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--PATTERN--
In the Name of the Lord of Utterance, the Mighty
O YE PEOPLE OF INSIGHT AND DISCERNMENT!
The first Call of the Beloved is this: O mystic Nightingale! Abide not but in the Rose-Garden of the Spirit; O Messenger of the Solomon of Love! Seek thou no shelter except in the Sheba of the Well-Beloved; and O immortal Phoenix! Dwell not save on the Mount of Faithfulness. Therein is thy habitation, if on the wings of thy soul thou soarest to the Realm of the Infinite.
O SON OF SPIRIT!
The bird seeketh its nest; the nightingale the charm of the rose; whilst those birds, the hearts of men, content with mortal dust, have strayed from their eternal Nest, and with eyes turned towards the mire of negligence are bereft of the splendour of the Divine Presence. Alas! how strange and pitiful; for a mere cupful, they have turned away from the billowing Ocean of the Realms above, and remained far from the Heaven of Glory.
O FRIEND!
In the garden of thy heart plant not but the Rose of Love, and from the Nightingale of desire and yearning loosen not thy hold. Treasure the companionship of the righteous, and withdraw thyself from fellowship with the ungodly.
O SON OF JUSTICE!
Whither can a lover go but to the land of his beloved? and what seeker findeth rest away from his heart's desire? To the true lover, reunion is life, and separation is death. His breast is void of patience and his heart hath no peace. A myriad lives he would forsake to hasten to the retreat of his beloved.
O SON OF DUST!
Verily I say unto thee: of all men the most negligent is he that disputeth idly and seeketh to advance himself over his brother. Say, O brethren! Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.
O SON OF EARTH!
Know, verily, the heart wherein the least remnant of envy yet lingers, shall never attain My everlasting Dominion, nor inhale the sweet savours of Sanctity breathing from My Holy Kingdom.
From the Persian Hidden Words, translated by Shoghi Effendi.
Separation from the things of the world is a sun. If it shines forth from the horizon of the heaven of any soul, then the fire of selfishness and evil desire will be extinguished; thus informeth you the Possessor of the whole universe, if ye were of the knowing. Verily the one whose self-dedication opens his sight to the light of understanding will be cut wholly from the contingent world and all that is therein: to this beareth witness thy Lord, the Merciful, in this beloved and exalted station.
Blessed is the one who is illumined by the Light of self-dedication. Verily he is one of the people of the Red Ark in the Presence of the Lord of the Greatest Throne.
Blessed is the city from the horizon of which shines forth the sun of self-dedication, and the land that is illumined by its light.
--PHOTO--
The Gate of Acre, Palestine
| VOL. 14 | FEBRUARY, 1924 | No. 11 |
He is The Lord, Exalted Be He. His Is The Glory, And His Is The Power.
ALL praise be to God, the Adored One, Lord of the seen and unseen, Who from the primal Point caused books and epistles, unnumbered, to be revealed, Whose most exalted Word called into being all creation from first to last, and Who, consonant with His transcendent wisdom, hath sent, in every age and cycle, His Messenger to revive with the living waters of Divine Utterance His faint and withering creatures. He, in truth, is the expounder, the true interpreter; inasmuch as man falleth short and faileth to comprehend that which hath flowed from the Pen of Glory and been revealed in His most holy Book. Verily, man needeth at all times a reminder, a guide, an instructor, teacher. Thus hath God sent forth His Ambassadors, His Prophets and His chosen ones, that these may acquaint the peoples of the world with His purpose in the revealing of His Word and the mission of His Messengers, that all may be made aware of the divine trust committed to their charge.
Man is the most potent of talismans; and naught but want of true education hath deprived him of that which is latent within him. With one word He created him, with another guided his steps to the path of true learning, and with still another guarded and preserved his standing and station.
The Great Being saith: Consider man even as a mine that holdeth stones of precious beauty; education alone revealeth its value and bestowcth its benefit upon mankind.
Were man to study with deep insight God's holy Words and ponder them in his heart, he will surely realize that their one aim it to so unite the world that the divers peoples on earth may be regarded even as one soul, that the seal of "Unto God is all dominion" may be stamped upon the tablet of every heart and that the splendours of lovingkindness, of grace and mercy may be shed upon all mankind.
The Lord, exalted be He! hath desired naught for Himself. The allegiance of mankind profiteth Him not, neither doth its disobedience cause Him to suffer. At every moment doth the Bird of the Realm of Utterance voice the call: "All things have I desired for thee, and thee for thy own self." Should the worldly-wise-men of the day suffer the peoples of the world to inhale the perfume of love and unity, then will men of understanding comprehend the meaning of true liberty and attain unto complete tranquillity and comfort. . . .
Would to God that His Grace and Bounty may be vouchsafed unto the peoples of the world; may He guide the kindreds of the earth and direct their
steps to the path of His good pleasure. Behold! Years have passed and neither the world nor they that dwell therein have yet obtained their peace and quiet. At one time they fall victims to the agony of war, at another they are afflicted with unforeseen trials. Woes and tribulations have encompassed the world, and yet, no one doth perceive the cause! And if the Divine Counsellor should utter a word, they regard Him a stirrer of strife and reject His counsel. Man is bewildered; what could he advise and say? . . .
The Great Being saith: O friends! The Tabernacle of Oneness hath been raised in the world; cast not on one another the glance of estrangement. Of one tree are all ye the fruit, and of one bough the leaves.
The Great Being saith: The canopy of stability and order in the world is upheld by the twin pillars of reward and punishment. . . . O ye rulers of the world! What legion of warriors mightier than the legion of Justice and Wisdom? . . . Well is it with that sovereign that goeth forth with the standard of wisdom unfolded before him and the guard of justice marching in his rear. . . .
Behold the Bird of Justice, this day, sorely tried in the talons of oppression and cruelty. Pray ye to God, haply He may deprive not the peoples of the world from the ocean of divine understanding. Were they but to take heed, they would fully realize that whatsover from the Pen of Wisdom is even as the sun that illumines the world. Therein lie the peace, the safety, the true interest of mankind.
Otherwise fresh calamities shall befall the world and mischief and discord be kindled every day. God grant that the peoples of the world may be graciously aided to protect with the lamps of wisdom the light of His loving counsels. I fain would hope that each and every one may be adorned with the ornament of true wisdom—the firm foundation of the edifice of mankind.
Blessed are they that arise to serve mankind. Let not man glory in this that he loves his country, let him rather glory in this that he loves his kind. The world is indeed but one home, and the peoples thereon its dwellers. . . .
The Great Being saith: O ye children of men! The true faith of God and His religion are for the protection, the unity, the harmony, the peace and the love of all mankind; make them not the cause of strife and discord, of hate and enmity. This, verily, is the straight path and the firm foundation. Whatsoever is raised on this foundation the happenings of the world will shake it not, neither will time cause it to crumble. We cherish the hope that the sages and rulers of the world will, with one accord, arise for the betterment of mankind, and, after deliberations, full and mature, bestow the remedy of their wise ministry upon this diseased and broken world.
The Great Being saith: The firmament of Divine Wisdom shineth with the twin orbs of consultation and mercy. Take counsel together in all things, inasmuch as consultation is the guiding light that giveth enlightenment and leadeth unto the Way. In the beginning of all things let the end be borne in mind. Let children be instructed in all arts and sciences that conduce to the benefit of mankind, to the progress and the exaltation of the station of man, that thereby sedition and mischief may be banished from the world, that all, by the endeavour of the chiefs of state and the leaders of men, may repose in the lap of security and peace. . . .
It is incumbent upon the leaders of the world to follow moderation in all things, and whatsoever passeth beyond this limit is sure to be void of all effect. Consider, liberty, civilization and the like, though acclaimed by men of learning, will if carried to extremes prove conducive to the utmost harm.
The Great Being saith: The Tongue of Wisdom proclaims: He that hath Me not is bereft of all things. Turn ye away from all that is on earth, and seek none else but Me. I am the Sun of Wisdom and the Ocean of Knowledge. I cheer the faint, and revive the dead. I am the guiding Light that illumines the Way. I am the royal Falcon of the arms of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight. . . . —Words of Bahá'u'lláh: from the Tablet known as the 'Lawh-i-Maqsad,' and revealed in the prison city of Acre about 1882 A. D., recently sent by Shoghi Effendi to America.
THE enemies of Bahá'u'lláh, wishing to exile him from Baghdád, met in consultation. They asked a prominent divine, a very good and sincere man, with many followers, to meet with them. This divine was not a follower of Bahá'u'lláh, but when he heard the plan of the enemies he refused to have anything to do with it, saying that they had never investigated the matter, and therefore could not know the truth; then he left the meeting. The others finally decided to send one of their number to talk with Bahá'u'lláh. This man, also, was good and sincere and when he met Bahá'u'lláh he beheld in wonder the radiance of his spirit. He asked what he should say to those who had sent him. Bahá'u'lláh replied, "You must tell them all that you have seen and felt." The emissary said, "They do not doubt your greatness and knowledge. What they really want is a miracle." Bahá'u'lláh answered, "You have read in all the sacred books that miracles do not appear through the wish of the people, but by the will of God. If God followed the will of the people the order of the world would be destroyed, for the people are many and each one holds in his mind a wish different from the others. However, you may tell your friends that they may consult together and choose one miracle; if I perform this miracle, then they must all believe." The emissary, rejoicing, returned to his colleagues. While they were considering Bahá'u'lláh's message one said, "If Bahá'u'lláh, through his unseen power should perform this miracle, then would we accept him, and become believers?" To this question they answered, No. So the matter of the miracle was dropped.
At last the enemies of the Cause secured from the government authorities an order banishing Bahá'u'lláh from Baghdád. It first read that he should go, alone. But later this was changed, permitting his family and a few followers to accompany him. The band of exiles left Baghdád and paused, first, in a beautiful garden outside the city. Here they sojourned for twelve days. A tent was pitched for Bahá'u'lláh, and around it the tents for the others. These days in the garden are called "The days of Ridván" and they are of supreme importance, for it was then that Bahá'u'lláh declared, to a few followers, his great mission and began to build the palace of peace and unity for the world. He revealed many wonderful verses which sing the melodies of the New Day of God.
When the twelve days were over, the party, mounted on horses and donkeys and guarded by Turkish soldiers, set out again. The believers who could not accompany them were utterly broken-hearted.
It was as though Bahá'u'lláh was a king starting upon a glorious journey. Outwardly, an exile—but in his spirit a great light was shining.
The desert of Asia Minor over which they had to travel in order to reach Constantinople is full of jagged mountains—a most inhospitable land whose vast reaches of wilderness are the hiding place of robbers and wild animals. Through the burning heat of this desert wilderness, in the hottest season of the year, Bahá'u'lláh and his party traveled months. Only once along the way did they pause. The reason for this delay, a rest for the exiles of nine days, was this: they came upon a merchant who had been attacked by a band of robbers and his load of goods stolen. He appealed to the Turkish soldiers accompanying Bahá'u'lláh to help him; but they refused. Then he approached Bahá'u'lláh and besought him to intercede in his behalf. Bahá'u'lláh called the soldiers to him and told them to assist to their utmost this unfortunate man. So the guards were obliged to leave the party of exiles and to scour the country until they found the robbers, rescued the stolen goods and returned them to the merchant. When this was done Bahá'u'lláh was ready to continue the journey.
After four months of travel through the desert the party reached the seaport town of Samsoun, where they went on board a ship and sailed along the Black Sea to the Bosphorus, finally arriving in Constantinople. Here they were met by government officials and the whole party quartered in one small house. Four months they stayed in Constantinople, and from this cosmopolitan center, the highway between Asia and Europe, the fame of Bahá'u'lláh spread like wildfire. Many prominent men visited him here, and left his presence marveling at the wisdom of his answers to their questions.
Seeing the power of his influence and how the Cause was spreading, the enemies in their jealousy decided to drive him from Constantinople. He was urged by several prominent men to write a letter to the Sultan of Turkey stating his case. But Bahá'u'lláh declined to do this, saying that he preferred to leave his affairs in the hands of God.
The enemies growing more and more afraid of his influence secured an order for his exile from Contantinople to Adrianople, in the extreme corner of European Turkey and a nine days' journey by carriage from Constantinople. Here Bahá'u'lláh and his party lived as exiles for five years, under the surveillance of the Turkish government. In Adrianople he wrote two wonderful Tablets, called the Tablet of Command and the Tablet of The City of Unity. In these Tablets he gives instructions for a united humanity and proclaims to the world his divine mission as the Manifestation of God and the Center around which all the names revolve and the fulfillment of the prophecies of the Scriptures. He also, at this time, wrote many other glorious epistles, each one a flame of light to inspire and illumine the believers. He wrote two Tablets, one in Persian and the other in Arabic, and called them both "The Tablet of Ahmad." In the Arabic Tablet of Ahmad Bahá'u'lláh says: "Whosoever is sorrowful and disillusioned and disappointed let him read this Tablet; then joy and happiness will enter into his heart."
It was now very difficult for Bahá'u'lláh to communicate with his followers in other regions, due to the strict surveillance of the enemies. However, several of the believers managed to travel back and forth, bringing letters to Bahá'u'lláh and taking back his Tablets of instruction and encouragement. Inspired by his example and self-sacrifice the friends went forth to carry to the ends of the earth the message that the Promised One had come and the Day of Resurrection had dawned, the day of reconciliation and international unity.
After five years in Adrianople his influence had become so great and his followers
so numerous that the enemies of the Cause determined to banish him again, this time alone, and to some very remote place, sending his family and the other members of his party to a different city. When this heart-breaking news was brought to them the little party was panic stricken. They had forsaken every worldly possession and comfort in order to be near to Bahá'u'lláh and now they declared that they could not endure existence away from him.
Then officials stationed at Adrianople, and representing various European governments, came to Bahá'u'lláh and offered him their assistance, that he might go to one of the European countries and live in peace the remainder of his life, or that a protest might be made against his persecutors. But Bahá'u'lláh replied, "No. Reliance is in God, and not in any human power."
His family and the little band of devoted followers were finally allowed to remain with him, and all were exiled together to Gallipoli. Here they were met by an order countermanding the last one and commanding that he be separated from his party.
Bahá'u'lláh now manifested his spiritual authority. He wrote a mighty epistle, called the Tablet of Ra'is. Although this Tablet was written to the one who, according to earthly sovereignty had power of life and death over him, yet a person unacquainted with the facts would suppose it to be written by a King to his most submissive subject. In this Tablet Bahá'u'lláh speaks with power divine and rejects the command of separation from his family and followers. He also prophesies concerning the bloodshed which would occur in Adrianople.
The order commanding the separation of the party was rescinded and a steamship made ready to carry them all to Alexandria. Arriving there (in 1868), after a five days' journey, they re-embarked in a ship bound for Haifa, Palestine. Three more days at sea brought them to Haifa where, after one night's rest, they were put into small boats and taken to Acre, a distance of about nine miles.
The city of Acre is surrounded by high walls whose iron gates were closed at night. The streets were never cleaned. There was no water for drinking save that filtered from the sea. These unsanitary conditions, added to a very bad climate, bred a disease from which many died. In fact, there was a saying that if a bird flew over Acre it would die. The barracks, where Bahá'u'lláh and his party were imprisoned, was the most unwholesome place in Acre. The dungeon-like rooms were rayless and damp, without windows, and swarming with vermin. The soldiers behind the iron gates who were given custody of the prisoners were the roughest of characters, and had government orders to shoot at sight any one of the prisoners who attempted to leave the prison. For some time after they were put into this prison they were given neither bread nor water, and the men, women and children were in a most pitiable condition. When they were finally given some bread it was such that they could hardly eat it. And the water allowed them made them all ill, some of the party dying from drinking it. The enemies of the Cause were sure that the exiles would all die within a few months, knowing that human beings cannot long survive such conditions. And one may imagine what this meant for Bahá'u'lláh and his family, who were of the nobility of Persia and had lived in great luxury. But their invincible faith and the confirmations of the Holy Spirit sustained them, and all through those dark and grievous months their hearts were filled with heavenly joy.
After some time the restrictions were somewhat abated and two of the friends were permitted to go out, once a day, to the bazaars to purchase supplies. They went accompanied by soldiers who had orders to keep strict watch upon them and if they attempted to speak one word
--PHOTO--
The Courtyard of the Prison Barracks at Acre
other than those needed to make their purchases to shoot them instantly.
Before Bahá'u'lláh arrived in Acre a wonderful thing happened. One of his followers decided to go there and open a shop. He had been in Acre for some time, and had had no news of his Master's fate, for the place to which Bahá'u'lláh was exiled was kept secret by the Turkish government. Then one day he encountered the two believers buying their supplies. They recognized each other in silent joy and happiness. Through this believer communication with the outside world was established. The physician who attended Bahá'u'lláh and his party when they all became ill through drinking the terrible water of Acre soon loved them very much, and he asked to be allowed to serve them. So, when he left the barracks he would carry with him Bahá'u'lláh's epistles and Tablets, to send them to his followers, and would receive their answers.
When the believers learned where Bahá'u'lláh was incarcerated many started out, on foot, across the mountains and the desert, in search of their Great Teacher. After journeying many months they would arrive outside Acre. As access to Bahá'u'lláh was impossible they would stand outside the city wall near the sea until Bahá'u'lláh came to the window of his prison room. After looking at him for a few moments they would turn about, their hearts singing with joy that they had seen their Beloved and been recognized by him.
During this imprisonment in the barracks Bahá'u'lláh revealed many wonderful books and Tablets which brought to the far-away friends supreme happiness. At the end of the second year of their imprisonment a tragic event occurred. One of Bahá'u'lláh's sons, called the Purest Branch, a young man seventeen years of age, endowed with a character of superlative spiritual beauty, was one day walking on the roof of the prison. He served Bahá'u'lláh as his secretary and wrote down, at his dictation, his Tablets. As he walked up and down on the roof of the barracks chanting a beautiful prayer he made a misstep over the edge of the roof and fell to the floor below. He was picked up so badly injured that his life quickly ebbed away. Before he died Bahá'u'lláh asked him if
he had any request to make. He replied, "My only supplication is that this suffering of mine and my death may be a sacrifice to the friends of God, through which the prison doors may be opened and a greater freedom of access may be given to Bahá'u'lláh."
When this request was made known to the officials their hearts were touched, and because of it and because, little by little, during those two years, they and the townspeople had begun to realize somewhat of the beauty of the lives of these exiles, their love and their unselfishness, the prison doors were opened and they were allowed to secure a small house in the town. Bahá'u'lláh was not permitted to leave the house, but the living conditions were better than those in the barracks. Seven long years he spent, within the four walls of that house, nor did he in all that time look upon a blade of grass or rushing water or hear the singing of the birds which he had loved in his native land. During these years 'Abdu'l-Bahá was a link between Bahá'u'lláh and the outside world. He went among the people, with the utmost kindness, telling them stories, imparting to them knowledge and wisdom. The religious leaders and the government officials learned to love 'Abdu'l-Bahá. So now and then he would take one of these prominent men to Bahá'u'lláh, whose mighty presence was so majestic, whose words were so luminous that many became believers and offered to render any service their positions permitted.
Finally, after nine years' close imprisonment, through the efforts of these influential men Bahá'u'lláh was granted permission to walk in the streets of Acre. Later he was allowed to leave the city and have a beautiful garden, called the Garden of Ridván, about two and a half miles outside of Acre. And finally he went to live in a house called the palace of Bahji, also outside of Acre. Here he lived until 1892, when he ascended into the spiritual world.
Bahá'u'lláh was sent by his enemies to Acre, Palestine, against his will, an exile and a prisoner. But through this very act of the enemies in banishing him to the Holy Land many wonderful and divine prophecies, of the Israelitish prophets and Muhammad were fulfilled; and many people, Christians, Jews and Muslims, came to see and to follow the new faith.
There is a prophecy in the Old Testament which says that in the Latter Day God will make the valley of Achor a door of hope to all nations.* This prophecy could have no physical significance, for the small town of Acre, with its high walls and iron gate and its unfortunate inhabitants could never, of itself, become a door of hope for the people of all the earth. Therefore the prophecy must be interpreted spiritually, and means that from this dark spot will arise a spiritual light which will shine into the hearts of men, everywhere.
Acre is very damp and the place is infested with fleas. There is in the Qur'án a strange verse, which says, "Blessed is the man who is bitten by the fleas of Acre." Another verse states, "Happy is he who eats the onions of Acre," referring undoubtedly, to the unpleasant odors of the place. Outside Acre there is a well of stagnant, tepid water to which one descends by means of several steps. This well is called "ain o'lbagar" and Muhammad prophesied concerning it, saying how happy would be the man who tasted the water of "ain o'lbagar." It is impossible that these prophecies should have a literal fulfillment; therefore it is clear that the greatness of Acre will be spiritual.
From Acre the spiritual teachings of Bahá'u'lláh spread through the world. The enemies did their utmost to crush the light, but it became more and more brilliant. The friends arose everywhere to teach, and distribute the Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh. In many parts of Persia they were martyred, but this only united
*Hosea 2:15.
the hearts of the friends more firmly. The movement spread to India and grew apace in Turkey and Russia and certain parts of Europe.
In the wonderful Tablets and holy books which Bahá'u'lláh revealed in Acre one feels that the author is standing upon the highest mountain of the earth, looking down upon humanity with eyes of compassion and universal love, bidding all to climb the mountain and become characterized with the attributes of the sons of God. With one mighty blow destroyed the separating walls of tradition and dogma and invited all religions and races to realize that they are brothers and sisters and so to live as to attain the pinnacle of prosperity and success. In his writings we find the perfection of all divine religions, a new interpretation of the heavenly books which breaks the seals and establishes unity among the believers in all the world religions. He ushers in the age of the establishment of the Kingdom of God on earth, of divine justice, equality and peace among all the children of God.
AT the end of every religious epoch, just when the spirit of religion is being born anew through the agency of a Manifestation of God, humanity finds itself in a lamentable condition of scepticism and disbelief. Not only does it deny God, but what is more extraordinary, it denies itself. That is to say, it denies the eternal existence of its own soul, thus putting itself on a level with the beasts and voluntarily abnegating its high estate as children of the Most High God and heirs to a spiritual kingdom.
The superb faith in the future life brought to the world by Christ which so inspired his early followers as to destroy entirely the fear of death, has almost entirely departed from the world of Christendom, yea, even from the hearts of those who call upon his name.
Not only does the materialistic science of today deny the continued existence of the soul; but those who still adhere to the teachings of Christ hold only a tenuous faith in it. The current phraseology of the day in regard to death is similar to that in the pagan days when Homer sang and lamented the fate of those deprived of this bright earth life. Yes, in the Occident death today is universally viewed as a misfortune, a deprivation, a substitution for existence of non-existence, or at best of a tenebrous existence which is a poor exchange for the glories of our earth life illumined and warmed as it is by the rays of a visible sun.
It is just because humanity is prone to lose the vision, prone to reverse the order of things and put the finite before the infinite, the mortal before the immortal, the material before the spiritual, that it becomes necessary for God to send a Messenger to renew the vision and bring again to humanity the interpretation of this life as a fragment only of complete individual existence.
For the most part, the message of these Spiritual Teachers is one of joy and of great promise. But there is another aspect to their teaching, a necessary corollary to a future life of joy for the spiritually minded. If there are to be rewards for the spiritual, there are also to be punishments, or let us say deprivations, for the unspiritual.
This dual teaching of reward and punishment after death has been one of the most important factors in the spreading of the great world religions. In the teachings of Buddha, of Christ, of Muhammad,
as well as in the teachings of the apostles of these Manifestations, the doctrine of a judgment day, of a time when one's deeds would determine one's subsequent state of existence was greatly emphasized and became an inspiring though stern incentive to the acceptance of the said religion and to the living of a spiritual life.
The vivid symbols and allegories used to warn an ignorant, concrete-minded humanity such as existed in the time of Christ and of Muhammad, such as exists still in large numbers, have been rightly interpreted by modern intelligence as standing for spiritual rather than material rewards and punishments.
THIS interpretation of eschatology has not prevailed so long but what many Christians still living can look back to the day when the first proponents and expounders of universal salvation, or Universalists as they are called, were considered as anathema by the literal minded.
My grandfather, Rev. Sylvanus Cobb, was among those who first ventured to interpret away the hell fire and brimstone which had perfumed the nostrils of the devout. He attacked especially the sort of revival sermons delivered by one celebrated contemporaneous divine, who was wont to draw such vivid fire and brimstone portrayals of the judgment day that women screamed and fainted.
That mankind is prone to the concrete is evidenced by the luminous portrayals of the punishment of evil doers in the next life which adorn not only the walls of many a Christian church and monastery, but also the walls of Buddhist temples in the East. I have myself seen in the monasteries of Greece and of Bulgaria depictions of the tortures of the damned which show a belief as regards God only possible to men in whom the spirit of revenge predominates, to the exclusion of all mercy.
The Universalists were right in seeing such punishments as incompatible with the Divine Mercy, and in interpreting the teachings of Christ as referring not to material things but to the inner, spiritual evolution of the soul; and to a system of intrinsic rather than extrinsic rewards and punishments. Also they were right in calling the attention of theologians to the fact that the Greek word "aeon" which had been wrongly translated as "eternity" meant rather an "age" or "epoch," thus overthrowing the theory of eternal punishment and substituting for it the theory, much more comforting, of universal salvation.
This doctrine of universal salvation, opening up vistas of eternal progress, opportunities of gaining the spiritual qualities even after the soul has passed through that mystic corridor of Death into a land the nature and laws and customs of which no man fully knoweth—this comforting doctrine has by now permeated the religious thought of advanced thinkers in every sect or denomination. And that is well.
But as usual the reaction to one extreme has led to the opposite extreme. Those who still, in this age of agnosticism, keep the faith of an eternal life, hold too careless a thought in regard to it. It is assumed that everything will be all right there; that God is merciful and kind and wishes everyone to be happy; that somehow death initiates one into the spiritual life of immortality and the blessed state of the saints.
This careless and false assumption is destroying the very essence of the teachings of the Christ, and of every great Founder of Religion. To interpret the system of rewards and punishments of the religious books as symbolical is well. But by some kind of legerdemain to whisk away every degree of reward and punishment is to controvert the teachings not only of the Holy Books but of nature and existence as well. In the universe that we see and know around us
nothing comes unearned. Effort is the price to be paid for every good thing. And the result of non-effort is sorrow and pain.
And this, too, is compatible with, nay, part of, the mercy of God. For the thing of chief importance to man, as to the stages of life below the human, is effort. Nothing earned without effort—this is the universal motto, this is the law on which the universe is run.
Applying this law to the doctrine of a future life, one comes face to face with this astounding truth, that immortality has to be earned! It is not a quality inherent in this earth life, nor a gift lightly laid at the feet of all who die. How simple and cheerfully unthinking, to assume that the mere event of death can change an unspiritual person into a spiritual one, or usher devotees of the sense-world into an experience available only to those who have during this earth life developed their spiritual susceptibilities!
To maintain this untruth is to deny those stern and mighty laws upon which the universe is built—the law of gravitation, the law of cause and effect, the law of evolution.
Bahá'u'lláh, though in the main bringing to mankind a message of joy, announced also those sterner truths which the world has shrunk from facing. "Sanctify yourselves, O people of the earth, that perchance ye may attain to the station which God hath ordained for you. . . . Travelers in the path of faith must sanctify and purify themselves from all material things . . . so that they may become recipients of the invisible and infinite bounties. . . . Otherwise man shall never reach the bourne of immortality."
Again, interpreting the meaning of the judgment day as taught by former prophets: "The paradise and fire in the apparent life were and will ever be the acceptance and the rejection; and after the ascension of the spirit, there are paradises which have no equal, and also fire which has no likeness, which are the fruit of the deeds of the advancer and opposer."
It is impossible to consider this life apart from the future life. It is all one great whole. The thought of what is to come after death is not only a great comfort in times of earthly stress and suffering, but is also a powerful influence toward right conduct in this life.
'Abdu'l-Bahá has said that without this vision of the next life there cannot be enough incentive to ethical action here. The rewards and punishments which are assigned here for our actions are as nothing to the more important results of our earthly deeds which come to us in the hereafter.
That is why every Manifestation emphasizes the life hereafter in connection with the teaching of how this life should be lived.
And just what are the rewards of a spiritual life here? Always, the universal laws are just, logical, beneficent. And the result hereafter of developing a spiritual nature here is just what one might suppose it to be, the power and ability of enjoying spiritual things.
But here is the impressive fact. The next world is a world of spirit, not of matter; and spiritual things are the only things one can enjoy there. No other source of happiness exists.
The terrible deprivation in the hereafter of those who have not developed the spiritual life here must by this become apparent. There is no immediate possibility of happiness for them in the heaven-world. Because they have not developed the powers to use and appreciate the things of the heaven-world, they are born into it, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá says, deaf, dumb and blind.
True, they have a sort of existence there, but as the existence in this world of a stone compared to that of a human being. 'Abdu'l-Bahá used another figure, even more appalling, in saying of an immensely wealthy man held as great in the eyes of this world, that in the next
world he would be rolled up like a scroll and put away.
Is there any salvation possible, then, for those who die sinners and are ushered into the next world in a state of evil? There is a possibility of progress, but not by self-effort; only through the grace of God and the prayers and efforts of the saints. That is because the activities of the beyond-world are not as here. Heaven is not a place for the exercise of self-will, for self-development. This world is the stage of existence designed for us for self-improving, for struggle against the obstacles which evil sets in our path. The purpose of this earth life is through it and by means of it to become spiritual.
Oh, if mortals would only realize the importance of this truth, they would drop everything and seek the Kingdom. Christ has compared it to a hidden treasure, or to a pearl of great price, for which the man aware of values would sell all he had of other wealth.
That is why all the prophets emphasize the importance, the necessity of salvation here and now. To be born once is to be but an earth-being. We must be born again to become inhabitants of the Kingdom, spiritual beings, children of God.
And again I say let us not deceive ourselves. Death does not initiate us into these glories. The man who is born again, of the spirit, perceives the realities and attains the joys of the spirit here and now, and forever after. And the man who dies, not in the spirit, faces an existence the tragedy, the suffering of which melts the hearts of angels and causes God Himself, in His great pity, to descend to earth, as it were, in the persons of His Manifestations, to warn humanity of these stern laws, these laws stern yet beneficent.
"Salvation" is the message of these Great Ones. And the means of "salvation" also they give us, by their word, their lives, by the immense, incalculable influence of their divine enlightenment and spiritual power.
Love, prayer, aspiration toward God; and toward man love and good deeds. This is the way to salvation.
Shall we say that man is to become good in order to enjoy the after-life? Or shall we say that becoming good, the rewards of heaven are his?
It matters not which way we look at it. It is all one. And the one essence of it all is Love. Love is the fulfillment of the law, and love is heaven.
So it is plain that the immortal life is a spiritual condition. Not securable by the physical process of dying. Not a mere sequence to this earth-life. But a condition, above time and place, a station to which we may attain while still in the flesh.
And having attained, while here, immortal life, we go on from joy to joy, from miracle to miracle of God's love, travelers in the heavenly world fully equipped for the strange, marvelous journeys there.
And not having attained immortality while here, we enter the other world crippled, halting, still-born, helpless, deprived of the ineffable glories—yea, deprived of every source of happiness.
SO it is well while living here to think of the hereafter. It is well to practice the spiritual life. It is well to be severed from the world. Then shall life, even this life, become more glorious the nearer one approaches the limits of the earth-journey.
And for those whose spiritual senses are developed, who wait equipped for the far journey, the departure shall not be tragic. Death shall lose its sting. Of those who die spiritual, it is true that ere the heart stops beating the soul is welcomed into paradise; and the body makes no opposition to the going, lays no claim upon its master, holds not back as holds the body of the sense man his soul back in ghastly struggle. So the good die peacefully. And in the future ages yet more peacefully, rapt in heavenly essences and perfumes, lulled by Abhá chants.
THE attempt of modern science to establish a psychology as definite and as authentic as biology is like the fish's to leap a waterfall's upstream. Long ago had our racial consciousness slipped over the brink of spiritual power into the shallows below. Our self-knowledge has come to be determined by that inferior level where power may sometimes, indeed, flow in as from above, but where power is neither to be created nor maintained. Perhaps it would be more accurate to assert that psychology has ceased even attempting to re-ascend the stream: officially, at least, it is more like the second generation of fish that, spawned beneath the falls, feels only a vague instinct of the height which gives its own waters renewal. In modern psychology as taught in the schools there may be much logos, but there is no psyche. The mind's camera has been exposed in a darkened room.
For the essence of this matter is that the psyche is not spiritual fact observable, but a spiritual power to observe all fact. It is not a series of mysterious observations which can be organized into authentic knowledge, it is a mysterious but authentic gift to know. It is not an image of things within which may or may not be real; it is an inner eye which may or may not be possessed. True genius, scientific as well as religious, has always been aware of this fact.
The method of this "psychology" was borrowed, of course, from natural science. Natural science is organized knowledge, definite fact, authenticated observation. Its field of observation is nature; its power of observation is intellect. Now intellect transcends the phenomena of nature as the physical eye transcends the objects upon which it turns its vision. The intellect may, indeed, misapprehend the significance of phenomena in particular instances, as in particular instances the eye may erroneously determine perspective, but from the very nature of things the most unintelligent mind cannot fall to a level of consciousness lower than the phenomenon itself. Its relative advantage remains secure in the same way that the relative advantage between vision and visioned remains secure to the eye. Here there can be no question of the knower slipping downstream with respect to the thing known. Man is fast anchored upstream to the rest of nature as the animal is anchored upstream to the plant, or the plant to the mineral. The problem of natural science, therefore, was never the problem of establishing its own power to know, but merely to establish authentic knowledge of things knowable from the beginning. The mind has grown more accurate through training, but the mind was trained, not created, by its dealings with natural phenomena. Mind created science, science did not create mind. But because our age has been influenced, with respect to consciousness, by the authority of the natural sciences more than from any other source, we have come unquestioningly to accept the dictum of science concerning the proper method of investigating consciousness itself.
But the essential superiority of the knower to the known which obtains between rational intelligence and natural phenomena by no means determines the relation of knower to known as between rational consciousness and the essential nature of man. The most that any psychologist can claim for his own consciousness is that it exists, but its existence, obviously, is conditioned by its position
relative to the entire stream. The psychologist's self-consciousness may appear to him complete and aware of no higher existences, but this very completeness may conceivably correspond to a mere stagnant pool shut off from the main current. For even the most dogmatic psychologist cannot avoid the differentiation between minds, the differentiation manifested perceptibly between Shakespeare and his readers, for example, or between Christ and his followers. But the materialistic psychologist explains all such differentiation without altering the essential character of his own consciousness in the least—without even, apparently, realizing any need for altering it. He explains genius, whether religious or artistic, by establishing its factors in terms of heredity, environment or physiological status. Genius appears to him either a greater accumulation of elements present in every mind, or their mere superior arrangement, or, on the contrary, their disarrangement into abnormal states. In other words, he translates the phenomena of consciousness into a medium lower than consciousness itself. He breaks consciousness up into elements similar in degree to the elements which are the raw material, the objective, of natural science. Since the psychologist cannot remove the manifestation of genius—its religion or its poetry—he solicits every possible circumstance of heredity, environment and physiology to sustain his own inherent, unalterable conscious perspective, thereby, for the unwary, obscuring the very fact at issue: that genius is not the power of impression but the power of expression. Genius renders from the inside out, while the psychologist can only register from the outside in. He consequently emphasizes heredity, environment and physiological status because these are all three alike external, material conditions supremely significant to minds whose power of impression surpasses their power of expression, though they are supremely insignificant to minds conscious of possessing an independent creative force. This is not to assert that heredity, environment and physiological factors do not condition expression, for they do; but their influence is limited to conditioning the form, the extent and sometimes the direction which expression assumes: not one of them singly, not all combined, can explain the force by which they are shaken into significant patterns of character and art. Heredity may be as the oil of the lamp, environment may be as the colored globe, and physiological status as the wick, but genius is the flame. To establish the formula of genius in terms of neurotic instability is to betray unmistakably at last the spiritual prostitution to which science has fallen in these latter days. Its triumph is the triumph of logic merely, which convinces only those who start from the same premise; an ominous triumph in this case, since the authority of science has been able to transform much of the world's reverence for valuable spiritual gifts into indifference or sympathetic contempt as for the victim of some mysterious mental ill.
Though responsibility for accepting a material psychology may be forgiven the general, it is more difficult to overlook the responsibility of the scientist himself. He should have recalled the early history of his own subject, the days of Galileo and Kepler, when reason itself, as the power of establishing authentic laws of matter, was upstream to the priest's consciousness; when the priest, consequently, began his attack against reason by denying its validity and ended by condemning it as a dangerous perversion of human nature. In those days the scientist had to defend himself against a consciousness intellectually so much lower that its attack must have seemed as unreasonable to him as would be the attack of so many trees. But today the psychologist himself, since he cannot create art must obviously be downstream to the artist, just as, since he cannot create devoted faith and self-sacrifice among multitudes of people over centuries of time,
he must be even farther downstream with respect to the founders of religion. Had the modern materialist, however, realized the case of his own predecessor, he might have felt himself into the profound truth so far denied his reason; that while language is universal, experience is confined to those inhabiting the same spiritual domain. Religious conviction today, in a world of rational materialism, occupies the same position relative to the scientist as the scientist, in those days of dominant theology, occupied relative to the priest. The position is that of a Macbeth against whom advances the nightmare of Birnum wood.
Into a world rationalized as regards ideal if not action, religion has unexpectedly returned, renewing in men the strange lost sense of the soul. Slipping easily through the meshes of biological "truth," and become a force in consciousness itself, this spiritual renaissance cannot be denied—like an angel in the garrison it can only be recognized and obeyed. By individuals, religious experience can be cherished for its own sake in the very teeth of reason; but one may be certain that in this pragmatic age religion may not establish social forms until science has come to terms with its every claim. The task of testing religion, of course, was never rightly the province of biology, and only appeared so while religion was considered in the perspective of history. In the personal perspective, which its return compels, the task falls once more to psychology. But the psychology born of natural science, as shown, rests upon an absolutely false premise. Its premise does not contain that easily vulnerable falsehood which can be disclosed in terms of the correspondence of phenomena; its premise is the more impregnable falsehood consisting in the fact that the psychologist himself is essentially incapable of fulfilling his function. It is not his method which fails, but his experience. He develops his mental film capably enough. The trouble is that the film is blank.
II
TO indict the psychology, therefore, is to indict the psychologist himself. But to indict the psychologist is also to render verdict against the society accepting a premise whose error it never required an elaborate laboratory or special instruction to expose, but only the determination of the individual heart to safeguard its own fairest hope. Society accepted a material psychology because its strongest determination fell in the material world. Spiritual affirmation there has been, even under the reign of the gods of coal and iron, but affirmation which cast back to the days when science could reasonably be ignored. Increasingly now there is spiritual experience among those who would not ignore science even if they could, but these minds still hesitate to press their claims against an authority traditionally opposed to that claim, and one whose method and positive achievement they rightly admire.
The scientific mind came to be considered the true type of supreme intelligence as the result of three distinct influences: the triumph of science over theology in the question of facts; the positive achievement of science in its own field; and last but not least, the rise of universal education. The rapid spread of literacy, and the growing need of education as part of one's equipment for labor, served to identify science with the new effectiveness and advantages of education itself. Knowledge came to imply book knowledge, and the reader of books attributed his own new sense of increased power, naturally enough, to the sources from which it was chiefly supplied. The triumph of natural science as ideal standard of truth was made complete by the basis it seemed to render all men for a conviction of intellectual self-sufficiency. But universal education was made possible only by enthroning the lowest of all intellectual faculties, memory. Memory alone will give the
student possession enough of his texts to meet an institutional standard, because institutional standards necessarily make education a matter of receptivity; and the mastery of only a few books under this system creates in the student's mind the conviction that he could, if he so desired, succeed to the heritage of all human wisdom. All human wisdom supposedly being reducible to three feet of wood-pulp and leather. It would be merely a question of adding more rungs to the ladder already begun. This feeling on the part of students has created a tendency on the part of their masters to re-write all old works for which a new need was felt—especially history and philosophy—and to re-write them in terms of the modern standard. In the process of translating history and philosophy into the language of economic values, much unsound material undoubtedly was cut away; but the translators cut away also even more material which had permanent significance as witnessing the faith of men in their own spiritual destiny. Faults of an unscientific material were attributed to the maker's mind; an easy superiority of fact was considered an equally easy superiority of intelligence. Thus another influence was added to the economic pressure already operating toward opportunism, and cooperating with it prevented the average person from perceiving the gap intervening between the receptive mind, whose faculty is memory, and the creative mind, whose faculty is insight. The heritage to all human wisdom, the proud boast of democracy in education, is a heritage of external fact merely. To the true heritage of wisdom, the quality attaching to minds independently of their material, there have appeared few heirs; for minds so trained, so penetrated from the beginning with the need to go on, ever on, through field after field of fact, seldom have opportunity to realize that there soon comes a point where the longest ladder will not serve, but wings are required. Never suspecting his own inadequate psychic instrument, the modern layman does not suspect the inadequacy of the scientist's intelligence for the task of psychology. The scientist, indeed, has only succeeded to the Parthian victory of the priest—that victory whose tragedy consists in the fact that, having been too easily won, it leads the victor to overestimate his own powers.
For these reasons, then, the nineteenth century was content to huddle upon one small island in the sea of human consciousness. It not only cut itself off from the larger area of ancient experience, but even vaunted its own ability to do so as the symbol of truest intellectual freedom. But that small island has been revealed in all its abject desolation by the War. Two waves of experience, rolling from opposite directions, have overwhelmed it forever: the soldier's consecration to a spiritual power not received from without but welling up in his own being, and the civilian's realization that social stability, even for prosperity on its lowest terms, requires a directive force not resident in the scientific ideal. The scientific ideal has served not life but death, thereby revealing itself less as the criminal to be punished than as the servant to be put under control. Its authority to establish a final standard of truth has, at any rate, been discredited; the problem now is rather to organize a new conviction than to reinterpret an old doubt.
III
AS a matter of fact, at the very moment when the cleavage appears between consciousness and natural phenomena, the real contribution science has made the race in the way of thought now first becomes evident. Turning once more, in the light of personal aspiration, to direct contact with spiritual conviction in its original sources, we are struck by the fact that this conviction, from lack of precise and mutual knowledge, possessed an inadequate instrument of
thought by which to express itself to other minds. The soul of the older, pre-scientific race expressed itself as a kind of poetry, by allusion and image; expression whose content is therefore necessarily limited to those sharing the key. Real enough to the possessor, religion became dark and shadowy in the process of transfer from one to another mind. Viewed from the perspective of inexperience, its concepts are as actors whose backs are turned to the audience, losing the plot in the mazes of half-heard echo. The man of religion spoke a language apart, a lover's language, certain that his every wingéd word would find a nest in the heart of him moved by the same passion; unable to image that passion completely to the cold. In other words, religion was given the race in the form of implicit knowledge, a knowledge continually betrayed when translated into the medium of customary speech. But science, creating an external universe mutually perceptible and firmly grasped, has made knowledge explicit. Steeped in the habits of explicit thought, the modern mind differs from the ancient mind not so much in thinking different thoughts as in thinking the same thoughts in a different way. Science has placed the transfer of experience upon a new, socialized basis. The actor now faces his audience, revealing the whole plot. One mind can give its all to another mind through their mutual possession of the same external universe. Slowly but surely knowledge has been turned inside out. This fact, the necessity of science, is also the opportunity of religion. For the first time may we perceive another's as positive light in the world of communicable thought, not merely as negative shadow. For the first time is the mystery of being captured from knowledge, where it perishes, and given the knower, where it lives on. For the first time also can religion be socialized above and beyond ritual and form on the plane of instruction. And the development of mind as self-consciousness from thought implicit to thought explicit actually turns both ways, enabling us to perceive at last that religion and science required one another from the beginning—that the relation of one to the other, in fact, is nothing more or less than the relation of soul and body in the social organization.
(To be continued)
THE SCIENTIFIC RELIGION
By KATE KEMPNER
PROFESSOR AUGUSTE FOREL, the famous French psychiatrist, outlines in a pamphlet, Homme et Fourmi, (Lausanne 1923) a so-called programme humain practicable—a practicable program for mankind which in some form or other must be adopted, if humanity is to survive the destructive forces of civilization—war, alcoholism, etc. Among other points Professor Forel states the necessity of a universal international auxiliary language, as well as that of a universal religion, which he calls the scientific, synthetic, supernational religion of the Bahá'ís for the commonwealth of the world—without dogma, without clergy. He says that in 1920 he learned of the existence of Bahá'ísm, founded almost seventy years before, in the Orient, which gives itself to the service of mankind, to which Christian, Buddhist, Muhammadan, Brahman, Jew or Monist can belong, which leaves aside all discussion of the metaphysical nature of God, the Devil, paradise, hell, etc. When Professor Forel found the Bahá'í Movement, he who previously had been opposed to the existing religions, because he saw nothing but creeds and sects, obscuring the reality of religion, became a follower of Bahá'u'lláh and 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He founded a Bahá'í group in Zurich, Switzerland, and professes that according to his opinion Bahá'ísm is the religion of the future.
THAT all America shall think and talk of peace plans is the avowed purpose of Mr. Edward Bok in offering a prize for the best plan by which the United States may participate in the establishment of universal peace. 22,165 plans were submitted to Mr. Bok's jury of Award, many representing large groups, colleges and universities, for instance, which submitted a single plan. And there were some 250,000 inquiries sent to the committee. Now there is an endeavor to secure a referendum by which the American people may express their opinions concerning the plan to which the prize was awarded.
The plan which won the prize is an endeavor to state a program for the participation of the United States in a world organization for peace to which the American people may at present agree. The elements of this plan, number 1469, are:
1. That the United States enter the Permanent Court of International Justice already established. 2. That it cooperate with the League of Nations in its commissions, its assemblies, its counsels, its International Labor Organizations, without full membership at present.
In this cooperation the United States should be open to all self-governing nacially, that only conferences, moral sanctions and public opinion be used to enforce decisions of the World Court. One of the best elements in the plan is the article that the world organization should be open to all self-governing nations. "Anything less than a world conference, especially when Great Powers are excluded must incur, in proportion to the exclusions, the suspicion of being an alliance rather than a family of nations."
The Bahá’í Peace Plan
'ABDU'L-BAHA'S plan for universal peace begins with certain divine principles. Its central note is universality. "Every universal cause is divine and every particular one is temporal. The principles of the divine Manifestations of God were, therefore, all-universal and all-inclusive. Every imperfect soul is self-conceited and thinks of his own good. But as his thoughts expand a little he will begin to think of the welfare and comfort of his family. If his ideas still more widen his concern will be the felicity of his fellow citizens; and if still they widen he will be thinking of the glory of his land and of his race. But when ideas and views reach the utmost degree of expansion and attain the stage of perfection then will he be interested in the exaltation of humankind. He will be then the well-wisher of all men and the seeker of the weal and prosperity of all lands. This is indicative of perfection."*
To overcome the antagonistic forces of nature, its narrowness, its prejudices, its selfishness, its instinct of the survival of the fittest, its accumulated traditions of war, the successful peace plan must be based upon the adamantine law of the universe—the universal justice of God. Only that peace plan which has God behind it can hope to be triumphant.
This, then, in part and in outline is the divine peace plan revealed by Bahá'u'lláh over fifty years ago, and presented by 'Abdu'l-Bahá in the last twenty years to all parts of the world.
1. All must investigate the truth with an independent mind, with the eye of
*All the quotations in this peace plan are from the words of 'Abdu'l-Bahá.
justice, if they are to find God's new path to universal peace.
2. The foundation of the palace of peace is the consciousness of the oneness of mankind. All are God's children. He is kind to all. He loves all. He nourishes all. "Every century has its ideal which in accordance with that century is confirmed. In this illumined era that which is confirmed is the oneness of the world of humanity. Every soul who serves this oneness will undoubtedly be assisted." "Therefore we must promulgate divine teachings," "proclaim the oneness of the world of humanity," "that ignorant, religious, racial, political and even patriotic prejudices may vanish and the earth become one home and all people be unified."
3. To establish universal peace all the nations will need to hold a universal conference and establish a Parliament of Man, a supreme tribunal which shall represent every nation of the world, its people and its government. Its representatives in this universal conference should be "two or three persons who are the choicest men of that nation, and are well informed concerning international laws and the relations between governments and aware of the essential needs of the world of humanity in this day. The number of these representatives should be in proportion to the number of the inhabitants of that country." These representatives should choose the members of the International Court of Arbitral Justice. The organization of this World Society of nations and its supreme tribunal should be written into a universal treaty, in which "the limits of the borders and boundaries of each state should be fixed and the customs and laws of each government," and its special, national interests preserved.
4. In this treaty "the size of the armaments for each government should likewise be agreed upon." "By a general agreement all the governments of the world should disarm simultaneously. It will not do if one lays down its arms and the other refuses to do so." "Once the Parliament of Man is established and its constituent parts organized, the governments of the world having entered into a covenant of eternal friendship will have no need of keeping large standing armies and navies. A few battalions to preserve internal order, and an international police to keep the highways of the sea clear are all that will be necessary. Then these huge sums will be diverted to other more useful channels, pauperism will disappear, knowledge will increase, the victories of peace will be sung by poets and bards, knowledge will improve the conditions and mankind will be rocked in the cradle of felicity and bliss."
5. All the nations having chosen the Supreme Tribunal, all mankind should enforce its decisions. "First, the financiers and bankers must desist from lending money to any government contemplating the waging of an unjust war upon an innocent nation. Second, the presidents and managers of the railroads and steamship companies must refrain from transporting war ammunition, infernal engines, guns, cannons and powder from one country into another. Third, the soldiers must petition, through their representatives, the ministers of war, the politicians, the congressmen and the generals to put forth in clear, intelligible language the reasons and the causes which have brought them to the brink of such a national calamity. The soldiers must demand this as one of their prerogatives. 'Demonstrate to us,' they must say, 'that this is a just war, and we will then enter into the battlefield; otherwise we will not take one step.'"
As a last measure, all the nations will use their limited armies and their international police to bring the offending nation to submit to the decisions of the Supreme Tribunal.
6. To render successful the army of peace and to make it triumphant the society of nations will need to enlist every force that makes for the unification of mankind:
(a.) A universal language, to be chosen by the world conference and taught in all the schools of all nations in addition to the mother tongue.
(b.) Universal, full participation of the women in the suffrage and the political counsels of the nations. "If, in the future, women like unto men are given the franchise assuredly they will prevent the occurrence of war."
(c.) The establishment of a just economic order to be established by the united assemblies of the governments of the world, "so that neither the capitalists suffer from enormous losses nor the laborers become needy. . . . When such a general plan is adopted by the men of both sides should a strike occur all the governments of the should collectively resist it."
(d.) Universal education for peace. "The education of all the children of all the religions, under a universal standard of instruction and a common curriculum." "The duty of educated men . . . is to teach in the universities and schools ideas concerning universal peace so that the student may be so molded that in after years he may help to carry to fruition this most useful and human issue of mankind."
7. The supreme force for unity and peace is religion. But to be successful religion must be stated in accordance with modern thought, united with modern science. True religion and true science will then flood the world with light upon light. Fundamentally there is only one truth, one reality, one religion—the oneness of God, the oneness of mankind, the power of the Holy Spirit.
8. Divine civilization through the spiritual conquest of nature is the goal of the radiant century before us. Material civilization is the lamp; divine civilization is the light.
"Thou observest that at present the East and the West are enveloped in the darkness of the world of nature. Almost everybody is pursuing material interests. They are like unto other animals that are drowned in the world of nature. The cow is an absolute materialist and is completely enslaved by nature. She has no knowledge of the world of humanity and has no trace of spiritual power. She is drowned in the world of nature. She is, according to the phaseology of the civilized ones, a great naturalist, because she comprehends nothing but perceptible objects and counts them as a determined fact. She has not perceived the fragrance of spirifual feelings, human discoveries and intellectual sciences. She is a pure materialist.
"In short, today the life of the world of humanity is the teachings of His Holiness Bahá'u'lláh, provided they are practiced, so that they may raise the pavilion of the oneness of the world of humanity, uproot the antiquated and decadent prejudices and emancipate (all) from the blind imitations of the people of superstition, or, according to the saying of Christ, bring the second birth, and the birth from the spirit be realized."
"The teachings of His Holiness Bahá'u'lláh like unto the rays of the sun illumine the East as well as the West, the dead and unite the various religions. They prove the oneness of God, for they gather all communities of the world under the pavilion of the oneness of the world of mankind.
"Consider how stirred the world is and in what a commotion are the people of the world. Heavenly power is needed to do away with this stir and agitation. Otherwise this great cause will not be realized through human power. Human power, no matter how strong it may be, illumines like unto an ignited lamp a limited space and trains a small number of souls.
"It is the sun which illumines all regions, and it is the Heavenly Power which gathers around a single spot all the sects and communities. Strive, therefore, that thou mayest serve this remarkable Power and attain unto profitable and far-reaching results."*
*From a tablet to a Japanese friend.
Save the Children
ONE of the great servants of humanity today is the "Save the Children Fund," established by Miss E. Eglantyne Jebb toward the end of the Great War, with its central office in London. It is "an international effort to preserve child life wherever it is menaced by economic conditions of hardship and disaster" without political or sectarian bias. Its purpose is to save from starvation the homeless children of central, eastern and southern Europe and the Near East. It has saved multitudes from starvation, Christians, Muslims and Jews, and started thousands on the path of self-support. Today it is the only hope of many children, fatherless and motherless, who wait day after day in the bitter cold to receive their daily ration.
'Abdu'l-Bahaá wrote a number of Tablets concerning the splendid service of this society. "During the last summer of his visible life on earth" he wrote as many as five Tablets praising the service of the founder of this Fund, Miss ]ebb.
Again, he wrote, in June, 1920, to a worker: "O thou who art attracted to the Kingdom of God! The letter written at Easter has been received. Its contents gave (me) the greatest joy, that, praise be unto God, such an Association has been formed (for the relief of destitute children and orphans) in which almost every nation and every religion is represented.
"My hope is that, through the especial grace of God, this Association (Save the Children Fund) will be confirmed (assisted and strengthened by Divine Power), that it may day by day progress both spiritually and materially; that it may at last enter into the Heavenly Pavilion of Unity; that it may embark in the ship of real, Eternal Life; that it may be protected from every danger, and that the Oneness of Humanity may, through the work of this Society, raise its banner at the zenith of the world.
"Convey my greetings and love to those two sisters, and tell them that, though they are enduring much pain and difficulty, they have, praise be unto God, become (according to His will) helpers of the helpless and affectionate mothers unto the orphans.
"This their service is in the Kingdom of God accepted at the Threshold of the Most High.
"Would that many, many other souls would also arise in this service!"
The new President of the "Save the Children Fund," His Grace the Duke of Atholl, recently sent out this appeal:
"I am writing to you personally in order to appeal to you with all the force at my command, on behalf of the thousands of imperiled small children—mostly refugees—of the Near East, and elsewhere.
"In order to bring more closely to your notice the true facts of the present crisis, I am enclosing a leaflet embodying some few particulars from the many reports of actual eye-witnesses. The conditions are truly appalling, and as President of the Fund, I find it impossible to exaggerate the great need for the most immediate help from every possible source.
"The late Lord Weardale, who performed such splendid and disinterested work in the office which I now have the honour to hold was one of those leaders in true International Philanthropy who took a firm stand regardless of all side-issues. His dictum was:
"So long as there is a child whose suffering we can alleviate, that child, irrespective of Nationality or Creed, has a claim upon us which, in the name of common humanity, we cannot ignore."
"The 'Save the Children Fund' is doing a meritorious work of rescue, under conditions of danger and difficulty, and much hampered by shortage of supplies, in no fewer than fifteen different areas.
Indeed, it is impossible to convey, in one letter, a tithe of the urgent and vital tasks which need immediate support. Every contribution will be put to the utmost possible use. I do sincerely hope and trust that you will help us in this hour of the children's need.
"Any contribution you can send to the Headquarters of the Fund, 42 Langham Street, W. I., will be very gratefully acknowledged. Yours very truly, (Signed) ATHOLL."
"Whole communities of poor, foresaken, wretched little children are perishing for need of help. One shilling will feed a starving child for a whole week." Five dollars will feed twenty children for a week.
To Lady Blomfield, one of the active workers in this great service, 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote, a few months before his ascension into the unseen world:
"To contribute toward the cause of these pitiful children, and to protect and care for them is the highest expression of altruism and worship, and is well-pleasing to the Most High, The Almighty, the Divine Provider. For these little ones have no protecting father and mother, no kind nurse, no home, no clothing, no food, no comfort and no place of rest.
"In all these things they call for our kindness, they merit our help, they are deserving of mercy and of our utmost pity.
"The eyes of all who love Justice are filled with tears, and every understanding heart burneth with pity!
"Oh ye peoples of the world, show compassion!
"Oh ye Concourse of the Wise, hold out your hands to help!
"Oh ye Nobles, show lovingkindness! Be bountiful!
"Oh ye Wealthy of the earth, shower contributions!
"Oh ye Men, strong and brave of heart, manifest your benevolence!"
Hollywood and the Spirit of the Age
By NELLIE S. FRENCH
SOME time ago a prize of one thousand dollars was offered in Los Angeles for the best idea to be represented in moving pictures. The contest was arranged by Mr. Cecil De Mille and was open to the general public. No sort of scenario was required, but only an idea upon which Mr. De Mille would build a play. When the time for the judgment of the contest occurred it was found that many individuals had offered the same suggestion and that suggestion was that the Ten Commandments be presented in moving picture form.
With true generosity, Mr. De Mille, in awarding the prize, gave to each contestant who had offered the idea of the Ten Commandments the full sum of one thousand dollars.
For months now the studios have been occupied with the filming of the Commandments, directed by Mr. De Mille, and every possible attention to detail of scenery, costume and history has been closely studied. As a result the great picture will soon be shown and undoubtedly a great spiritual effect will be produced.
To those who have failed to recognize in the moving picture industry a wonderful educational medium the thought of the Ten Commandments coming out of Hollywood will seem like an anachronism, but here, too, as in all things these days, it is necessary to keep an open mind and realize that God is working through every agency to awaken and educate His straying children.
The writer of this article is identified with an institution in Hollywood known as the Assistance League. This League is composed of splendid philanthropic women who, by securing for the motion picture companies the use of private residences in which to take pictures, are able to dedicate their earnings to the organized Children's Charities of Southern
California, thereby adding thousands of dollars toward the welfare and comfort of children in hospitals, as well as other philanthropic institutions.
The following words of Mr. Cecil De Mille regarding the need of a World Religion will shed a great light upon the high ideals of some of the men in the moving picture industry, and prove how great a medium for educating the people these men have conceived the pictures made with serious intent to be. Mr. De Mille says, in the Los Angeles Times:
"The Ten Commandments are the laws of life, as inexorable as the laws of nature—the same yesterday, today and for all future time. They are as clearly defined as the laws of chemistry or mathematics.
"Confucius, Muhammad and Christ all taught the same rules of life and with the same idea in mind—the preservation of the human race and the pursuit of happiness.
"Buddhism teaches that ignorance is the root of all evil. And this is very true. In a practical religion we must do away with all ignorant, blind forms and dogmatism, sect and cult.
"Man's physical essential needs are the same the world over. So are his religious needs, and therefore one universal religion, embodying all the basic laws of life, is all that the world needs today and is anxiously waiting for.
"The religion of the hour is the religion which can stand the acid test of all conditions and circumstances, of all peoples and all time."
The Spiritual Assembly, Haifa, Palestine. October-November, 1923.
WE heartily thank the different Assemblies for the beautiful letters that they shower upon us. The Rangoon circular letter reads, in brief, as follows: "Jináb-i-Khlifa Muhammed Yunus, an old and tried Bahá’í teacher, went to Shwebo, a town of importance in upper Burma, and taught a number of souls the Bahá’í Faith. He reports that the ground is ready, but the workers are few. Mrs. Stannard delivered, at the Brahma Somaj Hall of Rangoon, to a deeply interested audience, two very impressive lectures, unfolding the history of the Cause and its teachings, and aroused great interest among the audience. The chairman of the meeting at its conclusion observed that when he heard these beautiful teachings he felt as though he had been carried back to the time of His Holiness Zoroaster."
An extract from the Mandalay letter reads: "Teachers were sent to Kyigon village on the thirteenth of August, 1923, to hold a religious meeting. On the sixteenth of August Muhammadans and Buddhists in that village heard the Message. We were invited to speak by the elders and resident preachers of nine mosques in the villages, and the other religious meetings and preachings were suspended."
We are in receipt of the Fárán circular letter, number 128, in which we read that the friends there are in perfect peace, and occupied with the spreading of the divine teachings. A national fund has been started and measures are being taken for the widening of the field of service. The Mashhad circular letter, number 650, brings with it the usual note of joy. The friends there are busily engaged with the forming of new committees, to give a greater impetus to the activities of their Spiritual Assembly.
The fifth circular letter from Qazvin brings the photographs of the King of the Martyrs and the Beloved of the Martyrs, the two shining stars of the Cause.
who willingly endured martyrdom, in Isfahan, in the days of His Holiness Bahá'u'lláh. These two souls were prominent merchants in Isfahan and every assurance was given them that, if they gave the slightest sign of recanting, their lives would be spared. They bravely held aloft the principles of the Cause, and drank the cup of martyrdom.*
The Qazvin Assembly is corresponding with forty-five centers. The Bahá’í women of this town have their own public meetings and are busy preparing a national fund with the purpose of widening their field of activity in the spreading of the Cause. The letter concludes with the happy note that heavenly assistance is their daily ration, and that they wish to share their joy with other centers.
The letter from Bandar 'Abbás states that the friends have purchased a place for a Mashriqu'l-Adhkár. The meetings of the Spiritual Assembly are now held there.
It is with deepest sympathy for the people suffered in the terrible catastrophy in Japan, and with gratitude and thanksgiving to the Almighty God for the safety of our dear sisters and brothers that we raise our voices in prayer at the Divine Threshold, sincerely trusting that these gloomy clouds of affliction may pass away and that the Light of Bahá may so encompass the world of humanity that these physical happenings may not affect them. In this connection we make mention of our dear sister, Miss Agnes Alexander, who is doing everything in her power to show the people in that land that the only way to salvation is through obedience to Divine Law.
We have an interesting letter from our sister, Miss Martha Root. She gives a beautiful account of her work in the East. She has been invited by universities and colleges to deliver addresses
*The story of these heroic lives is given in the Star of the West, Vol. 13, pp. 242ff.
on the Bahá'í teachings. She hopes that we shall soon hear of the rapid spread of the Cause, when universities and colleges become more informed of the Cause of God.
Jináb-i-Mi'rzá Mahmud-i-Furughi, after spending a few months at Constantinople is now at Baku, imparting a new life to the Baku friends. Several meetings are held daily, and he gives all his time to teaching. Material conditions in 'Ishqábád are much improved; this gives a fresh impetus to the friends who are now able to serve the Cause more than before.
The letter from the Spiritual Assembly in London gave us real joy and happiness. It was translated into Persian and read in our meetings and the good news transmitted to the friends in other countries. We offer special prayers on their behalf at the Holy Shrines. Our brother, Dr. Lotfullah, is with us, and he has kindly given us most interesting talks concerning the friends in London, Manchester and other parts of England. We would like to keep him here, but he has to go to Tihrán, where he hopes to serve the friends.
(Signed) Mi'rzá Badi Bushrui, Secretary.
MR. AND MRS. DUNN are greatly confirmed in presenting to the people of Australia the heavenly teachings of world unity, and groups of friends have joined them as evangelists of the Glad Tidings in Australia and neighboring islands.
Mrs. Dunn tells of a recent visit to an island in the Pacific Ocean which was settled by British seamen who married daughters of the people of Tahaiti. She was impressed by the lovingkindness of some of the people in this garden spot in the Pacific Ocean and their quick response to the spiritual beauty of the Bahá’í teachings. This island is seven miles long and five and a half miles wide and is covered with orange, lemon and other fruit trees and beautiful pines.
One very philanthropic woman, living on the island, has purchased land to build a home for homeless children, and she says that she will he most happy to cooperate with Mrs. Bedikian's world fellowship for children of all nations.
FROM Hamadan, Persia, there comes to the STAR or THE WEST a letter filled with the news of the activities of the devoted friends in that city. Several meetings are held every week and several weekly entertainments. The girls' and boys' schools are most successful. One hundred and thirty girls met every week for six weeks for ethical lessons. They recently held some beautiful exercises, to which two hundred and fifty of the maidservants of God were invited. The Bahá’í girls passed their examinations so successfully that everyone was rejoiced. The exercises ended with stirring songs.
The Bahá'í women of Hamadan have founded a college of practical arts for the women, to which many Bahá'í women come every day, to learn sewing, embroidery, etc. The friends of Hamadan have sent teachers to various cities and they have brought many souls to the pure and everlasting fountain of God. So successful has been the Bahá'í Cause in quickening and uniting the hearts, in stimulating the minds and organizing practical activities for the education of the people in the East that the friends of Hamadan open their letter with the "Praise be to God, the terrestrial world, through the bounty of His supreme Abhá beauty, has become the envy of the Kingdom, and the effects of the word of God have been made manifest."
STIRRING news is coming from Tashkand, Southern Russia. Twenty years ago there were no Bahá'ís in the city. Then, two or three Bahá'ís went there, to earn their living. Little by little their number increased, and they began proclaiming the life-giving call of the Kingdom. Gradually many spiritual souls and teachers came from 'Ishqabad and Persia. Now, the Assembly is greatly increased in numbers, and they have started all kinds of activities. They have a public Bahá'í library, called Vahdat, that is, Oneness. The library is situated in an important and central part of the town, and contains many Bahá'í books, historical volumes, and a great number of Muhammadan and Russian publications, scientific, spiritual and ethical. Here can also be found many newspapers, from various places, also the Master's talks which are translated into Russian. The library is open from eight o'clock in the morning until seven in the evening. This library has many branches in other cities.
Schools have been established where Bahá'í boys and girls are educated, and are taught Persian and Russian. These schools accept students from all sects and religions, without distinction of race or color.
Many large public meetings have been organized, where both the Europeans and the Orientals have been present, and detailed talks and addresses have been given explaining the Bahá'í teachings. Not long ago a discussion meeting was arranged, with the permission of the Government. It was advertised by notices in the streets and bazaars. About two thousand people were present, drawn from different religions and denominations. Well-known speakers were on the platform. Each spoke in turn. Some of the professors spoke on the Bahá'í teachings, the beauty of the historical facts of the movement; and some spoke against religion. At the end, Aga Ali Akbar Kamaloff spoke in detail upon the Bahá'í Movement and the value of the teachings of the Cause to all the different sects of the world. The talk was very useful and resulted well in the spreading of the Cause.
A PROPHECY
"THE world is in turmoil and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned toward waywardness and irreligion. So grievous shall be its plight that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Many a day shall pass 'ere it is relieved from its sore travail. And in the fulness of time there shall appear, all of a sudden, that which will cast terror into the very heart of mankind; then and only then shall the divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Holiness warble its melody upon the Tree of Life. . . ." —From a Tablet of Baha'u'llah, revealed about 1878 A. D.; translated by Shoghi Effendi, and sent by him to America.
Bahá'í Magazines
TWO new Bahá'í magazines have been started in India, each one published in three languages. Al-Bahá, which published its first number some months ago in Calcutta, has sections in English, Persian and one of the native languages of India; its subscription rate is $1.00. The Dawn, the new monthly journal of Burma, began publication the first of last September; its editor is the revered Seyd Mustafa Roumie; it has sections in English, Burmese and Persian; its first numbers contain a paper on the Bahá'í Cause written by Shoghi Effendi and given by him at Oxford, extracts from the Last Will and Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and a short historical survey of the rise of the Bahá’í Cause in Burma. Shoghi Effendi writes to the Burmese friends: "I am looking forward very eagerly to the publication of the projected Burmese journal, which shall reflect the activities of my Burmese brethren and sisters, and which I am sure will greatly encourage and gratify the servants of Bahá'u'lláh throughout the East and the West. I shall follow its development with great interest, and assure you of my desire of rendering every help I can to make it in time one of the foremost Bahá'í Journals in the world." The subscription price of this magazine is $2.00.
Sonne der Wahrheit, the Bahá'í magazine of Germany, is encountering great difficulties because of the fluctuations of the currency. Recent issues contain delightful accounts, in English, of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's visit and words in Stuttgart. The subscription rate of this magazine is $2.00.
The Bahá'í News of India, printed in English and Persian, is presenting month by month articles and news of great interest. Subscription rate, $2.00.
The STAR OF THE WEST will be glad to receive subscriptions for any of these magazines, with a special club rate announced on the inside of the back cover.
He is the All Glorious.
Though the Beauty of the Most Great Name, the Light of Eternal Splendour (may my soul be offered up as a sacrifice unto His loved ones) be hid from mortal eyes, yet the assisting power of His Grace, without all doubt, continueth for evermore and His Divine Aid is vouchsafed to all eternity.
Turn then thy face unto the Unseen Kingdom, that thou mayest behold the confirming Spirit of Bahá and hearken to the Voice that calleth thee from the heavens of Omnipotence, the realm of eternal Glory.
Ere long, thou shalt see with thine own eyes, how the Celestial Potency of His Grace, even as the spirit of Life, shall pulsate through the body of all mankind.
(Signed) 'Abdu'l-Bahá Abbás.
صفحه 1 - 5
و عنان تیره و ابرهای تاریک و ظلمات هالکه ئی از چاه طبیعت سر در آورده و بآن نور رحمانی بمعارضت برمیخواست و تابش آنرا مستور میساخت دیو آمال نفسانی با آن فرشته آسمانی بمدافعه میپرداخت دجّال قوی مهیب با مسیح محبّت مضادت میکرد و از هرطرف با سپاه مشئوم خود بر او تاخته و آلات قتاله ستم بر او میانداخت تا آنکه او را مقتول و از میان برداشت لذا جای فرشته محبّت دیو عداوت و بجای سلیمان مهر و وفا اهرمن مکر و دغا و عوض روحانیّت و خداپرستی خودپرستی در میان آمده و اصول یگانگی از میان رفته و بنام تمسّک بفروع و رسوم و تقالید اختلاف و یگانگی و تکفیر و تدمیر و ریا و تزویر نشر یافت و آن اریاح سموم شجره محبّت و دیانت را عقیم و مسموم و خشگ و بیحاصل میکرد حال در این عصر عطیم بناء دیانت بر اساس محبّتی قویم گذاشته شد و دیانت بلباس بسیار زیبای محبّت جلوه ئی بدیع نمود و آن خمر صافی معنوی در زجاج شفاف محبّت درخشیده چندان که دیانت و محبّت را از یکدیگر تمییز و تفصیل و تفکیک نتوان کرد و مانند روح و بدن با هم متحدّ و توأم اند از اینرو هرکه قوّل محبّتش بیشتر دیانتش صافیتر و هرکه قوّه دیانتش محکمتر محبّتش شدید تر است و بهمان اندازه که از محبّت عمومی کاسته شود از دیانت میبازد از صفای می و لطافت جام در هم آمیخت رنگ جام و مدام همه جام نیست گوئی یا مدام است نیست گوئی جام
اصل صلح
صلح و آشتی زادۀ محبّت و دوستی است و ثمرۀ شجرۀ اخوّت و مودّت صلح و محبّت متلازم یکدیگرند و با هم آمیخته و در هم تحققّ صلح بدون محبّت نیست مگر فکری و خیال و با تحققّ محبّت حصول صلح فرمانی است ضروری الامتثال دیدۀ محبّت بچهرۀ عبوس جنگ ننگرد مرغ بهشتی صلح جز بدام محبّت صید نشود عاطفۀ محبّت حفظ سر آشتی و وصال دارد و جنگجوئی و بدخوئی و جدال نیارد مطرب محبّت در قلوب جز سرود صلح نسراید و دلبر دوستی جز بزم آشتی نیارایدصلحی که بر اساس محبّت قرار نیافته باشد همانا نقشی است بر آب و دعوی محبّتی که جشن صلح فراهمنسازد فقط تخیّلی است عاری از صواب محبّت تأسیس صلح احساسات
صفحه 2 - 5
و افکار نماید و به رابطه معنویّه قلوب با یکدیگر مرتبط سازد و هر قدر محبّت در عالم انسانی بیشتر طلوع کند بهمان مقدار بصلح اعظم نزدیکتر میشود از اینرو است که در این دور عظیم طلوع آفتاب محبّت انوار صلح از هر افقینمایان و درخشان و نغمۀ جانفزای آن بگوش هوشمندان میرسد در این ایّام در بین آوازهای رنّه اندازی که در ایالات متحّده امریکا بلند و با بیان فصیح سوق افکار بشری را بسوی تعالیم مبارکه اشارت مینماید دو ولولۀ عظیمی حادث که هریک در موقع خود بسیار مهمّ و تعلقی عظیم بجریان تعالیم مقدّسه دارد یکی نهضت افکار ملتّ بمداخلۀ دولت در مسئله صلح بین الدول و مجمع نمایندگان ملل است که باین وسیله قواعد بنیان صلح عالم محکم گردد و انچه از قلم و لسان حقیقت پیشین گوئی درین خصوص فرمودند جاری شود و حال در این زمینه نطق ها نموده ومقالات نوشته و مباحثه و اخذ آراء میشود دویمّ مجادلات و مباحثات دینیّه است که انعکاس صوت در جرائد واثق امریکا انداخته مابین دسته کشیش های کهنه فکر و کشیش های عصریّه در خصوص عقاید مسیحیّه مانند بی پدری مسیح و صعود جسمانی آن حضرت بآسمان و غیره و غیره است که فرقه ثانیّه با دلائل منطقیّه آنرا منکر و فرقه اوّلی بقوّت ظواهر منقولات و روایات و شدّت اعتقاذ بسختی مقاومت میکند و این نطق ها و مقالات کمک عظیمی به تنویر افکار دینیّه عمومی مینماید .
از رباعیّات نه نه نبیل زرندی
ای بندۀ حق گذر ز امنیّت خود . تا حق برود بحصن امیّت خود . خواهی همه خلق خیرخواه توشوند . روبا همه خلق خیر کن نیّت خود . هر صبح نظاره در آئینه نما . چون آینه دل صافی و بی کینه نما . چون صورت خود صورت انسان دیدی سیرت طلب از نگار دیرینه نما . چون شعلۀ مصباح سر از جیب برآر . تا ظلمت آ،اق کند از تو فرار . در حالت پروانه فکن اندیشه . تا شعلۀعشقت کند از سینه شرار . خالی ز خیال خویشتن شو چه قلم . سر را بسیار بردم تیغ الم . مابین دو انگشت و بر تقدیر . بر قبّه افلاک کنی نصب علم . »
صفحه 1 - 4
این نظم و ارتباط کامل مابین آن حاصل نمیگشت اگر ظهور جاذبه محبّت نبود نظم و ترتیب مابین عائله شمسیّه تحققّ نمی یافت اگر محبّت در کائنات جلوه نمیداشت موادّ ازدیاد حاصل نمیکردند و نباتات و حیوانات و انسان کثرت تناسل نمییافتند اگر محبّت نبود اینهمه صنایع و بدایع در عالم بروز نمیکرد زیرا همه از آثار عشق و محبّت است محبّن نور حقیقی است که عالم بآن روشن و جلوۀ محبّت الهیّه است آن واسطه معنویّه مابین عالم غیب و شهود است محبّت آن اشراق ملکوتی است که در سرتاسر عالم ملک تابیده محبّت الکتریسیته ظنیّ الهی است که تمام اجزاء کائنات را بیکدیگر مرتبط ساخته محبّت آن چشمه حیات است که در ظلمات مادیّات موجود و حیات اشیاء بآن موکول و منوط محبّت معناطیسی است که بوسیلۀ آن توان قوای غیبیّه را جذب و استحصال نمود محبّت بهشت است و عدم آن دوزخ محبّت مایۀ سرور در زندگانی است محبّت علتّ سعادت و کامرانی است محبّت سبب ترقی و عمران عالم است آنچه عمران و تمدّن و کمالیّت مشاهده شود همه از آثار عشق و محبّت تولید گشته وبالعکس آنچه دمار و بی نظمی و نقصان است از آثار فقد محبّت است محبّت یگانه مربّی عالم انسانی است شخض ظلمانی را نورانی رحمانی و نفس ارضی را ملکوتی نماید و عدوّ نمرودرا محبّ ودود سازد محبّت سبب نجات بشر از هر شرّ و خطائی و علاج همه امراض عالم انسانی است محبّت قوّه فعّاله و کدخدای کارفرمای عالم بشری است محبّت حقیقی انسان بخودش مایۀ ترقیّات شخصیّۀ او است و محبّت مابین پدر و مادر و فرزند سبب حفظ و تربیت اولاد است محبّت مابین اعضاء یک عائله سبب اتحّاد و تعاون و لذائذ زندگانیشان است محبّت مابین اعضاء یک معموره علتّ و انتظام امور بلدی و ترقیّاتشان است محبّت مابین افراد یک مملکت سبب نجاح و فلاح و سعادتشان است و هر قدر دائره محبّت وسیعتر گردد نفس انسانی جامعتر و بالغتر و نزدیکتر بخدا شود و بهدایت محبّت در ترقیّات معنویّه و سیر روحانی بقربیّت حریم کبریا نائل گردد چه که انوار رحمانیّت عمومی و جهان افروز است تا چون پرتو محبّت کلیّه در نفسی اشراق نماید و چنان کلبه دل را منوّر سازد که غیری در میان بیند
صفحه 2 - 4
و عموم بشر را برادر و خواهر و پدر و مادر و فرزند و اقرباء مشاهده نماید و هرگاه ناملائمی چند حدوث آنرا در نظم کلیّ وجود ضروری در بروز آن حکمت غیبیّه و علیّت تربیت نفسانیّه و تدرّج بمدارج ترقیّات معنویّه ملاحظه کند و با اعلی درجۀ مهربانی پدرانه خود را موظفّ بر قیام به بهبودی شناسد و کلیّۀ عالم و جود را جلوه گاه انوار احدیّه بیند که در هر رتبه ئی موافق استعداد آن و مطابق حکمت ازلیّه درخشیده است و غریق در بحر محبّت عمومیّه شود آن هنگام بدیانت حقیقیّه که وسیلۀ وصول انسان بحریم قربیّـ احدیّه است نائل آید انبیاء عظام و مظاهر الهیّه مؤسّسین و مروّجین محبّت بوده اند و ادیان مقدّسه مدارس محبّت و نه تنها درس محبّت می آموختند بلکه با قوّۀ مؤثرّۀ معنویّه خود در قلوب بشری خلق محبّت مینمودند چه که خود مظهر محبّت بودند و یگانه قوّه عظیمه ئی که بآن جذب قلوب و احیاء نفوس میفرمودند همانا همان محبّت پدرانۀ شان بعموم نوع بشر بود محبّتی مقدّس از آلایش هر غرضی جوهری مصّفا از هر مرضی خدمتی منزّه از هر مزد و عوضی محبّتی چنان که حیات جسمانی خود را گذاشته و به بهبودی عالم انسانی میپرداختند و راحت و آسایش خویش را فدای نوع بشر میساختند مفطور بر جنین محبّت بودند و چنان آثار عظیمه ئی تأسیس نمودند دیانت در هر عصری که طلوع میکرد چنین قوّل عظیمه محبّت بود که در هیکل بشری جلوه مینمود و تأسیس اتحّاد میکرد چنان پرتوی در قلوب می انداخت که شئونات کثرت را میسوخت و نفوس مانند روح واحد در اجساد متعدّده میشدند احساسات متفقّ مآرب و نوایا متحدّ و شخصیّات بیحکم میشد مانند قطراتی بیکدیگر ملصق و ملحق شده و تشکیل بحری مینمودند حمایت بود و قایت معاونت بود و معاضدت مودتّ بود و الفت ارتباط و اتحّادولی متأسفانه این نور الهی یعنی قوّل محبّت همیشه یک دشمن در کمین داشت که برای قلع و قمع آن منتظر فرصت بود و چون اوضاع وقتیّه مساعدت میکند از کمین درآمده و تیغ کین بر آن هیکل لطیف میآخت
صفحه 1 - 3
غیبیّه الهیّه نیز انعضام و انقطاعی حاصل نه و در فیّاضی آن فیّاض سرمدی بخل و امساکی نه ابواب مکرمتش همیشه مفتوح و انوار هدایتش پیوسته ساطع و لامع است لکن عوارضی که در اعصار ادیان گذشته در مابین نفوس بروز میکرد و مانند امراض سریع التأثیر هیکل لطیف دیانت را به بستر بیماری انداخته و متدرّجا بر ضعف و نحول آن میافزود تا بالاخره قوایش مفقود و حرارتش مخمود و و اوراق و ارواد و اثمارش ریخته و انوارش خواموش میشد با تفاوت مختصر در همه ادیان مساوی و نه یکبار در عالم ادیان بلکه بکرّات و مرّات واقع گردیده اوّلا کج فهمی در مقاصد حقیقیّه ادیان مقدّسه و جمودت در معانی تحت اللفظیّه ثانیا انصراف از قداست و تقوای داخلی و صرف همّت فقط در رسوم و عوائد ثالثا بحث و مشاجره بیحدّ در مسائل فکری غیر عملی رابعا تقالید و اوهام غیر معقوله و تعصّب ورزی در آن خامسا مزح و خلط افکار کهنه در حقایق منورّه تعالیم جدیده سادسا طلوع هوی و هوسهای ریاست بنام و بهانه دیانت و قداست سابعا حصول تفرقه و اختلاف شعب در نتیجه بحث و مجادله در موارد غیراساسی یا افکار غیر عملی یا اغراض نفسانیه و بالاخره تشتتّ اعضاء جامعه دیانت و صرف قوی و اوقات در مشاجرات بیهوده داخلی ثامنا بمیان آمدن اقتدار و مشت تکفیر بجای محبّت و تفهیم تاسعا برتر و بالاتر از همه تغییر اوضاع تمدّن عالم و طلوع افکار و معلومات تازه تری که با افکار محیط عصر سابق بینونت تامّه داشت و ظهور انقلابات مهمّه که مورث احتیاج باصلاح و تجدید فائقی میگردد اینک در این دور اعظم که صبح هدایت الهیّه از افق مکرمت رحمانیّه دمیده و سحب مجازات متلاشی و شمس حقیقت درخشیده حرارت آفتاب معنوی و قوای مؤثرّه فعّاله چندان شدید است که یخهای غلیظه سالیان متمادیه برودت که ماء صافی عین الحیات
صفحه 2 - 3
دیانت حقیقیّه را از جریان مانع و عائق بود در حالت ذوب نموده و کنز معنوی حیات مقدّسه روحانیّه را از تحت خار و خاشاک اوهام و تقالید درآورده و چرخهای نهضت عمومیّه حقیقیّه دینیّه بحرکت و گردش آمده و بالاخره دیانت معنویّه و حیات روحانیّه و خدمت بعالم انسانی حیاتی تازه یافته و با جمالی زیبا بانحمن عالم انسانی قیام نمود
اصل محبّت
بناء عظیم دیانت بر شالودۀ قویم محبّت مستقرّ و مرتع است و آفتاب قدین از مشرق قلب مملو از دوستی طالع و درخشان سرزمین قلبی که در آن محبّت نیست مانند سراب بقیقه یحبّه الظلمان ماء هرچند در نظر حسّ خاطی دریائی مشاهده شود شبنمی از دیانت در آن نه و کوهسار وجودی که فیوضات امطار محبّت در آن قرار نیافته از غلبۀ ازهار و اوراد تدیّن عاری است بیت ولی که بانوار محبّت روشن نگشته ظلمانی است که از سرحدّ دیانت بس بعید و دور و نفسی که بمعناطیسیّه محبّت قوّت روحانی نیافته از دلبر
دیانت محروم و مهجور آئینه ضمیری که بصیقل محبّت مصفیّ و مطهرّ نشده قابل تجلیّ انوار روحانیّه نتوان شده و معبد و جدانی که از اصنام بغض و عداوت منزّه نگشته مشرق جلوۀ احدیّت نتواند بود سینه ئیکه شرارۀ نار دشمنی از روزنه آن افروخته است جحیم است نه جنان و بوستان احساساتی که بگلهای معطرّه دوستی مزیّن نگشته گلخن است نه گلستان جوهر دیانت آنکه ذات انسانی مطلع صفات یزدانی گردد و و منبت خصال رحمانی شود و محبّت و رحمت گل سرسبد صفات مقدّسۀ الهیّه است و فیض و محبّت رحمانیّه در تمام عالم خلقت عام و شامل عموم انام است و برتر ازین آنکه محبّت نخستین جلوه و ظهور الهی و مابه الایجاد و انتظام کامل کائنات است اگر محبّت الهیّه نبود ذرّات عناصر تکوّن نمی یافتند و اگر محبّت در عناصر جلوه نمینمود با یکدیگر ترکیب نمی پیوستند و هرگاه محبّت در اعضاء کائنات طلوع نمیکرد
صفحه 1 - 2
و اشتیاق و قداست در حیات و محبت و اخوت و معاونت و معاضدت و خدمت و فداکاری برای ترقی و تربیت معنویه و بالاخره قلب سرشار از بستگی بعالم الهی و انقطاع از مادون آن بود چه که حقیقت ادیان انبعاثات روحانیه است و قوی و اثمار آن نیز عواطف روحانیه یعنی تربیت و حیات و فکر و احساس روحانی است این بود آن قوائی که هیکل دیانت با آن تولد یافته و حیات می نمود و این بود آن اثماری که از شجرۀ دیانت ظاهر و آشکار میگشت بر نفوس منزه از اغراض نفسانی و تعصبات و مطلعین از حقایق ادیان و ادوار آن واضح و آشکار است که تمامت ادیان گذشته در بدو طلوعشان مشتمل بر این قوی و ارواح بودند و این آثار و انواراز همه آنها طالع و درخشان بود ولی متدرّجا آنرا گم کرده و بالاخره مانند شجره بلا ثمر شدند حال هرگاه نفسی متعصّبانه یا غافلانه این را انکار نماید و ادیان گذشته را مانند روزهای اوّلیه اش مثمر و بارور شمارد و مثلش مثل آن کسی است پس از غروب آفتاب با چشمان بسته بانگ برآرد و اصرار نماید که آفتاب جهانتاب افول ننموده و روز دل افروز طالع است ولی حقیقت آن است که غروب نموده است اوّلا جمع مهمّی از میان جامعات ادیان خود را خارج کرده و بی اعتقادی خود را بر ملاء افشا نموده اند ثانیا جمّ غفیری اسما و لسانا در جامعات ادیان داخل و شاید ایمان میراثی تقلیدی دارند ولی اطلاع از دیانت خود و پیروی و عمل باصول و فروع آن ندارند ثالثا یک قسمت عطیمی عامل بفروع و رسوم و عوائد هستند ولی از جوهر دیانت یعنی احساسات روحانی و انبعاثات وجدانی و زندگی بدیع الهی غافلند لذا سحب خطیئات است که افق هر مملکتی را تیره و تار نموده و خان مظلم عصیان و طغیان است که حیات بشری را مظلم ساخته سوء اخلاق کذب و نفاق روی
صفحه 2 – 2
و ریا مکر و دغا ظلم و جفا بهتان و افترا جهل و نادانی تن پروری و نفس رانی و تخطی و حرص و آز و تنفرّات و اختلافات و جنگ و قتال و سائر رزائل صفات و ظلمات است که در عالم بشری حکمرانی مینماید این هیاکل ادیان موجوده که اکنون باین منظره های کذائی دیده میشوند در ایّام اوّلیّه شان اندامی بس قوی و موزون و صورتی بغایت جمیل و زیبا داشتند و این ادویه تعالیم کتب مقدّسه و معاجین روحانیه که اکنون در رفع امراض هیکل عالم انسانی چنین بی اثر مانده اند در آن روزهای اولیّه که تازگی داشتند دریاق فوری العلاج بودند حال آیا چه سبب شد که آن قوای معنویه آفل مفقود و آن آثار و اثمار طیّبه زائل و نابود گشت این را نتوان گمان نمود که نقص و فتوری و خلل و دثوری در قوای عقلیه انسانی و مدارک و احساسات آن رخ داد چه که این واضح و مسلمّ است که انسان هر عصر لاحق پست تر از انسان عصر سابقش نه بلکه بمراتب ارقی و اعلی از آن بوده و هست چه که عالم انسانی در نموّ و ترقی است و هر عصر متأخری تمامیّت و کمالیّت عصر متقدّم آن میباشد بدرجه ئیکه انسان این قرن را با کلیمیان معاصر حضرت روح یا اعراب عصر حضرت محمّد محمود نتوان مقایسه نمود و مطابق کرد نقصی در عالم انسانی واقع نشده بلکه رو بکمالیّت آمده و از متون ادیان گذشته نیز چیزی کاسته نگشته و تقریبا عین کلمات و تعلیماتی که مظاهر مقدّسه الهیّه و انبیاء عظام در ایّام اشراقشان بیان میفرمودند حال روی اوراق کتابها ملاحظه و خوانده میشود اگر در آن ایّام باسماع و آذان میشنیدند حال در صفحات کتب مقدّسه ملاحظه و مطالعه مینمایند و در معابد و مساجد و کنائس به تلاوت و قرائت آن میپردازند در عالم افاضات
نجم باختر . فبروری 1924
جلد 14 . شماره 11
نجم باختر مجّلۀ اخلاقی تربیتی عمومی است که ماهی یک بار طبع و توزیع میشود .
صفحه 1 - 1
از بیانات مبارکه حضرت عبدالبهاء
بعضی بر آنند تحقق اشیا و ترکیب کائنات و تحلیل آن منبعث از تفاعل است و به جهت این احتیاج به مدبّر حقیقی ندارند فی الحقیقه در بین این اجزاء کائنات ارتباط عجیبی است و از این ارتباط تفاعل واضح و آشکار نظیر عالم انسانی در بین جمیع اجزاء جسم انسانی ارتباط معنویّه و ارتباط ظاهره واضح و مشهود است مثلا بین عقل و اعضاء انسان ارتباط معنوی است امّابین ارکان نظیر چشم و سمع و ید و رجل ارتباط واضحی است خلاصه تفاعل موجود تعاون و تعاضد مشهود ولی جمیع این مرتبط به قوّه معنویه روح انسانی که محور محرّک این تفاعل است موجود که اگر این محرّک نبود این تفاعل ها تحققّ نمی یافت پس معلوم شد که جمیع این تفاعل ها مرتبّ بر قوّه محیطه ئی است که این تفاعل ها منتظما حاصل میشود اگر روح و عقل انسانی محور محرک اعضاء و اجزاء نبود ابدا انتظامی در تفاعل میانۀ اعضا و اجزاء انسانی نبود همچنین ملاحظه در معامل و کارخانه ها نما که جمیع آلات آن معامل مرتبط به یکدیگر و تفاعل در میان ولی مرتبط به قوّه عمومیّه که محرک و محور این تفاعل است و آن قوّه بخار است پس معلوم شد که تفاعل در در بین کائنات و تعاضد بین عناصر و ترکیب و تحلیل بین موجودات جمیع مرتبط بقوۀ محرکه است که محور و محرّک کائنات است .
نیز از بیانات مبارکه
پیش عقلا و اصحاب افکار و ارباب معارف مسلم است که عالم انسانی در پراکندگی یعنی تفرقّ سبب ذلشان است سبب بی سر و سامانیشان است سبب نادانیشان است امّا اگر یک هیئت اجتماعی تشکیل کنند سبب ترقیّشان است سبب تمدّنشان است مسلمّ است لهذا میگویند که از برای عالم انسانی یک جهت جامعه لازم است تا افراد را جمع کند و این ترقیّات حاصل شود حالا یک وقتی است که هیئت جامعه وطن است همشهری هستند فی الواقع جهت جامعه است
صفحه 2 - 1
این امّا در منافع و مضرات عمومی بقلب منافع عمومی است در خصوصیات حکمی ندارد و بین افراد حکمی ندارد در عمومی جهت جامعه است ممکن بیک درجه مثلا اهل یک وطن اگر چنانچه از خارج دشمن پیدا شود محض حفظ مملکت مدافعه میکنند بیک درجه با جهت جامعه جنسیت است از جنس واحد هستند جنسیت واحده جهت جامعه است لکن حکمی ندارد در میان خود اینها مخاصمات شدیده است امّا اگر پای خارجیان بمیان آمد آنوقت مدافعه از خود میکنند لکن حکمی ندارد جزئی است فرج نمیدهد افراد آنرا بیکدیگر فرج نمیدهد جهت جامعه بین بشر وحدت منافع است این موقتّ است زائل میشود یا جهت جامعه لسان است میبینی طوائف مختلفه بلسان واحد تعلم میکنند وحدت لسان سبب الفت است میانه جمیع اینها آنچه فی الحقیقه جهت جامعه هیئت اجتماعیّه است آن جامعه دین است آن ادیان مختلفه را یکی میکند ملل مختلفه را یکی میکند اجناس مختلفه را یکی میکند اوطان مختلفه را یکی میکند افراد را بیکدیگر فرج میدهد آب میکند و تازه میریزد ملاحظه کنید دین مسیحی جهت جامعه دینیه بروچه جامعه ها تشکیل کرد حضرت رسول دین اسلام چقدر ملل مختلفه را یکی کرد وحدت دین همه این اختلافات را محو و نابود کرد
قیامت ادیان
مسئله اینکه قوای اصلیه ادیان گذشته از میان رفت و تأثیرات اوّلیۀ آن خاموش شد نه تنها در نزد متعمّقین در تواریخ ادیان و مطلعین از او دار طلوع و نمود انحطاط آن واضح است لکه حتیّ در انظار عامّۀ پیروان آن محسوس و درد السن و افواه میباشد قوای اصلیۀ ادیان وسائل تأدیه یعنی ازدیاد عدت یا تکثیر عدّت و ثروت یا بسط سلطنت و قدرت در داخل و خارج نبود بلکه قوّۀ استحکام ایمان و طهارت و نزاهت فکر و ضمیر و معرفت و نورانیّت قلب و انجذاب
