No man can ‘obtain everlasting life’ in the full sense of the term, except through acknowledging the Manifestation of God, in this age, Bahá'u'lláh. If he doesn't do it in this world he will have a chance to progress in the next one.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 19 March 1946, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, quoted by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice in their Memorandum dated28 August 1991; Baha’i Library Online)
Small wonder, then, that the Author of the Bahá’í Faith, and to a lesser degree its Herald, should have directed at the world’s supreme rulers and religious leaders the full force of Their Messages, and made them the recipients of some of Their most sublime Tablets, and invited them, in a language at once clear and insistent, to heed Their call. Small wonder that They should have taken the pains to unroll before their eyes the truths of Their respective Revelations, and should have expatiated on Their woes and sufferings. Small wonder that They should have stressed the preciousness of the opportunities which it was in the power of these rulers and leaders to seize, and should have warned them in ominous tones of the grave responsibilities which the rejection of God’s Message would entail, and should have predicted, when rebuffed and refused, the dire consequences which such a rejection involved. Small wonder that He Who is the King of kings and Vicegerent of God Himself should, when abandoned, contemned and persecuted, have uttered this epigrammatic and momentous prophecy: “From two ranks amongst men power hath been seized: kings and ecclesiastics.”
- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)
You express a longing for greater openness and deeper ties among the believers, for more tolerance of authentic diversity and for greater discipline on the part of the individual and the community. You draw attention to the need for greater sensitivity and cite the importance of cultivating the art of listening, and for enhanced attention to the practical applications of our Faith in all arenas, and to the objectives of the Six Year Plan. These concerns are indeed urgent and compelling, but depend for their successful prosecution upon individual grassroots initiative, forbearance, and resolve, perhaps even more than upon administration, vital as that is.
The following admonitions of the beloved Guardian may be relevant to your meditations:
“The friends must be patient with each other and must realize that the Cause is in its infancy and its institutions are not yet functioning perfectly. The greater the patience, the loving understanding and the forbearance the believers show toward each other and their shortcomings, the greater will be the progress of the whole Bahá’í community at large.” (From a letter dated February 27, 1943, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer.)
Moreover, we are urged to "study deeply the teachings, teach others, study with those Bahá’ís who are anxious to do so, the deeper teachings of our Faith, and through example, effort and prayer, bring about a change." (From a letter dated September 30, 1949, written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer)
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 24 December 1990, written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; ‘The American Bahá'í, March 1991; Baha’i Library Online)
As the friends work together to remove the blight of racism from society, challenges will no doubt arise; however, through patience as well as love for one another, it will be possible for them to encourage and support each other to reflect deeply on their own obligation to deal with the issue of racial prejudice. In such a culture, each individual can personally assess, in an atmosphere of uncensorious forbearance, his or her own condition and possibilities for improvement. In this way, all can grow together and develop their capacities in an environment characterized by tender affection, reciprocity, and cooperation, in which the friends do not sit in judgment of their fellow believers but, rather, urge each other to contribute their share to the establishment of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 29 July 2021, written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer; US Baha’i National Administrative website)
When studying at present, in English, the available Bahá’í writings on the subject of body, soul and spirit, one is handicapped by a certain lack of clarity because not all were translated by the same person, and also there are, as you know, still many Bahá’í writings untranslated. But there is no doubt that spirit and soul seem to have been interchanged in meaning sometimes; soul and mind have, likewise, been interchanged in meaning, no doubt due to difficulties arising from different translations. What the Bahá’ís do believe though is that we have three aspects of our humanness, so to speak, a body, a mind and an immortal identity—soul or spirit. We believe the mind forms a link between the soul and the body, and the two interact on each other.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 7 June 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi; ‘Arohanui, Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand’)
We must not take many of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statements as dogmatic finalities, for there are other points which when added to them round out the picture. For instance, when He calls Aristotle and Plato Philosophers of the East, He is obviously placing them in that category because He believes they belong more correctly to Eastern culture than to Central European and the New World cultures of the West. When He calls the philosophers of the West materialistic this does not for a moment mean He includes all Western philosophers for, as you truly point out, many of them have been very spiritual in their concepts....
Historians cannot be sure Socrates did not visit the Holy Land. But believing as we do that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had an intuitive knowledge quite different from our own, we accept His authority on this matter....
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 7 June 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi; ‘Arohanui, Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand’)
When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says man breaks the laws of nature, He means we shape nature to meet our own needs, as no animal does. Animals adapt themselves to better fit in with and benefit from their environment. But men both surmount and change environment. Likewise when He says nature is devoid of memory He means memory as we have it, not the strange memory of inherited habits which animals so strikingly possess.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 7 June 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi; ‘Arohanui, Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand’)
We cannot prove man was always man for this is a fundamental doctrine, but it is based on the assertion that nothing can exceed its own potentialities, that everything, a stone, a tree, an animal and a human being existed in plan, potentially, from the very “beginning” of creation. We don’t believe man has always had the form of man, but rather that from the outset he was going to evolve into the human form and species and not be a haphazard branch of the ape family.
You see our whole approach to each matter is based on the belief that God sends us divinely inspired Educators; what they tell us is fundamentally true, what science tells us today is true; tomorrow may be entirely changed to better explain a new set of facts.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 7 June 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi; ‘Arohanui, Letters from Shoghi Effendi to New Zealand’)
You may not perhaps know that in connection with all National Assemblies the Guardian is advising that rules and regulations should not be multiplied and new statements on “procedure” issued; we should be elastic in details and rigid in principles; consequently he does not want your Assembly to issue statements of a binding nature unless absolutely necessary.... It is only those who have been spiritually ex-communicated by the Guardian with whom the believers are forbidden to associate, and not a person who is being punished by being deprived of his voting rights. As contributions to Baha’i funds are used to support the administration of the Faith, they should not be accepted from those who are deprived of their voting rights; but such believers, should not be prevented from being buried in a Baha’i Cemetery or receiving charity—which we even give to non-Baha’is—if in dire need.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 8 May 1947 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to NSA of India; ‘Dawn of a New Day’)
The paying of the Huquq is a spiritual obligation; the friends must not be obliged by the Assemblies to pay it, but they should be encouraged to fulfil this spiritual obligation laid upon them in the Aqdas.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 12 October 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to NSA of India; ‘Dawn of a New Day’)
Concerning ... divorce: He has no right to demand from his wife a refund of the marriage expenses he incurred. In the Aqdas it is quite clear that the husband must not only give the dowry but must support his wife until the time when the divorce is completed. In view of this she is not required to repay expenses of the marriage, etc.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 12 October 1946 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to NSA of India; ‘Dawn of a New Day’)
So much for the epoch-making counsels and warnings collectively addressed by the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh to the sovereigns of the earth, and more particularly directed to the kings of Christendom. I would be failing to do justice to my theme were I to ignore, or even to dismiss briefly, those audacious, fate-laden apostrophes to individual monarchs who, whether as kings or emperors, have either viewed with cold indifference the tribulations, or rejected with contempt the warnings, of the twin Founders of our Faith. I can neither quote as fully as I should from the two thousand and more verses that have streamed from the pen of Bahá’u’lláh and, to a lesser extent, from that of the Báb, addressed to individual monarchs in Europe and Asia, nor is it my purpose to expatiate upon the circumstances that have provoked, or the consequences that have flowed from, those astounding utterances. The historian of the future, viewing more widely and in fuller perspective the momentous happenings of the Apostolic and Formative Ages of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh, will no doubt be able to evaluate accurately and to describe in a circumstantial manner the causes, the implications and the effects of these Divine Messages which, in their scope and effectiveness, have certainly no parallel in the religious annals of mankind.
- Shoghi Effendi (‘The Promised Day Is Come’)
The daily prayers are to be said each one for himself, aloud or silent makes no difference. There is no congregational prayer except that for the dead. We read healing and other prayers in our meetings, but the daily prayer is a personal obligation, so someone else reading it is not quite the same thing as saying it for yourself.
- Shoghi Effendi (From a letter dated 31 January 1949 written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer; compilation: ‘Prayer and Devotional Life’, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, February 2019)
The relationship between teaching and social and economic development needs to be considered both in terms of certain fundamental principles and in the context of the processes which characterize the growth of the Bahá’í community. You are well aware of the relevant principles, which include the following: Bahá’ís should give the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh liberally and unconditionally to humanity so that people may apply them to pressing social issues and uplift themselves materially and spiritually; in their dealings with society at large, the friends should be upright and avoid any trace of deception; social and economic development projects should not be used as an inducement to conversion; and funds from non-Bahá’ís should not be utilized for strictly Bahá’í purposes. None of these diminishes the importance of the sacred obligation to teach the Cause. Teaching should remain the dominating passion of the life of every individual believer, and growth a major concern of the Bahá’í community.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a memorandum dated 27 April 1998 to the Office of Social and Economic Development; compilation: ‘Social Action’, prepared by the Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, August 2020, online Baha’i Reference Library of the Baha’i World Center)
Bahá'í teachings on sexual morality centre on marriage and the family as the bedrock of the whole structure of human society and are designed to protect and strengthen that divine institution. Thus Bahá'í law restricts permissible sexual intercourse to that between a man and the woman to whom he is married.
Thus, it should not be so much a matter of whether a practicing homosexual can be a Bahá'í as whether, having become a Bahá'í, the homosexual can overcome his problem through knowledge of the teachings and reliance on Bahá'u'lláh.
- The Universal House of Justice (From a letter dated 14 March 1973; compilation: ‘Homosexuality’ by Research Department of the Universal House of Justice, 1993)