Good evening my friends!
I had planned to go through all what has been written about virtues, but I will again stop at another issue: That of the "New Jerusalem."I thought that you might be very interested in that mysterious city.
I will tell you about it from a Bahai perspective. What others may think of the fantastic sceneries which are laid out in the Book of Revelation, such as a city coming out of the sky, that belongs to them.
Long before I was an enrolled member of Bahai I have tried to seek out the meaning of outer phenomena. I used to write poems, always using outer phenomena to convey an inner meaning, even seeking the underlying meaning of processes and events.Otherwise I would simply be bored. Now I find meanings all over the place, I constantly stumble upon them in nature and also otherwise and I put it into my art.
Therefore it was not at all farfetched for me to accept New Jerusalem as a symbol of Law and Order.From a city, I myself concluded, things are actually ordered, there are courts, prisons ,there are judges, not so on the countryside. And once upon a time the old Jerusalem did have those things, so I'd say this old city was well chosen to signify Laws,divine Laws, but new laws for a new Era in the history of mankind, with the coming of the Glory of God-- in Persian, Bahaullah.
The name is the Most Holy Book in Persian Kitab- i-Aqdas. Also called the Motherbook. It also covers other symbols as you will see below:
I'll quote again from W.Hatchers book; "The Law of Love enshrined":
"'...the principal repository of that Law which the prophet Isaiah had anticipated, and which the writer of the Apocalypse had described as the 'new heaven' and the 'new earth', as the 'tabernacle of God', as 'the Holy City', as the 'Bride', the 'New Jerusalem coming down from God', this 'Most Holy Book', whose provisions must remain unviolate for no less than a thousand years, and whose system will embrace the entire planet...as the brightest emanation of the mind of Bahaullah, as the Mother Book of His Dispensation, and the Charter of His New World Order.' Shoghi Effendi Guardian of the Bahai Faith
In the light of this , and other similarly exalted descriptions of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, one might expect to be confronted with a formal legal text in an inflated style. Instead, one finds nothing less than an extended love letter from God to humanity, an outpouring of tenderness and concern for every detail of human existence such as to dispel any possible doubt of God's overwhelming love for His creatures. Moreover, the Kitab-i-Aqdas exhibits a remarkable harmony of content and style that heightens this impression of God's love and concern for us....
Fundamentally, the Kitab-iAqdas views life as a continual dialogue
between God and humanity. Thus , not only does the content of the Kitab-i-Aqdas treat a wide spectrum of life's questions, the work's very form reproduces our experience of life, in which profound philosophical and moral issues are continually juxtaposed with practical and concrete questions of everyday life. By reproducing this existencial juxtaposition within the test itself, Bahaullah allows us to see how the most significant and abstract philosophical and spiritual questions are indeed related to the most homely issues of our material existence. Also these textual juxtapositions help the reader make logical connections that might otherwise remain obscure. This in turn, increases the reader's autonomy in confronting and understanding the Kitab-i-Aqdas, enabling him to 'see with his own eyes and hear with his own ears'.
According to Bahaullah, our dialogue with God is pursued on both the individual and the collective level; it is initiated by God who also establishes its parametres, but its success is dependent upon our ability to generate an appropriate response to God's overtures. Thus the laws and principles of the Kitab-i-Aqdas are presented in the form of a covenant or agreement in which God requires certain things from us but solemnly promises that spiritual growth, progress and happiness will inevitably follow if these actions and attitudes on our part are forthcoming."
I'll soon continue
Bye for now
Laila
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