Transcript:Adib Taherzadeh/Growing in the Bahá’í Faith/Day 2

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Transcript of: Growing in the Bahá’í Faith (Day 2) by Adib Taherzadeh

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[00:00:00]Well friends, your love and your beautiful faces have so affected me since yesterday that I feel moved to pray to Bahá’u’lláh that this community may become a jewel in the whole Baháʼí world really because you are jewels. I mentioned yesterday or day before how much the early believers at the time of Bahá’u’lláh would have longed to see one of you who have embraced His faith in the Western world, especially in all these remote areas. And I know that your country has a great destiny. Someone was telling us at the National Assembly meeting here that the people of this country and probably Ireland, are the people, the countries who will bring great numbers into the Faith in the western world. And I hope very much that this will happen. You know, the powers of earth and heaven are working for us to promote the Faith provided we rise and provided we turn to Bahá’u’lláh. Once we turn to ourselves, then nothing will happen. Once you rely on yourself, nothing will happen. But if you turn to Him and rely on Him and bring Him with you, then all kinds of things will happen. And time is short, really. The world is set for great upheavals and sufferings which will encompass mankind. And during this short period of time, we have to prepare ourselves for the time that great numbers are going to knock on our doors in the middle of the night and tell us now we know what you are saying. Please tell us what should we do? We have to prepare ourselves for that day because that day will come. You know the world conditions will deteriorate. There is no doubt about it. This is what Bahá’u’lláh has said over 100 years ago.

[00:03:06]Bahá’u’lláh said that if the believers, if His believers, those of His time who had recognized him, if they had carried out His teachings with absolute sincerity and faithfulness, then the whole world, the great majority of the world would have recognised Bahá’u’lláh in His day. But this did not happen. And so now we have to reap the or bear the consequences of mankind's failure to recognize Him. And the leaders of the world whose the message of Bahá’u’lláh fell on deaf ears when they received it, all of these consequences will result in the breaking up of this old order. And day by day, as Bahá’u’lláh has mentioned, day by day, the conditions will become worse. It's not something which will become worse month by month, but day by day, that today will be worse than yesterday. And this is our experience also. We can see it with our own eyes from every point of view. Morally, spiritually, socially, economically, politically, society will break up and is breaking up at a terrific speed until what Bahá’u’lláh has said will become fulfilled. And then He said that suddenly - He uses the word suddenly - suddenly that will happen, which will cause the limbs of mankind to quake. That is a tremendous upheaval which will face us all. And from what Shoghi Effendi has written, it's not going to be a small thing. The limbs of mankind, mankind, the whole human society will quake. And then Bahá’u’lláh gives us the vision or what happens after that, immediately after that. And not after that, but immediately after that because He says then and only then, then and only then - I paraphrase His words - will the divine standard be unfurled, and the nightingales will wobble the melodies, which means then and only then the Cause of God will be widespread over the world, will be proclaimed and great numbers will come into the Faith. We have to prepare ourselves for that day. And our institutions which we are building today are going to be those institutions which are going to guide humanity as torches, He says. These will become beacons of light which will guide humanity at the time of its greatest peril.

[00:06:25]Now we are not going to go into this subject now. I didn't mean to talk about this particular aspect. And we know that the institutions of the faith, the Cause of God, is protected in all these calamities and sufferings which are to happen. And I believe - and Shoghi Effendi has in fact indicated these things. I believe very firmly that if any believer dedicates himself fully to the progress of the Cause, for the advancements of the Faith, God will protect him. I'm not saying that we should now go and teach the Faith so that we may save our neck in the future's difficulties. This is not at all the right motive, not far from it. I'm saying this: God will protect the believers so that those who are steadfast in the Cause and dedicate yourself. You know, the early believers that I met when I was young - if I tell you this, you may not believe this. They had the power of life and death in their own hands. They had reached to such powers. God had given them such powers that they had the power of life and death. And they used it to protect, to propagate the faith, to enlarge its institutions and its society, communities. This is because they had faith. If you have faith to that extent that we have faith, our powers will be to that extent of your faith. And Bahá’u’lláh mentions those who have been, who have become detached from the things of this world, and when you become detached, you know it means that you will become attached to Bahá’u’lláh. That's the meaning of it really. The only barrier we have between us and Bahá’u’lláh is our attachment to the things of this world. Once we become detached from it, then we will find that the powers of Bahá’u’lláh will descend upon us and this is when things will happen.

[00:09:10]Well, friends, I don't want to talk about this subject at all. But as I said, the marvelous spirit which is created in this meeting, I feel it from yourselves, from you people. And I know that when I return back, I shall be very much uplifted by having met you. Now, having come to your presence, I want to continue the subject we were discussing yesterday. Now I'm not going to repeat what I have said yesterday. I feel that those of you who were here may be able to follow the thread of the discussions. And those who were not here probably you have to bear with me somehow. You remember the two points which so far we discussed. And for the soul to grow and to develop and to become closer to Bahá’u’lláh for the spirit of faith. When we talked about the spirit of faith, to grow day by day so that our faith becomes stronger day by day, stronger so that Bahá’u’lláh's words become fulfilled when he expects of us that our tomorrow is better than our today. And we pointed out one or two points that we could help ourselves. And this was the way that Bahá’u’lláh himself had shown us. We talked about the saying of obligatory players, the significance off it. We said how much that obligatory prayer, the saying of the obligatory prayer makes the soul humble. Really, when you read it, you read it carefully and in the presence of God in the privacy of your own chamber. You read that and you see how humble we become. We become like that drop, which I was mentioning yesterday seeing the ocean. And then great powers can descend on the soul. And then when we read the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, and we talked about what the writings consisted of, so different from prayers, then great powers again will come. But that's not enough.

[00:11:50]You know, the story of religion is the story of love. When you say you're a Baháʼí, you means that we are in love with Bahá’u’lláh. This is the meaning of it. It's a love story. It's not a story of knowledge. Forget about knowledge. Knowledge is a problem quite frankly, and we'd probably talk about this. I'll make sure that we talk about this sometime today to you. But love, love for God, love for Bahá’u’lláh, we are created to be the lovers. You know, this is the function of man. It's to be a lover. And to the extent that we are a lover. To that extent, we can enjoy life and we can enjoy living in accordance with the teachings. Now, to be a Baháʼí means you're a lover of Bahá’u’lláh. And of course, loving is a relative term. It varies from person to person. We are different levels here. When you love somebody, the sign of love, real love is that you are ready and willing and really longing to do what your beloved asks you to do, isn't that right? This is a true love I'm talking about. I'm not talking of superficial love that we think, somebody may think he has for somebody else. You know, the real love and you have a real love. You don't want anything for yourself. You realize this and if you ever want anything for yourself, it means that you are not in love with that person. If you say, "Oh, Yes, I love this person because he's very rich. And he's got the cars and houses and for business. I love him." This is not love. This is selfishness, you see. But a real love is when you don't want anything for yourself but you want everything for your beloved.

[00:14:24]Now here we come to a very important point. When we become a Baháʼí and when we love Bahá’u’lláh, we want to do everything He has asked us to do, to carry out His teachings. And this is a very important point. If I say I love him, but I don't carry out his teachings, then it means it's no use. I read the writings. What's the use of it? I say my prayers, but I don't obey Bahá’u’lláh. You see how these things are related together? How one follows the other? You remember yesterday I was telling you, it's something like you have to close all the switches which are in series one after the other. And if one of them is open, no current can go through. You have to close all the switches. Now this is it. We have to be willing and ready and joyous and longing to carry out His teachings. And His teachings is not purely, and His laws. The laws that He has given to us. Now in the Western world we don't have many laws. Our laws are very few that Bahá’u’lláh has now given to us. The time will come in the future that we have to carry out more laws which He has enjoined upon us. But the laws that He has given to us are so few. I mean, I will count them for you. We can count it in the fingers of your hand. Do you know what the first law of Bahá’u’lláh is which we are asked to carry out? The most important of these laws? It's the law, and law has precedence over anything else. If there is a law and if there is a teaching or a saying, the preference comes to the law, the law of Bahá’u’lláh.

[00:16:26]I mentioned yesterday if there was a choice between reading the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and saying the obligatory prayers, we say the obligatory prayers because it's the law of Bahá’u’lláh. Now the first and the most important law of Bahá’u’lláh is the saying of obligatory prayers and fasting. It's required of us and He mentions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá also mentions, that if you do not do that, we will not be able to get close to Him. There is a barrier already. And we have to make this a habit. Let us all of us here as our chairman was saying really determine and try it. I would suggest, and this is of course I'm mentioning this to the new Baháʼís because the older Baháʼís are familiar with this, but I'm mentioning this to newer Baháʼís. Let us try this for three months. Do it regularly and regularly read the writings and then you forget about it. Just remember it for three months. That's enough, then forget about it. All will work out then. You will find you become, it becomes a beautiful picture. You try it. You try it and see how one's life will change. Now, yes we must - just reading the laws of Bahá’u’lláh I was talking about, the fasting, obligatory players, the law of marriage, Baháʼí marriage. I'm sure you're all familiar with it. The law of prohibition of the drinking of alcohol is one of the laws of Bahá’u’lláh which is binding on us. It is time that now in the Western world we are able, as Baháʼís and especially the young Baháʼís, to stand erect, well-oriented, strong people who will stand up in the public and say I will not drink because Bahá’u’lláh has forbidden it. And the same thing applies to the taking of drugs. These are the things we have to be frank with people who become Baháʼís and tell them this. They have every right to know this.

[00:19:05]And then the other one is the question of sexual relations outside marriage. It's forbidden by Bahá’u’lláh outside marriage, before and after. Marriage, He has enjoined upon us and it is not compulsory, but it's a marvelous thing. When I was about 10 or 12 years ago in Ireland, we had about 150-200 people became Baháʼís in one town. Young people, young men and young women, they became beautiful Baháʼís, strong Baháʼís and they all scattered. We asked them to scatter throughout the country, and now they are the people who have built up the foundations of a new, of all the communities we have there. We have now in the south of Ireland 20 local assemblies, and these people have become the foundations of these assemblies. They have pioneered. All of them spread around and they left - [audio cuts off] - recognizing our impotence and our utter nothingness and our humility, then you have the makings of a spiritual giant. Servitude, you see, is the greatest station that God has best thing for man. There is no greater station than the station of servitude for man. In fact, there are three stations, He says, in the world. The station of God which is above us, the station of the manifestations of God which is above us, and the station of man is that of servitude. Servitude. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the true servant. No person on this earth will ever reach him as low as that in servitude because when you go - on servitude, you go down, further down, not up. You cannot be a servant and have ambition to become somebody. There is no station for anybody in this faith. This is a great protection for all of us. If you want to think of a station for somebody, state servitude, to be low. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, "Make me a dust in the path of thy loved ones." This is true, dust in the path of loved ones. If ever somebody thinks of saying I, this is a very bad word to use I or my is really a bad word. It's the word which has caused all the troubles in the world. But utter nothingness come to us when we see the great ocean of revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, you cannot artificially become humble. And humility come only to us when we see the greatness of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.

[00:22:18]Now ‘Abdu’l-Bahá became that embodiment of servitude and He Himself begged Bahá’u’lláh to give him that station when he was a child. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was a child of about 10 years of age in Baghdad, He had recognized the station of His father. And I mentioned that He recognized, really recognized who He was. We haven't recognized Him. We cannot recognize Him. We can only recognize Him to a limited degree. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's recognition and the recognition of the Báb as to the station of Bahá’u’lláh was so complete that it is beyond us. You know that often people think that because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the son of Bahá’u’lláh , well, you know how it is between the father and the son. There's always an intimate relationship of intimacy and none - there's no conventions there. You know, at home when you're alone, you're just very, very relaxed and absolutely free and there's no restrictions. You're a member of the family, and this is your father, and this is the son. And who knows what the sons these days do to their fathers and vice versa. But anyhow, we have a very, very intimate relationship. And some people may think that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have the same relationship with His father, but He didn't. Although there was this love between them naturally, but ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had so recognized the station of Bahá’u’lláh as being the Lord of Lords, as being the Manifestation, the Supreme Manifestation of God that He considered Himself as His humblest servant. He would never in the ordinary time when everybody was out of the house, He would never give Himself the liberty of suddenly walking into the room of Bahá’u’lláh. He would not go in without getting permission without prostrating Himself at His feet, you see. He had recognized Him who He was. It wasn't His heavenly - it wasn't His earthly father. It was God revealed to man. He had recognized that. We haven't recognized it. And therefore He knew what humility meant towards His father.

[00:24:57]You have heard many stories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá approaching the house in which His father was living, for instance, in the mansion of Bahjí, when ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in Akka and He was in the Bahjí. You have heard of that story, I'm sure, many of you. He used to ride His donkey to go from Akka to the mansion of Bahjí. But as soon as He saw the mansion from distance, He would dismount from His donkey because it is in the conventions of the East. And one of the signs of respect towards your Lord if you are a servant of somebody, you never go ride into your servant- to your Lord. If you're a servant, you never ride to go to see your Lord. You always walk. So ‘Abdu’l-Bahá would dismount from His donkey as a respect towards, just as soon as He saw from one mile distance this mansion of Bahjí He would dismount. He would walk. He said He would never go riding to His Lord. And then Bahá’u’lláh, what a love He had towards ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The outpouring of love and adoration that He had for Him was something again, out of this world. He often, when He would hear that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is coming to the mansion of Bahjí, for example, as soon as He would hear, He would make the whole household and everyone who was around there to be vigilant to see when the Master is arriving from distance. And He would send all the men who were there, every person to go as a welcoming party a mile or two ahead. "The Master is coming," He said. And He Himself would stand on the balcony watching, waiting for the Master to come. And those who were with Him, usually the female members of the household or some of the disciples who were there, women, disciples who were in that household, He would look to them and say, "Look at the Master. Look at the way He walks. Look at His Majesty. Look at His powers." You see? Now this is a love relationship between the two, but one is the Lord and one is the servant.

[00:27:05]Now when Bahá’u’lláh, you can consider Him like a summit of a lofty mountain, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the lowest servant, the lowest valley, the lowest valley. No one can reach Him as low as that, the lowest valley down there. And then when the water pours down from the top of the mountain, where does it accumulate? It accumulates in the lowest valley. And this is how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, you see, one of the distinguishing features of this revelation and this you have all studied the covenant. One of the distinguishing features of this revelation is that Bahá’u’lláh has brought His revelation for us but unlike the prophets of the past, He never gave it to us. He brought it for us, but he didn't give it to us, His revelation. He gave them to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. This is the meaning of the Covenant. All the forces of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, all the forces that He released for 40 years of His ministry, He poured it within the person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá became the reservoir of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. It's like this glass in here. This glass contains all the water that is therein. See? ‘Abdu’l-Bahá became a container. Bahá’u’lláh had brought for us two things in this dispensation and not more, not less. One was the great, one was His revelation, and one was the person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. And these two things is all that God has given to mankind in this age. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá became here like a container of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Although He did not have the powers, although He was not a Manifestation of God, He had the powers of the Manifestation of God conferred upon Him by virtue of containing all that revelation within Him.

[00:29:14]And so what did Bahá’u’lláh tell us? He says to us this. This is His message. This is the gist of the Covenant. He says everything I have brought for you is with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Go and get it from Him. It is nowhere else. Outside ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, nothing exists. It's within Him. This is the meaning of the Covenant so you see, because He really received the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh on behalf of all humanity and held it there and protected it just like a wall that you put around an ocean. And it was an ocean of revelation. And that wall, many people try to break through, the Covenant-breakers during His ministry. You should study that turbulent history of the Faith during those 29 years. They try to break through this great wall of this ocean to get to this water of life, but ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and a few of the believers who rallied around Him like lions, they protected this Covenant, this Cause so they couldn't break through. And today, of course, it's a different story. That wall of the Covenant is so strong that it'll be foolish to think anybody can even think in terms of breaking through it. It's a tremendous revelation, really. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Bahá’u’lláh here have this reciprocal goal of one complimenting the other, bringing to us the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Well friends, I think we should take a break here, and then I will probably remember some of the things that I've forgotten. [laughter] Well we'll see. Do you think we can start again? You people must be exhausted, huh? Having been sitting here and listening?

[00:31:31]Well, where were we now? We were trying to understand something. Very little we can understand, remember, of the revelation of God. It's beyond us. We can get impressions of it, but not really to understand it fully. We were trying to understand something of the greatness of this revelation and therefore appreciate the power of the words which are revealed to us in this day by Bahá’u’lláh. And we were talking about the revelation, how it came to Him, how with such forcefulness, with such rapidity, the words were revealed in this age, that the world has been filled with the great ocean. It's like an ocean, really, of revelation. You know, Bahá’u’lláh has revealed, as I said, the words with such rapidity that within one hour, 1000 verses would have been revealed. To describe this for you and to show you the relationship of this revelation with the revelations of the past, we can look back and see the revelation of Islam, the revelation of the Quran. The Quran which is the Book of Islam took 23 years to be revealed, and that is over 6000 verses. Well mankind needed only that. When the Báb appeared, his revelation was so much more profuse in pouring out his words that it took him six hours to reveal 1000 verses. Now Bahá’u’lláh would reveal that in one hour, six times almost, six times faster than that of the Báb. It's very difficult to imagine what it is like to be placed in that time when revelation came to Him.

[00:34:13]And when the revelation came to Him, it was so powerful. The influence upon His own physical body was such that He says whenever revelation came to Him it was as if His body was put on fire. All the limbs of His body was put on fire. And this is why people could not fully look into His face at the time of revelation. They would be so overwhelmed if they did. There were so many people who tried to peep in the room when Bahá’u’lláh was revealing and they could not stand it, and some of them fainted. Bahá’u’lláh would give permission to some of the followers, some of His disciples who begged to see it, the revelation that He would allow them to come in. And they would come in and they would stand there for one or two minutes only. And then Bahá’u’lláh, with the movement of His hand, will dismiss them, which knew that they could not take it. And those people were so shaken during that experience. The experience was so much soul-staring that in one of His tablets, Bahá’u’lláh says if man was not weak, if God had not created man as a weak creature - we are weak creatures, really, in one sense. If man was not weak, we would have allowed all people to come and witness the revelation of the word of God. But they cannot stand it, you see. So for 40 years in this way, divine revelation have been pouring upon mankind. And as I said, it has drowned this world in an ocean of revelation. And that yet we have only a portion of that revelation in writing, a portion of it. Because there were so many days and nights in the life of Bahá’u’lláh that He poured out from His lips the word of God, revealed so many things which were not recorded.

[00:36:25]When he was those years in the mountains of Kurdistan, all that was revealed was released into the air, into the open air. And that was all. Two years. And when Bahá’u’lláh came to Baghdad, Nabil mentions that for some years, every day and night, the equivalent of the Quran would have been revealed by Bahá’u’lláh within every 24 hours and not recorded. And even there came a time that Bahá’u’lláh ordered His secretary at one stage in Baghdad, He was so disappointed from mankind and humanity and those people who were supposed to be His follower or followers of the Báb. He was so much distressed with their attitude and their condition that He asked His amanuensis, His secretary to take a great portion of His writings, washed them and threw them into the river, saying mankind is not worthy of it in this age. So you see, it's a great, great ocean. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has added to this yet further of his explanations and elucidations. And he has enriched the Baháʼí, the writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’u’lláh has left behind about 15,000 tablets and some of these tablets maybe one page, some of them maybe 100 pages, 50 pages. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has left behind something in the order of 26-27,000 tablets during the 29 years of His ministry. Again, the size of these tablets very, very much indeed.

[00:38:18]Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Faith, has left behind also something in the order of 26-27,000 letters, some of which were so lengthy that they merited to be published in the form of books. Such things as the Advent of Divine Justice, Promised Day is Come, these are letters of Shoghi Effendi. They were not books. The National Assembly of the United States decided to publish them and to give it a name and to put subtitles for it as you noticed. All these letters of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh which are included in that, each one of them is a letter. The only book that Shoghi Effendi wrote was God Passes By which is a history of the 100 years of the Faith. So you see how much information we have, how much guidance we have. You see, the world is full of it and how all these writings have to be compiled and edited and indexed so that we can have access to it. Those of you who were there last night. I was mentioning how and when I was a child, I used to hear from the Baháʼís in Persia that how can we go and teach the Faith all over the world with donkeys because they had never seen any other form of transportation. They could not visualize anything else. And the answer was that God will create the means for it. God will create the means. And now we can see the means here. I mean we travel with the speed of sound now, or double the speed of sound. So you see when the Faith needs it, it will be created for it. This communication which has come into being is in order that the Faith, that the message of Bahá’u’lláh may reach to all mankind. Without it, the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh would have been really meaningless, to have a religion which is for the whole world and yet not being able to communicate. And as days goes on and as the needs of the Faith are more and more apparent, then God will create the means for it.

[00:40:29]I have mentioned this maybe to some of you. You may have heard me saying this. I believe firmly that every time that the faith, the faith goes through different stages of growth and its growing constantly. And as you need the means, it will be given to us. Some 30 years ago, when I was in Dublin, I wanted to make a telephone call to Tehran, and it took me two days to arrange it because you have to find out, you have to see who you're going to speak in Tehran. You couldn't have a direct communication on the telephone. And that they would send a telegram to him and he would come to the post office at a certain time, a certain hour. And we would go to the post office in our end, at a certain time, in a certain hour. And then by radio telephone, after three days of arrangement, we could speak together. Well, that was good enough. But today the Faith is moving with such force. The Baháʼí world is becoming so active internationally. We have to be able to crisscross each other around the world that you want to lift up your telephone at home and say to your friend, "I'm coming, instead of today, I'm coming tomorrow." You have to be able to do it. And you see the means are created for it. Always the means as the faith grows, the means for its communications will grow with it. Otherwise, we couldn't work. We couldn't work. We could not have an international community if we did not have these simple facilities, which we take it for granted. We couldn't.

[00:42:05]Thirty years ago, you could not have traveled from London to here. Well, you may have traveled with great difficulties, probably. So many places and difficulties, 40 years ago, certainly you couldn't. And there was no need for a person like me or somebody to come from England to here. There was no need for it. We did not have this universal relationship. There was a time that the Faith was local and it's functioning. When I was a young person, the faith has a local characteristic, although we knew it was for the whole of mankind on the world. But our vision would not go beyond our local communities because we were cut off from the rest of the world, from the rest of the country even. In our little village, for instance, if only a person would go once a year to the capital, it would be considered as one of the greatest act he had done, to go to the capital. And when he came back, he would be considered as a very special man who had been to the capital. We did not have newsletters coming in every month like this. We did not have any of these things. The faith was really having a local characteristics. We used to teach in our town. We had the tablets of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and the writings of Shoghi Effendi. Whenever it came, it would reach us. Occasionally, every six months maybe we'd hear something from the Central Assembly in Tehran. So you see, the faith was local in character. Our visions was local.

[00:43:44]And then it was like this until Shoghi Effendi really gave us the vision of national consciousness. And this happened in the 1940s. In America it started in 1937 when the first Seven Year Plan came. And then in here they acquired a consciousness that you shouldn't be concerned with your own town, but that you should be concerned with the whole country. But in the rest of the world, it was in 1940s that Shoghi Effendi gave plans to various countries. And in those days there were seven or eight National Assemblies only. And to these seven or eight National Assemblies, in the 1940s Shoghi Effendi gave them a plan to extend their teaching activities in other towns. And the idea occurred to us that we can and we should communicate with each other. And then the national communication was such that we could go from one town to another. We had them cars coming in. We could travel from place to place, from one town to another, and we acquired gradually, until 1953 we acquired the national consciousness. The Faith rose up from a local level into a national level. In every country in the world, people began to act as one nation. You could see that. People pioneer from one end of the country to the other to form local spiritual assemblies. And so He rose up from that state of local international. And it wasn't until Shoghi Effendi launched a Ten Year Crusade, in which he brought the whole world together, and it didn't happen right away. It happened ten years later, in 1963 when we had this jubilee celebrations in London, the Albert Hall in London when we realized we became an international community. We acquired the consciousness of international consciousness.

[00:45:44]Then it was the whole world. Baháʼís began to travel from one end of the world to the other. We used to send pioneers from one country to another country, one end of the world to the other. But in the 1940s, it wasn't even conceivable that somebody could pioneer, say, from Persia to England. It was impossible to even think about. You wouldn't think in such terms. If you wanted to Pioneer, you would only go to a town in your own country. So you see how we raised from local international into international community. And as we rose in these conditions, the world facilities, the physical facilities rose with it. When we became an international community, we needed to communicate with each other on an international level, and gradually these facilities were created for us. You know, I was talking about the writings of Bahá’u’lláh. I was saying how vast it is. I was talking about the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, saying how vast they are. And the same thing with Shoghi Effendi's. But do you realize that during the lifetime of Shoghi Effendi who was the Guardian of the Faith, none of these writings were indexed? None of them. None of them was in a form that you could try and say, "I want on such and such a subject what Bahá’u’lláh has said about this" that you could find it. All this great many writings that was not indexed, and Shoghi Effendi did not need it to be indexed. He was divinely guided. You ask him a question and he would reply to you. He would say this means this and that means this and you should do this, you should do that.

[00:47:25]But when the House of Justice came into being in 1963 it was a different story. The House of Justice realized that they could not work. They could not give guidance unless they knew what Bahá’u’lláh has said on that subject, what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said about that subject, what Shoghi Effendi has said about that subject, but how were they going to find it? With all this writings of Bahá’u’lláh, which is an ocean. I describe to you the immensity of the writings. How can they pass a resolution without looking at the writings. They couldn't. And so the first thing they did was to have this research department staff. And in this research department, the first thing they did, they began to index the writings of Shoghi Effendi or how they did it. I remember looking at the way they were working in those days, 1963. They would read the letter of Shoghi Effendi and they would see in one page there are five questions, five different subjects. Well, the ideal thing was to take five copies and put each one in a file. That's what you would do, each one different subject. Now do you realize that perhaps you were maybe surprised to hear this, but something very simple nowadays we have, and it's called a photocopier. Well, that machine became available commercially just at the time that the House of Justice came into being. Before that it didn't exist. And if we didn't have that simple, straightforward machine, how would you be able to copy 26,000 letters each page five times? You know, put it in the files. Impossible. It came just in time. It didn't come at the time of Shoghi Effendi. He didn't need it, but as we needed it, it came into being.

[00:49:22]And I remember when they were making these indexes, someone told me, said we have gotten our 500 subjects on a master index. There are card indexes, 500 subjects. How can he remember them? How can you know which is which? You would forget it tomorrow what you have written on the first page. The mind could not conceive it, could not take it. And then came the computer. It took over. And now you go and ask them. You go and ask a question, "I want to know what Shoghi Effendi has said about that subject, what Bahá’u’lláh has said about such subject." You just ask them. And this is what the House of Justice does. As soon as you ask a question from the House of Justice, they will ask their research department to see what Shoghi Effendi has said about it, if any, what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said about it even. And with the press of a button, you get the answers where to look for it. And it is copied, put in front of the members of the House of Justice. They know now what is involved. Do you see how as the Faith needs it, things will come for us. Now can you imagine the House of Justice could have worked in any other way? How could they give guidance in an ocean of writings without these facilities? But these facilities were not here at the time of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. These facilities were not here at the time of Shoghi Effendi. It came into being just in time. And I can assure you that as time goes on, and as the speed of the growth of the Faith increases, and when the great, great numbers come into the Faith and we are going to be faced the complexities of administration which we now cannot even imagine how we're going to handle it, facilities will be created for us. The world, all these things will be solved. God will create the means. I told you this yesterday. This is what I remember. I was I heard this when I was eight years of age, when the believers could not imagine they can travel throughout the world on donkeys. And they have never seen a bicycle even. They couldn't visualize any form of transportation. And they were asking, "How can we go?" And the answer was, "This is the Cause of God. It will create the means for it." And now it will create the means for everything we need.

[00:51:42]Well, friends, we have seemly gone away from subjects quite a long way back. We have to bring them back again. We were talking about the reading the words of God in the morning and in the evening. Do you remember that? [laughter] Or have you forgotten it? Yes, well, if we read the words in that spirit that I mentioned knowing that the power is latent within these words and it'll little influence our hearts, we must also know going back to the word of God again that the word of God is creative. Everything which is uttered by the manifestation of God. It becomes. It operates. It becomes effective. Whatever that word may be, whatever that word may be. I haven't given you an example of this. Over 100 years ago, when Bahá’u’lláh was living in a tiny little room in a house in Akka, some of you have already been on pilgrimage. You have seen the little ‘Údí K̲h̲ammár which is part of the House of ‘Abbúd. Now there's a little room in which they tell you that he revealed here Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy Book. There is nothing in this revelation greater than the revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. This is one thing you can be sure of. There's nothing greater than this revelation of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Of all the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, this one stands out. And in this book. Bahá’u’lláh wrote four or five lines. Can you imagine writing four or five lines in that small, depressing little room? And in that four or five lines this is what He said. He said in every locality, in every town, establish a House of Justice in My Name and nine people should, or more, should be become members of this, or something to this effect. I'm paraphrasing His words. And He did not write anymore about it or press us or push us or keep on reminding us about it. He just wrote those few lines, and he went.

[00:53:54]Now look at what those few lines have done to the world, in our communities. Look at what it has done. Tens of thousands of families have left their homes, have given up their jobs, have sacrificed everything they had, have gone to the most inhospitable parts of the world. Why did they do that? They went there in order to fulfill these words of Bahá’u’lláh as pioneers to form local spiritual assemblies which are the nucleus of those houses of justice which Bahá’u’lláh has ordered. You see the creativity of the word? And now we have about 30,000 of these institutions, 30,000 of it. And we are not going to stop here and say, "Well, this is a difficult job." And really it is. It's the most difficult job to form assemblies. You realize this? We are not going to say, "Well, look, this is too much. Let us drop it. We have enough. Let us do all the other teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, but not this one. We are not going to say that. On the contrary, we're going to continue and continue and continue until such time that every locality on the surface of this earth will have its House of Justice. You see the creativity of the world now, without forcing anybody? People give their lives for establishing local spiritual assemblies today. These are not words. It's the truth. People have given their lives for the establishment of these institutions. So much sacrifice have gone into it that if you study the history of the building up of these institutions which have been brought about by pioneering movements all over the world, people of all colors and classes and races, not that they're all Europeans or Americans or Persians do this. Peoples of all colors and classes and background speaking all kinds of languages, they have arisen with the same spirit to promote this principle. These very four lines in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, that's all they're doing. You see now the creativity of the world, how the word of God has created? Penetrates into the hearts?

[00:56:06]Now this is, so when we recite the words in the morning and in the evening, we must remember these things. We must remember it's the word of our Creator. We must remember the way it was revealed. We must remember that these words are creative. We must remember that these words penetrate into the hearts. It has infinite significances and meanings and powers within it. And then, of course, it will affect us. And also above all, we must look at that great ocean. Never leave it out of our sight. You remember the story of the drop on the ocean? We must always look at the greatness of that ocean of revelation, and then we'll become humble. And then these words will penetrate into our hearts. And so when we read the words, when I read the word, when you read the words in the morning, recite them, and then you go to your work. We will remember it. We must remember it. And when you are dealing with business, in your business, whatever it is, from time to time let the thought of Bahá’u’lláh come to your mind. Let it flash into your mind, Bahá’u’lláh, His words that you have read this morning. Just flash it. It comes on the flash in your mind and it becomes like a sharp electric impulse in our bodies. And even the man who is looking at you is not a Baháʼí, he could notice a difference in you. There's something happens. You just are a different person. You've just been in communing with Him in that instant without interfering with your work. And so you see, in this way the food is being digested, now. That what we have read, they'll penetrate into our hearts, and then you become hungry when you get home to read more of the words of God.

[00:57:48]When we started this, this sort of discussions and talks in some European countries, especially in Ireland, that I lived there - and the Irish people are very, very spiritual people, very spiritual people - they took it to heart. And one of them asked the question, very genuine question. He said, "Look, in the mornings, I have been in such a rush to go to my work. I can't read the writings. And of course you realize this, Bahá’u’lláh says you must read it in the morning and in the evening. If I don't read it in the morning, and then the evening comes, I have as if I've gone out without my breakfast, spiritual breakfast." And I'm afraid Bahá’u’lláh had not said that it doesn't matter if you didn't read in the morning, it doesn't matter. Lump them together and eat it. Read it. One goal, it says in the morning and in the evening. I'm sorry, and there is a reason for it. It is, as I mentioned today, is that these words may penetrate into our hearts. Just like food that you eat. You have to food in the morning, you have to take the food in the evening. So it's very important. When I go to my office and I'm very busy and I have not read the words in the morning and then the morning comes and goes, and then when I go home, I've missed, I've missed reading the writings. And they said what they were going to do because some people said, "We can't do it in the mornings. We can't get up earlier. And we're tired in the morning." You know, some people stay very late nights for some reason, and then in the mornings they can't get up. I've seen many of them like that, especially in summer schools it's like this. [laughter] Always the classes in the morning is absolutely empty. And people to such an extent that I know in some countries they have come to the conclusion that classes in the morning shouldn't start until half past 11. They just can't help it, no matter what they do. People are staying until three in the morning, four in the mornings, having all kinds of fun and talks and late night sessions. And somehow people like late night sessions, as we call them, you know, which is informal, sitting together and talking than the official lectures.

[01:00:19]"So now what are we going to do?" He said. He said, "I'm tired in the mornings. No time." Well, the idea came, "Why not take a book with you to your office? You can't let this day pass without reading the words. So take a book with you, one of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh." And so it became customary for some people to take the Hidden Words with them. And then they find 10 minutes to sit at down some place and read it. You see, this is important to be serious about it and to be a regular. It's no used to read it this week and then next week, saying, "Oh yes, we must read every day. I read last week one passage. I'll read one passage this week." You know, it's just saying, "I've eaten my food last month, and I'm going to have another feed today." You know, Bahá’u’lláh has said every morning and every evening. And he said if you don't read it, if you don't read it, you are not faithful to the covenant of God. I tell you a story. Two months ago we were in Paris. And we were staying with some friends, my wife and family and we are all staying with someone. We had an Irish young lady who we knew she was in Paris also and we invited her to come and stay that night with us so that we could see him- see her. Oh, she said "I would love to come." But she said, "I'm in town now. I can't go home. I have no pajamas to bring with me, have no toothbrush." Oh, these people said, "We'll give it to you. Doesn't matter. Come on in." She said to me, "You know, there's another problem." Now all of this happening, I said, "What is the problem?" She said these people we are staying with, they have no English books. No. She said, "I must read the writings tonight and tomorrow morning. I have no books with me. Have you got an English book that you can give it to me of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh for tonight and tomorrow morning?" So that she could come and stay. You see now how serious it is? this is how they have taken it to their hearts. And now the Faith is growing there with beautiful qualities, people coming into the Faith. Now all of this is really the Cause we are turning to Bahá’u’lláh, obeying Him and His teachings, obedience. If He is the voice of God, then He deserves, He must be obeyed. Obedience.

[01:02:55]So now so much about reciting the words in the morning and in the evening. And you know why we said all this about reciting the words in the morning and the evening? How this came about? You remember? We were talking about the soul. We talked about the spirit of faith being born. This morning we talked about how the spirit of faith is born. How our soul becomes pregnant, becomes fertilized by the influences of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and how it will give birth to the spirit of faith. And then we said, "Now that you have given birth, too, like a mother who has given birth to a child, you'll have to feed it." That's why we talked so much about reading the writings of Bahá’u’lláh. And we also, I want to remind you again there's a great difference between the writings, like Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, and His prayers. Prayers are different things and writings are different things. And we said this morning how opposite of each other they are. You remember that? Now I want to go a little further. It's not only that we should read the writings and then everything will be fine. You have to do other things. Just as I said this morning, you have to. In order to live, you have to do a lot of things together. You have to eat, you have to sleep. You have to cook, you have to shop, you have to wear clothes. You have to do a lot of things to live. And it's the same thing in the Faith. You have to do a lot of things together.

[01:04:35]The other subject that I want to bring up now, that is a subject which may be foreign to many of us. And I'll mention it frankly, it may be foreign to so many of us who come from the Christian background. Reading the writings is not foreign, saying prayers is not foreign, but one of the command, one of the laws of Bahá’u’lláh is the saying of obligatory prayers. Now I want to tell you a little bit about this obligatory player so that you can see what it is. It is not just a prayer. This is something you must remember. It's not just a prayer. You cannot put it on the same level as ordinary prayers that we have. In the original language, there is a special word for it which is different from prayer. But because there is no word in English to translate it into, it has been translated in this form of calling it obligatory prayer to indicate it's an obligation to perform that right. It's a Baháʼí right? It's the ritual. See, the Faith is not without rituals. We have some rituals. But the only thing is this, these rituals are not manmade. These ritual, these rights are given to us by Bahá’u’lláh. The saying of obligatory prayers is a religious right and it is a law of Bahá’u’lláh. And if there is a choice of saying the obligatory prayers, if you have a choice to say the obligatory prayers today or read the writings, the obligatory prayers have precedence. [audio cuts off]

[01:06:24]And it's very beautiful. You see, God has not forbidden, has not withheld from us all the pleasures of the world. You must not think that Bahá’u’lláh has come to stop us having pleasure, all the pleasures of this world. You can enjoy it and it is for you but you have to do it in the right way. Bahá’u’lláh mentions the idea of detachment is not to become a poor man and a mendicant or live an ascetic life. You can, He said, have all the good things of this world. He said, in fact all the good things of this world in one of His tablets He mentions all the good things of this world is created for the loved ones of God. It's all created for you. But He says do not become attached to them. Do not make them to rule you, to rule over you but you can have them. He says if you can eat vessels of gold, eat vessels of gold but don't become attached to them. Don't let them become your master. So you see the idea of detachment is so different from what people think. When you say detach yourself from the things of this world, some people think now this means you have to become careless. You have to give up the world. This is against the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. He has never told us to desert the world. He says, in fact, He says engage yourself in all the work and the professions. And He says your work is service. Your work is worship of God when you are working. So you see that how much the view of detachment is different from what we understand it. Now that I'm talking about detachment, let me make a little bit, go a little bit further about this because this is subject which we often talk about. We often talk about this in the writings you hear more on all the time, telling us that you have to be detached from the things of this world. To be detached does not mean, as I said, to become careless, to give up the world and become poor. In fact, sometimes poor people are much more attached to the world than rich people, you know. Sometimes poor people are much more attached than the rich.

[01:08:46]There is a story in Persian of a king and a dervish. Maybe you've heard that story. It's a Persian story. And the king and a dervish, the dervishes are supposed to be, they're supposed to be renounce, renounce the world and they are detached. And in fact they have nothing. And they have, really, that's one thing. They have nothing. They go around and they have got a little basket. They carry this basket around with them so that as they go around, people will just put a little bit of food in these baskets for them. And they sleep anywhere that they come across. You see how much this is against the teachings of the Faith? Although they think this is detachment, this is very much against the teachings of the faith to do this. Anyhow, it was supposed to be, this man was supposed to be so detached from the things of this world that the king became very fund of this idea. And he invited him to, invited this dervish to his palace on. And then they stayed together for some time there, and he taught them a lot of lessons about the attachment. And the king became very, very much of a convert to this idea, and he said, "Well, I'll become like you." And so King disguised himself in the garb of a dervish, left the palace and they, both of them began, left the palace and went on wandering. You know, just this is what they do. They wander around. And after a mile that they've gone, suddenly, they dervish in horror, he found out that he has left behind his basket in the Palace of the King. And he said, "Oh, this is terrible. We have to go back and get that basket. I can't go without it." The king said to him, "Look, I have left behind my palaces and you were attached to your little miserable basket." You see? Which is true!

[01:10:58]Now, you see, really, it has not, detachment has nothing to do with riches or with poverty, although Bahá’u’lláh says. And so in other religions that if you are a very, if you have got, if you're a rich man, it's difficult to be detached. But if you become detached when you are in a position of wealth and other things, then your station is very high, very high indeed. But really detachment. I mean I think I was mentioned again some time ago to the friends here one evening we were together and I mentioned the meaning of detachment as far as I understand it. I'll repeat it for you here. You know, every person, all of us, by nature we are very possessive people. By nature, man is possessive. We want to possess things. We want to own things. We want to own our own things and as you go around, you go and always add things to your collections. We are collectors. You have a house. You have a business. You have money. You want to add to it. You go out, you find something beautiful, a beautiful painting. You add to it. This is your collections. You bring it home. And we gather these things all around us. This is true, really and truly. I suppose if somebody looks down upon us from the spiritual worlds of God who have passed from the state of attachment, they will be amazed how we are gather things around us, you know. It's like these little creatures who store their food, you know, and they are protecting it with their lives. We are really very queer people. This is the way man is. This is the way God has created us. What can you do? This is the animal in us.

[01:12:48]We are possessive and we are the master in this. You know, the master always stands in the middle, and all our things revolve around us. We are the most important thing. And everything revolves around it. Everything beautiful you buy, you add to your collections. Until one day, you come across the faith and you say, "This is a very beautiful thing. This is the most beautiful thing I've got." And then you add it to your collection. Yes, you are in the middle and all the things revolve around you, your house, your business, your family, your possessions, and your faith. You see, you have an hour for your hobbies. You have an hour for your family. You have so many hours for your work and you have an hour for the faith. But such a man is attached to the things of this world. He is not detached, you see. He's not detached. He is attached because he pays the same attention to his house or much more maybe than to his faith. But if you put the faith in the middle of your life as a pivot, as an axis of our life, and then we and our possessions revolve around it, then you are detached. You still can keep your possessions, but the faith is first in your life. This is really a practical way of knowing what is attachment and what is detachment. And so that when the challenge come to us and all the challenges come to the Baháʼís, to arise and serve the faith. When the challenge come to us, then we know what to give, how much of our possessions to give, how much of our time to give. And you will give all your time if necessary, because the faith is first in your life. And if I want to move my home and go to some other [?], I'll find out whether the faith is going to benefit from it or whether the faith is going to be harmed that, and then I'll do according to what the faith meets. This is really a criterion for finding out whether one is attached or one is not attached to the things of this world.

[01:15:01]And I will mention one form of attachment, which is the most formidable and the most harmful and the most difficult maybe. It is not attachment to things. It is attachment to our own self, the ego, attachment to our own self. This is the most dangerous form, and it will take probably a lifetime to get rid of it, a lifetime. It needs spiritual battles that we have to fight always within us to subdue the self. Self is the greatest enemy we have, and I don't want you to mix up the self of man with the soul. The self is what is the animal self. It's that it's the force within us which drives us towards animal nature. That is the self. And we have to always be in a position to have a reign on that dangerous animal. And whenever it raises its head, just put him back in his place. This is where we have to be always in control. I'll give you an example of what I mean by this our own self. I'll give you an example of this and I will give you an example of one of those - you know, the local spiritual assemblies are places where we are all tested when we go into it. And when we sit there, we'll be tested. That's a very, that's a marvelous testing arena for Baháʼís. We are tested all the time, perhaps, and we are not aware of it. Now I'll give an example of what self means. You know, an attachment to self means we become attached to our opinions. I love my opinion. It's my views. It is my views. It's very important, you know. And I give my views and if it is not accepted, I'll be upset. And if it is accepted, I'll be delighted and I will go around and say, "This was my idea! My idea." You know? I was mentioning yesterday the word I and my is really a very ugly thing in the faith, in life. "This is my idea."

[01:17:41]But really a person who is selfless is a person who gives his ideas and he forges about it, really forgets about it. Not to just say outwardly forget about it, but really. And so that if your idea was put forward and if they said "What a marvelous idea it is! We're going to write to the House of Justice and say this person's ideas have been so marvelous." Then I don't feel all great now. I'm elated and I'm exalted. This is my idea. Now, as soon as you think in your heart that way, be sure we're attached to our own self. This is the attachment to our own self, one example of it. Or if they came back and said this was a terrible idea. This man's ideas is horrible. Every time he comes, he gives us terrible ideas. Okay, one should not be affected by it. You just have given your ideas, you forget about it because in this faith - now nobody is telling us that we should suppress our views. I'm not saying that. In a local assembly, we have to give our views frankly. And if you found that your friends did not understand you, you have to give them another explanation of it and explain to them. But once you give it in, once you give your ideas, it's no longer yours. You have to forget it. This is selflessness. Now, this was just an example of what self is. This "I" is the self. And in this, faith Baha'u'llah in this day and age has removed from us, from our midst, anything which would compel people or make people to become, to have a position so that they will become - will go around and throw their weight around as they say. There is no such a thing in the Faith. This is one of the great bounties of God, that Bahá’u’lláh has completely eradicated the idea of personalities. The great station that we have, as I said yesterday, really is that of servitude. A real servant is very great and beautiful. A real servant is the most beautiful thing, the most exalted thing we can do. And a real servant will never want him to be exalted. You know, as soon as you get them exalted, it's not nice, and I think that we have to learn. We have to learn these things as time goes on, from the writings. I mentioned that yesterday. I'm not going to repeat it.

[01:20:19]And here we come to another one of those teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, which, not until we carry it out can we do anything proper. And that is to love one another, to love one another. Now you see, you cannot force yourself to love somebody, can you? And it's no good to do that, either. It's the worst thing. It's a bad thing to do. It's better not to do it if it is artificial. I know we all understand this love must come from the heart, but it is easy to love people you like. It's not easy to love people you don't like. And we must also be practical. In all these communities, there are people who do something to you, which you don't respond positively to. You feel irritated sometimes maybe, I don't know. And that is why we've come to dislike people. I'm talking to you frankly. Now, how can we love that person that you dislike or you don't like so much? And not until we are able to love him can we do anything in this life, in this faith. Nothing. You read the writings all day. You say your prayers every day. You carry out all the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, but if you don't love the friends with all your heart, you don't love each other. Then things will not go forward. We become frustrated. We become unhappy, even though I read the writings every day.

[01:22:00]Now, I must make a note of some of these things that comes to my mind. Now, I will tell you on an incident which happened to me some years ago and that might explain what I'm trying to say. Some years ago, I was walking in a very crowded street in London, very crowded. Thousands of people pass you every minute. And these people don't mean much to you because you don't even take notice of them as if they are not there. And then suddenly I noticed across the road on the other side of the street, there was a man who used to come to our fire sites years before. He was another Baháʼí, that he used to come to our fireside. And as soon as I saw that man, my heart jumped for him. And I said to myself, "Look at this crowd. None of them probably know about Bahá’u’lláh but that man has heard the name of Bahá’u’lláh and this is marvelous. The distinction, I could see the distinction." He has heard the name of Bahá’u’lláh many a times. He is distinguished in my sight from the rest of them who haven't heard it. To hear the name, to hear the name of Bahá’u’lláh is a great privilege, a great distinction. You see now? Now how much more, how much more is the position of a person who says, "I am Baháʼí"? Can you see the station of this person? Forget about his doings. Forget about all the things he does which run against your grain and upset you. But look at what he has. He is a Baháʼí. Now when I say he's a Baháʼí, what does it mean really? I can only talk about myself, you know, really and truly. And I mean this. I cannot say I am a Baháʼí, except I'm related to him by name. It's just the name. It's just that I'm attached myself to His name. I cannot say I am a Baháʼí, truly. Impossible to say that, but by name I am attached to Him and that is a distinction. Who cares what I do and what my life is? Who is not perfect- who is perfect? We all have our shortcomings, but this person has a trace of Bahá’u’lláh in him. Just the name, and that is a great distinction. You compare him with the rest of mankind. He stands far above it. Now look into his face in that way. Don't look at his problems and shortcomings that you might see because you look into his face and see a trace of Bahá’u’lláh and then you love him. I can assure you you will love him because of Bahá’u’lláh. Because of his attachment by name to him. And then you can embrace him without even knowing what his name is. Then you will never see the wrong things. And as soon as something happened that you disliked, you remember that we are all full of shortcomings.

[01:25:43]This is a very important principle, really, but not- and this is the meaning of humility. This is the meaning of servitude. Meaning of servitude is not to come in and bow before each other but the meaning of servitude is to look into each other's faces and see a trace of Bahá’u’lláh. And then you love that person and you become united with them. And then we have a sin-covering eye. I don't want to see the bad things, you know. You don't want to see the bad things in me. Don't see it that way. And if of course now, if of course somebody does something which harms the faith through his actions, which brings disgrace upon the faith, then it is our function to inform the institutions of the faith and say, "Look here this person is doing something which is very bad." And then it is for the institutions of the faith to help him to overcome his problems. And if he didn't, well, they might even say to him, "You can't remain in the Faith." Okay, that is not for me to do that. But as an individual, we have to have a sin-covering eye and to see in every face a trace of Bahá’u’lláh. There definitely is. And that's what makes every person so beautiful, really. It's that which makes every person so beautiful and so distinguished. You read the writings and see what the station He has destined for a true believer, someone who's attached by name in the sight of God. You remember what Christ said? He said when the man came to Him, His disciples and said to Him, "My father is dead. Can I go and bury him?" He said leave the dead to bury their dead. Means all the people in His sight who had not Faith were dead.

[01:27:37]Now this is not in any way to indicate that we have to look down upon people, far from it. Go out and say, "Oh, you're dead. You're no good." No, far from it. When you become a Baháʼí, you realize all your shortcomings. I will recognize my own shortcomings. As soon as you become a Baháʼí, you can find out you're full of shortcomings. All the shortcomings come to light. Those of you who were here, I was talking about it yesterday, saying that when the lamp lights up, when the light lights, when the light is there, you see when I look into this light, can I see anything bad in him? No. You can see all the light, but I'm sure if you go very close to it, if you switch it off, they are full of dust. But you won't see the dust. This is how we should look into the faces of the friends. See a little bit of Bahá’u’lláh and that will overlook, you can then overlook. You won't see anything else. Really, you won't see anything else. Everybody has good qualities, marvelous qualities. And one of the things that we have to learn to do is to encourage each other, is to encourage the local assemblies who'd encourage the friends. The friends should encourage their friends. Encouragement is very important for our institutions, to encourage the believers. And encouragement must be genuine. Really, if you ever come across a friend, a Baháʼí who is disenchanted or who's not coming to the meetings or has got some problem, be sure that what has happened is that no one has encouraged him. He needs encouragement.

[01:29:20]I'll give you an example. a story of this, and this is a very beautiful story I heard from one of our auxiliary board members in Britain. This woman is a teacher and she teaches difficult children. All of the rebellious type children are brought to her class. You know, children who nobody can manage them. When they come in, they really disturb everything. And she is in charge of these. In these big schools, there's a problem. Often you come across children who no teacher can handle. Well, she tells us how she works with them. She said, "I must find something good in them and then encourage them. That's the only way." He said, "I can harness them." This is a very, very wise thing. This is how the faith has grown also. This is how Shoghi Effendi always and Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encourage something. They saw something in you which was good and that thing, they elaborated on and encouraged it because encouragement must be genuine. You cannot go on falsely encourage somebody and say, "what a wonderful person", "what wonderful things you have done" without meaning it. You have to find something in that person. And she said, "One day this woman sold us-" She said, "One day a little boy brought, was brought into my class, who was the most difficult child. And he was disturbing so much that the whole class was disturbed the whole day." And she said, "I looked at him. I tried to find out what good quality I can find in him, and I couldn't." There was no good quality that she could find to praise him or to help him, to encourage him.

[01:31:11]I remember I said to him, "Well, couldn't you do something? Well, send him out of this school's, out of the room for a while if he's disturbing everybody."

[01:31:19]"No," she said, "if I do that, my relationship is ruined. It's no use. I cannot do that. I must find something." And she said when we were sitting after a while, "I noticed that you know, all the children in school, most of them when they sit, they stoop over their desk, you know. They just sit down like this. They stoop and they are bending more or less." But she said, "I saw that this fellow Billy is sitting straight." Now that was good enough to start. So she said, she announced the whole class. She said, "I want all of you to look at Billy. You see how marvelous he is? How straight he sits. Now I want you all to sit like Billy." Now, Billy had never had anybody praising him. And now his eyes opened and he began to look around. He saw he became the center of attraction. Everybody looked in. Everybody sat straight. Now Billy becomes excited. He sits there and he's no longer going to be difficult. And all the children every session when they come in, the teacher reminds them, "Now, don't forget, you all have to sit like Billy." And what Billy does, he is so excited about it because everything he has been doing, he has been, everybody has been attacking him more or less of all the wrong things he's doing. Now he's going to do something else which is going to be good so that the teacher might encourage him again.

[01:32:53]You see this is a marvelous lesson. This is what our institutions really are doing, and will be doing, and should be doing really, and ourselves. And I think that encouragement, I'm sure some of the believers who are discouraged and who are not, who are left alone, you find them, anybody like that. If you find what good qualities they have and try to encourage that good quality and say to them that you can serve the faith in that way through this particular ability that you have that nobody else has, we will become excited and they'll come close to us. Now, as I mentioned, this question of loving each other and not trying to judge one another is very important because Shoghi Effendi in one of his writings, he mentions this. He mentions that the function of the individual in relation to another individual is to love each other and to be compassionate and to be loving but not to judge. Whereas he says the function of the institutions of the faith, the function of the local assemblies and the National Assembly is to apply justice. And when you apply justice, you cannot become compassionate. And Shoghi Effendi says at the present time it's the reverse. The individual Baháʼís, when they come together, they judge each other and they act towards each other as if one is a local assembly, judging the other person and criticize. And the local assemblies, when it comes to, and all the National Assemblies, when they come to apply justice, they become compassionate.

[01:34:36]Every Baháʼí has marvelous qualities and we have to look into their faces and see those qualities of Bahá’u’lláh. I'll tell you another story just to give you this. You know that sometimes there are difficulties in Baháʼí communities and it was a community in Europe, a Baháʼí community which had great personal problems, personality problems, personality problems. You can never solve personality problems by expedient measures. You cannot solve them by expedient measures and the only way you can really do it is to shower everyone with love. And anyhow, in my function. I was asked to go and see if I can help them. Well, there was a big file which, if I show you the size of it, it was the biggest disk about this community, of all the problems they had with each other. Some of them even wouldn't talk to each other. If they saw each other in the streets, they would avoid each other. It was a terrible situation and they said that it was obvious from reading these files. I decided not to read them and at the end, it's no good to read them. But I knew there was one man who they said he was the culprit. He was the responsible man. He really was the man who has created all this terrible entanglement of problems for years. And people have gone their National Assembly's members, all kinds of people, both members have gone there to try to solve it, and it became always worse to such an extent that these people had a great prejudices against the institutions of the faith. It became very difficult.

[01:36:44]Well, I went along and I met with these people. Not that man who was all the cause of the difficulties but I met with all the others and I found that they were beautiful Baháʼís. Brilliant, really. They were just beautiful Baháʼís. You couldn't see anything bad in them at all. Marvelous! And we talked about it individually with everybody. And then I was afraid to go and see that man. I had to go and see him anyhow. That was the problem. And I reached almost to the door of this house. Before I ring the bell, it suddenly came to me very clearly that I am going there with the wrong feelings, you know, because I've read some of these files. It's no good. And I knew that this man must have marvelous qualities. Now this story of disagreement, the story of this community is such that for years and years and years, this has been going on and it could not be resolved. And this man was obviously the source of all the problems. I have no doubt about it. This was in this file. You could see that, but I decided immediately before I rang the bell to really purify my motive. I couldn't go like this. That he has some good qualities, of course, he has. He must have. He's a Baháʼí. After all, he is a Baháʼí. That's great. That's good enough. So with that feeling, I rang the bell. Now I can tell you that he and his wife were sitting there waiting for two or three days, trembling with fear. They're going to see the angel of death. Is that what you call it? [laughter] When it comes. They were frightened of what's going to happen now, you know.

[01:38:46]Well, when I looked at this face of this woman, I just looked at, just as I'm looking at your faces, and this woman, almost melted. And she went running to her husband. I could hear whispering saying to her that he's not that bad, you know. [laughter] He's not that bad at all, but we were thinking about it. Anyhow this man came and we sat down and we embraced each other and we sat down. And I thought, "What a wonderful thing it is to meet another Baháʼí." You know? And we talked about our experiences in the faith, of his services, what he has been. And we talked and talked about all the stories that became so heated up with excitement. And he went and he brought up, showed me all the years and years of service this man had, of all the photographs of the friends in the old countries, in other countries that he has been and other things he'd done. A very learned person he was and we talked about the faith. We went into all the teeth, some of the abstruse writings of Bahá’u’lláh. And he said something and I said someithing, and three hours we were discussing these things. We became so much enthused. And then at the end of it, I thought, "Now I better say nothing about his problems." And I said, "Well, now I better go." I decided I'll leave it for some other time. I'll come back again tomorrow and I was going to go. And you know what he did? He grabbed me. He said, "All of this problem in this town is my fault." He said, "Everything is my fault." I haven't said a word. He said, "I want to do something." He said, "I want you to accompany me to go to the houses of the believers." Now these are the people he wouldn't talk to. He wouldn't see them. He wouldn't ever, ever, ever. And he said, "I want to prostrate myself at the feet and beg forgiveness." I hadn't said anything to him. We never entered the subject.

[01:40:56]And you know, we did that. He came along, we went up, we knocked on the doors. And people were startled to see him coming to the door of his house, and he literally, literally he prostrated himself. He'd cried and cried and cried, and the others cried and cried and cried. And then we went to somebody else's house and the same thing happened. And in the evening we gathered all the friends together. After two or three years. and it was a crying meeting. All the time, they were crying. [laughter] And ever since, they felt so united, so happy. And then the faith grew in that town. Local people became Baháʼís. Now, you see, and we never said a word about what this man had done. We have to really, genuinely in our approach to people is to see a trace of Bahá’u’lláh in every soul, in every face. All problems will vanish, I can assure you. This is how the faith works. This is the power that He has released for us. God, He has released this tremendous power, and this power is not for me or for you or for him. This power is for everybody. There is no exclusiveness here. Every one of us can draw from this power. Every one of us can attract Him to ourselves.

[01:42:20]Well, we were talking about something different. You remember? We were saying that to read the writings and to say your obligatory prayers is not sufficient unless we carry out the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, obey His laws, and then to love one another. It's one of the most important teachings. And if you love one another, everything else will work out. And don't force yourself to love, but try to love. Try to see if there is any problem somewhere to approach it in this way that we are all--. We all have to go from this life, you know this. We're not going to be here always. Every one of us will have to go. And that this is not a place to enter into. These here, if we are living here, it's not a place that we should try to judge each other and say, "Oh, this person is so irritating to me." Or, "That person is so difficult." Now here is where we have to turn to the writings and see what are the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, and do it for His love. He says, "Carry out My commandments." I'm paraphrasing the words of Bahá’u’lláh. "Carry out My commandments for the love of My beauty." We do not carry out the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh because it's good for us. This is a very important point to remember. We don't carry out the teachings because, "Oh, if I carry out the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, I am going to be wise. I'm going to be a good man. I'm going to be a very wise, a very knowledgeable man." This is not the real motive again. Although at first when you become a Baháʼí, naturally, you see the teachings and you say it's marvelous to become adorned with all these characteristics and beautiful things that the Faith has. But what when you become a deeper Baháʼí, you realize that you kept obeying the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh for the love of Bahá’u’lláh. This is a marvelous motive because you love Him. Again, remember when you love somebody-- go back to nature. Go back to life when you love somebody, and you really love somebody, and I'm talking of really love 100% love. And you really love somebody, you will not question what your beloved wants. You just do it because you love that person, you see. This is the real motive, the real relationship. Although when you carry out the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh for the love of Him, yes, all those things will be yours. You will become knowledgeable, you'll become wise, you will become deep. You'll acquire all those qualities, but you acquire it not because you wanted it at first for yourself, for the satisfaction of yourself. But you've done it because you love Him just as much as you. When your beloved asked you something in your life whom you love very much, when he asks for something or she asked for something, you do it because of him or because of her. This is a good motive. This is a real love.

[01:45:47]Today Shoghi Effendi has told us, Bahá’u’lláh has told us, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has told us that not until we live the life in accordance with the teachings can our work of teaching become successful. This is another thing which is very important to bear in mind. Some of you have remembered that celebrated passage from Shoghi Effendi, which I haven't got it with me to read it for you. But I'm sure many of you who are familiar with it, this is a celebrated passage when he says not by the force of numbers. Not by the force of numbers, not by a mere disposition of teachings, and not by an organized campaign of teaching can you influence the people who are not Baháʼís and bring them into the faith. I'm paraphrasing his ideas. He says one thing and one thing alone. "One thing and one thing alone", see how much emphasis he puts on it? And there is no other alternative. One thing and one thing alone, he says, which will bring people to the Faith is that each one of us act as mirrors. Mirrors, and we are always acting as mirrors. You know that. Every human being is a mirror of what is inside him. But he says we should act as mirrors, which will project and reflect the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh in its purity, in its pure form. He says then it'll influence others. There are many stories. I'm sure you have heard many, many stories of such beautiful Baháʼís who had lived this life in this way. And as they walk in the streets, they have been center to which people turn to. Remember, Martha Root was one such person. I mean, she wherever she went, people were attracted to her. I mean, this is part of our history and this is not something that she was a very special human being. She was a human being. And that, but she had an absolute connection with Bahá’u’lláh. She was connected fully to Him. This is what happened. And therefore she became a perfect mirror. What was in her heart reflected out in her face. And people saw that radiance and they were attracted to her. This is the way. And this is what Shoghi Effendi tells us.

[01:48:09]This is why I said that the world, the forces are all over the world preparing us. We can bring great numbers into the Faith if we do these things. And I'm sure that your community has been really in the forefront of teaching activities, we have to learn from you. Forgive me for saying these things. Your community has been so successful in teaching. At one stage I remember they would say that 1% of the people of this country are Baháʼís. And wherever we talk about Alaska, it rings such a marvelous community. And now I can say it is. It really is very beautiful community. You cannot see yourselves right because you're sitting there. But I can see this. It's marvelous. And this is not because of us. This is because of Bahá’u’lláh. He has given us all this marvelous powers. Now - oh, time is coming. Mr. Chairman, time to have a little break. When is your break? Now? I want to tell you now, having said all of this so far, we have talked about growing our faith. Our faith grows. We want our faith to grow. And we talked about it yesterday in great details of the things we have to do. Know that I said this, but what Bahá’u’lláh has said reading the writings and saying the obligated prayers. And now we said about living the life. Living the life. But there is one thing that if we don't do it really, really. And really this is real serious. If you don't do it, all these things will not be of any use. Even living the life would not bring up the results. And I will explain to you what it is next session. [laughter]

[break]

[01:49:59]So take a look at nature. You see that in life, if there is a man or a person who, say, eats a lot of food regularly but he does not move, can you imagine a person like that? Never, never? No, never moves. He's sleeping all the time, eating and sleeping or staying up. What will happen to this person? This is not going to be a healthy life. He is not going to be able to live. And even if he lives, he'll be a sick man. The right way of living is to eat your food and then exercise your muscles and move around and work hard. And the harder you work, the more you are healthier. The healthier you are, you see? Now this is a basic principle of life, and exactly the same principle applies in the Faith. There may be people who say, "Well, I will read the writings." When in fact he may be a scholar, he may become a scholar of the faith. He reads everything. And he may be talking an awful lot as well, but he doesn't serve the faith, doesn't do anything. That person is going to be unhealthy, going to be frustrated. The real way of life is to read the writings, to say your prayers, obligatory prayers, to live the life, to do all these things we have to do, but just as important serve the Cause of God. And the greatest service today to the Cause of God is teaching. So you see now how there is a balance here? The balance comes into it. We are not going to be the people who are going to read and read and become carried away into the words of God or something like that, but we are going to do these things together. We're going to do this so that we can serve the faith, although there are many things we can do to serve the faith. But I mentioned the greatest of all things in service to the faith is teaching. And I'll explain this to you later on why this is that the greatest of all things is teaching.

[01:52:36]Now, serving the Cause has been described to us from age to age, from time to time by Bahá’u’lláh, by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, by Shoghi Effendi and today by the House of Justice because every period of the faith, the time of the Báb, for instance, was a period of itself. The greatest of the work of the Babis then was to teach the Faith. That was stood in forefront of all other activities. But there were other things they had to do as well as teaching which was specific to that particular age. For instance, if you were a Babi at the time of the Báb, you have to teach the faith but you also have to learn how to ride a horse, really, and to hold your sword, for instance. This was how it was done. It was a special requirement of that age. Then, when Bahá’u’lláh came, again teaching was in the forefront of all the activities, but then Bahá’u’lláh said now is the time never to use your sword but to give your life. And that was a period of great stories of great heroism and martyrdoms during that period of Bahá’u’lláh, and steadfastness. And then ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's period, you could say again teaching was in the forefront, but he said now is the time to remain steadfast in the Covenant. There was a time that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá so much the Cause was attacked, you know, at that time during the Ministry of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá by the enemies from within. These are the Covenant breakers. They attacked the faith with such fierceness that if it wasn't for the fact that as I was mentioning yesterday, the Cause of God, the machinery, the Covenant was so strong, and with the help of some heroes of the Faith, a few who rallied around ‘Abdu’l-Bahá like lions and protected the Faith, today the Faith would have been broken up. But it was because the machinery of the Covenant was so strong they couldn't do it. But during the period of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the emphasis was on the steadfastness in the Covenant. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used to send teachers all over the world to help the friends to remain steadfast in the Covenant. You may not have the time to deal with this subject of the Covenant. Of course, you can't deal with everything, but now that was a special period again. But again, teaching stood in forefront. Now, since then Shoghi Effendi's ministry and today, the beginning of the formative age, again teaching the Cause is in the forefront, but the specific task of today is the building of the institutions of the Faith. Now you cannot live in this age and do the things which belong to the other ages. You can't say, "Well, I'm a Baháʼí, but I'm going to now learn how to ride a horse and hold the sword in my hand as the early believers used to do." This would be out of place, but you cannot also, if you are going to be a really devotedly followed the teachings, we cannot stay away from building the institutions of the Faith. This is our task, but teaching and building the institutions of the Faith are the two major tasks that the Baháʼís of this particular period are faced with.

[01:56:17]Now I want to talk a little bit about teaching, which is really Bahá’u’lláh says the most meritorious of all things in the sight of God. It is not just one of the most meritorious. He says it's the most meritorious of all things in the sight of God. Now why is it? And first of all, I want to mention that there is a great, in my view, there is a great misunderstanding in the Baháʼí communities about the purpose of teaching. Often people think that we teach the faith so that they increase, we may increase our numbers. This is not the main purpose of teaching. This is not the primary purpose of teaching, although other religions do that probably for this reason. But we must not be under this impression that the main purpose of teaching, I'm saying the main purpose of teaching is not to increase our numbers. This is a secondary purpose. This will come as a result. The result of teaching is that our numbers will increase, but there is a far, far greater reason for teaching the Faith. Teaching is an act of devotion to God. It's an act of devotion. Now I will explain this to you in this way. Again, we go to nature and look at nature to see what teaching is in nature. In nature, you will find always any object which depends upon a greater, upon its life-giver. Any object which depends upon its life-giver. You know, there is a life giver. For instance, this earth is a life giver. This earth is the mother earth, isn't it? It is this earth which has created everything. Everything which you see on this Earth has come about from this earth, this earth. So it's like the mother earth. We all are dependent upon this earth for our livelihood, for our existence. So we are dependent upon it. Now what happens is this. Whenever such a thing exists that this is the source of your life, the source of your existence, then all things will be drawn to it. Everything will be attracted to it. Every object as you can see, is attracted to this earth. Do you notice that? Every object which comes within its gravitational pull is attracted to this earth. This is a love relationship. There is a love between the creator and all the other things. This earth is like the creator. It's the creator of all. It's the source of life. And so every object which comes within its gravitational pull is attracted to it. Just with the force of attraction, which is love. See? This is the law of nature.

[01:59:14]And therefore, the home of every object is to come down and to rest on this earth. When it rests on this earth, then you can say it has reached its destiny. It has reached its home. For instance, you see this pen in my hand. It's real place, the real place for this pen is to come down to be attracted by this love relationship, to be attracted and eventually rests on this earth. When it reaches on this earth, the lover and the beloved have reached to each other. You see, the lover and the beloved have reached each other, and this is a stage of fulfillment, a stage of pleasure, pleasure for both. The word pleasure really is in here, you can use it. It's a stage of fulfillment. Now, this is a physical thing we are talking about. But as long as my hand is in here, you see my hand here? This hand becomes a barrier for this pen to come down and reach its beloved and rests on this earth. Although the force of attraction still exists, there is a force of attraction already even at this time with my hand in the way. The Earth is still want to draw this to itself, but my hand is preventing it. And this pen, still now is in a state of deprivation because its home is not here. Its home is to come down and be joined with its beloved. Is that clear, [?]? This is a principle of life. Exactly the same thing applies between God and man. Exactly. God is the creator of all. And again, as I was mentioning yesterday, we are not talking of the essence of God. Let us not talk of the essence of God because we said yesterday clearly there is no relationship between the essence of God and man. It cannot be with anything. There's no relationship whatsoever, but this is God revealed to man. There is a love relationship between the two. God loves to draw a soul to itself. Just as much as this Earth loves to draw this pen into itself, but men have many barriers in between, many barriers. We all have barriers, barriers of veils and barriers. Barriers of, for instance, prejudice is a barrier. It prevents people from recognizing and coming down and becoming united and becoming attracted to the Lord, to their God. Tradition is another barrier. People are born in a tradition and die in the same tradition. It's like being born in a prison. I never see outside the prison, and then you die in the same prison. This is what most people are like today, tradition. Maybe in this country you don't have so much attachment to tradition, but there are countries in the world that tradition plays a tremendous role. You don't do anything except what is tradition. There are other barriers. Pride is a barrier. Many barriers, pride. You become proud of yourself and your accomplishments and your knowledge and your accomplishments, this is a barrier. Knowledge could become a barrier, again because it gives birth to pride.

[02:03:02]So you see all people in the world, their soul, there is a force of attraction between them and God. Always God wants to draw them. And that force of attraction is there, but these barriers prevent them from coming and becoming united with their God. Now, the act of teaching, which only a Baháʼí can do, is to remove these barriers one by one. And when the barriers are removed, what happens? All the barriers are removed, the soul is attracted to God. And he says, "I believe." That moment when he says "I believe" as we were talking about it yesterday, you know, the spirit of faith being born is when the lover and the beloved reach each other. And this is the state of pleasure, pleasure, pleasure for God and pleasure for the soul because man and God are the opposite things. And in this life when two opposites are reaching each other, this is a state of pleasure. Just like the North Pole and the South pole of a magnet. They're attracted. So you see what teaching is? When you teach the Faith, you bring pleasure to God. It's the most meritorious of all things. It's an act of devotion to God because you bring the soul to its God. This is the purpose of teaching. This is the main purpose of teaching. Well, of course, as a result of it, our numbers will increase. That is secondary. Then we can build the institutions of the faith, we can. But therefore, teaching friends is a very, it's a spiritual act. It is not just something I'm going to teach the Faith because the NSA tells me to do it or because the counselors tell me to do it because the House of Justice tells me to do it. But teaching is an essential part of the life of a Baháʼí, and it is something that we all have to be engaged in. There is no question of anybody becoming... If anybody does not teach the Faith, well you'll have to think about yourself. It's like a person who eats the food. He reads the writings, he may know a lot about the faith, he says his prayers, but he is not serving the faith. You remember I was telling you about this man who eats his food and he doesn't do anything? What happens to him? This will happen. We will not be excited, will not be able to do anything in life. Teaching is not something that anybody can say, "I'm too busy for it really." Except in certain exceptional cases. Very, very rarely you come across exceptional cases.

[02:05:57]There are, of course, places now that people are prevented from teaching. For instance, if you are living in the Holy Land, you don't teach the faith. But in this day and all over the world, really, teaching is the most important aspect of our life. If we look upon the writings, we find that Bahá’u’lláh has enjoined in all to teach. I will tell you, our daily life often prevents us from really getting engaged in teaching the Cause because we are so busy in our life, so busy we have to do so many things. Even we have to do so many things for the Faith that we have not time to teach the Faith. And I think this is a very wrong way of approaching it. In fact, I remember some years ago one of the National Assemblies told us in Europe that we had appointed one of the believers who was a marvelous teacher to become a board member, auxiliary board member. We appointed him as an auxiliary board member. And after a few months the National Assembly wrote to us and said, "What have you done? You have made him an auxiliary board member. He was one of our best teachers, and now he doesn't teach the faith." Can you imagine? This is very wrong. In fact, one of the first things we say to our auxiliary board members all over now, at least I always advise them, "If you want to do anything you must be teaching the faith yourself. It's no excuse, because I'm a very busy man that I must not teach the faith. Teaching the faith is for everybody." We found in our home that we're very busy and myself and my wife, but we have to teach the faith no matter how busy you are. You have to have to teach the Faith. It cannot have an exception. There's no exception. This is the most important function of a Baháʼí, and teaching is a personal thing. Unfortunately, things are done in the Western world very impersonally, and we have got used to the idea of teaching in an impersonal way which will never be right. You have to teach on a personal level.

[02:08:36]We do most things in life in personally. Have you noticed that? I don't know what life is like here. I'm not familiar with America, but I know in Europe if you want to do anything, you won't put your name down for it. You give a box number in the newspapers so that nobody will recognize you. You know, it's impersonal. You don't say, anything you want to do we put a notice in the newspapers. You want to sell something? You want to buy something? You want to see somebody? You put a box number. Even when you want to fight with somebody, you don't fight him directly. You employ a solicitor, a lawyer to fight for you. You see, everything is done impersonally. But teaching has to be done personally. You have to come in contact with the soul. You have to love him. You have to Then look into his eyes on love him with your heart until such time that you think he's now-- and then learn a lot about him to see what he believes in. Then comes a time that you can say a little bit about the faith. Now I want to also say something to you about teaching methods because I feel again this is one of our problem. But this idea of teaching... Now let me first say this idea of Teaching, every Baháʼí teaches. It's something that is so vital like every day, we must eat. It's just as important as that. The same way that we said every day we read the writings, every day we must engage somehow in teaching. And it's a daily thing. Shoghi Effendi mentions that. It's a daily thing. It's not once a month going from one town to another. It is something daily.

[02:10:26]I remember, another important thing that I want to mention here before I give you some examples of this is that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá mentions this that if we do not teach the faith, divine assistance will be cut off from us. You know, I'm sure you've heard this. Now you realize that God is very loving to all creation. And yesterday we talked about forgiveness, you remember that? We talked about forgiveness and how God's forgiveness, what things it can do with it. And I'm sure that God forgives all the things that people do but there are certain things which to a Baháʼí, He cannot do. You see, God's assistance reaches the whole of this creation. If ever for one moment the assistance of God is cut off from people, they are not able to exist. The assistance of God reaches all creation and God does not withhold His assistance from any human being, as long as they live. It's assisting them in whatever they do. If you go the right way, He assists you. If you go the wrong way, He'll assist you. Even the enemies of the Faith are being assisted because God does not interfere in our actions. We have the free will. He shows us the way, yes. He sent His messengers. He shows us the way. He throws light upon our path and he says, "This is the right way to come." But it is up to you to choose it. And if you go this way, He'll help you. If you go the opposite way, He also will help you. It's like the engine in a car. The engine does not decide which way to go, but it will give you the power whichever one you decide to go. This is how God acts with us. This is how He, now He acts in this way. His assistance reaches all humanity, but it will not reach a Baháʼí, now imagine this, who does not teach the faith. And this is when the Baháʼí becomes frustrated in his life. I've become frustrated in my life. I've become unhappy. Since I've become a Baháʼí, I've become unhappy. Since I've become a Baháʼí, I've become have all kinds of problems. It's the divine assistance which must come to us. And I can assure you that most of the problems that we have in our daily life or in our any anything we do, can be and will be resolved if we become so much throw ourselves into the field of teaching every day. Then things will happen to us. Great things, great things will happen. One will change.

[02:13:23]Now I'm not saying that one should say, "Oh, I have a lot of problems in my life so I better go and do a little bit of teaching so that my problems may be solved." But I can assure you that many of our problems will be so removed from the scene because you will be elevated into a different world and these problems will sort themselves out. It will completely go into the background. Now teaching, which is personal thing-- I was talking about somebody in one of these gatherings some years ago, and a woman came to me and she said, "Look."

She said, "I have become worried since you have been saying these things that we must teach the faith every day and if you don't teach the faith, God's assistance will be stopped from us."

I said, "I didn't say that. It's ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who says this."

"Oh yes." She said, "I'm worried still. I'm still in any case, I'm worried about it." And she said, "I am a very, very reserved person. I can't go out and talk to the people about the Faith. I feel very embarrassed. I cannot teach personally." And now she said, "What shall I do? I am worried." She said. She kept on saying that.

[02:14:41]I said to her, "Did you say you're worried?" She said yes. I said, "That's very good. Keep on worrying. That's your solution to your problems. Brilliant. Keep on worrying. This is a very good solution. If ever we are brought to the point of worrying about something, you are going to do something about it. Do you know that? when you find in your daily life, it's the same thing. If you lose your job or if your family has some problem and you begin to worry, then you're going to put one foot in front of the other and something will happen.

Well, this lady went away. And she came back again. She said, "I can't risk it. We'll have to do something." She said. She said, "I'm very reserved. I can't talk about the Faith to anyone."

So eventually, after talking about it, mentioned to her that, "Look. You can go, and even though that you say you are very shy or reserved or whatever it is, go out every day."

[02:15:41]And she said, "That's a good idea." She said, "I will give one hour a day for Bahá’u’lláh." This is a marvelous example. I think we should remember that. Why not give one hour a day to Bahá’u’lláh for teaching. Two hours a day, maybe. But the minimum. And she said, "I'll spent some time shopping. I'll spend some time at home. Why not give one hour a day to Bahá’u’lláh for teaching on discipline yourself?" And she said, "I will go out." And she went out. She said, "I'll go to a café." And I sit there and she said she went to a café for two or three months regularly. And the next time I saw her, she told me this. She said, "It doesn't work." [laughter] She said, "I went there for three months every day. I sat there and many people came in the café and sat in front of me on the same table, shared the table." And she said, "I could never bring myself to tell them anything about the Faith." And she said, "It doesn't work. I've given it up." She said.

[02:16:44]Now you see what happened in here, really, and this is another lesson we learned, a very marvelous lesson. You know, God, Bahá’u’lláh says that once you say you're a Baháʼí and once you enter the faith, He will test you. And always we are being tested. All the time, remember that. As Baháʼís, we are always tested. Now it's not something that Bahá’u’lláh has invented and say, "I'm going to test the Baháʼís." [laughter] In fact, testing thing is nothing new. This is a law of creation. This is a law of creation. Bahá’u’lláh mentions in His writings. God will test everything. He says, "I will split a hair into a thousand pieces." These are almost the words of Bahá’u’lláh. "And each piece, I will test." Now test actually is a law of nature. You go to nature and you find tests. I'll give you an example of this. As long as you're sitting, nothing happens to you. But the minute you move, the air will resist you. If you go on a bicycle, have you noticed when you are going on a bicycle, do you see how the air will resist you? This is nature. This is test. You are being tested. And the faster you go, the greater are the tests, the greater is the resistance. You see these aircrafts which are built up, which go twice the speed of sound? They go so fast that the air will resist it so much that the metal gets red hot and they have to have a cooling machine inside to cool it off all the time because it goes very fast. Nature will test it all the time. When Bahá’u’lláh says, "I'll split a hair into a thousand pieces and test it." This is true because if you look at the atoms, they're all the time under test. Each atom inside it goes through this cycle.

[02:18:45]Test is part of life. Every one of us are tested every day without knowing it, maybe, when you become Baháʼí especially. When you sit in a Local Spiritual Assembly, we are tested all the time. It all depends how you look at your friend across the table. Just look at her like this. That's enough. I'm being tested. [laughter] You know? You think of him in a wrong way, not with love, because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the standard of consultation is love. Now if I look at somebody when he say something and I want to hit hard at her, you know how it is? Hit hard saying such a thing. I'm being tested. Hit hard in my heart [kind of thing?]. You know, I hope we don't get to action, but it's no use also to cover it up and be very nice and smiling. And then you hate in your heart or dislike in your heart. That is what matters, what's in our hearts. You see how we are tested? And so I am tested. And when I am tested, I cannot progress anymore. When you cannot pass the test, but if you pass the test, you know what will happen in our lives when you are a Baháʼí? When you passed the test, then greater field of service you enter into it. You will get to do greater service to the Faith. You will want to do that. And as soon as you enter there, your tests become greater, just like somebody who will go faster. Just like the aircraft which goes faster, your tests becomes greater. And this is why people who have had not the capacity to pass the test if they're in a higher position, higher functions, higher duties, they could easily destroy their souls. It's like a person who is flying in an aircraft. You see, if I'm standing on this platform and if I fall, well, if only I may hurt my knee. But if I'm flying in an aircraft and fall, that's the end. So if I work in a Local Spiritual Assembly or a National Spiritual Assembly and I have all this ambitions in my heart, and I'm not able to do this things right, and I am being always don't pass the test, I might hurt myself a little bit. I might become irritated. I might become because of problems. But it is not fatal.

[02:21:23]And this is why those people who were close to the center of the Faith, those who were close to Bahá’u’lláh, like man who flies in the aircraft, or those who were close to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, those were close to Shoghi Effendi, in the world center. If they had slightest impurities in their lives, if there was any feeling of ambition in their hearts, that little ambition will be magnified and will destroy them. You see? this is the history of our faith. This is why people who were very close to the center of the faith, a little bit of ambition, they will be destroyed. There is no room for ambition in the faith. And especially those who served near the center of the Faith, their criterion must have been servitude, absolute servitude like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He was safe. The Purest Branch was safe. The Greatest Holy Leaf are safe because their standard of life was servitude, utter servitude and self-effacement. But the other family of Bahá’u’lláh, they all had ambitions. They wanted to be leaders. They wanted to be respected. They wanted to be honored. They wanted to be somebody. None of them endured and none of them could last. They all perished, destroyed themselves. They were very close to the center of the faith. But there must have been a lot of other ambitious people in the faith, I mean locally and nationally. Well they hurt each other and hurt themselves, but it is not necessarily going to be fatal. So you see, friends, one of the things to bear in mind is that tests come our way always.

[02:23:04]I remember somebody said, it was a very outspoken, beautiful woman who passed away, a marvelous person who became great. She brought so many people into the faith in England. But she was out spoken and she was-- And she used to say, "You know, when I was not a Baháʼí, I had no problem, used to have no problems with people. I was very happy with everybody. I had no problems, but as soon as I became a Baháʼí, then problems appeared after the other." You know? And this maybe, in one sense, true if you're not able to cope with it, if we are not able to really approach people with a loving attitude and pass the test. God always tests us. Now, this woman that I was talking about who was sitting in a café for three months and people came in front of her and sat there and eventually she couldn't say anything. And she was-- She said, "Although I trusted Bahá’u’lláh and relied on Him, He said, 'Go out and I will assist you.'" She said, "He didn't assist me." Now this is why, how we are tested. God tests us to find out how much faith we have in Him. This is true. When you arise to serve the Faith, you teach and teach and nothing happens. And then you say, "Well, it doesn't work." So what happens really? You're losing your faith in Him. This is how He tests you. And when I pointed this to her, she said, "You are right." She said, "I'm being tested, of course." She said, "It's my fault that this didn't work out. It is not Bahá’u’lláh's fault. It's my fault because I was not dedicated enough. I was not pure enough. I was not taking Bahá’u’lláh with me every day. It's my fault." And she said, "Now that you say I'm going to sit there every day. I'm going to go every day, one hour a day. And I will go, if it is necessary, for years. I will not give it up. And if anything does not happen, it's my fault." And she went and you know she was telling us this story. After two or three weeks, she said, "A woman came along and sat in front of me." She said, "I couldn't say anything, of course, to her, but she looked at my ring and she said, 'What is this strange lines on your ring?'" Oh, she said, "I became so nervous. I couldn't say a word now." She said, "I was absolutely nervous, and I began to stammer. I began to stammer. And the more I became nervous and stammering, this woman became more interested." [laughter] She said, "What is it?" Well, I think, she told her very little and she said, "Look, you better come in here. Somebody will explain this to you."

[02:25:58]And well, I can tell you, this woman is a Baháʼí. And this other lady is no longer a shy, reserved person. She's one of the best teachers. She's going around. You know, it's like a child who has never had a food before. You give him a little taste of it. Once he gets the taste, he likes it then. And then it becomes a habit for him. This is the way teaching is. And I feel the idea of one hour a day or two hours a day or three hours - whatever you like, you choose - is a marvelous idea for giving ourselves to Bahá’u’lláh, for teaching, personal teaching. Now it is very important that we must remember the difference between teaching and proclamation of the faith. And this is something again that I think in most communities that I am familiar with. We are mixing up the two, and as a result of this, we are not. We are harming rather than helping. You see, I feel that many people who hear about the faith. And they don't come to follow it up is because of the unwisdom of the Baháʼí teacher. We say the wrong things at the wrong time. We say too much. We kill him off in the first encounter, really. We kill him off in the first encounter. And this happens I believe a great proportion of people who hear about the faith and do not come in is because of the unwisdom of the friends, of our teachers. And I will explain to you what I mean by this in practical terms. The first thing which happens is that we are so used in doing impersonal teaching that we think, "When I hold a public meeting in a town and I advertise it and people come there to hear about the faith, I think I'm teaching the faith there." I'm not. That is not a platform for teaching. If you begin to teach the faith there, you're going to do some harm.

[02:28:11]Now, I'll going to explain this to you because I'm sure some of you may be surprised to hear this. Of course, when you go behind the radio, television, and the newspapers, you cannot teach the Faith there. You can proclaim, you can give them message of Bahá’u’lláh. It's very different from teaching. To give the message of Bahá’u’lláh, yes, you do that in a public meeting, in a hotel or somewhere. You hold it and you advertise it and people come there because people who come to the public meetings, they have never heard of the faith before. Well we must assume they haven't ever heard of Faith before. You cannot teach a person that you do not know. That's a basic principle, but you can give him the message. That's all you can do in a public meeting is to give him the message of Bahá’u’lláh, what it is, but we must not make an attempt, in my view, to teach them there. It's very different from giving a message and teaching, very different, completely different. To give a message? Yes, there is a public meeting. You are behind that radio, behind this television. There are certain things we must remember to do and certain things not to do when you're giving the message. I'm just talking about proclamation activities, like giving the message of Bahá’u’lláh in a public meeting.

[02:29:30]Remember-- I'll tell you another story, which perhaps will illustrate this. There was a man who for 10 years was telling me did not become a Baháʼí, and I asked him why. What's this? He said, "The first public meeting I went to, somebody was talking about spiritual things. It's spiritual assembly, spiritual this, spiritual that. Several times he used the word spiritual." And he said, "I thought Baháʼís are spiritualists, and I didn't like spiritualists. So any time during these 10 years that people talk to me about the Faith, I said, 'This is not for me.'" You see how one innocent word could get into somebody's mind in the wrong way and deprive him of coming close to the faith? Well, I'm not saying it was bad to said spirituals things, but this man got the wrong end of the stick. People who have never heard of the faith before, never heard of it before, if you give them a talk which is full of new things, it's too much. They are going to hear some things which they do not maybe understand or may do not accept, and you always remember the things that you do not accept. If you put yourself in his place, you go to a meeting somewhere, meet some people. They are going to talk about their ideology. What remains with you are the things that you do not accept. Now say, for instance, now you go out today, hold a meeting, public meeting, invite people there and somebody stands up and talks about the faith innocently, very innocently. Say, for instance, do it this way. Say, you know what the Baháʼí faith is? It's the faith of love. We love everybody. We love each other. Get to that a couple of times. People who have no spiritual background, they're going to say, "Ah, these are the people that we were hearing about. You know, this laxity in their moral standards is such that they say they love each other." Now you see? You have to be very clear of what you're saying. You have to so clearly, you have to be so clear in what you're saying, that it will not give people the wrong impression, the wrong things.

[02:31:51]And therefore, we come to this conclusion. That in such a talk, which is given to the public, giving them the message of Bahá’u’lláh, not teaching them, we must be concise. We must weigh our words. We must not confuse the mind with a lot of names and history, starting from Shias and the Báb, and then the Síyáh-Chál and Tehran, Bahá’u’lláh and Adrianople and Akka and Constantinople, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, and the House of Justice, and the teachings, and the laws. You're killing him. You're finished with him. You're trying to give him the message. You're not teaching him here. We're giving him the message. Now, Shoghi Effendi tells us how we should give the message. He says you should follow the example of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's talks in Europe and America. You read the talks of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Europe and America, do you know what it is like? It's 10 minutes, sometimes less. And if you take out the-- 10-minute stop. And what does it say? Never a controversial subject, never a theological subject which somebody could come and argue with you. If you ever create an arguing, a person who comes and argues with you when you're giving the message, then that's the end of it. We must give the faith in it when you give the message in a public meeting. Should be so simple, so simple and talk about something that people cannot disagree with. So that when the man leaves the hall, he will say, "Well, I agree with this." That's good enough. You have done a good job, Remember, you are not teaching him the Faith. Look at what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said. He talks. I'm saying you should say Baháʼí, you should say the word Bahá’u’lláh, but please don't use the word ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi and all the rest of it. You're confusing the man. Just Bahá’u’lláh lies enough. What is the difference? And then what you can say as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, you know, if he ever wanted to say something about Bahá’u’lláh, and he said, "Bahá’u’lláh has come in Persia. He has brought us these teachings and many people have changed as a result of this. Their hearts have changed. They have become beautiful people. And today I want to talk to you about one of the teachings or two of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh." And that's it. And what He said, it was something that nobody could disagree with. Now this is giving the message. But what we do, we do. We go to teach the Faith. They're in a public meeting, you can't do that. And I feel this is one of the problems we have. One of the major problems we have is this.

[02:34:42]We have to know how to give the message. You go and meet somebody in the streets. You want to tell him about the Faith. You can't teach him there. You have to give him the message in a very nice way, in your own way. Whatever you say has to be simple to ttract him to yourself, to attract him to the Cause. By all means, you can talk about some teachings, whatever it is, but not to go involve yourself in like a football match. You say something and he say something else and you say something and he refutes and you refute, then that's the end of it. Our teaching is different from this proclamation and giving the message. How different it is. Teaching. I'll tell you quickly now, in two or three minutes. You know, teaching, if you want to teach somebody, and this is what Bahá’u’lláh has said. This is what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said. You must know that person. You must come to know him. You must love him and sometimes maybe you have to approach him for months in your spiritual arms. You must embrace him, pray for him, and then when you know and then you begin to know him, and then you know what he believes in. How can you ever teach the faith to somebody without knowing what his beliefs are? Is he a Muslim? Is he a Christian? Is he an atheist? Is he an agnostic? What ideas he has. And then, having known all these things and having loved them and having attracted to him, you can bring him to your home and give him a cup of coffee and there you can sit down. And then, Bahá’u’lláh says, "Give him a little thing. Not too much, just a little." He says, "When you're dealing with a child, you give him milk, not a big meal. If you give him a big steak, he's going to go." You must decide what is then the best thing to give it to him. What's the best thing? It's just like his doctors.

[02:36:32]I know for instance, in our family, my wife is very fond of this homeopathy, and I think it's a very good way of dealing with medicine and medical things. Now, how do they do it is that the doctor will recognize in you what you need to stimulate you, and he gives you a little bit of it. And that little thing which he gives you stimulates you is ready for the next dose tomorrow, in few hours. And it's the same thing with the faith. You must know the person in wisdom and tell him some things. And sometimes you must not tell him some things. And even if he ask you a question, if you tell him something, it will be too much for him. It's going to put him off. You don't have to answer every question. You have to be able to bring him back to square one, which is the origin of the faith. It's the same thing with any profession. If somebody, if you're a carpenter and somebody comes to you and he says, "Look, I don't know anything about carpentry, but I want to make this table with you today." You won't let him to make this table with you today because this fellow doesn't know how to hold a saw in his hand yet. You have to teach him first, prepare him for it for months before you can say, "Now this is the way you make a table." It's the same thing with the faith. If he has a basic question which is far ahead of him, you have to bring him back to the origin and try to begin to teach him. There are many things and this is not a platform, I'm afraid, for explaining how to teach the faith. But in Europe, I hope that I can, I'm hoping that in as we go back now and in some countries in Ireland, we've had some seminars for this of how to teach the faith. And it has been, I think, useful because it's essential to know so many things.

[02:38:09]I'll give you one example of this and then I'll close. One person came to us a woman. She said, "I have a friend and I have met him." She said, "Only a few days ago. I've told him about the faith and I wanted to talk to him." I said, "Well, I can't talk to him unless I know what he believes in. How can I tell him anything?" Oh, she said he just knows about the teachings. He's open-minded person. He's an educated person. Anyhow, he came to our house and we sat down. And it wasn't in our house, it was somebody else. He came and he said, "Well, look, I've heard about your teachings and I like it." And I saw he's a very enlightened man, a businessman, very educated and so on. But he said, "One thing I cannot accept. I want my freedom to drink alcohol if I want to. Nobody's going to tell me I shouldn't. I know when to stop. And I know I'm an adult and this and that." Now what am I going to do with him? If I begin to tell him all the bad things about alcohol, he's going for hours to argue with me. When we are going to enter into argument like a football match again, backwards and forward. He says it, and I will say it and this is no use. But you know, if this man becomes a Baháʼí, this would be no problem for him. He'll give it up, isn't that right? This will be finished. It's no problem now for me to try to explain to him the good points and the bad point. It's very premature. So what I said to him which was surprising, this lady was surprised, I said, "Don't worry about alcohol. It can be resolved. Oh, we can resolve this for you." Now this man thought I'm saying that we can give him a special dispensation. [laughter] But you know it is true. It can be resolved. I said, "Let us talk about other things which are fundamental things." You don't have to answer every question which comes to you, and then you involve yourself ahead of time like this carpenter who involves himself in making a man who doesn't know how to hold a saw in his hand to make a-- . If somebody comes to you and he wants to know about electricity, you can't tell him what electricity is. You tell him go to college for so many years, learn mathematics and physics and then come to me. I'll tell you what electricity is. It's the same thing with the Faith. If somebody jumps ahead of you, you have to bring him back to the origin. These are some of the techniques that we have to have in teaching the Faith. You have to be wise in teaching the Faith.

[02:40:34]Well now friends, I think we are far exceeded our time, huh? And that we will probably come back again this afternoon, maybe. We'll see what will happen. What time it is, Mr. Chairman? 1:30, oh. You have to eat very fast. This is one thing.

[after lunch]

[02:40:52]Oh, I see. There are a lot of questions in here. And well, I'm beginning to feel- I'm beginning to feel a little sad because I think the time is coming soon that we will be departing. I suppose you are all going tomorrow. Some of you probably will be here, but some of you will be gone but it has been a marvelous time. I really have enjoyed every minute of it, I must say, being with the friends. And let us go straight away into the subject we were talking. It was about teaching, if you remember, and I was explaining that one of our problems, I believe, is that in our methods of teaching that we have to learn, we have to learn first of all, the difference between these two aspects of presentation of the faith. One is the giving the message and proclamation, and the other is personally teaching and confirming a soul, which is very different thing altogether. Now, you see what I meant when I said that if you go into a public meeting and you begin to teach the faith, as we often do with our homes and fire sites, then you could in fact say things which could put people off who are not, you do not know them. You do not know their feelings, their ideals, their backgrounds. And that's what we should do is to adapt whatever adapt our talks to their condition by giving them those teachings which are pleasing and which are not controversial. Don't open up controversial subjects or theological subjects when you are giving the message, but just really attract them to the Cause. Attract them to yourself by giving them something of the teachings, which they could leave the room with it and say that was very nice. But when we teaching the faith, well, as I mentioned, we have to do things. We have to warm up the person with the love of God. And another thing which is very important in teaching is put yourself out of it, really. Let us not bring ourselves into it. The minute you bring ourselves into it, then this becomes a barrier. We must always, whenever you teach the faith, you must never go alone. And this is one of the very basic principles. Never go alone to teach. Always bring with you Bahá’u’lláh and this will enable us to then win the hearts.

[02:43:49]But Bahá’u’lláh, it's not always easy to bring Bahá’u’lláh with us. I want to also mention that. He does not come with us unless we let Him. We must let Him to come with us. You might be surprised to hear this. We must let Him to come with us. He cannot come otherwise. You know, you see a generator of electricity, a generator. A generator is pouring its energies in the network, in the wires, pouring it, but not until you connect it up, connect up your light and your instruments to it will it ever enter into it. It will not be able to energize it unless you let it, unless you open the way, unless you switch it on, unless you connected to it. It is not the function of the generator to connect something to itself. If you leave a lamp beside the generator for 100 years, the generator cannot say, "Well, this is really pity. This lamp is sitting beside me. I better connect it to myself." This is not its function. We have to connect it. As soon as you connect it, the energies will come. And it's the same thing with Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’u’lláh cannot come to us unless we open the way for Him. This is a very basic principle. He says, "Love me that I may love thee. Love me that I may love thee. If thou lovest me not, my love can in no ways reach thee. Know this, O servant." This is exact words of Bahá’u’lláh. "Love me that I may love thee. If thou lovest me not, my love can in no ways reach thee." He doesn't say, if you don't love me, I don't love you. He says, "If you don't love me, my love cannot reach you." If you have not switched on the light, He's telling us, the power cannot come through it. It's very simple.

[02:45:54]And so here is where we have to allow Bahá’u’lláh to come with us in all our activities, in all our services. No matter what it is we do, anything that a Baháʼí does, if it wants to bring results and fruits, whether it is typing a letter, whether it is building a house for the faith, whether it is making a cup of tea in the kitchen, not until we are able to attract the power of Bahá’u’lláh to ourselves can it ever be effective. Now, I have no idea how long we can talk together, but I hope sometime we can talk about this drawing from the power of Bahá’u’lláh. But if there is chance we might talk about it, if there's not, you can read the writings. And when you read the writings, the answers are there. And the only thing I would like to mention here is this, that no Baháʼí can be successful in anything he's doing unless and until he has Bahá’u’lláh with him. And as I said, He cannot come to us just like this. We have to prepare the way for Him. One has to read the writings in the morning and in the evening, you know. One has to say the obligatory prayers. One has to read the history of the Faith, history of His revelation. One has to draw closer to Him. And then one has to serve the Faith, very important thing that we talked about it this morning. And one has to live the life so that He can come to us.

[02:47:26]But one thing that I must say here now, and this is important and please don't forget this point. This is a very important point. God, I mentioned the first day, is very forgiving. We must not think, "Oh, I can't do it. I have to do all these things. I have to read the writings. I have to say the prayers. I have to teach the Faith. And if I don't do that, nothing will happen." I think the writings you can read it yourself, you take one little step forward in the right direction in any of these things and God will come to you 1000 yards forward. Once your heart is pure and once your intentions is pure, then that is a beginning. And we must never become feeling frustrated because Bahá’u’lláh looks upon our hearts, not upon your actions. This is another thing you must remember. He mentions Himself, He says, "How many of people who have been fasting, day and night, or days and after days but their fasting is not acceptable unto God because probably there was not a little bit of impurities." And he says, "How many are people who have never fasted and that God accept them as if they have fasted." Everything depends upon our motives and upon our intentions. And once the heart is pure, the distance between you and Bahá’u’lláh then is very short. Once the heart is pure, there is no distance. And someone was saying before we broke up for lunch, and I think I want to clarify this point when we talked about we have to teach the faith every day through and this person thought that you must tell about the faith every day to somebody. No, you might go for a month every day out, and you won't find anybody to teach. But the very fact that your motive is to teach, that is acceptable to God. You go out with the intention of teaching. You go. You make the effort. Maybe for a month you're looking at the person who is your neighbor every month, every day and you pray for him. That is in the steps in the right direction. We must not become rigidly thinking in that way that you must talk about the faith to someone today. If you don't do it, you have failed.

[02:49:49]On the contrary, once we move, once the heart is moved that you want to do something for Bahá’u’lláh and you want to give an hour for him and you go out. And even if it's like that woman went there every day, sat there, said nothing. Now that was marvelous that she did her work. And I think we should do the same thing, that the heart must be the right. The motive must be right. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in one of His talks, has said that if a person has say, for instance, the person is very poor, but his heart and begs God to give him money so that he could build a house of worship. He says, "Oh God, I love to have, build a house of worship. If I had money, I would pay all the costs of building a house of worship for God." ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that this poor man, even if he doesn't get the money to build a house of worship, God will accept from him as if he has built a house of worship because his intentions are pure. This is what God goes by. And then He says, should he ever God give him the money and Build a house of worship, well that's very meritorious. Now imagine he builds it. But there is a possibility, he said, that God will not accept from him as much as in the former case because he might, he might one day say, "I built this." And then that's finished. You bring "I" into it. It will be finished. Really, it is. There is no room for "I" in the faith. Remember this also. The faith does not harbor egotistical personality.

[02:51:33]And this is why the authority is left in the hands of institutions of the Faith. The elected institutions of the faith have the authority. The local assembly has an authority to decide, to make a decision. No one else has the right to make a decision or to give God--. Now I can mention this to you in here for example that we have, as you know, in the Faith two types of institutions: the elected and the appointed institutions. The authority is with the elected institutions of the Faith. The other institutions of the faith which is that of the counselors and the board members and so forth and the assistants, they have no authority. They have a sacred function, but no authority. The authority lists with the institutions of the Faith, and that we all will obey that authority. So you see, individuals are cut off here. And this is one of the blessings which enables us all to lie with each other in servitude, in servitude. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that it is not possible to serve God because God is exalted above our service. He says, "If you want to serve God, you will have to serve the friends of God, the beloved of God, the friends, the believers." And this is I think this is why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, this is the thing which I feel is the most beautiful thing He has said for all of us, as a guide, as a lesson. He says, "Make me as a dust in the pathway of their loved ones." And the loved ones of God is the person who may not have any knowledge, may not have any understanding of the Faith as much as you have or I have, but he is the loved ones of God. Just the believer who says, "I believe", he or she becomes a Baháʼí and throws herself into the Cause of God. And as I said this morning, we look into each other's faces and we see a beautiful sign of Bahá’u’lláh, and that is the loved ones of God.

[02:53:48]So friends, these points that are very important in teaching. Now I'm not going to talk much more about teaching and how to teach the Faith and how important it is. You all know this, but I would say that if you wanted to forget everything that I have said this weekend, you can forget all of these things that I have said, remember one thing. No, remember two things, or three things, huh? [laughter] Two or three things. Four things. [laughter] One thing is, remember this: we must always draw nearer to Bahá’u’lláh, closer to Him. Bring him with us in everything we do. Turn to Him with a pure heart. And if we can't do it, I think the first step to it is to read the writings in the morning and in the evening and then serve the Faith. Just don't read it and sit there, but then serve. Then go out and do something. Give an hour to Bahá’u’lláh and then things will change. Things will change. So one of the - I'm talking about teaching again, I wanted to mention another aspect. Teaching, so you can see the difference which exists between teaching and proclamation of the Faith, which are really for different purposes. The proclamation of the Faith is designed to bring the Faith into the notice of the public and give it prestige. Teaching is to confirm people. Personal teaching is to confirm people for the purpose of confirmation, although both of them help people to recognize Bahá’u’lláh. But to carry them out, they're two different functions.

[02:55:35]And so where is the place for teaching? Let us find out where is the place for teaching for a believer. The place for teaching is in your hometown because that's where you can make friends. If you want to proclaim the faith well, you might travel around. You can go here and there, but that's not, you cannot teach there, really. If you want to teach, you have to spend time to make friends with your workmates, with your neighbors, with your fellow beings, human beings into town that you come in touch with them. And so the place to teach the Faith is in your own town. But unfortunately again there is another, well, misconception, if you like to say, that some people I know in Europe think if they want to teach the Faith, they have to leave their town and go to another town and they call it travel teaching. Now, it's all right. Don't take it that I'm saying against travel teaching. It's really, in travel teaching, you can do something. You can help the believers in that locality. You can go there into the streets in that town and tell the people and give the message to the people. You can give the message. In travel teaching, you can give the message of Bahá’u’lláh to people, but it is not easy to teach them because you don't know them. We are not having a home there to attract them to yourself. Also you must remember it's possible. Of course, it's possible that you come across the person straightforward - you must also remember this - who is so open, who wants to know about the faith. Where you don't have to wait to make friends with him, he's already friends with you. He says, "Tell me about the Faith. I want to know about it." Then you invite him to your home, and then you don't rush in to tell him everything. Just find out what he believes in. Let him say it. This is very important. Let him say things.

Bahá’u’lláh once said that look at the Master. He's an example, He said. When somebody comes to Him, the Master first listen to him and He listens with such genuine interest that the person thinks that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is learning from Him an awful lot. And He says He lets him say a lot of things, and at the end of it, he then says something to him in a way that the person realizes that he is not trying to argue with him because if a person knows that you are trying to establish in a conversation, the ascendancy of your argument, if he ever thinks that you are trying to establish that you are right and he says something and you say, "No, no, no, it's like this." And he keeps on saying something and you keep on, as I said, it's like a football match, then this becomes an argument. Then there is a barrier already. Bahá’u’lláh says we must not build barriers when we're teaching the faith. If ever the person thinks that you want to establish the fact that you are right, then he's going to have a psychological barrier there. He won't come to hear you and even whatever you say goes over his head. He's not responsive. And he says, "Look at the Master." He listens. He listens with such genuine care, and then when his turn comes, he does not-- he just stays one or two little things in such a way that the person becomes affected by it. And he says, "Yes, this is a different point of view." And he does not rebel against it. There's no barriers.

I have seen that in some gatherings when people are teaching, I've seen many people who in fire sites or public meetings, they teach the Faith and all they're interested to do, quite frankly - I'm not criticizing anybody, but I think I've seen this, that all they're trying to do is to pour out their knowledge and impress the person with all the things they know and all the terminologies they know to use, you know. And they pour out so much from beginning to the end. An hour, he speaks out about an hour, maybe or two, pouring out every knowledge he has. Well, this is, I think, not going to impress people. People will take it, may go home and they will not come to you. But to attract somebody is when you give him the message with the spirit of humility, very important with the spirit of humility. Again remember, when Bahá’u’lláh is with you, you can do it. But if you're alone, you can't do it. If you don't think Bahá’u’lláh with you, then you are going to become yourself and project yourself and your knowledge and all the rest. But when He is with you, one becomes very humble.

Now teaching is very important and time is very short for us, really. I mention this because the world conditions will make it imperative for us that we should now really go out and teach. Now, I believe that if every Baháʼí takes to heart this suggestion that I made in here to youm that one hour day, you give to Bahá’u’lláh. In your own ways, devise your own ways. And personal teaching need not be done alone. You can do two or three of you can gang together and teach, really, because often when you are two or three together, you can help. Somebody can open his home. Somebody can make a cup of tea. Somebody can talk. Work together, but there's no need to organize yourself through committees. But just go two or three people together and do this personal teaching. And I know that in this community in your country, people are very open. They are not like Europeans who are so closed, reserved who are having so many traditions that they must observe. This nation is very free and you have some beautiful natives here, which I say I'm sorry I haven't been able to see them. I would have loved to see the natives and I've seen one or two people here. And to me they have a tremendous station in the faith. They are the people who have been under pressure and oppression, and the faith is going to bring them up into the open and give them. They are like little flowers which have been growing in the shade. Now the son of Bahá’u’lláh is going to shine on them and make them very beautiful people. And you have this crowd amongst yourselves. And I believe that if all of us together determined to give one, two, three hours a day to Bahá’u’lláh for teaching actively, go out and if nothing happens, come home again. You've done your job just like that woman, and then put your trust.

Another thing you can do it can test Bahá’u’lláh. Try it and see what He'll do to you. [laughter] Really, put him on the spot. Put him on the spot. Bahá’u’lláh says, "If you arise, I will assist you." Take His word on His face value. I have seen some people who have done this and they come back and they said it works. Shoghi Effendi says let those who doubt, let them try. Well, you try this. Bring Bahá’u’lláh with you. Do all the little things He said, or not the little things, but the important things. Those points that have been talking here since yesterday. Put them into practice for a while and then do this and the whole community will begin to become a new force. And I know that you're very blessed to have here marvelous institution of the counselors, a marvelous person who is here working with you, and the board members who also are embodiments of, really, detachment and love for you all, and what I've heard you're so loved by the friends that you have got everything to your advantage. When I said time is very short, I'll tell you a story here to just remind you of it. This is a Persian story again. And in order to tell you the story, I have to first bring you up to some ideas that you may not be familiar with. In Islam, it is said that on the day of judgement, on the day of judgment, they are going to stretch a, going to have a big bridge set up. God will establish a huge bridge, long bridge which is 70,000 miles or something long. And they say it is sharper than the sword and it is hotter than fire and it is thinner than a hair and you have to walk on this. Why would you like that? And if you ever fall, if you've had it, you go down. Do you see? The fires will consume you right away. But if you could go the 70,000 miles on a journey like this, which is as sharp as the sword, as hot as the fire, and as thin as the hair, then you're all right. [laughter] And they say that everyone must pass through this when the day comes.

Well, the story begins in here that there was a man who was a holy man, and he was a marvelous person. And he used to teach the faith and live the life in accordance with the teachings of Islam. But next door to him was a man who was really the opposite. He was a man of vices and full of vices. And in Islam, it is a commandment that every individual must tell if you're a good man, you must help the bad man to live a good life. You have a right to go and tell him, "Why do you live like this? Come and live like me." For instance. Well, of course, this is forbidden in the Faith, you know that. It's a good thing. Otherwise we would be talking to each other quite a lot. [laughter] Now, this man one night had a dream. This holy man had a dream one night. He dreamt that the day of judgment had come, and this huge long bridge was set. And people were being questioned, and then they put on this bridge and they had to go. And this man, of course, being a holy man and have lived his life all in accordance with the teachings of God, he had no trouble. He said, "I went on this bridge like anything, just like walking in the big highway." For him, there was nothing. He went on and he found this as great, "Oh, it's a marvelous thing. I've lived the good life. Now I'm now getting the results and I go on this bridge so easily. No problem." Suddenly, as he was going along, he saw somebody pulled the back of his coat to stop him. And of course you know what happens if on such a bridge so thin, if somebody pushes you a little bit, you're going to fall. He looked back. He said, "What are you doing to me? Who are you?" And he saw it was his neighbor, you know, that bad neighbor, that bad man.

He said, "Why do you do this to me?"

He said, "Where are you going?"

Oh, he said, "I'm going to heaven. I've lived a good life."

Oh, he said, "That's what you think. I am not letting you go to heaven. Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you help me when you were my neighbor? Do you think I'm going to let you there? Oh, no." And he pulled him down and the two of them went down and the fires consumed them. That was the end of him and he woke up. And he woke up but he realized the significance of this dream. In the middle of night, he woke up his wife and he said, "This is what I've dreamed. I should have helped this man next door to me. I should have taught him the faith and helped him." And so he put on his coat and his clothes in the middle of night to go and tell him. His wife said, "Why are you doing it now? Just wait until tomorrow morning." He said, "How do I know I'm going to live till tomorrow morning? I have no time. I must tell him." Now, I think this is really a very good story for us. And someone described hell being in the next life when all our friends come to us and they tell us, "Why didn't you tell me?" That will be hell. And I feel that this is true. We must really arise and tell everyone who comes across, anyone. Anyone we see, we must give him the message, really. And then we must attract them to ourselves to teach them. There are two stages, you see. Attracting and giving him the message and attracting him, and gradually teaching him the Faith. We must not be in the habit of wanting things to happen instantly. You see, we are so much living in a world of instant things. You know, instant coffee, instant potatoes, instant things. You press the button and new things-- of course, in America here looks like this is it. You press the button and things will happen for you. Now you cannot have instant Baháʼís. You have to teach them. You have to spend time with them. That's why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says at least one person in a year, you can bring into the faith.

I remember, I'll tell you one story here and just to give you an idea of how one has to be one teaches the faith with great wisdom. You have to use wisdom here. Now in Ireland where we live, people are really devoted to Christianity. They are marvelous, marvelous people who have religion in their hearts, and they are attached the religions. They're mostly Catholics. Beautiful people, and they live such a life. You remember yesterday I was telling you the story of the chandeliers, the beautiful crystal lamp hanging. They are there. They are not lighted, but they are there. And once they become Baháʼís, they become marvelous Baháʼí s. Now they are very attached to their faith and you have to know how to teach them. You have to know how to teach them. If you suddenly go to them, have you heard of the Baháʼí Faith? Do you want me to tell you about the Baháʼí faith? He runs away like as fast as you can think. He wouldn't want to hear it because he thinks this is something wrong. And this is very natural. You have to gradually cultivate it. We had a neighbor few houses away, and my wife was very fond of her. And we were very fond of this woman, and we really began to pray for her. We thought this would be lovely if she becomes a Baháʼí, but she was a very staunch Catholic. Her family were priests and so forth, but its staunch. So the first thing to do if you want to teach them, is never tell them anything about the Faith. You know? You just pray for it and embrace him in your love, in your heart. And we did this. We had some children and she had some children and the children were playing together. And this woman would come to our house and see some Baháʼí articles, and she knew we were Baháʼís. She would never dare to ask the question. She was telling us, "I was frightened to say a word." Never, and for maybe six months or year perhaps, not a mention was made of anything to do with the faith. We certainly weren't going to do it, but we knew that one day she's going to do something. And she was so agitated. She was telling us. She was agitated in her heart. Many a times, she had come to ask us something and she was frightened. And then she didn't.

Now you won't know these things unless you are a staunch Roman Catholic, beautiful people. Beautiful. So one day after a long time, she brought herself to the point of asking my wife, "How do you teach your children? What is the principles that you teach your children with?" She wanted to know, bringing up children. Well, that's a good subject. And we knew that if she ever - we have talked about it together and my wife knew this - that if she ever ask a question, we are not going to answer her in the first time. So my wife said, "Oh yes, yes. Well, sometime, I'll tell you." It's very important. See, this is the wisdom of handling these people. If we just suddenly go to him and "Oh, gosh, yes. I'll tell you all about it." He's gone. "No, we'll tell you about it." Very casual. And after about a month or so, we knew she's going to bring it up again.

And it came up eventually that, "Oh well. What about that thing you were going to tell me?"

"Oh, yes, yes. I forgot about it. All right."

And so eventually she talked to her a little bit. Not about the Faith so much, but about the principles of child education as Baháʼís, you know it. And then she said that she was frightened after that. She told us. She wouldn't come and ask us anymore, and we knew this will happen. She wouldn't come near us again for a good while. But then she couldn't help it again. And eventually - I'll make it very short for you - she came and she asked this time about faith. And there again, we knew we are not going to tell her right away. Oh, no. Well, my wife said, "Oh, yes. I'll tell you sometime. Sometime, I'll tell you about it." And then when the next time came and after a while, all we gave her was a prayer book. Just give her a prayer. That's the best thing you can give to a Roman Catholic as an introduction to the faith. And she said that when she received, she got this prayer book and she read some of the prayers, she couldn't sleep that night. And then she hid the prayer book away from her sight. You see, this is a very good thing that's happening. The forces are entering within her, and the reactions are building up. Obviously, it's being affected already. And we knew that this will happen. And gradually, gradually she comes forward. And she came and she asked. And then my wife told her about the Faith in greater detail, gradually and gently, and gave her to read some of the writings. And so she almost was a Baháʼí.

And then I'll tell you something that you must know that you know, in teaching the Faith, Shoghi Effendi mentions that, you read the Advent of Divine Justice. He tells us, he makes us to understand that it is not wise always - now this is not, mind you, a universal law, but it is very helpful in many cases - but when you're teaching the Faith to somebody, you must teach him yourself and your friends. That's all right. Bring your friends to help, but you don't have necessarily to show him to the Baháʼí community because the Baháʼí community may have some Baháʼís in them who, by virtue say, for instance, in this country or in America, I don't know what it is. I hear there's a lot of race prejudices in America, isn't that right? I hear that. Well, supposing you have a man. You're teaching him and he's white. And he's coming close to the Faith, or somehow you're teaching him the Faith. And say, "Now let's go and see the Baháʼí community." And then he sees all of them sitting there. They are all colored. Well, he's going to run away because he has prejudices. He's not a Baháʼí yet. You see now? The prejudices that he has has not yet gone, so we must not give them tests, unnecessary tests. And this is why Shoghi Effendi says, "But when you teach the Faith, you have to teach it with wisdom." You have to be sure who is going to be the right person to meet with that person because he's in this early stages.

And so this lady had reached the point that she said, "Now, I want to come to one of your meetings to hear about it." And she said if I could be the one who would be speaking. So I said, "All right, well, if she wants me to speak, let us arrange a meeting in some Irish friends' home an invite to a three Baháʼís and then I'll go and we can talk. So the night was set. And half an hour before we were due to leave to go to this house, because by then we have moved our residence from there, the host telephoned and said, "You know, the house is full of people and a lot of Persians and others have come. They have heard that I was going, and the whole house is full." Now, I knew this is bad for this lady if she now comes up and sees this Baháʼí community the way we are consisting of so many different backgrounds. She's going to probably go through a great, unnecessary tests. Well, I'll tell you what I did. I had an excuse not to go that night, and we canceled the meeting. We arranged it some other night. These things are hints that you should, we should bear in mind because people have prejudices. They are not ready. Of course, now she's a marvelous Baháʼí, beautiful Baháʼí. And all these stages are past.

You see, in England, for instance, there is a great deal of class distinction. In here, you don't have probably class distinction. You have colored distinction. And the class prejudice is such a subtle thing. We have no English people amongst us, have we. I can say some things about them, can I? You know, the English people, all you have to do is to talk. Just talk. Or sometimes even my wife says there is no need to talk. You look at them and you know which class he belongs to, the way he looks, the way he sits, the way he looks at you. But as soon as he talks, definitely you know which class he belongs to. And then there is a barrier between the two. The barrier is so subtle that he doesn't show it. It's very polite and smiling at each other, but it's in the underneath you can see through the smile. You can see a lot of barriers there right away. This is a great deal of prejudice there in that way. Now I remember we had a marvelous Baháʼí teacher, Kathleen Hornell. She's passed away. A beautiful person, Lady Hornell. She was a titled woman. And Lady Hornell was great wise teacher of the Faith, and she had some people she was teaching in her home. But she never mixed up her contacts, the people she was teaching. She did not mix them up. She makes them up in accordance with their class, shall we say. She was teaching a lady of high class, of a high society, very, really distinguished lady. And then she was teaching some of the laborers, dockers. She never let them see each other until they became Baháʼí.

I remember one day I was there, and this lady was there, and Lady Hornell was there, and I was there, and some others were there, and we were talking about the faith. And this lady she was teaching Elizabeth [?] if any of you have ever heard the name, she was a marvelous woman. She's passed away. She became a beautiful Baháʼí. She belonged to a higher society. Now that night was her night. Tomorrow night was the night of the others. And I was sitting in the room and I suddenly saw behind the window, walking, John was one of the dockers, you know? And he had decided tonight he had nothing to do and he thought although it wasn't his night, but he thought he'll come tonight and drop in and see what Lady Hornell is doing. Well, as soon as I said to Lady Hornell John is coming here, she got up and went to the door and said to John, she said, "John, I'm very busy tonight. Would you mind to come tomorrow night? You don't mind, do you?" Now, you see how many of us to think that way? Wisdom. And it was wise. If Elizabeth had seen others, "This is going to be a Baháʼí. Is this a Baháʼí? And am I going to be a Baháʼí?" She has got still all the prejudices in her mind. She's not a Baháʼí yet to get rid of the prejudices. And this is why I feel there are many things-- you should read the Advent of Divine Justice really. This is a letter that Shoghi Effendi particularly wrote to the American Baháʼís. After he gave us the seven year plan to the American believers, he wrote the Advent of Divine Justice. Now, if you read that book, it gives you all the prerequisites particulary- [audio cut off].

-upon learning and deepening in it. And now that I'm talking about deepening, let me talk a little bit about deepening because it's a very important subject. I didn't mean to talk about this, but let us talk about a little bit about deepening. Deepening often is taken to mean that you must attend classes and learn and read, but often deepening - this is one form of deepening, which is not bad and may help to read. But I think the real deepening comes, the fruit of deepening, the sign of deepening is when your love for Bahá’u’lláh increases. If you go to a study class and when you come out of it, if you'll find that your love is increasing, then you have deepened in the faith. But if you find only your knowledge has increased, then we must bring a balance in here. The balance is not right because the real deepening comes to us when we understand. In Arabic, there are two words which are very clear words, and they mean two different things. One is called "علم" ('ilm), which is knowledge translated into knowledge. The other one is "عرفان‎" (irfan). Irfan is very difficult to translate it into one word. It means understanding. Sometimes Shoghi Effendi has translated as understanding, but it is really more than understanding. You can't just bring it in one word. It is knowledge. Irfan is knowledge plus, which results in understanding, recognition, penetration of your thoughts into mysteries. All these things together makes it irfan. Let us use the world in Arabic as it is, or understanding. Either we can call it understanding or other.

Now the thing to do, the thing to learn, and knowledge is something that you acquire. You learn knowledge by reading and by studying things, and then your mind will store it like a computer. And any time you wanted, it comes out again back to you. And some people are very good at it. They have good memories. They act like as good computers. They learn from this and learn from that and learn from the other and they add them together. They act like an encyclopedia sometimes. Well, it is good. Knowledge is very important and we must have this, but really it is not essential in a sense, when you're comparing it with irfan. The goal of life is to acquire irfan. Irfan, let us call it understanding. In order to acquire irfan, Bahá’u’lláh has told us what we should do. Now I'm going to tell you exactly in a few minutes, but let me first say that there may be people who know a great deal about the faith. They have the knowledge of the faith. They may be great scholars of the faith. They may write books about the faith. They may know anything you ask them. He tells you where it is and where to find it, but this is not a great, it's not as great. It's not a great thing as great as having irfan. They are acting like encyclopedias, like a computer, something which has accumulated all this knowledge. And as Bahá’u’lláh says, they usually steal it from one another. You know, and they pride themselves in it. We have had many such people in the faith, or we have them probably. I don't know. Scholars write books or say things. They know things. But the man who has irfan, he may not be even educated, but you ask him anything and it comes out of his heart. It wells out of the heart, the knowledge wells out of the heart of man. The knowledge of God wells out of the heart just like a spring.

Bahá’u’lláh has confirmed the Islamic saying that knowledge is a light which God throws and your heart. Bahá’u’lláh confirms it. He talks about it in the Kitáb-i-Íqán. Knowledge is a light which God casts in your heart. What a strange place for knowledge because often when you say this to the people, people say, "Well, heart is not a place for knowledge. It's the mind which is a place for knowledge." And it is true. But how can the knowledge of God be cast in the heart of man? And this is what is the difference between knowledge, 'ilm, and irfan. Irfan which is the recognition, which is the understanding comes to the heart of man, and then the mind will pick it up and understand it. But it dawns in your heart because Bahá’u’lláh says, "Your heart is my home." I'm paraphrasing. He says, "Your heart is where I will come into it." He will not come into your mind. He will come into your heart first. Heart is a place of love and warmth. We have two focal point in our bodies. One is our mind, which is the center of intellect, which is very important center. We are not trying to underestimate it or undervalue it. And the other focal point is the heart of man, which is a center of love and warmth. And Bahá’u’lláh says that God always comes to your heart. He says, "This is my home." And many a times, He says in the Hidden Words and other tablets, He says, "Many a times, I came to your heart, my home. I found there was a stranger in it, and then I left." And you know that stranger is ourself, attachment to the things of this world. The most formidable form of that attachment is our own self-attachment with our own self, the love of our own self, the ego.

So he says, "I came many a times and you were not there or the heart was full of the strangers, and then I left. And I went." So you see, the knowledge of God comes into our hearts. And then the mind will pick it up and we'll understand it. Now this is what we should aim for as Baháʼís for deepening, that our hearts may become the recipient of the knowledge of God. Whether we have education or not, it doesn't matter. Whether we have knowledge or not, it doesn't matter. And Bahá’u’lláh tells us what should we do that we may acquire this quality of irfan, understanding. If you want to know what he has said, read the first, the opening chapter, the opening passage of the Kitáb-i-Íqán. He says, "No man shall attain-" I'm paraphrasing His words. No man shall attain unto the shores of the sea of understanding. He's using the word irfan, which is translated into understanding. It's that word He has used. No one will ever acquire to understanding the shores of the ocean of understanding unless and until-- now, if you ask the people, "I want to understand. What shall I do?" If you ask the people, they'll say, "Well, if you want to understand something, go to the university. Learn." Bahá’u’lláh doesn't say that. He says no man shall ever attain the ocean of understanding, the shores of the ocean of understanding unless he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth. You see, the condition He has put down for it. And detachment, we talked about it this morning, what it means. If you are in love with Bahá’u’lláh, your heart will become opened. And then anything you want to know is there. Believe me, I've seen the early believers who were illiterates. And this is the history of our faith, and their understanding of the faith was so deep. It gushes out of their heart.

We have seen two types of learned people, if you like to call it. One who had knowledge, oh, yes. Great learned men and they come along and give talks to you and discuss a lot of things and theories and all sorts of ideas and books and writers and everything you like. And then there is a man who may be illiterate, who has got this great understanding of the Faith. Now the other man may not have understood the Faith. He has the knowledge of the Faith, but he have not necessarily understood the Faith. And this is why some of them leave the Faith after becoming scholars. We have had so many scholars who have left the Faith because he doesn't understand the Faith. To understand the Faith, we have to really grow closer to Bahá’u’lláh, to the extent that you go nearer to Him and closer to Him. And this means you will become detached, then your heart becomes the dawning place of the knowledge of God. Somebody came to me a few years ago and he said that I have been a Baháʼí for 10 years and I have read many things. I have accepted everything Bahá’u’lláh has said. But he said one thing I cannot accept and he told me one of the writings of Bahá’u’lláh. He said, "I can never accept that." And he said, "I've asked many people to explain to me the wisdom of this, but nobody has been able to explain it to me. Can you tell me what is the wisdom of this?" Because he said, "I can never accept that."

Well, here it is now. A problem. I said to him, "Have you ever thought you might be wrong?" He said, "No, really not." Now, you know, we have to be humbled here. We want to approach the Cause, the revelation of God, you have to be humble. And I said "Well, not until you are ready to accept that you may be wrong." And I said, "Now, of course, you believe in this. You can't say you're wrong, but at least you must be prepared to say that you are wrong. You may be wrong. You cannot understand this. You will never understand this." You are a believer. You believe in Bahá’u’lláh. There's no question about it. You know He's a manifestation of God, and you know that man makes a mistake. Well, the only thing to do is to submit and say, "I don't understand this. I may be wrong. I am wrong. I accept." Without recognizing it, without knowing it, you accept it. And you know what happens? Once you accept it and you submit yourself, then one day, one day, it may be tomorrow. It may be the next month. It may be that 10 years from now, suddenly, it will flush into your mind and into your heart the wisdom of that thing. And nobody can explain it to you, but it will come to you when you read the writings. Suddenly it will penetrate into your heart like an electric boat. And then you know the wisdom of it, but not until you submit. As long as you say "Oh, no, I don't accept that", it will never come. So you see, friends studying and deepening in the faith is a spiritual experience. We have to aim for that so that our hearts become the repository of the knowledge of God.

And so, as I said, I have seen many people who are illiterates who did not have or did not have much of a knowledge, but who had such an understanding of the faith. Every time you ask them a question, even if they have never heard of that question, never heard of it in the writings, never knew what the answer was, the answer would come and when you look into the writings, you could see this is exactly what Bahá’u’lláh or 'Abdu'l-Baha have said. This is a true deepening and I feel we should aim for this more and more, all of us. Do not become-- Do not feel inferior to all these people who come to you. And I'm not in any way trying to undervalue the value of people who are learned or who have knowledge, but don't be frightened of them really. You have Bahá’u’lláh and He will come and teach you a lot of things that these people themselves don't know it. You may come across people who go to universities years after years, and I'm not in any way saying it's bad to go to universities but they come and they talk to you about the faith and you might be feeling inferior. Don't feel inferior. The faith is for all of us. Bahá’u’lláh is for everybody, the humblest person. And it is you who can know much more than he does, but of course how wonderful it would be if knowledge and understanding are together. Oh, this is beautiful, now. This is the perfect. This is like the chandeliers, which is perfect in itself. Crystal, lovely, beautiful, exquisite lamp, but it is also lighted, you see. A person who has knowledge and understanding, has 'ilm and irfan means knowledge and understanding, this is perfect. It's like Mírzá Abu'l-Faḍl, the great Baháʼí scholar we have. He had both knowledge and understanding. And this is of course the aim. We must learn knowledge. We must acquire knowledge but we must also turn to Bahá’u’lláh in humility so that He may give us this gift of understanding.

Well, now that we have talked about this, let me now enter into another subject. I hope I'm not making you tired, huh? Soon we will have a break. Don't worry. Whenever the chairman walks down the steps, we know the time has come. I think that the other thing I wanted to bring up the subject is you remember we said there are two major work we have to do? One is that of teaching the Cause which is the most important thing which we have been talking about up to now. The other thing is the building of the institutions of the Faith. The institutions of the faith which we are building now, the local assemblies and the national assemblies, these are the instruments for the future of mankind, the institutions for the future of mankind. We may not realize this yet ourselves because we are so much in the early days of the Faith and these institutions are so weak that we may not ever think probably that, "Oh, this Local Spiritual Assembly one day is going to become the House of Justice for this town." The House of Justice, who knows? Maybe it will become something like the government of this town, but whatever it is - Hello! Beautiful little boy. Very nice. - These local spiritual assemblies one day become Houses of Justice for mankind, for the people of this town. And we may not realize this, but at this moment that we are talking about it, we are entering into a very critical age, critical time in the history of mankind. A time which we talked about again this morning is filled with perils and with dangers and with sufferings, with tribulations, calamities, and the only thing which mankind will have when the world is really has tasted the agony of this whole calamities which has to come are these institutions we are building. There is nothing else which will be left which mankind can really have turned to which would save it. And even now as we stand here, if it wasn't for the institutions of the Faith or the new life which Bahá’u’lláh has breathed into the world of man, the world would not be together. The world is keeping together today because of the existence of these institutions. It's because of the House of Justice that the world is now exist the way it is and can exist. It's because of our institutions of local and national assemblies that our communities can exist, really. And it is the only refuge Shoghi Effendi mentions of a tottering civilization. We must believe in these things. We are not building these assemblies for fun. There's no fun in that. [laughter] We are not working. We are not serving on these local assemblies for fun either, because it's a difficult job to really, really go into the local assemblies and to act as the way we should. It's a very difficult job, needs a lot of perseverance and labor. So you see, not until we realize the significance of these institutions.

Now I have used this example before and I'm going to use it again. It's not a bad example. Perhaps some of you may have heard this. And that is an example from nature of what we have been going through, what we will be going through. I'm going to use an example of nature. In nature, if you look at an egg and egg is the perfect food for you until it is fertilized and a new life begins to grow in that egg. Once the egg is fertilized and the chicken begins to grow in that egg, the food becomes corrupt, becomes rotten. You can't eat it anymore and the balance is gone inside. A new situation has arisen in that egg, within that egg. And what happens is this: that this little life begins to grow inside, surrounded by all this rotten material, and this rotten material become its food. And as the more this chicken grows inside the egg, the more rotten becomes the egg. These two are very related together until such time that these two can never again, this situation cannot last. The balance is gone. And then there would be an explosion. The egg breaks and then a new life appears. It's born. And what has happened to the egg and all the things in it. It's all gone. The only thing which is left behind is a broken shell. You see? This is law of life. And once the egg is fertilized, nobody can stop that process. Nobody can see or allow, it has been fertilized and the chicken is beginning to grow but we can't stop it. You can't. Once this process start, nobody can stop. The same principle, it's not an example. It's a principle of life. You remember yesterday, I was saying how nature teaches us a lot of things and we can learn a lot of things. One of the lessons is this thing, is this story of the egg.

Now exactly the same thing has happened with the coming of Bahá’u’lláh. When he came, he fertilized the egg of human society, when he declared his mission. And from that moment onwards, the seed of the Baháʼí community was planted. And from that time, from that moment onwards, the world began to deteriorate in its conditions and they became unstable. And the corruption set in. And the destruction set in, but it is gradual. At first, nobody could feel it. At first, nobody will feel it. At first, when the chicken is just when the egg is fertilized, you wouldn't see any difference, but gradually-- but the process has began and as time goes on, as the faith grows, as the institutions of the faith grow, as the Baháʼí community grows, along with it, the world conditions will deteriorate. And the Baháʼí community, like this little chicken is surrounded by this corrupt world. We are surrounded by it and we are immersing in it and we are swimming inside it, but there is a distinction between the two. And then this condition cannot last very long. Bahá’u’lláh says suddenly, that will happen which will cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Time comes that this egg has to open up. And once it opens up, what is safe and sound and the only thing which really is worth talking about is the birth of the institutions of the faith. It will be born. People can see it.

Now, it does not mean that when this happens that the Faith can run the world for us. Oh, no. When a child is born, it cannot do anything, cannot run around. It cannot rule the town. It cannot do anything. It has to be years to grow, to nourish, to be nourished, to grow. Then in the future, when it grows up, it can take over all the things. And it's the same thing with the Faith, the institutions of the Faith. When this happens, when this egg breaks up, when the world situation comes to a head and that which Bahá’u’lláh says, referring to it as the limbs of mankind quaking and Shoghi Effendi calls it the calamities. When that happens, all that will happen is that the institutions of the Faith will show themselves to the world. They will emerge. It's like a mother who is pregnant. Nobody can see the child. You go outside into the world and talk to the people about the institutions of the Faith. Well we are building local assemblies. They are the foundations of the future society. They think you're a little bit, well, they don't understand this. But when not until that child is born, not until it's born can people see and then they realize what we are talking about. Now it is this that Bahá’u’lláh talks about it when He says then and only then will the divine standards be unfurled after this calamity, after this suffering. He says, "Then and only then, mankind can see." Then and only then they can see what these institutions that we are building are doing for mankind. And it is then that they'll turn to us in great numbers. Shoghi Effendi says these local assemblies must act and will act as beacons of light at the time of greatest peril. When the ship is drowning, the best thing for it is a beacon of light. And so we have to have these beacons of light now preparing for a time that when the time comes that these beacons will be shining, to switch on, not switch off.

So you see the significance of these institutions that we are building and how important it is that we should build more institutions. I don't know how it is in this country, but I can tell you in some countries that I am familiar with, for instance, in Ireland again - I must constantly talk about Ireland. I lived there anyhow. If there are 10 Baháʼís in a town, we call it luxury. Nine is enough. We have to build up institutions of the Faith. And one of them is going to say, now they're going to look at each other and say these 10 and say which one of us it's going to be, but one of them will go. We really have very few local assemblies, which is more than nine. There are two or three and they're usually the capitals. Or usually some people have the excuse and they're right. Their husband is non-Baháʼí. The wife is non-Baháʼí. I was told by the chairman of the National Assembly there that 90% of the Baháʼís of Ireland have once in their life, at least pioneered, and some several times to these local community, 90%. Now, I don't know how many people you are in here, but I think you could make quite a few assemblies. And it don't need not go long distances. It can go 10 miles out of your town and form an assembly, form a community there. These institutions, the more we have them, the more beacons of light for mankind. And this is why the House of Justice wants us to increase these institutions. And we will. We will make more institutions. So you see the significance of the Local Spiritual Assembly?

I wonder if we should close in five or 10 minutes. Quarter past three, is it all right, Mr. Chairman? Right. Now I'm going to tell you we are talking about local spiritual assemblies now, and I know what the local spiritual assemblies are. Some of them that I am familiar with again, I don't know what you people are like, what your assemblies are like. Maybe you're perfect. [laughter] But some local assemblies are not perfect. And the friends feel, oh, well, local assembly is very weak. They become disheartened. For instance, there may be a local assembly that there are nine people, but only six of them are really coming regularly. All the other - and this is very disheartening. And they said, "Well, what's the use of this? What can we do about this?" And then they tell them to make more of these. [laughter] This is a problem. This is a problem. You see, I've got this weak local assembly, and they tell you to make more of them. Now I will talk about this after this session a little bit about this, but let me give you a story of a weak local assembly because you may have never seen a weak local assembly. [laughter] I will explain to you what it is like just to give you an example of it. And then we close. And then when we come back, I want to describe the real significance of these institutions.

I'll give you a story because I have been once, years ago, we had a local spiritual assembly in Dublin. Now, this must be about 30 years ago. And in those days, the faith was in its early stages. Very, very early stages. We had only a few believers in town, and they were members of the assembly. And one of them, of course, was our famous Mr. Townshend. You know, he was a member of the assembly. I was a member of the assembly, and then we had some others. Just give you an idea of what our assembly was like. You might be maybe amused by it. Well, now and I am saying these things very bravely because all these people who were members of this assembly, they're all gone to the next world. They're not going to hear me. They are not going to hear me. [laughter] And if they hear me, they can't - remember yesterday I was saying how the souls in the next life cannot influence us in a bad way? [laughter] They can't be angry at me. On the contrary, they're going to shower their blessing upon us. Yes, they are all gone. Most of them, most of them are gone. Now, you remember we had this assembly and then we had, there were some Persian believers in it who knew not one word of English. They had come out from Persia and they have not been familiar to any of these standards in the Western world. It was so strange to them. They did not know one word of English and they were insisting that anything which is said in the local assembly, they must know what it was. And I have to translate it for them, you know, everyone. Now they would say, "It's no use just to tell us the gist of it or the briefly, but you have to tell us word by word so that we can understand this man when he's talking." That's a difficult job, you know? And if I ever wouldn't do it, they would quote verse and chapter for me that, "You must do it." You know? So this was one of the things we had to have. Then we had the lady who was suffering from Parkinson's disease, and whenever she came to the meetings, we had to be very quiet. And she was shaking, and we often had to make her lie down, you see? And then we had a gentleman who was stone deaf, wouldn't hear a thing. [laughter]

And I remember, my job was to first of all, when the discussions began, I'll have to translate it into Persian for the friends. And then I had to always sit beside our beautiful, wonderful Mr. Jones who was deaf and shout into his ears what we have been saying, you see? Now imagine this is an institution which is going to govern the whole of mankind in the future. [laughter] Now how can we, if you lose the vision of it, then you will deteriorate into a very low condition. But you must always keep the vision. This is the source of God's kingdom on earth, you see? And Mr. Jones, I have to shout at him all the time. And the minute you shout it, Darris would say, "Oh, why do you shout?" [laughter] I remember one day we were sitting there and we were discussing a subject and somebody made a suggestion saying when we hold these public meetings in these hotels, you know, we used to have a public meeting in a hotel. He said, "Well, let us give a cup of tea to everybody. It's nice." At the end of the meeting, we'll give them a cup of tea. So I translated this for our friends. They say to give a cup of tea. That's fine. We agree with this. Then I turned to our friend. [shouting] They say that in the hotel you should give them a cup of tea every time that the friends come. He said, "I've had a cup of tea at home. Not now." [laughter] You see? So I said, "No, no, not in here, not in here." Oh, he said, "You are not giving us a cup of tea every time you did." So having finished this, I said, "No, Mr. Jones agrees we should have a cup of tea," to the Persians. Oh, no, no, but he said, "You have been talking to him a long time. You must tell us what he was saying. All the details of it. We want to hear. You were talking to him for a long time." [laughter]

Now friends, this is the basis of our institutions. This is how our institutions are function. You see the weakness now? If you look at it from the outside world, it is very funny and it is very insignificant, but you know, these institutions now have given birth, have matured, have given birth to a national assembly in that country. We have a national assembly. We have now 30 local assemblies both in the north and the south of Ireland. Now the conditions have changed enormously. But in those days it was, the weakness of the institutions was part of the growth of the institutions because the faith has an organic growth. It doesn't grow up like a machine. We don't mold it into a shape and say, "There it is." It's an organic one. And when you first put the seed down into the ground, you go and see that seed. You go and unearth it. Just open up the earth and see what has happened to the seed. It's rotten. It rots under the ground. And when you look at it, you say, "Oh, this rotten. What is it going to do?" But it has life, and it will grow and it will produce a tree. I think this is the way we should look upon our institutions. And then all these weaknesses will be overlooked.

Friends, let us go and have a, what are we going to do, Mr. Chairman? We will probably have a photograph. Or I would love to have a photograph. Yes, it would be beautiful. To remind us. Are you really tired, do you think, you people? No? If you are, you can lie down. [laughter] You are already eating. Some of you I can see. You might just as well. Yes, we'll let some others come in. They're coming in. I enjoy to look at you all eating and drinking. It's a great thing to look at it, you know. And all I've got in here is a little bit of old water. [laughter]

Well, friends, we were, in the previous session, we were talking about the weakness of our institutions today. And how this weakness often clouds the issue for us of the greatness of the institutions of the faith. We think or we may look upon it as a weak institution and therefore we will not be able to appreciate the power and the glory and the greatness with which these are invested. Now I wanted to go a little further here and talk about this a little bit more because it's very important that we understand the nature of our institutions. The nature of our institutions are embryonic. We are dealing with embryonic institutions of the faith. They are not the institutions which are now able to govern mankind. They are embryonic in the same way that the child in the womb of the mother has life but it cannot do anything at this stage. It has a great future. These institutions of the local spiritual assemblies become Houses of Justice in the future, but now they can't become Houses of Justice. Now, in order to explain this point, I would like to draw your attention to the institutions of the outside world, the institutions which you will find mankind has built up for itself. There are many institutions, religious institutions. There are political institutions, social institutions all over the world. But these institutions are all man-made and there is no life in them, no life, really. You look at any of these old world institutions, there is no life. They work like machines. Machines have no life. You look at the machine, it has no life. But for a machine to work, all parts of that machine must work in perfection, isn't that right? If you're having a machine, you cannot have a machine which it will not work unless everything is perfect. This is a fact. We know this. One little thing goes wrong in that machine, the whole thing will stop. So the emphasis is on perfection, but there is no life in it. Now you compare that machine with a child of three years of age and see the difference. Our institutions are like that child. You compare the outside institutions which are like machines and they have to work in perfection. Every part has to work in perfection. Now you compare that with a child of two or three years of age, you will find the child has no perfection. You see the difference now? It has no perfection, but it has life. It has the promise of the future. This is the difference. Our institutions are like this. They are in the state of infancy. They are not perfect. They make a lot of mistakes, both local and national institutions of the Faith, but they have life in them and they have the promise of the future.

You know, when you have a child which is very young and he comes into the room, we have none of them in here, by the way. We have got some beautiful children sitting. You are much grown up, but I mean smaller than these children. If they come into the room, they're going to disturb a lot of things. They could disturb a lot of things. A child, a small child could pull things up and break up things and draw lines on the walls for you and all kinds of things they do, but the parents are not worried about this. Why is it that the parents are not worried about all the imperfections of their child and all the wrong things he does? Because they know in the future he's not going to do it. That's all. They know when he grows up, he's not going to do it. That's why they're not worried about it. This is exactly the way we are. This is exactly the way the House of Justice is dealing with the local and the national spiritual assemblies of today, and the same way the Guardian did before them. They are not worried about all the mistakes we make at all. And you know, we make a lot of mistakes in our institutions because they are not infallible.

I was talking to somebody in the House of Justice, a member of the House of Justice and he was telling me. He said really we come across maybe 20 or 30 mistakes that the National Assembly has done, some very serious mistakes, but we don't bring it to their notice. We let them grow out of it. They have to grow out of it. Maybe if there is one of them out of this 20 or 30 which is fundamental point, we will bring up to their notice. You will be surprised to hear how many mistakes and wrong things and wrong attitudes that we have in our institutions which are overlooked completely. They are not brought us to our attention, in the same way that the father or a mother, would not, and cannot in fact, expect his child to act like a mature person. Can you do that? Can you ever do your child to behave like a grown up person? If you do it, you're going to destroy him. But you must let him make all the mistakes and pull all the things together and push all the things down and break things up. And it grows and grows out of it himself. If everything that he does, which is wrong, really, by our standards, by the other standards, everything that he does really in the house is wrong. Now, if we try to correct him, punish him, right, left and center the minute he does a move, he's going to become a nervous wreck. He will not grow. Whereas you have to let it do all these things and it will grow out of it. But if he does something fundamentally wrong, oh, yes he was going to burn his finger. You just pull him back. But other than that, you will put up with all their wrong and the difficulties that happens in the home with a child because, you know, in the future he's not going to do it. This is exactly what the House of Justice today is doing to us. They know we make all the mistakes and all the weaknesses we have. Oh, so many things, and yet they don't drop to our attention.

So you see, the Faith has an organic growth. The institutions of the faith have an organic growth. And so our job at this time, when we look upon our local spiritual assemblies is to love them and to cherish them in spite of all these weaknesses that they have. In the same way that the parents love and cherish their children in spite of all the wrong little things that they do. And not until we acquire this consciousness and recognize that these institutions belong to Bahá’u’lláh, that they have the future. The future is great. In the future, they are not going to make these mistakes. And if they ever did, they will be held responsible by other institutions, by higher institutions, but you can't hold responsible a child for a lot of wrong things he is doing. You see, you give a nice suit of clothes to a child and you let him out into the garden, he comes back, rolled in mud. You can't keep him responsible. You don't blame him. That's the child. But when an adult, if you give him to an adult, a 21 year old man goes out and rolls in mud, he's in trouble. [laughter] He has to answer for it. But that time has not yet come. And so we are to deal with our institutions with the greatest love. We have to cherish them. We have to obey them. Obey them, yes. And even they make wrong decisions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has said that you obey them and the right things will come out. And I have seen this happening over and over again.

And sometimes it may be very difficult for us to obey them because we know they have made the wrong mistake, wrong decision in your heart of hearts. But we don't criticize them. This is forbidden to criticize the actions of the local spiritual assembly publicly. Oh, you can criticize them. The only way you can criticize these institutions is to write to them. If you have a criticism of any local assembly, you write to that local assembly and openly tell them what you think of it. Now it is the duty of the local assembly then to pay attention to it and give you an answer and discuss it. Now if you are not satisfied with that answer, you don't disobey them. You still obey them, but you write, next time we turn to the national assembly. And even if you don't like the decision of the National Assembly, you still obey them. But then you can turn to the House of Justice and say, "Well, I don't agree with this." But you see, we have all the freedom of criticizing. But once you did that, once you wrote a letter or you went and saw them personally, that's finished. The minute you talk it over with a tenth person, with another person, then that is a serious, a serious breaking of one of the very sacred laws of the Faith. You can't go on and criticize a local assembly by writing to him your views and then going out into the public and constantly say, "Oh you know, I think this assembly is doing this and this assembly is going to do that." This is against the faith. And the same thing is with the National Assembly. If you find that you are not happy with what the National Assembly does, you can criticize them in writing, but we cannot go out and criticize them in front of each other. But we have to obey them. But I know these things don't happen in here, probably. I'm sure of this, but I think that what we have to do, and this is a very vital thing, is that we have to cherish them and love them. Your National Assembly for example is a body that all the believers must rally around. You must pray for them. We must help them in your prayers, in your thoughts. And we must obey them, obey that institution because it belongs to Bahá’u’lláh. It's the institution of Bahá’u’lláh's institutions. And we must never allow that institutions to be humiliated by any outside body or force or.

Mel, I now am lost here. I don't know where to turn and what to say because time is limiting us. I think this conference is finishing, as far as I can see it, today in a sense, because so many of you are going to go, and, well.[audience comments] I'll make a note of it in here because there are so many points that the friends have asked in here. And I may be talk about all of these things, but I feel that the best thing for me would be maybe now, to turn to your questions and see whether we can end up this. And if you those of you come tomorrow, we could all together begin with a different subject. So let us perhaps see what we have here now, and try to deal with some of the questions. Is that acceptable to you? Now, what I have said so far about teaching, and this afternoon, if you have any questions that you even want to ask now I can make a note off them in here, and then we'll see how we can fit them in. Anybody else has any questions? Yes?

[Audience question]

Well, maybe. We'll make it. We'll see. We'll see. Yes?

[Audience question]

I feel that this is not a question here. You know, I think this question of ego - you were here when I was telling you the story of the drop on the ocean. Oh, this is why. Yes, you see the story of the drop in the ocean is this. I'll repeat it for you. This is a story of a little drop of rain they say was falling down from sky, from the clouds. And it was very proud of itself because it realized that it was the water of life. And water of life is very, very precious is the most precious thing in this creation. And so that drop of rain was very proud of itself as it was coming down until it suddenly saw the ocean beneath it. And when it saw all the ocean, it saw its own insignificance, and it shouted. And it said, if this exists, then what am I? Up to then he hadn't seen the ocean, you see. And when it said this, the ocean attracted it to itself and made it part of the ocean, became a part of the ocean. Now this story is very apt in here. We are all like that drop of rain, and the self is voice within us which you call it ego, which is proud of itself. Not until we see the greatness of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh that I was talking about yesterday again. And that is a very important key. Not until we see that. Now again, if you were not here yesterday, maybe some time you can refer to some of these tapes. We talked about this. Or those of you who will be tomorrow, maybe I can read for you some passages which you can see what a tremendous revelation this is. Not until you see that great ocean and recognize it, we will not become humble. Humility, true humility really comes then when you see yourself as utter nothingness, then the self will go into the background. Yes.?

[Audience question]

Okay, well, I think this is to me. This is the answer I have. We must, not until we recognize the greatness of this revelation and turned to Him, and we turned to Him with a feeling of awe and wonder can we recognize our own impotence, and then the self will disappear or will not, completely. We cannot destroy the self. We must not destroy the ego. The ego is there, you cannot destroy it as long as we live here. I was mentioning - well, I don't think we better go into that now. Take this further and further. Any other questions that you have? Very good.

[man speaking]

Yes, Yes. Please shout, shout about it.

[woman speaking] How many Tablets of Ahmad is there?

What's this? How money what?

[woman speaking] Tablets of Ahmad.

How many?

[woman speaking] Yes. And also in the Tablets of Ahmad, ...

Well, you said how many Tablets of Ahmad there are, isn't that the first question? Isn't it? Well, there are several tablets which are written for people called Ahmad, but they were different people, you see now? There is one particular which is very famous. That's what you say. There is another one which is also famous, and Shoghi Effendi has translated parts of it in the Gleanings, parts of it. Although his name does not appear as Ahmad in that particular part but that's another tablet. And there are other tablets which are written for other people called Ahmad so it's not easy to say how many Tablets of Ahmad there are. There may be several, depending on the number of people whom Bahá’u’lláh had written to different Ahmad's. Ahmad's a very common name, but there are two which are very famous and well-known amongst the believers. One is the one we always read and call it the Tablet of Ahmad and most believers are familiar with it. The other one is an Ahmad, which who was very different type of a person altogether than the other one. One was the embodiment of purity and sanctity, and the other one was the opposite. And Bahá’u’lláh wrote to both of them. The one that we read, of course, is that Ahmad who really was so detached from the things of this world that Bahá’u’lláh has given him such a great station.

Now, when you say that Bahá’u’lláh has said that, "Be as the flame of fire to my enemies and the River of Life eternal to my loved ones" well, it is not necessarily meaning that when you see the enemies, you have to burn them up and destroy them. This is not what is meant. It's really meant, you see, a fire always in the writings. The fire is an instrument by which you can tear up and burn the veils which come between man and God. In the long obligatory prayer, you can say make my prayer of fire that can burn away the barriers between me and God, so that when Bahá’u’lláh says that you should be as a fire, flame of fire to my enemies. In one sense, in one sense, you could say it means that you should burn their veils of ignorance. The fire also warms up the hearts of people, you know. That's another thing to warm them up so that - there are various tablets of Bahá’u’lláh in which He has, in fact used these symbols very clearly. He has said, in some tablets, for example, Bahá’u’lláh says to a person, He says, "Be as a flame of fire and with it warm up the hearts of people." So from these words, you can deduce that it's not meant that you should become fierce with people.

In fact, in one of his tablets, Bahá’u’lláh has made it very clear that we should never interpret anything in His writings into that state of fierceness and rising up against other people. He has mentioned that, and I actually I think quoted it in the third volume of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh when we are describing the fire tablet. Bahá’u’lláh says, "Do not use those passages, which I have used in the fire tablet as a pretext to rise up and to destroy people's lives or otherwise to become an aggressive person. He says these vestiges we have revealed in order to indicate the sufferings which have been inflicted upon Him, and that he says in this dispensation, we must be always loving people, even our enemies. This is the teachings of God and it will never be changed. It is the eternal teaching of God. If that was what was in your mind, perhaps this may be the answer to it. All right? Yes?

[man speaking] I have a crucial question -

Oh, crucial questions, we can't answer.

[man speaking]

We cannot really here draw, there's nothing hardened, what you say? There is nothing absolutely hard and fast rule that you can say, this is one and that's the other. There are many prayers which are like tablets. Many tablets which are like prayers, half of them. So that again, remember, everything depends on your intentions and your heart. I can assure you that if every morning you read the prayers and thinking these are the writings, that will be acceptable to God, of course it'll be. You know, God is very, very forgiving, and He looks at your motives more than anything else. But I think this you can't draw a line between it, and I think that both of them are correct.

[Audience question]

I didn't exactly follow what you were saying. Sorry. Uh-uh, anything else?

[Audience question]

Oh, well no. All I said was that one of them is this what Bahá’u’lláh refers to it, what Christ refers to it is sin against the Holy Ghost, which is to ask Baháʼís, "Is the covenant breaking?" Now that you mentioned that, I think it's not a bad idea if I talk to you a little bit about the Covenant. You see, this is it. I mentioned yesterday a little bit about this and before I go there, I want to put your mind at ease. Somebody has written me a letter here called Carlos. I don't know who it is. Carlos. You're the one. Now, I wonder whether we should discuss this thing with you later on because this is all about the obligatory prayer, isn't it? And if there is time, by all means, we can discuss it, but it's something that you and I can talk about it. He's asking some meanings of this and that. And the other person is Carl McGrath. It's you. Now, will you be here tomorrow? Will you be here tomorrow? Okay. Well, I'm just saying, in case we couldn't deal with it today, at least we can leave it. And there is another person. And there is another person who was written. His name is "Thank you". [laughter] Now, and this is about process of the lesser piece, and I'm just wondering whether that person will be here tomorrow. Oh, you will be here tomorrow, huh? You will be. Oh, good. Well, then, I like always to put the questions away. And that's how we did it, write successfully. [laughter] Now we can talk - you're coming? Yes? Yes? What is it about? [audience speaking] Oh, I didn't translate it, no? Well that's my problem. [?].

I'm glad I'm not infallible, you know, make a lot of mistakes. [laughter] That's a great relief actually, when you know that you are not infallible. I find it very good and it's a great relief. That's one of the bounties of God, really, that he has made us not infallible and that we make all these. Well friends, I think it's not a bad idea if you talk about the Covenant, but before I talk about the Covenant, there's one subject that maybe we can talk about it now. And that is to close the materials that we have been discussing so far about reading, saying the prayers, reading the writings, teaching the Faith and we said how important it is and as we go do these things, our faith will grow. And I mentioned that we must not become rigid in anything in life. You should not become rigid. These are the basic principles that we have to observe, but, you know, if you didn't today, you'll do it tomorrow. Don't be worried about it. Although tomorrow may never come, that's another thing. [laughter] And don't keep me responsible now and say that you told us not to do it today and [laughs]. But all I'm saying is this, that we must become very, very much assured of God's bounties which will come to us if we take a little step towards teaching and towards reading, God will help us enormously. And I mentioned that you could examine, you could test these things. You could test Bahá’u’lláh and see how much he will change our lives. I've heard many friends have come to us and told us the same thing that since they have been putting these things into practice, that they have been reading the writings religiously, religiously. I told you, like the story of the Irish girl I mentioned to you yesterday in Paris. Do you remember?

Now these people are so much out of the problems of this world that all the problems are no longer on their shoulders. They just feel a new person. They feel relieved of all things because their reliance is on Bahá’u’lláh, although they may go through a great deal of suffering. But they know that this is a marvelous thing and they endure it and they love it and they grow in the Faith. So that all these points that I mentioned yesterday the reading of the writings, the saying of the obligatory prayers, the living of the life, the teaching the Cause and pioneering and making more local assemblies, really these are the basic works which will help us to grow, and our faith will grow. But then there are dangers. Now I'm going to mention some dangers for you here, dangers. You know, if you possess a very nice thing, there are thieves who are ready to take it from you. If you have a beautiful treasure, there are thieves. There are some very dangerous, dangerous robbers, highway robbers who can rob it off you. Now that I'm talking of highway robbers, I remember the story which might be a good thing to hear it. Highway robbery. Do you know what highway robbery is? You have never been involved in it. Highway robbery is something which happened in the East very much. And when I was young we used to go through it all the time. When you travel from one town to another, there are big, long big deserts around. And these deserts, there are certain areas that men, armed men are there, bandits you call them, and they attack caravans and people who are traveling. And they will take all their things from them, everything they have. I think you have them in America years ago. You've forgotten the practice, huh? Nowadays you don't do this, but in the old days, they used to do that.

Now in these highway robbers, there was a highway robber who somebody talked to him about the Faith. And this is not a made up story really, and he became a Baháʼí. But in those days, there were no local assemblies to help us. He just taught him the faith. He accepted Bahá’u’lláh and became a believer, but he continued in his work as a highway robber. You know? He was, really sincerely, he was doing his job very well. [laughter] He understood certain teachings, of course, and he also heard that in the faith there was no clergy. There were no priests, you know. This is one thing he heard. There was no priests in the faith, and he was very happy about that, that there were no priests because after a year when he met this Baháʼí and he told him, "How are you doing?" He said, well, he said, "My business is going on very well. In fact, it's much better than last year because when I was a Muslim, I would never rob a clergyman but now I do." [laughter] Now this man later on really became a true Baháʼí. And then he lived the life completely different, I can tell you that. We all change, you know.

Yes, we were talking about highway robbers who robs you of everything. Now in the faith also, in our lives, there are very dangerous robbers for every one of us, every one of us in our lives, which we have to be very careful. Once you become a Baháʼí and once you grow in the Faith and once you do all these things we mentioned, you have to be constantly watching. And it's a constant watching in the same way that, I don't know what you do here but in our countries, we have burglar alarms and all kinds of things to protect us from this. Now there are three, I'm going to mention three very dangerous robbers of the Faith who rob our faith away from us. The first one who robs it and he's a very dangerous one is our own self. Again, an ego that we were talking about. That is the most dangerous thing which can constantly direct us towards the animal world, the animal nature. I was mentioning the other day to some of the friends who were assembled here, it's like an aircraft. We are like a human, the faith - the human being is like an aircraft. We have two things. One is the deadweight. See, the aircraft has a dead weight, which means that dead weight that drags it down all the time. At all the time it's ready to drag it down, to drop it. It is the weight, gravity. And then it has the engines which are pulling it up. Now, the minute the engines are stopped, immediately the dead weight will pull the aircraft down and it will not wait and say, "All right, I'll give you three minutes." No, immediately it pull it down so that you see, the engines is our Faith and it must be always wrapped up. It must always be operating, always be on. If you're not on our guard, this dead weight, which is the animal nature in man. You know, we have two natures. The animal nature, which we call itself that is going to pull us down. And so the only thing which will stop it is our faith which can pull it up. And it's very easy to come down, down the hill than go up the hill. It will pull you down immediately, the force of gravity. But for the engines to pull it up, it takes a long time. And it needs an awful lot of energy and time and effort. This is one of the greatest robbers we have of our faith.

The other robber, which is just as dangerous, is bad company, bad company. Bahá’u’lláh has told us that we must associate with the Godly, with the people. "Eschew fellowship," He says. These are His own words, "eschew fellowship with the ungodly". Now the ungodly does not mean a person who doesn't believe in God. Remember that. Oh, no. The ungodly is a person who comes between you and Bahá’u’lláh. And you say, "Look, you are Baháʼí, okay, but let us go and do this. Let us go and do that." Directs you to do things against the teachings of the Faith. I've seen many people who become Baháʼís. Young people, especially the young people, are more targets for this, much more than the older ones in schools and colleges, in society. I've seen some young people who come into the Faith with great joy and excitement, and after a month, you hear, "Where are they? Oh, well, this boy was, had a friend and is involved with the friend, and that's it. He's gone. The friend has pulled him the other way." The ungodly does not mean a person who doesn't believe in God, who's agnostic or atheist. The ungodly may be a person who confesses in a very religion in a very sincere way. But the person who is an agnostic and an atheist may not be an ungodly person. He may be a very good person, and in fact, most of them are very honest people, very good. Most people who become agnostics or atheists, I think they're very honest people. They find that religion has been so misrepresented and so distorted in the ways by those who confess to have a religion that they have just said, "We don't want this." This is very honest. So this is the second dangerous thing that could rob us of our faith really. We have seen amongst the young people, so many young people who have been destroyed, completely gone away because of this bad company, completely destroyed. People who were brought up even as Baháʼís, and then the bad company, they got in contact with so many bad associates. And then they took him away.

And the other one, finally the third one. Another thing, which I'm sure it doesn't happen in America. It's gossip, really, backbiting. This is something which is we must always talk good of the people, always talk of the people. Talking with people, somebody said, "When do we draw the line? We can always talk about people, but when can we say it is back biting? You know, sometimes you talk about people. When does it become backbiting?" I thought, I said to him, "When you begin to enjoy it, it becomes backbiting." [laughter] You know? Really, that's what happened. These three things, I think, are just enough for us to concentrate on these points and try to guard ourselves against this. We must always talk good of the people, beautiful. Every Baháʼí is so beautiful because the power of faith is working within that person. Because, as I said this morning, well we are related to Bahá’u’lláh. I am only related to Him by name. That's all I can say, but that's a tremendous honor, tremendous. Well, now, having said this, let us go a little bit to the subject of the Covenant. I wanted to mention maybe about half an hour here and talk about Covenant. Again, yesterday we touched upon this. I mentioned that Bahá’u’lláh brought for us a great ocean of His revelation, real ocean. In the dispensations of the past, the manifestations of the past, they brought also the word of God, but in relation to what Bahá’u’lláh has brought in this day, it was not an ocean. It was a small pond, you might say, but they brought the water of life. Everyone of the prophets of God who have come, they bring with them the water of life. And that water of life when they are alive, when the manifestations of God are alive, and they are with man and they are walking with man and talking with man, that water of life is fresh. It's like rain.

You know, the word of God is like the coming of rain. When the rain comes, you become refreshed by it directly. You know, it comes to you and hits you directly. You become refreshed by it directly. But when the rain stops, when the manifestation of God is no longer with us, that water is accumulated then, in a pond. That's where you get your water of life, but he is no longer there to rain upon you. He's gone. Christ was here for three years. Mohammed was for 23 years, and what he left behind was the Koran, for instance, which was became like the pond from which all the people could go and receive this water of life. In Christianity, we have the Gospels, which is the repository of the words of Christ. And it is like a pond of water into which people, the saints, and scholars of Christianity went to it. They took this water of life and they took it away and distributed it and gave this water of life to everyone. This is how other religions grew.

And this dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh has brought an ocean for us, really an ocean. But in the past, when the prophet passed away, he left this water of life free to people to use it the way they wanted it, which meant that everybody was free. If you have a pond of water in your house and hundreds of people are at it, what will happen to that water of life, to that water? It'll become adulterated because everybody pushes his pots and pans in it and washes things into it. And after a while that water loses its purity. It's adulterated. This is what happened to all the religions. The founder of the Faith brought the water of life, but he lifted freely to his followers. He said, "Here it is. This is for you." And the followers really so much adulterated it. They added things to it, to the word of God. They took away things from the word of God. They interpreted the word of God, [?]. They pulled it into pieces the way they did it, and so they created sects and divisions. They adulterated it. And now we look at these religions, there are hundreds of sects. It's because man has had the freedom to use this. Now Bahá’u’lláh has done entirely a new thing altogether, which the prophets of the past had not done. Now why they didn't do it, now this is an important point. You must not think that the prophets of the past did not know. Bahá’u’lláh as you know, has given us a Covenant, firm covenant. He has put a wall around this great ocean, and He said nobody has the right to touch it. Nobody has the right to interpret it.

The other manifestations of God didn't do this. You mustn't say, "Oh well, they didn't do it because they didn't know." This is far from the truth. The reason they didn't do it was because mankind in those days were not mature enough to be held responsible. Because once you have a covenant, you will have to be responsible in the same way that I was giving the example of a child rolling in mud, coming back with his new suit of clothes. He rolls in mud and he comes home. Well, he's not to be held responsible. Only when he grows up you can give him responsibility. You give him a new suit of clothes, he goes back. He goes out, but if he rolls in mud as I said, he will be in trouble. So you see, mankind had not reached the age of maturity to be able to hold on to the terms of a Covenant which is very disciplinary in its nature. You do not have to interpret the words of God. This is a great discipline. But in the past, they did. And so different religions in the past were divided into sects, and yet those sects grew together. For instance, in Christianity, you'll see that in the early days, the Christian faith was divided into three or four major sects, but each sect grew upon the tree of Christianity. Each one drew its sustenance from it. You couldn't say one of them didn't draw the sustenance from the teaching of Christ. It was like, like a tree which had several branches. But today it's different, very different. There is only one branch and anyone who deviates is cut off, and then you cut it off. You don't have to fight it. It'll dry by itself.

Now, in this dispensation, as I said, Bahá’u’lláh has brought for us an ocean of revelation, but he did not give that revelation to us directly and say, "All right, this is My revelation. I brought it for you. I give it to you." He didn't do that. He brought it for us, but He didn't give it to us. I think that we mentioned that somehow in passing yesterday, in reference. He didn't give it to us. He gave it instead to the person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá became the container of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. All the forces of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh were placed within ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to such an extent that He had the powers of the Manifestation. Although He was not a Manifestation of God, He had the powers of the Manifestation. It's like the moon. When you look at the moon, it has light, and it's this beautiful light but it is not of itself. It has not a light of itself. It is reflected upon it. Whereas the sun, like a manifestation of God, has its own light and its own heat. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá here is like the moon which gives light. By virtue of being the container of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, He had all the powers of the manifestation conferred upon it. He knew what was in your heart, just us Bahá’u’lláh knew. And He had all the powers and His words, although is not the word of God in that sense, but it has the same validity as the words of Bahá’u’lláh. In fact, in one sense, His words are more authentic than those of Bahá’u’lláh. Did you ever think of that? The words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá are could be more authentic than the words of Bahá’u’lláh.

For example, if you ever come across the statement that Bahá’u’lláh has made a statement, say. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says this, really, He may make it statement completely opposite to it. Which one would you take? The words of Bahá’u’lláh or the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? You don't take the words of Bahá’u’lláh. You take the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá because He's the interpreter of the word. So in that sense, His words become more authentic if they seem to be contrary to it because He is giving us an interpretation which we may not even understand, but it is He who can interpret for us. Yes? [audience question] Yes, yes, of course. The words of Shoghi Effendi are the same thing because He is the interpreter of the word of God. But this is very rare that this may happen. It is very rare, but if it has happened, there are some cases. I'll give you an example of it. Bahá’u’lláh's secretary has written. They said that the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh had met out physically in Tehran. It is in one of the Tablets, which Mírzá Áqá Ján, Bahá’u’lláh's secretary has written and you know Bahá’u’lláh 's secretary did not write anything of himself. Everything that he was written, it was dictated to him even though it appears in his own, as if it is his own composition. But it was all composed by Bahá’u’lláh, everything that he has written. Now, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says they never met personally individually. So whose words we take? We take the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. You see, this is how we have to understand this. Now I was saying that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in here becomes the container of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. And yesterday those of you who were here, I was describing how Bahá’u’lláh is like the summit of a mountain and Abdul Baha'i being a servant, a servant that no other human being on this earth can reach him as low as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in servitude. He's the lowest of all in servitude. He's like a valley. Bahá’u’lláh like the summit of the mountain and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá like a deepest valley. And so when the water pours down from the top of the mountain, it accumulates in the lowest valley. And so all the forces of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh are accumulated within the person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.

And then there is another thing you must know. That the center-- if I wanted to put water in this glass and the water is pure, this glass must be empty. If it is not empty when I pour water in it, it's going to be adulterated. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was that empty of his own self. He had no will of himself. He submitted his will to that of Bahá’u’lláh completely, utterly, and so he was a stainless mirror, as Shoghi Effendi describes Him. A stainless mirror which reflected the light of Bahá’u’lláh in perfection. If the mirror is not stainless, it will not be able to reflect it fully. And so it was a completely empty and pure vessel in which Bahá’u’lláh poured His revelation within it, the forces of His revelation. And you must not think also that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tried very hard and tried to become a very outstanding person as it was and emptied himself in a sense. He did, maybe, I don't know, but he was certainly not a human being like you and I. He was created for this purpose by God. It was a gift of Bahá’u’lláh to mankind. It was a part of the revelation of Bahá’u’lláh in the same way that revelation comes from Bahá’u’lláh and it is from God who sends it to us. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was also a gift of God to mankind. He had the makings of being pure and empty of self, and so he was a Perfect Exemplar for the teachings. Now ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, during the 29 years of His ministry, he enriched the Baháʼí writings. The revelation of Bahá’u’lláh was enriched by it. He expounded it. He explained it to us. He put it in simple words for us. He guided us, He helped us how to live up to those teachings.

And then, of course, as you know, here comes the story of self again, comes up. This ambition, this ego as I said is the greatest enemy. There were people who had egom great ambitions to become leaders. And when Bahá’u’lláh passed away and Bahá’u’lláh told us very clearly in His will and testament. He said, "Everything I brought is within ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I'm paraphrasing His words or paraphrasing the thought even. But this is what He said really. Turn to Him for anything you want. Outside him, there is nothing. And yet there were some ambitious men who, as soon as Bahá’u’lláh passed away, thought now the field is open for them and they wanted leadership, just like religious leaders. You know, today we have plenty of them. This shouldn't be a surprise to us. Today the world is full of leaders. Everybody wants to become leaders. So you see how much the, we have a lot of ambitious men. Now I'm not saying that in government, whatever they do is not our problem. They're not worried about that. They are all ambitious, okay. Let them be. And I don't think that it is bad to be ambitious in your work. Why not? You want to be, if you're doing any work, why don't you, you should do it in such a way that we become distinguished. We progress. We go higher up in your work. This is not a bad thing, provided we do it in the right way and not to try to kill a lot of people on the way, but do it in the right way, a Baháʼí who is working. Whatever your profession, you must try to perfect it. You must try to be distinguished. If you're an engineer, be a distinguished engineer. If you're a doctor, be a distinguished doctor. If you're an administrator, why not? But we are saying in faith, in the faith of God, there is no room for ambition. And these ambitious men wanted to become leaders. There were so many of them, so many of them. And most of them were outstanding teachers of the faith who thought this is the opportunity to rise up and break up this faith like the old days into sects.

And so they began to attack the center of the Covenant like men who come to attack this great wall which Bahá’u’lláh has placed around this ocean. They wanted to get through to this ocean, but they didn't succeed. And at the same time, I can tell you, it brought so much suffering to the person of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá that not until you study the history of that period and maybe I don't think that history is yet really compiled of the history of Covenant-breaking during the time of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in English, anyhow. When you read that history of the Covenant-breaking and the sufferings which were inflicted upon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, you will not believe it. The things that they did, how much they went, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá's brothers, his family, the family of Bahá’u’lláh, they all rose up against Him. Every one of the members of the family of Bahá’u’lláh, with the exception of a very few, rose up against ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. And then hand in hand with some very outstanding teachers of the Faith, for many years, not only misrepresentations, but so many times they plotted to take His life. They did everything to humiliate, to misrepresent, and to dishonor Him. All the time, this was going on, the intrigues that were going on all the time. Now, it's beyond the scope of our discussions here to even go into it. If ever somebody can study that, you will find that no human being, no human being can ever go through so much opposition and afflictions. And yet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá dealt with it personally with loving kindness, but for the community's sake, with great firmness. And He said those were breakers of the Covenant, those who have a reason to destroy the Cause of God, He announced them as Covenant-breakers and we do not associate with them. That's all we do not do with the Covenant-breakers. You do not hate them. You do not fight with them. You do not try to destroy them, but we just do not associate with them. And this is a very important principle. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said it's like a disease, infectious disease, which the doctor was isolate you. I mean, this happens in life. The doctor isolates you if you have an infectious disease and this is because, He said if a thousand healthy people go near that one defective person, that diseased person, they're all going to take this disease. That one person will not become better by associating with a thousand healthy men, but a thousand healthy men will become affected by one person who is diseased.

You see, this process of Covenant-breaking which did not exist in the-- they existed in the past, but that it was not dealt in the past. Nobody had the power, the authority to deal with those who break the Covenant. Those who broke the Covenant, if there was such a thing as a Covenant. In Islam, there was a verbal arrangement or a verbal statement which was made by Muhammad describing who should be the follower of Muhammad, who should be succeeding Mohammed. But his followers divided and they disagreed and they divided into two major sects. But they were both growing again, you know, there was no question of cutting anybody off. They were both Muslims of different sects. But in this age, anyone who have risen up against the center of the faith, he's cut off. He's cut off. And I will explain to you this process of Covenant-breaking and the process of throwing away somebody out of the Faith, cutting him off. As I said, like a branch which deviates and you cut it off. And when you cut it off, it drops on the ground. And for a few days, it may be green, may be a little life in it, but eventually it will perish. We don't have to fight them. We don't have to hate them. We don't have to do anything, but we do not associate with them. And the best example again to know this is to look at your own human body. The human body is the best example. If you look at human body, you will find that a healthy person can always withstand any disease or germs or anything which comes from the outside. If you're healthy, you're not going to be affected by it. We always go through these germs and through these things. You always, always throughout all around us, is full of germs and various things, but you get over it. But if ever you allow poison to enter inside your bloodstream and circulate, that's the end. You can't stand that. It'll destroy you right away. And so the body has a system. The body has a machinery, like the kidneys. This is the work of the kidneys. They inspected the blood stream, if you like to call it, and they pick up anything which is poisonous. All the poisonous material are collected from the body, from the bloodstream. They won't let it go through the bloodstream. And at every and at intervals, these impurities are thrown out, isn't that right? If you allow, if there was no kidneys, you know what happened to a person? Probably he would die after - I don't know, I'm not a doctor - a few hours, all the poisons is destroying you. That's the end. And so all the impurities are thrown out, and once it is thrown out, you feel healthy.

[audio jumps] This machinery, the Hands of the Cause, it's their function to be vigilant. And if there is anyone who is a poison circulating within the community, they'll throw him out with the help, with the approval of the House of Justice today. In the future, they will devise a different system path. But there is a machinery. And it does not mean that anybody who opposes the Faith in some ways, you throw him out in that way and you call him a Covenant-breaker. A Covenant-breaker is a person who opposes the center of the Faith actively. For instance, you may find the person who says, "Look, I am not a Baháʼí. I was a Baháʼí, but I'm not a Baháʼí." Okay, this is not the problem. You withdraw His name. And in fact, you will love him and you will help him. You will associate with him. Or a person may have broken some laws and he's become, his voting rights is removed from him. Still, you can associate with him. There's no problem there. He will one day may come back again into the Faith. But the Covenant-breaker is a person who actively opposes the center of the Faith. For instance, he says, "I believe in Bahá’u’lláh, but I don't accept anything that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said and I'm going to oppose it. Or somebody may say, "I believe Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as they did, but I will oppose anything that Shoghi Effendi will say. And I'm a Baháʼí and I'm coming to your 19-day feast. And I'm going to oppose everything that Shoghi Effendi has said. I won't let that happen." Or somebody today might say, "Look, I accept all the writings, but I'll oppose anything that the House of Justice says. I'm coming to your 19-day feast, your assemblies, your communities and I'm going to oppose everything they say."

Well, this is the poison which is trying to circulate inside. And this, we will not allow to happen. It's like a cancerous disease, which happens sometimes. You may go and the doctor says, "I must cut your hand off right away." You won't object to that. You will welcome it. You'll say, "All right, cut it off." Why? Because you know that if that cancer is allowed to remain there, it's going to destroy you. This is exactly what Covenant-breaking is. But fortunately now we live at a time that we are talking about Covenant-breaking. Very few of them exist today who are opposing the House of justice. Very few of them and they are so, we are not worried about them. We are not doing anything with them. We are just leaving it to themselves. And as I said, we don't hate them. We don't associate with them. If they write me a letter, I will not answer them. I will not read it. I'll throw it away. It's poison.

[Audience question]

I don't know. I don't know. There may will be. There are still some who oppose the House of Justice. I think as long as man-- Shoghi Effendi mentions, he says that in every faith people arose and divided religions into sects. They violated the covenants. In this age, he says, it's the same people will, have violated the Covenant and, in fact, have violated it much more vigorously than at any other previous dispensation. But he says the difference and therefore probably this Covenant-breaking may be there until the end of this dispensation, but he says, the distinguishing feature of this Faith is that they have not succeeded in bringing division. They have dissipated themselves, and this is the true history of the Faith. All of those things who people rose up against the Faith, where are they? Those Covenant-breakers of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, they're gone and forgotten and finished and part of the history. If you want to go to Akka to find out the grave of Muhammad Ali was the archbreaker of the Covenant, you won't find it. You don't know where he is even buried. Those hundreds of people who rose up against Shoghi Effendi amongst his family and others, where are they? They're gone, finished, completely finished without doing anything to them. They're gone.

And today, there may well be a few here and there. But one thing which is sure is that the Cause of God will not become divided into sects. If you look at the history of other religions, you will find the sects created immediately after the prophet was gone. The body of Muhammad wasn't buried yet that his followers were divided into two major sects and the fighting broke up amongst them right away in this dispensation. This is why Bahá’u’lláh says this is a day that shall not be followed by night. Now I will explain to you in another way what Covenant-breaking is, just on a basis of nature, in nature. What is in nature, Covenant-breaking? Just to explain to you by using the laws of nature. As I said from nature, we learn everything, really. First of all, do you know that, look at nature. You will find all these opposite things attract each other. The north pole of a magnet and the south pole of a magnet are opposites. They'll attract to each other, but the two similar poles, they repulse. If you bring two north pole of a magnet together, there is a force of repulsion. Now, this is in nature. And it's the same thing in spiritually. God is one end, but the opposite to it is man, opposite pole. God is sovereign Lord of all. The opposite to it is servitude, humility. You see, these are two opposite things, and these two things attract each other. God loves to see a servant. He is attracted to a servant. He attracts to Himself. But if ever somebody wants to put himself on the same level as God. Or when I say God, I mean say the Manifestation of God or the center of the Covenant, it doesn't matter. If a person wants to put himself on the same level as Bahá’u’lláh or put himself on the same level as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or put himself on the same level as Shoghi Effendi, you know. The same level, there is a force of repulsion. This is Covenant-breaking. As long as you're a servant, there's no problem. But as soon as you want to bring yourself on the same level, knowing what this is. Knowing this is a manifestation of God, having recognized Him, you want to bring yourself on the same level, immediately there is a repulsion.

Now we want to know, how do we know we bring ourselves on that same level? How do I know that? How can we prove that Muhammad Ali, for instance, brought himself on the same level as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá? How do we know that those who approach Shoghi Effendi brought themselves on the same level of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. How can we say this. Now, there is one test for it. And the test again you will find in life. If I challenge you to fight with me, you and I have to be of the same strength. Or else I would never dare to come and say, "Let us fight." You only fight with someone who is your equal or less than you. A child will never come and challenge a grown-up man. Or you and I would never challenge one of these boxers to come and fight with us because we are not equals with them. If I challenge you to come and if I challenge you, if I oppose you, it means I bring myself on the same level, at least, because I'm opposing you. I'm challenging you. That is the way you can know it. When Muhammad Ali challenged ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, he brought himself on the same level, and this is repulsion. When somebody challenges and opposes ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or Shoghi Effendi, he puts himself on the same level. By virtue of opposing him, it is an indication that you consider yourself at least an equal. Otherwise you wouldn't. That's how we know. Once they oppose, this is the criteria. Once they oppose the center of the Cause, then this is Covenant-breaking. And that has to be established, by the way, by the center of the Faith. Nobody can proclaim somebody a Covenant-breaker.

Now, why I mentioned the importance of Covenant-breaking and steadfastness in the Covenant is that we must not only look at the history of the faith in the past, and all the Covenant-breaking, that's part of history which give us a great courage in the Faith. It's a great pride for us, a great joy and pride. We can mention it with pride that so many people rose up against the Faith, rose up against ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, rose up against Bahá’u’lláh, rose up from within, rose up against Shoghi Effendi, tried to break the Faith into pieces, and they did not succeed. And as Rúhíyyih Khánum once in one of her talks mentioned, she said, every one of these Covenant-breakings is a ribbon we wear in this battle. You know, a ribbon that you were, a medal. Each one of them has proved the invincibility of the Covenant of God, that you cannot break it through. Even the most fierce onslaught which have taken place in the Faith has not succeeded in breaking through this great ocean. So you see? And now look at what happened at the end. Now, I have no time in here to talk to you about this, and it's just coming to an end, but look at what happened when Shoghi Effendi passed away. When Shoghi Effendi passed away, the machinery of the Covenant, this wall around this whole the Cause of God was so strong that even though he had not left a Will and Testament - and I can tell you there was, we don't want to go into that, the great wisdoms of no writing the Will and Testament. You must not think that Shoghi Effendi forgot to write the Will and Testament. The great wisdom, and if he had written a Will and Testament, I'm not going to go into it. You would see that he could have violated some of the basic principles of our faith.

Now, I'm not at all prepared to go into this question now because there is no time. It takes a good while to discuss this. Now we understand this. He could not have written. His hands was tied. And in spite of the fact that there were no Will and Testament and in spite of the fact that the Baháʼís were not only Persians who spoke the same language or only English but that they were scattered throughout the length and breadth of this earth, coming from so many diverse backgrounds, and yet the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh remained unshaken. The community remained unshaken. And when one of the Hands came up [?] and he said "follow me", it was only laughable, the consequences. Where is he? What's happened to him? It all evaporated into the air. The Baháʼí communities remain steadfast. It's just like every interval, the impurities were thrown out. That's all that happens and it was a good thing, all the impurities, like the impurities of the body which are thrown out every intervals. And even now you said there are no possibility. You suggest that there were no possibilities of Covenant-breaking. Well, there may be. There are always ambitious men. And somebody may come and say, "Well, now let us see." You know, they may oppose the House of Justice. I don't know, there are already some who are doing it. Very few. You can count them on the fingers of your hand throughout the Baháʼí world, really. Now, this is a stage that we have reached. And we have to be grateful to those souls who defended the Covenant of God, who defended this Cause. As I said, they rallied around ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi. You know, there was a time that Shoghi Effendi not one member of his family remained faithful. Not one member of the family of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. They all rose up against him. And you might ask yourself, why is it that the person that - now this is the last thing I'm going to say unless we close this meeting because it's getting late. The last thing I'm going to say to you. Often people may ask themselves this question. How is it that of all the people who should rise up against ‘Abdu’l-Bahá were his closest people, his family, his friends, his brothers? Why should be that all the family of the Master should rise up against Shoghi Effendi. They were the closest to him. You would expect that they wouldn't rise up against him. Now you see, this is a very significant thing for us now.

Now, the only way I can describe it to you is this. That if you were going to see a great scientist, say you and I, we're going to see a great celebrated scientist. Say, for instance, if Einstein was alive, we were all going to see him. Let's go and see him. Now, either you know mathematics or you don't when you go and see Einstein or someone like him. You either know mathematics or you don't. If you know mathematics when you go there and you sit down and you listen, you see him on the blackboard working with these theories and all the formulas he has worked out. And you see the way he has come out with such genius, the way he has proposed his theories. You will be so carried away into the world of mathematics and physics that you consider him as the greatest man, and you come out of the room so excited that if anybody asks you, what was he wearing? You don't know. What would they look like? Even you may not know because you were carried away with his theories. But if you didn't know mathematics and you looked at what he is saying, and especially if you let sitting in the front row, now some of the people were sitting in the front row have seen a lot of things that they would say, "Look at this man, Look at his." You won't understand what he's saying, but you can look at him very clearly because you're sitting very close to him. You would say, "Oh, gosh, look at this fellow. His coat is not properly buttoned. His shoes are dirty. His hair is unkempt. Why they make such a fuss of him?" You see now? Because you don't know mathematics. And so when you come out, you find a lot of faults with him. This was not any, "He was talking nonsense and I didn't understand it and he was having all" - you see all his personal side.

Now, this is exactly what happens with the Manifestation of God and those who are near Him. Those who are near Him, His relations and His family are very close to Him. They are sitting like the front row, and they have no spiritual qualities. You can be sure of this. No spiritual qualities. The only sign of spiritual qualities is if they are servants, if they are servitude. Like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá who had told you would never enter into the room of Bahá’u’lláh without prostrating Himself at His feet and considering Himself as utter nothingness. Now, if you are not like that, you don't know mathematics in that example. Now He knew it. He had seen nothing but the greatness of Bahá’u’lláh. But these people who had nothing at all, no spiritual qualities but full of ambition, they had no share of the spiritual powers which was within Him. And this is why Bahá’u’lláh says, how many of the people who have been in His presence, who hadn't seen Him at all, and how many people were never in His presence, and they had understood and recognized His greatness and glory. These people were sitting very close and so all they saw was a human being. They saw Him. He has to eat. He has to sleep. If He gets tired, if He doesn't sleep tonight, He gets sick just like everybody else. And because they have not seen the great glory which was within Him, therefore, they were the first to rise up. You see now how it is when you're very close. They always say that when you're close to a lamp, there is a shadow near the lamp. You know, these lamps which have a stand. If we look at it, there's a shadow there. The light goes around very close to it. When you're close to the Manifestation of God, tests are very great. The slightest impurities, the slightest condition of ambition will destroy it. But we must thank God in this day that we have none of these problems. Although we have to really deepen ourselves in the knowledge of the Covenant and I wish there was a time that one could talk about the Covenant, that this in itself is something which will need a long time to discuss this.

But now I feel that we have come to the end, whether good or bad. We have talked great deal and I know that some of you are going to go. How many are going tomorrow? Well everybody's going so never mind. No, no, no. [audience speaking] Oh no, everybody's going away, I mean, tomorrow. They won't see us tomorrow. He's going away tomorrow. Oh, there's a few people. Well, I would like to say to those of you who are going that for me, it has been a greatest privilege and a greatest joy to be with you, really. And I hope that I haven't made you tired of all these things. And as I said, if you want to forget everything, forget those points. Just a few of them, you can remember. But always remember that Bahá’u’lláh has to be with us. This is the thing and this is the whole, the essence of all that we have said in our service. And that He comes to us, to our assistance. He helps us. He support us. And all this love that we have for each other, you know, the joy and the love that is in our hearts is not because of ourselves. Now, don't mistake that. All this love which brings us together and makes us to become like one people, is not because of us that we are very important people, that we are very special people in that sense. All of this love and this joy and this unity is because of Bahá’u’lláh. It is His revelation. It's the forces that He has released in the world. And it is that which comes through our hearts and makes us to become one. Otherwise, if if you divorce that from it, what had we in common? All of us? Very little. Nothing. And in spite of all our weaknesses, we were talking about the weakness of our assemblies, in spite of all the weaknesses of our assemblies, look at the way the Faith is growing. Look at the way we are holding on together. If it wasn't for the Cause of God and the power of Bahá’u’lláh, do you think we would be staying together for more than one day in a local assembly? You will disbanded immediately and say, "Go home. We don't want to get into this thing." Oh, no. But it is the cause of God and it is the early stages and the only thing which will help us to really become happy people and to become, and to see that the Cause goes forward is to love each other through Bahá’u’lláh. Love. If this love is not there, then we have to fight the spiritual battle. If I cannot see everybody with the eye of love and unity, then I have to fight my spiritual battle. And as I said, we must look into each other's faces and see a trace of Bahá’u’lláh. And then it will all work.

[audience question] Well, I suppose you can say these things. Well, the covenant of God with man is something all-encompassing. The Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh is only for His followers. It's only addressed to the followers and that the plan of God is something overall which will include all human beings. And Shoghi Effendi says sometimes these two, these two plans will run into each other.

Well, friends, I want to say farewell to some of you who are going, and I hope that we will see and hear about you all wonderful things that happens in this country. And I cannot say to you how much I have been happy and delighted to meet with the friends. So these questions, I'll leave them on this table until tomorrow. Oh, no, we are not supposed to get anything here. Okay, we'll take them. And so, [applause] thank you, thank you!