Clearwater Baha'is

In the figure of `Abdu’l-Bahá we can look to the world outside and follow a living, historical, ‘perfect Exemplar’, this “…most perfect bounty… sent…down in the form of a human temple.” Images of perfection are distilled in one man. We can observe and marvel at this ‘Orb of the beauty of the great’. `Abdu’l-Bahá embodied, in both content and style, a unique conception of human excellence. While not free from the vulnerability of human lives to fortune, while not protected from the mutability of circumstance, while never distant from the existence of opposition and conflict in His commitments, while consistently challenged by the complexity, the indeterminacy, the sheer difficulty of actual human deliberation, His was a human story which, while sufficiently distant from our experience, counts as a shared extension of all of humanity’s experience.

[00:00:00] George Via: The century under our review may therefore be considered as falling into four distinct periods, of unequal duration, each of specific import and of tremendous and indeed unappraisable significance. These four periods are closely interrelated, and constitute successive acts of one, indivisible, stupendous and sublime drama, whose mystery no intellect can fathom, whose climax no eye can even dimly perceive, whose conclusion no mind can adequately foreshadow. Each of these acts revolves around its own theme, boasts of its own heroes, registers its own tragedies, records its own triumphs, and contributes its own share to the execution of one common, immutable Purpose. To isolate any one of them from the others, to dissociate the later manifestations of one universal, all-embracing Revelation from the pristine purpose that animated it in its earliest days, would be tantamount to a mutilation of the structure on which it rests, and to a lamentable perversion of its truth and of its history. Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

The topic of this talk is - The life of Abdu'l-Baha has been presented in countless books, news articles, and films over the past 150 years. He is recognized as a transformational leader all over the world, by members of every religion. As we approach the Centenary of his passing, the interest in his ethics, philosophy and speeches is reaching a crescendo. We will explore very simply: what he taught what he prescribed how we can be part of the changes to come. This will be a practical answer to the question, "What Can I Do?" Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

Composed in 1938, near the middle of Shoghi Effendi's Guardianship, it is one of the most important of the Baha'i writings to understand. It is addressed to the Baha'is of the United States and Canada, whose community it extols as the "chief remaining citadel" of the Faith. Please visit www.clearwaterbahais.org to register for this event, where you will receive weekly updates as to zoom events on Sundays, including this event. Previous Sessions and Recordings - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJTw1CWXTEfknhdr5vOCzBJNIgSmn5IXI Inspired by Crimson Academy Course - https://youtu.be/ZIhmrUcVTUA

The Clearwater Bahá’í Center is located off Highway 60 West in Clearwater Florida, adjacent to the Tampa Bay Coastal waters. The Clearwater Bahá’í Community is comprised of many different spiritually minded people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. All humanity was created by one God and is part of one human race. Work performed in the spirit of service is a form of worship. The soul, created at the moment of conception, is destined by God to reach the afterlife, where it will continue to progress until it attains the presence. The purpose of life is to know and worship God, to acquire virtues, to promote the oneness of humankind, and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.

[00:00:00] George Via: In its broadest outline the first century of the Bahá'í Era may be said to comprise the Heroic, the Primitive, the Apostolic Age of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh, and also the initial stages of the Formative, the Transitional, the Iron Age which is to witness the crystallization and shaping of the creative energies released by His Revelation. The first eighty years of this century may roughly be said to have covered the entire period of the first age, while the last two decades may be regarded as having witnessed the beginnings of the second. The former commences with the Declaration of the Báb, includes the mission of Bahá'u'lláh, and terminates with the passing of 'Abdu'l-Bahá. The latter is ushered in by His Will and Testament, which defines its character and establishes its foundation. Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

Author and professor emeritus Dr. Hushidar Motlagh will present about health issues and spirituality, with a focus on cancer. In particular, he will answer the questions: Why did I have cancer? How did I recover? How can we prevent cancer? The central themes of his presentations include resolving the puzzle of creation, the joy and honor of knowing and loving God, and discovering our divine and glorious destiny. Dr. Motlagh prefers enquiry and discussion methods, and especially welcomes unresolved questions concerning human life and destiny.

The Clearwater Bahá’í Center is located off Highway 60 West in Clearwater Florida, adjacent to the Tampa Bay Coastal waters. The Clearwater Bahá’í Community is comprised of many different spiritually minded people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. All humanity was created by one God and is part of one human race. Work performed in the spirit of service is a form of worship. The soul, created at the moment of conception, is destined by God to reach the afterlife, where it will continue to progress until it attains the presence. The purpose of life is to know and worship God, to acquire virtues, to promote the oneness of humankind, and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.

The Advent of Divine Justice is a letter written December 25, 1938, to the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada, by Shoghi Effendi, describing the role of America in establishing the Most Great Peace. While technically a long-form letter or epistle, The Advent of Divine Justice is commonly published and studied as an independent book. The book lays out a Baháʼí understanding of the unique spiritual destiny of America and the role that American Baháʼís have in ensuring the country is able to fulfill that destiny. Shoghi Effendi describes the North American Baháʼís as “the spiritual descendants of the Dawn-breakers” and says they will play an important part in establishing the Faith around the world. He states that to contribute fully to this process, American Baháʼís must internalize three spiritual prerequisites: “moral rectitude,” “absolute chastity,” and “complete freedom from prejudice.” The book repeatedly references the Tablets of the Divine Plan by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá–which gave an early impetus to the spread of the Baháʼí Faith in North America–and Shoghi Effendi devotes more than half of the book to discussing the attitudes to be adopted and techniques to be used by Baháʼís when teaching the religion.

[00:00:00] George Via: Nor will it be my intention to ignore, whilst surveying the panorama which the revolution of a hundred years spreads before our gaze, the swift interweaving of seeming reverses with evident victories, out of which the hand of an inscrutable Providence has chosen to form the pattern of the Faith from its earliest days, or to minimize those disasters that have so often proved themselves to be the prelude to fresh triumphs which have, in turn, stimulated its growth and consolidated its past achievements. Indeed, the history of the first hundred years of its evolution resolves itself into a series of internal and external crises, of varying severity, devastating in their immediate effects, but each mysteriously releasing a corresponding measure of divine power, lending thereby a fresh impulse to its unfoldment, this further unfoldment engendering in its turn a still graver calamity, followed by a still more liberal effusion of celestial grace enabling its upholders to accelerate still further its march and win in its service still more compelling victories. Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

The Advent of Divine Justice is a letter written December 25, 1938, to the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada, by Shoghi Effendi, describing the role of America in establishing the Most Great Peace. While technically a long-form letter or epistle, The Advent of Divine Justice is commonly published and studied as an independent book. The book lays out a Baháʼí understanding of the unique spiritual destiny of America and the role that American Baháʼís have in ensuring the country is able to fulfill that destiny. Shoghi Effendi describes the North American Baháʼís as “the spiritual descendants of the Dawn-breakers” and says they will play an important part in establishing the Faith around the world. He states that to contribute fully to this process, American Baháʼís must internalize three spiritual prerequisites: “moral rectitude,” “absolute chastity,” and “complete freedom from prejudice.” The book repeatedly references the Tablets of the Divine Plan by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá–which gave an early impetus to the spread of the Baháʼí Faith in North America–and Shoghi Effendi devotes more than half of the book to discussing the attitudes to be adopted and techniques to be used by Baháʼís when teaching the religion.

Eileen Maddocks was inspired to write a trilogy, The Coming of the Glory: How the Hebrew Scriptures reveal the plan of God, because she could not find any study of the Hebrew prophets written in chronological order, within the context of Israelite history, and written from a Baha'i perspective. Volume 1 was published in 2020 by Something or Other Publishing. Volume 2 will be published by spring of 2022, and Volume 3 a year or two after that. Upon completion, this trilogy will have been a ten-year project. The PowerPoint presentation for volume 1 has been overhauled and updated from the version she presented some time ago. To lay the foundation for monotheism and the Hebrew prophets, this program starts at the end of the last Ice Age with Göbekli Tepe in 9600 BC and then a Neolithic village. It explores the background to the famous biblical verse “What hath God wrought,” possibly the first prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, and its meaning for Baha'is. This program follows the missions of the Prophets Adam, Abraham, and Moses, and ends with remarkable prophecies of David, whom Abdu’l-Bahá referred to as a prophet alongside Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekial. Because volume 1 is about 70,000 words, Eileen can only dip into a few fascinating topics in this 45-minute program. Her writing and presentations are designed to encourage readers to explore the Bible for themselves. Eileen’s cerebral lifestyle is balanced with a serious study of ballet and the reading thriller mysteries. Because volume 1 is about 70,000 words, Eileen can only dip into a few fascinating topics in this 45-minute program. Her writing and presentations are designed to encourage readers to explore the Bible for themselves. Eileen’s cerebral lifestyle is balanced with a serious study of ballet and the reading thriller mysteries. The Coming of the Gory: How the groundwork was laid for Bahá’u’lláh, from Göbekli Tepe to David. It starts with the divinely inspired, the Paleolithic temple site of Göbekli Tepe (9600 to 7000s BCE) and animism, then goes through the Neolithic phase with a tiered cosmos, to the Prophet Adam and Mesopotamia with its explosion of civilization of its spring/summer and the cults of the deities and the development of warfare as we know it during its fall/winter. Then the Prophet Abraham, and then the Prophet Moses and the Mosaic Code. Finishing with David, whom Bahá’u’lláh recognized as a prophet alongside Isaiah and Ezekiel, and his prophecy about Akka and the “strong city.”

The Clearwater Bahá’í Center is located off Highway 60 West in Clearwater Florida, adjacent to the Tampa Bay Coastal waters. The Clearwater Bahá’í Community is comprised of many different spiritually minded people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. All humanity was created by one God and is part of one human race. Work performed in the spirit of service is a form of worship. The soul, created at the moment of conception, is destined by God to reach the afterlife, where it will continue to progress until it attains the presence. The purpose of life is to know and worship God, to acquire virtues, to promote the oneness of humankind, and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.

[00:00:00] George Via: It is not my purpose—nor does the occasion demand it,—to write a detailed history of the last hundred years of the Bahá'í Faith, nor do I intend to trace the origins of so tremendous a Movement, or to portray the conditions under which it was born, or to examine the character of the religion from which it has sprung, or to arrive at an estimate of the effects which its impact upon the fortunes of mankind has produced. I shall rather content myself with a review of the salient features of its birth and rise, as well as of the initial stages in the establishment of its administrative institutions—institutions which must be regarded as the nucleus and herald of that World Order that must incarnate the soul, execute the laws, and fulfill the purpose of the Faith of God in this day. Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

The Advent of Divine Justice is a letter written December 25, 1938, to the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada, by Shoghi Effendi, describing the role of America in establishing the Most Great Peace. While technically a long-form letter or epistle, The Advent of Divine Justice is commonly published and studied as an independent book. The book lays out a Baháʼí understanding of the unique spiritual destiny of America and the role that American Baháʼís have in ensuring the country is able to fulfill that destiny. Shoghi Effendi describes the North American Baháʼís as “the spiritual descendants of the Dawn-breakers” and says they will play an important part in establishing the Faith around the world. He states that to contribute fully to this process, American Baháʼís must internalize three spiritual prerequisites: “moral rectitude,” “absolute chastity,” and “complete freedom from prejudice.” The book repeatedly references the Tablets of the Divine Plan by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá–which gave an early impetus to the spread of the Baháʼí Faith in North America–and Shoghi Effendi devotes more than half of the book to discussing the attitudes to be adopted and techniques to be used by Baháʼís when teaching the religion.

Tahirih has been inspiring writers, human rights activists, and artists for generations. Now a new book about the Persian poet and champion of women’s rights examines her life and her links with suffragettes in the West and pays tribute to her legacy. Tahirih’s shameful murder itself gave her an opportunity to express her hopeful spirit. As she was strangled, and just before being thrown down a well, she uttered these dying words: “You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women!” The stakes cannot be higher. These historical narratives serve as a jolting reminder that, in 2021, hundreds of millions of human beings continue to live their daily lives in constraints – physical, psychological, political, religious, and traditional. Too many women still have their feet bound, are kept hidden and veiled, are married as children, are mutilated at puberty, are denied education, and are forced to be silent prisoners within their own lives. The entire human race needs to be emancipated because it is not just women who are suffering. All humanity pays a price for so many women being denied freedom and denied the chance to contribute their share to the betterment of the world and the advancement of every family. Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

Powered by Restream https://restream.io/ The Clearwater Bahá’í Center is located off Highway 60 West in Clearwater Florida, adjacent to the Tampa Bay Coastal waters. The Clearwater Bahá’í Community is comprised of many different spiritually minded people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. All humanity was created by one God and is part of one human race. Work performed in the spirit of service is a form of worship. The soul, created at the moment of conception, is destined by God to reach the afterlife, where it will continue to progress until it attains the presence. The purpose of life is to know and worship God, to acquire virtues, to promote the oneness of humankind, and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.

Powered by Restream https://restream.io/ Tahirih has been inspiring writers, human rights activists, and artists for generations. Now a new book about the Persian poet and champion of women’s rights examines her life and her links with suffragettes in the West and pays tribute to her legacy. Tahirih’s shameful murder itself gave her an opportunity to express her hopeful spirit. As she was strangled, and just before being thrown down a well, she uttered these dying words: “You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women!” The stakes cannot be higher. These historical narratives serve as a jolting reminder that, in 2021, hundreds of millions of human beings continue to live their daily lives in constraints – physical, psychological, political, religious, and traditional. Too many women still have their feet bound, are kept hidden and veiled, are married as children, are mutilated at puberty, are denied education, and are forced to be silent prisoners within their own lives. The entire human race needs to be emancipated because it is not just women who are suffering. All humanity pays a price for so many women being denied freedom and denied the chance to contribute their share to the betterment of the world and the advancement of every family.

[00:00:00] George Via: It is my purpose, on the occasion of an anniversary of such profound significance, to attempt in the succeeding pages a survey of the outstanding events of the century that has seen this Spirit burst forth upon the world, as well as the initial stages of its subsequent incarnation in a System that must evolve into an Order designed to embrace the whole of mankind, and capable of fulfilling the high destiny that awaits man on this planet. I shall endeavor to review, in their proper perspective and despite the comparatively brief space of time which separates us from them, the events which the revolution of a hundred years, unique alike in glory and tribulation, has unrolled before our eyes. I shall seek to represent and correlate, in however cursory a manner, those momentous happenings which have insensibly, relentlessly, and under the very eyes of successive generations, perverse, indifferent or hostile, transformed a heterodox and seemingly negligible offshoot of the Shaykhí school of the Ithná-'Ash'áríyyih sect of Shí'ah Islám into a world religion whose unnumbered followers are organically and indissolubly united; whose light has overspread the earth as far as Iceland in the North and Magellanes in the South; whose ramifications have spread to no less than sixty countries of the world; whose literature has been translated and disseminated in no less than forty languages; whose endowments in the five continents of the globe, whether local, national or international, already run into several million dollars; whose incorporated elective bodies have secured the official recognition of a number of governments in East and West; whose adherents are recruited from the diversified races and chief religions of mankind; whose representatives are to be found in hundreds of cities in both Persia and the United States of America; to whose verities royalty has publicly and repeatedly testified; whose independent status its enemies, from the ranks of its parent religion and in the leading center of both the Arab and Muslim worlds, have proclaimed and demonstrated; and whose claims have been virtually recognized, entitling it to rank as the fourth religion of a Land in which its world spiritual center has been established, and which is at once the heart of Christendom, the holiest shrine of the Jewish people, and, save Mecca alone, the most sacred spot in Islám. Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

What are the principal actors needed to build vibrant and open communities that will advance humanity towards realizing its oneness; the individual, the institutions, and the community. Through their collaborations, advancement is possible in all our endeavors.

Powered by Restream https://restream.io/ The Clearwater Bahá’í Center is located off Highway 60 West in Clearwater Florida, adjacent to the Tampa Bay Coastal waters. The Clearwater Bahá’í Community is comprised of many different spiritually minded people from many different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. All humanity was created by one God and is part of one human race. Work performed in the spirit of service is a form of worship. The soul, created at the moment of conception, is destined by God to reach the afterlife, where it will continue to progress until it attains its presence. The purpose of life is to know and worship God, to acquire virtues, to promote the oneness of humankind, and to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.

Powered by Restream https://restream.io/ The Advent of Divine Justice is a letter written December 25, 1938, to the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada, by Shoghi Effendi, describing the role of America in establishing the Most Great Peace. While technically a long-form letter or epistle, The Advent of Divine Justice is commonly published and studied as an independent book. The book lays out a Baháʼí understanding of the unique spiritual destiny of America and the role that American Baháʼís have in ensuring the country is able to fulfill that destiny. Shoghi Effendi describes the North American Baháʼís as “the spiritual descendants of the Dawn-breakers” and says they will play an important part in establishing the Faith around the world. He states that to contribute fully to this process, American Baháʼís must internalize three spiritual prerequisites: “moral rectitude,” “absolute chastity,” and “complete freedom from prejudice.” The book repeatedly references the Tablets of the Divine Plan by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá–which gave an early impetus to the spread of the Baháʼí Faith in North America–and Shoghi Effendi devotes more than half of the book to discussing the attitudes to be adopted and techniques to be used by Baháʼís when teaching the religion.

[00:00:00] George Via: To what else can the observant eye or the unprejudiced mind acquainted with the signs and portents heralding the birth and accompanying the rise of the Faith of Bahá'u'lláh ascribe this dire this planetary upheaval with its attendant destruction misery and fear if not to the emergence of His embryonic World Order which as He Himself has unequivocally proclaimed, "has deranged the equilibrium of the world and revolutionized mankind's ordered life," to what agency if not to the irresistible diffusion of that world-shaking world-energizing world-redeeming spirit which the Báb has affirmed is "vibrating in the innermost realities of all created things," can the origins of this portentous crisis incomprehensible to man and admittedly unprecedented in the annals of the human race be attributed? In the convulsions of contemporary society in the frenzied world-wide ebullitions of men's thoughts in the fierce antagonisms inflaming races, creeds and classes in the shipwreck of nations in the downfall of kings in the dismemberment of empires in the extinction of dynasties in the collapse of ecclesiastical hierarchies in the deterioration of time-honored institutions in the dissolution of ties secular as well as religious that had for so long held together the members of the human race — all manifesting themselves with ever-increasing gravity since the outbreak of the first World War that immediately preceded the opening years of the Formative Age of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh — in these we can readily recognize the evidences of the travail of an age that has sustained the impact of His Revelation that has ignored His summons and is now laboring to be delivered of its burden as a direct consequence of the impulse communicated to it by the generative, the purifying the transmuting influence of His Spirit Let your vision be world-embracing…” — Bahá’u’lláh

The Advent of Divine Justice is a letter written December 25, 1938, to the Baháʼís of the United States and Canada, by Shoghi Effendi, describing the role of America in establishing the Most Great Peace. While technically a long-form letter or epistle, The Advent of Divine Justice is commonly published and studied as an independent book. The book lays out a Baháʼí understanding of the unique spiritual destiny of America and the role that American Baháʼís have in ensuring the country is able to fulfill that destiny. Shoghi Effendi describes the North American Baháʼís as “the spiritual descendants of the Dawn-breakers” and says they will play an important part in establishing the Faith around the world. He states that to contribute fully to this process, American Baháʼís must internalize three spiritual prerequisites: “moral rectitude,” “absolute chastity,” and “complete freedom from prejudice.” The book repeatedly references the Tablets of the Divine Plan by ʻAbdu’l-Bahá–which gave an early impetus to the spread of the Baháʼí Faith in North America–and Shoghi Effendi devotes more than half of the book to discussing the attitudes to be adopted and techniques to be used by Baháʼís when teaching the religion.

In this talk, he will discuss several key spiritual principles to provide the foundation for us to understand the true nature of a human being, and then he will speak about the importance of motherhood and how it relates to our collective spiritual and social journey.