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The Dawn of Reconciliation
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Pages 199-201
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The Dawn of Reconciliation
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In the last half century or so, however, a change has come
over the spirit of the times, a New Light of Truth has arisen
which has already made the controversies of last century seem
strangely out of date. Where are now the boastful materialists
and dogmatic atheists who, only a few short years ago, were
threatening to drive religion out of the world? And where are
the preachers who so confidently consigned those who did not
accept their dogmas to the fires of hell and the tortures of the
damned? Echoes of their clamor we may still hear, but their
day is fast declining and their doctrines are being discredited.
We can see now that the doctrines around which their controversies
waxed most bitter were neither true science nor true
religion. What scientist in the light of modern psychical research
could still maintain that "brain secretes thought as the
liver secretes bile"? Or that decay of the body is necessarily
accompanied by decay of the soul? We now see that thought
to be really free must soar to the realms of psychical and
spiritual phenomena and not be confined to the material only.
We realize that what we now know about nature is but as a
drop in the ocean compared with what remains to be discovered.
We therefore freely admit the possibility of miracles,
not indeed in the sense of the breaking of nature's laws, but as
manifestations of the operation of subtle forces which are still
unknown to us, as electricity and X rays were to our ancestors.
On the other hand, who amongst our leading religious teachers
would still declare it is necessary to salvation to believe that
the world was made in six days, or that the description of the
plagues in Egypt as given in the Book of Exodus is literally
true, or that the sun stood still in the heavens (that is, that the
earth stopped its rotation) to let Joshua pursue his enemies,
or that if a man accept not the creed of St. Athanasius, "without
doubt he shall perish everlastingly"? Such beliefs may still
be repeated in form, but who accepts them in their literal
sense and without reservation? Their hold on people's hearts
and minds has gone or is fast going. The religious world owes
a debt of gratitude to the men of science who helped to tear
such worn-out creeds and dogmas to tatters and allowed the
truth to step forth free. But the scientific world owes an even
heavier debt to the real saints and mystics who, through good
report and ill, held to the vital truths of spiritual existence
and demonstrated to an incredulous world that the life is more
than meat and the unseen greater than the seen. these scientists
and saints were like the mountain peaks which caught the
first rays of the rising sun and reflected them to the lower world,
but now the sun has risen and its rays are illuminating the
world. In the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh we have a glorious
revelation of truth which satisfies both heart and mind, in
which religion and science are at one.
Search after Truth
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Complete harmony with science is evident in the Bahá'í
teachings regarding the way in which we must seek the truth.
Man must cut himself free from all prejudice so that he may
search after truth unhindered.
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`Abdu'l-Bahá says: --
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In order to find truth we must give up our prejudices,
our own small trivial notions; an open receptive mind is
essential. If our chalice is full of self, there is no room
in it for the water of life. The fact that we imagine ourselves
to be right and everybody else wrong is the greatest
of all obstacles in the path towards unity, and unity is
essential if we would reach Truth, for Truth is one. ...
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No one truth can contradict another truth. Light is
good in whatsoever lamp it is burning! A rose is beautiful
in whatsoever garden it may bloom! A star has the
same radiance if it shines from the East or from the West!
Be free from prejudice; so will you love the Sun of Truth
from whatever point in the horizon it may arise. You will
realize that if the Divine Light of Truth shone in Jesus
Christ, it also shone in Moses and Buddha. This is what
is meant by the search after truth.
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It also means that we must be willing to clear away all
that we have previously learned, all that would clog our
steps on the way to Truth; we must not shrink, if necessary,
from beginning our education all over again. We
must not allow our love for any one religion or any one
personality so to blind our eyes that we become fettered by
superstition. When we are freed from all these bonds, seeking
with liberal minds, then shall we be able to arrive at
our goal.
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