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This is very interesting
2/20/2008 8:44:42 AM
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Good day dear friends and readers
There is a Biblic expression which I have used here in a previous article: "Many are called but few are chosen". It is an expression that we have to use very carefully It can be misused very easily, thoughtlessly. Pride is just around the corner.
I will investigate it today with the help of that "lighthead" Mr W.Hatcher.
Let us start with the purpose of us being created:
"The purpose in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His presence... Whoso hath recognized the Day Spring of Divine guidance and entered His holy court hath drawn nigh unto God and attained His presence...Whoso hath failed to recognize Him will have condemned himself to the misery of remoteness, a remoteness which is naught but utter nothingness and the essence of the nethermost fire." Bahaullah
And here we are, hybrids of materia and spirit, immersed in materia.
And there seems to be a paradox and that is:
"that God hath given man immediate access to spiritual reality while denying him such immediate access to spiritual realities. This seems a curious thing for God to have done if, in fact, the most important aspect of reality is the spiritual one and if our basic purpose in life is spiritual. If the spiritual dimension of man's existence is ultimately the most real, then why are we given immediate perception only of the less substantial portion of total reality?. Why in short, are we called upon by God to pursue a spiritual purpose while being immersed in a sea of materiality?...
(this condition of ours) " remains the basic stumbling block to atheists, agnostics, materialists and positivists of whatever philosophical stripe in their approach to spiritual questions."
So God and spirituality is hidden, or doesn't exist (and yet they are quite ready to blame God for all miseries on earth, but this is another matter)
However "Bahaullah has explained in clear terms the divine purpose underlying this fundamental feature of the human situation. The explanation lies in the principle of "separation and distinction", by which God wishes individual's self-responsible and self-directed efforts. Bahaullah affirms unequivocally that God could certainly have rendered spiritual truth and spiritual reality as irrefutably evident and as immediately accessible to our spiritual senses as is material reality to our physical senses. But..
had He done so, all men would have been forever bereft of one important experience: the experience of the state of spiritual deprivation. As the universe is now ordered, everyone can" (therefore)
" have the experience of moving from a position of relative doubt, insecurity, uncertainty and fear towards a position of relative certitude, security, knowledge and faith."
I just want to pause here to solemnly declare that I myself to the highest degree appreciate and value this possibility of spiritual deprivation, because there is no better joy than to pass from unbelief to belief. It is such a terrific experience that noone can thoroughly apprehend it, noone among the "always believing". I'd say the sons who stayed at home, in God's houses while the unruly sons went out into the world of materialism and almost went down the drain. Remember the old parable of Jesus. Remember the father who at long last gives a joyous feast of welcome for the returning son, that son who had imposed upon himself so much suffering due to his staying away in the prison of sinfulness and crime far from the heavenly home of belief etc. I know what I am talking about ,I belong to that latter group of people, who returned who had to be forgiven for many things, so therefore I say: here is a source for greate, nay the greatest gratitude to God, for greatest love. I myself am an example of the adventurous son and have come to know the contrasts between life and death and that Welcome by the Father. The life in spirit and the death of spirit, which is the true death.
I rejected Faith because of the priestly dogmatism and the blind imitations of the believers, its superstitions and the holding on to the
miracles. Many are they who do. These things are in my opinion the very stones of the avenue for the ones who are" falling off" from Christianity. But, listen: " withdrawing from such a faith is an true act of piety" says Abdu'l-Baha
In the Bahai Teachings all and everything appealed to my intellect and satisfied my heart . I was indeed invited to a grand welcome, to the banquet table of God.
God had understood me.
You might say, what a pity. No, do not say that. I have rediscovered Jesus Christ. And all other Messengers. And I know how Bahaullah has eulogized Christ and all His works.
Now I will not talk more about myself.
So there is this experience of spiritual deprivation. With that as a starting platform I eagerly wanted to know all about this global Faith
of Bahaullah.
And in the words of Hatcher:
"On this journey, we learn important lessons which would otherwise be denied us. We value spirituality the more for having experienced, to whatever degree, its lack, and we are grateful for the privilege of having participatedin and contributed to the process of its attainment. All of this would not be possible if spiritual knowledge and perfection were simply our natural stateof being from the moment of creation:
Again:
"The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know His Creator and to attain His presence...Whoso hath failed to recognize Him will have condemned himself to the misery of remoteness...Such will be his fate, though to outward seeming he may occupy the earth's loftiest seats and be established upon its most exalted throne.
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...
That the Manifestations of Divine Justice, the Day-Springs of heavenly grace, have when They appeared amonst menalways been destitute of all earthly dominion and shorn of the means of worldly ascendancy, should be attributed to this same principle of separation and distinction which animateth the Divine Purpose. Were the Eternal Essence to manifest all that is latent within Him...none would be found to question His power or repudiate His truth. Nay, all created things would be so dazzled and thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness."
This is my argument against the common belief among Christians that they will not be put to test or proof at all but that Jesus (bearing his old name as well) will come with an irresistable glory to take all the righteous from earth in one universal catch . But be very careful!
No, my firm belief is that He has come, all the while the world was asleep and in the Person of Bahaullah.All we have to do is to empty ourselves of all learning, secular and religious, so that we openminded can preceive His Inner Glory. The Glory will not sit on His outer side or His garments, but in His Words. Just like it was in the case of the carpenter's Son long ago.
The "watching" which all of us has been asked to do by Jesus so very insistently is to listen to the true Herdsmans voice whose speech is in
His Words and Teachings. The Herdsman Who would have new Name. Remember NEW NAME.Rev 3:12.When you have decided to start examine the ageold verses in Revelation the Bible will become so much more alive and so soothing to your eyes and your soul.
Be sure of that, even though you might have stayed at Home with Father all your life!!!..
And be sure,I just want you to be happy, very very happy. It is all for the joy of heaven I keep telling you about all these things. Love doesn't ask for rewards, it is a reward in itself of course. This is the ultimate goal, the goal of God's illuminating Words and in them are enshrined the "lightnings" of Revelation.
And as usual, the enlightenment is coming from the east, "by way of the east".
Well, this is all for today I think. Later I'll will mention how the Bahai Faith explains other abstruse things in Revelation
Bye and take care of your spiritual path
Kind regards from
Laila
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