Also, George?…thanks so much for all your blog listings. A great resource.
I guess I’ll have to comment on the reference to “arcane explanations”. Well, I just posted something to that effect above referring to how Baha’u’llah says Himself that His Revelation is “abstruse” which I think is synonymous with “arcane” as well as the idea of being “mysterious” or “esoteric”. It is explained in the writings that there are two levels of reality when it comes to the Revelations of God. One is outward or apparent and the other is esoteric or “arcane” and this pattern of communicating with His Creation through this method of both the apparent and the “arcane” will continue as long as there is life on this planet. If you read the Babi and Baha’i histories, you don’t find the things that occured and the events and the turmoil and the disputes and the martyrdoms and everything that has happened in the last 150 years “arcane” or just your everyday hum drum apparently nice religion? The events that occured are “sorely trying and highly perplexing” and so they wil continue to be to continue to test His servants to see who will cleave to the Spirit or who will whither away as they cut themselves off by putting the blinders of materialism on and put out their third spiritual eye to see the exact same patterns happening over and over again.
Oh, also about the 99 and 44/100ths…what’s left to me sounds like a mere handful of people…..
XCII. The Book of God is wide open, and His Word is summoning mankind unto Him. No more than a mere handful, however, hath been found willing to cleave to His Cause, or to become the instruments for its promotion.
(Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 183)
The Cause of God is to usher in a great peaceful World civilization centererd around the knowledge and love of God which is given to us in a great Promise also called a Covenant and this Covenant is the same Covenant that has existed for six thousand years. The Center of this Covenant is the Guardianship that is the focal point of unity as proclaimed in the writings. The Guardianship is the continuation of the line of David through Baha’u’llah and is the manifestation of the words of Christ: Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Victor