Chapter 48
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Passage on the Maids of Heaven cited incorrectly in compilation on "The Covenant".
The second paragraph in passage 1 below (Starting as: "...Follow not, therefore") from
a compilation on the "The Covenant" is cited incorrectly, omitting key
parts which provide the broader context and message of an important mystical writing. Passage 2 shows the key details. All recent major dispensations have had Dependent/Lesser Prophets, and the same is true of the dispensation of Baha'u'llah. The compilation on the "The Covenant" does not reflect knowledge of divine unity,
a fundamental divine teaching. For example, in the dispensation of Muhammad, knowledge of divine unity meant recognition of Muhammad (the
Independent Prophet and Manifestation of God) and recognition of the Holy Imams (Dependent/Lesser Prophets of Muhammad, Manifestations of God, Angels, who are referred to in many places in the Quran). Imam Ali, the first Dependent/Lesser Prophet of Muhammad referred to himself as "the Object of the Covenant". Similarly, in the dispensation
of Baha'u'llah, knowledge of divine unity means recognition of Baha'u'llah
(the Independent Prophet and Manifestation of God) and recognition of the Maids of Heaven (Dependent/Lesser Prophets of Baha'u'llah, Manifestations of God, Angels, who are referred to in many places in the writings of Baha'u'llah). In passage 2, "I have summoned the Maids of Heaven to emerge from behind
the veil of concealment": Bahá'u'lláh
has called on His pre-existent Dependent/Lesser Prophets to appear on
earth. "and have clothed them with these words of Mine
-- words of consummate power and wisdom": and they
receive their Revelation from Him, the Independent Prophet (explained
further by Abdu'l-Baha when describing the "two classes of Prophets").
Those who "violate not the Covenant of God" are the ones who recognise the Dependent/Lesser Prophets, who are the Face of God (like
the Holy Imams in the era of Muhammad), and who "Break not the bond that
uniteth you with your Creator". Bahá'u'lláh, the Independent Prophet,
receives his revelation directly from God. No Independent Prophet will
appear until after at least one thousand years of Baha'u'llah's dispensation have passed.
1)
The Covenant
Materials assembled by the
Research Department
of the Universal House of Justice
December 1987
...A Covenant in the religious sense is a
binding agreement between God and man, whereby God requires of man
certain behaviour in return for which He guarantees certain blessings,
or whereby He gives man certain bounties in return for which He takes
from those who accept them an undertaking to behave in a certain way.
There is, for example, the Greater Covenant which every Manifestation
of God makes with His followers, promising that in the fulness of time
a new Manifestation will be sent, and taking from them the undertaking
to accept Him when this occurs. There is also the Lesser Covenant that
a Manifestation of God makes with His followers that they will accept
His appointed successor after Him. If they do so, the Faith can remain
united and pure. If not, the Faith becomes divided and its force spent.
It is a Covenant of this kind that Bahá’u’lláh made with His followers
regarding ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá perpetuated through the
Administrative Order...
23 March 1975, from a letter written by the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer
...
...Follow not, therefore, your earthly desires, and violate not the Covenant of God, nor break your pledge to Him. With firm determination, with the whole affection of your heart, and with the full force of your words, turn ye unto Him, and walk not in the ways of the foolish.... Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and strayed from His ways.
(“Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh”, Section CLIII, p. 328) [2]
Full compilation at: https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/compilations/covenant/covenant.pdf?097db775
2)
... Wherefore, O My servants, defile not your wings with the clay of
waywardness and vain desires, and suffer them not to be stained with
the dust of envy and hate, that ye may not be hindered from soaring in
the heavens of My divine knowledge.
O My servants! Through the might of God and His power, and out of the
treasury of His knowledge and wisdom, I have brought forth and revealed
unto you the pearls that lay concealed in the depths of His everlasting
ocean. I have summoned the Maids of Heaven to emerge from behind
the veil of concealment, and have clothed them with these words of Mine
-- words of consummate power and wisdom. I have, moreover, with the
hand of divine power, unsealed the choice wine of My Revelation, and
have wafted its holy, its hidden, and musk-laden fragrance upon all
created things. Who else but yourselves is to be blamed if ye choose to
remain unendowed with so great an outpouring of God's transcendent and
all-encompassing grace, with so bright a revelation of His resplendent
mercy?...
O My servants! There shineth nothing else in Mine heart except the
unfading light of the Morn of Divine guidance, and out of My mouth
proceedeth naught but the essence of truth, which the Lord your God
hath revealed. Follow not, therefore, your earthly desires, and violate
not the Covenant of God, nor break your pledge to Him. With firm
determination, with the whole affection of your heart, and with the
full force of your words, turn ye unto Him, and walk not in the ways of
the foolish. The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing,
bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it.
Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of
those that have erred and strayed from His ways.
-- Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 328
Whoso interpreteth what hath been sent down from the heaven of Revelation, and altereth its evident meaning, he, verily, is of them that have perverted the Sublime Word of God, and is of the lost ones in the Lucid Book.
-- Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 57
3)
In the passage below, from the
writings of Abdu'l-Baha, the "torches [Light] of God's oneness" is another
reference to the pre-existent Dependent/Lesser Prophets of Baha'u'llah, "who would be
the very embodiments of guidance". They are said to be
"torches [Light] of God's oneness", "shining in the heavens where God reigneth
alone" as they are Face of God on earth (like
the Holy Imams in the era of Muhammad); and those who recognise
them show "staunchness [firmness] in the Covenant". As a parallel, the Holy Imams are referred to as "the Light which We have sent down" in Quran 64:8.
203. O thou who art enamoured of the Covenant! The Blessed Beauty [Baha'u'llah]
hath promised this servant that souls would be raised up who would be
the very embodiments of guidance, and banners of the Concourse on high,
torches [Light] of God's oneness, and stars
of His pure truth, shining in the heavens where God reigneth alone.
They would give sight to the blind, and would make the deaf to hear;
they would raise the dead to life. They would confront all the peoples
of the earth, pleading their Cause with proofs of the Lord of the seven
spheres.
It is my hope that in His bounty He will soon raise up these souls,
that His Cause may be exalted. The lodestone which will attract this grace is staunchness in the Covenant. Render thou thanks unto God that thou art firmest of the firm.
O my God, aid Thou Thy servant
to raise up the Word, and to refute what is vain and false, to
establish the truth, to spread the sacred verses abroad, reveal the
splendours, and make the morning's light to dawn in the hearts of the
righteous.
Thou art verily the Generous, the Forgiving.
-- Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha, p. 250
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