Wednesday, September 8, 2010
"God grant that, with a penetrating vision and radiant heart, thou mayest observe the things that have come to pass and are now happening ..."
"Thou hast known how grievously the Prophets of God, His Messengers and Chosen Ones, have been afflicted. Meditate a while on the motive and reason which have been responsible for such a persecution. At no time, in no Dispensation, have the Prophets of God escaped the blasphemy of their enemies, the cruelty of their oppressors, the denunciation of the learned of their age, who appeared in the guise of uprightness and piety. Day and night they passed through such agonies as none can ever measure, except the knowledge of the one true God, exalted be His glory.
Consider this wronged One. Though the clearest proofs attest the truth of His Cause; though the prophecies He, in an unmistakable language, hath made have been fulfilled; though, in spite of His not being accounted among the learned, His being unschooled and inexperienced in the disputations current among the divines, He hath rained upon men the showers of His manifold and Divinely-inspired knowledge; yet, behold how this generation hath rejected His authority, and rebelled against Him! He hath, during the greater part of His life, been sore-tried in the clutches of His enemies. His sufferings have now reached their culmination in this afflictive Prison, into which His oppressors have so unjustly thrown Him. God grant that, with a penetrating vision and radiant heart, thou mayest observe the things that have come to pass and are now happening, and, pondering them in thine heart, mayest recognize that which most men have, in this Day, failed to perceive. Please God, He may enable thee to inhale the sweet fragrance of His Day, to partake of the limitless effusions of His grace, to quaff thy fill, through His gracious favor, from the most great Ocean that surgeth in this Day in the name of the Ancient King, and to remain firm and immovable as the mountain in His Cause."
-Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, XXIII pp. 57-59
Mishkin Qalam
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
"Unto you be that which ye desire and unto us that which we desire."
"It behoveth thee to look with divine insight upon the things We have revealed and sent unto thee and not towards the people and that which is current amongst them. They are in this day like unto a blind man who, while moving in the sunshine, demandeth: Where is the sun? Is it shining? He would deny and dispute the truth, and would not be of them that perceive. Never shall he be able to discern the sun or to understand that which hath intervened between him and it. He would object within himself, voice protests, and would be among the rebellious. Such is the state of this people. Leave them unto themselves, saying: Unto you be that which ye desire and unto us that which we desire. Wretched indeed is the plight of the ungodly."
-Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 186
SÚRIY-I-VAFÁ (Tablet to Vafá)
Monday, September 6, 2010
"We beseech God—blessed and exalted be He—that He may honour us with meeting Him soon."
"Blessed, doubly blessed, is the ground which His footsteps have trodden, the eye that hath been cheered by the beauty of His countenance, the ear that hath been honoured by hearkening to His call, the heart that hath tasted the sweetness of His love, the breast that hath dilated through His remembrance, the pen that hath voiced His praise, the scroll that hath borne the testimony of His writings. We beseech God—blessed and exalted be He—that He may honour us with meeting Him soon. He is, in truth, the All-Hearing, the All-Powerful, He Who is ready to answer."
- Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, pp. 227-228
LAWḤ-I-ARD-I-BÁ (Tablet of the Land of Bá) Beirut
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Sunday, September 5, 2010
" ...deeds exert greater influence than words."
"He is the One Who speaketh through the power of Truth in the Kingdom of Utterance
O YE the embodiments of justice and equity and the manifestations of uprightness and of heavenly bounties! In tears and lamenting, this Wronged One calleth aloud and saith: O God, my God! Adorn the heads of Thy loved ones with the crown of detachment and attire their temples with the raiment of righteousness.
It behoveth the people of Bahá to render the Lord victorious through the power of their utterance and to admonish the people by their goodly deeds and character, inasmuch as deeds exert greater influence than words."
-Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 57
KALÍMÁT-I-FIRDAWSÍYYIH (Words of Paradise)
O YE the embodiments of justice and equity and the manifestations of uprightness and of heavenly bounties! In tears and lamenting, this Wronged One calleth aloud and saith: O God, my God! Adorn the heads of Thy loved ones with the crown of detachment and attire their temples with the raiment of righteousness.
It behoveth the people of Bahá to render the Lord victorious through the power of their utterance and to admonish the people by their goodly deeds and character, inasmuch as deeds exert greater influence than words."
-Bahá'u'lláh, Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed After the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 57
KALÍMÁT-I-FIRDAWSÍYYIH (Words of Paradise)
Saturday, September 4, 2010
" ... where mention of God hath been made ..."
"Blessed is the spot, and the house,
and the place, and the city,
and the heart, and the mountain,
and the refuge, and the cave,
and the valley, and the land,
and the sea, and the island,
and the meadow where mention
of God hath been made,
and His praise glorified."
—Bahá’u’lláh, Bahá’í Prayers: A Selection of Prayers Revealed by Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 18
Friday, September 3, 2010
"This is that blessed and everlasting life that perisheth not: whosoever is quickened thereby shall never die ..."
"Know then that “life” hath a twofold meaning. The first pertaineth to the appearance of man in an elemental body, and is as manifest to thine eminence and to others as the midday sun. This life cometh to an end with physical death, which is a God-ordained and inescapable reality. That life, however, which is mentioned in the Books of the Prophets and the Chosen Ones of God is the life of knowledge; that is to say, the servant’s recognition of the sign of the splendours wherewith He Who is the Source of all splendour hath Himself invested him, and his certitude of attaining unto the presence of God through the Manifestations of His Cause. This is that blessed and everlasting life that perisheth not: whosoever is quickened thereby shall never die, but will endure as long as His Lord and Creator will endure.
The first life, which pertaineth to the elemental body, will come to an end, as hath been revealed by God: “Every soul shall taste of death.” 14 But the second life, which ariseth from the knowledge of God, knoweth no death, as hath been revealed aforetime: “Him will We surely quicken to a blessed life.” 15 And in another passage concerning the martyrs: “Nay, they are alive and sustained by their Lord.” 16 And from the Traditions: “He who is a true believer liveth both in this world and in the world to come.” 17 Numerous examples of similar words are to be found in the Books of God and of the Embodiments of His justice. For the sake of brevity, however, We have contented Ourself with the above passages."
-Bahá'u'lláh, Gems of Divine Mysteries (Javáhiru’l-Asrár), pp. 47-48
14.Qur’án 3:185.
15.Qur’án 16:97.
16.Qur’án 3:169.
17.From a Hadíth.
-Bahá'u'lláh, Gems of Divine Mysteries (Javáhiru’l-Asrár), pp. 47-48
14.Qur’án 3:185.
15.Qur’án 16:97.
16.Qur’án 3:169.
17.From a Hadíth.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
“If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.”
"He Who is the Day Spring of Truth is, no doubt, fully capable of rescuing from such remoteness wayward souls and of causing them to draw nigh unto His court and attain His Presence. “If God had pleased He had surely made all men one people.” His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse. Thus hath it been ordained by the all-glorious and resplendent Pen…."
-Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, XXIX p. 71
Indiana
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