Good morning everybody
Today I'll start with a prayer (and then we'll see) which refers to subjects that I have been telling you about: "Lauded be Thy name, O Lord my God!
I entreat Thee by Thy Name through which the Hour hath struck,
and the Resurrection came to pass, and fear and trembling
seized all that are in heaven and all that are on earth, to rain down, out of the heaven of Thy mercy and the clouds of Thy tender compassion, what will gladden the hearts of Thy servants, who have turned towards Thee and helped Thy Cause.
Keep safe Thy servants and Thy handmaidens, O my Lord, from the darts of idle fancy and vain imaginings, and give them from the hands of Thy grace a draught of the soft-flowing waters of Thy knowledge.
Thou, truly, art the Almighty, the Most Exalted, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous."
Bahaullah
The prayer is both for Bahais and people who are not members.
Independent search for truthAbdu'l-Bahá quoted from "The Foundations of World Unity":
"GOD HAS GIVEN MAN THE EYE OF INVESTIGATION by which he may see and recognize truth. He has endowed man with ears that he may hear the message of reality and conferred upon him the gift of reason by which he may discover things for himself. This is his endowment and equipment for the investigation of reality. Man is not intended to see through the eyes of another, hear through another's ears nor comprehend with another's brain. Each human creature has individual endowment, power and responsibility in the creative plan of God. Therefore depend upon your own reason and judgement and adhere to the outcome of your own investigation; otherwise you will be utterly submerged in the sea of ignorance and deprived of all the bounties of God.
Turn to God, supplicate humbly at His threshold, seeking assistance and confirmation, that God may rend asunder the veils that obscure your vision. Then will the eyes be filled with illumination, face to face you will behold the reality of God and your heart become completely purified from the dross of ignorance, reflecting the glories and bounties of the Kingdom."
You might wonder how I became a Bahai, or how was it to become a Bahai. What should one do to be convinced about all these good things, how do you keep the vision of a bright future for mankind, when the humans of the earth is so engrossed with non-desired things.
To begin with, how does one become a Bahai. What happens?
Bahaullah reveals as the Mouthpeace of God the (old) truth that,
"Thy heart is My home...Thy spirit is My place of revelation; cleanse it for My manifestation.
But...
What is true for me isn't necessarily true for other people who have become Bahais. Some people, I have learned, have, to begin with, approached the Bahai Faith entirely intellectually, showing the greatest admiration for its worldwide scope, its administration with its institutions, its clarity, its clear philosophy and later their hearts have been transformed.
I do not understand everything about this kind of approach, I am just glad that their hearts have been gladdened too after some time.
For my part I was filled with longing for something solid, something which would be unshakeable and lasting, but I was was completely illiterate spiritually. I didn't knowe I was looking for spirituality.
It all started, or rather it did not start, at sunday school, something didn't like to attend at all. When I had been there for some time, I came home and asked my kind fosterparents: "Do you know how it feels like to die?"
I was only at the age of six, so they asked, why do you ask such a question. I told them, "it feels like that at sunday school." And then I didn't have to attend it any more.
By now, I am convinced that not my own will, but God's was operating within me. How else could I have said such things at such an age.
I tell you why I think God was guiding me:. I would have been a victim of an old dogmatic system, filled with all those blind imitations, that Abdu'l-Bahá is talking about.That faith is equal to believe in bodily resurrection of the prophet and even us, ordinary people. I fled such things. The so called "confirmation" was so stiff and strange to my way of thinking, I was a rational soul who didn't care at all for miracles and "things". I am glad I didn't have to believe in those unreasonable fancies which is burdening the initially pure and heavenly Faith of Christ. I have told you in an earlier article how I finally met Christ, in a great illumination in the "High Church in Lund. So no harm done at all.
For many a year I was busy trying to build a ground for my worldly carrer, I went to the Art-School in Stockholm where I was to become an art-teacher. For some time I was teaching in schools, but I failed to be a good teacher for various reasons.The main reason was that I wanted, actually, to become an independent artist. Then I studied at the university for some years, humaniora. Then I found that I didn't know what to do with my life and that I was studying archeology just because I was longing for "another age", a greener, innocent age. I tried to forget the world, I was not painting or drawing any more, not for ten years. I became unhappy, much due to doing stupid things.
I started to try to understand various philosophies. I studied among other things "The last four hundred years of religious scepticism", by an author I do not remember. I read about all the -isms, having started to dig for truth, I think.
I came to Nietsche and thought he was a bit too presumptous, saying "God is dead". I misundertood him, so I decided that he cannot know such a thing.But isn't it true that God is dead in the hearts of thousands upon thousands of people? So I had to start making my own investigation. I'll decide all by myself to find out whether God was dead or not, that is: exists or not. I started to read a lot of poetry, to begin with, so called central lyrics,(centrallyrik) and when I was busy with that I met one person after the other who had good things to tell me. I started to write lyrics myself. I found that I was writing about God, but that he is hidden behind the "soulless slowly rotating nebulas", behind the "star's stern and icy steel blue glanzes penetrating you to feel fear", that I would really know what fear is.
Bahaullah says, in the "innermost depths of nature, fear is hidden".
and I came to know that. I remember that I was crying out for the great connection with the rest of the contingent world, that I had felt as a child. I even remember the moment when I all of a sudden, said to myself, "I have lost the CONNECTION", I was about 13 years, standing in our fine rooms, at home, looking out over the lake Vättern, feeling sad at this discovery.
Well, poetry didn't solve my quest. I also came to know how things were going down the drain out there in the world. As I have told you I was so worried about mankind as a whole, seemingly not getting even enough oxygen to breath within fifty years, due to a continous and fast cutting down of the rainforests. I exhausted myself, drinking too much homemade spirituosa, staying out all night, doing stupid things, came to hospital, and somehow felt fine, because there were other outsiders there.
At the hospital I started to say strange things and dreaming strange dreams. I remember quite clearly that I dreamt I was on a dark rainy, cold street. I was so cold, having poor clothing,moreover I was hungry and confused. I took shelter in a doorway. I found that I could enter through the door. Inside I saw a huge and broad staircase of stone. I climbed it and found the ceiling was very high,vaulted beautifully and looked at huge wide halls opening. I looke at them and came to "Know" this is an enormous old educational institution. After that I started to tell everybody, I will come to know things, real things, there is an explanation for "everything". All will be explained and I will come to know.
Many a brow was raised at these solemn declarations. One person was not surprised, the one who had met Emanuel Swedenborg. He just nodded and said yes, yes. (You'll find out easily who he was on the net, I guess.)
After my stay a friend and costudent came along to see me and started talking about a God's Manifestation. Ahaa, yes, and I was to study the book he had brought, the "Book of Certitude".
I read the book and felt this was an important Book and that was the start of studying the Bahai Faith. I asked for all the books, eager to know and was so fashinated that I asked for book after book. And I asked a lot of questions, so they my first friends were quite busy with me.
When I came to these lines by Bahaullah, I my heart was really deeply touched:
"O SON OF BEING!
Love Me, that I may love thee. If thou lovest Me not, My love can in no wise reach thee. Know this, O servant."
At that moment I could but exclaim, AHAAA, well , of course! I will love God then. I didn't know the mechanism, simply.
Nobody had ever told me this. Bahaullah did, and I was given a "honeyheart" because I fell in love. Such is the way of God. This is what happens. His Word makes you feel love, when you really want to know and to understand the holy texts. I am telling you now, about the mechanism. This is what transcends the earthly sphere and cannot be described better than as a mystery. I kept my mysterious honey well guarded in my hearts "pantry" by reading the prayers we have been given and by studying every day the Scriptures. We have hundreds of different revealed prayers. I need not mention here what other religions have. We have prayers that are the Word of God insuch a plenty. I have presented some of them here in my forum. Of course you can produce your own prayers, I for my part chose among the revealed ones, they do cover all your needs and all circumstances.
I should think this is one of the basics for steadfastness and courage to, on top of the healthy mysterious love from God, -to withhold the vision of a reconciled humanity, though it now is lost in all sorts of superstitions and quarrels , secular and religious, etc. A vision that looks behind what is here and now, don't you need that too? And the means to make it come true?
As the years have rolled by, me still a Bahai, I have seen how many of Bahaullahs prescriptions and laws have shown themselves at work all around. How come?
I'll answer this way, when a Manifestation of God appears, He does three things. Similar to the preceedings of a physician.
1.)He annuls the laws of the previous dispensation.
2.)He gives new laws, appropriate for the age in which He appears, except the law of love..
3.)He releases a Divine Power, infuses a new capacity into the world of mens souls, that will make them accept the new laws.
An exemple: even the old fetters keeping the Yemenite women in bondage at home, preventing their emancipation, are falling apart. Because Bahaullahs laws are now operating. Equality between women and men is now the divine law, so even the most backward of societies is meeting the new spirit of the age, the Bahai spirit, that more and more deeply permeates the world of thought.
Therefore I have met many people who say," well the Bahai Faith is quite OK", and this is due to the new spirit of the age, the spirit of the maturing of mankind. Another thing is to really want to be filled with the love of God. Here people are satisfied it seems, mostly, with all the good that can be got materially, why ask for more. I did, do you? I longed for this, though I couldn't put a name on it, and surely you can not long for something that doesn't exist.
The secret is:
"O SON OF THE WONDROUS VISION!
I have breathed within thee a breath of My own spirit, that thou mayest be My lover..."
The new world is the new re-creation of the soil of the souls of men. It is not only the new World Order which I have spoken about, it is the infusing of this power that we may get equipped to build that peaceful world,starting within ourselves, so much prophesied about, in all the worlds holy Scriptures. See also my article the Universal Cycles.
This Revelation is indeed enormous, study it bit by bit, is my advice, according to your own pace. "Bahaullah and the New Era" is a good introductory book. Do not worry, there is given time for this in your busy life. As soon as you start studying , you'll find all the time for it. God gives you that.
"The world's equilibrium hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous system - the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed" Bahaullah (No wonder really, that I went about saying "everything will be explained" at that hospital long time ago. I was indeed influenced, not knowing it. Quite mysteriously and real.)
I forgot to say that you can always turn to the National Bahai centre for the Bahais in your country.Phone them. It would certainly be situated in the capital city of your country. Or you can get a book about the Faith via the nearest towns library. Most Bahai communities are diligently holding public information- meetings.
Use only the www.Bahai.org or if you live in the US www.Bahai.us.
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