Good day Nick
I am so comforted AND INSPIRED to know you are reading my letters.And sending me those sweet cards. I am thinking of you too.I am especially glad that you have appreciated also the latest texts that are laden with such power and which has the theme :Judgment and Chastisement. I have presented them in order to show that their is also this converging of teachings in the Bahai Faith and the Christian One and also other Faiths. There is simply only one Judgment Day, of course. It is self evident. That day is a period. But it is also called the Day of Grace in the Bahai Faith and it was ushered in through the appearance in 1844 of the Bab entering the scene of religous renewal and which was not at all welcomed. One of the reasons one might dare say, have been that the Muslim clergy of those days dreaded doomsday, knowing well in their hearts that they would be doomed.The whole of the Qouran is filled with warnings of Doomsday, did you know that???, much more than in the Bible even, delivering lots of signs of the approach of that Day. When, the Promised One is to appear it is The Great Announcment, which I should have explained earlier really. It is also called the Return of Christ.YES!!!!!
Christians should know that!
How clumsily, to say the least, the clergy, in alliance with the governmet then
fell on their own trickery to avoid Doomsday. " Men are plotting and God is plotting but God is the best of plotters", the Qouran says. In the future there will be still some remains of this kind of priesthood of Shiíah Islam, mainly in Persia, fanatic,superstitious and cruel, that mankind will be reminded of what was so cruelly inflicted upon the Bab, on Bahaullah and the Babis and Bahais in Iran and elsewhere in the Muslim world.
What will happen in Iran? I often ask my Iranian Bahai friends, how are your relatives doing. Are they safe, how is their situation?. They shake their heads, hinting, nothing is for the better, hitherto. Today it seems that the authorities wish that all the Iranian Bahais should leave the country.
When there has been open and very fierce oppression of the Iranian Bahais reported to the U.N. it has directed sharp warnings to the authorities of Iran. Then for some time the oppression has been lifted away. But, again after some time it has started again with bulldozers destroying still more of our holy places and cemetries even, and imprisoning of Bahais. But each time, the persecutions has started, the Cause of Bahaullah has started to win still more of great victories in the rest of the world. It is liketrying to quench fire with oil, creating still more educational campagnes among the Bahais of the world, so more peoples have become Bahais. This is, so to say in parts, and in a way, still the period of Martyrdom and Obscurity, prolonged, although the Bahai Institutions also are growing as they should during this, the Formative Epok, which has been entered into in the rest of the Bahai World.
You might wonder, what is being formed then?. The answer is the building of the Bahai Administration consisting of institutions called spiritual assemblies on local and national levels. The international one is the Universal House of Justice, a body of nine men who constitute the head of the Bahai World, was elected(no candidating) by the National Spiritual Assemblies in 1963.
They, together are the basis of the Kingdom of God on earth. Later, all of these spiritual assemblies are to be called Local and National Houses of Justice.
This Administration, which is now spread all over the globe, in size at an embryonic stage,
is a gift to mankind. Nobody who is not a member of the Bahai Faith can contribute one single cent for its erection. It is to be given as a true gift.It will be needed. For divine guidance and for solving other problems. The world will no doubt turn unto it, seeking institutions that are not suffering from the ills of corruption. And advice will be given, for nothing. It is a gift to mankind as I said, and that will never be changed. It has been ordained by Bahaullah and the Institution of the Universal House of Justice is appointed by Bahaullah as Infallible. It is supervised and guided by Bahaullah Himself, from His throne in the Highest, giving His divine inspiration to the prayerful body of 9 servants forming the Universal House of Justice. This is the New Ark.
Bahaullah proclaims thus:
"Call out to Zion, O Carmel! and announce the joyful tidings:
He, that was hidden from mortal eyes is come! His all-conquering sovereignty is manifest; His all-encompassing splendour is revealed. Beware lest thou hesitate or halt. Hasten forth and circambulate the City of God that hath descended from heaven...around which have circled in adoration the favoured of God, the pure in heart, and the company of the most exalted angels. Oh, how I long to announce unto every spot on the surface of the earth, and to carry to each one of its cities, the glad-tidings of this Revelation - a Revelation to which the heart of Sinai hath been attracted, and in whose name the Burning Bush is calling:'Unto God, the Lord of Lords, belong the kingdoms of earth and heaven.'
Verily, this is the Day in which both land and sea rejoice at this announcement, the Day for which have been laid up those things which God, through a bounty beyond the ken of mortal mind or heart, hath destined for revelation.
Erelong will God sail upon thee His Ark upon thee, and will manifest the people of Bahá who have been mentioned in the book of names."
The law of love is such, still and always, you yourself have to choose the way of God. Love is not forced upon us, All the Bahais have themselves chosen the path of love through Bahaullahs help. Men must have a free choice, that is the divine way. Then afterwards you might say to yourself," I wonder if God, after all, did choose me first,for some strange reason, but I do not know why".
You might have guessings, but you may perhaps never know.
Bye for now
Laila