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 »
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 »
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The Sun of Righteousness |
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Bahá’u’lláh taught that the Prophet, or “Manifestation of
God,” is the Light-bringer of the spiritual world, as the sun is
the light-bringer of the natural world. Just as the material sun
shines over the earth and causes the growth and development
of material organisms, so also, through the Divine Manifestation,
the Sun of Truth shines upon the world of heart and soul,
and educates the thoughts, morals and characters of men. And
just as the rays of the natural sun have an influence which
penetrates into the darkest and shadiest corners of the world,
giving warmth and life even to creatures that have never seen
the sun itself, so also, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit through
the Manifestation of God influences the lives of all, and inspires
receptive minds even in places and among peoples where
the name of the Prophet is quite unknown. The advent of the
Manifestation is like the coming of the Spring. It is a day of
Resurrection in which the spiritually dead are raised to new
life, in which the Reality of the Divine Religions is renewed and
reestablished, in which appear “new heavens and a new earth.”
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But, in the world of nature, the Spring brings about not only
the growth and awakening of new life but also the destruction
and removal of the old and effete; for the same sun, that makes
the flowers to spring and the trees to bud, causes also the decay
and disintegration of what is dead and useless; it loosens the
ice and melts the snow of winter, and sets free the flood and
the storm that cleanse and purify the earth. So is it also in the
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spiritual world. The spiritual sunshine causes similar commotion
and change. Thus the Day of Resurrection is also the Day
of Judgment, in which corruptions and imitations of the truth
and outworn ideas and customs are discarded and destroyed,
in which the ice and snow of prejudice and superstition, which
accumulated during the season of winter, are melted and transformed,
and energies long frozen and pent up are released to
flood and renovate the world.
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