21 October 2021

Istijlál, 7 ‘Ilm (Knowledge), 178 B.E.

Seen

Sunrise Sky Studies

Done

Gretel encounters a witch, but Hansel is nowhere to be seen!

Noted

Astral Prospecting on Instagram: Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company Forge Mark 

For more information, check out the History of the Clawfoot Bathtub

Quoted

As I crawled into bed the book fell on the floor. I had forgotten about it. I picked it up and began to flip through it.

It was a record of the public talks given by ‘Abdul-Bahá during his visit to America from the Holy Land before the First World War.

Inside the fly-leaf there was a tribute to Bahá’u’lláh by Leo Tolstoy, who had written: “The whole world is seeking the solution to its problems. There is a prisoner in ‘Akka, Bahá’u’lláh, who has the key.”

“All right,” I said to myself skeptically, “let’s see.”

I began to read. It was about two-o’clock when I found out why Marguerite had become so excited when I mentioned my boyhood dream. I felt a stab-like thrill myself as I turned one of the pages and saw the date: September 20, 1912.

It was the very day and year of my first dream!

Abdul-Bahá had spoken in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on that day. He had been speaking only a short distance away from the little town in which I had lived and dreamed. I read the words of his talk very carefully. There was something vaguely familiar about them. He warned mankind to investigate the truth for themselves, and not to follow in the footsteps of those who accepted all things blindly. ¹

The attainment of these virtues, both material and ideal, is conditioned upon intelligent investigation of reality, by which investigation the sublimity of man and his intellectual progress is accomplished. Forms must be set aside and renounced; reality must be sought. We must discover for ourselves where and what reality is. In religious beliefs nations and peoples today are imitators of ancestors and forefathers. If a man’s father was a Christian, he himself is a Christian; a Buddhist is the son of a Buddhist, a Zoroastrian of a Zoroastrian. A gentile or an idolator follows the religious footsteps of his father and ancestry. This is absolute imitation. The requirement in this day is that man must independently and impartially investigate every form of reality. ²

My sister and brother-in-law recently relocated and chose to donate several books in their library rather than move them. Many of these volumes are not well-known, but due to the topics they cover and the manner in which their authors explore them, they warrant a nod of recognition before being sent on their way. Accordingly, most quotes referenced in the “Quoted” section come from these books. Maybe they will stir (or renew) your interest, too.