From selfish history to all-embracing future

When I was younger and my parents were educating us the principles of our religion, the Baha’i Faith, one principle kept coming up. At the time, I could not understand: the elimination of extremes of poverty and wealth. As I grew up, and encountered the world of, I started to understand why this teaching was brought to humanity in such strong emphasis, because God with His Mighty wisdom knew how his creation would behave. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening and deepening so fast, that it is becoming part of history to see such extremes, in many parts of the world.

Begging is forbidden
According to Baha’i principles, this should change, and very fast. It is unacceptable that a rich man lives with colossal wealth while near him, are the starving poor with no means of a decent life. I also grew up knowing that begging is forbidden. In my Faith, this means that sharing wealth is not by means of just giving away to the able who can work and earn a living, it is creating and sharing opportunities for all to be part of building societies, standing on their own feet, own sweat, with honour and dignity.

Vices are from history
In a recent message, the Universal House of Justice, the leaders of the Baha’is, addressed the Baha’is of the world about the current lamentable situation of our world, I will quote a paragraph of their powerful letter:
“The welfare of any segment of humanity is inextricably bound up with the welfare of the whole. Humanity’s collective life suffers when any one group thinks of its well-being in isolation from that of its neighbour’s; or pursue economic gain without regard for how the natural environment, which provides sustenance for all, is affected.
A stubborn obstruction, then, stands in the way of meaningful social progress: time and again, avarice and self-interest prevail at the expense of the common good. Unconscionable quantities of wealth are being amassed, and the instability this creates is made worse by how income and opportunity are spread so unevenly both between nations and within nations. But it need not be so.

Room for doubt
However much, such conditions are the outcome of history, they do not have to define the future, and even if current approaches to economic life satisfied humanity’s stage of adolescence, they are certainly inadequate for its dawning age of maturity. There is no justification for continuing to perpetuate structures , rules, and systems that manifestly fail to serve the interests of all peoples.
The teachings of faith leave no room for doubt: there is an inherent moral dimension to the generation, distribution and utilisation of wealth and resources.”
Looking at the realities around us, it seems farfetched and unreal to achieve the above, but it only takes will and determination, otherwise the suffering will continue.

QUOTE
“Hear no evil, and see no evil, abase not thyself, neither sigh and weep. Speak no evil, that thou mayest not hear it spoken unto thee, and magnify not the faults of others that thine own faults may not appear great; and wish not the abasement of anyone, that thine own abasement be not exposed. Live then the days of thy life, that are less than a fleeting moment, with thy mind stainless, thy heart unsullied, thy thoughts pure, and thy nature sanctified, so that, free and content, thou mayest put away this mortal frame, and repair unto the mystic paradise and abide in the eternal kingdom for evermore.”
Bahá’u’lláh