Pilgrim Notes

Marion Yazdi

1928

1121 Spruce Street
Berkeley California.,
Oct. 27, 1928

Dear Mrs. True:

I can no longer delay answering, at least briefly, the letters received from you and Mrs. Maxwell, asking us to share with you the instructions giveb by Shoghi Effendi, while we were with him the last part of June of this year.

Shoghi Effendi spoke to us again and again, on the Plan of Unified action and the need of organization; always when he talked with us, he went back to these topics. And his parting words were that he hoped we, and all the friends, we would be (1) closely associated with the work of the National Spiritual Assembly, suggesting always the administration of the Cause and (2) bend every effort to promote the Unified Plan of Action.

Shoghi Effendi said that all other activities are at present secondary to the Unified Plan of Action; that we must all concentrate on this one thing. Shoghi Effendi believes that the American believers are capable of putting the plan into effect. (1) He made it very clear that non-Baha’is are not to contribute toward any Baha’i activity, not even toward the rent of a hall, * Baha’is must support their own activities. The object of this, he said, is to remove the possibility of non-Baha’is demanding the right to have a voice in the administration in what they finance. For example, if a wealthy person gives a sum of money to the Temple, he might expect to be consulted in the direction of it. But the Mashriqu’l-Adhkar must be administered in accordance with the plan of Baha’u’llah.

We asked what should be done when a person truly wishes to contribute to an activity and would feel hurt if his offering were not accepted. In that case, Shoghi Effendi said, the money might be devoted to the poor with the consent of the donor.

(2) Furrher, he said, that the Persian Baha’is were eager to assist in the construction of the Temple, but that he will not permit them (to contribute again), until America has shown her willingness to sacrifice. The Persians would give everything they have.

The Unified Plan of Action is a conscientious individual obligation according to Shoghi Effendi, and one believer cannot impose it on another. We asked Shoghi Effendi if we should go without food in order to meet this obligation. His answer was that one must have balance in all things, but as much as possible to support the Plan of Unified Action this year.

We told Shoghi Effendi that in our own Assembly we had rented a hall in the hope of making new Baha’is, thereby increasing the number of contributors to the Fund. However, we had not been able, as an Assembly, to give our full quota. Shoghi Effendi said that we would not make many new Baha’i this year, but we could devote everything to the success of the Plan this year.

And then Shoghi Effendi spoke of the next war, more terrible than the last, which Baha’is could not prevent, but whose horrors they might mitigate.

Lovingly yours in His Cause,

(signed) Marion Yazdi