Depending on where on our planet you live, the Creator of this existence - if you believe such a being even exists, and more and more people don't - is variously known as Yahweh, Atua, Dieu, Krishna, God, Jehovah, 'He who has no name' or any one of many others, depending on our languages and cultures. When travel became easier and we became exposed to other peoples and practices, we understood this diversity of names to mean that these religions worshipped many different gods. However, it is increasingly recognised that such seemingly diverse names are merely the result of variations in our languages. Some religions use, in the place of God, those names that express various divine attributes, such as Power, Might, Love, Forgiveness, often with different names for feminine or masculine qualities, yet they still describe that single God. One God. This complex Creator is increasingly recognised as a vast unknowable force of indefinable nature whose influence is capable of creating vast solar systems, the size of which is beyond our mortal capacity to comprehend. Today, many know it as the Matrix; we feed information in to the matrix and it gives information back to us via thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs.
A God of this magnitude needs no feminine or masculine name and is beyond gender. However, due to our own limited consciousness, the very idea of a limitless eternal existence daunts the human mind, so it's not surprising that humanity needed to develop much simpler, often childlike, embodiments of this 'force' or 'being' that also embodies vast attributes of knowledge, intelligence, attraction and love that are associated with such a Being.
Baha'i's believe that there is only one God, known by different names. Humanity is one common race and our different Prophets have come to different places on the planet at different times, bringing messages inspired by our one God with the purpose of healing the diverse problems unique to each age. Each was leading us to a greater Teacher to come.
Humanity's compelling challenge in this day is to recognize the extent to which in the past we familiarized and 'anthropomorphized' this immense force that is God, by using terms and images suited to the primitive understanding of the time, just as our first grade school teachers did for us. We need to develop ever greater understandings
of what is meant by that great Reality which is beyond our limited human minds to comprehend.
This day is the coming of age of the entire family of humanity. It requires a new way of thinking, a recognition that the time has come for the unification of the whole human race.
"All men are servants of the One God. One God reigns over all the nations of the world and has pleasure in all His children. All men are of one family; the crown of humanity rests on the head of every human being.
In the eyes of the Creator all His children are equal; His goodness is poured forth on all. He does not favor this nation nor that nation, all alike are His creatures. This being so, why should we make divisions, separating one race from another? Why should we create barriers of superstition and tradition bringing discord and hatred among the people?" ---Abdul-Baha. Paris Talks.
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