We are told by Shoghi Effendi that two great processes are
at work in the world: the great Plan of God, tumultuous in its progress,
working through mankind as a whole, tearing down barriers to world unity and
forging humankind into a unified body in the fires of suffering and experience.
This process will produce in God’s due time, the Lesser Peace, the political
unification of the world. Mankind at that time can be likened to a body that is
unified but without life. The second process, the task of breathing life into
this unified body—of creating true unity and spirituality culminating in the
Most Great Peace—is that of the Bahá’ís, who are laboring consciously, with
detailed instructions and continuing divine guidance, to erect the fabric of the
Kingdom of God on earth, into which they call their fellowmen, thus conferring
upon them eternal life. -The Universal House of Justice (From a message dated
December 8, 1967 to an individual believer; ‘Wellspring of Guidance, Messages
of the Universal House of Justice 1963-1968’)
