2011
Paris Talks Revisited: The Holy Spirit
A prayer that is dear to me is the one in which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks about the transformation of souls, using the metaphors of moths becoming royal falcons, and brooks becoming seas. Such powerful imagery! What is it that transforms souls […]
2011
Paris Talks Revisited: The Relation Between Man and God
What is the relation between man and God? I find this to be a ‘big’ question because, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains, God is the Infinite, the Unknowable: Things which are understood by men cannot be outside their capacity for understanding, so […]
Paris Talks Revisited: Beauty and Harmony in Diversity
I wonder how ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s talk on the 28th of October 1911 stood in contrast with the widespread and generally accepted nationalistic and racist ideas of the time. While we have made progress since then in letting go such ideas, the ways […]
2011
Paris Talks: Pain and Sorrow
“Take thou the step of the spirit,” Bahá’u’lláh wrote in 1861, “so that, swift as the twinkling of an eye, thou mayest flash through the wilds of remoteness and bereavement …” (The Book of Certitude, p.43). Fifty years later, on […]
2011
Paris Talks: Development of the Soul
Full Article available here. We do not need a near-death-experience in order to catch a glimpse of the world to come. In His talk “The Evolution of Matter and Development of the Soul” on the 3rd of November 1911 ‘Abdu’l-Bahá speaks […]