 Friends, as it was mentioned at the beginning of the conference, this year's conference is in a very special year, the year of the celebration of the centenaries, by centenary festivities. And this session is set aside to reflect on their importance. The Universal House of Justice commends to our attention that at the heart of these festivities, there must be a concerted effort to convey what it means. At the heart of these festivities, there must be a concerted effort to convey a sense of what it means for humanity, that these two luminaries rose successively above the horizon of the world. In order to reflect on this effort, it is with utmost joy and endless gratitude that we welcome the next speaker this morning. The joy is not because he has been alone, serving the faith as a pioneer in South America, not only because he has been serving the faith in all levels of by-administration for a period of 40 years, including membership to the Universal House of Justice for 22 years when he retired in 2010, not only because of his remarkable ability to create beauty as expressed in his exquisite paintings, but because of also his remarkable scholarship as evidenced by his published work, his insightful remarks, and decades of mentoring generation of young adults and awakening a zest for a studying of the text. So ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Mr. Hooper Dunbar. My goodness, I thought I was coming to a meeting of the Association of Baha'i Studies and it turns out it's the Association of Baha'i Love, really. And shouldn't every Baha'i gathering be that? It's the source of our desire to study and understand. If it weren't for Baha'u'llah, would any of us be in this room? No? So when we think of this wonderful bicentenary commemorating it, celebrating it, let us remember that it all comes from Baha'u'llah, from the soul of Baha'u'llah. If it says, as he himself says, that if it was not for him, no divine messenger would have been raised up in this whole universal cycle on this planet. And we have somehow have popped into existence at a very propitious time. We could have been born 250 years ago and not had any part in it at all. And yet we have this bounty of having seen the century of light, having seen the developments of the cause all over the world, having seen a growth in the vision understanding an admiration of Baha'u'llah. There were those immediate close friends, the martyrs of the faith, the heroes of the faith in his own lifetime. But if we had been born at that time, would we have had that opportunity? So in a very special way, standing at the 200th year after his birth, we have certain advantages that didn't exist in. We have the vision of a world faith. We have representatives from all the planet, even in this room. We have above all the vision of the guardian, 36 years of his ministry enhancing our understanding of Baha'u'llah, of his mission, of his life, of his ministry. That's a terrific advantage that we have, that we want to be sure we're taking advantage of in our own lives, in our own studies, in our own reflections on this period. Before I go on with this, friends, I want to say how much I appreciated the content of the talks that were given, the various sessions since the opening of this conference. And the insights that it's provided us, may be reminders in some case, but definitely I felt new insights in the role that the Baha'i community has to play in healing the illnesses in America. And how closely Shogifendi associates this with the success of our own community growth. And it seems to me that we have to, in our own thoughts, think deeply on these matters. It occurs to me that in a sense in this country, African Americans are on the leading edge of understanding because of their suffering. We know that from the writings. We know that suffering leads to growth. It leads to sensitivity. And we have to make a supreme effort, I think, as a community, both the African Americans amongst us and all the other groups that are here, to carry the faith to these people who have the capacity to reflect it at a depth and with an appreciation that will enhance our own understanding of it. And I hope that the response really needs to be at the grassroots level where we're dealing in the neighborhoods, where we're dealing with people of different backgrounds, racial backgrounds. That's happening. Every place that I go where there's junior youth groups, oftentimes they're totally interracial. The Christian church still the most divided moment of the week is Sunday morning. But this is not the behind faith. We have to see this in all of our activities. We have to enhance it. We don't want it to be a natural process. We want it to be a divine process. We want something additional. And that will require some focus of attention on the part of all of us. And what a wonderful thing that we could arrive at new understandings and new decisions of service during this bicentennial year. Bahá'u'lláh has come for all mankind. There's room for every soul, Shoghi Effendi emphasizes in a letter, soul of every type fit into the Bahá'u'lláh community. And the more it's diverse, the greater it becomes. So let's have a multicolored community everywhere. Looking back at the vision of the guardian and how he set forth in his glorious writings, particularly in God passes by all the things we need to know and think about this bicentennial period. He writes that Bahá'u'lláh, he who in such dramatic circumstances was made to sustain the overpowering weight of so glorious a mission, was none other than the one whom posterity will acclaim and whom innumerable followers already recognize as the judge, the lawgiver and redeemer of all mankind. As the organizer of the entire planet, as the unifier of the children of men, as the inaugurator of the long-awaited millennium, as the originator of a new universal cycle, and as the establisher of the most great peace, as the fountain of the most great justice, as the proclamer of the coming of age of the entire human race, as the creator of a new world order, and as the inspirer and founder of a world civilization. Further he goes on, he was formally designated Bahá'u'lláh, an appellation signifying at once the glory, the light and the splendor of God, and was styled as the Lord of Lords, the most great name, the ancient beauty, the pen of the most high, the hidden name, the preserved treasure, he whom God will make manifest, the most great light, the all highest horizon, the most great ocean. More intimately, Shoghi Effendi has described, and we should remember that Shoghi Effendi was never in the physical presence of Bahá'u'lláh, but he answers a question which we may often be asked, and that is, who was Bahá'u'lláh, what was Bahá'u'lláh like? And we all search, and we think of so many things we could say, and we wonder how we would do it, what would be the most appropriate way? Shoghi Effendi, fortunately in a few brief lines has described this figure of Bahá'u'lláh to us, the august figure of Bahá'u'lláh he writes, preeminent in holiness, awesome in the majesty of his strength and power, unapproachable in the transcendent brightness of his glory, and again in another parallel passage, the incomparable figure of Bahá'u'lláh, transcendental in his majesty, serene awe-inspiring, unapproachably glorious. Friends, he is very close to us. He says he's closer to us than our life vein. He tells us that the emanation from our Creator, from the great unknowable God of this vast universe that we are beginning to understand the extent of, he says that that closeness is actually pouring into us and creating life in us, that our life depends on an emanation from our maker, and that that emanation has various levels of consciousness, and that our soul, our person is our thought. So we want to think about where our thoughts are, our parenthesis. Whatever form or whatever I am, my words have no authority upon my, except my own understanding of the writings. You know that very well because you're all students, scholars, and you're here for this association of Bahá'u'lláh studies. But yet it's a precious thing if we have the opportunities to share with each other the feelings and the insights that we have. So I welcome this opportunity, but just remember you have to weigh all this against the writings. It says clearly in the writings, our thought, our soul and thought is coming from the Holy Spirit. If it were not for the Holy Spirit, even though we're not aware of it, we would have no consciousness that everything depends on the light and the heat of the Son of Truth. And we have two parts to ourselves. We have the physical part and we have the spiritual part. And as much as the world tells us that the physical part predominates and is the cause of everything we think and do, Abdu'l-Bahá turns all that on its head and he says it's the Spirit as the foundation. The soul with its innate gifts, urinate gifts, urinate talents, brings, calls into being a physical vehicle for itself, according to the laws of God, creates a body in which it operates. And it continues to reign over that body, over every single cell of that body. And it has an autonomic, that is an unconscious area of operation, which is the thing that provides us with saliva and tears and the blood coursing in our veins. So many things, all dependent on the soul's interaction with the body. Now we can abuse the body as we often do, and then things get out of sorts, so to speak. Because we conform ourselves to the teachings and laws and admonitions of the cause, we bring our outer physical activity into conformity with the spiritual birthright that's inherent and standing within us, if you will. In the same way, Abdu'l-Bahá says that this is a parallel of understanding with the soul of the manifestation of God, which is a different order of being from humans entirely. Something we weren't all aware of. We thought he's an exalted being, he's a very high being, but this is a different order of existence, this realm of the universal reality, the primal will of the manifestation of God. And that's the spirit that animates the body of existence, the body of humanity. And we're all the individual cells in that body. And just as when we don't obey the laws in our personal individual life, it causes an imbalance and a disturbance and illnesses and problems. So likewise, this universal reality of Bahá'u'lláh is encompassing all of us. He's at everybody's, the door of everybody's heart. This is quite a different picture from what we might imagine, and yet we all are ready to pray to him in any part of the planet and have immediate access and feel he's our Lord. This is a very interesting order of being that for the first time we have more teachings about. So Abdu'l-Bahá says, as humanity comes into conformity, as it acts on this marvelous principle of free will which we've been given, which is the source of all difficulties and the source of all blessings and goodness at the same time. And Shoghi Fendi and Abdu'l-Bahá before him say this is a mystery, the mystery of free will. Why do we have free will? Why didn't God make everything perfect? It could all run well. He certainly has the authority, majesty, power, wisdom, but he doesn't. He puts it in our hands while we're in this realm of existence to choose. And that choosing, friends, is every instant of our lives, it isn't one time I chose to be Abdu'l-Bahá and that's the end of it, it's every morning we wake up, are we disgruntled with our spouse or are we going to be pleasant and happy joyful beings? Every interaction during the day is casting the balance of whether we're moving towards the will of God, encompassing the will of God or exercising our own lower nature. And a bit in contrast to some of the present day theories of science, Bahá'u'lláh says in the passages, Shoghi Fendi is included in the Gleanings, he says that all good comes from God and all evil from your own selves, all right? Stand that on its head, no good comes from you, all good comes from God, anything you manage to do good is because you have turned towards that goodness, you've turned towards that and you're used as an instrument, oh my goodness people say how many years have you served the cause? Well that's fine, I could say count up all the years, what's that mean? But then a tablet of Abdu'l-Bahá at one stroke takes it all away, he says the service of the friends belongs to God, not to them, praise be God if we get to be an instrument if he plays on our flute or on our hollow reed, if it can get hollow, but it belongs to him and we give praise to him for it and if we think that we have managed to do anything along the way just the slightest alloy he says of self-esteem, self-love and all comes to naught, tablet of Abdu'l-Bahá says all your service come to naught. So this is something to remember, but think of the power of his confirmations. I think this is the thing recognizing Bahá'u'lláh now at this bicentennial time is to take these thoughts into our nature, our consciousness needs to be enriched, enhanced and this takes place through the rehearsal, the reading, the reciting of the verses of God. He makes this image of the fact that the energies, the light, the glory of Bahá'u'lláh which has emanated from the person of Bahá'u'lláh have been infused into the whole creation during that time of the heroic age of the faith, that's followed then by Abdu'l-Bahá is working at the diffusion of that light all over the face of the earth and that's what the Bahá'u'lláh is under the guardianship and so on and the House of Justice have been carrying this light to all the areas of the world. So we have the infusion of the divine light and then we have the diffusion of the divine light and now as also indicated hinted at by the guardian we have the suffusion of divine light which is the penetration of that light into the life of society itself into the individuals over the top with the horizon breaks the morning light of diffusion but now that light has to rise the sun of the revelation is rising and it's penetrating and where is it penetrating hopefully into us and also into neighborhoods you see what's the emphasis on neighborhoods well that's the basis of mankind at the moment so this light is renewed in us and maintained and sustained in our existence by our study of the verses of God by our reading the writings of Bahá'u'lláh I've seen some letters from Shogay Fendi to new believers he says he hopes you will use your leisure time for an intense study of the words of Bahá'u'lláh the writings of Bahá'u'lláh and in one of those to one gentleman he says he hopes you will find several hours a day to dedicate to studying the writings of Bahá'u'lláh as this is the basis of your spiritual development and service to the cause I don't know how many times in my life I've done that for several hours a day I get excited about the concept and I start now at this age and I managed to get into about 10 minutes before I get sleepy but think of it friends if we gave that amount of attention to the words of God and it's not easy it will bore us at the beginning we will find it's tedious because you need to absorb the concepts of it this is why he says we have to read and reread the writings we can't just read it once nobody can do the agon Shogay Fendi said the Americans they can do the agon but it's just it has to be read and reread if you look at the marvelous compilation the house of justice prepared on deepening our knowledge of Bahá'u'lláh you derive from that I think a series of steps first is that we should read the literature we should read the writings then we should reread the writings then we should delve consciously into the writings then we said we should digest their content and in some places he said digest the content of each detail of these holy books and he goes on beyond that he says to his certain passages he says we should master them so that we can give them in their proper form speak out and use use them in our teaching to others and in our teaching speaking to our own selves in our meditations we have some content for our meditations besides our navels then he goes beyond that now we've gotten to the digest and master then he says memorize characteristic passages make them your own Shogay Fendi sent the Hand of the Cross Zechri Lechadem to the summer schools in 1957 and he was sitting with the youth and he said I encourage you to memorize the the writings so some some of us brave ones said what did he suggest he said well be good to start with the egon he didn't know who he was speaking to western youth we just about died we finally got it whittled down to the tablet of carmel and some of us learned that for a few weeks in in iran they of course they had capacity the the students that wanted to approach theological studies had to memorize the Quran entirely by the time they were 14 in arabic which wasn't their language it isn't it isn't beyond human capacity it's that we've decided that that doesn't work for us I'm not good at memorization of course you're not good at memorization and that takes practice it takes effort it takes rehearsal you know I know I I always said I didn't want to play tennis took me till I was 45 to find out that you could take lessons and and it was actually a way to do it so we have these stages think of those how far have we gone with the various books we have the guardians translations we have the guardians translations which outstrip and surpass all the other translations we have of the writings to the pilgrims he said you know quietly one time he said you read my translations you can trust them why because he knew the mind we're told he knew the mind of abdabah he knew the mind of bahá'u'lláh he knew what their intention was so it would get reflected sometimes the verses as you look at his translations they've you can't find that exact phrase in that way it's changed or there's there was some kind of cultural example given that we don't have any other culture the other culture needs another expression the apple of my night whatever that in your in farsi they didn't have that I'm going to interrupt just for a second to say something that I wanted to with regard to art in Haifa we put together a compilation on science and art and as you examine the original writings you find that science is knowledge and art is application or technology abdabah calls a dentistry art abdabah calls agriculture art if you think of this phrase a wonderful phrase that you put the artist is the source of everything in a little broader context it doesn't eliminate the fine arts the fine arts are right there so he talks about the painter with the brush but it it does extend so if you don't happen to be good at painting or sculpture or modern dance don't despair go on with your services to mankind through application of science through the application of knowledge okay sorry to interrupt with that but I think it's an interesting point for us to bear in mind there's a list of abdabah what he calls arts it just about includes everything that you could do in the world so now we find that as we turn to these writings as we turn to these verses as we study them show you if Andy talks about for example when he's referring to economics we don't have a full program of economics in the Bahá'í teachings he says it will take time while the principles the economic principles of Bahá'u'lláh crystallize in the minds of individuals think about that the verses and teachings of the writings that we're reading of Bahá'u'lláh crystallize in consciousness you know what before things before anything crystallizes it's usually a murk a mess like our consciousness basically but the more we absorb these verses of God they crystallize in our minds and what are crystals do they reflect they refract they enable us to move one step closer to abdabah who says we should become the incarnation of light we should become the embodiment of light to teach the cause where our beings should radiate our being is our is our thought if our thought is filled with the truths of the divine revelation we have a terrific advantage in any situation to talk about the cause we've kind of it gets easier if we think you know well the holy spirit will inspire me holy spirit in a quandary how to get truths into your head if you haven't studied the writings if you haven't absorbed them yes he can make you shine with love and sweetness that's fine all of us can proclaim the cause of God we're called upon to do that every individual there's no footnote there that says you should be young and handsome or beautiful or highly brilliant in your field or just everybody the duty of every individual is to proclaim the cause of God and you say to yourself what could that possibly be and in one passage he says and after you proclaim the cause of God if anyone shows interest teach them oh proclamation is not the same as teaching shoghi Effendi says we should let everyone know and I think when we're talking about hercules and effort this very closely connected to this let them know the name of Bahá'u'lláh and that he has brought a faith that can solve the problems of mankind I remember as a new Baha'i the the friend said abdabah said if you're going to meet a person once proclaim the message give the message to them if you're going to see them more than once live the life the guy moves into somebody in your apartment in your apartment just down the hall and the first time you see him have you heard of Bahá'u'lláh not maybe a bit you know too much in his face show some kindness first but with the guy on the bus and the lady on the bus you know if you can find a way to mention or to start a conversation and bring the name of Bahá'u'lláh and Bahá'u'lláh Shoghi Effendi says there's a latent capacity in the soul to recognize that even though they don't know what it's connected to they may say it's strange but they're not going to be able to forget it and how many times we mean people that say I'd never heard of the faith until last year and now I've heard of it three times it's it comes back and they just haven't noticed and now it starts building in them oh finally what is this you know my cousin's neighbor is a Bahá'u'lláh and I saw an advertising in the paper that sounded interesting and then I met somebody on the train and they told me about the Bahá'u'lláh faith sometimes it takes multiple stages but it's really if we can find a way to leave no one that we meet and have contact with unaware that such a thing exists and this this can be very simple as fact the fact that sometimes somebody says I said where are you from they say I'm from Cleveland oh Cleveland do you know the Bahá'is in Cleveland the who the Bahá'is you know the followers of Bahá'u'lláh's message it's brought this terrific message to unite mankind and to solve the problems of the world have you not heard of it along the same line let us not lose sight of the dawnbreakers the dawnbreakers the dawnbreakers and the dawnbreakers the book and from the book you'll get the picture of the other the other dawnbreakers Shoghi Effendi when he after spending eight months working on this book night and day at a time when every other need of the cause was crying he sent it off to America and wrote this message he says feel impelled appeal entire body American believers henceforth regard Nabil soul-stirring narrative as essential adjunct to the reconstructed teaching program as unchallengeable textbook in their summer schools as source of inspiration in all literary artistic pursuits as an invaluable companion in times of leisure as indispensable preliminary to future pilgrimage Bahá'u'lláh's native land and finally as an unfailing instrument to allay distress and resist attacks of critical disillusioned humanity have we all absorbed this have we approached the content of Nabil's narrative in the past or recently it seems to me we're henceforth regarded and as being essential with our teaching work that we really want to know about it and Shoghi Effendi in other letters he says how that sustains and lifts our souls these episodes and how the youth particularly should memorize the details of them to be able to recount them to themselves and to others it's it's it's not something you want to slip off your agenda friends now you will find that we're dealing with two levels of responsibility here there's and it's almost as if they're two covenantal levels as well one is we have embraced Bahá'u'lláh and we have to obey Bahá'u'lláh and he has given us obligatory prayers and fasting and told us to immerse ourselves in the ocean of his revelation and meditate on its contents absorb and meditate on its contents all that's part of our individual covenant of accepting Bahá'u'lláh then we have the institutions of the faith which are guiding us in collective responsibilities so we have individual activities and we have collective activities we want to be sure friends that the collective activities are animated and driven by the energy we derive from our individual activities which is our own prayer and meditation and study so that the action will be effective so that we won't heal as we do occasionally Bahá'u'llh is saying oh I'm so tired I've been through so many cycles of growth I don't know if I can live through another one but this is not this is because the individual part of it is not being fulfilled properly which fills us with the energy which gives us all the element to be able to move forward properly so we should we should have that in mind also I think in our individual programs of study which are mentioned by the way as you'll recall in a number of the ruhi books that the individuals should have a program of study of the writings of the faith the house of justice never intended that we should lessen that part of our activity by prescribing collective activities where we act in groups and we have programs and cycles of growth all of that is meant to be wed with the other so the house of justice somebody will tell you hasn't mentioned donberger so it's not part of the plan so don't worry about it I don't think the house of justice would agree with that point of view because it's in the writings and in the admonitions of the guardian to do it the other way so they're never going to be able to say that as far as people say oh the house of justice doesn't favor firesides or study classes ridiculous I met with the house of justice last September they said we've mentioned firesides more times in our messages now than any time in the previous 30 years do you get their message friends the house of justice is sitting on top of the revelation and the guidance of the guardian that's where it all comes from it isn't to be left behind in some way god help us the guardian stands in the center of the house of justice forever and ever memberships come memberships go members of the guardian the guardianship is standing in the center of it that's the protection of the house it's incorporated in their constitution everything comes from there we should not be lax in our understanding of shogi fendi's writings it will form also our consciousness it will help us to direct the refraction from the crystallization of studying the divine texts it will help us to direct those energies the right way and to balance in our lives sacrifice let that be the theme of the bicentennial year sacrifice shogi fendi in a letter described sacrifice for the friends he said sacrifices in three areas the first area he said is financial is making sacrifices feeling the hurt of giving in a sense but also being willing and longing to do it but also recognizing it if we have a lot of money the sacrifice is more severe in the sense that we have to make an effort to sacrifice otherwise we can give more than anybody else in the community and not have even bothered ourselves with it so this is a question of conscience in the individual nobody can tell us what we should do or tell others what they should do but this financial sacrifice is a measure of faith shogi fendi says in one place interesting and regularity is obviously very important in this now the cause is growing in welts the friends are paying the hokuk this is enabling the house of justice to take initiatives that was not able to take in earlier decades second area of sacrifice can you guess what it is or do you know time you have to sacrifice your time to the service of the cause we all have full lives we can all find out what to do every vacation every evening of our lives every every everything but we have to measure to see how much of that we can give to the faith and of course these are sacrifices that in the end are not sacrifices they become blessings they you realize as in the action of them that they attract divine bounties to you you give money and it comes back to you i'm trying to keep give it away and it gets more and more what's going on here you know time the same thing well i have to have time for this i have to have time for that yes that comes to the third element of sacrifice that he speaks about person you have to sacrifice your person that is sacrifice the goals as a human in society that you've set for yourselves some of those have to be curtailed because that affects both your finance and your time i have a vision of myself with my triple doctorate and i don't know what all maybe i'm going to have to think about that maybe i'm going to have to live leave some of my education to bahá'u'lláh and then everything i've studied will become meaningful because i use my time and my person to promote the cause these are these seem to me these are by centennial themes that we want to think about shoghi if any gives us a glorious vision of bahá'u'lláh's life and then of his ministry the life he divides it into four stages i wanted to share that with you he says with the the first stage with the birth of bahá'u'lláh may be said to have begun the first 27 years of a life which were characterized by the carefree enjoyment of all the advantages conferred by high birth and riches and by an unfailing solicitude for the interest of the poor the sick and the downtrodden it was a very high situation that bahá'u'lláh enjoyed with his father as a minister in the government it's on the marriage of bahá'u'lláh you've seen the detail where to carry the bounties and gifts of the wedding after the wedding to navab they needed 50 donkeys now we have some pretty extravagant weddings around here but i don't think we've had anything that needs 50 donkeys to carry the gifts back this is it was a privileged situation very privileged situation yet there's some note here let's see if i can find it i'm sorry anyway bahá'u'lláh shoghi if any says beside that of course he disdained all those privileges in his sense he was constantly helping the poor and helping society until the moment came when he received the message of the bob through mullah hossain who shared with him some of the first writings of the bob from the kayom al-asma and then that begins a period of nine years and this is stage two nine years of active and exemplary discipleship in the service of the bob imagine the supreme manifestation of god he's serving as a disciple for his forerunner very interesting development here shoghi if any describes it as follows a fire from the very beginning with an uncontrollable enthusiasm for the cause he had espoused conspicuously fearless in his advocacy of the rights of the downtrodden in the full bloom of youth immensely resourceful matchless in his eloquence endowed with inexhaustible energy and penetrating judgment possessed of the riches and enjoying in full measure the esteem power and prestige associated with an enviable high and noble position and yet contemptuous of all earthly pomp rewards vanities and possessions closely associated on the one hand through his regular correspondence with the author of the faith he had arisen to champion and intimately equated on the other with the hopes and fears the plans and activities of its leading exponents think of the involvement of bahá'u'lláh and the conference of bedash for example or in support of the defenders of sheikh tabar see the fortress at sheikh tabar see at one time advancing openly and assuming a position of acknowledged leadership in the forefront of the forces struggling for that faith's emancipation at another deliberately drawing back with consummate discretion in order to remedy with greater efficacy and awkward or dangerous situation at all times vigilant ready indefatigable in his exertions to preserve the integrity of that faith to resolve its problems to plead its cause to galvanize its followers and confound its antagonists then bahá'u'lláh because of the position at the center of the stage so tragically vacated by the bob because of his martyrdom as a cause of its martyrdom bahá'u'lláh now assumes a role at the center of the cause completely and enters the third stage which is four months long twenty seven years nine years and now four months this third stage think of the vitality of that the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the year nine the entrance into the mortal peril if you will of the see a child and finally by imprisonment of four months duration overshadowed throughout by mortal peril and bittered by agonizing sorrows and immortalized as it drew to a close by the sudden eruption of the forces released by an overpowering soul revolutionizing revelation a dynamic process divinely propelled possessed of undreamt of potentialities world embracing in scope world transforming acquired a tremendous momentum with the first intimations of bahá'u'lláh's dawning revelation amidst the darkness of the seer child of jeharan it was in that year in those that time while the blessed beauty lay in chains and fetters in that dark and pestilential pit the breezes of the all glorious as he himself described it were wafted over him there whilst his neck was weighted down by the garagohar his feet in stocks breathing the fetid air of the seer child he dreamed his dream and heard on every side exalted words and his tongue recited words that no man could bear to hear released from the seer child through the provisions of divine providence he enters upon the fourth and last stage of his life and this is a 39 or 40 year ministry and shogifendi divides that parses that into different parts and emphasis and so on this this simplest we can't go into all the details of that but the simplest summary you'll find of major events is the intimation of his mission in 1853 the declaration of his mission in 1863 the proclamation of his mission in 1867 68 to the kings and ecclesiastical leaders of mankind and finally the consummation of his mission with the revelation of the katabiaktas and the tablets that flowed out after that and the whole this whole process of the dawning of the son of truth and share our shiras and the daybreak of it in tehran and the full splendor of it in edrian opal and the afternoon warming sunlight of the final stages of revelation the son of truth sets in 1892 this is it's it's so good to have these kind of pictures of the stages of things then you can go and fill in the details and put them where they need to be when you're reading different historic accounts you know what right where everything fits with the ascension of bahá'u'lláh his spirit winged its flight to his other dominions and i wanted to quote something from the guardian he's reminding us of abdu baha'u the what he said about after bahá'u'lláh's passing what this meant for the spirit of bahá'u'lláh and i think this directly relates now to the to the time that we're in and to this celebration that we're passing through at this period so abdu baha'u as the authorized interpreter of his teachings had himself later explained that the dissolution of the tabernacle where in the soul of the manifestation of God had chosen temporarily to abide signalized its release from the restrictions which an earthly life had of necessity imposed upon it its influence no longer circumscribed by any physical limitations its radiance no longer be clouded by its human temple that soul could henceforth energize the whole world to a degree unapproached at any stage in the course of its existence on this planet we're not johnny come lately friends we're in the full splendor of this growing son of truth that's rising by a progressive revelation another form of progressive value since the progressive revelation of the energies inherent in the words and revelation of bahá'u'lláh gradually dawning on the world and bringing us to the consummation of the most great peace the world commonwealth and this divine civilization that the house of justice continually reminds us is ahead of us we don't we don't realize how important our little movements are to that to that consolidation let us reflect on these words of bahá'u'lláh again related to proclamation in the sense that I think that we talked about bahá'u'lláh says unloose your tongues and proclaim unceasingly his cause this is better for you than all the treasures of the past and of the future if you be of them that comprehend this truth thank you friends I'm sure I speak for everyone in thanking Mr. Dunbar from the bottom of our hearts for inspiring us this morning for elevating our understanding and identifying some themes for our consideration and reflection in this special year of the Bicentenary festivities thank you Mr. Bonner