When the Shrine he had erected with so much love and care was completed, Shoghi Effendi, recognizing in it an essentially feminine quality of beauty and purity, called it the Queen of Carmel. He described it as enthroned on Gods Holy Mountain, crowned with glowing gold, robed in shimmering white and girdled with emerald green, a sight enchanting every eye, whether viewed from the air, the sea, the plain or the hill. Of the innumerable passages in which Shoghi Effendi extolled and explained the profound spiritual significance of this Spot none is more striking and more powerful than that in which he visualizes the remains of the Martyr-Herald of the Faith as the centre of a spiritual vortex. The Bab, Whom Baháulláh Himself had described as The Point round Whom the realities of the Prophets and Messengers revolve in the realm of the spirit, is, Shoghi Effendi said, in the Sacred Dust of His physical form left upon earth, the heart and centre of nine concentric circles: the outermost of these circles is the planet itself; inside this lies the Most Holy Land, described by Abdul-Bahá as the Nest of the Prophets ; inside this Nest is the Mountain of God, the Vineyard of the Lord, the Retreat of Elijah Whose Return the Bab Himself symbolized; contained on this Mountain are the sacred precincts, the international endowment-lands of the Faith; it is their gardens and terraces which constitute the Most Holy Court; within this Court, standing in all its exquisite beauty, is the Mausoleum of the Bab, the Shell; within this Shell is the Pearl of Great Price, the Holy of Holies, the original Tomb built by the Master Himself; preserved inside this Holy of Holies is the Vault or Tabernacle, the central chamber of the Shrine; within this Vault is the alabaster Sarcophagus, the Most Holy Casket Baháulláhs Dust, the Point of Adoration or Qiblih of the faithful, was too sacred in its essence, His station too infinitely exalted, to act as the spiritual dynamo galvanizing the institutions of His World Order. The Dust of the Bab, however - Who had described His own station in relation to Baháulláh as that of a ring upon the hand of Him Whom God shall make manifest, Who turneth it as He pleaseth, for whatsoever He pleaseth, and through whatsoever He pleaseth - had been chosen by Baháulláh Himself to be the Centre around which His Administrative Institutions would cluster and under Whose shadow they would function; in a land which, Shoghi Effendi stated, geographically, spiritually and administratively, constitutes the heart of the entire planet, the Holy Land, the Centre and Pivot round which the divinely appointed, fast multiplying institutions of a world-encircling, relentlessly marching Faith revolve, the Holy Land, the Qiblih of a world community, the heart from which the energizing influences of a vivifying Faith continually stream, and the seat and centre around which the diversified activities of a divinely appointed Administrative Order revolve. The hub of this Tablet of Carmel was those words of Baháulláh that ere long will God sail His Ark upon thee and will manifest the people of Baha who have been mentioned in the Book of Names ; the people of Baha , Shoghi Effendi explained, signified the members of the Universal House of Justice. The Priceless Pearl by Ruhiyyih (Mary Maxwell) Khanum Chapter 11 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE FAITH
Posted on: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 15:38:03 +0000