Bábism

“ I spoke yesterday of the first principle of the Teaching of Bahá’u’lláh, ‘The Search for Truth’; how it is necessary for a man to put aside all in the nature of superstition, and every tradition which would blind his eyes to the existence of truth in all religions. He must not, while loving and clinging to one form of religion, permit himself to detest all others. It is essential that he search for truth in all religions, and, if his seeking be in earnest, he will assuredly succeed. ”

“ For a long time the divine precepts of the effulgent Word were obscured by clouds of superstition and error until Bahá’u’lláh appeared upon the horizon of humanity, rent the shadows, scattered the clouds and revealed anew the foundations of the teachings of God.
The first teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the duty incumbent upon all to investigate reality. What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. ”

“ It is doubtless this mystical, allegorical character of Bahaism which attracts a certain type of mind in America, in the main probably, the same type which follows after spiritualism, esoteric Buddhism, Swamis from India, theosophy, and other movements which play around the edges of the occult and magical, and help to dull the edge of present realities with the things which are neither present nor real.... ”

“ The Bahai Cause is not merely one of many phases of universal truth (as some say) , but is the only living truth to-day; the only source of divine knowledge to mankind. The [52] revelation of Jesus was for His own dispensation—that of 'the Son.' Now it is no longer the point of guidance to the world. We are in total darkness if we are refusing the revelation of the present dispensation. Bahais must be severed from all and everything that is past—things both good and bad—everything. Now all is changed. All the teachings of the past are past. Abdul Baha is now supplying all the world. ”

“ Here are, very briefly explained, some of the principles of Bahá’u’lláh.
In short, it behoves us all to be lovers of truth. Let us seek her in every season and in every country, being careful never to attach ourselves to personalities. Let us see the light wherever it shines, and may we be enabled to recognize the light of truth no matter where it may arise. Let us inhale the perfume of the rose from the midst of thorns which surround it; let us drink the running water from every pure spring. ”

“ I know not whether my reason has deserted me.' The Báb answered and said: 'What you have witnessed is true and undeniable. You belittled this Revelation and have contemptuously disdained its Author. God, the All-Merciful, desiring not to afflict you with His punishment, has willed to reveal to your eyes the Truth. By His Divine interposition, He has instilled into your heart the love of His chosen One, and caused you to recognise the unconquerable power of His Faith.' [7]
All the arrogance of the warden left him. ”

“ Now, that the true Faith of God may be shielded and protected, His Law guarded and preserved and His Cause remain safe and secure, it is incumbent upon everyone to hold fast unto the Text of the clear and firmly established blessed verse, revealed about him. None other transgression greater than his can be ever imagined. He (Bahá’u’lláh) sayeth, glorious and holy is His Word:—”My foolish loved ones have regarded him even as my partner, have kindled sedition in the land and they verily are of the mischief-makers.” Consider, how foolish are the people! ”

“ This lower nature in man is symbolized as Satan—the evil ego within us, not an evil personality outside.
Bahá’u’lláh teaches that the foundations of the divine religion are one reality which does not admit of multiplicity or division. Therefore, the commandments and teachings of God are one. The religious differences and divisions which exist in the world are due to blind imitations of forms without knowledge or investigation of the fundamental divine reality which underlies all the religions. ”

“ I cannot refrain from appealing to them who stand identified with the Faith to disregard the prevailing notions and the fleeting fashions of the day, and to realize as never before that the exploded theories and the tottering institutions of present-day civilization must needs appear in sharp contrast with those God-given institutions which are destined to arise upon their ruin....
For Bahá’u’lláh ... has not only imbued mankind with a new and regenerating Spirit. ”

“ Religion To most men who have not heard the message of this teaching, religion seems an outward form, a pretence, merely a seal of respectability. Some priests are in holy office for no other reason than to gain their living. They themselves do not believe in the religion they pretend to teach. Would these men lay down their lives for their faith? Ask a Christian of this kind to deny Christ in order to save his life, and he will do it.
Ask a Bahá’í to deny any of the great Prophets, to deny his faith or to deny Moses, Muḥammad or Christ, and he will say: I would rather die. ”

“ He is a man of strong mind, acute argumentative faculties, fine conversational powers and altogether an interesting personality. He first taught Bahaism in secret lessons, as a religion of mysteries, a secret order, a doctrine for truth-seekers only, not for the masses. ”

“ Thus we come back to the essence of all religion - in other words, to the disparagement of humanity for the greater glory of divinity. And from the moment that the natural inferiority of man and his fundamental incapacity to rise by his own effort, unaided by any divine inspiration, to the comprehension of just and true ideas, are admitted, it becomes necessary to admit also all the theological, political, and social consequences of the positive religions. ”

“ That Bahá’u’lláh should, notwithstanding the overwhelming intensity of His Revelation, be regarded as essentially one of these Manifestations of God, never to be identified with that invisible Reality, the Essence of Divinity itself, is one of the major beliefs of our Faith—a belief which should never be obscured and the integrity of which no one of its followers should allow to be compromised. ”

“ Nevertheless, we speak of the names and attributes of the Divine Reality, and we praise Him by attributing to Him sight, hearing, power, life and knowledge. We affirm these names and attributes, not to prove the perfections of God, but to deny that He is capable of imperfections. When we look at the existing world, we see that ignorance is imperfection and knowledge is perfection; therefore, we say that the sanctified Essence of God is wisdom. Weakness is imperfection, and power is perfection; consequently, we say that the sanctified Essence of God is the acme of power. ”

“ The Báb’s own advent had taken place in the “year sixty”—1844.
19.Bahá’í writings emphasize that the “divinity attributed to so great a Being and the complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God in so exalted a Person should, under no circumstances, be misconceived or misinterpreted ... that invisible yet rational God ... however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on earth, can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His incorruptible and all-embracing Reality in ... a mortal being.” Cf. Shoghi Effendi, The Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh. ”

“ That which this Oppressed One seeketh of all is justice and fairness: let them not be satisfied with listening; let them ponder on what hath become manifest from this Oppressed One. I swear by the Sun of Revelation, which hath shone forth from the horizon of the heaven of the Kingdom of the Merciful One, that, if any [other] expositor or speaker had been beheld, I would not have made Myself an object for the malevolence and the calumnies of mankind.” Finis.
By these sentences a clue to the principles, ideas, line of conduct, behavior, and intentions of this sect is placed in the hand ”

“ My first admonition (which was also my prayer) is that men confine the sense within the limits of duty in respect of things divine: for the sense is like the sun, which reveals the face of earth, but seals and shuts up the face of heaven. My next, that in flying from this evil they fall not into the opposite error, which they will surely do if they think that the inquisition of nature is in any part interdicted or forbidden. ”

“ Although in no way a comprehensive reading of His intent, Bahá’u’lláh makes it clear that attempts to capture or suggest the Reality of God in catechisms and creeds are exercises in self-deception: “To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. ”

“ That which was meant to be conducive to life has become the cause of death; that which should have been an evidence of knowledge is now a proof of ignorance; that which was a factor in the sublimity of human nature has proved to be its degradation. Therefore, the realm of the religionist has gradually narrowed and darkened, and the sphere of the materialist has widened and advanced; for the religionist has held to imitation and counterfeit, neglecting and discarding holiness and the sacred reality of religion. ”

“ In this way His Holiness Bahá’u’lláh expressed the oneness of humankind whereas in all religious teachings of the past, the human world has been represented as divided into two parts, one known as the people of the Book of God or the pure tree and the other the people of infidelity and error or the evil tree. The former were considered as belonging to the faithful and the others to the hosts of the irreligious and infidel; one part of humanity the recipients of divine mercy and the other the object of the wrath of their Creator. ”

“ Another class are believers in the truth of all great religions, and, with a vague pantheistic notion, recognize all great men as God-inspired. They are willing to put Baha Ullah and Abdul Baha on the list of true religious leaders. ”

“ The Sun of Truth has risen above the world but we are ensnared in the dark of our imaginings. The waters of the Most Great Sea are surging all around us, while we are parched and weak with thirst. The divine bread is coming down from heaven, and yet we grope and stumble in a famine-stricken land. “Between the weeping and the telling, I spin out my days.”
One of the principal reasons why people of other religions have shunned and failed to become converted to the Faith of God is fanaticism and unreasoning religious zeal. ”

“ If they belong to any fixed creed (and their logical powers are rather against this) they prefer Protestantism—or its offshoot, Dissent—where their real deity, Reason, is permitted full sway. These people love—with all the force of their nature—the study of history, jurisprudence, mathematics and the exact sciences. ”

“ Bahá’u’lláh has given full teachings to the world which are conducive to fellowship and unity in religion. Throughout past centuries each system of religious belief has boasted of its own superiority and excellence, abasing and scorning the validity of all others. Each has proclaimed its own belief as the light and all others as darkness. ”

“ A Socratic dialectic of this kind is needed at such a time not only to dissipate sophistry but as a positive support to wisdom. I have raised the question in my Introduction whether the wisdom that is needed just now should be primarily humanistic or religious. The preference I have expressed for a positive and critical humanism I wish to be regarded as very tentative. In the dark situation that is growing up in the Occident, all genuine humanism and religion, whether on a traditional or a critical basis, should be welcome. ”

“ At this time, because of our terrible affliction, the ascension of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—may the quintessence of our souls be sacrificed to His sacred resting-place—they are busying themselves more than ever with the circulation of false rumours and idle imaginings, their purpose being, one way or another, to instil doubts into the minds, and thus to achieve their vain and futile ends. ”

“ And that in the true religion there hath not nor is any impediment, except it be by accident or intermixture of humour. That a religion which consisteth in rites and forms of adoration, and not in confessions and beliefs, is adverse to knowledge; because men having liberty to inquire and discourse of Theology at pleasure, it cometh to pass that all inquisition of nature endeth and limiteth itself in such metaphysical or theological discourse; whereas if men's wits be shut out of that port, it turneth them again to discover, and so to seek reason of reason more deeply. ”

“ All have listened, and all have conceded that the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh are superlative in character, acknowledging that they constitute the very essence or spirit of this new age and that there is no better pathway to the attainment of its ideals. Not a single voice has been raised in objection. ”

“ I. First of all, Bahais claim that a new religion is needed. All the great religions, they say, were true in their day; not only Moses, Christ, and Mohammed, but Zoroaster, Confucius, and Buddha were Divine Manifestations, and revealed God's truth. But now the old religions are dead. Abdul Baha18 says: "The Spirit has passed away from the bodies of the old religions. While the forms of their doctrines remain, the Spirit has fled." "The principles of the religion19 of Christ have been forgotten. It is then clear and evident that in the passage of time religions become entirely changed. ”

“ Now the idols, or phantoms, by which the mind is occupied are either adventitious or innate. The adventitious come into the mind from without; namely, either from the doctrines and sects of philosophers, or from perverse rules of demonstration. But the innate are inherent in the very nature of the intellect, which is far more prone to error than the sense is. ”