1. The First Step of Search

THE PATH OF SEARCH, Chapter 1.

The Festival of Ridvan, 12^thRidvan BE 176, 1^stMay CE 2019

The month of Jalal (Glory) 176 BE

Memorising the 1st Paragraph of The Tablet of the True Seeker

This image from a beautiful arrangement, with the 361 Days of the Badí' Calendar and the 19 days of each month arranged into a hexagram by New York Bahá’í friend Leland Wright, and available online as a pdf or hard copy decorative wall calendar…

O My brother! When a true seeker determineth to take the step of search in the path leading unto the knowledge of the Ancient of Days, he must, before all else, cleanse and purify his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy. He must purge his breast, which is the sanctuary of the abiding love of the Beloved, of every defilement, and sanctify his soul from all that pertaineth to water and clay, from all shadowy and ephemeral attachments. He must so cleanse his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him away from the truth. Even as thou dost witness in this day how most of the people, because of such love and hate, are bereft of the immortal Face, have strayed far from the Embodiments of the divine mysteries, and, shepherdless, are roaming through the wilderness of oblivion and error. 

As described in the Introduction, from this year’s Bahá’í fast came a new energy which had the words of the “Tablet of the True Seeker” coming alive for me. I was going to call the new blog my “Signs of the Universe”  blog, as I realised through the process that this phrase was another way of expressing the concept of Synchronicity, which describes the phenomenon of meaningful coincidences that occur in daily life, surpass the boundaries of cause and effect, and are statistically very unlikely to have been accidental occurrences. For me personally, following synchronicity had for many years brought my greatest moments of excitement and fulfillment in life, and I had felt driven to write the stories down as I entered a new level of existence kicked off by a global meditation known as Harmonic Convergencein 1987, and I created 3 books over the next 12 years. These stories brought the knowledge and understanding that life is a little more complex than what I was taught at school (and medical school); not just a simple matter of cause and effect, and now with the process of learning the WORDS of the blessed beauty and actually reciting them, rather than reading them every morning and evening, before and after sleep, I noticed that the synchronicity factor had definitely amped up another few notches, and bringing with it a whole new level of joyfulness. 

However, in learning the paragraph from The Tablet of the True Seeker that had such an effect on me back in 2011, and was such an amazing answer to the vital question I was asking at the time, I realised that I had flown ahead way too far—It was like I was trying to enter the 7^th Valley of The Seven Valleys before even going through all the other valleys, so I decided to go back to the beginning of the tablet and learn it from the beginning. I also decided to call the blog something a little less proud, and a little humbler as befitting the status of a true seeker. Thus, the name of the blog became The Path of Search, which I began to realise might not be a blog at all, but the beginning chapters of another book with an appropriate title for a fitting sequel to my previous book – Search for the Feathered Serpent – published in 1999. 

I sent the first completed blog post to Friends in Rarotonga and got some hearts in response. Then I sent it to my nearest and dearest and got what I initially perceived as quite a negative response. Her response questioned whether I needed to be writing at all? Maybe I should just be sharing this journey at cluster meetings? Maybe I should be self-reflecting rather than writing – just a thought… My immediate first thought was… This IS my way of self-reflecting, and thus by invoking the energy of the Search, the synchronicity factor comes into operation in a mystical process that magically uncovers the pearls that lie hidden in the Ocean! It made me look at myself and self-reflect a little more than I would have otherwise… I realised again that she really was my greatest teacher as always making me dig a bit deeper for the God given gifts of Patience and Selflessness. And then sleeping with the words of this Paragraph, Para 1 of the True Seeker tablet, I had some refreshing dreams, then woke and spent an hour or two meditating praying and taking random readings about the situation. Should I really STOP writing, and just share my story at cluster meetings? The Ridvan message for BE 176 from the UHJ had some direction for the Days ahead… 

Feelings of surpassing joy now surge within us, as we contemplate the year ahead and all that it promises. We look to every one of you – those who are occupied with rendering service to Bahá’u’lláh, labouring in every nation for the cause of peace – to fulfil your high calling – Signed, The Universal House of Justice. 

The majority of the Ridvan 2019 Tablet from the UHJ was about the chosen path ahead of community building, so it was a big YES on sharing it with the cluster meetings. But what about the writing? It was such an illuminating process of search for me, surely God would want me to share it with others? After writing many books in the last few decades it felt like it was my calling to do so and I was never happier than when feeling the synchronicity flowing through my fingers through the keyboard onto the page! It was the act of searching then writing it down that led to the deepening! I made another random access into the writings, this time from a little book I had carried around the world many times  in my suitcase… Fountain of Wisdom, A Collection of Writings from Bahá’u’lláh–subtitled “When the fountain of wisdom and eloquence gushed forth from the wellspring of His utterance and the wine of divine knowledge inebriated those who had sought His threshold, He exclaimed “Lo! All are filled with the Spirit.” The reading was 17.43 on page 288… 

Arise thou to serve the Cause of thy Lord; then give the people the joyful tidings concerning this resplendent Light whose revelation hath been announced by God though His prophets and messengers. Admonish everyone moreover to observe prudence as ordained by Him, and in the Name of God advise them, saying: It behooveth every one in the Day of God to dedicate himself to the teaching of the Cause with utmost prudence and steadfastness. Should he discover a pure soil, let him sow the seed of the Word of God, otherwise it would be preferable to observe silence.

So that was a pretty clear, direct, and easy to understand answer to my question! Should he discover a pure soil, let him sow the seed of the Word of God, otherwise it would be preferable to observe silence. I gave thanks to my wife and companion, and also offered apologies for my initially negative response to my greatest critic and teacher.  Again, she was correct – how did she do that? I decided that this blog would be only for Friends who wanted to see it, or for others with whom I found a spark of interest and recognition on the Mystical path and might find it interesting and inspiring for their own journeys… I gave thanks to God and Bahá’u’lláh for the clear direction ahead, and went back to the 1^st Paragraph that I was trying to memorise during this run at work… I had 14 days down and 4 to go before I was on my next break, which would coincide with 12^th Ridvan, a Day of celebration indeed, to get the words coming freely. Right now, I was at the point of being able to recite them from the top, but only with lots of pauses and straining to remember the next word, and occasionally forgetting a word or sentence, especially this one that called out for further meditation… he must so cleanse his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein… I wasn’t far off from getting the words flowing freely now, and I’d had an incredible couple of weeks of synchronicity in helping to penetrate the depths of the words contained therein, and I wanted to get it down and write the story before I lost it all again…  

Again, it was my wife and companion who provided the direction to go back to the beginning of the tablet, a couple of weeks back. I had proudly gone to her one early morning and told her I had memorised this paragraph from the Tablet of the True Seeker and wanted to share it. She consented and commented after I recited it that she felt my wave form was a bit cleaner. However, I had a long way to go yet, she thought, and I shouldn’t be reciting these sublime phrases to the other Friends. Rather I should be memorising some of the readings we had been discussing over the last couple of months… Especially the one about lechery… She thought I would get a much better response and interest if I recited these passages that everybody should be studying in their Bahá’í life… It was this advice that made me go back to the beginning of the tablet, and to indeed find out that the first thing that is needed before all else is cleansing and purifying the heart, purging the defilements of the breast, and sanctifying the soul. It was in the context of this that I went back and re-read the reading on lechery… 

Ye are forbidden to commit . . . lechery. Avoid them, O concourse of the faithful. (Bahá’u’lláh, The Compilation of Compilations, vol. I, p. 57).

Along with this came a couple of readings from Shoghi Effendí which added some details… 

Concerning your question whether there are any legitimate forms of expression of the sex instinct outside of marriage; according to the Bahá’í Teachings no sexual act can be considered lawful unless performed between lawfully married persons. Outside of marital life there can be no lawful or healthy use of the sex impulse except self-control which, when exercised, undoubtedly has a salutary effect on the development of character and of personality in general.  (Shoghi Effendi, Lights of Guidance, p. 363)

Masturbation is clearly not a proper use of the sex instinct, as this is understood in the Faith. Moreover, it involves, as you have pointed out, mental fantasies, while Bahá’u’lláh, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, has exhorted us not to indulge our passions and in one of His well-known Tablets ‘Abdu’l-Bahá encourage us to keep our “secret thoughts pure”.  (Shoghi Effendi, Lights of Guidance, p. 363)

This was a little different from modern conceptions of what was healthy in love and sex and marriage, and almost certainly as a result of this the rates of divorce were astronomically high in western countries and the west was full of broken children from broken homes, including my own! I felt very deeply now, that experimenting with liberal ideas, like free love and sex outside marriage just led to stress anxiety depression divorce and broken families. This advice from Bahá’u’lláh and the Bahá’í faith to regard sex as a fringe benefit of marriage, not to be indulged in outside marriage could be the glue that would hold a society together in extended whanau family units, Mum, Dad, children, grand-parents, grand-children. Most of western society has gone way down the road of sexual permissiveness, I thought, which is really self-gratification and self-pleasuring, along the lines suggested by well-known teachers and best-selling authors like Mantak Chia, who advised in his book The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know…. “Pleasuring yourself can help relieve built-up tension when you need a sexual release more than intimacy…” Running counter to this advice and felt deeply to be correct, and shedding light on those phrases above in the first Paragraph of this tablet were readings from The UHJ for example on Homosexuality … 

The primary purpose of sexual relations is, clearly, to perpetuate the species. The fact that personal pleasure is derived therefrom is one of the bounties of God. (The Universal House of Justice, 1993 Jun 05, Homosexuality, p. 11)

Again, from `Abdu’l-Bahá, who painted a beautiful picture of what marriage can be like without the undercurrents of lechery and defilement… 

In this glorious Cause the life of a married couple should resemble the life of the angels in heaven — a life full of joy and spiritual delight, a life of unity and concord, a friendship both mental and physical. The home should be orderly and well-organized. Their ideas and thoughts should be like the rays of the sun of truth and the radiance of the brilliant stars in the heavens. Even as two birds they should warble melodies upon the branches of the tree of fellowship and harmony. They should always be elated with joy and gladness and be a source of happiness to the hearts of others. They should set an example to their fellow-men, manifest a true and sincere love towards each other and educate their children in such a manner as to blazon the fame and glory of their family.  (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, from a Tablet-translated from the Persian)

It also reminded me of what I had heard Adib Taherzadeh saying to an Alaskan Summer school back in the early 1980s, about the race of Man that Bahá’u’lláh had come to bring to the Earth, which was at the VERY end of the 11 hours of teaching in this beautiful YouTube series of talks with the subject heading Drawing Nigh unto Bahá’u’lláh. His small story was cut off mid-sentence, and that was the end of the whole transmission of 11 hours or so of talks, but it was such a powerful vision, given in Adib Taherzadeh’s words following, to rub in the lesson of chaste living that I just had to write it down at the time…

He (Bahá’u’lláh) says… I have come to create such a race of men, that, in the future, in this Revelation now, remember… as a result of the coming of Bahá’u’lláh… should there be a beautiful woman, young woman, very beautiful, and should she have all the jewels, the most expensive jewels with her, and should this woman travel from the East of the World to the West of the World, single and alone, no man will be found who will cast a lustful eye on that woman, or would want to go for her jewels. He says… I have come to create such a race of men. These are His own words that Nabil has recorded. He says not one man will be found… Now it doesn’t mean that men will be different… 

The readings and meditations of the last fortnight had been all around the deeper meanings of the WORDS in this Paragraph, and again I noticed a lot of synchronicity. One example was around the Words Allusions of the Embodiments of Satanic Fancy. I was not completely clear about what the word Allusions meant, so I made a Google search and found Wikipedia … “Allusion is a figure of speech, in which an object or circumstance from unrelated context is referred to covertly or indirectly. It is left to the audience to make the direct connection. Where the connection is directly and explicitly stated by the author, it is instead usually termed a reference.” 

Then searching deeper, I found… “The most common form of allusion is a religious allusion, but there are also historical, mythological, and literary allusions. Examples given on matrix.edu.au are Historical: An allusion to a historical event or period. For example, “He was a Nero”, suggesting disturbing (unchaste) behaviour like that from the infamous Roman emperor. Mythological: an allusion to a mythological figure or story, for example ‘She ran faster than Hermes’ – the messenger of the Greek gods. Religious: An allusion to a religious text, story, or figure. For example, reflecting on her cruel behaviour, Cinderella’s stepmother stood still like a pillar of salt.” – Lot’s wife. 

It was all very interesting. I couldn’t really say that I had ever struck that word before, but it was deepening me into a whole new understanding, and then I noticed some more synchronicity as while I was focusing on those words I was reading and meditating on the essay already mentioned in Dr Momen’s book, from John S Hatcher, which brought some amazing deepening into the many different levels of meaning in the WORDS. In this essay entitled The Validity and Value of an Historical-Critical Approach to the Revealed Works of Bahá’u’lláh, from which I quoted in the Introduction, I found another paragraph in which JSH alluded to the word Allusions four times within 2 paragraphs as follows… 

A second kind of validity and relevancy of an historical-critical approach to the interpretation of the revealed works of Bahá’u’lláh   is the fact that each Prophet explicitly relates virtually everything He does and says to the immediate social and religious context in which He appears. For while His ministry may be intended to have some degree of universal applicability, He speaks first to those who follow the previous Manifestation, because it is on the foundation established by that previous teacher that the Prophet builds His own edifice. Therefore, in the same way that virtually every utterance of Christ alludes to Judaic doctrine and scripture, stating He has not come to abolish the past but to fulfil it or build on it, so the primary audience for Bahá’u’lláh is most often the followers of Muhammad or the followers of the Bab, and the revealed works of Bahá’u’lláh are replete with allusions to historical events and then special symbols and jargon of those religious traditions. In effect, one cannot fully understand or appreciate many other works of Bahá’u’lláh   without at least a fundamental appreciation of the meaning of these allusions. To recover these allusions requires an historical knowledge of both religions… For example, Bahá’u’lláh’s most important doctrinal work, the Kitab-i-Iqan, alludes throughout to explicit verses from the Qur’an while responding to the questions put to him by an unconverted uncle of the Báb   who was seeking proof of the Bab’s station as the promised Qa’im of Islam… pp 35-36

After never having struck the word Allusions before in my life, or really thought about it, the small tsunami of references to the word within one page of the book I was reading, was remarkable, and helped me to understand this sentence in the tablet, realising that Allusions of the Embodiments meant figures in mythological or religious history, and of satanic fancy was referring to those figures as generated by the satanic (from self) imaginations of the followers of the Prophet founders of the religions, man-made for their own selfish purposes and pleasure… instead of the real Embodiments of the divine mysteries;  the actual founders of the religions, the Divine Manifestations themselves. It was true that most religions were based on the books of followers rather than the books of the actual Prophets Themselves, but I was also very happy and excited to realise that this time we have the ACTUAL WORDS of the Prophet indelibly written in crimson ink… 

The process of synchronicity then carried into my weekend off work when I met my wife and youngest step-son and went to a movie in a Gold Coast cinema entitled Shazam, in which we saw a great illustration of the allusions of satanic fancy, in the form of the 7 deadly sins of ancient Christian religious lore, ie pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth, who came alive as menacing demonic forms, that had to be battled by the 7 foster children, who then became the Embodiments of the 7 virtues, sacred counterparts to the 7 deadly sins, ie chastity, temperance, generosity, diligence, patience, kindness, modesty. After all this astonishing illumination on the word Allusions it was now very easy to remember that phrase in the paragraph, and I experienced more in the dream time in the form of direct teaching each night, all valuable learning, relating to the purification of heart soul and breast (for breast I understood pleasures of the flesh in general), and the purging of every defilement. Meanwhile the phrase about sanctifying the soul from all that pertaineth to water and clay, was not only quite timely, as my other activity during this time was making a video about the creation of a clay cob pizza oven, and in fact pondering the structure and the nature of clay. It was also deepened by remembering the phrase of the Soaring Bird reading from Gleanings CLIII– in which Bahá’u’lláh addresses each and every one of us…

Ye are even as the bird which soareth, with the full force of its mighty wings and with complete and joyous confidence, through the immensity of the heavens, until, impelled to satisfy its hunger, it turneth longingly to the water and clay of the earth below it, and, having been entrapped in the mesh of its desire, findeth itself impotent to resume its flight to the realms whence it came. Powerless to shake off the burden weighing on its sullied wings, that bird, hitherto an inmate of the heavens, is now forced to seek a dwelling-place upon the dust. Wherefore, O My servants, defile not your wings with the clay of waywardness and vain desires and suffer them not to be stained with the dust of envy and hate, that ye may not be hindered from soaring in the heavens of My divine knowledge.

I felt there was now enough said on the process of memorising the beautiful 1^st Paragraph of the Tablet of the true seeker, but decided to take a last random access in the ocean for some last WORDS of elucidation in the new book I had just received, fresh off the press from the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, Israel, The Call of the Divine Beloved, which has a 2018 edited translation of The Seven Valleys. I dropped straight into The Valley of Wonderment and found some more understandings about the nature of the dream time. The random access was so amazingly appropriate, that I knew this was not just a book, this was the very object and answer to my quest; what I was searching for! The reading was strangely familiar being almost a follow on from the 1^st Paragraph I was learning right now, which had also come from an older and wiser Big Brother. 

Indeed, O Brother, if we ponder each created thing, we shall witness a myriad perfect wisdoms and learn a myriad new and wondrous truths. One of the created phenomena is the dream. Behold how many secrets are deposited therein, how many wisdoms treasured up, how many worlds concealed. Observe, how thou art asleep in a dwelling, and its doors are barred; on a sudden thou findest thyself in a far-off city, which thou enterest without moving thy feet or wearying thy body; without using thine eyes, thou seest; without taxing thine ears, thou hearest; without a tongue, thou speakest. And perchance when ten years are gone, thou wilt witness in the outer world the very things thou hast dreamed tonight. 

Now there are many wisdoms to ponder in the dream, which none but the people of this Valley can comprehend in their true elements. First, what is this world, where without eye and ear and hand and tongue a man puts all of these to use? Second, how is it that in the outer world thou seest today the effects of a dream, when thou didst vision it in the world of sleep some ten years past? Consider the difference between these two worlds and the mysteries which they conceal, that thou mayest attain to divine confirmations and heavenly discoveries and enter the regions of holiness. 

God, the Exalted, hath placed these signs in men, to the end that philosophers may not deny the mysteries of the life beyond nor belittle that which hath been promised them. For some hold to reason and deny whatever the reason comprehendeth not, and yet weak minds can never grasp the matters which we have related, but only the Supreme, Divine Intelligence can comprehend them: 

How can feeble reason encompass the Qur’an,

Or the spider snare a phoenix in his web?

All these states are to be witnessed in the Valley of Wonderment, and the traveller at every moment seeketh for more, and is not wearied. Thus the Lord of the First and the Last in setting forth the grades of contemplation, and expressing wonderment hath said: “Increase my wonder and amazement at Thee, O God!”

The small snippet from The Seven Valleys was rich in Allusions and References, with notes in this edition referencing many different layers of meaning. For example, the Lord of the First and the Last is a reference to Muhammad, and the quote about snaring a phoenix is from the famous Persian Sufi Mystic poet Hakim Sanā'ī, and when I googled Sanā'ī I was led to this utterly beautiful Glimpse of God in Sanā'ī’s poetry on YouTube.  

The last line “Increase my wonder and amazement at Thee, O God!” had a lot more connections than how it originally looked as well; it had a notation saying it was a quote from one of the Hadiths of Muhammad – a record of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad.  Then when I went to paste and copy the quote from the Bahá’í library edition of The Seven ValleysI found that it was a different translation, the earlier one made by Marzieh Gail, in consultation with her father Ali-Kuli Khan, published in 1945. “O Lord, increase my astonishment at Thee!” This then rang a bell for me as just a couple of days before I had watched a YouTube Video entitled “Increase my astonishment in Thee”– which was about Hand of the Cause Zikru’llah Khadem, who was famous for having become such a flame of fire in the Cause of God that he memorised the whole of the Kitáb-i-Íqán, and was very fond of uttering that final phrase!

9^thDay of Ridvan 1 Jamál(Beauty) 176 BE, 28^thApril 2019 CE 

As I sat down to continue the story, the Sun had just set, which marked the beginning of this Bahá’í Holy Day, the 9^thDay of Ridvan, which was the Day Bahá’u’lláh ’s family joined him in the Garden, where they would have another 3 precious nights spent in Baghdad before beginning the long journey of exile to Constantinople and beyond. I had been wanting to get onto making the next episode of Riccardo’s Cob Pizza oven movie but try as I might I could not gather any enthusiasm, because my focus and attention was keenly fixed on the process of learning these WORDS of wind and fire to separate from the water and clay of the Earth below my wings. 

I had been totally smashed at work the previous night – had a very sick baby boy 3 and half years old – had to get an IV line – thanks Be to God my hands were sure on that one, I thought! But then the machine that gave the electrolytes and blood results glitched – 4 times in a row so I could not get the baby’s sodium level, which the paediatrician wanted – and when I said to Deb, the RN who was a bit of a witch and psychic, and machines often did not work around her, that it looked like Mercury was retrograde, she said; “Oh it’s not Mercury, its Pluto AND Saturn that are retrograde, and the tarot card I picked tonight was the 2 of swords!” lol So instead of getting some nice dream-time it was a night of suffering, and I had to admit to losing my patience and using some foul language at Tim, one of the ambulance paramedics, who then kindly made up two of the ED beds! I reflected later that this paramedic was a very Bahá’í gentleman and decided that I would have to apologise for my loss of control, and next time I saw him let him know that he was a better Bahá’í than me, even if he didn’t know it! 

After the ED all-nighter I had a good long sleep into the REM-time which was in the presence of the WORDS and I woke refreshed after 6 hours or so, and for the 1^sttime recited the words all the way through… Then having the Pizza oven video in mind, I went to the computer, but instead automatically went to this day’s Bahá’í Holy day, which I also had been reminded by my wife was our Bahá’í Friend Jan’s Birthday, so decided that my writing today would be for her.  I also remembered that Adib Taherzadeh was inspired when he wrote about the events of Ridvan in Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh Book 1 and went back to read that on this Holy Day for my morning meditation, and realised with a flash why this was such a Day of Suffering – it was because it was a day of remembrance of the martyrs, especially the ones of Nayriz to whom Bahá’u’lláh spoke in His first tablet on the 1^st Day of Ridvan. 

The people of Nayriz had been lit aflame by the immortal Vahid, the emissary and scholar the Shah sent to check out the Báb, and this 1^st tablet of Ridvan was the Suriy-i-Sabr (Suriy of Patience) otherwise known as Lawh-i-Ayyub (Tablet of Job) which was revealed in honour of Haji Muhammad-Taqi, the nobleman who supported the Bábi movement in Nayriz, and who was killed along with Vahid and 180 other Lovers of the Báb by the evil and despicable governor of Nayriz, and in this tablet was renamed Ayubb or Job as he had the Patience of Job! Another 180-odd Bábis were wounded and herded to Tehran, but only 28 made it, and 15 of these were hung immediately and the other 13 were thrown into prison and suffered the most horrific atrocities and torture for the next 2 years. At this same time many of the lovers of the Báb were killed in Shiraz and beheaded with 200 heads being carried on bayonets on their way to Tehran till a Royal messenger commanded them to cease and desist so they buried the heads in the village of Abadih. 

Bahá’u’lláh revealed in the Tablet of Job that this martyrdom was actually a highly desirable gift, detailed in this interesting paragraph from Adib Taherzadeh… It is interesting to note that Vahid and his companions sacrificed their lives in His path just ten days before the Báb was publicly executed. Almost sixty years later, on Naw-Ruz 1909, when the remains of the Martyr Prophet were laid to rest on Mount Carmel, 18 believers were assassinated in Nayriz by the vicious assault of the bloodthirsty Shaykh Zakariyya. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has testified that the interment of so sacred a trust as the holy remains of the Báb called for a sacrifice, which was realized in the martyrdom of these believers; and He has paid warm tribute to the Bahá’í s of Nayriz for having won, by their sacrifice, a great honour. 

It was indeed a remarkable coincidence – Manifest Sign of the Universe– that there were 18 Martyrs on the Day of the Báb’s interment on Mt Carmel under His shrine on the 19^th Terrace, with 9 terraces above, and 9 terraces below, for the 18 Letters of the Living, and also the 18 Martyrs of Nayriz killed that day 60 years after the Battle of the 400 Babis and their wives and families! I decided that it would be something to contemplate next time I made a pilgrimage to Mt Carmel! I felt driven to write the short excursion into the 9^th Precious Holy Day of Ridvan to keep contact with the present calendar as I moved on… It was only 1 more night’s work, then off for 10 days with some more A4 pages containing the 2^nd Paragraph. 

There were many other weavings of synchronicity during this last period, which there was no space to include in the interests of brevity and attention span, including deepening with John S Hatcher and his article, into the Tablet of Ahmad, and finding that Ahmad was on his way to see Bahá’u’lláh, but when he got the tablet he was obedient and returned home to follow the orders of the Blessed Beauty Be thou a flame of fire to My enemies and a river of life to My loved ones, that thou may be of those who are grateful. Also, I discovered some wonderful excursions into the mystical writings of the Twin Manifestationsto further illuminate the phrase the sanctuary of the abiding love of the Beloved when I downloaded4 talks by a Persian scholar by the name of Professor Nader Saiedi entitled Bahá’u’lláh and Peace especially in his 2^nd talk on Reconstruction of Mystical Poetry and the last talk Reconstruction of the Temple. These talks I listened to while driving and found them an awesome dip into the mysteries of The Beloved and decided I had to listen to them a couple more times at least, not only for the knowledge and wisdom contained in the talks, but also because I Loved the way Dr Saiedi’s voice soared high into the octaves when he got excited or increased his astonishment in describing the sheer beauty of the Beloved.

On the 1^st step of search in the path leading to the Knowledge of the Ancient of Days, I was already totally in awe amazement astonishment and gratitude, at the rainbow colours of the plasma synchronicity field in which there were no accidents and plenty of love life and beauty. I realised now, after 13 years of keeping the Fast, that the Fire in my heart which I felt kindled by the Fast, (which is said to be the Sun of the Bahá’í Faith, while Daily Obligatory prayer is the Moon) was getting stronger every year, and now actually continuing right through the Feast of Ridvan. I could see and feel now that for true seekers there are about 6 or 7 weeks each year spent in an awesome world-wide field of heat and excitement and increased connection with the Concourse on High through our suffering in the fast. I also thought that I might be, to an infinitely small degree, feeling the reward of 100 martyrs after my night of suffering the previous night, which of course paled into total insignificance when compared to the suffering of the beautiful souls of Nayriz, and therefore their rewards in the Worlds ahead. I looked forward with excitement to exploring the Worlds, or Valleys, or Cities of the Mystical path of Search ahead, as I began to focus on the Words of the 2^nd Paragraph… 

That seeker must, at all times, put his trust in God, must renounce the peoples of the earth, must detach himself from the world of dust, and cleave unto Him Who is the Lord of Lords. He must never seek to exalt himself above any one, must wash away from the tablet of his heart every trace of pride and vain-glory, must cling unto patience and resignation, observe silence and refrain from idle talk. For the tongue is a smoldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endureth a century.