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Religion
should unite all hearts and cause wars and disputes to vanish from the
face of the earth, give birth to spirituality, and bring life and light
to each heart. If religion becomes a cause of dislike, hatred and division,
it were better to be without it, and to withdraw from such a religion
would be a truly religious act.
For it
is clear that the purpose of a remedy is to cure; but if the remedy
should only aggravate the complaint it had better be left alone. Any
religion which is not a cause of love and unity is no religion. All
the holy prophets were as doctors to the soul; they gave prescriptions
for the healing of mankind; thus any remedy that causes disease does
not come from the great and supreme Physician.
('Abdu'l-Bahá:
Paris Talks, Page: 130)
Window from which Bahá'u'lláh waved to pilgrims. (2004) 
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20 March 2010 (157 Baha'i Era), ALBANY, NEW YORK, USA — Celebrations to mark the Baha'i New Year take different forms throughout the world but typically include programs of spiritual upliftment, music, dancing and feasting.
The Baha'i New Year festival known as Naw-Ruz (literally "New Day") is held on the spring equinox, March 21, but the celebrations began the evening before because the Baha'i day begins at sunset.
The event held in Albany was typical of the kind of multi-cultural celebration observed in many of the 120,000 localities where Baha'is -- who embrace human diversity -- reside around the world.
The festival comes at the end of a 19-day fast in which adult Baha'is abstain from food and drink between sunrise and sunset as a reminder of the need for individuals to be detached from their material desires.
Naw-Ruz is the first day of the first of 19 months in the Baha'i calendar, which was initiated by the Bab, the Forerunner of the Faith's Prophet-Founder, Baha'u'llah, who later confirmed it.
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