The number of months in a year, appointed in the Book of
God, is nineteen. Of these the first hath been adorned with this Name which
overshadoweth the whole of creation.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Aqdas’)
July 30
You are well aware of what befell His [Muhammad’s] Faith in
the early days of His dispensation. What woeful sufferings did the hand of the
infidel and erring, the divines of that age and their associates, inflict upon
that spiritual Essence, that most pure and holy Being! How abundant the thorns
and briars which they have strewn over His path! It is evident that wretched
generation, in their wicked and satanic fancy, regarded every injury to that
immortal Being as a means to the attainment of an abiding felicity; inasmuch as
the recognized divines of that age… all treated Him as an impostor, and
pronounced Him a lunatic and a calumniator. Such sore accusations they brought against
Him that in recounting them God forbiddeth the ink to flow, Our pen to move, or
the page to bear them. These malicious imputations provoked the people to arise
and torment Him. And how fierce that torment if the divines of the age be its
chief instigators, if they denounce Him to their followers, cast Him out from
their midst, and declare Him a miscreant! Hath not the
same befallen this Servant, and been witnessed by all?
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Iqan)
July 29
Open thine eyes that thou mayest behold this Wronged One
shining forth above the horizon of the will of God, the Sovereign, the Truth,
the Resplendent. Unstop, then, the ear of thine heart that thou mayest hearken
unto the speech of the Divine Lote-Tree that hath been raised up in truth by
God, the Almighty, the Beneficent. Verily, this Tree… calleth aloud and
summoneth all men unto the Sadratu’l-Muntahá and the Supreme Horizon. Blessed
is the soul that hath gazed on the Most Mighty Sign, and the ear that hath
heard His most sweet Voice, and woe to whosoever hath turned aside and done
wickedly.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
July 28
Glory be unto Him Who is the Lord of all that are in the
heavens and on the earth; He is the All-Wise, the All-Informed. It is He Who calleth into being whatsoever He willeth at
His behest; He is indeed the Clement, the Fashioner. Say, verily He is equal to
His purpose; whomsoever He willeth, He maketh victorious through the power of
His hosts; there is none other God but Him, the Mighty, the Wise. His is the
kingdom of earth and heaven and He is the Lord of power and glory. Such as have
believed in God and in His signs are indeed the followers of truth and shall
abide in the gardens of delight, while those who have disbelieved in God and
have rejected that which He hath revealed, these shall be the inmates of the
fire wherein they shall remain forever. Say, most people have openly repudiated
God and have followed the rebellious wicked doers. Such people resemble those
who have gone before them, upholding every hostile oppressor.
- The Báb (‘Selections from the Writings of the Báb)
July 27
In the Bayán it had been forbidden you to ask Us questions.
The Lord hath now relieved you of this prohibition, that ye may be free to ask what
you need to ask, but not such idle questions as those on which the men of
former times were wont to dwell. Fear God, and be ye of the righteous! Ask ye
that which shall be of profit to you in the Cause of God and His dominion, for
the portals of His tender compassion have been opened before all who dwell in
heaven and on earth.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Aqdas’)
July 26
O Thou the
Lord of the visible and the invisible, and the Enlightener of all creation! I
beseech Thee, by Thy sovereignty which is hid from the eyes of men, to reveal
in all directions the signs of Thy manifold blessings and the tokens of Thy
loving-kindness, that I may arise with exultation and rapture and extol Thy
wondrous virtues, O Thou the Most Merciful, and stir up by Thy name all created
things, and so kindle the fire of Thy glorification amidst Thy creatures, that
all the world may be filled with the brightness of the light of Thy glory, and
all existence be inflamed with the fire of Thy Cause.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Prayers
and Meditations by Baha’u’llah’)
July 25
Know thou and be well assured that from the first day
whereon the voice of the Most Sublime Pen was raised betwixt earth
and heaven We offered up Our souls, and Our bodies, and Our sons, and Our
possessions in the path of God, the Exalted, the Great, and We glory therein
amongst all created things and the Concourse on high. Unto this testify the
things which have befallen Us in this straight Path. By God! Our hearts were
consumed, and Our bodies were crucified, and Our blood was spilt, while Our
eyes were fixed on the horizon of the loving-kindness of their Lord, the
Witness, the All-Seeing. The more grievous their woes, the greater waxed the
love of the people of Bahá.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
July 24
Say: True liberty consisteth in man’s submission unto My
commandments, little as ye know it. Were men to observe that which We have sent
down unto them from the Heaven of Revelation, they would, of a certainty,
attain unto perfect liberty. Happy is the man that hath apprehended the Purpose
of God in whatever He hath revealed from the Heaven of His Will that pervadeth
all created things. Say: The liberty that profiteth you is to be found nowhere
except in complete servitude unto God, the Eternal Truth. Whoso hath tasted of
its sweetness will refuse to barter it for all the dominion of earth and
heaven.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Aqdas’)
July 23
Consider the pettiness of men’s minds.
They ask for that which injureth them, and cast away the thing that profiteth
them. They are, indeed, of those that are far astray. We find some men desiring
liberty, and priding themselves therein. Such men are in the depths of
ignorance.
Liberty must, in the end, lead to sedition,
whose flames none can quench. Thus warneth you He Who is the Reckoner, the
All-Knowing. Know ye that the embodiment of liberty and its symbol is the
animal. That which beseemeth man is submission unto such restraints as will
protect him from his own ignorance, and guard him against the harm of the
mischief-maker. Liberty causeth man to overstep the bounds of propriety, and to
infringe on the dignity of his station. It debaseth him to the level of extreme
depravity and wickedness.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Aqdas’)
July 22
It behooveth you to await the Day of
the appearance of Him Whom God shall manifest. Indeed My aim in planting the
Tree of the Bayán hath been none other than to enable you to recognize Me. In
truth I Myself am the first to bow down before God and to believe in Him.
Therefore let not your recognition become fruitless, inasmuch as the Bayán,
notwithstanding the sublimity of its station, beareth fealty to Him Whom God
shall make manifest, and it is He Who beseemeth most to be acclaimed as the
Seat of divine Reality, though indeed He is I and I am He. However, when the
Tree of the Bayán attaineth its highest development, We shall bend it low as a
token of adoration towards its Lord Who will appear in the person of Him Whom
God shall make manifest. Perchance ye may be privileged to glorify God as it
befitteth His august Self.
- The Báb (‘Selections from the Writings of the Báb)
July 21
Know thou that he is truly learned who hath acknowledged My
Revelation, and drunk from the Ocean of My knowledge, and soared in the
atmosphere of My love, and cast away all else besides Me, and taken firm hold
on that which hath been sent down from the Kingdom of My wondrous utterance.
He, verily, is even as an eye unto mankind, and as the spirit of life unto the
body of all creation. Glorified be the All-Merciful Who hath enlightened him,
and caused him to arise and serve His great and mighty Cause. Verily, such a
man is blessed by the Concourse on high, and by them who dwell within the
Tabernacle of Grandeur, who have quaffed My sealed Wine in My Name, the
Omnipotent, the All-Powerful.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
July 20
…the terms sovereignty, wealth, life, death, judgment and
resurrection, spoken of by the scriptures of old, are not what this generation
hath conceived and vainly imagined. Nay, by sovereignty is meant that
sovereignty which in every dispensation resideth within, and is exercised by,
the person of the Manifestation, the Day-star of Truth. That sovereignty is the
spiritual ascendancy which He exerciseth to the fullest degree over all that is
in heaven and on earth, and which in due time revealeth itself to the world in direct proportion to its capacity and spiritual
receptiveness…
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Kitab-i-Iqan)
July 19
With the utmost friendliness and in a spirit of perfect
fellowship take ye counsel together, and dedicate the precious days of your lives
to the betterment of the world and the promotion of the Cause of Him Who is the
Ancient and Sovereign Lord of all. He, verily, enjoineth upon all men what is
right, and forbiddeth whatsoever degradeth their station.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah’)
July 18
He will, erelong, out of the Bosom of Power, draw forth the
Hands of Ascendancy and Might –– Hands who will arise to win victory for this
Youth, and who will purge mankind from the defilement of the outcast and the
ungodly. These Hands will gird up their loins to champion the Faith of God, and
will, in My name, the Self-Subsistent, the Mighty, subdue the peoples and
kindreds of the earth. They will enter the cities, and will inspire with fear
the hearts of all their inhabitants. Such are the evidences of the might of
God; how fearful, how vehement is His might!
- Baha’u’llah (Quoted by Shoghi Effendi in a dated 25
December 1938, published as ‘The Advent of Divine Justice’; also included
in a compilation on ‘A New Race of Men’ prepared by the Research Department
of the Universal House of Justice and attached to a letter dated 15 September
2013 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual
believer)
July 17
The day is approaching when God will have, by an act of His
Will, raised up a race of men the nature of which is inscrutable to all save
God, the All-Powerful, the Self-Subsisting.
- Baha’u’llah (Quoted by Shoghi Effendi in a letter
dated 25 December 1938, published as ‘The Advent of Divine Justice’; also
included in a compilation on ‘A New Race of Men’ prepared by the
Research Department of the Universal House of Justice and attached to a letter
dated 15 September 2013 written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to
an individual believer)
July 16
The conceptions of the devoutest of mystics, the attainments
of the most accomplished amongst men, the highest praise which human tongue or
pen can render are all the product of man’s finite mind and are conditioned by
its limitations. Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses, are thunderstruck upon
the Sinai of their search at His forbidding voice, “Thou shalt never behold
Me!”; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as great as Jesus, stand dismayed upon
their heavenly thrones by the interdiction, “Mine Essence thou shalt never
apprehend!” From time immemorial He hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity
of His exalted Self, and will everlastingly continue to be wrapt in the
impenetrable mystery of His unknowable Essence. Every attempt to attain to an
understanding of His inaccessible Reality hath ended in complete bewilderment,
and every effort to approach His exalted Self and envisage His Essence hath
resulted in hopelessness and failure.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah’)
July 15
The heart must be sanctified from every form of selfishness
and lust, for the weapons of the unitarians and the saints were and are the
fear of God. That is the buckler which guardeth man from the arrows of hatred
and abomination. Unceasingly hath the standard of piety been victorious, and
accounted amongst the most puissant hosts of the world. Thereby do the saints
subdue the cities of [men’s] hearts by the permission of God, the Lord of
hosts.
- Baha’u’llah (Quoted by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in ‘A Traveler’s Narrative’)
July 14
O Son of Man! Rejoice in the gladness
of thine heart, that thou mayest be worthy to meet Me and to mirror forth My
beauty.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah’)
July 13
The Pen of Admonition exhorteth the friends and enjoineth on
them charity, pity, wisdom, and gentleness. The Oppressed One is this day a
prisoner; His allies are the hosts of good deeds and virtues; not ranks, and
hosts, and guns, and cannons. One holy action maketh the world of earth highest
paradise.
- Baha’u’llah (Quoted by ‘Abdu’l-Baha in ‘A Traveler’s Narrative’)
July 12
O servants!
Eyes are needed if one is to see, and ears, if one is to hear. Whoso in this
blessed Day hath not heard the divine call hath indeed no ear. By this is not
meant that bodily ear that is perceived by the eye. Open your inner eye, that
ye may behold the celestial Fire, and listen with the ear of inner
understanding, that ye may hear the delightsome words of the Beloved.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Tabernacle of Unity’)
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