The Part Is Expressive of the Whole

On 14 April 1912 'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke at a union meeting of Advanced Thought Centers at the Carnegie Lyceum in New York. The talk is preserved in The Promulgation of Universal Peace, and it was reprinted in Bahá'í World Faith, the 1943 American compilation. It is the same talk in which He spoke of polishing the mirrors of hearts.

Near its end He described His purpose in coming to America:

I have come here with this mission; that through your endeavors, through your heavenly morals, through your devoted efforts a perfect bond of unity and love may be established between the east and the west, so that the bestowals of God may descend upon all and that all may be seen to be the parts of the same tree—the great tree of the human family. For mankind may be likened to the branches, leaves, blossoms and fruit of that tree.

He spoke next of the favors of God, which are "unending, limitless," and said that just as the bounty of life surrounds and encompasses all, "so likewise must we be connected and blended together until each part shall become the expression of the whole." The talk closed with an image from the garden:

Consider; we plant a seed. A complete and perfect tree appears from it, and from each seed of this tree another tree can be produced. Therefore the part is expressive of the whole, for this seed was a part of the tree, but therein potentially was the whole tree. So each one of us may become expressive or representative of all the bounties of life to mankind. This is the unity of the world of humanity. This is the bestowal of God. This is the felicity of the human world and this is the manifestation of the divine favor.

A retelling based on Bahá'í World Faith (1943); the talk appears in full in The Promulgation of Universal Peace (talk of 14 April 1912). For the fuller account, see the original.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1943). *Bahá'í World Faith*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19239