In life, whether plant or animal, diversity is not an option. It is an intrinsic law of nature.
Flower and vegetable gardens, as with all plant life, are glorified in their respective categories of excellence. Mankind alone, the most intelligent of all creation, uses that intellect to divide racially, socially, economically, politically, religiously and into a multitude of other fragmentations that can be easily pit against one another. The simple theory is as old as man himself–“Divide and conquer.” How else can a chosen few control such masses as the annals of history clearly record?
But the mature adult should require more logical motivation for harboring progressive fear–with the pure Love and fear of God balancing the scale.
Fear betraying a trust; losing respect and admiration or of hurting someone–especially a loved one; and/or the chicanery of egotism and power-tripping that have no boundaries. Each fowl act requires another to support it.
True unity in diversity was first epitomized for me in a Baha’i children’s book that emphasized the many parts of the human body (ie skin, hair, eyes, nails, arteries, fluids, flesh, bones, etc.) all differing widely in shape, color, substance and function, none of which is superior to the other, but each dependent upon the proper function of the other instead for a perfect whole.
This is how mankind must be viewed if we are to purify the motives and maximize the results of the advanced scientific and technological knowledge of today’s fast-maturing society, using all the right things for the wrong reasons. Information that in mankind’s infancy could be kept “top secret” can today be easily accessed on the internet or by any number of other means. Subsequently we must tighten our disciplinary tactics through man-made laws to control lawlessness, that they are more equitably applied with the crime than with the criminals breaking them!. Whether the laws of God, man or nature, those who persistently defy them should be aware of and prepared to suffer the consequences-–a lesson that I am finding easier to accept now that I am too old for judges to want to hear the alibis but not yet old enough to be considered an antique relic.
From the wit and wisdom of one TV minister came mention of the fact that if you jump from a window several stories high, it really doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in gravity, the law of gravity is going to automatically kick in-–and you’re going to get hurt badly, if not killed!
Nature, too has many laws that when defied can create untold havoc and, like the laws of gravity and nature, God is no respector of persons and positions when His laws are persistently broken. Someone is going to get hurt. This is not to imply that those living within His laws are safe from all trial and ill fate. It simply means there is a big difference between tests and punishment that a true believer can tell by the weight of it as the weight of punishment you carry alone.
A favorite Baha’i morning prayer begins: “I have wakened in Thy Shelter, O my God; and it becometh him that seeketh that shelter to abide within the sanctuary of Thy protection and in the stronghold of Thy defense…”
Regardless of what pathway one chooses to the One God (by whatever Name) if we wish to be protected and sheltered from the darts and acids of today’s insensitive society we must “abide within the Sanctuary of His defense.” It may then be easier to recognize that “God is One; man is One; and all true religion is One—whether or not we realize it.
Just remember: “Our inability or refusal to accept truth will never change truth—only our lives. Investigate!
