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| Juliet Thompson in her studio |
In these days when a civilization is dying before our very
eyes, and when the great Prophet, Baha’u’llah, has appeared, standing on the
threshold of a new age with a scroll of new commandments in His hand, two other
Figures stand with Him, of heart-captivating beauty: - the youthful Báb, His
Forerunner, equal in rank with Him as an independent Revelator, and the Son of
Baha'u'llah, 'Abdu'l-Baha. “’Abdu'l-Baha", translated, means "Servant
of the Glory", and this is His self-assumed title. Baha'u'llah entitled
Him ‘The Master’".
In the language of Shoghi Effendi, the present Guardian of
the Baha'i Faith, 'Abdu'l-Baha "holds not only in the Dispensation of
Baha'u'lIah, but in the entire field of religious history, a unique function.
Though moving in a sphere of His own and holding a rank radically different
from that of the Author and the Forerunner of the Baha'i Revelation, He, by
virtue of the station ordained for Him through the Covenant of Baha'u'llah
forms, together with Them, what may be termed the Three Central Figures of a
Faith unapproached in the world's spiritual history. He towers, in conjunction
with Them, above the destinies of this infant Faith of God from a level to
which no individual or body ministering to its needs after Him, and for no less
a period than a thousand years, can ever hope to rise."
Among the many titles conferred by His Father on
'Abdu'l-Baha is that of "The Mystery of God". The Guardian, referring
to these titles, writes that they "invest Him with a power and surround
Him with a halo which the present generation can never adequately
appreciate."
We, of course, are of this generation, and the hearts that
are grateful to 'Abdu'l-Baha have realized with sorrow the truth of the
Guardian's words: - we cannot "appreciate" such grandeur, nor the
significance of such a station. We stand too close to this tremendous Figure to
envision its overshadowing of the future, and are too imperfect, at our stage of
development, to perceive in its fullness the beauty of the Perfect. We have but
one hope: - As, in reality, we love and follow the Servant of God, His
"halo" shines for us, and, seeing it, we adore "the
Mystery". The heart made bold by love can scale great heights - though not
such heights as His.
The Guardian has unveiled for us in one incomparable
sentence the meaning of the title, "The Mystery of God", leaving it,
in its essence, still a mystery. "In the person of 'Abdu'l-Baha," he
says, "the incompatible characteristics of a human nature and superhuman
knowledge and perfections have been blended and completely harmonized."
Thus He, the Perfect Man, is a bridge between man in his "station of
servitude" and that forever mysterious Being, the Manifestation of God.
He, indeed, is our link with Baha'u'llah.
To glimpse something ' of the beauty of the Name,
'Abdu'l-Baha, and of the Master's choice of it, to understand why the Guardian
calls it "the magic Name", and to feel its power over the heart, let
us recall the Baha'i conception of the station of servitude.
The Servant of the Glory
According to the Baha'i Teaching, man has no approach to the
Essence of Deity save through the Revelator, whose human temple is so pervaded
by the burning energy of the Holy Spirit, or creative Word of God, that He is
as a sun to His age. The outpourings of light from the Essence mingle with and
use His pure Being. Man through Him is made aware of God. Yet even He claims no
access to unknowable Deity. And just as the Revelator Himself stands in a World
of His own, below the World of Deity, so man is in a fixed station - that of
servitude - beyond which he cannot pass. Yet so great is this station of
servitude that only the evolved and selfless soul can rise to its high requirements:
- true service to God and to man. Baha'u'llah has said: "Verily Man is not
called Man until he becomes adorned with the attributes of the Merciful."
And Jesus said: "He that is greatest among you shall be your
servant."
So we see 'Abdu'l-Baha, destined from birth to fulfill
"a unique function in all religious history", endowed from birth with
superhuman perfections, yet choosing a name which places the emphasis on His
human nature, identifies Him with man's station. At the same time He uplifts
for us the sublimity of this station, unveiling in His own Being its manifold
"new virtues" and the splendor of its future - while forever He
towers above it, its Exemplar. "'Abdu'l-Baha, the Servant of Baha, has
clad himself in the mantle of servitude and devotion for the beloved of Baha.
Verily this is a great victory."
The Perfect Exemplar
It is Shoghi Effendi who designates 'Abdu'l-Baha the Perfect
Man, the "Exemplar" of the Baha'i Faith. That is, His life, in its
perfection, is not only the pure example to our generation, but to a re-born
human race, who will follow Baha'u'llah through all the future centuries till
the close of His Dispensation. Man, we are told, is now in his "turbulent
adolescence", about to come of age. His maturity will then unfold, his
latent spiritual powers, including more subtle senses, will appear; his
unclouded reality will radiate the “new virtues". To such a race as this,
unimaginable now, 'Abdu'l-Baha will still be the Exemplar. And such a race as
this will have developed the consciousness wherewith to "adequately
appreciate" Him.
Before we consider His great appointment under the Will and
Testament of His Father as "Center and Pivot of Baha'u'llah's peerless and
all-enfolding Covenant", let us look back into that perfect life. Let us
look for a moment into His childhood, His tenth year, when a world-shaking
event occurred in His presence - and His alone. This was the first Declaration
of Baha'u'llah made in 1853 in Baghdad, where He, with His Family, then lived
in exile, - the exact fulfillment of the Báb's prophecy that in "the Year
Nine" (corresponding with 1853) "He Whom God would make
manifest" would announce Himself.
It was in the preceding year, in Tihran, and in a dungeon,
that Baha'u'llah first woke to His world Mission. Accused as a follower of the
Báb who had just been put to death, He, too, sat awaiting death, bowed under
heavy chains; when in a dream one night He heard these words, resounding from
all sides:
"Verily, We shall render Thee victorious by Thyself and
by Thy Pen. Grieve Thou not for that which hath befallen Thee, neither be Thou
afraid, for Thou art in safety. Ere long will God raise up the treasures of the
earth - men who will aid Thee through Thy Name, wherewith God hath revived the
hearts of such as have recognized Him."
When, by the intervention of the Russian ambassador,
Baha'u'llah was released and returned to His plundered home, and His beggared
family, the nimbus of the Prophet rested upon Him. "He returned," His
daughter has said, "a changed Father." To this "changed
Father" 'Abdu'l-Baha, then only a little child, gave up His whole heart.
Of that first Declaration of Baha'u'llah, made to His Son
alone, we have the account of 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself, given sixty years later.
“I am the Servant of the Blessed Perfection. In Baghdad I
was a child. Then and there He announced to me the Word, and I believed in Him.
As soon as He proclaimed to me the Word, I threw myself at His Holy Feet and
implored and supplicated Him to accept my blood as a sacrifice in His
Pathway."
The sacrifice, of life at least, was accepted, and prolonged
for fifty-six years in prison and exile, within the limitations of which
'Abdu'l-Baha was faithful to a servitude, incessant as the beating of the
heart, to God and man. With all who came to Him in the Prison of 'Akka seeking
alms or wisdom, with the countless pilgrims who in the end found their way to
that prison, in a vast correspondence with East and West, day and night He
labored. He took no rest, allowing Himself but two or three hours of sleep.
Even beyond these fifty-six years was the sacrifice prolonged. When the
commutation of His life-sentence opened for Him world opportunities, as He
traveled throughout Europe and America, His door stood open from dawn to
midnight. High and low flocked to that door and none was turned away.
Forty of those years of exile were passed at the side of His
Father, at times in a close imprisonment all but insupportable to the flesh. It
was in 'Akka, Syria, a Turkish penal colony, that Baha’u’llah and His family
spent these darkest days, confined in a fortress - He and His Son in chains. To
this penal colony more than seventy disciples had chosen to follow their
beloved Lord, accompanying Him from Adrianople, preferring captivity with Him
to freedom in their own homes. And now, in the terrible "Barracks" of
'Akka, during a period of two years, these were all herded into one room, men,
women and children, with the delicately reared family of Baha'u'llah. The room
had an adjoining alcove, in which Baha'u'llah was placed.
In the stories we have of those days, through all the
intolerable physical misery we hear the high ring of 'Abdu'l-Baha's gaiety
cheering His fellow-prisoners. We see Him nursing with His own hands the sick
and the dying among them, as many - in that one room - fell victims to dreadful
contagious diseases. When the jailers fastened chains upon Him, we can sense
the sweetness of His tones answering their astonished question: "How is it
you laugh and sing when prisoners ironed in this way usually cry out, weep and
lament?" "I rejoice because you are doing me a great kindness; you
are making me very happy. For a long time I have wished to know the feelings of
a prisoner in irons, to experience what other men have been subjected to. I
have heard of this; now you have taught me what it is. You have given me this
opportunity. Therefore I sing and am very happy. I am very thankful to
you."
To skip years: - one of His daughters gave me a little
vignette of the bombardment of Haifa during the last war. "When it
began," she said, "the Master gathered us all around Him and told us
such enchanting stories that we forgot the guns."
Human experience, bitter at best - for Him raised to the
degree of torture - He accepted with divine gallantry, an ecstatic secret
exultation. To the believers of Mazindaran, singled out at the time for
martyrdom, He wrote: "Let things go by with a smile .... This is not the
first blood that has been shed on the plain of Karbila."
From the first we find 'Abdu'l-Baha decisive and endowed
with a strange power. While His Father was still in the dungeon in Tihran and
'Abdu'l-Baha but eight years old, the wife of Baha'u'llah, returning one day
from her sister's house to which she went daily in the hope of receiving news
of her husband, found her little son in the street, surrounded by a band of
older boys who had gathered to molest Him. "He was standing straight as an
arrow in their midst, quietly commanding them not to lay hands on Him. Which,
strange to say," the story ends, "they seemed unable to do."
Another picture of this commanding power comes down to us
from His early youth. At that time the most terrible crisis which Baha'u'llah
and His family ever had to meet, developed in Adrianople, where again they were
on the eve of banishment. A banishment far more cruel than the three that had
preceded it, for now this uniquely united family was to be torn asunder,
Baha'u'llah sent to a distant city, a secret destination, His wife and children
to another secret destination; forever parted, and forever lost, one to the
other. 'Abdu'l-Baha sought out the officials. Again and again He went to them.
What he said has not been recorded -- only that "He pleaded",
"He persisted", and that the officials "seemed unable to put the
measure into execution." While this measure was pending, news of it
reached the believers of Adrianople and they rushed in a body to the house of
Baha'u'llah, frantic at the thought of separation from Him. One old man seized
a knife and crying, “if I must be separated from my Lord, I will go now and
join my God," cut his throat. A scene of wild confusion followed, during
which a cordon of police surrounded the frenzied crowd and brutally attempted
to control it. It was then that 'Abdu'l-Baha suddenly appeared in their midst.
We sense a lightning flash of power, a superhuman force, as we read of His
"impassioned and vehement words", denouncing the cruelty of the
police, demanding the presence of the governor. "We had never
before," said His sister, in telling the story, "seen my brother
angry." So swift was the effect of this anger that the governor was at
once sent for. He hurried to the scene and, witnessing it, said: "We cannot
separate these people. It is impossible."
Thus it was that seventy devotees found themselves
imprisoned in one room with their Divine Beloved.
We are told that from the hour of Baha'u'llah's first
Declaration made to His little Son, this Son "seemed to constitute Himself
His Father's special attendant and servant." At that tender age in
Baghdad, His first thought was to protect His Father. With an eagerness that
moves the heart, He made a shield of His own young body to ward off the
insincere and, while Baha’u’llah sat writing those sacred Books which are
destined to guide a world, to guard His seclusion from intruders.
As 'Abdu'l-Baha grew into early manhood in Baghdad it is
said His beauty was so great that when He walked in the street ladies screened
by their lattices threw roses on Him. Only a few years later we find Him in
chains in the fortress of 'Akka.
As the years went by this imprisonment in 'Akka became less
and less rigorous, for no governor could resist the unearthly attractive power
which radiated from their captives, Father and Son. Yet they were never wholly
out of danger. Time after time disturbances brought about with the Persian and
Turkish governments threatened them with death. Always confined within the
walls of 'Akka, at first in the Barracks, later in a small house, later still
on one floor of a house, they were permitted after some years to walk in the
streets of that stark white prison-city, treeless, hot, malarial. Another long
period of years and Haifa, twelve miles from 'Akka, was included in their
sphere of liberty. Toward the close of His life, Baha'u'llah lived in Bahji, a
beautiful country-place on the sea near 'Akka. Its name, chosen by Him, means
Joy.
Stronghold of the Faith
The earthly life of Baha'u'llah ended in 1892, and from the
hour when His Will and Testament was read, 'Abdu'lBaha was recognized as the
Center and Pivot of His Covenant.
"Thou knowest, O My God," Baha'u'llah prays,
"that I desire for Him naught except that which Thou didst desire and have
chosen Him for no purpose save that for which Thou hadst intended Him."
In this unparalleled institution, the Covenant, of which
'Abdu'l-Baha is appointed the Center and the sole Interpreter of the Words of
Baha'u'llah, in which the Baha'is are required to turn to this Center in
perfect obedience (that obedience which only love evokes), we find the great
stronghold of the Baha'i Faith. For this function of sole Interpreter implies
the reading of the sacred Books by the same divine light that revealed them,
and guards the Faith forever from those schisms which have rent other religious
systems into countless sects.
And now, in His clear and incisive explanations of His
Father's Will, in His firm insistence that all Baha'is strictly adhere to its
provisions, we see again in 'Abdu'l-Baha a tower of strength and commanding
power.
For there is nothing more vital to the Faith of Baha'u'llah
than the preservation of its unity. A religion which has for its object the
establishment of the Oneness of Mankind must be in itself an organic unity and
must, like a sound body, served by all its cells, remain a living unit through
its all-pervading Spirit.
On the subject of the Covenant 'Abdu'l-Baha writes, among
many other statements:
"Were it not for the protecting power of the Covenant
to guard the impregnable fort of the Cause of God, there would arise among the
Baha'Is, in one day, a thousand different sects, as was the case in former
ages, but in this Blessed Dispensation, for the sake of permanency of the Cause
of God and the avoidance of dissension amongst the people of God, the Blessed
Beauty (may my life be a sacrifice to Him) has through the Supreme Pen written
the Covenant and Testament; He appointed a Center, the Exponent of the Book and
the Annuller of disputes. Whatsoever is written by Him is conformable to truth
and under the protection of the Blessed Beauty. He is infallible."
"As to the most great characteristic, and it is a
specific teaching of the Revelation of Baha'u'llah and not given by any of the
Prophets of the Past, - it is the teaching concerning the Center of the
Covenant. By giving the teaching concerning the Center of the Covenant, He made
a provision against all kinds of differences, so that no man should be able to
create a new sect."
"My purpose is to convey to you that it is your duty to
guard the Religion of God, so that none shall be able to assail it outwardly or
inwardly. If you see injurious teachings coming from an individual, no matter
who that individual may be, even though He be my own son, know ye verily that I
am quit of him."
Thus sternly speaks "the Lover of the East", who
for Himself would accept no title but that of the Servant, in protection of the
Covenant of Baha'u'llah.
We now see 'Abdu'l-Baha, through the appointment of
Baha'u'llah, as embodied Authority to all who profess themselves believers. Yet
the great import of this appointment was not fully revealed till the ascension
of 'Abdu'l-Baha Himself, when in His own Will and Testament was found the
amazing sequel to His Father's Will, the further unfolding of the Master-Plan -
the Plan of the Divine Revelator for a New World Order.
This we will consider later. Let us now turn to other
passages in the sacred writings of Baha'u'llah referring to 'Abdu'l-Baha's
station of Mystery. For the obedience of the Baha'is to their Source of light
is of a two-fold nature: a strict obedience to the outer laws through which
order will be restored in a chaotic world, and obedience to those inner laws of
Spirit, exemplified in the Being of 'Abdu'l-Baha. Without this last deepest
obedience, the form, however imposing its structure, can never give life to the
world.
"Look at me," said 'Abdu'l-Baha - and none but He
could dare say this - "Look at me, follow me, be as I am; take no thought
for yourselves or your lives, whether ye eat, or whether ye sleep, whether ye
are comfortable, whether ye are well or ill, whether ye are with friends or
foes; . . . for all these things ye must care not at all. Look at me and be as
I am; ye must die to yourselves and to the world that ye may be born again and
enter the kingdom of heaven. Behold a candle, how it gives its light. It weeps
its life away drop by drop in order to give forth its flame of light."
Of Him, in the Tablet of the Branch, Baha'u'llah writes:
“Render thanks unto God, O people, for His appearance; for verily He is the
most great Favor unto you, the most perfect bounty upon you, and through Him
every mouldering bone is quickened. Whoso turneth towards Him hath turned
towards God, and whoso turneth away from Him hath turned away from My Beauty,
repudiated My Proof and transgressed against Me. He is the Trust of God amongst
you, His charge within you, His manifestation unto you and His appearance among
His favored servants ... We have sent Him down in the form of a human
temple."
In other Tablets addressed to 'Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'u'llah
writes in His own hand: "We pray God to illumine the world through Thy
knowledge and wisdom." And in another: "The Glory of God rest upon
Thee and upon whosoever serveth Thee and circleth around Thee." "We
have made Thee a shelter for all mankind, a shield unto all who are in heaven
and earth, a stronghold for whosoever hath believed in God, the Incomparable,
the All-knowing."
"Praise be to Him," again writes Baha'u'llah to
'Abdu'lBaha, who had set forth for Beirut, "Who hath honored the land of
Ba (Beirut) through the footsteps of Him round Whom all names revolve ....
Blessed, doubly blessed, is the ground which His footsteps have trodden, the
eye that hath been cheered by the beauty of His countenance, the ear that hath
been honored by hearkening to His call, the heart that hath felt the sweetness
of His love." In this same Tablet Baha'u'llah refers to His Son as
"The great, the most mighty Branch of God - His ancient and immutable
Mystery."
Speaking from the heights of His divine humility, and from
His knowledge of the essence of His station of servitude, 'Abdu'l-Baha
interprets the Tablet of the Branch thus: "I affirm that the true meaning,
the real significance, the innermost secret of these verses, of these very
words, is my own servitude to the sacred Threshold of the Abha Beauty, my
complete self-effacement, my utter nothingness before Him. This is my resplendent
crown, my most precious adorning." And, in this connection, as the
Guardian tells us, He writes: "I am, according to the explicit texts of
the Kitab-i-Aqdas and the Kitab-i-'Ahd, the manifest Interpreter of the Word of
God .... Whoso deviates from my interpretation is a victim of his own
fancy."
Even should we dare, in the face of such statements, to
attempt to lift the veil lowered by a divine hand - to pry into the forbidden -
we are wholly incapable of understanding, much less interpreting, these words
of Baha'u'llah that refer to the Mystery of God. Yet awareness is not forbidden
and the Master Himself has shown us the way to awareness.
"Turn with thy breast unto the heart of
'Abdu'l-Baha," He, Himself, writes, "and then this concealed fact will
be disclosed, the Hidden Mystery [be] unveiled to thee." "O ye
friends! Turn the mirrors of your hearts toward mine. Unquestionably the
mysteries of this heart shall be reflected upon those hearts and the emotions
of this longing one shall become manifest and evident." "I am the
lamp and the love of God is my light. The light hath become reflected in the
mirrors of hearts. Therefore turn thou unto thy heart, that is, when it is in
the utmost freedom, and behold how the radiance of my love is manifest in that
mirror and thou art near unto me… Turn
thou unto the Kingdom of Abha, until thou mayest comprehend my mysteries."
In the Image of ‘Abdu’l-Baha
In the combined activities of meditation and service, in the
outcry for understanding expressed through prayer, and that other form of
outcry, the endeavor to pattern our lives on His sublime life - and in unity
with one another - lies the secret of approach to this veiled Figure in the
midmost heart of the Covenant which Baha'u'llah has taken with His believers.
Herein lies also the secret whereby our Faith may burn through the thick
darkness of the world around us. For not till our lives become glowing
examples, not till the love of which His heart is the channel to "quicken
mouldering bones" is reflected into our own hearts; not till we love as
those early heroes, the Dawn-Breakers, loved; not till the mirrored image of
'Abdu'l-Baha, God's "charge within us", actually “stands within"
us, will we radiate that power which alone can change the world.
Let us look once more into our beloved Exemplar's 'life.
First, another fleeting glance into that life bounded by prison walls and yet
unlimited; then into His days of freedom when, the doors of His prison having
opened through the downfall of two sovereigns, His royal jailers - the Sultan
of Turkey, the Shah of Persia - He went forth into the world, the Pioneer of
pioneers, embodying in His every act, before the eyes of Europe and America,
the Holy Teachings His eloquence spread.
In 'Akka He was known as the Father of the Poor. Once a week
He gathered into His garden the maim, the halt, the blind and the lepers. Here
He would walk up and down among them, with His majestic tread and His tender
ways, pausing before each one to embrace him, to give to each one some special
word of cheer, taking even lepers into His arms. He would then press into the
palm of each money enough to sustain him till his next visit. For as He wittily
said to a friend who questioned the wisdom of charity: “Assuredly give to the
poor. If you give them nothing but words, when they put their hands into their
pockets after you have gone, they will find themselves none the richer for
you."
This moving scene in the garden has been witnessed by many
Western pilgrims. It happened once a week, on Friday. Then He called the poor
and the suffering to Him. But every day and night He went to them, seeking them
out Himself in their own wretched hovels. One of the Persian believers said to
me: "There is not an alley in 'Akka I do not know, nor a prison cell, for
I have followed the footsteps of my Lord."
Monstrously sinned against, too great was He to claim the
right to forgive. In His almost off-hand brushing aside of a cruelty, in the
ineffable sweetness with which He ignored it, it was as though He said:
Forgiveness belongs only to God.
An example of this was His memorable meeting with the royal
prince, Zillah Sultan, brother of the Shah of Persia, Muhammad 'Ali Shah. Not
alone 'Abdu'l-Baba, but a great number of His followers, band after band of Baha'i
martyrs, had suffered worse than death at the hands of these two princes. When
the downfall of the Shah, with that of the Sultan of Turkey, set 'Abdu'l-Baba
at liberty, 'Abdu'l-Baha, beginning His journey through Europe, went first to
Thonon-les-Bains on the Lake of Geneva. The exiled Shah was then somewhere in
Europe; Zillah-Sultan, also in exile with his two sons, had fled to Geneva.
Thus 'Abdu'l-Baha, the exonerated and free, and Zillah Sultan, the fugitive,
were almost within a stone's throw of each other.
In the suite of 'Abdu'l-Baha was a distinguished European
who had visited Persia and there met Zillah Sultan. One day when the European
was standing on the balustraded terrace of the hotel in Thonon and 'Abdu'l-Baha
was pacing to and fro at a little distance, Zillah Sultan approached the
terrace.
'Abdu'l-Baha was wearing, as always, the turban, the long
white belted robe and long 'aba of Persia. His hair, according to the ancient
custom of the Persian nobility, flowed to His shoulders. Zillah Sultan, after
greeting the European, immediately asked:
"Who is that Persian nobleman?"
"'Abdu'l-Baha."
"Take me to Him."
In describing the scene later, the European said:
"If you could have heard the wretch mumbling his
miserable excuses!”
But 'Abdu'l-Baha took
the prince in His arms.
"All that is of the past," He answered,
"Never think of it again. Send your two sons to see me. I want to meet
your sons."
They came, one at a time. Each spent a day with the Master.
The first, though an immature boy, nevertheless showed Him great deference. The
second, older and more sensitive, left the room of 'Abdu'l-Baha, where he had
been received alone, weeping uncontrollably.
"If only I could be born again," he said,
"into any other family than mine."
For not only had many Baha'is been martyred during his
uncle's reign (upwards of a hundred by his father's instigation), and the life
of 'Abdu'l-Baha threatened again and again, but his grandfather, Násir'd-Din
Shah, had ordered the execution of the Báb, as well as the torture and death of
thousands of Bábís. The young prince was "born again" - a Baha'i.
Shortly before this meeting of 'Abdu'l-Baha and the brother
of the Shah, the Master had passed through the greatest crisis of His life,
when the Sultan, 'Abdu'I-Hamid, was on the very brink of issuing an order for
His execution. An investigating committee had been sent from Constantinople to
try 'Abdu'l-Baha for treason and had pronounced Him guilty. But it was while
they were still on the sea on their way back to Constantinople that the young
Turks rose overnight and dethroned the Sultan. During those days of waiting for
death on the cross, the Spanish consul conceived a plan to rescue 'Abdu'l-Baha
by spiriting Him away on an Italian ship. But in telling the story afterward
'Abdu'l-Baha said:
"I thought: The Bab did not run away; Baha'u'llah did
not run away and now neither will I run away. I will not deliver myself. Then
God delivered me! The cannon of God boomed before the palace of
'Abdu'I-Hamid!"
Throughout Europe and America for the greater part of three
years - 1911, 1912 and 1913 - went 'Abdu'l-Baha, uplifting with His magic
eloquence the Teachings of His Father, speaking on the platform of many
churches, universities, synagogues and progressive movements, calling the world
to a realization of its essential oneness and to the establishment of universal
peace, warning the world of the terrible wars to come should it fail to turn
toward peace - and God; serving innumerable individuals; shaking the hearts by
His dynamic Love; rousing many to a momentary wakefulness. How drowsy must have
been that generation to have fallen again into so sound asleep!
The effect of 'Abdu'l-Baha on those multitudes who saw and
heard Him certainly promised other results. As He walked among the people, an
Immortal in a less than human world, with His ineffable beauty, His
scintillating power, His strange, unearthly majesty, eyes full of wonder followed
Him.
The poet, Kahlil Gibran, said: "For the first time I
saw form noble enough to be the receptacle for Holy Spirit!"
An atheist went to a church to hear Him speak and later
eagerly sought Him at His house. When this atheist was asked: "Did you
feel the greatness of 'Abdu'l-Baha?" he indignantly replied: "Would
you feel the greatness of Niagara?"
Those who met Him perceived no more than their capacity
could register. A society woman exclaimed: "Such beauty - the beauty of
strength! And such charm! Why, He is a perfect man of the world!" And
another society woman who had talked at length with Him: "You can hide
nothing from Him! He looked into my heart and discovered all its secrets."
A woman in sorrow, passing through a cruel experience, said:
"He took all the bitterness out of my heart." A famous playwright,
when he came from the room of 'Abdu'l-Baha, declared: "I have been in the
presence of God!" And Lee McClung, then Treasurer of the United States,
after his meeting with the Master, groping for words to describe it, said:
"I felt as if I were in the presence of a great Prophet Isaiah – Elijah -
no, that is not it. The presence of Christ – no, I felt as if I were in the
presence of my Divine Father."
The Turkish ambassador, Zia Pasha, a devout Muhammadan, when
told of the advent of Baha'u'llah, had scoffed at the thought of a new Prophet.
But while 'Abdu'l-Baha was in Washington Zia Pasha met Him at the Persian
Embassy, invited by His Excellency Ali-Kuli Khan, and Madame Khan, and
immediately arranged a dinner to be given in His honor at the Turkish Embassy.
At this dinner the ambassador rose and, facing 'Abdu'l-Baha with tears in his
eyes, toasted Him as "The Light of the age, Who has come to spread His
glory and perfection among us."
These are only a few examples of the response of the people
to the Mystery of God which I myself witnessed in 1912.
After the Master's return to Syria, during the years of the
first World War and under the hot summer sun of Galilee, He, though well over
seventy, Himself ploughed the wheat fields of His estate there, that the
starving people might have bread.
When 'Abdu'l-Baha ascended in 1921 to His "original
abode", plunging the Baha'i world into such grief as is only felt once in
an age, when disciples mourn their Lord, His last Will and Testament came as a
complete surprise, an inestimable bounty to His confused and desolate believers.
For in it He appointed His own grandson, the beloved Shoghi Effendi, as the
Guardian of the Baha'i Faith and His successor as sole Interpreter of the
sacred Books. So we found our Faith still safeguarded from schisms and
dissensions - still led through a Focal Point of "unerring guidance".
"The mighty stronghold," 'Abdu'l-Baha says in that
most powerful Document, His Will, "shall remain impregnable and safe
through obedience to him who is the Guardian of the Cause of God."
"It is incumbent upon the members of the House of Justice, the Aghsan, the
Afnan, the Hands of the Cause of God, to show their obedience, submissiveness
and subordination unto the Guardian of the Cause of God." "He is the
Interpreter of the Word of God and after Him will succeed the first-born of his
lineal descendants." "Salutation and praise, blessing and glory be
upon ... them that have believed, rested assured, stood steadfast in His
Covenant and followed the Light that after my passing shineth from the
Dayspring of Divine Guidance - for behold! he is the blest and sacred bough
that hath branched from the Twin Holy Trees. Well is it with him that seeketh
the shelter of His shade that overshadoweth all mankind."
The Kingdom of God
Shoghi Effendi tells us: "It was 'Abdu'l-Baha Who,
through the provisions of His weighty Will and Testament, has forged the vital
link which must forever connect the age that has just expired [the
"glorious and heroic Apostolic Age"] with the one we now live in -
the Transitional and Formative period of the Baha'i Faith …" "His
Will and Testament should be regarded as the perpetual, the indissoluble link
which the mind of Him Who is the Mystery of God has conceived in order to
insure the continuity of the three ages that constitute the component parts of
the Baha'i Dispensation." (The Apostolic, the Formative and the Golden
Age.) "The creative energies released by the Law of Baha'u'llah,
permeating and evolving within the mind of 'Abdu'l-Baha, have, by their very
impact and close inter-action, given birth to an instrument which may be viewed
as the Charter of the New World Order, which is at once the glory and the
promise of this most great Dispensation. The Will may thus be acclaimed as the
inevitable offspring resulting from the mystic intercourse between Him Who
communicated the generating influence of His divine Purpose and the One Who was
its vehicle and chosen recipient."
As we read in the Will the boldly outlined pattern of a New
World Order "which", in the words of the Guardian, "lies
enshrined in the Teachings of Baha'u'llah," we are reminded of passages in
Isaiah: "and the Government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall
be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The
Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no
end ...."; and, "Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light
of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven
days, in the day that Jehovah bindeth up the hurt of His people and healeth the
stroke of their wound." And in the Book of Revelation: "I saw a new
heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth are passed
away."
Now, in this great Document, the Will and Testament of
'Abdu'l-Baha, we see 'Abdu'l-Baha in yet another aspect: - that of the
Architect of a Divine Order through which earth will reflect the Kingdom of God
Himself - rather, will be the Kingdom of God.
We of the Formative Period see only "as in a glass
darkly" that future, when a bankrupt world, now deluded by the plans of
its leaders into incomparable misery, will at last turn to the Divine Plan - by
which we must build in faithful adherence to its sublimity. We see its glory
but dimly, since its very nature foreshadows mature man - man evolved to the
state where his soul, through connection with the world of Spirit, is the
recipient of divine guidance. The Universal House of Justice, acting in
collaboration with the inspired Guardian, is promised "unerring
guidance". But the culminating point of this unerring guidance is the
Guardian, in his function of sole Interpreter of the sacred Books.
Thus, in obedience to the Guardian, which is clearly
obedience to the Revealed Word, in obedience to the Tablets and the
Life-Pattern of our Beloved Master, in true co-operation with and obedience to
our Assemblies (the present form of the Houses of Justice) lies the key to our
essential unity. We who believe that a group of disciples may, by the grace of
God, sound such a depth of oneness as can stabilize the world and may form a
spiritual nucleus from which the Brotherhood of Man will grow, have no choice
but to obey.
We have seen 'Abdu'l-Baha, through His Will and Testament,
as well as through His function of Exemplar, the "vital" and
"indissoluble" link" between the great age of the Baha'i
Messengers and Apostles, our own age and the Golden Age to come. In a letter to
a believer the Guardian has been even more explicit.
"Although the bodily Temple has disappeared," he
writes, "yet His Spirit, nay, the very plans and Institutions He Himself
laid down during His life-time, continue to operate and function in the present
Administrative Era of our Faith. There is thus close doctrinal as well as
historical continuity between the era of ‘Abdu'I-Baha and the present phase of
the Administrative development of the Cause. Both the Temple enterprise and the
Teaching campaign now operating in North, Central and South America, which
constitute the two-fold task set up before the American Baha'i Community under
the Seven Year Plan, were established and launched during the ministry of
'Abdu'l-Baha. The Seven-Year Plan is indeed but the child of that Divine Plan
set up by the Master in His immortal Tablets revealed to the American believers
during the darkest days of the first World War, and its operation and success
are therefore primarily dependent upon the faithful application of the methods
and principles He Himself has defined and upon the power and guidance centering
in His creative writings."
And now to return once more to our Master, 'Abdu'l-Baha, as
the Mystery of God, the Servant of God and our Exemplar.
What is the servant of the living body but the heart? What
is the highest function of the heart but to be the channel of Divine Love? -
that Law of Love which, as we are told by Baha'u'llah, "is never overtaken
by change." And 'Abdu'l-Baha's last words to His believers in His Will and
Testament concern this mystery of love, without which none can rise to the
station of servitude.
"O ye beloved of the Lord! In this sacred Dispensation,
conflict and contention are in no wise permitted. Every aggressor deprives
himself of God's grace. It is incumbent upon everyone to show the utmost love,
rectitude of conduct, straightforwardness and sincere kindliness unto all the
peoples and kindreds of the world, be they friends or strangers. So intense
must be the spirit of love and lovingkindness, that the stranger may find
himself a friend, the enemy a true brother, no difference whatsoever existing
between them. For universality is of God and all limitations earthly. Thus man
must strive that his reality may manifest virtues and perfections, the light
whereof may shine upon everyone. The light of the sun shineth upon all the
world and the merciful showers of Divine Providence fall upon all peoples. The
vivifying breeze reviveth every living creature and all beings endued with life
obtain their share and portion at His heavenly board. In like manner, the
affections and loving-kindness of the servants of the One True God must be
bountifully and universally extended to all mankind. Regarding this,
restrictions and limitations are in no wise permitted.
"Wherefore, O my loving friends, consort with all the
peoples, kindreds and religions of the world with the utmost truthfulness,
uprightness, faithfulness, kindliness, good-will and friendliness; that all the
world of being may be filled with the holy ecstasy of the grace of Baha, that
ignorance, enmity, hate and rancor may vanish from the world and the darkness
and estrangement amidst the peoples and kindreds of the world may give way to
the Light of Unity. Should other peoples and nations be unfaithful to you, show
your fidelity unto them, should they be unjust towards you, show justice
towards them, should they keep aloof from you, attract them to yourself, should
they show their enmity, be friendly towards them, should they poison your lives,
sweeten their souls, should they inflict a wound on you, be a salve to their
sores. Such are the attributes of the sincere! Such are the attributes of the
truthful."
(World Order Magazine, vol. VII, no. 12, March 1942)
