Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
Interesting.
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Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
We could lose our democracy. That's looking uncomfortably possible.
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
That's all true. Our Writings speak of upheavals at some unspecified point. This will especially hit America and affect America quite a bit and also the world. Actually we are gong through upheavals right now, but I expect they will continue.
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
Yes, but read the end of this document:
Research notes and cautions about the Moffett pilgrims notes
Thellie Lovejoy, who helped type and proofread many pilgrims notes for Bahá'í Library Online, has found evidence that parts of these notes may be plagiarized. Lovejoy's findings were shared with myself and others via a series of emails. With her permission, I have edited and compiled her emails, below. -J.W.
J.W. is Jonathon Winters. It's his site.
Well if you pay attention to my many comments in religious debate you will see that I don't equate religious with being moral or spiritual. There many be some parallel at times, but not consistently.
To my mind morality and spirituality requires self-refection, deliberate thought, compassion, and empathy. It's easier to adopt social norms and be an agent for them without any real thought. So some can mimic morals and that might be enough. But many others adopt immoral views that are thought to be moral. And that isn't good for anything. So it's better for people to learn to think and reflect, because this way they are accountable for their moral outlook, and they can't blame society or their allegiance to whatever guides them.
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
Oops, didn't see this before the above post.
If it's worse than war, then should we take evaporating cities literally? Atomic bombs raining on cities is a part of war, isn't it? It does look to me from my own deductions that that the event that will cause the limbs of mankind to shake will precede the lesser peace.
The world is in travail, and its agitation waxeth day by day. Its face is turned towards waywardness and unbelief. Such shall be its plight, that to disclose it now would not be meet and seemly. Its perversity will long continue. And when the appointed hour is come, there shall suddenly appear that which shall cause the limbs of mankind to quake. Then, and only then, will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its melody.
Bahá’u’lláh, "Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh", 61
The plight is getting worse, it is getting bad. Where it says "Then, and only then, will the Divine Standard be unfurled, and the Nightingale of Paradise warble its melody" that to me is a spiritual awakening of the world which will lead to the lesser peace.
We are told to keep working towards the peace and the goodwill of all humanity and let the old world order roll up as others so choose.
Personally I just find it amazing it unfolds as predicted, yet many just do not want to consider that is so.
Regards Tony
PureX
Veteran Member
In the US, the problem is not that people don't care enough about the issues or the politicians to pay attention, it's that they are being fed contradictory information to keep them exhausted, frustrated, and confused, and they are being given candidates hand-picked by the oligarchs, so that no matter who they vote for, the oligarchs win. As a result, many don't bother to vote, while others blame the bad outcomes on government as a whole, instead of the oligarchs that are corrupting it. And nothing gets fixed (but the elections). The solution is to vote out every incumbent in every election until and unless they start acting to clean up the corruption, but that requires a unified electorate. Unfortunately, capitalism has trained the American people to view each other as enemies and competitors in everything, and so unity is out of the question unless they can see some dire external threat.
stvdv
Veteran Member
World Peace is only possible if all people found already the Peace in themselves. That will take millennia, because it's a fact, that people can't give up their bad habits (vices) easily (you need 1 Hitler to mess up Peace...he was there around 1940, I am % sure "he" is there now
Also our innate reality is Divine, hence we never accept others to impose a forced "giving up of bad habits"
So, we just have to sit it out, nit trying to hold our breath
God's Masterpiece, it's percfect. Nobody "can" deny that
Note: Masters and Avatars have the habit to "give us hope". Of course they don't lie. But if you have their original words AND contemplate deep, you discover "always" a loophole to promises made or hope given
E.g.: Sai Baba said something like "The world was on the verge of WW3, my coming stopped it from happening. (some might say" you see we'll not get WW3", but SB never said that, His words could also mean "WW3 got delayed).
But hope is a good thing. But I rather know the Truth. Once Sai Baba told me I had health issues, no specifics were given. I told Him "Explain to me what is the problem".
Wow, in detail the kidney trouble was explained, and it's impact on my heartvalves etc. etc. Quite a shocker knowing so many details.
So, I understand that normally they provide hope, not reality. Not all people can handle the truth well. We have the saying in Holland about Ostriches putting head in sand (I guess it's not just the Dutch)
And do I need to point out that democracy is still under threat in the US, as Republican-led states craft laws to impair the ability of citizens to vote?
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
If the world is not careful, Putin could rain down atomic bombs in the near future. I have my doubts about whether he is delusional.
Truthseeker
Non-debating member when I can help myself
Yes, to have real unity and harmony among people, that takes a long time. However, it is possible to have a political structure before then that guards against chaos and war from lessons learned from upheavals from our realization that that the present order is defective. There wouldn't be true unity in the world, but there would be checks and balances to preserve the peace.
InvestigateTruth
Veteran Member
Worst than war, could be "worst than previous world wars", but the Notes are not 100% accurate.
According to the notes of Ruhiyyeh Khanoom, the wife of Shoghi Effendi:
"Tonight Shoghi Effendi told me some very interesting things: roughly, he said that to say that there was not going to be another war, in the light of present conditions, was foolish, and to say that if there was another war the Atom Bomb would not be used was also foolish. So we must believe there probably will be a war and it will be used and there will be terrific destruction. But the Bahá'ís will, he felt, emerge to form the nucleus of the future world civilization. He said it was not right to say the good would perish with the bad because in a sense all are bad, all humanity is to blame, for ignoring and repudiating Bahá'u'lláh after He had repeatedly trumpeted to everyone His Message. He said the saints in the monasteries and the sinners in the worst flesh pots of Europe are all wicked because they have rejected the Truth. He said it was wrong to think, as some of the Bahá'ís do, that the good would perish with the evil, all men are evil because they have repudiated God in this day and turned from Him. He said we can only believe that in some mysterious way, in spite of the terrible destruction, enough will be left over to build the future."
The Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith
Looks like, humanity will be almost destroyed and vanished and then they start to build it again. This is probably what Baha'u'llah means when He said the limb of mankind will be shaken.
Good luck with all of us
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Worst than war, could be "worst than previous world wars", but the Notes are not 100% accurate.
According to the notes of Ruhiyyeh Khanoom, the wife of Shoghi Effendi:
"Tonight Shoghi Effendi told me some very interesting things: roughly, he said that to say that there was not going to be another war, in the light of present conditions, was foolish, and to say that if there was another war the Atom Bomb would not be used was also foolish. So we must believe there probably will be a war and it will be used and there will be terrific destruction. But the Bahá'ís will, he felt, emerge to form the nucleus of the future world civilization. He said it was not right to say the good would perish with the bad because in a sense all are bad, all humanity is to blame, for ignoring and repudiating Bahá'u'lláh after He had repeatedly trumpeted to everyone His Message. He said the saints in the monasteries and the sinners in the worst flesh pots of Europe are all wicked because they have rejected the Truth. He said it was wrong to think, as some of the Bahá'ís do, that the good would perish with the evil, all men are evil because they have repudiated God in this day and turned from Him. He said we can only believe that in some mysterious way, in spite of the terrible destruction, enough will be left over to build the future."
The Guardian of the Bahá'í Faith
Looks like, humanity will be almost destroyed and vanished and then they start to build it again. This is probably what Baha'u'llah means when He said the limb of mankind will be shaken.
Good luck with all of us
It would be best to quote the official Writings, as Shoghi Effendi did give detail in the Official Writings.
The Citadel of Faith provides a lot of the letters he wrote and these also contain the warnings in his Official Capacity.
Here is a large extract that covers the pilgrim notes.
AMERICA PASSING THROUGH CRISIS
"Moreover, the country of which it forms a part is passing through a crisis which, in its spiritual, moral, social and political aspects, is of extreme seriousness—a seriousness which to a superficial observer is liable to be dangerously underestimated.
The steady and alarming deterioration in the standard of morality as exemplified by the appalling increase of crime, by political corruption in ever widening and ever higher circles, by the loosening of the sacred ties of marriage, by the inordinate craving for pleasure and diversion, and by the marked and progressive slackening of parental control, is no doubt the most arresting and distressing aspect of the decline that has set in, and can be clearly perceived, in the fortunes of the entire nation.
Parallel with this, and pervading all departments of life—an evil which the nation, and indeed all those within the capitalist system, though to a lesser degree, share with that state and its satellites regarded 125 as the sworn enemies of that system—is the crass materialism, which lays excessive and ever-increasing emphasis on material well-being, forgetful of those things of the spirit on which alone a sure and stable foundation can be laid for human society. It is this same cancerous materialism, born originally in Europe, carried to excess in the North American continent, contaminating the Asiatic peoples and nations, spreading its ominous tentacles to the borders of Africa, and now invading its very heart, which Bahá’u’lláh in unequivocal and emphatic language denounced in His Writings, comparing it to a devouring flame and regarding it as the chief factor in precipitating the dire ordeals and world-shaking crises that must necessarily involve the burning of cities and the spread of terror and consternation in the hearts of men. Indeed a foretaste of the devastation which this consuming fire will wreak upon the world, and with which it will lay waste the cities of the nations participating in this tragic world-engulfing contest, has been afforded by the last World War, marking the second stage in the global havoc which humanity, forgetful of its God and heedless of the clear warnings uttered by His appointed Messenger for this day, must, alas, inevitably experience. It is this same all-pervasive, pernicious materialism against which the voice of the Center of Bahá’u’lláh’s Covenant was raised, with pathetic persistence, from platform and pulpit, in His addresses to the heedless multitudes, which, on the morrow of His fateful visit to both Europe and America, found themselves suddenly swept into the vortex of a tempest which in its range and severity was unsurpassed in the world’s history.
Collateral with this ominous laxity in morals, and this progressive stress laid on man’s material pursuits and well-being, is the darkening of the political horizon, as witnessed by the widening of the gulf separating the protagonists of two antagonistic schools of thought which, however divergent in their ideologies, are to be commonly condemned by the upholders of the standard of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh for their materialistic philosophies and their neglect of those spiritual values and eternal verities on which alone a stable and flourishing civilization can be ultimately established. The multiplication, the diversity and the increasing destructive power of armaments to which both sides, in this world contest, caught in a whirlpool of fear, suspicion and hatred, are rapidly contributing; the outbreak of two successive bloody conflicts, entangling still further the American nation in the affairs of a distracted world, entailing a considerable loss in blood and treasure, swelling the national budget and progressively depreciating the currency of the state; the confusion, the vacillation, the suspicions besetting the European and Asiatic nations in their attitude to the American nation; the overwhelming accretion of strength to the arch enemy of the system championed by the American Union in consequence of the re-alignment of the powers in the Asiatic continent and particularly in the Far East—these have, moreover, contributed their share, in recent years, to the deterioration of a situation which, if not remedied, is bound to involve the American nation in a catastrophe of undreamed-of dimensions and of untold consequences to the social structure, the standard and conception of the American people and government.
No less serious is the stress and strain imposed on the fabric of American society through the fundamental and persistent neglect, by the governed and governors alike, of the supreme, the inescapable and urgent duty—so repeatedly and graphically represented and stressed by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in His arraignment of the basic weaknesses in the social fabric of the nation—of remedying, while there is yet time, through a revolutionary change in the concept and attitude of the average white American toward his Negro fellow citizen, a situation which, if allowed to drift, will, in the words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, cause the streets of American cities to run with blood, aggravating thereby the havoc which the fearful weapons of destruction, raining from the air, and amassed by a ruthless, a vigilant, a powerful and inveterate enemy, will wreak upon those same cities.
The American nation, of which the community of the Most Great Name forms as yet a negligible and infinitesimal part, stands, indeed, from whichever angle one observes its immediate fortunes, in grave peril. The woes and tribulations which threaten it are partly avoidable, but mostly inevitable and God-sent, for by reason of them a government and people clinging tenaciously to the obsolescent doctrine of absolute sovereignty and upholding a political system, manifestly at variance with the needs of a world already contracted into a neighborhood and crying out for unity, will find itself purged of its anachronistic conceptions, and prepared to play a preponderating role, as foretold by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in the hoisting of the standard of the Lesser Peace, in the unification of mankind, and in the establishment of a world federal government on this planet. These same fiery tribulations will not only firmly weld the American nation to its sister nations in both hemispheres, but will through their cleansing effect, purge it thoroughly of the accumulated dross which ingrained racial prejudice, rampant materialism, widespread ungodliness and moral laxity have combined, in the course of successive generations, to produce, and which have prevented her thus far from assuming the role of world spiritual leadership forecast by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s unerring pen—a role which she is bound to fulfill through travail and sorrow....."
Bahá'í Reference Library - Citadel of Faith, Pages 98-134
There is a lot written in this collection of letters. A lot which also shows why the faith still has a Guardian in Spirit.
To me that is saying that an Atomic war is very possible, it says in the Writings that we will wake up one morning to a different world it will all be over in one day, most likely the day the button is pushed to a destruction man has brought upon their own selves.
Regards Tony
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Watching the news this morning was a sad reflection.
There is still too much National self interest that adds to the pains of the world. Nations not prepared to sanction invasion on the scale neded.
The response to an invasion of an independent free Nation by the remainder of the world has been limited by National self interests. The UN has been very weak in its response to condemn the invasion.
This may just be another ripple, with many more to come.
It is good to see the brave Russian public condemning the invasion.
Regards Tony
There is still too much National self interest that adds to the pains of the world. Nations not prepared to sanction invasion on the scale neded.
The response to an invasion of an independent free Nation by the remainder of the world has been limited by National self interests. The UN has been very weak in its response to condemn the invasion.
This may just be another ripple, with many more to come.
It is good to see the brave Russian public condemning the invasion.
Regards Tony
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InvestigateTruth
Veteran Member
And this too:
"It is to you, dearly beloved friends of the West, who are the standard-bearers of the emancipation and triumph of the Bahá’í Faith, that our afflicted brethren of the East have turned their expectant eyes, confident that the day cannot be far-distant when, in accordance with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s explicit utterance, the West will “seize the Cause” from Persia’s fettered hands and lead it to glorious victory.
Though grief-stricken and horrified at this cruel blow, let us be on our guard lest we give way to despair, lest we forget that in the Almighty’s inscrutable Wisdom this sudden calamity may prove to be but a blessing in disguise. For what else can it do but to stir the inmost depths of our souls, set our faith ablaze, galvanise our efforts, dissolve our differences, and provide one of the chief instruments which the unhampered promoters of the Faith can utilise to attract the attention, enlist the sympathy, and eventually win the allegiance of all mankind?
Ours is this supreme opportunity; may we fulfil our trust."
-Your true brother,
Shoghi
Bahá'í Reference Library - Unfolding Destiny, Pages 49-51
To me, these Writings of Shoghi Effendi confirm the Clamity that leads to destruction, and then, some western Bahais will "cease the cause".
And this cannot be far distance he wrote!
The response of the world to the Ukraine crisis has not been united and sufficient. This could prolong the suffering.
To me It shows how the power of dictatorship can corrupts basic virtues and morals.
It makes it all the more amazing that what Baha'u'llah offered, that in the future no one will want the responsibility of leadership, more logical and apparent.
Regards Tony
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We do indeed have a serious internal situation with the lunatic right preferring racists to Democrats, comparing teachers and librarians to pedophiles and so forth.
Do you think that example typifies all on the right?
Would it be fair to say that all on the left want to eliminate
all capitalism because AOC says it's "irredeemable"?
Let's be cautious about frightening ourselves with undue
focus upon particular loonies.
Democracy is indeed a twin edged sword. To be successful It must contain the pernicious extremes of Nationalism and liberty.
Those who are voted in must be high in virtues and morals, but most of all be trustworthy and truthful.
Regards Tony