. Stated differently, if humanity stubbornly and blindly attaches itself to the findings of reason from a previous age, then as time passes and civilization evolves, reason can become a barrier to the realization of truth. When viewed within the context of the Baha’i teachings, which characterize the acquisition of divine knowledge as progressive and evolutionary, then reason, in its process-oriented expression, can be viewed as becoming one with the universal reason or logos running through all religions.

3. The method of traditions.

This mode of acquiring knowledge is based on the adherence to traditional religious belief systems that exist in various cultures, which have over time, developed into present-day schools of thought and convention. These belief systems are typically based upon the scriptures of the various traditional religious faiths. In Abdu’l-Baha’s words:

This criterion is not perfect either, because the traditions must be understood by the mind. As the mind itself is liable to error, how can it be said that it will attain to perfect truth and not err in comprehending and inferring the meaning of the traditions? – Ibid., pp. 344-345.

Traditions, as we all know, tend to crystallize into dogmatic patterns of thinking which, like reason, can become frozen into a conceptual quandary. Conversely, if they are given the generating impulse of an evolving intellect, they can continue to remain a beneficial and reliable method of knowing.

4. The Holy Spirit.

Abdu’l-Baha defined the Holy Spirit as “the Bounty of God and the luminous rays which emanate from the Manifestations.” In further defining the Holy Spirit, Abdu’l-Baha said:

But the grace of the Holy Spirit is the true criterion regarding which there is no doubt or uncertainty. That grace consists in the confirmations of the Holy Spirit which are vouchsafed to man and through which certitude is attained. – Ibid., p. 345.

The Baha’i teachings identify the concept of the Holy Spirit with the power invested in the messengers of God—the divine voices of each age, and the mediators between humanity and its Creator:

So we can say there must be a Mediator between God and Man, and this is none other than the Holy Spirit, which brings the created earth into relation with the “Unthinkable One”, the Divine Reality.

The Divine Reality may be likened to the sun and the Holy Spirit to the rays of the sun. – Abdu’l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 58.

From a Baha’i perspective, the Holy Spirit, like reason and tradition, is a dynamic, progressive and generative force—not a fixed or absolute reality. This theme recurs often in the Baha’i writings. Shoghi Effendi wrote:

Its [the Baha’i Faith’s] teachings revolve around the fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final. Unequivocally and without the least reservation it proclaims all established religions to be divine in origin, identical in their aims, complementary in their functions, continuous in their purpose, indispensable in their value to mankind. – Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u’llah, p. 58.

From these brief analyses of the different methods of knowing identified by Abdu’l-Baha, we can conclude that the main source of any disagreement between the modalities of reason, tradition, and the Holy Spirit arises because of tension between static and dynamic approaches to understanding reality.

Reason, tradition, and the Holy Spirit constitute the core of culture and civilization. A static approach to these methods can often lead to perceiving error as reality, thus contributing to the causes of the disunity and disintegration of culture and civilization. On the contrary, a dynamic and progressive vision of these methods can contribute significantly to the generation of new knowledge, and thereby cultivate the integration of even higher levels of culture and civilization—one of the primary goals of the Baha’i Faith.