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Baha’u’llah says that God created human beings because God loves them. Having done that, God asks to be loved in return. God sends Baha’u’llah to deliver this message. In doing this, Baha’u’llah has two purposes. First, to teach each person how to make good on God’s offer and thereby achieve salvation, which is an eternal…

I was born in 1959. When I grew up, I was socialised by romance narratives. Pretty much every popular song was a love song. Romance stories filled the movies. Romance stories filled television. I believed in romance. I believed I would fall in love with someone and marry him. I was aware that the romance…

Paragraph 11 – Scripture tailored to the divine purpose and human condition In this blog post, I continue with my commentary on Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of the Son. In paragraph 11, Baha’u’llah cites an example of how God rearranges words and meaning at the time of a new revelation. He gives a challenging example. He asks…

I have argued that the physical world has two roles: one, to be the object of science; and two, to be the symbolic representation of the spiritual worlds. Baha’i scripture is chock full of gorgeous symbolic language. Why? In order to transport the reader to the spiritual worlds. The Baha’i World Centre has released a…

One of the principles taught by Abdu’l-Baha is that science and religion are one; that they are both representations of the one truth. Jean-Marc Lepain, in his Archeology of the Kingdom of God, page 177, has an interesting way of explaining this principle. He begins with the statement that Nature can be looked at from…

A poem of great beauty not known to English speakers is now available in English translation. The poem is Az Bágh-i-Iláhí (Hailing from the Godly Garden) and the translator is Adib Masumian. It is among the most well-known works of Baha’u’llah. Adib Taherzadeh describes it as follows: “Az-Bágh-i-Iláhí is an ode revealed not long before the Declaration…

For most of this year, I have been slowing writing a commentary on Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of the Son. The commentary is not a long complicated affair – it’s just short notes of interest on each paragraph. The tablet is reasonably lengthy, running to 33 paragraphs. I chose to do this commentary because I think Tablet…

Human beings can be likened to spiritual websites; that is, collections of spiritual information that is put on display for those who come looking for it. A nice idea is to think of a person as a spiritual website. In this scenario, all of creation is the spiritual internet, which is powered by the Divine…

Spiritual growth on earth is all about learning to turn one’s attention away from the affairs of the world and onto the divine realities of the Kingdom. The human soul works like a mirror, which always reflects what it is facing. If the soul is turned toward the earth, it will reflect earthly realities, and…

Do you want to find some new or juicy works of Baha’u’llah to read in your mornings and evenings? Look no further than the “Translations Elsewhere” tables on my Windflower Translations website. The tables contain lists of English translations available on the Internet, with links to them and to YouTube readings of them (where available)….