Diet, Kingdom III

Diet and Promised Kingdom III

By John Taylor; 2007 June 26

 

Today, I will share my transcription of the first half of part II of Bill Sears’ Talk, “The Promised Kingdom.” But first, some words about vegetarian diets.

I met an acquaintance, a young man, not a Baha’i, the other day who is grossly obese and on dialysis. The latest news from the doctors is that unless he loses weight fast he will need but not get a kidney transplant and will be left to die. His life literally depends upon his losing a lot of weight, fast. Coincidentally, I stumbled upon this brief video using StumbleUpon video, called “Raw Food Weight Loss over 100 pounds,”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DWxlNQ0Enc&mode=related&search=

I have not gone over to the strict vegan, raw food diet that this guy recommends, but I have increased the amount of raw food in my diet, especially with my twice daily gazpacho soup, and I have lost a good 35 pounds over my peak a few years ago, so I have no doubt that this could work. Another remarkable-if-true video I found was a trailer for a new film that bills itself as the reverse of SuperSize Me!” called, “Raw for Thirty Days,” the story of a group of diabetics who were cured of that ailment after thirty days of a raw, vegan diet. It is at this URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynXGA6fCEgU

I was forced to go on to something close to the diet that these patients use simply because I could not digest red meat and milk products, and I felt terrible, got constant migraines, etc. My very obese aunt Gloria in the 1990’s did the same thing the people in this film did on her own, she lost tons of weight and was ruled “cured” of diabetes, something that all the textbooks say is impossible. The specialists came and took pictures of her for the journals. The medical community seems to be in denial about diabetes. Oh, wait, I think I heard something. Was it, “Katching?” Sure there is a lot of money to be made by ignoring diet and letting people keep on those expensive drug therapy programs.

If health reasons are not enough to make you consider becoming a vegetarian, there are compelling compassionate reasons too. Check out a video on YouTube, called “Meet your Meat.” It was put out by PETA and uses footage secretly taken and smuggled out of the euphemistically named “Rendering Industry.” Before they gained the political power they have today, they used to be called what they are: slaughterhouses.

 

Part II, First installment on Part II of Bill Sears’ Talk, “The Promised Kingdom”

 

Well, beloved friends, the intermission is over and we are coming back to (our discussion of) this great kingdom of God on earth ...

Of course the beloved Guardian, the sign of God on earth… (points there on chart) and as one of his remnants, one of the hands of the Cause, if I were to tell you of all I feel about him and all he said in his writings we really would be here until the coming of the next Manifestation of God had come, and even then we would have hardly begun. I would suggest you read The Priceless Pearl, that literary masterpiece of Amatu’l-Baha Ruhiyyih Khanum, that will tell you .. much you know much already, of course ...

And (pointing) the Universal house of justice, freed from all error, the sole refuge of a tottering civilization, perhaps these words of the beloved Guardian about the wondrous Universal House of Justice, this glorious house of the Lord of Hosts, will say it best for us:

“The unity of the Cause of God and the victory of His faith will even as the sun become manifest in that exalted body, the Universal House of Justice.” …?

also

[“The purpose of so much perpetual and intensive emphasis on the support and consolidation of these Spiritual Assemblies is this -- that the foundation of the Cause of God must become broader and stronger day by day, that no confusion ever enter the divine order, that new and strong ties be forged between East and West, that Bahá'í unity be safeguarded and illumine the eyes of the people of the world with its resplendent beauty, so that upon these Assemblies God's Houses of Justice may be firmly established and upon these secondary Houses of Justice the lofty edifice of the Universal House of Justice may, with complete order, perfection and glory, and with no delay, be raised up.] When the Universal House of Justice shall have stepped forth from the realm of hope into that of visible fulfilment and its fame be established in every corner and clime of the world, then that august body -- solidly grounded and founded on the firm and unshakable foundation of the entire Bahá'í community of East and West, and the recipient of the bounties of God and His inspiration -- will proceed to devise and carry out important undertakings, world-wide activities and the establishment of glorious institutions. By this means the renown of the Cause of God will become world-wide and its light will illumine the whole earth.” (Shoghi Effendi, 1924, to the Bahá'ís of the East, "The Bahá'í World" vol. XIV, p. 436, Compilation of Compilations vol. I, #741, p. 329)

Can you imagine such a thing? We are already seeing the undertakings and institutions it has founded. We are looking at some of the new institutions right now. Oh … and this is too good not to read; it is about the National Spiritual Assemblies, too…,

“The National Spiritual Assemblies, like unto pillars, will be gradually and firmly established in every country on the strong and fortified foundations of the Local Assemblies. On these pillars, the mighty edifice, the Universal House of Justice, will be erected, raising high its noble frame above the world of existence. The unity of the followers of Bahá'u'lláh will thus be realized and fulfilled from one end of the earth to the other. [The explicit ordinances of His Most Holy Book will be promulgated, applied and carried out most befittingly in the world of creation, and the living waters of everlasting life will stream forth from that fountain-head of God's World Order upon all the warring nations and peoples of the world, to wash away the evils and iniquities of the realm of dust, heal man's age-old ills and ailments. Then will the visible sovereignty of the Most Great Name shake the foundations of the countries and nations of the world, strike fear and remorse in the hearts of some of the traditional ecclesiastical divines of various creeds and nations, and cause others to become frustrated, disturbed, vanquished and obliterated... In these days the things that are regarded as the most imperative of all and upon which will depend the development of the Cause of God, the enhancement of its position and prestige and the promulgation of the laws of His Faith, are but two momentous tasks: first, to expedite preparations for the formation of the divinely ordained, the Supreme House of Justice; second, to complete the construction of the Temple in the United States.] (27 November 1929 to the Bahá'ís of Persia -- translated from the Persian, Compilation of Compilations vol. I, No. 745, p. 333)

And the living waters will heal man’s ills…

I won’t talk about the Hands of the Cause, but (points) I have a quote for you that will say it all for you about this International Teaching Center, yes, I have a small paragraph that will say that the International Teaching Centre,

“is one of those world shaking world directing institutions erected on the arc on Mount Carmel,”

[“For it must be clearly understood, nor can it be sufficiently emphasized, that the conjunction of the resting-place of the Greatest Holy Leaf with those of her brother and mother incalculably reinforces the spiritual potencies of that consecrated Spot which, under the wings of the Báb's overshadowing Sepulchre, and in the vicinity of the future Mashriqu'l-Adhkar, which will be reared on its flank, is destined to evolve into the focal center of those world-shaking, world-embracing, world-directing administrative institutions, ordained by Bahá'u'lláh and anticipated by 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and which are to function in consonance with the principles that govern the twin institutions of the Guardianship and the Universal House of Justice. Then, and then only, will this momentous prophecy which illuminates the  33  concluding passages of the Tablet of Carmel be fulfilled: "Ere long will God sail His Ark upon thee (Carmel), and will manifest the people of Baha who have been mentioned in the Book of Names.]" (Shoghi Effendi, Messages to America, p. 32)

Another one of the promised institutions, the National Spiritual Assemblies, the link that binds together the Universal House of Justice and the Local Spiritual Assemblies, and will throughout all the ages.  It says to us, whatever the deficiency in our lives, it will be compensated … we have God’s promise (“… the comforting thought that if we rise to play nobly our part every deficiency in our lives will be more than compensated by the all-conquering spirit of His grace and power.” Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Administration, p. 88)

These local assemblies, I have a little paragraph to read about that, we know a lot about them, but it is nice to know more. I have a little paragraph from the beloved Guardian, you know, he said to me at the pilgrim’s table, he looked over right at me and he said, “Do you remember what is on page 332 of God Passes By?” I looked behind me that he could be looking at, just me, you know. I said, yes beloved Guardian, but I am going to go home and read it again! And I had – you can see what kind of shape my God Passes By is in, I said, Yes, I have read it. But he said, have you read? I said, “Yes, Guardian, I have but this time I will go home and read it again and this time I will really remember it. It is just one short paragraph, we all should. Just listen to this about our assemblies.

"These Spiritual Assemblies," is 'Abdu'l-Bahá's testimony, in a Tablet addressed to an American believer, "are aided by the Spirit of God. Their defender is 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Over them He spreadeth His Wings. What bounty is there greater than this?" "These Spiritual Assemblies," He, in that same Tablet has declared, "are shining lamps and heavenly gardens, from which the fragrances of holiness are diffused over all regions, and the lights of knowledge are shed abroad over all created things. From them the spirit of life streameth in every direction. They, indeed, are the potent sources of the progress of man, at all times and under all conditions." (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 332)

You hear that? What bounties could be greater? All regions! That is your local assembly. At all times and under all conditions… Just think of it, not just Chicago or Toronto, but over all regions they spread their fragrance. Those are your local assemblies. The best is yet to come.

Well, the Auxiliary Board Members and their assistants, I haven’t talked about very much but I … maybe I can read again just one paragraph that will say it all for you. This is from a letter which the Universal House of Justice sent to the International Teaching Center which they wanted to send out all over the world.

The supreme body [that is, the Universal House of Justice] gives its assurance that the tremendous endeavors and the sacrificial services … the Auxiliary Board Members are the source of many bounties and blessings… They add to the luster of teaching activities and add to the firs of love in the hearts of the believers and eliminated the darkness of misunderstanding and inactivity. They give hope and comfort to the despondent. [this letter is not in Ocean, but may be a reference to the following:]

“The Universal House of Justice wishes to reaffirm at this time the tribute which it felt moved to pay to the Hands of the Cause of God at the World Congress, those precious souls who have brought the Cause safely to victory in the name of Shoghi Effendi. We wish also to remember the devoted work of their Auxiliary Board members, as well as the services of the Knights of Bahá'u'lláh, of the army of pioneers, the members of the national and regional spiritual assemblies, the services and prayers and sacrifices of the believers everywhere, all of which in the sum total have attracted such bounties and favors from Bahá'u'lláh.” (The Universal House of Justice, Wellspring of Guidance, Messages 1963-1968, p. 5)

The Auxiliary board members of course we know they are all over the planet. I will just pick it up in the middle, “Should they fulfill all these conditions and report regularly to their National Assemblies these board members and assistance will behold what stirring, what fervor, eagerness, warmth and fire would become manifest among the believers of God…”

There is a great deal  more. Of course the whole idea of the program is to get you to read and study more about it, the holy Word. You know I remember when I was on pilgrimage – you know that is a most marvelous experience – the beloved Guardian said one night, I was not an Auxiliary Board member and did not know I was to be one when I came, you know he said that the Guardian was the sun and the hands were the moons to them, and the Auxiliary Board members were the satellites circling around the hands. And that the Cause would grow so quickly that in the future the Auxiliary Board members would have to have their own satellites circling around them. And every time I see an assistant I remember that prophesy and that I was there present at the spiritual birth of one of the institutions of God, the Assistants. And now they are working in that same industrious way as the (points) UHJ, the ITC, the Counselors, the Auxiliary Board Members, and of course their assistants.

So that gives you a little picture of the Institutions, but of course it is just one drop from the Mississippi River, one leaf from all the forests of North America. And still it is only the beginning of this wondrous story.

And now I want to talk more about this Kingdom of God on earth, and especially about the House of Worship. Of course you know I have at the center a picture of the Temple in Wilmette, which I hope you know is the holiest temple ever to be raised to the glory of Baha’u’llah, ever.

Let me just again read to you from God Passes By, page 351,

"When the foundation of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar is laid in America," 'Abdu'l-Bahá Himself has predicted, "and that Divine Edifice is completed, a most wonderful and thrilling motion will appear in the world of existence... From that point of light the spirit of teaching, spreading the Cause of God and promoting the teachings of God, will permeate to all parts of the world." "Out of this Mashriqu'l-Adhkar," He has affirmed in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, "without doubt, thousands of Mashriqu'l-Adhkars will be born." "It marks," He, furthermore, has written, "the inception of the Kingdom of God on earth." And again: "It is the manifest Standard waving in the center of that great continent." "Thousands of Mashriqu'l-Adhkars," He, when dedicating the grounds of the Temple, declared, "...will be built in the East and in the West, but this, being the first erected in the Occident, has great importance." "This organization of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar," He, referring to that edifice, has moreover stated, "will be a model for the coming centuries, and will hold the station of the mother." (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 351)

As you see it says that it marks the inception of the Kingdom of God on earth. Marguarite and I had the honor of being there when it was dedicated, seeing this come about with our own eyes. Imagine how exiting that is. We should all wipe away tears of joy  when we think about it. All ours free and without a price. It was in 1953 and Marguerite and I were on our way to Africa, we were there for that great international conference. That means that for over thirty years in the midst of this rising Kingdom of God on earth,  you and I have been participating… because the inception of the Kingdom of God on earth is there already. Just the very beginning but it is alive and we are a part of it!

Well, I cannot finish without talking about the dependencies around the Temple, Hadiratu’l-Quds, home for the orphans, never again in the history of the world will there be a child, unwanted, abandoned, unwanted, forgotten (his voice breaks), that child will be the charge of the Local Assembly and the community and they will love it and cherish it in such a way that people will weep with happiness.

Home for the aged, one already, a prototype, already in action, one of many institutions to be built around this house of worship in Wilmette. Here is another group as you read about in their wheelchairs on the porch, also forgotten. They will be honored and the contribution they have made to society will become important and they will feel that, because of the Baha’is, right?

Schools, universities, colleges, where the people can be educated, and if the child has not the resources this Kingdom of God on Earth will see to it that they get an education.

Hospitals for the injured…

To Be Continued…

Speakers

Towards a Baha'i Speaker's Bureau

By John Taylor; 2007 June 16

Bill Sears in the talk I have been going over emphasized that problems like inactive believers and fund crises are easily solved by more effective teaching of the Faith; he quoted the Guardian as saying, "Drown your troubles in a torrent of new believers." This is not to be found in Ocean, but it certainly sounds like something Shoghi Effendi would have said. Mr. Sears' talk, "Promised Kingdom," aroused more comment last week than anything I have done in a long time. Indeed, if you rule out negative comment artificially caused by shooting off my mouth, probably it provoked more unreservedly positive comment than anything I have ever done, as you will see if you look at the comments at the end of last week's installments on the Badi' Blog.

I have always thought that if the Baha'i Faith is ever going to get the torrential influx of new blood that the Guardian said was the only way to solve our technical, internal problems, we will definitely have to nurture more and better speakers, and by better I mean inspirational personalities like, well, Bill Sears. As he says, the Hands were the "remnants of the Guardian," and from them you can catch the spirit of the Master and the Guardian. From a good speaker you can gain just such a "remnant" or fragrance of the Faith that nothing else can ever accomplish. Listening to Mr. Sears' words certainly electrified my sensibilities. What a pleasure it was to spend the time to write "The Promised Kingdom" down and illustrate it in PowerPoint. I am still far from finished the second half of his talk, though, so be patient.

One comment in particular struck me. It was from an old-timer in response to my complaint that few speakers today have Bill Sears’s tendency to go beyond Toronto and speak in the smaller places in the area, like Hamilton. Ernie wrote,

"I first heard of the Faith in Nancy Campbell's studio in 1949.  If anyone wants to find when the Faith was first mentioned in their area (outside of probably Toronto, Hamilton and London) there were weekend meetings set up, advertised in advance and post meeting write-ups starting in 1937 by George Spendlove and Bill Suter. This was their reaction to the First Seven Year Plan from the Guardian. I know that they 'did' Kitchener-Waterloo, Guelph, and other centers too that I don't remember now. Any records of these teaching trips would be in Wilmette since the National Teaching Committee was based there until 1948 when the NSA was formed. Bill Sears, by the way, made several tours of the smaller places where there were Baha'is, including Niagara Falls, most before he was appointed a Hand I believe."

In those days, things were better in several ways. True, there were fewer Baha'is, but, as Robert Stockman points out in his history of the early years of the Faith in America, the few Baha'is there were tended to know the writings better than we do now. They had no way around it; nothing was published and they had to write out by hand every word from every Tablet they got their hands on. Plus, they had a stricter religious training, and prayed more often than we do. And, most important, they knew how to train and nurture a stock of good speakers. Before Bill Sears came to this area I know that Marion Jack and Martha Root came through too, both excellent speakers, indeed in the opinion of the Guardian they were the two best of the best. If we could re-learn how to use and care for speakers like that, I think we would have a shot at getting that torrent of new blood that the Guardian was confident would solve all of our problems.

What would that entail? Here is what I think we should do. In every locality we should set up a speaker's bureau whose sole purpose is dredging up talent, training new speakers, and putting them to work by sponsoring regular meetings. Its first job would be to start a speaker's circuit, a regular flow of travel teachers to every area. It need not even be exclusively concerned with Baha'i speakers either. It might interface with non-Baha'i speaker's bureaus by offering exchanges, non-Baha'i speakers to our meetings, Baha'i speakers to other organizations.

The Ruhi program seems designed to lay the seeds for a crop of new speakers, but more emphasis on nurturing the speakers that come out of the institutes. This is especially true in the West. The flames of mass entry would catch quicker if we had a stronger speaker's circuit flowing through every community.

And let there be no mistake: in spite of the wealth of electronic media, there is still a huge demand for live speakers, both in and out of religious contexts. The most prominent orators command the astronomical fees for their performances that we expect from the salaries of sports stars and Corporate CEO's. I am not saying that money should have anything to do with Baha'i speaker's bureaus; I am just saying that profit is an indicator of demand and popularity. We are talking a huge need for inspiration in this dismal, crisis ridden society. As for religion, in the United States there are several mega-churches, some as large as twenty or forty thousand parishioners, who gain a huge following by throwing out most of Christianity and developing a strange sort of self-help hybrid -- according to an atheist who attended them all,

"I heard nothing in those churches that Tony Robbins has not said better."

The thing is, there are a lot of things in the Baha'i teachings that could be said better, and in a far more inspiring way, than anything Tony Robbins ever gave in his life coaching, life turnaround sessions. Nor would we have to mangle and twist our religion out of all recognition in order to do it, the way these mega-churches do. We have, after all, the example of the Master, who rode the "speaker's circuit," religious and secular, all across Europe and America. He demonstrated how it is done. Nor did He force Himself upon these places, He was so inspiring in how He presented the Teachings that often he had to turn down a half dozen requests for every engagement He could accept. If we could raise up a crop of high quality speakers, our speaker's bureaus might also have such a problem. People, believe me, are starving for the feeling that I felt as I communed with the remnant of the Guardian, over and over intensively listening and transcribing Bill Sears' pep talk.

The first step to starting a speaker's bureau would be an active mentoring program at the grassroots level. It is extremely important that experienced speakers establish close cooperation with new, up-and-coming talent. That way, important lessons about what works and what does not would not be lost. A few years ago I featured here an article about how NASA met with the spectacular failures and disasters it has because it was failing to bring old talent together with new. This is as true, or more so, with the Baha'i Faith. Bill Sears did not become the speaker he was overnight, as we have seen, he was traveling through giving talks in this area for decades before he was appointed a Hand. Lest there be any doubt about the extreme need for close personal consultation between young and old teachers, the Master said:

"On the subject of consultation, Abdu'l-Baha said, 'Man must consult with a trustworthy and wise person. His Holiness the Messenger (Mohammed) says, 'The consulted is trusted.' Therefore, if man does not consult with a trustworthy, wise person, his own mind becomes confused. When man's thoughts are scattered, he falls into many troubles. But if he concentrates on one point, then he is relieved on all sides." (SW, Vol. 9, p. 117)

Confused is a good word for how we are today, rhetorically speaking. It is pretty clear that Bill Sears was talking to a generation that was steeped in the Protestant Christian tradition, a tradition that no longer is as strong, or rather if it is, it is highly politicized and unlikely to respond to Baha'i ideas as it once did. If a Baha'i speaker emphasized prophesy today, as Bill Sears did to members of that same religious persuasion, or even mentioned world unity, he or she would be branded the Antichrist. We need to find a new target audience, and we need to do it skillfully, not forgetting the best of what worked for the old generation of speakers...

Another step towards starting a Baha'i speaker's bureau would be to make good use of the Wilmette Institute. This would surely be the easiest way to start training a stable of eloquent speakers, as well as growing an intelligent audience to listen to them.

For those who do not know about this wonderful institution, the Wilmette distance education curriculum is now designed so that you can start up your own course on the Faith in your own community without the expense of building a school and hiring instructors. All you do is get a group together and let Wilmette do the teaching over the Internet. You do not even have to buy textbooks, one of the big costs of being a student these days, everything can be printed out on your own printer. Here is how they describe it in their own words:

"All on-line courses include Web-based discussion boards for students and faculty, regular conference calls, systematic lesson plans, and a wide variety of learning projects to help students apply their learning in their local communities. All courses are available at the introductory level for those who do not want to take a university-level course, the intermediate (undergraduate) level for those wishing to go into more depth, and the advanced (graduate) level for those wishing to do extensive research or writing. More information on all of them can be found on the Web at http://www.wilmetteinstitute.us.bahai.org"

Here is their latest schedule of upcoming courses, taken from their June-December 2007 newsletter:

 
Wilmette Institute Distance-Learning Course Schedule

June 15, 2007 - September 15, 2007: The Baha'i Faith: A Comprehensive Introduction
July 15, 2007 - October 15, 2007: Judaism for Deepening and Dialog
August 15, 2007 - November 15, 2007: One Common Faith
September 15, 2007 - December 15, 2007: Baha'u'llah's Early Mystical Works: The Hidden Words, The Seven Valleys, The Four Valleys, Gems of Mysteries
October 1, 2007 - December 31, 2007: The Secret of Divine Civilization
November 1, 2007 - January 31, 2008: The Exemplar: The Life and Ministry of Abdul-Baha
November 15, 2007 - February 15, 2008: The Advent of Divine Justice
December 1, 2007 - March 1, 2008: Christianity for Deepening and Dialogue
December 15, 2007 - March 15, 2008: How to Study the Baha'i Writings

Katching

The Katching Factor

Book Review: "The Secret History of the American Empire," by John Perkins.

By John Taylor; 2007 June 16

This book is the successor to John Perkins' "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man," which I have not read but which, I understand, explains how what he calls the "corporatocracy" operates. Since the Second World War the wealthy have worked out a methodology of controlling the American government and using it to pursue their own interests in a way that avoids the indiscretions and unpleasant publicity of an outright invasion (such as the Chinese did in Tibet), but which has the same end result: hegemony for what has become in effect the largest empire in history, the only world embracing empire ever, the American Empire. Here is how it works:

In the face of independence, the corporatocrats order their pawns, the American government, the World Bank, the CIA and NSA, to deliver a one, two, three punch to a Third World Nation. First come the nice educated guys, the EHMs, or economic hit men, of whom Perkins was one. They make use of persuasion, statistics and charts to show the right way to the ignorant. They never break a law. If that does not work, they send in the jackals, who are not as nice, not as scrupulous the law. They never use words like "please" and "thank you." Finally, if there is anything left, after threats, disruption, blackmail and extortion have all failed, in come the assassins. An assassin is very effective in refuting any residual arguments that a stiff-necked opponent may hold in his heart. This is a one-two-three punch that has kept most of the human race on its knees while a small plutocracy rakes in resources, markets and wealth that was, in the words of the House of Justice, "undreamed of by our ancestors."

The "Secret History" is, as I say, a sequel to "Confessions." It rehashes the material in the first book at great length; what is left is an extended first-person narrative of Perkins' experiences since that book was published, the conferences he attended, the people he talked with, and the narratives of those who told their own involvement in the shenanigans of the old corporate world order. Surprisingly, he found great sympathy among what we would expect to be "the enemy," that is, members of the world bank, former jackals and spies, even corporate CEO's. He weaves in detailed stories of mostly anonymous responders to the success of "Confessions" who played roles in the rape of the poor majority, and the planet we all live on.

Here is an URL pointing to an extended interview, both printed and spoken, with the author:

http://dissidentnews.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/the-secret-history-of-the-american-empire-and-the-truth-about-global-corruption/

 He covers the contents of his book almost too well in this interview; having heard it I could not help but wonder, "Why did I fork out money to get this audio book when I could have heard it all summarized so much more concisely here?" The only thing I would have missed was the part about Africa, easily the most valuable contribution Perkins makes with this book. But again, I can summarize that in a few sentences too. He says, basically,

 "Pay attention to Africa. We in the West ignore that crucial continent, and the powers that be know that and have a field day. They sow tribal wars, and rape it for mineral resources."

 Perkins does not need to say that to a Baha'i, of course, in view of the Guardian's affection for Africa, his calling it the "continent of light," and so on. Actually, yes, he does; to this Baha'i at least. I have to admit that my eyes blear over when I see a headline coming out of Africa. It is all so depressing that I just want to turn my head away and read something happier and more heartening. Must change that, somehow...

 Another thing I learned from this book is what you could call the "Katching Factor." It seems that what he calls the corporatocracy (I will call them plutocrats here, for wealth is what they have, use, and what they are all about; only their proxies us power and violence) have worked out ways to make money from sowing tares of dissension, limited wars, disunity, and regional conflicts. That way, even when they lose, they win. And especially when we all lose, they win too.

 For example, when the Americans brought Egypt and Israel together after the Yom Kippur War in what came to be known as the Camp David Peace Accords, both warring parties went home not only with a peace treaty but also an agreement to buy all weapons from the United States. What a wonderful, neutral peacemaker the American government showed itself to be. Ever after, whenever stability broke down and conflict broke out, Katching!, the weapons industry profited from it, win, lose or draw. Country A attacks country B. Oops. Katching! Blood is spilled, nations ripped apart, bestiality, starvation, but still, glory be, the cash registers still ring out their glorious song, Katching! The Congo is torn by factional war, but that leaves the mineral wealth of that land free to be taken away, including an ore essential for computers and cell phones. Oh, oh. Oops. Katching!

 Anyway, here is a snippet in the author's own words, from the above cited interview, showing how this works:

 JOHN PERKINS: "Yeah, well, ... we, you and I, look at them as defeats, perhaps, and certainly anybody who lost a child or a sibling or a spouse in these countries look at them as disasters, as defeats, but the corporations made a huge amount of money off Vietnam, the military industry, huge corporations, the construction companies. And, of course, they are doing it in a very, very big way in Iraq. So the corporatocracy, the people that are in fact insisting that our young men and women continue to go to Iraq and fight, they are making a tremendous amount of money. These are not failures for them; they are successes from a very strong economic standpoint. And I know that sounds cynical. I am cynical about these things. I have been there. I have seen it. And, you know, we must learn not to put up with that anymore. All of us."

 I have learned whenever I come across a new word, a new idea, or a new book, like "Empire," to run straight to Wikipedia. What does Wiki have to say about Perkins? Read it yourself. It is mostly positive, but it points out that Perkins' thesis that the NSA is bigger than the CIA, and that he was recruited by the NSA, is unsubstantiated. Still, that made me think. What if Perkins really is a mole, as he himself claims he is? That would explain a great deal about his activism. Is it all a ploy to take the same agenda and make it seem to be coming out of "left field?" More about that idea later.

 Another heads-up I got from American Empire is a famous speech, the importance of which I had underestimated; Perkins gives some background to Eisenhower's parting shot, his famous "Military-Industrial Complex" speech, and talks about its role in his own search for truth as a reluctant former Peace Corps volunteer drafted into the ranks of the economic hit men.

 As the Wiki article on this speech points out, in the early drafts the retiring American President warned of the "military-industrial-congressional complex," but that was rejected for being too close to the jugular. Since then it has been credibly argued that Eisenhower should have added "Academic" as well, since universities are just as heavily involved in the cash orgy. So, calling a spade a spade, you get the Military-Industrial-Governmental-Educational Complex, or MIGEC. Maybe I will just stick with Aristotle's term, "plutocrats." Things were simpler and cheaper in Ancient Greece, but the patterns of corruption were the same. Here is some of what Eisenhower said in that speech.

 "A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society." (President of the United States and former head of the Allied military in WWII, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961, cited in Wikipedia)

 In other words the present nationalist order builds all on fear and intimidation, and the limited, separate peace it gives us is inherently a balance of terror. If there ever were a just peace on a world level there would no longer be anything to fear. Such an outcome is itself frightening, for the whole structure would then threaten to come crashing to the ground, leaving only anarchy. And, much worse, the plutocrats would no longer hear that beautiful song, "Katching."

This attempts to be an optimistic book. It looks at solutions. It was when he was talking about his own ideas for change that the possibility that Perkins is some kind of mole for the NSA or their plutocratic puppet masters came to me.

After all, nothing he says here is new to anybody with any familiarity with the left wing press. All through the years the events and dirty tricks that he was involved in, and worse, were all documented as they happened, in excruciating detail, by magazines such as the New Internationalist. The only person to whom anything he says may seem fresh and new would be an extreme far right reactionary head-in-the-sand fascist in any country, or, of course, an American. For Americans any dialog left of center might as well be going on in the mass media of some gaseous civilization on the planet Jupiter for all it affects them.

Anyway, consider the bright idea he has to relieve the debt problem of a South American country. Leverage the rain forest. Get the World Bank to nullify their national debt in exchange for giving up to the corporatocracy all rights in perpetuity to any future patents derived from the vast biodiversity of the rain forest. In other words, trade rotten, stolen goods gained by extortion for something infinitely delicate, unspoiled and of far greater monetary value. Sounds fair to me.

Most infuriating to me is this author’s constant invocations of the American Revolution. He talks about the early battles, how they turned the colonists around from timidity at the greatest world power at the time, the English, to seeing that they could do something about it, they had the ability to fight and win. So can we now, he cheer-leads, we can make a difference. We can stand up for our democratic rights. We can speak out. All very well, but he is forgetting the one essential thing about the whole historical analogy, an analogy that I agree is extremely important and timely. I kept wanting to reach into the book, grab him by the lapels and engage in this dialog:

JET: What was it that the colonists did in order to overcome the British?
Perkins: They beat the British.
JET: No, what I mean is how did they beat the British?
Perkins: They fought. They got confidence. They struggled together.
JET: You are getting warmer, but you are still not getting it. What came out of the Revolutionary War (by that I mean the one you Americans call the War of Independence)? What became independent?
Perkins: We did. Americans.
JET: Yes. And were there Americans before the Revolution?
Perkins: Yes, we were always Americans.
JET: For God’s sake! Think man! No, you were not always Americans! Before that war there were several entities. They were rivals. They were colonies. They thought of themselves as British. They had rivalries among themselves; collectively they were weak. They were known as the American Colonies at the time, also called “The Thirteen Colonies,” but there was no United States of America! It did not exist. That conflict forced you to forget the differences among the colonies and unite in order to become a single, much stronger nation, one that could challenge the greatest sea power in the world, and eventually all of Europe. That revolution united many mutually antipathetic colonies into one nation. Don’t you realize that? They made a structural change, and it worked. Now, consider what Dwight D. said in the speech you talk so much about:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together."

The fact is that this weak-kneed caution to guard against “misplaced power” (which is the basic solution you suggest) was not enough then and it is still not enough. The weakness of national governments against these economic powerhouses is the direct result of their being disunited rivals, just like the 13 Colonies were before the revolution. We need structural change, we must unite all nations into a world government if we are ever going to have a hope to stand up to this new Evil Empire of materialism, and adequately address global warming, global anarchy, and all the other problems that its nationalist plutocracy dropped into our laps.

Master's Cat

Abdul Law's Cat

By John Taylor; 2007 June 16

I have spent the last two days transcribing a talk by Bill Sears and "translating" his graphics into PowerPoint; now I find that other matters held in abeyance, including reader feedback, are piling up above my head. Today I will try to catch up. Reader Charles, responding to our recent discussion of scientific findings about how apparently casual exposure to the media degrades the brain, writes:

"Another wonderful essay. Thank you. The day is coming when people will look back at our era incredulous that we were so blind to issues such as this. One reference that comes to mind is the Master asking, (I'm paraphrasing) 'Gracious God, can any good come from gazing upon a revolting pile of excrement?' Those of us immersed in the media of our time are in an excellent position, alas, to answer that rhetorical question. Please keep up the good work."

Charles is referring to the following words of the Master, from a Tablet:

"It is certain that in this wonderful new age the development of medical science will lead to the doctors' healing their patients with foods. For the sense of sight, the sense of hearing, of taste, of smell, of touch -- all these are discriminative faculties, their purpose being to separate the beneficial from whatever causeth harm. Now, is it possible that man's sense of smell, the sense that differentiates odours, should find some odour repugnant, and that odour be beneficial to the human body? Absurd! Impossible! In the same way, could the human body, through the faculty of sight -- the differentiator among things visible -- benefit from gazing upon a revolting mass of excrement? Never! Again, if the sense of taste, likewise a faculty that selecteth and rejecteth, be offended by something, that thing is certainly not beneficial; and if, at the outset, it may yield some advantage, in the long run its harmfulness will be established." (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, 155)

The Master could have had in mind the common belief, still around in my youth, I recall, that the worse smelling, the more foul tasting a medicine is the better it must be for you. I still remember the spoonful of castor oil, and of cod liver oil. Now, at least, they put these yucky things safely behind capsule coatings.

Or, He may have been dissenting with the opinion of French poet Charles-Pierre Baudelaire, who decades earlier had devoted an artistic career to demonstrating the counterintuitive possibility of finding beauty in ugly objects and repulsive conditions. If there ever was any doubt that the Master was right and Baudelaire was wrong, very recent scientific studies testing what people find to be the ugliest of a wide selection of possibilities -- pictures, sounds, smells -- have confirmed Him, not him. Invariably people find anything associated with high bacteria counts to be the most repulsive. For example, with sight, cesspools and sewage were deemed most ugly; as for sounds, I read how some researchers recorded one experimenter making retching sounds, after which another assistant emptied out a vat of brown beans into a large, empty plastic pail. This, because it resembled vomiting -- that veritable shower of dangerous viruses and bacteria -- was universally judged to be the most rebarbative of all possible noises.

On an apparently unrelated note (you will soon see the connection), last night I was surprised to learn from Nate Rutstein's biography of Curtis Kelly that Abdu'l-Baha had a cat. I figured out a way to introduce this fact to the kids. Kids are such animal lovers that they should know that the Master was one too. Anyway, I have transcribed this passage out of the book. As you will see, it ends up surprisingly philosophical.

"Often only Curtis and Fujita would be together at the table and they had their favorite games. One involved the Master's brown cat. Fujita, who took care of the cat for Abdul-Baha, would always lock the cat in the kitchen. He did that just to hear the master say, `Let the cat out,' which of course Fujita would do. As soon as the kitchen door was opened the cat would dart to the feet of Abdu'l-Baha, who would stroke her and feed her. After gobbling the food, the cat would brush against the master's feet and purr loudly. Everyone knew it was a joke, but it was fun for all. It was amazing to Curtis that the mystery of God would derive such pleasure from such simple things. On the one hand He was so human, in the best sense of the term, and yet Curtis knew from personal experience that Abdu'l-Baha possessed powers no one else had. What made the master so appealing was His naturalness, His openness, His genuine concern for you. (Nathan Rutstein, He Loved and Served; The Story of Curtis Kelsey, George Ronald, Oxford, 1983, pp. 73-74)

The way I introduced this passage to the kids was strange. I lately broke out my old dictation program, Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I had not used for a long time. It still makes annoying mistakes and is virtually useless for what I wanted to use it for. But the misunderstandings that it makes became a delightful surprise for Tommy, and especially Silvie, obsessed as she is with Mad Libs, and other word games of spoonerisms and non-sequitors. For example, in the above I had to dictate the word "Abdu'l-Baha" exactly right, or it became "Abdul law," or any of a dozen other strange possibilities.

Thomas's high-pitched seven year old boy's voice was particularly incomprehensible to the machine. This did not discourage him, though. He invented a sort of recursive game where he would say something, it would mishear completely, and type it out. Then he would read what it had just transcribed, it would mishear that in turn even worse, until he had a full paragraph of crazy talk, nonsense upon nonsense. He invented a game of telephone gossip that you can play with yourself. Naturally, both kids laughed and laughed to see these whacky results.

Still I want them to hear as well as understand this passage about the Master's cat. I am confident that if I read it aloud in a meeting sometime later they may remember it all the more for the unusual way that they first came across it. Anyway, here is some more from Rutstein's biography about the Master's cat.

"One afternoon, after the cat had been patted and fed by the Master, Curtis asked what the difference was between the life of a cat and a human being. Abdu'l-Baha's response was difficult to comprehend. He gave a discourse on the ingestion and digestion of what we eat, being extremely detailed in explaining the various processes involved, and pointing out that what is of value nourishes the body and what is not is eliminated as waste. Then He arose, walking across the floor. As His foot struck a loose tile, He stopped, looked at it and exclaimed, `It is progressing, and it is possible for it to reach the state of a mirror.' Years later, after deepening in the teachings, Curtis gained some insight into the Master's explanation when he read in the writings, `We have placed mankind in the alembic, and after due refining processes, the believers are the fragrant extracts thereof.'" (Nathan Rutstein, He Loved and Served; The Story of Curtis Kelsey, George Ronald, Oxford, 1983, p. 74)

This last quote is apparently an old translation, or perhaps from a Tablet not incorporated into the modern canon, for I had no luck finding anything like it in Ocean. The closest I came was the following:

"Many were the counsels of this kind that were uttered by that Dayspring of Divine wisdom, and souls who have become characterized with such attributes of holiness are the distilled essence of creation and the sources of true civilization." (Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 82)

In any case, this Q&A experience of Curtis Kelsey about cats may be what prompted him to publish, decades later, an illustrated pamphlet containing a Tablet of the Master on this subject, along with an illustration drawn by Lua Getsinger. You can find it on the Baha'i Academic's Library, the largest source of digital material on the Web. In this Tablet we can see the Master's ideas about repulsiveness as a natural indicator of un-healthfulness laid out in detail, as part of a comprehensive philosophical system. I am trying to grasp what the chart is saying; maybe it will help if I project it on a wall, since the small computer screen is manifestly inadequate.

 

Promised Kingdom, II

Second part of the first half of “The Promised Kingdom”

By John Taylor; 2007 June 20

 First, here is a random note on a footnote to a Tablet of Baha’u’llah. When I ran across the following footnote I was reminded of a popular song,

“Muhammad Javad-i-Qazvini, upon whom Bahá'u'lláh bestowed the title Ismu'llahi'l-Jud (The Name of God, Bounty). He transcribed numerous Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh during His Ministry, but subsequently broke the Covenant.” (See God Passes By pages 247 and 319, Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 74)

This Arabic word, Jud, bounty of God, is a divinely given title of a fellow who made it really bad. This offers to my silly mind an alternative interpretation to one of Paul McCartney’s most popular tunes, “Hey Jude.” I read somewhere that McCartney originally wrote the song to comfort the distress of the young Julian Lennon, whose parents were going through a divorce at the time, but it could also describe the process of making darkness out of light as a covenant breaker destroys the Jud, the bounty of God, the essence of his own faith. The song goes: “Don’t make it bad, take a sad song, and make it better... Remember to let her under your skin then you can begin to make it better.  Don’t be afraid, you were made to go out and get her. It’s a fool who plays it cool by making the world a little colder. … You have found her, now go and get her. … You are waiting for someone to perform with…” Truly our unity in the Cause is a bounty, Jud, and we have the choice of accepting God’s bounty, or, with every bad thought, of making it worse.

Anyway, it is extremely tedious work, I must say, transcribing this talk while at the same time making up reproductions of Bill Sears’ felt-board graphics in the new, but extremely annoying and clumsy graphical tool, PowerPoint. But I hung in there and did it for Anon, who offered the encouraging words that you will find at the end of yesterday’s Badi Blog entry. The PowerPoint graphical version of this talk I still have not figured out how to share with you. I am considering opening up a new blog on Vox, which makes multimedia blogging easier to do. But since that is also a social networking site, I might make that blog a more public one, with entries designed for teaching the Faith. In that case, this talk, designed for the internal consumption of Baha’is, would not be appropriate.  

I do not know if I will finish the entire talk, but here is the second half of the first half of his talk anyway.

The Promised Kingdom, Part Ib

Titles of Baha’u’llah. He points at “Abdu’l-Baha,” The Beloved Master had many titles too, Mystery of God, Center of the Covenant… Now I know what you are saying to yourself, Bill is not saying enough about Baha’u’llah, no, nor nearly enough about the Master, Abdu’l-Baha; do you not think I know that? You know, as I was preparing this presentation I sat and I wept, not for what I had to put into it but for what I had to leave out. But there is one thing that I can do, I can summarize who the Master was and who Baha’u’llah was in two short paragraphs from World Order.

"He it is," referring to Himself He further proclaims, "Who in the Old Testament hath been named Jehovah, Who in the Gospel hath been designated as the Spirit of Truth, and in the Qur'án acclaimed as the Great Announcement." "But for Him no Divine Messenger would have been invested with the robe of prophethood, nor would any of the sacred scriptures have been revealed. To this bear witness all created things." (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 103)

'Behold ye that dwell on earth, and ye denizens of heaven, bear witness, He in truth is your Well-Beloved. He it is Whose like the world of creation hath not seen, He Whose ravishing beauty hath delighted the eye of God, the Ordainer, the All-Powerful, the Incomparable!'" (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, 104)

And just one short paragraph about the beloved Master:

He is, and should for all time be regarded, first and foremost, as the Center and Pivot of Bahá'u'lláh's peerless and all-enfolding Covenant, His most exalted handiwork, the stainless Mirror of His light, the perfect Exemplar of His teachings, the unerring Interpreter of His Word, the embodiment of every Bahá'í ideal, the incarnation of every Bahá'í virtue, the Most Mighty Branch sprung from the Ancient Root, the Limb of the Law of God, the Being "round Whom all names revolve," the Mainspring of the Oneness of Humanity, the Ensign of the Most Great Peace, the Moon of the Central Orb of this most holy Dispensation -- styles and titles that are implicit and find their truest, their highest and fairest expression in the magic name 'Abdu'l-Bahá. He is, above and beyond these appellations, the "Mystery of God" -- an expression by which Bahá'u'lláh Himself has chosen to designate Him, and which, while it does not by any means justify us to assign to Him the station of Prophethood, indicates how in the person of 'Abdu'l-Bahá the incompatible characteristics of a human nature and superhuman knowledge and perfection have been blended and are completely harmonized. (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 134)

I think that is enough to say about the Master … I hate it when I cannot say all of the things we should say about the Master. All of this bounty, this is all ours, free and without a price.

I love this part.

Pointing to the words “The Bab” on the chart, Bill Sears places by it the number six:

Of course you know that the Bab wrote for six years with His own pen. Yes, and Jesus wrote in the sand on the shores of Caesarea [Galilee?], we do not know what He wrote, the water came and it was washed away, but with His tongue what he said was so holy, so beautiful, the great outpouring from God that raised up this great Christian civilization to whom you are now teaching. And of course, Muhammad dictated the Qu’ran … none of Them wrote their Revelations from God with their own hand.

But the Bab wrote with His own hand for six years, and Baha’u’llah wrote for forty years …

– Bill Sears places a 40 next to “Baha’u’llah” on the chart, then places “40 + 6 = 46” between them.

That makes no less than forty six successive years of written revelation from two Manifestations of God! It is so staggering that nobody can conceive of its greatness.

- places a 29 next to “Abdu’l-Baha on the chart.

The beloved master then gave us twenty nine years explaining what the Bab and Baha meant during their forty six years of new revelation. If we just had the six years of writing from the Bab we would have the greatest religion that ever existed! We would not need any more…

-  places a 75 next to all three names

Well we have more, forty six years of revelation, twenty nine years of interpretation -- that makes seventy-five years of outpouring, of divine, infallible guidance from God! Can you imagine that? It is no wonder that Baha’u’llah said that we should recite these holy verses both in the morning and in the evening, right? We have to immerse ourselves in this mighty ocean, and as we do that we come to understand who we are. We are supposed to be a better person, a finer human being; that is the purpose of [Their] Coming. The Baha’i Faith did not come to raise up the Baha’i Faith but to raise up the Christ promised Kingdom on earth … so that the elect and the chosen could find the right way, so that then we could become better people.  Dip into His ocean and take out the pearls, that is the secret of the whole thing.

You know, the Guardian was appointed as the interpreter of the Bab and Baha’u’llah’s Revelation, as was Abdu’l-Baha.  Bill Sears then unveils a new chart:

Chart Two; The Administrative Order

 

(on the left side)

 

Guardian

 

Hands

International Teaching Center

Counsellors

 

Auxiliary Board

 

Assistants

 

(on the right side)

Universal House of Justice

 

National Assembly

 

Local Assembly

 

He then places a “36” below “Guardian” on the above chart. He continues:

For thirty six years the Guardian told us what the Bab, Baha’u’llah and Abdu’l-Baha had meant; so to put all this in proper perspective, we got forty six years of revelation, then (he places “29 + 36 = 65” to the right of “Guardian”) after that we get sixty five years of interpretation. No wonder Ezekiel and Daniel fell to the ground, numb, when given a glimpse of God at the River Jaber, almost exactly where Baha’u’llah commenced His Mission, in that valley. And the Guardian said, if we knew Who Baha’u’llah was, and if we knew who *we* really were … just because we are Baha’is struggling to be finer human beings, to be numbered among the elect and the chosen, not to be among those who are called, everybody is called, but to be among those who are chosen, and we have that great blessing.

Now we see, if I may bring it all to its essence, (he takes away the other numbers and places a new one “46 + 65 = 111”) we have forty-six years of written revelation plus sixty five years of interpretation, that totals one hundred and eleven years, over a century of written, infallible guidance for mankind, Baha’u’llah, we know, wrote over a hundred volumes Himself, so you see who you are, and what we can do for the Cause of God!

He then takes all away but the number “111”

I will leave that number up there to remind us how incredible, how impossibly great it all is.

He then points to “Universal House of Justice”

And, Baha’u’llah said, in addition to that, the UHJ would legislate upon all things not revealed in the book, to keep the Cause of God in the forefront of all movements throughout all the ages; and they could change something that did not fit. And everything that they decided by majority vote would be just as binding as the holy Word itself. Is that not just simply incredible?

(JET: I cannot resist mentioning what I just came across in Book IV of Rousseau’s Social Contract: “There may be a thousand eventualities which the lawgiver has not foreseen, and it is a very necessary part of foresight to know that one cannot foresee everything.”)

Sometimes I think we forget how wonderful we are. The beloved Guardian brought it home to me when I was on pilgrimage and said that we would fall down to the ground numb if we had the faintest glimmering of how great we really were. Well that is what the House of Justice has before they start to legislate, one hundred and eleven years of infallible guidance.

I get overwhelmed myself, but I told you it was tremendous, didn’t I?

So, we are going to have a brief intermission now, so that you can pray and meditate and ACT! And do something that is going to startle the English speaking world, I hope, I want to express my love and appreciation for what you have already done for the wonderful Cause of ours. I hope you are enjoying this new view of the fund, for this way is important, see? It is good for both teaching and contributions, they both go together. They touch our innermost beings. And after all Shoghi Effendi and the UHJ have made it abundantly clear that upon this vast increase in new believers will depend our success in everything. I mean the problem of the fund will be eliminated forever when we have that vast increase in new believers; but they will all have to have that same spirit that we are talking about here. Shoghi Effendi said that we should drown our troubles in an ocean of new believers. That is what we are trying to do.

One last thing, the word voluntary. To me that is one of the sweetest and most spiritual words in our Faith. Voluntary does not mean, you know, that you will or you won’t contribute! It means when, how much and for what. It means that you can voluntarily choose which kingdom you are going to live in, are you going to live in the Christ promised kingdom of God on earth, Baha’u’llah’s building. Are you going to live in that building? Or are you still caught up? Are you going to live in the kingdom of God not-on-earth? You know, the world of excessive materialism. Christ said, seek ye the kingdom first, the kingdom of God, and all else will be added unto you.  He did not say seek ye all else and the kingdom of God will be added unto you. But you know, that is how the world behaves, doesn’t it? As though that was the whole thing, we made to be seeking that. Sometimes it even touches us, we have to be careful not to let that attitude creep in, to avoid materialism like the plague – Baha’u’llah said that. Then money becomes something quite different.

The world is focusing not on what God wants but on what man wants. Shoghi Effendi said that the fund is the lifeblood of the Faith, the heart of it all. The activity that would result in the spiritual conquest of the planet, you know transform us all into the Kingdom of God on earth. But a heart that has no blood, that is a corpse, right? You might as well bury it. As Christ said, let the dead bury their dead. A heart is supposed to pump, right? It is true that sometimes ours beats like in Ravel’s Bolero, I don’t know if you have heard it, you know, bum, bumpety bum, bum, you cannot depend on what is going to come next, see? It is regularly irregular. Sometimes it resembles cardiac arrest… what we need is (bangs fist hard into hand) bump, bump, bump, go, go, always, constantly, never interrupted, on a never interrupted basis.

So, dear friends, no matter how successful you are in this world, without the kingdom of God you are going to enter the next world a spiritual pauper. If you are living these days serving the Kingdom of God you are already a spiritual millionaire. I do not think billionaire is too strong a word. Not for sixty or seventy or eighty years on this planet here but for eternity, for ever, that is what voluntary means. And when you hear the Word wherever you are, I hope you will applaud (claps hands) because it can keep you in the cause of God. Well, the best is yet to come, or did I say that already? Well, I will see you after the intermission.

Promised Kingdom by William Sears

Promised Kingdom, A Talk by Bill Sears

By John Taylor; 2007 June 19

Last week I had the chance to be among the first to visit the newly integrated and re-organized Baha’i library of Hamilton (after the amalgamation of several regional communities the size of its collection increased several times). The collection includes some rare, unique and irreplaceable books, as well as much audio-visual material that you are not going to get from the BDS.

For some reason a copy of “Thief in the Night” surfaced at one point in my visit and Joe, one of the librarians, pointed out to me something that I had not realized about it. He said that of all Baha’i books, this is the only one that has never gone out of print through all these years. It is the only one that you regularly find in used book sales, and one of the few that you can order from non-Baha’i bookstores. So, I would think that whatever our egghead friends may want to say about the scholarship behind this work, it is definitely doing something right, something that we would do well to emulate.

My curiosity was tweaked about Bill Sears. I chose to borrow from among the large selection of A/V material an old VHS cassette from around 1983, evidently made during a fund crisis, by that Hand of the Cause called: “The Promised Kingdom.” This was toward the end of Mr. Sears life and though his strength and memory were visibly shaky by this time, I was very impressed with what I saw and heard, with his enthusiasm, sincerity, gentle humor, kindness, his firm conviction and, yes, with his knowledge, especially of the early Babi years. And, as he makes clear, much of what he says and what he chose to highlight from among the Writings came out of his meetings and talks with the Guardian. In this sense, the fact that he does not have a heavy academic background makes his contribution all the more pure and interesting, for you can be fairly sure that his perspective is from Haifa, and not Harvard or Oxford.

In fact, I was so impressed with Bill Sears’ talk that I am taking detailed notes of this tape and will include them, along with the full quotations that he reads there, in this or an upcoming mailing. This is because, as I say, Bill Sears is of more than historical interest, he has had success and covered ground, as both teacher and “deepener,” as both writer and speaker, that no other Baha’i has come close to.

Let me tell you why I think he was so great as a speaker.

Okay, the first reason is that I got the chance to hear him speak at all. Unlike just about every other Baha’i speaker he did not imagine he had covered Canada, or Ontario, when he spoke in Toronto. He took the step beyond, he hit the QEW and came to Hamilton, and thus gave me the chance to meet him more than a couple of times. The other reason he was great is that he had that charisma, the “it” factor, star quality. Clearly, if not waylaid by Baha’u’llah, he was well on the way to becoming a celebrity, either on film or television. It was a sense of humor combined with enthusiastic faith that gave him soul power.

Even this tape, made in his golden years with little more than a cameraman, an old analog camcorder and some hokey felt stickup props, Mr. Sears makes into a truly touching production. The director, if there is one, is clumsy throughout, but at the end, with a single parting shot, makes up for it all. By a stroke of genius, perhaps suggested by Mr. Sears, he ends the video with a close-up of Marguerite Sears looking on at him, and I do not think you would even have to have read “God Loves Laughter” to be moved by the life-long love affair in faith that Bill and Marguerite had going on.

The Promised Kingdom
by William Sears

A deepening on the Baha’i faith at Batterwood Summer School

Part One

Close-up of the red cover of the book “Baha’u’llah” (by Hasan Balyuzi).

Wasn’t that thrilling to see the name of Baha’u’llah filling the entire screen? This is just a simple video, you know video means to see, and that is what Baha’is do, we see spiritually. This is a talk about the fund. But I am not going to talk about money – is that not marvelous? A new approach… Of course I might say, `free and without a price,’ how else would I express the gift that Baha’u’llah has given us.

Contribute means con and tribute, it is our tribute to Baha’u’llah for his love. And then, I might incidentally once in a while mention the word money, but then I will wash out my mouth with soap later.

You know, the beloved Guardian said that the fund is the most spiritual part of the Faith, for by it we can all measure our love and devotion for Baha’u’llah.

The Master said that the Faith is a love affair. And that is why I am here with you today. I want to know if you are still in love with the Faith. I am going to talk to your heart (points to head), not your head (points to heart, then realizes error) Well, it does not matter, they are all the same in the Baha’i Faith.

You will see just exciting this is, I can hardly wait myself. Not because of me, because of the writings. You will see.

Let us start with a chart. I should say right at the beginning that the Guardian said it is alright to use charts, as long as you make it clear that it is your own limited understanding of the great theme you are portraying. Of course, there is no way that you can chart the Cause of God. I mean no way. You will come to see that more and more as you get into it.

Chart One

The Báb

Bahá’u’lláh

Abdu’l-Bahá

I wanted to start with this chart, “The Three Central Figures of the Faith.” Of course you know the Bab, Shoghi Effendi said that the Bab was not just the Herald of our Faith, glorious as that was. No. He was an independent messenger of God. He said that the fact that He was an independent prophet is the most distinctive part of our entire Faith! The fact that the Bab and Baha’u’llah are both independent manifestations of God demonstrates the power, strength and authority of the Cause of God, and that hints at why it will last five hundred thousand years. The Guardian said that the chief reason he translated the Dawnbreakers was that,

Dearly-beloved friends! That the Báb, the inaugurator of the Bábí Dispensation, is fully entitled to rank as one of the self-sufficient Manifestations of God, that He has been invested with sovereign power and authority, and exercises all the rights and prerogatives of independent Prophethood, is yet another fundamental verity which the Message of Bahá'u'lláh insistently proclaims and which its followers must uncompromisingly uphold. That He is not to be regarded merely as an inspired Precursor of the Bahá'í Revelation, that in His person, as He Himself bears witness in the Persian Bayan, the object of all the Prophets gone before Him has been fulfilled, is a truth which I feel it my duty to demonstrate and emphasize. We would assuredly be failing in our duty to the Faith we profess and would be violating one of its basic and sacred principles if in our words or by our conduct we hesitate to recognize the implications of this root principle of Bahá'í belief, or refuse to uphold unreservedly its integrity and demonstrate its truth. Indeed the chief motive actuating me to undertake the task of editing and translating Nabil's immortal Narrative has been to enable every follower of the Faith in the West to better understand and more readily grasp the tremendous implications of His exalted station and to more ardently admire and love Him.” (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, 123)

The Guardian emphasized that the Bab was not only a herald but a co-founder, and that this added greatly to the majesty and greatness of Baha’u’llah. Let me share one or two pages about it, again from World Order,

It would be more correct, and in consonance with the established principles of Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb, if instead of maintaining this fictitious identity with reference to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, we regard the Forerunner and the Founder of our Faith as identical in reality -- a truth which the text of the Suratu'l-Haykal unmistakably affirms. "Had the Primal Point (the Bab) been someone else beside Me as ye claim," is Bahá'u'lláh's explicit statement, "and had attained My presence, verily He would have never allowed Himself to be separated from Me, but rather We would have had mutual delights with each other in My Days." "He Who now voiceth the Word of God," Bahá'u'lláh again affirms, "is none other except the Primal Point Who hath once again been made manifest." "He is," He thus refers to Himself in a Tablet addressed to one of the Letters of the Living, "the same as the One Who appeared in the year sixty (1260 A.H.). This verily is one of His mighty signs." "Who," He pleads in the Suriy-i-Damm, "will arise to secure the triumph of the Primal Beauty (the Bab) revealed in the countenance of His succeeding Manifestation?" Referring to the Revelation proclaimed by the Báb He conversely characterizes it as "My own previous Manifestation.” (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, 138-139)

In addition, the Master wrote,

"Every proof and prophecy," is His still more emphatic warning, "every manner of evidence, whether based on reason or on the text of the scriptures and traditions, are to be regarded as centered in the persons of Bahá'u'lláh and the Báb. In them is to be found their complete fulfillment." (Abdu’l-Baha, cited in Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, pp. 127 - 128)

So we in our Faith have not only one but two messengers of God. But do not swoon away just yet. The world has never seen the like of it, nor ever will again.

Chart Two; The Adamic Cycle and the Baha’i Cycle

This is another thing that comes out of “The World Order of Baha’u’llah”. As you see, the Bab closed the cycle of prophesy, the Adamic Cycle. Imagine that, five thousand centuries, and the Bab was at the center of both.

Also in World Order, prophesy states that up until the coming of the Bab, known as the Qa’im, the one who will arise,

Shoghi Effendi: “In the Íqán, Bahá'u'lláh, wishing to emphasize the transcendent character of this new Day of God, reinforces the strength of His argument by His reference to the text of a correct and authorized tradition, which reveals the following…” (Shoghi Effendi, World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 24)

"Knowledge is twenty and seven letters. All that the Prophets have revealed are two letters thereof. No man thus far hath known more than these two letters. But when the Qá'im shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest."

(Baha'u'llah, Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 243)

And then immediately follow these confirming and illuminating words of Bahá'u'lláh:

Consider; He hath declared Knowledge to consist of twenty and seven  letters, and regarded all the Prophets, from Adam even unto the "Seal," as Expounders of only two letters thereof and of having been sent down with these two letters. He also saith that the Qá'im will reveal all the remaining twenty and five letters.

Behold from this utterance how great and lofty is His station! His rank excelleth that of all the Prophets, and His Revelation transcendeth the comprehension and understanding of all their chosen ones. A Revelation, of which the Prophets of God, His saints and chosen ones, have either not been informed, or which, in pursuance of God's inscrutable Decree, they have not disclosed, -- such a Revelation these mean and depraved people have sought to measure with their own deficient minds, their own deficient learning and understanding. Should it fail to conform to their standards, they straightway reject it. "Thinkest thou that the greater part of them hear or understand? They are even like unto the brutes! yea, they stray even further from the path!" [Qur'án 25:44.] (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 243-244)

Until the Bab, then, through all those ages only two of those letters had been revealed. When the Bab came all the remaining twenty five. Isn’t that fantastic? All the remaining twenty five are in your hands, that means, when you are teaching the Faith to members of other religions they understand things from a platform of only two letters of knowledge that they have, while you have all the rest. 27. Overwhelming. It is all in World Order, in much more detail.

In another way, we are told that the Bab, the shrine, is the center of the world. Not only spiritually, physically as well. It is the center of nine concentric circles. World, holy land, Haram-i-Aqdas, gardens, shrine, three central rooms, central room, white marble sarcophagus that contain the remains of the Bab and His youthful companion. Let me just read two lines about that,

For, just as in the realm of the spirit, the reality of the Báb has been hailed by the Author of the Bahá'í Revelation as "The Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve," so, on this visible plane, His sacred remains constitute the heart and center of what may be regarded as nine concentric circles, paralleling thereby, and adding further emphasis to the central position accorded by the Founder of our Faith to One "from Whom God hath caused to proceed the knowledge of all that was and shall be," "the Primal Point from which have been generated all created things." (Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, p. 95)

“The outermost circle in this vast system, the visible counterpart of the pivotal position conferred on the Herald of our Faith, is none other than the entire planet. Within the heart of this planet lies the "Most Holy Land," acclaimed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá as "the Nest of the Prophets" and which must be regarded as the center of the world and the Qiblih of the nations. Within this Most Holy Land rises the Mountain of God of immemorial sanctity, the Vineyard of the Lord, the Retreat of Elijah, Whose return the Báb Himself symbolizes. Reposing on the breast of this holy mountain are the extensive properties permanently dedicated to, and constituting the sacred precincts of, the Báb's holy Sepulcher. In the midst of these properties, recognized as the international endowments of the Faith, is situated the most holy court, an enclosure comprising gardens and terraces which at once embellish, and lend a peculiar charm to, these sacred precincts. Embosomed in these lovely and verdant surroundings stands in all its exquisite beauty the mausoleum of the Báb, the shell designed to preserve and adorn the original structure raised by 'Abdu'l-Bahá as the tomb of the Martyr-Herald of our Faith. Within this shell is enshrined that Pearl of Great Price, the holy of holies, those chambers which constitute the tomb itself, and which were constructed by 'Abdu'l-Bahá. Within the heart of this holy of holies is the tabernacle, the vault wherein reposes the most holy casket. Within this vault rests the alabaster sarcophagus in which is deposited that inestimable jewel, the Báb's holy dust. So precious is this dust that the very earth surrounding the edifice enshrining this dust has been extolled by the Center of Bahá'u'lláh's Covenant, in one of His Tablets in which He named the five doors belonging to the six chambers which He originally erected after five of the believers associated with the construction of the Shrine, as being endowed with such potency as to have inspired Him in bestowing these names, whilst the tomb itself housing this dust He acclaimed as the spot round which the Concourse on high circle in adoration.” (Shoghi Effendi, Citadel of Faith, pp. 95-96)

Bill Sears: There is no way that we can imagine the closeness between the two, the mystic union of Baha’u’llah and the Bab, unless we immerse ourselves in their Words. They were in continual correspondence:

 “Bahá'u'lláh, maintaining through continual correspondence close contact with the Báb, and Himself the directing force behind the manifold activities of His struggling fellow-disciples, unobtrusively yet effectually presided over that conference (Badasht), and guided and controlled its proceedings.” (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 31)

When Baha’u’llah was in Badasht, you know when they met in that conference they had two purposes, one to close the old Dispensation of Muhammad, but the other to explore the possibility of rescuing the Bab. The first was successful, the second never happened. But when they were there Baha’u’llah revealed a new Tablet for each of the twenty two days they were there, and to each of the participants He gave a new name. Is that not exciting? From that time on, whenever the Bab wrote to one of those followers He addressed them by the name that they had received in the garden of Badasht.

The Bab said “I am but a ring on the finger of Him Whom God Shall Make Manifest.” Well I had better move on to the next chart or the next Manifestation of God may come before I am done.

Mr. Sears points at “Baha’u’llah” on the chart of the three central Figures.

You all know Baha’u’llah, you know (his wonderful titles) the Promised Redeemer, the King of Kings, the Lord of Hosts… the titles of Baha’u’llah would fill a small book all by themselves.

To be Continued…