(letter to a friend, with prayer and verses, 'experience it', from 12/7/00):
"O thou handmaid aflame with the fire of God's love! Grieve thou not over the troubles and hardships of this nether world, nor be thou glad in times of ease and comfort, for both shall pass away. This present life is even as a swelling wave, or a mirage, or drifting shadows. Could ever a distorted image on the desert serve as refreshing waters? No, by the Lord of Lords! Never can reality and the mere semblance of reality be one, and wide is the difference between fancy and fact, between truth and the phantom thereof.
Know thou that the Kingdom is the real world, and this nether place is only its shadow stretching out. A shadow hath no life of its own; its existence is only a fantasy, and nothing more; it is but images reflected in water, and seeming as pictures to the eye." ('Abdu'l-Baha, Fire & Gold pp184-185)
...We need meetings which are more than intellectual rhetoric, and more than an old world order attempt to create a spiritual reality. We need to actually have the spirit, and that takes authentic human beings who are in touch with the spirit of God! These people need to be actually quickened by the Spirit of God--Oh Lord help us do this, please God help us, please God, we need your spirit to save the souls from the slough of materialism and intellectualism and pride and closed-mindedness, and ignorance and illusion--Oh, God, open their hearts to the actual, living, breathing reality of Your Actual presence and Love and Comfort--not encased by proud shells, stale rhetoric of minds scarred by old world tactics and old game-playing based on old world business and competition and fear and ego and separation--no, no, God! Why should we succumb to ego and separation, when we have the real thing, the Love of God, the authentic, living breathing vehicles of aware, awake, human beings--soft, open to your Love, empty vessels willing to be filled with the real Spiritual power inside the heart of Love, of Baha'u'llah!!
We should not close out personal experience and feeling. This must be dynamic and vital, and must come from the open heart of beings in a receptive mode as well as transmissive and expressive. We need to align with God, emptied of this nether world! ____, please join in--we must win the hearts of the hardened, we must win souls in the faith and outside the Faith! We must truly fight as warriors, as Spiritual Dawnbreakers with a mission so high, it can revolutionize the world! Please join with me and ____ and ____ and ____, and whoever else can stay in this spirit, and not sway us from the Truth--because many within the faith will want to kill our spirit; but many will join us when they see that what we have is real, deep, and authentic, and we are not playing games in the old world order--we want to build the new... I know the others mean well, they are doing good things, they just don't have all the answers they think they have. They don't see the wider reality. We can show them what they are missing, when we consolidate, and focus on the actual spirit of God--not just talk about it. Can you access the actual spirit of God, and commune with his presence, and pray to Baha'u'llah, and really feel His presence, and see His Oneness, and feel it in your being? It is peace, it is faith, it is Love, it is unity, it is humility, it is patience. It is open to all people, it is knowledge.
Okay, I'm losing energy here. I know my ego is involved a bit, here, at least I admit it. Yes, I need people, I'm not fully detached. But God put the fire in my heart, and this is where I am. I need help, yes, I am weak. But God sent us here to unite, and to desire to unite. Yes, I have some pride--but we all do, and God can work with that, as we recognize His Supreme Power and Authority!! Ya-Baha'u'l-Abha! Please pray for me, and thanks for your sincere spirit.
(letter to friend, from 5/30/05, 'face feelings' ):
____, I feel stifled in certain environments that don't honor and acknowledge deeper feelings, including the hidden needs, fears, hurts we all have inside, and also the physical needs and bodily sensations. These environments are focused on intellectual disciplines and methodologies to the exclusion of body and emotions. This is the influence of our culture--it is not balanced nor holistic. I am interested in redressing the balance, and bringing in awareness of and working with the emotions and the body, so that we have complete humans who can experience all of what God has given us to experience. I think you understand very well what I am saying, and I thank you and God that you understand. Let's continue to be that leaven for the community.
I guess I have my limits, and if I spend too much time with certain people in certain environments, I lose my focus, my connection with God, and I can't be loving or helpful anymore. I needed to take a walk in the park and get back to God, and FEEL my feelings, and breathe through my body, and feel and experience more parts of my God-given vehicle for the life-force--the spirit-body. I had to take my negative energy, and just feel it inside without projecting it onto others, and just talk to God and let myself feel the feelings of need, aloneness, hurt and how I just want love and connection with people and with God. I acknowledged my remoteness from God and that I was not loving, and that I want love and I want to feel love and peace and joy. I just felt my feelings, let them flow, did not project them or blame anyone else for my suffering. When I did this, I felt God's presence--I did the work of facing my feelings without blaming--I guess it is called 'owning' my pain. Then I felt transformed and free. I could not do this in the other environment. Then I felt that I wanted to share this and I wanted companionship, but then even that is a desire, and I was closer to God then, so I could work with those painful emotions more easily. It is a constant dance and unfolding...
(letter to a friend, 'wave of the spirit', from 8/6/01):
...I am trying to encourage cell groups of a few people who trust each other, and feel comfortable with each other, to begin to explore the areas in their lives that need transforming and spiritualizing. We need to empty our worldly egos and the roles and acts we play for the world, and begin to access and receive the Holy Spirit through the Word and through prayer. I have come across some amazing Christian sermons, and I must tell you--Christians blow us away as far as being filled with the Holy Spirit, and getting to the point of what people need for healing and transformation. They've been doing it for decades. We're generally stuck in this intellectual, business-like, proper, white, middle-class, professional consciousness, and we can barely move out of it. Now, I realize we are making some growth--you can see that we are moving, and many of us are aware of the present limitations, and many of see where we have to go. But there needs to be a powerful force, or movement in the community--kind of like they have in Christianity--a wave of the Holy Spirit radiating from one, two, or several souls. These souls will ignite others, and the fire will spread. Or we can do cell groups, all linked by the same Spirit of God, and the cell groups will start with one or two, and they will divide and grow, and occupy the same organism--the body of Baha, if you will. Of course it will soon spread to the greater community, and we will see entry by troops.
I can't say exactly how it will happen. We know we have the guidance from the UHJ, in the five-year plan. There's a lot we can do. I have my own personal goals and vision. I will enlist any I find who are compatible with my goals, according to my gifts and talents, and their gifts and talents. We have to link people together. If we can't get everybody together, at least we can get together those who are already friends to begin to become more focused on God, on the Word, on prayer, on transformation. So if you get together for coffee, or a movie, how about instead talk about the spiritual world, or what problems you're having that prevent you from experiencing the love of God? We have a lot of layers of worldly conditioning to work through. It is purification and cleansing. Sometimes only tests will serve to motivate the person to cut his attachment to something, or impel him to turn to God with fervent prayer and supplication, or stimulate his deeper consciousness, or cause him to attempt to look at himself and life from a different angle.
There are levels of consciousness in each one of us which are untapped and which could provide limitless experience of the divine. Some of these levels cannot be tapped unless we are inspired in a group setting with spiritual music and devotions. Then we must hold onto it, nurture and cultivate those higher awarenesses of God, and ourselves. We must not be afraid to look into ourselves, our egos--our identity--what do we show to the world--how can that be different if we had support systems that nurtured true spiritual growth, instead of the present system, which nurtures worldliness and comformity and separation and hiding our feelings and playing roles for this world. Inside is a mine of gems suited for a new world, which we must work together to create...
(two excerpts from letter to friends, 'One Light', and 'struggle of self'):
...I know your life is complicated. I wish I could convey to you the importance of clinging to God, to His Cause, to the hope of ultimate victory, to the vision of service in His Cause. It is that One Light that shines constantly amidst all the tumult and turmoil of this nether world, all the melodramas of this passing, ephemeral world; all the power games, the judgments, the cruelties, the ignorance of all the people that dwell here on earth. There is that one Point of Light, of Hope, that is expanded in fantastic Glory, and with it comes all the Hope and Joy and True Life, and all of Reality exists in It, and only in It. All else will pale in comparison to Its Wondrous Glory!
____, I know you want to remove the struggle of self, and the feeling of shame, guilt, or inadequacy you may feel. By actually doing the physical things which you think will be living up to the standards you feel will make you worthy, you will still not remove the struggle of self. For without having your inner being lit by the love of God, and being lifted into the Transcendent Kingdom, and soaring on the wings of the Spirit above all created things, you are still bound to the cravings of self--cravings for approval and acceptance from people perpetuating the myth that doing something outwardly in order to gain the acceptance or approval you crave will save you from your pain.
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