Daily Frameworks for 02 July 2023

Jamál, 09 Rahmat (Mercy), 180 B.E.

One Planet, One Habitation

Redefining Progress

19.0 What should be plainly acknowledged is that no country has yet mastered the process of sustainable development. Certain forms of industrialization, technological capacity, and macroeconomic growth have often been equated with development. But the dissatisfaction and difficulties of multitudes living in areas traditionally considered developed, no less than the injustices facing numerous other populations around the world and the strain put on the natural world, demonstrate that such a vision is incomplete at best and often actively detrimental. No one pattern of life and vision of society can be taken as the model toward which all humanity should aspire. ¹

Paris Talks

Evil is imperfection. Sin is the state of man in the world of the baser nature, for in nature exist defects such as injustice, tyranny, hatred, hostility, strife: these are characteristics of the lower plane of nature. These are the sins of the world, the fruits of the tree from which Adam did eat. Through education we must free ourselves from these imperfections. The Prophets of God have been sent, the Holy Books have been written, so that man may be made free. Just as he is born into this world of imperfection from the womb of his earthly mother, so is he born into the world of spirit through divine education. When a man is born into the world of phenomena he finds the universe; when he is born from this world to the world of the spirit, he finds the Kingdom. ²

1. Bahá’í International Community Staff. “One Planet, One Habitation.” International Environment Forum, June 1, 2022. https://www.iefworld.org/2022bic_OPOH. ↩
2. ’Abdu’l-Bahá. Paris Talks: Addresses given by ʻAbduʼl-Bahá in Paris in 1911-1912. 11th British Ed. 1912. Reprint, London, England: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1972, 177-178. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/paris-talks/7#242346047. ↩