Werner Heisenberg, the father of Quantum Physics, once said: “The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting.”

I love this profound statement.

Now, I’m not a physicist, but after learning a little about quantum physics, what I learned gave me a whole new understanding of the Baha’i teachings. In fact it seems that what great scientific minds like Heisenberg, Bohr, Planck and Einstein discovered about quantum physics accords with the Baha’i teachings—and maybe brings us the closest we can come to understanding and scientifically explaining our true reality, consciousness, God, life and the existence of our spiritual reality.

According to quantum physics nothing that we see and perceive in the material world is actually “real.” Our senses tell us that the material world appears solid and unchanging—but quantum mechanics describes the physical world, composed of matter and energy, or particles and waves, as inherently paradoxical and uncertain. Instead, we see a holographic reality. Quantum physics says that reality doesn’t really exist until we attempt to measure it, observe it, or look at it, at least in the microscopic scale of the material building blocks of matter.

The Baha’i teachings describe the world’s physical reality in similar ways:

…the criterion of the senses is not reliable. For instance, consider a mirror and the images reflected in it. These images have no actual corporeal existence. Yet if you had never seen a mirror you would firmly insist and believe that they were real. 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 about it but although this appears to be so, the reverse is now known to be true. A whirling torch makes a circle of fire appear before the eye, yet we realize there is but one point of light. We behold a shadow moving upon the ground but it has no material existence, no substance. In deserts the atmospheric effects are particularly productive of illusions which deceive the eye. Sometimes three or four suns called by scientists “mock suns” will be shining at the same time whereas we know the great solar orb is one and that it remains fixed and single. In brief, the senses are continually deceived and we are unable to separate that which is reality from that which is not. – Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 21.

Baha’is believe that detachment from the world of the physical allows us to recognize our true selves, understand our spiritual reality and firmly move towards an eternal spiritual existence. The Baha’i writings continuously remind us to recognize that everything physical will eventually die and decompose; while the inner spiritual reality—the human soul—never perishes.

Baha’u’llah refers to this principle often, asking each one of us to regard the material world as “a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing:”

With firm determination, with the whole affection of your heart, and with the full force of your words, turn ye unto Him, and walk not in the ways of the foolish. The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it. Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and strayed from His ways. Verily I say, the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion. It may, moreover, be likened unto the lifeless image of the beloved whom the lover hath sought and found, in the end, after long search and to his utmost regret, to be such as cannot “fatten nor appease his hunger.” – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, pp. 328-329.

Studying the science of quantum physics can teach us even more about our existence. It contains scientific clues to the mysteries of life after death, and brings us closer to the recognition of the oneness of humankind. Quantum physics teaches us, as a first step toward understanding our true spiritual reality, that a focus on the human spirit leads to a meaningful life.

Karl Marx said: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” Do you agree? Is history a record of economic warfare?

Marx, Engels and Lenin delineated societal classes economically, by separating the oppressor and the oppressed, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in purely financial terms:

By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live. – Friedrich Engels

Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners. – Vladimir Lenin

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. – Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Marxists define history as the ongoing battle between different social classes, a constant fight between the powerful groups that control wealth and resources and the powerless groups that struggle to survive under their economic yoke. The world today, with its enormous and unprecedented disparities in wealth and poverty, could serve as a model of that theory.

In Marxist terms, then, economics becomes the main determinant of history, because Marxist theories of history completely negate the spiritual aspects of humanity, saying that all people act primarily out of economic self-interest, and religion only further oppresses the masses. Communism attempted to transform that philosophy of history into a classless and irreligious society, but in most cases that attempt has failed on the world stage.

The Baha’i teachings definitely recognize society’s classes, and condemn the economic and class prejudice associated with them:

It is racial, patriotic, religious and class prejudice, that has been the cause of the destruction of Humanity. – Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 28.

World order can be founded only on an unshakeable consciousness of the oneness of mankind, a spiritual truth which all the human sciences confirm. Anthropology, physiology, psychology, recognize only one human species, albeit infinitely varied in the secondary aspects of life. Recognition of this truth requires abandonment of prejudice—prejudice of every kind—race, class, colour, creed, nation, sex, degree of material civilization, everything which enables people to consider themselves superior to others. – The Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace, p. 4.

But the Baha’i teachings also warn humanity not to create “false gods” from some of the most destructive theories of history such as nationalism, racism and communism:

God Himself has indeed been dethroned from the hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and clamorously hails and worships the false gods which its own idle fancies have fatuously created, and its misguided hands so impiously exalted. The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are none other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Racialism and Communism, at whose altars governments and peoples, whether democratic or totalitarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshiping. Their high priests are the politicians and the worldly-wise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations outworn shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their incense, the smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts of the bereaved, the maimed, and the homeless. – Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, p. 113.

From a Baha’i perspective, no historical theory of the progress of civilization that entirely leaves out the human spirit and its Creator can ever fully and accurately describe the past, the present or the future:

Whatever progress is made by man, he always needs the Power of the Holy Spirit, for the power of man is limited and the Divine Power is without limit. – Baha’u’llah, quoted by Abdu’l-Baha in Star of the West, Volume 2, p. 6.

So, now that we’ve gone through all six of the predominant theories of human history—the Cyclical Theory, the Linear Theory, the Great Man Theory, the People’s Theory, the Geographic Theory and the Marxist Theory—which one do you think fits reality? Which one best describes our species’ long path to contemporary civilization?

Before you decide which of these historical theories you like best, or if you like any of them, here’s a question for you. Let’s go back to Carlyle’s concept and give some additional thought to the Great Man question: of all the individuals who ever lived—the most influential people, man or woman, in our shared history—which ones had the most lasting and profound impact on humanity?

Got it? Now, which one has had the greatest impact on you personally? Ponder that one for a while, and we’ll come back to it.

So while Baha’is do believe that economics and geography both have a profound effect on human history, the Baha’i teachings say that the human spirit has had a much more important impact over time. In the next essay in this series, we’ll look at a new Baha’i theory of history that focuses on the importance of the soul and its Creator.

How do Baha’is approach the thorny, complex and difficult issue of climate change?

Scientific concepts of ecology, environmental responsibility and evolutionary social change have deep roots in the Baha’i teachings (BWC 1990). The Baha’i International Community has been active on environmental issues at the United Nations and elsewhere for several decades (Dahl 2005). Baha’is all over the world will take part in Earth Day observances this week—but the Baha’i approach to climate change operates from a much wider perspective than merely dedicating a day to remembering our planet. In fact, the global Baha’i community approaches climate change from a revolutionary perspective—one that begins with the human spirit.

For Baha’is, science and religion fundamentally harmonize, providing complementary perspectives on the same basic truths. Just as religion without science and reason can descend into superstition, so does science without religion tend towards materialism and destruction of the natural environment.

That principle of the harmony of science and religion means the Baha’i approach combines a scientific perspective on climate change with solutions that address the resulting ethical and spiritual challenges, as well. It goes beyond advocacy to question the dominant materialist society and consumer culture, by emphasizing the necessary balance of the material and spiritual dimensions of human life. By teaching contentment with little, and the need to eliminate the extremes of wealth and poverty often associated with excessive greenhouse gas emissions (the former through over consumption, the latter through deforestation and soil degradation), the Baha’i teachings encourage a wholesale reconsideration of our lifestyles and consumption patterns:

Take from this world only to the measure of your needs, and forego that which exceedeth them. Observe equity in all your judgements, and transgress not the bounds of justice, nor be of them that stray from its path. – Baha’u’llah, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 194.

At the social level, the Baha’i approach focuses on the unity of the human race founded on justice and solidarity. It explores the spiritual principles upon which any solution to the climate change problem and the larger challenges facing society must be based, and incites individual reflection, personal responsibility, community action and world citizenship.

For a complex issue such as climate change, where costs and benefits, immediate advantages and long-term risks are so unequally distributed, justice and equity will prove essential in achieving any global collective action. As the Baha’i International Community has put it in the context of development:

Concern for justice protects the task of defining progress from the temptation to sacrifice the well-being of the generality of humankind—and even of the planet itself—to the advantages which technological breakthroughs can make available to privileged minorities …. Above all, only development programmes that are perceived as meeting their needs and as being just and equitable in objective can hope to engage the commitment of the masses of humanity, upon whom implementation depends. The relevant human qualities such as honesty, a willingness to work, and a spirit of co-operation are successfully harnessed to the accomplishment of enormously demanding collective goals when every member of society—indeed every component group within society—can trust that they are protected by standards and assured of benefits that apply equally to all. – The Baha’i International Community, The Prosperity of Humankind, 1995.

Even though the world’s nations have now signed a universal agreement to reduce carbon emissions and mitigate the worst effects of climate change, we have not put in place any worldwide mechanism to enforce that treaty. The present difficulty in enforcing global standards for greenhouse gas reductions arises in part because governments are still more concerned about defending their short-term economic interests, rather than justly and equitably distributing both the efforts required and the accruing benefits. The Baha’i teachings speak out strongly against world leaders who would frustrate human progress toward the justice, peace and unity that will ensure environmental sustainability.

Baha’is have a strong vision of a future global society, and see climate change as an important force compelling the nations and peoples of the world to give priority to their common interest. The Baha’i writings include scenarios of an ever-advancing global civilization that can result from a principle-based approach to world challenges like climate change, with a federated world government able to maintain collective security, to manage the planet’s vast resources and to distribute its products equitably. These unique, revolutionary perspectives of the long-term future of the human race provide a positive focus to counterbalance the negative concerns for our immediate future that the scientific facts of climate change demonstrate all too clearly.

Given this background, the Baha’i International Community (BIC) has actively engaged in the climate change debate. As just one of many, many examples, at the 15th UN Commission on Sustainable Development in New York in 2007, the BIC organized a popular side event in the UN building on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change, in partnership with the Missions of the Marshall Islands and Tuvalu, the UN, the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State University, the International Environment Forum, and other NGOs. An essay on this topic was published in The Baha’i World 2005-2006, the public record of the Baha’i community’s activities.

Baha’i communities in every part of the world have taken up the call to battle climate change at its most basic level, by carrying Baha’u’llah’s message of the essential agreement of science and religion to every part of the planet.

Everything grows in stages—so why would the soul be any different? Just like our bodies do, our souls mature as they attain a series of developmental levels.

Baha’u’llah’s The Four Valleys revolves around a four-level hierarchy of personal and spiritual growth. Unlike he did in The Seven Valleys, though, Baha’u’llah didn’t name each stage of growth in The Four Valleys. For me, I think of every one those four valleys as having a particular focus or purpose, with each level taking its theme from its opening line:

1. self;
2. reason;
3. love;
4. and finally, the apex of consciousness.

I call the first valley, centered around Baha’u’llah’s emphasis on self-discovery, the valley of self. Why? Because in the first valley, Baha’u’llah says “… this station appertaineth to the self …”

“On this plane,” he continues, “the self is not rejected but beloved; it is well-pleasing and not to be shunned.” (The Four Valleys, p. 50.) The first valley, which corresponds with the initial valley of search in Baha’u’llah’s Seven Valleys—and the first stage of all the perennial philosophy models of spiritual growth—focuses on the discovery of self as the starting place for all spiritual attainment.

Here, Baha’u’llah encourages the seeker to study the map of his own soul, and to look within for the deep understanding which guides all search:

This is the plane of the self that is well-pleasing unto God …. One must, then, read the book of his own self, rather than some treatise on rhetoric. – Ibid., pp. 50-51.

As you can see, this valley also represents the central Baha’i principle that asks each person to conduct their own independent investigation of truth.

I think of the second valley as the stage of reason, because in its opening line Baha’u’llah writes “… this is the station of primal reason …” (Ibid., p. 52.)

In The Seven Valleys, Baha’u’llah uses the word reason almost interchangeably with the word knowledge. All of the four-level cosmologies use some variant of this concept of knowledge or the discovery of logic and reason to describe the opening of our rational facility, the higher mind and the human intellect, to spiritual search and the promptings of the soul. Accordingly, I call this stage the valley of reason or the valley of knowledge. In the second valley, the newly-discovered self transcends its self-awareness, supplanting it with a broader consciousness which allows it to see beyond the boundaries of the first valley, and into the mysterious heart of mystical symbols and signs.

The third of the four valleys, it seems to me, could be called love. In the third valley, Baha’u’llah wrote that:

… no soul may dwell on this Kingly Throne save the beauty of love … On this plane, neither the reign of reason is sufficient nor the authority of self. – Ibid., pp. 54-55.

Baha’u’llah emphasized the attainment of love and pure affection for the Eternal in the third valley, after the stages of search for self and growing self-knowledge. This stage focuses on the great yearning of human hearts and souls for beauty, transcendence and connection with the Creator. Baha’u’llah clearly says that “This realm is not to be pictured in words,” and spends most of the short duration of his description of the third valley quoting from the Qur’an and Rumi’s Mathnavi: “The lover’s teacher is the Loved One’s beauty.” In this stage of human development, the valley of the beauty of love, the heart takes precedence.

The next valley, and the final one in this mystical cosmology, couples full spiritual awareness with true understanding and humility. Baha’u’llah calls the fourth valley “the apex of consciousness and the secret of divine guidance,” and “the realm of full awareness, of utter self-effacement.” He says that “Astonishment here is highly prized, and utter poverty essential.” This fourth valley can be compared to the final stage of spiritual development in The Seven Valleys, called “the valley of true poverty and absolute nothingness:”

This station is the dying from self and the living in God, the being poor in self and rich in the Desired One. Poverty as here referred to signifieth being poor in the things of the created world, rich in the things of God’s world. For when the true lover and devoted friend reacheth to the presence of the Beloved, the sparkling beauty of the Loved One and the fire of the lover’s heart will kindle a blaze and burn away all veils and wrappings. – Baha’u’llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 35.

This idea—the full transcendence of the self, a highly-developed consciousness that recognizes the majesty and glory of God, while striving for selflessness and self-effacement—resonates with the Buddhist concept of nirvana, which literally means “non-drawing”, as a fire ceases to draw. It also corresponds with the Hindu idea of nirguna, which means “without qualities”; or the mystical Jewish theory of ‘en-sof, the “not-finite.”

In Baha’i terms, we could refer to this final stage of human development as the valley of the apex of consciousness.

Yesterday the Associated Press ran a remarkable newspaper story called “Muslims, Jews Strengthen Bonds Amid Acts of Bigotry.”

The first few paragraphs of the story said:

They sat on either end of the congressman’s couch, one a Jewish healthcare executive whose parents fled Germany in 1936, the other the Kashmiri Muslim chairman of a well-known American furniture chain. The men, Stanley Bergman and Farooq Kathwari, came to draw attention to an outbreak of hate crimes. But Bergman and Kathwari hoped their joint appearance would also send a broader message: that U.S. Jews and Muslims could put aside differences and work together.

The men lead the Muslim-Jewish Advisory Council, created last year by the American Jewish Committee and the Islamic Society of North America, amid a flowering of alliances between members of the two faiths. U.S. Muslim and Jewish groups have been trying for years to make common cause with mixed success, often derailed by deep divisions over Israel and the Palestinians.

But bigoted rhetoric and harassment targeting both religions since the presidential election has drawn people together. Jews have donated to repair mosques that were defaced or burned. Muslims raised money to repair vandalized Jewish cemeteries. – Rachel Zoll, The Associated Press, March 21, 2017.

Have you noticed these developments lately? Just about every day, another news story recounts some new effort toward unity and cooperation between former foes. If you haven’t seen these stories, look beyond the negative headlines and the dire tidings on the front-page—that’s where you’ll usually find the best news, buried deep in the inner sections of the paper, or the far corners of the Web. Anyway, it seems that increased persecution, hate speech and attacks on people, buildings and cemeteries have all resulted in an increasing number of displays of love and unity. Who knew?

This trend toward recognizing our fundamental human unity has been building for a while now. What a heartening development—exactly what the Baha’i teachings call for:

In every dispensation, there hath been the commandment of fellowship and love, but it was a commandment limited to the community of those in mutual agreement, not to the dissident foe. In this wondrous age, however, praised be God, the commandments of God are not delimited, not restricted to any one group of people, rather have all the friends been commanded to show forth fellowship and love, consideration and generosity and loving-kindness to every community on earth. – Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, pp. 20-21.

After all, no matter what we believe, we’re all part of the human family. An attack on any one of us, of any faith, is an attack on our family.

If we truly saw the entire world that way, as members of our immediate family, what would it change? Give it some thought—what would you do, for instance, if someone defaced your next-door neighbor’s house with racist or anti-religious graffiti? What would you do if someone publicly insulted and demeaned your best friend’s Faith? What would you do if government policies singled out one religion as evil or illegal?

All of these things have happened recently in multiple places around the world, and in each case, defenders of equality and justice have come to the defense of others—despite the fact that they may have a different religion or skin color or culture.

That, my friends, is a wonderful and very heartening development:

Know ye the value of this time. Strive ye with all your hearts, raise up your voices and shout, until this dark world be filled with light, and this narrow place of shadows be widened out, and this dust heap of a fleeting moment be changed into a mirror for the eternal gardens of heaven, and this globe of earth receive its portion of celestial grace.

Then will aggression crumble away, and all that maketh for disunity be destroyed, and the structure of oneness be raised—that the Blessed Tree may cast its shade over east and west, and the Tabernacle of the singleness of man be set up on the high summits, and flags that betoken love and fellowship flutter from their staffs around the world until the sea of truth lift high its waves, and earth bring forth the roses and sweet herbs of blessings without end …. – Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 36.