Hidden Words Question

All research or scholarship questions
shm
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Hidden Words Question

Postby shm » Mon Mar 13, 2006 2:05 pm

O SON OF MAN! Bestow My wealth upon My poor, that in heaven thou mayest draw from stores of unfading splendor and treasures of imperishable glory. But by My life! To offer up thy soul is a more glorious thing couldst thou but see with Mine eye.


What is meant by "Bestow My wealth upon My poor, that in heaven thou mayest draw from stores of unfading splendor and treasures of imperishable glory." Does this mean that we should give money to the poor people. If this is what it means then how about if Im not that wealthy, do I have to give money to the poor, and if I do, how about if I live in a country like Canada there are no poor people, and for the poor people there is welfare so am I suppose to find people on welfare and give money to them??

What is meant by "To offer up thy soul is a more glorious thing couldst thou but see with Mine eye." does this that I should wish to become a martyr and give up my life for this cause or what does this mean. And if it does mean that I should become a martyr, then how can I become a martyr if I life in a country like Canada where they dont kill people for religious reasons.

Im having trouble fully understanding this quote from the Hidden Word, any guidance is appreciated

onepence
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Postby onepence » Mon Mar 13, 2006 5:07 pm

There are many and diverse meanings and understandings to our Sacred Scripture for His ocean is as vast as it is limitless, for instance when we look upon the word poor one tends only to see a surperficial surface level meaning as in the poor people who live in material poverty as in the homeless people or as shm stated those on welfare, but I say this much this type of poverty, material poverty, is just a side effect of a morally bankrupt society, a society that has become careless of its' God and thusly another meaning of poor is formed when one realizes that those who have never heard of Baha'u'llah are indeed spirtually poor.


When one actively seeks to follow the guidance of the Adminstrative Order it is "To offer up thy soul", or at least that is my belief.

shm
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Postby shm » Mon Mar 13, 2006 7:08 pm

The reason Im having trouble understanding that Hidden Word quote is because there are two parts to it from what I got out of it.

The first part says give ur wealth to the poor, then in the second part it says to give up ur soul would be better.

I cant fully understand this, if I give money to the poor does this mean that I am choosing to give to the poor and am not giving up my soul.

There seems to be a "line" seperating the first part from the second part

onepence
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Postby onepence » Mon Mar 13, 2006 11:16 pm

you may not understand
for not all things can be understood

have you ever studied sacred geometry?
what is solid, what flows, where is the cap stone, do you know about structural support and load bearing walls?

http://www.arashcity.com/ITCViewFromUHJDay5.jpg

theapostledean

shm
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Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2006 6:40 pm

Postby shm » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:23 pm

I dont know what sacred geometry is, and I dont understand how what ur saying related to the question I asked, If u dont mind can u please clarify?

There are many writings in the Hidden Word that I read and that I dont understand and I think I am just trying to make myself think that this is spiritual stuff and I meditate on it, but in truth I dont know what it means.
This quote from the Hidden Words is one example that I dont understand, and Im trying to clarify it so that I can understand, I am kind of coming to realize that I am making myself think that I understand what is being said when really I am not understanding. If anyone can explain this quote I would very much appreciate it.

CJ

Postby CJ » Wed Mar 15, 2006 10:46 pm

hi shm;
in regards to your first question, about giving to the poor, I would guess that this does refer to material wealth, and not the word of God, because the word 'wealth' is not capitalized. and in reply to this, I would say that there are many poor people in Canada; many do not get welfare, and of the ones who do, in most cases this is not nearly enough for shelter as well as food; there is not doubt that it is not enough for them to live. this information is well documented by anti-poverty groups in Canada, you don't have to go far to find people who don't have enough to eat or clothe themselves properly. if you look at the example of Abdu'l-Baha, he was always befriending the helping the poor in material ways.
however if you are in doubt, you could always send your money to another country.
the other thing is that this is what the Huququ'llah contributions are for (partially), isnt' it? or am I wrong?

onepence
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Postby onepence » Wed Mar 15, 2006 11:15 pm

you can send all the money and excess food to places like second harvest all you want
and
you can build only homeless shelters and bring all the clothes one owns to the poor

and that is good and pleasing in the eyes of the Lord

but by my life is that enough
would it ever be enough
there has to be something more

something that will last for eternity,
that won't fade or crumble away
something that only I can offer
and is imperishable

I shall offer up my soul

but yet the Hidden Mystery remains

oneness
theapostledean


//////////////

and btw
if I am to offer up by soul
by what method
and to whom and when where and how shall this be done?

all those questions and so much more can only be properly answered by the Administrative Order through counsoltation with the individual soul ...

following The Path

oneness
dh

shm
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Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2006 6:40 pm

Postby shm » Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:59 pm

CJ wrote:hi shm;
and in reply to this, I would say that there are many poor people in Canada; many do not get welfare, and of the ones who do, in most cases this is not nearly enough for shelter as well as food; there is not doubt that it is not enough for them to live. this information is well documented by anti-poverty groups in Canada, you don't have to go far to find people who don't have enough to eat or clothe themselves properly. if you look at the example of Abdu'l-Baha, he was always befriending the helping the poor in material ways.
however if you are in doubt, you could always send your money to another country.
the other thing is that this is what the Huququ'llah contributions are for (partially), isnt' it? or am I wrong?


I doubt there are any starving or unclothed people in Canada, thanks to welfare and all the shelters people have. The only homeless people in Canada are the ones that want to be homeless and even to those people Canada offers psychological help so that they can understand that being homeless is not good, but thats how they choose to live even though they have the option of being in a shelter, getting a job, and living a descent life. And also to those people who choose to be homeless Canada goes out and gives them sleeping bags so that they can sleep on the sidewalks better. And this is all cuz people in Canada give taxes and the government chooses to use some of it on wefare, shelter and poor people, and there are also many people who have used clothing cuz they probably have so much clothing that they choose to give there used ones to shelters instead of throwing it in the garbage

Im believe the people who AbdulBaha gave money to were people who had some kind of disability, whether they lost a leg, were handicapped, too old or something was wrong with them, so AbdulBaha gave money to them. Actually, AbdulBaha wouldnt give money to people who were healthy but poor and begged, to these people he would say go away.
If AbdulBaha knew of a family or someone who was poor and was suffering financially and they couldnt do anything about it, he would give them money.

Now if Im in a country like Canada, where there are no starving people, and for those who are poor the government helps out either with shelters or welfare, so there is absolutely noone in Canada who cant live a normal life with clothes, food, and a roof over there head, then obviously there is noone who is in need of money. What is a Bahai individual who has a normal house and is not rich but has enough to take care of his family, and sees nobody around who is absolutely in need suppose to do.

If this person gives money to the African funds which advertise on TV, they are not reliable, and are just a business basically "stealing peoples money", in one of these advertisments it says "so much of your money goes where its suppose to" meaning that they have warned that they are going to put ur money that u donate in there own pockets. And what does "so much" mean, if people donate 5 million dollars lets say, and they give only $10,000 dollars to the poor Africans, they could consider $10,000 "so much". And where has the rest of the over 4.5 million dollars that people have donated went.. well its gone in there own pockets, and towards the vacation they were looking forward to and the fancy car they wanted to buy. For this reason they are unreliable, so giving money to them is like giving money to a rich person, once u have donated the money in in there hands and they will do whatever they want with it.

Another example: they did a follow up on the money donated from all over the world to the victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran and other disasters that occured, like in Sri Lanka and India where there were floods. There were billions upon billions of dollars donate from all over the world by people to the Red Cross or the the government, and I remember in my own school there were people who were fundraising asking students to donate , and my school raised some $6000 and donated to the Red Cross to be given to the victims of these natural disasters.

Imagine all this money being donated, it should probably make all the victims of the natural disasters huge houses, fully furnished and there cities up and running, and for sure there shouldnt be any starving people.

Well guess what... there was a TV program I was watching, I believe it was on CBC or some some news channel, and guess what happened... less than 10% of the money donated to the hurricane and earthquake victims actually made it and was used for what it was suppose to.

Imagine, for the hundreds of billions upon 100 of billion of dollars that was donated, only less than 10% was used for the people and to build back these cities that were struck.

Now what is the point of me donating money to these corrupt funds who on the outside seem to be very helpful, and for the people in need.

The only way which I can see for me to give money is for me to actually myself fly with and airplane to Africa and give the poor families and those who are in need the money, this is the only option that I can see. Am I expected to do this as a Bahai, if I am not overly rich myself cuz the Hidden Words says so??

Also I dont get why in the Hidden Words it seperates giving money to the poor from giving up ur soul. Didnt AbdulBaha both give money to the poor and give up his soul, so how come the Hidden Words here seperates the two.

And for the giving up my soul part, what am I suppose to do either than to follow what the Kitabi Aqdas says and to try to live a Bahai life?

Am I suppose to say prayers 24 hours a day and try to constantly think about got. If this is so, and I am suppose to think about God and Bahaullah all the time, then how am I suppose to study if I go to school. When I study my thought are on solving a math problem to understanding or learning about science. When I am studying like this I am not even thinking about Bahaullah since my mind is occupied with something else, is this wrong??

AbdulBaha says we must always be in a "prayerful state" how is this possible. Im am always suppose to be in the state which I am in when I say a prayer. When Im saying a prayer I am thinking about God and Bahaullah, so if Im always in this state then how can I study science or do anything else, cuz I believe a "prayerful state" does not include punching numbers in a calculator and trying to solve a math problem.

Jonah
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homelessness in Canada

Postby Jonah » Thu Mar 16, 2006 9:17 pm

The only homeless people in Canada are the ones that want to be homeless

Perhaps in some of the smaller towns, but in the larger cities I've lived in for more than a couple years each -- Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver -- there are tens of thousands of cold, hungry homeless people who most certainly would prefer having shelters and more food kitchens. And the numbers are rising rapidly: in Toronto, for example, the numbers doubled in just the last decade. In Vancouver, a shelter was closed in downtown last year, and the spill-over into our more-upscale section of near-downtown, of people sleeping on the sidewalks or in our building's stairwells, was immediate and obvious.

Googling http://www.google.com/search?&q=homeless+canada will give you lots of information. Here's one, <a href="http://action.web.ca/home/housing/resources.shtml?x=66865&AA;_EX_Session=0bfcdec987631674d3ab87c02c7a6072">Counting Homeless People</a>. To sum it up, the primary reasons people become homeless in Canada are (1) financial disaster; (2) addictions; or (3) being Native American (First Nations). That's not expressed tongue-in-cheek: the "aboriginals" are far more likely than caucasians to be homeless. And I don't think it's by their choice.

-Jonah

CJ

Postby CJ » Thu Mar 16, 2006 10:11 pm

shm;
you shouldn't worry so much about these things, the Writings say that life is meant for joy, so you should be joyous and not stressing. God knows that you are striving to do your best for Him. as well, as Baha'is our work is worship, so even if perhaps you cannot consciously think of God when you are doing math, when you concentrate fully on it and perfecting your work, know that you are actually worshipping God.

majnun
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wealth = scriptures from above

Postby majnun » Sat Mar 18, 2006 6:21 am

If the "son" is the messenger, it is
normal that he spread "My wealth" (the scriptures)
onto the poor (the poor = us) who needs them.

Majnun.

shm
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Postby shm » Sun Mar 19, 2006 7:24 pm

Majnun's point sounds a little "off" to me. According to Majnun's statements, that Hidden Word is directed to Bahaullah, but from what I can see I believe that the Hidden Word is directed to the people meaning everybody, since Bahaullah revealed the Hidden Word for the people and not for himself.

And where does the word "son" come in, I dont see that in the Hidden Word


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