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Messages to the Bahá'í World: 1950-1957
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Pages 152-156
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A PLANETARY SPIRITUAL CRUSADE
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Let there be no mistake. The avowed, the primary aim of this
Spiritual Crusade is none other than the conquest of the citadels of
men's hearts. The theater of its operations is the entire planet. Its
duration a whole decade. Its commencement synchronizes with the
centenary of the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's Mission. Its culmination will
coincide with the centenary of the declaration of that same Mission.
The agencies assisting in its conduct are the nascent administrative
institutions of a steadily evolving divinely appointed order. Its driving
force is the energizing influence generated by the Revelation heralded
by the Báb and proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh. Its Marshal is none other
than the Author of the Divine Plan. Its standard-bearers are the
Hands of the Cause of God appointed in every continent of the globe.
Its generals are the twelve national spiritual assemblies participating
in the execution of its design. Its vanguard is the chief executors of
`Abdu'l-Bahá's master plan, their allies and associates. Its legions are
the rank and file of believers standing behind these same twelve national
assemblies and sharing in the global task embracing the American,
the European, the African, the Asiatic and Australian fronts.
The charter directing its course is the immortal Tablets that have
flowed from the pen of the Center of the Covenant Himself. The
armor with which its onrushing hosts have been invested is the glad
tidings of God's own message in this day, the principles underlying
the order proclaimed by His Messenger, and the laws and ordinances
governing His Dispensation. The battle cry animating its heroes and
heroines is the cry of Yá-Bahá'u'l-Abhá, Yá Alíyyu'l-`Alá.
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So vast, so momentous and challenging a crusade that will, God
willing, illuminate the annals of the second epoch of the Formative
Age of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, and immortalize the second decade
of the second Bahá'í century, and the termination of which will mark
the closing of the first epoch in the evolution of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Divine
Plan, will, in itself, pave the way for, and constitute the prelude
to, the initiation of the laborious and tremendously long process of
establishing in the course of subsequent crusades in all the newly
opened sovereign states, dependencies and islands of the planet, as
well as in all the remaining territories of the globe, the framework of
the Administrative Order of the Faith, with all its attendant agencies,
and of eventually erecting in these territories still more pillars to
share in sustaining the weight and in broadening the foundation of
the Universal House of Justice.
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Then, and only then, will the vast, the majestic process, set in
motion at the dawn of the Adamic cycle, attain its consummation--a
process which commenced six thousand years ago, with the planting,
in the soil of the divine will, of the tree of divine revelation, and
which has already passed through certain stages and must needs pass
through still others ere it attains its final consummation. The first part
of this process was the slow and steady growth of this tree of divine
revelation, successively putting forth its branches, shoots and offshoots,
and revealing its leaves, buds and blossoms, as a direct consequence
of the light and warmth imparted to it by a series of progressive
dispensations associated with Moses, Zoroaster, Buddha,
Jesus, Muhammad and other Prophets, and of the vernal showers of
blood shed by countless martyrs in their path. The second part of this
process was the fruition of this tree, "that belongeth neither to the
East nor to the West," when the Báb appeared as the perfect fruit and
declared His mission in the Year Sixty in the city of Shíráz. The
third part was the grinding of this sacred seed, of infinite preciousness
and potency, in the mill of adversity, causing it to yield its oil,
six years later, in the city of Tabríz. The fourth part was the ignition
of this oil by the hand of Providence in the depths and amidst the
darkness of the Síyáh-Chál of Tihrán a hundred years ago. The fifth,
was the clothing of that flickering light, which had scarcely penetrated
the adjoining territory of `Iráq, in the lamp of revelation, after
an eclipse lasting no less than ten years, in the city of Baghdád. The
sixth, was the spread of the radiance of that light, shining with added
brilliancy in its crystal globe in Adrianople, and later on in the fortress
town of Akká, to thirteen countries in the Asiatic and African continents.
The seventh was its projection, from the Most Great Prison,
in the course of the ministry of the Center of the Covenant, across
the seas and the shedding of its illumination upon twenty sovereign
states and dependencies in the American, the European, and Australian
continents. The eighth part of that process was the diffusion of
that same light in the course of the first, and the opening years of the
second, epoch of the Formative Age of the Faith, over ninety-four
sovereign states, dependencies and islands of the planet, as a result of
the prosecution of a series of national plans, initiated by eleven national
spiritual assemblies throughout the Bahá'í world, utilizing the
agencies of a newly emerged, divinely appointed Administrative Order,
and which has now culminated in the one hundredth anniversary
of the birth of Bahá'u'lláh's Mission. The ninth part of this process--
the stage we are now entering--is the further diffusion of that same
light over one hundred and thirty-one additional territories and islands
in both the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, through the operation
of a decade-long world spiritual crusade whose termination
will, God willing, coincide with the Most Great Jubilee commemorating
the centenary of the declaration of Bahá'u'lláh in Baghdád.
And finally the tenth part of this mighty process must be the penetration
of that light, in the course of numerous crusades and of successive
epochs of both the Formative and Golden Ages of the Faith, into
all the remaining territories of the globe through the erection of the
entire machinery of Bahá'u'lláh's Administrative Order in all territories,
both East and West, the stage at which the light of God's triumphant
Faith shining in all its power and glory will have suffused
and enveloped the entire planet.
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This present Crusade, on the threshold of which we now stand,
will, moreover, by virtue of the dynamic forces it will release and its
wide repercussions over the entire surface of the globe, contribute
effectually to the acceleration of yet another process of tremendous
significance which will carry the steadily evolving Faith of Bahá'u'lláh
through its present stages of obscurity, of repression, of emancipation
and of recognition--stages one or another of which Bahá'í
national communities in various parts of the world now find themselves
in--to the stage of establishment, the stage at which the Faith
of Bahá'u'lláh will be recognized by the civil authorities as the state
religion, similar to that which Christianity entered in the years following
the death of the Emperor Constantine, a stage which must
later be followed by the emergence of the Bahá'í state itself, functioning,
in all religious and civil matters, in strict accordance with the
laws and ordinances of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the Most Holy, the
Mother-Book of the Bahá'í Revelation, a stage which, in the fullness
of time, will culminate in the establishment of the World Bahá'í
Commonwealth, functioning in the plenitude of its powers, and which
will signalize the long-awaited advent of the Christ-promised Kingdom
of God on earth--the Kingdom of Bahá'u'lláh--mirroring however
faintly upon this humble handful of dust the glories of the Abhá
Kingdom.
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This final and crowning stage in the evolution of the plan wrought
by God Himself for humanity will, in turn, prove to be the signal
for the birth of a world civilization, incomparable in its range, its
character and potency, in the history of mankind--a civilization
which posterity will, with one voice, acclaim as the fairest fruit of
the Golden Age of the Dispensation of Bahá'u'lláh, and whose rich
harvest will be garnered during future dispensations destined to succeed
one another in the course of the five thousand century Bahá'í
Cycle.
[May 4, 1953]
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