Daily Frameworks for 07 August 2023

Kamál, 07 Kamál (Perfection), 180 B.E.

One Planet, One Habitation

The Locus of Decision-Making

34.4 The efficacy of efforts at any one level depends on the quality and reciprocity of interlinkages between them. Policy-making at the national or global level can become abstract and theoretical—and thereby potentially irrelevant or counterproductive—if disconnected from conditions at the grassroots. Similarly, initiatives at the community level will remain limited if they are not connected to global processes concerned with humanity as a whole. Structures will be required, then, to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and insights as they are generated through practical experience and analysis. ¹

[The principle of the Oneness of Mankind] insists upon the subordination of national impulses and interests to the imperative claims of a unified world. It repudiates excessive centralization on one hand, and disclaims all attempts at uniformity on the other. ²

The Promulgation of Universal Peace

On the contrary, man cannot live singly and alone. He is in need of continuous cooperation and mutual help. For example, a man living alone in the wilderness will eventually starve. He can never, singly and alone, provide himself with all the necessities of existence. Therefore, he is in need of cooperation and reciprocity. The mystery of this phenomenon, the cause thereof is this: that mankind has been created from one single origin, has branched off from one family. Thus, in reality, all mankind represents one family. God has not created any difference. He has created all as one that thus this family might live in perfect happiness and well-being. ³

1. Bahá’í International Community Staff. “One Planet, One Habitation.” International Environment Forum, June 1, 2022. https://www.iefworld.org/2022bic_OPOH. ↩
2. Effendi, Shoghi. The World Order of Baháʾuʾlláh: Selected Letters. 1st pocket-Sized ed. 1938. Reprint, Wilmette, Ill: Bahaʾi Publishing Trust, 1991, 41-42. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/world-order-bahaullah/4#895919188. ↩
3. ’Abdu’l-Bahá. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ʻAbduʼl-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. Edited by Howard MacNutt. 2nd ed. Wilmette, Ill: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1982. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/promulgation-universal-peace/22#609377420. ↩