The oneness of humanity

Oneness of Humanity

“The oneness of humanity” is the principle we’ll be exploring in February.

This principle is central to the Baha’i Faith and is mentioned in many writings: “Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship.”

Be creative with your posts and comments on this theme. Just as there are countless people in the world, there are myriad ways of exploring this topic. There is more than one way to explore oneness. :-). Please remember this group avoids partisan politics and backbiting, and we strive to find shared beliefs.

Week 1 - Favorite Quotes

Jan 29 - Feb 4

"Bahá’u’lláh has drawn the circle of unity, He has made a design for the uniting of all the peoples, and for the gathering of them all under the shelter of the tent of universal unity."

-`Abdu'l-Bahá

"The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety."

- Felix Mendelssohn, composer and conductor

Many do not know that we are here in this world to live in harmony. Those who know this do not fight against each other.

--Buddha, Buddhism, Dhammapada 1:6

"The proportion of human genetic variation due to differences between populations is modest, and individuals from different populations can be genetically more similar than individuals from the same population.... This provides empirical justification for caution when using population labels in biomedical settings, with broad implications for personalized medicine, pharmacogenetics, and the meaning of race."

- From the paper Genetic Similarities Within and Between Human Populations

All of God’s creatures are His family. He is most beloved to God who does real good to the members of God’s family.

--Words of Muhammad, Islamic Tradition

"Then I was standing on the highest mountain of them all, and round about beneath me was the whole hoop of the world. And while I stood there I saw more than I can tell and I understood more than I saw; for I was seeing in a sacred manner the shapes of all things in the spirit, and the shape of all shapes as they must live together like one being. And I saw that the sacred hoop of my people was one of many hoops that made one circle, wide as daylight and as starlight, and in the center grew one mighty flowering tree to shelter all the children of one mother and one father. And I saw that it was holy."

--Black Elk, Black Elk Speaks, p. 36

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

- United States Declaration of Independence

O CHILDREN OF MEN!

Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness from the tree of wondrous glory.

(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

- Pope Francis

When love is realized and the ideal spiritual bonds unite the hearts of men, the whole human race will be uplifted, the world will continually grow more spiritual and radiant and the happiness and tranquillity of mankind be immeasurably increased. Warfare and strife will be uprooted, disagreement and dissension pass away and Universal Peace unite the nations and peoples of the world. All mankind will dwell together as one family, blend as the waves of one sea, shine as stars of one firmament and appear as fruits of the same tree. This is the happiness and felicity of humankind.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith - Abdu'l-Baha Section, p. 230)

"I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color." Malcolm X

Few things have done more harm than the belief on the part of individuals or groups (or tribes or states or nations or churches) that he or she or they are in sole possession of the truth: especially about how to live, what to be and do - and that those who differ from them are not merely mistaken, but wicked or mad: and need restraining or suppressing.

Isaiah Berlin

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.

--Romans, 12:16

Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

--Colossians, 3:13-14

Meet together, speak together, let your minds be of one accord, as the gods of old, being of one mind, accepted their share of the sacrifice. May your counsel be common, your assembly common, common the mind, and the thoughts of these united. A common purpose do I lay before you, and worship with your common oblation. Let your aims be common, and your hearts of one accord, and all of you be of one mind, so you may live well together.

--Hinduism, Rig Veda 10.191.2-4

...And when a man sees that the God in himself is the same God in all that is, he hurts not himself by hurting others: then he goes indeed to the highest Path.

--Hinduism: Krishna, The Bhagavad-Gita, XIII, 28

Week 2 - photo/picture/drawing

Feb 5 - 11

E pluribus unum

Latin for "Out of many, one"

Motto of the United States of America.

This point in history at which we stand is full of promise and of danger. The world will either move toward unity and widely shared prosperity or it will move apart into necessarily competing economic blocs.

We have a chance, we citizens of the United States, to use our influence in favor of a more united and cooperating world. Whether we do so will determine, as far as it is in our power, the kind of lives our grandchildren can live.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt, February 12, 1945

There are eight continental Baha'i Houses of Worship dedicated to the unity of humanity. They are gifts to all people as places of personal prayer. Sermons are prohibited. Each building has nine entrances, symbolically inviting people from all backgrounds to enter.

This photo is the house located outside Chicago in Wilmette, IL.

Week 3 - story / poetry

Feb 12 - 18

I, too, sing America.

by Langston Hughes

I am the darker brother.

They send me to eat in the kitchen

When company comes,

But I laugh,

And eat well,

And grow strong.

Tomorrow,

I'll be at the table

When company comes.

Nobody'll dare

Say to me,

"Eat in the kitchen,"

Then.

Besides,

They'll see how beautiful I am

And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Frederick Douglass

by Robert Hayden, 1913 - 1980

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty, this beautiful

and terrible thing, needful to man as air,

usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,

when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,

reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more

than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians:

this man, this Douglass, this former slave, this Negro

beaten to his knees, exiled, visioning a world

where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,

this man, superb in love and logic, this man

shall be remembered. Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,

not with legends and poems and wreaths of bronze alone,

but with the lives grown out of his life, the lives

fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.

The Peace of Wild Things

By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

And I wake in the night at the least sound

In fear of what my life and my children's lives may be

I go and lie down where the wood drake

Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

Who do not tax their lives with forethought

Of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

Waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Poem by Warsan Shire:

later that night

i held an atlas in my lap

ran my fingers across the whole world

and whispered

where does it hurt?

it answered

everywhere

everywhere.

Poem by John Donne:

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor of thy friend's

Or of thine own were:

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind,

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Shylock: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute--and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

If They Should Come For Us

Fatima Asghar

these are my people & I find

them on the street and shadow

through any wild all wild

my people my people

a dance of strangers in my blood

the old woman's sari dissolving to wind

bindi a new moon on her forehead

I claim her my kin & sew

the star of her to my heart

the toddler dangling from stroller

hair a fountain of dandelion seed

at the bakery I claim them too

the Sikh uncle at the airport

who apologizes for the pat

down the Muslim man who abandons

his car at the traffic light drops

to his knees at the call of the azan

& the Muslim man who sips

good whiskey at the start of maghrib

the lone khala at the park

pairing her kurta with crocs

my people my people

when I see you my compass

is brown & gold & blood

my compass a Muslim teenager

snapback & high-tops gracing

the subway platform

mashallah I claim them all

my country is made

in my people's image

if they come for you they

come for me too in the dead

of winter a flock of

aunties step out on the sand

their dupattas turn to ocean

a colony of uncles grind their palms

& a thousand jasmines bell the air

my people I follow you like constellations

we hear the glass smashing the street

& the nights opening their dark

our names this country's wood

for the fire my people my people

the long years we've survived the long

years yet to come I see you map

my sky the light your lantern long

ahead & I follow I follow

Poetry, March 2017, pp. 514-515.

"A black rose"

The following delightful story about an incident during ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s stay in New York in 1912. When Abdu’l-Bahá was on His way to speak to several hundred men at the Bowery Mission He was accompanied by a group of Persian and American friends. Not unnaturally a group of boys was intrigued by the sight of this group of Orientals with their flowing robes and turbans and started to follow them. They soon became noisy and obstreperous. A lady in Abdu’l-Bahá’s party was highly embarrassed at the rude behaviour of the boys. Dropping behind she stopped to talk with them and told them a little about who ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was. Not entirely expecting them to take her up on the invitation, she nevertheless gave them her home address and said that if they liked to come the following Sunday she would arrange for them to see Him. Thus, on Sunday, some twenty or thirty of them appeared on the doorstep, rather scruffy and noisy, but with signs that they had tidied up for the occasion nonetheless. Upstairs in main room Abdu’l-Bahá was seen at the door greeting each boy with a handclasp or an arm around the shoulder, with warm smiles and boyish laughter. His happiest welcome seemed to be directed to the thirteen-year-old boy near the end of the line. He was quite dark-skinned and didn’t seem too sure he would be welcome. Abdu’l-Bahá’s face lighted up and in a loud voice that all could hear exclaimed with delight that ‘here was a black rose‘. The boy’s face shone with happiness and love. Silence fell across the room as the boys looked at their companion with a new awareness. Abdu’l-Bahá did not stop at that, however. On their arrival He had asked that a big five-pound box of delicious chocolates be fetched. With this He walked around the room, ladling out chocolates by the handful to each boy. Finally, with only a few left in the box, He picked out one of the darkest chocolates, walked across the room and held it to the cheek of the black boy. Abdu’l-Bahá was radiant as He lovingly put His arm around the boy’s shoulders and looked with a humorously piercing glance around the group without making any further comment.

(Honnold, Annamarie, Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 100)