Quotes from Baha'i sources:

Prayer for Assistance..

O my Lord! O my Lord!

Assist the weak ones with the Supreme Energy;

shelter the indigent ones near the asylum of Thy Greatest Majesty;

strengthen the loins of those souls whose faces radiate with Thy lights and whose tongues become eloquent in the glorification and commemoration of Thy Name;

make them the plants of Thy luminous orchard, the blossoms of Thy blessed tree, the leaves of Thy Sadrat-el-Montaha and the flowers of Thy exalted rose-garden!

Verily, Thou art the Clement, the Lofty, the Magnificent, the Omnipresent and the Omniscient and Thou art the Protector, the Guardian, the Helper, the Powerful, the Merciful and the Generous!

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v3, p. 570
 
The organization of God is one..

The organization of God is one: the evolution of existence is one: the divine system is one.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, p. 312
 
Consider this Wronged One::

Consider this wronged One.

Though the clearest proofs attest the truth of His Cause; though the prophecies He, in an unmistakable language, hath made have been fulfilled; though, in spite of His not being accounted among the learned, His being unschooled and inexperienced in the disputations current among the divines, He hath rained upon men the showers of His manifold and Divinely-inspired knowledge; yet, behold how this generation hath rejected His authority, and rebelled against Him! He hath, during the greater part of His life, been sore-tried in the clutches of His enemies.

His sufferings have now reached their culmination in this afflictive Prison, into which His oppressors have so unjustly thrown Him. God grant that, with a penetrating vision and radiant heart, thou mayest observe the things that have come to pass and are now happening, and, pondering them in thine heart, mayest recognize that which most men have, in this Day, failed to perceive.

Please God, He may enable thee to inhale the sweet fragrance of His Day, to partake of the limitless effusions of His grace, to quaff thy fill, through His gracious favor, from the most great Ocean that surgeth in this Day in the name of the Ancient King, and to remain firm and immovable as the mountain in His Cause.


~ Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 58
 
On kindness to animals...

KINDNESS TO ANIMALS

Then, O ye friends of God!

Ye must not only have kind and merciful feelings for mankind, but ye should also exercise the utmost kindness towards every living creature. The physical sensibilities and instincts are common to animal and man. Man is, however, negligent of this reality and imagines that sensibility is peculiar to mankind, therefore he practices cruelty to the animal. In reality what difference is there in physical sensations! Sensibility is the same whether you harm man or animal: there is no difference.

Nay, rather, cruelty to the animal is more painful because man has a tongue and he sighs, complains and groans when he receives an injury and complains to the government and the government protects him from cruelty; but the poor animal cannot speak, it can neither show its suffering nor is it able to appeal to the government. If it is harmed a thousand times by man it is not able to defend itself in words nor can it seek justice or retaliate. Therefore one must be very considerate towards animals and show greater kindness to them than to man. Educate the children in their infancy in such a way that they may become exceedingly kind and merciful to the animals. If an animal is sick they should endeavor to cure it; if it is hungry, they should feed it; if it is thirsty, they should satisfy its thirst; if it is tired, they should give it rest.

Man is generally sinful and the animal is innocent; unquestionably one must be more kind and merciful to the innocent. The harmful animals, such as the bloodthirsty wolf, the poisonous snake and other injurious animals are excepted, because mercy towards these is cruelty to man, and other animals. For instance, if you show kindness to a wolf this becomes a tyranny to the sheep, for it may destroy an entire flock of sheep. If you give the opportunity to a mad dog it may be the cause of the destruction of a thousand animals and men. Therefore, sympathy to the ferocious animal is cruelty to the peaceful animal, so they should be done away with. To the blessed animals, however, the utmost kindness should be exercised: the more the better it will be.

This sympathy and kindness is one of the fundamental principles of the divine kingdom. Ye should pay great attention to this question.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, p. 373
 
Religious hatred ... is a world-consuming fire...

"He is God, exalted is His state, wisdom and utterance. The True One (glorious is His glory) for the showing forth of the gems of ideals from the mine of man, hath, in every age, sent a Trusted One.

The primary foundation of the faith of God and the religion of God is this,

that they should not make diverse sects and various paths the cause and reason of hatred. These principles and laws and firm sure roads appear from one dawning-place and shine from one dayspring, and these diversities were out of regard for the requirements of the time, season, ages, and epochs.

O unitarians, make firm the girdle of endeavor, that perchance religious strife and conflict may be removed from amongst the people of the world and be annulled. For love of God and His servants engage in this great and mighty matter.

Religious hatred and rancor is a world-consuming fire, and the quenching thereof most arduous, unless the hand of Divine Might give men deliverance from this unfruitful calamity.

Consider a war which happeneth between two states: both sides have foregone wealth and life: how many villages were beheld as though they' were not! This precept is in the position of the light in the lamp of utterance."

~ Abdu'l-Baha, A Traveller's Narrative, p. 42
 
A Tablet of Woe...

From a Tablet revealed by Baha'u'llah shortly before HIs retirement to Kurdistan:

Oceans of sadness have surged over Me, a drop of which
no soul could bear to drink. Such is My grief that My soul
hath well nigh departed from My body...

Give ear,
O Kamal! to the voice of this lowly, this forsaken ant, that
hath hid itself in its hole, and whose desire is to depart from your midst, and vanish from your sight, by reason of that which the hands of men have wrought. God, verily, hath been witness between Me and His servants...

Woe is Me, woe is Me!... All that I have seen from the day on which I first drank the pure milk from the breast of My mother until this moment hath been effaced from My memory, in consequence of that which the hands of the people have committed.

(Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah v 1, p. 56)
 
The question of evil spirits...

"As to the question of evil spirits, demons and monsters, any references made to them in the Holy Books have symbolic meaning. What is currently known among the public is but sheer superstition."

(From a Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá: Spiritualism and psychic Phenomena, p. 3)

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 512)
 
"Look up! Our dawning day draws its first breath!..."

“Look up! Our dawning day draws its first breath!
The world grows light! Our souls begin to glow!
No ranting shaykh rules from his pulpit throne
No mosque hawks holiness it does not know
No sham, no pious fraud, no priest commands!
The turban’s knot cut to its root below!
No more conjurations! No spells! No ghosts!
Good riddance! We are done with folly’s show!
The search for Truth shall drive out ignorance
Equality shall strike the despots low
Let warring ways be banished from the world
Let Justice everywhere its carpet throw
May friendship ancient hatreds reconcile
May love grow from the seed of love we sow!”

~ Táhirih (1817-1852)​

Translation: Jascha Kessler​
 
The endless universe has neither beginning nor end"

Therefore, as the Essence of Unity, that is the existence of God, is everlasting and eternal -- that is to say, it has neither beginning nor end -- it is certain that this world of existence, this endless universe, has neither beginning nor end.

Yes, it may be that one of the parts of the universe, one of the globes, for example, may come into existence, or may be disintegrated, but the other endless globes are still existing; the universe would not be disordered nor destroyed; on the contrary, existence is eternal and perpetual.

As each globe has a beginning, necessarily it has an end, because every composition, collective or particular, must of necessity be decomposed; the only difference is that some are quickly decomposed, and others more slowly, but it is impossible that a composed thing should not eventually be decomposed.


~ Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, p. 296
 
Verily, ye have cast away superstitions...

Truly I say unto you!

Verily, ye have cast away superstitions; have partaken an abundant portion from that Reality which is shining upon all regions; have perceived the manifest signs, have entered the ark of salvation and attained unto eternal life, under the shadow of the Lord of Hosts, gazing unto the Most Honorable Station, enkindled with the fire ablaze in the tree of existence, in the spot of Sinai; responding to the call of the Clement One, severed from the world, and yearning for the place of sacrifice in the path of Baha'.

You will surely hear from this call a ringing voice in the regions. Then the nations will awake to this effulgence and hasten unto the fountain of the Covenant; so that they may drink fresh and salutary water from the grace of your Lord, the Clement.

At that time, the faithful shall be cheered, the sincere shall rejoice and the yearning ones shall be drawn unto the unseen world, the Kingdom of your Lord, the Merciful!

O ye beloved of God and His chosen ones! Trust ye in the divine confirmation, the merciful bounty and the supreme bestowal. Verily, He will confirm your hearts, dilate your breasts, make your tongues fluent and will rejoice your souls by a grace from the Compassionate Merciful One!

O ye beloved of Baha'! Do not look at your weakness, nay, rely upon the confirmation of the Holy Spirit. Verily, It maketh the weak strong, the lowly mighty, the child grown, the infant mature and the small great.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v2, pp. 273-274
 
Moderation..

How often has it happened that an individual who was graced with every attribute of humanity and wore the jewel of true understanding, nevertheless followed after his passions until his excellent qualities passed beyond moderation and he was forced into excess.


~ Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 59
 
Prayer for Protection:

In His Name, the Exalted, the All-Highest, the Most Sublime!

Glorified art Thou, O Lord my God! O Thou Who art my God, and my Master, and my Lord, and my Support, and my Hope, and my Refuge, and my Light. I ask of Thee, by Thine Hidden and Treasured Name, that none knoweth save Thine own Self, to protect the bearer of this Tablet from every calamity and pestilence, and from every wicked man and woman; from the evil of the evil-doers, and from the scheming of the unbelievers. Preserve him, moreover, O my God, from every pain and vexation, O Thou Who holdest in Thy hand the empire of all things. Thou, truly, art powerful over all things. Thou doest as Thou willest, and ordainest as Thou pleasest.

O Thou King of Kings! O Thou kind Lord! O Thou Source of ancient bounty, of grace, of generosity and bestowal! O Thou Healer of sicknesses! O Thou Sufficer of needs! O Thou Light of Light! O Thou Light above all Lights! O Thou Revealer of every Manifestation! O Thou the Compassionate! O Thou the Merciful! Do Thou have mercy upon the bearer of this Tablet, through Thy most great mercy and Thine abundant grace, O Thou the Gracious, Thou the Bounteous. Guard him, moreover, through Thy protection, from whatsoever his heart and mind may find repugnant. Of those endued with power, Thou, verily, art the most powerful. The Glory of God rest upon thee, O thou rising sun! Do thou testify unto that which God hath testified of His own Self, that there is none other God besides Him, the Almighty, the Best-Beloved.

~ Bahá'u'lláh
 
"Show forbearance and benevolence...

Show forbearance and benevolence and love to one another. Should any one among you be incapable of grasping a certain truth, or be striving to comprehend it, show forth, when conversing with him, a spirit of extreme kindliness and good-will. Help him to see and recognize the truth, without esteeming yourself to be, in the least, superior to him, or to be possessed of greater endowments.

~ Baha'u'llah

Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 7
 
Be known for your purity, freedom and meekness...

The beloved of God must each be the essence of purity and holiness; so may they be known by their purity, freedom and meekness in every land; they may drink from the eternal chalice of the love of God, enjoy its ecstasy, and through meeting the Beauty of ABHA, they should be joyful, active, aglow with zeal and wonderful. This is the station of the sincere. This is the quality of those who are firm. This is the illumination of the faces of those who are near.

Therefore, O ye friends of God, ye must in perfect purity attain spiritual unity and agreement to a degree that ye may express one spirit and one life.

In this condition physical bodies play no part; the command and authority are in the hand of the spirit. When the spirit becometh all inclusive, the spiritual union shall be attained. Night and day endeavor to attain perfect harmony; be thoughtful concerning your own spiritual developments and close your eyes to the shortcomings of one another.

By good deeds, pure lives, humility and meekness be a lesson for others.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v1, p. 22
 
What love is...

Love is the mystery of divine revelations!

Love is the effulgent manifestation!

Love is the spiritual fulfillment!

Love is the light of the Kingdom!

Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit!

Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world!

Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!

Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!

Love is a light of guidance in the dark night!

Love is a bond between the Creator and the creature in the inner world!

Love is the cause of development to every enlightened man!

Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!

Love is the one law which causeth and controlleth order among the existing atoms!

Love is the universal magnetic power between the planets and stars shining in the lofty firmament!

Love is the cause of unfoldment to a searching mind, of the secrets deposited in the universe by the Infinite!

Love is the spirit of life in the bountiful body of the world!

Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world!

Love is the highest honor to every righteous nation!

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v3, p. 524
 
The Special Gift...

To man is given the special gift of the intellect by which he is able to receive a larger share of the light Divine. The Perfect Man is as a polished mirror reflecting the Sun of Truth, manifesting the attributes of God.
The Lord Christ said, 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father' -- God manifested in man.
The sun does not leave his place in the heavens and descend into the mirror, for the actions of ascent and descent, coming and going, do not belong to the Infinite, they are the methods of finite beings. In the Manifestation of God, the perfectly polished mirror, appear the qualities of the Divine in a form that man is capable of comprehending.
This is so simple that all can understand it, and that which we are able to understand we must perforce accept.
Our Father will not hold us responsible for the rejection of dogmas which we are unable either to believe or comprehend, for He is ever infinitely just to His children.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 25
 
Opening of Prayer for Fast...

These are, o my God, the days whereon Thou didst enjoin Thy servants to observe the fast.

With it Thou didst adorn the preamble of the Book of Thy Laws revealed unto Thy creatures, and didst deck forth the Repositories of Thy commandments in the sight of all who are in Thy heaven and all who are on Thy earth.

Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue, inscrutable to all except Thee, Whose knowledge embraceth all created things.

Thou hast, also, assigned unto every soul a portion of this virtue in accordance with the Tablet of Thy decree and the Scriptures of Thine irrevocable judgment.

Every leaf of these Books and Scriptures Thou hast, moreover, alloted to each one of the peoples and kindreds of the earth.

Baha’u’llah, Baha'i Prayers, p. 245
 
In the Gospels it is written that the Christ said: "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now! But when he, the spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you unto all knowledge." Christ is alluding to a person, because he says, "When he is come, he will not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak." This means by the power of innate knowledge.

Some Christians claim that the Holy Ghost descended after the resurrection of the Christ and that Christ is alluding to this. But as the Holy Ghost was always with the Christ, is this logical? Again he says, "He will guide you unto truth," he will be better for you than I.

He adds, "Until I go, he cannot come." Endeavor to understand the divine words, otherwise difficulties will arise. Had the Jews understood symbology, they would have understood the Christ.

The holy books are full of significance and must never be taken literally.

Elijah also was expected to come from heaven, and the Christ said, "Elijah is none other than John the Baptist." The reality of John was in the supreme concourse. It is essential to have divine perception in order to see the truth, to hear the call, and obey -- liberating the hearts from all earthly attachment.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 38
 
Fly away with joy!

Fly away with joy!

Flutter in the open of the Kingdom!

Spread the wings of sanctity in those districts and lands, so that the shadow of the King of the Kingdom may be stretched over those climes and the fragrances of God be diffused in those tracts and in those vast and extensive regions.

By the Lord of the Kingdom! If one arise to promote the Word of God with a pure heart, overflowing with the love of God and severed from the world, the Lord of Hosts will assist him with such a power as will penetrate the core of the existent beings.

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v2, p. 347
 
The Trumpet of Life is Sounding...

O thou my dear! The cup of knowledge is overflowing; blessed are they who partake in draughts!

The fountain of life is issuing forth; blessed are they who drink! The doors of the Kingdom are opened;

O what good news to those who advance! The garden of paradise is drawn near; O what a pleasure to those who enter! The dove of holiness is cooing;

O what a happiness to those who hear!

The gates of Heaven are open; blessed are they who see!

The hosts of angels are standing in battle order; what a joy to those who gain the victory!

The trumpet of life is sounding; how good it is to those who are awake!

~ Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v3, p. 620
 
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