"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’)
