 Thank you, friends. I take that very warm welcome as a bit of a glint that might have reflected on me for being associated with the House of Justice for all those years and You're all very Loving and devoted to the House of Justice, and that's a thrill and a lovely way to start this evening Friends obviously my remarks tonight are only personal reflections and in no way Authority except in that you might confirm some of the things along the way in your own bias studies in Your readings and in your own own thoughts. I think that this is very inspiring theme and Learning and action that goes right back as Has been suggested by the title here this evening the ocean of revelation being the dynamic source of all of our learning and and as we Progress through this. I'm very pleased that the theme of love has been touched on here I think you know when you go back to the origins of everything including the beautiful singing that we had at the beginning Love is right there. I knew my love for thee Therefore I created thee This is this is you and me He's created us and he's provided everything in creation for our training our member may hearing when I was a new boy Not from not from the Baha'is, but strangely enough from Walt Disney and a film that was called the Adam and us That the scientists had discovered that in Magnitude of size the human being was exactly in the middle between the smallest Adam and the greatest colossal Figures in space in other words God has Extended reality from our from our central position both below us and above us into this magnitude of experience and Kingdoms in which we can learn from also very pleased to be taking Taking part in a Conference dedicated to the memory of ushman fatih That's a you know the next world gets all the treasures in the end But we have to sustain losses which we do in the course individually and collectively but I think that Passing of dear hushman is a very significant event and he was so eager to go. He had a couple close calls just within the last weeks last months and Was complaining that he hadn't been able to escape So I think he was quite pleased to go and as I understand he had this wonderful encounter with the youth at the vancouver conference and then from there went directly to the hospital and slipped away As I was sitting here this evening hearing the message of the house of justice again, I Recalled that Shoghi Effendi had in Several messages to the east talked about the reception that teachers of the faith great teachers of the faith receive when they enter the next world and he described scenes such as the as the soul ascends into the center of the supreme concourse the hosts on high rush forth from their habitations with joy and exaltation and chalices of light cheering the arrival of the the new soul to their to their marvelous array of Spiritual life and the influence that they have on us, and I'm sure Pushman is enjoying those delights Can only imagine in the next world and for that we all struggle and strive that we might serve in such a way That we could receive The blessings and bounties of God in the next world. That's still working. Are you The concept of the ocean of revelation I think is one we're all familiar with and certainly very closely related to our own understanding and learning and illumined knowledge Ocean immerse yourself in the ocean of my revelation is the commanding phrase of Bahá'u'lláh and you see it in the various tablets and in the Kitab Yachtas itself He relates this ocean to Those learned ones in Bahá'u'lláh. He says happy are ye. Oh ye the learned ones in Bahá'u'lláh By the Lord He are the billows of the most mighty ocean the stars of the firmament of glory the standards of triumph waving being tweaked earth and heaven at this Particular passage was interpreted by Shoghi Effendi When he was asked about it, it's from the Kitab Yachtas as I mentioned and He said that it refers the learned ones refers to two groups of Bahá'u'lláh is on the one hand you have the hands of the cause of God and the other learned scholars and servants of the cause that are distinguished and On that basis the House of Justice developed the theme of the counselors and created boards of counselors but the house has Several times indicated that that the range of this second group of Scholars is not limited to the appointed counselors, but there are of course other outstanding scholars in the world and so that we see this a Reference as ye are the billows of the most mighty ocean as a reference to those who have plunged themselves into the depths of the of the ocean of Bahá'u'lláh's knowledge and share it and Reflect it in their services to mankind and their services to the faith once again he talks a Abdu'l-Bahá speaks in in His writing the secret of divine civilization. He makes a reference to the learned ones in these words There are those famed and accomplished men of learning possessed of praiseworthy qualities and vast erudition Who lay hold on the strong handle of the fear of God and keep to the ways of salvation in the mirror of their minds? the forms of transcendent realities are reflected and The lamp of their inner vision derives its light From the Sun of universal knowledge. I think these friends. He said the models of Where do we get the inspiration for all of those things? We want to carry into action from the revelation the theme of a Again Bahá'u'lláh refers to the billowing ocean of God's utterances and You'll remember from the prayer from one of the prayers make of my prayer a light that will lead me under the ocean of thy presence Looking on more closely to some of the quotations about the ocean It refers to Bahá'u'lláh referring to himself as the ocean and certainly the ocean of his presence is his presence and I Think that he says we should immerse ourselves in this ocean in whose depths lay the pearls of wisdom and utterance and He calls it an ocean that surges in my name the all merciful And certainly it is the great bounty of the word of God itself That constitutes this ocean to which we're invited to Again he says take thou thy portion of the ocean of his grace and deprive not thyself of the things which lie hidden in its depths and Again were you to discover the hidden the shoreless oceans of my incorruptible wealth You would have ascertained the esteem as nothing the world nay the entire creation The theme of the ocean itself connects very beautifully with the variety of living waters mentioned in the in the writings quite a Subject just in itself Maybe someone will address that in the course of future activities He says we should attain to them He talks about the conditions the prerequisites for attaining to living waters and then he talks about the gifts and Consequences of those who managed to attain those living waters and the living waters as you know are the knowledge the waters of Knowledge of water of knowledge of love of grace and mercy so on in so many descriptions of these from all of this we are supposed to Bring to the surface and share with others pearls of the of these divine treasures that are in the writings If You have this lovely complexity in the writings of the word of God being on the one hand the speaking word of God the manifestation of God amongst people uttering his guidance and giving his Teachings and then you have the silent word of God which is the repository of what he's already spoken of and Those of course in his day. We're able to attain to both We have the bounty of this of the word of God that remains with us now this repository of these pearls and and holy treasures that we can we can approach and this is a Something that in no way should we lament that we weren't present at the beginning although that would be a great bounty and I Hope that we will all attain to that in the next world but both Bahá'u'lláh and elaborated by Abdul Bahá'u'lláh and Shogif and he referred to the fact that the power of the word of God is Released gradually. It's part of progressive revelation that the influence of the revelation is growing Did Bahá'u'lláh ever attend a conference of this sort of this many people directing himself to his words inspired by his prayers You see how this thing is this thing grows in the world and It's wonderful the progressive release of the potentialities of the creative energies that are inherent in the words that he left with us You know living in the holy land for so many years hearing stories from The old days and having some connection with the archives of the faith you come to to understand certain things which Weren't altogether clear to me at the at the beginning one of them is the nature of Revelation itself of Bahá'u'lláh's The act of his revealing the words of God perhaps you'll recall in a passage that Shogifendi is included in the gleaning's that there are three proofs for the revelation The first proof the highest the most exalted proof is the manifestation of God himself That's such a creature exists that he's been sent to the world You know the other day I was thinking because I've been flying around a lot as many of you do Don't have to get very far off the ground before you can't see a human being they just disappear and yet this spec Representing the most Exalted kingdom of God the kingdom of God if you will himself in his all-embracing reality Existed on earth and Most of his fellow human beings wanted to squash him and stop him and yet the influence of that miraculous point Think of the Bob calling himself the primal point and talking about the manifestation being the primal point and out of that point Is generated everything and at the same time he says this is like the point of the pen The manifestation is the supreme pin and his point is revelation and it traces itself into innumerable shapes and In those shapes are inherent The divine meanings that he's brought to mankind So in that sense he's he's the supreme pin Both by representing the word of God, but also by what issues forth from him Bahá'u'lláh had the custom out of consideration for the for the believers who were visiting or around him when he felt revelation Impelled to revelation because it would come impetuously on him He would dismiss the friends. He would excuse them Sometimes he would excuse them very shortly after they arrived in his presence and this had raised the curiosity of a Ruhla Vargas brother who was with them His father and his brother in the holy land and he said he was very curious why Bahá'u'lláh sent us so sent us away So quickly and the explanation came from those who are more experienced. That is because the This is a moment when Bahá'u'lláh wants to reveal Directly and that the force of the revelation is such that out of consideration and courtesy he dismisses the friends He said, you know, I would really like to be present sometime when that's happening And they've family said well, they would look into it and ask Bahá'u'lláh if it were possible And several weeks passed and he was out playing around Bajji and he got a call from to come upstairs That Bahá'u'lláh wanted to see him So he came upstairs and they took him to the curtain that you know and the room of Bahá'u'lláh And they told him to step inside Bahá'u'lláh has asked to see you so he takes the curtain and he steps inside and He sees Bahá'u'lláh is walking pacing in the room and chanting and Just as fast as he notices that he feels his knees weakening under him and he starts to faint And on his way down he sees Bahá'u'lláh say hodáf is So the family you know being wise in these matters reached under the Curtain and pulled him out and took him to another room and put rose water on him He wanted to know what happened to me. I I just as soon as I got there. I fainted He said you wanted to be present when Bahá'u'lláh was revealing and that was a moment when he was revealing now During Vargos visit there was another occasion on which Bahá'u'lláh was with the The men visitors who were there and he took Varga the eventual martyr by the waist and another believer by the waist and started pacing up and down the room and began chanting Everyone was overwhelmed with the power of the thing just briefly. He did that and then he excused himself and left their presence and Everyone said did you feel that power? Did you feel the impact of that? Yes, and did you hear what he was saying? Yes Does anybody remember what he said? No Nobody could remember anything about the content. They just knew the power of it Mirza al-Ghajan who was as you know Bahá'u'lláh is Emanuensis secretary companion servant He's left a few testimonies. He says that He of course had been given capacity from Bahá'u'lláh to do the revelation writing to write down as quickly as he could He says I could only Managed to note down one of every five verses. I couldn't get it down so quickly The power that poured off of Bahá'u'lláh and then he describes that he said at times when Bahá'u'lláh was in they The intensity of the revelation. He's shown like the Sun. I don't know. We don't know what the implications of that are But that's a nice image and he said that the words that he said You would lose the meaning of them because they were like peals of thunder rolling off of Bahá'u'lláh and issuing out to the ends of the earth Now he would himself pass out and they'd have to come and revive him so it He was he was a very you know industrious he had to copy all these notes out Onto another sheet because they were so brief to the best of visibility then he would sit with Bahá'u'lláh and Bahá'u'lláh would Fill in the missing spots and to the corrections. It's on they'd be sent for He used to get quite tired doing all of this. He had a ponytail He would sit next to the wall with his knees up on the floor With the paper on his knees Writing and the ponytail was tied to a nail on the wall. So when he'd fall asleep He would pull his hair and he'd wake up and he'd go on This is a you know in case the secretaries of the NSA need any kind of Couragement So we mentioned the speaking word which is the manifestation when he's alive and the silent word what remains with us afterwards the This quite a quite interesting to think about you know we hear about is is We hear about matter and energy the interchanged between this and Spirit and Matter are very closely related in the same fashion. We have parallels Think of Bahá'u'lláh receives the revelation Terrific spiritual impact on his reality and he then chance the verses of the revelation We'll go into the nature of the revelation a little bit shortly, but he chanced this and that becomes now a sound wave That sound wave goes into the ear of Agha John and he Creates even more material evidence of it by writing down the verses of God Now that these holy verses of God have become sound and they become black markings on a page well and good we some Century and a half later pick up a book with black tracings in it and Think about it and the spirit with which Bahá'u'lláh revealed that is present in those words and It comes back to us in a spirit spirit to matter matter to spirit again. It's quite an interesting concept you think of it and so much has been said by Shoghi Effendi and Some of the things that I've written about light and darkness relate very directly to that That these energies are latent in the words the words have a power quite different from our words and Bahá'u'lláh says though they may be the most common place of words They have creative energy You remember from the book of Genesis. He says that the word of God does not return void to its maker It has a power with it that adheres to it and The Bob says every verse of the Lord Lee tree is accompanied by the Creative energy to accomplish what's mentioned in that verse Think about that when you say your Obligatory prayers and read the prayers of the fast It's all inherent in there for us. If if we become sensitive to it there There is something in In the explanations that we see in the writings quite mysterious that we have been His his image his divine image has been engraved upon our inner nature That we are as Abdubar refers a number of times in his talks in the West the image and likeness of God we are the image and likeness of God We are a reflection of that in the mirror of our own inner being and Yes, the mirror gets gummed up and the image gets Distorted through that warped and distorted if you will it has to be we're constantly working to make it a clear image But the point is we are not the mirror. That's not the important part of us It's the image that's projected in us and the Bob declares in one of his passages He said that is your true being is that Projected image and likeness of the names and attributes of God that constitutes your reality This is a terrific thing and So related to this question of learning and knowledge. He says that if you come to understand that True inner reality of your own that is the knowledge of God ordained by the manifestation for you You see these mysterious passages where he says that the knowledge of me is the knowledge of thine own true self It's totally mysterious now is on one hand. We've got the lower nature. We've got our animal nature, which he's connected to us and some of the writings imply that he's Linked a devil to us to train us, you know, so to speak to keep us alert and we move from that Very limited selfish point of view. We have to arise in service Gradually becoming more and more selfless till the quality of our servitude Reaches its highest level and the Bob relates this also in his writings. He says this is this servitude is what is The drawing close to God the presence of God if you will and he says that He quotes from one of the imams that Servitude is a matter the essence of which is divinity Think of the implications of that for Abdu Baha station who's the model of servitude for us how much he's filled with divinity because he moves away from self towards this Selflessness, which is servitude, which is what God wants from us and that's the point if you will the conjunction point at where true being is related and all through these various stages of new vision We attain to further understanding of the revelation You've got the seven valleys as one stack of Potential stages you've got the Bob saying that the eye first the material eye has to be opened For the attainment of understanding and knowledge of God Then he says the spiritual eye and then the intellectual eye and that's a more universal Intellectual eye not intellect in the sense Common Western understanding and then the highest one he says the fourth stage of vision is the inner heart For the Persian friends the Fawad The eye of Fawad the inner reality and he says only that highest degree understands the deeper meanings of divine unity and the implications of what the Faith there really stands for so we have this number of grades and the Bob says also in one of his passages about the revelation the word of God he says that every verse every word every letter of revelation has Torrents of divine meanings flowing in it and around it and from it and as we advance in our own levels of vision then Fresh meanings sometimes meanings that have never been born again Virgin meanings and Bahá'u'lláh relates this to the Huris He says these are the Huris that you will attain when you go to paradise. I'm afraid some of the Muslims are gonna be a bit disappointed about the Giving their lives for the 70 virgins, you know, and they find out that these are secret meanings of the divine texts To the great joy of the spiritual minded, but not to the some of the lower aspirations of man The scope of the revelation just a few words about this Before I left the holy land that you know the writings generally have been Put into computer form digitized So we're able to count the number of words of the revelations of both the Bob and Bahá'u'lláh Now I'm not sure of the total number of the revelations of all the past scriptures together But it is clear that the Bob's revelation surpasses the combined scriptures of all ages that we have any record of and That comes to five million words of revelation from the Bob Now you say well then what's left for Bahá'u'lláh Bahá'u'lláh has revealed In our present record and surely there are still more tablets that arrive that families have Not shared necessarily or are not known about and then are discovered later on we have six million words from Bahá'u'lláh This is so it he out does The Bob and then all those previous revelations as well the supreme manifestation of God the question of Organizing that knowledge Thematically is one that is being considered now and I see that on one of the parts of the program There's some thoughts about that. There are hidden themes That are not the words that are in the text, but the definition of things that are Definitely identifiable and how to how to do that and how to automate it so that the House of Justice has on it at call all of the Implications of any subject that may come before it and that eventually friends We would have the same thing now we have some programs like ocean and search programs Which bring up a lot of information for us as we consider the implications of these various verses Back to the subject that that the torrents of meanings that pour through the verses and the words and the Individual letters of the words and You perhaps you'll recall an example of this in the end of the seven valleys where Bahá'u'lláh talks about a bird And he mentions the letters of the bird and each letter stands for certain things This is very common in the revelation of the Bob He takes the individual letters of a word and he said that okay, and this letter means this and this letter means this and this There's the Commentary on the sura of Kosar of the Bob The sura the Kosar is the Quranic sura with three verses and In that commentary Which is revelatory commentary as he makes clear at a later stage He describes the meaning of this of the whole sura together then he describes the meaning of each Sentence of the sura then of each word of the sura and finally of each letter of each word of every verse of the sura 750 page commentary That the Bob right this is just pours out of him these So he says that this this is the meanings of those divine words are there and then he adds on he says These meanings all have hidden meanings And he describes again all these things he says these have their hidden meanings then he says and these hidden meanings have mysterious unseen meanings Okay, so you've got one set of meanings and we have another set of meanings And we have another set of meetings then he names two more and then he finally says etc Is it any wonder friends that sometimes you come up with a meaning of a verse of God different from the one I come up with and Is there any harm in it if we're moving at different levels? Say say that you were looking at a parade There was a gorgeous parade and you were standing on the street And you saw these lovely floats and things in front of you and you Observed them and they had a certain meaning to you But then you were invited up in the building and you began to see more of the parade and finally you get to the top You see the whole parade There's no contradiction. There's no need for us ever to have a conflict about the meaning of the words of God In fact, Bahá'u'lláh warns us against such a thing That doesn't mean that every meaning we come up with isn't necessarily a true meaning But it does allow for a great variety of understanding You know, maybe I'm seeing with the eye of the spirit and you're seeing with the eye of the intellect And she's seeing with the eye of the inner eye of God So you see different meanings in the same thing and it also means that you can't do the writings one time There were some pilgrims in the Holy Land and Shoghi Fendi asked them at the table if they had read the and studied the Katabi gone and One of the men I'm sorry to say from North America said yes, he'd done it And Shoghi Fendi didn't say anything but the next group of pilgrims they said when he was there Shoghi Fendi raised this question again. He said that the man had from North America said that he'd done it He said you can't do it It's no end to it. It's an endless study And when you look at his instructions with regard to again this revelation He says to read and reread in the different letters. You put them all together You get a kind of a scheme. He said read reread delve Painstakingly study the writings of the faith and then he says he moves on from there And he says to digest their content of the holy books the principal holy books digest it And then he says and after that you should master its contents in such a way that you can deliver it faithfully to others and Finally, he says the capstone of all he says should memorize characteristic passages make them your own my own impression friends and I Think this is a good setting to talk about it is that we haven't done what Shoghi Fendi said about studying and mastering the essential books of our revelation Now this is in no way meant to be a competition with the The courses of study that we have in the study circles the Ruhi books are there There may be those who think that they've studied the faith sufficiently. They don't need to study the Ruhi books That's not the point the point is you would want to know their contents because you're guiding others into such a system and You would be wise to be familiar with everything that's there But beyond that beyond that collective responsibility that you have in the community who have an individual responsibility to Bahá'u'lláh To act on that command immerse yourself in the ocean of my revelation and bring up the pearls So many things to be discovered no end to it the The last thing that I wanted to mention a bit here is the identification of various modes of divine revelation This theme you'll see comes in the writings of the Bob and also You will have noticed perhaps in this Ray Hey Cal the tablet of the temple Bahá'u'lláh Speaks about revealing his own revelation in nine modes nine different styles nine different forms This had been mentioned in Islam there four modes of revelation mentioned in Islam the Bob Defines those more clearly elaborates them and adds a fifth one and He says that they that these modes of revelation First are the divine versus themselves the voice of divinity and that would be characterized by the phrase I am God Which comes through the revelation when? The manifestation speaks in the first person and Bahá'u'lláh of course has Explained with caveats in the in the egon itself what he means by that is the complete selflessness of the manifestation to the degree that God uses him to speak in the first person to us the second stage of mode of revelation is the mode of prayers and This is the mode characterized by the phrase thou art God First I am God then thou art God then commentaries and then additional treatises and documents Are the other two and those are characterized by he is God He is God who does this and does that and so on so you have this All of these modes of the way the manifestation addresses us Then the Bob says this is all these are all in Arabic and he adds those same modes in the Persian language He said that's the fifth mode that he adds Bahá'u'lláh in the hey Cal says nine modes He has nine modes he's revealing in and then in a separate document he says all nine modes are in the Syria hey Cal which in the the Collective Syria hey Cal means the tablets to the kings and rulers as well as the initial Documentation if you would so much like Bahá'u'lláh explains who he is establishes his credentials in the In the tablet of the temple and then he goes on to the kings to tell them what they should do as a result of Understanding who he is so he addresses Napoleon and the Pope and the others quite quite interesting Everybody's curious to know what are the nine modes of revelation of Bahá'u'lláh We don't have it. We don't have any indication of them except Hajj Mirza Haydur Ali has written in the diary and he mentions the lo he know Shoom the Shan the nine modes of revelation he says the tablet of the nine modes of revelation which he's seen But so far nobody's come up with it. I think we're pretty close to understanding that By some of the verses of Bahá'u'lláh where he says at times I reveal in the voice of a mystic and the other times in the voice of a lawmaker and Shoghi Effendi in several Instances in his summaries in God passes by mentions the whole list of that Bahá'u'lláh revealed prayers and homilies and commandments and laws and so on You can look up those lists basically, they're more than nine there and contemplate that amazing Array of kinds of revelation We know that the Basis of all all of these is to infuse into the world the potentialities to attain to Maturity the like of which it hasn't seen yet and it's in the writings of Shoghi Effendi the The coming of the creative forces or powers released through the successive revelations of the Bob and Bahá'u'lláh He says this is infusing into mankind the potentialities of all those developments that have to have to take place We mentioned earlier. Nothing is revealed. It doesn't have the power of accomplishment attached to it This has a this has a very Rather intense flip side to it that the word of God goes out if it's embraced It recreates the recipient the individual is Is lifted up by it if the word of God goes out and it's negated or It's attacked in any way it turns to fire the light turns to fire And that's the disintegration that's happening all around us in the world is the rejection of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings Now sometimes it happens at a very simple level, but the Bob says, you know, okay If you ignore it, that's one level, but if you attack it, that's a whole another matter and Of course, we're going to see as the Power of the faith extends itself we're going to see more attacks on the cause the this infusion then is followed by The in the heroic age of the faith and the earliest period of the face is followed in the next stage By the diffusion of the divine light that's revealed is infused through the revelation itself It's it's in a state of pregnancy at that then it Abdu'l-Bahá calls for its diffusion And he gives the divine plan and he says all the places that the light of God should be diffused and Shoghi Effendi then celebrates that in a number of passages where he says during this in formative age of the faith We formative Bahá'u'lláh's have been carrying the light of God diffusing it over the face of the earth But he refers to another stage of the influence of the divine revelation as suffusion so we have infusion Diffusion and suffusion more connected with the golden age of the faith more connected with the light first spreads itself over all the face of the earth and now it's beginning to arrive at the stage where it Penetrates into the life of societies the influence of it then starts transforming not just random individuals but masses of people and finally the governing Nature and character of the faith and its services has has to make itself evident So this is the final stage then of the meaning of this learning that we're going through is to bring us from Diffusion of the faith individual teaching us on into another process of suffusion where the Influence of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings penetrates the realities of sciences and organizations and activities Fortunately, we're not alone. There are passages from the Guardian that say that the mankind There are organizations unconscious of Bahá'u'lláh's revelation which are acting on these same energies and any group of man of people individuals that support our Champion one of Bahá'u'lláh's laws or teachings in some some sort Received the whole energy of the revelation behind them. It's a thrill. It's a thrilling process We're not alone these two the unconscious development of the lesser peace and of all of those things and Our own building of the administrative order through the processes Generated by these creative energies, which are the processes of the administrative order They crystallize in consciousness. They enter into the actions of agencies, which are the Joint connecting of all of us who've been illumined by the process of the revelation and bring forth these stages and bring forth agencies such as the Association of Bahá'u'lláh's studies Where the whole thing is looked at into the future Well friends, you've been very patient I'm happy so happy to have had these moments with you at the beginning of the conference and I wish you great success in your deliberations and your discoveries and Bring up the pearls and show us the The goods