The complementary forces of destruction and construction in the world

This is from Dale and Kathy Lehman's enlightening blog PlanetBaha'i.org

Tearing Down and Building Up

by Dale E. Lehman

Appeared: 04/17/2009

In my last article, "Can Leaders Save Us", I suggested that Bahá'u'lláh's teachings indicate that even the best political leaders can only do so much to effect transformation in the world. Without the remedy prescribed by Bahá'u'lláh, we will not be able to truly resolve the most pressing issues of our age.

After that article appeared, I got an email from a reader named Graham suggesting I had overlooked something important. There is a flip side to the story, he pointed out: the world is constantly moving towards implementation of many of Bahá'u'lláh's key teachings in spite of not being consciously aware of Him.

This comment, with which I certainly agree, got me to thinking about two great processes that are always taking place: the tearing down of the old and the building up of the new. As with so many things, this duality is a universal theme. We find it throughout nature, in human civilization, and according to Bahá'u'lláh, in the effects of the spiritual forces unleashed by the appearance of a Manifestation of God. In a passage with an outwardly apocalyptic tone, Shoghi Effendi told us:

A world, dimmed by the steadily dying-out light of religion, heaving with the explosive forces of a blind and triumphant nationalism; scorched with the fires of pitiless persecution, whether racial or religious; deluded by the false theories and doctrines that threaten to supplant the worship of God and the sanctification of His laws; enervated by a rampant and brutal materialism; disintegrating through the corrosive influence of moral and spiritual decadence; and enmeshed in the coils of economic anarchy and strife -- such is the spectacle presented to men's eyes, as a result of the sweeping changes which this revolutionizing Force, as yet in the initial stage of its operation, is now producing in the life of the entire planet.

(Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice, p. 46-47)

I say "outwardly apocalyptic" because in spite of the doom-and-gloom language, Shoghi Effendi attributes these evidences of dissolution not to the wickedness of humanity, but to that "revolutionizing Force" unleashed through the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh. This is, in other words, a work of divine reconstruction, not a work of wanton destruction.

Bahá'u'lláh Himself pointed this out in this well-known passage:

The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System--the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.

(Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, para. 181)

"Upset equilibrium" certainly describes the world today! But why would God desire to throw the world into apparent chaos and disorder? Isn't His purpose in sending His Messengers to build rather than to destroy?

It is. But how often are we able to build up something without also tearing down something? Some environmentalists might cringe, but we can't build a house without first clearing away any significant greenery from the site and generally digging at least a bit of a hole. Living organisms live and grow only by consuming resources from their environment, including other living things. Planets like our Earth only exist because previous generations of stars died in dramatic explosions that created and scattered heavy elements that could in turn take part in a new cycle of stellar birth.

We find similar examples in human social evolution. Be it in the field of human rights, technology, or government, progress tends only to occur through the course of trials and upheavals. We might wonder why this is necessary, but in fact tearing down is inextricably linked with building up, in human affairs just as in the larger world of nature.

Bahá'u'lláh has come to unify humanity. In order to achieve that, He must of necessity tear down the barriers that prevent us from being united. As imposing as those barriers are, the forces necessary to destroy them must be even more imposing. And thus, we find the world in the state described by Shoghi Effendi in the passage quoted above. The tearing down is part of the building up.

We can usually find more than one way to look at a given situation. Kathy, who has made a fair bit of clothing for children and grandchildren, offers an analogy taken from the tailor's trade. To make an article of clothing, you begin with a large piece of cloth. You then cut the cloth into a number of pieces, each with a particular shape. To the uninitiated, it's not always obvious what those fragments of cloth are going to be once the garment is constructed. Indeed, to an observer who didn't know what was going on, it might seem that the cloth was being hacked to pieces for no good reason! Only later when a finished garment begins to emerge does it become clear that this is a work of creation rather than destruction.

So to bring this back to my previous article, although there is only so much that even the best leaders can do to fix the world's ills, all leaders (as well as the rest of us) are nevertheless playing a role in an ongoing process that will culminate in a united humanity. I feel my previous point still stands: only when humanity recognizes Bahá'u'lláh and consciously implements His teachings will unity be established and its power be unleashed to solve global problems. At the same time, the spiritual forces operating in the world as a result of His revelation are at once breaking down the barriers that prevent us from attaining unity and building up the structures that will enable us to do so.

My thanks to Graham for his email and the chance it afforded me to obtain and share a glimpse of the larger picture.