Some Meditations from the Baha'i Writings:

arthra

arthra

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“God is eternal and ancient; not a new God. His sovereignty is of old, not recent; not merely existent these five or six thousand years. This infinite universe is from everlasting. The sovereignty, power, names and attributes of God are eternal, ancient. His names presuppose creation and predicate His existence and will. We say God is creator. This name creator appears when we connote creation. We say God is the provider. This name presupposes and proves the existence of the provided. God is love. This name proves the existence of the beloved. In the same way God is mercy, God is justice, God is life....

"Therefore as God is creator, eternal and ancient, there were always creatures and subjects existing and provided for. There is no doubt that divine sovereignty is eternal. Sovereignty necessitates subjects, ministers, trustees and others subordinate to sovereignty. Could there be a king without country, subjects and armies? If we conceive of a time when there were no creatures, no servants, no subjects of divine lordship we dethrone God and predicate a time when God was not. It would be as if He had been recently appointed and man had given these names to Him. The divine sovereignty is ancient, eternal. God from everlasting was love, justice, power, creator, provider, the omniscient, the bountiful.”

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 101
 
"And after taking flight on the wings of holiness unto the celestial realm of this paradise and having tasted the sweetness of its degrees of intimacy in the garden of paradise, having acquired therein these high and noble attributes and ascended unto this lofty spiritual condition and when from its reality have streamed forth fountains of divine wisdom and it has become the recipient and dawning-place for the effulgence of this light and has attained assurance through the remembrance of God, the Almighty and become contented with His decrees and approved or accepted at the threshold of His door -- it is referred to and known as the perfect soul.

"Through the acquisition of such divine perfections it thus becomes worthy and prepared to enter into the Kingdom of God (Malakut), which is the paradise of the righteous and the dwelling-place of the just, those whose faces are illumined through the Glad-Tidings of God, and whose countenances shine with the signs of God. To this degree of attainment God refers saying: "O thou assured soul, return to thy God, contented and accepted, pass in among my servants and thus enter My palace."

(Provisional Translations, 'Abdu'l-Baha - Planes of the Soul, p. 1)
 
"If thou be of the inmates of this city within the ocean of divine unity, thou wilt view all the Prophets and Messengers of God as one soul and one body, as one light and one spirit, in such wise that the first among them would be last and the last would be first. For they have all arisen to proclaim His Cause and have established the laws of divine wisdom. They are, one and all, the Manifestations of His Self, the Repositories of His might, the Treasuries of His Revelation, the Dawning-Places of His splendour and the Daysprings of His light. Through them are manifested the signs of sanctity in the realities of all things and the tokens of oneness in the essences of all beings. Through them are revealed the elements of glorification in the heavenly realities and the exponents of praise in the eternal essences. From them hath all creation proceeded and unto them shall return all that hath been mentioned. And since in their inmost Beings they are the same Luminaries and the self-same Mysteries, thou shouldst view their outward conditions in the same light, that thou mayest recognize them all as one Being, nay, find them united in their words, speech, and utterance."

~ Baha'u'llah, Gems of Divine Mysteries, p. 33
 
Here are a few brief but moving selections:

"BAHA'O'LLAH continually urges man to free himself from the superstitions and traditions of the past and become an investigator of reality, for it will then be seen that God has revealed his light many times in order to illumine mankind in the path of evolution, in various countries and through many different prophets, masters and sages."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 8

"To me prison is freedom..."

"Unless one accepts dire vicissitudes he will not attain. To me prison is freedom; troubles rest me; incarceration is an open court; death is life and to be despised is honor. Therefore, I was happy all that time in prison. When one is released from the prison of self, that is indeed freedom, for self is the greater prison. When this release takes place, one can never be imprisoned. They used to put my feet in stocks so," and he put out his feet before him to illustrate and laughed as though it were a joke he enjoyed.

"I would say to the guard 'You cannot imprison me, for here I have light and air and bread and water. There will come a time when my body will be in the ground and I shall have neither light nor air nor food nor water, but even then i shall not be imprisoned.' The afflictions which come to humanity sometimes tend to center the consciousness upon the limitations. This is a veritable prison. Release comes by making of the will a door through which the confirmations of the spirit come."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 21
 
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