Be lovingly watchful

Be lovingly watchful of one another
and thus improve your affairs.
Should ye find amongst you one
who is afflicted with grief,
remove his sorrow by any means in your power,
and should ye find one stricken with poverty,
enrich him to the extent of your ability.

If ye find in your midst one who is abased,
exalt him to the extent ye can,
and if ye find one who is veiled by ignorance,
educate him to the degree of your capacity.

Should ye find amongst yourselves one who is single,
help him to marry, in accordance with the divine law,
to the limits of your ability, and should ye find one
who is in distress, bring him tranquility
by any means in your power....

Gaze upon others with the same eyes
with which ye gaze upon your own selves....
If ye find in your midst one who is hungry,
send him, in truth and to the extent of your power,
food in such a way that his heart will not be saddened,
and if ye find one who has no clothes,
provide him with clothes in the most dignified manner,
to the extent possible for you.

Look then not at your selves and your possessions,
but rather look at God, Who hath created you
and conferred upon you
from His kingdom that which is your lot.

(The Bab)

Seek Ye Eagerly!

Seek ye eagerly God's Most Mighty Reward,
through the Báb, for the Báb of Truth,
the Exalted Mystery of God,
this 'Alí, Who is evident in the Mother Book....

O people of Glory!
Hearken ye unto the call of God,
raised within the Inscribed Mystery,
out of these Crimson Leaves,
that hath descended from the Throne
upon this Snow-White Leaf,
to bow down upon the Yellow Dust.

* * * * * *

O people of the Supreme Cloud of Subtlety!
Hearken unto My call from this Radiant Moon,
Whose Countenance shall never eclipse the Face
of this Youth of the East and the West,
the One ye find mentioned in all the Holy Scriptures
as the Mystery that is hidden upon the Written Line....

He verily is the Truth in the accent of Muhammad,
and He is the Mystery Who shineth forth
out of the body of 'Alí, the hidden Dove
- like Light within the heart of Fátimih....
This is verily the Mystery of Mysteries,
Who hath been inscribed in the vicinity of the Water....
- The Báb
(from Gate of the Heart)

Before Abraham was, I am. (Jn 8:54-55)

If Jesus is a prophet then he has a right to pass on the words of God.
What if that is what he was doing the whole time? If so, the words
about Abraham make sense, because it is God speaking.

But what about the "I am". I think that this indicates that Jesus was also
I special character in history. A manifestation of God. He is more than a
prophet.

Muhammad is allowed to be the mouthpiece of God by the Muslims,
but the Christians get confused when Jesus speaks as God. He is a
special soul that has witnessed history and influenced earlier prophets.

The Bab, 1844-1850, said that he spoke to Moses through the burning
bush. It is the job of messengers to pass on messages. Why should we
be so threatened? Is it because God is asking us to do acts that we are
too lazy to do? Is the message too much for us to take?

A.G.W.

I Wonder

Would it be possible that man could construct a system that
had the appearance of spirituality. This would be done in the
distant future. This construction of the soul and heaven would
need to be so convincing that they would be all convinced that
this new created God was uncreated.

This system would have to be passed on to a newly created
universe. None of the creators could live in the new heaven
because they would know the truth and could not hide truth
in heaven. If truth could be hidden then what you would have
was hell.

I suspect that what man could create will be unconvicing. The
levels of heaven would need to be infinite and on each level man
would need to learn truths that man on earth will never know. A
man's soul can only be raised to new heights by true heavenly
love and wisdom.

A.G.W.

SPACE TRANSCENDING

I thought the following quote puts much into perspective about our time on this earth.

"The same kind of transcendence of course applies as well to space as to time. The baby learns on the scale of inches before he is big enough to grasp anything in the range of feet. Yet even when he can understand that his crib is a yard long, larger units like acres or miles might be infinite for all his comprehension of them. And it is only when he is big enough to take long walks that his world attains the span of a mile. From there on, the transcendent relativity of space becomes increasingly noticeable to him and the miles (like years) shrink and go by faster as they increase in number - and in a similarly inverse proportion.

"By the time he is grown up and studying astronomy, he will get an inkling of what a light-year is. Then come parsecs and even megaparsecs, which relegate miles (relatively) into the microcosm. And all of this verifies Einstein's statement that neither space nor time are fundamental. Which means they are basically only illusions of this finite phase of earthly existence, out of which the law of transcendence is progressively and inexorably taking us. Moses seems to have agreed when he said in the Ninetieth Psalm that "a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night." Later David added that, "as for man, his days are as grass." And, likening him to a flower of the field, "the wind passeth over it, and it is gone: and the place thereof shall know it no more."

"Please don't get the idea that the sweep of transcendence through time and space need ever disrupt your sense of where or when you are. For the acceleration of dimensions is generally too gentle and natural for that. Certainly you do not have to lose the minute as you gain the hour. Nor let go the year to grasp the century. In fact I can read a chapter of the book of life now in as few clock hours as it took me to read a single sentence in my childhood, yet I'm sure I understand most sentences of that chapter much better than I understood the single sentence I once struggled with. By simple extrapolation I can even predict that when you and I are a billion earth years old and a finite century unrolls in a twinkle, whatever world we are in (assuming it includes the time dimension) we will still have ample "time" to take in every minute of every year. We may feel then what we can barely deduce now: that time is just as relative a dimension as space, with width and depth as well as length.

"And so with space, the astronomer with his telescope who thinks in megaparsecs and supergalaxies need have no difficulty in switching, if need be, to a microscope and measuring molecules in microns and angstroms. For you do not lose the inch when you encompass the mile, nor the mile when you discover the light-year. And no one of the finite units of space or time excludes or diminishes another."

(from The Seven Mysteries of Life by Murchie)

Tests and Trials

I thought these passages in the book I have been reading will encourage many Baha'is.

(from Counsels of Perfection by Genevieve Coy)

Tests and Trials

The word 'test' is used frequently in the Bahá'í
Writings. Some of these tests, or trials, are the
consequences of a person's own actions. He makes a
mistake and has to suffer the consequences; he is
unkind, and makes a friend unhappy; he fails to pay
his debts, and becomes known as untrustworthy. It is
only when he analyses his behaviour, and realizes his
errors, that he will make an effort to change his conduct.
If he does not see his mistakes and try to improve, he has
failed to meet the 'test' he has given himself.

Other tests and trials are sent to us by God for our
development and perfecting. Some people have difficulty
in accepting this idea; they even feel that God
is unjust when he presents us with problems. But this
is just what a good teacher does in order to educate
his pupils. He gives them problems to solve, and tests
to take, which are within their ability if they work to
the top limit of their capacity. If he makes the tests
too easy the good student will feel that his teacher is
not interested in him, or underestimates his ability!

Since God is omniscient, He adjusts each individual's
tests to his capacity. We should realize that when a
trial or problem seems impossibly difficult, it is
because we are not working at it with all our might,
and with full dependence on God's help.

He will never deal unjustly with any one, neither
will He task a soul beyond its power.[6]

To the sincere ones, tests are as a gift from God,
the Exalted, for a heroic person hasteneth, with
the utmost joy and gladness, to the tests of a violent
battlefield, but the coward is afraid and trembles
and utters moaning and lamentation. Likewise, an
expert student prepareth and memorizeth his
lessons and exercises with the utmost effort, and in
the day of examination he appeareth with infinite
joy before the master.[7]

Remember not your own limitations; the help of
God will come to you. Forget yourself. God's help
will surely come![8]

Tests and trials are opportunities to learn, to become
more mature. Each of us should ask ourselves:
Am I willing to make the effort to learn, or do I
try to avoid the problem? I may try to escape the
problem by refusing to recognize it, by blaming others,
or by making a half-hearted, unintelligent approach
to it. If I succeed in avoiding the test it is likely to
recur again and again, until I face it and solve it.
The psychologist Alfred Adler wrote that the person
who tries to avoid all problems is acting as though he
wishes to 'live like a worm in an apple'!

How can we be happy in the face of problems
which are due to our own weaknesses and errors? If
you have lost your way in the woods, by taking the
wrong turn when the path forked, you return to the
fork, and are joyful to move forward on the path
which will take you to your destination. Similarly, we
can be happy in learning what we should not do in
the future.

We should not waste our energy by dwelling on our
failures. We should form the habit of looking for the
cause of the error. Then, if we can do something to
correct the mistake, let us do it at once. If we cannot
repair the harm we have done, let us plan how we can
do better to meet a similar situation next time it
arises. We should then move ahead into constructive
activity, rather than feel we are being 'noble' when
we use time and energy in regret and remorse.

Worry is another emotion with which some people
meet tests and problems. The dictionary defines 'to
worry' as 'to torment oneself with, or suffer from,
disturbing thoughts; to dwell uncomfortably on
actual or possible troubles'. Worry, like remorse is
an unproductive use of time and energy. It is
incompatible with an intelligent effort to solve the
problem. If you worry about a difficult university
entrance examination that you must take, you are
wasting time which could be spent in study: you cannot
worry and study at the same time. If you worry about
the success of a public talk on the Bahá'í Faith which
you are to give this evening, you are showing a lack
of common sense: do you wish your mind to be a
confused, unhappy turmoil when you address the
audience? If you have prepared the talk to the best of
your ability, leave its delivery in the hands of God,
and go to a film, or read an interesting book.

When God sends us difficult problems we often
cannot see their usefulness for our own development.
I may be unhappy because the direction of my life
seems to be deflected from what I thought was a fine
and creative goal. I may feel that many of my most
unselfish efforts have been wasted. But I can foresee
only a small section of my life, on my way through
eternity. God, who 'sees the end from the beginning',
has for me a larger and more glorious goal than I
can imagine. My faith in His goodness and justice
must be so deep that I can rejoice in the methods He
uses to educate me.

Graphic

As the sun sprays rays upon the shores
Of minds of receptive souls, scaring shadows aside
Man must open his horizons, human pores
To the eternal verities, much more absorb
Than now, before, in store a majestic push.

We hide from the close fit of revelation
We could glide forward on wings
Strong minds resigned to avoiding
Graphic sex and violence, springing into greens
Of new growth and directions, summer coming.

Picked to be revelators and seers, we
Fear not! See like you can encapsule truth
But never attribute authority wrongly
Mirrors unite about new lands and seas
Opening new eyes, senses freshly awakened.

As the sun sprays rays upon the shores
We are tired of old worn ways, decline
Old patterns, bright orange and blue feathers
Flit about the shining giant trees of eternity
Glinting arrows of light flashing
From distant mountain tops.

A.G.W.