Joy, peace and prosperity in 2021
WE have just started a new year with anticipation and joy by conveying our hopes and expectations through messages wishing each other peace and prosperity in 2021.
The fulfilment of our hopes and dreams for peace and prosperity will depend greatly on our unity as humanity — a realisation that we all belong to one human family created by one Almighty God.
It is the Bahá’í view that genuine solutions to the challenges humanity is currently facing will require a globally accepted vision for the future, based on unity and willing cooperation among nations, races, creeds and classes of the human family.
Unless unity is attained — a unity that embraces and honours the full diversity of humankind — true peace and prosperity will remain out of reach.
This dovetails with what Bahá’u’lláh, the founder of the Bahá’í Faith said: “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established”.
Lasting peace and prosperity are closely linked to our unity as humanity. But this cannot be achieved without observing justice towards all.
To be just requires fair-mindedness in our judgments, equity in our treatment of others and the application of justice in everything we do towards all our fellow human beings.
Justice is closely linked with the acceptance of the oneness of humanity and the belief in the oneness of humanity is a prerequisite for building a unified world.
Only when we as individuals see ourselves as members of one human family sharing one common global homeland, will we be able to commit ourselves to the far-reaching changes on both individual and collective levels which an increasingly interdependent and rapidly changing world necessitates.
Bahá’u’lláh compared the world to the human body to which we can look as a model. Human society is composed of not only a mass of diverse people, but of associations of individuals, each one of whom is bestowed with intelligence and will.
The main principle operating in the human body is that of unity in diversity.
This diversity of form and function is necessary for the life of any complex, well-developed organic entity, such as a human being.
No cell lives apart from the body whether in contributing to functioning of the body or benefiting from the well-being of the whole.
In the same way as the perfect functioning of the human body is due to the unity of diverse cells and organs, so the well-being and well-functioning of body of mankind is dependent on the unity of its diverse elements — of all races, nations, religions and ethnic groups.
For unity of humanity to become a reality there is need for fundamental changes in all aspects of behaviour and by overcoming any lingering feelings of prejudice that we may, consciously or unconsciously, harbour.
There is also need to return to spiritual awareness and responsibility, as the betterment of our communities and their unity, ultimately depends on the pure motives and good deeds of individuals — such as tolerance, compassion, love, justice, humility, sacrifice, trustworthiness, and dedication to the well-being of others.
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