The Fifth Seal (Universalism)
(You can follow the words in this lecture with the PowerPoint presentation that goes with them)
Lecture By
MAITREYA
At The Feast Of Tabernacles10/5/93
Part I
Maitreya: We are going to talk about the fifth seal and see how God directed it so that we know about it.
As usual, the question is, when did the fifth seal start? When did it really start? It started in eternity. Why did it start in eternity? It started in eternity because it is a part of the Eternal Divine Path. As the Eternal Divine Path is eternal, so each seal in it is also eternal.
God already knew that He was going to reveal the fifth seal to humanity. The whole plan was already in the eternal level, in Gods Mind, the Universal Mind. All the seals are in God's Mind. So it started in eternity. It has been there, it is there, and it is going to be there forever.
Who was the first spiritual teacher of humanity? It was Adam. Who was Adam? He was the First Begotten Son, the Spirit of God who came to humanity as The Teacher. He always reveals the seals and the teachings to humanity, and brings new revelations. As Krishna said in the Bhagavad-Gita, When morality is low and humanity needs guidance, My Spirit will arise on earth.
That same Spirit comes over and over again. That is the reason in the Bible it says: He is the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the revealer of the revelations and the new teachings to humanity.
But when did spirituality really start for the present humans? Do you remember in THOTH God said, "Let there be light?" The light went through the Eternal Divine Path, reached the light, and he came back as a human teacher. Then of course, he brought the teaching of the Eternal Divine Path to humanity.
Humans weren't really in these physical bodies. They were more in their ethereal bodies. Eventually they fell and fell and fell and fell, as it is explained in THOTH, until they received these human bodies. Later on their third eyes were also closed, and the new human was created, which was mostly intellect.
Most of the humans don't even know they have the third eye. They don't know how to look at things from the spiritual point of view, but they look from their two physical eyes. Whatever they see outside is the reality to them. That is what they take as the reality.
Eventually they became so low that God had to reveal the teaching for humanity to a very few Elects. That was when Noah brought those rituals of burning the flesh. God created a rainbow and He said, "Any time I want to destroy the earth with rain, I will put a rainbow in the sky and it will remind me that I promised Noah that I will not destroy it by water."
So the first seal, which is the Mystical Paths, was revealed to humanity through Noah, and of course, through his sons and all their children. They were the people who settled in Egypt, India and different places on the earth. They eventually became the spiritual teachers for humanity. That created the first seal.
God had more than just the Mystical Paths. He had to reveal the second part to humanity. How did he reveal the second part? He chose Abram (Abraham), of course, a long time after the first seal was revealed. Humanity was divided into different kinds of people, the Vipras (intellectuals), the Shudras (workers), the Ksattriyas (warriors), and all that (read THOTH for more information). Eventually from the spiritual branch (Shem), He chose Abraham as a Chosen Person.
Most people know the story of Abram (Abraham) and his children. God told Abraham to leave his family, not to go back to his country, to stay in the United States, and teach the Eternal Divine Path (laughter). There is a similarity there, isn't there? He said, "You can't go back to your home. You have to stay here to teach this teaching." So Abram (Abraham) had to obey. He took his wife and everything, and left. Eventually he had two children, Ishmael and Isaac, and the story goes on.
God blessed Abram first, then He changed his name to Abraham later on. Of course, we know the Children of Abram (through Ishmael) became the Arabs, who covered Saudi Arabia, all through most of the Middle East, North Africa, and all the way to South America. They are all the Children of Ishmael.
Later on, He also blessed the Children of Israel, and they became the Hebrews. They were divided into twelve tribes. We talked about this in previous lectures, last year when we spoke about Islam, and the year before when we spoke about Christianity.
So the Children of Israel became the people who live in Israel, north towards the West, all the way to Europe and the United States. They are the Children of Israel.
Where do the Children of Israel meet the Children of Ishmael? It is in New Mexico! Who are in South America and Mexico? They are the Children of Ishmael. Who are in North America? They are Children of Israel. So New Mexico is a meeting place, we are in a place where these two children meet one another.
Question: Maitreya-ji, is it that South American has the Spanish people, and they, from Spain, are part of the Children of Ishmael, because they were mixed with the Arabs?
Maitreya: Yes. The Arabs are pretty good at making children, because the men can have as many wives as they want. Also that was permitted by God to spread the seed of the Arabs and the Islamic teaching.
The Arabs were in Spain for 200 years, and that is why a lot of Spanish people have Arab blood in them. Even some of their names are still Arabic, their culture, and their buildings made of adobe
, were influenced by the Arabs.
There is an Arabic (Islamic) Center in Abique, in northern New Mexico, which is almost like a Spanish building. It is a little different, but of course, you would expect for it to change a bit as it goes through the evolution, influence of different cultures in time, etc. Also Spanish people were influenced by the European culture. After the Christians eventually conquered Spain, the Christians took over and the European culture came into it. So there was the influence of Europe in it too. Also the Arabic Culture stayed with them.
That is why they even have the name Mansor, a Spanish last name, which comes from Nasr and NasserAkhbaries, which is completely Arabic. Or, they have Our Lady of Fatima. Fatima was the daughter of Prophet Muhammad, and they have Our Lady of Fatima as one of their Saints. So you can see that there was a lot of Arabic influence there. Also their facial features Spanish people and Arabic people look somewhat similar.
So in that way, what God promised Ishmael, also was fulfilled. Not only did they come from Arabia and went to North Africa, but also they went all the way to South America.
Question: The lost tribes of Israel came to North America?
Maitreya: Yes. When the Children of Israel had to leave, because the Assyrians were coming, they couldn't go to the south, because Egypt (their enemy) was there. They couldn't go to the east, because the Assyrians were there, and they were also their enemy. They couldn't go northeast, there was the Caspian Sea. So the only place they could go was a little north and west. If you study the Book of Mormon, that is exactly what it says happened to those Israelites. They left Israel before the Assyrians came and destroyed them completely. They mostly came to the west.
We can see that those people went to Europe, and settled there. Actually some people say that the Kings of England are from one of the sons of the people of Israel (lineage of King David). That is what they are trying to say, because God said His (David's) Kingdom was going to stay with Israel forever and ever. So they are trying to connect the kingdom of England to the Children of Israel and conclude that God's promise came through and kings continued coming from the Children of Israel.
Back to our lecture, God changed the name of Abram to Abraham, and He gave him a promise. The promise was the material blessing and the sceptre. The material blessing is the territory that we said He promised to give the Children of Israel, a large territory. They went all the way to Europe and the United States.
He also promised the same thing to the Arabs. Arabs are all the way from Saudi Arabia to North Africa, to Spain and to South America. So He fulfilled His promises.
Those are the second and third seals. See that is how history should be taught to the children, according to the Plan of God. If they teach history according to the Plan of God, it will make more sense, and it will be much easier for all the cultures to mix together and see how they are related to one another.
If you truly study it, as we said, Spain was under the influence of the Arabs for 200 years. Actually, Europeans traveled from Europe to India, and that is why if you look at the people in India, the people in Northern India are whiter in color than the people in Southern India. That is because the Indian continent actually came from Africa. It was disconnected from Africa and went underneath the continent of Asia. And still it is pushing the continent of Asia to a higher and higher level. That is how the Himalayas were created, and they are still rising.
So the people who came from that land were dark-skinned. Then when it went underneath the Asian continent and started pushing it up, the Europeans came from Europe and went to India, to Persia, and to Assyria. That is where Abraham came from and the whole story started.
The original European language, which you can find mostly in Ireland, is the kind of language that they used. That language came and mixed with the Indian language, which was a Semitic language, African language, etc (of course not the exact dialog). The meeting of these two languages created a new language (Indo-European).
They both were influenced by one another. That language eventually influenced the Hebrew and Arabic languages. The Hebrew language is very close to Arabic, because Isaac (children of Israel) and Ishmael (Arabs) are brothers, both are from Abram (Abraham). If you now study Hebrew and Arabic, you see so many similarities. Both write from right to left. Both have a lot of words the same, etc.
Later, this language circulated back to Europe. The Hebrews came to Europe. Also the Arabs went to North Africa and they went all the way to Spain. The Spanish language was greatly influenced by Arabic, and then from the Spanish language and European language, French evolved.
If you study French, it is very close to Spanish. Actually you told me that (to R.D.). You said that they have a Latin root. But really both Spanish and French have been very much influenced by the Arabic language. The Arabic language is very powerful. They also have male and female for each name, like French and German.
When the French conquered England, French became the cultural language of the English people. After awhile, if you were a noble person in England, you should have known French. There was a great influence of the French language to English, but of course English eventually evolved itself into a completely separate language which carried the influence from French and other languages in it.
That is why now we say that we want to have an international language. My recommendation is that everyone should learn English, so that we can all communicate in one language, at least. And the people whose native language is English, I recommend that they also learn another language besides English. Any language you learn, it opens a new world to you.
As people learn different languages, they will mix with each other, and they will come up with a new language that is going to be much more powerful than any language we now have on earth.
So we can see that culturally, everything is interrelated. There is no separation between cultures. No culture is an "island." No one can say, "We kept this culture isolated, and we never mixed with anyone else." That is an illusion. Indeed, God may create wars just to mix cultures together, as He has done before.
Why do all these wars happen? What happens in the wars? There is destruction, but also people become mixed culturally. We dont need that any more (I hope). We can culturally mix now without wars and destruction, with tourism, traveling, going to other cultures for education, etc.
This is the way history has to be taught to humanity, so people can see how they are mixed culturally. Also they can start to understand one another in a deeper level. We have never had as much communication and fast transportation as we have now. But now it is very easy to mix, study and become familiar with one another.
The Children of Abraham, the Children of Israel, were the second seal. As we said, the Old Testament always talked about the community, the tribes, and the twelve tribes of Israel. That is the message of the second seal. It is the tribes, the families, and the community. That is the base of His Kingdom. The community and the family are the base of the Kingdom.
Then of course when Christ came, that was the third seal.
Also those blessings of the scepter and material blessing were given to Prophet Muhammad. All these things were covered so far, in the lectures in the previous years.
Now we are going to talk about what happened after Islam. Prophet Muhammad had never chosen anyone as his successor before he died. So, after Him, a problem of succession started in Islam.
The Arabs never choose a very young person as their leader. Culturally you have to be mature, older, and a proven person in the community and the tribe, before being chosen as their leader.
When Prophet Muhammad died there were some candidates to fill the position of the leadership. There was Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law, Ali, who was the first person who converted to Islam. Ali married Prophet Muhammad's daughter, Fatima. There also was Abu-Baker (friend and close disciple of the Prophet), and few others.
Also Iran (Persia) had not yet been conquered. There were a lot of Persians who had converted to Islam, and who had been with Prophet Muhammad.
The Arabs were mostly nomads at that time. They had tents and a few cities, but they never had any empires. But the Persians had the Persian Empire and many Arabs, probably, worked for them. The Persians, probably, did not consider Arabs as cultured, etc. So there was kind of a cultural clash between the Persians and Arabs from the very beginning, and probably there still is.
Because of that clash, the Persians politically tried to promote Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, as the successor. But as we said, the Arabs will not accept a very young man, and Ali was a young person when Prophet Muhammad died.
These things are probably "Greek" to you because this is the history of a culture that you have never studied about before. But for our revelation, for understanding what happened later on, it is very important to understand these things.
That is why the Middle East is such a mess, because there is such a deep-rooted cultural background. They have so many different ideas and interests, and they have a lot of clashes with one another.
The people who chose the leader eventually came up with another one of Muhammads closest disciples, Abu-Baker. Abu-Baker was an old man. He was probably the second person who converted to Islam. They chose him and called him Caliph.
Abu-Baker gave up everything for Islam, and was a very prominent personality in Islam. He was an old man as well. Because of these factors, they chose him. But the other people (especially the Persians) were saying, "No, Ali is the rightful person to be Caliph because Ali is a part of Muhammads family."
Another cultural thing you can observe here is that Persians were under the rule of kings for thousands of years. Kings and their sons ruled their empires. It was a lineage succession that ruled them. So when it came to a successor for Prophet Muhammad, the cultural background came out. They said, "After Prophet Muhammad, the leader should be someone from his family."
That is the very point of the two main branches of Islam that you hear about, Sunni and Shia. I dont know if you have heard about those two branches. The Sunnis say, "We accept the leader according to the decision of the community." The Shias say, "No, you have to be in the lineage of Prophet Muhammad in order to occupy that position." From that point on, of course, these two main branches started in Islam. As they evolved, the differences also deepened.
Well, we can almost forget about the Sunnis in this lecture, because they just accepted the situation, and they continued. Many of them also came to believe a lot of things the Shias believed. For example: Many Sunnis now believe in the Mehdi, as Shias do.
The Shias were divided into two branches, Ishmaelis and Imammies. They both accepted Ali as "Imam." Imam means successor, means representative, of Prophet Muhammad. When the Prophet died, the Imam was his replacement. He is the one who is connected. No one else is connected. So they called Ali, Imam.
Each time an Imam was chosen, he was killed. This continued until the twelfth Imam. According to tradition, he vanished and no one knows what happened to him. He is whom Muslims call the Mehdi and are still waiting for him to return and establish an Islamic world, according to their understandings.
The Ishmaelis believed that there is always an Imam present among Muslims. So from that point on, each time they chose a leader he was the Imam. But the Imammies said, "Yes, there is an Imam among us, but he is the one that vanished." He is alive and is waiting for the proper time to return. They said he went to occultation.
It is just like the Christians believe Christ is alive, and he will return. They have the same kind of belief. It is not resurrection. They say he will return, he is alive, somehow he is occulted, he is hidden. He is the hidden Imam.
So the Shias became two branches, the Ishmaelis who always chose someone as their Imam, and the Imammies who said, "Our Imam is going to return."
The Ishmaelis' Imam (leader) became very powerful. They are the group who formed the Assassins. Have you heard about the Assassins? These Assassins became so famous that even they were known in Europe. They would go to Europe. They actually trained Assassins from childhood. They would even teach the child, for instance, French, and the French culture, and so on. When they were of the right age, they would go to France. They would become so culturally adapted, that no one would realize that they were not French.
They would train him to get into the system, and in the system he would become close to the leadership. Then if the leadership would not listen to the Assassins, the trained person would assassinate the leader.
They became so powerful that even European kings and others were afraid of them. That is where the word "assassins" came from, from the Ishmaelis. So, they eventually became Assassins, and they were destroyed after the Mongols came and conquered Iran and Iraq.
But the Imammies continued, and they branched out. One branch was called the Akhbaries. Akhbaries comes from the word khabar, which means "news," or "story from the past."
Akhbaries were the people who said, "Our Imam is not here. Our leader has vanished. How then can we guide ourselves?" What they did was, they took the Koran and they took stories about how Muhammad handled each situation (hadith, khabar, or news or stores), and they tried to adapt those to every situation in day-to-day life. Those were called the Akhbaries.
They dominated the Shia communities for a long time, until probably close to the middle of the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries when Europe became more intellectual dominating and more scientific, based on using principles and experimental tools, and coming to conclusions through analysis. It was then that a new school of thought, probably influenced with ever-increasing European influence, started in the Shia communities called Osulies. Osul really comes from the root Asi or reaching a conclusion based on analysis.
So, these Osulies said, "No, we can't just rely on the stories. We can analyze every situation, and also listen to see what Prophet Muhammad said or what happened in each situation, and then come to a new conclusion." They started using the principle of analysis. Also, after awhile, because they analyzed, discussed, argued (Dava) and came up with a lot of conclusions, they felt that their laws and Islam are perfect. They felt they didn't need any more analysis and discussions. What they have is now perfect.
In a sense they said, "That's it. We dont need to progress any more." You see, the moment you say that, you are finished. You can never say, "I've reached the ultimate goal," because God is Infinite. Situations are infinite. You always have to meditate and adapt yourself, forever.
That was when the Sufis appeared in Islam. It was like the legalism killed the mysticism of Islam. That is when the Sufism came, as the Spirit of Islam.
One of the things that was interesting about the Osulies was that they created a system, and they created a kind of network. Then if you reached a point, they called you an Authority. You would become a Mujtahed. A Mujtahed was a person who would be supported with this network. They would go to different cities, providences, etc, but were also connected with this network. Eventually the Mujtaheds became so powerful that they could issue Fatvahs. A Fatvah meant a decree. When they would decree some thing, and that was the Word of God. So this clergy class became very, very powerful.
Now probably you can understand a little bit about what happened when Khomani came. Khomani came and everyone started calling him Imam Khomani. Imam means the representative of The Prophet and God, and his word is the Word of God. For example, when Khomani decreed that Samuel Rhashti should be killed, that was His (Gods) Word.
There is a truth in that. People who have to lead the community should be the people who are connected to God. But they have to emerge. They really should manifest that they are connected to God. Otherwise what happens if absolute power is given to a person who has ego? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So these Osulies became very powerful and also they became very worldly. They also became very rich and corrupt. That is why another group came, which was called the Shykhis. The Shykhis started from a person named Shykh. These people believed that it is not enough just to analyze, but you also have to have intuition. Intuitively you have to be connected to the Spirit.
They really were influenced by the Ishmaelis, Akhbaries and Sufis. They became a kind of mystical people who also realized that not only do you have to meditate, but you also have to reach the community and work with them.
Also there were two schools of thought in Islam, called Beerunee and Dorunee. Beerunee means, "external world." Dorunee means, "internal world."
So Beerunee means the people who accepted everything externally, who accepted the external world as the truth and never meditated, or realized intuitive knowledge within. The Dorunee were the people who were meditators and were trying to find the truth within themselves.
The Shykhis also believed in intuition, meditation, or realizing the truth from within yourself. The Shykhis didn't appear early in Islam at all, but they started very late. They probably started at the end of the 18th century. They continued to preach the teaching, but the main branch of Islam did not accept them. The Osulies became the most prominent and dominant force, especially in Iran and where Shia Islam were (such as south of Iraq).
Eventually Bab became a disciple or became connected to the Shykhis. He started studying with them. Actually he went to Iraq and visited them for a year. While he was there, he was such an interesting person, that he made an deep impression on everyone. Everyone remembered him.
The way he approached the Mosque they say was so much different than anyone else was. He did it with such a respect, with such devotion, and with such manners, that many remembered him just for that. He was very different than everyone else in the Shykhis.
When the Shykhis started, of course, a lot of people also joined them so God started preparing people. They started getting prepared for the coming teaching and for the coming of Bab.
Now we're going to talk a little about Bab's background, what kind of person he was, etc.
Bab was born in the city called Shiraz. Shiraz is a southern city in Iran, it is very close to the Persian Gulf. The members of his family were merchants in that city. We can see that Prophet Muhammad also had a merchant background and was a master of caravans that he took to Syria.
Khadija, the first wife of Prophet Muhammad, was a wealthy woman. She had a lot of camels, and she owned the caravan. Muhammad, as master of her caravan, took a couple of journeys for her. He was so honest, that he was called the Trustworthy.
Bab was also from a merchant family. When his father died, he started working toward becoming a merchant. Also he wasnt very good in school. He didn't do very well in school. He was a dreamer kind of student. He would daydream in school, and he wouldnt listen.
Until the age of twenty-two or close to that, he studied being a merchant. He was very honest. For instance, one time he made a transaction with someone. Later, they brought the merchandise back. Although the merchandise was used and misused, he took it back and refunded the persons money. It was a very unusual thing at that time, because most of the merchants wouldnt do that.
He was very proper in his books and how much he charged his customers. He was very honest. After awhile he became very famous as being trustworthy, just like Prophet Muhammad.
But at that age, suddenly he decided he didn't want to be a merchant any more. He felt a greater calling. He felt, "What is this I am doing? This is not what I want to be." He became very meditative and started studying the Scriptures, etc.
Eventually he closed his merchant business, paid everyone he owed, and went to Iraq. One of the things about this area, in southern Iraq, and still is, is that there are mostly Shias there. In northern Iraq there are Sunnis.
Actually, as we remember in the last war, when the United States attacked Iraq, the moment the people in southern Iraq felt that Saddam Hussein was weakened, the Shias there rebelled against him. Then of course, Saddam Hussein attacked them and brought them under his control.
In Iraq, there are a lot of shrines and mosques that are very sacred to the Shia Moslems. So there are a lot of cities that the Shias go for study, education, worship, and to learn about Islam.
Bab closed his business and went to Iraq. He went there to join those people and study with them. When he went to Iraq, he became connected with the Shykhis. As we said, everyone soon knew him, because he was so dedicated and his spirit was so different.
When his uncle heard that he had quit and left for Iraq, he became very upset. His uncle was his partner in the merchant business. Not only did he lose a good worker and partner, but also he was upset that Bab closed the business without consulting him and went to Iraq. He went to Iraq and eventually talked Bab into returning to Shiraz with him.
When his uncle brought him to Shiraz, he found him a wife and got him married. They felt, "If he is married, he will settle down and concentrate on his work."
He started working again and being a merchant. But what he would do was, in the evenings, he would go home and meditate, and would start writing things. His wife would ask him, "What are you writing?" He always said, "Oh, I am taking care of the books for the business, and balancing the books." She was thinking, "What is he doing? He doesnt have that much of business that he is spending hours and hours balancing the books!" Of course, later on it was realized that what he was writing in those books were the verses that were coming to him.
The Shykhis movement started with a person named Assyai. He became prominent, and he found a lot of followers, especially in Iran and Iraq. Even in the Sunni branches of Islam, a lot of people accepted his teachings.
Assyai died and a person by the name of Rhashti became the leader. Actually Rhasht is a city in the north of Iran. It is just like Khomain Khomain is a city in Iran, and when you are from that city, you become Khomani. The name Khomani means he is from Khomain. Rhashti means he is from Rhasht. That "i" at the end, makes him from that place.
So Rhashti became the leader of the Shykhis. At the time of his departure in 1844, before he died, he didnt choose anyone as his successor. He said that the Imam would reveal himself, a few months, or sometime after he died.
But after he died most of his disciples did not take that very seriously. So when he died, again there was a crisis of the leadership. There were the people who were his closest disciples who each claimed to be the successor of Rhashti, and there was a great upheaval in the Shykhis movement.
Eventually one person who was very close to Rhashti remembered that Rhashti had said that they shouldnt accept any leader, but wait for the Imam. So he went into seclusion. Many of the Shykhis followers also went with him, into seclusion in a mosque in Iraq.
They stayed there for a long time, fasting, meditating, talking it over, and remembering what their teacher had said. Eventually one day that person said, "We are going to go and seek the Imam."
They left Iraq, and went to Persia, and they went all the way to Shiraz. When they were close to Shiraz, one of the people who were with Bab came and talked with that person. He invited him to go to see Bab.
Of course, some people say that a lot of people already had a feeling about Bab. That is why they went from Iraq to Shiraz after him. They felt he was different, he had something. So these people went to Shiraz really to meet him for this purpose.
When these people reached Shiraz, it was around the 22nd of May 1844, and this person went to Bab. Bab claimed himself to be the Bab, which means" The Door." The Door meant that he was the door between those people who were seeking the Imam and the Imam himself. The Imam was still in a hidden place, but he was the Bab (The Door).
But as the movement started progressing, he started claiming more and more to be the Imam himself. They believed the Imam to be in four stations. They are: Babiya - The Door; Zikreya - The Voice; Qaimiya - The Hidden Imam himself; and Mazhariya - The Divine Manifestation. In the beginning he said, "I am Bab," then later on said, "I am The Voice of the Imam," then later on he said, "I am the Imam himself," and even later on he said, "I am a Major Manifestation."
Because of that there was a lot of confusion created, even among the Babis. The Babis really didn't know how to relate to all this. Some of the early disciples believed that he was The Bab, he was The Door. Then later on other people started saying something different about him.
When he claimed himself to be the Bab, this person who came from Iraq seeking him, believed him, and accepted his claim. But Bab told them to keep it secret, because they were afraid.
In an Islamic country, you don't say you are a Major Manifestation or Imam, or you are a Prophet. There is no separation of church and state, protection of religion, and all those things we have here in the US (West). It was/is dangerous to do that. Maybe that is why God brought me here to the West before He told me about this Revelation!
So he told them to keep it secret. This person who believed in him, little by little started talking about him and his teachings to other members of the Shykhis who had come with him from Iraq. Eventually nineteen of these people became his first disciples.
They believed the nineteen were the twelve Imams, Prophet Muhammad, Ali, and a couple of other people who became very famous in Islam. They said that they were the manifestations of those people. These nineteen people were called the Letters of the Living.
Then, of course, Bab instructed them to go and give the news to those people who already were in the Shykhis movement. So the nineteen spread out and some of them went to the north, some of them went to the east, some went to the west, and some went to Iraq. They claimed his claim that he was the Bab, he was the one whom the Moslems were waiting to come, The Imam.
Bab was a Seyyid. A Seyyid is a person from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad. In the Islamic countries, the Seyyids usually wore a black turban. If you were not a Seyyid, you had a different color of turban. So if someone had a black turban, it meant he was from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad.
Of course, after a couple of hundred years, a lot of people wore the black turban without being from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad. That is just human nature. Any time they find something that carries some respect and that kind of feeling with it, they take advantage of it.
Well, we don't really know if he was from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad or not, that is really beside the point. But as we said, it was important to Moslems that the Imam was from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad. To them at least, if he was not from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad, he could not have been the Imam (remember that was one of the points for being the Imam).
They were waiting for the Imam to come. Why? What happened that they came to this conclusion that the Imam went into hiding? After the first four Caliphs, after Abu-Baker, Omar, Osman, and Ali, the leadership of the Moslems went to the person in Syria. He took the place, not by being chosen, but by political maneuvering, eventually gaining power over the military, and then claiming himself to be the Caliph.
That was when the real problems started between those who called themselves close to Prophet Muhammad, who wanted to follow exactly his teaching and his laws, and those who were more worldly and wanted to create a kingdom based on human understandings.
After these four Caliphs, the Shias chose the sons of Ali, Hassan and Hussein, and then their children, as Imams. But any time they chose an Imam, the central government became very opposed to it. They were always a threat to the central government in Syria.
So every Imam was poisoned and/or somehow killed. When the twelfth Imam was chosen, he was only thirteen years old. Of course, he, and probably his followers, realized what was going to happen if he said he was the Imam and was exposed to the public. He also would be killed. So he was withdrawn from the eyes of the public. He communicated with his followers through some four persons. These four people were also killed, and eventually no one knows what happened to the Imam. Shias believe that he went into hiding, and is going to return at a later time.
It is just like the Christians believe that Christ was taken to heaven and he is going to return. They also believe that the Imam was hidden. Of course, they don't say how he was hidden!
Shias have been waiting for the hidden Imam to return for centuries. That is why if you study the Islamic history, there are many who have claimed to be the hidden Imam. The idea was, because Prophet Muhammad did not choose a successor, and the ones people chose after Him were not from his lineage, eventually the worldly people took over. And the worldly people created a worldly kingdom instead of the heavenly kingdom. They (worldly leaders) made palaces, hired servants and accumulated gold, and things like that. So the Shias believed that there had to come a time when the Imam would return and restore the ideal of God's Kingdom. Actually the Islamic Empire became so large, it was all the way from Spain to India, so they had a lot of territory.
In the beginning, when leaders from other nations came to meet the Islamic leader (Caliph), he was a very pious person, and you couldn't recognize the difference between him and regular people. He was one of the crowds. Of course every one respected him and carried out his work.
But after awhile, after the worldly Caliphs took over, it became so fantastic, when you study about Sinbad, or the Caliphs, or about the fantastic palaces they had, the stories appear very exotic to the western culture or western writings. In a lot of western writings they talk about the eastern culture, their palaces, etc. Most of them are an impression they received from the rich Caliphs.
Shias always felt that, "When the Imam comes, he is going to bring his army with him. His army is going to destroy all the injustice and inequity on earth, and he will establish the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth."
So, when Bab claimed he is the Imam, that was what the people expected Him to do. They accepted his claim, and they felt he was the Imam. They concluded, "We are the chosen people, so we have to create the army and destroy the infidels." So they felt that the Imam was there and therefore their success was guaranteed!
It is just like Christians who are putting so much emphasis on the coming of the Christ. No one can fulfill all those expectations. "The sky is going to open up. Christ is going to come and say, 'Kingdom Come,' and the Kingdom is going to come, and that's it. No one has to do anything. You don't have to purify yourself, you don't have to meditate, and you don't have to create the Communities of Light. It is very easy and simple. He is going to come and do it for you!" It is exactly the same thing.
The Shias and Moslems, in general, kept adding to their expectations about The Imam (as all religions do about their Messiah). It reached a point that no one could fulfill those expectations any more. It was impossible. The Mujtahed, the Osulies, came to the conclusion that, "Since the Imam is not going to come, we are his representatives."
The Osulies, the Mujtahed, became the representatives of Imam. Also, as we said, they had a lot of networking with each other, so after awhile, the Mujtahed became very powerful figures in the communities. They reached a point that they would issue a decree (Fatiha) and everyone would follow that decree and accept it as the Word of God.
So when Bab came and said, "I am the Imam," do you think they would accept him right away? Were they going to give up all their prestige, power and all that and say, "Yes, sure, take over?" They wouldnt do that.
And that is exactly what happened when Bab came to proclaim himself as being the Imam. There was an opposition to him from the priest class. Now, when he proclaimed himself, his followers really didn't know about his teaching at all. The only thing they accepted was that he was the Imam or at least the Bab, and they spread out to give the news to others. A lot of people accepted that. A lot of people accepted the news that he was the Imam.
In two years Bab had an estimate of between 40,000 and 150,000 followers, all through Iraq and Iran. Most of his followers, of course, were Shias. They became very militant. It was just such an amazing creative energy that was released to them. As they became militant, of course, the priest class didnt like that at all. They realized that Babs movement could be a treat to their social standings.
In the beginning the government thought they could use this movement against the Mujtaheds. They didnt like the priest class, because the priest class was almost as powerful as the government itself. There was a balance of power between them. There was the government which had all the military and collected taxes, and there were the Mujtaheds, or the priest class, which had all the schools, Mosques and spiritual centers in Iran and in southern Iraq. They also collected alms, etc.
The Mujtaheds had the Mosques, and they were connected to the people through these centers. The Mosque was the place where all the people would go and listen to the preachers. They had the ability to arouse people by their preaching. Any time the government did something against them that the Mujtahed didnt like, they would stir the people against the government. So the government realized that the Mujtaheds were a very powerful force. So an uneasy balance of power was established between them.
Of course their authority would overlap once in awhile. Each tried, constantly, to expand their authority over different matters. These all brought the government and priest class into constant clashes. Any time the government tried to go over the Mujtaheds territory, they would become upset. When the Mujtahed tried to take over the governmental accepted authorities, they became upset and fought back.
People say one of the reasons that the priest class revolted in Iran, at the time of the Shah, was because the Shah cut off their part of the taxes that used to be given to them. When he did that, they were cut off from a lot of income, and they revolted against him, stirred up the people, and eventually destroyed him.
Of course, that should have happened. We know that all is Gods Plan. All these things happen according to His Will, and have a purpose and reason behind them. In this case, when our teaching comes, the Persian Empire will be destroyed. After 2,500 years on continues kings, and it was destroyed six months after we started the Mission!
So these newly converted Babis went to the communities and gave the good news about the Imam being there among them. Many people were readily converted to the new faith. This did not go very well with Mujtaheds. They realized that, "They are becoming powerful. They are converting people more and more." So they stirred their people against them, and they organized mobs against the Babis communities. They would attack the Babis communities, etc.
The Babis, of course, thought they were the Chosen People, and they should bring the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth, and they should fight and establish justice, so they would fight back with these mobs. In the beginning the government stayed away from these fights. But eventually it started to assist the Mujtaheds and their people. The Babis weren't very well prepared to fight the government and its troops. They were just regular people. They werent military people. So they suffered a great deal. That is why there were so many martyrs among the Babis.
Of course, that goes very well with the prophecies of the fifth seal, doesn't it, that there were many with the white robes who were martyred? So there were a lot of martyrs in the Babi movement.
Any questions?
Audience: I thought the Babis were non-violent.
Maitreya: The Bahais were non-violent, not the Babis. We will get to that.
Actually there were what they called the two ages, the old age and the new age, in the Bahai/Babi history. In the old age, the history was recorded according to what happened. But as we will see, the Babis were almost completely destroyed.
That was one reason why we needed Baha'u'llah: to bring the teaching to the West. If Baha'u'llah wasn't there, we would never have heard about the Babis. That is because there are almost no Babis any more in Iran (maybe a few). They were almost completely destroyed because of this militancy that they had. They weren't peaceful at all. At least the Mujtaheds did not let them be peaceful.
They were actually looking for trouble, in a sense, because they wanted to establish justice. But they didn't have a chance to organize themselves. As we said, they were not well equipped, and they were not well trained.
Also the Kingdom doesn't have to come with the sword any more. The Kingdom can come with understanding, meditation and realizing that God sent all these revelations. As I said many times, we are not a revolutionary people. We are an evolutionary people.
Through evolution eventually humanity will reach a point where they will see that they are connected, they are one. They are from One Source, and God sent all these revelations. They eventually, little by little, are going to come to these conclusions.
Of course, with creation of the Communities of Light, we can set an example for everyone else of how it can be done. But in that culture, in that teaching, in that kind of understanding, the Shias are still militant.
So the Babis were not peaceful. The Bahais were.
Question: From what I remember about the Babis, they werent as forceful as the ones with Muhammad. Well, at least thats what I remember from Release The Sun.
Maitreya: Release The Sun was written by the Bahais. It is very important to recognize that the Bahais changed a lot of things after Bab. Bab came and brought those teachings, and they were militant. Many of them were destroyed.
Bahai came, and preached a much more peaceful teaching. Actually, he taught, "Don't become involved with the present governments at all. Just create the communities and become peaceful. At times, don't even confess who you are." That was one of the principles that one of the Imams also gave to his followers. He said, In a situation that you might be prosecuted because of your faith, its OK to conceal it. That is exactly what the Bahais did.
But we don't have to conceal anything. Actually I believe that the whole process of the western thought of separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and all that, have come to us so that when this Revelation came, we wouldnt have to be afraid about it. We can just say, "Yes, I believe in this."
The last time I went to Iran, I explained The Greatest Sign to my family. I told them, "OK, this First Seal is the Mystical Paths, just like Sufism, you meditate...," and everyone was fine with it. Then I told them about the Second Seal as Judaism, the Hebrews. Everyone was saying, "Yes, yes, it makes sense." Then I explained, "This is Christianity, Esa and His teachings, the Third Seal." "Oh, yes, that is fine," they said. I went on, "This is Islam, the Fourth Seal." "Oh, great, great," they exclaimed. Then I said, "And this is Bahai." Their response was, "Ugh..."
My father said, "You'd better go back. You can't stay here." If this teaching had come in Iran, an Islamic country, I would have been dead a long time ago.
Comment: There are rebels in the world, organized groups that came after a teaching. Nowadays there are a lot of free radicals running around. There are a lot of people who do not believe in mixing races and they have become very powerful.
Maitreya: As it is said, when the light comes, the darkness also becomes stronger. That is why I said, you have to be wise as a serpent. You dont have to preach this to a person who doesnt believe in the equality of the races.
You have to preach to those people who are in a state of consciousness where they recognize the unity of humanity, religions, and the races, and who are intelligent enough to see these things are the truth.
But this is Gods Revelation. God said, "I am going to make you one. I am going to unify you." So we cannot stop preaching it, but we have to preach it to those people who can understand it.
That is again why communities are so important, so that we can become strong enough to preach it and reach out. You see, those people are not the majority, these punks, skinheads, and all those people who separate humanity by religions, races, etc. They are not the majority. The majority wants this. The majority wants peace. The majority wants unity. The majority wants the Communities of Light. The majority wants light.
So don't listen to a minority that creates big news. The news is sensationalism. Don't take news that you hear on television very seriously, because although such people are there, they are not the majority.
They are a small minority, but because they are outspoken, and they make a lot of noise, they get attention. These days it seems that anyone, who has a bigger voice, gets his way better. But it shouldn't be like that.
That is why it is so important, that we have to go to God again and use that yardstick that we talked about last night. Should we listen to the loud voices of those people who are yelling and trying to get our attention, or listen to God's voice, which is very quiet and deep within ourselves and is revealed in the Scriptures?
A lot of people have been caught up in the news and things that have been happening on earth, and they take a few people so seriously. So we should recognize that they are not the majority.
Eventually as we preach this and it spreads out, we will reach a point that they become small voices. Instead of using the news for the bad news and always talking about gangs, skinheads, punks, destruction, etc., we can create news about the wonderful things happening in this community. The news, for example, would be about how we built this new hospital, or we built this nice school, or look at our wonderful children, they are learning, they are good children, we are teaching them and they are growing beautifully, etc. That will become news. Then you will feel very comfortable and very safe.
Of course, as it is said, "United we stand, divided we fall," or "If we don't hang together, we are going to be hanged separately." That is exactly what the founding fathers of the US said. They realized if they do not hang to one another, England will hang them separately. Also they realized, "If they hang together, they will succeed. If we stay separate, we are going to be hanged separately."
It is hard for you out there in the world, who are working. No one listens to the Truth about God, and no one is with you. But as the Communities of Light are created, you will become stronger and stronger.
There is a critical point when we will win. When that critical point comes, everyone will want to be in a Community of Light. Well, probably not everyone, but most of the people will want to live in a Community of Light.
What do the people want? They want peace and security in their neighborhoods. This neighborhood is more secure now than if we weren't here. It is a very secure neighborhood, because of us! If we weren't here, these people wouldnt have come together. They would still be separate. Such an environment breeds crimes and many evils which comes with self-centeredness.
That is why each one of us should become a source of security in our communities. As we create more communities like that, where people feel secure, they will be more than willing to join us.
Lecture By Maitreya
10/06/93
At The Feast Of Tabernacles
Universalism, The Fifth Seal
Part II
Maitreya: Let us close our eyes. Let us all come here in this room as one. Let any tension or other thoughts go away. Let the Spirit come through all of us in the calmest way, and let us be one in the Spirit. May we approach this subject all together as One. Sal-Om.
If you remember, yesterday we talked about how eventually Bab proclaimed himself to be the One Moslems, or at least the Shia Moslems, were expecting to come, the Mehdi, the Bab. Of course, he called himself the Bab in the beginning, but as his mission progressed, he claimed to be even a greater Manifestation than just The Door (Bab). He, eventually, claimed to be a Major Manifestation like Prophet Muhammad, Christ, etc.
So he said he was the Bab, and then later on he claimed he was The Voice, and then later on he claimed that he was the Hidden Imam himself, and eventually he said he was the Divine Manifestation. Actually in the beginning he thought the government was going to help him. He wrote to the heads of the governments. He wrote to the Shah, that he would like to meet him. He thought that if he met the Shah, he could explain what he wanted to do, and the Shah would support him.
The governor of Isfahan, one of the major cities in Iran, did support him for awhile. Bab left Shiraz, because the government in Shiraz was very much against him, persecuted him, and made him retract some of his claims in front of many in a mosque. But the government of Isfahan invited him to go and live in Isfahan, and he went to that city. He lived there for around a year. But eventually again the priests and Mullahs in Isfahan rose up against him and pushed him out of that city as well.
So, his followers were growing. A lot of people were becoming converted, and he himself tried to establish some connection with the authorities, because that was how he felt he would accomplish his mission. He actually praised the Shah about how he could help these things to be established to completion.
But little by little his disciples, the Babis, started being persecuted. The government supported him for awhile in the beginning, because they felt they could use him against the Mujtaheds, against the Mullahs, against the religious establishment. But when the mobs started attacking the Babis, and the government had to become involved all the time to keep them away from each other, little by little they felt that they were becoming more a problem than being useful.
Also the Prime Minister at that time was a person who didnt like the priest class. But the Prime Minister also wasnt very much with Bab, so Bab didnt have much luck with the authorities.
Eventually the situation deteriorated to a point that they decided to put Bab into prison. They put him in a prison somewhere in north Iran, in one of the fortresses they had. But that fortress was very close to the Russian border, so the Babis were coming close to the Russian border. Most people in southern Russia, close to Iran, are Moslems too. So they also became interested in this new movement. Russia became concerned. Then the Russian ambassador in Tehran complained about it to the government of Iran.
They moved Bab from there to another fortress in the west of Iran. It was there that he wrote the Bayan, his Scripture, for the Babis. One of the things he wrote in the Bayan was that he predicted, "He Whom God Will Manifest" will come after him. He said, "When he comes, every verse of his Scripture will be worth one-thousand Bayans."
It was here, in his new prison, that he claimed that he was the Imam himself. He no longer said that he was the Bab. Later, they brought him to another city in the west of Iran, Tabriz, and they put him on trial. They tried to discredit him.
The Mullahs set up a mocking trial for him. They started arguing and discussing religious points with him. It was there that he claimed that he was the Major Manifestation. So they felt that he was really crazy. They tried to discredit him.
Eventually they sent him back to the fortress for awhile. The government changed, and a new Shah and a new Prime Minister came into power. The new Prime Minister was absolutely against any religious movement or any tension in the country. That was why he eventually decided that Bab had to go.
That was when they brought him back to Tabriz and put him on another mock trial. He didn't withdraw his claim. He said, "That's who I am." Then they took him to a couple of those big Mullahs, the Mujtaheds who were the supporters of the government, and they passed a Fatiha that, "Yes, he is an infidel, and he should be put to death." One of those Mullahs told him, "Just tell us that you are not the Imam, and we will let you go." He refused to do so.
Actually when he was coming from the fortress the last time to Tabriz, people were so stirred up by him, that on his way to Tabriz, when he took a shower, the people rioted to get the water as blessed water. So the government was even more concerned when it saw that he was becoming popular with the people. It seems more people started to believe in Him.
If they had accepted some of his ideas, the Moslems would have been in a much better shape. It is just like when the Messiah or new Revelation comes, if the people accept it, the evolutionary process of those people will be accelerated. But if they dont, of course, they fall into deeper darkness.
For example, the Jewish people were waiting for Christ to come. Christ came, and they didnt accept him. What happened to the Jewish people? They were scattered abroad for thousands of years.
Then the Christians were waiting for the Messiah to come. Muhammad came, and they didnt accept him. What happened to Europe? Europe fell into darkness and the Dark Age.
Of course, darkness starts even before the Messiah comes. At that time, the very presence of powerful Mullahs who assumed the authority of God, was the sign of decline. Indeed, the Messiah comes when darkness prevails on earth. Of course, any time the Messiah comes many reject him. That is when the tribulation comes to those people.
That is exactly what God said in The Revelation. Any time a seal was opened, a great upheaval came to humanity. That is the process of purification.
Another way to look at is that, they shouldnt have accepted him. For instance, if every Jew had accepted Christianity, we wouldnt have any Jews today. Then we wouldnt know too much about the Old Testament, their teaching, and they wouldnt have been carried away to all the nations so that they could preach their gospel to every nation.
The Jewish gospel, the Old Testament, is almost universally known now. Almost everyone on the whole earth knows about it. Why? It was because they were carried away and they were scattered all over the earth. So they had their message with them, and they also taught it to other people.
It shouldnt have happened differently. Not all religions should have accepted the Messiah (or a Prophet), because we should have Mystical Paths too. We should have Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Bahai, etc., so we know about them and realize where each stand in Gods Plan. Now we can put them all together and say, "They are connected to one another." But if the Moslems had accepted Bab, there would have been a great progress in their society.
Eventually they took him to the place to execute him. They were going to hang him on the wall and then shoot him. They hung him with ropes from the wall. They chose 1,000 sharpshooters to shoot Bab. I dont know if that number is exaggerated or not, but I got that from the regular books. It wasnt from the Babis or Bahais.
Anyway, a lot of soldiers didnt want to participate in the firing squad to execute him, because they had the feeling of, "Yes, he at least is a Prophet. He is an innocent person, etc." They didnt want to shoot him. They had to search hard to find 1,000 people who they thought would do it.
Before he was prosecuted, Bab had said that everyone that was a Babi should denounce him, because he didnt want the other people to be killed. He said, "Everyone denounce me, but I will not denounce myself."
Most of his followers, even his scribes, secretaries, followed His advice. So everyone followed his request and denounced him, so they didnt get killed. But there was one follower who was in prison with Him and did not. He said, "No, he is the Bab. I know he is the Bab, he is the Messiah, and I am not going to withdraw what I believe." So this disciple was executed with him.
They hung them from the wall, and 1,000 shots were shot, or 750, or even 500 shots. Bab and the other person did not get shot, but both fell to the ground. At that time the guns were the type that you had to load by hand. You would put lots of gunpowder in them and they would created much smoke. So after the shots were fired, there was a lot of smoke. When the smoke cleared, there was no Bab around!
Actually some people say that if Bab had stood up and claimed that this was his miracle, many more people, probably, would have believed in Him. That is because they kept asking him, "Show us miracles. If you show us miracles, we will believe you." It is just like here in the Mission, "If you show us miracles, we will believe you. If you dont show us miracles, we wont believe you."
Bab kept telling them, "I dont need to show you miracles. Still I claim who I am." But some people say when those 1,000 shots, or 750 shots, did not even scratch him, if he would have just stayed and said, "Look, this is a miracle!" everyone would have probably accepted him and followed him. Of course, this is just speculation. People could be very cruel, and still would not believe.
They found him in one of the rooms around the compound, and they brought him back. Also it is possible that the people who were chosen to shoot him, really didnt want to shoot him. So everyone either aimed at the ropes, or aimed somewhere else. They each wanted their conscience to be clear that, "I didnt shoot him." I guess this time, after they brought him back, the leader of the firing squad told the soldiers who were supposed to shoot him, "If you dont shoot him, you are going to be in trouble."
So the first time no one shot at him, they shot around him. But this time I guess they didnt have any choice, and they shot him and the other man. They took the bodies and threw them out of the city in the dump. This became controversial, because a lot of Babis complained to some ambassadors from England and Russia about how they treated Babs body. Some Babis claim they stole the body, and hid it, and kept it to bury it later. They eventually brought it to Jerusalem. There is a shrine there that supposedly holds Babs body.
Before Bab died he chose a person in Tehran by the name of Subh'I Azal. Actually his name was Mirza Yahya, but Bab gave him the name Subh'I Azal, which means The Morning of Eternity. He let all the Letters of the Living, those first nineteen disciples, the ones who first converted to the Babi movement, know that he chose Subh'I Azal, and he let a lot of other Babis know that he chose him.
Actually he sent some of his personal articles to SubhI Azal, which meant that, "We are one." He sent his pen, pencil, some clothing, and some personal articles, even before he was shot. So it was pretty clear that he chose Subh'I Azal as his successor.
Subh'I Azal was a young man, and he had a brother who eventually was called Baha'u'llah. His brother helped him, taught him, and was taking care of Subh'I Azal since childhood. They were apparently very close. It sounds like Baha'u'llah was kind of like a big brother to him. They grew up together.
After Bab died, there were a lot of claims by many people that they were the manifestation of "He Whom God will Manifest," as Bab predicted would happen. Bab had said, "He Whom God Will Manifest" will come after me. And many people started claiming, "I am the One." No one accepted them because Subh'i Azal took over, and he started directing the Babis.
The interesting thing is that Bab said that "He Whom God Will Manifest" would come much later after him, not just a couple of years. But still there were so many claims from many people.
Apparently Subh'i Azal didnt seem to be a very effective leader. It sounded like he just didnt want to become too involved and do the things necessary.
The faith still spread, however, and went all over Iran. As we said, because of the Shias belief that when the Mehdi comes, they would establish the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth, the Babis became militant to fulfill this prophecy. That is just like the Christian's belief, that when Christ comes, he is going to establish the Kingdom of God on earth. He is going to have armies, who are the faithful ones. He will be the one who comes on the white horse, like in The Revelation, when it says his name was the faithful and he judged all the nations, and he will bring the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth.
It was almost the same kind of feeling with the Babis. Probably David Koresh thought the same thing. He thought that he was the Messiah. He thought that he was the one who would have all those guns, and change the government, etc. It was that kind of revolutionary mentality that also got the Babis in trouble. They had this mentality of, "We are revolutionary. We are going to change the government. We are going to take over," and eventually the government destroyed them.
Most revolutions have not helped much, in all of human history. Any time you have a revolution, first there is a lot of bloodshed, and second, it never helped much in the long run. That is because a revolution is the idea of a few people imposed on the majority. They might be a little ahead of others, but others are not yet in tune with this minority. So when they revolt, because there are a lot of people who are not in tune with them, they have to destroy many in order to feel safe, etc.
This has occurred in every revolution, just like the revolution in France. How many people went under the guillotine? They cut their heads off because the people were not the same as they were. Even in the revolution in Iran, how many people did they kill? In every revolution there is a lot of killing, and still people are not in the stage of consciousness to accept that idea, or even understand it well. A revolution may work if the majority of people are ready for it. In fact such a revolution can be viewed as an evolutionary step!
That is why the best change is the evolutionary change. An evolutionary change is by education, by reaching out, by teaching people. It was just like Muhammads movement, it was an evolutionary kind of movement. It took them thirteen years to go back to Mecca. But for that period he had so many people preaching his teaching to so many other people, that little by little they became ready for the idea of, "Yes, we need this new teaching. This teaching makes sense. It is wonderful. We would like to be with him."
So when Muhammad marched toward Mecca, though he actually started with a very small band of people, many more people heard and they came and joined him. By the time he reached the gates of Mecca, he had a very large group of people with him. He had an army of around 120,000 strong. When the Meccans saw that they said, "We cant fight these people. There are too many of them." So they give up, and Muhammad and his people just marched into the city and took over.
See, that was kind of an evolutionary change, the people were ready for it. It is just like us, we can go out there and tell everyone, "Look, all the religions are one," and we can go out there and start yelling at the people, trying to change them. They arent ready! They have never even heard about The Greatest Sign.
It is just like when the Babis went out and said to the Moslems who were very fanatic, with deeply rooted ideas about what Islam means, "No, all the religions are the same. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam were the old revelations and Bahai is the new revelation." They werent ready for it. But in an evolutionary process, when enough people are touched, educated, and ready for it, it just happens. That is why we are not revolutionaries.
I have never seen any revolution that was helpful, just like the Russian revolution. They had it for seventy years. What happened to it? It just fell apart. Or the Iranian revolution, I went to Iran two years ago. It is terrible, everyone is still complaining. Actually they had replaced the Shah with many Shahs, because the people were not ready. These are people who have had dynasty after dynasty, for the last 2,500 years, and suddenly the revolutionaries came and told them, "You can't have a Shah any more." The people were not ready for that sudden change. They have made many Shahs now!
That is why we have to educate. We have to reach out. We have to teach. We have to prepare people for the idea. And there are those who are ready. After we have many, many Communities of Light popping up all over the earth and they are connected, we will simply bring His Kingdom on earth. The people will be ready for it.
That is why we are not opposed to any government. Actually, we encourage having the present governments. Without government we would have chaos. So we are not against any government or any established system. The only thing that we are trying to do is to create the Communities of Light. That is the only thing we are going to do. The more Communities of Light we create, the stronger we will be and the more net-working we will have together.
Eventually this present system is going to fall apart. It will not work any more. It is already not working. We can see that it is not working anywhere. So eventually it has to fall apart.
If there is nothing to replace it with, what is going to happen? There will be a great chaos. But if we have an established system based on this last revelation from God which unifies everything together, and we already have a lot of people whose consciousnesses have been raised to think this way, whats going to happen? We can easily say, "Here is an alternative. Do you want to try this alternative?" And then we can easily accomplish it.
That was exactly what happened to the Babis. The Babis became very revolutionary to try to change things abruptly. They tried to fight the present systems, they tried to be militant. That is why many of them were destroyed. They were martyred.
Of course, God had already prophesied that that was going to happen. Do you remember what happened in the fifth seal in The Revelation? He said that there were going to be many martyrs among them. There were going to be many in the white robes that were going to die, and they were going to be destroyed.
Eventually they attempted an assassination of the Shah in Tehran. That was when the government rounded up all the remaining Babis and put them into prison. Of course, this time the government really went after the Babis. There was no excuse. If you were a Babi, that was it. You were suspect.
That was why Subhi Azal left Tehran. They went to arrest him, but he had already left. The moment he heard that there was an attempted assassination of the Shah by the Babis, he left Tehran and went to Iraq.
But his brother, Bahaullah, was arrested and put into prison for a couple of months.
Question: What kind of social justice did Bahaullah bring with him that was different from the teachings of Muhammad and Christ?
Maitreya: Well, if you remember in the Old Testament, there were a lot of laws. They said, "You do this and this, and that, etc. You are going to bring this kind of animal which should be unblemished, perfect for sacrifice, so many lambs, etc," and there were many Laws for sacrifice of animals and other things. So there were a lot of laws brought by Moses.
But when Christ came, did he bring any laws? He didnt bring any laws at all. He brought The Grace. And also remember the prophecy of Israel at the time of his death. Israel prophesied that the lawgiving would be given to Judah, until Shiloh came (Genesis 49:10).
Judah was the tribe that all the great kings of the Jews came from, David and his children, etc. The lawgiving was given to Judah, until Shiloh came. Who was Shiloh? He was the Messiah. So lawgiving stayed with Judah until the Messiah came. The Messiah came as Christ. He, in the front of the temple, when the Pharisees and Sadducees were questioning him, started verbally attacking them and telling them, "You generation of vipers," etc. He was preparing himself to be crucified.
He eventually said, "The Kingdom will be taken away from you and will be given to another nation" (Matthew 21:43). This, of course, was the exact fulfillment of this prophecy by Israel, that the Kingdom would be taken away from them and given to another nation. So by the coming of the Messiah, the lawgiving of the tribe of Judah was finished. So the lawgiving was given to the next Messiah (Manifestation).
Then when Prophet Muhammad came, he brought a lot of laws. These social laws that he brought, which are called Shariah, are God's Laws for humanity. That is why when Bab and Bahai came, they didn't bring any social laws for humanity. Neither Bab nor Baha'u'llah brought laws in that detail, as Prophet Muhammad did, for humanity, nor does the Mission.
So eventually, of course, the laws had to be purified. If you study Islamic history, for around 400 years, almost the only thing they did was to establish the jurisprudence. They discussed many different ways of implementing Muhammads laws to their society for many diverse situations.
For instance, Muhammad said, "If someone stole something for the first time, and he is repentant, forgive him. But if he does it a second time, cut off one of his fingers." That is pretty harsh, isnt it, cutting off a finger? But imagine the implementation of this law.
Of course, the first requirement for implementing these (God's) laws is, to create a just society, where everyone has the minimum necessities to live on. You cannot implement Gods Laws in an unjust society. After a just society is created, then if a theft happened for the first time, you may say to the thief, "OK, you made a mistake." But the second time you do it, it is no longer a mistake, it is a crime.
If a person doesn't have anything to eat, and he goes and steals a loaf of bread, you can't cut off his finger. He is hungry, he has to have some bread. But if he has bread, if he has all the minimum necessities, and still he goes and steals some bread, there is something wrong with that person!
What is going to happen? For the first time you say, "OK, you made a mistake," if the thief is repentant. If he is not repentant, still some measure of punishment is recommended (such as humiliation!). If he is repentant he will be forgiven, but he/she should not do it again. If he does it for the second time, he really has a problem. Now, he is judged. Then he loses his finger.
In other, more serious cases, if there is an accusation, there should be three adult, mature witnesses who saw the crime. You cannot just accuse someone of doing something without having witnesses. If I have three adult mature people who witnessed that act, or there is overwhelming evidence, then the accused will be punished for the crime.
Of course, you also have to investigate and be sure that these three people are not lying, and that they are not trying to incriminate him, and all that. If eventually the conclusion was, "Yes, for sure the crime has been committed with this person," then the laws are implemented.
You do not put him into prison. You don't have to spend a lot of money making all these prisons that we have today. One of the problems we have in this country is that they keep building prisons. They don't have enough. The prisons are built for around 500 people, they have around 900 prisoners in them. So, they are overcrowded. Also when a person goes to prison, if he was a petty thief, after being in prison he will become a master thief by the time he is out.
So these laws have punishments that hurt. Any time the criminal person wants to steal again, he remembers, "Hey, I am going to loose my other fingers or the whole hand, if I steal again." It is a very painful thing, it is a reminder all the time to him not to do it. It saves a lot of the taxpayers' money (I guess this part the Western mind likes), and it has a lot of social and economic reasons as to why it can be implemented in the society and has greater deterrent power than our man-made laws.
Of course, there is a great possibility of misuse and abuse inherent in any laws (be it from God), and they have been misused. That is why only in our system, in a just society, can such Laws be effective and would bring justice to all, tranquility to the society and Peace to earth!
Bab and Bahai brought a more universal point of view of justice. That is why Baha'u'llah recommended that there should be a House of Justice in every city, in every nation, and eventually there will be a Universal House of Justice. Did that answer your question?
Comment: Yes.
Maitreya: Of course, those laws have to be studied again. As the Mission spreads and if we ever get to a place that we have many people, probably we can read or study them. If there is something even in that book or the Shariah or supposedly God's Law that doesn't make sense, of course, humans shouldn't accept it.
Both Subhi Azal and Baha'u'llah went to Iraq. Subhi Azal escaped from Tehran, and Baha'u'llah was exiled. They started directing the affairs of the Babis from there.
Apparently, as we said, a lot of people again started claiming that they were the prophesied Major Manifestation that Bab had predicted. They even said that they were the Manifestation of Imam Hussein, one of the Imams for whom they were apparently waiting.
Bab had said that of those nineteen people who first believed in him, the Letters of the Living, one of them was Imam Hussein already. As we said, the twelve Imams, and the Prophets, made the nineteen. But still people went on and claimed they were the Manifestation of Imam Hussein, etc, and there was a lot of upheaval.
Apparently the Babis killed one of them by drowning him. He supposedly had started getting a lot of followers. They felt it was a threat to the movement, so they drowned him. So the movement had already become intolerant toward others!
Subhi Azal withdrew more and more from the leadership. He left the Babis affairs more and more in the hands of Baha'u'llah. Baha'u'llah became more prominent in the Babi movement and Subhi Azal became less and less important.
Baha'u'llah became so powerful that a lot of Babis became very irritated with him. They eventually excommunicated him from the Babis. He left them, and according to one story, he went to join a Sufi order somewhere in the mountains.
But Subhi Azal apparently couldnt live without him. As I said, Baha'u'llah was his mentor from his childhood. He was always directing him, teaching him and being with him. It sounds like he had some attachment to him, so he sent for him.
When Baha'u'llah was very young, his mother died. Then his father married another woman, and she bore Subhi Azal as his stepbrother. Since SubhI Azal was young, Baha'u'llah became his big brother and his mentor. It is easy to see why Subhi Azal felt he needed Baha'u'llah. That is why he asked him to return.
So at this point, it sounds like Subhi Azal completely withdrew. Also the Babis accepted Baha'u'llah more and more as their leader. Eventually there was a skirmish between the Babis in Iraq and the Moslems in that country. That was when both Baha'u'llah and SubhI Azal were exiled to the Turkish territory. They both went to the West, toward Jerusalem.
We can see here a glimpse of the Plan of God. If Baha'u'llah and Subhi Azal had not gone toward the West, would we (Westerners) have ever heard of them? Probably not.
So, they were exiled toward the West. They went to the Turkish territory, and started living there. They stayed in Akka. It was there that Baha'u'llah claimed that he was the major Manifestation that Bab had prophesied about. It was now thirteen years after the martyrdom of Bab.
We should note here that Bab also gave himself the title of Baha'u'llah. So in a sense there can be some confusion here about which Baha'u'llah we are talking about, Bab or Baha'u'llah.
After he became a Babi, Baha'u'llah (not the Bab) used to bring other Babis to his home. While they were talking about Bab, Subhi Azal, like a little brother, would hear what they were talking about. Eventually he also became interested and joined the Babi movement.
Baha'u'llah was imprisoned in Tehran, and then exiled to Iraq. He was exiled from Iraq to Akka, and in 1863-1866 (there is a confusion about the time of proclamation) he claimed that he was the Manifestation whom Bab had prophesied.
By this time the Babis were almost completely destroyed in Iran. There were so many people fighting against them. The government also was against them, so they went underground (if any were left in Iran). When Baha'u'llah claimed that he was the Major Manifestation, he sent decrees that you dont have to engage in any political system or be militant.
As we said, Bab was from a merchant family. So when he gave his proclamation, many merchants became Baha'i. And you know most of the merchants like a calm, secure environment to see their businesses prosper. With a revolution merchants and investors take their investments and money out of the country. They want a calm environment to keep their money safe.
So a lot of Babis were looking for someone to come and say, "Cool it off. Lets create a nice, calm environment so we can work our money and invest it the way we want to." When Bahaullah came and said, "You dont have to engage in that militancy any more," all these merchants liked that idea very much. They said, "Yes, that is what we want." Therefore, they supported him. He already had taken over the leadership from SubhI Azal. When he received that support, of course, everyone else started supporting his claim as well. Only a few Babis did not. They became a minority.
So Bahaullah became the leader of the Babis and the movement changed and was called the Bahai movement. Babis changed their name to Bahais. It was then that Professor Browne in France, who we talked about earlier, read about Bab. He read about his movement and the martyrdom, and he became very interested to know more. He just loved the story. He wanted to know more about Bab, his movement, etc. You can say he was guided to what he took as his lifetime work about Babs movement.
He went to Iran to see what the Babis were doing there. He didnt find any Babis. Eventually he realized that they were now called Bahais. He had all these books written about Bab, how he lived, and how he was martyred, etc. He read about the Bayan. Now he went to talk to the Bahais. He knew that SubhI Azal was chosen by Bab as their leader, so went to Iran to talk about Bab with the Babis, but there were none. So he went to the Bahais to talk about him. At first they denied that such a person even existed. They discredited Bab to a very low level, and their talk was always about Bahaullah. They tried to discredit the Babis completely, and they said, "This is the Bahai movement now, not Babs."
Eventually he found out where SubhI Azal was. He found a few Babis left. That is the answer to that question you asked about, "Arent the Babis peaceful?" The Babis werent peaceful in the beginning. You read that book Release the Sun, which is what happened from the Bahai point of view.
Browne eventually went to meet SubhI Azal in Akka, and he even met Bahaullah. But when he went home he became very critical of what they had done to the Babi movement, and he wrote a lot of literature on this subject.
Actually you can find two kinds of literature in the Bab/Bahai history. One is about Bab, which is written about his time, or immediately after his martyrdom. These books are written by those people who realized what Bab did, how he accomplished things, and how he was martyred. The other literature consists of those books which were written after the Bahai proclamation, which was after they changed things to what most Bahais now believe. That is why they say there is the "old history" or era and the "new history" or era in the Bab/Bahai history.
So they changed a lot of things in the Babi movement. That is why this year, because I was going to have this lecture, I tried to find as much information about these movements as possible. I inquired, in some religious conferences (echoes they are called) for more information on the computer, in some conferences, in Fidonet (an amateur network). "Does anyone have any knowledge about SubhI Azal?"
I received a message from someone in the Bahai Net. They have a network, and someone said, "Yes, there is a Bahai network. Why dont you join us?" I said, "Great, sure." So I joined their net, and I started receiving their messages. Of course, they always talked about, "Bahaullah this, Bahaullah that, da, da, da" I just didnt say anything. Eventually the person who invited me to join them said, "Why dont you say anything and are not participating in our discussions?"
I said, "Are you sure you want me to say something?" She said, "Yes, yes, we would like to hear your input." So I said, "OK. This is how I feel." I wrote to them exactly what I thought. I wrote things we are discussing in this lecture for them.
I wrote to them exactly how I feel about Bab. I wrote how Bab came, how Bahaullah was chosen to only bring the message to the West, and that he wasnt really the Major Manifestation, he was just chosen by God so we could hear about Bab and the Bahas teachings in the West. Also I told them that here is another Major Manifestation, and it is a greater teaching, so come and join us. Actually, I invited them to this lecture. I invited them to give this Good News to their leaders and tell them to join us. Of course, they all became very upset and everyone became very quiet.
Question: Do you still talk to them any more?
Maitreya: No, they dropped me [laughter]. They dropped me just like a hot iron or lead.
But you can see so many similarities between Christs teaching and Babs teaching, what happened to Christ, and what happened to Bab. Christ only taught for three and a half years, and then he was crucified. Bab taught for only four years, and then he was shot.
Then Paul came and interpreted what Christ meant. So Paul became more prominent than Christ; Bahaullah came and said, "What Bab meant," and Bahaullah became more prominent than Bab.
Also you can see that Christianity and Bahai are on the same triangle in The Greatest Sign. Also Judaism and Islam are on the same triangle. There were lots of laws give in Judaism, and there were a lot of laws in Islam. Sounds like these three (Judaism, Islam and Paravipras) have something in common, and these three (Mystical Paths, Christianity and Bahai) have something in common. Actually, there are a lot of purification techniques also in Ananda Marga, meditation, etc.
So Bahaullah became very prominent. As we said, there were two periods in the Babi and Bahai movement. There was the Bab period and the Bahai period. If you study the Babis, you can see a different point of view, Bab said differently then what the Bahais said.
But of course Bahai brought a much mellower religion. They became completely out of any political movement, and still they dont become involved in politics at all.
As we said, the Babis were almost completely destroyed in Iran. Just imagine what would have happened if Bahaullah hadnt come to the West and brought the Bahai/Babi faith to the West. Also after him, his son became the leader of the Bahais, and he traveled to the West. He was the person who reached out to the West. He went to Europe, and he came to the United States. Even Bahaullahs grandson Shughi Effedi, was sent to Harvard, and received his education there. You can see they were becoming more and more westernized, and were reaching to the West, just like it had to come here.
Just imagine if I knew about Bab, and I came and said, "Bab was one of the Major Manifestations," and no one knew about Bab here. They would say, "Who was Bab? What are you talking about?"
Also Babs teaching had to be modified, because as we said, it wasnt perfect. It almost destroyed them, because they couldnt survive in that hostile environment. Bahaullah had to modify those teachings.
So the coming of Bahaullah was the Will of God, there is no doubt about that. It is not that we say, "Bahaullah wasnt the Will of God at all." It was the Will of God, but Bab was the Major Manifestation. Bab was the fulfiller of the prophecies. The only thing he claimed was, "I am the one Bab said is going to come." Of course Bahais claim he has fulfilled many prophecies, but most of them are also fulfilled by me. He came to help to bring the teaching of Universalism to the West. He and Bab are the twin Prophets who were Prophesied to come before the coming of the Last Revelation.
But Bab said, "The one who is going to come is going to manifest much later," much later than when did Bahaullah came. Actually, the year that Bab claimed to the Bab was 1844, and I was born in 1944, almost exactly 100 years to the point from his proclamation. So it is an interesting thing, exactly 100 years to the time that he claimed to be the Major Manifestation.
Now, why cant Bahaullah be the Major Manifestation whom Bab predicted to come?
Bab predicted that the next manifestation would come much later. Bahaullah claimed to be Him after 13 or 16 years, after Bab.
Bab considered himself as a Major Manifestation. Bab himself said, "I am the Major Manifestation." When a Major Manifestation comes, no one comes after Him after a short period of time. It took 600 years after Christ for Muhammad to come. It took 1000 years for Bab to come, etc.
Bab gave (addressed) SubhI Azal (Azal) the titles he had given himself. He actually called SubhI Azal the titles, such as "Morning of Eternity" (SubhI Azal), "Splendor of God" (Bahaullah), "Second Point" (Nugta-I-Thani), and "The One" (Wahid). Actually, SubhI Azal became so forgotten by the Bahais later that when he died there was no one around him, except his son. They had completely deserted him.
Bab sent his personal belongings to SubhI Azal (pen, case, paper, writings, ring, clothing, etc). This means Bab outwardly symbolized the unity of Spirit with SubhI Azal.
Bab wrote a testimonial deposition nominating SubhI Azal as his successor. He wrote it down, that SubhI Azal was his successor.
Professor Browne saw the original document which was written and sealed by Bab himself, which appointed SubhI Azal as his successor. Browne published a facsimile of the translation of the Arabic text of this document. It is in one of those French books that he wrote.
Bab also gave written notice of this appointment to the Letters Of The Living (those who were still alive).
Bahaullah himself praised SubhI Azal as the leader of the Babis, while he was in Iran.
The city the Bahais claim as the Holy City (Jerusalem) is not the one which was supposed to be in the West (New Jerusalem).
There was one prediction, one prophecy that said that there was going to be two holy cities. There would be one in the East, which is Jerusalem, and many things start from there. But there is going to be a city in the West, where everything is going to finish (be fulfilled).
That is the New Jerusalem. They predicted that this city would be in the West. That is another prophecy that is fulfilled by us. The culmination of all the Revelations by God came in The Greatest Sign and Eternal Divine Path, and was revealedin the West! It wasnt revealed to me when I was in the East!
Of course, it is prophesied that the person who brings it is from the East and sits on the chair, which is the symbol of the West. So it is again, that we brought the East and West together, and this prophecy is also NOW fulfilled.
It is just like the eastern soul is very religious and very spiritual, while the western soul is very intellectual and scientific. Now it is again time to bring those two together. It is not only unifying all teachings into One teaching, it is also unifying many spectrums of human existence. Our teachings put everything together, including the East and the West.
Another way to look at this is that: The West concentrated on the external world (science, etc.) and the East on the internal world (Spirit). Both accomplished great things. The West progressed materially. The East progressed spiritually. The West found many tools to make human physical life more comfortable. The East recognized the Spirit, the chakras, lokas, koshas, etc.
Indeed, now is the time to bring a balance on earth. As the human brain and its two spheres are coming together as one functioning brain, now the two spheres of the earth are also coming together to be(come) whole. That is another thing the Mission is accomplishing.
So the city that the Bahais mostly accepted as their Holy City is Jerusalem. They have most of their activities there. It is not the New Jerusalem, which was predicted will be in the West!
All previous Manifestations were not for Bahaullah, as Bab predicted would be the case for the coming of the next Major Manifestation.
Another thing Bab said was that when that the Major Manifestation comes, every Manifestation that came before him was for him, to culminate the teaching, the revelation. Hasnt it happened here? Every one of them came to bring a part of The Greatest Sign.
So they all came to bring a part of the truth. But with our teaching, all of them came to perfect a part of our teachings. Now it is perfected, it is put together as the culmination of all the revelations before it.
Bahaullahs teaching is not doing that. Actually according to Bahaullah, anything before him is null and void. That is against what Bab predicted about the coming of the future Major Manifestation. That was another thing that I told them in that message to the Bahai Net.
The Greatest Sign and the Eternal Divine Path represent the teaching of all the Great Prophets in the past.
It was written in one of the sources I studied that, "In the Bayan Bab wrote, He-Whom-God-Will-Manifest is Divine [Eternal Divine Path]. His command is Gods Command. He is not to be asked why he does whatever he is doing. All previous Manifestations were for him."
Another thing which is missing in the Bahai teaching, as we mentioned yesterday, is that they dont consider the Mystical Paths. They dont talk about Hinduism, Buddhism, and other Mystical Paths. Actually someone had asked Abdul Baha (Bahaullahs son), "What about Buddhism?" His answer was, It was OK then. Buddha did a job he came here to do, but its time has passed. It is finished. It is just like thats how they feel about every other religion before the Bahais.
But we dont say that. We say that everything in the past, including the human history, are lessons for us to learn from, and every religion, and their original teachings, that came has a place in The Greatest Sign. We are not destroying anything. Buddhism, Hinduism, Sufism, Cabalism, and what their founder brought to humanity, have a place in The Greatest Sign. So, that is another sign that he cannot be the last one, or the Manifestation that was predicted by Bab.
Change of history: As we said before, the history was changed in the Bahais. There was an old era, which they tried to destroy and eliminate. When Browne went to Iran to meet the Babis, he could not find one and the Bahais had changed many things in favor of Bahaullah. So the very foundation of the faith is based on trying to hide things, and it still continues.
Troubles in the Bahai Faiths, regarding successors: Bab chose SubhI Azal as His successor and Bahaullah took over later and pushed him out of the way. When Bahaullah died, his son Abdul Baha took over. A great struggle started between him and his brother over who is the successor for Bahaullah. When Abdul Bahai died, again there was a rumor that his successor, Shoghi Afandi, had changed the will, etc. When Shoghi Afandi died, he did not appoint any successor. Again there was a great upheaval in the Bahai movement. Eventually some of the people took over and discontinued the idea of the Guardian. They formed the House Of Justice and decided they no longer needed a guardian. That, of course, is not the way Bahaullah envisioned the Bahai faith would be run.
Covenant Breakers: In each of these incidents, anyone who opposed the new leader (or if they left the faith), was/is labeled the "Covenant Breakers," and were/is excommunicated. So the faith works like a party based on a dictatorship mentality. If you are not following the party line (which is the same as the dictator at the top), you are out. There is not freedom of expression and individuality. It is not based on a democratic process.
Bab/Baha'i faith is the fifth seal: Even on their temple, Bahais only show five Seals (Swastika, Star of David, Christianity, Islam and the Bahai symbol). They themselves are conforming exactly what we are saying. Their Revelation is the Fifth Seal!
Book sealed: And probably the two most important items (items numbered 16 and 17). First it is clear that the Scriptures reveal that the last Prophet (Major Manifestation, Messiah, etc.) shall open the Book which is Sealed with the Seven Seals:
And I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals.
Rev 5:1 (KJV)
Only One Person can open the Book, which has been Sealed with the Seven Seals. Since God said that the greatest revelation will come when that Book would be opened, and the seventh angel will reveal the mystery of God, therefore Bab was referring to this revelation and the person who reveals it as He Whom God Will Manifest. It is this book that its each verse is worth 1,000 Bayans, etc. None of the Prophets before had opened a Book which Reveals the Seven Seals. None, including Bahaullah, had brought a Book that Reveals the Mystery of the Seven Seals, which is in that Book. THOTH does all of these!
Seven seals: And of course the Most Important Evidence, THE REVELATION OF THE SEVEN SEALS AND THE MYSTERY OF GOD. Again it is our teaching that accomplishes this. No other Prophets, including Bahai, ever explained what are the Mysteries of the Seven Seals. What are the Seven Seals? What is so important about them? What do they represent? Why they are a Mystery? etc. THOTH does exactly that. It Reveals their Mystery and unifies all religions. It reveals that each of them are a part of the Eternal Divine Path (EDP) and The EDP is the path to human Salvation Physically, Mentally, Spiritually, Individually and Collectively.
So for all these reasons the Bab/Bahai Faith is not perfect. God already knew this and He said it about the Fifth Seal:
And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.
Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.
Rev 3:1-2 (KJV)
In that net that I sent my messages, I told them they can send my messages to their headquarters (leaders) in Jerusalem and I invited them to come here and meet the New Revelation. It is just like Prophet Muhammad sent messages to the leaders of the world, and they didnt come. It is the same thing.
This time we have networking. We dont have to send anyone. All we have to do is send a message on the computer. That is what I did, "This is an invitation to you, it is an invitation to all Bahais, and it is an invitation to your leaders, to come and see the New Revelation. If you dont accept it, if you dont see the truth in it, that is fine. You can go away and I will leave you to God. But at least come and look at it!"
They are doing the same thing that the Moslems did to them. The Moslems didnt want to hear what they had. That is exactly what every previous manifestation does to the new people, the new teaching, the same thing other people did to them.
But in our teaching, we are not closed to anything. Any new revelation or manifestation that comes is going to be a part of The Greatest Sign. Even if a Prophet comes and says, "I am the new Prophet, and I have this teaching," we will say, "OK, lets see where you fall in The Greatest Sign."
So we dont oppose anyone, because The Greatest Sign covers everything that was there and will come. Even if a Prophet comes and claims that God talked to him, he should fall somewhere in The Greatest Sign. He either is a mystic, or talks about the communities, or says, "You people need to sacrifice, give of yourselves to the communities in order to create good communities," or he says, "Dont be attached to the result of your actions," etc.
Now the Bahais have been given the warning, so we will see what happens to them, to the Bahai teaching, to the Bahai people. When God invites a people, they have the choice to accept the invitation, or reject it. If they reject it they are going against the Will of God. His Will, will be done no matter what human will does for or against It!
Comment: Even Bahaullah himself admitted that he was not the last Prophet. He also admitted receiving a message from God, that if the Bahai people did not get their teaching together it would be given to another people. So they knew, and I think a lot of them are aware of this.
Maitreya: Actually when Bahaullah died, there was again a great crisis for the leadership between Abdul-Baha and another son of Bahaullah, as I mentioned above. Then when Abdul-Baha died there was another similar crisis. Some people say that they (the next leader) interfered with Abdul Bahas will, and there was a big skirmish about that. And when Shughi Afandi died, he did not appoint a successor. Then the Bahai Faith split into two, etc.
Comment: And the crisis continues.
Maitreya: Yes, there are a lot of stories of what happened to the Bahais after each of their leaders died. There were a lot of problems. They had a lot of struggle about who was going to come after Bahaullah, and Abdul-Baha almost disowned all of his family by the end of his life. Shughi Afandi disowned all of his family. And they called them covenant-breakers. We will get a little deeper into that later on.
So, what are the problems with the Bahai teaching?
Infallibility of the House of Justice. First of all, they teach that Bahaullah himself was infallible. Well, OK, he was a Prophet, he was connected. We could say that that was OK. But each Prophet is also a human and can make mistakes.
If I make a mistake you can tell me, "Hey Maitreya, you made a mistake here." And we can talk about it to see who is right. If I make a mistake, I will accept it, "OK, I accept it was a mistake, sorry. Lets do a better job." There is no one infallible in the body. The only thing that is infallible is the Spirit, is God. So the very idea of infallibility in the body is ridiculous.
Of course, after Bahaullah, they said Abdul-Baha was infallible. Do you understand what infallible means? It means, no fault, he can not make any mistakes.
Comment: Like the Pope.
Maitreya: That is right. That is another mistake, that the Pope is infallible.
That is the most ridiculous idea anyone can have on this earth, that anyone is infallible. No one is infallible. As long as you are in the body, you are fallible.
Then it came to Shughi Afandi, that he was infallible. That was why they had to disown their families, because their families disagreed with them. As we know, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
So Abdul-Baha had to disown all his family because they didnt agree with him, and they said, "They are the Covenant-breakers." His mother, his brothers, his sisters, all of them were the Covenant breakers. Shoghi Afandi did the same thing.
His mother-in-law, or grandmother, or someone, was the person who pushed Abdul-Baha to choose Shughi Afandi as his successor. Shughi Afandi became the leader of the Bahais, and later on he even disowned her and pushed her out, etc. You never, ever should disown your parents. So the very idea of infallibility is false.
Then after Shughi Afandi, of course, they created the Universal House of Justice. Now the Universal House of Justice is infallible, they dont make any mistakes.
Lack of definition of who a Paravipra (true leader) is. They dont have the concept of Paravipra. Who is a Paravipra? Who is a leader? Who is a person who can accept the leadership of a society?
He is a person who follows the Eternal Divine Path, who meditates, who wants to create the Communities of Light, who is ready to sacrifice, who is surrendered and submissive to God, who is a universalist, and who is connected. He is not infallible. God is infallible. Only when he is connected, is he infallible. If he is not connected, he is not infallible. Almost no one is connected 100%, all the time.
If I make a mistake, I am not connected, I am losing the connection. If you make a mistake, you lost the connection. That is why it is so important to be connected all the time, to all the time get rid of your concepts and being connected to the world, but to be connected to Spirit (God).
Connection to the world causes us to make mistakes. We dont think we make mistakes, we think we are doing OK. But how do we know someone is making mistakes? Look at their lives. Are they happy? Are they flowing? Does the spirit reach other people? If they are connected, their spirit reaches other people. If they are not, their spirit becomes smaller and smaller, and the only thing they think about is, "Me, me, me, me." There is no flow of spirit through them, and it just dies inside.
That is why all these techniques have been given, to expand us, to let our spirit flow. If the leader doesnt have the spirit to flow through him, the spirit reaches no one. So they dont have the very idea of Paravipras.
They dont have any yardstick to know who is really connected.
The general notion that all religions are basically the same. We see in our teaching that is not true. Each religion had a specific message for humanity. They are the same in many, many aspects, of course, but every religion also had a specific message for humanity. It is not only that they are all basically the same, but also they each had a specific message.
Lack of support for Far East teachings (including Buddhism, Hinduism and its many branches). We just talked about that. They dont include Hinduism and Buddhism. In other words, the Mystical Paths are ignored, the same as in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. They all do not include the Mystical Paths in their teachings.
God cannot be known by man. They say, "God cannot be known by man." That is ridiculous. As we said, knowing God is so simple that man keeps missing It. It is not that man cannot know Him, but He is so simple to know that we keep missing Him. That man cannot know God is not the truth, because God created everything from Himself! How can we then not know Him? We are in His Image, to Know Self is to know God. Be Still and Know God, etc. We can know God.
The problem here is that they (Bab and Bahai) didnt know the Mystical Teachings. They didnt know Hinduism, they didnt know Buddhism, and they didnt know all those teachings from the Far East. Because of their backgrounds, they were not exposed to any Mystical teachings. In the teachings of the Far East, they know that God is everything. They know the atman is the same as Atman. If they knew that, they wouldnt have said that you cannot Know God.
What Bahai mostly did was interpret Babs teachings and make life easier for the Babis/Bahais to live with others. So he was necessary. That was one of his functions. Another function was to bring this teaching to the West, so we would know them when they came to the West.
I didnt know too much about the Bahais when I was in Iran. I had heard about them a bit but I never had any close contact with them. Probably once I had contact, very, very brief contact with them. But they were a completely different kind of community, so there wasnt too much inter-relationship between us.
I start to know about them after I came to the US, and after I started meditating and becoming open to other religions. Of course, eventually, the whole Revelation came to me when I went to Chicago and I went to the Bahai Temple. The whole Revelation just rushed upon me. That is a long story, and we dont have time for it now. There is other literature in the Mission which explains what happened.
Also, there are some interesting points in Babs and Bahais teachings, such as the two holy cities, as we talked about, one in the East and one in the West. Jabalqa, the city in the East (Jerusalem) is in the direction of the beginning, and Jabarsa (we are going to call this city Jabarsa laughter), the city in the West (the New Jerusalem), the city in the direction of the return and ending. So this is the city of the return and the ending.
Two or three months after we moved here, a slogan was adopted for Rio Rancho. It was called the "City of Vision." I suggested to call it the City With Vision, because it had such a nice view everywhere. But I never wrote it down. Then they chose the "City of Vision," and I then realized that that name was more appropriate than "with vision." "Of Vision" means that there is a vision that this city is to fulfill!
Any time the Messiah returns, it is the time of resurrection. That was another point that Bab made. A lot of people read in the Bible that it is the day of resurrection, making the sky open, the Messiah comes, the dead wake up, they go to the sky and are caught with Christ, and all that. But Bab cleared up that very well, exactly the way we teach here, that whenever the Messiah comes, whenever the Spirit of God comes to the earth, that is the day of resurrection.
That is why we have so many people reborn now. Why do we have so many people on earth? There are so many people here. They have already resurrected, and this is the time of purification, this is the time of judgment. For instance, why is there so much destruction? It is because many have been resurrected and are being purified!
It is time for tribulation. It is time for purification. Also this goes very well with the seven seals in The Revelation. Any time a seal is opened, a great disaster comes, destruction comes, and many people are destroyed.
Also, "The coming of the Prophet (Messiah) is a manifestation of consciousness, not a physical manifestation." That was another point that Bab made clear. Moslems were also waiting for the Imam to come, almost exactly the same as Christians are waiting for Christ to come, as the skies open, Christ comes, and he says everyone is OK. He punishes the bad ones, rewards the good, and he sits on his throne. Bab made it clear that that is not true. The Manifestation comes because humanity needs a new evolutionary process to go to a higher state. That is also what the Bhagavad-Gita teaches, that Chrishna (Charisma, Christ, etc.) comes when morality is low and man is lost, etc.
What did Bab and Bahai accomplish? They were no longer chosen from the Children of Abram (Abraham). Well, apparently Bab was because he was a Seyyid. As we said, he was from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad was from the lineage of Ishmael, who was the other son of Abraham. But Bahaullah wasnt.
Being from the lineage of Prophet Muhammad was another thing that Bab fulfilled. The Moslems were waiting for someone to come from Prophet Muhammad, and he did. So he fulfilled that prophecy.
Grace came with Esa, Law with Muhammad, and universalism with Bab and Bahaullah. As we said, one of the pitfalls of the first four seals is narrowness of the mind. You become narrow. Many in their religions say, "If you are not Hindu, you are no good." "If you are not a Jew, you are not a chosen person." "If you are not a Christian, you are lost." "If you are not a Moslem, you are not following the last Prophet."
Each of them separates themselves from other people. It means if you are a Christian, you are better than everyone else. If you are a Jew, you are better than everyone else. If you are a Moslem, you are better than everyone else. That is separation from the narrowness of the mind.
But here, at the Fifth Seal, there is no longer narrowness, there is universalism. All religions are basically the same. They are good. They are OK.
Has humanity understood their message and teachings? No, of course not. Have their followers understood their message? Have they? Probably most of them have not.
What do the Scriptures say about this message? What was the prediction of its coming? Why do we accept the Bahai teaching as the Fifth Seal?
Of course, the revelation came to me when I was in their Temple in Chicago. That is one of the very high points, because before that I was just receiving all this stream of consciousness, this connection that was coming to me. As I said, I was just trying to finish my degree. I didnt come here to become a Prophet or a Messenger. I came here to finish my education.
And then I couldnt. For example, I was sitting at my disk reading about management, and suddenly I would think, "Oh, what about that [some stream of thought]?" I had to go to the Bible, and read this and read that, and completely forgot about management. Or, I was sitting in the management class, listening to the professor, and he would say, "OK, this is the hierarchy of organization." Suddenly I thought, "Yes, it looks like the hierarchy in the Star of David, the triangle upward. Hey, does that mean hierarchy?" So I was out of that class (in consciousness) and connected with this stream of revelation. I would be absolutely taken out of the room and taken away to a place to receive this.
I went to Chicago just to get rid of these thoughts. I went to visit my cousin there. I remember the first night I was there, he suggested, "Lets go to see the Bahai Temple tomorrow." I said, "OK." And we went the next day.
There are steps there, and you cant see the Temple while climbing the steps. After you climb the steps, suddenly the Temple is revealed. It is pretty. It is very beautiful. Then there is a swastika and the signs of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Bahai are carved on the Temple.
I saw that, and everything flashed in my mind. I realized there was a connection between all these signs, etc. That was it! Not thinking about these things was out of the window. You all know the story and what happened!
Anyway, so that is one of the reasons we accept Bahai as one of the signs in The Greatest Sign.
The second is the prophecy of martyrdom. In the fifth seal in The Revelation chapter three (read THOTH the book Revelation Of The Revelation), it is said, "They will be killed, they will be martyred, and they will wear the white clothes, etc."
The Bible also says, "They are lost. It is not perfect."
They have to wait awhile before the last Revelation is Revealed. Also in the Bible, it says their Saints (those who have been killed) cry, "How long are we going to wait?" God says, "You have to wait awhile." Awhile means 100 years. It doesnt mean 13 years, or even 16 years. To God awhile means much longer than 13 or 16 years.
It will be a mystery until the seventh Angel comes. Also, you cant blame them as to why they dont understand and they are lost, because God said it will be a mystery until the seventh Angel comes. So all the previous Revelations are not perfect. They are a part of a Mystery. Their followers are confused because they do not have the whole picture until the Seventh Angel comes.
Who is the seventh angel? He is the angel of the seventh seal. That is our seal, the Seventh Seal that brings everything together. The mystery of God is finished, it has been given to humanity.
What is the spiritual message of the Fifth Seal? The message is universalism, expansion of the mind. It is the Fifth Seal in The Greatest Sign. It is a part of the Eternal Divine Path and The Greatest Sign. This message was necessary to complete the Eternal Divine Path.
What is the relationship between the Fifth Seal and the rest of The Greatest Sign? It shows that universalism is necessary in order for the Communities of Light to be manifested. It is a part of the Plan of God. Bab as the Messiah, the First Begotten Son of God, has brought it to us. It is a part of the greater truth, The Greatest Sign and the Eternal Divine Path.
Each seal in The Greatest Sign is a part of a greater truth. The Whole is greater than each part. The Whole has Life. Separate each organ (part) from the body, and no life will exist. However, parts are needed for life to manifest! The whole has many different parts as a body has many different organs. When these different parts (organs) are put together, life can be manifested. Separate parts (organs) are lifeless.
That is why all these religions have to be put together, to give life to Gods Plan and manifestation. Separate them and they become lifeless. That is exactly what is happening to most of the religions in the world right now. Do they have any life any more? No, they are lifeless. All of them are dead. Their dead bodies are just lying around all over the earth.
We need life. We are bringing life to humanity. We are putting the organs together and saying, "You cant have the stomach in Asia, and the heart in Africa, and the brain somewhere else. You have to put them together, then put the Spirit into it, and then you are going to have Life." So we have brought Life to this world.
These organs together still need Spirit to have Life. Without Spirit they will be lifeless. The Mission, as the Body and all its components (Parts), has to be received in whole. Our teaching is the Spirit (Life) giving life to these parts. These together will manifest the Kingdom Of Heaven On Earth (KOHOE).
Accepting only one (or a few) part(s) of the Mission and rejecting other parts is like receiving a few organs of the body and expecting to have a normal life (receiving life). It will not work.
You cannot accept a part of the Mission and not accept another part. You cant say, "OK, I accept The Greatest Sign, but I am not going to practice your rituals," Or, "I accept only Christianity, Judaism and the Far East Philosophies, but I am not going to accept Islam because it is after Christ."
Each part, however, is necessary for the Body (Mission) to function properly. Of course, some organs (Parts) are more vital than others are. Some parts are like the brain in the body, if it is not there the body will die. Some others are not that vital, but they are good to have (followed, accepted, etc.)
The Greatest Sign and the Eternal Divine Path are the answer for human salvation, physically, mentally and spiritually, individually and collectively. The Mission is the whole Body and Soul. It has life. Any separated part (not accepting the whole) will die fast.
The Mission unifies all the great religions of the world. It fulfills all the prophecies. It shows the way to bring the KOHOE. It brings individual and collective salvation to humanity. It shows the shortest path to the Highest Spiritual achievement. It is the answer to all human longings, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, individually and/or collectively.
We Respect all religions in their original form. They are all a part of us, so is the Bab/Bahai faith. All should join under the Banner of The Greatest Sign, to be(come) One. So we all can say: One world, One humanity, under One God!