Hands of the Bahá'í Faith

MONTH OF SOVEREIGNTY

The Bahá'í month of Sultán (Sovereignty) is the period of 19 days beginning January 19.

“… I pray Thee by Him Who is the sovereign Lord of names to write down for me with the Pen of thy bounty, that which will enable me to draw nigh unto Thee and will purge me from my trespasses which have intervened between me and Thy Pardon and Forgiveness. Verily Thou art the Potent, the Bountiful. No God is there but Thee; the Mighty, the Gracious.”

Bahá'u'lláh, Bahá'í Prayers

In this Prayer, Bahá'u'lláh, in His own words is praying to the one True God, the sovereign Lord of names, to be purged of His trespasses that have intervened between He and God’s Pardon and Forgiveness. As we know that Bahá'u'lláh is a perfect mirror of God’s attributes and bounty, does it not seem unwarranted for Bahá'u'lláh to need to invoke such a request? Perhaps so until we remember that even the Manifestations of God are contained in earthly form in a human body such as the rest of us. That may seem to be reason enough, but perhaps He is invoking God’s pardon out of necessity since the Manifestation never equals the One True God in pureness of spirituality. In the Worlds of God, only He contains that ultimate presentation of spirituality.

So, within the Worlds of God, even if God’s Manifestations were not required to reside in this earthly plane for a period of time, it would seem that the chasm of dross separating the spirit of the Manifestation and the One True God is vast and unknowable. The Manifestation, as a perfect mirror reflecting God’s attributes, can never attain to be the One True God. How much more distant are we humans from Bahá'u'lláh than He is from that Holy Being? This is the primary reason that He left the bounty of His Message contained in the many prayers that we humans are blessed with.

Bahá'u'lláh has provided Words that He received from God’s Pen of bounty, and couched them in a manner that we have the ability to process. He approaches us on our level of understanding in all matters, albeit we must struggle many times to fully see the crux of the matter. But this struggle allows us to grow from the imperfect beings that we are, to something more in keeping with God’s New World Order. And his Words are so powerful that no matter what our individual level of spirituality becomes, the very same Worlds read through the eyes of someone with an increased level of understanding through His instruction, may find new and expanded ideas each time he reads them.

Christ instructed His followers to pray saying “…our father who art in Heaven…” Christians the world over cherish that prayer and invoke it continually, particularly in Sunday morning worship services. But beyond that, the Christian daily worship falls back to a mode of the words of each worshiper, citing particular needs for God to be aware of, even though He knows our needs better that each of us do. On the other hand, Bahá'u'lláh’s bounty is so vast that He left us countless volumes of prayers to invoke. In addition, the Bahá'í Faith has the prayers of the Báb and `Abdu'l-Bahá to augment those of Bahá'u'lláh. Although we each seem to have something of urgent need to pray about, we, as Bahá'ís are so blessed to have the original words of the three Central Figures of the Faith to invoke for our needs, for any of those Words are far beyond our own capacity to clearly imagine what we truly need on a spiritual basis. And when our spiritual needs are satisfied, it generally follows that our material world mysteriously attains an ordered structure that we had not even contemplated.

What does that have to do with sovereignty? Could it be that in the Words of the above quote that Bahá'u'lláh is reminding us that God’s Pen of bounty is the source of our having a fragment of the Spirit to cling to when we yearn to have God assist us to purge ourselves of our own trespasses, allowing His pardon and forgiveness into our lives? Indeed, it appears that our own trespasses intervene between us and God’s pardon and forgiveness! What a paradox that seems. At the very time we need the most help, our trespasses put a barrier between us and God’s forgiveness. It is in the acknowledging of the vast sovereignty of God that we are able to find a pathway to God’s bounty. It is that pathway that reminds us of the sovereignty of the Eternal Lord of Hosts, and reminds us of our own weaknesses. For without the means to invoke God’s bounty upon us we would all be for ever and ever separated from the boundless love of his Goodness.

Bahá'u'lláh told the world that His miracle would be a change in the hearts of men. God’s sovereignty flows through His Manifestation who in turn transforms the Words from His pen of bounty for us in order that we may experience the message of love that God wants us to find, and accept as the central focus of our existence.

The love flowing from that sovereignty will indeed transform the hearts of each of us.

Hand of the Cause of God David Maxwell

 

 

 

 

 

THE MONTH OF SHARAF (HONOR)

The Bahá'í Month of Honor is the nineteen day period beginning December 31.

“They who are the beloved of God, in whatever place they gather and whomsoever they may meet, must evince, in their attitude towards God, and in the manner of their celebration of His praise and glory, such humility and submissiveness that every atom of the dust beneath their feet may attest the depth of their devotion. The conversation carried by these holy souls should be informed with such power that these same atoms of dust will be thrilled by its influence. They should conduct themselves in such manner that the earth upon which they tread may never be allowed to address to them such words as these: "I am to be preferred above you. For witness, how patient I am in bearing the burden which the husbandman layeth upon me. I am the instrument that continually imparteth unto all beings the blessings with which He Who is the Source of all grace hath entrusted me. Notwithstanding the honor conferred upon me, and the unnumbered evidences of my wealth--a wealth that supplieth the needs of all creation--behold the measure of my humility, witness with what absolute submissiveness I allow myself to be trodden beneath the feet of men...."

-- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 7, 8

Only the eloquence of Bahá'u'lláh could permeate the most basic platform of human life with such power and spirituality, to the degree of becoming a reality check for all who would listen. Do not the words of that quote give one pause? I should hope so, since we are living in an age of awareness that has already rallied many humans to recognize that we must alter our destructive and wasteful ways which currently do little to benefit our Planet. In fact, most of our actions have a negative result on the physical qualities of the world we depend upon for life itself. Bahá'ís recognize that the foremost contributing factor to the world’s pollution is humanity’s spiritual shortcomings. While many sound the alarm of global warming, pointing to material solutions as the answer to solve the problem, we know that a change in the hearts of men, as foretold by Bahá'u'lláh, is the only true solution to the physical maladies of global imbalance.

Although I may have read the above quote at some point in my Bahá'í life, I have no recollection of it. When finding it recently, I was struck with its elemental goodness. This very paragraph would be a wonderful place to start for all those who want to do something about their world and themselves. “The conversation carried by these holy souls (remember, it the Baha’is of the world to whom this is addressed) should be informed with such power that these same atoms of dust will be thrilled by its influence.” Did you ever consider that the very earth we trod upon might be thrilled by the spiritual power of our influence? I never had. To me, Bahá'u'lláh is admonishing us in the very basest of terms, the degree that we should all aspire to in our reflection of His Teachings.

Our World’s composure was radically changed by the vibrating influence of Bahá'u'lláh’s Message for this Day, altering the life processes that our fathers and fore-fathers had learned to rely upon. We, as citizens of this recently altered world have not a clue of the magnitude of that alteration. No doubt, many of the Baha’is would find fault with that assessment. But do we really have a clue? Do we really understand the nuances of this Revelation that is the result of the release of 25 Letters of (God’s) Knowledge upon a hapless society? According to Holy Writ, the entire Adamic Cycle had released only two of those Letters. Along with the release of those 25 remaining Letters, humans became endowed with the capacity to live within the bounds of the marvels of that new presentation. I would presently opine that although humans will eventually be able to handle the new guidelines, at this point we are in what may be described as an embryonic status of understanding; we will eventually understand the requirements, but only have a glimmering of it now. As children go through succeeding levels of learning before understanding the complexities of life, adults now have new lessons to learn as well.

And so it is with all of us; we must first overcome our fear of water in order to progressively learn how to swim. I submit that meditating upon the enormity of the above paragraph could eventually guide us in the direction of beginning to understand the magnitude of grandeur that has been presented to us, and more importantly, the role that we must all present, to the best of our ability, in our acceptance and furtherance of the principles of this New World Order.

Hand of the Cause of God, Nosrat Bahremand, recently reminded us that we need to understand that believers of Bahá'u'lláh and followers of Bahá'u'lláh are two distinct categories. Do I dare suggest that the above quoted paragraph provides a further distinction for us to be aware of in our quest: that is that we must additionally become students of Bahá'u'lláh, beginning with the most basic truths of This Revelation. Acceptance of Bahá'u'lláh is only the beginning of a completely new avenue of life for us, and we need to begin at the most basic level of understanding to be able to truly comprehend its magnitude and honor its presenter appropriately.

Hand of the Cause of God David Maxwell