Shoghi Effendi

You see, when a person really captures the spirit of Baha'u'llah in this day, and it is seen in your life, I mean, it's reflected.

We read in this latest letter from the House of Justice, quoting the Guardian's statement 25 years ago, in which he said the only thing, and the only thing, I paraphrased that a little bit, But the only thing that is going to reflect people on the outside is the way something reflects from our inner life, which it had to be in the inner.

Nothing else will reflect the people.

They've got to see this visible light within us as believers.

Now, another thing that you find conflicting many times in talking about this, the mad and fruit of creation, is to have a clear understanding of just who we are.

Now, you know, I quoted to you that hidden word of Bahá'u'lláh the other day, in which Bahá'u'lláh said, Turn thy fighting for thyself, and find me standing within thee, powerful, mighty, and supreme.

Vabhesh Vedlun, he wrote to the Guardian about that, and Vedlun, I'll show you that he wrote back to this, was not to be taken literally.

He said this meant that each and every one of us is a divine creation, and this rational human soul is what is standing within us.

Well, I'm trying to think about this far from equilibrium state, and I wanted to share with you initially a brief description of the situation as I understand it.

Shoghi Effendi said that there are these three stages or ages of the faith.

The first one, the heroic age or the apostolic age, was characterized by that release of creative energy for life.

building this new world order and the efforts, the heroic efforts of those early followers.

The third stage he called the golden age or that age of fruition or that time of blissful felicity when we've managed to apply all these principles and they're fully operational in the world and in all our institutions and our behavior and relationships and so on.

Now in between The age in which we find ourselves, Shoghi Effendi called that the formative age or the age of transition.

And in one letter, he called it the age of frustration with a capital F.

Now, Baha'u'llah said, the world's equilibrium has been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this new world order.

And so to talk about the spiritual foundation of peace in the writings of the Bab, it may appear a little bit strange for the simple reason that there are a number of harsh laws in the writings of the Bab.

Shoghi Effendi in God Passes By has referred to philosophy of some of these harsh laws, but there are some holy war-like statements in the writings of the Bab.

And so, It appears, again, a paradoxical question to talk about foundation of peace in the writings of the Bab.

But...