Festival Days & Bahá’u’lláh’s momentous declaration in 1863 in the Garden of Ridván
Dr. A. K. Merchant*
In the midst of festival days that commenced with the Spring Equinox—Nowruz, Navratri, Ram Navami, Hindu New Year, Eid Ul-Fitr, SaJibu Cheiraoba, Ugadi, Gudi Padwa, Cheti Chand, Navreh, Vishu, Vaisaki, Nobo Borsho, Paila Baishkh, Good Friday, Easter Sunday—comes the twelve days of the Bahá’i Festival of Ridván (20 April to 1 May), of which the first, ninth and twelfth are regarded as Holy Days.
Ridván celebrates the Declaration of Bahá’u’lláh, in 1863 to His followers that as per prophecies in the Sacred Scriptures, God had made Him the Bearer of a fresh outpouring of divine guidance and humanity had entered the final stage in its stupendous evolution from the times of nomadic tribes to that of a global federation of nation-states.
“The earth is but one country, and humankind its citizens,…” Bahá’u’lláh declared. More than one hundred and sixty years have passed and yet the vast majority of peoples are trapped by a host of destructive tendencies to thwart, what Bahá’is believe, is the Divine Purpose for our times. Recognizing that the world’s “prevailing order” was “lamentably defective,” Bahá’u’lláh, said that the solution to the world’s problems would be found only in an ethical approach encompassing the core spiritual principles of the world’s religions, the most important of which would be recognition of the “oneness of humankind”. During the period of exile and imprisonment that followed the Declaration in the Garden of Ridván. In the midst of tremendous suffering, deprivation and as well as the deaths of many of His devotees, the blueprint of a New World Order emerged.
Present-day global Order is disintegrating rapidly, we are, according to the Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, just 89 seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock. All of us are responsible and must get our act together if complete self-annihilation is to be averted.
Bahá’u’lláh wrote that through the harmonious interface of the two systems of knowledge—Dharma and Science—the present-day society would be completely transformed. He summoned the rulers and religious leaders of His time and appealed for reconstruction, demilitarization and complete abolition of war.
Tragically, all of rulers and leaders of the masses disregarded Bahá’u’llah’s weighty Message and therefore with every passing the plight of humankind grows worse so much so that the manifold crises threaten the very survival of civilization, as we know it. Bahá’ís, all over the world numbering some eight million, will be devoting their energies to the observance of many activities as well as the establishment of the institutions that constitute the nucleus and pattern of the New World Order envisaged in the Writings of Bahá’i Faith. The Lord hath ordained that in every city a House of Justice be established wherein shall gather counselors to the number of Bahá, and should it exceed this number it doth not matter… It behoveth them to be the trusted ones of the Merciful among men and to regard themselves as the guardians appointed of God for all that dwell on earth.” As the position and aims of the Bahá'í Faith are better understood and more fully recognized, the present-day systems of governance would be replaced by the system fashioned in the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh.
Even cursory contemplation upon the staggering weight of the clarion of Bahá’u’lláh in contrast to the confusion and chaos that has engulfed present-day humanity, should urge the reader to reflect upon these words: “…this is the Day in which humankind can behold the Face, and hear the Voice of the Promised One…” “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 agency of this unique, this wondrous System the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.”
Living in a world disoriented and adrift, followers of the Bahá’í Faith, mindful of the powerful forces recasting life on earth, are pressing onward with their services--in the fields of education, building capacities for social transformation, conservation of the environment, instilling hope and spiritually empowering the masses.
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*The author is an independent researcher, a social worker, & Secretary, Bahá’i Spiritual Assembly of Delhi at the Lotus Temple.