One Organism

Several thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle compared the body of humankind with the human body. Extending the analogy, the various parts of society can be compared with the different members and limbs of the human body. Our bodies are made up of countless atoms and molecules that form cells, which in turn form tissues and organs. These in turn are organized into various systems--such as the digestive system, the nervous system, etc.--that finally form one single entity: the human organism. But this is not the highest level of organization. Far from it. Individual human beings constitute families and communities, which form cities and nations. These in turn, are organized into continental blocks, finally culminating in a single planetary human organism: humankind.

As shown below, both Gandhi and the Bahá'ís have made use of this analogy. An essential aspect of both the body of humankind and the human body is that if one part suffers, every other part is adversely affected. The health of the whole reflects on the health of each component part, and vice-versa. Thus, if the liver becomes diseased, it can affect the kidneys and other organs. Similarly, if poverty--hence political instability--afflicts one nation, the rest of humanity will necessarily suffer the consequences. Concerning this theme, Bahá'u'lláh writes:

O ye the elected representatives of the people in every land! Take ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind, and bettereth the condition thereof, if ye be of them that scan heedfully. Regard the world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect, hath been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their personal desires, and have erred grievously. And if, at one time, through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was healed, the rest remained afflicted as before. Thus informeth you the All-Knowing, the All-Wise.

We behold it, in this day, at the mercy of rulers so drunk with pride that they cannot discern clearly their own best advantage, much less recognize a Revelation so bewildering and challenging as this. And whenever any one of them hath striven to improve its condition, his motive hath been his own gain, whether confessedly so or not; and the unworthiness of this motive hath limited his power to heal or cure.

That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error[7]

Gandhi also viewed humankind as a single organism that cannot be adequately understood in reductionist terms, but only from a ``holistic'' point of view. Commenting on the organic interconnectedness of human life, he writes:

the circulation of wealth in a nation resembles that of the blood in the natural body. There is one quickness of the current which comes of cheerful emotion or wholesome exercise; and another which comes of shame or fever. There is a flush of the body which is full of warmth and life; and another which will pass into putrefaction.[8]

I claim that [the] human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political, and religious. All act and react upon each other.[9]

Human life being an undivided whole, no line can ever be drawn between its different compartments, nor between ethics and politics.[9]

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