| ←Administrative Order | Lights of Guidance edited by Helen Hornby Bahá’í Administration |
Bahá’í Local Spiritual Assemblies→ |
| Click here for the table of contents and links to individual sections. |
3. The Ideal Instrument to Make Spiritual Laws Function Properly
“He hopes you will devote as much of your spare time as possible to the work of the Cause, especially in impressing upon the believers the importance of the Administration and helping them to really understand its purpose and all it can achieve once they get it to function properly. In other words it is a perfect form which must be animated by the spirit of the Cause. It is the ideal instrument to make spiritual laws function properly in the material affairs of this world.”
- (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, June 16, 1945)
4. Purpose of Administration
"Your letter of October 19, 1973 giving a comprehensive survey of developments throughout Australia is of great interest and we commend you on your manifold efforts to promote the Faith throughout that vast continent.
"We urge you ever to bear in mind that the purpose of Bahá’í administration is primarily to lend strength and directive to the teaching work and to promote the establishment of the Faith. It should never be regarded as an end in itself but purely as a means to canalize and make effective a spiritual vitality generated by the Word of God in the hearts of the believers.
"The dedication and zeal with which you promote the Cause of God are highly commendable and we will pray at the Sacred Threshold that the process of expansion and consolidation will be greatly intensified as a result of your efforts."
- (From a letter of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia, November 12, 1973)
5. Social Order of Bahá’u’lláh
“…To accept the Cause without the administration is like to accept the teachings without acknowledging the divine station of Bahá’u’lláh. To be a Bahá’í is to accept the Cause in its entirety. To take exception to one basic principle is to deny the authority and sovereignty of Bahá’u’lláh, and therefore is to deny the Cause. The administration is the social order of Bahá’u’lláh. Without it all the principles of the Cause will remain abortive. To take exception to this, therefore, is to take exception to the fabric that Bahá’u’lláh has prescribed; it is to disobey his law.”
- (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the National Spiritual Assembly of the United States and Canada, May 30, 1930: Bahá’í News, No. 43, August 1930, p. 3)
6. Relationship of the Cause to the Administration
“Regarding the relationship of the Cause to the Administration: the Bahá’í Faith, as the Guardian himself has repeatedly and emphatically stated, cannot be confined to a mere system of organization, however elaborate in its features and universal in its scope it may be. Organization is only a means to the realization of its aims and ideals, and not an end in itself. To divorce the two, however, would be to mutilate the Cause itself, as they stand inseparably bound to each other, in very much the same relationship existing between the soul and body in the world of human existence.”
- (From a letter on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer April 19, 1939)
