CHAPTER X
SOME OF THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THOSE WHO SEEK THE NEXT MANIFESTATION OF THE REVELATION OF THE GREATEST NAME
"Verily, I say unto you; none shall be saved but the believers, and from the believers only the sincere, and even those are in great danger, especially in such a time." Abdu’l-Baha cited in Baha’i Scriptures, p. 443
Those who seek the next Manifestation, from whatever religious background, and who sincerely turn to God, will endeavour, with all their strength and concentrated efforts of their wills, to sanctify themselves from all attachments and to immerse themselves in the love of God, obeying His Will and being responsive to His guidance. Events surrounding the appearance of every Manifestation of God have differed, and we can only surmise what will occur at the appearance of the last Letter of the Greatest Name. Certainly it will be vastly different than any past appearances, because the world will have just gone through a time of terrible destruction and upheaval.
>From the New Testament we learn that just before the Revelation of Jesus Christ, John the Baptist announced His coming, speaking to small groups of people in the countryside. Israel is a small nation, and we do not know to what extent his message spread around the country. At least a few responded, but the story is vague and incomplete. According to the New Testament when Jesus began His Mission He selected His disciples as He traveled during the first days of His public ministry. It would seem that they did not seek out Jesus, He came to them.
Very little is known about the forerunners of Muhammad. In the Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 65, it speaks of the heralds sending out one person, Salman, to go to "Hijaz" to seek out the promised Holy One. The heralds were in Iraq, and Hijaz is in Arabia, far from Iraq. During his search, Salman was enslaved, and taken to Medina, where he met Muhammad and became one of His staunchest followers.
The prophecies in the Bible concerning the place and time of the appearance of Muhammad are very vague. For example t in Habakkuk, 3:3-6:
"God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. Selah. His brightness was like the light, rays flashed from his hand, and there he veiled his power. He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations..."
Mt. Paran refers to Arabia, and the Holy One refers to His Holiness Muhammad. There are also the well-known prophecies of Jesus concerning the coming of the "Comforter", which give no time or place. It is easy to understand the difficulties faced by those few who were spiritually aware of the meanings of the prophecies. When Muhammad began His Mission in Mecca He faced extreme persecution and endless ridicule. Over the ten years prior to His move to Medina He gathered a few followers, come of whom moved to Ethiopia to escape the fierce and relentless persecution.
Before the coming of the Bab, the planet Uranus was discovered, as we mentioned earlier. Two heralds, Shaykh Ahmad and Siyyid Kazim, tried to spiritually prepare a few Shi’ites for the coming of the Beloved One of God, but most of the Shi’ite religious leaders considered them to be outcasts, and ridiculed their teachings. Despite the abundance of relatively clear prophecies giving the time of the coming of the Bab, the Muslim masses were in a deep sleep spiritually, as are the people today. When Siyyid Kazim died he appointed no successor, and he told his followers that they must seek out the Promised One as their Leader.
In the traditions and prophecies the place for the appearance of the Promised One was to be Persia, which is a very large nation. By hindsight Baha’is say that Siyyid Kazim indicated that Shiraz was the place the Promised One would first appear. This is based in a paper Siyyid Kazim wrote concerning the meanings of the two names of Muhammad, which are Ahmad and Muhammad. he said that the name Muhammad refers to the general mass of believers(in the ‘outer court’), whereas Ahmad is the celestial name of Muhammad, and is used in reference to those believers who have attained the highest spiritual stations. He said that the name Ahmad is the place of the appearance of the Master, which is manifested only where the air is pure and the land superior. (See page 44, Seyyed Kazem Rechti, by A.L.M. Nicolas, Lib. P. Geuthner, Paris, 1914). Such a statement can be understood as being wholly symbolic in nature, referring to the atmosphere and realm of pure spirits where the Holy Spirit is manifested. No mention is made of the city of Shiraz in the translation of that paper, and it would have been difficult to grasp such a hidden reference prior to the appearance of the Bab. Of course the Bab did appear in Shiraz, but his first disciples found Him through arduous searching, prayer and spiritual perception -- not by geographical indications.
The only reason I mention the difficulties seekers in the past have faced is because many imagine that what they have learned by hindsight was easily apparent beforehand. This is simply not so. In the case of the Bab, the first believers discovered Him after spending time fasting and praying, and within two or three months all eighteen Letters of the Living had accepted His Revelation and become His disciples. Again, these events are unique in the annals of religious history. To those who have insight, it becomes apparent that the souls who have prepared themselves prior to the appearance of the Manifestation, who strive for spiritual understanding, who earnestly search for truth, who make every effort to sanctify their souls, and who sincerely believe, will be awakened and guided to the Beloved One of God.
Consider this: Baha’u’llah’s Mission actually began in 1852 while He was imprisoned in the underground dungeon of Siyah-chal in Tihran. During the following ten years prior to the announcement of His Mission to a few believers in the Garden of Ridvan, Baghdad, only a few very spiritual souls recognized His Station. Although the Bab, in His Writings, had made very veiled references to the time of the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, a large number of Babis could not accept Baha’u’llah because of the following prophecy of the Bab in the Persian Bayan:
"If He Whom God shall manifest shall appear in the number Giyath (1511 by the Abjad numbering system) all shall enter in, not one shall remain in the Fire. If He tarry until the time of Mustaghath (2001) all shall enter in, not one shall remain in the Fire, but all shall be transformed by His Light.’
As mentioned earlier, the Babis claimed that Baha’u’llah had appeared much too soon, because of the above prophecy, and so many rejected the Beloved One of God. There were veiled references, which are easily understood by hindsight, but at the time were understood by only a very few enlightened souls. These references give the years ‘nine’ and ‘nineteen’ as being significant spiritual dates. "Ere the year nine will have elapsed from the inception of this Cause the realities of things will not have been made manifest." "In the year nine ye will attain unto the presence of God." " Be attentive from the inception of the Revelation until the number of vahid." "The Lord of the Day of Reckoning will be manifested at the end of vahid." The Bab, cited in God Passes By, chap. VI
The Abjad value of vahid (vahd in Arabic) is nineteen. Hindsight makes all these references seem easy to understand. IF you believe in Baha’u’llah. At the time it required keen spiritual insight to grasp their meanings, a quality lacking in too many believers. In the year nine Baha’u’llah did not declare His Mission, but did so eleven years later in Baghdad to a few selected believers, after the year 19 (that is, 19 years after the inception of the Revelation of the Bab). His public announcement was made in Adrianople in 1865, 21 years after the inception of the Revelation of the Bab.
The point is that the events at the time of the beginning of the Revelation of Baha’u’llah were vastly different than those at the beginning of any previous Revelation. In these times one ought not expect an exact repetition of anything that occurred in the past. The tests are different before and during the first years of every Dispensation.
Believers must rid themselves of all conditioned thinking, about spiritual matters as well as the general meaning of life, concepts that have been instilled into them since childhood or since their acceptance of the Revelation of Baha’u’llah. The key words are honesty and humility; the greatest force for change is love of God. trust in God. and submission to His Will. Before the appearance of the Holy Spirit in the Manifestation of God, a number of holy souls must be prepared, who will have the spiritual capacity to know and accept the Promised One, wherever and whenever He may appear. To reach such a station requires sacrifice of self, and dedicated efforts to purify our spirits and reform our characters.
"0 thou advancer toward the Kingdom! Endeavor thou day by day to increase thy yearning and attraction so that the attitude of supplication and prayer may be realized more often." Abdu’l-Baha in Tablets of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 522
"Forget all save God, be in communion with Him, supplicate and pray to Him to make thee conqueror over material things, impressed by the bounties of the Kingdom, commemorating the name of thy Lord, pure from all else save Him, and imbued with the spiritual attributes of those who are holy...’ Ibid., p. 247