A new version of the Bahá’í Reference Library is now available. This ‘old version’ of the Bahá’í Reference Library will be replaced at a later date.
The new version of the Bahá’i Reference Library can be accessed here »
“Not of Mine Own Volition” |
I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes
of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of
all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is
Almighty and All-Knowing. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth
and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of
every man of understanding to flow. The learning current amongst men I
studied not; their schools I entered not. Ask of the city wherein I
dwelt, that thou mayest be well assured that I am not of them who speak
falsely.
1
|
The mission to which He had devoted His entire life, which had cost Him
the life of a cherished younger son
2
, as well as all of His material ,
possessions which had undermined His health, and brought imprisonment, exile,
and abuse, was not one that He had initiated. “Not of Mine own volition,” He
said, had He entered on such a course:
|
Think ye, O people, that I hold within My grasp the control of God’s
ultimate Will and Purpose?… Had the ultimate destiny of God’s Faith
been in Mine hands, I would have never consented, even though for one
moment, to manifest Myself unto you, nor would I have allowed one word
to fall from My lips. Of this God Himself is, verily, a witness.
3
26
|
Having surrendered unreservedly to God’s summons, He was equally in no
doubt about the role which He had been called upon to play in human history.
As the Manifestation of God to the age of fulfillment, He is the one promised
in all the scriptures of the past, the “Desire of all nations,” the “King of
Glory.” To Judaism He is “Lord of Hosts”; to Christianity, the Return of Christ
in the glory of the Father; to Islam, the “Great Announcement”; to Buddhism,
the Maitreya Buddha; to Hinduism, the new incarnation of Krishna; to
Zoroastrianism, the advent of “Sháh-Bahrám.”
4
|
Like the Manifestations of God gone before Him, He is both the Voice of
God and its human channel: “When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship that
bindeth me to Thee, I am moved to proclaim to all created things ‘verily I am
God!’; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!”
5
|
“Certain ones among you,” He declared, “have said: ‘He it is Who hath laid
claim to be God.’ By God! This is a gross calumny. I am but a servant of God
Who hath believed in Him and in His signs… My tongue, and My heart, and My
inner and My outer being testify that there is no God but Him, that all others
have been created by His behest, and been fashioned through the operation of
His Will…. I am He that telleth abroad the favors with which God hath,
through His bounty, favored Me. If this be My transgression, then I am truly
the first of the transgressors….”
6
|
I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping
wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight.
7
|
This is but a leaf which the winds of the will of thy Lord, the Almighty,
the All-Praised, have stirred. Can it be still when the tempestuous winds
are blowing? Nay, by Him Who is the Lord of all Names and Attributes!
They move it as they list….
8
|
1. | Epistle, p. 11. The phrase “Not of Mine own volition” appears in the same paragraph immediately above the excerpt cited. [ Back To Reference] |
2. | Bahá’u’lláh’s son, Mírzá Mihdí, a youth of twenty-two, died in 1870 in an accidental fall resulting from the conditions in which the family was imprisoned. [ Back To Reference] |
3. | Gleanings, pp. 91. [ Back To Reference] |
4. | God Passes By, pp. 94–96. [ Back To Reference] |
5. | World Order, p. 113. [ Back To Reference] |
6. | Gleanings, p. 228. [ Back To Reference] |
7. | Tablets, p. 169. [ Back To Reference] |
8. | Epistle, pp. 11–12. [ Back To Reference] |