Fundamentalism, Moral Relativism and Revelation

 From Chaos to a New World Order

 

FOREWORD

The intent here is to properly define religious fundamentalism, moral relativism, and Divine Revelation, to show simply and clearly, their relationship to each other, and their effects on the global evolution of society.

The roll of fundamentalism and moral relativism in the disintegration of an old world order is examined, as is the simultaneous restoration of the age old truths at the heart every religion. The rise of a new Revelation and the concurrent rise of a new world order, the unity of science and religion, the inseparable nature of the unification and spiritual development of mankind, and the ensuing, permanent world peace is also discussed. The implications of technological breakthroughs, especially in communication and travel, which has provided, for the first time in the history of the world, the material means, for world wide, synchronized, consciousness and unified thought will also be considered.

Whatever your belief, it is hoped you may find some useful point or two, in understanding the connection between personal growth, and unified spiritual advancement.  

The journey towards world peace will be considered in terms of Divine intervention, however subtle, as well as its dependence on human action and willing participation. The distinction and acknowledgement of man as the highest form of creation, his essentially spiritual nature, his cause and purpose for existence, will be confirmed and supported.

In these pages nothing new or original will be created, but something newly revealed will be reflected, however inadequately, for the sake of understanding the relentless forward march in the human condition, an ever advancing civilization, signalizing the rise of the Sun of Truth, the dawning of the long awaited New Age, and the promise of world peace, wherein victory of Spirit over matter will be finally completed and permanently won, on this earthly plane.

Note; As a common reference to critical words, the Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was used.

Definition of Critical Words

Dictionary publishers determine word definitions by “common usage”, or if  archaic, are defined according to usage in days gone by. Today, the original meanings of many words have been drastically altered, and in some cases effaced entirely. The words that concern us here, are those which impact social development the most.

Neither the fundamentals of religion, nor the definition of religion, are subject to definition by the whims of men, (common usage), any more than what is to be considered moral or immoral. This practice is emblematic of the flaccidity of current social values in general. Dictionaries are useful instruments for defining the common usage of words and as such, can reflect, man’s moral and spiritual condition. The quality of the foundation of civilization today can be discovered and defined through the utility of  “common usage”.

Common usage is synonymous with common belief. However useful knowledge of “common usage” standards of definition may be, it is reality that must determine  definition and not definition that determines reality. Likewise, it is reality that should determine belief, and not belief that determines reality, whether or not that belief is in “common usage”. To question a definition of a word today, is to question the perceptions of society in general, for societies impressions are reflected, as a matter of fact, in word definition.  As religion is currently defined, is it any wonder that the vitality of men’s belief in religion is waning, and the word religion, with its dubious connections and lack of clarity, has itself become repugnant? Because of societies low estate, its ability to use this word commonly and rightly has diminished. Religion has become, a dead word, containing none of its the requisite qualities. “Common usage”, is also synonymous with common knowledge, whether or not that knowledge is factual or imagined. Because of this and other examples, language itself has become generally degraded.

Consequently, by dictionary definition, and hence by common knowledge, it will be shown here, that religion has become synonymous with fundamentalism and fundamentalism, synonymous with literalism, and literalism is integrated with blind acceptance, and blind faith, which is naught but superstition, which is naught but fanaticism. The degree of interchangeability of these words does injustice to only one of them; Religion. Religion does not rightly deserve these associations and connotations and has been unjustly linked to them. It is past time we that the true definition of religion be re-established. A task made all the more difficult by the clamor and false claims of fundamentalism and its above mentioned cronies. They have all the force of  shadow, needing only the light of truth to define them. The truth will no doubt come out, for justice is an unstoppable force of change, and in the end always wins, though at times at great cost.  

The preeminence of Justice is powerfully demonstrated in the following verse. ‘The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away there from if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. 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. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.'1

Fundamentalism severely discourages the independent investigation and search for truth, outside its own stifling parameters, which in turn causes many thinking persons to find religion repugnant, as perceived today. That which is truly fundamental to religion is hidden from otherwise invested individuals, by various combinations of ignorance, apathy, superstition, prejudice, materialism, fear, personal attachments and love of tradition to all but the pure hearted and resolute souls, who have entirely detached themselves, in a practical and rational manner, from all things but God, from all forms of prejudice, preconception and superstition.

Detachment from all things but God, means naught but the application of justice, reliance on God alone, the laying of all our affairs, into His hands; an exercise in prayer and supplication. He turns no sincere seeker of truth away. Otherwise, freeing oneself, by any other means, from life long habits of prejudice and preconceptions is not so easy or pleasant and will entail a great deal of wailing, not unlike the wailing of the suckling babe, who considers milk to be its only food forever. Milk is always good, but to suggest it be the only food for life is silly. Yet this is how people refuse the growth for which they were created.

The true definition of religion, though not found in any dictionary is, briefly stated, ‘the testimony of God’. Today, religion consists of, in large part, vain imaginations of men. Most believe God could not or would not create, in the noble form of the human temple, another Manifester of all His qualities, the return of another Christ Spirit, with a new Name. That God could not stage a rebirth of Religion through another Mediatorial human form. Limiting God’s power they effectively deny God and hence themselves, any existence. Their portion is the cup compared to the ocean. They are like birds that prefer the cage to flight, leviathans that lie wallowing on the ocean’s surface, never to plunge its vasty deep, or man content as an animal, never to shun the universe and all it contains, but rather  worship it as the source of all his goods, content with the bit of soil that will be, in the end, his dusty tomb. Such is the definition between the spiritually aware and the spiritually dead. “Whosoever desireth let him turn aside from this counsel and whosoever desireth let him choose the path the His Lord.”2

The origin of the word religion was invented or derives its meaning from the origin of its root words, taken from another, older language. The prefix ‘re; taken from Latin...to indicate repetition’ and ‘legion; a great mass or multitude of people.  And so, religion is the re-massing or regathering of a multitude of people. The attractive force causing this in-gathering, this union, this love, is the ‘the testimony  of God’. And this was the beginning of every religion in the world today. There are nine of such “religions” in our recorded history. To be counted as a Religion, their teachings must be all inclusive and unifying, they must each possess the Testimony of God, A Revealed Book of those Testimonies, a Prophet founder, in the noble form of the human temple, chosen by God to be His Revealer, Spokesperson, Messenger and Teacher, in effect, a perfect mirror reflecting the will of God in word and deed.

Eventually, through misunderstandings and actual disobedience to the true, and the fundamental teachings, religions go through a cyclical change and began to disintegrate themselves from the basic and fundamental truths, and become through these divisions, the antithesis of religion and its fundamentals. The result is an aversion to “organized” religion by the masses, when in reality there are no organized “religions”. Religions today are a picture of division, disagreeing sects, and disorganization. Religion is not an organization, anymore that the sun is an organization or a flower. Religion, in this sense, is more appropriately and essentially, the Spirit of the Age, with social teaching augmented to the needs of the times, but with its eternal truths ever constant.

Dictionaries only partially define Religion; 1. ‘a set of beliefs concerning creation....or devotional observances, often containing moral codes’ or 2. ‘A specific fundamental set of beliefs’ or 3. ‘the body of persons adhering to a particular set of beliefs.’ The dictionary definition of religion is vacuous and vague, as it must reflect the common usage.        

At the heart of each true Religion lies the gemstone of unaltered resplendent beauty. At their very beginning Religions were like pristine homes. Over the centuries, as more and more people entered this house of belief, they brought in a little mud on their feet, until it was a pristine home no longer. Various and deferring interpretations of the Word caused some to build other houses of their own design until finally there were many differing houses of worship. Animosities flourished as the original spirit left them. Their basic truth was minimized by undue and distorted emphasis on the ancillary. But as the Buddha said “When goodness and justice have left the world I will come again.” Religions are ancient, and have been distorted by the imaginations of men. It must be so, otherwise religion would not have so spectacularly failed in its ultimate purpose; to shape the world with the remedial, unifying effects of the universal truths within them. Had mankind followed those teaching no other Prophet would ever need appear. But this is not human nature or the nature of this world. This is a world of changes, cycles and seasons, cycles of decline and renewal. The practice of essentials is lost, principals of justice become little used, their power little understood and often denied, displaced by tradition, ambition, expedience and moral relativity. Winter comes to Religion. So God sends Another to renew and regather His scattered flock and spring returns.

Change breeds turmoil and this is without a doubt the most tumultuous age in man’s turbulent history. Man is not satisfied. What is perceived as religion has not been enough to avert disasters and plays but an ineffectual part in the life of men as a whole, and whole we must be to resolve world problems. Yet each religion promises and rightly so, that some Day, its effect will, in fact, be whole, effecting the whole earth and all of mankind. This is that Day.

Even as He said; ‘This is a new cycle of human power. All the horizons of the world are luminous, and the world will become indeed as a garden and a paradise. It is the hour of unity of the sons of men and of the drawing together of all races and all classes. You are loosed from ancient superstitions which have kept men ignorant, destroying the foundation of true humanity.

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.’3

How jarring to our sensibilities this sounds to ears attuned, and to souls entombed, by the earth of common knowledge.

The Dictionary defines ‘Fundamentalism; 1... a movement that stresses the infallibility of the Bible...in matters of faith and morals but also as a literal historic record, holding as essential...physical resurrection, atonement by the sacrificial death of Christ and the second coming’.

The definition given for religion qualifies fundamentalist groups and others, however peculiar or benighted, as religions, indicating a pervasive and insidious decline in the true nature of religion, and carries with it the denial of science and rational conjecture. ‘As the clergy have neither understood the meaning of the Gospels nor comprehended its symbolism, it has been said that religion is in contradiction to science, and science in opposition to religion, when it truth science in no way contradicts religion; but, on the contrary, science and the intelligence affirm it.’4

The unquestioning, blind acceptance of the literal, and rejection of any metaphoric, symbolic or inner spiritual meaning of scripture, and their parrot like repetition, “as is”, describes the practice of fundamentalism, which largely  dominates religion today.

The dictionary definitions of religion and fundamentalism, correspond significantly with the definition of Superstition; 1. a belief or notion, not based on reason or knowledge 2. a system or collection of such beliefs, 3. a custom or act based on such belief, 4. irrational fear of what is unknown or mysterious, esp. in connection with religion.’

The connection between superstation, fundamentalism and “religion” as defined, is sobering and ominous and misleading.  These connections, so degrading to the sadly misunderstood, largely forgotten, reality of religion, are at the root of men’s aversion to religion, their disbelief in God and the daily increase of chaos, suffering and corruption in the world. The meaning  of Religion lies fallow in the hearts of men. Until it is comprehended mankind will continue to wander, distraught, among a myriad differing views and causes, tearing at the fabric of its unity and its power to resolve problems.

‘The following words of Bahá'u'lláh are indeed significant as we pause to reflect upon the present state of a strangely disordered world: "How long will humanity persist in its waywardness? How long will injustice continue? How long is chaos and confusion to reign amongst men? How long will discord agitate the face of society? The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divides and afflicts the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appears to be lamentably defective.’5

‘Soon will the present day order be rolled up and a new one spread out in its stead...The world's equilibrium, hath been upset through the vibrating influence of this Most Great, this new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System, the like of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.’6

Bahá'u'lláh was among the first to invoke the phrase "new world order"7 the essence of which is the unity of the human race, while the rolling up of the old order describes momentous change and collapse in all areas of mankind’s life, ‘which has become the daily experience of mankind and no abatement of this process is discernible.'8

The Collapse into Moral Relativism

Where once religion was the source and arbiter of moral law, now the individual and collectively, society, are its standard bearers. These new moral standards, which are nothing more than the absence of moral standards, are eating into the vitals of the ideal of human society, its nature, cohesiveness, and conduct, and are blatantly visible in the corruption and dissolution of political, religious, and educational institutions, and the family unit. The devaluation of religion by fundamentalism, riddled with superstition, so tellingly portrayed in the modern definition of religion, is a major contributor to the establishment of the new, amoral, atheistic, anti-religious, popularly accepted norms and standards of social behavior, so appropriately named “moral relativism”.

Mankind is virtually crying out; “Where is our unity, our integrity and our love and its reflection in our institutions, in our relationships, within this material, earthly plane, where we must all live out our lives?” Every man cries out for a soul. ‘Evident every where is a yearning for institutions which will dispense justice, dispel oppression and foster an enduring unity.’9In the midst of what has become the myth like remnants of religion, there now exists new standards for moral behavior, along with the healing messages of unity, and social laws regarding, prayer, divorce, premarital sex, homosexuality, drug use, the means of establishing world peace, punishments for disobeying these laws, etc.  But these, and the peace and unity they bring, will remain hidden, from those veiled by self, until those veils are lifted and all religions are accepted as one, and the principal of Progressive Revelation, which binds them all, is acknowledged, and understood. This realization is impossible so long as the latest revealed religion, in this ancient divine progression, the Baha’i Faith, (est. 1863) and its message of unity, is ignored and its persecution sanctioned by national governments. Until the oneness of all religions, including that latest, but not last Revelation, is accepted, its divine remedial teachings will never be fully realized. Yet whether thy are consciously accepted or not, the pain of following our present course is gradually aligning civilization in accordance to Baha’i principals. Its inevitable acceptance, ordained by God, has been foreordained and predicted by every religion of the world. Herein lies one of many validations of past religions; promises of a future resurrection of peace and individual nobility, spiritual in nature and world wide in application. This is the inevitable course of the evolution of an ever advancing civilization.

Even so, the debasement of religion by fundamentalism cannot be ignored, if we are to benefit from our mistakes and distinguish light from shadow, and by an ever intensifying contrast, understand religions demise in the world, while comprehending the true roll of Religion in our future development.  Many of our chosen roll models, political leaders, religious leaders, our heroes and stars in every walk of life, even in our schools and churches, bear a significant testimony to society’s lack of moral fiber and its morose decline and casts a long, well defined shadow.

‘A cult of individualism, an aggressive and almost boundless sense of personal entitlement in the guise of “the pursuit of happiness”, morally corrosive, devastating in its effects, so fundamental and pervasive, must deeply question our assumptions of right and wrong.’10 The suppression and miss-emphasis of truth by religious institutions is a form of oppression that has left the world with a dearth of spiritual principals, perception and insights, gasping for a breath of reality. To where then, can seekers after truth turn?

“Let those seriously concerned about the state and fate of the world give due attention to the claims of Bahá'u'lláh. Let them realize that the storms battering at the foundations of society will not be stilled unless and until spiritual principles are actively engaged in the search for solutions to social problems.”11

A Recurrent Revelation

The children of men need and have received, throughout history, from Age to Age, a Divine Educator, a perfect Exemplar of spiritual life, those multiple, revolutionary, spiritual re-awakenings, so vivid at their inception, in every Faith, and though initially shunned and severely persecuted, where eventually, wildly successful is their promulgation. Even though decline eventually ensued, a rebirth, in the form of a fresh revelation, always followed, to redirect the steps of mankind on the sure path. This cyclical pattern of darkness and light, followed by darkness and then again by light, has ever been God’s method.

But now a new Age in the history of men is upon us. Never again will the need arise for separate Revelations and Religions to appear at different places on earth. For the earth is now one, whether we like it or not. The time for the Revelation of one world Religion is here. The ancient days when the need for edification of peoples in various locals in various stages of development with special needs, particular to individual cultures or circumstances, separated by vast distances, mountains, and oceans has past. Today we are in many ways already one people, geographically, and economically, while we have always been one people in the spiritual sense, on a level of reality few have fathomed. The differences engendered by geographic boundaries are no more and the clash of these newly merging societies requires one universal Faith, one common Cause to bring peace and understanding among them.

As we emerge from the still darkening days of civil and spiritual decline, and mankind matures toward a global society, another Revelation has already been made manifest by Providence, to reestablish the eternal, unvarying truths of the past with increased intensity, breadth, scope, and application, while at the same time addressing all the needs of a global civilization. The time of Revelation is once again upon us, this time to be faced, not regionally, but by the whole world at once. Providence has manifested, once again, in the noble form of the Human Temple, the latest, in the never ending succession of Prophet Founders of Religion. The Testimony of God, the ever One Revelation, gradually revealed, is now tasked with world unification, in the deepest sense of the word. That necessarily brilliant, awe inspiring, guiding light, will enable each and every one to navigate the sea of change, so dramatic and revolutionary, that churns around us everyday. Its fundamentals are love for one God, the oneness of religion, and the resultant love for, and oneness of, all mankind.   

All Religions share many spiritual teachings in common. Prominent among these is the promise that One will come, at a preordained moment in history, for which we have been predestined and prepared, bearing the long foretold unity, peace and prosperity to earth, in Who’s teachings lie the blue print for world peace and universal tranquility, around which the Kingdom of God is to be erected, in this nether world. The Spirit of the Age, the Founder, of that yet to be established, slowly evolving and emerging Kingdom, is none other than Baha’u’llah, the Promised One of all Ages, the Prophet Founder of the Baha’i Faith. We are still too close to this towering Revelation to be able to grasp more than an inkling of the immensity of its significance.

The time for the testing of every man’s Faith has come, when ‘truth shall be distinguished from falsehood and the wisdom of every command shall be tested’.   The golden calves of moral relativism, materialism, fundamentalism, the intentional perpetuation of superstition, the spiritually and intellectually demeaning and exclusive practices and beliefs in;  the ‘only one way’ theology, the myth of ‘original sin’, the affection for demonology and the belief in a personal Satan, the confession of sins to another human being for forgiveness, the illusionary speaking in tongues, reincarnation and it’s attendant misunderstood "experience" of past life regression, channeling and automatic writing, the fixation on astrology, palmistry and card reading, the irrational concept that God would send His Son to actually bear the punishment for our own sins in order to atone for them in our place, that only those believing in this atonement are saved, the childish, fanciful, and mythical interpretations of prophesies, especially referring to the coming of the Promised One of all religions, which cripple the adherents of those religions in their ability to ever recognize Him again, are all examples of man’s dusty, worldly preferences, that are barring the door to the Divine Physician, that Universal Manifestation of God, while the ignorant allow unqualified and ignorant practitioners, a free hand, to heal a mortally ill society.

This is the condition of a world at war with itself, into which Baha’u’llah has appeared. Every phase of His life, every Word He uttered, every deed, gesture, and glance has irresistibly effected peoples of all Faiths and station, except the most stone hearted. The greater the heat of conflagration mustered by His enemies only increased the brilliance, heat and flame of a Faith born in its crucible, proving beyond doubt, to every fair minded observer, the invincible nature of His Cause and the Divine Source of its Light and regenerative Power.

Close

Many are the accounts of those who met Him, of all backgrounds and belief, many are the books written about Him by others, many are the books written with His own Hand still preserved in the original. The quantity of His own writings is fifteen times the size of the old and new Testaments. Peruse them if you are of those who seek the truth, independently of all, and everyone, but God.

Baha’u’llah, (the Glory of God) was born in 1817 and ascended in 1892. He is the Founder of the Baha’i Faith. His Words are on the world wide web at www.bahai.us/. Books on the Baha’i Faith are in most public libraries and available through major book stores. You can read Baha’i books for free on the internet. I suggest you do not simply Goggle the word Baha’i, otherwise you may end up on a site that is not authorized or accurate.  www.bahai.us/ will supply numerous links to many other valid Baha’i sites.

The three proofs are His Self, His Revelation and His Word. I will leave you with these excerpts of the Word of God for this Age. While reading them ask yourselves; is this the Word of God or of man?

 

 

His Word

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O SON OF BEING!
Thy heart is My home;
sanctify it for My descent.
Thy spirit is My place of revelation;
cleanse it for My manifestation.12
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Say: The Book of God hath been sent down in the form of this Youth. Hallowed, therefore, be God, the most excellent of makers! Take ye good heed, O peoples of the world, lest ye flee from His face. Nay, make haste to attain His presence, and be of them that have returned unto Him...and be not of the foolish...He it is Who hath unveiled to your eyes the treasures of His knowledge...Judge ye fairly the Cause of God, your Creator, and behold that which hath been sent down from the Throne on high, and meditate thereon with innocent and sanctified hearts. Then will the truth of this Cause appear unto you as manifest as the sun in its noon-tide glory. Then will ye be of them that have believed in Him.13                    
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For each and every religion, await a Promised One, and Baha’u’llah is that One Who is awaited by all; and therefore the Cause of Baha’u’llah will bring about the oneness of mankind, and the tabernacle of unity will be upraised on the heights of the world, and the banners of the universality of all humankind will be unfurled on the peaks of the earth.  ~ Abdul-Baha ~
☆
O SON OF SPIRIT!
The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away there from if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee.  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.  Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be.  Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness.  Set it then before thine eyes.  ~ Baha'u'llah ~ 
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To be a Baha’i simply means to love all the world, to love humanity and try to serve it; to work for Universal Peace and Universal Brotherhood.14

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The Revelation which, from time immemorial, hath been acclaimed as the Purpose and Promise of all the Prophets of God, and the most cherished Desire of His Messengers, hath now, by virtue of the pervasive Will of the Almighty and at His irresistible bidding, been revealed unto men. The advent of such a Revelation hath been heralded in all the sacred Scriptures. Behold how, notwithstanding such an announcement, mankind hath strayed from its path and shut out itself from its glory.

Say: O ye lovers of the One true God! Strive, that ye may truly recognize and know Him, and observe befittingly His precepts. This is a Revelation, under which, if a man shed for its sake one drop of blood, myriads of oceans will be his recompense. Take heed, O friends, that ye forfeit not so inestimable a benefit, or disregard its transcendent station. Consider the multitude of lives that have been, and are still being, sacrificed in a world deluded by a mere phantom which the vain imaginations of its peoples have conceived. Render thanks unto God, inasmuch as ye have attained unto your heart's Desire, and been united to Him Who is the Promise of all nations. Guard ye, with the aid of the one true God – exalted be His glory – the integrity of the station which ye have attained, and cleave to that which shall promote His Cause. He, verily, enjoineth on you what is right and conducive to the exaltation of man's station. Glorified be the All-Merciful, the Revealer of this wondrous Tablet.   
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Verily I say, this is the Day in which mankind can behold the Face, and hear the Voice, of the Promised One. The Call of God hath been raised, and the light of His countenance hath been lifted up upon men. It behoveth every man to blot out the trace of every idle word from the tablet of his heart, and to gaze, with an open and unbiased mind, on the signs of His Revelation, the proofs of His Mission, and the tokens of His glory.

Great indeed is this Day! The allusions made to it in all the sacred Scriptures as the Day of God attest its greatness. The soul of every Prophet of God, of every Divine Messenger, hath thirsted for this wondrous Day. All the divers kindreds of the earth have, likewise, yearned to attain it. No sooner, however, had the Day Star of His Revelation manifested itself in the heaven of God's Will, than all, except those whom the Almighty was pleased to guide, were found dumbfounded and heedless.

 

 

 

End Notes 

1.Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 36
2.Excerpt from The Tablet of Ahmad, by Baha’u’llah
3.Abdu'l-Baha, Abdu'l-Baha in London, p. 19
4. Some Answered Questions, #23, By Abdu’l-Baha
5.Baha'u'llah, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 32
6.Baha'u'llah, The Proclamation of Baha'u'llah, p. x
7.Misc Baha'i, Chronology of Major Letters of the Guardian
8.Baha'u'llah, The Proclamation of Baha'u'llah, p. x
9.The Universal House of Justice
10.Baha'i International Community, 1999 Feb, Who is Writing the Future
11.The Universal House of Justice, 1992 Nov 26, Second Message to World Congress, p. 4
12.Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words
13.Compilations, Baha'i World Faith, p. 33
14.Dr. J.E. Esslemont, Baha'u'llah and the New Era, p. 71 From letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, March 17, 1934