August 30

Even though Shoghi Effendi would urge every believer to sacrifice as much as possible for the sake of contributing towards the fund of the National Assembly, yet he would discourage the friends to incur debts for that purpose. We are asked to give what we have, not what we do not possess, especially if such an act causes suffering to others. In such matters we should use judgement and wisdom and take into our confidence other devoted Bahá'ís. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, 4 May 1932 to an individual believer; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. I, Baha’i Funds and Contributions)

August 28

Another essential thing is that those who do embrace the Faith should be constantly urged to study the literature of the Cause. It is not sufficient that our numbers should increase, we want people whose faith stands on a rock and no trial can move. We want people who will in turn arise and carry the Message to other people and guide other souls. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 13 April 1932 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. I, The Importance of Deepening Our Knowledge and Understanding of the Faith)

August 26

Perhaps the reason why you have not accomplished so much in the field of teaching is the extent you looked upon your own weaknesses and inabilities to spread the message. Bahá'u'lláh and the Master have both urged us repeatedly to disregard our own handicaps and lay our whole reliance upon God. He will come to our help if we only arise and become an active channel for God's grace. Do you think it is the teachers who make converts and change human hearts? No, surely not. They are only pure souls who take the first step, and then let the spirit of Bahá'u'lláh move them and make use of them. If any one of them should even for a second consider his achievements as due to his own capacities, his work is ended and his fall starts. This is in fact the reason why so many competent souls have after wonderful services suddenly found themselves absolutely impotent and perhaps thrown aside by the Spirit of the Cause as useless souls. The criterion is the extent to which we are ready to have the will of God operate through us.

Stop being conscious of your frailties, therefore; have a perfect reliance upon God; let your heart burn with the desire to serve His mission and proclaim His call; and you will observe how eloquence and the power to change human hearts will come as a matter of course.

Shoghi Effendi will surely pray for your success if you should arise and start to teach. In fact the mere act of arising will win for you God's help and blessings. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 31 March 1932 to an individual believer written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. II, The Power of Divine Assistance)

August 24

The account of your work among the foreign students made Shoghi Effendi very happy. Not only will these young people get a good impression of American families and hospitality, but the spiritual training you try to give them will make their education so much more complete and worthwhile. This is beside the fact that in their heart is planted the seeds of the Bahá'í teachings which in time will germinate and bring forth wondrous fruits. All these young people when they return home will carry the Message with them and even though they do not become confirmed believers, they will remain friends always ready to render a service to the Bahá'í teachers they happen to meet. Shoghi Effendi hopes you will carry on that work but at the same time try to make them true Bahá'ís -- in spirit as well as in faith. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 4 February 1932 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. II, Youth)

August 22

The Bahá’í approach to resolution of the manifold problems affecting human society rests upon the assertion by Bahá’u’lláh that these ills are but various symptoms and side effects of the basic disease, which the Divine Physician has diagnosed to be disunity. Bahá’u’lláh has made it abundantly clear that the first step essential for the health and harmony of the whole of mankind is its unification. He says, "The well-being of mankind, its peace and security are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established" (The World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 203). By contrast, the approach of most people is the exact opposite: their concentration is on attempts to remedy the multitude of ills besetting mankind, with the expectation that the resolution of these problems will lead ultimately to unity.

This unity can only be achieved through the spreading of the Faith and the building up of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’u’lláh states in Gleanings, Section 120:

That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (From a letter dated 15 June, 1987 to two individuals; ‘Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1986-2001’)

August 20

The time has come, Bahá’u’lláh said, when humanity has both the capacity and the opportunity to see the entire panorama of its spiritual development as a single process: “Peerless is this Day, for it is as the eye to past ages and centuries, and as a light unto the darkness of the times.” In this perspective, the followers of differing religious traditions must strive to understand what He called “the changeless Faith of God” and to distinguish its central spiritual impulse from the changing laws and concepts that were revealed to meet the requirements of an ever-evolving human society…

It is not only the heart, but the mind, which must devote itself to this process of discovery. Reason, Bahá’u’lláh asserts, is God’s greatest gift to the soul, “a sign of the revelation of … the sovereign Lord.” Only by freeing itself from inherited dogma, whether religious or materialistic, can the mind take up an independent exploration of the relationship between the Word of God and the experience of humankind. In such a search, a major obstacle is prejudice: “Warn … the beloved of the one true God, not to view with too critical an eye the sayings and writings of men. Let them rather approach such sayings and writings in a spirit of open-mindedness and loving sympathy.” ……

(From a statement entitled: ‘Baha’u’llah’, prepared by the Bahá'í International Community Office of Public Information, at the request of the Universal House of Justice and published in 1992)

August 18

Bahá’u’lláh compares the interventions of the Divine Revelations to the return of spring. The Messengers of God are not merely teachers, although this is one of their primary functions. Rather, the spirit of their words, together with the example of their lives, has the capacity to tap the roots of human motivation and to induce fundamental and lasting change. Their influence opens new realms of understanding and achievement… Without this intervention from the world of God, human nature remains the captive of instinct, as well as of unconscious assumptions and patterns of behavior that have been culturally determined……

(From a statement entitled: ‘Baha’u’llah’, prepared by the Bahá'í International Community Office of Public Information, at the request of the Universal House of Justice and published in 1992)

August 16

Shoghi Effendi was very glad to hear that so many new souls were confirmed there. As we see the suffering around us, caused by the prevailing financial crises, we should redouble our energy in bringing the message of comfort and peace to those desperate souls, and add to our labours that the golden age promised by Bahá'u'lláh may dawn sooner.... 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 18 November 1931 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, published in "Bahá'í News" 63 (June 1932); The Compilation of Compilations, vol. 1, Centers of Baha’i Learning)

August 14

Concerning the course of study you may follow … The Cause is such that we can serve it no matter what our profession may be. The only necessity is that we be spiritually minded and not be guided by purely material considerations. We should also not let our studies detain us from deepening our knowledge of the literature of the Cause. 

- Shoghi Effendi  From a letter dated 9 November 1931 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. III, Scholarship)

August 12

Being a Bahá'í you are certainly aware of the fact that Bahá'u'lláh considered education as one of the most fundamental factors of a true civilization. This education, however, in order to be adequate and fruitful, should be comprehensive in nature and should take into consideration not only the physical and the intellectual side of man but also his spiritual and ethical aspects. This should be the programme of the Bahá'í youth all over the world.

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 9 July 1931 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. I, The Importance of Deepening Our Knowledge and Understanding of the Faith)

August 10

The interest which the Bahá’ís have and should have in this language [Esperanto] is essentially because of the vital significance of the idea it represents rather than the belief in its inherent worth as a suitable and adequate international medium of expression.

The Bahá’ís indeed welcome Esperanto as the first experiment of its kind in modern times. They are in full sympathy with the Esperantists in so far as they stress the absolute necessity for the creation of an international language to be studied by all the peoples of the world in addition to their respective national languages. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 1937 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual; compilation: The Principles of an International Auxiliary Language’, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice’, 2002)

August 8

...Shoghi Effendi hoped that you will exert all your efforts first in deepening your own knowledge of the teachings and then to strive to attract other people. You should form study classes and read the Important books that have been published especially the Iqán which contains the basic tenets of the Faith. The one who ponders over that book and grasps its full significance will obtain a clear insight into the old scriptures and appreciate the true mission of the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh. 

- Shoghi Effendi  (From a letter dated 27 March 1931 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to the Local Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá'ís of St. Louis, Missouri, USA; The Compilation of Compilations, vol. I, The Importance of Deepening Our Knowledge and Understanding of the Faith)

August 6

The Bahá’í Writings enjoin the acquisition of knowledge and the study of the arts and sciences. Bahá’ís are admonished to respect people of learning and accomplishment, and are warned against the pursuit of studies that are productive only of futile wrangling.

In His Tablets Bahá’u’lláh counsels the believers to study such sciences and arts as are “useful” and would further “the progress and advancement” of society, and He cautions against sciences which “begin with words and end with words”, the pursuit of which leads to “idle disputation”. Shoghi Effendi, in a letter written on his behalf, likened sciences that “begin with words and end with words” to “fruitless excursions into metaphysical hair-splittings”, and, in another letter, he explained that what Bahá’u’lláh primarily intended by such “sciences” are “those theological treatises and commentaries that encumber the human mind rather than help it to attain the truth”. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (The ‘Notes’ section of the Kitab-i-Aqdas)

August 4

In the Tablet of Ishráqát Bahá’u’lláh, referring to the fact that the Báb had made the laws of the Bayán subject to His sanction, states that He put some of the Báb’s laws into effect “by embodying them in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas in different words”, while others He set aside. 

- The Universal House of Justice  (The ‘Notes’ section of the Kitab-i-Aqdas)

August 2

The Bayán, the Mother Book of the Bábí Dispensation, is the title given by the Báb to His Book of Laws, and it is also applied to the entire body of His Writings. The Persian Bayán is the major doctrinal work and principal repository of the laws ordained by the Báb. The Arabic Bayán is parallel in content but smaller and less weighty. When describing the Persian Bayán in God Passes By Shoghi Effendi indicated that it should be regarded “primarily as a eulogy of the Promised One rather than as a code of laws and ordinances designed to be a permanent guide to future generations”.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá has written: “The Bayán hath been superseded by the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, except in respect of such laws as have been confirmed and mentioned in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas.” 

- The Universal House of Justice  (The ‘Notes’ section of the Kitab-i-Aqdas)