From Opperssion of Empowerment

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From Oppression to Empowerment

of God, a temple that announces the coming of the Day of God, the day of peace, and the universal attainment of the presence of God. The Súriy-i-Haykal begins with a discussion of “temple” as the body of the human being. This new body is a sacred body which is the throne of God, the realization of spiritual values. In other words, the true tem- ple is the reality of the Manifestation of God—Bahá’u’lláh Himself. Human bodies are a reflection of that Holy Spirit. Thus He speaks of the eyes, ears, mouth, hands, feet, breast, and the heart of this human body. For example, addressing the eyes of this new spiritual race of humans, He says that they should “[l]ook not upon the heavens and that which they contain, nor upon the earth and them that dwell thereon, for We have created you to behold Our own Beauty” (¶19). Likewise, addressing the inmost heart of the temple, He says, “We have made thee the dawning-place of Our knowledge and the dayspring of Our wisdom unto all who are in heaven and on earth” (¶67). All aspects of the body, therefore, are transformed in ac- cordance with the principle of spiritu- alization and detachment. In this way, a spiritual universalistic identity will replace the materialistic identity that is based in prejudice. But then the word “body” or “tem- ple” takes on an entirely new signifi- cance as well. Addressing all humanity and its leaders, Bahá’u’lláh says that the world has entered a new stage in its development when not only

revelation of God, and the inception of the Day of God. The message of the universal declaration rejects the culture of tyranny and oppression and summons the world to embrace a new culture of justice and unity. As we saw earlier, all oppression stems from the application of the law of nature and the logic of the jungle to the realm of human relations. We also saw that such an objectification of humans takes four main forms, mani- fested in international anarchy, polit- ical tyranny, economic injustice, and a culture of prejudice. The message of the universal declaration rejects all these forms of oppression. The main vehicle of that declaration is the Súriy-i-Haykal, or Súrih of the Tem- ple, which also includes Bahá’u’lláh’s messages to the individual rulers. The word haykal means both “tem- ple” and “human body.” Bahá’u’lláh uses the semantic ambiguity to create both a new individual culture and a new international structure, while em- phasizing that both culture and social institutions need to be defined through the spiritualization of consciousness. His message constitutes a divine tem- ple, the temple of God. However, the seat of the new temple is the heart and mind of human beings. He discusses His vision of a new type of human being and a new type of political, eco- nomic, and global institutions which are necessary to uproot violence and oppression from the world. Referring to this new vision, He concludes the Súriy-i-Haykal by affirming that He has thus constructed the true temple