Bahá'u'lláh found the world in a "strange sleep".
But what a disturbance His coming has unloosed! The peoples of the earth had
been separated, many parts of the human race socially and spiritually isolated.
But the world of humanity today bears little resemblance to that which
Bahá'u'lláh left a century ago. Unbeknownst to the great majority, His
influence permeates all living beings. Indeed, no domain of life remains
unaffected. In the burgeoning energy, the magnified perspectives, the
heightened global consciousness; in the social and political turbulence, the
fall of kingdoms, the emancipation of nations, the intermixture of cultures,
the clamour for development; in the agitation over the extremes of wealth and
poverty, the acute concern over the abuse of the environment, the leap of
consciousness regarding the rights of women; in the growing tendency towards
ecumenism, the increasing call for a new world order; in the astounding
advances in the realms of science, technology, literature and the arts -- in
all this tumult, with its paradoxical manifestations of chaos and order,
integration and disintegration, are the signs of His power as World Reformer,
the proof of His claim as Divine Physician, the truth of His Word as the
All-Knowing Counsellor.
- The Universal House of Justice (May 1992 tribute to
Bahá'u'lláh on the occasion of the Centenary Commemoration at Bahji of the
Ascension of Bahá'u'lláh; compilation: ‘Science and Technology’, compiled by
Research Department of the Universal House of Justice and attached to a
Memorandum from the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice,
dated 13-August 1997)
