Anyone who launches on an unfamiliar journey will usually rely upon some form of guidance, whether by map or more modern GPS (Global Positioning System).
In mankind’s infancy such guidance often came from the foot or hoof prints of man and beast having gone before, graduating to maps of various kinds to present day modern technology. As man continues to progress physically, intellectually and scientifically such methods continue to provide more scientific results.
Of far greater concern is the concept of spiritual guidance of each individual launched on this earthly journey! The primary points being first made aware of the concept, secondly, attempting to recognize such guidance and thirdly, attempting to follow it (as perceived). As with personal, visual or audio guidance, mistakes will be made, but the sincere, determined traveler will eventually reach the intended destination through faith.
“When we review history from its beginning to the present day we find that struggle and warfare have existed throughout the ages and epochs of man’s existence,” begins a segment on the History of Man by Dr. S.I. Dean. “Wars, whether religious, racial or political, blossom in human ignorance, misunderstanding and greed. Therefore the theory has been advanced that it is the nature of man to fight and that war is an inescapable fact of life. If war is the child of ignorance, it can be educated out of existence; but if on the other hand it is a natural instinct of aggression, then man is doomed to terrible total destruction in ever greater blood-baths.”
Man has ever been guided spiritually through the ages by what Baha’is refer to as Progressive Revelation. We understand best by comparison and there is nothing comparable to the One God Who supercedes gender and everything. As no creation can understand its creator, the Original Creator manifests Itself into a Human Temple periodically to guide a certain maturity of mankind a certain distance–(usually thousands of years apart) to guide a particular maturity of mankind a certain distance (commensurate to the exigencies of the time). Such Human Temples include Krishna, 2,000 BC; Moses, 1,300 BC; Zoroaster, 1,000 BC Christ, 1 AD; Muhamad, 622 AD; The Bab, 1844 (the Gate) and Baha’u’llah, 1853,”The Glory of God” and Promised One of all ages!
Such was my introduction to the Baha’i Revelatiion through “street teaching” one Saturday morning while The Tribune was on Henry Street in the summer of 1972. It merely prompted my individual investigation into its validity which, after 43 years I become more enamoured with every day. Through such continuous investigation I am beginning to recognize my Signs of Guidance (from birth) along paths which I would never have chosen, as my love of servitude from childhood was an embarrassment to my family and others from childhood and probably to date! Once reading in the Baha’i Holy Scriptures that “Servitude is the highest form of worship in the eyes of God,” I knew I was home, whether others understand or not.
Let us not continue to be so easily divided on personal levels and decoyed by ruinous racial and political wars promoted through more noble sounding motivation. There is ample evidence for those endowed with powers and wisdom to investigate the ever increasing cruelty and bloodshed of modern warfare- still created by human greed, hatred and selfishness and not reported in its reality. The time is at hand to “Quince ye the (devastating) lamps of error and follow the Eternal Flame of Divine Guidance!” (Investigate!)
