Who was Bahá'u'lláh?  What are some of the similarities between the circumstances of this Revelation and those of the past?

1. The Blessed Perfection, Bahá'u'lláh, belonged to the royal family of Iran. From earliest childhood He was distinguished among His relatives and friends. They said: "This child has extraordinary power." In wisdom, intelligence and as a source of new knowledge He was advanced beyond His age and superior to His surroundings. All who knew Him were astonished at his precocity. It was usual for them to say:  "Such a child will not live," for it is commonly believed that precocious children do not reach maturity. During the period of youth the Blessed Perfection did not enter school. [...] Nevertheless He was capable of solving the difficult problems of all who came to Him. In whatever meeting, scientific assembly or theological discussion He was found, He became the authority of explanation upon intricate and abstruse questions presented. [...] He was most generous, giving abundantly to the poor. None who came to Him were turned away. The doors of His house were open to all.  He always had many guests. This unbounded generosity was conducive to greater astonishment from the fact that He sought neither position nor prominence. In commenting upon this His friends said He would become impoverished, for His expenses were many and His wealth becoming more and more limited. "Why is he not thinking of his own affairs?", they inquired of each other; but some who were wise declared: "This personage is connected with another world; he has something sublime within him that is not evident now; the day is coming when it will be manifested."

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Bahá'í World Faith, pp. 220-221 

2. A Revelation, hailed as the promise and crowning glory of past ages and centuries, as the consummation of all the Dispensations within the Adamic Cycle, inaugurating en era of at least a thousand years' duration, and a cycle destined to last no less than five thousand centuries, signalizing the end of the Prophetic Era and the beginning of the Era of Fulfillment, unsurpassed alike in the duration of its Author's ministry and the fecundity and splendor of His mission - such a Revelation was [...] born amidst the darkness of a subterranean dungeon in Tihran - an abominable pit that had once served as a reservoir of water for one of the public baths of the city. Wrapped in its stygian gloom, breathing its fetid air, numbed by its humid and icy atmosphere, His feet in stocks, His neck weighed down by a mighty chain, surrounded by criminals and miscreants of the worst order, oppressed by the consciousness of the terrible blot that had stained the fair name of His beloved Faith, painfully aware of the dire distress that had overtaken its champions, and of the grave dangers that faced the remnant of its followers - at so critical an hour and under such appalling circumstances the "Most Great Spirit," as designated by Himself, and symbolized in the Zoroastrian, the Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations by the Sacred Fire, the Burning Bush, the Dove and the Angel Gabriel respectively, descended upon, and revealed itself, personated by a "Maiden," to the agonized soul of Bahá'u'lláh. "One night in a dream," He Himself, calling to mind, in the evening of His life, the first stirrings of God's Revelation within His soul, has written, "these exalted words were heard on every side `Verily, We shall render Thee victorious by Thyself and by Thy pen. Grieve Thou not for that which hath befallen Thee, neither be Thou afraid, for Thou art in safety.  Ere long will God raise up the treasures of the earth - men who will aid Thee through Thyself and through Thy Name, wherewith God hath revived the hearts of such as have recognized Him.'" [...] In His Suratu'l-Haykal (the Surih of the Temple) He thus describes those breathless moments when the Maiden, symbolizing the "Most Great Spirit" proclaimed His mission to the entire creation:  "While engulfed in tribulations I heard a most wondrous, a most sweet voice, calling above My head. Turning My face, I beheld a Maiden - the embodiment of the remembrance of the name of My Lord - suspended in the air before Me. So rejoiced was she in her very soul that her countenance shone with the ornament of the good-pleasure of God, and her cheeks glowed with the brightness of the All-Merciful. Betwixt earth and heaven she was raising a call which captivated the hearts and minds of men. She was imparting to both My inward and outer being tidings which rejoiced My soul, and the souls of God's honored servants. Pointing with her finger unto My head, she addressed all who are in heaven and all who are on earth, saying: `By God!  This is the Best-Beloved of the worlds, and yet ye comprehend not.  This is the Beauty of God amongst you, and the power of His sovereignty within you, could ye but understand.  This is the Mystery of God and His Treasure, the Cause of God and His glory unto all who are in the kingdoms of Revelation and of creation, if ye be of them that perceive.'"

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. VI, "TheBirth of the Bahá'í Revelation", pp. 100-102

3. During nine years, as foretold by the Báb Himself, swiftly, mysteriously and irresistibly the embryonic Faith conceived by Him had been developing until, at the fixed hour, the burden of the promised Cause of God was cast amidst the gloom and agony of the Siyah-Chal of Tihran. [...] St. John the Divine had himself, with reference to these two successive Revelations, clearly prophesied: "The second woe is past; and, behold the third woe cometh quickly (Apocalypse, chap. XI, v. 14 )."  "This third woe," Abdu'l-Baha, commenting upon this verse, has explained, "is the day of the Manifestation of Bahá'u'lláh, the Day of God, and it is near to the day of the appearance of the Báb."  "All the peoples of the world," He moreover has asserted, "are awaiting two Manifestations, Who must be  contemporaneous; all wait for the fulfillment of this promise." And again: "The essential fact is that all are promised two Manifestations, Who will come one following on the other." Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i, that luminous star of Divine guidance who had so clearly perceived, before the year sixty, the approaching glory of Bahá'u'lláh, and laid stress upon "the twin Revelations which are to follow each other in rapid succession," had, on his part, made this significant statement regarding the approaching hour of that supreme Revelation, in an epistle addressed in his own hand to Siyyid Kazim: "The mystery of this Cause must needs be made manifest, and the secret of this Message must needs be divulged. I can say no more. I can appoint no time. His Cause will be made known after Hin (68)."

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. VI, "TheBirth of the Bahá'í Revelation", pp. 92-93

Note:  Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsá'í, a learned Persian Muslim,  had begun in the 1780's to announce that the Promised One awaited by all of Islam would soon appear on earth. Siyyid Kazím, a student of Shaykh Ahmad's, continued his work. For further reading on the "twin Manifestations " of God, see Thief in the Night, William Sears, Part II, chap. 3, pp. 91-93.

4. "He Who now voiceth the Word of God", Bahá'u'lláh again affirms, "is none other except the Primal Point [the Báb] Who hath once again been made manifest."  "He is", He thus refers to Himself in a Tablet addressed to one of the Letters of the Living, "the same as the One Who appeared in the year sixty (1260 A.H.). This verily is one of His mighty signs."

- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh,  pp. 138-139

5. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow. The learning current amongst men I studied not; their schools I entered not. Ask of the city wherein I dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured that I am not of them who speak falsely.  This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty, the All-Praised, have stirred. Can it be still when the tempestuous winds are blowing? Nay, by Him Who is the Lord of all Names and Attributes! They move it as they list. The evanescent is as nothing before Him Who is the Ever-Abiding. His all- compelling summons hath reached Me, and caused Me to speak His praise amidst all people. I was indeed as one dead when His behest was uttered. The hand of the will of thy Lord, the Compassionate, the Merciful, transformed Me.

- Bahá'u'lláh, quoted in The Promised Day is Come , p. 40-41

6. O My Well-Beloved! Thou hast breathed Thy Breath into Me, and divorced Me from Mine own Self. Thou didst, subsequently, decree that no more than a faint reflection, a mere emblem of Thy Reality within Me be left among the perverse and envious. Behold, how, deluded by this emblem, they have risen against Me, and heaped upon Me their denials! Uncover Thy Self, therefore, O My Best-Beloved, and deliver Me from My plight. Thereupon a Voice replied: "I love, I dearly cherish this emblem. How can I consent that Mine eyes, alone, gaze upon this emblem, and that no heart except Mine heart recognize it? By My Beauty, which is the same as Thy Beauty! My wish is to hide Thee from Mine own eyes:  how much more from the eyes of men!"                             

- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, Chap. XL, p. 90

What events followed this revelation?  What were some of the results of the adversities sustained by Bahá'u'lláh?

1. The arrival of Bahá'u'lláh in the Najibiyyih Garden [on the outskirts of Baghdad in Iraq], subsequently designated by His followers the Garden of Ridvan, signalizes the commencement of what has come to be recognized as the holiest and most significant of all Bahá'í festivals, the festival commemorating the Declaration of His Mission to His companions. [...] Through that solemn act the "delay," of no less than a decade, divinely interposed between the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation in the Siyah-Chal and its announcement to the Báb's disciples, was at log last terminated. The "set time of concealment," during which as He Himself has borne witness, the "signs and tokens of a divinely-appointed Revelation" were being showered upon Him, was fulfilled. [...] The nineteen years, constituting the first "Vahid," preordained in the Persian Bayan by the pen of the Báb, had been completed. [...] Undaunted by the prospect of the appalling adversities which, as predicted by Himself, were soon to overtake Him; on the eve of a second banishment which would be fraught with many hazards and perils, and would bring Him still farther from His native land, the cradle of His Faith, to a country alien in race, in language and in culture; acutely conscious of the extension of the circle of His adversaries, among whom were soon to be numbered a monarch more despotic than Nasiri'd-Din Shah, and ministers no less unyielding in their hostility than either Haji Mirza Aqasi or the Amir-Nizam; undeterred by the perpetual interruptions occasioned by the influx of a host of visitors who thronged His tent, Bahá'u'lláh chose in that critical and seemingly unpropitious hour to advance so challenging a claim, to lay bare the mystery surrounding His person, and to assume, in their plenitude, the power and the authority which were the exclusive privileges of the One Whose advent the Báb had prophesied.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. IX, pp. 151-152

Note: Bahá'u'lláh declared Himself to be the One promised by the Báb in April 1863, on the eve of His exile from Baghdad to Constantinople. He had been exiled to Baghdad following His imprisonment in the Siyah-Chal in 1853.

2. The sacred breast of His Holiness, the Exalted One, [Bahá'u'lláh] was made a target to many a dart of woe, and in Mazindaran, the Blessed feet of the Abha Beauty [...] were so grievously scourged as to bleed and be sore wounded. His neck also was put into captive chains and His feet made fast in the stocks.  In every hour, for a period of fifty years, a new trial and calamity befell Him and fresh afflictions and cares beset Him. One of them: after having suffered intense vicissitudes, He was made homeless and a wanderer and fell a victim to still new vexations and troubles.  In Iraq, the Day-Star of the world was so exposed to the wiles of the people of malice as to be eclipsed in splendor. Later on He was sent an exile to the Great City (Constantinople) \and thence to the Land of Mystery(Adrianople), whence, grievously wronged, He was ventually transferred to the Most Great Prison (Akka).  He whom the world hath wronged [...] was four times banished from city to city, till at last condemned to perpetual confinement, He was incarcerated in this Prison, the prison of highway robbers, of brigands and of manslayers.

- Excerpt from the Testament of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, quoted in Bahá'í Administration, p. 4 

3. Akka [in what is now Israel], the ancient Ptolemais, the St. Jean d'Acre of the Crusaders, that had successfully defied the siege of Napoleon, had sunk, under the Turks, to the level of a penal colony to which murderers, highway robbers and political agitators were consigned from all parts of the Turkish empire.  It was girt about by a double system of ramparts; was inhabited by a people whom Bahá'u'lláh stigmatized as "the generation of vipers"; was devoid of any source of water within its gates; was flea-infested, damp and honey-combed with gloomy, filthy and tortuous lanes.  "According to what they say," [Bahá'u'lláh] has recorded in the Lawh-i-Sultan, "it is the most desolate of the cities of the world, the most unsightly of them in appearance, the most detestable in climate, and the foulest in water.  It is as though it were the metropolis of the owl." So putrid was its air that, according to a proverb, a bird when flying over it would drop dead. Explicit orders had been issued by the Sultan and his ministers to subject the exiles, who were accused of having grievously erred and led others far astray, to the strictest confinement. Hopes were confidently expressed that the sentence of life-long imprisonment pronounced against them would lead to their eventual extermination. The farman of Sultan Abdu'l-'Aziz, dated [...] July 26, 1868, not only condemned them to perpetual banishment, but stipulated their strict incarceration, and forbade them to associate either with each other or with the local inhabitants.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. XI, pp. 185-186

4. The banishment, lasting no less than twenty-four years, to which two Oriental despots had, in their implacable enmity and shortsightedness, combined to condemn Bahá'u'lláh, will go down in history as a period which witnessed a miraculous and truly revolutionizing change in the circumstances attending the life and activities of the Exile Himself, will be chiefly remembered for the widespread recrudescence of persecution, intermittent but singularly cruel, throughout His native country and the simultaneous increase in the number of His followers, and, lastly, for an enormous extension in the range and volume of His writings.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. XI, p. 185

5. Behold how in this Dispensation the worthless and foolish have fondly imagined that by such instruments as massacre, plunder and banishment they can extinguish the Lamp which the Hand of Divine power hath lit, or eclipse the Day Star of everlasting splendor.  How utterly unaware they seem to be of the truth that such adversity is the oil that feedeth the flame of this Lamp!  Such is God's transforming power.  He changeth whatsoever He willeth; He verily hath power over all things....

- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, Chap. XXIX, p. 72

6. Having in His earlier years of hardship shown how to glorify God in a state of poverty and  ignominy, Bahá'u'lláh in His later years at Bahjí showed how to glorify God in a state of honor and affluence. [...] Although His life at Bahjí has been described as truly regal, in the highest sense of the word, yet it must not be imagined that it was characterized by material splendor [...]. Near His home, the believers prepared a beautiful garden called Ridván, inwhich He often spent many consecutive days or even weeks [...]. He made several visits to 'Akká and Haifa, and on more than one occasion pitched His tent on Mount Carmel, as He had predicted when imprisoned in the barracks at 'Akká. [...] The distinquished orientalist, [...] Professor Edward Granville Browne, of the University of Cambridge, visited Bahá'ulláh at Bahjí in the year 1890, and recorded his impressions as follows: – Though I dimly suspected whither I was going and whom I was to behold (for no distinct intimation had been given to me), a second or two elapsed ere, with a throb of wonder and awe, I became definitely conscious that the room was not untenanted. In the corner where the divan met the wall sat a wondrous and venerable figure, crowned with a felt head-dress of the kind called táj [...]. The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one's very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow; while the deep lines on the forehead and face implied an age which the jet-black hair and beard flowing down in indistinguishable luxuriance almost to the waist seemed to belie. No need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain! A mild and dignified voice bade me be seated, and then continued: -  "Praise be to God that thou hast attained! ... Thou hast come to see a prisoner and an exile.... We desire but the good of the world and the happiness of the nations; yet they deem us a stirrer up of strife and sedition [...] "

- J.E. Esslemont, Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era , pp. 51-52

7. The news of [Bahá'u'lláh's] ascension was instantly communicated to Sultan Abdu'l-Hamid in a telegram which began with the words "the Sun of Baha has set" [...] The inconsolable Nabil, [...] thus describes the agony of those days: "Methinks, the spiritual commotion set up in the world of dust had caused all the worlds of God to tremble.... My inner and outer tongue are powerless to portray the condition we were in.... In the midst of the prevailing confusion a multitude of the inhabitants of Akka and of the neighboring villages, that had thronged the fields surrounding the Mansion, could be seen weeping, beating upon their heads, and crying aloud their grief."

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. XIII, pp. 222-223

Name some of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings. What do you understand to be His station and His mission ?

1. Of the principles enshrined in [Bahá'u'lláh's] Tablets the most vital of them all is the principle of the oneness and wholeness of the human race, which may well be regarded as the hall-mark of  Bahá'u'lláh's Revelation and the pivot of His teachings. Of such cardinal importance is this principle of unity that it is expressly referred to in the Book of His Covenant, and He unreservedly proclaims it as the central purpose of His Faith. "We, verily," He declares, "have come to unite and weld together all that dwell on earth."  "So potent is the light of unity," He further states, "that it can illuminate the whole earth." [...] "The world," He proclaims, "is but one country, and mankind its citizens."  He further affirms that the unification of mankind, the last stage in the evolution of humanity towards maturity is inevitable, that "soon will the present day order be rolled up, and a new one spread out in its stead," that "the whole earth is now in a state of pregnancy," that "the day is approaching when it will have yielded its noblest fruits, when from it will have sprung forth the loftiest trees, the most enchanting blossoms, the most heavenly blessings." He deplores the defectiveness of the prevailing order, exposes the inadequacy of patriotism as a directing and controlling force in human society, and regards the "love of mankind" and service to its interests as the worthiest and most laudable objects of human endeavor. He, moreover, laments that "the vitality of men's belief in God is dying out in every land," that the "face of the world" is turned towards "waywardness and unbelief"; proclaims religion to be "a radiant light and an impregnable stronghold for the protection and welfare of the peoples of the world" and "the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world" ; affirms its fundamental purpose to be the promotion of union and concord amongst men; warns lest it be made "a source of dissension, of discord and hatred"; commands that its principles be taught to children in the schools of the world, in a manner that would not be productive of either prejudice or fanaticism; attributes "the waywardness of the ungodly" to the "decline of religion"; and predicts "convulsions" of such severity as to "cause the limbs of mankind to quake." [...] With [Epistle to the Son of the Wolf], revealed about one year prior to His ascension, the prodigious achievement as author of a hundred volumes, repositories of the priceless pearls of His Revelation, may be said to have practically terminated - volumes replete with  unnumbered exhortations, revolutionizing principles, world-shaping laws and ordinances, dire warnings and portentous prophecies, with soul-uplifting prayers and meditations, illuminating commentaries and interpretations, impassioned discourses and homilies, all interspersed with either addresses or references to kings, to emperors and to ministers, of both the East and the West, to ecclesiastics of divers denominations, and to leaders in the intellectual, political, literary, mystica, commercial and humanitarian spheres of human activity.

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, Chap. XII, pp. 216-220

2. The successive Founders of all past Religions Who, from time immemorial, have shed, with ever-increasing intensity, the splendor of one common Revelation at the various stages which have marked the advance of mankind towards maturity may thus, in a sense, be regarded as preliminary Manifestations, anticipating and paving the way for the advent of that Day of Days when the whole earth will have fructified and the tree of humanity will have yielded its destined fruit. Incontrovertible as is this truth, its challenging character should never be allowed to obscure the purpose, or distort the principle, underlying the utterances of Bahá'u'lláh - utterances that have established for all time the absolute oneness of all the Prophets, Himself included, whether belonging to the past or to the future. Though the mission of the Prophets preceding Bahá'u'lláh may be viewed in that light, though the measure of Divine Revelation with which each has been entrusted must, as a result of this process of evolution, necessarily differ, their common origin, their essential unity, their identity of purpose, should at no time and under no circumstances be misapprehended or denied. [...] Any variations in the splendor which each of these Manifestations of the Light of God has shed upon the world should be ascribed not to any inherent superiority involved in the essential character of any one of them, but rather to the progressive capacity, the ever-increasing spiritual receptiveness, which mankind, in its progress towards maturity, has invariably manifested.[...] Only those who are willing to associate the Revelation proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh with the consummation of so stupendous an evolution in the collective life of the whole human race can grasp the significance of the words which He, while alluding to the glories of this promised Day and to the duration of the Bahá'í Era, has deemed fit to utter. [...] "This is the King of Days," He exclaims [...] " Well is it with him that hath lived to see this Day and hath recognized its station." [...] "In this most mighty Revelation," He, in categorical language, declares, "all the Dispensations of the past have attained their highest, their final consummation."

- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, pp. 166-167

3. How vast is the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh!  How great the magnitude of His blessings showered upon humanity in this day!  And yet, how poor, how inadequate our conception of their significance and glory! This generation stands too close to so colossal a Revelation to appreciate, in their full measure, the infinite possibilities of His Faith, the unprecedented character of His Cause, and the mysterious dispensations of His Providence. In the Iqán [the Book of Certitude], Bahá'u'lláh, wishing to emphasize the transcendent character of this new Day of God, reinforces the strength of His argument by His reference to the text of a correct and authorized [Islamic] tradition, which reveals the following:  "Knowledge is twenty and seven letters. All that the Prophets have revealed are two letters thereof.  No man thus far hath known more than these two letters. But when the Qa'im [the Báb] shall arise, He will cause the remaining twenty and five letters to be made manifest." [...] Did not Christ Himself, addressing His disciples, utter these words: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.  Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth"?

- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, Chap. 2,  pp. 24-25

4. Of Him David had sung in his Psalms, acclaiming Him as the "Lord of Hosts" and the "King of Glory." [...] To Him Zoroaster must have alluded when, according to tradition, He foretold that a period of three thousand years of conflict and contention must needs precede the advent of the World-Savior Shah-Bahram, Who would triumph over Ahriman and usher in an era of blessedness and peace. He alone is meant by the prophecy attributed to Gautama Buddha Himself, that "a Buddha named Maitreye, the Buddha of universal fellowship" should, in the fullness of time, arise and reveal "His boundless glory."  To Him the Bhagavad-Gita of the Hindus had referred as the "Most Great Spirit," the "Tenth Avatar," the "Immaculate Manifestation of Krishna." To Him Jesus Christ had referred as the "Prince of this world," as the "Comforter" Who will "reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment," as the "Spirit of Truth" Who "will guide you into all truth," Who "shall not speak of Himself, but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak," [...] To the hour of His advent St. Paul had alluded as the hour of the "last trump," the "trump of God," whilst St. Peter had spoken of it as the "Day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat."  His Day he, furthermore, had described as "the times of refreshing," "the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy Prophets since the world began." To Him Muhammad, the Apostle of God, had alluded in His Book as the "Great Announcement," and declared His Day to be the Day whereon "God" will "come down" "overshadowed with clouds," the Day whereon "thy Lord shall come and the angels rank on rank," and "The Spirit shall arise and the angels shall be ranged in order." [...] To His Day He, in the pages of that same Book, had paid a glowing tribute, glorifying it as the "Great Day," the "Last Day," the "Day of God," the "Day of Judgment,"...

- Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By,  Chap. VI, "The Birth of the Bahá'í Revelation", p. 95-96

5. In cycles gone by, each one of the Manifestations of God hath had His own rank in the world of existence, and each hath represented a stage in the development of humanity. But the Manifestation of the Most Great Name - may my life be a sacrifice for His loved ones - was an expression of the coming of age, the maturing of man's inmost reality in this world of being.

- 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Bahá , #27, p. 56

Note: According to 'Abdu'l-Bahá, " the position of Adam, with regard to the appearance and manifestation of the divine perfections, was in the embryonic condition; the position of Christ was the condition of maturity and the age of reason; and the rising of [Bahá'u'lláh] was the condition of the perfection of the essence and of the qualities." (Some Answered Questions, Chap. 30, pp. 123-124.) For further reading on "The Universal Cycles", see Foundations of World Unity, ('Abdu'l-Bahá) , p. 54.

6. Who can doubt that such a consummation - the coming of age of the human race - must signalize, in its turn, the inauguration of a world civilization such as no mortal eye hath ever beheld or human mind conceived?  Who is it that can imagine the lofty standard which such a civilization, as it unfolds itself, is destined to attain? Who can measure the heights to which human intelligence, liberated from its shackles, will soar?  Who can visualize the realms which the human spirit, vitalized by the  outpouring light of Bahá'u'lláh, shining in the plenitude of its glory, will discover?                                                            

- Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 206