# Baha'i: The Spirit of the Age

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Horace Holley, Baha'i: The Spirit of the Age, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> BAHAI
> THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
> 
> Approved by
> Bahai Committee on Publications
> 
> 1921
> 
> BAHAI
> 
> The Spirit of the Age
> 
> BY
> HORACE HOLLEY
> 
> NEW YORK
> 
> BRENTANO’S
> Publishers
> 
> COPYRIGHT 1921, BY
> 
> BRENTANO’S
> 
> All rights reserved
> 
> Made in the United States of America
> CONTENTS
> 
> Frontispiece — Abdul Baha
> Introduction                                    vii
> Part 1                                           1
> The Cosmic Trinity                               3
> The Bahai Message to Christianity               74
> The Bahai Message to Judaism                    88
> The Bahai Message to Science                   111
> The Bahai Message to Politics and              125
> Economics
> The Bahai Message to Christian Science         139
> and New Thought
> The Bahai Message to Theosophy                 146
> Part 2                                         153
> The Spirit of the Age                          155
> Illustration — The Bahai Temple
> The Bahai Temple                               176
> Part 3                                         189
> Two Bahai Documents                            191
> Constructive Reading List                      202
> 
> “Say, the fecundation of Bounty has been wafted over all things in this
> day and everything has generated and brought forth its own kind, but verily
> the majority of the people have turned away from it — the trees bring forth the
> beautiful fruit; the seas, the brilliant jewels; man, knowledge and science; the
> universe, the Transfiguration of the Merciful; and the earth, that which no one
> comprehendeth save the True One, the knower of secrets and unseen things.”
> 
> INTRODUCTION
> 
> The new translation of an ancient classic contains one very significant
> change. A prophetic passage formerly interpreted “the end of the world” reads
> now “the end of the age.”
> In this sense, the world has indeed come to an end in our day — the
> foundations of a new age, a new civilization, a new science and a new faith
> have visibly been laid. The inspiration of this new age, for many people in all
> parts of the world, has one source, one password, one mystery: the name
> Bahai.
> The word Bahai is like a jewel with many facets, a fountain with many
> pitchers, a mansion with many rooms.
> For some, it means a set of principles necessary for the peace of the world,
> for economic stability, for the true progress of the sciences and the arts.
> For others, Bahai means the privilege of belonging to an active movement
> already spread throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and large
> portions of the East; a movement spreading the ideals of fellowship and
> service irrespective of race, creed, nationality and class.
> Still others feel in the word Bahai the reality, the consummation of the
> Sermon on the Mount, the return of the Divine Love for the purpose of rais-
> 
> [page viii]
> 
> ing mankind from its animal condition to the level of conscious spirituality.
> Behind this word for many there stands also a glorious Presence, a Divine
> Being whose title this word is: The Glory of God. These persons feel this
> Presence as the controlling force behind every event of this time. Thus is
> Bahai the cause of a new spirit of reverence and devotion, written as it is upon
> a Bible, a World Bible, revealed in cosmic utterances which gather together
> those who seem to be a nucleus of the future, spiritual race.
> Still others, having heard Abdul Baha during his travels through Europe
> and America immediately preceding the War, see the word Bahai in terms of
> his wisdom, his graciousness, his untiring efforts to awaken the slumbering
> soul to realize the opportunities and responsibilities of life in this age.
> Behind this word Bahai, finally, there is one of the most astonishing
> chapters History has ever had occasion to record. From its beginnings in the
> glorious Babi martyrdoms which occurred in Persia only about eighty years
> ago; to that forty-year exile and imprisonment suffered by Baha’o’llah and
> Abdul Baha, with seventy faithful followers; witnessing then the renaissance
> of the Holy Land as the “Mount of Revelation,” and arriving at the present
> hour with Abdul Baha’s unique mission made fruitful by the commencement
> of work on the Bahai Temple at Chicago, by the deeper comprehension of the
> meaning of this Cause awakened
> 
> [page ix]
> 
> by the nationwide journey of the “Great Teacher,” Jenabe Fazel Mazandarani,
> and the rapid spread of the Bahai Message throughout the East — the historic
> importance of these events can only be judged at some later date, when from
> this seed the fruitful tree shall have grown to its maturity.
> It is to serve as a gateway opening to some of these meanings of the word
> Bahai that this book has been prepared.
> The first part, The Cosmic Trinity, deals with the source of Bahaism in its
> three founders; endeavoring to present them in the light of their own
> interpretations. The brief chapters concluding this first part have special
> references to the relation of Bahaism to some established body of opinion,
> such as Christianity, Judaism, Christian Science, Theosophy, and to current
> problems under the head of Science, Politics and Economics.
> Part two is a compilation from the utterances of Baha’o’llah and Abdul
> Baha, selected from every possible source, many unpublished manuscripts
> being quoted, the intention being to bring together in one convenient compass
> a sequence of their authentic words which would permit the reader to judge of
> this Bahai Teaching, or Principles, for himself.
> A chapter on the significance of the Bahai Temple now being constructed
> at Chicago as the true visible representation of the Bahai Movement — its
> spirit of unity, and its equal insistence upon
> 
> [page x]
> Science and Religion — was added to this part inasmuch as the Temple has
> been partially described in the public press of Europe as well as America, and
> much interest in this feature of Bahaism thereby aroused.
> Part three contains two important Bahai documents: Abdul Baha’s address
> on the power of Meditation before the Society of the Friends, St. Martin’s
> Lane, London; and his Commune to be read by the Bahais of Persia during the
> War. This latter, penetrating to the very depths of the world’s state of mind in
> these days, sounds a note of solemn power and agony which is the very
> crucifixion of the cosmic consciousness under the animal impulses.
> In conclusion, a Reading List is added which includes all books known to
> the author as being strictly Bahai in origin or theme. Every effort has been
> made to render the present work useful for the reader desiring to understand
> Bahaism. Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha are quoted as frequently as possible
> throughout, and these quotations were selected in order to present the Bahai
> answer to as many as possible of the world’s major problems and interests.
> This book, however, is presented merely as a gateway to the Bahai
> Teaching or Message. In no sense should it be considered an “authoritative
> interpretation” of Bahaism, since Abdul Baha’s own life and words are solely
> and entirely that. To tell something of the new, creative Word; to
> 
> [page xi]
> 
> mention the Speaker of the Word; to present merely that preliminary statement
> by which the reader shall be enabled to investigate the reality for himself —
> this is my only purpose and aim.
> 
> “I declare by the Ocean of the Godly Knowledge that a moment in these
> days is more excellent than past centuries and ages; to this beareth witness
> your Lord, the Chooser, in the Station of Generosity. Be kindled by this fire
> which is burning in the world, that through thee whosoever is in this earth
> shall be enkindled. Think not that it is a fire, rather it is a Light, and its traces
> shall surround whosoever is in all countries and regions. Of what use is a life
> that is ruled by death, or a duration which vanisheth, or a grace that
> changeth? To-day let every soul desire to attain the highest station. He must
> not regard what is in himself but what is in God. It is not for him to regard
> what shall advantage himself, but that whereby the Word of God, which must
> be obeyed, shall be upraised.” — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> Thus, in no uncertain tones, does Bahaism address the modern mind and
> heart. Already has this Cause made History enough to assure us that men shall
> be whole heartedly for it — as for the whole meaning of life; or whole
> heartedly against it — as against that which strikes at the roots of senseless
> inertia as well as conscious reaction in all their subtlest forms.
> 
> Horace Holley.
> New York City,
> January 22, 1921.
> 
> PART 1
> THE COSMIC TRINITY
> 
> I
> 
> “With the name of this Day Thou hast adorned Thy Tablet, which is
> known only to Thee. Thou hast called it The Day of God. Nothing is to be seen
> therein but Thy Supreme Self, and naught is to be remembered save Thy
> sweetest Name.”
> — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> It has become only too evident that the past eighty years or so have not
> only effected a complete change in the physical life of man, but likewise have
> produced a mighty transformation in the world of consciousness.
> Each of our material inventions can be paralleled by a corresponding
> change in our way of thinking — each of our scientific discoveries can be
> shown to correspond to some discovery bringing renewal upon the plane of
> mind. If astronomy has emerged into the clear light of truth, so also has the
> true astrology reappeared in view. If medicine and surgery have been enlarged
> tremendously, so have been enlarged tremendously the claims of alchemy and
> occultism. If history has opened out so as to include in one point of view the
> entire biological and geological record of life, so has Theosophy restored the
> knowledge of even greater spiritual cycles. If the theory
> 
> [page 4]
> 
> has been established that mankind in all parts of the world derives from a
> common monkey ancestor, so has the fact been established that in every
> portion of the race there have arisen mystics who derived the likeness of man
> from God. Where on the one hand we have a new instinct to restudy the words
> of Christ, or Mohamet or Buddha, there on the other hand we have an equal
> degree of interest in the teachings of Pythagoras, Hermes, Paracelsus. Side by
> side with the miracles of submarine, automobile and aeroplane, stand the
> miracles of Spiritualism, Psychic Research, New Thought.
> Daylight has dawned upon the consciousness of man.
> But if to each one of us some new and absorbing interest has been
> revealed by that sudden daybreak — some new conception of the further
> possibilities inherent in the nature of machinery, finance, trade, political
> organization, art, science, philosophy, religion or occultism — no less
> obviously has that unexpected mental and social expansion blinded us to the
> nature of that new conscious universe as a whole in which our own mental
> citizenship forms so infinitesimal a part. Thus we have lost what appears the
> very greatest significance of the day in which we live — the fact that, as
> matters at least temporarily seem to be, absolutely everything in this amazing
> modern world cancels out. That is, if what we consider a “good” has been
> immensely reinforced, its contrary or “evil” has been reinforced to the same
> 
> [page 5]
> 
> extent. Positive and negative remain exactly where they were. Doubt and faith
> remain exactly where they were. The fact, or issue, or tendency that confirms
> you today will probably deny you tomorrow.
> In very truth, no form of thought, belief, practise or feeling has ever
> existed anywhere or any time in the world but its equivalent stands among us
> now — all the gods, and all the worshippers of the gods, return to this strange
> time!
> So it is impressed upon every sincere person more and more that the
> essence of life at the present hour is just this simple but overwhelming fact: we
> all must make a decision.
> The masquerade of events grows too serious for either thoughtless
> indifference or blind acceptance. Just as our national and economic and
> hygienic boundaries no longer shut out the forces of opposition, so are our
> mental and moral boundaries constantly being overrun. The easy way all along
> through History has been to stand inside some accustomed frontier and fight
> for it to the bitter end. But today, the frontiers cross and recross, before us and
> behind.
> We must make a decision. And it is no longer possible to decide merely as
> between nations or economic classes or formal doctrines — the decision
> toward which the whole force of the world impetuously tends is a decision
> about the nature of life — about the nature of the very universe through which
> 
> [page 6]
> 
> we pass, from which we came, and to which we all return.
> Thus, here and there people are beginning to look up from the narrow
> traditional path with which they have been satisfied, and to wonder whether or
> not all these separate, narrow paths have a common meeting place. We are
> discovering at last that the nature of the universe will never be revealed simply
> by adding together more new facts. Already we have too many facts — facts
> which are irreconcilable one with another, facts crying out for an interpretation
> depending upon what we decide about the nature of the Whole. Mankind, in
> the same way, will never be understood through more study of men, — but all
> men are baffled and thwarted for lack of some mutual realization about man.
> Whence is this common realization to appear? My idea cannot satisfy you,
> even if I could impose it upon you. Nor could your idea justify my existence,
> even if I were compelled to accept it.
> Our personal will, knowledge and love are proven inadequate. Yet clearly,
> if there were a cosmic Will, it would will one thing through all of us and not
> many conflicting things. If there were a cosmic Knowledge, it would explain
> all forms of human belief. If there were a cosmic Love, it would reconcile all
> our discordance. And how can that inevitable decision, which we are rapidly
> being forced to make, be aught but the choice between personal wills, personal
> truths or
> 
> [page 7]
> 
> personal emotions unless it is a decision in the light of cosmic Will, cosmic
> Knowledge, cosmic Love?
> That decision, at any rate, must be on the plane of consciousness rather
> than upon the plane of material form.
> Now what blinds us on the plane of consciousness will correspond to what
> blinds us on the physical plane. The thing that blinds us on the physical plane
> is clearly enough the human body — the separation of man from man in
> isolated, self-attached bodily organisms. For as the body of the mystic, say, is
> quite distinct from the body of a scientist, and as the body of a German, say, is
> quite foreign to that of an Englishman, their souls appear also to have, in
> consequence, quite separate destinies.
> But what corresponds to the human body on the plane of mind? Clearly, it
> is language. Language is the vehicle of thought just as the body is the vehicle
> of the conscious thinker. Therefore it may easily be that the Christian stands
> apart from the Buddhist, and the mystic from the scientist, largely because
> each of them employs a different form of expression, a different vehicle or
> body of thought. We look into the mirror and expect to behold our own image.
> But if the mirror is ever so slightly warped, the image we behold is far from
> our image, and we instantly recoil.
> Is not language exactly like that? Does not a new, or alien form of
> expression reflect back to us
> 
> [page 8]
> 
> a thought image apparently not our own? Do we not behold constantly, as
> strange bodies of thought, expressions which may possibly be our own —
> would undeniably be our own if the mirror of language were a true mirror?
> The scientist looks into the physical mirror expecting to behold a scientist.
> He meets an artist or a mystic expecting to find a person quite different from a
> scientist. But why does he expect to meet a person quite different from
> himself? Is it not because our spiritual realities — that of which thought and
> language are but the body — reflect back and forth to each other in a warped
> mirror?
> While art and science, for example, differ so much in the outward form
> they assume — one creating a picture, the other creating a formula — do they
> actually differ so much as modes of consciousness? Who can tell? Only he can
> conclusively tell who in himself is both artist and scientist. Such a person,
> looking into the mirror of thought, would behold as one body that which we
> others behold as two separate bodies. Such a person would surely realize and
> accept as a matter of course this fact — that the picture is itself a true formula,
> the formula is itself a true picture! Thus could he serve as interpreter between
> all artists and scientists — as a spiritual banker, so to speak, able to give to
> each type of person credit which that type could spend in the other’s spiritual
> city.
> Today — it bears repeating — today the differ-
> 
> [page 9]
> 
> ence in our various terminologies has raised up upon the plane of
> consciousness those same frontiers which physically divide people off into
> warring nations and bitterly hostile classes. We have projected the physical
> law of isolated, bodily self upon the country of the mind, with the result that
> one scarcely ever meets a person with whom one can exchange spiritual
> experience freely and frankly, and thereby become consciously enriched.
> Instinctively shutting ourselves off from all groups who employ a strange,
> unaccustomed terminology, we close ourselves to whatever spiritual
> experience they possess as though the experience were necessarily as foreign
> as its expression.
> The man of today, on account of this one simple fact, is spiritually
> speaking no better than a cave man defending his few miserable possessions
> from other cave men just as miserable as he.
> For let us no longer be deceived by the apparent community existing
> between people who accept the same terminology, who are members of the
> same organized group — Socialism, Christian Science, Catholicism, etc. The
> direct result of repudiating all other terminologies than our own is that we are
> absolutely blinded to the real significance of our own terminology. Accepting
> terminology as the one important distinction, we cease thinking just as soon as
> that matter of terminology has been settled. Thus merely because a group is
> using the terms of Socialism, the members of that group
> 
> [page 10]
> 
> accept each other as equals. Catholics accept each other as equals. Yet the
> plain fact is that in any of these large organized groups there is as much
> spiritual difference between the members as there is physical difference
> between the serpent and the dove, the lion and the lamb. The prophecy that the
> “lion and the lamb will lie down together” has certainly been fulfilled! The
> lion and the lamb are lying peaceably together — for the lamb thinks the lion
> is a lamb, and the lion thinks the lamb is a lion! Conversely, the “dove” among
> the Socialists is unable to recognize the “dove” among the Christian Scientists
> or the Catholics; and the “serpent” among the Catholics is unable to recognize
> the “serpent” among any other group.
> This astonishing fact exists simply because, on the plane of consciousness,
> we apparently have to use “subjective” words. And a subjective word mirrors
> back its own image of concept or feeling to the speaker, but to the hearer only
> the back of the mirror, as it were, is shown.
> Now let us return for a moment to the idea of the man who is both artist
> and scientist. Such a man, as remarked, could well serve as interpreter between
> all artists and scientists. He could explain to the scientists that their formulas
> are accurate subjective pictures of the universe. He could explain to the artists
> that their pictures are accurate objective formulas of the universe. He could
> make it clear that art, as intuition, enters
> 
> [page 11]
> 
> into all true science; and that science, as clear logic, enters into all true art.
> But such a twofold man could accomplish his object of serving these other
> onefold men only if he succeeded in finding a terminology, a body of thought,
> which each would recognize and accept as his own thought body. For if he
> merely talked “art” to the scientists, they would reject him as too imaginative;
> and if he merely talked “science” to the artists, they would reject him as too
> unfeeling and too impersonal.
> Now it has already been remarked that “daylight has dawned upon the
> consciousness of man.”
> But what happens when physical daylight dawns? We instantly grow
> aware of all the things that the light reveals. We begin dealing with these
> things — the last thing we think of is the light itself — the revealer of the
> things. And so it has been with this spiritual sunrising. We have become aware
> of innumerable interesting and significant things in the mental world — so
> aware of these that we have not paused a single moment to consider what the
> source of this spiritual light may be, nor the real nature of the light itself.
> One of the more obvious matters we seem to have overlooked is this: that
> today, for the first time in recorded History, people all over the world possess
> one and the same cosmic symbolism. For the first time we have a fit vehicle to
> convey ideas from one to another mind. For the first time we have
> 
> [page 12]
> 
> access to one and the same series of universal facts.
> The fact that we know the earth turns around the sun — that light is an
> etheric vibration, while sound is atmospheric vibration — the fact that
> mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and the other objective sciences are very
> generally distributed — gives us an indescribable advantage over any previous
> generation. Let us realize this. Let us realize that the fight for these objective
> sciences has been every single bit as difficult, as dangerous and as loyally
> supported as the struggle for religious truth. Let us stop for a moment and
> appreciate why and how it is that “cosmic consciousness” did not come to the
> race until the race had created cosmic symbols — until the race had created a
> body of truth fit for the spirit of truth to occupy, animate and inspire!
> Go back in your thought to the founder of any of the world’s great
> religions. What symbolism was Christ, for example, absolutely compelled to
> employ? Compelled to employ on account of the ignorance of the time? He
> was compelled to employ the symbolism of personal or group experience. He
> spoke of God as the “Father,” of himself as the “Son.” Now in those days the
> word Father meant much more than it does now. The patriarchal Father was
> much more than the family father of today. The patriarchal Father was a King,
> a Commander, a Priest, a Teacher. Therefore when Christ spoke of God as the
> “Father,” he
> 
> [page 13]
> 
> used the symbol which to his hearers conveyed the very maximum effect of
> power, authority and responsibility which they were capable of imagining. But
> the word Father conveys nothing of this power, authority and responsibility to
> us at the present time. Nor do we appreciate what Christ meant by the “Son.”
> The Son of the patriarchal Father was the heir of all that authority — and only
> one Son, the eldest Son, could be heir.
> Therefore the terminology Christ was compelled to employ is a
> terminology which limits our modern idea of God on all sides. That
> terminology — to take only one example — seems to preclude the possibility
> of there being more than one Christ, or Messiah, or Saviour. Moreover, with
> our new and cosmic understanding of the universe, the idea of its Creator is
> simply impossible to accept under the personal aspect of the “Father.”
> The very slightest comprehension of History shows us that the Christ type,
> manifesting the same effect, the same method, the same influence, the same
> authority and consequently the same purpose and reality, has existed in other
> races at other times. Only reflect that modern European civilization derived
> most of its sciences and refinements from the Moslems who themselves were
> raised by Mohamet from the worst possible savagery to the utmost degree of
> cultivation, and you will begin to appreciate how decisive right along this
> matter of terminology has been. The physical body of Mohamet was dif-
> 
> [page 14]
> 
> ferent from the physical body of Christ — his terminology, or body of mental
> expression, was also different — therefore we have spoken of Christianity and
> Mohammedanism as two separate “religions” — two values which it would be
> utterly impossible for the same person to accept at the same time. Two bodies,
> says geometry, cannot occupy the same space at the same time. If religion is
> simply a body, then that same law holds true on the plane of consciousness.
> But suppose that religion is a spirit — cannot that Spirit descend upon two or
> many different beings, to use them all as successive instruments in the
> accomplishment of one inclusive Cosmic Purpose? Cannot Moses, Christ and
> Mohamet be regarded as successive steps, as it were, which enable the race to
> ascend to the same Temple?
> Just as there cannot be one mathematics for the East, and another
> mathematics for the West — so the cosmic consciousness of this age cannot
> accept the fact of there being two different kinds of religion. The apparent
> differences between the world’s great religions are due, according to the
> cosmic consciousness, to the same law that obtains in Art. For Art is one
> everywhere and at all times with respect to its creative power, but Art differs
> everywhere and always with respect to its form of expression. The oneness of
> Art is in fact proved by the very diversity of its expression. The modern
> cosmic consciousness recognizes this
> 
> [page 15]
> 
> law and also applies it to the expression of religion. And this modern cosmic
> consciousness recognizes with increasing clearness that the man, or group,
> which does not feel the Christ in Mohamet or Buddha does not really feel the
> Christ in Christ! By their fruits ye know them.
> Have we not, as a race, been repeating here on a larger scale the same
> mistake incurred by the artists who misunderstand scientists, by the scientists
> who misunderstand artists? Have we not gazed into the mirror of
> consciousness and beheld as two bodies that which, in a more perfect mirror,
> would appear as one body? But what is that “more perfect mirror?” Is it not
> merely a terminology wherein objective truth will correspond directly to
> subjective experience? A terminology which will be at once impersonal,
> universally valid and acceptable, permanently applicable? A cosmic
> terminology?
> In such a mirror we could all gaze and see reflected back one and the
> same spiritual body. While that spiritual body would be more significant for
> the highly developed person than for the lowly developed person — while it
> would inspire one emotion in the man of pure heart and another in the man of
> pure reason — yet in that body of cosmic truth we should all recognize our
> own reflection, and gradually become able to appreciate that aspect which was
> reflected back to others unlike ourselves.
> 
> [page 16]
> 
> And thus we approach the most significant fact in the intellectual
> character of the present age: that in the objective sciences we possess a
> terminology doing away forever with the limited, personal, local terminologies
> of the past — the terminologies representing God as the “Father,” excluding
> from God all members of other patriarchal families who look to another
> “Father” — and forever doing away with that selfish and physical conception
> of Christ as the “only begotten Son,” the only recipient of cosmic authority,
> the only agent for cosmic purpose!
> 
> II
> 
> “All things of the world arise through man and are manifest in him,
> through whom they find life and development: and man is dependent for his
> spiritual existence upon the Sun of the Word of God.” — Baha’o’llah.
> But our possession of a true cosmic terminology means far more than the
> mere capacity to discuss spiritual experience impartially with any and every
> kind of person, serenely independent of the artificial barriers raised by
> churches and creeds. If you reflect upon the matter, you will realize that this
> cosmic terminology actually creates, or at least registers, a profound, a
> revolutionary increase in our capacity to receive truth.
> 
> [page 17]
> 
> For tremendous as the idea of “Father” might formerly have been in the
> days of patriarchal societies, its effect upon the modern mind is nothing as
> compared with the cosmic idea suggested by “Gravitation,” “Electricity,” even
> “Atom.” These words open up endless vistas of wonder and inquiry, vistas
> which far outrun our present knowledge. For we perceive even from the slight
> beginnings already made, that any cosmic force, such as Electricity, is limited
> only by our own capacity to create the machinery fitted to receive and transmit
> its illimitable energy. We appreciate at last, beyond doubt or cavil, that the
> universe has vibration upon vibration, force behind force, meaning beyond
> meaning, the finer forces only awaiting our capacity to reveal them, control
> them, employ them.
> In exactly the same way, we appreciate at last, beyond doubt or cavil, that
> man himself is a conscious mechanism susceptible of infinite development.
> For these finer vibrations have always been penetrating the universe — if their
> effects are manifest now for the first time, it is only because now for the first
> time are we able to register them. And just as each improvement in electric
> dynamos, for example, enlarges our ideas of the cosmic reality, so does each
> refinement in human consciousness justify the conviction that constant further
> refinements can be made. We realize how incapable was our first crude
> dynamo to receive the full
> 
> [page 18]
> 
> power of Niagara — surely, we begin to realize that crude states of
> consciousness likewise shut us off from the world’s invisible Niagaras of
> spiritual power.
> More clearly than even half a century ago can we now appreciate how
> Christ, or Mohamet, or Buddha, was as it were a spiritual dynamo revealing
> those invisible Niagaras — but revealing them under the same difficulty and
> limitation we ourselves would experience if we tried to explain Electricity to
> an African savage. The African savage would think that the dynamo created
> the Electricity — he would feel the awe for the material dynamo that we feel
> for the cosmic Electricity. His attitude would perfectly parallel the attitude of
> the Western world toward Christ, and the Eastern world toward Moses,
> Mohamet or Buddha.
> Until we had the analogy of invisible physical forces working through
> material instruments, we could have no true understanding of how invisible
> spiritual forces manifest through consciousness. And this brings us to another
> significant fact: the difference between the dynamo constructed, let us say,
> with only the knowledge of how previous dynamos were constructed, and the
> dynamo constructed, if that were possible, from the point of view of the
> Electricity itself. The first sort of dynamo uses only the smallest fraction of the
> cosmic energy — but the second sort would not only use all that energy, up to
> the capacity of its size — it would
> [page 19]
> 
> tend to be Electricity on the material plane. It is not difficult to realize that the
> perfect dynamo would have to be perfectly responsive to the action of
> Electricity.
> Since this is clear, in the same way we can appreciate the difference
> between a consciousness which blindly gropes upward toward the contact with
> cosmic reality, and the consciousness which that reality itself has established
> as its perfect expression on this human plane. Inasmuch as every person who
> registers cosmic consciousness at all, feels drawn upward, as it were, out of
> himself, such persons can readily admit the possibility that this cosmic reality
> can work downward, into the human world from above. Thus there can
> logically be an order of consciousness which is to the ordinary human
> consciousness as the ordinary human consciousness is to the animal or even to
> the tree.
> Does not this analogy make clearer the world-old tendency to identify
> each racial Christ with God? Does it not avoid anthropomorphism on the one
> hand, while at the same time establishing, on the other hand, a true
> understanding of God? Does it not reveal the racial Christ as the function of
> God on this plane — the working of the Divine Will to be known — yet not in
> any manner degrade God from the point of view of our modern cosmic and
> scientific knowledge? A little reflection on this idea will, I am sure, create a
> logical and sympa-
> 
> [page 20]
> 
> thetic approach to a problem which hitherto has been equally obscured by the
> limitations of the orthodox mind and the no less vital limitations of the
> scoffer’s heart.
> For there is this further consideration which cannot be avoided — that
> whereas, as already stated, the idea of Electricity is more tremendous and
> impressive and inspiring than the idea of Father, yet the idea of Electricity, for
> all its cosmic significance, remains absolutely negative as regards our supreme
> human problem: the necessity to arrive at a final decision respecting the nature
> of the universe and the nature of man, the meaning of existence. That is,
> Electricity certainly suggests infinite force — but in a form which justifies
> almost any interpretation we care to put upon the basic significance of life.
> You can use Electricity to reinforce your belief that life is blind chance, or
> your faith that life is one marvelous purpose and perfect design. And while the
> idea of Electricity will confirm you in either belief, you cannot possibly
> employ that idea in such a way as to transfer your belief to a person holding
> the opposite belief.
> In other words — the nature of the cosmos cannot be realized through
> Power alone. Power must be referred to two other values on the same plane —
> the cosmic plane. Through Power, or Will, we must perceive Knowledge, and
> in Knowledge, or from Knowledge, we must perceive Love. And this Will and
> this Love must be inseparable from
> 
> [page 21]
> 
> this Knowledge. Though they are three, yet they must be realizable as one.
> Thus we return, but on an infinitely higher plane, to the basic religious
> conception of the Trinity. We recall the law of geometry, that three points
> determine a plane. For the plane of consciousness also requires three “points”
> in order to be realized: the point of Will, the point of Knowledge, and the point
> of Love. Just begin to apply these three points to the consciousness of the
> people around you, and see how impossible it is to understand any human
> being with respect to Will alone, or Knowledge alone, or Love alone, or even
> with respect to any two of these points alone. Until you have measured a man
> with respect to all three, Will, Knowledge and Love, you have not the man’s
> real measure.
> Therefore we now call the Cosmic Trinity by the understandable terms
> Will, Knowledge and Love; realizing them, at least in their possibility, as
> cosmic values no less authoritative than any of the already known values.
> Electricity, Mathematics, Music. And we perceive the further possibility that
> the Cosmic Reality can manifest these three aspects of itself through, or by
> means of, perfected human consciousness.
> That is, without shock to our modern scientific understanding, we can at
> least admit as an hypothesis that one consciousness might register that cosmic
> Will, another consciousness might register or mani-
> 
> [page 22]
> 
> fest that cosmic Knowledge, still another consciousness might manifest that
> cosmic Love. If we prefer to believe, on the contrary, that these cosmic values
> would manifest as a diffusion, as it were, among the entire race, this belief is
> apparently as justifiable as the other belief, but it comes in conflict with two
> clear facts.
> The first fact is that in other fields, — the field of science, art and
> statesmanship — progress is not made by diffusion until after each step has
> been manifested through some one mind. For example, the discovery of the
> true planetary motions came through one mind first, and was then diffused
> through other minds. Each advance in art is likewise registered by one
> personality first and then reflected by other artists. And no political progress
> has ever been made merely through the vote of an electorate — it does not
> even come to a vote until some leader has made it a vital issue. Moreover,
> even if this analogy is not acceptable, we should consider another fact, namely,
> that just as Electricity is not understandable from the dynamo, but the dynamo
> is rather only understandable from Electricity — so, surely, in dealing with
> cosmic spiritual forces we must observe the same law: that is, we should not
> define the force in terms of our own imperfect manifestation of the force, but,
> on the contrary, attempt to make our manifestation of the force correspond as
> closely as possible to the real nature of the force, the force-in-itself.
> 
> [page 23]
> 
> Or — to put the matter more clearly — it seems evident that we shall
> make a grievous mistake if we attempt to define the nature or purpose of God
> from the more or less crude spiritual dynamos we ourselves are. The true
> method, surely, is to define ourselves from a definition of God apart from our
> own limitations.
> Unless, then, a person considers himself a perfect manifestation of
> spiritual reality — unless one considers oneself a supreme and final
> manifestation of God — one will be willing at least to consider what another
> person, a more perfect manifestation of God, might have to say.
> The difficulty here is exactly the same difficulty that obtains all along the
> plane of consciousness. See how biology, for example, has transformed its
> basic conceptions every decade during the past half century. At first we were
> compelled to generalize in terms of the particulars at our disposal — gradually
> we have become able to particularize, as it were, in terms of greater and
> greater universals. However you approach the cosmos, this principle seems to
> hold true: that the universal is limited by any and every particular, but any and
> every particular requires interpretation in the light of the universal.
> Therefore, while the reader may not feel willing to take each step in the
> sequence of thought already developed, he will surely be willing to await for
> further development of the thought — await for the universal, in other words,
> which shall make these
> 
> [page 24]
> 
> particulars clear. We must construct a preliminary dynamo in order to be able
> to observe the nature of Electricity, and the moment we have gained a better
> understanding of its nature, then we can go back and construct a better
> dynamo. What has been said so far is only the building of that preliminary
> thought-dynamo to enable us to observe the nature of God. It has been made
> clear, at any rate, that the only true source for knowledge about God is the
> human soul — and the purer the soul, the more perfect the knowledge.
> 
> Ill
> 
> “The source of all these utterances is Justice, It is the freedom of man
> from superstition and limitation that he may discern the Manifestations of God
> with the eye of oneness, and consider all affairs with keen vision.” —
> Baha’o’llah.
> 
> Few people today would be surprised at learning that a new and
> revolutionary engine had been invented. Few would be surprised to hear that
> atomic energy had at last been reduced to practical service by means of some
> novel machine. But most people would smile with supreme incredulity if told
> that a Christ type of man were now alive upon this earth. It is easier to believe
> in that which consciousness can produce than to believe in that which
> 
> [page 25]
> 
> consciousness can be. People still feel that the greatest cosmic forces are
> physical and blind, like Electricity, rather than spiritual and expressive of
> purpose, like Truth or Love.
> The person who cannot find it possible to believe that any other person
> may possess a spiritual mechanism as far superior to his own as the electric
> dynamo is superior to the first laborious hand wheel — that person, I sincerely
> believe, will not have read even this far in my book. For while I address the
> rational type of being, I address the reason which desires ever new and
> stronger inspirations, ever new and more valid evidences that the universe is a
> divine creation and not a helpless machine. I address the reason which having
> come thus far along the road of eternity, does not consider that he stands upon
> its ultimate summit, but discerns greater heights still ahead.
> Therefore I feel it quite simple to mention the three cosmic types who
> have manifested divinely spiritual powers in this day. And I mention these
> three Manifestations of God only in the sincere endeavor to arrive at a way of
> thinking or feeling which the reader himself will acknowledge is a valid proof
> of the claims of these Manifestations themselves. Once this quality of proof
> has been advanced, the reader is quite at liberty to use this very proof, or any
> other proof he may find available, for denying that these Manifestations are in
> any wise different from himself. This book is a
> 
> [page 26]
> 
> search for Truth, a search for the very source of Truth, and not a polemic
> dogmatically insisting that this or the other is Truth.
> The historical facts1 at our disposal are as follows:
> In 1844 a Persian named Mohammed Ali, then twenty-four years old,
> announced publicly that he was the forerunner of a Manifestation who after a
> certain interval would declare himself to be that “Ancient,” that “Lord,” that
> “Alpha and Omega” foretold by all the prophets, and that from him would
> emanate a new cycle of Spiritual Civilization encircling and uniting the world.
> The character, actions and powers of Mohammed Ali are matters of accurate
> record, and since they are available elsewhere, need not enter the present book.
> Nineteen years later, in 1863, Hosein Ali, a Persian Prince of purest Aryan
> lineage, announced himself as that Manifestation declared by Mohammed Ali.
> The title by which Hosein Ali has since been known is that of Baha’o’llah, or
> The Glory of God. The title of Mohammed Ali is that of El Bab, meaning The
> Door, or Gate.
> Baha’o’llah passed from the flesh in 1892, at the Turkish prison city of
> Acca, Palestine, leaving as the last of his works a Covenant or Testament,
> designating his eldest son. Abbas Effendi, as his spiritual successor among
> men, the person responsi-
> 
> [page 27]
> 
> ble for, and able to carry on his function and purpose in the world. Since that
> date, Abbas Effendi has been known by the title of Abdul Baha, or Servant of
> the Glory.
> From 1892 up to the present moment, Abdul Baha has remained at Acca
> or Haifa, Palestine, residing at the foot of Mount Carmel, except for the space
> of two years, 1911-1913, when he traversed Europe, Canada and the United
> States, delivering in daily public talks and innumerable private interviews what
> is usually known as “The Bahai Message,” but which Abdul Baha himself
> preferred to call the spirit of the age.2 The substance of these public talks was a
> summons for Universal Peace, a summons to investigate the reality of the
> principles and claims of Baha’o’llah, a summons to promote the oneness of
> mankind.
> At the present moment — reinforced daily by the realization that Abdul
> Baha is, if nothing more, yet at least the world’s greatest statesman, its greatest
> economist, and its greatest spiritual teacher — those words are being studied
> with new insight and appreciation throughout all parts of America and Canada
> by followers of this Revelation.
> These followers are ordinarily designated as a detached interest under the
> name The Bahai Movement. The slightest appreciation of this Revelation,
> however, leads one to realize that the spirit of the
> 
> [page 28]
> 
> See chapter “Constructive Reading List.”
> See chapter “The Spirit of the Age.”
> age cannot be thus conveniently confined. The slight Bahai organization3
> which exists is, in comparison with the Revelation itself, only as body in
> comparison to soul. Obviously, the cosmically conscious person of to-day
> cannot accept any arbitrary, limiting classification. The basic principle of
> Abdul Baha’s teaching is: This is the Century of Spiritual Illumination. Its
> basic application is: Investigate Truth, Promote Peace, Proclaim the Oneness
> of Mankind.
> In the remainder of this essay the attempt will be made to realize the
> cosmic significance of these three extraordinary beings.
> 
> IV
> 
> “Wherefore, when He appeared, the foundations of nations trembled, the
> learned were bewildered and the wise men were confounded, save those who
> came near unto Thee, took from the hand of Favor the pure wine of Thy
> inspiration, and drank in Thy name, saying: Praise be unto Thee, Desire of the
> nations! Praise be unto Thee, Beloved of the hearts of the yearning!” —
> Baha’o’llah.
> 
> As the will of a man cannot be accurately revealed by any one of his
> actions, but only by studying the curve of actions described by his life as a
> 
> [page 29]
> 
> whole, so the Will of God, or if you prefer, cosmic Will, cannot be interpreted
> from any single event, nor from any series of events affecting one single area
> or portion of humanity; but that Will is revealed in its singleness, in its
> authority, in its grandeur and in its irresistible purpose, only in and through the
> entire historic sequence and development of mankind.
> In passing, therefore, let us note well this other most significant condition
> arrived at by mankind now for the first time — the condition of possessing at
> least an outline of human History, History valid for several thousand years and
> including something of the life which has been lived on all the continents and
> islands of the seven seas. For insofar as we can scrutinize that human History
> as a whole, to that extent, and only to that extent, do we have the right to claim
> that we at least hold in our grasp the only instrument really permitting us to
> begin investigating the divine or cosmic Will. He who would claim the right to
> define that Will from the History of one single race, or one single period, is as
> one who claims that he knows you and me perfectly from knowing one hour of
> our lives, or that he knows the ocean because he has passed by one sheltered
> bay. Forgive them for they know not what they do! Surely, not cosmic Will,
> but merely tribal or personal wilfulness, is that self-glorifying and illogically
> exclusive ‘purpose’ we have hitherto made History yield. And, indeed, while
> our age
> 
> [page 30]
> 
> has opened up the book of human History for the first time, our readings so far
> only warn us that the most important item of our knowledge is the admission
> 
> “The Bahai Movement is not an organization. You cannot organize the Bahai
> Movement. … The Bahai Movement is the spirit of this age.” — Abdul Baha.
> of the far off cycles which we do not know! For while the mysterious thread of
> human record leads at last to the ape, it leads to an ape found playing in the
> ruins of a Temple more impressive than the glories which were Greece, or the
> grandeur which is Rome.
> Therefore, as a source of knowledge about God, our fragments of History
> are worse than useless. From those fragments you may prove what you most
> care to prove. You may prove that every aspiration of the heart, every vision of
> the soul, has turned to dust and vanity; or you may prove that spiritual vision,
> right along, has guided, has strengthened, has rewarded the weary flesh of
> man.
> Once more — yea, once more, as you will find a thousand times repeated
> if you seek in ordinary human nature, in ordinary human knowledge, or in the
> physical universe, for some valid proof of God — once more, consulting
> History itself, we meet only our own reflection in the glass of life, hear only
> our own echo flung back from the solitary mountain, once more find
> affirmation and denial locked in each other’s arms as wrestlers perfectly
> matched.
> But perhaps in this very fact lies the answer to the mystery. For there is in
> the movement of the earth about the sun a very similar moment of suspension
> — a moment when, to some solitary watcher
> 
> [page 31]
> 
> of the skies, it might well seem doubtful whether the earth’s orbit was to
> straighten out in a line leading it forever away from the sun, or once more turn
> the terrible elliptic curve bringing the earth back to warmth, to light, to life.
> So, even though we do not possess the entire orbit of human History, we
> can at least hold it possible that a time like the present, when good and evil are
> so mysteriously matched, is a time corresponding to that moment in the
> movement of the earth. For mankind, clearly, so far as we can tell from the
> collective social will, is now perceptibly poised in that suspense which may
> mean regeneration, or may as readily mean eclipse.
> Of itself, at that farthest point from the sun, the earth’s momentum would
> impel it forever away into annihilating space. It is the sun’s power, the sun’s
> will, if we may call it so, which alone can overcome that momentum and
> restore the circle of the orbit of existence. Even so, by the authority of cosmic
> Will, has the evil momentum of the earth of consciousness, a momentum
> gathering greater and greater force through the ages, been overcome and
> turned back into the orbit of the Sun of Truth.
> Conceive of that tremendous being, El Bab, as the Herald of cosmic Will.
> His appearance in the world at this time is to be interpreted as meaning that
> human consciousness had reached the farthest point from God; and by his
> Manifestation a force was established, working upon the souls of men,
> 
> [page 32]
> 
> summoning them back upon the path of light and defining for humanity its true
> orbit toward spiritual enlightenment. No other hypothesis worthily interprets
> the character and influence of El Bab — even objectively the most impressive
> human being, in intuitive knowledge, in radiant love, in selfless sacrifice, in
> spiritual authority, who up to that moment had trod this earth in all the
> moments of recorded time. No other hypothesis, on the other hand, worthily
> interprets the character of events taking place throughout the world, renewing
> the life of the nations, since that hour of destiny, in 1844.
> Far down beneath all our modern skepticism, our unmoral
> “enlightenment,” our intelligent materialism, that cosmic Love penetrated,
> laying the foundations of the New Age. In the sacrifice that Love consciously
> accepted, the long waiting of all the saints and martyrs was fulfilled. The Day
> of God for which they were constant witnesses, drew to its dawn.
> Of El Bab, Baha’o’llah has said: “His station is greater than all the
> Prophets, and his mission loftier than the knowledge and comprehension of all
> the Holy Ones.”
> El Bab, like Abdul Baha, manifested from the Will which we call
> Baha’o’llah. For the sun does not draw near to the earth, but the earth draws
> near to the sun; and the Sun of Truth could not establish effects upon the
> collective human conscious-
> 
> [page 33]
> 
> ness until that consciousness had been prepared. The function of El Bab was to
> gather together and focus into one point the world’s capacity to receive the
> cosmic Will. By his Manifestation the earth of consciousness was carried into
> the direct influence of the Sun of Truth.
> Like a flash of divine lightning the brief existence of El Bab came and
> went, a mystery and an amazement to all people soever who looked upon that
> Love. Upon that Love the animal man directed its hate; but by his sacrifice the
> cosmic Purpose entered irrevocably into the life of the world. The effect of his
> Manifestation is concentrated into a single point, the first of the three cosmic
> Points which determine the plane of reality.
> To that Point converged the History of all peoples, the progress of all
> nations. For this Point, Paul became a witness. For this Point, Plato became a
> witness. For this Point, the pyramids were measured, the Zodiac hung to girdle
> Time. Unto this Point, Daniel laid off the measure of the days. Unto this Point,
> Ezekial laid off the measure of the Temple. Luther testified unto this Point. Of
> this Point Buddha meditated under the tree of spiritual wisdom.
> Before the emanation of this Point, History was naught but unintelligible
> chaos, without beginning, without ending, without purpose, without process,
> without form, without soul, save only as a secret to the few. After its
> emanation, History stands
> 
> [page 34]
> 
> clearly revealed, an orbit of the spiritual earth around the divine Sun. Ask of
> John, in the Apocalypse. Ask of Pythagoras, in the Tetrad. These and their
> peers from China to Yucatan arise to certify to him in whom the cosmic Will
> revealed the meaning of these days as the meeting of Science and Religion,
> henceforth forever inseparable, the stable and valid evidence of God in the
> creation of the world.
> 
> V
> 
> “The Sun of Truth is the Word of God, upon which depends the training of
> the people of the country of thought. It is the Spirit of Reality and the Water of
> Life. All things owe their existence to It. Its manifestation is ever according to
> the capacity and coloring of the mirror in which It may be reflected. For
> example: Its Light, when cast on the mirrors of the wise, gives expression to
> wisdom; when reflected from the minds of artists, It produces manifestations of
> new and beautiful arts; when It shines through the thoughts of students, It
> reveals knowledge and unfolds mysteries.” — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> By this time, surely, we can pause a moment and appreciate the power of
> this modern terminology, this cosmic terminology and symbolism which
> serves to-day as the supreme, perfect vehicle of
> 
> [page 35]
> 
> Truth.4 How much more impressive, how much more clear, how much more
> acceptable, is the interpretation of the mission of a spiritual being as the
> manifestation of the cosmic Love, turning back the earth of consciousness
> upon the true orbit, than the interpretation we had of John the Baptist as the
> inexplicable “forerunner” of Christ, when this same character and quality of
> events was enacted on a local scale!
> Now we need not “accept” any being, in the sense of personal
> superstitious adoration and blind obedience — rather is it our privilege to draw
> ever nearer and nearer the spiritual significance of the times in which we live.
> The “obedience,” the “acceptance” required by cosmic Revelation is entirely a
> matter of response to the inspiration of new and perfected knowledge of God.
> Thus, thanks to our cosmic terminology, we can realize in something of its
> fulness the meaning of the next act in the tremendous spiritual drama our age
> witnesses.
> For, just as the phenomenal sun is, as compared to the phenomenal earth,
> ever poised in the same place, ever emanating the same degree of heat and
> light — but the amount of that heat and light received by the earth is
> determined by the earth’s own
> 
> [page 36]
> 
> location with respect to the sun — so the spiritual sun, the Sun of Truth, has
> ever been equally powerful, equally valid, equally perceptible, equally creative
> with respect to Its own capacity, but as regards the earth of consciousness Its
> Light has been received with varying fullness at various times. Our orbit has at
> times drawn near, and at other times turned away. God has been at one time a
> clear fact to human consciousness, but at another time been merely an empty
> term.
> Therefore, when the cosmic Love had served to turn the earth of
> consciousness back into the orbit of approach from the orbit of recession, the
> cosmic Reality,5 the cosmic Purpose, stood clearly revealed. In Baha’o’llah the
> Sun of Truth manifested — the Glory of God, the supreme Divine
> Manifestation for this plane, sent forth its creative rays upon the earth of
> consciousness in their direct fullness, since now that earth has drawn again
> into the sphere of their cosmic influence. The winter of doubt has become the
> summer of assurance. The night of ignorance has become the dawn of wisdom
> around the entire world in the soul of man.
> To understand somewhat of that Sun of Truth let us measure its power by
> the spiritual rays received by the earth of consciousness since 1863,
> 
> “Everything in the spiritual world corresponds to something in the world of nature.
> For example, electrical magnetism is the natural force which corresponds to the
> spiritual power, love.” — Abdul Baha.
> Baha’o’llah’s Station is the station of: Be, and it is! Thus he laid down the creative
> principles, not as Knowledge, though in the form of knowledge, but as Will.
> [page 37]
> 
> confirming the “great awakening” dated by the Manifestation of El Bab, in
> 1844.
> Innumerable are the “rays” which even materialistic History must
> acknowledge have revealed their light and warmth in these past seventy or
> eighty years.
> The uniformity of cosmic law has been established by rational science and
> philosophy.6 Human slavery has been abolished. The long racial hope of the
> Jews approaches its magnificent realization.7 Christian Science has grown to
> powerful proportions.8 H. P. Blavatsky has transmitted from their secret hiding
> places the lost Esoteric Sciences.9 The movement for World Peace is
> irrevocably begun — an essential aspect of the rise of modern Industry.10
> Kings and emperors have lost their ancient and supreme thrones. The Pope has
> lost his temporal authority. Women have rapidly arisen to the station of perfect
> equality with men. Psychic Research has become an authoritative science.
> Submerged economic groups press determinedly on for their right to
> education, responsibility and recreation. As many more “rays” might be
> mentioned. Enough, surely, have been mentioned to
> 
> [page 38]
> 
> show clearly enough that the earth of consciousness has been bathed in the
> Light of some spiritual Sun.
> Now comparatively few people, probably, registered in full consciousness
> the First Point, the manifestation of Love. Probably few people have
> consciously registered the manifestation of divine Will, the Second Point, the
> “rising of the Sun of Truth” — even though the evidences of that Sun are
> everywhere clear as day. So it might appear that nothing of all this Revelation
> has actually happened: it might be merely the result of a general race
> evolution, a diffusion of new and superior knowledge from the operation of
> human will and human understanding alone.
> Or so it might appear, at least, if we studied this miraculous situation from
> the point of view of any one “ray.” The perfection of the objective sciences
> can be explained in terms of the intelligent efforts of certain men. Likewise the
> development of the woman’s suffrage movement can be shown to derive from
> certain definite individual leaders. In exactly the same way, taking the rest of
> these extraordinary new manifestations of cosmic consciousness one by one,
> we can easily eliminate the divine element and base them upon the human
> element alone. But who would gain any slightest appreciation of the power of
> the physical sun if he shut himself within a darkened room and let that sun
> shine in upon him through the narrowest aperture, one ray at a time?
> 
> [page 39]
> 
> It is because we have considered these modern movements in that limited
> way, each separated from the others, all separated from the whole, that we
> have failed to recognize them as emanations from one Source, rays, as it were,
> cast by one and the same Sun of Truth. The darkness of our consciousness has
> 
> See Appendix, under Science.
> See Appendix, Judaism.
> See Appendix, under Christian Science and New Thought.
> See Appendix, under Theosophy.
> See Appendix, under Politics and Economics.
> limited the effects of that Divine Sun. But only let them pour in upon the soul
> collectively — only emerge from that darkness of mind and heart — only
> realize how in Baha’o’llah the Glory of their combined force and energy was
> manifested — then their power will dazzle the mind. For these mighty and
> revolutionary social movements of the last and present generation are each but
> a single ray emanating from the Sun behind all the suns, the Sun of
> Righteousness, the Sun we call reverently The Glory of God.
> Moreover, as our cosmic terminology makes so clear, the sun is not only
> limited by the relative position of the earth as a whole, — it is also limited by
> the keenness of the individual person’s eyes. If the eyes be blind, the brightest
> summer sun can pour down its mightiest light, yet to that sightless person no
> sun will nor ever can exist. The deadening of a single sensitive nerve center
> has the effect of shutting out the solar illumination on which an entire
> planetary system depends. How much more is the light of Truth made darkness
> and rejection by the deadening of the sensitive centers of the soul!
> For those who have within them the eye of spirit-
> 
> [page 40]
> 
> ual vision, the cosmic power manifested in Baha’o’llah is perceptible enough.
> They carry in their own conscious souls the valid proof of God. They require
> neither theology nor metaphysics, neither priest nor professor, to inform them
> that God is. They are themselves one with God, in the sense that the eye is one
> with the light that enters it.
> Of such was that wonderful woman who arose in the night from her bed,
> moved by a force she could not explain, and wrote as from dictation that line
> which has become the freedom song of millions of people — that line which
> then seemed metaphor, but now is fact: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the
> coming of the Lord! Aye, to the eye that is open comes its own beam of the
> revealing Sun. The Glory of God was known in its coming to every soul
> possessing the faculty of vision.
> Of such was that other American, that Plato, eloquent in the eternal
> porticos of truth, — Emerson. In the very twilight of this Spiritual Day he
> discerned the imminent dawn. “But when a faithful thinker, resolute to detach
> every object from personal relations and see it in the light of thought, shall, at
> the same time, kindle science with the fire of the holiest affections, then will
> God go forth anew into the creation.”
> Discoverer in the West of the Oversoul, that state of supreme being which
> the East had known for ages under the misinterpreted name of Nirvana,
> Emerson seems now to have been the first man in
> 
> [page 41]
> 
> whom ordinary people could see science and religion met, blended and
> become one; a faithful disciple of cosmic Truth while yet that Truth was a sun
> unrisen to the sluggard consciousness of man.11
> Emerson, in fact, gives us the key with which science can unlock the
> mysteries of the cosmos, the key whose use is proof that the analogy employed
> in this book for the purpose of explaining the Cosmic Trinity rests upon a
> foundation far more substantial than metaphor or figure of speech: “Yet when
> 
> Recall Walt Whitman’s magnificent “I am the acme of things accomplished, I the
> container of things to be!” For an impressive record of human progress during this
> time, read The Century of Hope, by F. S. Marvin, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
> this spiritual light shall have revealed the law of more earthly natures — when
> he has learned to worship the soul, and to see that the natural philosophy that
> now is, is only the first gropings of its gigantic hand, he shall look forward to
> an ever expanding knowledge as to a becoming creator. He shall see that
> nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part. One is seal and
> one is print. Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind. Its laws are the laws of
> his own mind. Nature then becomes to him the measure of his attainments.
> …In fine, the ancient precept Know thyself, and the modern precept Study
> nature, become at last one maxim.”
> Of such, too, were many, many others in all parts of the world, each
> testifying in his own words
> 
> [page 42]
> 
> and from his own experience to the daylight that was beginning to flood the
> earth of consciousness.
> There is no time nor need here to list them all. Baha’o’llah has said, “I
> have filled all the countries with My proofs, were ye of those who are just!”
> Turn back yourself to the History of the Protestant Church, and realize how
> universal was the conviction that this was the “time of the end.” No such
> trouble has fallen upon men’s souls in our hemisphere since that “Gothic fear”
> descended upon Europe centuries ago, that fear of Judgment which thus
> negatively testified to the divine authority of Mohamet, whose shadows fell
> across these heedless lands. For that spiritual Sun, at each of its risings, is
> invisible to the physical eye. Its proofs are not manifest to those who look only
> with the animal mind.
> Now as my purpose is only to suggest how perfectly we may apply the
> new cosmic terminology to the understanding of this new cosmic Truth, I
> cannot pause here to mention any of the human and historical facts concerning
> Baha’o’llah, confirmative though they are of His Manifestation in the Orb of
> the Sun of Truth. To the objective consciousness Baha’ollah was but a forty
> year’s prisoner in a vile Turkish dungeon. Yet even this apparently impossible
> degradation of divine, or cosmic power, serves as a significant guide post in
> our inquiry after spiritual truth. For the physical destiny and circumstances of
> each of the world’s Manifestations
> 
> [page 43]
> 
> of God, each Christ, each Buddha, each Moses, is a perfect symbol of the
> spiritual condition of the world at the time and place He manifests. Christ was
> crucified because the soul’s consciousness of love was then crucified in the
> majority of mankind. Baha’o’llah underwent this confinement to show us how
> vile is the confinement we ourselves have imposed upon the Glory in our own
> souls. The utmost universality of power and truth and love is proved by the
> very outward physical humility which leads so many people to reject any and
> every Manifestation of God.
> For even from that prison, Baha’o’llah sent forth the Creative Word to all
> lands, an ocean of utterance containing what the cosmic Will has established
> as the reality of all things during the next universal cycle; the new Bible for the
> new, spiritually conscious and united race.
> 
> VI
> “The Word is the Fire of God which, glowing in the hearts of people,
> burns away all things that are not of God. The minds of the lovers are ever
> aflame with this fire. It is the essence of water, which has manifested itself in
> the form of fire. Outwardly it is the burning fire, while inwardly it is calm
> light. This is the Water that giveth Life to all things.”
> — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> The heart of the race has carried up from very ancient times a most
> unusual association of ideas
> 
> [page 44]
> 
> with the rainbow. The rainbow, for apparently no good reason, has been
> considered a symbol of divine promise, a cosmic record of the Covenant of
> God with man.
> 
> This, with many other so-called “superstitions,” has been rigorously
> explained away by modern physical science. The rainbow, declares the
> physicist, is nothing but the refraction of the sun’s rays through myriad drops
> of water held in suspense by the earth’s atmosphere. And so declaring, finding
> the rainbow nothing but a phenomenon which he himself can reproduce in his
> own laboratory, the physicist turns away to discuss more useful things.
> But let us approach this apparently simple fact with the more sensitive
> apparatus provided by our cosmic terminology.
> The sun, we know, shines upon the moon as brightly as upon the earth.
> But the moon is a dead planet, while the earth teems with every variety of life.
> What is the difference? Obviously, the one difference is that the earth has an
> atmosphere, while the moon has none. The earth’s atmosphere transmutes the
> sun’s rays — its invisible heat rays — into a quite different element from fire
> and air — the new element water. Hence the rain which, acting in connection
> with the sun’s light, germinates the seed which links together the mysterious
> chain of existence.
> How does this apply to the Sun of Truth? How is this a proof of God?
> 
> [page 45]
> 
> Let us realize how few people, comparatively speaking, can perceive Love
> directly as a light in the inmost heart. Few of us are as Emerson, able to
> discern the Sun about to arise in the twilight of morning stars. Cosmic Will
> and cosmic Love, so far, remain the bounty only of the chosen few. But let us
> now extend the influence of that cosmic Sun upon existence, just as we have
> already extended the action of the physical sun in its function of producing
> rain.
> In Abdul Baha, according to our cosmic science, we have the Third Point,
> Knowledge, which together with the Point of Love, and the Point of Will,
> determines the plane of consciousness.
> Abdul Baha manifested to surround the earth of consciousness with a
> spiritual atmosphere. This atmosphere translates the Light of Truth into the
> Water of Life.12 This atmosphere is the “Most Great Bounty,” the “Mystery of
> God” making our modern Revelation entirely universal, a divine Cause raised
> 
> The Water of Life is that spiritual understanding by which man is able to grow
> conscious of cosmic Will, to live therefore according to his own cosmic Reality.
> above names and forms, destined to become the very foundation of human
> existence in all lands.
> For here we return to that instinctive spiritual faith which has never
> entirely left the race, even under the scourge of famine, the catastrophe of
> 
> [page 46]
> 
> flood, the abomination of war and the oppression of poverty. Like a seed
> buried deep in the earth of consciousness this faith that somehow, sometime,
> man was and once more will be divine — this spiritual seed has persisted from
> generation to generation, as potent in the heart of a savage as in the heart of a
> king, but a dry seed, an unfertilized seed, a seed hungering and thirsting for
> that Water of Life which should burst the seed open and disclose at last the
> flower of love and the fruit of perfection it always and forever contained. Thus
> is the reverence for the rainbow justified by this new cosmic science, since in
> the rainbow is the assurance of the rain, and in the rain is the assurance of the
> seed.
> Think now of Abdul Baha not merely as the wisest being who ever
> walked among men — not merely as the supreme visible exemplar of the
> power of unity so inexhaustible that it unites both East and West, both rich and
> poor, both black and white, both ignorant and learned in one outpouring
> devotion and inspiration — think now of Abdul Baha as the manifestation of
> cosmic Knowledge, bringing to the earth of consciousness that surrounding
> atmosphere able to transform the sterile moon of thought into a fertile world of
> joy, of peace, of true prosperity, of constant progress, of firmly knit cooperation and service which shall truly reveal God as the Lord of all.
> In the words of Abdul Baha himself, “The con-
> 
> [page 47]
> 
> firmations of the Spirit are pouring like spring rains upon all parts of the
> world.”
> And thus it is, since 1892, when Abdul Baha manifested this station of
> universal Knowledge, the Most Great Bounty, the human heart has revived,
> become more aware of its own divine possibilities, made terrific efforts to
> emerge from the prison of the seed into the freedom and beauty and
> fruitfulness of the tree. Religious prejudices have grown weaker. Class
> prejudices have grown weaker. That which was alien and unfriendly has more
> and more come to seem familiar and acceptable. Proposals like woman’s
> political rights, a universal language, an international health bureau, have
> become vital problems instead of — in comparison with the past’s five
> thousand years — utterly unbelievable hopes. The entire political and
> economic structure of the world reels and staggers, conscious that some
> irresistible power is working to transform it from within. Proposals are made
> every day, proposals which imply knowledge of the laws of co-operation
> unimaginable even fifty years ago. Once again, new wine cannot be poured
> into the old containers.
> On the other hand, we have just emerged from the World War. We have
> entered a period of deep-rooted economic disturbance. It is easier than ever
> before in modern times, perhaps, to banish hope and anticipate the reign of
> evil.
> Does our cosmic terminology, our scientific anal-
> 
> [page 48]
> ogy, answer this difficult objection? Indeed, it answers this objection as clearly
> as it answered the objection of the person who could not realize the Sun
> because of his own blinded vision.
> For the bounty of the rain, likewise, is conditional upon a human factor:
> the cultivation of the soil. There are stony places, desert places, where the rain
> falls but these places bloom not. But if the Divine Seed was deposited in every
> human heart at the beginning of the world, it was laid there with this warning:
> Cursed is the soil for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
> thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; in the sweat of thy brow
> shalt thou eat bread.
> Idlest of child legends to those who refer these words to material earth, to
> material bread, to men of insight who know instinctively that earth of
> consciousness, and bread of spiritual understanding was designated by this
> cosmic symbolism, the words are significant now above all ancient Words. For
> how and why do some deny spiritual truth, unless they have failed to “toil”
> faithfully upon the earth of consciousness in time or times past, have failed to
> keep out the thorns and thistles, that the divine seed might grow? And how and
> why do others, though so few, turn faithfully to every Manifestation of God as
> he appears, unless these few have toiled, have cultivated, have eaten of the
> bread that nourishes and strengthens the soul?
> 
> [Page 49]
> 
> On the whole, has that warning been heeded? Yet how can the water of
> Life penetrate and burst open the divine seed where the soil has not been
> cultivated, where the thistles are, the thistles and the stones?
> 
> So, clearly, God is to the man of insight. God is to the man of conscious
> aspiration, though that man be the poor fisherman or the untutored shepherd.
> Can God be to him who has neither insight nor aspiration? The Light of Truth
> shines upon him in vain. The Water of Life descends upon him in vain. Thus
> will religion continue to be the reality of the few, the superstition of the many,
> as religion hitherto has always been?
> If we accept the cosmic significance of the divine Will, the Will drawing
> the earth of consciousness back into the orbit of Reality, we can admit no
> obstacle in human will strong enough to negate God’s purpose with His own
> creation. So we may look further and realize another cosmic mystery at work
> — the mystery of pain.
> Abdul Baha has declared that every man must accept his life with radiant
> acquiescence. How can this be, if life is so much pain: pain of sickness, pain of
> misfortune, pain of loneliness, pain of misunderstanding, pain of frustration,
> pain of old age, pain of death?
> But let us not regard pain any longer from the personal point of view, the
> point of view of animal self-preservation. Cosmically, pain is the plow
> 
> [page 50]
> 
> that cultivates the neglected earth of consciousness. Pain accomplishes for a
> man that which he himself has neglected. Pain opens the earth of
> consciousness that the Divine Seed may be fertilized by the Water of Life.
> Pain clears away ruthlessly the thorns and thistles that choke the life of the
> grain whose fruit is the bread of knowledge. Pain is the last and supreme
> manifestation of cosmic mystery in the world of man — that mystery that even
> the animal man, even the perverted man, even the intellectualist, hard and
> unyielding as granite, can and shall eventually acknowledge in himself, by
> himself, for himself that verily there is no God save He!
> So it is we cannot, we who grow aware of this cosmic Trinity, cannot join
> with those who declare that pain and poverty are mere errors of “mind.”
> Knowing that pain and poverty are unrealities for him who has truly attained
> the fulness of spiritual rebirth and maturity, we yet for ourselves still accept
> pain in humility as a sign that the earth of consciousness still requires
> cultivation. Not by the measure of our own will, but by the measure of the
> cosmic Will, do we desire our lives to be ordered. How can we tell how much
> we have failed to husband the Divine Seed? How can we tell how much the
> earth of consciousness requires cultivation? Is not any and all self-satisfaction
> the evidence of spiritual death? Therefore is pain in each and every form a
> cosmic index, referring each and every
> 
> [page 51]
> 
> man to the full measure of the possibility of his further progress.
> And this plow of pain drives deep furrows across the world to-day. The
> War was such a plowing. The economic crisis is such a plowing. Those who in
> good times and easy circumstances would make no slightest effort to
> investigate cosmic Reality, but would be content with animal reality — they
> are being driven, step by step, to a point where they perforce needs make a
> new and positive inquiry of themselves and the cosmos in which they live.13
> For the all-dominant Will has been established: “I will that My Light be
> perfected.” The innate virtues of man are now to appear — man’s true station
> is to become manifest.
> 
> VII
> 
> “The greatest attainment of man is universal love, for this love is the
> magnet which renders existence eternal, attracts the powers of reality, and
> suffuses life with infinite joy. If this love penetrates the heart of man, all the
> forces of the universe will be realised in him, for it is a divine power which
> endows him with a divine station; and man will make no real
> 
> [page 52]
> 
> progress until he is illumined with this love. …Alas, alas! the world has not yet
> discovered the reality of religion hidden beneath the symbolic forms!” —
> Abdul Baha.
> 
> We all recognize the physical law that a limb or faculty develops through
> exercise, but atrophies through neglect or non-exertion or indifference. This
> simple principle may now be restated as follows: that a limb or faculty must
> give out all the energy it receives, or else the supply of energy will be cut off.
> So stated, it is easy to perceive that this law is the very foundation of that new
> 
> “All the people of the world are in the sleep of negligence. They have forgotten God
> altogether. They are all busy in war and strife. They are undergoing misery and
> destruction. Like unto loathsome worms, they are trying to lodge in the depths of the
> ground, while a single flood of rain sweeps all their nest and lodging away.
> Nevertheless they do not come to their senses.” — Abdul Baha.
> instinct now arising throughout the world, that new instinct or attitude we call
> “service.”
> The instinct to heed the call to service is thus an unconscious recognition
> that only “service” gives out spiritual energy (conscious love) in a manner
> which keeps open the sources of that energy. For every service implies at least
> a small degree of self-forgetfulness, or severance from the physical
> personality, and unbars the door to cosmic force.
> Looking at this fact from a more general point of view another condition
> also appears: namely, that service tends to realize on the visible material plane
> a condition perfectly reflecting the cosmic force the service derives from. And
> when such conditions are realized, then proofs of the advantage of so doing are
> established which not only reinforce the doer’s own efforts, but bring to his
> efforts the services of others who have been stirred and at-
> 
> [page 53]
> 
> traded by those proofs. It is the old story over again, of building a dynamo to
> study the Electricity, and then from the new facts about Electricity thus
> acquired, of building a new and superior dynamo.
> The dynamo as it were which both draws upon and, at the same time,
> permits more understanding of cosmic Reality, is the spiritualized human
> consciousness. But one consciousness by itself, in its effects upon the world, is
> a small and weak dynamo, while unity is the most tremendous dynamo that
> can be imagined.
> Therefore Abdul Baha defines the great cosmic law of spiritual growth in
> a twofold form. He says that cosmic Reality unfolds in a life to the degree that
> a life functions service14 and he says that the greatest possible service any life
> can render is to assist in the promotion of human unity and solidarity — to
> break down the present barriers of creed, race, class and language: which is to
> promote the Divine Civilization.
> The declaration that a Divine Civilization can and will be established by
> the collective efforts of the leaders of mankind at its present cycle is the all-
> 
> [page 54]
> 
> inclusive principle, the most abundant inspiration, derived from a study of the
> works of Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha. Not that they deem the earth-life the
> real existence of man, but that they lay down the basic axiom, “all progress of
> the Spirit is made on this plane.”15
> 
> “There is no such thing as self-development; the power of the Spirit only comes
> through serving others. …To-day if you teach a person, it is as though you had
> resurrected a dead soul into life. It is as though you had changed stone into a
> diamond. It is as though you had transmuted metals into gold, devils into angels, or
> animals into men.” — Abdul Baha.
> “In the beginning of his life man was in the matrix of the world. There he obtained
> capacity and preparation for this world. …In this world he needs eyes: he received
> them potentially in the other world. He needs ears — therefore he obtained them in
> the world of the matrix. …When man came to this world he found all the necessary
> forces ready, all his needs for material sustenance provided. Likewise in this world
> also he must prepare himself and become ready for the life hereafter. That which he
> needs in the world of the Kingdom he must obtain here. …In that world there is need
> of radiance, therefore radiance must be acquired in this world. In that world
> spirituality, faith, assurance, the knowledge and love of God are essential. These he
> must acquire here.” — Abdul Baha.
> This Divine Civilization — a social order perfectly reflecting cosmic
> Reality instead of the animal reality — is the gift or service, however, of our
> advanced, cosmic souls to those souls still immersed in physical self. It is not
> the triumph of human will — for human will has already proved itself the
> destroyer and not the creator of Civilization. It is the healing which the
> enlightened souls are to provide for those still bewildered by pain. It is the
> responsibility of enlightened souls — their cosmic payment, as it were, for the
> bounty they themselves have received through the continual sacrifice
> undertaken by the divine Manifestations.
> 
> [page 55]
> 
> For it is only reasonable to suppose that what we have called “The Cosmic
> Trinity” corresponds to a threefold spiritual reality in man, in ourselves.
> Now man has usually been described as a trinity of soul, mind and body.
> This “triangle” is known and accepted as the reality of man throughout the
> world. But in the statements of Abdul Baha — the statements defining what
> has been established as human reality for the present new cycle — the trinity
> mind, soul and body is changed to a higher trinity — soul, mind and spirit.
> The physical body, in other words, is no longer to be accepted as
> establishing any aspect or portion of the reality of man. It now becomes for
> man merely the vehicle, the dry husk, in which the essential spiritual fruit
> ripens. Therefore Abdul Baha has said: “Live in the body as if you had no
> body.”
> Let us determine the positive meaning in these words. From now on,16 the
> physical life of emotion, and that low thought which is the slave of emotion,
> has been relegated to a lower world, the world of the non-cosmic perishable
> man. To-day the cosmic world is the only world habitable by that order of
> being worthy the title man.
> 
> [page 56]
> 
> But it is impossible to imagine existence in any of the worlds of God
> without something corresponding to the physical body in the animal world.
> What, then, is to be termed the “body” fit for existence in cosmic reality, when
> this flesh body dies? From other statements of Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha, I
> take it to be individualized cosmic consciousness — a body or vehicle
> composed of abstract, impersonal, spiritualized thought, the kind of thought
> which constitutes the true meditative faculty.
> For it is by meditation17 that the mind turns from physical desire and the
> thoughts emanating from physical desire, and gradually creates a new thoughtbody from the conscious substance (the “radiance”) of which the cosmic world
> is composed.
> The condition is clearly stated by Abdul Baha, and can be summarized as
> follows: a mineral element cannot rise above the mineral plane unless
> assimulated by a vegetable organism. A vegetable element cannot rise above
> the vegetable plane unless assimulated by an animal organism. An animal
> 
> During a cycle, so far as the whole race is concerned, of between four and five
> hundred thousand years: the interval, according to Abdul Baha, between two
> Universal Manifestations. Approximately four hundred thousand years, then, is the
> difference between the truly cosmic man and the animal man who is the average today. “Time is the distance between two states of consciousness.”
> “You cannot apply the name man to any being devoid of this faculty of meditation.”
> — Abdul Baha. (See Chapter, Two Bahai Documents.)
> element cannot rise above the animal plane unless assimulated by a human
> being. The human being is composed of the three lower planes or kingdoms,
> with their attributes, plus a new attribute, — intellect or reason. Even as such,
> the human being is entirely mortal until assimulated into the next
> 
> [page 57]
> 
> higher plane, or cosmic plane, or plane of Reality. But man cannot ascend into
> this plane of his own effort any more than a mineral element can become
> vegetable of its own effort, or an animal element can become human of its own
> effort. Abdul Baha says: “All phenomena can be divided into two classes, that
> which eats and that which is eaten.” Now the Body, as it were, into which the
> human being must be assimulated in order to become spiritual and immortal, is
> Divine Love. But Divine Love is only brought to man by the Manifestations of
> God. It is through faith in the Manifestations of God that man becomes
> immortal, attains Reality — and through these alone18. Imagine a world
> without animals: in that world a vegetable element could never ascend. In the
> same way, a world without the Manifestation of God is a world in which man
> could never ascend. Man would be no more than a “thinking animal,”
> inconstant, unreal, perishable. The sacrifice by which the Higher takes on the
> flesh of the lower, bringing to man the opportunity of being assimulated into
> that Higher, is the “Way,” the “Truth” and the “Life.” To reject that
> Manifestation is to reject Life. Hence
> 
> [page 58]
> 
> do the Manifestations come in each cycle, and come again and again, that all
> men may have the opportunity of choice, of exercising free will. He who
> desires immortality may have it; and he who desires it not will never have it
> thrust upon him! In Abdul Baha’s words: “All is subject to generation,
> corruption, disintegration and change, except the spirit of faith, which hath
> both restitution and return.” In other words, the physical act of eating, whereby
> animal becomes man, merely reflects the Manifestation’s devotion to man, or
> the desire to elevate man; and on the part of man himself, faith in the
> Manifestation is equivalent to the “being eaten” which elevates man.
> The parable of the new wine that cannot be poured into old bottles has two
> meanings, an outer meaning and an inner meaning. The outer meaning is that
> each successive Revelation brings into the world a spiritual power whose
> expression requires new social institutions; whence the disintegration of
> society, and its consequent integration on a higher plane, with every divine
> Prophet.
> But facts apply outwardly merely because they first apply to the spiritual
> constitution of man himself. Thus the real meaning of the above parable is that
> the Creative Word cannot be contained in the human being as the human being
> is in his physical state. The “old bottle” is man himself, until man has
> transferred his consciousness from the physical plane of emotional brainconsciousness to
> 
> [page 59]
> 
> “Certain people believe that the virtues of humanity are obtainable through personal
> capacity alone, but it is evident that unless the Divine Grace descends, no fruit will be
> produced.” — Abdul Baha. But on the cosmic plane, faith is not a form of obligation
> — it is the supreme privilege. Faith is to the soul as sunlight to the flower, as ocean to
> the fish. True faith is that consciousness which accompanies love.
> the real human plane of intuitional mind-consciousness.
> Now while the purpose of this book is strictly limited to the one intention
> of indicating where the Truth may be found, for those who desire to find the
> Truth, something may perhaps be added here concerning the real, essential
> nature of man and the true relation between man and what we call the Prophet,
> Manifestation or Master.
> In the same way as the parable of the new wine has two meanings, so
> there are two meanings in the idea of the “seven days of creation.” The outer
> meaning here is that of seven cycles — but time, on the spiritual plane, always
> indicates states of consciousness or being. Thus the inner significance of the
> seven creational days is that man is composed of seven aspects or principles,
> one aspect or principle predominating in each cycle.
> As man appears to-day, he is manifesting the fourth aspect or principle —
> the aspect which is midway between the two extremes.
> That is, below man there are three planes or kingdoms — mineral,
> vegetable and animal — and above man there are likewise three planes or
> kingdoms.19 Man has passed upward in his physical consciousness and identity
> through the three lower kingdoms, and is a synthesis of the qualities of
> 
> [page 60]
> 
> mineral, vegetable and animal. Man’s intelligence is the “meeting place” of
> four “realities:” mineral, vegetable, animal and rational human. But man has
> potentially another consciousness, the “heart consciousness,” which is the
> “meeting place” of four very different “realities:” the spiritual human, the
> lowest of the four, and three others to which the spiritual human state leads.
> Functioning as he is midway between the two extremes of spirit and
> matter, with consciousness habitually turned downward to the three lower
> kingdoms, man of himself cannot ascend into his own divine Reality save
> through what Abdul Baha calls the “spirit of faith.”
> The manner in which the spirit of faith — faith in the Manifestation of
> God — causes man to ascend from the natural to the spiritual consciousness,
> will appear from Abdul Baha’s analogy: “Compared to the vegetable kingdom,
> the mineral kingdom is dead, but a mineral element ascends to the vegetable
> condition when consumed by a vegetable organism. Compared to the animal
> kingdom, the vegetable kingdom is dead, but a vegetable element ascends to
> the animal condition when consumed by an animal organism. Compared to the
> human kingdom, the animal kingdom is dead, but an animal element ascends
> to the human condition when consumed by a human organism. In the same
> way, the human kingdom is dead compared to the spiritual kingdom, but a
> human being ascends to
> 
> [page 61]
> 
> that spiritual kingdom when consumed by the fire of the love of God.” This
> being “consumed” is, for man, dependent on his own volition, for alone of the
> visible creation, man has free will.
> But the Manifestation of God, Who comes to this plane in order to awaken
> in man this spirit of faith, this fire of the love of God, does not represent an
> arbitrary external force or principle, but on the contrary, what the
> 
> Abdul Baha calls them The Supreme Concourse, the Abha Kingdom, and Christ’s
> House of Many Mansions.
> Manifestation makes manifest is man’s own spiritual Reality. Baha’o’llah
> says: “Whosoever knows himself, knows his Lord.” When one becomes
> obedient to the Prophet, one becomes obedient to one’s own higher Self.20
> In man to-day, therefore, as always, there is potentially a thought-body
> suitable to embody the perfections which the Manifestation discloses. This
> thought-body is the “new bottle” and these perfections are the “new wine.”
> This spiritual body is not given to man merely as the consequence of physical
> death, but man acquires it only as the result of his own voluntary dying in the
> physical self and rebirth in the spiritual Self.
> Consequently the physical personality which is not “consumed by the fire
> of the love of God” has no immortality, for man is as the animal plus reason,
> and reason in itself has no immortal essence.
> 
> [page 62]
> 
> Reason is but the instrument by which the will can select that which it prefers
> to obey — nature or God.
> Evolution, to be understood, must be traced in two separate lines: the
> evolution of spirit downward, and the evolution of matter upward.21 These two
> lines meet in man — when man by the spirit of faith raises himself from the
> animal condition to the true human condition. Spirit evolves downward in
> order to acquire identity. Matter evolves upward in order to establish this
> identity for spirit. Thus the man who undergoes “rebirth” has carried identity
> to the plane of Reality, whereby he becomes immortal in that identity. The life
> not accomplishing this essential purpose of existence is not lost as to Reality,
> but is lost as to its own personality — for personality is the negative pole of
> identity. The non-spiritualized personality disintegrates, whereupon the Reality
> continues its evolution through a new physical vehicle. The popular idea of
> “Reincarnation” is untrue, because it glorifies the physical personality. On the
> other hand, a continuity does exist from personality to personality, but it exists
> entirely from and in the spiritual Self.
> 
> [page 63]
> 
> It is this continuity — absolutely unknowable to our physical, personal
> consciousness — which determines every man’s character and experience in
> accordance with his own (spiritual) Will. Thus there is no injustice in the
> world, since each of us suffers or enjoys that which each one requires in
> accordance with his own volitional destiny. But this aspect of existence, in the
> Bahai Teaching, is constantly merged into another aspect: the oneness of
> humanity.
> This question of immortality before as well as after physical existence on
> this planet is significantly handled by Abdul Baha in the following brief
> explanation. “These spirits (vegetable, animal and human) are not reckoned as
> Spirit in the terminology of the Scriptures and the usage of the people of Truth,
> 
> “Until man knows God he is deprived of knowing himself, for man must first
> comprehend the Light of the Sun, and through the Light witness himself. Without
> light, nothing is seen.” — Abdul Baha.
> “There is reincarnation of matter, and there is reincarnation of spirit. Reincarnation
> of matter is the process whereby matter is developed or evolved through its service as
> the substance of series of developing material forms. Reincarnation of spirit is the
> process whereby spirit develops or evolves through its association with these forms.
> …The evolution of spirit proceeds co-ordinately with the evolution of matter.” —
> Abdul Baha.
> inasmuch as the laws governing them are the same as the laws which govern
> all other phenomenal being with respect to generation and corruption and
> change and reversion, as is clearly indicated in the Gospel where it says ‘Let
> the dead bury their dead.’ ‘That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
> which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.’
> “In brief, for these three spirits there is no restitution or return, but they
> are subject to reversion and generation and corruption.
> “But the Spirit of Faith, which is of the kingdom of God, consists of the
> all-comprehending grace and the perfect attainment, the power of sanctity and
> the divine effulgence from the Sun of Truth on
> 
> [page 64]
> 
> luminous, light-seeking essences, from the presence of Divine Unity. And by
> this Spirit is the life of the spirit of man, when it is fortified thereby, as Christ
> (to whom be Glory!) saith: ‘That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.’ And this
> Spirit hath both restitution and return, inasmuch as it consists of the light of
> God and the unconditioned grace. So, having regard to this state and station,
> Christ announced that John the Baptist was Elias ‘who was for to come’ before
> Christ. And the likeness of this station is as of lamps lighted one from another:
> for these, in respect to their glasses and oil-holders, are different, but in respect
> to their light, One, and in respect to their illumination, One — nay, each is
> identical with the other, without imputation of plurality, or diversity, or
> multiplicity, or separateness.
> “This is the truth, and beyond the truth there is only error.”
> Baha’o’llah says: “In this valley (plane of spiritual development) through
> absolute vision, a traveler does not see in God’s creation any difference or
> contradiction. …He will see justice in injustice, and witness grace in justice;
> he will find many a knowledge concealed in ignorance and realize a hundred
> thousand wisdoms, manifest and evident, in knowledges. He will break the
> cage of body and desire, and be attached to the spirit of the people of
> immortality. …If he experiences any oppression he will endure it with
> patience,
> 
> [page 65]
> 
> and if he sees any wrath he will show forth affection. …As the travelers in the
> Garden of Knowledge see the end from the beginning, they therefore find
> peace in war and reconciliation in estrangement! …
> “He sees no commendation, name or dignity of himself; he sees his own
> commendation in the commendation of the True One, and beholds the Name
> of the True One in his own name. …
> “All the differences which the traveler sees in the world of Being, during
> the various stages of his journey, are due to the vision of the traveler himself.
> “Consider the phenomenal sun which shines forth on all existent and
> contingent beings with the same effulgence, and pours light upon all things by
> the command of the King of Manifestation. But its appearance in every place,
> and the light it sheds thereon, is in accord with the degree of the capacity of
> that place. For instance — in a mirror it reflects as forms and disks, and this is
> due to the clearness of the mirror itself. It creates fire in the crystal, while on
> other things only the effect of its reflection is manifest and not its disk; and
> through that effect, it develops everything according to the capacity of that
> thing, by the command of the Causer of effects, even as you see. …And if the
> place is confronted by an obstacle, such as walls or ceiling, that place is
> entirely bereft of the splendor of the sun, and the sun does not shine thereon.
> 
> [page 66]
> 
> “Thus, some of the weak souls, having enclosed the earth of Knowledge
> within the wall of self and desire, and within the veil of heedlessness and
> blindness, are therefore screened from the effulgence of the Sun of
> Significances and the mysteries of the Eternal, Beloved One. …This is the
> state of the people of the age!
> “It is due to such a view of things that conflict is stirred up among
> mankind, and a gloomy dust arising from men of limitation, has enveloped the
> world. …Mysteries are many, and strangers are countless. Knowledge is but
> one point, but the ignorant have multiplied it.”
> Thus we perceive the final meeting of Science and Religion in the
> Universal Manifestation of Baha’o’llah, perfected in the devotion of Abdul
> Baha — the final meeting of those two streams of aspiration and
> consciousness, the two streams that came down through the Saviors on one
> side, and through the so-called “Mysteries” on the other. Up to this very day,
> The Day of God, the two streams have flowed in separate channels as separate
> experiences, separate purposes, separate obligations, separate organizations,
> except for the very, very few. Paul of Tarsus is an example of a man who
> bridged the chasm between Occult Science and Divine Revelation. Bruno is
> another example. Paracelsus is another. And now the two streams are met and
> flow together in perfect solution — for those who know! — throughout all
> time.
> 
> [page 67]
> 
> To-day, therefore, we may presuppose a kind of being who functions on
> the plane of Reality, while still inhabiting the flesh. Such a person will move
> among men possessed of a power they can neither comprehend, control nor
> oppose. As imagination and reason transcend bodily arms and legs,
> encompassing the world and affecting nations, so are the limbs of the thoughtbody in their influence upon mankind.22
> 
> “The highest expression of the life of man on this planet in this age and many ages to
> come is Celestial: that is, to live and act in accord with the teachings of Baha’o’llah
> and be steadfast in the love of Abdul Baha. The principles of the Religion of the
> Blessed Perfection adorn the spirit with the highest attributes of the Kingdom of
> Abha, illumine the heart with the Sun of the love of God, make him a servant of the
> world of humanity, a standard bearer of Universal Peace, and an orb shining from the
> heaven of righteousness.
> “He forgets himself and lives in the flow of the love of the True One. He embraces
> all mankind with an ineffable tenderness, and strives night and day to serve his
> fellowman. He becomes a herald of the Supreme Concourse and wins the good
> pleasure of the Lord of Hosts. He will be attracted with the love of the Beloved, and
> immerse his whole being in the ocean of humility and meekness. He will enlist
> himself in the army of human progress and limitless advancement of the race.
> Through his zeal, he will sacrifice everything in the path of God, and quaff from the
> chalice of eternal life.
> “This is the most glorious Bounty of this age. This is the bestowal of the Bahai
> Circle (round of spiritual evolution). This is the light that illumines every heart. This
> is the water that allays every thirsty one, the Divine Elixir that changes man into the
> image and likeness of Almighty God.” — Abdul Baha.
> It is by such men and women that the Divine Civilization will be
> established in the human world. It is to awaken those who are even now such
> men
> 
> [page 68]
> 
> and women in latency that the Manifestation of God has appeared at the
> present time, establishing the Spiritual World in this world, and summoning
> the Spiritual Race to raise up a Divine Civilization.
> Not for themselves will the Divine Civilization be established, — not for
> their own comfort, nor ease, nor well being, nor glory, nor reward — but it
> will be established by them in full consciousness that they are serving the Will,
> the Knowledge and the Love already since the eternity of eternities so
> abundantly serving them.
> Yes, the final proof of God, the proof which not even the sensualist or the
> sceptic can deny, is the evidence furnished by Divine Civilization. Here at last,
> in a visible world order where Light brings more material well being than
> Darkness, where Love succeeds in every task at which Hate has failed — here
> at last we have a proof valid even at the bottom of the arc of descent;23 a proof
> acceptable to those who still derive their reality from the natural, or material
> world. These are they who still gaze downward into the world of animal and
> mineral wealth. God — or the cosmic Reality we have learned to recognize
> through His Manifestation — God cannot penetrate to their dense material
> world. Therefore those men and women who have, while still physically
> members of that world, at-
> 
> [page 69]
> 
> tained to the use of cosmic powers, are alone able to establish spiritual causes
> whose effects are perceptible in the cloudy mirror, self.
> To such people, life is no longer as a toy for the idle, a prize for the
> ambitious, an experiment for the speculative, an affliction to the weak, or an
> opiate for the fool. In every atom, even to the reach of the farthest stars, the
> universe has been transfigurated — where there was space, there is Will;
> where there was time, there is Attainment. Theirs is an intelligible Mystery, —
> the unity of all things in the creative plan of God. Theirs is a Redemption
> acceptable to reason, in that all things are intervals upon the one sublime Path.
> In man and without, they read the eternal symbols understandingly, in the
> Light of the rays of the Sun of Truth.
> For them, the pyramid of society built up of stone and steel by the animal
> man has dissolved like a mirage or a dream. Quietly, calmly, without violence,
> they prepare to overcome violence by the untried weapon of faith. From
> country to country, from race to race, from class to class like the reflection of
> swift light, their mutual recognition bands them into an army which shall
> conquer the world. This is the Day of God. This is the day when that which is
> physical yields to that which is cosmic. This is the day when self-centered
> interests lose their age-long control. Religions shall be united in this day.
> Nations shall find harmony in this day. By the realization that work is a form
> of prayer,
> 
> [page 70]
> 
> “Mankind has reached the bottom of the arc of descent and has begun to rise upon
> the arc of ascent.” — Abdul Baha.
> an aspect of devotion as well as service, shall the chains of economic servitude
> and helplessness in this day at last be broken. By the realization that prayer
> brings the true wealth — the enrichment of the spirit, the consciousness of the
> mind — shall brotherhood at last be brought to reign.
> Around the life and teachings of Abdul Baha the world’s spiritual forces
> gather perceptibly day by day. Here at last the world has one collective center
> which is truly neutral to all personal or group interests, truly responsive to all
> interests awake to the welfare of all. By word and by deed his miracles are
> daily performed: the healing of the soul’s blindness, and the raising of those
> spiritually dead. He alone is able to reconcile divergent theories, as conflicting
> wills; able to unify separate traditions, as separate aims; able to interpret
> different truths, as different garments which the one Truth has assumed.
> Time, that heals the wounds of war, though it brings a new and more
> grievous hurt, has never healed the inner pain of doubt by which man is
> tormented, a Daniel flung in the den of his own reckless will. Even this source
> of all hurt — the cleavage between thought and will, dream and deed — Abdul
> Baha removes. He is that mirror wherein every man may see reflected his own
> perfection, but reflected for the first time in the image of all mankind. He is
> that mirror wherein science and religion, economics and government, action
> and phil-
> 
> [page 71]
> 
> osophy shine radiantly forth, in one augmented likeness and form. He is that
> mirror that turns equally to the East and the West; equally to man and woman;
> equally to here and hereafter.
> Few of those whose lives have touched this life for a single hour have
> remained unchanged. By his Manifestation it is possible to realize through
> logic as through faith, that a heart of man can be the temple in which the
> unknowable God can dwell and be known. For of that Cosmic Trinity this
> Point is the point of fulfilment, the meeting of universal Purpose with the
> upturned mind of man. Love, Will and Knowledge: these that were Three are
> One.
> “Abdul Baha, the Servant of Baha, has clad Himself in the mantle of
> Servitude and Devotion, for the beloved of El-Baha; truly, this is a Great
> Victory!”
> This is the Message which is “pervading the universe” where the soul
> lives. This is the awakening of those who still slumber on the “couch of
> negligence.” This is the meaning of that spirit of the age at whose touch
> thrones topple, armies move, sciences change, nations struggle, past cycles are
> revealed and future cycles unfolded. This is the Command breathed into the
> organized social world, whereby old ties dissolve, old superstitions weaken,
> old fears vanish, old customs pass forever away. This is the Summons heard
> by all of pure heart and visioning mind, whereby they depart from that old
> 
> [Page 72]
> 
> attachment which is physical, and being physical is dead, and enter into this
> new Cause, sons and daughters of the One God, brothers and sisters in the One
> Humanity — spiritualized mankind.
> For these pure hearts and visioning minds know that in the Seed of Faith
> lies latent the Tree of Knowledge, in the Eye of Wisdom falls the Light of
> Love. Like the sun in the skies of March, they recognize and hail the renewing
> power of the Sun of Truth in this universal spiritual springtime. They behold
> everywhere the cultivation of the earth of consciousness. Everywhere they feel
> the soft, descending rain of Confirmation by which the soul’s long winter is at
> last destroyed from the entire surface of the world.
> “We beg of God that we may partake of this life-giving Water of Heaven
> and quaff from the Spiritual Chalice of repose, and thus be free from all that
> tends to withhold us from approaching His Love. Glory be upon the people of
> Glory!”
> — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> [page 73]
> 
> “If God had not filled His Servant with His Love, Love would never have
> been realized in the creation. All is therefore from Him, and is His — man in
> himself possesses nothing. But the rays of Love having shone from the True
> One to the creation, the great signs thereof are imprinted upon clear and
> luminous hearts; and as these mirror-hearts meet, reflecting this sublime light,
> Love, it becomes manifest from creature to creature. For God hath put
> harmony in their hearts.”
> — Abdul Baha.
> 
> THE BAHAI MESSAGE TO CHRISTIANITY
> 
> Nowhere in the world to-day is such reverence paid to Christ, such
> devotion felt for the spirit of Christ, such fidelity of thought and action
> rendered the teachings of Christ, as among those who have earned the right to
> call themselves Bahais — followers of Abdul Baha.
> The question which so naturally arises among people born and reared in
> the Christian tradition: what is the relation between the Bahai Movement and
> Christianity? has its answer, both logical and satisfactory to the loyal
> Christian.
> Abdul Baha makes us realize the universality of truth, of power and of
> love which manifested in Jesus as the Christ, the logos or the Word of God.
> Universal in itself, eternal and unchanging on the plane of spirit, that
> Revelation was nevertheless necessarily limited in its outer expression and
> influence by the conditions of the environment and age. We must accordingly
> perceive Christianity in a dual aspect: one aspect, the spiritual, being eternal;
> the other aspect, the action of the first upon the world, being subject to change.
> The one represents Reality, the other represents human belief, human activity,
> human emotion.
> 
> [page 75]
> 
> Therefore, if we could rise to the plane of absolute universality, we should
> transcend the limited effects of that Revelation, and understand its timeless
> and placeless cause. We should learn to distinguish more and more clearly
> between loyalty to and knowledge of the Christ, and loyalty to and knowledge
> of the humanized institutions called Christianity. The soul cannot accept the
> Christ — the spirit of love — and a man-made doctrine and ritual which Jesus
> never dreamed of — at the same time. While the name “Christianity”
> apparently includes and reconciles both these extremes, as a matter of fact it
> does not. In moments of vital decision, one consciously or otherwise accepts
> the one and rejects the other, for they are irreconcilable; even as are claims of
> body and soul.
> What Abdul Baha has accomplished for his Christian followers is to make
> real once more the divine outpouring of love which the Christ manifested but
> the world has obscured. It is as though we stood once more among those who
> heard the Sermon on the Mount, and were penetrated by that innate, creative
> Word — all the dreary conflicts of the creeds and churches forgotten, the
> accumulated philosophies and doctrines swept away, the sacraments unwanted
> in the presence of that which is Sanctity itself.
> But this time, happily, the renewal of the Word finds mankind better
> prepared to understand its eternal validity and its universal application. We
> 
> [page 76]
> 
> can accept to-day a re-statement of Love which includes all humanity. We can
> accept a message about God which demands not blind obedience, irrespective
> of reason, but conscious co-operation, inspiring the mind to its very limits of
> capacity. We can understand a teaching which brings the spirit of democracy
> into religion, making all men and women equal in privilege even as they are
> equal in responsibility.
> As a matter of fact, the inmost purpose of the New Testament is to
> establish a standard of truth by which men might guide their lives and
> discriminate between spiritual and material influences. The New Testament —
> developing the theme of the Old Testament — is a preparation for the Day of
> God. What is Resurrection, if not resurrection from the grave of the flesh into
> the heaven of conscious spiritual knowledge? What is Judgment, if not that
> daily sorting out of the materially minded from the pure hearted people which
> results from the conscious and unconscious preferences of each? The Bahai
> Movement comes at the end of a long historic cycle, fulfilling the inner
> aspirations of the pure, and in doing so, denying the claims of the worldly. In
> the words of Abdul Baha: “This Cause is the same as the Cause of Christ, but
> revealed in accordance with the maturity of the world.”
> The existence of humanity at this hour is in great danger. The universal
> authority of love as
> 
> [page 77]
> 
> the basis of human life — political, economic and scientific as well as moral
> — has been denied through ages and cycles. We perceive the effects of this
> denial throughout the world to-day. Some point of collective unity and
> harmony there must be. Some standard of Reality there must be. Some nucleus
> of sacrifice and service there must be.
> It is the utmost hope of every Bahai that the message of love may be
> spread throughout the world, reconciling the nations, the classes and the
> creeds; and that the Covenant of God be remembered, the promises of God
> recalled, the principles of God comprehended, the knowledge of God sought as
> the treasure of life and the purpose of existence. “For there shall come a
> famine upon the land; a famine not of bread nor of water, but a famine of
> hearing the words of the Lord.”
> Baha’o’lloh wrote a separate Tablet to each of the world’s great religions.
> From the Tablet addressed to the Christians I quote these passages:
> “Say: O Concourse of the Son! Are ye hidden from Myself because of My
> Name? What maketh ye to doubt? Ye have called for your Lord, the Self-
> Dependent, night and day and when He hath come from the Heaven of Pre-
> Existence, in His Greatest Glory, ye have not approached Him, and were of the
> heedless. Then consider those who turned away from the Spirit (Christ) when
> He came to them with manifest power. How many of the Pharisees were
> abiding in the Temples in
> 
> [page 78]
> 
> His Name, and were entreating because of His separation! But when the Gate
> of Union was opened and the Light shone forth from the Day-Spring of
> Beauty, they disbelieved in God, the Exalted, the Great, and did not attain to
> His visitation, after having been promised thereto in the Book of Isaiah, as
> well as in the Books of the Prophets and the Apostles. No one of them
> approached the Day-Spring of Favor except those who were of no account
> among the people, but in whose names all the lords of evident honor boast at
> the present day. Remember, the most learned doctors of His country in His age
> condemned Him to be killed, whilst one who was a catcher of fishes believed
> in Him. Be astonished thereat and be of those who remember!
> “Likewise look at this time. How many monks were abiding in churches
> and were calling for the Spirit, and when He came in truth they approached
> Him not and were of those who are afar! Blessed is whosoever abandoned
> them and approached the Aim of all that is in the heavens and earth. They read
> the Gospel and confess not in the Glorious Lord, after coming in His Holy,
> Mighty and Beautiful Kingdom.
> “Say: Verily, We have come unto you and have endured the abominations
> of the world because of your salvation. Do ye flee from Him who hath
> redeemed His Soul for your lives? …
> “Verily, He hath come from Heaven as He came from it the first time;
> beware lest ye contradict that
> 
> [page 79]
> 
> which He saith, as the nations before you contradicted that which He said.
> Thus do I make known to you the Truth, if you are of those who know.
> …Surely, the Father hath come and hath fulfilled that whereunto you were
> promised in the Kingdom of God. This is the Word the Son veiled when He
> said to those around Him that at that time they could not bear it; but when the
> stated time was ended and the hour arrived, the Word shone forth from the
> Horizon of the Will. …Verily, the Spirit of Truth hath come to guide you into
> all Truth. …
> “Blessed is he who cut himself from all other than Me, soared in the ether
> of My Love, entered My Kingdom, perceived the Dominions of My Might,
> drank the Kawther of My Favor and the Salsabil of My Grace, and was
> informed of My Command and of whatsoever was hidden in the Treasuries of
> My Words, and shone forth from the Horizon of Inner Significances in My
> Commemoration and My Praise! Verily, he is of Mine. May My Mercy,
> Grace, Favor and Glory be unto Him!”
> 
> The following letter, written to Bahais in America who were Christians by
> birth, and composed by a Persian Bahai who was born a Mohammedan, not
> only most clearly and exquisitely presents what may be called the Bahai
> “message” to Christianity — it is also a document impressively revealing the
> new spirit of international, interracial and interreligious
> 
> [page 80]
> fellowship made possible by what has already been termed the spirit of the
> age.
> The letter is dated Isfahan, Persia, April 25th, 1902.
> 
> “Praise and glory, homage and thanksgiving unto the Creator of the world,
> unto the Lord of nations, Whose Bounty forever descended and flows
> unceasingly down upon His faithful ones!
> “His Perfect Power, His Blessing and Grace has He manifested in the
> human temple. In every age has He made Himself known by a definite Name
> and distinct Attribute.
> “In every cycle, He, with loving mercy, has removed from before His
> Glorious Face some portion of the veil of concealment, such portion as the
> capacity of the people and their station of understanding and development
> could bear; until, in this sacred century, the Greatest Day of God, He has
> revealed Himself in the Name of the Heavenly Father and with the Father’s
> Glorious Kingdom, even as referred to by the prophet Isaiah and by St. John in
> the Revelation.
> “Many are the passages in the Scriptures referring to the fact that God is
> to manifest Himself in the Name of the Father.
> 
> Isaiah 9:6 — For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and
> the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called
> Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The
> Prince of Peace.
> 
> [page 81]
> 
> Revelation 19:16 — And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a
> name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.
> 
> “He raised on high the Heaven of His Mighty-Cause; He tilled the ground
> of the minds of His chosen ones; He adorned the garden of the hearts of His
> elect with roses of knowledge and hyacinths of wisdom. Peter, the Apostle,
> refers to this in his second Epistle, and also St. John in the Revelation.
> 
> 2 Peter, 3:13 — Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for
> new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
> 
> Revelation 21:1 — And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the
> first heaven (Divine Revelation) and the first earth (state of
> consciousness) were passed away; and there was no more sea (separation
> between the world’s great religions).
> 
> “He re-established and enlightened the true Jerusalem and Zion; fulfilled
> the prophecies and promises of the Holy Scriptures; deposed the tyrants and
> oppressors by the weapon of the Words (Cosmic Truth) which proceedeth
> from His Holy Mouth,
> 
> Revelation 21:23 — And the city had no need of the sun, neither of
> the moon to shine in it (had no need of the imperfect enlightenment of
> laws based on human politics and economics): for the Glory of God did
> lighten it (Baha’o’llah’s manifestation of Cosmic Knowledge), and the
> Lamb is the light thereof (man’s capacity to receive Cosmic Knowledge,
> established by the manifestation of Abdul Baha in the station of
> Servitude).
> 
> Daniel 8:14 — And he said unto me, Unto two thousand and three
> hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed.
> 
> [page 82]
> 
> Isaiah 35:1-2 — The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad
> for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose…. They
> shall see the Glory of the Lord (shall become aware of Cosmic Reality),
> and the excellency of our God.
> 
> Isaiah 11:4 — But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and
> reprove with equity for the meek of the earth (co-operation has displaced
> exploitation as the industrial motive).
> 
> “And by the Spirit of His Utterances which descended from His Holy
> Lips; revived His beloved and chosen ones by the eternal Spirit of agreement,
> union and the true civilization of the human race; gathered together people
> differing in opinions — drinkers from diverse springs of theory — united them
> in the pavilion of love and bound their hearts with the bonds of Love of the
> Father, which affection shall endure through the eternity of eternities.
> 
> Romans 6:22 — But now being made free from sin (ignorance of
> Cosmic Reality), and become servants to God (become able to function in
> the light of that Reality), ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end
> everlasting life.
> 
> Daniel 12:2 — And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth
> (live entirely in physical personality) shall awake, some to everlasting life,
> and some to shame and contempt (some will find themselves prepared to
> function Cosmic Reality, some will be closed to it).
> 
> “Boundless gratitude be unto Him who elevated His servants from the
> state of ignorance, old habits and harmful ways which caused degradation and
> prevented development, and made them to arrive at that station wherein they
> become imbued with lofty attributes.
> 
> [page 83]
> 
> “He tore asunder the veils of superstition and imagination and taught them
> the realities and inner significances of the true life, and through His Dearest
> Son, His Most Sincere Servant, the Priceless Pearl of the Sea of His Oneness,
> Abdul Baha, the Greatest Branch (may our lives be sacrificed for him!),
> perfected His bounty and fulfilled the glad-tidings declared in the ancient
> Books, as by Isaiah and Zechariah.
> 
> Isaiah 11:1 — And there shall come forth a rod out the stem of Jesse,
> and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.
> 
> Isaiah 4:2 — In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and
> glorious, and the fruit of the earth (the awakened cosmic consciousness of
> a man is liken to a fruit ripened on the Branch — that is, cosmic
> consciousness is dependent on entrance into the influence of the spiritual
> Abdul Baha) shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of
> Israel (escaped from the limitations of legalistic morality).
> 
> “In Zechariah 3:7 — it was promised that the Branch will be extended
> from the Tree of Life, and will sit on the Throne of Servitude.
> 
> Zechariah 3:7 — Thus said the Lord of Hosts: If thou wilt walk in My
> ways, and if thou wilt keep My charge, then thou shalt also judge My
> house, and shalt also keep My courts, and I will give thee places to walk
> among those that stand by (the cosmic or spiritual man is now to rule the
> earth — and becoming cosmic he arises to the station of the angels, or
> cosmic men who never descended into physical personality?) …For,
> behold, I will bring forth My servant, the Branch.
> 
> “After offering my greetings and servitude to His Holy Threshold, this
> servant, Abdul Hussein Isfahani (author of the letter), writes this letter
> 
> [page 84]
> 
> on his own behalf and that of the Bahais of Isfahan (upon them be
> Baha’o’llah!) to the friends of God, the beloved of EL-ABHA, the firm ones in
> the Covenant, sincere in His Cause and attracted unto His Beauty, our dearly
> beloved American brothers, (may the blessings of God abide with them!).
> “I herein acknowledge the receipt of the beautiful photograph wherein we
> met the brilliant faces of our fellow-believers, whose hearts are kindled with
> the fire of His Love, and who are gathering blossoms in the Garden of His
> Knowledge.
> “All the eyes were brightened, the hearts gladdened, and our yearnings to
> visit you were increased. Then all the believers (in Isfahan) glorified God,
> saying: Blessed be God, the Most Excellent Creator, Who caused the far
> distant ones to be united with these, blessed them with new birth, gave them to
> drink of the Wine of His Eternal Love, and caused them to manifest faces
> brilliant from the trial as purified gold, and to advance unto His Holy Abode.
> 
> Ezekial 36:26 — A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit
> will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your
> flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
> 
> Zechariah 13:8-9 — And it shall come to pass, that in all the land,
> saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall
> be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire (Cosmic
> Reality will not be established until the race has passed through a period
> of intense suffering and confusion which shall compel every man and
> woman to make a definite decision for or against Cosmic Reality), and
> will refine
> 
> [page 85]
> 
> them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call
> on My name, and I will hear them (they will create in themselves the
> capacity to receive Cosmic Reality): I will say, It is My people: and they
> shall say, The Lord is my God.
> “We have thought of you and remembered you in our spiritual gatherings,
> and will continue to do so. We hope to hear often from you regarding the
> progress of the Cause and the spreading of the Fragrances of God. Upon ye be
> El-Baha and greetings.”
> 
> Of the unity of religions, Abdul Baha has said:
> “His Highness the Merciful One hath caused the appearance of the
> splendors of love and affinity in the world of humanity, so that the individuals
> of mankind might be perfectly united and the rays of unity be revealed
> amongst the children of men. Hence He sent forth the holy Manifestations,
> inspired their hearts with the contexts of the heavenly books and instituted
> divine religions, in order that these sanctified personages, these revealed
> books, these religions of God might become the means of unity and accord,
> love and good fellowship in the human world.
> “Should we study the divine religions with the perception of truth, we
> would then conclude that their underlying principle is the One Reality. All the
> religions of God are the reality. Reality does not admit multiplicity and
> division. But alas! that the fundamental reality is laid aside and forgotten, and
> a catalogue of creeds, dogmas and rites have
> 
> [page 86]
> 
> taken its place which are the basis of difference, the cause of hatred and
> prejudice, and the establishment of the religion of God is totally forgotten and
> neglected.
> “When this impenetrable gloom — that is, the gloom of the traditions of
> ancestors — surrounded the world, and the pristine, primal light of the divine
> religions was changed into the darkness of the ideas of men, then the true morn
> dawned and the Sun of Reality (Baha’o’llah) arose from the horizon of Persia,
> reflecting in the mirror of the world of humanity the effulgence of the
> heavenly unity. Thus he destroyed the foundations of the structure of blind
> dogmas and man-made creeds and rituals which are the result of ignorant
> prejudices. It is owing to this fact that this light is spreading with the greatest
> rapidity in all the countries of the world. The influence of these divine
> teachings in the heart of the world is like the influence of the spirit over the
> bodies.
> “Consequently, through the breaths of this divine spirit, the followers of
> the different religions in Persia have rent asunder the veil of superstitions, are
> freed from the effect of unenlightened doctrines, and have attained to the
> Beloved of Reality. These antagonistic faiths are united with the bond of
> perfect love and amity. For this reason great meetings are organized, in which
> are represented Mohammedans, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, Turks, Arabs,
> Parsees, Persians, Kurds, English, French
> 
> [page 87]
> 
> and Americans, who associate and mingle with each other as brothers. Like the
> sheep of God they are grazing in the pastures of truth under the protecting staff
> of the heavenly Shepherd.
> “Should you reflect with the insight of reality, you will observe that these
> antiquated and superannuated dogmas have ever been the cause of massacre
> and carnage among the nations and peoples.
> “As this is the cycle of sciences, there must needs be new teachings, a new
> revelation is required and a new life wanted. The minds and hearts refute the
> veracity of ancient opinions. New ideas are called for and new principles are
> urgently demanded which may fill the requirements of this age, be as the spirit
> of this century and as the life of this period.
> “Search, labor, investigate, work and show extraordinary effort, so that the
> center of the light of Reality, like unto the witness of love, may become
> revealed in the assemblages of mankind.
> “There is a power in this Cause, a mysterious power, far, far, far away
> from the ken of men and angels. That invisible power is the source of all these
> outward activities. It moves the hearts. It rends the mountains. It administers
> the complicated affairs of the Cause. It inspires the friends. It dashes into a
> thousand pieces all the forces of opposition. It creates new spiritual worlds.
> This is a mystery of the Kingdom of Abha.”
> 
> THE BAHAI MESSAGE TO JUDAISM
> 
> The foregoing words apply to the Jews quite as much as to the Christians.
> That is the great proof that they really apply to either.
> Men and women of the Jewish race are cordially urged to investigate the
> writings and lives of Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha, interpreting their
> significance in terms of the great Hebrew tradition and also in the light of
> events now taking place among the Jews throughout the world.
> The following is a Tablet uttered by Baha’o’llah to Oriental Jews. Its date
> is not known to the author of this book, but lies necessarily between 1863 and
> 1892.
> 
> “In the Name of the Wise, the Mighty!
> “This is the day in which the Throne is amongst the tribes (of Israel), is
> calling for the inhabitants of the earth and is summoning to the glorification
> and the sanctification of the Almighty.
> “This is the day in which the angels of heaven are continually descending
> (refers to men of Cosmic Intelligence) with the Cups of Explanation and
> Goblets of Knowledge, and after they have been perfumed with the Holy and
> Sweet Fragrances, they ascend.
> 
> [page 89]
> 
> “Proclaim: The Promised Lord saith: O ye concourse of the Jews! You
> have belonged to Me, from Me have you appeared and to Me shall you return!
> What has happened to you that now you recognize not Me, that you are
> enemies instead of friends, having abandoned the real Friend.
> “This is the day in which the New Heaven hath appeared and the old earth
> is renewed. Should you look with sanctified vision, you shall behold the New
> Jerusalem! Should you listen with attentive ears, you shall hear the voice of
> God!
> “This is the day in which all things call unto you and invite you to
> advance toward the Promised Land! But alas, you are so intoxicated with the
> wine of haughtiness that not for one moment do you become aware! The ear is
> for the sake of hearing My Voice, and the eye is for the sake of beholding My
> Beauty! Hearken unto Me and sever yourselves from aught else save Me. The
> Tabernacle of the Lord is lifted up by the hand of Divine Providence, and the
> Cause of God hath become manifest. The time of the old things is rolled by
> and the cycle of regeneration hath begun. The Lord hath willed that everything
> shall be renewed. But only the new vision is enabled to behold this
> transformation, and only the new intelligence is informed of this event.
> “The Origin and the End were couched in one blessed Word, and that
> blessed Word hath appeared and entered the arena of Existence. It is the
> 
> [page 90]
> 
> Spirit of the Divine Books and Scriptures. It hath been from the beginning
> before which there was no beginning, and it shall continue unto the end after
> which there is no end. It is the Key to the Most Great Treasury of the Lord and
> the Concealed Mystery of God which hath been hidden from eternity behind
> the Canopies of Divine Infallibility. It is the Alpha and Omega prophesied by
> John. It is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden.
> “Declare: To-day the City of God hath appeared and become manifest, in
> the utmost adornment. Ponder ye over the words of John, who hath prophesied
> concerning the coming of the holy and glorious City of God, saying: For the
> Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple thereof. And the City hath no
> need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for Baha’o’llah (The Glory
> of God) doth lighten it.
> “In the name of the True One, hold in thy hand the rod of Trust, and with
> complete severance guide the erring souls to the Great City of God (Cosmic
> Reality); perchance the lost ones may return to their real (spiritual) home and
> ideal country, and the blind ones receive new and penetrating sight. Verily, He
> is powerful to do whatsoever He willeth, and in His Mighty Grasp (universal
> law) everything is captive, and He is the Omnipotent and the Omniscient!”
> 
> [page 91]
> 
> Address by Abdul Baha to the Jews, Congregation Emmanu-el, San Francisco,
> California, October 12, 1912.
> 
> (From stenographic notes, which the author has not taken the liberty of
> correcting, even for the sake of grammatical usage.)
> 
> The first bestowal of God in the world of humanity is religion, because
> religion consists in Divine teachings to men, and most assuredly Divine
> teachings are preferable to all other sources of instruction.
> Religion confers upon man the life everlasting. Religion is a service to the
> world of morality. Religion guides humanity to the Eternal happiness. Religion
> is the cause of the everlasting honor in the world of man.
> Religion has ever helped humanity towards progress. As a proof thereof,
> let us first investigate religion from an unbiased standpoint, and let us find out
> whether religion is the cause of progress and development, or whether it is not;
> whether or not religion is, after all, the cause of illumination; whether or not
> religion is the impetus which allows man to advance extraordinarily.
> Let us investigate independently, not that we should be bound by blind
> limitations or dogmas, for were we to be bound by blind limitations, then some
> will believe that religion is a cause of happiness, and others will disagree,
> saying that religion has been a cause of degradation. Hence, we must first in-
> 
> [page 92]
> vestigate as to this: whether or not religion is the cause of human
> advancement, and let us give it impartial and thorough research, so that no
> doubt shall linger in our minds.
> How can we find this out? That is, how can we discover whether or not
> religion has been the cause of human progress or retrogression?
> We will first investigate the founders of religions — the prophets. We will
> review the episodes of their lives, the events prior to their rise, and those
> subsequent thereto. But we will not present to you certain traditions which are
> subject to both credence and refutation. Nay, rather we will cite certain
> historical facts provable to all, certain facts and evidences well known
> throughout the world, and which are irrefutable. They are these:
> Amongst the great prophets was His Holiness Abraham, who, being an
> iconoclast, and a herald of the oneness of God, was banished by the people
> from his nativity.
> Let us observe right here how religion is an impetus towards progress.
> His Holiness Abraham founded a family, and this family God did bless,
> and it was through the religious basis that the Abrahamic house progressed and
> advanced. Through the Divine benediction, noteworthy and famous prophets
> have issued from the Abrahamic lineage. There appeared an Ishmael. There
> appeared an Isaac. There appeared a Jacob. There appeared a Joseph. There
> appeared
> 
> [page 93]
> 
> a Moses. There appeared an Aaron. David issued therefrom. There appeared
> Solomon. The Holy Land was conquered by them and was theirs by right, and
> the great Solomonic wisdom was established, and this was due to the
> RELIGION which they founded.
> Hence, we learn that religion is the cause of honor, is the cause of
> advancement, is the cause of civilization, is the cause of the happiness of
> mankind, even as the Abrahamic episode well illustrates this fact, and even as
> his family clearly points thereto. Even unto the present time his household
> throughout the world is visible and manifest.
> Let us discover, or consider, the greater phase of it.
> The children of Israel were in bondage and captivity in the land of Egypt.
> They were subjected to the tyranny and oppression of the Copts (the
> Egyptians). They were in the utmost state of degradation. One Copt conquered
> or subdued, one hundred Septs (Israelites). They could make use of them as
> working men or laborers.
> The children of Israel were then in abject poverty, in the lowest
> abasement, in the lowest degree of ignorance, in the lowest degree of
> barbarism, when, suddenly. His Holiness Moses appeared amongst them.
> When His Holiness Moses appeared amongst them, outwardly he was no
> other than a shepherd, but through the power of religion he exhibited such
> 
> [page 94]
> 
> majesty and grandeur and efficacy they continue to be seen. His prophethood
> was well spread throughout the land. His law was the foundation of the law.
> His Holiness Moses was single and alone, and this single, unique
> personage, through the power of RELIGION, rescued all the children of Israel
> from bondage. He conducted them to the Holy Land, and there he founded the
> great civilization which has become permanent, a civilization and an education
> which are most noteworthy. Thereby they attained to the highest pitch of honor
> and glory. He saved them from their bondage and captivity. He imbued them
> with qualities which caused them to be progressive.
> They proved to be a civilizing people, an educated and a scholarly people.
> Their philosophy became noteworthy. Their industries were well known. In
> one word, along all the lines of advancement which characterize a progressive
> people they did achieve progress. They reached such a pitch that at last they
> were the ones who established this Solomonic sovereignty, and their sciences
> and arts reached such an extensive state that even the Greek philosophers used
> to take journeys to Jerusalem, in order to study with the Jews philosophy and
> the basis of law. According to Eastern history, this is an established fact.
> Even Socrates, the Greek philosopher, came to the Holy Land and
> consorted with the Jewish doc-
> 
> [page 95]
> 
> tors, studying with them wisdom or philosophy. He studied with them the
> basis of their belief, and when he returned to Greece there he formulated his
> basis for Divine unity, and there he advanced his belief regarding the
> immortality of the spirit after the dissolution of the body. These verities
> Socrates learned, no doubt, from the Jewish doctors with whom he came in
> contact.
> Likewise Hippocrates and many other philosophers used to go to the Holy
> Land, to Palestine, and there they acquired lessons from the Jewish prophets,
> studying with them the basis of ethics and morality, returning to their countries
> with contributions which have made Greece famous.
> A cause, or a movement, which renders a weak nation, such as the Jews
> were before, strong, and changes them into a mighty and powerful nation,
> which rescues them from captivity and causes them to reach sovereignty,
> which transforms their ignorance into knowledge and science, and which
> endows them with an impetus to advance along all degrees of attainments —
> (this is not merely a theory or a story which I am telling; it is an historical fact
> which is provable; it is history well established in the world) — makes it
> evident that religion is the cause of honor to man, that religion is the cause of
> the sublimity of man.
> When we speak of religion we mean the Foundation of religion, not the
> blind imitations, or dogmas, which have crept in afterwards, and which are
> ever
> 
> [page 96]
> 
> destructive, which are ever the cause of the effacement of a nation, which are
> ever the cause of the hindrance to progress of nations. Even as it is recorded in
> the Torah, and confirmed in all histories, when the Jews were fettered with
> imitations, then the wrath of God became manifest.
> When they had let go of the foundations of the law of God, then God sent
> Nebuchadnezzar, who came and conquered the Holy Land. He killed all the
> men; he took in captivity the children and women; he made waste the countries
> and the populous centers; he set afire all the hamlets and all the villages.
> Seventy thousand Jews did Nebuchadnezzar captivate, and he took them with
> him to Iraki Ajam (Persia). He destroyed the Holy of Holies, the great temple
> there. He burned, in short, the Torah. The Holy Bible — was he the cause of
> its burning.
> Thus we learn that the Foundation of the Divine religions is ever the cause
> of progress, and thus the holy foundation becomes, as it were, destroyed and
> beclouded, or surrounded by certain blind imitations, when it leaves the central
> axis. Then the reverse takes place; it is a cause of debasement, the cause of
> degradation.
> Even so was the case with the Greek nation when they were the
> conquerors, and then the Jews became captives in their turn, and they were
> followed by the Romans. They proved to be the conquering nation, and they
> almost did away with the Israelites.
> 
> [Page 97]
> 
> Under Titus, the Roman emperor, when he was a general of the Roman
> army, the Holy Land was laid waste and made a wilderness and the Israelites
> were scattered broadcast in the world, because he also killed their noteworthy
> men, their possessions were pillaged, and Jerusalem was made a heap of dust.
> And that was the scattering and dispersion of the Jews, which has continued
> ever since.
> Hence, we learn that the foundation of the religion of God, which was laid
> by His Holiness Moses, was the cause of eternal honor, was the cause of the
> advancement of the nation, was the cause of the life of the Hebrew people, was
> the cause of homage to be paid forever to this noteworthy people. The dogmas,
> or blind imitations, which later crept in, proved to be the destructive causes of
> the Israelites. They caused the Israelites to be scattered throughout the earth,
> and to be expelled from their land by right — the Holy Land.
> In short, what is the Mission of prophets?
> The mission of the prophets is no other than the advancement or the
> education of the world of humanity. The prophets are the genuine teachers or
> educators. The prophets are the universal instructors.
> Should we desire to find out whether or not any of these great souls or
> prophets has been a prophet, we will investigate the facts of the case, and the
> line of our investigation will be one of education. If he has been an educator, if
> he has really educated
> 
> [page 98]
> 
> a people, if he has trained a nation, causing it to attain to the highest point of
> knowledge after it had been in the lowest abyss of ignorance, then we are sure
> that he is a prophet, and this is a plain and clear mode of procedure and
> irrefutable.
> We do not have to go to other proofs. We do not have to cite miracles,
> saying that out of rock water gushed forth, because such a miracle may be
> denied by others — they may refute it. We do not need such miracles.
> The very deeds of Moses are proofs conclusive concerning his
> prophethood. We are in need of no further evidences — evidences which are
> usually refutable.
> If a man be unbiased, be fair, and investigate reality, he will, without
> doubt, bear testimony to the fact that the personage of Moses was verily the
> man of God, was a great personage.
> Let us not digress. Let us go to the subject. But here I wish to ask you to
> be very fair in your judgment, setting aside, for the moment, all religious
> prejudice.
> All of us should thoroughly investigate or search for verities, because the
> purpose of the religions of God has been proved to be no other than the
> education of humanity and the cause of amity and fellowship among men.
> Therefore I wish to cite this episode, and it is this: that the Foundations of the
> religions of God I declare are one. They are not multiple, for they are realities.
> 
> [page 99]
> 
> Reality does not accept multiplicity, because every one of the Divine
> religions is divisible into two departments. One is concerned with the world of
> morality, and that is essential. It is concerned with the ethical sublimity of the
> human nature. It is concerned with the advancement of the world of humanity
> in general. It has to do with the knowledge of God. It has to do with the
> discovery of the verities of life. This is idealism; this is an essential division.
> This division is not subject to change or transformation at all. This is one; it is
> the foundation of all the religions of God. As regards that, all the religions are
> one and the same.
> The second department, or division, has to do with the transactions
> amongst society, or certain conducts of men, which is NOT essential. That is
> subject to change and transformation according to the exigencies or the
> requirements of time and place.
> To- wit: in the time of Noah, certain requirements demanded that all the
> sea-foods be allowable, or lawful. During the period of Abrahamic
> prophethood it was considered allowable, because of a certain expedient, that
> man should marry his aunt, even Sarah was the sister of Abraham’s mother.
> During the time of Adam it was on vogue, or current, that man should marry
> his own sister, even as the children of Adam — Abel, Cain and Seth —
> married their own sisters, because so they thought, it was the expedient of the
> time, but in the law of the Torah that became abrogated — that was forbidden.
> 
> [page 100]
> 
> There were certain laws, that were lawful formerly, which, during the time of
> Moses, were forbidden. For example, camel’s flesh, during the time of
> Abraham, was a food for man, but during the time of Jacob, it was made
> unlawful.
> Such changes and transformations in religious teachings have to do with
> the trifling things of life. They are not important.
> His Holiness Moses lived in the wilderness of Terah, where retribution
> had to be done in direct action. There were no penitentiaries. There were no
> forms of punishment. Hence, according to the exigency of the time and place,
> it was a law of God that an eye was to be for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. If
> a man’s tooth were broken by another, his tooth would be broken. If a man, for
> instance, caused the deafness of another person, the other person would make
> him deaf. But you cannot do that now. You would not blind a man because he
> accidentally blinded you. Is it possible to carry such things out?
> In the Torah there are ten commandments concerning the murderer. Is it
> possible to carry these out? Can these ten ordinances, concerning the treatment
> of murderers, be carried out?
> Modern times are such that even the question of capital punishment — the
> one form which some nations have decided to carry out in relation to a
> murderer — is a mooted question. Wise men are discoursing as to its
> feasibility or otherwise.
> 
> [page 101]
> So, everything that is valid is only valid for the present. The exigency of
> that time demanded that if a man committed theft to the extent of a dollar they
> would chop off his hand, but now you cannot cut off a man’s hand for a
> thousand dollars. You cannot do it; it is impossible. This is true, for it was
> useful for that time, but things are useful in accordance with the exigencies of
> the time. Time changes, and when time changes the laws have to change. But
> remember, these are not of importance; they are the accidentals of religion.
> The essentials, which are spiritual in character, which have to do with
> morality, which have to do with the ethical development of man, which have
> to do with the faith of man, — they are ideal; they are necessary and
> permanent; they are one foundation, and they are not subject to change or
> transformation.
> Hence, for the fundamental basis of the religion of God there is no change
> or transformation. That is the basis, the fundamental foundation of religion.
> That never, never changes.
> The basis of the law of Moses His Holiness Christ promulgated. That
> selfsame formation of religion was promulgated by Mohammed. All the great
> prophets have served that foundation. They have served this reality. Hence, the
> purposes and the purports of all the prophets have been one and the same.
> They were the advancement of the body-politic. They were the cause of the
> honor of mankind. They were the Divine civilizations of man,
> 
> [page 102]
> 
> the foundations whereof are one, and, as we declared before, the proofs
> concerning the validity of a personage, the proofs of inspiration, are, after all,
> the very deeds of valor and greatness emanating from that prophet. If that
> prophet has proved to be instrumental in the elevation of mankind,
> undoubtedly he has been a valid prophet.
> Again, I wish you to be very fair in the judgment of these following
> remarks.
> At a time when the Israelites had again been put in captivity, at a period
> when the Roman Empire had dispersed and effaced the Hebrew nation,
> because the law of God had, as it were, passed from amongst them, and the
> foundations of the religion of God had been destroyed — at such a time as this
> Jesus Christ appeared among them.
> When His Holiness Christ appeared from the Jews, the first thing he did
> was to proclaim the validity of the Mosaic mission. He declared that the Torah,
> the Old Testament, was the Book of God. He declared that all the prophets of
> Israel were valid and true. He eulogized Moses, and through his
> recommendations Moses’ name was spread throughout the world. The fame of
> Moses, throughout the Christian movement, was circulated broadcast.
> Before the rise of Christ it is a fact that in Persia the name of Moses had
> not been heard. Throughout India they had no knowledge of Judaism, and
> were it not for the Christianizing of Europe it
> 
> [page 103]
> 
> would not have had this knowledge of the Old Testament which it has.
> Throughout Europe there was not a copy of the Old Testament. But listen to
> this and judge it aright: It was through the instrumentality of Christ, it was
> through the translation of the New Testament — the little volume of the
> Gospel — that the Old Testament, the Torah, was translated into six hundred
> languages and spread throughout the world at large.
> The names of the Israelitish prophets became household names
> everywhere. All the nations of the world believed on this, that the children of
> Israel were verily the chosen people of God, and that that nation was a holy
> nation, that the blessings of God attended that nation, and that all the prophets
> of God which had issued therefrom were the dawning points of Divine
> inspiration, were the daysprings of revelation, and each one of them glistened
> like a star.
> Hence, His Holiness Christ really promulgated Judaism, for He was a Jew,
> and He was not against Jews. He did not deny the prophetic validity of Moses.
> Nay, He rather promoted it. He did not efface the Torah. Nay, rather He
> promulgated it. At most it comes to this: that the portion of that dispensation
> which had to do with transactions, that underwent change, and that is not
> important, but the essential teachings of Moses — that He did promulgate
> virtually. He did not leave anything undone.
> 
> [page 104]
> 
> Likewise, with the superlative power and the efficacious Word of God, He
> gathered together most of the nations of the East and West. This was achieved
> at a time when these nations were in the utmost of contention and strife. He
> ushered all of them beneath the overshadowing tent of the oneness of
> humanity. He educated them in such-wise as to be united and agreed, even as
> the Roman, the Greek, the Chaldean, the Assyrian and the Egyptian nations
> were perfectly blended together, and the heavenly civilization was the result.
> Now, this efficacy of the Word, and heavenly power, which are extraordinary,
> undoubtedly prove conclusively the validity of His Holiness Christ. Consider
> how His heavenly sovereignty is yet permanent and lasting. Verily, this is
> conclusive proof and manifest evidence.
> Then we see, appearing from another horizon the prophet of Arabia —
> Mohammed.
> Perchance you do not know that the first address of Mohammed to his
> tribe was this statement: “Moses, verily, was a prophet of God, and the Torah
> is a book of God. Verily, O ye people, ye must believe in the Torah and in
> Moses and the prophets. Ye must accept all the Israelitish prophets as valid.”
> In the Koran, the Mohammedan Bible, there are seven statements — in
> fact, seven repetitions — of the Mosaic episode, and in all his historic sketches
> he praises Moses.
> 
> [page 105]
> 
> He states that His Holiness Moses was the greatest prophet of God; that
> God guided him in the Sahara, or the wilderness, of Terah; that through the
> light of guidance Moses harkened to the summons of God; that he proved to be
> the interlocutor of God; that he was the bearer of the tablet of the ten
> commandments; that all the contemporaneous nations of the world arose
> against him; that eventually Moses conquered all of them, because falsehood is
> ever defeated by veracity.
> There are many instances of this kind by Mohammed. I am citing just a
> few.
> Consider that His Holiness Mohammed was born among the savage and
> barbarian nations of Arabia, lived amongst them, and, outwardly, was illiterate
> and uninformed of the holy books of God.
> The Arabian nations were in the utmost state of ignorance and barbarism,
> to the extent that they buried their daughters alive. They considered this to be
> the utmost valor and sublimity of nature. They lived under the Persian and
> Roman governments in the utmost captivity and bondage. They were scattered
> throughout the Arabian desert, subject to continuous strife and bloodshed.
> When the light of Mohammed dawned, the darkness of ignorance was
> dispelled from the Arabian desert. Those barbarous nations, in a short space of
> time, reached a superlative degree of civilization, even as their civilization
> extended to
> 
> [page 106]
> 
> Spain, and was established in Bagdad, whence it was translated to Europe.
> What proof is there, concerning his prophethood, greater than this, unless
> a man should close his eyes to justice and appear obstinately unfair?
> And now the Christians are believers in Moses. They believe that he was a
> prophet of God, and they commend him most highly. The Mohammedans are
> believers of Moses, praising him most highly, proving the validity of Moses,
> and likewise they believe in His Holiness Christ and praise Him highly.
> Is it harm which has come to these nations, namely Christians and
> Mohammedans, because they have admitted the validity of Moses and have
> accepted him? No, on the contrary, it proves that they have been fair-minded
> to that extent.
> Then what harm is there that the Jewish nation should, in turn, now also
> praise His Holiness Christ, also praise His Holiness Mohammed, and by this
> humanitarian acceptance and praiseworthy view of the subject do away forever
> with this enmity and hatred which have faced mankind so many centuries, so
> that bloodshed shall cease, that this fanaticism shall pass away forever, so that
> all mankind shall be unified, and then this corruption shall cease as soon as
> this acceptance is established.
> They admit that Moses was the Interlocutor of God. Why do you not say
> that Christ was the
> 
> [page 107]
> 
> Word of God? Why do you not say just the few words that will do away with
> all this sort of thing, and there will be no hatred left, no fanaticism left, no
> warfare in the Land of Promise, no bloodshed whatever. Then there will be
> peace forever.
> Verily, I declare now to you that Moses was no other than that interlocutor
> of God; that Moses was the most noteworthy prophet of God; that Moses
> brought the fundamental law of God; that Moses was the founder of the ethical
> basis which has proved happiness to humanity.
> What harm is there in this? Do I lose by saying this to you? And believing
> it as a Bahai? Not at all. On the contrary, as a Bahai, it benefits, and the
> founder of the Bahai movement, Baha’o’llah, is well pleased with me,
> confirms me therein. He says: “Well done; you have been fair in your
> judgment; you have impartially investigated the truth; you have arrived at the
> conclusion full well; you have believed in a prophet of God, in Moses; you
> have accepted the Book of God, the Torah.”
> Now, inasmuch as it is possible to do away with this prejudice, with such
> a bit of liberalism in the world, why not do it?
> Why not do away with this continuous strife? Why not establish a bond
> which can easily connect the hearts of men? What harm is there in this religion
> that everyone should praise the teacher or the founder of another? Even as the
> other nations praise His Holiness Moses, and admit that Moses
> [page 108]
> 
> was the founder of Judaism, why not have the Hebrews also praise the other
> great men?
> What harm comes from it? None at all. It is no loss to you at all. Nay,
> rather, you are contributing to the welfare of mankind. Nay, rather you would
> be instrumental in establishing happiness of the world of humanity. Nay, rather
> the eternal honor of man depends upon this modern liberalism.
> Inasmuch as our God is one, and He has created all of us — He provides
> for all of us. He protects all of us — and we acknowledge such a kind and
> clement Lord, why should we — His children. His followers, fight each other?
> Why should we so easily break the hearts of one another?
> God is so merciful and kind, and His aim in religion has ever been the
> bond of unity and affinity.
> Praise be to God, the mediaeval ages of darkness have passed away, and
> this century of radiance has dawned — this century wherein the reality of
> things is becoming evident, this century wherein science has discovered the
> very mysteries of nature, this century which is in toto a service to the world of
> humanity, this century wherein we have established the foundation of the
> world of humanity. Is it behooving that we should still linger in our fanaticism
> and tarry in our prejudice? Is it behooving that we should still be bound with
> the old fables and superstitions, and be handicapped with the
> 
> [page 109]
> 
> superannuated beliefs of past and dark ages, again waging wars religious,
> again fighting one another, still shedding the blood of each other, shunning
> one another, anathematizing one other? Is it becoming?
> Is it not better for us to be most loving to one another? Is it not preferable
> for us to enjoy fellowship together, and unite and sing anthems of unity
> towards God, and praise all the prophets in a good and praiseworthy spirit?
> Then you will observe how the world will prove to be a paradise and the
> promised day shall come. That will be the day when the wolves and the sheep
> will quaff from the same stream, when, according to the prophecy of Isaiah,
> the quail and the eagle will enjoy the same nest together, and the gazelle, or
> the deer, will with the lion enjoy the same pasture.
> What does this mean?
> It means that contending nations are symbolic of this fact, that religions,
> which have been formerly as wolves and sheep, divergent creeds, will
> associate with each other. Notwithstanding their former status they will then,
> through this liberalism, associate with each other in perfect fellowship, in the
> utmost love.
> This is the meaning of the statement of His Holiness Isaiah. Otherwise,
> you will never come to see a day when this prophecy will come to pass
> literally, for the wolf will never enjoy the companionship of the sheep, and the
> lion and the deer
> 
> [page 110]
> 
> will never be seen together, because the lion and the deer will see each other,
> but the deer will be within the lion, and the sheep will ever be the prey of the
> wolf. As you know, the teeth of the lion are carnivorous. It has no molars to
> enjoy grass. Hence, it must eat flesh.
> Therefore, this prophecy is symbolic of this state of affairs: When certain
> nations and races, symbolized or typified by lions and wolves and sheep,
> amongst whom there is no bond of fellowship or association, in that day of
> promise will be unified, and they will treat each other most kindly and
> liberally.
> In a word, the age is ours when fellowship is to be established.
> The century has come when all the religions are to be unified.
> The century has come when all the nations shall enjoy international peace.
> The century has come when all the races and the tribes of the world will
> do away with racial prejudice and associate perfectly.
> The century has arrived when all the nativities of the world will prove to
> be one home of the human family.
> Thus may human kind, in its entirety, rest comfortably and in peace under
> the great and broad tabernacle of the one Lord.
> 
> THE BAHAI MESSAGE TO SCIENCE
> 
> To behold all things of the universe as animate with a divine animation, so
> that a single atom becomes as wondrous as a sun; to feel in all things the
> essence of a consciousness, so that not even a stone remains insignificant;
> above all, to realize by what eternities of evolution matter has been trained in
> order to serve as the temple of man — whereby man becomes the perfect
> microcosm within the perfect macrocosm — this glory that was the crown of
> ancient seers, returns now universally to become the education of all.
> Year by year, since Baha’o’llah flooded the minds of men with light, the
> past has begun to yield its secrets, and the “book of nature” to unfold its
> hidden mysteries.
> In the measure that the world gives up its physical limitations of hate, of
> prejudice and of fear — in that measure, according to the cosmic law, shall
> nature’s finer forces become manifest. In the measure that the soul desires
> Reality rather than authority and power — in that same measure shall the veils
> of self-realization be raised.
> As Abdul Baha has said: “This mineral and these trees have no knowledge
> of the animal and
> 
> [page 112[
> 
> human worlds: they cannot imagine them, they deny their very existence.
> While the human world is helping the animal and developing the vegetable
> kingdoms, those kingdoms are unconscious of it. Similarly the human world
> cannot comprehend the world of the Kingdom; it is absolutely ignorant of the
> Kingdom while the heavenly spirits have influence in the human world.
> “Observe how clear this point is, yet the professors and philosophers
> ignore this reality! The psychic mediums, however, are speaking of the world
> of thought and not of the world of reality. But a heavenly soul who is
> conscious of the Divine World, whose eye of discernment is open, who is
> detached from the world of nature, and has attained to spiritual power — this
> soul is cognizant of the world of spirits. Reality is pure spirit, it is not physical.
> That is, it occupies no space.”
> One of the great utterances of Baha’o’llah hitherto unpublished, and
> significant from its reference to cosmogony, the corner stone of all scientific
> truth, is known as “Tablet to the Zoroastrians.”This tablet follows:
> In the Name of God, the Peerless
> 
> Glory befits that Discerner who, through one shower of the ocean of His
> Generosity, expanded the firmament of existence, begemmed it with the stars
> of knowledge and summoned the people to
> 
> [page 113]
> 
> the most high court of perception and understanding.
> This shower, which is the first Word of the Almighty, is sometimes called
> the water of life, for it quickens the dead souls in the desert of ignorance with
> the spring of intelligence. Sometimes it is called the first emanation which
> appears from the Sun of Wisdom; and when it began to shine the first
> movement became manifest and known, and then phenomena stepped into the
> arena of existence, and these appearances were through the generosity of the
> Incomparable, the Wise One. He is the Knower, the Giver! He is sanctified
> and holy above every statement and attribute. The seen and the unseen fail to
> attain the measure of His understanding. The world of being and whatever has
> issued from it bears witness to this utterance.
> Therefore it has become known that the first bestowal of the Almighty is
> the Word. The receiver and acceptor of it is the understanding. It is the first
> instructor in the university of existence and is the primal emanation of God.
> Whatever is manifested is the appearance of Its wisdom. All the names
> originate in His Name and the beginnings and endings of all affairs are in His
> hand.
> Your letter came to this Captive of the world in this prison. It brought
> happiness and increased friendship; it renewed the remembrance of the former
> times. Thanks belong to the Possessor of the
> 
> [page 114]
> 
> universe who permitted us to meet in the land of Persia. We met, we conversed
> and we listened. It is hoped that no forgetfulness shall follow that meeting, that
> the revolving of the wheel of time shall not take away the remembrance from
> the heart and that the plants of love shall grow out of that which is sown and
> become green, verdant and imperishable.
> You have asked regarding the heavenly books. The pulse of the world is
> in the hand of the skillful physician. He diagnoses the illness and wisely
> prescribes the remedy. Every day has its own secret and every tongue a
> melody. The illness of to-day has one cure and that of to-morrow another.
> Look ye upon this day and consider and discuss its needs. One sees that
> existence is afflicted with innumerable ailments compelling it to lie upon the
> bed of suffering. Men who are intoxicated with the wine of self-contemplation
> prevent the Wise Physician from reaching the patient. Thus they have caused
> themselves and the world to suffer. They know not the ailment, nor recognize
> the remedy. They take the wrong for the right, the crooked for the straight, the
> enemy for the friend.
> Hearken ye to the melody of this Prisoner! Stand up and proclaim;
> perchance those who are asleep may waken. Say: O ye dead ones, the generous
> hand of the Almighty is passing around the water of eternal life. Hasten ye and
> drink. What-
> 
> [page 115]
> soever becomes alive in this Day shall never die. Whatsoever dies in this Day
> can never find life.
> O friend! When the Primal Word appeared in these latter days, a number
> of the heavenly souls heard the melody of the Beloved and hastened toward it;
> while others, finding that the deeds of some did not correspond with their
> words, were prevented from the splendors of the Sun of Knowledge.
> Say: O ye sons of earth! The pure God proclaims that which in this
> Glorious Day shall purify you from the stains of desire and enable you to
> attain to tranquility in My Straight Path and My Manifest Road. To be severed
> from attachment means to be separated from those things which occasion loss
> and lessen the grandeur of man. If the people of the world should attain to the
> Heavenly Utterances, they would never be prevented from the ocean of divine
> generosity. The heaven of righteousness has no star and shall never have one
> brighter than this. The first utterance of the Wise One is: “O ye sons of earth!
> Turn from the darkness of foreignness to the shining of the Sun of Unity. This
> is that which shall benefit the people of the world more than aught else.” O
> friend! The Tree of the Word has no better blossom and the Ocean of Wisdom
> never shall have a brighter pearl than this.
> O ye sons of intelligence! The thin eyelid prevents the eye from seeing the
> world and what is
> 
> [page 116]
> 
> contained therein. Then think of the result when the curtain of greed covers the
> sight of the heart. Say: O people, the darkness of greed and envy obscures the
> light of the soul, as the cloud prevents the penetration of the Sun’s rays.
> Should one listen with the ear of intelligence to this Utterance, he shall spread
> the wings of freedom and soar with great joy toward the heaven of
> understanding.
> When the world was environed with darkness, the Sea of Generosity was
> set in motion and divine illumination appeared so that the deeds were
> disclosed. This is the same illumination which is promised in the Heavenly
> Books. Should the Almighty desire the hearts of the people of the world, He
> will purify and sanctify them through the power of the Word and will pour
> forth the light of the Sun of Unity upon the souls to regenerate the world.
> O people! The word must be demonstrated by the deed, for the righteous
> witness of the word is action. The former without the latter shall not allay the
> thirst of the needy nor open the doors of sight to the blind.
> The Heavenly Wise One proclaimeth: A harsh word is like unto a sword,
> but gentle speech is like unto milk. The children of the world attain knowledge
> and better themselves through this.
> The Tongue of Wisdom says: Whosoever possesses me not hath nothing.
> Pass by whatever exists in this world, and find me. I am the Sun of
> 
> [page 117]
> 
> Perception and the Ocean of Science. I revive the withered ones and quicken
> the dead. I am that light which illumines the path of insight. I am the Falcon of
> the Hand of the Almighty. I bear healing in my wings and teach the knowledge
> of soaring to the Heaven of Truth.
> The Peerless Beloved says: The Way of Freedom is opened; hasten
> thereto. The Fountain of Knowledge is gushing; drink ye. Say: O friend, the
> Tabernacle of Oneness is raised; look not upon each other with the eye of
> strangeness. Ye are all the fruits of One Tree and the leaves of one Branch.
> Truly, I say, whatever lessens ignorance and increases knowledge, that has
> been, is and shall be accepted by the Creator.
> Say: O people, walk ye under the shade of the Tree of Righteousness.
> Enter ye under the protection of the Tent of Unity.
> Say: O thou possessor of sight, the past is the mirror of the future; look
> and perceive. Perchance, after the acquirement of knowledge, ye may know
> the Friend and attain to His good pleasure. To-day the best fruit of the Tree of
> Science and Knowledge is that which benefits mankind and improves his
> condition.
> Say: The tongue is the witness of My Truth; do not pollute it with
> untruthfulness. The spirit is the treasury of My mystery; do not deliver it into
> the hand of greed. It is hoped that in this Dawn the world shall become
> illumined with the rays of
> 
> [page 118]
> 
> the Sun of understanding and knowledge, so that we may attain to the goodpleasure of the Beloved and drink from the ocean of divine recognition.
> O friend! As there were few ears to hear, for some time the Pen has been
> silent in Its own chamber, and to such a degree that silence has had precedence
> over utterance. Say: O people, words are revealed according to the capacity of
> the people, so that the beginners may make progress. The milk must be given
> according to a measure, in order that the babe of the world may enter into the
> realm of grandeur and be established in the court of unity.
> O friend! We have seen the pure ground and cast the seed of knowledge.
> Now it depends upon the rays of the sun whether it burns up or is caused to
> grow. Say: To-day, through the greatness of the Peerless Wise One, the Sun of
> Knowledge has appeared from behind the covering of the spirit and all the
> birds of the meadow of oneness are intoxicated with the wine of understanding
> and are commemorating the Name of the Beloved. Happy is the one who finds
> this and becomes immortal.
> 
> The following remarks were made by Abdul Baha to a group of scientific
> students.
> 
> “When we ponder over the reality of the microcosm, we discover that in
> the microcosm there are deposited three realities. Man is endowed with an
> 
> [page 119]
> 
> outer or physical reality. It belongs to the material realm, the animal kingdom,
> because it has sprung from the material world. This animalistic reality of man
> he shares in common with the animals.
> “The human body is like animals subject to nature’s laws. But man is
> endowed with a second reality, the rational or intellectual reality; and the
> intellectual reality of man predominates over nature.
> “All these sciences which we enjoy were hidden and recondite secrets of
> nature, unknowable to nature, but man was enabled to discover these
> mysteries, and out of the plane of the unseen he brought them into the plane of
> the seen. Thus while man’s physical reality is captive to nature, man is the
> governor of nature through this intellectual power.
> “Yet there is a third reality in man, the spiritual reality. Through its
> medium one discovers spiritual revelations, a celestial faculty which is infinite
> as regards the intellectual as well as physical realms. That power is conferred
> upon man through the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is an eternal reality, an
> indestructible reality, a reality belonging to the divine, supernatural kingdom;
> a reality whereby the world is illumined, a reality which grants unto man
> eternal life. This third, spiritual reality it is which discovers past events and
> looks along the vistas of the future. It is the ray of the Sun of Reality. The
> spiritual world is enlightened through it, the whole of the Kingdom is being
> illumined by
> 
> [page 120]
> 
> it. It enjoys the world of beatitude, a world which had no beginning and which
> shall have no end.
> “That celestial reality, the third reality of the microcosm, delivers man
> from the material world. Its power causes man to escape from nature’s world.
> Escaping, he will find an illuminating reality, transcending the limited reality
> of man and causing him to attain to the infinitude of God, abstracting him from
> the world of superstitions and imaginations, and submerging him in the sea of
> the rays of the Sun of Reality.
> “This fact is proved from scientific as well as spiritual evidence.
> “When we ponder over the conditions of phenomena, we observe that all
> phenomena are composed of single elements. This singular cell-element
> travels and has its coursings through all the grades of existence. I wish you to
> ponder carefully over this. This cellular element has at some time been in the
> mineral kingdom. While staying in the mineral kingdom it has had its
> coursings and transformations through myriads of images and forms. Having
> perfected its journey in the mineral kingdom, it has ascended to the vegetable
> kingdom; and in the vegetable kingdom it has again had its journeys and
> transformations through myriads of conditions. Having accomplished its
> functions in the vegetable kingdom, the cellular element ascends to the animal
> kingdom.
> “In the animal kingdom again it goes through
> 
> [page 121]
> 
> the composition of myriads of images, and then we have it in the human
> kingdom. In the human kingdom likewise it has its transferences and coursings
> through multitudes of forms. In short, this single primordial atom has had its
> great journeys through every stage of life, and in every stage it was endowed
> with a special and particular virtue or characteristic.
> “Consequently, the great divine philosophers have had the following
> epigram: All things are involved in all things. For every single phenomenon
> has enjoyed the postulates of God, and in every form of these infinite electrons
> it has had its characteristics of perfection.
> “Thus this flower once upon a time was of the soil. The animal eats the
> flower or its fruit, and it thereby ascends to the animal kingdom. Man eats the
> meat of the animal, and there you have its ascent into the human kingdom,
> because all phenomena are divided into that which eats and that which is
> eaten. Therefore, every primordial atom of these atoms, singly and indivisibly,
> has had its coursings throughout all the sentinent creation, going constantly
> into the aggregation of the various elements. Hence do you have the
> conservation of energy and the infinity of phenomena, the indestructibility of
> phenomena, changeless and immutable, because life cannot suffer annihilation
> but only change.
> “The apparent annihilation is this: that the form,
> 
> [page 122]
> 
> the outward image, goes through all these changes and transformations. Let us
> again take the example of this flower. The flower is indestructible. The only
> thing that we can see, this outer form, is indeed destroyed, but the elements,
> the indivisible elements which have gone into the composition of this flower
> are eternal and changeless. Therefore the realities of all phenomena are
> immutable. Extinction or mortality is nothing but the transformation of
> pictures and images, so to speak — the reality back of these images is eternal.
> And every reality of the realities is one of the bounties of God.
> “Some people believe that the divinity of God had a beginning. They say
> that before this particular beginning, man had not knowledge of the divinity of
> God. With this principle they have limited the operations of the influences of
> God.
> “For example, they think there was a time when man did not exist, and
> that there will be a time in the future when man will not exist. Such a theory
> circumscribes the power of God, because how can we understand the divinity
> of God except through scientifically understanding the manifestations of the
> attributes of God?
> “How can we understand the nature of fire except from its heat, its light?
> Were not heat and light in this fire, naturally we could not say that the fire
> existed.
> “Thus if there was a time when God did not
> 
> [page 123]
> 
> manifest his qualities, then there was no God, because the attributes of God
> presuppose the creation of phenomena. For example, by present consideration
> we say that God is the creator. Then there must always have been a creation —
> since the quality of creator cannot be limited to the moment when some man
> or men realize this attribute. The attributes that we discover one by one —
> these attributes themselves necessarily anticipated our discovery of them.
> Therefore, God has no beginning and no ending; nor is his creation limited
> ever as to degree. Limitations of time and degree pertain to things created,
> never to creation as a whole. They pertain to the forms of things, not to their
> realities. The effulgence of God cannot be suspended. The sovereignty of God
> cannot be interrupted.
> “As long as the sovereignty of God is immemorial, therefore the creation
> of our world throughout infinity is presupposed. When we look at the reality of
> this subject, we see that the bounties of God are infinite, without beginning
> and without end.
> “The greatest bounties of God in this phenomenal world are his
> Manifestations. This is the greatest postulate. These Manifestations are the
> Suns of Reality. For it is through the Manifestation that the reality becomes
> known and established for man. History proves to us that apart from the
> influence of the Manifestations, man sinks back into his animal condition,
> using even his intellectual power
> 
> [page 124]
> 
> to subserve an animal purpose. Therefore there is no cessation whatsoever in
> the future for the appearance of the Manifestations of God, because God is
> infinite and his purpose cannot be limited in any way. If we ever dare to limit
> and circumscribe God’s purpose within any bounds, then of necessity we have
> dared to set limitations to the omnipotence of God. The created has dared to
> define his Creator!
> “Consequently, the perfect man ever beholds the rays of the Sun of Truth.
> The perfect man ever awaits and expects the coming of the effulgence of God.
> He ever ponders over the methods and purposes of God, knowing that of
> certainty the realities of the Divine are not finite, the Divine names and
> attributes are not finite, God’s graces and bounties are without limit, and the
> coming of the Manifestations of God are not circumscribed by time. Were you
> to enter any Bahai gathering of the East, it would be difficult to tell who is
> Christian, who is Jew — they are like so many flames that have become one
> mighty flame. All these separate channels, thanks to Baha’o’llah, are
> converging into one world-stream!”
> 
> THE BAHAI MESSAGE TO POLITICS AND ECONOMICS
> 
> Baha’o’llah says: “The light of men is Justice: extinguish it not with the
> contrary winds of oppression and tyranny. The purpose of Justice is the
> appearance of unity in the world. In this exalted Word, the sea of God’s
> wisdom is moving; all the books of the world are not sufficient to contain its
> interpretation. If the world understands and accepts this wisdom, the light of
> the declaration: On that day God will satisfy them all with His abundance —
> will arise like the sun from the heavenly horizon. Happy is he who heareth and
> attaineth.”
> These words of Baha’o’llah, in reality, fulfil the teaching of all the
> prophets, that spiritual law is the permanent basis of human existence in all its
> aspects. They enable us to have a truer understanding of what Christ meant by
> the saying: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” Hitherto,
> the quality of meekness, like all the qualities, has been given a physical
> interpretation which limited its significance and weakened its influence.
> If we consider all the new conditions brought into the world with the
> manifestation of Baha’o’llah —
> 
> [page 126]
> 
> all the new economic and political factors due to science and invention — we
> realize that our era, in its demands upon character, stands apart from all former
> times.
> Hitherto, the economic side of life has been developed from man’s contact
> with nature. It has derived from human character as established by struggle
> and competition. It has compelled the individual’s spiritual vision to make
> terms with the overwhelming influence of the collective social organism. But
> to-day, science and invention have brought in an entirely new set of factors
> which separate man from nature. To-day, the essence of economic stability and
> progress is no longer competition, but cooperation.
> All the terrible conditions existing in the world to-day are the result of
> having carried the physical, the animal law of competition into this new era of
> cooperation. Struggle and competition now produce poverty instead of wealth.
> The principle of this new age is that man’s economic environment is not
> nature, but his fellow man.
> Therefore, in order to emerge from under the terrific burden of our own
> social machinery, we must learn to base all material activity upon laws of
> human association. The significance of these laws must be felt as instinctively,
> as vitally, as have been felt the physical laws of survival in ages past.
> The “meek” shall indeed inherit the earth, if by “meek” we mean those
> men and women who can
> 
> [page 127]
> 
> evolve from the individualistic state of mind into a state of mind reflecting the
> possibilities of cooperation. For it is an appreciation of the eternal authority of
> brotherhood, and this alone, which can displace the authority of nature in
> molding the character of men.
> One of the great Bahai teachings is consequently this: that beginning with
> the Manifestation of Baha’o’llah, the world entered upon a new cycle wherein
> the chasm between “real” and “ideal” shall be done away. All that has existed
> of aspiration shall for the first time find suitable instruments of expression. As
> the laws of human association replace throughout society the laws of animal
> survival, men will learn how to realize the harmony, the beauty, the
> abundance, the free fellowship which the myths of every people have
> attributed to the Golden Age.
> But as Baha’o’llah declared, “All construction is preceded by
> destruction.” Therefore are all institutions based upon selfishness undergoing
> rapid disintegration, in order to change the motives behind them and permit a
> new spirit of organization to remold the world.
> Nothing can resist the changes now taking place throughout the world.
> Entering into every phase of our material life, the new cosmic force is
> disrupting them with incredible rapidity from within. But this is apparent
> destruction only — it is the same force which destroys the seed in order that
> the
> 
> [page 128]
> 
> tree may emerge. From the spiritual point of view, the only question is how
> long it will take the imprisoned giant of true progress to break his bonds, how
> much suffering mankind still requires before we come to realize that human
> well being, and not money, is the true standard of wealth.
> Just as nature works forward in stages from seed planting to harvest, so by
> stages the cosmic era will establish its own equivalent economic and political
> expression. The present moment is the stage of the seed planting, the time
> when all people are separating themselves according to their spiritual capacity.
> It is the time of outer sacrifice yet greatest inward victory.
> In reality, there is no “economic problem.” What appears as such is
> merely one of the bitter consequences of ignorance of cosmic truth.
> But for the guidance of the world during this period when spiritual vision
> is dim, Abdul Baha has made certain definite interpretations of the laws of
> Baha’o’llah.
> One of these is the statement that the necessary condition to any and all
> progress is international disarmament and the organization of the means for
> preserving peace. Under modern conditions, as Abdul Baha has said, war is
> continuous; the expense of maintaining armaments renders economic stability
> impossible.
> Another Bahai principle is that agriculture is to be regarded as the most
> important industry. The
> [page 129]
> 
> conditions affecting agriculture should receive our closest attention.
> Laws of inheritance are laid down which affect a distribution of
> accumulated property according to just principles.
> The status of teachers is declared to be very much higher than it has ever
> been regarded in previous times.
> The principle of personal property is upheld, as opposed to any form of
> communism. Communism makes it impossible to perform voluntary acts of
> service, thus destroying one of the greatest means to spiritual development
> while at the same time denying the inherent differences which exist between
> characters and capacities.
> Another Bahai teaching is that the present wage system is both unjust and
> pernicious in its effects. The worker is to receive each one a due percentage of
> the profits.
> The over-centralization of governments is declared to be wrong in
> principle, and in practise as making for poverty and international
> misunderstanding. The local community is given the function of taxation, and
> taxes are to be administered in such a way as to leave none in unemployment
> or want. The surplus is to be sent the central government after the
> community’s own needs have been met. A system of storage is recommended
> from which members of the community can draw in times of scarcity.
> 
> [page 130]
> 
> Education is made compulsory. Every boy and girl is to learn some
> specific trade, art or profession by which each member of the community can
> become self-supporting. None is exempt from productive labor. A universal
> language is to be selected from among the present languages, or a new
> language devised, which shall be taught in all schools throughout the world in
> addition to the mother tongue.
> People are to be elected to responsible office for their spiritual capacity as
> well as practical grasp of affairs.
> Regarding the status of women, Abdul Baha has said: “It is very clear that
> in the immediate future, women will play a great role in the progress of
> civilization. The mothers are the real educators of the human race. While
> women are acquiring virtues, studying sciences, equipping themselves for
> artistic careers and entering upon the field of active work, the old foundations
> are tottering, the old earth is passing away, and a new heaven is appearing. The
> importance of this great fact is not yet fully known. It is the sun of all the
> questions of this age.”
> Science is the evidence of spiritual reality upon this plane; from science
> will humanity derive the power to reorganize social existence. Just as ancient
> civilizations gave way to Feudalism, and Feudalism disintegrated, so will the
> present order undergo transformation. The larger principle at work is
> 
> [page 131]
> 
> that the separation between political, economic, artistic and religious activity
> can no longer be accepted as valid or necessary. True civilization implies the
> control of one standard and not many.
> The Montreal Star reported an address by Abdul Baha to a meeting of
> Socialists in 1912 as follows:
> “Earth should be a Paradise!
> “There are certain species of life that seemingly can live solitary and
> alone. Certain trees, certain animals and even herds remain far from their kind.
> But man is necessarily ever in need of cooperation and mutual help.
> “In reality, all mankind represents one family. God desires that each
> individual member of the body politic should live in the utmost well being and
> comfort.
> “If all do not so enjoy life there is a lack of symmetry in the body politic.
> ‘Let us look after ourselves’ the selfish say; Let others die, so long as I am
> comfortable, all is going well!’ Such a callous attitude is due to lack of
> working law.
> “Abdul Baha then outlined a scheme formulated24 by Baha’o’llah for
> ensuring the economic happiness of the world. In this plan farmers are first to
> be dealt with, for the agricultural industry
> 
> [page 132]
> 
> is the most important and the most useful in the national life. It provides that
> every village community have a general storehouse to which a number of
> revenues would come. This income from the communal fund would include
> tithes, a certain percentage from the number of animals and one-third from
> mines and minerals.
> “Should anyone die without an heir, all his wealth would revert to the
> general storehouse and any treasure trove discovered would become public
> property.
> “The plan further advocates that tithes be collected from the farmers on a
> graduated scale. If a man’s necessary expenses equal his income he would pay
> nothing. If one had an expenditure of a thousand dollars and an income of two
> thousand, he would pay one-tenth; from one having an income of ten thousand
> dollars and expense of one thousand, two-tenths would be exacted. ... If the
> income were two hundred thousand dollars and the expense ten thousand, then
> the community would exact one-half.
> “From this general store house the less fortunate members of the
> commonwealth would draw to secure their share of the common welfare.
> “There would be no poverty in the community. Orphans, cripples, the
> poor, the blind, the deaf, the aged, the helpless would be looked after. The
> people themselves would elect trustees for the administration of the public
> trust.
> 
> [page 133]
> 
> “Whatever surplus there might be after all were provided for would go to
> the national exchequer. For the large cities, such a plan would be carried out
> on a much more extended scale.
> “Under this system every member of the community would live in
> comfort, without fear and without being under obligations to any.
> “Degrees or grades would not be abolished. These would be necessary as
> in an army it is necessary to have marshals, generals, colonels, sergeants and
> privates. But notwithstanding the grades, all would have the right to share in
> the general well being.
> 
> It is a Bahai teaching that each local House of Justice shall have the right to work out
> the details of its own administrative problems.
> “The earth can be made a Paradise! Let all the servants of God ever strive
> that such a great happiness may accrue to the world of humanity.”
> 
> As regards the political problem which to-day stands as the one World
> Issue — the problem of International Peace — we have these illuminating
> words from Abdul Baha. They were written in a Tablet to the Central
> Organization for a Durable Peace, The Hague, Holland, and dated Haifa,
> Palestine, December 17th, 1919. It is interesting to note, in passing, that the
> above date was that of the time when, on account of the strange alignment of
> the planets, many people thought “the world was coming to an end.” Cosmic
> thought teaches us clearly enough that the only “worlds” which ever “come to
> an end” are the worlds of consciousness — the cycles of civilization measured
> by subjective be-
> 
> [page 134]
> 
> liefs, attitudes, degrees of knowledge, etc. December 17th, 1919, therefore,
> may be taken to mark the end of the world’s necessity to believe in War!
> To quote from the above Tablet:
> 
> “There is not one soul whose conscience does not testify that in this day
> there is no more important matter in the world than that of Universal Peace.
> Every just one bears witness to this, and adores that esteemed Assembly (the
> Central Organization for a Durable Peace) because its aim is that this darkness
> may be changed into light, this blood-thirstiness into kindness, this torment
> into bliss, this hardship into ease, and this hatred and enmity into fellowship
> and love. Therefore, the effort of those esteemed souls is worthy of praise and
> commendation.
> “But the wise souls who are aware of the essential relationship emanating
> from the realities of things consider that one single matter cannot, by itself,
> influence the human reality as it ought and should, for until the minds of men
> become united, no important matter can be accomplished. At present Universal
> Peace is a matter of great importance, but unity of conscience is essential, so
> that the foundation of this matter may become secure, its establishment firm
> and its edifice strong.
> “Therefore His Holiness Baha’o’llah, fifty years ago, expounded this
> question of Universal Peace at a time when he was confined in the fortress of
> Acca and was wronged and imprisoned. He wrote
> 
> [page 135]
> 
> about this important matter of Universal Peace to all the great sovereigns of
> the world, and established it among his friends in the East. The horizon of the
> East was in utter darkness, nations displayed the utmost hatred and enmity
> toward each other, religions thirsted for each other’s blood, and it was
> darkness upon darkness. At such a time His Holiness Baha’o’llah shone forth
> like the sun from the horizon of the East and illumined Persia with the lights of
> these teachings. ...
> “The scope of Universal Peace must be such that all the communities and
> religions may find their highest wish realized in it. At present the teachings of
> His Holiness Baha’o’llah are such that all the communities of the world,
> whether religious, political or ethical, ancient or modern, find in the teachings
> of Baha’o’llah the expression of their highest wish. …
> “For example, the question of Universal Peace, about which His Holiness
> Baha’o’llah says that the Supreme Tribunal must be established: although the
> League of Nations has been brought into existence, yet it is incapable of
> establishing Universal Peace. But the Supreme Tribunal which His Holiness
> Baha’o’llah has described will fulfill this sacred task with the utmost might
> and power. And his plan is this: that the national assemblies of each country
> and nation — that is to say, their parliaments — should elect two or three
> persons who are the choicest men of that nation, and are well in-
> 
> [page 136]
> 
> formed concerning international laws and the relations between governments
> and aware of the essential needs of the world of humanity in this day. The
> number of these representatives should be in proportion to the number of
> inhabitants of that country. The election of these souls who are chosen by the
> national assembly, that is, the parliament, must be confirmed by the upper
> house, the congress and the cabinet and also by the president or monarch so
> that these persons may be the elected ones of all the nation and the
> government. From among these people the members of the Supreme Tribunal
> will be elected, and all mankind will thus have a share therein, for every one of
> these delegates is fully representative of his nation. When the Supreme
> Tribunal gives a ruling on any international question, either unanimously or by
> majority-rule, there will no longer be any pretext for the plaintiff or ground of
> objection for the defendant. In case any of the governments or nations, in the
> execution of the irrefutable decision of the Supreme Tribunal, be negligent or
> dilatory, the rest of the nations will rise up against it, because all the
> governments and nations of the world are the supporters of this Supreme
> Tribunal. Consider what a firm foundation this is! But by a limited and
> restricted League the purpose will not be realized as it ought and should. This
> is the truth about the situation, which has been stated. …
> “To-day nothing but the power of the Word of
> 
> [page 137]
> 
> God which encompasses the realities of things can bring the thoughts, the
> minds, the hearts and the spirits under the shade of One Tree. He is the potent
> in all things, the Vivifier of souls, the Preserver and the Controller of the world
> of mankind. Praise be to God, in this day the light of the Word of God has
> shone forth upon all regions, and from all sects, communities, nations, tribes,
> peoples, religions and denominations, souls have gathered together under the
> shadow of the Word of Oneness and have in the most intimate fellowship
> united and harmonized!”
> 
> To quote from another Tablet of Abdul Baha which Abdul Baha himself
> enclosed with the above Tablet addressed to the Central Organization for a
> Durable Peace.
> 
> “The Blessed Beauty (Baha’o’llah) said: All are the fruits of one tree and
> the leaves of one branch. …Thus the friends of God must manifest the mercy
> of the Compassionate Lord in the world of existence and must show forth the
> bounty of the visible and invisible King ... O ye dear friends! The darkness of
> unfaithfulness has enshrouded the earth and the illumination of faithfulness
> has become concealed. …The edifice of man is shattered. …In all regions
> friendship and uprightness are denounced, and reconciliation and regard for
> truth are despised. The herald of peace, reformation, love and reconciliation is
> the Religion of the Blessed Beauty which has pitched its tent on
> 
> [page 138]
> 
> the apex of the world (of consciousness) and proclaimed its summons to the
> people.
> “Then, O ye friends of God! Appreciate the value of this precious
> Revelation, move and act in accordance with it and walk in the straight path
> and the right way. Show it to the people. Raise the melody of the Kingdom and
> spread abroad the teachings and ordinances of the loving Lord so that the
> world may become another world, the darkened earth may become illumined
> and the dead body of the people may obtain new life. Every soul may seek
> everlasting life through the breath of the Merciful. Life in this mortal world
> will quickly come to an end, and this earthly glory, wealth, comfort and
> happiness will soon vanish and be no more. Summon ye the people to God and
> call the souls to the manners and conduct of the Supreme Concourse. …Every
> soul of the friends of God must concentrate his mind on this, that he may
> manifest the mercy of God and the bounty of the Forgiving One. He must do
> good to every soul whom he encounters, and render benefit to him, becoming
> the cause of improving the morals and correcting the thoughts so that the light
> of guidance may shine forth and the bounty of His Holiness the Merciful One
> may encompass. Love is light in whatsoever house it may shine, and enmity is
> darkness in whatsoever abode it dwell.” — Abdul Baha.
> 
> THE BAHAI MESSAGE TO CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND NEW
> THOUGHT
> 
> The Christian Science Movement — and the various groups generally
> known as followers of New Thought — suffer particularly from the fact
> already pointed out in this book, namely that terminology and organization
> blind us all to each other’s spiritual reality. Thus among the Christian
> Scientists and New Thought groups there are many who regard their
> membership as an opportunity to acquire merely a new and superior method to
> attain material wealth, comfort, health and ease. Such people seriously vitiate
> the real purpose of the great Source of Reality — seriously abuse the cosmic
> forces which otherwise, without these people, would undoubtedly be
> manifested far more near to its real purity than it can be manifested now.
> When the Sun of Truth arose, the power of the spirit was forevermore
> firmly established over the power of the flesh. This “earth consciousness” was
> transformed into “heaven consciousness” by that Divine Decree. The human
> founders of Christian Science and New Thought therefore are seen clearly to
> have put into active operation the reality of “heaven consciousness.” They are
> to be regarded
> 
> [page 140]
> 
> as among the mightiest proofs of the Cause of God. So, considering the
> meaning of Spiritual Reality as a whole, we can begin to realize how far
> certain members of these organizations have attempted to draw them from
> their divine purpose. For the “heaven consciousness” was established not to
> permit merely a new attainment of physical health and material prosperity, but
> to render it possible for pure men and women everywhere to attain Reality —
> to live the new life of God. Did Christ manifest “money consciousness” — did
> He use His power to turn away one drop from the cup of suffering? Rather did
> Christ manifest the correct way for us all to employ our spiritual power. For
> the Cosmic Law only makes the physical world an unreality to open gates to a
> world of spiritual reality.
> No more tremendous passage exists in any of the world’s Scriptures than
> that message sent by Baha’o’llah, imprisoned and condemned, to the Shah of
> Persia, at that time one of the most absolute of monarchs. The contrast
> between material and spiritual glory, between temporal and eternal power, is
> etched upon the heart beyond forget:
> “I was asleep on my couch. The breaths of my Lord, the Merciful, passed
> by me and awakened me, and commanded me to proclaim (His Cause)
> between heaven and earth. This was not of me, but of God, and to this bear
> witness the denizens of the realms of His power and His kingdom, and the
> inhabitants of the cities of His glory. I am not im-
> 
> [page 141]
> 
> patient of calamities in His way, nor of afflictions which are as a morning
> shower to His green pasture, and as a wick for His lamp whereby heaven and
> earth are illumined.
> “Shall that which anyone hath of wealth endure unto him, or prevail
> tomorrow with him who holdeth his forelock? If any should look upon those
> who sleep under monuments and keep company with the dust, can he
> distinguish the bones of the king’s skull from the knuckles of the slave? No, by
> the King of Kings! …Where is the keenness of their glances, the sharpness of
> their vision, the soundness of their understanding? By God, distinction is
> removed, save from him who fulfilled righteousness and judged with equity.
> …Alas! All have been laid waste, and the decree of God hath rendered them as
> scattered dust! Emptied is what they treasured up, and dissipated is what they
> collected, and dispersed is what they concealed. They have become such that
> thou seest naught but their empty places, their gaping roofs, their uprooted
> beams, their new things waxed old. As for the discerning man, verily wealth
> will not divert him from regarding the end; and as for the prudent man, riches
> will not withhold him from turning toward God, the Rich, the Exalted.
> …Where are they at whose bounty treasures were consumed, by whose
> openhandedness and generosity the ocean was outdone? …Woe unto them!
> They have descended to the abyss and become companions to the pebbles; today no men-
> 
> [page 142]
> 
> tion is heard of them nor any sound; nothing is known of them nor any hint.
> Will the people dispute it while they behold it? Will they deny while they
> know it? I know not in what valley they wander erringly; do they not see that
> they depart and have no return? How long will they be descending and
> ascending, spiritually rising and falling? Has the time not yet come to those
> who believe, for their hearts to become humble for the remembrance of God?
> …Alas! Naught is reaped but what is sown, and naught is taken but what is
> laid up, save by the grace of God and His compassion. …Have we any good
> works whereby defects shall be removed or which shall bring us near unto the
> Lord of causes? We ask God to deal with us according to His grace, not
> according to His justice, and to make us of those who turn toward Him and are
> severed from all save Him.”
> 
> Abdul Baha constantly reminds us of the true Christian Science, the true
> New Thought:
> 
> “All that has been created is for man, who is at the apex of creation and
> who must be thankful for the divine bestowals. All material things are for us,
> so that through our gratitude we may learn to understand life as a divine
> benefit. If we are disgusted with life, we are ingrates, for our material and
> spiritual existence are the outward evidences of the divine mercy. Therefore
> we must be happy and pass our time in praises, appreciating all things. But
> there is something else — detachment. We can
> 
> [page 143]
> 
> appreciate, without attaching ourselves to the things of this world.
> “It sometimes happens that if a man loses his fortune he is so disheartened
> that he dies or becomes insane. While enjoying the things of this world, we
> must remember that perhaps some day we shall have to do without them.
> Attach not thyself to anything unless in it thou seest the reality of God. This is
> the first step into the court of eternity. The earth life lasts but a short time,
> even its benefits are transitory; that which is temporary does not deserve our
> heart’s attachment.
> “Material favors sometimes deprive us of spiritual favors, and material
> rest of spiritual rest. A rich man said to Christ, ‘I would fain be thy disciple.’
> ‘Go and put into practise the ten commandments,’ replied the Christ. ‘But I
> know them by heart and have always practised them.’ ‘Then sell what thou
> hast and take up thy cross and follow me.’ The man returned to his home. But
> the rich who are attracted through their hearts have the spark and are like unto
> brilliant torches. Baha’o’llah has spoken of the importance of this station.
> Certain rich ones have sacrificed their possessions and even their lives for this
> Cause. Riches were not an obstacle for them, and they are like stars in the
> heavens of both worlds — flames of reality.
> “Detachment does not consist in setting fire to one’s house, or becoming
> bankrupt, or throwing one’s fortune out of the window, or even in giving
> 
> [page 144]
> 
> away all one’s possessions. Detachment consists in refraining from letting our
> possessions possess us. A prosperous merchant who is not attached to his
> business knows detachment. A banker whose occupation does not prevent him
> from serving humanity is detached. A poor man can be attached to a small
> thing.
> “May our spirit be at rest!
> “God has given man a heart, and the heart must have some attachment.
> We have proved that nothing is completely worthy of our heart’s devotion
> save reality, for all else is destined to perish. Therefore the heart is never at
> rest, and never finds real joy and happiness until it attaches itself to the eternal.
> How foolish the bird that builds its nest in a tree that may perish, when it could
> build its nest in an ever-verdant garden of paradise.
> “Man must attach himself to an infinite reality, so that his glory, his joy,
> and his progress may be infinite. Only the spirit is real; everything else is as
> shadow. All bodies disintegrate in the end; only reality subsists. All physical
> perfections come to an end; but the divine virtues are infinite. …
> “Therefore let us yearn for the kingdom of God, so that our works may
> bear eternal fruit. Otherwise the flower will be lost. Attach your hearts to
> Baha’o’llah. He is the eternal Glory of God. Then, from day to day, you will
> become more enlightened; day by day your power will increase; day by day
> your work will become universal, and
> 
> [page 145]
> 
> day by day your horizon will broaden, until in the end they will embrace the
> universe.
> “Glory be upon the people of Glory!”
> 
> THE BAHAI MESSAGE TO THEOSOPHY
> 
> No more penetrating or interesting talks were delivered in Europe and
> America by Abdul Baha than those uttered as guest of Theosophical Societies
> in various cities.
> The Theosophist who brings his wealth of knowledge to the investigation
> of Bahai Principles, will undoubtedly appreciate that the power of the Cause of
> God is that inspiration on the plane of consciousness which animates and
> revives the thought body created by his own profound study. Here is the
> “Doctrine of the Heart” which all teachers have declared to be so much more
> important than the “Doctrine of the Eye.”
> When the Sun of Truth arose, it necessarily cast a shadow behind each of
> our conscious activities. A lesser activity cast a lesser shadow, but a greater
> activity cast a greater shadow. This is that “negative” against which H. P. B.
> constantly warned her students.
> The study, or development, implied by the true Theosophy is
> unquestionably the greatest activity on the plane of consciousness at the
> present time. For Theosophy — H. P. B.’s Theosophy — rises
> 
> [page 147]
> 
> like a tremendous mountain from the low levels of Western thought. The
> positive side of Theosophy is therefore shining the brightest in the light of the
> Spiritual Sun; but since this is so, the negative side must likewise stand in the
> deepest gloom.
> The following Tablet by Baha’o’llah is on the subject of Divine
> Manifestation.
> 
> “Know thou verily, the Manifestation is not composed of the four
> elements (earth, air, fire and water) nay, rather He is the Mystery of Oneness
> of the Ancient Identity, the Eternal Essence, the Unknowable Reality, and that
> verily He can never be comprehended by any other save Himself.
> “He is a Sea upon which no one can sail inasmuch as all that thou mayest
> see in the heaven and earth is created by His Word. He is not a manifestation
> in Himself, but rather He is a Manifestation in His Identity; and that is what
> We have mentioned to thee in the Divine Mystery and the Eternal Essence. As
> to the bodies, verily they are as thrones for His Manifestations of which no one
> is informed save Himself.
> “These bodies, though they have appeared in the world of creation in the
> temples in which thou hast them (Moses, Jesus, Mohamet, etc.), yet wert thou
> to gaze upon them with the eye of Reality and innate consciousness thou too
> wouldst testify that although They are created from the elements yet They are
> sanctified from them to such an extent that there is no similitude between
> Them and other
> 
> [page 148]
> 
> bodies. Consider the diamond: can the stones be compared to it?
> “Were they not to be Their temples, the bodies of His servants would not
> have been created! Wert thou minutely to consider thou wouldst find that
> verily all in the heaven and earth are created from Their outward temples, and
> that all the worlds of Thy Lord seek help from the appearance of the
> Manifestations of God. In every world He appears according to the capacity of
> that world.
> “In the world of Spirit He manifests Himself to them and appears unto
> them with the signs of Spirit.
> “So, likewise, in bodies, in the world of Names and Attributes and in the
> worlds which are not known to any save God. All of these worlds have their
> position with relation to the Manifestation. He appears unto them in His form
> so that He, their Lord, may direct them and draw them nearer to the seat of His
> Command, and cause them to attain to that which was ordained for them. As
> His Reality is not known, so all that which is related to Him is not known,
> except to a certain degree. Consider the goldsmith; verily he makes a ring, and
> although he is its maker yet he adorns his finger with it. Likewise through God
> the Exalted appears the clothing of the creatures. Verily these bodies are the
> Thrones of the Merciful One. They have no like in creation nor any equal in
> the world of emanation.
> 
> [page 149]
> 
> “From their elements all has appeared in such wise that thou wilt find that
> verily from Their Fire the fire hath appeared in the universe and hath spoken in
> the lofty Sinai to Moses, and from Their Waters thou findest every soul living
> and immortal.
> “So likewise consider Its other elements, but with manifest certainty.
> …Every power is in This, wert thou to reflect; every grace is in This wert thou
> of those who perceive. …
> “I beg of God to manifest His Cause in all countries that the servants may
> attain such a position that He may explain to them that which He desires
> without veiling or concealment.
> “By My Life, O friend, wert thou to taste such fruits from the verdure of
> these hyacinths which are planted in the grounds of knowledge, near the
> manifestation of the lights of the Essence in the mirrors of Names and
> Attributes, yearning will take the reins of patience and fortitude from thy
> grasp, thy soul will stir through the flashes of lights, will uplift thee out of the
> earthly abode unto the original, divine abode in the center of significances; and
> will cause thee to ascend unto such a state that thou wilt fly away in the air just
> as thou wouldst walk on the ground, and run on the water even as thou wouldst
> on the earth.
> “Peace be upon those who follow guidance!”
> Baha’o’llah.
> On April 12th, 1913, Abdul Baha attended a
> 
> [page 150]
> 
> meeting of the Star of the East in the headquarters of the Theosophical
> Society, Budapest, Hungary.
> This meeting was opened by five minutes of silence, after which the
> president read the following prayer for the coming of the Universal Teacher:
> Master of the Great White Lodge, Lord of the religions of the world! Come
> down again to the earth that needs Thee, and help the nations which are
> longing for Thy presence. Speak the word of Peace, that the people may cease
> from hostilities. Speak the word of Brotherhood, that the warring classes and
> castes may know themselves as one. Come in the might of Thy Love. Come in
> the splendor of Thy Power, and save the world that is longing for Thy coming.
> Thou art the teacher alike of angels and of men!
> To the Theosophists of Budapest, Abdul Baha gave this message: “As to
> the coming of the Great Master. His appearance is dependent upon the
> realization of certain conditions. Investigate the reality, and in whomsoever
> those conditions are fulfilled, know ye of a certainty that He is the Great
> Master.
> “First. The Great Master will be the educator of the world of humanity.
> “Second. His teachings must be universal and confer illumination upon
> mankind.
> “Third. His knowledge must be innate and spontaneous, and not acquired
> knowledge.
> “Fourth. He must answer the questions of all
> 
> [page 151]
> 
> the sages, solve all the difficult problems of humanity, and be able to
> withstand all the persecutions and sufferings heaped upon Him.
> “Fifth. He must be a joy-bringer and the herald of the Kingdom of
> Happiness.
> “Sixth. His knowledge must be infinite and His wisdom allcomprehensive.
> “Seventh. The penetration of His word and the potency of His influence
> must be so great as to humble even His worst enemies.
> “Eighth. Sorrows and tribulations must not vex Him. His courage and
> conviction must be godlike. Day by day He must become firmer and more
> zealous.
> “Ninth. He must be the establisher of universal civilization, the unifier of
> religions, the standard-bearer of universal peace and the embodiment of all the
> highest and noblest virtues of the world of humanity.
> “Wherever you find these conditions realized in a human temple, turn to
> Him for guidance and illumination.”
> 
> PART TWO
> 
> “Praise be to God that the radiant century hath come. Praise be to God,
> the springtime of eternity hath pitched its tent. Praise be to God, this is the age
> of the discovery of the realities of things. Verily I say unto you, this age is the
> age of science. This age is the age of the appearance of truth. This age is the
> age of the extension of the sphere of thought. This age is the greatest divine
> age. This age is the age of everlasting life. This age is the age of the breaths of
> the Holy Spirit. This age is the age of the flowering of all the hidden virtues of
> the world of humanity.
> “May you receive these bounties day by day. Day by day may you draw
> nearer unto God. May you be submerged in the sea of these iridescent lights.
> May you be characterised by these praiseworthy virtues.
> “This is the ultimate goal of human life! This is the fruit of existence! This
> is the brilliant pearl of cosmic consciousness! This is the shining star of
> spiritual destiny!”
> — Abdul Baha.
> 
> THE SPIRIT OF THE AGE
> 
> “By God, who is the only God, and there is no God but He, this servant
> swears the masters did not come that man should adore them, or worship
> them, or acknowledge their prophethood. No! rather the masters of all time
> have suffered for no other purpose than this — that fleshly veils might be rent
> asunder and reality become manifest.” — Abdul Baha.
> 
> Few people to-day would agree with the statement of Socrates, that to
> know the truth is to live the truth. For we see on all sides a science that does
> not explain, and a religion that cannot inspire.
> But since Socrates’ own life exemplified perfectly his statement about
> life, we must acknowledge that in him at least, truth was identical with will.
> Now this condition glorifies both truth and will, perfecting knowledge
> through power, perfecting will through wisdom. If we consider this condition
> carefully, we must acknowledge further that it was possessed by Paul,
> representative of Christianity, and by Daniel, representing ancient Chaldea. It
> was possessed also by Emerson, the soul of the American people, and a little
> investigation will show this condition manifested likewise by men of every
> religion and race in the world.
> 
> [page 156]
> 
> But for the most part we moderns have lost the guidance of this universal
> human ideal, this true state and dignity of man — the meeting and fusing of
> truth and will — which nevertheless remains as the end of all study and the
> beginning of all desire.
> How was the ideal lost? By confusing the common purpose of those
> masters of wisdom, those sources of faith, those guiders of will, those lords of
> love, — Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Jesus, Mohamet. By blindly
> calling them GOD instead of recognizing them as Manifestations of God. By
> prostituting their pure influence to secure material authority. By no less blindly
> rejecting their instruction in order to create our own god from the nature
> around us or from the imagination within.
> How can the ideal be restored? Surely, through striving to guide with
> greater wisdom the action of will — that compass of creative power we have
> polarized by the magnet of selfish desire. Surely, through striving to bring
> greater concentration of will to our thoughts — those revelators of Self which
> we have allowed only to mirror the changing unreality of the world.
> Now the root of will is desire, implanted in the heart as sensation, where
> left without guidance it springs up as a succession of fruitless weeds. Sensation
> is not real, but a continuous mirage of reality, a whirlpool sucking in and
> destroying every aspiration and every potency of human life. Hence it is
> 
> [page 157]
> 
> to the heart that the masters first of all speak, to attract desire from the
> sensational to the spiritual self. For sensation is the darkness of the heart —
> spirit, or love, is light. And when the masters succeed with a man, this light
> appears in the heart like a sun. From the illumination of this inner sun the mind
> is lighted by reflection, for the mind is to the heart as moon to sun. So as the
> mind has no light of itself, wisdom is concealed until love or light is made to
> appear from the purification of the heart. On the other hand, love is not love
> until it is also understanding — truth.
> There is no hidden wisdom and mystery of the soul and of the universe
> but it becomes manifest even to uneducated men, once desire is detached from
> sensation, and will is confirmed in the real self of spirit. Once a man desires
> life eternal rather than life physical or material, he inherits of his own right a
> wisdom transcending all the theories of the schools. Realizing that the
> Manifestation alone has the true science of life, and patiently learning that
> science, a man experiences the greater self which is the soul, and the greater
> universe where the soul lives. To him is revealed the eternity of the soul’s past
> existence, and the eternity it may still exist. And he knows why the heart, first
> of all, must be disciplined before knowledge can become truth. He learns also
> how the heart’s further discipline can be changed from pain to joy. Gladly he
> assumes the purification of the will which he
> 
> [page 158]
> 
> finds essential to full and enduring citizenship in that spiritual world.
> So the end of knowledge is revealed as the end of love. But it is so
> revealed only by the masters — whose Word conveys a creative power we
> others have lost or never acquired. Of ourselves, and in ourselves, we cannot
> will away sensation — for of sensation are our very wills composed. Of
> ourselves, and in ourselves, we cannot think truth — for truth is the reflection
> of love. In our bodies of personal desire and material knowledge, faith
> perishes, like dry wood in flame.
> But as the masters are — as the masters teach — no distinction can be
> made between desire, will, knowledge, truth, love, faith. These very
> distinctions record our captivity — they do not obtain where the fleshly veil
> has been rent asunder and reality becomes manifest. So we learn by what
> bounty it is — as we receive from the masters the great Message — that “God
> is not mocked” by the claims of churches which have lost truth, nor by the
> claims of scientists who have lost love. For the angel whose flaming sword
> bars the Garden to unworthy intruders is this immutable law: Ye cannot love
> until ye know, and ye cannot know until ye love.
> Now pure hearts and seeing minds are ever conscious of this providential
> decree. Again and again they turn back to one or other of the Manifestations in
> order to learn how to step across the gulf
> 
> [page 159]
> which the world has dug between love and knowledge, truth and will. A
> consuming ardor drives them on to experience within themselves the
> illumination, the certitude, experienced by many like themselves at times when
> any of the Manifestations walked among mankind. They feel instinctively that
> with the Manifestation, and with the Manifestation alone, lies the secret of
> immortality — yea, even the secrets of true science — which is the right and
> privilege of the awakened soul. Mind and heart they long to enter the serene
> universal fellowship of those men who, receiving the Message, stand forth
> through every age in the real nature of God-created mankind.
> For you who desire, however dimly and occasionally, to find a true
> purpose for your existence — and with that purpose a way of fulfillment —
> the Bahai Message comes as a right you should never relinquish, and a
> privilege you can never outgrow.
> “What is the Bahai Message? The Bahai Message is the message of all the
> masters, for it is delivered to us by the master of all the masters who have gone
> before. From him even the masters came, and to him they returned. For him
> they labored — preparing in mysterious ways all things that all things might be
> ready to welcome his Day. The utmost that any previous master gave was the
> love which is his recognition, and the knowledge which is capacity to be
> taught by him. Amid the falling of
> 
> [page 160]
> 
> kingdoms, he is King. Amid the wars of nations, he is Unity. Amid the
> confusion of sciences, he is Truth. Amid the darkness of religions, he is the
> Glory of God.
> So the words that follow are to be pondered in the deepest chambers of the
> heart, until light come, the Light which is Life. Do not hasten through them,
> for it is personal desire that stumbles, and it is acquired knowledge that blinds.
> Be certain ever that their purpose is to resurrect the dead soul — their
> authority encircles both East and West — their power is bringing in the true
> civilization throughout the world.
> 
> (From the Words of Baha’o’llah.)
> 
> Whosoever wisheth, let him advance, and whosoever wisheth, let him
> deny; verily God is independent of him and of that which he may see and
> witness.
> God, singly and alone, abideth in His Place which is Holy above space
> and time, mention and utterance, sign, description and definition, height and
> depth.
> God hath been and is everlastingly hidden in His Own Essence and will be
> eternally concealed from eyes and sight in His Identity. Nay, there hath not
> ever been nor will be any connection or relation between the created beings
> and His word. Therefore God caused brilliant Essences of Sanctity to appear
> from the holy worlds of the Spirit, in human
> 
> [page 161]
> 
> bodies, walking among mankind; in accordance with His abundant mercy.
> These Mirrors of Sanctity fully express that Sun of Existence and Essence of
> Desire. Their knowledge expresses His knowledge, their power His power,
> their dominion His dominion, their beauty His beauty, and their manifestation
> His Manifestation. Therefore whosoever is favored by these shining and
> glorious lights and hath attained to these luminous, radiant Suns of Truth
> during every Manifestation, hath attained the Meeting of God, and entered the
> city of eternal life. This station is assigned only to His Prophets and Holy
> Ones, because no greater and mightier than they have appeared in the realm of
> existence. Consequently, by meeting these Holy Lights, the “Meeting of God”
> is attained; through their Knowledge, the Knowledge of God, and by their
> Countenance the Countenance of God. This Meeting can never be realized by
> any except in the Resurrection Day, which is the Self of God arisen in His
> Universal Manifestation.
> O God! This is a Day the Light of which Thou hast sanctified above the
> sun and its effulgence. I testify that this Day is illumined by the Light of Thy
> Countenance and by the effulgence of the dawning Lights of Thy
> Manifestation.
> O Thou, my God, and the Beloved of my heart! With the name of this Day
> Thou hast adorned Thy Tablet, which is known only to Thee. Thou hast called
> it “The Day of God.” Nothing is to be seen
> 
> [page 162]
> 
> therein but Thy Supreme Self, and naught is to be remembered save Thy
> sweetest Name.
> The Day of the Return to God hath come; arise from your seats, and praise
> and glorify your Lord, the Omniscient, the Wise. He who findeth Life in this
> Day shall never die, and he who dieth in this Day, shall never find Life.
> This is the meaning of that “resurrection” recorded in all the Books, and
> which Day hath been announced to all. Consider, is there any day to be
> imagined greater, mightier and more excellent than this Day, that man should
> turn away from it and deprive himself of its bounties, pouring like the spring
> rain from the presence of the Merciful?
> O my brother, understand then the meaning of resurrection, and purify
> thine ears from the sayings of rejected people. Shouldst thou step a little way
> into the worlds of Severance, thou wilt testify that no day greater than this
> Day, and no resurrection mightier than this Resurrection can be imagined, and
> that one deed in this Day is equivalent to deeds performed during a hundred
> thousand years.
> The Pillar of God is being erected and hath become manifest by His
> providence and command. The time of former things is past and a new time
> has been produced, and all things are made new by the desire of God. But only
> a new eye can perceive and a new mind can comprehend this Station. The
> Beginning and the End bore allusion to One
> 
> [page 163]
> 
> Blessed Word, and that hath come and is manifest. That Word is the Soul of
> the Divine Books and Epistles, which hath forever been and will be
> forevermore. That Word is the key to the Most Great Divine Treasure and to
> the Supreme Hidden Mystery which hath ever been concealed behind the veil
> of preservation. That Word is the same Alpha and Omega prophesied of by
> John. Verily He is the First and the Last, the Manifest and the Hidden.
> Although the purpose of learning is the attainment and knowledge of this
> station, yet all are occupied with outward learnings and desist from them not
> even for a moment; closing their eyes to the essence of Knowledge and the
> knowable. It seems as if they had not drunk one drop from the ocean of Divine
> Knowledge nor attained a sprinkling of the cloud of the Merciful Bounty. But
> We have consumed the greatest veil, with the saying: “Knowledge is the
> greatest veil.”
> But O my brother, when a seeker intends to turn the step of search and
> journeying into the path of the Knowledge of the King of Pre-existence, he
> must first cleanse and purify his heart — which is the place of the appearance
> and emanation of the splendor of the hidden mysteries of Divinity, and he
> must cleanse and refine his breast — which is the throne for the accession and
> establishment of the love of the Eternal Beloved — from the gloomy dusts of
> acquired learning and from the
> 
> [page 164]
> 
> allusions of satanic appearances. He must likewise sanctify his heart from
> attachment to water and clay — in such manner that no trace of love or hatred
> may remain in the heart, lest that love may cause him to incline toward a
> direction without guide, or that hatred prevent him from the direction of
> reality. He should at all times trust in God, and turn away from the creatures;
> be severed and detached from the world of dust and united with the Lord of
> Lords.
> When the lamp of search, effort, longing, fervor, love, rapture, attraction
> and devotion is enkindled in the heart, and the breeze of love blows forth from
> the direction of Unity, the darkness of error, doubt and uncertainty will be
> dispelled and the lights of Knowledge and Assurance will encompass all the
> pillars of existence. Then the ideal Herald will dawn as the true morn from the
> Divine City, with spiritual glad tidings, and awaken the heart, soul and spirit
> from the sleep of negligence, with the trumpet of Knowledge. Then the favors
> and confirmations of the eternal Holy Spirit will impart such a new life that
> one will find himself the possessor of a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a
> new mind, and will direct his attention to the clear, universal signs and to the
> hidden individual secrets. With the new eye of God he will see a door open in
> every atom for attainment to the stations of positive Knowledge, certain Truth,
> and evident Light; and will perceive in all things the mysteries of the
> 
> [page 165]
> 
> splendor of Oneness and the traces of the Manifestation of Eternity.
> What shall we mention of the signs, tokens, appearances and splendors
> ordained in that Divine City, by the command of the King of Names and
> Attributes! The mystery of the fire of Moses is revealed in its wonderful tulips,
> and the breath of the Holy Spirit of Jesus emanates from its fragrances of
> holiness. It bestows wealth without gold and grants immortality without death.
> Those who earnestly endeavor in the way of God, after severance from all else,
> will become so attached to that City that they will not abandon it for an instant.
> This City is the Revelation of God, renewed every one thousand years, more or
> less. For instance, in the age of Moses, it was the Pentatuch; in the time of
> Jesus, the Gospel; in the day of Mohamet the Messenger of God, the Koran;
> and in the Day of Him whom God shall send forth. His Book, which is the
> return of all the books and their Guardian.
> Consider how great is the value and how paramount the importance of the
> Revelations in which God hath completed His perfect argument, consummate
> proof, dominant power and penetrating will. To the people they are everlasting
> proof, fixed argument and shining light from the presence of that Ideal King.
> No excellence equals them and nothing precedes them. They are the firm
> thread, the strong rope, the most secure handle and the inextinguishable light.
> Through them
> 
> [page 166]
> 
> flows the river of the Divine Knowledge, and bursts the fire of the
> consummate Wisdom of the Eternal. This is a fire from which two effects
> proceed at the same time: it creates the heat of love within the people of faith,
> and produces the cold of heedlessness within the people of hatred. The proof
> of the sun is its light which shines forth and encompasses the world; and the
> argument of the shower is its bounty which renews the world with a fresh
> mantle. Yea! The blind realize no effect in the sun but heat, and a barren soil
> knoweth no bounty from the vernal mercy.
> Dost thou think thy body a small thing when within it is enclosed the
> universe?
> Cleanse the people with the water of the inner significances which We
> have deposited in the signs. By My Life, it is indeed the Water of Life which the
> Merciful One hath sent down from the Heaven of Grace for the life of the
> people of the world!
> I testify that verily there is no God save He! and He who hath come is
> verily the Hidden Mystery, the Concealed Secret, the Most Great Book for the
> nations, and the Heaven of Beneficence to the world. He is the Mighty Sign
> among mankind, and the Dawning Place of the Highest Attributes in the world
> of emanation. Through Him hath appeared that which was concealed from all
> eternity and was hidden from men of discernment. Verily, He is the One
> whose Manifestation was announced by the Books of God in former and latter
> times.
> 
> [page 167]
> 
> Whosoever acknowledges Him, His signs and His evidences hath verily
> acknowledged that which the Tongue of Grandeur hath uttered before the
> creation of heaven and earth, and before the appearance of the Kingdom of
> Names. Through Him the sea of knowledge hath moved among mankind, and
> the running water of Wisdom hath flowed from God, the King of Days. Joy
> unto him who, in this Day, casts away that which is possessed by the people,
> and holds fast to that which is commanded on the part of God, the King of
> Names and the Creator.
> This world is a show without reality, and is a non-existence adorned in the
> form of existence. Do not attach your hearts thereto. Do not sever yourselves
> from the Creator, and be not of those who are heedless!
> Seeking to know your own selves, which is identical with knowing
> Myself, you will become independent of all save Me, and you will see the
> Ocean of My Providence and the Deep of My Beneficence in yourselves with
> the outward and inward eye as manifest and clear as the sun shining from the
> Name of Abha. All things are a proof of your existence, if ye emerge from the
> gloomy dust of non-existence. Be not grieved at the hardships of these
> numbered days; for every destruction is followed by a construction, and a
> Paradise of Best is concealed in every hardship.
> Consider the people, their states and conditions!
> 
> [page 168]
> They have been anxiously awaiting, days and nights, for the One whom they
> were promised in the Book of God; but when the exact time had come, and the
> banner of the Appearance grew manifest, they turned away from God, the
> Mighty, the Exalted. But we announce to thee the good news of the appearance
> of God, of His Dominion, Might and Potency, that thou mayest rejoice and be
> of the thankful. Beware not to let the affairs of men trouble thee, nor the
> illusions of those who have rejected, as a falsehood to frighten thee, the belief
> of the Origin and Return. Thou art from God, and unto God shalt thou return!
> O Son of Spirit! I have created thee rich. Why dost thou make thyself
> poor? Noble have I made thee. Why dost thou degrade thyself? Of the essence
> of Knowledge have I manifested thee. Why searchest for another than Me?
> From the clay of Love I have kneaded thee. Why seekest thou another? Turn
> thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee. Powerful,
> Mighty and Supreme.
> Oh ye people of the world! The virtue of this Most Great Manifestation is
> that We have removed from the Book whatever was the cause of difference,
> corruption and discord, and recorded therein that which leads to unity,
> harmony and agreement. God manifested Himself to teach the people the truth,
> sincerity, religion, faith, submission, reconciliation, compassion, courtesy,
> piety; and to teach
> 
> [page 169]
> 
> them how to adorn themselves with the garments of good qualities and holy
> deeds.
> Be a lamp in darkness, a comforter in troubles, a sea to the thirsty, a
> refuge to the afflicted, a helper, an assistant and a succor to the oppressed. In
> actions and deeds be virtuous and pious. To the stranger be a home; to the sick
> a remedy; to him who asks for help a stronghold; to the blind be sight; to him
> who goes astray a pathway; to the face of truth, beauty; to the temple of
> faithfulness an embroidered garment; to the house of characters and manners a
> throne; to the body of the world a spirit; to the hosts of justice a banner; to the
> horizon of good a light; to the fertile and rich ground, dew; to the sea of
> science an ark; to the heaven of generosity a star; to the head of wisdom a
> diadem; to the forehead of time a white light; and to the tree of humility,
> fruitfulness.
> This is that matter which shall never change. Know that in every age and
> dispensation all divine ordinances are changed, according to the requirements
> of the time, except the law of Love which, like unto a fountain, flows always
> and is never overtaken by change.
> Render God victorious by wisdom. Glory be upon the people of Glory!
> 
> (From the Words of Abdul Bahá.)
> 
> O Lord, Thou hast said in Thy manifest Book: “God does not change that
> which a people have,
> 
> [page 170]
> 
> until they change that which is within themselves. When men forgot God, He
> made them to forget their own reality.”
> All the Teachings which have been given during past days are to be found
> in the Revelation of Baha’o’llah, but in addition to these this Revelation has
> certain new Teachings which are not to be found in any of the religious books
> of the past.
> The oneness of the world of humanity is a Teaching of Baha’o’llah, for
> Baha’o’llah addresses Himself to mankind, saying: “Ye are all the leaves of
> one tree and the drops of one ocean.” That is, the world of human existence is
> no other than one tree, and the nations or peoples are like unto different
> branches thereof. Thus Baha’o’llah presented the fact of the oneness of the
> world of humanity, while in all the past religious books humanity has been
> divided into two parts, one part looked upon as belonging to the faithful, the
> other part as belonging to the irreligious and infidel; the first part consigned to
> the Mercy of their Creator, the second part considered as objects of the
> Creator’s Wrath.
> But His Holiness Baha’o’llah proclaimed the Oneness of the world of
> humanity, and this Teaching is unique to the Teachings of Baha’o’llah, for He
> submerged all mankind in the sea of Divine Generosity. At most, some of the
> people are asleep — they need to be awakened. Some are ill — they need to be
> healed. Some are children — they need to be trained.
> 
> [page 171]
> 
> A second Teaching newly revealed by Baha’o’llah is this: the injunction
> to investigate the Truth — that is, men are commanded not to follow blindly
> the ways of their ancestors. Nay, each must see with his own eyes, hear with
> his own ears, investigate the Truth for himself that he may attain the Truth by
> himself.
> A third Teaching of Baha’o’llah which is new for this Day; that the
> foundation of all the religions of God is one and the same foundation, and that
> Oneness is the Truth, and the Truth is One, and cannot be made subject to
> division and plurality.
> The fourth Teaching of Baha’o’llah special to this Day is that Religion
> must be the cause of unity, harmony and accord among men. If religion be the
> cause of inharmony, or leads men to separate themselves each from the other,
> creating conflict between them — then Baha’o’llah declares that irreligion is
> better than Religion.
> A fifth Teaching of Baha’o’llah is new in this Day: that Religion must be
> in accord with science and reason. If a religion is not in conformity with
> science and reason — then it is superstition.
> The sixth new Teaching of Baha’o’llah is the equality between men and
> women. All past Religions have established men above women.
> The seventh new Teaching of Baha’o’llah is that prejudice and fanaticism
> — be it religious, sectarian, sectional, denominational or patriotic — is
> destructive of the foundation of human solidarity;
> 
> [page 172]
> 
> wherefore men should release themselves from such bonds in order that the
> oneness of the world of humanity may become manifest.
> The eighth of His Teachings is Universal Peace; that all men and nations
> should make peace; that there shall be a Universal Peace amongst
> governments, Universal Peace amongst Religions, Universal Peace amongst
> races.
> The ninth of these special Teachings is that all mankind — men and
> women everywhere — should acquire secular and spiritual knowledge, and
> that this education is one of the necessities of Religion.
> The tenth Teaching concerns the solution of the economic question; for no
> religious books of the past Prophets speak of the economic question, while this
> problem has been thoroughly solved in the Teachings of Baha’o’llah.
> The eleventh is the organization called the House of Justice, which is
> endowed with a political as well as spiritual function, and embodies both
> functions, and is protected by the preserving Power of Baha’o’llah Himself. A
> Universal or World House of Justice shall be established. That which it orders
> shall be the truth in explaining the commands of Baha’o’llah, and that which
> the House of Justice ordains concerning the commands of Baha’o’llah shall be
> observed by all.
> But as to the most characteristic and specific Teaching which belongs to
> the Revelation of Baha’o’llah, which is new and not given by any of
> 
> [page 173]
> 
> the Prophets of the past: it is the Teaching regarding the Center of the
> Covenant. To guard against all manner of differences, Baha’o’llah entered into
> a Covenant with all the people of the world, indicating the Person of the
> Interpreter of His Teachings. Be ye cognizant of this!
> The world had, through rotten, outdated and blind imitations of truth,
> become like unto a dark night. The foundations of the Teachings of God had
> been totally forgotten. People had adhered to the shell and neglected the
> kernel. The nations, like wornout garments, had fallen into pitiful decay.
> In this intense darkness the light of the Teachings of Baha’o’llah appeared
> and adorned the body of the world with a new robe. This new robe is the
> Divine Principles. A new cycle dawned with Baha’o’llah; creation was
> renewed; the world of humanity received a new spirit; the season of autumn
> passed away and the life-giving springtime was come. Everything was
> renewed. Sciences were reborn, thoughts remodeled, manners and habits
> changed, industry revolutionized, inventions multiplied.
> All these renovations originate in the renewal of the splendid graces of the
> Lord of the Kingdom through which the universe was inspired. Therefore the
> essential matter is to release people entirely from traditional thoughts, so that
> their minds may be entirely concentrated in the new teachings.
> 
> [page 174]
> 
> The teachings of Baha’o’llah constitute the spirit of the age and the light
> of this century.
> Ye should strive with heart and soul so that those who are negligent may
> become cognizant, those who are asleep may become awakened, those who are
> ignorant may obtain wisdom, those who are blind may obtain sight, those who
> are deaf may receive hearing, and those who are dead may be revived. Ye
> should exhibit such strength of steadfastness as to astonish the world. The
> heavenly confirmations are with you in service to the Cause of God.
> The Teachings of Baha’o’llah, like unto Spirit, shall penetrate the dead
> body of the world, and like unto an artery shall beat through the heart of the
> five continents.
> 
> “O concourse of creation! O people, construct homes or houses, in the
> most beautiful fashion possible, in every city and every land. In the Name of
> the Lord of Religion, adorn them with that which beseemeth them, not with
> pictures or paintings. Then commemorate the Lord, the Merciful, the Clement,
> in spirit and fragrance. Verily, by His mention, by this commemoration, the
> breasts shall be dilated, the eyes illumined, and hearts gladdened, and thus
> shall you pray the Orient of Praises in the Mashrekol-Azkar.” — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> THE BAHAI TEMPLE
> 
> “When these institutions — college, hospital, hospice, establishments for
> the incurables, the university for the study of the higher sciences and giving
> post-graduate courses, and other philanthropic buildings — are constructed,
> its doors will be open to all the nations and to all religions. There will be
> drawn absolutely no line of demarcation. Its charities will be dispensed
> irrespective of color and race. Its gates will be flung open to mankind, with
> prejudice toward none, love for all; the central building will be devoted to the
> purpose of prayer and worship. Thus for the first time religion will become
> harmonized with science and science will be the handmaid of religion, both
> showering their material and spiritual gifts on all humanity. In this way the
> people will be lifted out of the quagmires of slothfulness and bigotries. …When
> the foundation of the Mashrekol-Azkar is laid in America, and that Divine
> Edifice is completed, a most wonderful and thrilling motion will appear in the
> world of existence. The Mashrekol-Azhar will become the center around which
> all these universal Bahai activities will be clustered. From that point of light,
> the spirit of teaching, spreading the Cause of God and promoting the
> Teachings of God will permeate to all parts of the world.” — Abdul Baha.
> 
> The progress of modern civilization may be defined as the gradual
> drawing away of all our social institutions from their once organic unity with
> the Church. Thus education and scientific activities have become separate, and
> thus medicine and hospital treatment have become separate. First were
> separated the functions of Church and State, and
> 
> [page 177]
> 
> from this fundamental separation all other separations have logically and
> inevitably followed.
> This progress took place because in the State, and in the lesser institutions
> which make up modern society, a seed of development was latent which the
> Church could not fructify — which the Church rather tended to resist. Science
> could not advance, for example, until the scientist was able to approach his
> special field of investigation in absolute mental freedom — in freedom to
> derive laws from the data investigated rather than imposed upon it by a priori
> assumptions.
> Born into a society thus separated as to its different functions and
> institutions, we can with difficulty realize a society which contains all these
> functions and institutions in a state of unity and organic inter-relation.
> Yet it is obvious enough that modern society is weakened at the very roots
> of its existence by this separation of science and religion, education and
> religion, hygiene and religion. Our religions fail of their purpose because they
> conflict with facts and principles thoroughly established by scientific proofs;
> and our science fails in its application to regenerate the world’s life because
> behind it stands no irresistible driving force of faith and love. Thus science
> creates instruments of destruction just as willingly as it creates instruments of
> well being, because the philosophic realization that war is no longer even
> 
> [page 178]
> 
> materially effective is a realization we keep in a separate compartment of our
> minds.
> Now the power behind the Bahai Movement is that it restores this organic
> unity between all the various social functions, activities and institutions. But
> the Bahai Movement restores it upon an absolutely new basis — a basis in
> which religion harmonizes in every detail with science, and science in turn
> derives its purpose from the spiritual realization of the oneness of humanity in
> the cosmic plan of God.
> The re-unification of science and religion — involving a re-unification of
> the inherent purposes of state, industry, education, etc. — is the unique quality
> of the present day. And what is called the “Bahai Temple” symbolizes this
> unique quality or character of the age.
> But this Temple is more than an abstract symbol, even though a true and
> faithful reflection of the spirit of the age. It is a concretion of that spirit — an
> organ by which that spirit is enabled to contact and hence influence social life
> at all points. It is the body of the Cause of God, the material Baha’o’llah and
> Abdul Baha visibly and invisibly causing the social organization to progress. It
> is the first nucleus of the Divine Civilization, the foetal point around which
> that Civilization will grow to its full world-stature.
> The spiritually minded person who desires a true index to the progress of
> Reality in this age, may well adopt the Bahai Temple as that index. For
> 
> [page 179]
> 
> this Temple will not and cannot be constructed merely by financial
> contributions. It will come into being materially step by step according as the
> new cosmic Reality is felt in the minds and hearts of men. Already the Bahai
> Temple has this distinction: contributions have been made to it by
> representatives of a greater number of races, creeds, classes and nationalities
> than have ever united to further any other plan. Its appeal triumphs over every
> false distinction and division imposed upon mankind by the limitations of the
> past.
> Inasmuch as the Bahai Temple will inevitably be compared with other
> Temples or churches, past and present, its unique elements can best be
> described by contrasting them with the characteristics shared by other religious
> edifices.
> There are four basic principles of difference which point the necessity for
> erecting such a Temple at the present time.
> First let us consider the powerful movement going on to accomplish
> religious unity. The mainspring of this movement toward unity is the growing
> realization that spiritual truth is, and must ever be, universal in its applications.
> That is, if the spiritual life of mankind is to have a firm foundation in this new
> era of knowledge, it must clearly reflect the one eternal Source rather than the
> accidental, ever-changing and manifold differences in the world’s physical
> existence. To-day, religion can no longer serve to endorse national, racial,
> class
> 
> [page 180]
> or theological distinctions, since these distinctions have become a positive
> danger to mankind. The essence of love, which is the only convincing proof of
> any religion, alone can enable us to rise above momentary political and
> economic influences and assume the station of obedience to the Divine
> Principles. But historical reasons, the power of association — the momentum
> of social custom and the self-preservative instinct inherent in materialistic
> organizations as in animal bodies — unhappily prevents any existing church
> from serving as the nucleus of unity, the sign of universality and the evidence
> of the oneness of mankind.
> Therefore the Bahai Temple now comes into being, unprejudiced for or
> against any existing group, free from historical limitations, and from its very
> foundation consecrated to the ideal of unity. And what is unity but the very
> triumph and vindication of spiritual love? When the Bahai Temple is
> completed, we shall have a holy place where members of every race, creed and
> class can gather in worship to the one God. This physical facility of unity is
> vitally important at the present time, since the only thing that actually prevents
> the world from attaining unity is the predominant influence of institutions
> committed to a particular, a local, and a group purpose rather than to a
> universal purpose. The conviction of each Bahai is that this Temple, when
> completed, will so manifest the power and inspirations arising from
> unprejudiced
> 
> [page 181]
> 
> universal worship, that the world’s consciousness will never again be able to
> return to any form of division in the expression of the soul’s life. That which is
> not for all, to-day can never be of benefit to a single one. Consequently the
> Bahai Temple now being erected in Chicago will be followed by others
> throughout this country and Europe.
> The second principle exemplified by the Bahai Temple and not a part of
> other religious edifices is that here the spiritual activity of man is not separated
> from his other activities, but, on the contrary, is placed at the center of all as
> the inspiration and guide of all. According to the Bahai Revelation, the
> principle of unity in the world’s collective life can only emanate as the result
> of unity within consciousness itself. That is, all forms of social activity such as
> art, science, education, healing, etc., are regarded as having a spiritual
> significance. Society is weakened at its foundations by the divisions existing
> between art, science, education, government, economics as the result of the
> inner division of each of these from religion — from God. As the soul is the
> life of the body, communicating the sustaining powers of the universe to mind
> and limbs, so in this Revelation the Temple manifests once more the lost
> relationship between religion, science, government, art, economics and other
> social functions. The view of the Bahai Temple illustrated in newspapers and
> magazines shows only the central edifice — the place of worship — the Holy
> 
> [page 182]
> 
> of Holies. But when the Bahai Temple is completed, each of its nine sides will
> face a separate structure devoted to some great social function such as the
> study of sciences and arts, healing, the care of the poor and orphans, etc.
> For to-day, after ages of separation, we stand at the threshold of the union
> of science and religion. To realize the organic nature of that union, we have
> only to perceive consciousness as a twofold instrument adapted for making
> effective contacts with the great, all-surrounding universe, — a receiving
> station, as it were, for the spiritual vibrations which “pervade the universe”—
> and an instrument, on the other hand, adapted to registering its own will upon
> the universe and mankind. Obviously, if consciousness makes no effort to be
> receptive to God, the will it registers must be an evil will. On the other hand, a
> consciousness might experience the reality of love, yet possess very
> inadequate facilities for expressing this reality for mankind.
> By the “equality of men and women in this day” (one of the great
> principles of Baha’o’llah) we have the perfect symbol in the visible world of
> the union of science and religion in the invisible world of consciousness. Each
> sex objectifies one aspect of mind itself; man representing the positive and
> women the receptive aspect. Hitherto, religious philosophy has been made
> obscure by the use of many terms to signify consciousness — as, for example,
> “mind,” “soul,” “heart,” “spirit.” In reality,
> 
> [page 183]
> 
> as Baha’o’llah has written, these are but the several aspects of the one faculty.
> When consciousness is turned in one direction, it is “mind;” when turned in
> another direction, it is “heart;” and “soul” and “spirit” are but lower and higher
> levels of spiritual reality tapped by consciousness in its receptive capacity.
> Therefore, until the consciousness of mankind receives, and grows aware
> of, and is molded by, the purest forces of spirit, it will express in its individual
> and collective relationships the life not of man, but of animal. By keeping this
> dual aspect of consciousness clearly in mind, we can rid ourselves of all
> superstition, and discriminate perfectly between that which is merely
> intellectual (or merely psychic) , and that which is spiritual, from God. There
> can be no order, no progress in the world of humanity to-day without equality
> between men and women. And this obvious condition is but the projection into
> visibility of the universal readjustment taking place in the world of
> consciousness “behind the veils.”
> As for the third principle making the Bahai Temple different from other
> religious edifices.
> Consider carefully the evolution of all religions from the time of their
> Revelation into later ages. No Revelation hitherto has included the
> establishment of a Temple, and all the conditions entering into the use of a
> Temple; but throughout the world to-day, all churches uniformly derive from
> historical
> 
> [page 184]
> 
> facts arising later than, and outside of, the Manifestation’s own creative Word.
> Nowhere in the world can people enter a Temple and say: “This Temple is the
> Temple of Christ, and its services are of His Revelation;” or, “This Temple is
> the Temple of Moses (or Buddha, or Mohamet) , and His spirit inspired all
> things therein.” Rather have all churches developed later in point of time and
> lower in point of spiritual purity than the Revelations they proclaim. So much
> is this the case that in all religions, groups of people from time to time have
> protested that their Revelation was even misinterpreted by Temples bearing its
> name, and have themselves erected a new Temple more in keeping with their
> conception of the Messiah’s purpose and method. Aside from this obvious
> fact, there is a far more important influence inherent in every church which
> does not reflect purely and entirely the purpose and method of Divine
> Revelation. This influence derives from the fact that ritual, ceremony and
> sacrament, while apparently intended to symbolize the spiritual Mysteries,
> have as a matter of fact, come to be substitutes for them. The life of a Messiah
> is a perfect guide for the people; but the value of this life is that it should be relived, reexperienced in the deepest soul, and not merely beheld as a spectacle
> outside the soul, which creates certain effects upon the psychic and demoniac
> nature miscalled “religion.”
> But the Bahai Temple is part of the Revelation
> 
> [page 185]
> 
> of Baha’o’llah. It arises from the source of the new, universal principles. It
> embodies those principles. It serves those principles. It is protected by those
> principles. The Bahai Temple is raised forever above the danger of innovations
> on the part of any individual or group, for it is a distinctive and compelling
> feature of the Bahai Revelation that Baha’o’llah forbids the existence of any
> official clergy, paid officials, or separate class, groups or organization of any
> kind. The Bahai Temple and the Bahai principles alike are committed to the
> keeping of all mankind in that new state of unity these principles will ere long
> bring about. The essence of the Bahai Movement is spiritual democracy:
> authority proceeding from the mass by constitutional election only. Significant
> are the words of Baha’o’llah: “The religious doctors of every age have been
> the means of preventing the people from the shore of the Sea of Oneness, for
> the reins of the people were in their control. …Thus every Prophet hath
> quaffed the cup of martyrdom and soared to the loftiest horizon of Might,
> through the sentence and sanction of the divines of the age.”
> But there is one more aspect of the Bahai Temple making it unlike other
> religious edifices. This aspect is symbolized by its architectural features —
> that astonishingly creative form which in itself is a sign and evidence of a new
> civilization. Why the nine sides, why the three elevations? are questions
> frequently asked because our age has lost the re-
> 
> [page 186]
> 
> alization that form expresses force — that bodies must, on all planes, possess
> an organ for each function they are intended to fulfill. Therefore, as the Bahai
> Temple is to unify people of all religions, it has nine entrances corresponding
> with the nine human principles, each principle manifested by a type, each type
> expressing itself through an activity of soul, mind or spirit. “I have caused the
> signs to descend after nine conditions.”(Baha’o’llah). The present division of
> humanity by vertical partitions — Christianity, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, etc.
> — is artificial; the real division being along horizontal planes. The Bahai
> Temple invites each type (or plane) to enter into the fullest possible cooperation with other types. Each is essential to the welfare and destiny of all.
> To understand the marvelous symbolism the Bahai Temple contains, both
> in its form and its decoration, one must conceive of this structure as a
> projection from the spiritual world of oneness, down through all the planes of
> matter and time; being a cross section of all, and consequently a pattern or
> tracing of their combined significance. In brief, this Temple testifies
> eloquently to this supreme fact: that man dwells not in a universe of inert
> matter, but inhabits the Holy Spirit; a universe of consciousness, of purpose, of
> progressive evolution. The Bahai Temple is as a mirror wherein the Spirit
> perfectly reflects. It reveals a mystery of mysteries — the inner reality of that
> Supreme Temple,
> 
> [page 187]
> the spiritual body of humanity. In all cycles has a corner of the veil been
> removed. In all times have the mystics and divine philosophers meditated upon
> that which physical mind and heart can never know. But now at the bottom of
> the arc of descent, the Bahai Temple visibly records the spiritual involution
> and evolution of man: a precious chapter in the Book of Revelation. Christ
> said: “The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.” Baha’o’llah says: “Dost thou
> deem thy body a slight thing, when within thee is enfolded the universe?” In
> this age, Abdul Baha declares: “Baha’o’llah has breathed the Holy Spirit into
> the dead body of the world.”
> An article in the Architectural Record of June, 1920, described the
> Temple, in part, as follows:
> 
> “Above the closed top rise other beams of the dome itself like hands
> clasped in prayer, so that the dome gives the feeling of ascension and
> aspiration found previously in the Gothic towers alone.
> “In the geometric forms of the ornamentation covering the columns and
> surrounding the windows and doors of the Temple, one deciphers all the
> religious symbols of the world. Here are the swastika cross, the circle, the
> triangle, the double triangle or six pointed star (or Solomon’s seal, the magic
> symbol of necromancers of old); but more than this, the noble symbol of the
> spiritual Orb, or Sun behind the Saviour of Mankind (the Sun refers to
> Baha’o’llah); the five pointed star, representing the man
> 
> [page 188]
> 
> saviour — Christ or Buddha or Mohammed; the Greek Cross, the Roman or
> Christian Cross; and supreme above all, the wonderful nine pointed star,
> figured in the structure of the Temple itself, and appearing again and again in
> its ornamentation, as significant of the Spiritual Glory in the world to-day.
> “The numbers 9 and 19 recur again and again in the structure of the
> Temple, illustrating its basic principle of Unity — 9 being the number of
> perfection, containing in itself the completion of each number cycle, and 19
> representing the Union of God and man, as manifested in life, civilization and
> all things.”
> 
> Would that all whose purity of heart, whose clearness of vision, makes
> them share ardently in the struggle for human progress, for unity, for
> solidarity, for education, for peace — would that such people might be
> inspired to join with that few — that too, too few — now laboring with all
> their power to raise up a Temple to the glory of God and the brotherhood of
> Man!
> 
> PART THREE
> 
> TWO BAHAI DOCUMENTS
> 
> “The root of all knowledge is the knowledge of God, and this is impossible
> of attainment save through His manifestation.” — Baha’o’llah.
> THE ILLUMINATI
> 
> An Address by Abdul Baha at the Friends’ Meeting House, St. Martin’s Lane,
> London, on Sunday, January 12th, 1913.
> 
> About one thousand years ago a Society was formed in Persia called the
> Society of the Friends, who gathered together for silent communion with the
> Almighty.
> They divided Divine Philosophy into two parts: one part the knowledge of
> which can be acquired through lectures and study in schools, and the second
> part that sought by the Illuminati, or followers of the Inner Light. The schools
> of this Philosophy were held in silence. Meditating, and turning their faces to
> the Source of Light, the mysteries of the Kingdom were reflected from that
> central Light into their hearts. All the divine problems were solved by this
> power of illumination.
> This Society of Friends increased greatly in Persia, and their meetings
> take place even at the present time. Many books and epistles were written by
> their leaders. When the Friends assemble in their Meeting House, they sit in
> silence and contemplate. Their leader proposes a certain problem, saying to the
> assembly “This is the problem on
> 
> [page 192]
> 
> which to meditate.” Then, freeing their minds from everything else, they sit
> quietly and reflect, and before long the answer is revealed to them. Many
> abstruse divine questions are solved by means of this illumination.
> Some of the great questions unfolding from the rays of the Sun of Reality
> upon the mind of man are: the problem of the reality of the spirit of man; of
> the origin of the spirit; of its birth from this world into the world of God; the
> question of the inner life of the spirit and its fate after ascension from the
> body.
> They also meditate upon the scientific questions of the day, and these are
> likewise solved.
> These people, who are called “Followers of the Inner Light,” attain to a
> superlative degree of power, and are entirely freed from blind dogmas and
> imitations. Men rely on the statements of these people: by themselves, within
> themselves, they solve all mysteries.
> If they find a solution through the assistance of the Inner Light, they
> accept it, and afterwards declare it; otherwise they would consider it a matter
> of blind imitation. They go so far as to reflect upon the essential nature of the
> Divinity, of the divine Revelation, of the Manifestation of the Deity in this
> world. All the divine and scientific questions are solved by them through the
> power of the spirit.
> Baha’o’llah says there is a sign from God in every phenomenon. The sign
> of the intellect is contem-
> 
> [page 193]
> 
> plation, and the sign of contemplation is silence, because it is impossible for a
> man to do two things at once — he cannot both speak and meditate.
> It is an axiomatic fact that while you meditate you are speaking with your
> own spirit. In that state of mind you put certain questions to your spirit and the
> spirit answers: the light breaks forth and reality is revealed.
> You cannot apply the name “man” to any being devoid of this faculty of
> meditation; without it man is a mere animal, lower than the beasts.
> Through the faculty of meditation man attains to eternal life; through it he
> receives the breath of the Holy Spirit — the bestowals of the Spirit are given
> during reflection and meditation.
> The spirit of man is itself informed and strengthened during meditation;
> through it affairs of which man knew nothing are unfolded before his view.
> Through it he receives divine inspiration, and through it he partakes of
> heavenly food.
> Meditation is the key for opening the doors of mysteries. In that state man
> abstracts himself; in that state man withdraws himself from all outside objects;
> in that subjective condition he is immersed in the ocean of spiritual life and
> can unfold the secrets of things-in-themselves. To illustrate this, think of man
> as endowed with two kinds of sight: when the power of insight is being used
> the power of outward vision does not function.
> This faculty of meditation frees man from the
> 
> [page 194]
> 
> animal nature, discerns the reality of things, puts man in touch with God.
> This faculty brings forth the sciences and arts from the invisible plane.
> Through the meditative faculty inventions are made possible, colossal
> undertakings are carried out. Through it governments can run smoothly.
> Through this faculty man enters into the very Kingdom of God.
> Nevertheless some thoughts are useless to man: they are like waves
> moving in the sea without result. But if the faculty of meditation is bathed in
> the Inner Light and characterized with divine attributes, the results will be
> confirmed.
> The meditative faculty is akin to the mirror; if you put it before earthly
> objects, it will reflect the earthly objects. Therefore if the spirit of man is
> contemplating earthly objects he will become informed of these.
> But if you turn the mirror of your spirit heavenwards, the heavenly
> constellations and the rays of the Sun of Reality will be reflected in your
> hearts, and the virtues of the Kingdom will be obtained.
> Therefore let us keep this faculty rightly directed — turning it to the
> divine Sun and not to earthly objects — so that we may comprehend the
> allegories of the Bibles, the mysteries of the Spirit, and discover the hidden
> secrets of the Kingdom.
> May we indeed become mirrors reflecting the divine realities, and may we
> become so pure as to reflect the stars of heaven!
> 
> TABLET TO THE PERSIAN BAHAIS.
> (Revealed during the World War.)
> 
> Commune to be read by the friends of God in Persia.
> 
> He Is God!
> Thou seest me, O my God, on this lofty mountain; the sublime and
> supreme threshold; the shelter of every great one and the refuge of all the
> glorious and noble.
> Verily, the youths whose hearts were burning with the fire of the love of
> God in the past ages have taken shelter therein — the meeting place of the
> prophets, the refuge of his holiness Elijah, the shelter of Isaiah. The spirit of
> God, Jesus, the Christ — upon Him be greeting and praise! — passed over it,
> and in the Supreme Threshold, pressed by the feet of the Lord of Hosts.
> O Lord, this is a mountain to which Thou hast given the name Carmel in
> the Torah. And Thou has attributed it to Thyself in the innermost heart of the
> tablets and scriptures.
> O Lord, verily, I invoke Thee in this Supreme Threshold, under the wing
> of the gloomy nights; pray to Thee with throbbing heart and flowing tears,
> imploring Thee, supplicating between Thy hands and cry, O my Lord, verily,
> the fire of battles is raging in the valleys, hills and streams, and the fire of war
> is burning even under the seas and high in the air, in destruction and
> devastation. The
> 
> [page 196]
> 
> earth is enveloped by its own fires and the seas are encompassed by its storms,
> thunderbolts and floods.
> O Lord, the souls are stifling, the death rattle is in their throats, the earth
> quakes and has become so small that even the birds are frightened in their
> nests and the animals terrified in their lairs and caves.
> We hear only the sighs of the maidens and the cries of the orphans, the
> moaning of the mothers, and the tears of the fathers because of false reports.
> We see only tears flowing from every bereaved mother and the heart of every
> father, bereft of sons, burning. Towns are being devastated, people are
> perishing, the children are made orphans and the women are becoming
> widows. And this is only because of our heedlessness of Thy commemoration
> and our deprivation of Thy love. Verily, we have been occupied with
> ourselves. The intoxication of passion seized us; we have taken the road of
> heedlessness and blindness; have abandoned the path of guidance and have
> chosen the path of obstinacy and forgotten the commandments of the ancient
> scriptures. We have forsaken the exhortations in the preserved tablets and
> parchments — the great verses.
> O my Lord! O my Lord! I confess and acknowledge the sins. Verily,
> every dark calamity and every hard ordeal has surrounded us by our own
> hands, in this transient world. O Lord, verily, the minds are astounded, the
> souls are repelled. And
> 
> [page 197]
> 
> there remain only darkened faces, deaf ears, speechless tongues and hearts
> heedless of thy commemoration, filled with human passions and desires.
> O Lord, Thou hast said in Thy manifest book and in Thy great glad
> tidings, with explicit statement, “God does not change that which a people
> have, until they change what is within themselves.” “And when they forgot
> God, He made them forget themselves.”
> O my Lord, verily, the nations have gone too deep into the fields of battle
> and struggle. Nothing will check this sweeping torrent and this grinding war
> but Thy mercy, which has encompassed that which was and is.
> O Lord, do not deal with us according to our offenses, and forgive our sins
> and trespasses. Imperfections are the characteristic of everything possible of
> creation in the arena of Thy world. And to Thy forgiveness and pardon Thou
> hast accustomed every one in existence.
> O my Lord, only favor and mercy to every sinner who has fallen into the
> pit of degradation and wretchedness, is befitting to divinity and only by the
> imperfections of servitude will the perfections of divinity become manifest. O
> Lord, verily, the brilliant rays of the Sun of Reality are the removers of the
> utter darkness and the pure water cleanses the foulness and the sorrow of the
> world.
> O my Lord, verily, the sins are bubbling foam and a full ocean is Thy
> mercy. Trespasses are bit-
> 
> [page 198]
> 
> ter trees and Thy pardon is a fire whose flame is intense.
> O my Lord, remove the veil, scatter this dense cloud on the horizon,
> extinguish these fires, subdue this flood, in order to stanch the bloodshed, as
> compassion to the widows and mercy to the orphans, that these hurricanes may
> cease, the thunderbolts be extinguished, the torrents quelled, the land become
> visible, the souls find composure, and the breasts be dilated. And we will
> thank Thee for Thy abundant favor, O Thou dear! O Thou forgiver!
> O my Lord, verily, thou hast clearly stated in the tablets and scriptures,
> that, had the ordinances fallen on solid rock, rivers would have gushed forth
> and it had crumbled to pieces from fear of the Dear, the Powerful. But the
> hearts are harder than the rocks. And the souls are in heedlessness and pride.
> The people of heedlessness do not profit by the verses and exhortations.
> O my Lord, verily. Thy exhortations are celebrated and have been spread
> broadcast, in the east and the west of the earth. Thou hast called all to love and
> harmony and to forsake discord in all regions, so that the east of the earth may
> embrace the west; the people of the desert may embrace the people of the city;
> their scattered members become reunited and the lost ones be gathered
> together; that the darkness of the earth may pass away and its light shine forth.
> But the eyes and the inner sight have become blind, the ears deaf, the hearts
> 
> [page 199]
> 
> hardened and the susceptibilities like rocks and stones. The minds and
> intellects are being confused. Souls have forgotten the explicit teachings of the
> Book, wherein Thou hast warned them of punishment. Thus they have merited
> severe punishment and deserved the sentence of torment.
> O Lord, forgive our sins and stumbling. Make us not an example for the
> possessors of insight. Guide us to the straight path, so that we may awake from
> the slumber of passion and be saved from heedlessness and blindness. Deliver
> us, O Lord of Verses, from the abyss of passions and preserve us from errors.
> O my Lord, verily, we have forgotten faithfulness and are reveling in
> unfaithfulness. With the people of oppression and vice we are associating.
> There is no deliverer for us save Thee. There is no answer save Thee. There is
> no refuge save Thee. Verily, we have trusted in Thee and we lay our affairs in
> Thy hands. Deal with us according to Thy favor and pardon and punish us not
> according to Thy justice and wrath. Verily, Thou art the compassionate.
> Verily, Thou art the pardoner and, verily, Thou art the forgiver.
> O my Lord, verily, the people of righteousness and goodness and the
> communities of freedom in every country are turning to thee, at dusk and dawn
> supplicating between Thy hands during the wing of the night and in the dew of
> the morn, lamenting as a bereaved mother laments during the
> 
> [page 200]
> 
> grievous nights, burning with the fire of sorrow, yearning and separation. They
> are longing for Thy meeting even with rending of soul, as they traverse the
> dunes and the hills and cross the valleys and the heights. But these wars that
> demolish mountains have interfered so that news has ceased and the doors are
> closed.
> O Lord, comfort them in their loneliness; deliver them from their terror
> and guide them in their affairs.
> O my Lord, Thou knowest my sighs, my cries and my anguish, the
> burning pain because of their separation; my great longing for their meeting,
> my yearning for their love, my desire for their remembrance and my anxiety to
> see them. Day and night their remembrance is my treasure and my roses.
> O my Lord, O my Lord, open the doors; prepare for us the means; render
> the path safe and pave the way so that the sincere ones may be reunited in the
> lofty meetings; the attracted ones gathered together in Thy commemoration in
> the great assemblies, to speak among the people of Thy bestowals, taste of the
> honeycomb of Thy meeting. Then the breezes of acceptance will reach them
> and they will be swayed thereby as if intoxicated by wine.
> Verily, Thou art the Powerful, the Dear, the Giver and, verily, Thou art
> the Generous, the Compassionate, the Chosen One.
> (Signed) Abdul Baha, Abbas.
> 
> CONSTRUCTIVE READING LIST
> 
> “Understanding the Divine Words and comprehension of the utterances of
> the Ideal Doves has no connection with outward learning, but depends upon
> purity of heart, chastity of soul, and freedom of spirit. For at the present time
> there are some servants who have not seen a single letter of the forms of
> learning, yet they are seated upon the summit of Knowledge, the gardens of
> their hearts adorned with roses of Wisdom and tulips of Insight, through the
> cloud of the Divine Bounty. Blessed are the sincere ones through the lights of
> the Great Day!” — Baha’o’llah.
> 
> CONSTRUCTIVE READING LIST
> 
> The following titles are of books containing the utterances of Baha’o’llah
> and Abdul Baha. They are those Chapters of the new World Bible already
> available for the man and woman eager to read and know the manifest Word
> of God.
> Inasmuch as Abdul Baha — his life, his character, his influence, his
> thoughts — is the first and greatest proof that Baha’o’llah was indeed the risen
> Sun of Truth, I list certain of his books first. Abdul Baha is the one true
> approach to perfect understanding of Baha’o’llah. (All the works in this list
> can be obtained from Bahai Publishing Society, Chicago, Illinois.)
> DIVINE PHILOSOPHY. A collection of Abdul Baha’s most interesting
> and significant addresses while in Europe. This volume covers a broad range
> of topics in a brief and convenient form. It is the ideal introduction to the
> Bahai Revelation.
> 
> ABDUL BAHA’S TALKS IN PARIS, ABDUL BAHA’S TALKS IN
> LONDON. Two additional collections containing certain addresses not yet
> available in any other form.
> 
> SOME ANSWERED QUESTIONS. This volume gives Abdul Baha’s
> own answers to questions on religion
> 
> [page 203]
> 
> and science and social evolution asked of him from what may be called the
> “intelligent Christian” point of view. They explain the prophecies and deal
> somewhat with the great psychological problems, the nature of man, the nature
> of God, etc.
> 
> TABLETS OF ABDUL BAHA, VOLUMES 1, 2, and 3. Abdul Baha’s
> answer to many thousands of inquiries addressed to him during the past thirty
> years by people throughout the world desiring his solution of divers scientific,
> philosophic and spiritual problems. An amazingly myriad wisdom, helpful,
> practical, and profound.
> 
> ABDUL BAHA’S AMERICAN ADDRESSES. This extensive and
> invaluable work, soon to be published, contains three volumes which include
> Abdul Baha’s message to every possible kind of audience to be gathered
> together in the United States and Canada. As the audiences represent every
> variety of viewpoint, past experience, religious, social and scientific affiliation,
> so the messages may be accepted as the Bahai Message par excellence. It will
> be no long time before these volumes are known for what they are in reality —
> the Charter of the Divine Civilization: the universal proof of God which is also
> the universal inspiration of man.
> 
> ABDUL BAHA’S MYSTERIOUS FORCES OF CIVILI-
> ZATION. In this work, addressed to Persians, Abdul Baha shows the relation
> between religion and the economic and political problems of a nation. His
> examples are necessarily in terms of conditions
> 
> [page 204]
> 
> existing in Persia, but the truths are universal for those who can apply them.
> As ever, the language is exquisite and magnanimous.
> 
> BAHA’O’LLAH’S BOOK OF IGHAN. This work (whose subtitle is The
> Book of Certitude) explains the real significance of all the Divine
> Manifestations — Moses, Christ, Mohammet — whose task, or function, was
> fulfilled by the Manifestation of El Bab. The Book of Ighan reveals the
> importance of the “first Point” in this Cosmic Trinity.
> 
> BAHA’O’LLAH’S SURAT UL HYKL. In this work, Baha’o’llah reveals
> the significance of the Manifestation of Himself. “By God, This is indeed the
> Beloved of the universe, but ye do not understand! This is the Beauty of God
> among you, and His Dominion within you, if ye are of those who know! This
> is the Mystery of God, His Treasure, the Command of God, and His Glory, to
> those who are in the Kingdom of power and creation — were ye of those who
> reason! This is the One whose meeting will be longed for by all those who
> dwell in the everlasting spiritual world, and who have taken a station for
> themselves in the tents of EL-ABHA — while ye yourselves are turned away
> from His Beauty! …And He will send forth by His Will certain people who
> are unknown to anyone but Himself, the Protector, the Self-existent, and purify
> them from the stain of surmise and passion, and elevate them to the rank of
> sanctity, and by them He will cause to appear the traces of the
> 
> [page 205]
> 
> Glory of His Kingdom on earth: thus was it decreed on the part of God, the
> Mighty, the Beloved.”
> 
> BAHA’O’LLAH’S SEVEN VALLEYS. The essence of the true “mental
> science” — that is, a work which presents the mystical experience of selfdevelopment, the attainment of Reality within the conscious soul. “I, therefore,
> mention unto thee holy, brilliant allusions, from the stations of Glory; so that
> they may attract thee unto the court of holiness, nearness and beauty, and draw
> thee unto a state wherein thou shalt see naught in existence but the
> Countenance of His Highness, thy Beloved One, and shalt not behold the
> creatures (mankind) except as in the day wherein no one had any mention!”
> 
> BAHA’O’LLAH’S HIDDEN WORDS. A series of brief utterances,
> touching the moral and spiritual problems of every type of person; used by the
> “friends of God” for daily meditation. “This is that which descended from the
> Source of Majesty, through the tongue of Power and Strength upon the
> prophets of the past. We have taken its essences and clothed them with the
> garment of brevity, as a favor to the beloved, that they may fulfill the
> Covenant of God; that they may perform in themselves that which He has
> entrusted to them, and attain the victory by virtue of devotion in the land of the
> Spirit.” In this introduction of Baha’o’llah to Hidden Words we see, first: that
> the Bahai Teaching is the sum total of all Revelations in the past — plus the
> power to realize it during the present cycle; and
> 
> [page 206]
> 
> second, that every soul is obliged to stand alone and fight its own battle for
> Immortal Life.
> 
> BOOK OF PRAYER. (Revealed by Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha.) “This
> is a Message which We have appointed as Our Meeting for those who advance
> toward God in this day in which all countries are changed. The one who reads
> that which is revealed in this Tablet from the direction of the Throne, and
> doubts the reality of Meeting his Lord; verily, he is of those who deny God,
> Who causeth the mornings to break forth!” …“For Thou art Powerful to do
> whatsoever Thou wishest, and Thou art ever pervading the universe!”
> 
> TABLETS OF BAHA’O’LLAH. In this important volume have been
> gathered together six Tablets in which Baha’o’llah lays down moral, economic
> and political principles to solve the world’s social problems.
> THREE TABLETS OF BAHA’O’LLAH. Of purely spiritual significance
> are these great documents: Tablet of the Branch, Will and Testament of
> Baha’o’llah, and Message to the Christians.
> 
> THE DIVINE PLAN. Under this title has been published Abdul Baha’s
> Tablets to the four sections of the United States, and to Canada, calling upon
> the friends of God to arise in full spiritual consciousness and labor day and
> night to spread the Cause throughout the American Continents, Africa and the
> Islands of the sea. The spiritual significance of North America is revealed as
> that portion of the
> 
> [page 207]
> 
> race which alone is able to stem the tide of disintegration sweeping across the
> social world. And even upon North America, Abdul Baha makes the outcome
> dependent upon the rise of “the hosts of God” — people of a saintliness such
> as the Western world has not witnessed since the time of the Apostles of
> Christ.
> 
> THE BAHAI PROOFS.25 This book, translated from the Persian of Mirza
> Abul Fazl, whom Abdul Baha has declared to be the greatest Bahai soul of this
> age, gives the lives of the three Founders of this Religion, El Bab, Baha’o’llah
> and Abdul Baha; after which he develops the four universal proofs enabling
> one to distinguish between a Divine Religion and all other so-called religions.
> 
> LE BEYAN ARABE (The Book of the Bab). A translation into French
> from the Arabic of El Bab, by A. L. M. Nicolas, of the French Legation at
> Teheran.
> 
> L’EPITRE AU FILS DU LOUP. One of Baha’o’llah’s longer works, in
> which he quotes from many of his other works — translated into French by M.
> Hippolyte Dreyfus.
> 
> THE SPLENDOR OF GOD. A volume included in the “Wisdom of the
> East” series published by Dent, London. The editor, Mr. Eric Hammond, has
> 
> [page 208]
> 
> written an introduction regarding the Bahai Religion, and the book is
> composed of quotations from Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha.
> 
> ABBAS EFFENDI. His Life and Teachings, by Myron H. Phelps. This
> work is a biographical study of Abdul Baha, written by a member of the New
> York Bar. His information was gained first hand in the Master’s Household.
> Mr. Phelp’s book parallels the words and the acts of Abdul Baha as no other
> book has done. It is an invaluable Bahai work.
> 
> THE BAHAI REVELATION, by Thornton Chase. A most significant
> book, a book of great beauty and power, the work of the man who is known as
> 
> A forthcoming work on the Bahai Revelation, by Dr. Esslemont, of London, may be
> looked for as containing a very thorough and accurate presentation. Dr. Esslemont
> wrote under Abdul Baha’s personal supervision, at Haifa, during the year 1919.
> “the first American Bahai.” Besides developing a logical approach to the
> Teaching of Baha’o’llah and Abdul Baha, this book contains many quotations
> from their utterances not yet available in print elsewhere.26
> 
> A TRAVELER’S NARRATIVE. Written to Illustrate the Episode of the
> Bab. In this volume, published by the University Press, Cambridge, England,
> Mr. Edward G. Browne, Lecturer in Persian to the University of Cambridge,
> has presented a detailed, first hand account of his researches into the life and
> influence of El Bab. This book notes every refer-
> 
> [page 209]
> 
> ence the author could find to other books on the
> Manifestation of the Bab. Professor Browne, it is interesting to record, is the
> only European who entered the presence of Baha’o’llah. This meeting took
> place on Wednesday, April 15th, 1890, and is thus described by the author of
> A TRAVELER’S NARRATIVE. “Of the culminating event of this my journey
> some few words at least must be said. During the morning of the day after my
> installation at Behje one of Baha’o’llah’s younger sons entered the room
> where I was sitting and beckoned me to follow him. I did so, and was
> conducted through passages and rooms at which I scarcely had time to glance
> to a spacious hall, paved, so far as I could remember ( for my mind was
> occupied with other thoughts) with a mosaic of marble. …Though I dimly
> suspected whither I was going and whom I was to behold (for no distinct
> intimation had been given to me), a second or two elapsed ere, with a throb of
> wonder and awe, I became definitely conscious that the room was not
> untenanted. In the corner where the divan met the wall sat a wondrous and
> venerable figure, crowned with a felt headdress of the kind called taj by
> dervishes (but of unusual height and make) , round the base of which was
> wound a small white turban. The face of him on whom I gazed I can never
> forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s
> very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow; while the deep lines on
> the forehead
> 
> [page 210]
> 
> and face implied an age which the jet-black hair and beard flowing down in
> indistinguishable luxuriance almost to the waist seemed to belie. No need to
> ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object
> of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain!
> “A mild dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued: Praise be
> to God that thou hast attained! …Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an
> exile. …We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations;
> yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition worthy of bondage and
> banishment. …That all nations should become one in faith and all men as
> brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should
> be strengthened; that diversity of religion should cease, and differences of race
> be annulled — what harm is there in this ? …Yet so it shall be; these fruitless
> strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the Most Great Peace shall
> come. …Do not you in Europe need this also? Is not this that which Christ
> foretold? …Yet do we see your kings and rulers lavishing their treasures more
> 
> Most highly to be recommended are the series of five booklets, published recently in
> Seattle, reproducing nineteen lectures on the Bahai principles by Fazel Mazandarani.
> freely on means for the destruction of the human race than on that which
> would conduce to the happiness of mankind. …These strifes and this
> bloodshed and discord must cease, and all men be as one kindred and one
> family. …Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country;
> 
> [page 211]
> 
> let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind. ...”
> 
> By far the greater portion of the works of Baha’o’llah are yet untranslated into
> English; and much of that which has already been translated is still circulated
> from friend to friend in typewritten or manifolded form. The colleges,
> universities and other instruments of impartial investigation, have not as yet
> made effort to collect the documentary and other evidences of the Bahai
> Movement — analyze these in the light of established truth as arrived at by the
> cooperation of their Historical, Linguistic, Philosophical, Scientific, Economic
> and Ethical departments — and publish their unanimous and detailed
> conclusions as a matter of public concern. The attempts made by a few
> sectarian missionaries to apprehend this world-wide Cause have, so far,
> produced only a painful impression of bewildered littleness, tossing on the
> ocean of universal significance.
> 
> “This Cause has become worldwide. In a short space of time it has
> penetrated throughout all regions, for it has a magnetic power which attracts
> all intelligent men and women towards its center. If a person becomes
> informed of the reality of this Cause he will believe in it, for these teachings
> are the spirit of this age.
> “The Bahai Movement imparts life. It is the cause of love and amity
> amongst mankind. It establishes communication between various nations and
> religions. It removes all antagonisms. And when this Cause is fully spread,
> warfare will be a thing of the past, universal peace will be realized, the
> oneness of the world of humanity will be manifested, and religion and science
> will work hand in hand. Then this world will become one family. There will
> remain no racial distinctions, such as French, English, American, Arab, Turk
> or Persian. All these races will become one united people.”
> — Abdul Baha.
>
> — *Baha'i: The Spirit of the Age (Used by permission of the curator)*