Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind,
the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of
imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation. 
O ye believers of God! This day is the day of your
attraction! This day is the day in which you must diffuse the Fragrances of
God! This day is the day that you must unfurl the Banner of the Kingdom of
Abha! This day is the day of Peace and Concord! This day is the day of the
proclamation of the oneness of the world of humanity! This
day is the day of forgiveness and leniency! This day is the day of Truth
and righteousness! This day is the day of conciliation and beatitude! This day
is the day of awakening and enkindlement!
The beginning of religion is love for God and for His Chosen
Ones, and its end is to manifest that love to His servants.
Verily in this Day all that dwell on earth are the servants
of God. As to those who truly believe in God and are well assured in the signs
revealed by Him, perchance He will graciously forgive them the things their
hands have committed, and will grant them admission into the precincts of His
mercy. He, in truth, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Compassionate. But the verdict
of divine chastisement is pronounced against those who have turned away
disdainfully from Me and have repudiated the conclusive proofs and the unerring
Book with which God hath invested Me, and on the Day of Severing they shall
find no protector or helper.
…when man does not open his mind and heart to the blessing
of the spirit, but turns his soul towards the material side, towards the bodily
part of his nature, then is he fallen from his high place and he becomes
inferior to the inhabitants of the lower animal kingdom. In this case the man
is in a sorry plight! For if the spiritual qualities of the soul, open to the
breath of the Divine Spirit, are never used, they become atrophied, enfeebled,
and at last incapable; whilst the soul’s material qualities alone being
exercised, they become terribly powerful—and the unhappy, misguided man,
becomes more savage, more unjust, more vile, more cruel, more malevolent than
the lower animals themselves. All his aspirations and desires being
strengthened by the lower side of the soul’s nature, he becomes more and more
brutal, until his whole being is in no way superior to that of the beasts that
perish. Men such as this, plan to work evil, to hurt and to destroy; they are
entirely without the spirit of Divine compassion, for the celestial quality of
the soul has been dominated by that of the material.
If one friend feels love for another, he will wish to say
so. Though he knows that the friend is aware that he loves him, he will still
wish to say so.... God knows the wishes of all hearts. But the impulse to
prayer is a natural one, springing from man's love to God.
O children of men! If ye believe in the one True God, follow
Me, this Most Great Remembrance of God sent forth by your Lord, that He may
graciously forgive you your sins. Verily He is forgiving and compassionate
toward the concourse of the faithful. We, of a truth, choose the Messengers
through the potency of Our Word, and We exalt Their offspring, some over
others, through the Great Remembrance of God as decreed in the Book and
concealed therein...
O ye loved ones of the Lord! This is the hour when ye must
associate with all the earth's peoples in extreme kindliness and love, and be
to them the signs and tokens of God's great mercy. Ye must become the very soul
of the world, the living spirit in the body of the children of men.
O My brother! When a true seeker determineth to take the
step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he
must … so cleanse his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger
therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him
away from the truth. Even as thou dost witness in this Day how most of the
people, because of such love and hate, are bereft of the immortal Face, have
strayed far from the Embodiments of the Divine mysteries, and, shepherdless,
are roaming through the wilderness of oblivion and error.
Bahá’u’lláh teaches that the Mercy of God exceeds His
Justice. Ultimately there is hope for every soul of progress and forgiveness.
But at the same time to turn aside from this Cause, once we have really
contacted its spirit, is a grave error and one not to be minimized. But
although we Bahá’ís know this, we cannot thrust such a statement on
non-Bahá’ís. We must always teach constructively, and be very sure that none of
us, through disagreement among ourselves or indiscretion, cool off the souls of
the seekers.
If the heart turns away from the blessings God offers how
can it hope for happiness? If it does not put its hope and trust in God’s
Mercy, where can it find rest? Oh, trust in God! for His Bounty is everlasting,
and in His Blessings, for they are superb. Oh! put your faith in the Almighty,
for He faileth not and His goodness endureth forever! His Sun giveth Light
continually, and the Clouds of His Mercy are full of the Waters of Compassion
with which He waters the hearts of all who trust in Him. His refreshing Breeze
ever carries healing in its wings to the parched souls of men! Is it wise to
turn away from such a loving Father, Who showers His blessings upon us, and to
choose rather to be slaves of matter
As a devoted believer you are urged to strive to develop
forgiveness in your heart toward your parents who have abused you in so
disgraceful a manner, and to attain a level of insight which sees them as
captives of their lower nature, whose actions can only lead them deeper into
unhappiness and separation from God. By this means, you can liberate yourself
from the anger to which you refer in your letter, and foster your own spiritual
development. The peerless example of 'Abdu'l-Baha merits close scrutiny in your
quest for a sense of forgiveness; His abiding love for humanity, despite its
waywardness and perversity enabled Him to manifest sincere compassion and
magnanimity to those who had brought Him distress and hardship.
O ye beloved of the Lord! The Kingdom of God is founded upon
equity and justice, and also upon mercy, compassion, and kindness to every
living soul. Strive ye then with all your heart to treat compassionately all
humankind—except for those who have some selfish, private motive, or some
disease of the soul. Kindness cannot be shown the tyrant, the deceiver, or the
thief, because, far from awakening them to the error of their ways, it maketh
them to continue in their perversity as before. No matter how much kindliness
ye may expend upon the liar, he will but lie the more, for he believeth you to
be deceived, while ye understand him but too well, and only remain silent out
of your extreme compassion.
The real and great love is the love of God. That is holy
above the imaginations and thoughts of men.
The true fruit of man is, therefore, love. The purpose of a
tree is to produce fruit. Man is like a tree; his fruit should be love."
O Oppressors on Earth! Withdraw your hands from tyranny, for
I have pledged Myself not to forgive any man’s injustice. This is My covenant
which I have irrevocably decreed in the preserved tablet and sealed with My
seal.
Thou must live in such a spiritual condition that thy very
presence in the meetings may transform the audiences into the congregations of
the elect and set aglow in their hearts the fire of the Love of God. Exalt thy
ambition! Universalize thy ideals! Spread thy wings of compassion over all the
regions of the globe.
It must be realized that people who are mostly illiterate
cannot have the benefit of reading for themselves the written word and of
deriving directly from it the spiritual sustenance they need for the enrichment
of their Bahá'í lives. They become dependent, therefore, to a large extent on
their contacts with visiting teachers. The spiritual calibre or moral quality
of these teachers assumes, therefore, great importance. The National Spiritual
Assembly or the Teaching Committees responsible for the selection of these
teachers should bear in mind that their choice must depend, not only on the
knowledge or grasp of the teachings on the part of the teachers, but primarily
upon their pure spirit and their true love for the Cause, and their capacity to
convey that spirit and love to others. ...What wonderful results will soon be
witnessed in the areas under your jurisdiction if you devise ways and means to
ensure, as far as circumstances permit, that the travelling teachers you are
encouraging to circulate among the friends will all be of the standard called
for in these quotations -- pure and sanctified souls, with nothing but true
devotion and self-sacrifice motivating them in their services to God's Holy
Cause....
O thou seeker of the Kingdom! Thy letter was received. Thou
hast written of the severe calamity that hath befallen thee—the death of thy
respected husband. That honourable man hath been so subjected to the stress and
strain of this world that his greatest wish was for deliverance from it. Such
is this mortal abode: a storehouse of afflictions and suffering. It is
ignorance that binds man to it, for no comfort can be secured by any soul in
this world, from monarch down to the most humble commoner. If once this life
should offer a man a sweet cup, a hundred bitter ones will follow; such is the
condition of this world. The wise man, therefore, doth not attach himself to
this mortal life and doth not depend upon it; at some moments, even, he eagerly
wisheth for death that he may thereby be freed from these sorrows and
afflictions.
God be praised! The sun of justice hath risen above the
horizon of Bahá’u’lláh. For in His Tablets the foundations of such a justice
have been laid as no mind hath, from the beginning of creation, conceived…The
canopy of existence resteth upon the pole of justice, and not of forgiveness,
and the life of mankind dependeth on justice and not on forgiveness.
As the process of the disintegration of a lamentably
defective world order gathers momentum in all parts of the planet, engendering
hopelessness, confusion, hostility, and insecurity, the hearts of the friends
everywhere must be assured, their eyes clear-sighted, their feet firm, as they
work patiently and sacrificially to raise a new order in its stead. The
guidance of Bahá’u’lláh is the foundation upon which you build. His instruction
is clear: “This servant appealeth to every diligent and enterprising soul to
exert his utmost endeavor and arise to rehabilitate the conditions in all
regions and to quicken the dead with the living waters of wisdom and utterance,
by virtue of the love he cherisheth for God, the One, the Peerless, the
Almighty, the Beneficent.”
Wherever there is a Bahá'í family, those concerned should by
all means do all they can to preserve it, because divorce is strongly condemned
in the Teachings, whereas harmony, unity and love are held up as the highest
ideals in human relationships. This must always apply to the Bahá'ís, whether
they are serving in the pioneering field or not.
O Friends! You must all be so ablaze in this day with the
fire of the love of God that the heat thereof may be manifest in all your
veins, your limbs and members of your body, and the peoples of the world may be
ignited by this heat and turn to the horizon of the Beloved.
The heaven of divine wisdom is illumined with the two luminaries
of consultation and compassion and the canopy of world order is upraised upon
the two pillars of reward and punishment.
When you love a member of your family or a compatriot, let
it be with a ray of the Infinite Love! Let it be in God, and for God! Wherever
you find the attributes of God love that person, whether he be of your family
or of another....
…verily God will not forgive disbelief in Himself, though He
will forgive other sins to whomsoever He pleaseth. [cf. Qur’án 4:51] Indeed His
knowledge embraceth all things...
The aim of any Spiritual Assembly should be to develop a warm
and loving relationship with the believers in its community, so that it can
most effectively nurture and encourage them in the acquisition of a deeper
understanding of the teachings, and can assist them to follow the Bahá'í
principles in their personal conduct. The Assembly should aspire to being
regarded by the members of the community as a loving parent, wise in its
understanding of the varying degrees of maturity of those entrusted to its
care, compassionate in dealing with the problems which arise as a result of any
shortcomings, ever prepared to guide them to the correct path, and very patient
as they strive to effect the necessary changes in their behaviour. Such an
approach is far removed from the harshly judgmental and punitive approach which
so often characterizes the administration of law in the wider society. The
Bahá'í application of justice, firmly rooted in spiritual principle and
animated by the desire to foster the spiritual development of the members of
the community, will increasingly be seen as a distinctive and highly attractive
feature of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh.
Bahá’u’lláh prohibits confession to, and seeking absolution
of one’s sins from, a human being. Instead one should beg forgiveness from God.
In the Tablet of Bishárát, He states that “such confession before people
results in one’s humiliation and abasement”, and He affirms that God “wisheth
not the humiliation of His servants”.
O ye beloved of the Lord! Commit not that which defileth the
limpid stream of love or destroyeth the sweet fragrance of friendship. By the
righteousness of the Lord! Ye were created to show love one to another and not
perversity and rancour.
At the very core of the aims of the Faith are the
establishment of justice and unity in the world, the removal of prejudice and
enmity from among all people, the awakening of compassion and understanding in
the hearts of all men and women, and the raising of all souls to a new level of
spirituality and behavior through the vitalizing influence of divine
Revelation. The course set forth by Baha'u'llah for the attainment of these
aims is the double task of simultaneously building an ideal society and
perfecting the behavior of individuals. For this dual and reciprocal transformation
He has not only revealed laws, principles and truths attuned to the needs of
this age, but has established the very nucleus and pattern of those
institutions which are to evolve into the structure of the divinely purposed
world society.
Verily in this Day all that dwell on earth are the servants
of God. As to those who truly believe in God and are well assured in the signs
revealed by Him, perchance He will graciously forgive them the things their
hands have committed, and will grant them admission into the precincts of His
mercy. He, in truth, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Compassionate. But the verdict
of divine chastisement is pronounced against those who have turned away
disdainfully from Me and have repudiated the conclusive proofs and the unerring
Book with which God hath invested Me, and on the Day of Severing they shall
find no protector or helper.
I ask of Thee [God] by Thy Self and by him who hath fasted
out of love for Thee and for Thy good-pleasure - and not out of self and
desire, nor out of fear of Thy wrath - and by Thy most excellent names and
august attributes, to purify Thy servants from the love of aught except Thee
and to draw them nigh unto the Dawning-Place of the lights of Thy countenance
and the Seat of the throne of Thy oneness.
The essence of love is for man to turn his heart to the
Beloved One, and sever himself from all else but Him, and desire naught save
that which is the desire of his Lord.
If sorrow and adversity visit us, let us turn our faces to
the Kingdom and heavenly consolation will be outpoured. If we are sick and in
distress let us implore God’s healing, and He will answer our prayer.
That concealed Word upon which the souls of all the
Messengers of God and His Chosen Ones have ever depended hath manifested itself
out of the invisible world into the visible plane. No sooner had this hidden
Word shone forth from the Realm of inmost being and absolute singleness to
illumine the peoples of the earth than a breeze of mercy wafted therefrom,
purifying all things from the stench of sin and arraying the countless forms of
existence and the reality of man with the vesture of forgiveness. So great was
the wondrous grace which pervaded all things that through the utterance of the
letters “B” and “E” the gems that lay hid within the repositories of this
contingent world were brought forth and made manifest. Thus were the seen and
the unseen joined in one garment, and the hidden and the manifest clothed in a
single robe; thus did utter nothingness attain the realm of eternity, and pure
evanescence gain admittance into the court of everlasting life.
Unity is love. It cannot be established without love.
Therefore try, as far as possible, to be filled with love. Love is perpetual
life, the most perfect vitality. Consider how love has gathered us together
from the East and the West! If there were no love between us our friendship
would have been concluded with salutations, such as “Good morning” and
"Good evening." Love draws us in friendship to the people of every
race and religion. He is a Baha’i, of the people of Baha, from whom we breathe
the fragrance of this love again. …
We must find a way of spreading love among the sons of
humanity.
O My brother! When a true seeker determineth to take the
step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days,
he must, before all else, cleanse his heart, which is the seat of the
revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all
acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy. He
must purge his breast, which is the sanctuary of the abiding love of the
Beloved, of every defilement, and sanctify his soul from all that pertaineth to
water and clay, from all shadowy and ephemeral attachments. He must so cleanse
his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein, lest that
love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him away from the truth.
Even as thou dost witness in this Day how most of the people, because of such
love and hate, are bereft of the immortal Face, have strayed far from the
Embodiments of the Divine mysteries, and, shepherdless, are roaming through the
wilderness of oblivion and error.
…basic to the Baha'i Teachings is the concept that it is
only God Who knows the purpose of human life, and Who can convey this to us
through His Manifestations. A distinguishing feature of human existence is that
we have been given the capacity to know and love God and to consciously obey
Him. Thus we also have the converse: the ability to turn away from God, to fail
to love Him and to disobey Him. Indeed, left to himself, man is naturally
inclined towards evil. Human beings need not only assistance in defining
acceptable behaviour of one person towards another, but also guidance which
will help them to refrain from doing that which is spiritually damaging to
themselves.
When once the seeker hath ascended unto this station,
[completing the requirements of the “Garden of Search” he will enter the City
of Love and Rapture, whereupon the winds of love will blow and the breezes of
the spirit will waft. In this station the seeker is so overcome by the
ecstasies of yearning and the fragrances of longing that he discerneth not his
left from his right, nor doth he distinguish land from sea or desert from
mountain. At every moment he burneth with the fire of longing and is consumed by
the onslaught of separation in this world.
People are not naturally against the Truth. There are
obstacles between them and the Truth. These obstacles must be wisely removed
and then they surely will be attracted to the Cause. The magnet for this
attraction is real love and tolerance towards the ideas and customs of the
people. We must follow our Lord, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who taught us to be well-wishers
of mankind disregarding religious and racial differences. Our love must be so
spacious as to engulf the whole of the people of the world. With love and only
with unlimited love we have been and will be able to conquer the hearts of the
people and direct the current of their sentiments along the channel of the
happiness of mankind and thus usher in the era of the regeneration of man. It
is unlimited love which is the Elixir that turns the common metals of the human
being into pure gold.
He was very happy to hear from you, and to learn that Green
Acre this year was pervaded with a love and harmony that was instrumental in
confirming many new souls in the Faith. This love amongst the believers is the
magnet which will, above all else, attract the hearts and bring new souls into
the Cause. Because obviously the teachings - however wonderful - cannot change
the world unless the Spirit of Bahá'u'lláh's love is mirrored in the Bahá'í
Communities.
O ye beloved of the Lord! Commit not that which defileth the
limpid stream of love or destroyeth the sweet fragrance of friendship. By the
righteousness of the Lord! Ye were created to show love one to another and not
perversity and rancour. Take pride not in love for yourselves but in love for
your fellow-creatures. Glory not in love for your country, but in love for all
mankind.
Love is the cause of God's revelation unto man, the vital
bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of
things.
Love is heaven's kindly light, the Holy Spirit's eternal
breath that vivifieth the human soul.
Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God's
holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of
spiritual outpourings.
Love manifests its reality in deeds, not only in words—these
alone are without effect. In order that love may manifest its power there must
be an object, an instrument, a motive.
By the Day-Star of ancient mysteries! The sweet-scented
fragrance of every breath breathed in the love of God is wafted in the court of
the presence of the Lord of Revelation.