Writing in the summer of 2022, this past July has turned out to be a painful – and hot! – reminder of something that most of us probably want to either forget or get sorted out by someone else. Temperatures that the UK has never experienced before in modern recorded history call to mind the all too frequent warnings that worse is to come. Higher temperatures; worse droughts; rising sea-levels; floods; food insecurity; famine; forced movement and migrations; struggle; contention; war.
It seems that wherever we look today, groups of people are being blamed for being blind to the consequences; or being obstructive; or simply existing. A discussion topic “U.K. Just Smashed a Heat Record That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen Until 2050” on a well-known social media channel, subsequently removed by moderators due to the contentious arguments it provoked, is a particular case in point.
The top rated comment among all responses to the article contained the following, paraphrasing slightly: 'Stories like this are so depressing for teenagers. Older generations who have less at stake make the important decisions. And they just don’t seem to care about younger people.' Elsewhere in the comments, slightly older people, their thoughts turning to parenthood, feel sad for the next generation and what they will have to endure as they grow up in turn. Reading further down, we even find comments blaming inflation and recession on there being too many millennials.
Younger people blaming older people for being obstructive, uncaring and selfish. Older people blaming younger people for being ungrateful, unrealistic, and wanting to turn all their hard work upside-down. Is this yawning gap between generations unbridgeable? Can these causes of depression, mental health and anxiety among young people be resolved?
We might think of this generation gap, and the mental health issues that ride in its shadow, as being consequences of feeling disconnected, isolated, purposeless. We may wish to consider these feelings as a ‘core of loneliness in each person’, that Bertrand Russell writes about in his Autobiography. People of a different generation feel so distant in time from us because of our disconnection, our alienation.
It made me really sit up and think therefore that a way to address this disconnection in time comes from this famous 20th century philosopher's life story - the very man whose legacy reeks so much of bitterness and purposelessness. It was through a spiritually transformative experience that he had when in the presence of a friend who suddenly became quite ill that he found a way to speak to that core of loneliness. Slightly paraphrased, his description reads: 'I had become a completely different person. A sort of mystic illumination possessed me. I felt that I knew the inmost thoughts of everybody that I met in the street. I did in actual fact find myself in far closer touch than previously with all my friends.'
Russell had through his illuminated moment felt himself to be much more connected to other people. It struck me then reading this that the feeling – no, the knowing – of unity and interconnectedness could really address this prevailing all consuming sense of alienation that sets different generations at each others’ throats.
The effect of this realisation of our unity, interconnectedness, or oneness, has been studied by psychologists. A commitment to oneness is more strongly related to feeling connected with distant people and aspects of the natural world than with people with whom one is close. It is related to values indicating a universal concern for the welfare of other people, as well as greater compassion for other people. Putting oneness central to one’s life is also associated with feeling connected to others through a recognition of our common humanity, common problems, and common imperfections.
Adopting oneness in our lives means that we develop a more inclusive identity reflecting our sense of connection with other people, non-human animals, and aspects of nature that are part of the same ‘one thing’. We are more likely to regard other people like members of our own group and to identify with all of humanity. Making this essential unity part of our cultural world-view then allows us to bridge the gap in time between generations.
Why should this realisation that oneness is so important and can change the way we look at each other happen right now in human history?
In this wondrous Revelation, this glorious century, the foundation of the Faith of God, and the distinguishing feature of His Law, is the consciousness of the oneness of mankind.[1]
Never before in human history have we had so much opportunity and capacity to connect with each other on a local and global scale. But our efforts to improve our lives and thereby our mental health and mental wellbeing will come to naught if we are not persuaded that there is good in others and that others will do good for us too. That helping others will help ourselves. That the hurt experienced by others is our hurt. That we are all in fact cut from the same cloth, formed of the same substance, leaves of one tree, and waves of one sea.
Everything, every quark, charm, neutrino, atom, spirit and entity everywhere and every time is One. All is part of everything. Nothing and no one is separate. That is one of the things that is so sad about this life. People feel separated and cut off and we aren't – not in reality.[2] Because the heart of humankind had the capacity to reflect the creative light, it also had the capacity to reflect the creative force. This force connects all of existence—humankind is one throughout the entire planet. All of humankind from the past to the present, are all intimately connected, even though we are totally unaware of it.[3]
The love we seek to cultivate for all people, whatever their age or generation:
is attained through the knowledge of God, so that men see the Divine Love reflected in the heart. Each sees in the other the Beauty of God reflected in the soul, and finding this point of similarity, they are attracted to one another in love. This love will make all men the waves of one sea, this love will make them all the stars of one heaven and the fruits of one tree. This love will bring the realization of true accord, the foundation of real unity.[5]
Baha’i Writings
NDERF Archives 1503
“A Glimpse of Paradise” The Near Death Vision of Reinee Pasarow, pp 10-11
Baha’i Writings