The future

Five thousand years ago, the Egyptians built a civilization whose greatest art and science survives to this day, inspiring us with beauty and awe, a testatment to the capacities of the human spirit. If they could produce such marvelous works that have withstood the test of time, how much more should we, who are the inheritors of the entire world’s cultural, artistic, scientific and spiritual heritage, contribute our share of beauty and creativity to posterity. Today, in spite of our technological advancement, we are far from accomplishing anything even remotely as wonderful as what the ancient Egyptians have created.

The eradication of poverty and preventable diseases, the provision of employment and sufficient and nourishing food for all, the end of war and conflict, these are easy problems to fix. These are the easy questions. These are but the beginning of the rest of our collective life. What we do next is the real challenge.

Our duty is to work for the unification of the human race so that we can set ourselves to the more serious task of building a civilization whose works will bear testament to our capacity to work as a unified humanity and survive into the furthest reaches of time.

Melting a stone block, breaking a crystal case

Religion = Authenticity in all relationships.

The purpose of power is to protect the weak, as a parent to a child, a sovereign to his subjects.

We have tamed and harnessed nearly every power in the universe (albeit on a smaller scale) but the power to transmute and purify the human heart is still beyond our reach.

"I have desired only what Thou didst desire and love only what Thou dost love."
More than expression of a wish, it is a statement that all I have ever loved and desired in my life has been for God and because of God. The definition of love and desire is: love and desire for the things of God.

God is not limited or conditioned by His creation's ability to grasp or understand Him. What is said about Him in Holy Books and Scriptures is for our benefit, not His, and descriptions of Him evolve in refinement and complexity as our capacity grows and our understanding evolves.

Apologizing is the act of placing someone else above our shame. Forgiveness is placing the other above our pride.

Character building in children includes making them experience that which is beneficial to them. In this sense, one does not teach a child, one trains a child as a living being. The child will react in his or her unique way to the experience. The art of parenting is a dynamic interplay between how a child reacts and giving that child what they need in light of their past reactions.

The Knowledge of God and the Knowledge of Self

The existence of God would imply, amongst other things, that it is possible for every human being to experience the divine for himself or herself.

Sacred Scriptures state that

He who hath known himself hath known God. [Islam]

and also

Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting. [Bahá'í Faith]

So it seems the knowledge of God comes as the fruit of the process of self-discovery. The self that is to be investigated is the self described in all the Holy Texts of the world. For example:

We made man in Our own image and after our likeness. [Christianity]

and again

I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty. [Bahá'í Faith]

Skill is ...

paint brush
Originally uploaded by .tintin.

The artist's craft lies in knowing precisely how the slightest angle and pressure affect each stroke of the brush, what mix of pigments produces exactly which colour, how the canvas absorbs and molds the paint.
Her vision is in imagining the finished work before ever picking up a brush or choosing a canvas.

Skill is in seamlessly combining vision and craft to create a masterpiece: a work of art so perfect in its composition and execution.

Living is a skill.
Life, the greatest masterpiece.

How to do Science

Thoughts on reading Julio Savi's "The Eternal Quest for God", a book I gladly recommend.

1. Approach research in the spirit of consultation (truth-finding).

2. Rely on sense perception (observation), intellect (reason), insight (imagination or intuition),
and tradition (previous research and literature).
When these four are in harmony, then a degree of certainty and truth is attained.

3. "The realities of material phenomena are impenetrable and unknowable and are only apprehended through their properties and qualities." —Abdu'l-Baha

4. "Reality is one and does not admit of multiplicity." —Abdu'l-Baha
Thus there exists AN answer to any question posed about reality.

5. Science, the outcome of man's intellectual endowment, is his most noble virtue and highest attainment. —Abdu'l-Baha

Creation as a Sign of God

Everything that exists has a use to which it can be put. All things may be transformed in such a way as to serve man: cotton into fabric, trees into homes and their furnishings, minerals into tall buildings and computers, dead organic matter into plastics and fuels. Numerous plants serve as foodstuffs or pharmaceutical remedies while even poisons can be harnessed for some beneficial use (Botox anyone?). Is not this a token of the bounty and grace of an All-Mighty Creator?

We shall show them Our signs in the world and in themselves.

Qur'an 41:53

Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to love Him — a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating impulse and primary purpose underlying the whole of creation... Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one of His names, and made it a recipient of the glory of one of His attributes. Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes and made it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created things, man hath been singled out for so great a favor, so enduring a bounty.

Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p.65

Thoughts on Artificial Consciousness

The mark of consciousness is the ability to come up with a novel, singular idea that defies the imagination and comprehension of others. Thus, so long as a computer produces results that are wholly intelligible* to man, it has not achieved consciousness.

*Wholly intelligible means that method and interpretation are fully comprehensible. Of course, the number of computations a computer can perform are far beyond the reach of mortal man but their complexity lies nevertheless within the bounds of his imagination. Put simply, a computer will not produce a new statement that challenges your imagination.

The Purpose of Life

I have determined that the purpose of life is to conquer my ego. When you think about it, what do all the really happy people in our lives have in common? I submit that it is their lack of ego. Ego is what holds us back. It's the little voice that reminds us of our fears, whispers to us of desire, distracts us with illusory dreams, boasts of our accomplishments. To recognize that voice and to teach it to obey us, that is true greatness.

Here's the next great bit. Baha'u'llah wrote in one of his prayers:

And when He (God) desired to manifest grace and beneficence to men, and to set the world in order, He revealed observances and created laws; among them He established the law of marriage, made it as a fortress for well-being and salvation, and enjoined it upon us in that which was sent down out of the heaven of sanctity in His Most Holy Book.

Now I've long wondered: what is it about marriage that makes it a "fortress for well-being and salvation"? Today, I think it has to do with conquering ego. In marriage, you have to put aside your ego and focus on someone else's needs. You have to learn to love another being so completely, devotedly and selflessly, and no matter the circumstances. Isn't that a beautiful thing?
Furthermore, our spouse serves as a mirror in which we see reflected those attributes we still need to develop. By that I mean that because our spouse is a witness to all our decisions and actions and because they know us and love us so intimately, we can't get away from our weaknesses and frailties: we are forced to confront them.
No wonder marriage is so scary, and so beautiful.

a working maxim

When I'm torn between considering all that can be done and what to actually do right now, I follow this maxim:

Tomorrow holds the richness of illimitable possibilities.
Today is simple. Do what comes next.

The Wonder of Writing

Writing to reach you
Originally uploaded by andre_mts.

Writing is the most amazing invention. I mean, the very idea of creating a physical expression of our thoughts and meanings, a physical expression that transcends us and binds us, is staggering. (As a means of recording and storing ideas for later use, it stands virtually unparalleled in the annals of human history. Even on the scale of a single human lifetime, its usefulness and efficiency are incredible.)

My memory for words is ever changing. My french vocabulary, spoken and written, has diminished from lack of use. And yet, were it to remain completely unused for another 50 years and were I then to read a french text, I would immediately recognize those symbols and understand the meaning carried by the words they symbolize.

Writing transcends our own memory. It allows us to leave to posterity a record of our thoughts and ideas which others, in centuries and millenia yet unborn, will be able to recognize and understand and, more important still, will be able to learn from and relate to.

Immigration & the Oneness of Mankind

The more I follow the news, the more I realize this is becoming a serious issue in N. America and in Europe. Just this morning, I read an article in the New York Times that highlighted once again how difficult it seems to reconcile human rights with societal obligations. The subject of the article, an African immigrant to Sweden who was appointed minister for integration and gender equality, expresses an opinion which conflicts with that of other immigrants in her country. One recalls also the recent and ongoing debate in the United States about illegal immigrants, the Paris riots last year and the fury over satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark.

This question is one I've been thinking about more and more. It is a sign of the integration of the planet into one common land, and it is stretching our political, legal and most importantly our social systems beyond their breaking points. Something is going to have to give. The question that must be answered is this: what happens when my personal beliefs and practices intersect other people's beliefs and practices? The search for a universal set of values that can be adhered to and applied anywhere in the world will have to be recognized and pursued vigorously by leaders of thought and of nations. (I believe Dr. William Hatcher laid a foundation for this in his seminal book Love, Power and Justice: the Dynamics of Authentic Morality.)

As early as 1931, in words at once challenging and prophetic, Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, expounded on the principle of the Oneness of Mankind:

Let there be no mistake. The principle of the Oneness of Mankind—the pivot round which all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh revolve —is no mere outburst of ignorant emotionalism or an expression of vague and pious hope. Its appeal is not to be merely identified with a reawakening of the spirit of brotherhood and good-will among men, nor does it aim solely at the fostering of harmonious cöoperation among individual peoples and nations. Its implications are deeper, its claims greater than any which the Prophets of old were allowed to advance. Its message is applicable not only to the individual, but concerns itself primarily with the nature of those essential relationships that must bind all the states and nations as members of one human family. It does not constitute merely the enunciation of an ideal, but stands inseparably associated with an institution adequate to embody its truth, demonstrate its validity, and perpetuate its influence. It implies an organic change in the structure of present-day society, a change such as the world has not yet experienced. It constitutes a challenge, at once bold and universal, to outworn shibboleths of national creeds—creeds that have had their day and which must, in the ordinary course of events as shaped and controlled by Providence, give way to a new gospel, fundamentally different from, and infinitely superior to, what the world has already conceived. It calls for no less than the reconstruction and the demilitarization of the whole civilized world—a world organically unified in all the essential aspects of its life, its political machinery, its spiritual aspiration, its trade and finance, its script and language, and yet infinite in the diversity of the national characteristics of its federated units.

It represents the consummation of human evolution—an evolution that has had its earliest beginnings in the birth of family life, its subsequent development in the achievement of tribal solidarity, leading in turn to the constitution of the city-state, and expanding later into the institution of independent and sovereign nations.

The principle of the Oneness of Mankind, as proclaimed by Bahá’u’lláh, carries with it no more and no less than a solemn assertion that attainment to this final stage in this stupendous evolution is not only necessary but inevitable, that its realization is fast approaching, and that nothing short of a power that is born of God can succeed in establishing it.

(The World Order of Baha'u'llah, Selected Letters, p. 43)

As I understand them, these statements call for a radical change at all levels of society. Thus the 'problem of immigration' is not separate from other world developments nor will it be solved by the means currently available. No law, no government programme, no call for mutual tolerance and good-will can ultimately succeed in binding together diverse peoples, cultures and nations.

Weihnachtsmarkt

Weihnachtsmarkt
Originally uploaded by International Man of Mystery.

I never could understand how an economy can grow and shrink if the number of people wanting/able to work is roughly constant. Tonight I had a small insight I thought I'd share.

Have you ever noticed how some cities feel so alive and vibrant while others are calm and quiet? I'm sure you have. Well consider two such cities, each the same size and with the same demographics. The vibrant city would have what we'd call a vibrant economy because people are willing and wanting to go out and do things, whereas the quiet city may have a stagnant economy because there isn't a sense of innovation, of creating something new. Hmmm... this seems to tie into my previous post about imagination. Perhaps economic health is related to a people's capacity to imagine, to have hope and faith in better things and to strive for those things.

On the power of Imagination

In the light of Antiquity
Originally uploaded by International Man of Mystery.

The Baha'i Writings state that imagination is one of the mental properties of the soul. The other powers are thought, understanding and memory. Imagination has always struck me as the odd member of this set. It dawns on me however that without the use of the power of imagination, one's life becomes dull. Reading books (particularly novels), watching movies, playing games, ... all these activities exercise the power of imagination. We call it play or leisure and we think it is less important than work, thought, reasoning. The lack of play seriously diminishes one's quality of life, one's ability to envision a better life, one's ability to create and appreciate beauty. Beauty fires the imagination. I want to be surrounded by beauty. And now I realize why it has always seemed so important to me to spend time away from work. To spend time alone, or with friends, to drink coffee, to go for a walk, basically to rest and give my soul a chance to drink from the fountain of beauty and imagination.

Einstein's words in this regard seem particularly apt:
Imagination is more important than knowledge...

Mightier than the sword

How amazing the potentialities latent within a single word. The multitude of passages from past or future texts to which it can refer and the myriad meanings and interpretations it may contain or be subject to endow each word with a potency greater than that of all the world's powers combined. Thus hath it been said: "The pen is mightier than the sword."

The need for arms

I found the following quotation of Baha'u'llah in Mr. Ali Nakhjavani's Towards World Order:

"that ye may need no more armaments save in a measure to safeguard your territories and dominions..."

This for me represents the Baha'i view on armaments. The goal is to have the minimum necessary. Thus the approach to military spending and readiness is predominantly one of "how little can we get away with" rather than "how much?" Contrast this with the attitude currently en vogue in the world.

To constantly be thinking of new vulnerabilities is to chase one's own tail. By this logic, no amount of spending is ever sufficient and we are never safe. One must pause and seriously consider the implications of such an attitude.