In Pilgrim’s Notes, in discussing the importance of the year Nine, Shoghi Effendi discussed the cable sent to America which appeared in the Bahá’í News where he likened the “Tree” to an “Olive Tree.” He said the tree of 6,000 years started with Adam, the last of many Adams. It grew in Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. The tree, like an olive tree, yielded its fruit in the Báb. In His martyrdom it was crushed by the mill of adversity. The oil from this crushed fruit made the light which appeared 10 years later in the Síyáh-Chál. It ignited a flame in the darkest dungeon. It was clouded over for 10 years, and when it reached the land of mystery, Adrionople, it became more radiant, it became a crystal. For 40 years it only showed its light in 10 countries. After that it spread to the West.
“In conclusion of this theme, I feel, it should be stated that the Revelation identified with Bahá’u’lláh abrogates unconditionally all the Dispensations gone before it, upholds uncompromisingly the eternal verities they enshrine, recognizes firmly and absolutely the Divine origin of their Authors, preserves inviolate the sanctity of their authentic Scriptures, disclaims any intention of lowering the status of their Founders or of abating the spiritual ideals they inculcate, clarifies and correlates their functions, reaffirms their common, their unchangeable and fundamental purpose, reconciles their seemingly divergent claims and doctrines, readily and gratefully recognizes their respective contributions to the gradual unfoldment of one Divine Revelation, unhesitatingly acknowledges itself to be but one link in the chain of continually progressive Revelations, supplements their teachings with such laws and ordinances as conform to the imperative needs, and are dictated by the growing receptivity, of a fast evolving and constantly changing society, and proclaims its readiness and ability to fuse and incorporate the contending sects and factions into which they have fallen into a universal Fellowship, functioning within the framework, and in accordance with the precepts, of a divinely conceived, a world-unifying, a world-redeeming Order.”
“A Revelation, hailed as the promise and crowning glory of past ages and centuries, as the consummation of all the Dispensations within the Adamic Cycle, inaugurating an era of at least a thousand years’ duration, and a cycle destined to last no less than five thousand centuries, signalizing the end of the Prophetic Era and the beginning of the Era of Fulfillment, unsurpassed alike in the duration of its Author’s ministry and the fecundity and splendor of His mission– such a Revelation was, as already noted, born amidst the darkness of a subterranean dungeon in Tihrán–an abominable pit that had once served as a reservoir of water for one of the public baths of the city.”
“Wrapped in its stygian gloom, breathing its fetid air, numbed by its humid and icy atmosphere, His feet in stocks, His neck weighed down by a mighty chain, surrounded by criminals and miscreants of the worst order, oppressed by the consciousness of the terrible blot that had stained the fair name of His beloved Faith, painfully aware of the dire distress that had overtaken its champions, and of the grave dangers that faced the remnant of its followers–at so critical an hour and under such appalling circumstances the “Most Great Spirit,” as designated by Himself, and symbolized in the Zoroastrian, the Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations by the Sacred Fire, the Burning Bush, the Dove and the Angel Gabriel respectively, descended upon, and revealed itself, personated by a “Maiden,” to the agonized soul of Bahá’u’lláh.”
— Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 100-101
How can anyone who reads the above three paragraphs penned by the First Guardian, paragraphs of such powerful magnitude that just their reading should cause those who do so to bow down in humble supplication, even consider that God changed His mind upon the death of the First Guardian, and decided to not include the Institution of the Guardianship in the administrative structure of the Bahá’í Faith for the remainder of the 1,000 year Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh? And then, when one considers that the Dispensation of Bahá’u’lláh is but a prelude to the 500,000 year Bahá’í Cycle, how may it be concluded that the mandated Plans in the Will and Testament of Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá could be altered ?
In the light of the historical facts of the preceding centuries of God’s Plan, could the mischief of humans in an eye-blink span of years over-rule the pre-ordained God-established Plans for the destined centuries to come?
David
