Son of Spirit, 'Abdu'l-Bahá and The Hidden Words

1 Son of Spirit How ’Abdu’l-Bahá Personified the Hidden Words A Word to Begin With: The First Counsel O SON OF SPIRIT! My first counsel is this: Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable and everlasting.i That is the first verse in the small but mighty volume, The Hidden Words, which is one of the most mystical, and potentially transformational for the reader, of Bahá'u'lláh's works. Each Hidden Word begins with a salutation, such as, “O Son of Spirit”, “O Son of Man”, “O Son of the Supreme”, “O Friend”. The word “son” connotes collective humanity, irrespective of gender.ii Our title, taking some poetic license, connotes that 'Abdu'l-Bahá was a true son of spirit as the Exemplar of humanity at its most humane, and as the son of that great, illuminating Spirit, Bahá'u'lláh. 'Abdu'l-Bahá was 14 when His Father revealed The Hidden Words, and He was probably one of the first to read them. He taught that to attain grace we should read and recite from The Hidden Words daily and act in accordance with them. He called the Hidden Words "a treasury of divine mysteries," and said that "the doors of the mysteries will open" as we ponder its contents. He instructed us to "recite day and night both the Persian and Arabic Hidden Words, to pray fervently and supplicate tearfully that we may be enabled to conduct ourselves in accordance with these divine counsels. These holy Words have not been revealed to be heard but to be practised."iii 2 According to His grandson, Shoghi Effendi, who became the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith after His passing, the Hidden words are a "dynamic spiritual leaven cast into the life of the world for the reorientation of the minds of men, the edification of their souls and the rectification of their conduct..."iv That could also serve as a description of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It might be said that He personified the Hidden Words, His actions and reactions unveiling them to our eyes. 3 1. Young Abbás In the Garden "When thou enterest the sacred abode..." In a fragrant garden full of water music from fountains gleaming in the sun and birdsong sounding from treetop to treetop, a little boy named Abbás, after His paternal grandfather, runs and plays, perhaps stopping at times to sniff a certain, favored rose with deliciously scented, luminous blossoms -- cream-tinted with golden centers -- that open luminously among coppery leaves. Or He rides out on his pony into the countryside. After adventuring in pinewoods, meadowlands and rocky expanses with hurtling mountain streams, He'll return home, entering the garden through a massive gateway beneath a stone lintel with an unusual, incised inscription: When thou enterest the sacred abode of the Beloved say: "I am at thy command." This is the home of Love; enter with reverence. This is holy ground, remove thy shoes when thou enterest here.v Behind the gate, within the garden, rises his family's grand, sturdy mansion, with its arched entrances and latticed windows. This is where He belongs, safe and secure with his graceful mother and noble Father, both the essence of kindness, so helpful and generous to all that they are called the Father of the Poor and the Mother of Consolation. They are no strangers to sorrow. In those days of rampant infectious disease, many children never reach adulthood. Two children born before ‘Abbás died in infancy. Imagine the prayers and hopes which attended the birth of ‘Abbás on May 23, 1844, in Tehran, Irán. It must make His Father and mother happy to see Him vibrantly at play in the garden with His younger sister, and riding His pony through the mountainous country- 4 side. His magnanimous spirit is also a source of joy. On one occasion, when He's perhaps six years old, He's out riding when He encounters some shepherds on a hillside. The shepherds live in a village owned by 'Abbás' Father and tend sheep also owned by Him. To welcome the young lord, the shepherds give 'Abbás and His attendants a feast. Then the head shepherd says it's the custom for the lord of the lands or, in this case, His son, to give the all the shepherds a present when he meets them, to thank them for their services. 'Abbás, having nothing with Him to give them, grants them all the sheep, for which they are, needless to say, very grateful. When 'Abbás' Father hears about it, He is pleased and jokes that a close watch must be kept on his son, or "one day he'll give himself away."vi 'Abbás is truly the noble son of a nobleman and, according to conventional wisdom, it should be His destiny to live and prosper like a prince, there in His home District of Núr, where His family's garden blooms in the green valley between high, sharp-edged ridges of the Alborz Mountains. He should always possess gold, splendid mansions, estates and villages, the love and gratitude of His people; He should ever exercise powerful authority in his native land. But He has a different fate. A greater fate.. A fate meant for a noble scion full of that true spirit which confers courage: He's born to possess spiritual wealth and spiritual mansions, and exercise spiritual power. To outward seeming, fate is cruel. His father, Husayn-'Alí of Nur, who will soon take the title Bahá'u'lláh, the Glory of God, later writes: Ponder in thy heart the commotion which God stirreth up. Reflect upon the strange and manifold trials with which He doth test His servants.vii 5 And we can’t help but do that when we contemplate His life and that of His Son, ‘Abbás, one of Whose most widely used titles is the Master, but His self-chosen title is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the Servant of Glory. In the service of His Father, He will indeed endure strange and manifold trials after the secure years of His early childhood come, too soon, to an end. 6 2. The Garden is Lost For Fealty to the Báb The Master was just eight years old in 1852 when the Shah's soldiers arrested His Father, bound Him in chains and cast Him into an underground dungeon. Mobs trampled the garden where the Master and His sister had played, and wrecked and looted the mansion designated “the home of love.” Perhaps those mobs were the same people who had called the Master’s parents the Father of the Poor and the Mother of Consolation. Indeed, the Shah was the same king who had showered the family with honors. Now the Father of the Poor was weighted with chains in a prison known as the Black Pit, and the Mother of Consolation, with her children, was homeless. The Master’s mother was named Ásiyih. The Master recalled that Ásiyih was the name of the daughter of Pharaoh who became the guardian of Moses. But we His mother now as Navváb, a title of honor that Bahá'u'lláh gave her.viii Even as a child, Navvåb, with her lustrous dark hair and dark blue eyes, was beautiful, and she also possessed intuitive wisdom. Along with deep reserves of spirit, she brought tremendous material wealth to her marriage. But with Bahá'u'lláh's arrest and imprisonment, the family’s material riches diminished. However, He and Navváb had never been attached to material things. They were nobility, connected to the king’s court, but, as the Master’s sister, two years younger than He, recalled, late in life: "… my father and mother took part as little as possible in State functions, social ceremonies, and the luxurious habits of… highly placed and wealthy families in the land of Persia… (but) preferred rather to occupy themselves in caring for the poor, and for all 7 who were unhappy, or in trouble… Constantly, poor women came to my mother, to whom they poured out their various stories of woe…ix The Master’s education was the usual one for a boy of noble birth -- etiquette, horseback riding, fine calligraphy -- but it had to be curtailed when He was seven years old, for He was stricken with tuberculosis. In His old age, He pointed out the wisdom in seemingly certain doom: “There was no hope of recovery. Afterwards the… reason for this became evident"... Because of the illness, He was never separated from His parents. “And when the time came, although physicians had despaired of my recovery, I was suddenly cured. It happened in spite of the fact that all had said a cure was impossible.”x When the Master was eight, with tuberculosis still causing Him episodes of ill health, He was staying, with His mother and the rest of their large household, in a rented house in Tehran, the capitol city, when a servant came running in, crying that Bahá'u'lláh was under arrest. He had been in the mountains above the city, but now, the servant wailed, “He has walked many miles! They have beaten Him. He has suffered the torture of the bastinado. His feet are bleeding! He has no shoes on! His turban has gone! His clothes are torn! There are chains upon His neck!” People along the route, as He walked the long, unshaded road into the city, had screamed jeers and taunts at Him, and stoned Him.xi The Master and His sister wept as their mother’s face grew paler and paler. Bahá'u'lláh was under arrest for being a leading proponent of a new religion. He had become a Babí, a follower of the Báb. The Báb's new faith began on May 23, 1844 -- the same day and year that the Master was born. The Báb proclaimed the coming of 8 a new Messenger of God, rather as John the Baptist announced Christ. But, unlike John the Baptist, the Báb was also a Messenger of God. His title means the Gate, or Portal, and He brought a new Revelation with new spiritual and social laws destined to open the way to the Bahá'í Faith, the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh. So, Bahá'u'lláh was the One heralded by the Báb, but first He was a follower of the Báb, and an undisputed leader among those followers. During the Master’s very young childhood, His Father traveled and taught the Message of the Báb. With His privileged position He could defend the Bábís, who were suffering persecution; many of them visited Him for guidance and He sheltered those who were under attack, among them the outstanding female poet and theologian, Táhirih Qurratu'l-Ayn. In 1848, When the Master was four years old, He was a special friend of hers while she stayed with His parents after Bahá'u'lláh engineered her escape from her murderous husband. Táhirih's Challenge to the Bábís She had been a charismatic and controversial person in Irán since her childhood, even though she remained publicly unseen because she veiled herself, according to the custom of the hijab, from any man who was not a member of her family. But she was so brilliant, even as a young girl, that her wealthy and famous father, a mullah who owned one of Irán's greatest religious colleges, hadn't been able to resist circulating her essays and poetry. So she had a voice at a time when most women, even the rare educated ones, maintained anonymous silence. The Master remembered her very well. He said He used to perch on her knee while she, seated behind a curtain so she'd be hidden from sight, met with men who came to her for discussion and debate: she was a greatly revered teacher and some 9 even regarded her as a saint. There is a tradition of highly venerated, though few in number, female saints and mystic poets in the Islamic world. Among the Bábís, her words and doings had special resonance because she was one of the first 18 followers of the Báb, the Letters of the Living, and the only woman among them. The Master particularly recalled a day when one of the most learned Bábí men “was discoursing on the signs and verses that bore witness to the advent… I was then a child, and was sitting on her lap.” The scholar spoke “with eloquence and fervor” but she “suddenly interrupted him and, raising her voice, vehemently declared, 'Let deeds, not words, testify to thy faith, if thou art a man of true learning. Cease idly repeating the traditions of the past, for the day of service, of steadfast action, is come. Now is the time to show forth the true signs of God, to rend asunder the veils of idle fancy… to sacrifice ourselves in His path.’”xii Soon after that, in the summer of 1848, she literally rent her veil asunder by appearing bare-faced before some 80 men at a gathering of Babís. Standing before the men in a tented pavilion Bahá'u'lláh had erected in a fallow garden on the outskirts of the mountain village of Badasht, she broke with age-old custom by appearing before them without the hijab, her face fully revealed, and adorned as if she were a bride. Serene and poised, she challenged tradition and superstition, announcing herself as the trumpet blast of the new age. It's important to note her freedom from rage and defiance. She intuited the destiny of Bahá'u'lláh as the Promised One of the Báb and stood unveiled in His presence, with His approval. Her long hair flowing, her eyes aglow, she was radiantly happy, with 10 love the one and only reason for her action. In the future, the Master would frequently urge His female followers to be like Táhirih. But the men she addressed were horrified. They'd embraced the Báb as a new Messenger of God but most of them had not, until her unveiled appearance, understood how radical His message was. Some of them later wrote to the Báb, Who was a prisoner in a distant mountain, complaining about her, and he replied, "What am I to say regarding the one whom the Tongue of Power and Glory has named Táhirih?"xiii The title Táhirih means the Pure One. When word of her action spread, it also horrified Iránian society at large. Táhirih was lauded by a few (chiefly women), but condemned by many, among them her husband, who became more intent than ever in plotting her death. The controversy over the veil continues painfully, violently, even lethally, to this day. It was lethal to Táhirih, who was martyred in 1852, during a time of intense persecution of the Bábís, when the Master was eight years old and His Father was arrested and imprisoned, for, to official Irán, Bábís were infidels: the best place for them was the grave. "The throat thou didst accustom to the touch of silk..." And it seemed they would send Bahá’u’lláh to His grave. How could He, so gently reared and nurtured, survive, under sentence of death, the fetid Black Pit where He was confined? He later addressed His God: The throat Thou didst accustom to the touch of silk Thou hast, in the end, clasped with strong chains, and the body Thou didst ease with brocades and velvets Thou hast at last subjected to the abasement of a dungeon."xiv 11 The Black Pit had once been a water reservoir and was extremely dank, cold, lightless and filthy. Bahá’u’lláh’s feet, already beaten and cut by the rods of the bastinado, were tortuously confined in heavy stocks, and the iron chains He bore were wellknown for their galling, 50kg. (110lb.) weight. His fellow prisoners suffered the same torment. If one moved, all of them suffered agonies. They couldn’t sleep. They had no food. If His family managed to persuade the guards to carry food to Him, they couldn’t be sure He would receive it. If He did, would He eat it while His fellow prisoners starved?xv Meanwhile, not only did mobs attack the mansion and its surrounding gardens in the country, but they wrecked the house in the city. The Master remembered, “They threw so many stones into our house that the courtyard was crammed with them.”xvi Friends and relatives abandoned the family, and all their servants ran away except for one African woman, and an African man named Isfandiyar. The Master, His mother, sister and baby brother stayed at the home of an aunt, but, feeling the aunt was endangered by their presence, they went back and stayed in the looted house, where they were destitute. One day, the Master, on an errand for His mother, was attacked by a crowd of boys and, though he had no weapon, He rushed at them so boldly that they fled.xvii Another time, He was stoned in the street. He remembered that, as he returned home with some coins wrapped in a handkerchief, given by the helpful aunt, “Someone recognized me and shouted… whereupon the children in the street chased me. I found refuge in the entrance of a house… There I stayed until nightfall, and when I came out, I was once again pursued by the children, who kept yelling at me and pelted me with 12 stones… When I reached home, I was exhausted. Mother wanted to know what had happened to me. I could not utter a word and collapsed.”xviii By that time, they were living in a small house on a dark and narrow back street near the prison. His mother sometimes had only a little uncooked flour to nourish her children; she’d pour a small mound of flour into their palms, they’d eat it, and that was their subsistence for the day. Years later, the Master’s sister, Bahíyyih Khánum, said that the worst part of the adversity of those days was the terror that at any time their Father would be taken out to be “tortured and killed…” She explained that people “who were accused of being infidels” were often handed over “to various classes of the populace. The butchers had their methods of torture; the bakers theirs; the shoemakers and blacksmiths yet other… pitiless inventions…” As these members of professional guilds put their victims to death in a public square, mobs surrounded them, howling curses, and drums beat loudly, for Persians insisted on drums at all celebrations, and this was a celebration — it was thought that those who murdered “infidels” found favor in the eyes of God. From their little house the family could hear the executions. “These horrible sounds I well remember,” Bahíyyih Khánum said, and she, Navváb and the Master had no way of knowing whether or not the victim was Bahá'u'lláh. Late at night, Navváb, taking the Master with her, leaving six-year old Bahíyyih Khánum hidden in the dark house hugging her two-year old brother to her heart, ventured out into the city to glean information from their great-uncle, the husband of their helpful aunt. He was Russian, and he dared go to the courts to find out who had died, since he was under the protection of the Russian Consulate.xix 13 The Master pleaded to see his Father. One day, Isfandiyar, took Him to the stony entry to the prison. They went down a dark, steep corridor and through a small, narrow doorway. They started descending a reeking stone stairway; it was impossible to see much of anything. Suddenly they heard Bahá'u'lláh’s voice ring out through the darkness: "Do not bring him in here!" “‘And so they took me back,’ the Master said. ‘We sat outside, waiting for the prisoners to be led out.’ At last, His Father appeared. ‘He was chained to several others,’ the Master recalled. ‘What a chain! It was very heavy. The prisoners could only move it along with great difficulty."xx The child could not endure the sight. He fainted, and was carried home.xxi One day, the family's Russian great-uncle discovered that Bahá'u'lláh was next in line to be murdered, and he told his friend, the Russian Consul, who decided to intervene. He threatened the Persian government with retaliation from Russia if they hurt even “one hair” of Bahá'u'lláh’s head. That’s why, instead of being killed, Bahá'u'lláh was sent into exile. He had to leave His beloved homeland forever.xxii "In Baghdád, He announced unto me the word..." So Bahá'u'lláh returned, very ill, to his family in their two poor rooms in the back alley. He didn’t speak of his own sufferings but only of the faith and courage of His fellow Bábís who had given their lives. He was wounded all over: chains had cut into his neck and his feet were lacerated, bruised and crushed. His family wept over Him but also noticed a great radiance about Him that seemed to shelter Him. After His four months in the dire prison, He recuperated under the care of His wife and His cousin, Maryam, whom He titled The Crimson Leaf. Her 14 dedication to Him was life-long, expressed in her poetry as well as in her services to Him and His Cause, and she greatly grieved when He departed for Iraq.xxiii He and His family made their first journey of exile, in a deadly cold winter, over towering mountains, with few supplies to feed or warm them. In Baghdád, the Master, still a child, would be the first person to discover the source of His Father’s abiding radiance. In old age, He reminisced: "In Baghdád I was a child. Then and there He announced to me the Word, and I believed in Him. As soon as He proclaimed to me the Word, I threw myself at His holy feet and implored and supplicated Him to accept my blood as a sacrifice in His pathway. Sacrifice! How sweet I find that word."xxiv As the Hand of the Cause of God Horace Holley observed of the Master, with astounding insight: "Now a message from God must be delivered, and there was no mankind to hear this message. Therefore, God gave the world 'Abdu'l-Bahá. 'Abdu'lBahá received the message of Bahá'u'lláh on behalf of the human race. He heard the voice of God; He was inspired by the spirit; He attained complete consciousness and awareness of the meaning of this message, and He pledged the human race to respond to the voice of God... to me that is the Covenant -- that there was on this earth some one who could be a representative of an as yet uncreated race. There were only tribes, families, creeds, classes, etc., but there was no man except 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and 'Abdu'lBahá, as man, took to Himself the message of Bahá'u'lláh and promised God that He would bring the people into the oneness of mankind, and create a humanity that could be the vehicle for the laws of God."xxv Abiding Radiance, Secret Revelation While imprisoned in the Black Pit, lying on the filthy floor, enchained in darkness, the glorious revelation of His true Self and His Mission had come to Bahá’u'lláh, but He 15 didn’t speak of his enlightenment to anyone except the Master. He later described it in writing: While engulfed in tribulations I heard a most wondrous, a most sweet voice, calling above My head. Turning My face, I beheld a Maiden—the embodiment of the remembrance of the name of My Lord—suspended in the air before Me. So rejoiced was she in her very soul that her countenance shone with the ornament of the good pleasure of God, and her cheeks glowed with the brightness of the All-Merciful. Betwixt earth and heaven she was raising a call which captivated the hearts and minds of men. She was imparting to both My inward and outer being tidings which rejoiced My soul, and the souls of God’s honoured servants. Pointing with her finger unto My head, she addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: By God! This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye comprehend not. This is the Beauty of God amongst you, and the power of His sovereignty within you, could ye but understand. This is the Mystery of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of them that perceive. This is He Whose Presence is the ardent desire of the denizens of the Realm of eternity, and of them that dwell within the Tabernacle of glory, and yet from His Beauty do ye turn aside.xxvi Bahá'u'lláh had been created to manifest the Holy Spirit, the Christ Spirit that also illumined Buddha, Muhammad and all the great Messengers of God. Indeed, He had been born with the flame of destiny alight within Him. His father had sensed that fire, through dreams and other intimations — thus the motto he’d had inscribed over the gate of his mountain mansion: “This is holy ground…” But Bahá’u’lláh’s father, who probably would have been a great ally for Him, had long since passed away. In Baghdád — and everywhere, for the rest of His life — Bahá’u’lláh was hounded by bitter enemies, chief among them His half-brother. Enemies poisoned his life and the life of His family and literally tried time and again to kill Him. They wanted to exert their personal power, to assume unmerited authority, and during those early years in Baghdád they made it impossible for Him to create unity among The Bábís, build up their morale and prepare them for His own teachings. 16 The Nameless One At last He disguised Himself as a dervish and went away for two years into the mountains of Kurdistan where he lived as a hermit. Even the Master and Navváb didn’t know His whereabouts. Like Christ in the wilderness or Muhammad on the mountain, He needed solitude and healing, and He also knew that more of the truth of His Being would be disclosed to those who really loved Him through his absence than could be instilled by His presence while emotions and infighting ran so high. But His family was in great distress, missing Him and having to tolerate His tyrannical and cowardly half-brother. His wife, Navváb, and His faithful brother, Mirzá Músá, inquired everywhere, trying to find Him. Lady Sara Blomfield, the Irish Bahá'í who brilliantly chronicled early Bahá’í history in her book, The Chosen Highway, through first persons accounts gleaned by interviews with the protagonists, wrote years later that in Baghdád, despite impoverished conditions, the Master had been happy as long as He was with His Father, but “when Bahá'u'lláh retreated into the wilderness… the dear child was beside Himself with grief… He occupied Himself with copying those Tablets of the Báb which had remained with them. He tried to help His dear mother… in her arduous tasks.” Despite His grief He went with His Uncle Músá to meetings and spoke there with “a marvelous eloquence, even at that early age of eleven or twelve years. The friends wondered at His wisdom and the beauty of His person, which equalled that of His mind…He prayed without ceasing for the return of Bahá'u'lláh. He would sometimes spend a whole night through praying a certain prayer. One day, after a night so spent, they found a clue!…”xxvii 17 He and Uncle Mírzá Músá heard two people talking of a holy man who lived in the northern mountains and was called The Nameless One. They knew by the description that the holy man must be Bahá'u'lláh. Immediately two of their friends journeyed to find Him and convince Him to return. His family’s constant prayers attended them. And Bahá'u'lláh returned to Baghdád, almost unrecognizable in His drab and dusty dervish robes. But His daughter Bahíyyih Khánum said, “Through the disguise we saw the light of our beloved one’s presence! Our joy cannot be described as we clung to Him. I can see now my beloved mother, calm and gentle, and my brother holding His Father’s hand fast, as though never again would He let Him go out of his sight, the lovely boy almost enfolded in the uncouth garment of the dervish disguise.”xxviii Bahá'u'lláh soon discarded the garments He’d worn in the wilderness and donned a crimson robe that His wife and daughter had made for Him out of pieces of tirmih, a precious red cloth which was among the last of the family’s treasures. He still didn’t speak openly of His identity as a Prophet or of the spiritual renewal that He was bringing into the world, but His deeds, His entire being, and His life-giving, soul-creating Writings, spoke for Him. His revelations were beginning to bring the lost garden back, garden in its deepest meaning. For ages, gardens have symbolized paradise in various teachings, especially in the Qu’ran with its many references to Gardens of Paradise; and in Persian the word for an enclosed garden is paradise. 18 3. A New Garden, Revealed "A dynamic spiritual leaven..." O MY FRIENDS! Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awestruck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of my utterance should be made evident unto all of you.xxix That is verse #19 of the Persian Hidden Words. Chief among Bahá'u'lláh's writings at that time -- in 1858, soon after His return from the wilderness -- and for all time, were The Hidden Words, written partly in Arabic, partly in Farsi, revealed as Bahá'u'lláh meditated on the banks of the Tigris River. The thousand-mile long Tigris flowed through Baghdád trafficked by sailing vessels and rowing boats of all kinds — market boats, passenger boats, reed boats — and lined by imposing palaces and mansions. But there were some quiet, secluded spots along its shores, and in one of them Bahá'u'lláh had a hut of palm leaves and thorn bushes built. There, He meditated and dictated Revelations to a scribe; or He would recite to His scribe, as He walked along the river. Sometimes, He would rest at a certain mosque beside the water. According to legend, The Hidden Words was originally called The Book of Fatimih, and it was a large, weighty book containing copious verses given to Fatimih, the Prophet Muhammad’s daughter, by the Angel Gabriel to comfort her after the Prophet’s death. She wrote the verses down, but no one ever saw them. They were to be given to all humanity at the beginning of the age of fulfillment. Is the legend true? It's certainly true in spirit. Bahá'u'lláh says, in prologue to The Hidden Words, that the verses "descended from the realm of glory" and were "revealed 19 to the Prophets of old... We have taken the inner essence thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token of grace unto the righteous..."xxx The Hidden Word that prologues this book tells us to possess a "pure, kindly and radiant heart." Given the hard knocks of life, that instruction is perceived by many to be quite a challenge, but 'Abdu'l-Bahá taught that rising to the challenge will teach us the art of happiness, which is attainable to all, because happiness is an innate characteristic of the heart. He said, "The star of happiness is in every heart. We must remove the clouds so that it may twinkle radiantly. Happiness is an eternal condition... A truly happy man will not be subject to the shifting eventualities of time..." xxxi How to practice the art of removing the clouds that are bound to gather in every life, every day? The Master exemplified that art. He was trained and educated in it by His Father. Service to others, especially to His Father, was key to His art of happiness, and in it His wisdom flourished. As a boy in His teens, the Master became His father’s “closest companion. He… undertook the task of interviewing all the numerous visitors who came to see His Father. If He found they were genuine truth-seekers, he admitted them to His Father’s presence, but otherwise He did not permit them to trouble Bahá'u'lláh"... In fact, when a Sufi asked for an explanation of an Islamic tradition — "I was a hidden mystery and I longed to be known” — Bahá'u'lláh turned to the Master to write the explanation. In mosques and coffeehouses, the Master often discussed theology with learned men. For recreation, He went horseback riding.xxxii The more Bahá'u'lláh needed time to unfold the mysteries of His soul, the more the Master acted as His fortress and defense. Bahá'u'lláh dubbed Him, "The Mystery of 20 God", and He became known by that title in Baghdád and then in other places of exile.xxxiii The Garden of Paradise After ten years in Baghdád, Bahá'u'lláh was sent to Istanbul, Türkiye, then called Constantinople, which was the capitol of the Ottoman Empire and the seat of the Sunni Islamic Caliphate. Before taking His final departure from Baghdád, in April, 1863, Bahá'u'lláh pitched His tent for 12 days in a rose garden that flourished on an island in the Tigris River. There, Bahá'u'lláh made Himself known to His companions as the Promised One of the Báb and of the world. We may compare those days to the Hidden Word in which He recalled, "...that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise..." A most ancient garden of reality, a new garden of revelation, veils of light lifting and shifting over fantastic forms of eternal mysteries. They named that place the Ridván, Paradise, and every year the Bahá'ís commemorate those 12 days as the Festival of Ridván. Before Bahá'u'lláh pitched His tent in the Garden of Ridván, He was nearly mobbed by denizens of the city, as well as His own followers, as He left the home He'd inhabited in Baghdád. People keened and wept, mourning His departure. Later, referring to Himself in the third person, He recalled that, within Himself, He "...wept... with such a weeping that the dwellers of earth and heaven... wept with Him. And He spoke unto them, saying, 'Know ye that in such a departure on the very Day of Our Appearance there are signs and tokens for them that understand'... The King of Eternity went forth, flanked by the hosts of the seen and the unseen, with His gaze fixed upon the court of the divine decree... When He reached the banks of the river, He parted from His loved ones, and it was as if the very souls of those devoted servants had 21 parted from their bodies. But He exhorted them to patience and fortitude, and summoned them to the fear of God... And then, crossing the river, He entered the Garden of Ridván, wherein He ascended the throne of His wondrous sovereignty..."xxxiv Attacks from enemies both within and without His circle of friends and family kept coming, but Bahá'u'lláh remained dauntless. People of every status crossed the river to pay homage to Him and bid Him farewell, and almost daily He revealed "Tablets replete with hints" and "allusions in private converse and public discourse... to the approaching hour" when all would know His Truth. In moments of sadness as well as joy His soul was "flooded" with "exaltation" -- as we can intuit from His above description of His entrance into the garden -- and this "ecstasy" communicated itself to His friends. His demeanor grew even more majestic than before and He began to wear a tall felt headdress (the táj) customary to dignitaries. All this "proclaimed unmistakably His imminent assumption of the prophetic office of His open leadership of the community of the Báb's followers."xxxv 'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote that the Governor-General of the Province of Baghdád, representing not only himself but various higher-placed officials, expressed "chagrin and sorrow" over Bahá'u'lláh's upcoming exile; they had at first been very happy with the decision to rid their region of Him but now they were full of regrets. The governor came to see Bahá'u'lláh in the garden and said, "Formerly they insisted on your departure. Now, however, they are even more insistent that you should remain." The Master added, quoting the Qu'ran, "They plotted and God plotted, and God is the best of plotters."xxxvi The Master was 19 years old then, and He wrote a long and detailed record of the events leading to His Father's exile from Baghdád. Once again His precocious wisdom was abundantly apparent. Bahá'u'lláh later wrote that when 22 "...the decree of departure was received, the Beauty of the All-Merciful arose and went out from the Ridván Garden riding upon the finest stallion... As He departed, a cry of sorrow ascended from the garden, and its trees, and leaves, and fruits, and walls, and air, and ground, and pavilion, while the dwellers of the deserts and the wilderness, and even the very dunes and the dust of the earth, rejoiced at His approach."xxxvii Journeys of Destiny So the journeys of joy and sorrow, doom and destiny continued. The trek to Istanbul took 110 days of land travel and then a voyage across the Black Sea. 'Abdu'lBahá, "handsome, gracious, agile, zealous to serve," rode His horse by the side of His father's, constantly attending Him, but at night He rode ahead to secure a halting place and provisions for all the travelers, for it was quite a procession of family, friends and guards. After only a few months in Istanbul, Bahá'u'lláh received the Ottoman Sultán's edict banishing Him with His family to Edirne (then called Adrianople) in the European region of Türkiye called Thrace. In answer to that edict, addressing Himself to the Sultán, Bahá'u'lláh wrote His first official, public proclamation of His mission and prophetic station. Later, writing again to the Sultán, He said, "They expelled Us from thy city with an abasement with which no abasement on earth can compare... Neither My family, nor those who accompanied Me, had the necessary raiment to protect them from the cold in that freezing weather..."xxxviii During the five years that the family then spent in Adrianople, the Master "attained the full stature of His unmatched and resplendent manhood." By the age of 24 He was "greatly revered and highly esteemed" by all and sundry, including the Governor of Adrianople, who treated Him, and of course His Father, with great regard and admiration.xxxix People of all beliefs made pilgrimages to Bahá'u'lláh. Chief among the pilgrims 23 were the Bábís, now known as the People of Bahá. But envious, ever-restive enemies caused so much tumult and made so much malevolent mischief that authorities once again exiled Bahá'u'lláh, this time to the prison city of 'Akká. That was "the ancient Ptolemais, the St. Jean d'Acre of the Crusaders" now under Turkish rule and a town of "murderers, highway robbers and political agitators... consigned (there) from all parts of the Turkish empire. It was girt about by a double system of ramparts." Bahá'u'lláh said its inhabitants were "the generation of vipers." It had no source of clean water, "was flea-infested, damp and honey-combed with gloomy, filthy and tortuous lanes." According to a proverb, a bird flying over 'Akká would drop dead.xl No one describes the tragic yet gloriously fateful day when Bahá'u'lláh received the edict of His banishment to that city better than the grandson of the Master, Shoghi Effendi, forever the Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith: "Suddenly, one morning, the house of Bahá'u'lláh was surrounded by soldiers, sentinels were posted at its gates, His followers were again summoned by the authorities, interrogated, and ordered to make ready for their departure. 'The loved ones of God and His kindred,' is Bahá'u'lláh's testimony... 'were left on the first night without food... The people surrounded the house, and Muslims and Christians wept over us'...One of the stoutest supporters of Bahá'u'lláh, exiled with Him all the way from Baghdád to 'Akká... (wrote)... 'All were perplexed and full of regret... Some expressed their sympathy, others consoled us and wept over us... Most of our possessions were auctioned at half their value.' Some of the consuls of foreign powers called on Bahá'u'lláh, and expressed their readiness to intervene with their respective governments on His behalf -- suggestions for which He expressed apprecia- 24 tion, but which He firmly declined." Bahá'u'lláh wrote that the consuls in Adrianople evinced "manifest affection" toward Him.xli The journey by steamer across the sea to the penal colony was a miserable one as the exiles were wracked by illness, and four of them were heart-wrenchingly grieved by the sorrow of separation from Bahá'u'lláh because they were to be exiled to Cyprus, not 'Akká. One of the four threw himself into the sea, but was rescued, resuscitated, and forced to continue to Cyprus. In 'Akká, Bahá'u'lláh and His companions were confined within the dank stone walls, on the dank stone floors, of the barracks, and their story would have ended in that deadly place, as their enemies wished it would, but that was not the will of the Divine Author of their eternal epic. Bahá'u'lláh wrote that His captivity couldn't harm Him, on the contrary it glorified Him -- " That which can harm Me is the conduct of those who love Me, who claim to be related to Me, and yet perpetuate what causeth My heart and My pen to groan."xlii The Marriage of 'Abdu'l-Bahá Yet reasons for rejoicing arose. One of these was the marriage of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It was after four years in 'Akká that the Master married, at the age of 29. By then, His family's incarceration had been relatively mitigated as they were no longer confined to the barracks, but under house arrest. The Master's bride was a beautiful, highly intelligent and well-educated young woman literate in Persian and Arabic, and probably Turkish, to whom Bahá’u’lláh gave a new name: Munírih, which means luminous. Years before her marriage to the Master, 25 Bahá’u’lláh dreamed of a young girl with a luminous face and a luminous heart, and later told a friend He’d chosen this girl as the Master’s bride.xliii In her mature years, Munirih Khánum wrote a brief but very valuable memoir of her life before her marriage, and this was extremely rare for an Iránian woman of the 19th Century, or for any Iránian of olden times, because it wasn’t the custom to write autobiography. But Munírih Khánum was a poet, given to epiphany, highly expressive and forthright, and she lived history. Miracles attended her life, a life that was a miracle in itself, for the Báb, meeting her parents in Isfahán, Irán, when they were childless, had given them a special blessing. Before the prospect of marriage to her arose, the Master showed no inclination to wed, although many Bahá’ís proposed their own daughters. He seemed to wait for His special one. She later remembered their wedding, held in the presence of Bahá'u'lláh; it was simple, with no refreshments except for cups of tea: “Oh the spiritual happiness which enfolded us! It cannot be described in earthly words." She said the Master “in His beauty” was “wonderful and noble”, and she “adored Him… with His manly vigor… His unfailing love, His kindness, His cheerfulness, His sense of humour, His untiring consideration for everybody…” Throughout her life she often expressed her joys and sorrows in poetry, and she was an eloquent person-to-person teacher of her Faith.xliv During the years in Adrianople, Bahá'u'lláh had given the Master another title: The Most Great Branch. He said: Render thanks unto God, O people, for His appearance; for verily He is the most great Favour unto you, the most perfect bounty upon you… Whoso turneth towards Him hath turned towards God, and whoso turneth away from Him hath turned away from my Beauty… We have sent Him down in the form of a human temple... They who deprive themselves of the shadow of the Branch are lost in the wilderness of error…”xlv 26 Gradually, over the years, and through many trials that more than proved the Master's right to the title,, the Bahá'ís became aware of this designation for Him. But it was only after the death of Bahá'u'lláh that they would come to understand (somewhat!) what it meant, and that occurred in May, 1892. The Center of the Covenant “The Sun of Bahá has set,” the Master cabled the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. The Bahá’í historian Nabil wrote, “… A multitude of the inhabitants of ‘Akká and of the surrounding villages… thronged the fields… (and) could be seen weeping, beating upon their heads, crying aloud their grief.”xlvi Nabil’s personal grief was so great that he drowned himself rather than live with the pain. And that public outcry and tragic casting away of a life were only a fraction of the wave of mourning that shook the place where Bahá'u'lláh had lived as well as every heart that knew Him. Historian Adib Tahrizadeh wrote, “When the ascension took place, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s grief knew no bounds. The shock He sustained as a result of this calamitous event was so intense that He found it difficult to describe.” After His Father was interred, the Master continued “disconsolate and heartbroken” for three days and nights. He recalled that “He could not rest a single moment. He wept for hours… The Light of the World had disappeared from His sight and all around Him had been plunged into darkness… for three consecutive days and nights He could not rest a single moment. He wept for hours and was in a state of unbearable grief. On the fourth night after the ascension, He arose from His bed around midnight and walked a few steps, hoping that it might help to bring a measure of tranquillity to His agonized heart. As He began to pace the room, He saw through the window a scene His eyes 27 could scarcely believe. His unfaithful brothers had opened the cases and were looking through Bahá'u'lláh's papers — those papers that had been entrusted to Him! The theft of His Father’s precious document cases further aggravated His agony." The Master still had the Last Will and Testament of Bahá'u'lláh in His possession. He knew his brothers were trying to ensure that He would never guide the Bahá’ís as the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s unifying Covenant with them and with the world — the position for which He was born. He also knew they couldn’t confound the Will of the Creator. He "hoped that when they saw the Will and Testament, their efforts would be frustrated and they would then return His trust to Him." xlvii Tragically, His hopes were confounded, as any hopes He had for His brothers were always confounded. They had already caused great pain to Bahá’u’lláh with their evil and venomous envy and animosity, their traitorous and highly destructive misdeeds. Bahá'u'lláh wrote of their perfidy many times; a most intense mention is in the Hidden Words, in one of the verses that closes the volume: O Son of Desire! How long wilt thou soar in the realms of desire? Wings have I bestowed upon thee, that thou mayest fly to the realms of mystic holiness and not the regions of satanic fancy. The comb, too, have I given thee that thou mayest dress My raven locks, and not lacerate My throat.xlviii The Master wrote that the "wings" and "the comb" meant the Covenant of God, The believers must remain loyal to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and not "lacerate Bahá'u'lláh's blessed throat," meaning His Cause. "However, they completely shut their eyes to fairness, committed misdeeds and indulged in grievous injustice."xlix Envy has bedeviled humanity since the beginning of time. It festers the soul. The Master wrote, For every disease there is a cure and for every wound 28 a balm, but for the sickness of envy there is no cure, and love and fidelity yield no result.l Yet the Master gathered Himself in a victorious love again and again, overcoming the onslaughts of His enemies. He cabled His first message to Bahá’ís in Irán, Egypt, Iraq, Syria and other eastern lands where the Faith had already taken root, saying that though “the world’s great Light” had set, It rose “with deathless splendour over the Realm of the Limitless,” and reminded them of His Father’s command: “… arise and bestir yourselves, that My Cause may triumph, and My Word be heard by all mankind.”li The Bahá’ís soon read the Will and Testament of Bahá’u’lláh. They learned that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the head of their Faith and they must turn only to Him for interpretation or explanation of Bahá’u’lláh’s teachings. To be faithful to the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, the Bahá’ís must be faithful to the Master. In Him would they find oneness. Yet, with typical human stubbornness and arrogance, some Bahá'ís didn’t want accept ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s authority, even though it was authenticated by Bahá’u’lláh. Throughout His life, Bahá’u’lláh had taught the Bahá’ís to revere the Master, even as He Himself did. 'Abdu'l-Bahá saw Himself wholly as His Father's most humble servant, and in that true humility Bahá'u'lláh saw and infinitely respected His son's greatness. A Shelter for all Mankind The humility with which the Master bowed before Bahá'u'lláh and prostrated Himself before Him couldn't be described or replicated by anybody else. After Bahá'u'lláh moved out of the prison city, to the Mansion of Mazra'ih and then the Mansion of Bahjí, the Master went to visit Him often. He rode on horseback, but when He approached His Father's home He dismounted and made the rest of the journey on foot. He considered His Father to be His Lord and felt it was disrespectful to ride into His 29 presence. Bahá'u'lláh, as a mark of respect to His eldest son, used to send an entourage of followers (and that included the Master's brothers) to meet the Master; He Himself watched the longed-for arrival from His balcony. The Master would have called upon His Father more often if not for the unfaithfulness of certain of His relatives who lived with Bahá'u'lláh; the Master knew His very presence intensified their already poisonous envy. And Bahá'u'lláh keenly felt the Master's absence, sometimes writing to Him affectionately asking Him to visit.lii When 'Abdu'l-Bahá was absent from the vicinity of His Father, even for a short time, His Father grieved. Once, when the Master was away on a visit to Beirut, Bahá'u'llah wrote to Him, saying: “Praise be to Him Who hath honoured the Land of Bá (Beirut) through the presence of Him round Whom all names revolve. All the atoms of the earth have announced unto all created things that from behind the gate of the Prison-city there hath appeared and above its horizon there hath shone forth the Orb of the beauty of the great, the Most Mighty Branch of God—His ancient and immutable Mystery— proceeding on its way to another land. Sorrow, thereby, hath enveloped this Prison-city, whilst another land rejoiceth.”liii And yet, people kept testing the Master’s authority. One man sent Him a blank piece of paper: could He read the blank paper; could He read the hearts of minds of men? The Master told him, “O thou who posed a test for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá! Is it seemly for a man like thee to test a servant submissive and lowly before God? Nay by God, it is given to the Centre of the Covenant to test the peoples of the world.”liv Heart-breakingly, in the year following His Father’s passing and through all the years of His life, the Master had to contend with enemies and somehow endure the grief they caused Him while building up a healthy, unified, worldwide Bahá’í community. His 30 achievement was and is inexpressible. But then, He was The Most Great Branch, our shelter, and the shelter of humanity -- and that included His enemies. In her aptly named monograph on the Master, The Sheltering Branch, Marzieh Gail said, Bahá’u’lláh addressed Him: "O Thou Who art the apple of Mine eye!' and wrote 'We have made Thee a shelter for all mankind, a shield unto all who are in heaven and on earth, a stronghold for whosoever hath believed in God, the Incomparable, the All-Knowing.”lv 31 4. Freedom, the Infinite Dimension The Path of Detachment Scientists aren't sure how many dimensions the universe possesses. Various numbers and definitions have been proposed. Most of us think of our universe as having four dimensions, three of place, one of time. But the realm of spirit is the realm of the placeless and timeless, and that's where the Master lived, while yet remaining most lovingly pragmatic in his management of earthly affairs. In this He fulfilled one of the central injunctions given by Bahá'u'lláh in The Hidden Words: be detached from worldly concerns and conditions whether fair or foul, and be content with the Will of God. O Son of Spirit! Ask not of Me that which We desire not for thee, then be content with what We have ordained for thy sake, for this is that which profiteth thee, if therewith thou dost content thyself.lvi Bahá'u'lláh phrased it in many ways, among them: ... Put away all covetousness and seek contentment; for the covetous hath ever been deprived, and the contented hath ever been loved and praised."lvii ...Cleanse thyself from the defilement of riches and in perfect peace advance into the realm of poverty; that from the well-spring of detachment thou mayest quaff the wine of immortal life."lviii And in fact He closes The Hidden Words with this challenge: "...Let us see what your efforts in the path of detachment will bring..."lix As we have seen, the Master was a child of eight when Bahá’u’lláh, then a young man of 35 but bent and lacerated by torture, came out of the underground dungeon in Tehran. At nine, the Master was part of the group of family and disciples accompanying Bahá'u'lláh westward on his first journey of exile to Baghdád over mountains that soared 32 14,000 ft. up into freezing, thin air. Further onerous journeys of exile led, in 1868, to the walled city of ‘Akká. There, the Master endured painful tortures similar to those His Father had suffered, including the weight and galling of chains, and the mauling of the bastinado. Yet He maintained His singular genius -- His clarity of mind and heart, His ability to solace, serve, and laugh -- because of reliance on the Will of God and His acceptance of it, His detachment, His inner freedom. Laughter, Music, the Natural World Years later, one of His western disciples, Isabelle Fraser Chamberlain, in the introduction to her book 'Abdu'l-Bahá on Divine Philosophy, published in 1918, noted that He told her: "'Freedom is not a matter of place. It is a condition. I was thankful for the prison and the lack of liberty was very pleasing to me, for those days were passed in the path of service under the utmost difficulties and trials, bearing fruits and results. 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..."lx One day, long after the prison doors had opened for the Master and He was traveling in the West, He said to a circle of friends at a New Hampshire inn, “It is good to laugh. Laughter is a spiritual relaxation.” He told them that Bahá'u'lláh gathered the prisoners in ''Akká together every evening to share the day's events and laugh. Sometimes it was hard to find something funny, but soon someone would describe the most ludicrous situation and everyone would laugh until tears ran down their cheeks. He said happiness wasn’t dependent on material means; otherwise, sadness would have swallowed them all.lxi 33 The Master also believed in music as a way of lifting the heart. He learned this, too, from Bahá’u’lláh. While in the underground dungeon in Tehran, Bahá’u’lláh, chained to His fellow-prisoners, taught them a prayer-song. They were chained in two rows, facing each other, against the filthy walls, on the vermin-infested floor, their feet in stocks, their necks weighted with irons, breathing foul air in ice-cold, impenetrable darkness. One row would sing: “God is sufficient unto me. He verily is the All-sufficing,” and the other would respond, “In Him let the trusting trust.” Bahá’u’lláh recalled: “The chorus of these gladsome voices would continue to peal out until the early hours of the morning. Their reverberation would fill the dungeon, and, piercing its massive walls, would reach the ears of the Shah, whose palace was not far distant… ‘What means this sound?’ he was reported to have exclaimed. ‘It is the anthem the Bábís are intoning in their prison’”… he was told.lxii The Master, in the happiest or saddest circumstances, asked people to sing, and He also had a fondness for poetry, often recommending that a favorite poem be set to music. He reminded His friends that King David sang the psalms in the Holy of Holies, the Temple at Jerusalem, “with sweet melodies,” and said that Bahá’u’lláh wished that, among His followers who were with Him in ‘Akká, there had been someone who could play a musical instrument like a flute or a harp, or sing, because “it would have charmed everyone.”lxiii So, the Master refreshed His soul with melody and humor. His pets were also an unfailing source of relaxation for Him. He was always entertained by the way His brown cat bounded greedily to His side to gobble food from His hand, or the way it slept 34 peacefully in the sun without a care in the world while. When Curtis Kelsey, a rangy and lanky young man from Utah whom people described as a cowboy type, came to Haifa in 1921 to install electrical lighting systems for the Shrines of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh, the cat reigned in the dining room. Curtis worked closely with Fujita, who was the second Japanese person in the world to become a Bahá’í, and had been working for the Master in Haifa since 1919. When there were no other guests, Curtis and Fujita dined alone with the Master. Of course the cat was also present. Fujita looked after the cat, and Fujita was a very playful person. When lunch was served, he liked to lock the cat in the kitchen. That was because he wanted to hear the Master say, “Let the cat out.” As soon as Fujita opened the door, the cat dashed to the Master’s feet, and He’d pet her and reach food down from the table to feed her. The cat wound herself around the Master's legs and purred loudly as she voraciously ate.lxiv The Master raised peacocks and had a parrot which recited fragments of prayers. He often went about His errands mounted on a white donkey, and would chuckle at how it faithfully brought Him home even when He stopped paying attention to the way. As for horseback riding, it remained His favored recreation and He was pleased to ride the finest steed His Druze friends could offer Him when He went into the countryside to visit them. Muriel Ives, daughter of the distinguished memoirist Howard Colby Ives, told her son about the Master's affinity for animals which she observed during His visit to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, in May, 1912. The Master was eager to visit the zoo, "very merry over the prospect." But the Bahá'ís steeled Him for disappointment: because it was 35 spring, most of the female animals would be protecting newborn litters, and would hide them from zoo-goers. Nevertheless, the Master insisted. Five or six friends went with Him. As they approached the enclosures housing the animals, He motioned for His entourage to stay back. He wanted to go alone to visit the animals. As He approached, the animal mothers brought their babies out, seemingly to show Him. But as His friends approached for a glimpse, the mothers hurried their babies back to shelter.lxv The Master also delighted in majestic woodlands, waterfalls, the moon, the tides, gardens, fruits, every flower, all the landscapes and gifts of creation. Florence Breed Khan remembered how the Master raised “His beloved face, and gazed upward lingeringly at the glory of the full moon. I can never forget those moments of beauty — the moon, a masterpiece of God, shining in full glory in the high heavens, being admiringly looked upon by a masterpiece of God on earth: ‘Abdu’l-Bahá!” lxvi Like Bahá'u'lláh, the Master felt divinity in the natural world. In a letter that Bahá'u'lláh wrote to a couple who hosted a picnic for Him in the Ridván Garden, in His latter days when He was allowed some freedom of movement, He said, Every tree uttered a word, and every leaf sang a melody. The trees proclaimed: "Behold the evidences of God’s mercy," and the twin streams recited… "From us all things were made alive"...lxvii Flowers, especially, seemed to comfort the Master, Who was an avid gardener. It seems that every one who visited the Master remembered what they called His “ministry of flowers”. He loved to present flowers to people and a woman wrote,“When the Master inhales the odor of flowers, it is wonderful to see him. It seems as though the perfume of 36 the hyacinths were telling him something as he buries his face in the flowers. It is like the effort of the ear to hear a beautiful harmony, a concentrated attention!”lxviii Finding the Star of Happiness in Every Heart The Master often relaxed by walking along the seashore, lulled by the music of the waves. Lady Blomfield wrote, “One day, during the war, two men were passing along… the sea… between Haifa and ‘'Akká. They were talking together, when their attention became attracted to the venerable figure of a man lying, as if overcome with weariness, on the sands… “They gazed silently. The body was completely relaxed, one arm supporting the beautiful head with its hair of spun silver. The face bore traces great sorrow, but was softened by an ineffable tenderness. Great nobility of character lay upon the brow. There seemed a spiritual light of rare beauty about Him. He was resting in deep slumber. “The sleeper was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá.”lxix Archie Bell, journalist and travel writer from Cleveland, Ohio, also encountered the Master on a seashore, in around 1915. In his book The Spell of the Holy Land, he reported, “One morning as I was walking along the beach of the Sea of Galilee, just beyond Tiberias… I met a man whose appearance was more striking than any man I have ever seen in my life. He was a comparatively short old gentleman with long white beard. He wore a long white robe that reached to his ankles and a white turban covered the top of his head. Doubtless I stared at him in amazement; he was so different from any human being I had ever seen. He was walking slowly, his head slightly bowed, and evidently in deep thought. But he looked up, saw me looking at him, and then raised his 37 hand to his forehead in Oriental salutation as he passed. I was alone, and, believing him to be some personage of Tiberias, I admit walking slowly behind him until we reached the city…” The young writer learned from a passer-by that this was the Master. He’d heard of HIm as the legendary “Persian Philosopher”, but instead of the bowed and bent old man he might have expected, he sensed in the Master a youthful energy that contradicted His years. “He is a person of tremendous magnetism,” Bell said. “One ‘feels’ him when in his presence.’” lxx The Syrian Kahlil Gibran was another writer on whose heart the Master made His lasting mark. He was a mystical poet-philosopher, also a visual artist; his well-known books, especially The Prophet and Jesus, The Son of Man, and their illustrations, notably the portrait of Almustafa (the Prophet), are responses to the Master’s persona and teachings. During his lifetime he was world famous, and also infamous, for his writings, and he is now one of the world's most popular and widely translated authors. Gibran, an immigrant to America from Lebanon, had come to Boston as a child with his mother after his father lost his land holdings because he succumbed to the temptation of crime. In the Boston slums, Gibran suffered all the indignities of foreigness and poverty, but his outstanding artistic talent, as well as his physical beauty, brought him early reknown as a prodigy. By the time the Master came to the U.S. in 1912, Gibran was living in New York City, across the street from one of the Master's most devoted followers, Juliet Thompson. Juliet was an artist, so she and Gibran felt a kinship and became good friends. Gibran met he Master, through Juliet, and drew a portrait of Him. Sometimes Gibran interpreted for Him from Arabic to English. 38 Gibran seemed born to suffer; he died at 48, tragically unresigned to leaving this world. But he was happy when he was with the Master, saying of Him: “For the first time I saw a form noble enough to be a receptacle for the Holy Spirit… He is a very great man. He is complete. There are worlds in his soul. And oh what a remarkable face — what a beautiful face — so real and so sweet.” He added that in the Master he had “seen the unseen, and been filled.”lxxi Tales of The Master circulated among seeking souls and drew people to Him, many of them quite unhappy, among them a woman known to history only as Mrs. C. She was a discontented, affluent New York socialite who heard about Him during her world travels and visited Him in His prison dwelling in ‘'Akká because she longed to “know the spiritual life”, as she put it.lxxii In that walled city with its narrow stone streets and latticed windows, cave-like shops holding samovars and brass trays, camel bells and carpets, and its passers-by in veils and sweeping robes, she was fascinated by everything, but mostly by the Master and His household. How could they be so alive and joyous in the sternly shadowy city? Pilgrims from East and West gathered around the Master’s dining table in a sun-filled hall on the upper story of the old stone house. Household and family members served the food; children and pets came in and out; swallows flew through open windows to gather crumbs from the table. The Master often served the food and poured the tea. His hospitality was kinetic, like his description of the time of fulfillment as the spiritual springtime with all things opening, unfolding, renewing. And He was kinetic, eating sparsely and rarely staying in his seat throughout a meal. 39 Helen Goodall and her daughter Ella Cooper, who visited at around the same time as Mrs. C., and wrote a memoir called Daily Lessons Received at ‘'Akká, said that being under house arrest made the Master and His household — “each individual, from the youngest servant” to the Master’s revered sister — stand “constantly on guard,” they never paraded their watchfulness. If Turkish officials came to call and they had “to move the whole supper table suddenly into another room to escape… observation…” they did so with “no hint of inconvenience.” They could have dramatized the situation to “impress the sensitive pilgrim” but the fact that they didn’t was, Helen and Ella wrote, “another lesson to us!” One of the visitors, Marian Jack, from Canada, was to stay for a year to teach English in the household, so she had to be counted as a prisoner. The Master, "with a merry twinkle in His eye,” Helen and Ella said, "would ask Miss Jack how she liked being on the roll of the prisoners.” She answered that she’d like to be “written down as ‘the woman who had just found her freedom.’” The Master was very pleased with her response.lxxiii Much as He loved laughter, 'Abdu'l-Bahá gave extended time to serious talk even amid the whirl and swirl of mealtimes. An earlier visitor to ‘'Akká, Laura Dreyfus-Barney, the American intellectual who spent two years in His home interviewing Him and then compiling her historic book Some Answered Questions, observed, “'Abdu'l-Bahá is sensitive and poetical in the midst of all this activity. When He is about to answer a question He is calm and meditative, and seems to be looking out on nature. He seems to forget your presence, and by and by when He answers, all that which seemed difficult for you to comprehend becomes easy to understand. All mysteries are imparted unto you.”lxxiv 40 Mrs. C., eager to partake of His wisdom, met with Him and His family for daily morning prayers in His wife’s large sitting room very early in the morning. They drank tea from glass cups as they listened to the children chant prayers. Then the Master spoke, often with “fervor and gladness.” Mrs.C. noticed that He always greeted her with, “Be happy." He was known for greeting people that way, but apparently Mrs. C. thought she was singled out for the greeting. So, she finally asked His youngest daughter, whose English was quite good, to inquire about it. With what she called His peculiarly illuminating smile, He replied, “I tell you to be happy because we can not know the spiritual life unless we are happy!’”lxxv Mrs. C., suffered from what was then called “inanition” (not eating enough) and “had become accustomed to a half melancholy state from which she hardly sought to rouse herself.” She made it a habit to think for a half hour, of her duties — writing a list in capital letters — when she rose each morning. Every evening, she evaluated her performance, “mourning because she had not consistently carried out her morning’s plans.” When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá told her “we cannot know the spiritual life unless we are happy,” she mourned even more.lxxvi Because He believed, that “the star of happiness is in every heart," He counseled, “Find the answer to your questions in your heart…”lxxvii, assuring His friends, “God hath crowned you with honour and in your hearts hath He set a radiant star.”lxxviii He Himself had a transformative affect on people, opening the way for them to discover their inner light and find their answers. So, when Mrs. C. finally managed to ask: ‘”But tell me, what is the spiritual life? I have heard ever since I was born about the spiritual life, and no one could ever explain 41 to me what it is!” He replied, “Characterize thyself with the characteristics of God, and thou shalt know the spiritual life!”lxxix She began to ponder: what are the characteristics of God? They must be attributes such as love and beauty, justice and generosity. All day, she mused over that endless but positive puzzle, and her despair lifted. When evening fell, she realized she’d been happy all day and had fulfilled her duties without a sense of burden or dutifulness, only with joy. As the days passed and she remained absorbed in her meditations while busy with activities, she began to understand. “If she was absorbed in Heavenly ideals, they would translate themselves into deeds necessarily, and her days and nights would be full of light.”lxxx The star of happiness shone in her heart. In the Master's transformative presence, he learned to do as another Hidden Word instructs: Rejoice in the gladness of thy heart, that thou mayest be worthy to meet me and to mirror forth my beauty.lxxxi Louise Krug Sayward, who was with the Master in the United States in 1912 when she was a young woman, said, many years later: “…when with Him… the world and its affairs were obliterated — we were so completely immersed in His love that we knew nothing but infinite joy and peace! And what happiness it was!… Absolute peace, contentedness”… Louise was transformed by the Master’s presence. She went on, “All my life I’ve been able to live in that atmosphere. I’ve had quite a few tragedies. That memory has helped me carry on.”lxxxii Louise was a young woman living with her father, stepmother and brother in New York City when the Master, almost 70 years old and at last free of His imprisonment, arrived there on the steamship Cedric. Since 1893 people in America had been becoming 42 Bahá'ís, and he wanted to meet and teach them, their friends and whoever else came to Him. In her 80s, Louise Sayward wrote, “When we (she and her stepmother, Grace Krug, and the rest of the New York Bahá'ís) learned that ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá was coming… all were so thrilled and happy that the excitement grew as the time of His arrival neared… We were planning to go to the pier to greet Him, but He sent word that He preferred to have us go to the Hotel Ansonia where He would receive us. There must have been about twenty-five or thirty gathered in the sitting room. I remember so well the tense atmosphere of anticipation, mingled with awe and perhaps a little apprehension not knowing what to expect. Then the door opened and ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá quietly walked into the room, His hands extended in greeting.” Some of the Bahá’ís were surprised to see how the Master had aged. The only photograph available to them had been a passport picture taken in Adrianople in 1868, when He was a fine-featured, handsome young man with black hair, short black beard and mustache. Now His hair, beard and mustache were white and his white brows overhung His deep-set, deeply lined eyes. However, His face, striated with age and sorrow, also radiated humor, love and calm; His step was jaunty, His gestures open and beckoning. Louise said, “We saw for the first time that wonderful smile we came to know so well. The warmth of His greeting and the love He shed filled every heart and all strangeness vanished in a flash. He passed from one to another shaking hands and saying what we knew were words of welcome, but we were touched by a love never to be forgotten. Several tried to kiss His hand but this He would not permit…” 43 Louise and Grace wanted to be with the Master as much as possible, trying to visit Him daily in the house where he stayed and attending His meetings all over the city. Grace invited Him to a meeting at her apartment. But there was a slight problem in the person of Dr. Florian Krug, Grace’s husband and Louise’s father. “No one I have ever known was more violently antagonistic toward the Faith than my father!” Louise recalled. “He would fly into terrible rages, he would destroy Bahá'í books.” When Louise’s mother told him she’d invited the Master to their house, Louise said he threatened — and she quoted him — “‘to have the old man thrown out by the doorman.’” When the day came for the meeting, Louise and her brother, trembling with fear at what their father might do, stood with their parents awaiting ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá. Grace was calm. The elevator stopped at their floor; as it happened, it opened onto the foyer of their apartment. ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá stepped out. Louise said He “walked straight to my father, both arms extended, and smiling said, ‘Are you happy?’ The reaction came immediately as my father relaxed at once. It reminded me of a bird letting its wings down enjoying the warmth of the sun. In just a short while my father said to my step-mother, ‘Can’t you get rid of these people (the other guests)? Can’t you see the dear old man is tired?”lxxxiii Dr. Krug’s goodwill toward the Master continued, yet when the Master gave a Unity Feast, a picnic, in Teaneck, New Jersey, he insisted that Grace and Louise skip it and go golfing with him. He was a surgeon with a crowded schedule and that was his one free day. The two women were very distressed — everyone was going to that picnic! They consulted ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá about it and He told them “You must consider the Doctor.” So, they went golfing, all the time knowing the Master’s picnic was occurring only about an hour from the golf course.lxxxiv 44 Interestingly, and mysteriously (in the ways of circumstance), Grace and Florian Krug were visiting Haifa in November, 1921, when the Master fell ill and passed away. Dr. Krug attended the Master during His illness and was present during His final moments, even gently applying some artificial respiration just in case there was any hope. Grace recalled that, a few hours after the passing, she and her husband, household members and fellow pilgrims sat, stunned, under the stars “in the silence of the night… conscious that the Master’s spirit like attar of roses had filled not only the town of Haifa, but the world!”lxxxv The fragrance of His spirit still exists for us now: by learning of Him and His “pure, kindly and radiant heart,” and trying to do as He did, we can be gladdened by that fragrance and diffuse it to others. We can inhale it, as He inhaled the fragrance of hyacinths. But of course, to rejoice in this ineffable fragrance we must rely -- as the Master relied -- on laws of being, divine laws of life. The first of these laws is love. The Law of Love The Master explained, Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.”lxxxvi In The Hidden Words, Bahá'u'lláh wrote, “To the true lover reunion is life. Separation is death… lxxxvii According to Bahá'í teachings, love is the magnet that holds the atoms together, it is unity, life force. Hatred causes separation, which is nihilism. Be- 45 cause His purpose was unity, the Master counseled love to an extent that to many people seemed impossible. He said we must endure others even when they’re unendurable. Stanwood Cobb, an American educator who remembered Him giving this instruction, said, “He did not look at us solemnly as if appointing us to an arduous and difficult task. Rather, He beamed upon us delightfully, as if to suggest what a joy to us it would be to act in this way.”lxxxviii Obviously, patience is demanded. The Hidden Words counsels, The sign of love is fortitude under my decree and patience under my trials...lxxxix The Master’s fortitude and patience were incomparable. As we have seen, certain of His brothers, cousins, nephews and others were His bitter enemies because they were jealous of His stature and status. They wanted to be Him and since they couldn’t be Him, they wanted to destroy Him. They tried in every way, everyday, to hurt Him and undermine His sense of well-being. The Master had a cloak and a pair of spectacles that had belonged to His father, and those were very precious to Him. An enemy stole those things and presented them to the Deputy-Governor of ‘'Akká, who wore the cloak and spectacles when He visited the Master, just to mock Him. But the Master’s courtesy in the presence of this insulting person never wavered and, in time, when the erstwhile Deputy-Governor was demoted from his post, he came to the Master for help, and the Master generously assisted him.xc Such examples of the Master’s universal love abound, for He was a friend to all. As a true friend, He might weep — and He did weep — for the obtusity of some souls, for the tragedy of human estrangement. What, after all, is more bitter than estrangement from a friend? 46 The Friend: "I am Here to Give, and Not to Recieve" Prophets define themselves as the True Friends of humanity. Bahá'u'lláh often referred to Himself as the Friend, and said, of His own Teachings: Incline your hearts, O people of God, unto the counsels of your true, your incomparable Friend… xci The Master elucidated: The will of the Eternal King hath ever been to purify the hearts of [His] servants from the promptings of the world and what is therein… Therefore must no stranger find his way into the city of the heart, so that the Incomparable Friend may come unto His own place…xcii Both Bahá'u'lláh and ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá often addressed Their followers as friends, thus sealing Their pact of mutual trust with the Bahá'ís. Banished from Their homeland, They could reside forever within the garden of the human heart, where, Bahá'u'lláh instructed in The Hidden Words, they must “plant naught but the rose of love”…xciii That the rose of love bloomed richly and consistently in the heart of the Master was evident to all who knew him and received the gift of His friendship. People who didn’t even know about the attacks on life and spirit that plagued the Master nevertheless marveled at His patience in merely mundane situations. Louise Sayward remembered a nervous gentleman in New York who came to the Master daily with endless questions, concerns and worries. She wondered — Why didn’t the Master send him away? He was just a bother. However, ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá listened carefully to him and advised him without the least annoyance. That gentleman became a staunch follower in the Master’s way, a comfort and help to many. When people complained to the Master that others were impossible to love, He gave this example: If you receive a grubby, damaged letter but you recognize the 47 handwriting of your loved one on the envelope, you’ll welcome and cherish it no matter how dismal it looks. You’ll open it tenderly, and if the message is ungrammatical or mispelled, you’ll love it anyway, because you know who it comes from. It already has your complete acceptance. Sometimes we meet people who seem to us to be grubby, damaged and dismal but if we remember that they come from a loved one — the Creator — we can welcome them.xciv That was the Master’s attitude: wherever he was, he dwelt in placelessness, never letting appearances dictate His actions; He dwelt in timelessness, not allowing constraints of hours and minutes to quell His spontaneous kindness. Helen Goodall and her daughter Ella Cooper, amazed at “His constant shower of material and spiritual favors,” exclaimed to Him that they didn’t deserve all the blessings and had nothing to give in return. He told them: "That is what I am here for--to give, and not to receive.” When they said it must be awfully troublesome for Him to answer all their questions and spend so much time on them, He replied, "Whatever is done in love is never any trouble, and there is always time.” They noticed that although He got weary, “a quick response to His greeting, or incidents related that show the activity and steadfastness of the believers, will cause His eyes to shine instantly and His step to become more buoyant. He listens intently to every word, no matter how trifling.”xcv Howard Colby Ives, feeling the Master's freedom, titled his memoir of the Master and His teachings Portals to Freedom, and said, “All His life had been spent in prison and exile. He bore still upon His body the marks of man’s cruelty, yet there were no signs of His ever having been other than free, and evidently it was a freedom which no 48 earthly wealth ever bestows… He seemed never to be hurried. Amidst the rushing turmoil of New York He walked as calmly as if on a lofty plateau, far removed from the tumult and the shouting. Yet He never stood aloof. He was ever at the service of any or all who needed Him. From five o’clock in the morning frequently until long after midnight He was actively engaged in service, yet no evidence of haste or stress ever could be seen in Him”…xcvi During the Master’s travels in the West, his hosts and hostesses were often important, influential people and they wanted Him to meet and impress other important, influential people, but He didn’t overlook anyone, no matter how humble. When he was in San Francisco, his hostess arranged for him to meet with the Mayor of Berkeley at a reception for dignitaries and intellectuals. It was almost time to leave for the reception, and His hostess went upstairs to His room to alert Him. He smiled, saying, “Very soon! Very soon!” She felt a bit impatient. Her car drew up before her door, her chauffeur honking the horn. “We’ll be late!” she warned ‘Abdu'l-Bahá. “The Mayor is waiting!” But ‘'Abdu'lBahá only smiled at her again and said, “Soon! Very soon!” Now she was truly anxious. Then her doorbell rang and she heard ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá’s step on the stair. Her maid opened the door. A disheveled, dusty man stood on the threshold. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá was immediately beside the maid, pulling the traveler into his arms, embracing him like a long-lost friend. The man had read about the Master in the newspaper and longed to meet him, but had no money for transportation so he walked 15 miles into the city. If the Master 49 had left on time for the reception, the man would have missed Him. But the Master said he’d “felt his approach” and waited for him. He made sure his guest was comfortable at a table with plenty of tea and sandwiches, and then said, “Now I must go, but when you have finished, wait for me in my room upstairs until I return, and then we’ll have a great talk.”xcvii The Master established this special connection with individual souls time and time again. Alice Bell Butler, who met the Master in Chicago in 1912, remembered, “His... love for us all was most memorable and impressive. I am sure every one felt as I did, as if they were the most favored of all who came to see him. When he entered the Hotel parlor where he was to speak, he passed near where our little group sat on the floor, he stopped and spoke lovingly to each of us. As he turned to walk toward the platform our son Thad, 10 years of age, followed and sat on the platform all through the address, and went with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when he left the room. I worried for fear the boy was imposing and might need lunch. One of those traveling with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá came out to say the boy was all right. “Just before the afternoon meeting I saw Thad and the Master walking in the park. I followed and soon they turned and he left the child with me. When asked what they had talked about, Thad said, ‘We did not talk — just visited.’”xcviii The Master showed the same informality and spontaneous interest with “Jeffrey Boy,” as Agnes Parsons called her son Jeffrey, who was about 10 in April, 1912, when the Master was at her capacious home in Washington, DC. He spent time with the child looking at toys, books and pictures and visiting the roof garden.xcix 50 Constance Maud, a British writer for children as well as adults, and a noted suffragette, who wrote about 'Abdu'l-Bahá in several books, observed His love for children: “Children always received a warm welcome. They refreshed him 'like a spring of water in a dry land,' as he said in his Eastern tongue. He kept pretty little presents of bead necklaces and rings and sweets ready for these small visitors, who were never shy with him, but talked away, helping him to add to his few English words, of which he made great stock. At parting he would bless them, placing his fingers on eyes, lips, and ears, with the prayer: "God bless your eyes - may they behold only the good and the beautiful; God bless your lips - may they speak only words of love and wisdom and truth; God bless your ears - may they listen only to what is pure and lovely and of good report; may the voice of God sound always louder than the voices of the world.” c But of course His deeply serious concern ran through all that He witnessed and did. Wellesley Tudor-Pole, a British Spiritualist who was with Him in England and also rendered great services to Him in Palestine, said: “His compassion for the aged, for children and the down-trodden knew no bounds. I remember once after he had visited a Salvation Army refuge near the Embankment, in London, tears came to his eyes. He could not understand how a wealthy nation like Britain could allow such poverty and loneliness in its midst. He spoke about this to Archdeacon Wilberforce of Westminster Abbey and to Dr. R. J. Campbell of the City Temple and he provided a sum of money through London’s Lord Mayor for the succour of the poor and derelict… In speaking to me, he often referred to the need for providing food and sustenance for those in want, as a primary requisite to supplying moral and spiritual food for the heart and for the mind.”ci The Master never forgot: 51 "O Ye Rich Ones on Earth! The poor in your midst are my trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease."cii In New York, He told questioners, “Assuredly, give to the poor. If you give them only words, when they put their hands into their pockets after you have gone, they will find themselves none the richer for you! ciii It was in New York that the Master paid His fabled visit to the Bowery Mission, invited by its director Dr. John Hallimond, who was a legend in his own time for his selfless dedication to caring for derelict souls. (In 1924, when Dr. Hallimond died, he left no estate, according to his obituary in the New York Times, having given away, over the years, all he had to the destitute.) Contact with Dr. Hallimond came about through Juliet Thompson, historic early American Bahá’í and portrait painter, who began visiting the mission on her own, invited by Dr. Hallimond to give the Bahá’í Message to the homeless, hopeless men who wandered in there seeking shelter and solace. It was February, 1912, when she first went there and she had a captive audience of 300 people who mostly just wanted to escape the cold! Among them was John Good, a man who had been released from Sing Sing prison that very day. Juliet wrote, “Wonderfully named was John Good!… an enormous man with a head like a lion and a great shock of white hair. From his boyhood he had spent his life in one prison or another and now, in his old age, had behaved so rebelliously in Sing Sing that they would punish him in the most painful way, hanging him up by his thumbs! Full of hate he had come out of prison, and full of hate and without one grain of belief in anything, he sat among the derelicts in the Mission, forced in by the storm. 52 “And that night (knowing nothing of John Good) I was moved to tell the men how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá came out of prison, full of love for the whole world, even His cruelest enemies. “After I had finished speaking, Dr. Hallimond said: ‘…’Abdu’l-Bahá will be here in April. How many of you would like to invite Him to speak at the Mission? Will those who wish it please stand? “The whole three hundred rose to their feet.”civ When Dr. Hallimond asked if any of them would like to study the 13th Chapter of Corinthians with himself and Juliet, 30 people said yes. Among them was John Good. And he came faithfully with the others every week to study the famous chapter of the New Testament that begins: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as a sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal," and ends, "And now abideth faith, hope , charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity." So John Good was one who prepared himself for April 19, 1912, when the Master came to the Bowery Mission. John became a Bahá'í and remained a part of the New York City Baha'i community to the end of his days. The Master arrived at the mission accompanied by Juliet Thompson and a diverse entourage of His Persian attendants in their oriental garb with other friends of all ages and types, including the archly sophisticated reporter for the New York Tribune, Kate Carew, nee Mary Williams. Kate Carew was one of the United States’ most well-known women, highly respected for her caricatures and cartoons as well as her feature writing. Among her interviewees over the years were Mark Twain, W.B. Yeats, Pablo Picasso, Winston Churchill, 53 Wilbur and Orville Wright, numerous cinema stars, and more. She was a rarity and pioneer in her male-dominated field, and was quite skeptical and cynical. But she was bowled over by the Master. She said His face "in repose looks like a sheet of parchment on which Fate has scored deep, cabalistic lines." In the Hotel Ansonia where she first met and interviewed Him, she observed His interaction with a young, newly married couple as He pressed their hands between His and blessed them. Kate said that if the young man "ever thinks of straying from the path of loyalty, methinks the pressure of that hand will weigh heavy on his soul." Among her questions to the Master: “Do you believe in a woman’s desire for freedom?” His answer: “The soul has no sex.” She was a sensitive observer of the human condition and noted that ‘Abdu’lBahá had already had a long day and was tired. As more and more people arrived to see Him, she said “His eyelids trembled and he began to adjust his turban and stroke his beard more often.” She asked, “Shall I go now?” He opened His eyes and said, “I am going to the poor in the Bowery now. I love them.” He invited Kate to come along. She said the Master held her hand as they proceeded through the Ansonia hallways and lobbies, and then again when they entered the Mission and, she said, “trotted through a lane composed of several score” of homeless men. She reported that 'Abdu'lBahá spoke for about 20 minutes. “Jesus Christ was also homeless, he told the men. ‘You are His comrades, for He outwardly was poor, not rich. Even this earth’s happiness does not depend upon wealth…’” Then Kate was astonished to see some of the Bahá’í men bring heavy green baize bags to the Master, who opened them and began to distribute silver quarters, “lit- 54 tle lucky bits,” as He called them, to the men. A silver quarter was the price of a bed for a night. “Two hundred dollars worth” of silver quarters, Kate said. “Think of it! Some one actually coming to America and distributing money. Not here with the avowed or unavowed intention of taking it away. It seems incredible. Possibly I may be a bit tired of mere words, dealing in them the way I do, but that demonstration of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s creed did more to convince me of the absolute sincerity of the man than anything else that had happened.” She noted that the Master not only looked into the face of each man standing before Him but gazed down the line at who was coming next, and if a man was especially destitute, the Master was ready for him with 2 quarters instead of one. She concluded, “…as I went out into the starlit night I murmured the phrase of an Oriental admirer who had described Him as, ‘The Breeze of God.’”cv When the Master was at home He spent much of His time visiting the needy, and every Friday welcomed them into the courtyard of His house, heard their troubles, gave them alms and medicines. Lady Blomfield, following the Master’s example and with His encouragement, became an organizer of the Save the Children Fund for relief in famine-stricken Europe after World War I, and that Fund is still active today.cvi At one point, when the Master was in England in 1912, Lady Blomfield wanted to bring Him to meet King George V, with whom her family was acquainted. But the Master chose not to meet the king. He said such a meeting might be misconstrued. He also said His place was with the poor. 55 He emphasized the need for universal education of all children and was impressed with the work of the Passmore--Edwards Settlement to which He paid a special visit in Tavistock Place, London. One of His admirers, Alice Buckton, was involved with that and with a similar school in St. John's Wood. In France, in 1911, the Master made a special visit to a school in an extremely wretched part of Paris set up by Victor and Fanny Ponsonaille, two Bahá'ís who were of modest means themselves, yet dedicated their lives to the care of the impoverished, especially children. Standing on a raised wooden platform in the school, which was a small board cabin built by Victor Ponsonaille himself, the Master lauded the Ponsonailles saying, "This is a great work you are doing for the love of God in this great day, through the power of Bahá'u'lláh. Your station is great. Your names will go down through all the ages. Kings and Queens have never been talked about and remembered as you will be."cvii 'Abdu'l-Bahá considered the poor and held them in His heart wherever he went, whoever He was with. Lady Blomfield reported that, for ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s first dinner in London, His hosts served a banquet. In those days, a banquet consisted of from six to sixteen courses including everything from clear soup and cream soup to a salad or perhaps more than one salad, fish, fowl, beef, several deserts, and cheese. The Master praised the congenial surroundings, and the flowers and fruit the guests brought Him, and which He distributed to everyone present. Then He remarked that He wished some of the dinner could be shared with poor and hungry people. After that, meals in His honor were greatly simplified, though fruit and flowers continued to arrive in quantity because everyone knew He loved giving them to friends.cviii 56 Justice When He was home, of course, most of the fruit and flowers the Master gave away came from His own garden, and these had the intense freshness, flavor and color so characteristic of crops in the Holy Land. Tudor-Pole described Him in His garden, “Although of a little less than medium height, Abdu’l Bahá made an impression on all who met him by his dignity, friendliness, and his aura of spiritual authority. His blue-grey eyes radiated a luminosity of their own and his hands were beautiful in their grace and healing magnetism. Even his movements were infused with a kind of radiance… I well remember him, majestic yet gentle, pacing up and down the garden whilst he spoke to me about eternal realities, at a time when the whole material world was rocking on its foundations. The power of the spirit shone through his presence.”cix This was the garden where the Master had planted trees, flowers and grapevines during the fraught period in 1905 when ships sent by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire — the famously insane, much feared tyrant ‘Abdu’l-Hamid — waited in Haifa Harbor, within the Master's view when He looked out from the windows or rooftop of His prison house, to carry Him away into exile or to His execution. The ships carried men who were the Sultan’s “Commission of Inquiry.” They were investigating the Master and His doings. The same enemies that incited the Vice-Governor to wear His Father’s robe and spectacles to mock HIm, also incited the Sultan against Him. Revolution was already afoot in Türkiye, so the Sultan was living in terror. Now he heard from the Master’s enemies that the mausoleum the Master was building on Mount Carmel was really a fortress. 57 Actually it was to shelter the remains of the Báb, who had been martyred in 1850 in Tabriz, Irán; the Bahá'ís had managed to preserve and guard His remains in Irán after His murder, and move them from place to place until they finally rested, hidden, in the house of the Master. The tomb would become the golden-domed Shrine of the Báb, the destined visitation site that is the heart of the Bahá'í gardens on Mount Carmel for pilgrims from all over the world. One of the three chief aims of the Master's ministry was to build that sacred tomb, and He would let nothing stand in His way. But the Sultan heard that the Master was storing up arms in there, had amassed an army of 30,000 to overthrow him, and was in league with foreign powers. During two years of tremendous pressure and danger, the Master not only planted and cultivated His garden, but imperturbably kept up His worldwide correspondence and did not allow the construction of the Shrine of The Báb to flag, although He Himself wasn’t free to visit the site. He also limited and circumscribed pilgrims’ visits, though He did allow some. He curtailed meetings in His house; sent His mail to be handled in Egypt rather than in Haifa; and safe-guarded Bahá'í Scriptures. But He made repairs to His house, although He only rented it, did not own it. Right before the second ship arrived, ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá dreamed about it sailing into the harbor and releasing “a number of birds in the shape of grenades” to fly “over the city. They soared from one part of town to another, yet the grenades did not detonate, and the birds returned to the ship." Once the Commissioners began visiting authorities and leveling accusations and threats, many formerly friendly people became hostile to the Master. They expected that any day He’d meet His end and they'd get in trouble if they’d been known to associate 58 with Him. ’Abdu'l-Bahá said His dream had come true, the grenades were flying. He advised the Bahá'ís to leave 'Akká for whatever suitable spot they could find. The Commission assigned a guard to the Master’s house and no one dared approach the place, not even the poor who used to come for alms on Fridays. The Commission carried out its tasks in 'Akká and Haifa, and the Master kept planting trees and flowers. This really angered His enemies. Why was He gardening and making home repairs when He was about to die? To intimidate Him, they rebuked Him, saying He hadn’t paid a courtesy call to the Commissioners: He was known for his hospitable welcomes to visitors who came to 'Akká, so why had He not welcomed the Sultan’s representatives? But the Master couldn’t be intimidated. Along with love, he championed justice, as defined by Baha´'u'lláh in The Hidden Words: "...by its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor... Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes."cx He said, “I have always been the first to offer hospitality to a newly-arrived official, regardless of rank, and you yourself know well my gentle and loving nature. But this Commission has come to prove the false accusations made in those testimonials against me, and therefore if I express any greetings… or … friendliness, they may mistakenly consider my motive to be fear, flattery and appeasement,” and thus conclude that He was guilty of the accusations. He also said, “It is not befitting for me to express such sentiments, for they should be allowed to conduct their investigation free from all influences. 'We rely on none but God.’”cxi 59 When someone came to His house and cruelly announced, “The decree has been issued: you will either be exiled to the deserts of Africa, or hanged in Jerusalem or drowned in the Mediterranean Sea,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá merely remarked meditatively, “The Mediterranean Sea… What an immense sepulcher!”cxii Meanwhile, the Italian Vice-Consul came secretly with his wife to visit the Master and said, "On the pretext of loading commercial freight I have kept an Italian ship in the port of ''Akká, and to ward off any suspicion I have told it to dock alternately at Haifa and ''Akká. At present the ship is at a preselected point between the two cities, and a small boat from the ship is currently at the shore in readiness. Time is short, the carriage is ready, there are no obstacles and the opportunity is at hand; therefore, it is best for the Master to accept to board the ship so that He may flee this tyranny and sail to whatever destination He chooses." But the Master, while grateful for this care and concern said, “The Báb and Bahá'u'lláh did not run away, and I will not run away.” Then the Commission’s ship began sailing to ‘'Akká. All would be lost, they would take ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá away. The Master’s family and friends wept, and the Master paced back and forth in an upstairs hallway of His house. Then the Commission’s ship suddenly turned and sailed off into the blue. They’d received a telegram: the Young Turk Revolution had broken out, the Sultan was dethroned; His despotic rule was at an end. The Master was out of danger, and His 40-year imprisonment was over.cxiii Yet the Master had always been free in spirit, and buoyed by faith in a bright future for humankind. After all, Bahá’u’lláh had prophesied to Edward G. Browne, noted British scholar of Middle Eastern Studies, and the first and only westerner to visit Him: 60 “…these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the Most Great Peace shall come”…cxiv 61 5. World Citizenship: The Eye of Justice "Forget Self and Work for the Whole Race..." Speaking of Bahá’u’lláh in a church in Brooklyn, New York, the Master recalled: “When subjected to banishment by two kings, while a refugee from enemies of all nations and during the days of His long imprisonment, He wrote to the kings and rulers of the world in words of wonderful eloquence… summoning them to the divine standard of unity and justice… that from all nations and governments.. there should be delegates selected for a congress of nations…”cxv However, when the Czar, the Shah, the Sultan, the Queen, the Emperor, the Kaiser, the Pope were deaf to His Message, Bahá’u’lláh lamented that, since the mass of humanity had no unifying guidance from its leaders, “The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction”…cxvi This despair, Shoghi Effendi later explained, produces “chaos and universal destruction” that “convulse(s) the nations, stir(s) the conscience of the world, disillusion(s) the masses.” Yet it will finally force leaders to establish a “Lesser Peace,” born not of love but of necessity. Nevertheless, the Lesser Peace will be a “momentous and historic step, involving the reconstruction of mankind, as the result of the universal recognition of its oneness and wholeness”cxvii… That’s how the Master saw human reality and destiny: light-filled, despite the . darkness of the present. Therefore, He advised, “Forget self and work for the whole race. Remember always that one is working for the world, not for a town or even for a country; because as all are brethren, so every country is, as it were, one’s own.”cxviii In around 1911, when the idea of a unified earth, as manifested now in embryonic bodies like the United Nations and the World Court, was just beginning its strenuous 62 (and ongoing) journey toward ultimate acceptance by the majority of humankind, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, writing to some 160 Bahá'ís in the remote village of Kishih, Irán, mentioned each of them by name and told them to look beyond their local, village troubles and see “the implications of unity on a global scale.” They were cut off from the social, technological and intellectual developments stirring the young century, living under a hostile, authoritarian patriarchy, yet He summoned each of them justice -- to see with their own eyes, hear with their own ears -- for that was their sovereign right and a basic principle of their Faith: the independent investigation of truth. He gave them guidance on how to consult together to decide their affairs with justice, equity, and the well-spring of goodness: love. So they’d create a community that could help transform the world.cxix World Citizenship, Human Unity He called upon the villagers of Kishih, remote though they were from the main world stage, to behave as world citizens. At around the same time that He wrote to them, He received a guest from America named Louis Gregory, whom He cherished very much. Louis was an African-American lawyer, son and grandson of slaves, from the deep South, who had become a Bahá'í in 1908. At that time, when a person became a Bahá’í she wrote to the Master, and He always replied. The Master wrote to Louis addressing him as a “wooer of truth” and saying “I hope that thou mayest become the means whereby the white and colored people shall close their eyes to racial differences and behold the reality of humanity: And that is the universal reality which is the oneness of the kingdom of the human race.” He told Louis to ignore his own limitations, to concentrate on God’s power and resign himself to God’s will, “so that thou mayest become the cause of the Guidance of both races.”cxx 63 Louis, who lived in Washington, DC, was a natural activist. He immediately went to his hometown in South Carolina and began to teach his Bahá'í beliefs, championing oneness, thus starting on the path that he followed for some 50 years despite the danger he faced as a black man in racially segregated, volatile and violent America. When he came to the Master three years later he was already something of a legend among the Bahá'ís. He was only the second African-American Bahá'í to visit the Master. The first one, Robert Turner, arrived over a decade earlier, in 1898, with the first group of western pilgrims to ‘'Akká. Robert had been born a slave in 1858. At the time when he became a Bahá'í, he was Phoebe Hearst’s butler; she had funded the pilgrimage and of course was one of the group. Robert had earlier sent his photo with a letter to the Master, declaring his faith, and had received an eloquent reply, yet after mounting the stairs to the room where the Master awaited the pilgrims, Robert stayed outside the threshold. The Master left the room and went out in the hall to Robert, who “dropped upon his knees” (Louis Gregory later wrote) “and exclaimed: ‘My Lord! My Lord! I am not worthy to be here!’ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá raised him to his feet, and embraced him like a loving father.”cxxi Robert was posthumously honored, along with 18 others, by being named a Disciple of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Some 13 years after Robert Turner's pilgrimage, the Master’s greeting to Louis Gregory was no less loving. At the time of Louis’ visit, the Master was in Ramleh, Egypt, where doctors had advised Him to take the air for His life-long respiratory troubles. When Louis entered the suite where the Master greeted visitors in a villa by the sea, and the Master welcomed him, Louis felt, he later reported: “the weariness of the long 64 journey, the suspense and excitement of landing for the first time at an Oriental port,” had vanished. He felt “peaceful… composed.” Almost the first thing The Master said to Louis was: “What of the conflict between the white and colored races?” Louis gave a pacific but honest answer: even among the Bahá'ís, he admitted, there were those who weren’t very willing to overlook racial differences, although most hoped unity will be established. Later, when Louis and the Master discussed the sad situation of racial prejudice among the Bahá’ís in Washington, Louis observed: “Although the expressive and beautiful face of ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá was nearly always joyful during my stay at Ramleh, here was a glimpse of Him who carries the burden of the world. Like One of old, how truly must such an one be ‘a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.’” That quote comes from the passage in the Bible, well known to Louis from his devout Christian upbringing, as “The Suffering Servant.” As their first conversation drew to a close, the Master shook Louis’ hand and arranged for him to have supper with an Iránian friend, impressing upon Louis that he was not to be shy but go everywhere, among all people. But Louis did feel shy: sitting with friends from around the world at the supper, he felt like an imposter. He finally told them he thought their courtesies “out of proportion” to his “station” for he was only of “humble rank among Americans.” They, like the Master, would not hear of this. Louis began to learn to think of himself and function as a citizen of the world, fully equal to his fellow citizens, like everyone else on earth.cxxii But the Master well knew the oppression and pain Louis suffered. Bahá'u'lláh’s bondage and chains, exile from His homeland, and His imprisonment during the 19th 65 Century paralleled the sufferings of Louis’ grandmother and other Africans shipped to America as slaves. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, too, was an exile and had been chained, imprisoned, stoned, insulted; He'd watched loved ones get killed, succumb to illness, get wrenched away from each other.cxxiii Louis had a philosophy he’d learned from his grandmother: “It’s better to be lighthearted than broken-hearted,” and, as we’ve read, ‘Abdu'l-Bahá encouraged the star of happiness to shine brightly in every heart. So the Master could look into Louis’ eyes and recognize his strength and resilience, his ability to endure the unendurable and love the unloveable. As a true friend, the Master saw into Louis’ heart, saw his great potential, and helped him release it, encouraging him, as He encouraged all of us, to “be calm, be strong, be grateful, and become a lamp full of light, that the darkness of sorrows be annihilated… that the sun of everlasting joy arise from the dawning-place of heart and soul, shining brightly.”cxxiv "That Which is Assured is the Oneness of the World of Humanity" He knew that His Father had given to all the Baha’s, and, through them, to all the world, the mandate of justice as well as love. To really perceive and believe in the oneness of humanity and champion it in a world so violently fighting against it, a person must have an extra measure of courage and strength. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá promised divine assistance to those who are just, who uphold oneness, no matter who they are. “That which is confirmed is the oneness of the world of humanity. Every soul who serveth this oneness will undoubtedly be assisted and confirmed.”cxxv Justice based on love creates peace. As the New Testament says, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”cxxvi To make peace, a man must often make waves. To create unity, 66 a woman must often disturb the so-called peace that rests on a unity born of cow-like adherence to herd prejudices. To champion oneness, detachment from current norms of separation and disunity is vital. Bahá'u'lláh wrote: O CHILDREN OF MEN! Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other. Ponder at all times in your hearts how ye were created. Since We have created you all from one same substance it is incumbent on you to be even as one soul, to walk with the same feet, eat with the same mouth and dwell in the same land, that from your inmost being, by your deeds and actions, the signs of oneness and the essence of detachment may be made manifest. Such is My counsel to you, O concourse of light! Heed ye this counsel that ye may obtain the fruit of holiness of the tree of wondrous glory.”cxxvii We can ponder that Hidden Word, that summons to a just society, very pleasantly and discuss it in forums, but its real power is evident in “deeds and actions” that come from our “inmost being.” Pauline Hannen, of Washington, DC and Doris McKay of Geneva, NY, exemplified instant obedience to this summons. Both were white women, raised with engrained racial prejudice. Pauline, a southerner from a family of German immigrants, had been taught to distrust and fear people of color. Doris, a northerner, had grown up with the iron-bound belief that she must never cross “the color line”. Neither woman had ever questioned her prejudice. Upon becoming Bahá'ís — Pauline in 1902, in Washington, DC, and Doris in 1925, in Geneva, New York — they heard and heeded the summons to oneness. Pauline, a petite young woman who looked younger than her years — she was married with two sons — immediately brought the Bahá'í teachings home to her husband and family but wondered how she could serve African-Americans. One day she was walking down the street in a snowfall and saw an African-American woman walking 67 towards her, her arms laden with packages, her shoelaces untied. Obviously, she couldn’t stop to tie her laces without dumping her parcels in the snow. Pauline knelt before her and tied her shoelaces. She later said that the woman probably though she was crazy, but she felt compelled to act. With her husband, Joseph, she became a pillar of the Washington Bahá'í community, fearlessly championing oneness. She was the first Bahá'í Louis Gregory met, and he became a Bahá'í in her home. Doris McKay, who became a Bahá'í one evening along with her husband Willard, didn’t sleep at all that night because she realized she had to overthrow her racial prejudice. Willard had always believed in the unity of humanity and in fact had actively challenged the “color line” more than once. He slept well, but Doris got out of bed and prayed determinedly (and somewhat fearfully, she admitted) for her heart to open. In the morning, she felt renewed and indeed she was. She and Willard became stalwart pioneers of integration in the Bahá'í community and in the community at large, and treasured co-workers of Louis Gregory’s. From the moment that Louis became a Bahá'í, he acted. One of his first deeds was to meet with the all-White committee that steered Bahá'í events in Washington: Louis understood correctly that every Bahá'í event was to be integrated. He himself had attended integrated events held by the Bahá'ís in Washington, but these took place at the Hannens' home, in the homes of African American Bahá'ís, and in venues belonging to African American organizations. However, though the committee was pleasant enough, they did not move to integrate all Bahá'í meetings in Washington. African American Baha'is continued to face betrayal where they had been promised inclusion. 68 Yet Louis persevered. It was fully evident to him, as it was to the Master, that division, estrangement, separation are manmade lies; the Creator's truth is unity. Bahá'í Standards are not the World's Standards The Master knew that in the U.S. white people were privileged by law and custom above people of color, and, to some of them, even His tea-toned skin was considered "colored." His exotic Eastern appearance, with His Persian garb, was seen by some as attractive, but others mocked Him for it despite His distinguished persona. Yet, with His unshakeable inner freedom, no prejudice intimidated Him. His talks in the U.S. addressed abolishing prejudices of all kinds, mostly focusing on race prejudice. He said “the realm of humanity will not find rest” until prejudices are abolished. “Discord and bloodshed will be increased day by day, and the foundation of the prosperity of the world of man will be destroyed” if equality is not established in law and in the hearts. He was never happier than when addressing a diverse gathering of people: at the home of Andrew and Lydia Dyer, an African-American Bahá’í couple in Washington, DC, he said the assemblage of vari-colored faces was like “a string of gleaming pearls and rubies.”cxxviii He frequently said humanity was a garden of varied flowers, beautiful and fascinating for its diversity of color and form. At a time when intermarriage was aginst the law and could put its practitioners in mortal danger inmuch of the U.S., he recommended it as a way of eradicating prejudice from hearts and minds, because the children of such marriages couldn’t help but be accepted in their families and into the human family, eventually becoming the very face of humanity. A look at population statistics for countries that have been considered majority-white bears out the change, the trend towards a non-white majority. The Master en- 69 couraged the Bahá’ís to inter-marry and was the match-maker for Louis Gregory’s marriage to the white British Bahá'í Louisa Matthew in 1912; it was a successful marriage of equals lasting some 40 years. That same year, in Washington, DC, at an important luncheon in the ambassadorial mansion of Ali Kuli Khan, a Bahá'í who was Persia’s representative in the U.S., 'Abdu'l-Bahá also involved Louis in social action for equality. While Khan’s wife and her staff prepared the dining room, the Master was in the parlor, and He said he wanted to have a talk with Louis Gregory. But Louis wasn't present. He hadn’t been invited to the luncheon, although Louis was a leader in Washington’s Black community. ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá told Khan to send for him. Then luncheon was announced. ’Abdu'l-Bahá was conversing with Louis in the parlor, and He kept conversing. However, finally, He had to proceed to the dining room. The guests -- all white -- had been standing at the table, awaiting Him. He sat down in the throne-like armchair reserved for him. The guests sat down. The Master stood up. “Where is Mr. Gregory? Bring Mr. Gregory.” Louis, trying to discreetly exit the mansion, hadn’t yet made it out the door. Khan found him and brought him into the dining room. The table was set according to protocol, but the Master rearranged everything with a place and a chair for Louis. He seated a regal lady in His throne-like chair and chose another chair for Himself, seating Louis by his side. Remarking that he was very happy to have Mr. Gregory there, he gave a talk on human oneness. None of the guests, many of them Bahá’ís, didn’t report the Master’s radical act — one of them merely said that the Master “saw fit to rearrange the places of some of 70 the guests.” Louis himself didn’t report it until years later in his (unpublished) manuscript, Racial Amity. Louis' good friend Harlan Ober told the story when he wrote Louis’ obituary.cxxix Louis learned transformational life lessons from the Master, because he gave all his heart to the lessons, and was always conscious that his source of strength was a Cause much greater than himself, never publicizing himself or letting pride, anger or hurt feelings overcome him. Writing of racial amity, Louis voiced the hope and vision he’d absorbed from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Earth and air, fire and water, the stars in their courses, the high tide of destiny and the will of divine Providence are all arrayed against the forces of oppression.”cxxx Louis said that the Master was “able to make all things fruitful,”cxxxi and his own goal was to be like that. He was aware that that, because of his closeness to the Master, he was able to transmit something of the quality of the Master’s love to people — he said in a letter: “Please convey my dearest love, the Master’s love, to your household and to all the dear friends,” and that was a sentiment he often repeated and enacted as he made his way through a dark and troubled world.cxxxii Yet he’d also learned from the Master never to compromise on justice even while conveying kindness. The Master’s standards were Bahá’í standards, not the world’s. Human Solidarity is Greater than Equality In Paris, the Master was in… a hotel (and) “among those who often came to see Him was a poor, black man. He was not a Bahá’í, but he loved the Master… One day when he came to visit, someone told him that the management did not like to have him… come, because it was not consistent with the standards of the hotel. The… man 71 went away. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá learned of this, He sent for the… (person) responsible,” told him to find the man and bring him back. “He said, ‘I did not come to see expensive hotels or furnishings, but to meet My friends. I did not come to Paris to conform to the customs of Paris, but to establish the standard of Bahá’u’lláh.’”cxxxiii In Washington DC, many white Bahá'ís upheld the city’s racial segregation, opposing multiracial gatherings. They knew ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá insisted they have them, but they disobeyed Him: they hoped He only meant they should have such gatherings in the future. When the Master wanted to host a Unity Feast in Washington, the planning committee selected an exclusive hotel that was known for its refusal to admit people of color. African-American Bahá'ís decided not to attend and so avoid confrontations and conflict. The Master insisted that they be present, and he prevailed. All of his guests, of all skin tones, sat side-by-side in the segregated hotel which had to drop its color bar at least on that day.cxxxiv For all His mildness, His peaceable metaphors, in His public proclamations, the Master was severely clear about what would happen if world unity wasn’t established. He said, “Until these prejudices [racial, political, religious, patriotic] are entirely removed from the people of the world, the realm of humanity will not find rest. Nay, rather, discord and bloodshed will be increased day by day, and the foundation of the prosperity of the world of man will be destroyed.” Back home in Haifa, He remarked, “…in America, I told the white and coloured people that it was incumbent upon them to be united or else there would be the shedding of blood. I did not say more than this so that they might not be saddened. But, in- 72 deed, there is a greater danger than only the shedding of blood. It is the destruction of America.”cxxxv He used the term “human solidarity.” He wrote to the Pittsburgh steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie, after receiving from him a copy of his book The Gospel of Wealth: “Human Solidarity is greater than ‘Equality.’ Equality is obtained, more or less, through coercion (or legislation) but ‘Human Solidarity’ is realized through the exercise of free will.”cxxxvi He used the term “race amity,” signifying a friendship deeper than a mere handshake, a friendship of reconciliation, forgiveness, love. He was painfully aware the ongoing persecution of African Americans in the U.S., the periodic eruption of crises amounting to race wars. In 1919 race relations reached such a pass that “no place was safe for any African Americans and friends who ventured to help them… Even if they were within doors at home, or riding a tram, whites went looking for people of color and dragged them out into the street. In most places, police refused to intervene and black people fought their own battles, often against armed militia units. In Bisbee, Arizona, the police themselves attacked the 10th U.S. Cavalry, an all-Black unit in existence since 1866.cxxxvii "A Convention in Washington for Amity" The summer of 1919 was called the Red Summer but that season of race war lasted longer than one summer. Mabry and Sadie Oglesby, an African American Bahá'í couple in Boston, Massachusetts, suggested, among other remedies, a “Conference initiated by Bahá'ís calling together leaders of races, churches, groups”… The Master told the Bahá'ís of the U.S. to organize Race Amity Conferences, and He chose a 73 wealthy Washington socialite, a Bahá'í named Agnes Parsons, to spearhead the process. The Bahá'ís were amazed. Agnes Parsons? She was kind, helpful, had been a wonderful hostess to ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá during His visit to Washington, but she wasn’t exactly a firebrand. However, when she visited Him in Haifa in 1920, He told her, “I want you to arrange a convention in Washington for amity between the colored and the white.” Agnes later said she felt she’d “like to go through the floor, because I did not feel I could do it.” The Master continued, “You must have people to help you.” And that was it. He gave her no other directions. She didn’t ask for more, although she hadn’t the foggiest notion of what to do, but she must have assumed doors would open, and they did. By May 19, 1921, when the Convention opened, she had the famous African American philosopher and writer Alain Locke to chair it, a senator and two congressmen to join a roster of influential speakers, the Howard University choir to sing, and a crowd of up to 2,000 for every session. One of them, an African American man, wrote to Agnes Parsons, “… Many times throughout the meeting I did with much effort restrain my tears. My heart leaped and throbbed and many times almost burst within my breast…” ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá wrote to Agnes, “Thank thou God that thou art the first person who established a Race Convention…”cxxxviii He had only instructed her to organize the conference and said that she must have helpers, and that had been enough, because the key to her success, at it turned out, was in those helpers, friends who introduced her to the speakers and artists she needed, and carried out an impressive public relations campaign. On a deeper level, the 74 key was in her heart, as the Master used to say, “Find the answer to your questions in your heart.” She later recollected that on her visit to Haifa in 1920 she felt more and more faith each day that she’d be able to fulfill His wishes, and so it happened. Hers was another heart — like Pauline Hannen’s, Doris McKay’s, Louis Gregory’s — transformed by embracing the principle of oneness as the bedrock of justice, and obeying that principle. The Master’s great soul enabled Him to guide His friends to do great deeds, but only if they were willing to be guided, and then, only if they built their faith not on Him but on their belief in and service to His father and His father’s teachings. That was what He himself did, for He was the Servant of Glory. 75 6. In Galilee, 1907: Impressions of Life with the Master Like a Son Welcomed to His Father's Side “All of his words,” Thornton Chase wrote of the Master in his memoir, In Galilee, “are directed toward helping men to live and always with some teaching of unity.”cxxxix Chase's memoir tells of his sojourn with the Master in the Spring of 1907, in ''Akká. He felt personally transformed by the Master's Christlike Spirit, thus the title of his book, for ''Akká and Haifa are located in the region where Christ famously taught the fishermen and walked on the waters of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Tiberias). Thornton Chaise, immortalized as the first American Bahá'í, began his adventures in life as a 17-year old captain of Black troops in the Union Army in the Civil War (he lied about his age), and continued as a gold prospector, actor, singer (basso profundo), writer and magician among other things. By the time he learned about the Bahá'í Faith in Chicago in 1893, he was a tall, portly, middle-aged man with a big white walrus mustache, and had become an insurance salesman. When he went to Galilee, he was in his 60s, yet, with the Master said he felt like a son welcomed to his father’s side. This feeling of belonging and family was the Master’s gift to all who met him, whether they could appreciate it or not. Thornton Chase appreciated it. It's April 8, “a bright, cool day,” Chase reports, when the Egyptian steamer Assuan sails into the bay of the ancient port of Jaffa, Syria, on the Mediterranean Sea. Around the old ship, fishing boats bob, their sails glinting, as Chase and a small party of American Bahá'ís — Carl Scheffler, and Mary and Arthur Agnew with their infant son — stand at the rails for their first sight of the Holy Land. The yellow stone walls of Jaffa 76 glow in white light, rising against blue water, extending into blue sky. Houses with royallooking domes and verandas bedeck a golden hillside fringed with palms, and here and there a minaret pokes gracefully upward.cxl 27-year old Carl Scheffler will go on to serve for many years on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of the U.S. while working as an artist-illustrator and instructor: his murals still grace the walls of Haven Art School and other schools in Evanston, Illinois. The young couple, the Agnews, have already helped establish the Bahá'í Publishing Society in New York and brought out quite a few translations of Bahá'í Scripture as well as informational literature. The Bahá'is are among a cosmopolitan crowd of passengers from east and west, of all classes and ethnicities, From Jaffa, the ship sails north to Haifa along a rocky coast backed by green slopes and distant blue hills. Soon Chase catches sight of “the bold front” of Mt. Carmel and the “white walls” of 'Akká rising over the “turquoise sea.” The ship passes Carmel, turns inland, and the small city of Haifa becomes visible on the northern side of the mountain. At 5 p.m., the steamer anchors in the bay as a fleet of light boats from various landing companies race toward her, competing for passengers. The boats shoot up and plunge down in the surging sea as oarsmen shout lustily and lurch from their seats with the power of their rowing. The Cook’s travel agency crew wins the competition, literally capturing Chase’s party. Each passenger must navigate “slippery steps on the ship’s side to a little landing platform." The light boat “rises on a wave to meet the platform” and an Arab oarsman “seizes (the passenger) in his arms, holds him as the boat sinks down on the surge and bears him to a seat.” At the landing place, waves lift the boat to the dock and the passenger is again lifted in the arms of an oarsman and deposited ashore.cxli 77 The little Bahá'í group overnights in a hospice run by German Catholic nuns and the next day the Agnews go on to 'Akká while Chase and Scheffler move to Hotel Pross, atop Mount Carmel, in the German Colony established in Haifa in 1843 by Templars expecting the Return of Christ. Most of the lintels on the sturdy Templar buildings of golden Jerusalem limestone are inscribed “Der Herr ist Nahe”, the Lord is Nigh.cxlii At the hotel, Chase and Scheffler relax among fellow travelers who afd discussing “the New Prophet” — the Master, whose house in 'Akká one of the ladies has just visited. She reports that ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá spoke to her kindly and gave her a rose. Voices clash as the travelers exchange opinions about the veracity of “the new Prophet” and someone announces she’s heard that “Americans sometimes come all the way there expressly to visit Him and receive His teachings.” She wonders “how they can be such fools.” She assumes they bring him lots of money.cxliii The two Bahá'ís mutely listen, though they long to speak. But they’d been told they’ll endanger the Master and other Bahá'ís of the area if they discuss Him and their journey to see Him. At last, on April 12, at 7:00 on a bright morning, they’re on their way, riding in a Cook’s travel agency open carriage with three horses abreast. They follow a “good hard road” with views of “snow-turbaned Hermon” and the purple hills of Lebanon in the distance. Then “down the rocky sides” of Carmel among stone-walled terraces planted with olives and grapes, figs and vegetables. Where meadows grow, abundant wildflowers scent the air: daisies, forget-me-nots, sweet peas, lilies, roses and myriad red poppies. The coach heads toward the blue Mediterranean with its white sand and surf, then out the eastern gate of Haifa onto the beach.cxliv 78 It’s a 9-mile drive along the Mediterranean with the horses’ hoofs splashing in the waves. They cross two rivers that run into the sea and sometimes the water reaches the tops of the carriage wheels as the horses strain to pull it from sandbar to sandbar. They pass other carriages, pedestrians, goats, pack trains of donkeys and camels, fishing boats, fishermen. Then down a roadway lined with shade trees to a gate in the outermost city walls, through a crowded market, through another gate in a second wall, into the city. A rabble, recognizing the carriage as foreign, mobs them, throwing stones, and pursues them through the twisted streets that are hardly wide enough for the three horses. At the Master’s house, the carriage driver chases the rabble away, the two Americans alight and a small welcoming party of Persian men leads them through an arched, red brick entrance to “a long flight of stone steps, broken and ancient, leading to the highest story and into a small walled court open to the sky.” Soon they’re in their room, a small, plain chamber which “adjoins the room of ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá.”cxlv The chamber wis no doubt similar to the one where Arthur and Mary Agnew are staying with their son. Agnew will write in his brief remembrance, In Spirit and in Truth, published in the same volume with In Galilee, “…In reality we were living in a prison”… The pilgrims only left their rooms “to go into the dining room adjoining or into the little walled-in court scarcely larger than our room — all on the upper story. Our room was clean and neat but very plain and simple. There was a straw matting over the stone floor and over this in the center under the little table was thrown a Persian rug. On either side of the room was a single iron bedstead and along the end of the room was a low divan covered with white muslin. In one corner on the plain, board walls were some 79 hooks for hanging clothes and in the other stood an iron wash stand with towels. The center table held, each day, a fresh and beautiful bouquet of flowers and at night a lamp was lit and placed upon it…The walls, the floor, the stairs were stone, worn by age and chipped and broken by the elements…”cxlvi The house is all stone, plastered and white-washed, and from their window Chase and Scheffler see the city walls manned by armed soldiers and a sentry box in one corner; the sentry keeps watch day and night. On another side looms the house of the governor. The Mediterranean is also visible, and the garden with its tent where ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá meets with callers who come to Him for advice, counsel, instruction, direction, and often for alms. Two English-speaking Persian Bahá'ís sit with the two newly-arrived pilgrims, awaiting the Master. Suddenly they hear someone cry out that He’s coming. He enters the room “with free, striding step,” calling, “Marhaba!” Welcome. He embraces and kisses His visitors, seats them on a divan along the wall and himself sits down on the bed, tucking one foot under him, It’s like a family reunion as he chats with them, asking if they’re well and happy, but they can hardly speak, they’re so overcome with emotion. After a pregnant while, He grasps their hands and goes out, along with the Persians. Chase and Scheffler feel completely at home, “as though we had always known him.” Trying to describe him, Chase says he’s of “medium height” though he seems tall — and Chase himself is a very tall man. He has a “light brown complexion,” “silvery white beard and mustache,” wears a fez with a white turban wound around it. His face is strong with an aquiline nose and thick white brows, penetrating eyes that are brown with 80 a blue circle around the iris that sometimes makes them look completely blue. “He has the stride and freedom of a king — or a shepherd,” His stride and posture eloquent of authority and capability, his manner “free and unstilted.” Most people are deferential to him, reacting to his kingliness, but he doesn’t demand deference. On the contrary, Chase says, “he draws near to them, he invites them; he loves to serve them, even in little things.” He can be abrupt, but “there’s no aloofness in him; he invites all to be prisoners of love and fellow servants of humanity with him.”cxlvii At the noon meal, Chase and Scheffler are again with the Master along with various eastern Bahá'ís. When all are served at the large, long table the Master says “Bismu’llah” — “In the Name of God”, by way of blessing, and while they eat he teaches, often answering questions the pilgrims carry in their hearts but have not yet spoken. God's Ways are not Our Ways The days of their pilgrimage now begin to unfold, every moment a gift for infinite remembrance. One morning ‘Abdu’l-Bahá comes to Chase and Scheffler's room, asks how they are, and if they slept well. His face is "wonderfully clear and shining, fresh like water," as Chase describes it. He invites them into His adjoining room. It's small, furnished only with an iron bed, table and divan. He gives each man a photograph of the Castle of Maku in Irán, one of the prisons where The Báb was confined. At Chase's request, He takes Chase's fountain pen and writes on the back of each picture,"A gift from ‘Abdu'l-Bahá." Then He looks at the pen and says, "The battle axe must fit the hand of the wielder.’”cxlviii 81 The Master was a great wielder of pens, the author of weighty documents and books, such as The Tablets of the Divine Plan, A Traveller's Narrative, Memorials of the Faithful, and more. Besides that, His correspondence was voluminous, and He carefully writes replies to every letter He receives, to knit the Bahá'ís together in what Chase refers to as a “triune of heavenly oneness” which is “love, service and unity.” cxlix Though this scene isn’t related by Thornton Chase but reported by a Persian pilgrim, it’s worth relating here: One afternoon, the Master was in His biruni (meeting room) with a group of Bahá’ís and visitors, and He was writing a Tablet as He spoke with Iránian Bahá’ís in Farsi, with some ‘Akká officials in Arabic and with Ottoman army officers in Turkish. He kept writing as the guests kept asking Him questions and He answered every one of them. This wasn’t an unusual circumstance for Him, but a scene that played out daily in His life with the flow of spiritual genius illuminating His every act. According to Chase’s fellow pilgrim, Arthur Agnew, the Master said He was but “the servant and reflector of the spirit of Bahá'u'lláh, that it was in Him the Great Light shown…” One evening, after answering questions sent by American friends while the pilgrims wrote the answers down, the Master said, “Now… let us visit together.” He asked Arthur to come sit beside him on the divan, encircled him with his arm “…as a father would a child,” pressed his brow to Arthur’s brow and spoke “words of love and encouragement.” Arthur said, “There was no barrier between him and me save the barrier of my own limitation. The ocean of love was flowing, the cup of my heart was full…” He lamented, “I realize my utter lack of power to express in words this wonderful spirit… to my own self I must admit my failure for when I attempt to describe (it)… my words do 82 not describe it to myself…”cl He knew that “were it possible ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá wishes he might meet every loving soul in the world…” In the presence of the Master, Chase recognizes, “The feeling possessed us that the Day of God’s triumph was shining, that we were admitted as humble factors in his work of gladness, and the might of man’s bondage to the tyranny of self was being illumined by the Glory of God. Fear and trembling vanished…”cli A “heavenly atmosphere” like an ocean of fragrance and peace… penetrated through and through to the centers of beings. This atmosphere is a reality… It is not an imagination, nor is it due to excitement or enthusiasm. It is a cognizable fact which enters the life and remains with him who strives to do the will of God… It is felt by everyone in some degree (in the presence of the Master), even by opposers and strangers. It is a great shield and protection…” Yet it’s mysterious and we must conclude, with Chase, that its power is that greatest mystery: love. “God’s ways are not our ways,” Chase reflects.clii But some pale imitation of them can become our ways, through loving hearts and loving conduct, enriching ourselves with the Master’s example. Detachment was key to the Master’s peaceable calm that kept Him “imperturbable in the face of tests.” Thornton Chase said, “A great lesson impressed upon us (during our pilgrimage) was the waste of time and strength in observing and struggling with the little things, the annoyances, the actions or efforts of opposers, the disagreeables, which crowd against us in life. Rather should we look only at the good, sure in confidence that the worthless will fade away and that it is powerless against the valuable… this means to overcome evil with good, to heed not personal desires and ambitions, but rather… to serve the good in others and veil the evil in them”… 83 Chase observed that the Master taught His acolytes to seek unity… “open-armed unity, seeking oneness of will, of purpose and of work with all other groups… Some money was offered to ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá. He took the gold in his hand, held it for a moment and then passed it back, saying: ‘Give this to the poor, the very, very poor. Do not discriminate in favor of any one sect or people, but give to all.’”cliii Yet as Chase leaves the Master’s house to begin his journey back to the U.S., he feels he has “descended from a realm of happiness, peace and light to an underworld of greed and strife.” He's never before perceived so strongly “the ignorance and animalism which possesses men.” He's repulsed -- but then notices the sicknesses, burdens and griefs afflicting the mass of people in the city and the repulsion is replaced with “a longing tenderness”… a desire to serve them, along with an increased consciousness of how blessed has been his sojourn in Galilee.cliv 84 7. To Give and Be Generous: Sacrifice, its Blessings and Mysteries The Midnight Sighing of the Poor “O CHILDREN OF DUST!” the Hidden Words commands, “Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, and deprive them of the Tree of Wealth. To give and to be generous are attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My virtues.”clv The Master said, “Our hope is in the mercy of God, and there is no doubt that the divine compassion is bestowed upon the poor. Jesus Christ said so; Bahá'u'lláh said so." Speaking of the two years Bahá'u'lláh spent in the mountains of Kurdistan, He went on, "While Bahá'u'lláh was in Baghdád, still in possession of great wealth, He left all He had and went alone from the city, living two years among the poor. They were His comrades. He ate with them, slept with them and gloried in being one of them. He chose for one of His names the title of The Poor One and often in His Writings refers to Himself as Darvish, which in Persian means poor; and of this title He was very proud. He admonished all that we must be the servants of the poor, helpers of the poor, remember the sorrows of the poor, associate with them; for thereby we may inherit the Kingdom of heaven.”clvi Giving and being generous were as natural to the Master as breathing. The noted author Marzieh Gail, in describing an old photograph of Him with three very small children — herself, her brother and her toddler sister — pointed out that He was feed- 85 ing candy to the toddler like a mother bird feeds its nestling: because it can’t help it, its natural instinct is to provide, to nourish and sustain, to give. We may assume the toddler was happy with the candy! But not everyone was happy with the Master’s gifts, because some people aren’t happy with anything. When winter came, the Master gave abás (cloaks) to the poor. He often gave his own clothing away, keeping little for Himself; He said why should He have excess when so many people had none? He even had cloaks and capes specially made for needy people and fitted them with His own hands. One day a government official asked the Master to give him an `aba. "I have only this `aba, which I am wearing, I will gladly give it to you," 'Abdu'l-Bahá said. But the official didn't like that 'aba; it wasn't good enough, he wanted a better one. "I do not possess a better one but if you wish," said the Master, "I will give you money to buy a good 'aba for yourself." The official wasn't happy with that, either, so 'Abdu'l-Bahá promised He'd buy him a new one and meanwhile gave him the old one (leaving Himself with no 'aba at all). Nevertheless, the official, who had already occupied himself with slandering the Master and falsely accusing Him of all sorts of misdeeds, continued to slander and accuse while also tightening the rules of His imprisonment, making His wardens more stringent and trying to keep people from meeting Him. In the midst of his plotting and scheming, he offended another official, who accused him, to a prominent authority, of treacheries against the Sultanate. So the official (with his two 'abas, one assumes) was arrested and transported to Beirut, and nothing more was heard of him in ''Akká.clvii 86 But whether people were grateful or ungrateful, the Master helped them. Every week on Fridays the poor flocked to his house for money and food. If He’d heard about suitable employment, He gave information about that to the ones who were able to work. If they were sick, He went to them where they lived, whatever the day and no matter how unpleasant the surroundings. He kept a doctor on call for them. He always wanted to ascertain their progress (or lack of it), and provide food for them. Beds were scarce in ‘Akká and Haifa: He gave away bedding, sometimes His own, and often ended up sleeping on the floor of His austere room. He felt there was no reason for Him to live in relative ease when so many people had nothing. If a person with no resources died, He made sure of a proper burial. When Giving = Forgiving He didn’t only help the poor, he cared for fallen people who had nowhere else to turn, even if they had once been in power and had persecuted Him. One such enemy was an ‘Akká governor who decided to shut down all Bahá'í-owned shops, and sent his police to requisition the keys. But the Master, aware of this not-so-secret plot, warned the Bahá’ís not to open their shops that day. Usually, because of hot weather, shops opened at 7:00 a.m., so, by 8:00 the governor was eagerly awaiting the keys. Since the shops never opened, the police couldn’t get the keys. By 10:00 the governor was angry and confounded: why hadn’t his plan worked? Finally, the police came to him, but not because they had the keys. They came to remove him to another town because authorities telegraphed saying he’d lost the governorship and must leave the city. 87 Word went around that the governor was gathering up his belongings and preparing to go. The Master went to see him and asked how He could help. The man asked the Master to look after his children. When the time came the Master provided money so the family could join the ex-governor and He sent an escort with them to insure a safe journey. The governor, unlike the man who wanted the abá, saw the error of his ways and wrote the Master: “I pray you pardon me. I did not understand you. I did not know you.”clviii To know the Master was to know that He would always consider others before Himself. When he gave to the poor on Fridays, they gathered outside his house and often pushed and shoved, grabbing things, leaving His hands torn and bleeding after He distributed alms. This didn’t stop him; in fact, he forgave them before it happened. As we've seen, while on His travels, the Master didn't stop donating to the needy, with a particular tenderness for children. One day, as friends drove him in a touring car through a beautiful region of Switzerland, they stopped at a country inn to have tea, and when they got out of the car about fifteen children came running to the Master, holding out bunches of violets, calling to Him to buy the flowers. The Master bought every bouquet. But the children held out their hands for more money. A woman in the Master’s entourage told them sternly, “He has given to you.” She was even rather stern with the Master, making sure He left the children and went inside for some refreshment. After tea, however, there were the children with their hands out. Again the woman ordered them to leave Him alone. But He looked into the face of a small child on the edge of the crowd and said: “I haven’t yet given to that one.” He gently put money into the child’s hand.clix 88 When ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá was in the U.S., He was walking early one morning outside His hotel in Dublin, New Hampshire, and he saw an old tramp coming down the street toward Him. The tramp’s clothes were completely ragged, as if he’d been sleeping under bridges or by the road. The Master took the tramp’s hand and spoke to him very gently, trying to impart happiness, but the old man remained cast down. Finally, he gave a small smile. Then the Master went into the shadows of the hotel porch, reached up under his long robes and his cloak, removed his own trousers, came forth and gave his trousers to the man. In another instance, back home in Haifa, among some roses on Mount Carmel, the Master saw a very old Bahá’í with stooped shoulders and long beard. “This is my friend,” he said, introducing the old man to His guests. “He looked just as old 40 years ago when he came to this blessed spot for the first time. Now he has come never to leave.” He asked the old man, “Are you well and happy? How can you descend and ascend this mountain every day?” Peering at the old man’s worn and none-too-clean abá, He asked, “Haven’t you received your new overcoat? I bought one for you. I will send it up for you. Man must always keep his clothes clean and spotless.” The old man said, “I am not particular about my material clothes, but the robe of the virtue of God is necessary for us.” The Master agreed, “You’re right. Believers in God must ever strive to clothe their spiritual bodies with the garment of the virtue of God, the robe of the fear of God, and the vesture of the love of God. Such robes will never be threadbare… they will never be out of fashion… They are the means of the adornment of the temple of man and woman. But the outward raiment must also be clean and immaculate, so that the outer 89 may be a fair expression of the inner. Cleanliness is one of the fundamental laws of this religion.”clx How could the Master maintain love and patience with people who often acted ungraciously, greedily, gracelessly? He once told someone that in every face, he saw the face of His Father. Howard Colby Ives felt this when he met the Master in 1912 in New York City. He describes an incident that was especially transformative for him: “One day, ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá, the interpreter and I were alone in one of the smaller reception rooms… ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá had been speaking of some Christian doctrine and his interpretation of the words of Christ was so different from the accepted one that I could not restrain an expression of remonstrance. I remember speaking with some heat: “‘How is it possible to be so sure?… No one can say with certainty what Jesus meant after all these centuries of misinterpretation and strife.’ “He intimated that it was quite possible. “… ‘That I cannot believe!’ I exclaimed. “I shall never forget the glance of outraged dignity the interpreter cast upon me… But not so did ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá look at me… His calm, beautiful eyes searched my soul with such love and understanding that all my momentary heat evaporated. He smiled as winningly as a lover smiles upon his beloved, and the arms of His spirit seemed to embrace me as He said softly that I should try my way and He would try His…” What was His way? Howard Colby Ives said, “He never argued… Nor did He press a point. He left one free… He taught ‘as if offering a gift to a king’”…clxi And we observe that He accepted the sincere love and offerings of others, no matter how humble, as if they were gifts from royalty. When Marzieh Gail’s mother, Flo- 90 rence Breed Khan, was visiting the Master in ‘'Akká, she described an encounter between Him and a very rustic-looking local woman. At that time, Florence, a Boston debutante, was not accustomed to dusty, ragged people, and here was this rough-looking woman coming toward her along a roofed-over stone corrider in the Master’s house. She wanted to turn and run, but along came ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá with one of His daughters. Florence said she “saw the woman pause, bow, and greet the Master. He replied graciously, and spoke sweetly, and as He passed, pressed a coin into her hand. She burst forth into phrases of evident joy and gratitude, and went away. I lingered to ask the Master’s daughter, ‘What did she say? Who is she?’ “‘She is the daughter of a desert chief, and she has suffered very much.’ “‘Is she a Bahá'í?’ “‘No, but she loves the Master very much. He has been kind to her.’ “‘What did she say to Him?’ “‘She said she would pray for Him.’ “‘And what did the Master say?’ “‘He thanked her.’ Florence thought, “How presumptuous for that dirty-looking, half-savage looking woman to tell the Master she would pray for Him!” Then she was overwhelmed by a realization of the Master’s “spiritual grandeur”, His true humility, as she meditated on His ‘thank you’ to the woman. And she began to conquer one of her most deeply held prejudices. Telling this story, Marzieh Gail quoted the Master: “… there is need of a superior power to overcome human prejudices; a power which nothing in the world of mankind 91 can withstand and which will overshadow the effect of all other forces at work in human conditions. That irresistible power is the love of God.”clxii In another setting, a well-provisioned luncheon in a wealthy London home attended by well-heeled guests, the meal was interrupted when a new arrival in England rushed in and dashed to the Master’s side. He said that before he left Irán a Bahá'í came to him with a gift for the Master. The Bahá'í was a poor workman who wanted to send the Master a gift. “I have nothing to give Him but this, my dinner. Please, offer it to Him with my loving devotion.” The traveler put into the Master’s hands a cotton handkerchief tied in a small bundle. Unknotting the bundle, the Master found a piece of dry black bread and a shriveled apple. He didn’t eat the fine food on the table. He spread the handkerchief before Him and ate the workman’s dinner, breaking off pieces of bread and handing them around the table, saying: “Eat with me of this gift of humble love.”clxiii The Treasure of Sacrifice With his inspired intuition, the Master divined many mysteries and wonders, especially when it came to the treasure of sacrifice. Haji Amin, His courier to and from Irán, purposely kept himself possessionless, the better to travel unimpeded as he walked for hundreds of miles over all sorts of terrain and through all sorts of situations to perform his duties of carrying messages and donations. His integrity was known to be unimpeachable. One day in Irán, when he was about to set off to see the Master, a very poor woman gave him coin to take with him. It was a small coin, not worth much at all. Haji Amin said thank you and put it safely in his pocket. As was his custom, as soon as he arrived at the home of ‘Abdul-Bahá after his long, long journey, he presented to Him 92 the donations he had collected, which were called the Huqúqulláh and were a required tithe. Usually, the Master immediately thanked and praised Haji Amin, who had never been known to make a mistake in transmitting his trust, especially because he himself had no possessions to confuse with what he carried. But this time the Master said, with great kindness, that something was missing. Haji Amin, horrified, began to weep and retreated to his room to pray. He prostrated himself on the floor and as he did so he felt something under his knee. It was the coin the poor woman had given him. It had slipped through a hole in his pocket into the lining of his long coat. He cradled the coin in his hand, ran to the Master and gave it to him. The Master praised Haji Amin and thanked him, kissing the coin and saying it was worth more than the other donations because it had been given with the greatest sacrifice.clxiv From His Father, the Master had painfully learned how to accept and celebrate the sacrifices of others, for in the barracks prison of ‘'Akká, during the family’s first two years in that place, His younger brother, Mirzá Mihdi, had given up his life as a ransom for Bahá’í pilgrims who made the arduous and torturous trek over deserts and mountains to see Bahá’u’lláh and then had to be content with only seeing the shadow of His hand wave from a slit-like prison window. Mirza Mihdi liked to pray while pacing on the roof of the prison. One day, he severely injured himself falling through the prison roof while rapt with prayer. As he lay dying, Bahá'u'lláh offered to heal him but he refused, saying he wanted to die for the sake of the pilgrims, that they might enter the presence of Bahá'u'lláh. His martyrdom was accepted by Bahá’u’lláh. 93 The gentle Mihdi was a favorite of the family. During his babyhood, they’d been harshly separated from him when they had to leave him behind in Irán during their journey to Baghdád. His mother, Navváb, was particularly attached to him because the baby she’d borne after him had died. The Master Himself pleaded with Bahá’u’lláh to heal Mirza Mihdi, but Bahá’u’lláh said, “Leave him to his Lord…” Navváb prostrated herself before Bahá’u’lláh and begged Him to take her life instead, but He told her to be patient. He later said, “I have, O my Lord, offered up that which Thou hast given Me, that Thy servants may be quickened, and all that dwell on earth be united.” Navváb broke down with the loss of Mihdi until Bahá’u’lláh went to her and said, “Your son has been taken by God that His people might be freed. His life was the ransom, and you should rejoice that you had a son so dear to give to the cause of God.”clxv However much Navváb could give, that much was required of her. The Master saw this. But He knew the secrets of hearts. And there were some sacrifices that He felt were too much, although He accepted them with great love. To us they may not seem nearly so great as the sacrifice of Mirza Mihdi, but then, we don’t know what the Master knew. In one case -- long after the sacrifice of Mirza Mihdi -- a British Bahá'í named Nora Crossley cut off her long, thick hair and sold it so she could contribute to the fund for building the first Bahá'í Temple in the western world, destined to be constructed in Wilmette, Illinois, on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Master treasured and accepted her sacrifice, but lamented it. Nora, born into a wealthy family, as a young girl was famous for her long, thick, gold-highlighted, auburn hair. Artists traveled significant distances to paint her portrait. 94 Her early life was unhappy, however, and she felt her hair was her only good point. She married a poor man against her parents' wishes. They had two sons, and when her husband became schizophrenic after World War I and couldn't hold a job, she worked as a charwoman to make a meager living. Finally, unable to stand any more, she left home one day in the pouring rain, wandering the streets in desolate spirits before finally realizing she had to go home and take up her duties. She hopped on a tram and there found a newspaper advertising a lecture about the Holy Land, a subject that had always fascinated her. She went, heard about 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and her spirits became exalted. The Bahá'ís welcomed her into their midst and, realizing her poverty, wanted to help her, but she refused all assistance. She heard about fund-raising for the Temple in Wilmette and was sad that she had nothing to contribute. Then she thought of her hair. She had it cut off, wrapped it and sent it to John Esslemont -- later named a Hand of the Cause of God, and the enlightened author of the most valued introduction to the Bahá'í Faith thus far written -with a note: "You may think mine a very strange share, but I am poor, and penniless, so I have cut off my hair and wish you to sell it for me. Hairdressers are only too anxious to obtain hair my colour, but it cost me a great deal to cut it off and I feel I could not possibly sell it myself. If it only does a little good, I shall be content. It has been a sacrifice, I admit, as it was the only beauty I possessed, but it is nothing to what the Beloved Master has given me. He has given me a wonderful, boundless joy that no one can take from me... If you ever know of anything I can do to help the Cause I will even give my life if need be -- for it belongs to the Beloved Master after all." 95 When the Master heard about Nora's sacrifice, He wrote to her, “...On the one hand, I was deeply touched, for thou hadst sheared off those fair tresses of thine with the shears of detachment from this world and of self-sacrifice in the path of the Kingdom of God. And on the other, I was greatly pleased, for that dearly-beloved daughter hath evinced so great a spirit of self-sacrifice as to offer up so precious a part of her body in the pathway of the Cause of God. Hadst thou sought my opinion, I would in no wise have consented that thou shouldst shear off even a single thread of thy comely and wavy locks; nay, I myself would have contributed in thy name for the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár (Arabic: The Dawning-Place of the Mention of God). This deed of thine is, however, an eloquent testimony to thy noble spirit of self-sacrifice.” Shortly after that, when the Master's grandson, Shoghi Effendi, visited Manchester, where Nora lived, He brought her gifts from 'Abdu'l-Bahá: a Persian silk handkerchief and a ring, Folded within the handkerchief was a picture of the Master, and the ring, which Nora would always wear, bore the Bahá'í ringstone symbol. Shoghi Effendi generally avoided photographs, but he requested that his photo be taken with the Manchester Bahá'ís, Nora among them. In ensuing years, personal tribulations required Nora to distance herself from the Bahá'is, but after her husband died, she reconnected with them. "throughout the long years of loneliness and trial," she said, "the Beloved Master has never left me... never failed me. My one hope now is that I shall never fail HIM."clxvi "...There is no peace for thee save by renouncing thyself and turning unto Me..." O SON OF SPIRIT! There is no peace for thee save by renouncing thyself and turning unto Me; for it be- 96 hooveth thee to glory in My name, not in thine own; to put thy trust in Me and not in thyself, since I desire to be loved alone and above all that is. It was the noble spirit of sacrifice as personified by the Bahá'í community of Ishkabad, Russia, which had begun building what would be the first Bahá'í Temple in the whole world, that animated the Baha'ís of the North America to ask the Master, in 1903, for permission to begin building the first Bahá'í House of Worship in the western world. For sacrifice with pure intent is an animating, gestational, transformational spirit, as we are instructed about the sacrifices of those who give their lives -"It is the shedding of the sacred blood of the martyrs in Persia" he (Shoghi Effendi) wrote, "which, in this shining era, this resplendent, this gem-studded Bahá’í age, shall change the face of the earth into high heaven and, as revealed in the Tablets, raise up the tabernacle of the oneness of mankind in the very heart of the world, reveal to men's eyes the reality of the unity of the human race, establish the Most Great Peace, make of this lower realm a mirror for the Bahá Paradise, and establish beyond any doubt before all the peoples of the world the truth of the verse: '...the day when the Earth shall be changed into another Earth.'"clxvii Bahá'í Temples, serving as places of worship welcoming all people, and as centers of service to humanity, certainly are "tabernacles of the oneness of mankind." The Master sent Hájí Mirzá Muhammad-Taqí, the Afnán (the Afnán family are kin to the Báb), to Ishkabad to supervise the building of the Temple, which began in 1902, with the laying of its cornerstone. Years before, Hájí Mirzá Muhammad-Taqí, a successful merchant, had advised his brother to purchase land there as a refuge for Bahá'ís fleeing persecutors in Irán. When Bahá'u'lláh learned of this, He instructed the purchasers to set aside a certain property for the construction of a Temple.clxviii In 1887, on the land designated by Bahá'u'lláh, Bahá'ís constructed a two-story Bahá'í Center. Then, in 1893, when Ustád 'Ali-Akbar, the constructor of the the center 97 and many other facilities for the Bahá'ís of Ishkabad, visited the Master in ''Akká, he designed the main features of the House of Worship, under the direction of the Master.clxix The Master wrote of him, "He gave up his comfort, his business, his properties, estates, lands, hastened away to Ishkabád and set about building the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár (the Dawning Place of the Mention of God)... this was a service of very great magnitude, for he thus became the first individual to erect a Bahá'í House of Worship, the first builder of a House to unify man... For a long period in Ishkabád, he had no rest. Day and night, he urged the believers on. Then they too exerted their efforts, and made sacrifices above and beyond their power, and God's edifice arose, and word of it spread throughout East and West. The Afnán expended everything he possessed to rear this building, except for a trifling sum. This is the way to make a sacrifice. This is what it means to be faithful."clxx The Afnán himself wrote that, long years since, as a youth of 15, he had implored the Báb, "...with tearful eyes... to pray for me that I might spend my days in the service of God and in the end attain to His good pleasure. He assured me that it would be so."clxxi After traveling to Baghdád and meeting Bahá'u'lláh, with fully confirmed faith, and realizing Bahá'u'lláh's station even before He announced it, Hájí Mirzá Muhammad-Taqí strengthened that spiritual connection daily, dressing in his finest, retiring to a room alone, and praying, feeling himself in the very presence of Bahá'u'lláh.clxxii When the Master was suffering His direst months of oppression as the ship of the Sultan's Commission of Inquiry lurked in Haifa Harbor awaiting the chance to arrest him, 98 threatening to crucify him, He wrote to the Afnán instructing him to arrange for the election of the Universal House of Justice, should the worst come to pass.clxxiii In 1907, when the Ishkabád Temple was nearly complete, the Master sent for the Afnán to come make his home in the Holy Land. The Master said, "The Afnán was an uncommonly happy man. whenever I was saddened, I wold meet with him, and on the instant, joy would return again. Praise be to God, at the last, close by the Shrine of the Báb, he hastgened away in light to the Abhá realm; but the loss of him deeply grieved 'Abdu'l-Bahá." clxxiv Of the great Afnán whose probity, unhesitating self-sacrifice, and steadfastness won His abiding trust, the Master said he was one of the "four and twenty elders which sat before God on their seats... mentioned in the Revelation of St. John the Divine."clxxv The Ishkabád Temple, finished in around 1908, was a site of great beauty, a jewel-like building with nine portals, decked out in brightly colored geometric patterns like cut gems, with a green dome and two blue minarets, surrounded by trees and flowers. It was surrounded by community care institutions -- hostel, hospice, schools, library, orphanage and more. In the future, all Bahá'í Temples will host such institutions. No wonder the Bahá'ís of America wanted to emulate their brothers and sisters in 'Ishqábád and sacrifice as much as they could. But sacrifice is a mysterious thing. As we've seen, the Master knew what could be sacrificed and what would be best used for the well-being of the individual. Juliet Thompson had painted a portrait of the Master while He was in New York, and she arranged to sell photographs of the portrait so she could donate the proceeds to the Temple fund. He told her, “I know your circumstances, Juliet. You have not com- 99 plained to Me, you have said nothing, but I know them. I know your affairs are in confusion, that you have debts, that you have that house, that you have to take care of your mother. Now I want you to keep the money for yourself… This is best. You must do exactly as I say…”clxxvi The cause of building the first Bahá'í Temple in the West helped united Bahá'ís not only in North America, but the world over, especially after the sad fate of the 'Ishqábád Temple: its community weakened after the 1918 Russian Revolution, then devastated by growing persecution under the atheist regime, the Temple was finally confiscated by the Soviet Union in 1938, and destroyed by earthquakes in 1948. So it was especially moving when the doors of the Temple in Wilmette, Illinois, opened just a few years later, in 1953. It’s an architectural wonder with a surface that looks like light-refracting lace. Each of its nine portals commemorates one of the world’s major religions under its lofty, light-filled, unifying dome, that it may, as Bahá’u’lláh commands, “welcome all with the light of oneness.”clxxvii The long years of raising money for that Temple and building it did much to shore up the North American Bahá'í community, which was one of the chief aims of 'Abdu'l-Bahá's ministry, along with building the 'Ishqábád Temple and the mausoleum to house the remains of the Báb. Into the Wilmette Temple are built many stories, not the least of them being that of the cornerstone, a nondescript and unfeasible object, like “The stone which the builders rejected that… became the chief cornerstone” in Psalm 118. Nettie Tobin, a widowed seamstress with two children, who lived in Chicago, was among the Bahá'ís stirred by the idea and ideal of the Temple and when she heard that there would be a dedication ceremony, she decided there must be a cornerstone. She 100 had felt the importance of this since 1903, when a letter from an Iránian Bahá'í to the Bahá'ís in the U.S. stated that “the glory and honor of the first stone is equivalent to all the stones and implements that will later be used there.” Nettie went to a construction site near her home in the city to see if the foreman could sell her a stone for a reasonable price. Hearing about the Temple, the foreman was moved to give her a stone, referring her to a pile of limestone that had been rejected for building. Nettie got a neighbor, an elderly Iránian Bahá'í, to help her. They wrapped the stone in a piece of carpet, tied a clothesline around it and dragged it home. The day before the dedication, Nettie, with her brother and the elderly Iránian, dragged the stone to a street car stop, got it onboard over the objections of the conductor, then transferred it to another street car. But the second street car didn’t come closer than six blocks to the Temple site. So, with her brother and neighbor she tried to carry the stone but it defeated them. They had to leave the stone where it was overnight, six blocks from the site. The day of the dedication, Nettie borrowed a homemade cart from someone and tried to rescue the stone but the cart handle broke, injuring Nettie’s wrist. There were just two blocks to go! She found a newsboy to help her and they got the cart to a corner of the site where it collapsed in pieces. But Nettie’s was the only stone, among various ones sent from other parts of the world, that arrived. So it became “the chief cornerstone” — metaphorically! It actually isn’t part of the building but is preserved and displayed in the building. These are just some examples of mysteries of unquestioning generosity and sacrifice. If we examine our own lives, we'll find many others. As Psalm 118 says: “This is 101 the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." 8. Inner Treasure: Ever-Renewable Wealth "I have created thee rich..." The Master. always the giver, constantly mined the treasure of His inner wealth and gave it away to others, knowing the mystical vein of golden ore was always renewed and replenished. As His Father wrote in The Hidden Words: “O SON OF BEING! Thou art my lamp and my light is in thee. Get thou from it thy radiance and seek none other than Me. For I have created thee rich and have bountifully shed My favor upon thee.”clxxviii Since we’re created rich, wealth is intrinsic to our beings, so we needn’t fear distributing it freely. Laura Dreyfus-Barney recalled that a large basket of fruit, sent to the Master from abroad, passed through Customs and when it arrived on the Master’s table it was half-empty. He asked how that had happened? He was told that the customs officers had helped themselves liberally to the fruit. He frowned briefly, but then smiled and said, “Did they do this secretly, then they should be punished, yet did they do it openly, Bravo! For those things that belong to 'Abdu'l-Bahá belong to all men.”clxxix Many people who loved the Master and wanted to be like Him in His love for His Father and His Faith, inwardly felt so securely wealthy that they didn’t even fear sacrific- 102 ing their lives. And when people gave their lives because they wouldn’t allow oppressors to coerce them into renouncing their Faith, the Master wept for them, but also celebrated them as heroic martyrs and pointed to them as examples of true greatness. He Himself wished to sacrifice His life for His Father, and so He did, but not by being put to death — although He wished for that fate, and came close to meeting it several times. Such fearlessness in the face of death is perhaps the ultimate courage, yet the Master respected and celebrated all sorts and measures of courage, recognizing the different capacities of individuals. He told a questioner: “Regarding one's lack of capacity… this does not cause one to be shut out from gifts and bounties; for this is not the Day of Justice but the Day of Grace, while justice is allotting to each whatever is his due. Then look thou not at the degree of thy capacity, look thou at the boundless favour of Bahá’u’lláh; all-encompassing is His bounty, and consummate His grace.”clxxx The nature of divine creation is "purely good" He said everyone has their innate character, and the nature of “divine creation” is “purely good.. yet the varieties of natural qualities in man come from the difference of degree; all are excellent, but they are more or less so… So all mankind possess intelligence and capacities, but the intelligence, the capacity, and the worthiness of men differ. This is evident. For example, take a number of children of one family, of one place, of one school, instructed by one teacher, reared on the same food, in the same climate, with the same clothing, and studying the same lessons -- it is certain that among these children some will be clever in the sciences, some will be of average ability, and some dull. Hence it is clear that in the original nature there exists a difference of degree, and 103 varieties of worthiness and capacity. This difference does not imply good or evil, but is simply a difference of degree..."clxxxi The Master recommended that all strive to develope their capacities as far as possible. He didn't encourage idleness, and he warned against the kind of harsh asceticism that requires its practitioners to cut themselves off from other people and be purposely impoverished. He frowned upon vows of silence, self-harm in the name of spiritual discipline, imposed solemnity, flagellation, and other such practices. In 1901, two young men named Wendell and William Dodge visited the Master in ‘'Akká. Their father, Arthur Pillsbury Dodge, inventor and writer, was an early Bahá'í of the U.S. later named a disciple of the Master, and he arranged their trip. William Dodge recalled, “We were so glad to be with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá… At some times we were quite jolly. We were mere boys of 18 and 21. Our interpreter, Ameen Fareed” (this was a person who, as later years disclosed, had mixed motives in his faith) “told us that we must be reverent, that when we entered the presence of the Master we must bow our heads, clasp our hands, avoid smiling. Of course we felt the rebuke. So the next time we entered the dining room, our heads were bowed, our hands clasped, and we did not smile. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá passed quickly by us. He seemed to ignore us. We felt further rebuked. Returning to our room we wondered why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá seemed different in His attitude toward us. Well, we decided that we were not good actors. So when we entered the dining room for the next meal, we smiled. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá smiled. He came over to us, took us in his arms and said: “That’s the way I want you, boys, to act -- be natural, be happy.”clxxxii 104 The Master encouraged everyone to be natural and happy, and to take an active, working and serving part in society and culture. He said, ”In the Bahá’í Cause arts, sciences and all crafts are (counted as) worship…. Briefly, all effort and exertion put forth by man from the fullness of his heart is worship, if it is prompted by the highest motives and the will to do service to humanity. This is worship: to serve mankind and to minister to the needs of the people. Service is prayer….”clxxxiii 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Farms He included in this the science and art of agriculture: “… a farmer who engages in tilling and cultivating his farm with the utmost effort is like unto a worshipper who devotes himself to the worship of God with the utmost humility and supplication in a temple of worship”…clxxxiv As always, the Master acted upon His philosophy: in 1901, He purchased over 2,000 acres of scrubland at a village called Adasíyyih, on the Jordan River, planning to develop it for agriculture. (He also had farms in the area of Lake Tiberias). Adasíyyih was about 60 miles from His home but He maintained close contact with the farmers there and at His other farms. They followed His wise counsel and their crops flourished. Farming at Adasíyyih got off to a slow start because the Bahá'ís settled there were not experienced farmers and they also had to contend with poor soil and raids by bandits. Finally the Master asked a group of experienced Bahá'í farmers to come from Irán and develop the site. He warned them that their destination in the Jordan Valley was almost intolerably hot, swarming with malarial mosquitos and overgrown with thorns. The farmers built mud brick houses and cultivated the land with hand tools, draft animals and plows. They started by growing wheat and barley, then diversified into other 105 crops the Master recommended. Sometimes He partnered financially with a farmer to grow a specific crop. Despite the harsh climate and scant rain, the farmers could grow crops year-round and produce surplus. They built a small stone dam at a nearby river to make an irrigation system. At the Master’s urging, they befriended the surrounding community and as a result banditry decreased. By 1910 His farms produced eggplant — easy to grow under the Jordan Valley conditions, but newly introduced to the area by the Bahá'ís. Eventually they grew chickpeas, lentils, broad beans, other vegetables, and had vineyards, citrus orchards, pomegranates and bananas. Like eggplants, bananas were new to the region — they were also new to the Bahá'í farmers who grew them under the Master’s instructions. He had imported seven banana suckers from India. They were a successful crop, but at first no one knew how to eat bananas. They bit into them skin and all, then wondered what was so great about them. The Master told the farmers to plant a certain kind of eucalyptus tree in a lagoon in the middle of Adasiyyah, where the malarial mosquitoes thrived. Eucalyptus has quinine, the antidote to malaria. The trees also absorbed the mosquito-infested water, cooled the air and provided lumber. Advised by the Master, the farm families managed their communities cooperatively through consultation, applying Bahá'í principles of fair dealing with each other and outside markets, and profit-sharing with their laborers.clxxxv ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá took much less grain as rent payment from His farmers than did other landlords in the area, but, foreseeing World War I and famine for northern Palestine, He stored much of it in 'Akká’s two main mercantile caravansaries. With grain 106 from Adassíyih and His farms near Tiberias, He was able to distribute food to many people, including soldiers, when Haifa Bay was blockaded and mined during the war and no commercial or other freight could go in or out. He oversaw the distribution of the grain personally and, like Joseph in Egypt in Biblical times, saved many from starvation. Famine reached a crisis in the summer of 1917, and He traveled to Adasiyyah to gather provisions for the city people from His farm there and also from other farmers: 200 camels, carrying 400 sacks of wheat and other grain on each trip, carried the food to Haifa. Just as the Master knew how to unlock the spiritual treasure box of wealth each person carries within, he knew how to unlock earth's treasure box of fecundity and abundance, and make sure earth's children got their share of the bounty. After the war, the British were occupying Haifa and they began bestowing knighthoods on war heroes. They decided to dub ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá a Knight of the British Empire because of His life-saving services during the famine. He consented to be named Sir ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá 'Abbás K.B.E. out of respect for those who were honoring Him, although He rarely used the title “Sir”. In April, 1920, dignitaries gathered at the home of the British Governor in Haifa. They sent a regal car to the Master’s house to take Him to the ceremony, but no one could find Him. People searched everywhere. Suddenly He appeared, but did not get into the car. He realized that the loyal servitor who usually drove Him in a horse and carriage was saddened by the arrival of the car because he felt he was no longer needed. The Master told him to harness the horse and bring the carriage. So the servitor drove the Master to the accolade (the knighthood ceremony). They pulled up to a side gate of 107 the Governor’s mansion, not to the pompous entryway that had been arranged, and walked to the designated site, where the Master took His seat of honor. Most accolades require the person being knighted to kneel before the dignitary (often the King or Queen) who bestows the title, tapping his shoulders with a sword. But the Master didn’t kneel; photos show Him seated with the dignitaries standing behind Him.clxxxvi "Ye are the trees of My garden: ye must give forth goodly and wondrous fruits..." In The Hidden Words Bahá’u’lláh tells us: “Ye are the trees of My garden; ye must give forth goodly and wondrous fruits… It is incumbent on every one to engage in crafts and professions, for therein lies the secret of wealth… The basest of men are they that yield no fruit on earth… The best of men are they that earn a livelihood by their calling and spend upon themselves and their kindred for the love of God, the Lord of all worlds.”clxxxvii The Master stressed: ”In the Cause of Bahá'u'lláh, it is incumbent upon every soul to acquire a trade and an occupation. For example, I know how to weave or make a mat, and you know some other trade. This, in itself is an act of worship, provided that it is conducted on the basis of utmost honesty and faithfulness… And this is the cause of prosperity… if the heart is not chained and tied to this world, and is not troubled by current events, neither hindered by wealth from rendering service to mankind, nor grieved because of poverty”…clxxxviii The maxim that work done in the spirit of service, and with a heart detached from selfish gain, is worship, brought relief and happiness to many who encountered the Master. When, in a hotel corridor in London, the Master met a laborer who was gathering up his tools, He greeted the man with kindly smiles. But the man looked sad, saying, “I don’t know much about religious things. I have no time for anything but my work.” The Master said, “That is well. Very well. A day’s work done in the spirit of worship is in itself an act of worship. Such work is a prayer unto God.” The man went on his way looking much happier, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from him.clxxxix 108 Also in London, one day a man appeared at the door of Lady Blomfield’s house inquiring for her. He wasn’t the usual sort of visitor. She later wrote, “In appearance he might have been an ordinary tramp.” Her butler was about to send him away but he insisted on seeing her — hearing them talking, she went to find out what was going on. He caught a glimpse of her and said, “Are you the hostess of ‘’'Abdu'l-Bahá?” “Yes. Do you wish to see me?” “I have walked thirty miles for that purpose.” “Come in and rest. After some refreshment you will tell me?” He told her his father was a country rector and he’d had a good education. “Of the various causes which led to my arrival at the Thames embankment as my only home, I need not speak to you. Last evening I had decided to put an end to my futile, hateful life, useless to God and man! Whilst taking what I had intended should be my last walk, I saw ‘a Face’ in the window of a newspaper shop. I stood looking at the face as if rooted to the spot. He seemed to speak to me, and call me to him!” Lady Blomfield asked to see the paper. And there she saw a photograph of the Master. The man went on, “I read that he is here, in this house. I said to myself, ‘If there is in existence on earth that personage, I shall take up again the burden of my life. I set off on my quest. I have come here to find him. Tell me, is he here? Will he see me?…” Lady Blomfield took the man to the door of the room where the Master was speaking with guests, knocked on it, and the Master opened the door, “extending His hands,” she said, “as though to a dear friend, whom He was expecting.” 109 The Master welcomed the man and told him to have a seat. The man “sank on to a low chair by the Master’s feet, as though unable to utter a word.” The other guests looked on wonderingly as the Master, smiling compassionately, took the man’s hand and stroked his head, saying, “Be happy! Be happy! Do not be filled with grief when humiliation overtaketh thee. The bounty and power of God is without limit for each and every soul in the world. Seek for spiritual joy and knowledge. Then, though thou walk upon this earth, thou wilt be dwelling within the divine realm. Though thou be poor, thou mayest be rich in the Kingdom of God.” As the Master continued speaking comfortingly, Lady Blomfield saw the man’s “cloud of misery seem to melt away.” When it was time for leave-taking, the man seemed to have a new expression on his face, “a new erectness in his carriage, a firm purpose in his steps.” He asked Lady Blomfield to write down for him what the Master had told him, saying, “I have attained all I expected, and even more.” She asked him what he’d do now, and he said, “I’m going to work in the fields. I can earn what I need for my simple wants. When I have earned enough I shall take a little bit of land, build a tiny hut upon it in which to live, then I shall grow violets for the market. As He says, ‘Poverty is unimportant, work is worship…”cxc The Master Himself never shied away from hard or humble work. In His devotion to making gardens for His Father, especially to beautify His Shrine — the tomb where Bahá'u'lláh was buried near His final home, the Mansion of 'Bahjí — He worked especially hard, perhaps harder than He really had to, to accomplish His task, but He wanted to give all He could for His Father. One who knew Him very well said, “‘Abdu’l- 110 Bahá used to come on foot two miles in the heat carrying flower-pots on His shoulders. He was an old, old man with white hair and a white beard and He used to carry these flower-pots to the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh from one of the gardens in order to plant them near the tomb of His Father. There was a pump on the side of the wall of the tomb of Bahá’u’lláh in the old days, one of those hand-pumps… I heard that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá used to stand… and pump water until from standing against the wall and working He was so stiff He could not walk away from it. Once they had to come and lift Him away from the wall and rub His legs until the circulation came back. And they said, ‘Why do you tire yourself so, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá?’ He said, ‘What can I do for Bahá’u’lláh?’”cxci 9. The Master Takes His Place on the World Stage "That all nations should become one in faith, and all men as brothers..." The Master knew that, once the gates of the Prison City opened for Him, He must travel and take His place on the world stage. In fact, He longed to do it, for He was created to give His Father's Message. During the lifetime of Bahá'u'lláh, teachers carried His Message in places where He sojourned -- Irán, Iraq and Kurdistan, Palestine, Türkiye -- and into Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, India, Myanmar, Azerbaijan and other parts of the Caucasus, Russia, Turkmenistan, Chinese Turkistan, Uzbekistan. Often, Bahá'ís fleeing persecution in Irán spread the Faith outside its borders, such as the ones who settled in 'Ishqábád after escaping along a route described to them by Bahá'u'lláh. Thus did the enemies serve the Cause they hoped to extinguish. Shortly after Bahá'u'lláh's death, His Message publicly reached North America in an oblique and subtle way, but with great effect. In 1893, a Christian clergyman preach- 111 ing at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago quoted Him and cited Him by name. There had been a few other mentions of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh in the West, and of Táhirih: in newspaper accounts; in lectures and books by historians and others. But none of those produced the results that came from the mention at the Parliament. A few people who heard the speaker, and others who merely read news reports of the sermon, immediately began searching out specifics about Bahá'u'lláh. Americans of that era had grown up with the stir and ferment of messianic expectations. Prophecies abounded of when and where Christ would return. Adventists climbed to the tops of hills on appointed dates to watch the skies, expecting to see Him coming down from heaven. They were constantly disappointed but the hope, and the Christ consciousness that the hope engendered, lingered in many hearts. And the sermon mentioning Bahá'u'lláh as a "Persian sage" and "Babi saint" linked Him with Christ. The sermon was called, The Religious Mission of the English Speaking Nations. In the last paragraph, the orator said: "In the palace of Behjeh (sic) or Delight, just outside the fortress of Acre (sic) on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since a famous Persian sage -- the Babi saint named Beha Allah (sic), the 'Glory of God' -- the head of that vast reform party of Persian Moslems who accept the New Testament as the word of God, and Christ as the deliverer of man; who regard all nations as one, and all men as brothers. Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar, and gave utterance to sentiments so noble, so Christlike that we repeat them as our closing words: "'That all nations should become one in faith, and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religion and differences of race should be annulled; what harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be. These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 112 "most great peace" shall come. Do not you in Europe need this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.'"cxcii It happened that a Bahá'í from the Middle East had settled in Chicago a year earlier to try to establish the Faith there. He had his own version of Bahá'í and ultimately, tragically, did not remain loyal to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, causing severe tests to newborn Bahá'í communities in the U.S. and across the world. But when people like Thornton Chase, who had heard the mention at the Parliament of Religions, or by other means, went looking for information, he was the person they found, and, faulty though his information was, it bore fruit. Within a few years small Bahá'í communities sprang up in North America, England, France and Germany. When the Master was finally able to leave ''Akká, He made His way to Europe, the U.S. and Canada to personally proclaim His Father’s name in the West, and the coming of the Most Great Peace so inadvertently promulgated at the Parliament. "I have come to America to see the advocates of Universal Peace..." The Master arrived in New York on April 11, 1912. He came at the invitation of the Bahá'ís but He also told a fellow-passenger, a newspaper owner, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship Cedric, "I am going to America at the invitation of the Peace Congresses of that place, as the fundamental principles of our Cause are universal peace, the oneness of the world of humanity and the equality of the rights of men..." When the ship docked in New York the press flocked to interview Him and He told them, "Our object is... the unity of mankind... I have come to America to see the advocates of universal peace…”cxciii 113 The previous year, for five months, He’d traveled in Great Britain and France. On September 10, 1911, at the City Temple in London, He addressed a public gathering for the first time in His life. To the audience of 2,000 He immediately proclaimed peace, echoing His Father: “The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion. War shall cease between nations, and by the will of God the Most Great Peace shall come; the world will be seen as a new world, and all men will live as brothers.”cxciv 'Abdu'l-Bahá foresaw the coming of World War I and sought to somehow influence world thought and spirit so it could be avoided. But He wasn't given to wishful thinking; His hope, though heartfelt, wasn't high. For Him, the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Peace and Arbitration, which He attended from May 14-16, 1912, was one of several opportunities to present his message to peace advocates; He was sure his efforts and counsels would bear fruit, if not immediately, then in the future. To that end, He had written to Albert Smiley and to H.C. Phillips, secretary of the Mohonk arbitration institution. Those letters are unusual; generally, ’Abdu’l-Bahá didn't initiate correspondence. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá wrote to H.C. Phillips, "About sixty years ago, His Highness Bahá''u'lláh through the Heavenly Power proclaimed the oneness of the Kingdom of man in that country (Persia) and addressing the concourse of humanity said: 'O ye people! Ye are all the fruits of one tree and the leaves of one branch!’" The Master mentioned that in His Book of Laws Bahá'u'lláh "commanded the people to establish the Universal Peace and summoned all the nations to the Divine Banquet of International Arbitration." Bahá'u'lláh promulgated the necessity for collective security, saying that, once an international treaty requiring arbitration of all disputes is made, "if at any time 114 any nation dares to break such a treaty all the other nations must arise to put down this rebellion."cxcv The Master was then invited to address the conference. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's arrival in the U.S. was reported in newspapers all over North America and worldwide. A major articles about His arrival was by his young friend Wendell Dodge, who had visited Him a decade before in ''Akká and whose happy, natural demeanor had pleased Him. Dodge was now a journalist for the New York Associated Press (later he would become editor of Strand Magazine). Since he wrote for the Associated Press, his article, in various versions, was among the most widely distributed. Dodge wrote that reporters boarding the Cedric found the Master on the upper deck, watching the ship's pilot and scanning the harbor, his "oriental robes flapping in the breeze." He spoke to the reporters about the press, saying that newspapers reporting world events so quickly and globally were "a wonderful phenomenon". but they must be careful to tell the truth equably and objectively, otherwise their news outlets would "give no true light to the world and perish of their own futility." 'Abdu'l-Bahá had personally benefited by technological advances in telegraphy during His voyage, for He'd spent much of it in the telegraph room receiving and instaneously answering messages from the Bahá'ís in North America. Convening the reporters in His stateroom, He told them a little joke about telegraphy, saying He'd advised an inquirer in Jerusalem that as a pilgrim to holy places he must maintain "constant communion with God. Love for God will be the telegraph wire, one end of which is in the Kingdom of the Spirit, and the other in your heart." When the inquirer said he feared his telegraph wire was broken, the Master replied, "Then you will have to use wireless telegraphy." 115 As the ship passed the Statue of Liberty the Master said that true liberty is release from the prison of self: freedom isn't a matter of place, but is a state of being. Then the reporters asked what He thought of suffrage and He said the suffragettes were fighting "for what must be, and many of these are willing martyrs to imprisonment for their cause. One might not approve of the ways of some of the more militant suffragettes, but in the end it will adjust itself." He went on to say that "women have a superior disposition to men, they are more receptive, more sensitive, and their intuition is more intense." He advised that if parents couldn't educate both their sons and daughters, it would be better to educate the daughters, for mothers are the true educators of the children. He foresaw that "the new age will be an age less masculine, and permeated with feminine ideals or, to speak more exactly, it will be an age in which the masculine and feminine elements of civilization will be more properly balanced." When the ship sailed up the North River and docked in Manhattan, the Master saw several hundred Bahá'ís anxiously awaiting their first glimpse of Him, but He didn't leave the ship until His eager followers had been tactfully dispersed, because He didn't want a big display at the dock. He rode into the City quietly, accompanied by just a few people.cxcvi In North America, the Master delivered numerous talks and met myriad people at homes, churches, clubs, schools, mission shelters and other places, starting in in New York and moving on to Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C. Back in Manhattan, on May 12, He addressed a large crowd at an International Peace Forum at the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, and the next day spoke at a reception by the New York Peace Society. He emphasized the cause of world peace and the require- 116 ments for attaining it so consistently that a collection of His talks in the West is titled The Promulgation of Universal Peace. "The greatest peace will not be realized without the power of the Holy Spirit..." Lake Mohonk was a popular mountain resort in New York State, and many influential people came to its events or simply vacationed there. It was a site of tremendous natural beauty where the Mohonk Mountain House, a huge, rambling, turreted castle of a hotel, stood guardian over the lake overlooking a rocky hillside and trails leading to gazebos at spectacular overlooks. As a Quaker, the founder and designer of the resort, Albert Smiley, also initiated social projects, among them the Conference on International Arbitration. Today, portraits in Mountain House hallways of visitors and supporters include the magnate and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and the naturalist John Burroughs. Among the pictures of these grave-looking men is one of the Master, white-bearded, crowned with a turban, gently smiling, His eyes radiating gentle good cheer. The visit to Mohonk was in many ways a pleasure for Him. He was thrilled as He travelled into the wooded, green country around the Mountain House. Bright with May blossoms, it reminded him of the province of Nur in Irán, where he’d lived as a boy. Sometimes when ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá traveled through such countryside he wept, remembering the grim stoniness of ''Akká where his Father had longed to see verdure, but this time it filled him with such joy that he burst into song. When he arrived at Lake Mohonk, his dignity, personal magnetism, vigor and good cheer were such that no one could have guessed He’d been an exile and prisoner from childhood until the age of 65. Poignantly, He gave His home address in the Mohonk 117 guest book simply as "Persia," though He hadn't resided there since the age of nine, when He and His family were exiled. ‘Abdu'l-Bahá spoke during the second session of the conference, presenting the opening address. He was all too aware of the disposition of humanity towards war but He didn't dwell on it. His speech was brief. He mentioned Bahá'u'lláh and told how His teachings united Bahá'ís of traditionally warring backgrounds: Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians; Kurds, Arabs, Persians, Turks. He listed Bahá'í principles as a basis for peace: the one divine foundation of religion and the purpose of religion as a bond of love and unity; the oneness of the human race and the equality of men and women; the harmony of science and religion; the abolition of extremes of wealth and poverty. He concluded, "...philosophy does not suffice and is not conducive to the absolute happiness of mankind. Great philosophers have been capable of educating themselves, or a few who followed them, but generally they could not endow ethical education. Therefore, the world of humanity is evermore in need of the breath of the Holy Spirit. The greatest peace will not be realized without the power of the Holy Spirit.”cxcvii Over and over, to all who crossed His path, the Master taught Progressive Revelation: the principle of the oneness of religions and of their Founders. Archie Bell, the young newspaperman and travel writer from Ohio, who met Him while walking along the beach at Galilee, reported Him saying: “There may be light in a room, but it merely sheds light in that room. There may be many lights, with coloured bulbs of various hues and shades. But the source of all those lights is the same — and there must be sources; it is the dynamo that is hidden from sight. So it is with all the religions. They sparkle here and there in various colours — but there is but one God. Self-seeking preachers and teachers have wandered far from that Real Light. And it is in the Light that we now seek the real truth. Men have wandered far from the teachings of Christ, Buddha, the Jewish prophets and all of the others. Ours is not a new religion, it is the very old one; we desire to unite all forms in their original purity.”cxcviii One Faith revealed, renewed, re-elucidated by its Teachers across ages and na- 118 tions. "Do you remember that true and radiant morn?" So He reminded Archie Bell, as He always reminded everyone by His words and presence, of that sacred collective memory, the “true and radiant morn” when we were all gathered together “beneath the shade of the tree of life” — as He reminded His Lake Mohonk listeners of the one divine foundation of religion and the purpose of religion as a bond of love and unity. Dr. Zia Bagdadi, who accompanied 'Abdu'l-Bahá to Mohonk and helped interpret for him, said that, after delivering His address, 'Abdu'l-Bahá remarked privately, "Once I wrote to the friends in Persia with regard to peace congresses and conferences, that if the members of the conferences do not succeed in practicing what they say, they may be compared to those who hold a meeting to discuss and form firm resolutions about the sinfulness and harmfulness of liquors, but, after having the meeting, occupy themselves in selling liquors... Now we must not only think and talk peace but we must develop the power to practice peace so that... peace may permeate the whole world.”cxcix ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá spent the next day at Mohonk, and took an afternoon walk accompanied by a group of young men and women. He stopped beneath a big, blossoming tree and smilingly regarded the youth. The sky was cloudless and blue, the sun warm, the mountainsides green. Baghdádi recalled, "Everything was quiet except for the melodies of songbirds and the gentle breeze that whispered to the leaves." 'Abdu'lBahá broke the silence, announcing to the youth that he would tell them an oriental story, the old fable called Belling the Cat. The rats and mice held a conference on how to make peace with the cat. After loud and heated debate, they finally decided to tie a bell around the cat's neck so they'd hear him coming when he was on the prowl and could get out of his way. Enthusiasm 119 reigned until one mouse asked, "Who will bell the cat?" The rats weren't willing and the mice felt too small and weak. So the conference broke up and the cat stayed on the prowl, unrestrained.cc 'Abdu'l-Bahá's little audience laughed, and he laughed, too. Then silence fell again. After awhile 'Abdu'l-Bahá said that words spoken in peace conferences didn't mean much if no one resolved to bell the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Germany, the President of France, the Emperor of Japan. Everyone became grave, but 'Abdu'l-Bahá laughed again and assured them that peace would come and aggression would be quelled through spiritual power. So the Master’s teaching and interactions with individuals at Lake Mohonk resonated with the joy and good humor that characterized Him throughout his life. This humor grew out of his basic detachment from worldly constraints such as time and other people’s expectations of how he should or should not be. His interesting relationship with time was very much on display at Mohonk when he sent Zia Baghdádi down from the mountains and into New York City to fetch a Persian rug. He said to Dr. Baghdádi, "We have to leave this place tomorrow and I wish I had one of my Persian rugs here, that I might give it as a present to our host, Mr. Smiley." His companions reminded him that he was to leave Mohonk at 10:00 a.m. and it would be impossible for anyone to get to New York City, pick up a rug, and be back in one night. 'Abdu'l-Bahá looked at Dr. Baghdádi and asked, "Well, what do you say?" Dr. Baghdádi said yes. Saying, “May God bless you,” ’Abdu’l-Bahá'íá handed him the key to the room in New York where the rugs were. The young man hired a carriage and rushed to the train station. No passenger train was leaving for the city just then. 120 But a freight train was pulling out. He later reminisced, "I jumped the tracks and made a wild dash... Finally I caught the rear end of that speeding train and succeeded in climbing up... Then while I was trying to catch my breath the conductor came and ...ordered me to get off at the next station. I showed him my professional card and told him I was going on a very urgent mission. 'Oh you are a doctor! That is all right.' Fortunately the kind conductor didn’t ask what the urgent call was. "About two o'clock in the morning I reached 'Abdu'l-Bahá's apartment and had to awaken Mrs. Grace Ober and her sister, Miss Ella Roberts, to let me in. They were very kind and asked me to have something to eat and to rest awhile, but I thanked them and told them I was in a great hurry. Then I selected one of the most precious rugs from 'Abdu'l-Bahá's room and hastened to the railroad station. I took the first early morning train. It was about nine o'clock when I arrived at Lake Mohonk station. From the station it would take one hour to reach Lake Mohonk by carriage, and I had to be there at ten o'clock. I looked around, and there was no vehicle of any kind in sight. But finally the mail-carrier appeared with his little wagon and got off at once to receive the mail. I got on the little wagon and awaited his return. When he came and saw me, well! Was I nervous? It was certainly one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. However, I explained my position to him, that I was in the service of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, whom we regarded as our spiritual king, and I showed him the rug that had to be delivered right away to Mr. Smiley... Then as a last resort, I suggested that in case it was against the law to let me go with him, he could at least let me relieve him that morning because I knew how to drive a horse, and if it was necessary he might consult with the post office or the police... What a relief came when he said, 'It's all right I guess, I was going up 121 there anyway.' "We arrived at our destination just at the time when 'Abdu'l-Bahá was shaking hands with Mr. Smiley and preparing to leave. He took the rug with a smile and presented it to Mr. Smiley... 'Why this is just what I have been seeking for many years,' Mr. Smiley exclaimed. 'You see we had a Persian rug just like this one, but it was burned in a fire and ever since my wife has been broken-hearted over it. This will surely make her very happy.”cci When 'Abdu'l-Bahá'íá was departing, H.C. Phillips approached him and said, "We all appreciate your blessed visit and we believe that what you said is the truth. But we are sorry we cannot include religion in our organization. Our members are composed of all kinds of religions and sects -- the Protestant, Catholic, Jew, etc.; naturally, everyone prefers his own belief and will protest if any religion besides his own is favored.” 'Abdu'l-Bahá replied, "Your members may be compared to beams of different metals and you are trying to unite them as you would tie these fingers together with a string," and he held up his hand, bringing his fingers close together. "See, no matter how you tie them, still they shall remain separate. But the only way to make these metals into one alloy is to put them into a crucible and apply intense heat to melt them all. For our melting-pot, we use the fire of the love of God.”ccii With the eyes of love, the world would see the reality of Progressive Revelation, the one Book of Faith that belongs to all, but the world hasn’t yet looked at all religions with the eyes of love. The being and words of the Master at Lake Mohonk awakened in those who met Him the sacred memory of our united origin, yet they couldn’t bring themselves to actually embrace the reality they felt in Him: ancient faith, the ancient covenant, the original creation, and when the gathering broke up they went their separate ways, satisfied with 122 thinking that they had done something to advance the cause of peace in the world. Yet the drums and guns of World War I came ever closer, and the question remained, as it still remains: Who will bell the cat? 10. Personal Ecology The Source of Our Prosperity and Power is the Earth Beneath Our Feet The question also remains as to who will bell the cat of climate disaster that currently stalks the world and strikes ever more frequently, savagely and indiscriminately with fire-and-lightening claws. Without world unity, that cat can’t be tamed. Without love, world unity is impossible, and that includes love of creation: the planet, its plains and starfields, creatures and seas, spinning galaxies. Bahá’u’lláh wrote of creation in The Hidden Words: “O SON OF DUST! All that is in heaven and earth I have ordained for thee, except the human heart, which I have made the habitation of My beauty and glory”…cciii Just because all in heaven and earth has been ordained for us, doesn’t mean we are its tyrants. If we let our hearts be ruled by divine "beauty and glory", we wouldn't be able to bear tyrannizing our planet the way we currently do. On the contrary, Bahá’u’lláh says, “Every man of discernment, while walking upon the earth, feeleth indeed abashed, inasmuch as he is fully aware that the thing which is the source of his prosperity, his wealth, his might, his exaltation, his advancement and power is, as ordained by God, 123 the very earth which is trodden beneath the feet of all men. There can be no doubt that whoever is cognizant of this truth, is cleansed and sanctified from all pride, arrogance, and vainglory.”cciv ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was our exemplary man of discernment, and His relation to creation was that of a grateful husbandman, because the beauty and glory of the Creator dwelled in His heart and His will was towards oneness. The will of the universe, too, Bahá’ís believe, has been and is towards oneness. “One-world” is now a word in the Oxford English Dictionary, defined as “…of or holding to the view that the world’s inhabitants are interdependent and should act accordingly.”ccv The one-world principle has been sounded by the Bahá’í Faith since its inception in 1844, and that coincided with the birth of the Master, who exemplified unifying-spirit, the spirit of life. He constantly acted to conserve and preserve the gift of life, planting gardens and establishing farms. His spontaneous and planned acts of charity were always ongoing, but He well knew that, for humanity to prosper, material and spiritual poverty, the greatest of any environmental hazards, had to become things of the past. By His personal ecology He showed us paths that would help heal our communities and environments. His Father showed Him the way in this as He did in all other situations. It was because of Bahá'u'lláh, for example, that clean water came to the city of ‘'Akká. When Bahá’u’lláh and His family first arrived there as prisoners, their persecutors assumed that they would quickly die, crowded into cold stone barracks with fetid water and impure air. Yet they survived to occupy improved conditions under house arrest. As people came to know and love the Master and His Father, they said that the ocean lapping at the city walls, and the shores themselves, had become brighter and cleaner because of Their presence. 124 After some years in the city, although Bahá'u'lláh had enemies, other people, including government authorities, loved Him and wanted to serve Him. Some became His followers; a mayor newly assigned to the city was one of those and He came to Bahá'u'lláh asking what he could do for Him. Bahá’u'lláh instructed him to repair an old aqueduct, long in disuse, to bring clean water into the city. The project was lengthy but when it was finally completed public health improved with the hygienic municipal water supply. So, by serving the municipality and improving the welfare and environment of the people, the mayor served Bahá’u'lláh. The Master liked to serve His Father by nurturing greenery because He knew how painfully He missed the natural beauty of His home mountains. When the Great Prisoner could at last go outside the city walls, ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá rented a nearby island surrounded by two streams and planted a garden there. Pilgrims en route to Bahá'u'lláh began to bring plants for the new garden, often giving their own water to the plants as they trekked over deserts and mountains. Bahá'u'lláh took great pleasure in the garden, naming it Ridván, or Paradise, after the island in Baghdád where He had first declared His Mission, often retreating to a little house built for Him there to rest or work; having meetings under the giant mulberry trees; gathering His grandchildren for picnics. The Ridván Garden near Haifa is a holy place for the Bahá'ís, and that makes it unique among shrines, since most shrines are surrounded by gardens, but the Ridván itself is a shrine.ccvi The Master loved to water the gardens He planted for His Father. One of those gardens was at the house called the Mansion of 'Bahjí (Delight), where Bahá'u'lláh spent His final years. The tomb of Bahá'u'lláh at Bahjí is a shrine visited by Bahá'ís from 125 around the world, now surrounded by a wide and spacious circle of gardens that began with flowers and trees planted by the Master. No garden is easy to grow in the harsh, arid environs of ‘Akká. The Master not only tucked plants into the ground and pumped water for them, but spread topsoil over the flower beds and watered them, sometimes alone but other times enlisting help. He amassed a collection of big copper pots and He would gather friends to carry water in a human train. He, of course, was among them, with His pot of water.ccvii And we recall from previous chapters the Master’s tender relationships with plants, animals, all the wonders of nature. His concern for generations to come was evident when He planted trees and repaired His rented house even as he didn't know, from moment to moment, when He might be put to death. We remember the Master's establishment of productive farms in Tiberias and nearby, His famine relief during World War I (and through all His years in 'Akká and Haifa, actually). That famine relief grew out of His ability to gauge and respond to the needs of people around Him: He was never oblivious to social injustice and the illness, pain and hunger arising from it. The Master’s ability to foresee and plan for a hopeful and constructive future despite present-time destruction wasn’t limited to agricultural and horticultural economic projects, and other humanitarian work such as a medical dispensary in the small town of Abu Sinan in the Galilee, where a doctor He hired treated illnesses and taught hygiene. In Haifa he paid a doctor to visit the needy who wouldn't otherwise receive medical care. The breadth and scope of His humanitarianism is only just beginning to be studied and its lessons applied. 126 Simplicity, Celebration, Hope for Humanity's Eventual Prosperity We know that His humanitarianism was highly personal as well as public spirited, and His lack of vanity and greed marked all His lifeways. He loved unpretentious simplicity and that shone out in all that He did, even in His eating habits. He ate sparsely, the plainest and simplest of foods: milk, rice, bread, tea, cheese, dates, olives, broth. But He didn't impose a sparse diet on others. Far from it. He could and did cook -- He made soups, rice pilaus, and He baked bread -- and served food from His household kitchen generously, for His spirit of hospitality knew no bounds. He was very pleased when people ate plentifully at His table. Serving and giving -- keys to His personal ecology! While He was traveling as well as at home, He loved to organize joyous picnics and other meals, a most noteworthy one being the Unity Feast at the cabin of the stalwart American Bahá'í, Roy Wilhelm (posthumously named a Hand of the Cause of God), in Teaneck, New Jersey. A commemorative picnic is still held yearly, in June, at the cabin on the anniversary of that first Unity Feast. He loved to gather people of all races and nationalities around a single table to break bread together. He loved joyous occasions in general, especially weddings, and didn't refrain from matchmaking when the spirit moved Him, His most famous match being the marriage of Louis Gregory and Louisa Mathew. Spontaneity, unconventionality, humorousness -- these were hallmarks of His personality. He frequently chose gentle humor as a way of defusing tense and overemotional situations. A North American named Mary Hanford Ford, who was a leader in the suffrage movement, a journalist and author, and a lecturer on world literature, became a Bahá'í in the early 1900s and immediately journeyed to meet the Master in Pa- 127 lestine. It was 1907 and He was strictly imprisoned in ‘'Akká. In fact, this was during the period when His imprisonment had become increasingly perilous and tense, but Mrs. Ford didn’t know that at the time. However, she had heard about people fainting with emotion or weeping uncontrollably when they met Him and she wanted to make sure she kept control of herself. She didn’t want to burden Him with her own intensity. So, she thought of Victor Hugo, the leading French romantic poet, playwright and novelist of the previous century, author of Les Miserables among other great works. When he was young in 1830 — known as the Prince of Youth, in fact — his thousands of followers in the Romantic movement considered themselves at war with the Classicists. When one of his new plays opened, he issued cards for the Romantics so they could be admitted by the theater manager to cheer and encore the performance, overcoming the jeers of the Classicists. The cards were red, with the Spanish word “hierro”, iron, printed on them, symbolizing “invincibility and self-control”, Mrs. Ford said. “Cold, impenetrable as iron, they met their enemies." She decided that if her lips trembled and her knees shook when she met the Master she would “mentally repeat the little word, 'Iron, Iron,'" and become “unimpressionable”. She recalled, “…as the wonderful figure of ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá appeared in the doorway (of His house in ‘Akká) the expected result arrived with Him, but I gazed upon Him, squaring my shoulders, while my mind fastened itself purely upon the… word — ‘Iron, Iron!’ Can I ever forget how He looked at me with laughing eyes, and began to relate all the tortuous journey that had brought me to ‘Akká, meeting plague and quarantine at every port, and pouring out the contents of my thin pocket book, until it seemed as if nothing would be left in it if I ever reached the bleak walls of the ancient town. 128 “He laughed at me, saying, ‘Many people come here in a gala journey They stop at the best hotels.They come here when they have nothing to fear, they travel in a company of friends and are a gay crowd! The do not realize they’re on a pilgrimage to a holy place and that they must pray before they can understand it. If they do not pray before arriving, they must pray after they come here, but you have been forced to pray for guidance during the entire route, and so you are filled with a sense of prayer. You have lived and attained only through prayer.’ “Then He went on, telling one amusing story after another, perceiving all the perturbation of my poor nerves, until my knees no longer shook and I was at peace…” The Master spoke with Mrs. Ford daily during her visit, and she said “the most memorable and eloquent” of the hours she spent with Him were “those in which He described the economic future of mankind.” When she wrote her memoir of her pilgrimage, it was 1933: the Depression gripped the world economy and people suffered great financial loss and hardship. She said, “At that period (of her pilgrimage)… labour saving machines had not yet affected the labour market to a serious extent, nor produced what must generally be recognized as a high degree of permanent unemployment but the change was working…” Yet the Master foresaw that the new machines would ultimately be of great service to humanity, as He spoke to Mrs. Ford in “that marvelous, colourful voice… Then He would rise in the excitement of what He portrayed, and walk back and forth conscious of nothing but the ideals which possessed Him.” He said that all people, not just certain geniuses as in the past, had been touched by the new spirit released into the world by Bahá'u'lláh, and that designs for labour-saving devices had been revealed through the spirit. “It may seem strange to 129 you,” she recalled Him saying, “that the Holy Spirit should give designs for labour-saving machines, but in reality every creative impulse of the brain can arise only through contact with the spirit. Without that the brain is merely capable of conventional and traditional action.” He said that throughout human history wealthy people alone could develop individuality, while the mass of people were oppressed and even enslaved, with no energy for anything but eating and sleeping at the end of their working day. “That all mankind might have opportunity, it was necessary to shorten the hours of labour so that the work of the world could be completed without such… strain and effort, and all human beings would have leisure to think and develop individual capacity.” Mrs. Ford observed that as He spoke, “his face and eyes” were “shining with joy over the happy future into which He gazed”. She remembered Him saying, “… at present (the labour-saving machines) are… in the hands of the financiers and are used only to increase profits, but that will not continue. The workers will come into their due benefit from the machine; that is the divine intention, and one cannot continue to violate the law of God. So with the assurance of a comfortable income from his work, and ample leisure for each one, poverty will be banished and each community will create comfort and opportunity for its citizens. Education will then be universal at the cost of the state, and no person will be deprived of its opportunity.” ccviii So the Master, His personal ecology balanced with “all that is in heaven and earth” could ascertain a soul’s condition and fill it with “beauty and glory” by His kindly wisdom and humor, and also ascertain the condition of the world, projecting and working towards its hopeful progress. 130 11. Dawnbreak! Daybreak! The Tablets of the Divine Plan and the Emancipation of Women First Respondents As we have seen, during the Master's western travels He constantly taught peace, hoping the world could avoid the carnage of widespread war. When World War I did break out, Haifa was in the hands of the Central Powers (Bulgaria, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire) and was under constant threat of bombardment by Allied Forces (Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, the United States, Japan). The Ottoman government ruled Palestine via the Turkish strongman Jamál Páshá. The same enemies that had dogged the Master for weary years now incited Jamál Pásha to feverish, potentially lethal animosity against Him. The Master could continue His hands-on humanitarian work, but He couldn’t communicate with His international Bahá’í community in the usual way because of wartime mail restrictions. He nevertheless revealed guidance for its expansion and consolidation through the Tablets of the Divine Plan, which He started writing in 1916 to the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada. 131 He’d nurtured and witnessed the growth of the Bahá’í Faith in Europe, North America and Russia as well as in eastern lands. And there were some small but brilliant sparks of the Faith in areas where their existence was unsuspected by most Bahá'ís. Margaret Stevenson in New Zealand (or Aotearoa, which is its Maori name) stands out. She became a Bahá'í in 1912, in Auckland, having first encountered the Faith in 1911, in an article about 'Abdu'l-Bahá that she read in The Christian Commonwealth, a newspaper her sister sent her. Her sister, in England, had heard the Master speak. Margaret read the article but didn't give it much thought. Later, however, an actress friend of hers, Dorothea Spinney, arrived in New Zealand to present interpretations of Greek tragedies. Dorothea had met the Master and become a Bahá'í, and her faith was contagious. Margaret said, "As a child, I used to wish I had lived when Christ was on earth,... I remembered my childhood's wish, and the thought came to me that I too might have denied Him as so many others had done. It was this secret thought that made me seriously think of what I had heard from Miss Spinney." Margaret told others about the Bahá'í Faith, and another New Zealander, Sarah Blundell, who had also read the article in The Christian Commonwealth, became a Bahá'í. Margaret sent away for Bahá'í literature and subscribed to the Bahá'í newsmagazine published in America, The Star of the West. She also acquired a Bahá'í ring, its stone inscribed with the symbol of oneness designed by the Master. Several years later, Hyde Dunn, who with his wife, Clara, brought the Faith to Australia, arrived in New Zealand to introduce the Faith, and fouind it was already there. A new acquaintance directed him to the meeting held regularly at Sarah Blundell's house. There, Margaret no- 132 ticed a Bahá'í ring on his finger and turned her hand to him, showing him her ring. She said, "His pleasure and astonishment when he saw my ring will always be something to remember."ccix With His Divine Plan, the Master sought to ensure that new Bahá'í groups like the one in New Zealand would be established everywhere. To do that, He had to galvanize His followers to carry the Bahá'í Message into every part of the earth: every State of the United States, every Province of Canada; every country of Europe, South and Central America, Asia, Australasia, Africa. In His summons to them, He named as teaching goals places formerly unheard-of to many of them. Places such as New Hebrides, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia, Bismarck Archipelago, Celebes, Friendly Islands, Straits Settlements, Marquesas and many more. He didn’t just pluck the names of archipelagoes, isles, nations and cities from thin air. He’d perused a geography book belonging to a Bahá'í student and asked if He could keep it; of course, the student said yes. Using that book and its maps, He made His directives very specific. And He didn’t ask His world-wide community to do anything He wouldn’t do. It's said that He had planned to visit China and India, but circumstances wouldn't allow it. And many other regions also called to Him. He summoned the Bahá'ís to go forth in His Name. He wrote, “O that I could travel, even though on foot and in the utmost poverty, to these regions, and, raising the call of “Yá Bahá’u’l-Abhá” (Oh Thou Glory of the Most Glorious) in cities, villages, mountains, deserts and oceans, promote the divine teachings! This, alas, I cannot do. How intensely I deplore it! Please God, ye may achieve it.” ccx He was well aware of His Father’s commands in The Hidden Words: 133 “Magnify My Cause that I may reveal unto thee the mysteries of My greatness and shine upon thee with the light of eternity” and “Make mention of Me on My earth, that in My heaven I may remember thee, thus shall Mine eyes and thine be solaced.”ccxi In the Tablets of the Divine Plan, He cited the bold women who had "promoted the divine teachings" in new territories years before He wrote the Plan: Alma Knobloch, who opened Germany to the Faith in 1907; Agnes Alexander, who opened Hawaii (not then a part of the United States) in 1908 and Japan in 1913; May Maxwell, who began the Bahá’í community in Paris and then opened Canada (she settled in Montreal) in 1902. He also mentioned that in Alaska, "one of the maidservants of the Merciful... serving as a librarian in the public library... according to her ability is not failing in teaching the Cause."ccxii This was Margaret Duncan Green, a poet, and she was in Alaska from 1915-1918. In 1916, five of the Master’s Tablets, written in tiny Persian and English script on postcards because wartime censorship forbade closed correspondence, arrived in the U.S. and were published in The Star of the West. Then all avenues of correspondence closed. May Maxwell, Grace Ober, Elizabeth Greenleaf and Marian Jack immediately responded to the first five Tablets; they began traveling to various parts of Canada. After the war, in 1919, the Bahá’ís received the remaining Tablets which had been hidden in a vault under the Shrine of the Báb. In April, 1919, the entire Plan — all 14 Tablets — was presented ceremoniously at the Convention of the Covenant at the Hotel McAlpin in New York. 134 Hyde and Clara Dunn, newlyweds dwelling in San Francisco, missed the convention but while they relaxed in a vacation garden in Santa Cruz the mail brought them copies of the Tablets. Clara began reading them, came upon rr’s wish — “O that I could travel… Please God ye may achieve it!” — and said to her husband, “Shall we go?” He replied, “Yes.” He later reported that “no further discussion took place.”ccxiii The Dunns, married just two years when they decided to go to Australia, were among the youngest at heart of all the Bahá’ís who received the Master’s message, though he was 65 years old and she was 51. They'd been sadly orphaned by life until they found the Bahá'´Faith, and each other. They arrived in Australia in 1920: they were among the first to answer the Master’s summons after it was shared at the New York convention. Sharing their laurels was the journalist and world-traveler Martha Root, later a Hand of the Cause of God, who departed the New York convention for South America post haste and would continue to set the pace for selfless, victorious Bahá'í teaching for 20 tireless years. At the same time, Marian Jack and Emogene Hoagg embarked on an epic river voyage through Alaska. Leonora Holsapple Armstrong, like Martha Root, was present at the convention and she also determined immediately to answer the call. However, circumstances delayed her departure. She was a slight, shy young woman from Hudson, New York, still in her twenties, and her family feared for her but they needn't have. She managed to leave for Brazil in 1921 and stayed there for over 50 years; now she is known among the Bahá'ís as the Spiritual Mother of South America. One of the major infliuences in her upbringing, who endowed her with great faith and strength, was her maternal grand- 135 mother, Leonora Georgianna Stirling, who became a Bahá'í in 1906 when she was in her seventies, and was most likely the first Bahá'í in Hudson. Looking at outstanding early believers -- and at early respondents to the teaching plan -- it becomes apparent that many of the most spirited Western Bahá'ís were women. The Master always championed the capacity and potential of women, and they didn’t let Him down. Special Capacity and Role of Women The Master enacted the core Bahá'í principle of the equality of women and men in His interactions with women, encouraging them to fearless, selfless action. Of course he wanted all the Bahá’ís, men and women, to follow His example, and He made no special conditions for women: they must serve as their faith, motivation and capacity dictated. May Maxwell, in her book An Early Pilgrimage, recorded His immortal statement to her pilgrimage group in 1898 when they were about to leave Him: “…look at Me, follow Me, be as I am; take no thought for yourselves or your lives, whether ye eat or whether we sleep, whether ye are comfortable, whether ye are well or ill, whether ye are with friends or foes, whether ye receive praise or blame; for all of these things ye must care not at all. Look at Me and be as I am; ye must die to yourselves and to the world, so shall ye be born again and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Behold a candle and how it gives its light. It weeps its life away drop by drop in order to give forth its flame of light.”ccxiv But He had pointed, positive reactions to women’s achievements. Lady Blomfield noted His glee as He watched some children racing on ponies in Richmond Park, in London. They were several boys and a girl, and when the girl won the Master applauded and , shouted, “Bravo! Bravo!”ccxv 136 In Bristol, England, while riding in a car in the green countryside, He saw a young woman ride by on horseback with her hair flying free, and several women on bicycles; He said, “This is the age of woman. She should receive the same education as her brother and enjoy the same privilege; for all souls are equal before God. Sex, in its relation to the exigencies of the physical plane, has no connection with the Spirit. In this age of spiritual awakening, the world has entered upon the path of progress into the arena of development, where the power of the spirit surpasses that of the body. Soon the spirit will have dominion over the world of humanity.”ccxvi His female followers often made literary efforts and He was very supportive of them. In 1910, when Laura Barney wrote her play, God’s Heroes, about Táhirih and her cohorts, He had it translated into Arabic and also encouraged her to send copies of it to Irán. He praised her, “…thou hast indeed been most assiduous in writing this book. I beseech God that as day followeth day, thy spirit of endeavor, service and sacrifice, and thy constancy and steadfastness in the Cause, may wax stronger so that thou mayest become a luminous star shining from the horizon of eternity.” ccxvii Heroines The Master was tireless in encouraging women to follow the example of Táhirih in defending their faith and convictions. In His address to the Women’s Freedom League in London in 1913, He said, “Humanity is like a bird with its two wings — the one is male, the other female. Unless both wings are strong and impelled by some common force, the bird cannot fly heavenwards. According to the spirit of this age, women must advance and fulfill their mission in all departments of life, becoming equal to men. They must be on the same level as men and enjoy equal rights. This is my earnest prayer and it is one of the fundamental principles of Bahá’u’lláh… “Amongst the women of our own time is Qurratu’l-‘Ayn (Táhirih) the daughter of a Muhammadan priest. At the time of the appearance of the Báb she showed such tremendous courage and power that all who heard her were astonished. She threw aside her veil despite the immemorial custom of the women of Persia, and although it 137 was considered impolite to speak with men, this heroic woman carried on controversies with the most learned men, and in every meeting she vanquished them. The Persian Government took her prisoner; she was stoned in the streets, anathematized, exiled from town to town, threatened with death, but she never failed in her determination to work for the freedom of her sisters. She bore persecution and suffering with the greatest heroism; even in prison she gained converts. To a Minister of Persia, in whose house she was imprisoned, she said: ‘You can kill me as soon as you like but you cannot stop the emancipation of women.’ At last the end of her tragic life came; she was carried into a garden and strangled. She put on, however, her choicest robes as if she were going to join a bridal party. With such magnanimity and courage she gave her life, startling and thrilling all who saw her. She was a truly great heroine. Today in Persia, among the Bahá’ís, there are women who also show unflinching courage, and who are endowed with great poetic insight. They are most eloquent, and speak before large gatherings of people.”ccxviii When He sent Lua Getsinger to India in 1913 to teach in His Name, He cited Táhirih’s example. Lua’s given name was Louisa but the Master called her Livá or Lua, the Banner, and said she was His Herald of the Covenant. At 22, in Chicago, she read a newspaper report of the speech at the World Parliament of Religions in which the name Bahá’u’lláh was mentioned, and she began her search to find out Who He was. At 27, she was one of the first group of western pilgrims to visit the Master in ‘Akká. She had already introduced the name of Bahá’u’lláh to many of His seminal disciples including May Maxwell and Robert Turner, and she would introduce it to many more — Louis Gregory among them. As she embarked for India in 1913, the Master wrote to her: “Look at me! Thou dost not know a thousandth part of the difficulties and seemingly unsurmountable passes that rise daily before my eyes. I do not heed them; I am walking in my chosen highway; I know the destination. Hundreds of Titanics may sink to the bottom of the sea, the mad waves may rise to the roof of heaven; all these will not change my purpose, will not disturb me in the least; I will not look neither to the right or to the left; I am looking ahead, far, far. Piercing through the impenetrable darkness of the night, the howling winds, the raging storms, I see the glorious Light beckoning me forward, forward. “Qurratu‘l-‘Ayn had attained to this supreme state. When they brought her the terrible news of the martyrdom of the Bahá’ís, she did not waver; it did not make any difference to her; she also had chosen her path, she knew her goal, and when they im- 138 parted to her the news of her impending death, no one could see any trace of sorrow in her face; she was rather happier. “Although she never cared for dress, that day she wore her best white silk dress and jewelry and perfumed herself with the most fragrant attar of roses. She hailed the chamber of death as a happy bride entering the nuptial bower of the bridegroom. To this lofty summit of unchanging purpose thou must attain; like Qurratu’1-‘Ayn nothing must shake thy firm faith.”ccxix An Enduring Route in the World's Spiritual Geography Today, just as there are many Bahá’í women and girls named Táhirih, so there are many named Lua, for Lua royally lived up to the Master’s bidding. He not only chose her to go to India, but also sent her to California to prepare the way for His visit to the West, and for numerous other tasks for the defense of the Covenant and the Bahá’í community, including representing Him to the Shah of Irán. She was a banner for Him and also a shield. Fragile though Lua was ,with her highly sensitive temperament and constitution, hers was among the first and most trail-blazing response to His Divine Plan, long before the Tablets were conceived. She had a heart condition and died at the age of 45 in 1916, in Egypt. From the time she read the name Bahá’u’lláh at the end of the 19th Century, until her last breath, she traveled the Master’s chosen highway, which He alluded to in the Tablets of the Divine Plan as “the highway of the Kingdom… this straight and far-stretching path.” ccxx He called Lua the Mother Teacher of the West, and hers was a path of victory for feminine power, a path that she helped establish as an enduring route in the world’s spiritual geography. It’s a path that both men and women can follow, a path of great sacrifice, but ultimately joyful. As Táhirih wrote: 139 Dawnbreak! Daybreak! Blessed be today! Revived, renewed, fresh off the loom, blessed be today! Sun ascending! Day of dominion! Dwell in joy today! Spin raw silk of happiness and dance, this blessed day… Why wait! My robe is re-embroidered on this very morn. Why hesitate? The veil splits, sun’s up, splendor is born…ccxxi 12. Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire: Goodly Deeds Illumination of a Life O SON OF MY HANDMAID! Guidance hath ever been given by words, and now it is given by deeds. Every one must show forth deeds that are pure and holy, for words are the property of all alike, whereas such deeds as these belong only to Our loved ones…ccxxii Deeds, not words -- the Master stressed that maxim frequently, never more than in the case of Marie A. Watson, very special pilgrim from the U.S. who came to see Him in June, 1921, at His express invitation. He was nearing the end of his life (though His friends didn’t know that) and it seems He wanted to make sure this particular soul, who had suffered a great deal of physical and mental anguish, received the comfort, healing and motivation she needed. 140 She first met the Master when she was hospitalized in Washington, D.C.. in 1890. That was years before the first Bahá'í teachers came to the U.S., so, how did it happen? She explained in her memoir, My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire: “…I was a victim of a car accident… The injury was so severe that life was thought to be extinct for several hours”… Her spinal column was drastically twisted, her ribs crushed, her right hip displaced and she could hardly raise her left arm. She was in a coma for many days. But friends held out hope for her because they knew that in her childhood she’d survived a death-like trance that lasted 19 days. She later wrote, “…my soul was very much alive on inner subjective planes… I met with a Wonderful Being, — whom I afterwards learned was ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, who gave me spiritual instructions and taught me the mysteries of life, saying, ‘Many… things thou dost comprehend only in part for thou must live them and then teach the people of the world…”ccxxiii She actually learned of the Master in 1901, became a Bahá’í and wrote to Him. Replying to her, He said, “… the weakness of the body and its strength do neither harm nor benefit. Nay, rather, the spirit must be strong thro’ the breath of the Holy Spirit… I beg of God that He may increase joy and fragrance in thy spirit, give thee power and strength…”ccxxiv She tried to live her faith in deeds, though she was badly disabled and in pain much of the time. She championed the cause of racial unity and ran into prejudice that created difficult confrontations within and without the Bahá'í community. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá counseled in a Tablet to her in 1905 that “undoubtedly such an undertaking will arouse the… enmity of many souls… but the more opposition increases… the greater will be confirmations of the Kingdom of God.” In 1911 He commended her efforts and told her, “,,,endeavor that 141 the black and white may gather in one meeting place, and with the utmost love and fraternity associate with each another, so that this quarrel and strife may vanish from among the white and black.” He said she should encourage intermarriage; the Word of God is the greatest influence to “bring about affection between the black and the white,” and intermarriage will “wholly destroy and erradicate the root of enmity.”ccxxv Later that year, when He was in Paris and she was suffering from heart troubles, He sent her a prayer for her protection. Years passed and Marie struggled on, helping and solacing many people, until disharmony in the community sickened her more than ever: her constant physical pain was also emotional anguish.The Master well knew the anguish: because He contended all the time with divisiveness and enmity, He spent many a night ill and sleepless, with prayer as his only remedy. Eventually, Agnes Parsons, our heroine of the 1st Race Amity Conference, received a cable from the Master: “Send immediately Mrs. Watson in utmost comfort to Holy Land.”ccxxvi Transformation of a Life Marie made the long journey from New York to Palestine escorted by Jináb-iFadl, a Persian scholar who had been teaching in the United States for two years at the Master’s behest. Greece and Türkiye were at war, so there were, Marie said, “dramatic incidents… strange scenes at sea and stranger experiences on land…” By this time, the Master was no longer a prisoner. He lived in a house in Haifa. When Marie and Jináb-iFadl finally found themselves on a train less than an hour from Haifa, she said, “my heart galloped as though trying to reach there before the rest of me.”ccxxvii 142 In a carriage, they proceeded through the streets of the city toward their goal, Marie eagerly taking in all the sights and sounds on her way: the kaleidoscopic colors and variety of the peoples’ dress and headgear, the flow of their chatter, noise of carts and animals’ hoofs and bells; attempts at advertising in English; men at sidewalk tables eating, smoking, talking loudly, drinking black coffee from tiny cups and clapping for replenishments. At last, the carriage rounded a corner “and this varied picture, like a ‘movie screen,’ vanished from sight.” The sun flashed in her eyes, greeting her “with an intensity characteristic of the East,” making her burn with impatience to see the Master.” But at the moment of their arrival, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wasn’t at home! Friends took them to the Pilgrim House across the way from His house and showed them to their rooms where they washed away the grime of travel and put on clean clothes. In the dining-room, they enjoyed tea and chatted with other guests until suddenly they heard the announcement: “The Master is coming!” They heard His voice: “Welcome! Welcome!” He took His visitors by the hand saying, “You should have wired us of your arrival and we would have sent our carriage to the station for you.” He said to Marie, “You must rest; you are very tired. Now you are at home…. Here you must rest and be very happy.” She felt that his presence was like “a tonic breeze.”ccxxviii As the journalist Kate Carew had said of Him, He was like the Breeze of God. Marie recorded, “Every evening at eight o’clock the Master holds a meeting lasting an hour or more, during which He discourses upon intricate problems concerning the (Bahá'í) Cause. The Master is seated upon the large porch in front of the house, to which ten white stone steps lead from the broad gravel path. A white stone coping borders the path on each side, providing seating space for fifty or more people… 143 “View with me that majestic Figure in white flowing garments seated before us, a white turban crowning the wonderful head with its long silvery locks lifted gently by the breeze; the beautifully moulded hands emphasizing the discourse with impressive gesture. After the address a Russian refugee Bahá'í teacher chants in exquisitely modulated tones, the prayers of Bahá'u'lláh. It is impossible adequately to describe this scene. The writer became conscious of new emotions, the awakening of something so subtle, so elusive, that one could not capture it, yet so impressive that everything was cast into oblivion except the immediate present. The fragrance from the gardens on either side wafts a different scent on each breath of the night air. Roses, orange blossoms, lemon buds, tuberoses, jasmine, honeysuckle — each in turn leaving its definite sweetness… “ She heard the sea murmuring in the distance and saw the dark sky crowded with stars above her; she said, “…shadows deepen under the trees, while at their tops the leaves glisten and glimmer like sparkling gems…”ccxxix Throughout Marie’s visit, at meals the Master seated her on his right at the long table in the capacious dining room, and urged her to eat as much as possible. When she told him she’d eaten plenty he said, “Too little, much too little.” There were always guests and household members present — the Master’s household numbered over a hundred people. The chatelaine of the house, who kept the hospitality ceaselessly gracious, was the Master’s sister, Bahíyyih Khánum. During meals, the Master encouraged Marie to display her Persian. She could put together a few sentences and identify things the Master pointed to at the table, and He would say, “Brava, Brava! You know everything that is useful to know. That is very good.” She later realized He was asking her to identify only the the things whose names 144 were already known to her. She said, “How tenderly the Master seeks to have one feel of some account in the world…” Visiting the Shrine of the Báb on Mt. Carmel, Marie rode by the Master’s side in an automobile; Jináb-i-Fadl and various small grandchildren were also in the party; other visitors to the shrine walked. In a group of about 50, facing the tomb, they drank tea and sat in silence under a westering sun and clouds tinted gold and violet. The Master spoke of the harm caused by prejudice and disparagement, and of tests. “Tests are not sent as punishment, but to reveal the soul to itself. Suffering unfolds both the strength and the weakness. Tests are sometimes creative of grateful surprise also; for in the midst of our trials we are amazed at the fullness of our strength and our resources, and so the heavy discipline is creative of assurance; the trial becomes a source of greater confidence, faith and trust…”ccxxx The days passed in peace and grace, yet Marie found it hard to really relax, for something preyed on her mind. Because of the disagreements that had arisen in her community, many of her friends, some of one opinion and some of another, had come to her before she left on her journey and requested her to bring back a VERY DEFINITE answer to their questions from the Master. And so far, the Master had not given her any VERY DEFINITE instructions. Every morning he came to the Pilgrim House to visit her and ask, “How is your health?” and “Are you happy?” She told him she was “perfectly happy”, but she wasn’t. So, at last, one morning she confessed her dilemma. She was personally satisfied with all she’d heard and learned on her visit, but she knew her friends wouldn’t be satisfied. The Master only looked at some clouds overhead and said, “You must be like these swift-moving, luminous clouds… I shall pray for you that you may be like these clouds. Let nothing hinder you… Be engaged in service…Do not let unpleasant things annoy you. You must be as far removed from them as these clouds are above us… show love and compassion, be kind to all, and do not wound the 145 feelings of others. If we do not like to associate with some people, very well, it is not compulsory. We can let them alone and become… busy with constructive work… We do not waste our time in discussing non-essentials… Seek to make others happy… O God, help us to be severed from all but Thee!”ccxxxi Soon after this conversation, Marie found her resolve sorely tested while she went to the Ridvan Garden, that sacred island between two streams. Her party started out in the very early morning, trying to accomplish the trek in the cool of the day, but, because no vehicle was available, the men walked and Marie was given the Master’s white donkey to ride. The road was long and dusty and the sun soon grew merciless. Marie had never ridden a horse or any other animal. The Master usually rode the donkey without a saddle but the caretaker decided Marie must have some kind of saddle, so he brought a large pillow and tied it onto the donkey with a rope. The donkey objected but the caretaker persisted. Then, with the help of a chair, Marie climbed onto the donkey’s back and took the reins. The road was stony, the donkey trotted swiftly, the pillow slipped from side to side. Now and then the donkey kicked and bucked to rid himself of flies and Marie said, “I trembled within, fearing every moment that he would get rid of me, too.” Her body, with so many painful skeletal injuries because of the crash that had almost taken her life, was racked with pain. One of the men suggested that she should take a rest but she felt that if she stopped, she’d never be able to go on. The sun blazed yet she was cold and her bones seemed to crack and snap and tear; she thought she would die and decided to do so without complaining, happy to die as a pilgrim to the Master. But when the white donkey finally neared the tree that marked the entrance to the garden, and two men helped her dismount, she was transformed. “I could breathe 146 deeply, which had not been possible for thirty years. My hip, somehow, was in place, the projecting bow on the left side of my spine had disappeared..” She was astonished and so were her fellow pilgrims. As she walked in the garden she thought, “Can this be true? Is this really I, who can breathe and walk without pain, so freed?…” She’d been unable to lift her left arm above her head for thirty years, and now she could raise it, so she kept raising it, over and over “in sheer joy and wonder.” Marie Watson, free from her years of intense pain, was also free of the need to bring her friends “something definite” from the Master; in fact, she wanted nothing from the Master, she only wanted to accept her reality as it was and demand no more. But, later, at the lunch table, the Master looked at her and said, “Brava! Brava! Ah, now you are another Mrs. Watson. Now you are perfectly happy. Now you have something most definite to take home with you to the friends…”ccxxxii She still had 17 days left of her pilgrimage and each was filled with grace. When the Master said good-bye to her he gave her “a silver salver covered with white jasmine.” Jasmine fragrance filled the room, and he told her, “May your deeds fill the world with like fragrance!” Marie Watson died just a few years after she left the Holy Land, in 1924, for although she was freed from much of her pain her health remained fragile. But, despite fragility, it seems she fulfilled the Master’s wish, in accordance with Bahá'u'lláh’s teaching: “Guidance hath ever been given by words, and now it is given by deeds…” Integrity The Master’s deeds of course constantly showed His integrity, thoroughness and trustworthiness. He unfailingly kept His promises, and He made sure that if He entrust- 147 ed a duty to someone it would be carried out in His spirit. To meditate and pray, and renew His springs of energy, He rented a room in ‘'Akká and He would go there for a quiet moment when possible. Next door to this room, in a cramped space, lived an old Turkish military officer, a pasha, who had been exiled to the prison city from his home in San’a, Yemen. The pasha was very poor and lonely and the Master was always kind to him. One day when the pasha was sick and felt he would soon die, he prayed the Master would visit Him, and the Master did. The pasha told the Master: “I have a secret. I want your help. Only one daughter is left to me of my whole family. I’m not sure where she is but I know her husband abuses her. I can only trust you to help her. I have a bag of gold and I want her to have it, after you use some of it to pay for my funeral. I don’t want her husband to get his hands on it.” The Master promised to get the gold to the lady, and the next day the pasha died. The Master had a legal witness come and count the gold and sign a paper verifying that He had it. Then He selected a few of the pasha’s belongings to give the daughter and gave the rest to the pasha’s old servant. He didn’t subtract any money for the funeral from the bag of gold, but arranged an honorable burial for the old soldier and paid for it himself. He also insisted that the governor pay a state allowance that had been promised to the pasha but never paid, and he added it to the daughter’s bequest. Now, how to get the gold safely to San’a in Yemen, and find the daughter? He chose a dervish that He knew was a true follower of His and very honest, and entrusted him with the mission. Any possible instructions for finding the daughter had been 148 gleaned from the authorities and He gave them to the dervish along with traveling expenses. The dervish didn’t return to ‘'Akká for 5 months, but he had accomplished his mission. Escaping attempts by the greedy, cruel husband to block him and take the money, he found the daughter and made sure she possessed the money and also the little mementos of her father. The governor of San’a witnessed all and signed a document saying she had duly received her inheritance. Such honorableness, selflessness and perseverance, the ability to put the welfare of others before one’s own welfare, was what the Master expected of those Who claimed to love Him.ccxxxiii Florence Breed Khan observed during her time in 'Akká in 1906 that He certainly put others before Himself on His birthday. She wrote, “Remembering birthday festivities in America, and how the one for whom the festivities were given, though host or hostess, was the central figure and guest of honor, I queried, ‘How will ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá act on His birthday? Will He, for once, lie in bed late in the morning, while His family and the house guests file by to… offer any gift, and to wish Him the happy returns of the day?… Won’t it seem strange to see ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá graciously accepting our homage? The Great Exemplar of Servitude, being served?’ I could not envisage the picture, yet I hoped that the One Who always served from earliest morning to late at night would rest and enjoy leisure, and let His loving friends and followers offer Him their feeble services… “… The following morning I woke late… Soon after, Khan appeared and said, ‘Since early dawn, the Master has been busy… Over 200 guests are expected for the 149 Feast and the Master has been at work…’ I exclaimed, ‘The Master working on His birthday?’… ‘He has been kneading, with His own hands, dough for the ovens. He has been in gay spirits, inspiring, uplifting, cheering all His helpers.’ The picture I had envisaged of ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá reclining… all the morning while we paid Him homage vanished in my astonishment! Later… ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá assisted in passing the platters… the rice… the lamb… the fruits of the region… Moving among His 200 guests, He spoke to them as He served them, such divine words of love and spiritual import… "‘...If one of you has been wounded in heart by the words or deeds of another during the past year, forgive him now, that in purity of heart and loving pardon you may feast in happiness and arise renewed in spirit.’ “He said not a word about His own birthday!” As we know, the Master’s birth coincided with the night the Báb announced His Revelation to His first follower, and Florence Khan said, “He spoke only of The Báb, His mission and message.”ccxxxiv A Tale to Heal a Suffering Soul The Master often imparted His wisdom through stories from religious history — the lives of the Prophets and their followers — and from oriental lore, as we saw when He asked “Who will bell the cat?” at Lake Mohonk. In San Francisco in 1912, He told an old Persian story to a homebound friend who could not come out to attend His meetings, and it revived the invalid and inspired him for the rest of his life. The patient was Charles Tinsley, an African-American who became a Bahá’í while working in the household of Phoebe Hearst, as Robert Turner had done. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá visited California, Robert Turner had already passed away, but Charles Tinsley was there and longed to meet Him. He had been a regular at Bahá’í 150 gatherings, even though he was partially paralyzed and in a wheelchair, but now he also had a broken leg and couldn’t go out at all. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “Well, if he is not able to come to see me, I will go to see him.” Charles had felt it a cruel fate that he couldn’t attend ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s events, and had been very unhappy and disgruntled. When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asked him how he was feeling, he said, “I am well except for this broken leg which has kept me in bed a long time. I am impatient to be up and out and working for the (Bahá’í) Cause, and cannot understand why I should have been so afflicted.” The Master sat on the edge of the bed and took Charles’ hand. “You must not be sad,” He said. “Cheer up. Praise to be to God, you are dear to Me. Come, I will tell you a story. “Once upon a time there was a great king who, having much love for one of his subjects, wished to appoint him to a high office…” The king had the man imprisoned, bastinadoed, and subsequently hanged on the gallows until he was nearly dead. He was then hospitalized until he recovered enough to be brought before the king. During all his trials, he hadn’t heard a word from the king and “he suffered intensely both mentally and physically.” So, he entered the king’s presence, “threw himself on his knees and cried, ‘O my Lord, my Liege, your Majesty, what does this mean, these terrible ordeals? I thought you loved me.’” The king embraced him and assured him, “I do love you. I have chosen you from among all my subjects to make you my prime minister, and these ordeals you have suffered are to make you know what punishment means. When you become prime minister you will have in your hands the lives of countless thousands. Whenever it may become necessary for you to order a man to be… cast into 151 prison you will know how it feels. If it should become necessary for you to order a man to be bastinadoed you will know how that would feel. If you should be obliged to condemn a man to death on the gallows, you will know how even that feels. It is because of my deep love for you, it is because of your great capacity, that I have chosen you for the highest office in the land, and have trained you for that purpose.” The Master assured Charles Tinsley: “Even so it is with you. After this ordeal you will reach maturity. God sometimes causes us to suffer much and to have many misfortunes so that we may become strong in His cause. You will soon recover and be spiritually stronger than ever before. You will work for God and carry the Message to many of your people.” It wasn’t just the words of the Master, but the vibrance of His presence and voice that changed Charles’ attitude toward his affliction and charged him with joy. All who knew Charles said that after the Master’s visit “nothing… ever daunted him or clouded his spiritual happiness.” When he became ill again, later on, visitors found his “spirit… serene and his faith unwavering,” and were themselves cheered by him instead of the other way around.ccxxxv So we see, yet again, how the Master illuminated and transformed lives. 152 13. The Restful Rose-Garden: The Ascension of the Master A Messenger of Joy O SON OF THE SUPREME! I have made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve? I made the light to shed on thee its splendor. Why dost thou veil thyself therefrom?ccxxxvi It was certainly fitting that Marie Watson’s healing and renewal came in a garden — when she was en route to and within the Ridván Garden, which was created by the Master expressly for Bahá'u'lláh and, by extension, His loved ones. Her soul was soothed when her body was healed from its life-long anguish, but the Master always taught that the soul's freedom didn't depend on the body's condition. However, He said 153 the soul was liberated at the body’s demise, for it ascended into a new life in an evernew, eternal garden. He used the parable of the caged, and then uncaged, bird, to describe the soul's joy after death. He said: “To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage, and the spirit is like the bird…if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist. Its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased…ccxxxvii One of the Master’s daughters told Lady Blomfield “that when her child was ill, the Master came and gave two pink roses to the little one, then, turning to the mother, He said in His musical voice so full of love: ‘Be patient.’ That evening the child passed away. …"There is a Garden of God,’ (the Master said to His grieving daughter), ‘human beings are trees growing therein. The Gardener is Our Father. When He sees a little tree in a place too small for her development, He prepares a suitable and more beautiful place, where she may grow and bear fruit. Then He transplants that little tree. The other trees marvel, saying: “This is a lovely little tree. For what reason does the Gardener uproot it?” The Divine Gardener, alone, knows the reason. You are weeping… but if you could see the beauty of the place where she is, you would no longer be sad.Your child is now free, and, like a bird, is chanting divine joyous melodies. If you could see that sacred Garden, you would not be content to remain here on earth. Yet this is where your duty now lies.’”ccxxxviii Lady Blomfield chronicled quite a bit about the Master's teachings on life after death. She wrote, "...a woman came to 'Abdu'l-Bahá and told Him: ‘Last night, Master, I dreamed that I was in a garden of such beauty that it seemed beyond the power of the most perfect human gardener to have created it. In this garden I saw a beautiful girl, about nineteen, who was caressing the flowers. As I came into the garden she lifted her lovely head and came towards me with outstretched arms, as though in great love and 154 joy at my visit. I looked at her amazed, and then I saw a startling resemblance to the tiny daughter I lost many years before.’ “''Abdu'l-Bahá smiled His miraculous smile: ‘My child, you have been permitted to see your daughter as she is now, walking in the sacred garden of one of the worlds of God. This is a bounty of God to you. Rejoice and be happy.’”ccxxxix In another instance, a woman told the Master she’d dreamed about a young girl she didn’t know, but gradually realized was part of her family. The girl spoke of a horse the woman’s son had once owned. Finally the woman recognized the girl as her daughter. But her daughter had died 21 years before, when she was only nine months old. The woman was grieved that she hadn’t recognized the girl, and the girl seemed surprised. The woman told the Master the child had been her “idol” — “because I loved her so much, I tried hard to put her out of my thought, and the dream made me feel that we should not do this.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said, “That child is your trust within the charge of God. She was a child when she went, but you shall find her full grown in the Kingdom of God… As to the horse: …Horse in a dream means wish. It shows that your daughter has fulfilled her wish and her desire, and that shows the loftiness of her station. The wish is one that your son shared, but she attained to it. It is my hope, God willing, he, too, will attain to it.” The woman was amazed that such a young child could have a wish. The Master told her, “The child is born with a wish.” The woman was crying, and He told her to be happy. “You have not lost her out of your hands…” He said it was the woman’s tears that surprised her daughter. And He said she needn’t try to forget her daughter. “It is not 155 in man’s control, when to forget... It is not good for one to try to forget them. One must always remember them.”ccxl We don't always dream of our loved one who have died, or intuit their state in some other way, ourselves; sometimes a person who is close to us will receive that gift. Lady Blomfield’s mother died in old age, then appeared in a friend's dream in “the full beauty of youth.”ccxli But of course people are more likely to be puzzled and heart-broken by the death of a young one. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá knew how that was, since He Himself had survived so many losses and tragedies, including the accident that killed His younger brother and the deaths of five of His children when they were small. It is known that He and His wife deeply lamented those deaths. The loss of His five-year old son, Husayn Effendi, was especially poignant. The child was a particular favorite of everyone, none more than his Grandfather, Bahá’u’lláh, with Whom he loved to go on little adventures that he called “sight-seeing” walks. Bahá’u’lláh was amused by the way Husayn mispronounced the Persian word for sightseeing, tamáshá, as tabáshá.ccxlii Bahá’u’lláh used to write special Tablets to Husayn. When the little boy died and his mother, Munirih Khánum, was cast into deep grief, He wrote to her, quoting the Qu’ran: ”’Wherever ye are, death will find ye out, even if ye are in towers built up strong and high!’” And He continued, “When, at the bidding of the Eternal One, the irresistible decree strikes, it is incumbent upon all to submit to it and to be content. Although outwardly separation consumeth the heart, yet it is the cause of reunion and return and, for some children, it is a means of protection. To none are known the exigencies of divine wisdom. The effect of this ascension is in the grasp of God’s knowledge, and to divulge it is not permissible. Should we remove the veil from this station, the immense sorrow will be transmuted to great joy, and innumerable souls would take their flight.” 156 Again quoting the Qur’an, He said, “’Wealth and sons are allurements of the life of this world. But things that endure, good deeds, are best in the sight of thy Lord, as rewards, and best as (the foundation for) hopes.’ “But this son was and continues to be the adornment of the highest Heaven. At this very moment, through God’s bounty and divine mercy, We behold Our ‘tabáshá’ engaged in ‘tamáshá’ in the highest paradise…”ccxliii In an epitaph for the child’s tombstone, Bahá’u’lláh reprised the sentiment that it is best to place one’s trust and hope in good works, and that the little boy was now “sightseeing in the heavenly realms.”ccxliv As we have seen, the Master wept and mourned for a long time after Bahá’u’lláh died; He also greatly mourned the deaths of certain beloved followers, such as Thomas Breakwell, the first Englishman to become a Bahá'í and who died tragically, shortly after entering the Faith. He was just 30 and he died of tuberculosis. 'Abdu'l-Bahá's memorialized Breakwell in a stirring, emotional ode and as He recited it, His tears poured down. Death may be "a messenger of joy", but that doesn't preclude sorrow. We can weep even while we resign ourselves to missing a loved one for the rest of our lives and rejoice at their good fortune to be exploring wondrous new spirit-worlds. Interestingly, the Master had a different sort of reaction to the death of a young American, Lilian Kappes, in Irán in 1920. Lilian was assisting the dauntless Dr. Susan Moody working among Iránian women, especially in the schools newly established for girls. Lilian was not yet 30 when she died of typhus. The Master cabled, "Miss Kappes is very happy. I invite the world to be not grieved." He wrote a long requiem for her, praising her sacrifice at leaving her home and accepting the trials of service in a distant land until, "supported by" the "favor" of God, she "returned to... the sublime Refuge."ccxlv In a letter to a friend, Dorothy Baker, the stellar Hand of the Cause of God Dorothy Baker wrote, “…we all know that, when the Master passed, His household was 157 thrown into terrible grief, and one of these brisk Americans asked the Greatest Holy Leaf why the dear ones grieved while knowing the kingly station of the Master in the next world. Bahíyyih Khánum, whose composure and spirituality was a by-word with them all, replied quite simply, ‘We have human hearts.’”ccxlvi Before the Master's death, one of His grand-daughters dreamed that she saw Him talking to His sister and saying, “Wherefore are ye all perturbed, why lament and be sorrowful? With you all I am well pleased. For a long time have I desired to join my Father, the Blessed Beauty. I was ever beseeching Him to take me to His Rose-garden above, and now that My prayer is granted, how happy, how joyous, how rested I am. Therefore grieve not.”ccxlvii In one of His most mystic treatises, The Seven Valleys, Bahá’u’lláh describes dreams as signs given us so “that philosophers may not deny the mysteries of the life beyond nor belittle that which hath been promised them.” He said, “One of the created phenomena is the dream. Behold how many secrets are deposited therein, how many wisdoms treasured up, how many worlds concealed. Observe, how thou art asleep in a dwelling, and its doors are barred; on a sudden thou findest thyself in a far-off city, which thou enterest without moving thy feet or wearying thy body; without using thine eyes, thou seest; without taxing thine ears, thou hearest; without a tongue, thou speakest. And perchance when ten years are gone, thou wilt witness in the outer world the very things thou hast dreamed tonight”….ccxlviii "The hour has come when I must leave everything and take My flight...” Of course, the interpretation of dreams depends on the interpreter. Less than eight weeks before He died, the Master told His family He’d dreamed: “I seemed to be standing within a great Mosque, in the inmost shrine… in the place of the Imám himself. I became aware that a large number of people were flocking into the Mosque; more and yet more crowded in, taking their places in rows behind me, until there was a vast multi- 158 tude. As I stood I raised loudly the ‘Call to Prayer.’ Suddenly the thought came to me to go forth from the Mosque. “When I found myself outside I said within myself, ‘For what reason came I forth, not having led the prayer? But it matters not; now that I have uttered the call to prayer, the vast multitude will of themselves chant the prayer.” Yet His family did not feel fore-warned when He died. Lady Blomfield said that after He died they realized the dream of the mosque presaged His ascension, but they felt that He had “veiled” their eyes, with His ever-loving consideration “that their strength might be preserved to face the great ordeal when it should arrive, that they should not be devitalized by anguish of mind in its anticipation.”ccxlix A few weeks after that dream, He came in from the solitary room in His garden that He often occupied and said He’d dreamed “the Blessed Beauty (Bahá'u'lláh) came and said unto me, ‘Destroy this room!’” The family really liked that because they’d been wishing He would come and sleep in the house and they thought Bahá'u'lláh must agree with them. He told a family friend in no uncertain terms that He’d be taking His departure from the earthly plane “in the days that are shortly to come,” and sent a prayer to the Bahá'ís of America in which He said, “Oh, Thou Glory of Glories! I have renounced the world and the people thereof, and am heartbroken and sorely afflicted because of the unfaithful. In the cage of this world, I flutter even as a frightened bird, and yearn every day to take my flight unto Thy Kingdom… Make me to drink of the cup of sacrifice and set me free”…ccl Ismá’il-Áqá, a Bahá’í who served as the Master’s gardener for many years, remembered, “Some time, about twenty days before my Master passed away, I was near the garden when I heard Him summon an old believer saying: ‘Come with me that we 159 may admire together the beauty of the garden. Behold what the spirit of devotion is able to achieve! This flourishing place was, a few years ago, but a heap of stones, and now it is verdant with foliage and flowers. My desire is that after I am gone the loved ones may all arise to serve the Divine Cause and, please God, so it shall be”… A few days later He reminisced to Ismá’il-Aqá, “I am so fatigued! The hour is come when I must leave everything and take My flight. I am too weary to walk… It was during the closing days of the Blessed Beauty, when I was engaged in gathering together his papers, which were strewn over the sofa in his writing chamber at Bahjí, that He turned to me and said, ‘It is of no use to gather them, I must leave them and flee away”… Then, just three days before He died, He was sitting in His garden and He asked Ismá’il-Aqá to bring Him two oranges, “That I may eat them for your sake.” The gardener did that, and then the Master asked for sweet lemons. He sent the gardener to pluck a few but soon came over to the tree and said, “Nay, but I must gather them with My own hands.” He ate the sweet lemons and asked the gardener, “Do you desire anything more?” The gardener was silent and the Master said, “touchingly, emphatically and deliberately”, and with “a pathetic gesture of His hands… ‘Now it is finished, it is finished!’” A wedding of one of His servitors had taken place and He blessed the bride and groom, then attended the Friday meeting in His audience chamber. He had also attended Friday Prayer at the Mosque and then given alms to the poor, standing throughout the whole process, placing a coin in each outstretched palm. The next day after morning tea He asked for Bahá’u’lláh’s fur-lined coat; He often put it on when He was chilled or unwell. He lay down on His bed, covered with the coat 160 and many blankets, and the next day, Sunday, November 27, 1921, He rested on His sofa but received several guests and family members, though He did not attend a meeting on Mount Carmel. When visitors told Him people were sad that He wasn’t there, He said, “But I was there, though my body was absent, my spirit was there in your midst. I was present with the friends at the Tomb. The friends must not attach any importance to the absence of my body. In spirit I am, and shall always be, with the friends, even though I be far away.” "In spirit I am, and shall always be, with the friends..." In the evening, He inquired after the health of every member of His household, of the visiting pilgrims and of the Bahá'ís resident in Haifa. All were well and He said, “Very good. Very good.” Two of His daughters stayed with Him that night. Shortly after 1 a.m. on November 28, He got up, walked to a table, drank some water, and took off His night cloak saying He was too warm. When one of His daughters came to Him a little later to check on Him, He said, “I have difficulty in breathing, give me more air.” She brought Him some rose water and He sat up in bed with no supports and drank it. Then He lay down. She offered Him some food. He said, “You wish me to take some food, and I am going?” He cast a beautiful glance at His daughters and closed His eyes. They thought He was sleeping, but He’d gone to join His Father in His Rose-garden.ccli “O Bahá,” the Master's widow, Munírih Khánum, wrote in an ode, “Knower of our inmost thoughts… My home is in ruins, its foundation destroyed; I am caught in the talons of the eagle of sorrow…” She longed to ascend to “that other land”… to build her home “in another nest, another tree.” She felt encaged in this world, though it’s a “wide” 161 and “limitless space.” She said that although in Haifa a new creation may someday rise, its “eyes will never gaze upon the likes of” the Master, or “behold” His “exalted stature, or… life-giving smiles…”cclii The Master, in His wisdom and love, knowing how countless hearts would long to attain His presence, had in 1910 revealed the prayer that is now His Tablet of Visitation, recited at the commemoration of His Ascension, but it can be recited whenever a soul feels the need. He said,“Whoso reciteth this prayer with lowliness and fervor will bring gladness and joy to the heart of this Servant; it will be even as meeting Him face to face:” He is the All-Glorious! O god, my God! Lowly and tearful, I raise my suppliant hands to Thee and cover my face in the dust of that Threshold of Thine, exalted above the knowledge of the learned, and the praise of all that glorify Thee. Graciously look upon Thy servant, humble and lowly at Thy door, with the glances of the eye of Thy mercy, and immerse him in the Ocean of Thine eternal grace. Lord! He is a poor and lowly servant of Thine, enthralled and imploring Thee, captive in Thy hand, praying fervently to Thee, trusting in Thee, in tears before Thy face, calling to Thee and beseeching Thee, saying: O Lord, my God! Give me Thy grace to serve Thy loved ones, strengthen me in my servitude to Thee, illumine my brow with the light of adoration in Thy court of holiness and of prayer to Thy kingdom of grandeur. Help me to be selfless at the heavenly entrance of Thy gate, and aid me to be detached from all things within Thy holy precincts. Lord! Give me to drink from the chalice of selflessness; with its robe clothe me, and in its ocean immerse me. Make me as dust in the pathway of Thy loved ones, and grant that I may offer up my soul for the earth ennobled by the footsteps of Thy chosen ones in thy path, O lord of Glory in the highest. With this prayer doth Thy servant call Thee, at dawntide and in the night-season. Fulfill his heart’s desire, O Lord! Illumine his heart, gladden his bosom, kindle his light, that he may serve Thy Cause and Thy servants. 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Research Dept. of the Universal House of Justice, Compilation of Extracts from the Bahá'í Writings on Music, June, 1996, bahai-library.com Research Dept. of the Universal House of Justice, Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, 1998, bahai-library.com Root, Martha, "Happiness from the Bahá'í Viewpoint," Star of the West, Vol. 13, #5 Ruhe, David S., Door of Hope: A Century of the Bahá’í Faith in the Holy Land, George Ronald, Oxford, 1983. Ruhe, David S., Robe of Light: The Persian Years of the Supreme Prophet, George Ronald, Oxford, 1994. Ruhe-Schoen, Janet, Champions of Oneness: Louis Gregory and His Shining Circle, Bahá'í Publishing, Wilmette, 2015. Ruhe-Schoen, Janet, Rejoice in My Gladness: The Life of Táhirih, Bahá'í Publishing, Wilmette, 2011. Ruhe-Schoen, Janet, The Nightingale, Bahá'u'lláh, Badi’ Publishing, Phoenix, 2004. Ruhe-Schoen, Janet, “Who Will Bell the Cat? ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Lake Mohonk,” 166 Rutstein, Nathan, He Loved and Served, The Story of Curtis Kelsey, George Ronald, Oxford, 1982. Sayward, Louise Krug, “Memories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá”, typescript, Desert Rose Bahá'í Institute Archives, n.d. Sayward, Louise Krug, “Reminiscences of Louise Sayward,” Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Bahá'í Publishing Committee, Wilmette, Ill, 1944. Shoghi Effendi, The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá'í Revelation, Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, 1962. Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, bahai-library.com Shoghi Effendi and Lady Blomfield, The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Rosenfield Bros., Haifa, 1922, bahai-library.com Star of the West, Vols. 3, 7, 13, bahai-library.com The Call of the Divine Beloved, bahai-library.com Thompson, Juliet and Gail, Marzieh, The Diary of Juliet Thompson, Kalimat Press, Los Angeles, 1983, bahai-library.com Tower, Susan Poppa, “Abdu’l-Bahá’is Call for Race Unity,” Watson, Marie A., My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, Bahá’í Publishing Committee, NY, 1932. Weinberg, Rob, A Tribute to Nora Crossley, https://www.Baháiblog.net/articles/historytributes/a-tribute-to-nora-crossley/ Weinberg, Robert, Early European Bahá'í Involvement in Social Activism, Bahá'í Studies Review, 19, p. 129-34, London: Association for Bahá'í Studies English-Speaking Europe, 2001. Weinberg, Robert, "The First Obligation: Lady Blomfield and the Save the Children Fund,", Bio prepared for the UK Bahá'í Centenary, 1998, bahai-library.com Whitmore, Bruce, "The City of Love: The City of Love: Ishqábád and the Institution of the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár, Bahá'í News, Vol. 52, #7. 167 Son of Spirit, endnotes 1 The Hidden Words, Part 1, From the Arabic, #1 2 Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, p. 2 3 Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, p. 1-2 4 Ibid, p. 2 5 Robe of Light, p. 40 6 Star of the West, Vol. XV, #3, p. 74 7 The Kitáb-i-Íqán, p. 51-52 8 Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 85-6 9 The Chosen Highway, p. 39-40 10 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 13 11 The Chosen Highway, p. 40-41 12 Memorials of the Faithful, p. 200 13 The Dawn Breakers, p. 293 14 God Passes By, p. 108-109 168 15 The Dawn-Breakers, p. 609 16 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Centre of the Covenant, p. 9-10 17 Robe of Light, p. 142 18 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Centre of the Covenant, p. 9-10 19 The Chosen Highway, p. 42-43 20 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Centre of the Covenant, p. 11-12 21 Taherzedeh, The Child of the Covenant, p. 56 22 The Chosen Highway, p. 44 23 https://bahaichronicles.org/6832-2/ 24 Baha'u'llah and the New Era, Chapter 4 25 Century of Light, p. 40 26 The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, pp. 5-6 27 The Chosen Highway, p. 80-82 28 Ibid, p. 53-54 29 The Hidden Words, from the Persian, #19 30 Ibid, p. 3 31 Martha Root, "Happiness from the Bahá'í Viewpoint," Starof the West, Vol. 13, Issue 5, p. 102 32 Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 65-66 33 Abdu'l-Bahá, the Centre of the Covenant, p. 15 34 Days of Remembrance, p. 47 35 God Passes By, p. 152 36 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Centre of the Covenant, p. 17 37 Days of Remembrance, p. 49 169 38 'Abdu'l-Bahá the Centre of the Covenant, p. 18-19 39 Ibid, p. 22-23 40 God Passes By, p. 185-186 41 God Passes By, p. 180-181 42 Ibid, p. 189-190 43 Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 313 44 Ibid, p. 318-20 45 Days of Remembrance, p. 145 46 God Passes By, p. 222 47 The Child of the Covenant, p. 133 48 The Hidden Words, Persian #79 49 Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, p. 11 50 Ibid, p. 242 51 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 48-9 52 The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 134-135 53 The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 136 54 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 51 55 The Sheltering Branch, p. 12-13 56 The Hidden Words from the Arabic, #18 57 Ibid, from the Persian, #50 58 Ibid, from the Persian, #55 59 Ibid, p. 52 60 'Abdu'l-Bahá on Divine Philosophy, p. 21-22 170 61 Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 170 62 The Dawn-Breakers, p. 632 63 A Compilation of Extracts from the Bahá’í Writings on Music, p. 14 64 He Loved and Served, p. 73-4 65 Mother's Stories, p. 38-39 66 Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 164 67 Tablet of the Garden of Ridvan, bahai.org 68 Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 57-8 69 The Chosen Highway, p. 218 70 The Spell of the Holy Land, pgs. 304-6 71 bahai-library.com/bushrui gibran man poet 72 The Oriental Rose, p. 210 73 Daily Lessons Received at ‘Akká, p. 10-11 74 "What I Saw of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Vignettes by Laura Barney," bahaiblog.net 75 The Oriental Rose, p. 210 76 Ibid, p. 209-11 77 Star of the West, Vol. 7, p. 101 78 Paris Talks, p. 67-8 79 The Oriental Rose, p. 211 80 Ibid, p. 211-12 81 The Hidden Words, From the Arabic, #36 82 83 “Memories of ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá”, and “Reminiscences of Louise Sayward” “Memories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá” 171 84 “Reminiscences of Louise Sayward” 85 “Mrs. Krug’s Talk on the Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá” 86 Selected Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 27 87 The Hidden Words, from the Persian, #4 88 Vignettes, p. 28 89 The Hidden Words, from the Arabic, #48 90 Vignettes, p. 51 91 Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 93 92 A Traveller's Narrative, p. 63 93 The Hidden Words, Persian, #3 94 Vignettes, p. 84 95 Daily Lessons Received at 'Akká, p. 42 and p. 10-11. 96 Portals to Freedom, p. 52 97 Vignettes, p. 45-6 98 “What I Remember of Early Life as a Bahá’í,” unpaginated 99 Agnes Parsons’ Diary, p. 14. 100 Sparks Among the Stubble, p. 88 101 https://www.bahai.org/documents/essays/various/abdul-baha-some-contemporary- accounts 102 The Hidden Words, from the Persian, #54 103 The Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 266 104 The Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 254-256 105 239 Days, p. 30-35 172 106 107 "The First Obligation: Lady Blomfield and the Save the Children Fund" "Early European Involvement in Social Activism" Bahá'í Studies Review, 10, p. 129 108 The Chosen Highway, p. 150 109 https://www.bahai.org/documents/essays/various/abdul-baha-some-contemporary- accounts 110 The Hidden Words from the Arabic, #2 111 Memories of Nine Years in 'Akká, p. 355-365; Vignettes, pgs. 135-138 112 "Tributes to Heroic Sacrifice," Bahá'í News, May, 1974, p. 11 113 Memories of Nine Years in 'Akká, p. 355-365; Vignettes, p. 135-138 114 Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, p. 39-40 115 The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 203 116 Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 216 117 Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, p. 122-24 118 ‘Abdu'l-Bahá in London, p. 124-25 119 Champions of Oneness, p. 17 120 Ibid, p. 69-70 121 "Robert Turner", World Order, Vol. 12, Apr. 1946, pp. 28-29 122 Champions, p. 16-17, 20 123 Ibid, p. 21 124 Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Vol. II, p. 405 125 Universal House of Justice, July 22, 2020, letter to Bahá'ís of the U.S. 126 Matthew, 5:9 127 Hidden Words #68, p. 20 173 128 Champions of Oneness, p. 110 129 Ibid, p. 106=7 130 Ibid, p. 104 131 Ibid, p. 112 132 Ibid, p. 212 133 Vignettes, p. 110 134 Ibid 135 https://bahaiteachings.org/could-racial-animosity-destroy-us/ 136 https://ohiobahai.org/raceunity/ 137 Champions of Oneness, p. 179 138 Champions, pp. 179-199 139 In Galilee, p. 34 140 Ibid, p. 5 141 Ibid, p. 6-7 142 Ibid, p. 9 143 Ibid, p. 13 144 Ibid, p. 19 145 Ibid, p. 22-3 146 Ibid, p. 75 147 Ibid, p. 27-30 148 Ibid, p. 43-4 149 Ibid, p. 46 150 Ibid, p. 75-80 174 151 Ibid, p. 46-7 152 Ibid, p. 47-8 153 Ibid, p. 58-60 154 Ibid, p. 67 155 The Hidden Words, p. 39 156 The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 33 157 The Chosen Highway, p. 141 158 Ibid, p. 147-9 159 Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 174 160 Star of the West, Vol. VII, No. 17, pp. 168-9, bahaistories.org 161 Portals to Freedom, p. 138-40 162 The Sheltering Branch, p. 43-4 163 The Chosen Highway, p. 161 164 Stories about Bahá’í Funds, p. 47-8 165 Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 109-11 166 Weinberg, Rob, A Tribute to Nora Crossley 167 Universal House of Justice, Ridvan letter, 145 B.E., 1988 C.E., p. 1 168 The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 4, p. 120-5 169 Ibid 170 Memorials of the Faithful, p. 127-9 171 The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. I, p. 200 172 Ibid 173 Ibid, p. 201 175 174 Ibid 175 Ibid 176 The Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 389 177 ohiobahai.org 178 The Hidden Words, Arabic, #11 179 "What I Saw of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Vignettes by Laura Barney" 180 Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 179 181 Bahá’í World Faith, p. 318 182 (http://bahaitalks.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-visits-with-abdul-bha-in-1901-1912.html 183 Paris Talks, p. 176-7 184 Star of the West, October 1919, p. 226 185 Hanley, Paul, “Begin with the Village: The Bahá’í Approach to Rural Development” 186 https://www.upliftingwords.org/post/the-knighthood-of-abdul-baha 187 The Hidden Words, Persian, #80 188 “‘Abdu’l-Bahá in America,” Star of the West, Vol. 19, No. 7, p. 219 189 The Chosen Highway, p. 152 190 Ibid, p. 159-61 191 Rúhíyyih Khánum quoted in Vignettes, p. 146-7 192 Jessup, Henry H., "The Religious Mission of the English Speaking Nations," bahaili- brary.com 193 "Who Will Bell the Cat? ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Lake Mohonk", p. 3-4 194 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p. 19 195 "Who Will Bell the Cat",, p. 6 176 196 "Aprl 11 -- 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Arrival in America" 197 "Who Will Bell the Cat", p. 8 198 The Spell of the Holy Land, p. 316-17 199 "Who Will Bell the Cat", p. 8 200 Ibid, p. 8-9 201 Ibid, p. 9-11 202 Ibid, p. 11 203 The Hidden Words, Arabic, #27 204 https://beyondforeignness.org/5378 205 Oxford English Dictionary, lexico.com 206 “A Brief History of Bahá’í Involvement in Environmental Issues” 207 "Flowers for the Ancient King" 208 Ford, Mary Hanford, "An Interview with 'Abdu'l-Bahá," Star of the West, Vol. 24. p. 103-7 209 A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 112 210 Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 41-2 211 The Hidden Words, Nos. 41 & 43 212 "A Woman Serving as a Librarian in Alaska," http://tablets-divine-plan.blogspot.com/ 2010/06/leaves-tree-healing-nations.html; and A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 363 213 A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 105 214 An Early Pilgrimage, p. 41-2 215 The Chosen Highway, p. 151 216 ‘Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 82 177 217 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Light of the World, p. 32 218 Baha'u'llah and the New Era, p. 154-56; "Equality of Men and Women", 219 Baha’i News, Dec. 1971, https://bahai.works/Baha%27i_News/Issue_489/Text 220 Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 81, 221 Rejoice in My Gladness, p. 170 222 The Hidden Words, Persian # 76 223 My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, p. 13-14 224 Marie Watson papers, U.S. Bahá’í National Archives 225 Ibid. 226 My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, p. 11 227 Ibid, p. 1-3 228 Ibid, p. 4 229 Ibid, p. 5 230 Ibid, p. 6-7 231 Ibid, p. 12 232 Ibid, p. 15-19 233 The Chosen Highway, p. 102-3 234 The Sheltering Branch, p. 69-71 235 "'Abdu'l-Bahá's Visit to an African-American in San Francisco" 236 The Hidden Words, Arabic, # 32 237 Some Answered Questions, p. 228 238 The Chosen Highway, p. 215 239 Ibid, p. 215 178 240 Dreams of Destiny, p. 140 241 Ibid, p. 153 242 Door of Hope, pgs. 55 and 253 243 Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 233-4 244 Door of Hope, p. 55 245 A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 191 246 Elsie Austin papers belonging to Susan Miller, undated 247 The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 8 248 The Seven Valleys, p. 32-3 249 The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 2-3 250 Ibid, p. 4 251 Ibid, p. 4-7 252 Leaves of the Twin Holy Trees, p. 350-1 253 Bahá’í Prayers, p. 332 179 i The Hidden Words, Part 1, From the Arabic, #1 ii Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, p. 2 iii Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, p. 1-2 iv Ibid, p. 2 v Robe of Light, p. 40 vi Star of the West, Vol. XV, #3, p. 74 vii The Kitáb-i-Íqán, p. 51-52 viii Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 85-6 ix The Chosen Highway, p. 39-40 x ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 13 xi The Chosen Highway, p. 40-41 xii Memorials of the Faithful, p. 200 xiii The Dawn Breakers, p. 293 xiv God Passes By, p. 108-109 xv The Dawn-Breakers, p. 609 xvi ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Centre of the Covenant, p. 9-10 xvii Robe of Light, p. 142 xviii ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Centre of the Covenant, p. 9-10 xix The Chosen Highway, p. 42-43 180 xx 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Centre of the Covenant, p. 11-12 xxi Taherzedeh, The Child of the Covenant, p. 56 xxii The Chosen Highway, p. 44 xxiii https://bahaichronicles.org/6832-2/ https://www.bahai.org/library/other-literature/publications-individual-authors/bahaullah-new-era/3#360198660 Baha'u'llah and the New Era, Chapter 4 xxiv xxv Century of Light, p. 40 xxvi The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, pp. 5-6 xxvii The Chosen Highway, p. 80-82 xxviii Ibid, p. 53-54 xxix The Hidden Words, from the Persian, #19 xxx Ibid, p. 3 Martha Root, "Happiness from the Bahá'í Viewpoint," Starof the West, Vol. 13, Issue 5, p. 102 xxxi xxxii Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 65-66 xxxiii Abdu'l-Bahá, the Centre of the Covenant, p. 15 xxxiv Days of Remembrance, p. 47 xxxv God Passes By, p. 152 xxxvi 'Abdu'l-Bahá, the Centre of the Covenant, p. 17 xxxvii Days of Remembrance, p. 49 xxxviii 'Abdu'l-Bahá the Centre of the Covenant, p. 18-19 xxxix Ibid, p. 22-23 xl God Passes By, p. 185-186 xli God Passes By, p. 180-181 xlii Ibid, p. 189-190 xliii Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 313 xliv Ibid, p. 318-20 xlv Days of Remembrance, p. 145 181 xlvi God Passes By, p. 222 xlvii The Child of the Covenant, p. 133 xlviii The Hidden Words, Persian #79 Hidden Words: References of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi, p. 11 xlix l Ibid, p. 242 li ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 48-9 lii The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 134-135 liii The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 136 liv ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: The Centre of the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 51 lv The Sheltering Branch, p. 12-13 lvi The Hidden Words from the Arabic, #18 lvii Ibid, from the Persian, #50 lviii Ibid, from the Persian, #55 lix Ibid, p. 52 lx 'Abdu'l-Bahá on Divine Philosophy, p. 21-22 lxi Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 170 lxii The Dawn-Breakers, p. 632 lxiii A Compilation of Extracts from the Bahá’í Writings on Music, p. 14 lxiv He Loved and Served, p. 73-4 lxv Mother's Stories, p. 38-39 lxvi Vignettes from the Life of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 164 lxvii Tablet of the Garden of Ridvan, bahai.org/library lxviii Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 57-8 lxix The Chosen Highway, p. 218 lxx The Spell of the Holy Land, pgs. 304-6 lxxi bahai-library.com/bushrui gibran man poet lxxii The Oriental Rose, p. 210 182 Daily Lessons Received at ‘Akká, p. 10-11 lxxiii https://www.bahaiblog.net/2018/11/what-i-saw-of-abdul-baha-vignettes-by-laura-barney/ lxxiv lxxv The Oriental Rose, p. 210 lxxvi Ibid, p. 209-11 lxxvii Star of the West, Vol. 7, p. 101 lxxviii Paris Talks, p. 67-8 lxxix The Oriental Rose, p. 211 lxxx Ibid, p. 211-12 lxxxi The Hidden Words, From the Arabic, #36 typescript, “Memories of ‘'Abdu'l-Bahá”, and oral “Reminiscences of Louise Sayward” on https://dahls.net/historical/talks/ lxxxii lxxxiii “Memories of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá” lxxxiv “Reminiscences of Louise Sayward” lxxxv “Mrs. Krug’s Talk on the Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá” lxxxvi Selected Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 27 lxxxvii The Hidden Words, from the Persian, #4 lxxxviii Vignettes, p. 28 lxxxix The Hidden Words, from the Arabic, #48 xc Vignettes, #51 xci Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 93 xcii A Traveller's Narrative, p. 63 xciii The Hidden Words, Persian, #3 xciv Vignettes, p. 84 xcv Daily Lessons Received at 'Akká, p. 42 and p. 10-11. xcvi Portals to Freedom, p. 52 xcvii Vignettes, p. 45-6 xcviii “What I Remember of Early Life as a Bahá’í,” unpaginated 183 Agnes Parsons’ Diary, p. 14. xcix c Sparks Among the Stubble, p. 88 https://www.bahai.org/documents/essays/various/abdul-baha-some-contemporary-accounts ci cii The Hidden Words, from the Persian, #54 ciii The Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 266 civ The Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 254-256 cv 239 Days, p. 30-35 cvi "The First Obligation: Lady Blomfield and the Save the Children Fund" Weinberg, Robert, Early European Involvement in Social Activism, Bahá'í Studies Review, 10, p. 129 cvii The Chosen Highway, p. 150 cviii https://www.bahai.org/documents/essays/various/abdul-baha-some-contemporaryaccounts cix cx The Hidden Words from the Arabic, #2 cxi Memories of Nine Years in 'Akká, p. 355-365; Vignettes, pgs. 135-138 cxii "Tributes to Heroic Sacrifice," Bahá'í News, May, 1974, p. 11 cxiii Memories of Nine Years in 'Akká, p. 355-365; Vignettes, p. 135-138 cxiv Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era, p. 39-40 cxv The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 203 cxvi Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 216 cxvii Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come, p. 122-24 cxviii ‘Abdu'l-Bahá in London, p. 124-25 cxix Champions of Oneness, p. 17 cxx Ibid, p. 69-70 cxxi "Robert Turner", World Order, Vol. 12, Apr. 1946, pp. 28-29 cxxii Champions, p. 16-17, 20 cxxiii Ibid, p. 21 184 cxxiv Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Vol. II, p. 405 cxxv Universal House of Justice, July 22, 2020, letter to Bahá'ís of the U.S. cxxvi Matthew, 5:9 cxxvii Hidden Words #68, p. 20 cxxviii Champions of Oneness, p. 110 cxxix Ibid, p. 106=7 cxxx Ibid, p. 104 cxxxi Ibid, p. 112 cxxxii Ibid, p. 212 cxxxiii Vignettes, p. 110 cxxxiv Ibid cxxxv https://bahaiteachings.org/could-racial-animosity-destroy-us/ cxxxvi https://ohiobahai.org/raceunity/ cxxxvii Champions of Oneness, p. 179 cxxxviii Champions, pp. 179-199 cxxxix In Galilee, p. 34 cxl Ibid, p. 5 cxli Ibid, p. 6-7 cxlii Ibid, p. 9 cxliii Ibid, p. 13 cxliv Ibid, p. 19 cxlv Ibid, p. 22-3 cxlvi Ibid, p. 75 cxlvii Ibid, p. 27-30 cxlviii Ibid, p. 43-4 cxlix cl Ibid, p. 46 Ibid, p. 75-80 185 cli Ibid, p. 46-7 clii Ibid, p. 47-8 cliii In Galilee, p. 58-60 cliv Ibid, p. 67 clv The Hidden Words, p. 39 clvi The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 33 clvii The Chosen Highway, p. 141 clviii Ibid, p. 147-9 clix Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 174 clx Star of the West, Vol. VII, No. 17, pp. 168-9, bahaistories.org clxi Portals to Freedom, p. 138-40 clxii The Sheltering Branch, p. 43-4 clxiii The Chosen Highway, p. 161 clxiv Stories about Bahá’í Funds, p. 47-8 clxv Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 109-11 clxvi Weinberg, Rob, A Tribute to Nora Crossley clxvii Universal House of Justice, Ridvan letter, 145 B.E., 1988 C.E., p. 1 clxviii The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 4, p. 120-5 clxix Ibid clxx Memorials of the Faithful, p. 127-9 clxxi The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. I, p. 200 clxxii Ibid clxxiii Ibid, p. 201 clxxiv Ibid clxxv The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Vol. 1, p. 201 clxxvi The Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 389 clxxvii ohiobahai.org 186 The Hidden Words, #11, p. 6 clxxviii clxxix What I Saw of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Vignettes by Laura Barney, bahaiblog.net clxxx Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 179 clxxxi Bahá’í World Faith, p. 318 clxxxii (http://bahaitalks.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-visits-with-abdul-bha-in-1901-1912.html clxxxiii Paris Talks, p. 176-7 clxxxiv Star of the West, October 1919, p. 226 Hanley, Paul, “Begin with the Village: The Bahá’í Approach to Rural Development,” bahaiworld.bahai.org clxxxv clxxxvi https://www.upliftingwords.org/post/the-knighthood-of-abdul-baha clxxxvii The Hidden Words, #80, p. 50-51 clxxxviii “‘Abdu’l-Bahá in America,” Star of the West, Vol. 19, No. 7, p. 219 clxxxix The Chosen Highway, p. 152 cxc Ibid, p. 159-61 cxci Rúhíyyih Khánum quoted in Vignettes, p. 146-7 Jessup, Henry H., The Religious Mission of the English Speaking Nations, bahai-library.com cxcii cxciii Who Will Bell the Cat? ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Lake Mohonk, p. 3-4 cxciv ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p. 19 cxcv Who Will Bell the Cat, Academia.edu, p. 6 Wendell Phllips Dodge: Aprl 11 -- 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Arrival in America; https://cenenary.bahai.us cxcvi cxcvii Ibid, p. 8 cxcviii The Spell of the Holy Land, p. 316-17 cxcix Who Will Bell the Cat? p. 8 cc Ibid, p. 8-9 cci Ibid, p. 9-11 ccii Ibid, p. 11 187 cciii The Hidden Words, #27, p. 31 cciv https://beyondforeignness.org/5378 ccv Oxford English Dictionary, lexico.com ccvi “A Brief History of Bahá’í Involvement in Environmental Issues,” iefworld.org Flowers for the Ancient King, http://bahaistoriesforchildren.blogspot.com/2017/03/ flowers-for-ancient-king.html ccvii An Interview with 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Mary Hanford Ford, Star of the West, Vol. 24. p. 103-7 ccviii ccix A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 112 ccx Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 41-2 ccxi The Hidden Words, Nos. 41 & 43 http://tablets-divine-plan.blogspot.com/2010/06/leaves-tree-healing-nations.html, A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 363 ccxii ccxiii A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 105 ccxiv An Early Pilgrimage, p. 41-2 ccxv The chosen Highway, p. 151 ccxvi ‘Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 82 ccxvii ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Light of the World, p. 32 ccxviii Baha'u'llah and the New Era, p. 154-56; "Equality of Men and Women", bahai.org ccxix Baha’i News, Dec. 1971, https://bahai.works/Baha%27i_News/Issue_489/Text ccxx Tablets of the Divine Plan, p. 81, https://reference.bahai.org/en/t/ab/TDP/tdp-11.html ccxxi Rejoice in My Gladness, p. 170 ccxxii The Hidden Words, No. 76, p. 48 ccxxiii My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, p. 13-14 ccxxiv Marie Watson papers, U.S. Bahá’í National Archives ccxxv Ibid. ccxxvi My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, p. 11 ccxxvii My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, p. 1-3 188 My Pilgrimage to the Land of Desire, p. 4 ccxxviii ccxxix Ibid, p. 5 ccxxx Ibid, p. 6-7 ccxxxi Ibid, p. 12 ccxxxii Ibid, p. 15-19 ccxxxiii The Chosen Highway, p. 102-3 ccxxxiv The Sheltering Branch, p. 69-71 ccxxxv https://bahaiteachings.org/abdul-bahas-visit-african-american-bahai-san-francisco/ ccxxxvi The Hidden Words, No. 32 ccxxxvii Some Answered Questions, p. 228 ccxxxviii The Chosen Highway, p. 215 ccxxxix The Chosen Highway, p. 215 ccxl Dreams of Destiny, p. 140 ccxli Ibid, p. 153 ccxlii Door of Hope, pgs. 55 and 253 ccxliii Leaves of the Twin Divine Trees, p. 233-4 ccxliv Door of Hope, p. 55 A Love Which Does Not Wait, p. 191 ccxlv ccxlvi Elsie Austin papers belonging to Susan Miller, undated ccxlvii The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 8 ccxlviii The Seven Valleys, p. 32-3 ccxlix The Passing of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 2-3 ccl Ibid, p. 4 ccli Ibid, p. 4-7 cclii Leaves of the Twin Holy Trees, p. 350-1 ccliii Bahá’í Prayers, p. 332