'Focus on Teaching the Cause' by Hooper Dunbar

the last few minutes i've been pondering a story that abdul bahad told that some of you will be familiar with it there was a gathering of wise people and there was a newcomer that wanted to join the gathering and the chairman of the wise ones put a glass on the table and poured it full of water right to the top indicating to this newcomer that there was no place for him but the newcomer spotted a small feather picked it up and floated it on top of the water without spilling anything that's my challenge tonight [Laughter] goodness you know i mean first of all it's thrilling to just be here this is the holiest spot in the america and we're in under here the holiest house of worship that will ever be constructed in the world and why is that and you know of course because the master laid its dedication stone and founded the temple the guardian said also this is the only temple that's also a shrine because wherever the holy ones were the three central figures of the faith were is potentially a shrine and certainly this would be a major one for this continent so let us bask in the potency of the favors and bounties that descend upon us in this edifice really [Applause] it's been very uh enlightening to me to come here to this gathering this weekend i feel you know as closely associated with you i think there's a whole lot of us in the next in this gathering that have one foot already in the next world and i hope to be able to call you to reflection about what should be the last of our gasping efforts so to speak many of you have served for years i went to the montana summer school this year just an interruption here and i asked the friends who also seemed to be quite a senior group how many of you had been buys for 20 years almost all the hands in the room went up 100 of them then i said how many have been 30 years all the hands went up again [Music] they have fellowship once a year at the summer schools because most of them are isolated in small towns in wyoming and montana and so on probably some of them are here tonight there they are waving in the back friends i know the house of justice is longing for a wave of teaching we have the plans we have our collective tasks set before us we have agencies we have appointees were able to tell us all about that in moving around in the country and in other countries as well i find that it's helpful for all of us to recall that we have two kinds of responsibilities in the cause we have individual responsibilities and we have collective responsibilities and i tend to see traveling around that some of the friends are trying to derive what they should be deriving from their individual responsibilities from the collective responsibilities and then you find people with a bit of a burnout that say i'm not going to another cycle of growth again and something of the sort you know and not to make a negative remark but you're all familiar with this process i'm sure because we've been facing the challenges of initiating entryway troops in this country now for 25 years over and above our collective responsibilities which derive from the lesser covenant and from the house of justice describing the stages that are unfolding in the process of the carrying out of the divine plan we have the immediate responsibility of what is our first duty as a baha'i a first duty as a person if you will interestingly enough the actas opens with the recognition of the manifestation of god the first duty of anybody in this planet is to recognize the manifestation of god then he calls upon those of us that have recognized it to live according to his teachings and he places a high priority on our teaching of the faith itself but that has a two-stage process if i think we will all recall he says that you must arise and teach the faith but before all things he said you must teach yourself you must teach yourself the content of the revelation the meaning of the revelation you must draw close to baha'u'llah and if you do so he says your words will take effect in the hearts of your listeners otherwise he said there will be no effect whatever he says it's a direct quote but there's several tablets where he says exactly that it it calls us to a certain earnestness of reflection about ourselves and our relationship with with the writings and i want to lead us through a few of passages from from the text that maybe suggests to us how can we quicken this process in our self how can we arrive at let's say a fresh stage of excitement about propagating the cause leading up to this bicentenary of the birth of the bob that the house has indicated is a period when we should be accelerating everything i mean they've asked for you know herculean efforts abdul-baha trumps that sorry to use that verb [Laughter] in in the sense in the divine plan where he tells us that you must increase your efforts a thousand-fold now that sounds more like something that goes with the passage of a gnat can become an eagle and a drop can become an ocean and this is a thousand-fold increases beyond our capacity unless we become willing elements for the transformation that he promises will take place if we arise and propagate the cause and teach the cause now in our collective activities we have organized times and things to do but our individual responsibility comes from the divine plan from and from the will and testament of abdul-baha these are the among the final words of abdu-baha to the friends everywhere it is incumbent upon all the friends and loved ones one and all to bestow themselves and arise with heart and soul and in one accord to defuse the sweet savers of god to teach his cause and to promote his faith it behooveth thee not to rest for a moment neither to seek peace or repose [Applause] in a tablet that supplements this thought he says when the friends do not endeavor to spread the message they fail to remember god befittingly and will not witness the tokens of assistance and confirmation from the abha kingdom nor comprehend the divine mysteries again from a tablet of abdul baha should a baha'i refrain from being fully vigorously and wholeheartedly involved in the teaching work he will undoubtedly be deprived of the blessings of the abhor kingdom again he says we should be engaged constantly in the propagation of the faith the teaching of the faith this is a 24-hour element we only rest and sleep to be able to arise and teach again we have to ask ourselves have we lost sight of that or have we never attained it if we want to create this acceleration in the community and attract new souls all of the processes of the five-year plans that we've been carrying out depend on new recruits depend on human resources how many times are we going to go ourselves over and over the courses of the ruhi course it's for bringing new people through the knowledge of the cause so we have to give sufficient time at our own individual level to attracting new souls and i think that uh what i'm hearing in different places is people are not too prepared to talk about the faith in a like to give a introductory talk to friends we've been encouraged to do things together and accompany each other and so on and somehow we've lost sight of the need to be able to speak clearly and give the message of the faith in such a way that people will be attracted and interested and will go into the the um institute process and take part in the other activities of the concept it's urgent in another place he says should the friends not engage in the teaching the divine confirmations will be cut off and he said and there will be no spiritual progress no spiritual progress unless we teach friends as soon as you stop teaching the angels are busy with something else the concourse you know he promises this the congress is all lined up shoghi says that the bounties of the kingdom have not been drawn on sufficiently said this in the last years of his life he says so it's under pressure so you don't have to do a lot of movement before you get this bolt of assistance divine assistance and you have to trust if we put our trust in him he says then we will be able to go forward with the teaching work and i noticed he says that you know the pattern of abdul bahar told anis ride out it's an old story where one of the early friends in his time asked abdul how she could better her teaching work how she could improve her teaching work interestingly enough he said that in order to improve your teaching work you must live the life live the life live the life three times in order to live the life he says you have to acquire thirst for spirituality thirst for spirituality he says comes from study of the writings on immortality on life after death because that's the thing that sets us wondering what's going to happen to us after we pass away and we're supposed to obey the teachings in order that we go to the next side feeling able to survive there so to speak if the teaching work is the source of divine confirmations is the source of our receiving the bounty of the holy spirit which is what develops and makes our soul grow it nourishes our soul so to speak if we don't receive that we don't grow spiritually we may grow in activity but that's not the same thing god will surely bless us and reward us for all our efforts but the divine confirmations this power of the kingdom which accompanies the teaching of the faith is central now yes we want the cause to grow but abdul-baha says without some prospect of gain the self-interest is so seated in man that he won't make a move so i'm trying to sharpen a point here tonight for all of us myself included of course that if we don't teach we're not going to move forward spiritually and then when abdul bahad says it's the greatest gift of god he says that because it's essential for our spiritual well-being and our condition in the world to come and the teacher gets a whole lot more out of it than the recipient of the message because the teacher is engaged in begging the confirmation of the kingdom he's engaged in communion with baha'u'llah he's trying to radiate the light of the divinity that comes from baha'u'llah to his soul to seekers in a gentle way no proselytization but let us examine this together or were you aware that this is the case and learning the proofs of the reality of god and the meaning of the divinity of the manifestation and the wisdom of all of these new principles that have been brought which baha'u'llah's has brought and abdullah says are unique to this day just an example of the equality of men and women is taken for granted now this was not the case no religion of the past has said men and women were equal no some of them say half the soul woman has half the soul of a man baha'u'llah has brought this as a new principle when you see it in the principles this is new and different and abdul says you should study and reflect on these principles to discover their divine meaning and intention we say oh i've seen the list sometimes we we use the list you know we repeat we believe in universal peace people look at you like what where is that because we're so familiar with it we repeat it glibly we don't believe in universal peace we don't believe universal peace exists we believe that there has to be a program for establishing universal peace we believe there should be certain provisions that will lead to the establishment of lasting and permanent peace when you see shoghi effendi lists the principles in several places as he does and god passes by for example he connects verbs with the principles he suggests to us the direction that this is taking period it's very useful and important to us is the greatest example of teacher that we have he's the exemplar but particularly he's the exemplar of teaching and shoghi effendi in several letters has said that you cannot take a better model than abdul-baha's talks in the west to teach the cause how much do we study those i i would say i see i i always feel uh saddened you know when somebody says well i teach i try to teach but nobody's interested that people will be interested in what you're interested in this isn't a letter quoted from the guardian if we're on fire with the divine teachings we can't help sharing it with others this is something that is our covenant with baha'u'llah and that's the covenant that makes us then obey the lesser covenant of the administration of the guidance of the universal house of justice all tucked together but we need to bring that kind of devotion and earnestness as individuals in our daily life seeking for waiting souls as the guardian suggested we do there are those elements in the population we're ready i saw a letter from shoghi effendi he said if the baha'is would leave live the life baha'u'llah will guide souls to them wow that's a whole lot easier than going door-to-door or is it living the life is such a challenge to us really the teacher when teaching must himself be fully enkindled so that his utterance like unto a flame of fire may exert influence and consume the veil of self and passion otherwise his teaching will have no effect how many times we find this add-on phrase that says if you don't do this nothing's going to result from it and if you feel like you're not having the results you need then maybe we need to look back at the requisites refresh ourselves and think what what is it i could add to this these divine promises shoghi in the letters that the house of justice gathered about teaching he says that the first kinds of letters are that we must not heed our own lowliness our own ineffectiveness our own weakness he said you'll paralyze yourself if you look at yourself i mean we're all full of shortcomings so if you're not going to look at that what are you supposed to look at then and then there's a second set of letters in which he says that the friends must turn to the divine promises he calls all of us to teach the cause arise and teach the cause and he promises if you arise angels will come and assist you they'll touch the hearts of the of the believers and our history is full of this so do we need to renew we need to look at those those promises and take hope from them and then he said let the let the doubters step forward and test them test the promises so if any even goes that far and the crusade is trying to move move the people and he says that he said let the doubter arise and see for himself but in order to teach properly we have to adhere to all the admonitions to study the writings carefully to imbibe the text to immerse ourself in the ocean of the revelation then we'll have this kind of consciousness which enables us to share it with others in the tablets of the divine plan addressing the american believers and i think it's time we reflect again on how we might be the forefront of a surge of teaching in the world all over the world there are some brighter spots here and there but in general the the teaching work has not been moving forward in the sense of drawing people as baha'u'llah says the first duty is to draw your neighbor to the law of god this is the first thing that we're supposed to be doing with regard to teaching he also says in a passage in the gleanings he said you're we called on all of us are called to on arise and teach the cause he in fact he doesn't say teach there he says proclaim we're all invoked the duty of every baha'i is to proclaim the cause of god now proclaim the gospel god sounds like a big word and difficult and so on but as i understand it because he follows this phrase he says proclaim the cause of god if anyone shows interest so you don't have their interest first you're proclaiming the existence of the cause if they show interest teach them an interesting reversal of the way we think about it and i saw a letter from shoghi effendi said that you should always mention the name of of the baha'i and baha'u'llah in conversations with people that reminded me of something i heard from the buys early on and i don't know i don't have a quote for it but i think it's very wise where abdullah said that if you're going to see a person once mention the faith teach the faith if you're going to see them multiple times live the life you know you've got to move into apartment house and you see the neighbor down the hall and you've run down the hall and say have you heard of baha'u'llah that's a bit it's a bit direct approach you know you show them some kindness and some love and make friends with them and gradually they're going to ask you what is it that makes you shine the way you shine so shoghi effendi in a letter says that the it's as if this is not what he said but i'm saying it's as if there's a niche there's some place in the soul in the subconscious where this it immediately rivets on baha'i and baha'u'llah it goes it goes in there and it stays there he said it goes in and this is the only letter i've ever seen where shoghi effendi uses the word subconscious he said it goes into the subconscious of the person and it stays there and it acts over a long period of time and may gradually reform their character and they'll have more opportunities to hear about the faith and that's a process begins it's amazing so don't be hesitant about it and maybe find ways to mention the faith when you're going to see some somebody once i don't know my i'll tell you one of mine is sometimes i'm on the plane and the person's had their earphones in the whole time and we're about to get off the plane when they undo their earphones and i immediately asked them i said you know i'm new here to this city do you know any baha'is here [Music] and and they say the baha'is or they don't they said oh i was raised near the temple that happens too sometimes but they don't know they haven't heard the name you haven't heard of baha'is oh that's that's surprising [Laughter] [Music] something that piques their curiosity you know i also have a card with my name and i'm talking about my art so i'll give them a card and on the back i'll point out that this bahai.org is very that's a very interesting you should probably know something about that thank you very much how do we how do we have that in our mind all the time standing in a line in the grocery store all all the possibilities we have but remembering the magic of this name behind we know that the nature of our teaching is to comply with the tablets of the divine plan and i'll go now to that quotation that i was mentioning [Applause] oh ye kind friends uplift your magnanimity and soar high toward the apex of heaven so that your blessed hearts may become illumined more and more day by day through the rays of the son of reality that is his holiness baha'u'llah at every moment the spirits may obtain a new life and the darkness of the world of nature may be entirely dispelled thus you may become incarnate light and personified spirit become entirely unaware of the sordid matters of this world and in touch with the affairs of the divine world the aim is this also from the tablets of the divine plan the aim is this the intention of the teacher must be pure he's heart independent his spirit attracted his tongue at peace his resolution firm his magnanimity exalted and in the love of god a shining torch should he become as such his sanctified breath will even affect the rock otherwise there will be no result whatsoever as long as the soul is not perfected how can he efface the defects of others unless he is detached from our health safeguard how can he teach severance to others these are terrific challenges to us in our own individual relationship with baha'u'llah with the cause that we need to ponder and reflect on that's the reason they're written here the reason they're revealed for us we're called to study the writings and then we're called to meditate on the meaning of the verses and i've heard shoghi effendi say that there were there were two these are two distinct processes prayer is one thing or study of the right is one thing and meditation is another but think how many times for those of you that have hopefully recently read the katabhi gone or re-read the kitabigan how many times he says consider ponder meditate reflect at the beginning of the sentence over and over it's not enough just to read although that's inspiring and he says do it morning and evening so that you'll give wings to your soul so that you can lift yourself in flight during the day but that's not the same as immersing yourself in the ocean of his writings that's another thing now what in the world could it mean to become sanctified spirit to become incarnate light in the recent compilation that the house of justice prepared for the council's conference in the holy land at the time of the convention there's this beautiful passage which i think illumines the idea of becoming incarnate light this sounds you know so so far beyond us and yet we're called to this it's the focus that exists in the writings for us when the light of faith is kindled in the lamp of the heart and soul its spreading rays illumine every limb of the body when this resplendent light shineth forth through the medium of the tongue it's made manifest in the powers of speech and utterance when it beams its beams fall upon the eyes insight and true vision are revealed and when it stirth the ear it bestoweth attentive hearing when this light sheddeth its radiance upon the mind it leadeth to the recognition of the all-merciful and when it set us glow the limbs it findeth expression in purity and the worship of god otherwise all physical powers all limbs and members would remain useless and futile and their actions would fade like a mirage in the desert i'm after something here let's see if i can find it [Applause] [Music] this was in a letter written on behalf of shoghi effendi in 1956 if the friends only realized that only a few times in history have opportunities for mortal glory come to a people and that that time is now in their hands they would not for a moment if this was the case busy themselves with idle conversation and gossip but would sacrifice their all for the quickening of the people and the salvation of society we are at a very marvelous moment in history in which to perform great deeds think if you were born 250 years ago what part would you have in this abdullah says in a tablet that the recognition having had the recognition of the manifestation of god which you all have attained to it would be insufficient he says to prostrate yourself a thousand times a day in thanksgiving to god for that now how do we translate that into full-time teaching of the faith whatever our circumstances whatever our job whatever our education and study whatever occupies us in life there was a counselor in turkey he had all kinds of teaching methods he didn't speak english very much but he went to switzerland he was in switzerland and he was trying to figure out how to teach and he was there was nobody to translate for him he said he was staying with the friends who had a dog he said could i walk the dog it's called dog walking teaching [Laughter] you know you talk about each other's dogs and then you gradually start a conversation and you mentioned baha'u'llah he had deer hunting teaching methods he had full-time airplanes sometimes i think mostly on turkish airplanes he would stand up in turkish and say i have an important message for you all and he just begin belting it out to the whole airplane all right abdullah says we need to use wisdom i think say he did this guy did use wisdom he did it in such a nice way and it was so humorous that people didn't get offended and they heard about it and some would follow through on it how do we find the special circumstances in our own lives which enable us to do this and i think that it's uh one of the keys is trusting in the power of prayer you know if you're engaged in this there's a there's a quotation i think it's in the advent by the way go back to the advent over and over there's a marvelous source for all the things that we're talking about here tonight it says that your name is better known in the supreme concourse if you're engaged in propagating the faith and promoting the faith your name is better known there than it is to your own self i'm getting old enough to forget my name so i suppose here's an admonition the scary one it's also very important to hold study classes and go deep in the teachings a great harm is done by starting to teach without being firmly grounded in the literature little knowledge is dangerous fully applies to the teaching work the friends should read the writings and be able to quote from the tablets when discussing subjects pertaining to the faith now god judges us all according to our talents and our capacities it's true but have we made the effort to do that have we earnestly engaged in reading the literature of the cause uh the two or three letters i saw of shoghi effendi the last about three years ago in which he's addressing new believers he says that the guardian sincerely hopes you will use your leisure time to deepen and read the words of baha'u'llah the teachings of allah in one of these letters he says he hopes you will find a couple hours a day to do this friends whenever any of us studied the word of god a couple hours a day ever in our lives the circumstances of this materialistic civilization just drive us in so many other directions what would happen to us what would happen to society what would happen to our soul if that happens i said oh thank god i'm retired i can do that and i set out the next day to do it i think it was about 10 or 11 minutes when i fell asleep while you're young and have the energy engage in it because later on it becomes much more difficult [Music] what does it mean if it says we'll be deprived of the blessings of the above kingdom we will not grow spiritually the holy spirit is what makes us grow spiritually the manifestation of god appears because human beings are not good in themselves i know that sounds very heavy in the political correctness of the day we live in but it's pretty clear but allah says in the gleanings he said all good comes from god and all evil comes from your own selves god doesn't produce any evil all the evil in the world's coming from us and no good comes from us unless we turn to god we can't produce it ourselves and if we do it's an ego trip it's a kind of i want to look good in society so i do all kinds of wonderful philanthropic things and make you feel good about me god forbid if we knew what they do at night in the dark you know this the other side of that coin god forbid if he knew what we do alone in the dark that's another question we have to examine ourselves and look at this and ask for the mercy of god and his assistance to us also in this letter in 1956 he says he hopes and prays this on behalf of the guardian he hopes and prays the individuals will arise fully conscious of their divine task and with enthusiasm spread far and wide the cause of god after all the faith rests on the individual and it is the individual who causes the faith to go forward progressively or who retards its growth the individual who is fully dedicated consecrated to the noble mission with which he has been entrusted who studies the word who meditates on its spiritual significance who prays for divine confirmations and who then arises and acts and perseveres in his action that one is the pillar of the faith and the basis of a thriving baha'i community what a wonderful promise how to bring new life into our collective activities how to fulfill those wishes of the house of justice as we develop these core activities of local baha'i communities which is a terrific thing that the house initiated back in the 90s this transformation in the nature of by we had no identity of a by community whether you had 19 day feast you'd bring people to the cause they were there hear about the cause they said well do you have some activities uh well we have these meetings we have there we have feasts yes but it's forbidden for you to go to them that was that was very helpful for people here [Applause] reiterate a bit again this promise of baha'u'llah he said whoso riseth among you to teach the cause of his lord let him before all else teach his own self that his speech may attract the hearts of them that hear him unless he teacheth his own self the words of his mouth will not influence the heart of the seeker take heedo people lest ye be of them that give good counsel to others but forget to follow it themselves the words of such as these and beyond the words the realities of all things and beyond these realities the angels that are nigh unto god bring against them the accusation of falsehood i briefly pause and ask your indulgence to pray for me on behalf of my words exceeding my deeds tonight if you'll just remember that would be appreciated what a promise but what an admonition at the same time responded to believers about what should be the main object of their study when we hear he said you have to study the writings for yourself what are the writings that he most mentioned and of course these these are timed in in a period when he he hadn't added more things to them so we can add a few extra ones but he he said the guitar be gone particularly and some answered questions and the dawnbreakers which he took is good time to edit for us in such a way because he said it will be the source of inspiration that will move the divine plan forward he's he connected it for instance here's a letter that was recently published in a book of some of ali nakhtavani's talks he he had permission to publish this and it's from shoghi effendi from the 8th of june 1933. the guardian through his secretary says he was deeply gratified to learn that the reading of the dawnbreakers has deepened your knowledge of the cause and has inflamed you with new courage and faith the tale of these immortal heroes of god so well narrated by the powerful pen of nabil is indeed stimulating and spiritually uplifting it gives the reader a new vision of the cause and unfolds before his eyes the glory of this new manifestation in a manner hitherto unknown nabil's narrative is not merely a narrative it is a book of meditation it does not only teach it actually inspires and insights to action it quickens and stimulates our dormant energies and makes us soar on a higher plane it is thus of an invaluable help to the historian as well as to every teacher and expounder of the faith what a terrific letter this is friends have you absorbed all you can absorb from the dawnbreakers have you tripped over the first set of persian names and [Laughter] i know i know i read it the first time you skipped the names but then it can be very confusing you don't know who's doing what you know so you've got you got to put the effort in the time in to make yourself a list of characters and add notes to that it requires some study and show you if any recommended especially to the youth they should learn episodes from it and be able to repeat these episodes in the get in the in the gatherings of their friends we've kind of lost track with that i think you'd find that the youth activities the youth animators and so on would be greatly stimulated and sure and the house of justice has called us called to mind the heroes of the of the bob's period in recent messages where else would we learn about them if we didn't return to the dawnburgers now there may be some people that i know there have been who discouraged onberger's classes that's not part of the plan all right that's the collective side on the individual side you've got the mandate here from the guardian to read it yourself for yourself or the small friends or your family or whoever it might be this last year how are you doing with time here okay this last year i put together a small compilation about steps to success in baha'i service the guardian was stressing these points the last two years of his ministry before he passed away here's a sample you'll see what the importance of it is because it's four steps these four steps are repeated over and over success will crown the efforts of the friends on the home front when they meditate on the teachings pray fervently for divine confirmations for their work study the teachings so that they may carry their spirit to the seeker and then act and above all persevere in action when these steps are followed and the teaching work carried out sacrificially and with devoted enthusiasm the faith will spread rapidly promise of the guardian again he said the key note of success in the teaching field is study of the word prayer meditation and then action above all perseverance in action when these steps are followed the realm of self-sacrifice in the realm of self-sacrifice success will be achieved now one of the letters of the guardian he outlined the main forms of sacrifice that we face in the cause he calls us to the first one is financial sacrifice you're all engaged in that this weekend and thinking about that sorry the second one is more surprising but you immediately will identify with it and that is the sacrifice of one's time finding time out of our life that we want for other things sacrificing that to give the time to the cause and to its activities and to everything we need to do for the faith and the third one is even stronger he said it's the sacrifice of your person your concept of who you are where you want to go in the world and so on and you're giving you modify that you give up some of that to give it to the cause now basically whatever we have in us is not going to be much use in the next world unless it's coming as a reward from the teaching work from the treasures and divine mysteries that we accrued or attract to ourselves if we engage in this thing all the time back to how much time do we have left friends not tonight but in our lives how much time do we have left to make a difference to maybe accelerate in some way this process it's an and it's really a challenge i mean i know from the individual lives of believers some of the circumstances it's very difficult to find who to talk to about but it's not difficult for baha'u'llah somehow mr sears the hand of the cause he used to say well i wanted to tell you one thing he used to say a lot and then i'll get to this one he would say friends if you don't feel as close to god as you used to who moved that's such a useful one for all of us now he said arise in the morning and commune with baha'u'llah and beg him to guide you to waiting souls and then he had a little writer on the end of it he said and beg him to help you to recognize them when you meet them because sometimes we don't think this is the best one for the faith you know no we're looking for waiting souls any soul [Applause] to the hands of the cause serving in the west here the guardian wrote in 56 also about these four stages in a slightly different way through his secretary the beloved guardian has stressed over and over again that to effectively teach the faith the individual must study deeply the divine word imbibe its life-giving waters and feast upon its glorious teachings he should then meditate on the import of the word and finding its spiritual depths pray for guidance and assistance but most important after prayer is action after one has prayed and meditated he must arise relying fully on the guidance and confirmation of baha'u'llah to teach his faith there's the formula perseverance and action is essential just as wisdom and audacity are necessary for effective teaching the individual must sacrifice all things to this great goal and then the victories will be won standard is so high friends if we're not growing at the pace that we feel we should grow we have to put more into it wealth time and person seems to be the formula okay you can't tell the others to do that i'm sorry i've told you that tonight but we can talk to ourselves about it about these three dimensions importance of them bill sears was out also again teaching in africa and the guardian was calling for this perseverance everywhere and he had a cartoon made of a desert island or about the size of this stage here with one palm tree in it with coconuts and a couple in the drago clothes standing in the water having picked a bottle out of the water and reading a message that was inside this bottle which says persevere shogi [Laughter] it eventually made its way to the guardian and they said he had a good laugh about it too [Music] but the people would write him and say joe if hindi i'm i'm here i came to the goal but i've lost my job so i'm having to return change your job you know [Music] don't let the virgin goals fall back into virginity he said okay interesting concept one more confirmation in that direction and then we'll stop when a person becomes a baha'i actually what takes place is that the seed of the spirit starts to grow in the human soul letter from the guardian the human the seed of the spirit grows in the human soul we've got two things going on the soul everybody's got a soul but the spirit is potentially there this this gift of knowledge of divinity that's placed in every human reality has a time when it awakens the seed this seed must be watered by the outpourings of the holy spirit in another place he says the holy spirit the holy spirit is in the manifestation of god while he's here and in his words and everything he says afterwards the holy spirit is incarnate in the words the verses of god that's where we get it so we have the obligatory prayers and we have the prayers for the fast that's where we commune that's where we draw the boundaries of the spirit so to speak these gifts of the spirit are received through prayer meditation study of the holy utterances and service to the cause of god if you look at the compilation on the power of divine assistance where he tells you to ignore your shortcomings and your weaknesses don't focus on those because they'll paralyze you someone pointed out to me that god is the ever forgiving all forgiving most forgiving i think you'd have a hard time thinking up something to do that he couldn't forgive don't work too hard on it but the point is if you have something in your past and you're trying to get over it let god be god and don't you try to be god and say well if i were god i wouldn't forgive that so i can't teach the faith or i can't do this we give ourselves excuses you know i'm not as pretty as i used to be or i have no wealth to spend on teaching or i have no time i'm busy with my grandchildren well it's fair enough but we have to find time for all of it he calls us to us let us beseech bao allah in this blessed structure to give us new energy new vision new life and let us prepare it all so that we can place it at the threshold of baha'u'llah the next time we visit thank you so much

Channel: Baháʼí Concepts - Talks

Views: 10,445

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Id: uVvjVM64Gxo

Length: 55min 49sec (3349 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 12 2023