"Regard the
world as the human body," wrote Bahá'u'lláh to Queen Victoria. We can
surely regard the Bahá'í world, the army of God, in the same way. In the human
body, every cell, every organ, every nerve has its part to play. When all do so
the body is healthy, vigorous, radiant, ready for every call made upon it. No cell,
however humble, lives apart from the body, whether in serving it or receiving
from it. This is true of the body of mankind in which God "hast endowed
each and all with talents and faculties," and is supremely true of the
body of the Bahá'í World Community, for this body is already an organism,
united in its aspirations, unified in its methods, seeking assistance and
confirmation from the same Source, and illumined with the conscious knowledge
of its unity. Therefore, in this organic, divinely guided, blessed and
illumined body the participation of every believer is of the utmost importance,
and is a source of power and vitality as yet unknown to us. For extensive and
deep as has been the sharing in the glorious work of the Cause, who would claim
that every single believer has succeeded in finding his or her fullest
satisfaction in the life of the Cause? The Bahá'í World Community, growing like
a healthy new body, develops new cells, new organs, new functions and powers as
it presses on to its maturity, when every soul, living for the Cause of God,
will receive from that Cause, health, assurance and the overflowing bounties of
Bahá'u'lláh which are diffused through His divinely ordained order.
- The
Universal House of Justice (From a message dated September 1964 to the Baha’is
of the World; ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1963 to 1986’)
