Extract from Brochure "One World, One People - A Bahá'í View"

by Bahá'í International Community

1974

From a Baha’i perspective, the moral and spiritual standards needed today to resolve the interlocking economic and social problems of our planet can rest on one foundation only: the consciousness in each individual of the organic oneness of humanity. We are not only citizens of our native land, but beyond that, of the whole world. We are part of the ecosystem; but an ecosystem both inner and outer; and it is from the inner world that come the all-encompassing values and attitudes which provide us with understanding, will, and power to raise the spiritual and physical quality of life of all peoples.

This conviction by the individual and society of the essential unity of the human race is the only viable standard today for social and economic justice. On it must depend the successful solution of the population problem — as of the problems of environment, poverty, disease, unemployment, etc. It means briefly to consider the welfare of the community as one’s own. . . . to regard humanity as a single individual, and one’s own self as a member of that corporeal form, and to know of a certainty that if pain or injury afflicts any member of that body, it must inevitably result in suffering for all the rest.

In this process, Baha’i communities around the world are making a steady contribution. Comprising a cross-section of humanity distributed over 335 countries and territories, these communities live by the teachings, principles and laws of the Baha’i Faith. Through the systematic abolition of all forms of prejudice; the adoption of equal opportunities, rights and privileges for men and women; an understanding of the essential unity and harmony of science and religion; an unfettered search for truth; the high regard for the mind and its formal training through universal compulsory education; the obligation to engage in a trade or a profession useful to society; and the understanding that work done in the spirit of service to one’s fellow men is, like prayer and meditation, worship — these Baha’i communities and their members are constantly striving to effect changes in the individual and social consciousness that will hasten the coming of universal peace and the establishment of a world civilization.

(From the brochure, ‘“One World, One People—A Baha’i View,” presented by the Baha’i International Community to delegates attending the United Nations World Population Conference, Bucharest, Romania, August 19-30, 1974, and the United Nations World Food Conference, Rome, Italy, November 5-16, 1974)