Daily Frameworks for 24 June 2024

Kamál, 02 Raḥmat (Mercy), 181 B.E.

The Twin Manifestations

Quotes for Reflection:

And when this Wronged One went forth out of His prison, We journeyed, in pursuance of the order of His Majesty the Sháh—may God, exalted be He, protect him—to ‘Iráq, escorted by officers in the service of the esteemed and honored governments of Persia and Russia. After Our arrival, We revealed, as a copious rain, by the aid of God and His Divine Grace and mercy, Our verses, and sent them to various parts of the world. We exhorted all men, and particularly this people, through Our wise counsels and loving admonitions, and forbade them to engage in sedition, quarrels, disputes and conflict. As a result of this, and by the grace of God, waywardness and folly were changed into piety and understanding, and weapons converted into instruments of peace. — Bahá’u’lláh ¹

And again in another connection: “Revile ye not one another. We, verily, have come to unite and weld together all that dwell on earth. Unto this beareth witness what the ocean of Mine utterance hath revealed amongst men, and yet most of the people have gone astray. If anyone revile you, or trouble touch you, in the path of God, be patient, and put your trust in Him Who heareth, Who seeth. He, in truth, witnesseth, and perceiveth, and doeth what He pleaseth, through the power of His sovereignty. He, verily, is the Lord of strength, and of might. In the Book of God, the Mighty, the Great, ye have been forbidden to engage in contention and conflict. Lay fast hold on whatever will profit you, and profit the peoples of the world. Thus commandeth you the King of Eternity, Who is manifest in His Most Great Name. He, verily, is the Ordainer, the All-Wise.” — Bahá’u’lláh ²

The Life of the Bahá’u’lláh

“Many a night,” continues Nabíl, depicting the lives of those self-oblivious companions, “no less than ten persons subsisted on no more than a pennyworth of dates. No one knew to whom actually belonged the shoes, the cloaks, or the robes that were to be found in their houses. Whoever went to the bazaar could claim that the shoes upon his feet were his own, and each one who entered the presence of Bahá’u’lláh could affirm that the cloak and robe he then wore belonged to him. Their own names they had forgotten, their hearts were emptied of aught else except adoration for their Beloved.… O, for the joy of those days, and the gladness and wonder of those hours!”
The enormous expansion in the scope and volume of Bahá’u’lláh’s writings, after His return from Sulaymáníyyih, is yet another distinguishing feature of the period under review. The verses that streamed during those years from His pen, described as “a copious rain” by Himself, whether in the form of epistles, exhortations, commentaries, apologies, dissertations, prophecies, prayers, odes or specific Tablets, contributed, to a marked degree, to the reformation and progressive unfoldment of the Bábí community, to the broadening of its outlook, to the expansion of its activities and to the enlightenment of the minds of its members. So prolific was this period, that during the first two years after His return from His retirement, according to the testimony of Nabíl, who was at that time living in Baghdád, the unrecorded verses that streamed from His lips averaged, in a single day and night, the equivalent of the Qur’án! As to those verses which He either dictated or wrote Himself, their number was no less remarkable than either the wealth of material they contained, or the diversity of subjects to which they referred. A vast, and indeed the greater, proportion of these writings were, alas, lost irretrievably to posterity. No less an authority than Mírzá Áqá Ján, Bahá’u’lláh’s amanuensis, affirms, as reported by Nabíl, that by the express order of Bahá’u’lláh, hundreds of thousands of verses, mostly written by His own hand, were obliterated and cast into the river. “Finding me reluctant to execute His orders,” Mírzá Áqá Ján has related to Nabíl, “Bahá’u’lláh would reassure me saying: ‘None is to be found at this time worthy to hear these melodies.’ … Not once, or twice, but innumerable times, was I commanded to repeat this act.” A certain Muḥammad Karím, a native of Shíráz, who had been a witness to the rapidity and the manner in which the Báb had penned the verses with which He was inspired, has left the following testimony to posterity, after attaining, during those days, the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, and beholding with his own eyes what he himself had considered to be the only proof of the mission of the Promised One: “I bear witness that the verses revealed by Bahá’u’lláh were superior, in the rapidity with which they were penned, in the ease with which they flowed, in their lucidity, their profundity and sweetness to those which I, myself saw pour from the pen of the Báb when in His presence. Had Bahá’u’lláh no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient, in the eyes of the world and its people, that He produced such verses as have streamed this day from His pen.” ^{3 4}

1. Bahá’u’lláh. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Translated by Shoghi Effendi. Rev. ed. 1953. Reprint, Wilmette, Ill: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1976, 21-22. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/epistle-son-wolf/2#520603799 ↩
2. Bahá’u’lláh. Epistle to the Son of the Wolf. Translated by Shoghi Effendi. Rev. ed. 1953. Reprint, Wilmette, Ill: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1976, 24. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/epistle-son-wolf/2#107948855 ↩
3. Effendi, Shoghi. God Passes By. Bahá’í Reference Library. Accessed June 23, 2024. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/shoghi-effendi/god-passes-by/10#779048666. ↩
4. Ruhi Institute. The Twin Manifestations. 2.1.21.PE December 2021. Vol. Book 4. 6 vols. Embarking on a Path of Service. Cali, Columbia: Ruhi Foundation, 2021, 101-103. https://www.ruhi.org/en/walking-a-path-of-service/#TWM.