Bahá'u'lláh and the New EraEsslemont, J. E. (John Ebenezer)
Religion
Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era
Esslemont, J. E. (John Ebenezer)
Bahai Faith; Bahá'u'lláh, 1817-1892
He who lives according to what is ordained for him—the Celestial
Concourse, and the people of the Supreme Paradise, and those who
are dwelling in the Dome of Greatness will pray for him, by a
Command from God, the Dearest and the praiseworthy. (Tablet
translated by ‘Alí Kuli _Kh_án).
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was asked how it was that the heart often turns with
instinctive appeal to some friend who has passed into the next life, He
answered:—“It is a law of God’s creation that the weak should lean upon
the strong. Those to whom you turn may be mediators of God’s power to you,
even as when on earth. But it is the One Holy Spirit that strengthens all
men.”—‘Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p. 98.
The Nonexistence of Evil
According to Bahá’í philosophy it follows from the doctrine of the unity
of God that there can be no such thing as positive evil. There can only be
one Infinite. If there were any other power in the universe outside of or
opposed to the One, then the One would not be infinite. Just as darkness
is but the absence or lesser degree of light, so evil is but the absence
or lesser degree of good—the undeveloped state. A bad man is a man with
the higher side of his nature still undeveloped. If he is selfish, the
evil is not in his love of self—all love, even self-love, is good, is
divine. The evil is that he has such a poor, inadequate, misguided love of
self and such a lack of love for others and for God. He looks upon himself
as only a superior sort of animal, and foolishly pampers his lower nature
as he might pamper a pet dog—with worse results in his own case than in
that of the dog.
In one of His letters ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says:—
As to thy remark, that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá hath said to some of the
believers that evil never exists, nay rather, it is a nonexistent
thing, this is but truth, inasmuch as the greatest evil is man’s
going astray and being veiled from truth. Error is lack of
guidance; darkness is absence of light; ignorance is lack of
knowledge; falsehood is lack of truthfulness; blindness is lack of
sight; and deafness is lack of hearing. Therefore, error,
blindness, deafness and ignorance are nonexistent things.
Again He says:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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