# Humanity's Coming Encounter with Baha'u'llah

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> Anniversaries are an invitation to take stock, to review where we have come from. The hope is 
> that we can secure a vantage point from which we can better appreciate what lies ahead. 
> Centenaries are particularly valuable in this respect, because the perspective they provide is 
> so much longer, and the vantage point, hopefully, correspondingly high. 
> 
>  In reviewing of the unfolding public message of the Cause over the past 100 years it is 
> important to distinguish this message from the Faith's teaching work. There are as many 
> teaching methods as there are Bahá'ís: some five million of them at the present count. There are 
> as many "Bahá'í messages", perhaps, as there are inquirers. Entirely apart from this world-
> wide effort of individuals to teach other individuals, the Bahá'í community as a body has pursued 
> a parallel, century-long -- and remarkably systematic -- program to create an accurate and 
> favorable image of the Cause in the public mind generally. 
> 
>  There is no one satisfactory term that captures this endeavor. The meaning of the much-used 
> word "proclamation" has, unfortunately, become steadily more blurred as it has been used for 
> various group teaching initiatives. What we are talking about are such activities as public 
> information, government relations, publicity, publishing, media production and public 
> relations, whose aim is to ensure that the society around us gains a reasonably sound 
> understanding of the nature and purposes of the Bahá'í Cause. 
> 
>  When one looks back over the past century with this area of our work in mind, a very 
> interesting realization emerges. It is not only the Bahá'í community that has moved through a 
> series of stages in its development, but also the presentation of its public message. In a sense the 
> image of the Cause can be said to have gone through three -- and perhaps four -- major 
> transformations during these hundred years. 
> 
>  Obviously, the basic message has never changed. We have never stopped presenting one message 
> in order to switch to an entirely new one. On the contrary, the process has been a cumulative 
> one, and is much stronger for that reason. Nevertheless, it is clear that the focus has several 
> times shifted quite sharply, the emphasis has changed and with it the types of public 
> information activities which have received priority attention. 
> 
>  THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS If one examines our public message during the first two 
> or three decades of the century, one discovers a Bahá'í Faith which was essentially a movement 
> of peace, of universality and understanding. It took an optimistic and encouraging view of the 
> possibilities of human nature because it declared humanity to be fundamentally spiritual. 
> Mankind's hope lay in freeing itself from the limitations and prejudices of the past, and 
> accepting its fundamental unity. 
> 
>  Inevitably, there were a number of mockers. One American poet referred dismissively to what 
> he called the "Sweet Bahá'í-and-Bahá'í". At a much later date we still heard warnings about 
> "terminal niceness". Fundamentally, however, the message had great attractive power: it 
> planted in the public mind, to the extent that this mind was aware of us, an identification of the 
> word "Bahá'í" with a spirit of universality and goodwill. 
> 
>  This image was most fully captured in the immensely appealing figure of the Master Himself, 
> during His epic journeys through the West. The possibilities for its promotion were also most 
> fully explored by Him in such actions as His address to the Lake Mohonk peace conference, His 
> participation at an NAACP conference, His defense of the truth of Christianity and Islam at 
> Temple Emmanu-El in San Francisco, the host of interviews He gave to the press, and in the 
> unshakable confidence He displayed in the spiritual destiny of the human race. 
> 
>  With the assumption by the Guardian of the responsibilities placed on him in the Will and 
> Testament, the focus shifted. For over three decades Shoghi Effendi devoted himself to a task 
> which he termed "vindicating the independent character of the Faith". Patiently and firmly he 
> freed the Cause from the cultic milieu which had long veiled its true nature. The Bahá'í Faith 
> was an independent religion among the religions of the world, he said, and must be recognized as 
> such. 
> 
>  The legal recognition of Bahá'í marriages and Bahá'í holy days was tenaciously pursued 
> throughout the world. Bahá'í institutions were incorporated in civil law. The foundations were 
> laid for a close relationship with the United Nations system as soon as that system came into 
> existence. 
> 
>  At the local and national levels, Bahá'í communities tirelessly organized classes in comparative 
> religion and sought a place in the emerging interfaith movement. "World Religion Day" was 
> created to focus media attention on this theme. Especially designed literature explored, with 
> varying degrees of professional expertise, the concept of Progressive Revelation. (One recalls 
> one small pamphlet whose cover listed the world's surviving independent religions, beginning 
> with "Sabeanism" whose origins were imaginatively attributed to one "Enoch".) MAJOR 
> SHIFT IN FOCUS With the triumphant completion of the Ten Year Crusade and the 
> successful establishment of the Universal House of Justice, the image of the Cause again 
> underwent a major shift in focus. The Bahá'í community had become established throughout the 
> entire planet. Suddenly it was everywhere and it was everyone. This immensely rich diversity 
> was given further weight by the dramatic increase in the community's sheer size. Whole Third 
> World villages became Bahá'í, with profound implications for the operation of the 
> Administrative Order. 
> 
>  As the process gained momentum, the community became an increasingly valued collaborator 
> with UN agencies and other non-governmental organizations. Social and economic development 
> projects proliferated. Administrative sophistication expanded, as did the professional resources 
> available. 
> 
>  To use the words of a popular philosopher of the period, Marshall McLuhan, "the medium was 
> the message". A growing array of public information activities emphasized the fact that the 
> Bahá'í community was a microcosm of the world. It was at home everywhere. It was as 
> indigenous to Africa as it was to America; as familiar a voice in Hindi as in Farsi; as reliable a 
> friend in the South as in the North. It was itself a convincing proof of the validity of the Faith's 
> message. 
> 
>  This century-long series of efforts has been a stunning success. To the extent that people are 
> familiar with the Bahá'í Faith, they regard it as an influence for good, promoting those ideals of 
> global unity and interracial harmony that are increasingly seen as vital to the survival of 
> humankind. At some point in the past several decades a corner was turned in the vindication of 
> its character as an independent world religion; however stubborn the resistance to this idea may 
> be in many parts of the world, crucial agencies that shape public opinion now routinely include 
> the Faith among the distinct religious systems of mankind. 
> 
>  Equally important is the extraordinary reputation which the community's interaction with 
> governmental, non-governmental and United Nations bodies has established. The Bahá'í 
> community is seen as an "honest broker", as genuinely committed to principles of collaboration 
> and consultation, as an international influence that can be counted on for rationality and 
> professionalism in the initiatives it undertakes and the advice it gives. It does what it says it 
> will do. LIKE NEW IMMIGRANTS The Cause is, in short, becoming a familiar and 
> respected feature of the international landscape in the concluding decade of this century, and it 
> is of the utmost i mportance that we ourselves understand this fact. In a sense we are like new 
> immigrants getting off a plane in North America. In most parts of the world one may live a 
> lifetime -- and his children and grandchildren after him -- without becoming "Italians" or 
> "Japanese" or "Norwegians". But almost the only one who does not assume that the new arrival 
> in New York is an American is the immigrant himself. In much the same way, we are being 
> challenged to "take yes for an answer" in many areas of our public information work. We must 
> not let the limitations in our own minds prevent us from understanding this development and the 
> opportunities it opens up. 
> 
> "EMBLAZONING THE NAME OF BAHA'U'LLAH" Now, the House 
> of Justice tells us that the moment has come for a dramatic new initiative in the Faith's public 
> presentation of its message. What has so far been achieved creates a setting in which the central 
> truth of the Bahá'í Cause may appear in its proper perspective, a stage upon which the Author of 
> the Cause can Himself address our fellow human beings, their institutions, their information 
> systems, their centers of learning. 
> 
>  All of us have yearned for this day. It will bring together two aspects of our work on which a 
> perceptive public relations specialist remarked two years ago. In an entirely friendly but 
> objective manner he expressed the view that there seemed in fact to be "two Bahá'í Faiths: the 
> one that you share with the public and the private one, the one that motivates what you do. The 
> difference between these two Faiths is Bahá'u'lláh". 
> 
>  Setting aside the circumstances that have made this distinction a wise and considered strategy, 
> it is clear that these "two Faiths" are now converging. What are some of the principal 
> implications of their doing so? In considering them, we would be well advised to keep in mind 
> that wonderful sentence of the Guardian on the necessary limits on our ability to peer very far 
> into the future: 
> 
>  "All that we can reasonably venture to attempt is to strive to obtain a glimpse of the first 
> streaks of that promised Dawn which must, in the fullness of time, chase away the gloom that 
> has encircled humanity." 
> 
>  With this caution in mind, let us try to identify some of the broad lines which an attempt to 
> proclaim the name and mission of Bahá'u'lláh to humankind may seek to pursue. Fundamentally, 
> the summons of the House of Justice requires that we re-examine everything we do in 
> presenting the message of the Cause to the public. Every media interview, every submission to a 
> United Nations conference, every public event we organize, every audio-visual presentation we 
> create, every piece of music composed, every academic paper, any contribution to the drafting 
> of a national constitution -- in all these activities, we must pose ourselves the question, "How 
> can this be reformulated so as to point to its source in Bahá'u'lláh?" BROAD ARRAY OF 
> INITIATIVES Our task is to set in motion a broad array of initiatives that can establish 
> Bahá'u'lláh's name as a familiar and authoritative voice in human affairs. The goal in the decades 
> ahead is to reach the point the point where no responsible scholar will undertake work in fields 
> as diverse as social anthropology, systems research, political and economic science, 
> administrative theory, psychological methodology -- without consulting Bahá'u'lláh's teachings 
> and the models He has constructed: 
> 
>  * Where the media will routinely ask, "What does Bahá'u'lláh have to say about X, 
> Y or Z?" 
> 
>  * Where public agencies will have begun to include citations from Bahá'u'lláh's works in 
> support of proposals being advanced or analyses made. 
> 
>  * Where the masses of mankind will have begun to know who Bahá'u'lláh is and the nature of the 
> mission He has undertaken. 
> 
>  Before anything else we need to determine how we are to speak of Bahá'u'lláh 
> Himself. A beginning has been made in the Statement on Bahá'u'lláh prepared, at the request of 
> the House of Justice, by the Office of Public Information. Its numerous citations from the 
> Writings of Bahá'u'lláh suggest a number of ways in which our public information work can 
> profitably make a start. 
> 
>  As the statement points out, Bahá'u'lláh was the first Manifestation of God to set foot in the 
> West. This simple fact of history and geography points up one of the great distinctions between 
> His mission and those of the Messengers of God who preceded Him. Bahá'u'lláh is the Prophet of 
> civilization. The greater part of His life was spent not in the Galilean countryside nor among the 
> desert tribes of Arabia, but in the great cities of His world. He did not reject the world as 
> Buddha did; his mission was to transform and revitalize it. While refusing government 
> appointments, He moved freely in government circles. Those whom He influenced were not only 
> the common people, but the ministers, scholars, diplomats and literary figures who eagerly 
> sought Him out, often traveling long distances for the purpose. 
> 
>  His mastery of both the Persian and Arabic languages and the literary traditions of each 
> matched the ease with which His writings dealt with the great issues of social and political 
> organization. He was the Head of a large household, including family, dependents and servants, 
> and He was able to create around Him an order that defied the privations to which He was 
> subjected. Even to Ali Pasha, the Turkish prime minister who was to treat Him with such 
> injustice, He was "a man of great distinction, exemplary conduct, great moderation" whose 
> doctrine "is worthy of high esteem" and whose influence might help overcome the religious 
> conflict which was undermining Ottoman society. He was seen as a teacher, a saint, a 
> philosopher, a reformer. He was the Master of His world, even when it imprisoned Him. He was 
> neither a recluse nor a fugitive. He did not accept to be a victim. 
> 
>  Second to a realistic presentation of the Person of Bahá'u'lláh, the new stage opening before us 
> requires a fundamental rethinking of our presentation of His teachings. The shift that is called 
> for, however simple in nature, is a radical one. We are challenged to move beyond our current 
> discussion of "Bahá'í principle" to an exposition of what Bahá'u'lláh said, what Bahá'u'lláh 
> wrote, what Bahá'u'lláh called for, what He explained, foresaw, cautioned against, proposed, 
> envisioned. We need to share with others how Bahá'u'lláh suggested we look at this or that issue, 
> how He advised us to approach this or that problem. 
> 
>  Programs of public information must focus, for example, on the implications of Bahá'u'lláh's 
> searching critique of political organization. Interested segments of public opinion must be made 
> aware of His application of the principles of scientific method to all aspects of human 
> consciousness, including those that are "spiritual". Discussions of the developmental and 
> environmental challenges facing humanity must be related to Bahá'u'lláh's uncompromising 
> assertion that "women and men are and always have been equal". We will find a wide and 
> enthusiastic audience for a presentation of the approach to group decision-making that He 
> conceived and for which the present-day Bahá'í administration presents an early working 
> model. In short, questions of faith entirely aside, we are challenged to introduce leaders of 
> thought and the public generally to the Author of a body of writings that propose radically new 
> approaches to the central issues of life. 
> 
>  Third, Bahá'u'lláh's writings contain an instrument whose impact on the exposition of the 
> Faith's public message cannot yet be dimly imagined. Underlying the body of His principles and 
> concepts, Bahá'u'lláh has created a unified, coherent world view, a universal theory of history, 
> if you like; a comprehensive vision of the nature of man and society. The potentialities of the 
> unique endowment of the Cause are suggested by an examination of the central role which such 
> systems of thought have played in humanity's past. "Where there is no vision", the Bible says 
> simply, "the people perish." There has never been a human society on Earth that has not been 
> founded on a system of belief that gave meaning and purpose to life. When such systems of belief 
> fail, the members of those societies cease to make the required sacrifices to maintain essential 
> social relationships. When this happens a society loses the cohesive power that sustains it, and 
> disintegration sets in. "ON THE ROAD TO NOWHERE" This is the universal condition of 
> our present-day world. A particularly dramatic example is Marxism, both in its political form 
> as the governing authority in certain blocs of nations, and in its intellectual form as an 
> aggressive and dogmatic materialism which, for decades, has imposed itself on academic life 
> everywhere. Its fate was well summed up in a large banner carried through Moscow's Red 
> Square on last year's May Day: "Seventy-three years on the road to nowhere!" The statement is 
> not merely a political one; it reflects an appalled awareness that the foundations of social and 
> intellectual certainty have collapsed. Masses of humanity have awakened to the fact that the 
> fundamental values and concepts of their society, values that demanded decades of heartbreaking 
> sacrifice -- and on which were reared an array of imposing political, academic, social and 
> economic institutions -- were not merely fundamentally wrong, but were largely nonsense. 
> Speaking of this day, the Qur'an says that "the mountains will pass away like the passing of a 
> vapor in the desert". 
> 
> UNIVERSAL LOSS OF FAITH The loss of faith in the great world 
> views on which the social systems of our world are founded is not confined to one part of that 
> world; it is universal. Whether those systems of thought are pseudo-scientific like Marxism, or 
> purely pragmatic like capitalism, or humanistic like Liberal Democracy, or quite pathological 
> like Nazism and Fascism, they have lost their hold on the minds of those who once worshipped at 
> their altars. 
> 
>  In the words addressed by the Voice of God to Bahá'u'lláh:
>  "Canst thou discover anyone but Me, O Pen, in this Day? . . . Lo, the entire creation hath passed 
> away! Nothing remaineth except My Face . . . We have, then, called into being a new creation, as 
> a token of our grace unto men." 
> 
>  As we explore the public information field thus open to us, we will find that what makes 
> Bahá'u'lláh's world view unique is that it is truly universal. Unlike all the systems that 
> preceded it, it embraces not only the entire diversity of the human race, but the entirety of 
> human experience. Nothing that is truly human is alien to it. 
> 
>  As we ourselves come to understand this resource more clearly, we will be able to communicate 
> its message to society in general, a society whose search for such a vision will become ever 
> more urgent. The expectation is not that Bahá'u'lláh's vision will become readily adopted. The 
> expectation is that it will begin to engage serious minds everywhere and, in popular forms of 
> expression, the attention of the general public. Once this process begins, the eventual outcome is 
> as certain as tomorrow's sun. 
> 
>  The forthcoming publication of the Kitab-i-Aqdas points us to a fourth area in which the 
> historic encounter between Bahá'u'lláh and humankind will take place. It is not merely the 
> prevailing systems of thought that have broken down, but human values themselves. We live in a 
> world that has entirely lost its moral moorings, in which all of the ethical reference points of 
> the past have been entirely swept away. The effect on the masses of humanity, leaders and led 
> alike, has been to create the deepest anxiety of which human beings are capable. 
> 
>  In a famous passage of his writings, the Irish poet W.B. Yeats described our age as one in which 
> "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate intensity". Questions 
> that touch the human heart most deeply, that cry out for reflection and a spirit of consultation, 
> are transformed by battling groups of extremists into rigid formulae and cookie-cutter tests of 
> human decency. In such a world, the majority of society's members withdraw into helplessness 
> and increasingly desperate silence. 
> 
>  Merely to mention this prevailing climate is to make it clear how vital it is that we Bahá'ís not 
> "get in the way", so to speak, but rather help our fellow human beings to find their own 
> relationship with Bahá'u'lláh and the prescriptions He has brought. He is the Physician of the 
> soul, not we. He knows human nature as intimately as He knew the palm of His own hand. He 
> knows the pattern of habits and attitudes that constitutes true human development, and He 
> understands the inner disciplines and social restraints that conduce to this development. 
> 
>  It is in this context, surely, that we must seek to help the institutions of society and the public 
> generally to understand the nature and purpose of the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The Aqdas is not, 
> Bahá'u'lláh explains, "a mere code of laws", a list of do's and don'ts. It is, in His words, "the 
> choice wine of reunion" with God. And it is through reunion that human minds can ascend to "the 
> station conferred upon their inmost beings, the station of the knowledge of their own selves". 
> 
> THE COVENANT OF BAHA'U'LLAH Finally, because we live in an age which seeks 
> objective evidence -- and which has every support in Bahá'u'lláh's writings to do so -- we need 
> to acquaint society with the real implications of the work which Bahá'u'lláh has done. This work 
> includes the global community He has brought into being. Those around us will be able to 
> appreciate this extraordinary achievement to the degree that they see its relevance to the fate of 
> humanity as a whole. 
> 
>  The key to this understanding is the Covenant. The coming-of-age of the human race has made 
> possible, Bahá'u'lláh says, an entirely new relationship between God and man. As the peoples of 
> the world gradually turn to God and begin to conform their lives to the pattern of human society 
> contained in His Revelation for this day, "a new race of men" will result. The unification of 
> human consciousness will produce a people free of the limitations that created and perpetuated 
> the problems now facing the planet. 
> 
>  This process is irresistible, and its manifestations can be seen in every aspect of contemporary 
> history. It provides the context in which Bahá'u'lláh's creation of the Bahá'í community assumes 
> its proper significance. For Bahá'u'lláh has not merely outlined a theory of social evolution; nor 
> has He contented Himself with the creation of a model. The Bahá'í community, with all its 
> limitations and shortcomings, is itself the nucleus of the emerging "race of men". To the degree 
> that we understand this dimension of the Revelation, to that extent will we be able, in the words 
> of the House of Justice, to "celebrate the achievements of the Covenant, and proclaim its aims 
> and unifying power". 
> 
>  "O people of Baha," Bahá'u'lláh urges, "be not careless of the virtues with which ye have been 
> endowed . . ." The Bahá'í community, even at its present embryonic stage of development, 
> possesses features that are unique, features that will one day characterize the humanity of our 
> planet's future. 
> 
>  What are they? 
> 
>  The first and most fundamental of them is unity. Unity is the mainspring of humanity's future. 
> Except for the Bahá'í community, there is no association of human beings on the planet, 
> religious, political, racial or social -- nor has there ever been one -- that possesses this 
> attribute. Ultimately, it alone will exert a compelling power of attraction on a world which is 
> daily coming to realize that disunity is the ultimate source of its dangers and suffer ing. "So 
> powerful is the light of unity", Bahá'u'lláh asserts, "that it can illumine the whole earth." 
> 
>  Second only to its unity is the universality of the community that Bahá'u'lláh has created. No 
> one is left out, no one takes second place. There is no corner of the earth where the pattern of 
> life taught by Bahá'u'lláh has not taken root; no culture, no people which does not play its full 
> part. A NEW SYSTEM OF VALUES Third, the emerging human race must be imbued 
> with an entirely new system of values, a new ethos. It must be guided by an inner ethical 
> orientation relevant to the challenges of the next stage in human development. Such a 
> transformation cannot come from legislation and education alone. "Is it within human power . . . 
> ", Bahá'u'lláh asks, "to effect . . . so complete a transformation . . . ?" Yet, the evidences of just 
> such a fundamental change are already apparent in the ethos which Bahá'u'lláh has fused into the 
> worldwide Bahá'u'lláh community, not as an imposed code, but as a pattern of spontaneous moral 
> response. 
> 
>  Fourth, if it is to assume responsibility for its own destiny, the human race must achieve 
> collective consciousness. It must be able to think and decide collectively. The Administrative 
> Order conceived by Bahá'u'lláh endows the community of His followers with this unique faculty. 
> It exists nowhere else in our world, and is a feature of the Cause that has evoked particularly 
> warn appreciation from our collaborators and well-wishers. From the grassroots level in the 
> most remote corners of the globe, up to the central organ of decision-making which the 
> community has raised up on the slopes of Mount Carmel, a unified pattern of consultation 
> provides an early glimmer of what Bahá'u'lláh intended when He spoke of God cherishing in His 
> heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as "one soul in one body". 
> 
>  The problems confronting the human race highlight the crucial importance of yet another 
> power with which it must somehow become endowed. Nothing has so daunted contemporary 
> efforts to heal and protect our tortured planet than the awareness of the enormity of the 
> exercise of human will that such efforts will require. To realize this is to gain a new 
> appreciation of the significance of the systematic prosecution of the Divine Plan to which the 
> Bahá'í community has devoted itself. For decades, tens of thousands of ordinary people willingly 
> accepted every type of sacrifice, solely out of love for Bahá'u'lláh. Struggling young institutions 
> diverted their best resources to pursuing distant goals which had no immediate relevance to 
> their own needs. That a community of five million people has today become the most widespread 
> religion on earth, second only to Christianity, is a feat of sheer will unparalleled in human 
> history. No body of people has ever set itself such staggering goals and then systematically 
> achieved them, stage after stage, plan after plan. 
> 
>  Nor is it only obstacles and challenges which lie ahead of a united humanity. As contemporary 
> events show all too clearly, there are in the human ego impulses of perversity and selfishness 
> that will resist to the utmost every effort of the race to change course. The religious literature 
> of all peoples is filled with warnings of the titanic struggle between the forces of Light and 
> Darkness that will result. In such a perspective, the Bahá'í community may well reflect deeply 
> on the power of endurance with which it has met recurrent waves of persecution and suffering. 
> 
> 
>  The experience of the Iranian friends over the past 11 years provides a glimpse into the 
> community's spiritual reserves in this respect. One thinks of the summer of 1983 when the 
> persecution was reaching its peak. In June of that summer the Iranian authorities paraded the 
> entire national leadership of the Tudeh (communist) party on national television. The prisoners 
> willingly confessed to every crime charged against them, and begged for their lives. During that 
> same eventful month 10 Bahá'í women and girls were subjected to similar physical and mental 
> abuse in an effort to force them to recant their Faith. Their persecutors did not dare to put them 
> on television because these brutalities produced not a vestige of compliance. One thinks of 
> Bahá'u'lláh's ringing assurance: 
> 
>  "All praise be to God Who hath adorned the world with an ornament, and arrayed it with a 
> vesture, of which it can be despoiled by no earthly power . . . Say: the springs that sustain the 
> life of these birds are not of this world. Their source is far above the reach and the ken of human 
> apprehension. Who is there that can put out the light which the snow-white Hand of God hath 
> lit?" GREATEST GIFT TO MANKIND There are several other features of the present-
> day Bahá'í community that are relevant to humanity's future, but one of gaining particular 
> respect among our friends. The greatest gift of God to mankind, Bahá'u'lláh says, is reason. 
> Whatever force and faith may have achieved in the earlier stages in the advancement of 
> civilization, rationality is the key to humanity's future. Bahá'ís have reason to feel proud of the 
> informed and balanced contributions that their community is making in international forums 
> everywhere. The development of the faculty is a feature of the growing maturation of the Faith's 
> institutions, a development which the beloved Guardian foresaw as coinciding, in the closing 
> years of this century, with the emergence of the Lesser Peace and the completion of the complex 
> of the structures that constitute the World Center of the Faith. 
> 
>  These capacities do not arise out of any virtue of the constituent elements of the Bahá'í 
> community, much less its individual members. They are purely and simply endowments of 
> Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant. We manifest them to the extent that we ourselves are within the 
> Covenant, but the Covenant does not belong to us. It is Bahá'u'lláh's legacy to the whole of 
> humankind: "O people of Baha! That there are none to rival you is a sign of mercy . . ." 
> 
>  But, as the work of the Covenant, the community of Bahá'u'lláh represents nothing less than the 
> arrowhead of the evolution of consciousness. One thinks of similar fundamental changes at 
> earlier stages in the evolutionary process. How feeble, how insignificant was the first 
> manifestation of sensate life on this planet. And yet it was the future and everything else had 
> meaning because of it. It was where evolution was going; the trees and mountains, however 
> beautiful and imposing, represented where evolution had come from. 
> 
>  The Bahá'í community, with all it signifies, is Bahá'u'lláh's achievement, the result of His 
> vision, His leadership, His teachings. He is its Creator and Sustainer. 
> 
> BUILDING 
> BRIDGES Embarking on the task of "emblazoning the name of Bahá'u'lláh across the planet" 
> will open up opportunities in each of the areas touched on in the foregoing. In all of them we will 
> face a common challenge. Through a century of patient effort on our part, an image of the Cause 
> has emerged as a body of people committed to principles of peace and brotherhood, rational and 
> trustworthy in their undertakings, and working with other people of goodwill in programs for 
> the improvement of the life of humankind. This image is an accurate representation of the Cause 
> and one of which we can be justly proud. Now we are about to share with the society around us 
> the motivating power of this phenomenon. But Bahá'u'lláh is not merely a Teacher or Reformer. 
> He is, in the unforgettable words of the Guardian, "the Judge, the Lawgiver, the Redeemer of all 
> mankind". 
> 
>  How do we put this together for our friends? For us, it is all one. Bahá'u'lláh is the Source of 
> all the expressions of the Cause, and there is no discontinuity in the historical, intellectual or 
> spiritual processes by which they have emerged. But others will not have this background of 
> understanding. How will our public information programs bridge the resulting gap in the public 
> mind? 
> 
>  The answers are as many as the questions. Essentially, however, our challenge is to begin 
> energetically to interpret Bahá'u'lláh's mission in the vocabulary and concerns of those around 
> us. Certainly there will be the indisposed. We have already had some experience of the storms of 
> opposition that the proclamation of Bahá'u'lláh's mission will provoke. But a growing majority 
> of those to whom our message is addressed will be people who want to understand, however 
> skeptical, critical or reluctant they may appear. 
> 
>  The challenge is particularly acute for those Bahá'ís who enjoy the advantages of education, 
> opportunity and association. They are called on to relate Bahá'u'lláh's teachings to the concerns 
> of their colleagues; to communicate His vision to leaders of thought; to focus their skills on 
> building bridges between the insights of their disciplines, on the one hand, and the relevant 
> truths in Bahá'u'lláh's writings, on the other. PREOCCUPATION WITH "CONVERSION" 
> So far, our efforts in the field of public information have not been able to escape a certain 
> connotation of exclusivity that inevitably arises from our parallel efforts at teaching. Given the 
> history of religion, any effort to present a new Faith raises a preoccupation with the issue of 
> "conversion". To discuss a community and its goals similarly tends to focus attention on 
> membership. We should not be surprised if, in the minds of others, a certain sense of "us and 
> them" intrudes. 
> 
>  To realize this is to understand why we must now make an heroic effort to shed all of our 
> parochial views. It has been essential to establish the credentials of the Faith as an independent 
> religious system. But the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh goes far beyond anything that humanity 
> understands by the word "religion". If the ecclesiastical systems of our world are religion, then 
> the Cause is not; if it is religion, then they really are not. It does a disservice to the mission of 
> Bahá'u'lláh, to the World Order which He has come to establish, to focus our public message in 
> religious categories. 
> 
>  As the Prophet of global civilization, Bahá'u'lláh addresses all of
> humankind. The principles in His writings, the vision of civilization He
> propounds, His prescriptions for the moral reformation of society and
> human nature are a universal legacy, without conditions, without prior
> commitment. The new Covenant between God and man which He proclaims is not
> an organization nor an ideology, but a universal reality operating within
> every soul and between all souls. It is readily accessible to independent
> investigation and discovery, "the axis of the oneness of the world of
> humanity". It is reality. Ultimately it will engage the minds and spirits
> of all people, because the nature of reality is to do so.
>
> — *Humanity's Coming Encounter with Baha'u'llah (Used by permission of the curator)*