Daily Frameworks for 28 May 2023

Jamál, 12 ‘Azamat (Grandeur), 180 B.E

Employment and Beyond: Drawing on the Capacities of All to Contribute to Society

2.2 To speak of the ends toward which capacity will be turned is to enter the realm of values and priorities. What is the purpose of employment? What kind of lives conduce to human fulfillment? ¹ What kind of societies do we seek to create together? These are questions that businesses and governing institutions have often avoided, focusing instead on procedural matters of increasing efficiency or expanding choice. Yet ideologies detrimental to the common weal—those that justify selfishness, reward exploitation, excuse indifference, or glorify consumption, thereby fueling inequality—are actively promoted around the world without reservation or apology. If reducing inequality is the aim, society must be infused with attitudes, characteristics, and habits that consciously promote that end. ²

Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l‑Bahá

Today, all the peoples of the world are indulging in self-interest and exert the utmost effort and endeavor to promote their own material interests. They are worshipping themselves and not the divine reality, nor the world of mankind. They seek diligently their own benefit and not the common weal. This is because they are captives of the world of nature and unaware of the divine teachings, of the bounty of the Kingdom and of the Sun of Truth. But ye, praise be to God, are at present especially favored with this bounty, have become of the chosen, have been informed of the heavenly instructions, have gained admittance into the Kingdom of God, have become the recipients of unbounded blessings and have been baptized with the Water of Life, with the fire of the love of God and with the Holy Spirit. ³

1. “The first Ṭaráz and the first effulgence which hath dawned from the horizon of the Mother Book is that man should know his own self and recognize that which leadeth unto loftiness or lowliness, glory or abasement, wealth or poverty. Having attained the stage of fulfillment and reached his maturity, man standeth in need of wealth, and such wealth as he acquireth through crafts or professions is commendable and praiseworthy in the estimation of men of wisdom, and especially in the eyes of servants who dedicate themselves to the education of the world and to the edification of its peoples. They are, in truth, cup-bearers of the life-giving water of knowledge and guides unto the ideal way. They direct the peoples of the world to the straight path and acquaint them with that which is conducive to human upliftment and exaltation. The straight path is the one which guideth man to the dayspring of perception and to the dawning-place of true understanding and leadeth him to that which will redound to glory, honor and greatness.”
   Bahá’u’lláh. Tablets of Baháʾuʾlláh, Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Translated by Habib Taherzadeh. 1st ed. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978, 34-35. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/tablets-bahaullah/2#420808045. ↩
2. Bahá’í International Community Staff. “Employment and Beyond: Drawing on the Capacities of All to Contribute to Society.” Bahá’í International Community, January 12, 2023. https://www.bic.org/statements/employment-and-beyond-drawing-capacities-all-contribute-society. ↩
3. ’Abdu’l-Bahá. Selections from the Writings of ʻAbduʼl-Bahá. Translated by Marzieh Gail. Reprint. Wilmette, Illinois: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1996, 103-104. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/selections-writings-abdul-baha/5#408524523. ↩