The National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia and New
Zealand.
June 28, 1950.
Dear Baha'i Friends:
Your letters of August 9, 19; September 14, 22; November 7, 10, 21; of
1949; January 19; February 28; March 8, 31; April 11; May 2 (two), 1950,
have been received by our beloved Guardian and he has instructed me to
answer them on his behalf. The many enclosures and material forwarded
have, likewise, been safely received.
It has been impossible for our Guardian to keep abreast of his
correspondence and other work this Winter and Spring. It is only during
the last week that he has been able to turn to the mountain of mail,
representing the correspondence of the various National Assemblies, and
commence replying. The reason for this regrettable delay is that in order
to get the arcade of the Shrine of the Bab finished in time for the
centenary of His Martyrdom he had to undertake extensive excavations into
the solid rock of the mountain behind the Shrine--the new edifice being
much larger than the precious original building it is designed to enshrine
and protect. This work he personally supervised in order to ensure the
Shrine was in no way damaged, and to see the cost was kept within bounds.
You can imagine this was a very exacting and tiring ordeal for him.
Then, just as he had hoped to take up his overburdening correspondence,
Mr. Maxwell, the architect of the Shrine, at the beginning of April became
desperately ill, and for ten weeks absorbed the anxious care and attention
of us all, as his condition was seemingly hopeless. Thanks to the Mercy of
Baha'u'llah and the determination of the Guardian, he is recovering, and
our lives are getting back to normal routine.
The Guardian regrets very much the conduct of Mr. ...; it seems now fairly
clear that he is a former Baha'i from India who misconducted himself there
over a period of years and then showed up, under a different name, in
Australia. No one who conducts himself as he has can remain a voting
member of the Baha'i Community for--in spite of his wide knowledge of the
Faith and his belief in it--his acts are contrary to its teachings and
bring not only confusion into the Community and create inharmony, but
disgrace the Cause in the eyes of non-Baha'is.
The Guardian fully realizes that the process of splitting up large
communities into smaller ones, each existing within its own civil units,
has been difficult for the Australian friends. What they do not seem to
fully appreciate is that this has been done in Canada and the United
States as well, and is only in order to organize the assemblies on a
logical basis, and one with a firmer legal foundation. The fact that this
may create more assemblies in the end, and that it sometimes breaks up
existing ones, is only incidental; the important point is to consolidate
the communities on a sound basis, i.e. every assembly within the limits of
the Municipality its members reside in.
As Mrs Axford requested Mrs Thomas to write about her Baha'i life there is
every reason to respect her wishes. This in no way precludes the New
Zealand Community from writing about her services and life and keeping
this record in the National archives. The Guardian feels the Auckland
Assembly should be consulted, as her, (Mrs Axford's), home community, by
Mrs Thomas. He hopes this In Memoriam article, about so dear and tireless
a servant of the Faith, will produce a spirit of love and co-operation
amongst all concerned.
The gift by Miss Perks of an additional piece of land to the Yerrinbool
School is deeply appreciated. It enriches the endowments already held by
your Assembly. Please thank Miss Perks, on behalf of the Guardian, for
this generous contribution, to the institutions of the Faith in Australia,
and tell her he does not feel any name should be given the property other
that of Yerrinbool School, of which it will form a part, and that she will
always be remembered as the donor of it.
The acquisition of the site for the New Zealand Summer School was a great
step forward in the progress of the Faith there, and he was very pleased
about it. He was also delighted to hear of the formation of the Devonport
Assembly, and he hopes next year there will be still more.
I would also like to answer here a question raised in Mrs Bolton's letter
of March 8: the Guardian feels that no annual fixed pilgrimage should be
made to the grave of Father Dunn. The friends will naturally always want
to go there, when and how they like, but it must not become a ceremony,
otherwise it will contitute a precedent for similar things in the future.
It is premature, and will weaken the national and local work, for
delegates to be elected by State elections rather than by assemblies.
There is no question involved about believers losing their voting rights:
all the time believers are gaining and losing their voting rights by
becoming members of communities with assemblies or moving out into places
where they are isolated believers. The friends should not dwell on these
minor details, but concentrate on teaching the Cause and exemplifying the
Baha'i life. Voting is a purely administrative detail, but teaching and
serving are vital spiritual obligations. Regarding the change of the
By-Laws: the Guardian considers the letter he wrote you about this subject
is final. He is considerably surprised by the fact that of all the
National Bodies in the Baha'i World, operating under these By-Laws, it is
only the Assembly of Australia and New Zealand, evidently acting under
pressure from their legal committee, that constantly raises the question
of changing them. This he considers is going too far, and is not
necessary. He holds very bright hopes for the future of your work, and
urges you, and through you all the believers, to concentrate on your
glorious teaching tasks and forge ahead to win new victories for the
beloved Faith.
With Baha'i love,
R. Rabbani.
P.S. Your letter of June 9 has been received, and the Guardian deeply
appreciates the contribution you sent. Please find receipt enclosed. The
map you forwarded will be published in the next volume of "Baha'i World"
as the progress it shows will be of great interest to all readers.
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers:
The remarkable progress achieved by the Baha'i communities in Australia,
New Zealand and Tasmania in promoting the Plan, designed to further the
interests of the Faith in the Antipodes, is most encouraging, and will,
when consummated, mark the opening of a new and glorious chapter in the
history of the Faith in that continent. The varied and welcome evidences
of the steady extension in the range of the manifold activities of these
communities, the multiplication of Baha'i institutions and their rapid
consolidation, are particularly gratifying and merit the highest praise.
The territories in which these communities conduct their meritorious,
strenuous and highly promising activities with such diligence, resolution,
fidelity and devotion, are admittedly vast and constitute a direct
challenge to those who are called upon to diffuse the light of the Faith,
and lay an unassailable foundation for its rising administrative Order,
throughout the length and breadth of these territories.
The Plan, now operating with increasing momentum in that far-off
continent, is designed to enable its prosecutors to lay the first
foundations of the structure which the members of these communities must
rear in the years to come. As these primary pillars of a divinely ordained
steadily evolving, spiritually propelled order are successively erected
and sufficiently consolidated, and the agencies designed for the launching
of a systematic campaign aiming at the future proclamation of the Faith to
the masses inhabiting these far-flung territories multiply, a simultaneous
effort should be exerted, and measures should be carefully devised, by the
national elected representatives of these same communities, for the
launching of the initial enterprises destined to carry the Message of the
Faith, beyond the confines of these territories, to the Islands of the
Pacific, lying in their immediate neighbourhood.
For whatever may be the nature of the future successive crusades which the
American and Canadian Baha'i communities, may, under the Divine Plan of
'Abdu'l-Baha, launch in the course of the opening decades of the second
Baha'i century, and however extensive the range of their operations, and
no matter how far-reaching the future campaigns which the Baha'i
community, centered in the heart of the British Isles, may undertake
throughout the widely-scattered dependencies of the British Crown, the
responsibility devolving upon the National elected representatives of the
Baha'is of the Australasian continent for the introduction of the Faith
and its initial establishment in the Islands of the Pacific, linking them,
on the one hand, with their sister communities in the American continents
and on the other hand, with the communities in South-Eastern Asia, remains
clear and inescapable.
As the various Baha'i national communities, labouring directly as well as
indirectly, under the impulse of a Divine Plan, broaden and consolidate
the base of their operations in their respective homelands, and acquire
the potentialities that will empower them to lend, in an ever-increasing
measure, their share, and participate in the world-wide propagation of the
Faith, the Australian and New Zealand believers must, for their part,
contribute worthily to the overseas teaching activities and
accomplishments of these communities. Already the Baha'i community in the
Great Republic of the West, the vanguard of the irresistibly marching army
of Baha'u'llah, has launched its twin crusades in Latin America and the
continent of Europe. Its collaborator in the execution of 'Abdu'l-Baha's
Divine Plan, the Canadian Baha'i community is busily engaged in
establishing the Faith beyond the Canadian mainland and further north in
the vast territory of Greenland. The Persian and Iraqi Baha'i communities
are, moreover, assiduously labouring in the adjacent territories of the
Arabian Peninsula and the Kingdom of Afghanistan, while their
sister-communities in the sub-continent of India are pushing the frontiers
of the Faith as far as Ceylon in the South and Siam and Indonesia to the
North and Southeast of that subcontinent. More recently the members of the
British Baha'i community, having brought to a successful conclusion their
first historic Plan, are devising the necessary measures for the launching
of a teaching enterprise in the heart of Africa, supplementing the work
already accomplished by the Egyptian Baha'i community in that continent.
Shortly, and at its appointed time, yet another national community,
already established in the heart of the European continent, will, as soon
as the present obstacles are removed, and its internal activities are
sufficiently consolidated, embark on a campaign, beyond the borders of its
homeland, that will carry the light of the Faith to the adjoining Balkan
territories, the Baltic states and, across the eastern frontiers of
Europe, into Asia.
In this stupendous and laudable collective enterprise, world-wide in its
range, divinely propelled, world-redemptive in its purpose, in which
National Baha'i communities, already sufficiently consolidated from
within, are participating, each in accordance with the provisions of its
own specific plan and constituting, in its proportions and potentialities,
the mightiest spiritual crusade launched since the inception of the
Formative Age of the Faith,--in such an enterprise the Baha'i communities
of Australia and New Zealand can neither afford to remain inactive or play
a negligible part. The situation they occupy, the unnumbered virgin
territories lying in their neighbourhood, the vitality and adventurous
spirit the members of these communities have so strikingly manifested--all
demand that they arise, as soon as the process of internal consolidation
is sufficiently advanced, to play their part in this world-encompassing
crusade now unfolding itself in, and constituting the brightest feature
of, the opening years of the second Baha'i century.
With this glorious vision before them, assured that a full measure of
Divine guidance and sustenance will be vouchsafed to them when they embark
on the second stage of their collective activities, let them concentrate,
in the years immediately ahead, on the tasks that require their earnest
and undivided attention. The prosecution of the Plan, in all its aspects,
is their primary obligation. Whatever contributes to the broadening and
reinforcement of the Administrative Base, designed to guide, coordinate
and extend the ramifications of their future enterprises overseas, should
be unhesitatingly welcomed and carried out at the present hour and during
the opening phase of their collective unified endeavour in the service of
the Faith of Baha'u'llah.
May they seize every opportunity that presents itself, surmount every
obstacle that may confront them in the future, and pave the way for a
befitting inauguration of the subsequent phase of their historic and
rapidly unfolding mission.
Shoghi.