Inherent in the nature of all human beings is the desire for transcendence, a “sense”, however vague, that one is connected to something immensely greater than ourselves. This “spiritual instinct”, this longing for transcendence, is a natural and universal human phenomenon. All people, all cultures, have expressed it in different patterns and to different degrees. 

But much like the natural forces of wind and water, which humans needed to learn how to use to do productive work, we needed to learn about our natural spiritual instinct and how to use it. Two thousand years ago, Christ came into the world and inspired  humanity’s spiritual instinct, teaching people how to use it for the benefit of themselves and their communities.  Wherever His message spread, communities sprung up that learned to use the native energy within themselves to spread virtue, care for the materially disadvantaged, and ultimately build the ethical basis of human civilization. 

Six hundred years after Christ, the Prophet Muhammad appeared in a different part of the world, and taught people how to see their spiritual instinct as something that was universal.  In the wake of His message came an enlightened culture, focused on community unity and the care of everyone under the banner of one God.  That culture was the envy of the world for hundreds of years. 

In these great religions, the knowledge of God became the knowledge of our own selves- how to tap into our noblest qualities, develop and refine them, and put our sense of transcendence to work in the service of others. But the spiritual instinct is not the only human instinct, and it can become overwhelmed by other aspects of our nature. The civilizing of human character is a klunky process, with two steps forward followed by one step back.  Meanwhile, human civilization is becoming more complex and integrated, calling for more and more from out of our interior selves to deal with its challenges. 

In the 19th century, among the cauldron of ideas that ultimately formed our modern world, was the piercing call of Baha’u’llah. A prisoner, an exile, a refugee, He once again called for the further refinement of humanity’s spiritual instinct, this time to accomplish a greater task than it had ever before been called upon to do- the unification of the human race in a culture of justice, fairness, and genuine love. At the root of His teachings was a simple truth- that a higher level of unity among people required a higher level of human character- the  transformation of our inner “copper” into “gold”.  Once again, He taught humanity about its spiritual instinct- how to find it, how to nurture it, and how to constructively use it in the building of a global civilization.  His religion became known as the Baha’i Faith, and it has the power to change the world.