Saturday, July 14, 2012
"Physically and spiritually we are submerged in the sea of God’s favor."
... "Consider how grateful anyone becomes when healed from sickness, when treated kindly by another or when a service is rendered by another, even though it may be of the least consequence. If we forget such favors, it is an evidence of ingratitude. Then it will be said a loving-kindness has been done, but we are thankless, not appreciating this love and favor. Physically and spiritually we are submerged in the sea of God’s favor. He has provided our foods, drink and other requirements; His favors encompass us from all directions. The sustenances provided for man are blessings. Sight, hearing and all his faculties are wonderful gifts. These blessings are innumerable; no matter how many are mentioned, they are still endless. Spiritual blessings are likewise endless—spirit, consciousness, thought, memory, perception, ideation and other endowments. By these He has guided us, and we enter His Kingdom. He has opened the doors of all good before our faces. He has vouchsafed eternal glory. He has summoned us to the Kingdom of heaven. He has enriched us by the bestowals of God. Every day he has proclaimed new glad tidings. Every hour fresh bounties descend.
Consider how all the people are asleep, and ye are awake. They are dead, and ye are alive through the breaths of the Holy Spirit. They are blind while ye are endowed with perceptive sight. They are deprived of the love of God, but in your hearts it exists and is glowing. Consider these bestowals and favors.
Therefore, in thanksgiving for them ye must act in accordance with the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Ye must read the Tablets—the Hidden Words, Ishráqát, Glad Tidings—all the holy utterances, and act according to them. This is real thanksgiving, to live in accord with these utterances. This is true thankfulness and the divine bestowal. This is thanksgiving and glorification of God.
I hope you all may attain thereto, be mindful of these favors of God and be attentive. It is my hope that I may go away from New York with a happy heart, and my heart is happy when the friends of God love each other, when they manifest the mercy of God to all people. If I see this, I shall go away happy.
Salutations!"
`Abdu'l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, pp. 236-237
15 July 1912
(excerpt from a) Talk at Home of Dr. and Mrs. Florian Krug 830 Park Avenue,
New York
Friday, July 13, 2012
“In truth, God created that School ere He created heaven and earth, and We entered it before the letters B and E were joined and knit together.”
"Take heed that ye dispute not idly concerning the Almighty and His Cause, for lo! He hath appeared amongst you invested with a Revelation so great as to encompass all things, whether of the past or of the future. Were We to address Our theme by speaking in the language of the inmates of the Kingdom, We would say: “In truth, God created that School ere He created heaven and earth, and We entered it before the letters B and E were joined and knit together.” Such is the language of Our servants in Our Kingdom; consider what the tongue of the dwellers of Our exalted Dominion would utter, for We have taught them Our knowledge and have revealed to them whatever had lain hidden in God’s wisdom. Imagine then what the Tongue of Might and Grandeur would utter in His All-Glorious Abode!
This is not a Cause which may be made a plaything for your idle fancies, nor is it a field for the foolish and faint of heart. By God, this is the arena of insight and detachment, of vision and upliftment, where none may spur on their chargers save the valiant horsemen of the Merciful, who have severed all attachment to the world of being. These, truly, are they that render God victorious on earth, and are the dawning-places of His sovereign might amidst mankind."
-Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 84
Thursday, July 12, 2012
“Here am I. Here am I”
"O Lord of all being and Possessor of all things visible and invisible! Thou dost perceive my tears and the sighs I utter, and hearest my groaning, and my wailing, and the lamentation of my heart. By Thy might! My trespasses have kept me back from drawing nigh unto Thee; and my sins have held me far from the court of Thy holiness. Thy love, O my Lord, hath enriched me, and separation from Thee hath destroyed me, and remoteness from Thee hath consumed me. I entreat Thee by Thy footsteps in this wilderness, and by the words “Here am I. Here am I” which Thy chosen Ones have uttered in this immensity, and by the breaths of Thy Revelation, and the gentle winds of the Dawn of Thy Manifestation, to ordain that I may gaze on Thy beauty and observe whatsoever is in Thy Book."
-Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, excerpt from Long Obligatory Prayer, p. 96
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
“Lo, the All-Possessing is come. Earth and heaven, glory and dominion are God’s, the Lord of all men, and the Possessor of the Throne on high and of earth below!”
"God testifieth that there is none other God but Him. His are the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation. He, in truth, hath manifested Him Who is the Dayspring of Revelation, Who conversed on Sinai, through Whom the Supreme Horizon hath been made to shine, and the Lote-Tree beyond which there is no passing hath spoken, and through Whom the call hath been proclaimed unto all who are in heaven and on earth: “Lo, the All-Possessing is come. Earth and heaven, glory and dominion are God’s, the Lord of all men, and the Possessor of the Throne on high and of earth below!”
-Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, excerpt from Medium Obligatory Prayer, p.99
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
" ... every religion proceedeth from God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting"
"SINCE thou hast faithfully obeyed the true religion of God in the past, it behooveth thee to follow His true religion hereafter, inasmuch as every religion proceedeth from God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.
He Who hath revealed the Qur’án unto Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, ordaining in the Faith of Islám that which was pleasing unto Him, hath likewise revealed the Bayán, in the manner ye have been promised, unto Him Who is your Qá’im, 1 your Guide, your Mihdí, 2 your Lord, Him Whom ye acclaim as the manifestation of God’s most excellent titles. Verily the equivalent of that which God revealed unto Muḥammad during twenty-three years, hath been revealed unto Me within the space of two days and two nights. However, as ordained by God, no distinction is to be drawn between the two. He, in truth, hath power over all things.
I swear by the life of Him Whom God shall make manifest! My Revelation is indeed far more bewildering than that of Muḥammad, the Apostle of God, if thou dost but pause to reflect upon the days of God. Behold, how strange that a person brought up amongst the people of Persia should be empowered by God to proclaim such irrefutable utterances as to silence every man of learning, and be enabled to spontaneously reveal verses far more rapidly than anyone could possibly set down in writing. Verily, no God is there but Him, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. XVI, 18."
-The Báb, Selections From the Writings of the Báb, p. 39
1. He Who ariseth (God Passes By, p. 57)
2. One Who is guided (God Passes By, p. 58)
Monday, July 9, 2012
Martyrdom of the Báb - "I am the Countenance of God Whose splendour can never be obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade."
"I am the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things. I am the Countenance of God Whose splendour can never be obscured, the Light of God Whose radiance can never fade. Whoso recognizeth Me, assurance and all good are in store for him, and whoso faileth to recognize Me, infernal fire and all evil await him… I swear by God, the Peerless, the Incomparable, the True One: for no other reason hath He—the supreme Testimony of God—invested Me with clear signs and tokens than that all men may be enabled to submit to His Cause.
By the righteousness of Him Who is the Absolute Truth, were the veil to be lifted, thou wouldst witness on this earthly plane all men sorely afflicted with the fire of the wrath of God, a fire fiercer and greater than the fire of hell, with the exception of those who have sought shelter beneath the shade of the tree of My love. For they in very truth are the blissful…
God beareth Me witness, I was not a man of learning, for I was trained as a merchant. In the year sixty 1 God graciously infused my soul with the conclusive evidences and weighty knowledge which characterize Him Who is the Testimony of God—may peace be upon Him—until finally in that year I proclaimed God’s hidden Cause and unveiled its well-guarded Pillar, in such wise that no one could refute it. ‘That he who should perish might perish with a clear proof before him and he who should live might live by clear proof.’ 2
In that same year [year 60] I despatched a messenger and a book unto thee, that thou mightest act towards the Cause of Him Who is the Testimony of God as befitteth the station of thy sovereignty. But inasmuch as dark, dreadful and dire calamity had been irrevocably ordained by the Will of God, the book was not submitted to thy presence, through the intervention of such as regard themselves the well-wishers of the government. Up to the present, when nearly four years have passed, they have not duly presented it to Your Majesty. However, now that the fateful hour is drawing nigh, and because it is a matter of faith, not a worldly concern, therefore I have given thee a glimpse of what hath transpired.
I swear by God! Shouldst thou know the things which in the space of these four years have befallen Me at the hands of thy people and thine army, thou wouldst hold thy breath from fear of God, unless thou wouldst rise to obey the Cause of Him Who is the Testimony of God and make amends for thy shortcomings and failure."
-The Báb, Selections From the Writings of the Báb, Extracts from an Epistle to Muhammad Sháh, pp. 12-13
1. 1260 A.H. (1844 A.D.)
2. Qur’án 8:44
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Verily, verily, I am God, He besides Whom there is none other God, and I am indeed the Ancient of Days…"
"THE Lord hath, in truth, inspired Me: Verily, verily, I am God, He besides Whom there is none other God, and I am indeed the Ancient of Days…
O people of the Kingdom! By the righteousness of the true God, if ye remain steadfast upon this line which standeth upright between the two lines, ye shall, in very truth, quaff the living waters from the Fountain of this wondrous Revelation as proffered by the hand of His Remembrance…
I swear by your true Lord, by Him Who is the Lord of the heavens and of the earth, that the divine Promise concerning His Remembrance is naught but the sovereign truth and, as decreed in the Mother Book, it shall come to pass…
Say, O peoples of the earth! Were ye to assemble together in order to produce the like of a single letter of My Works, ye would never be able to do so, 1 and verily God is cognizant of all things…
O Qurratu’l-‘Ayn! Say: Behold! Verily the Moon hath faded; verily the night hath retreated; verily the dawn hath brightened; 2 verily the command of God, your true Lord, hath been accomplished…
Out of utter nothingness, O great and omnipotent Master, Thou hast, through the celestial potency of Thy might, brought me forth and raised me up to proclaim this Revelation. I have made none other but Thee my trust; I have clung to no will but Thy Will. Thou art, in truth, the All-Sufficing and behind Thee standeth the true God, He Who overshadoweth all things. Indeed sufficient unto Me is God, the Exalted, the Powerful, the Sustainer. Chapter LVIII."
-The Báb, Selections From the Writings of the Báb, pp. 58-59
1.cf. Qur’án 17:88
2.cf. Qur’án 74:35–37
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