Haifa, Israel,
July 19, 1957
Mr. Noel P. L. Walker, Secretary,
National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Australia.
Dear Baha'i Brother:
Your Assembly's communications with their enclosures and material sent
under separate cover have all been safely received by the beloved
Guardian; and he has instructed me to answer you on his behalf, and to
acknowledge receipt of your letters dated: August 14, September 6, October
14 and 29, and December 3, 1956, and February 17 and March 24, May 9, June
12 and 19, 1957.
In connection with various matters raised in your letters:
The photograph of the Shrine on Mt. Carmel was sent to Dr. Brasch, and we
hope that he received it safely.
As regards the "Herald of the South" magazine, in view of the important
work lying ahead of your Assembly, and the fact that this magazine is a
drain on the limited resources of the Community, he thinks it would be
quite all right to suspend publication until a future date when the
financial situation permits such expenditures to be made with relative
ease. He leaves, however, the final decision to your Assembly.
The Committee responsible for the publication of this magazine has
certainly laboured valiantly throughout the years, and the publication
will be missed by its readers. However, it is some years since the
American Baha'i Magazine was abandoned for similar reasons, and the
Guardian feels that you can do so in Australia, and the funds be used to
better advantage, at this time. However, now that you have found a printer
in Sydney and appointed a new committee, he thinks you should continue it
and give the new Plan a try.
The progress your Assembly has been making on the plans for the Temple, in
conjunction with the evidently very able and cooperative architect whom
you have found in Sydney, greatly pleases and encourages the beloved
Guardian. He is particularly happy to know that Mr. Brogan is pliable in
his ideas, and enthusiastic about getting the Temple constructed, even
though the original design is not his own. Unfortunately, owing to the age
of Mr. Remey and his duties at the International Center, it is impossible
for him to carry out, himself, the execution in detail of his plans or to
supervise the construction; and consequently both the Kampala Temple and
the Sydney Temple have been entrusted to reliable firms.
The influence that this Mother Temple of the whole Pacific area will exert
when constructed, is incalculable and mysterious. The beloved Master told
the American friends that their Temple would be the greatest silent
teacher, and there is no doubt that this one building has exerted a
profound influence on the spread of the Faith, not only in the United
States and the Western Hemisphere, but throughout the world. We can
therefore expect that the construction of another "Mother Temple" in the
heart of Australasia, and one in the center of Africa, as well as one in
the heart of Europe, will exert a tremendous influence, both locally and
internationally.
He is eagerly waiting to receive pictures of the inauguration of the work
on the Temple site, and has recently mailed your Assembly under separate
cover a piece of the plaster from the Room in the Fortress at Mah-Ku where
the Bab was confined, as well as a letter requesting that dear Mother Dunn
place this, as his representative, in the foundations of the Temple. He
would like very much to have a good photograph of this ceremony for
reproduction; and he also urges your Assembly to give as much publicity to
this occasion, and to the Temple work in general, as possible.
The teaching work carried on by the Australian friends throughout the
region of the Pacific under their jurisdiction, has been very
satisfactory, and he is proud of the truly immense progress which has been
made. The publication of literature in so many additional languages, the
School opened by Mrs. Dobbins in the New Hebrides, the increase in the
number of native believers throughout the islands, are all indications,
not only of the great power of this Faith to touch the hearts of those who
are spiritually receptive, but also of the consecration and devotion of
the Australian believers.
As regards various questions you asked in your letter of February 17th:
It is of the utmost importance to keep the pioneers in their goals. If,
for reasons over which you have no control, they are forced to leave a
certain pioneer area, then he would strongly recommend that, instead of
returning all the way to their home base, they be routed to another base
in the Pacific where they can serve the Faith. This is both economical,
and hastens the attainment of our goals. Matters of detail as to how these
plans are best worked out, are naturally left to the discretion of the
National Body responsible for the area in question.
In your letter of August 14th, you mention a small translation of a
Timorese language has been secured from Dili. The Guardian would like to
know what the specific name of this language is, and, if it has been
printed, he would like to receive a copy.
He was very sorry to hear that dear Mother Dunn's son had died. This, no
doubt, in spite of her devotion and fortitude, must have been a severe
blow to her at her age; and he hopes the friends will do all they can to
comfort and take care of this precious soul--the mother of their Community.
Please assure her that he prays for the progress of the soul of her son in
the holy Shrines.
The successful culmination of the long standing partnership of the
Australian and New Zealand believers thru the emergence of the New Zealand
N.S.A. is a source of great satisfaction to the Guardian, and no doubt to
all the members of both communities. He feels sure this will mark a
turning point in the work in the Antipodes and the neighbouring islands
and give a new lease of life to the teaching work throughout that area.
Both your Assembly and that of New Zealand have now emerged into your
permanent form as pillars of the future International House of Justice.
The bones of the skeleton of the World Order are growing strong, but only
the teaching work can clothe them with flesh.
You may be sure that he will ardently pray for the success of your work,
and that you may be strengthened and guided to discharge your important
duties and to fulfil your goals under the Ten Year Plan.
With warm Baha'i love,
R. Rabbani.
[From the Guardian:]
Dear and valued co-workers:
The progress achieved in recent years, rapid and extraordinary as it has
been, by the Baha'i Communities labouring so patiently, so methodically,
and so faithfully, for the consolidation and expansion of the institutions
of the embryonic World Order of Baha'u'llah in the Antipodes, has been
highly gratifying and has served to deepen my confidence in their ability
to achieve their high destiny, and to evoke sentiments of ever-increasing
admiration for the manner in which they have acquitted themselves of their
task in the face of varied and almost insurmountable obstacles.
Particularly commendable, and indeed exemplary, has been the share of the
Australian believers in enabling the New-Zealand Baha'i Community to make
such rapid strides, in recent years, strides that have prepared it for the
assumption of its sacred and vital function as an independent community,
and which culminated in the formation of a body qualified to take its
place, and assume the weighty responsibilities incumbent on it, as a
distinct and separate member of the world-wide family of Baha'i national
and regional Spiritual Assemblies. The great and signal honour, conferred
upon their homeland through the selection of one of the most highly
advanced, the most populous, and one of the most progressive of its
cities--enjoying already the distinction of being the first among them to
be opened to the Message of Baha'u'llah and to be warmed by the rising Sun
of His Revelation--as the site of the Mother Temple of the Antipodes, and
indeed of the whole Pacific area, moreover, proclaims their right to be
considered the vanguard of His hosts, and the defenders of the stronghold
of the Administrative Order of His Faith, in that vast area of the globe,
an area endowed with unimaginable potentialities, and which, owing to its
strategic position, is bound to feel the impact of world shaking forces,
and to shape to a marked degree through the experience gained by its
peoples in the school of adversity, the destinies of mankind.
The emergence of a new Regional Spiritual Assembly in the North Pacific
Area, with its seat fixed in the capital city of a country which by reason
of its innate capacity and the spiritual receptivity it has acquired, in
consequence of the severe and prolonged ordeal its entire population has
providentially experienced, is destined to have a preponderating share in
awakening the peoples and races inhabiting the entire Pacific area, to the
Message of Baha'u'llah, and to act as the Vanguard of His hosts in their
future spiritual conquest of the main body of the yellow race on the
Chinese mainland--the emergence of such an assembly may be said to have, at
long last, established a spiritual axis, extending from the Antipodes to
the northern islands of the Pacific Ocean--an axis whose northern and
southern poles will act as powerful magnets, endowed with exceptional
spiritual potency, and towards which other younger and less experienced
communities will tend for some time to gravitate.
A responsibility, at once weighty and inescapable, must rest on the
communities which occupy so privileged a position in so vast and turbulent
an area of the globe. However great the distance that separates them;
however much they differ in race, language, custom, and religion; however
active the political forces which tend to keep them apart and foster
racial and political antagonisms, the close and continued association of
these communities in their common, their peculiar and paramount task of
raising up and of consolidating the embryonic World Order of Baha'u'llah
in those regions of the globe, is a matter of vital and urgent importance,
which should receive on the part of the elected representatives of their
communities, a most earnest and prayerful consideration.
The Plan, which it is the privilege of the Australian Baha'i community to
energetically prosecute must, simultaneously, be assured of the
unqualified, the systematic and whole-hearted support of its members.
Theirs indeed is a twofold task which must under no circumstances be
either neglected or underrated. The one aims at the consolidation, the
multiplication and expansion of the institutions so laboriously erected
throughout the length and breadth of the Australian commonwealth and in
the islands beyond its confines, in strict accordance with the provisions
of the Ten-Year Plan, while the other is designed to forge fresh links
with its sister communities, and particularly those situated in the North,
in anticipation of the Mission which the newly fledged Baha'i communities,
now rapidly multiplying throughout the length and breadth of that area,
are destined and are collectively called upon to discharge.
Whilst addressing itself to the meritorious twofold task with which it is
now confronted, this wide-awake, swiftly expanding, steadily
consolidating, highly promising community must lend whatever assistance is
possible to its newly emerged sister community in the South, and enable
her, as her institutions develop and become firmly grounded, to share in a
befitting manner, in the collective enterprises that must, sooner or
later, be launched and carried to a successful conclusion by the island
communities situated in the Northern and Southern regions as well as in
the heart of the Pacific Ocean.
May this community which, with its sister community in the North, has had
the inestimable privilege of being called into being in the lifetime of,
and through the operation of the dynamic forces released by the Centre of
Baha'u'llah's Covenant, continue, with undimmed vision, with redoubled
vigour, and unwavering fidelity and constancy, to discharge its manifold
and ever increasing duties and responsibilities, and lend, as the days go
by, an impetus such as it has not lent before, in the course of almost two
score years of its existence, to the propagation of the Faith it has so
whole-heartedly espoused and is now so valiantly serving, and play a
memorable and distinctive part in hastening the establishment, and in
ensuring the gradual efflorescence and ultimate fruition, of its divinely
appointed embryonic World Order.
Shoghi.