It is understandable that Bahá'ís who witness the miserable
conditions under which so many human beings have to live, or who hear of a
sudden disaster that has struck a certain area of the world, are moved to do
something practical to ameliorate those conditions and to help their suffering
fellow-mortals.
There are many ways in which help can be rendered. Every
Bahá'í has the duty to acquire a trade or profession through which he will earn
that wherewith he can support himself and his family; in the choice of such
work he can seek those activities which are of benefit to his fellow-men and
not merely those which promote his personal interests, still less those whose
effects are actually harmful.
There are also the situations in which an individual Bahá'í
or a Spiritual Assembly is confronted with an urgent need which neither justice
nor compassion could allow to go unheeded and unhelped. How many are the
stories told of 'Abdu'l-Bahá in such situations, when He would even take off a
garment He was wearing and give it to a shivering man in rags.
But in our concern for such immediate obvious calls upon our
succour we must not allow ourselves to forget the continuing, appalling burden
of suffering under which millions of human beings are always groaning -- a
burden which they have borne for century upon century and which it is the
Mission of Bahá'u'lláh to lift at last. the principal cause of this suffering,
which one can witness wherever one turns, is the corruption of human morals and
the prevalence of prejudice, suspicion, hatred, untrustworthiness, selfishness
and tyranny among men. It is not merely material well- being that people need.
What they desperately need is to know how to live their lives -- they need to
know who they are', to what purpose they exist, and how they should act towards
one another; and, once they know the answers to these questions they need to be
helped to gradually apply these answers to every-day behavior. It is to the solution
of this basic problem of mankind that the greater part of all our energy and
resources should be directed...
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 19 November 1974 written
on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly
of Italy; compilation: ‘Lights of Guidance’)