The friends need only read the Writings; the answers are all
in them; we have no priests in this Faith to interpret or answer for us. 
Concerning thy question whether all the souls enjoy eternal
life: Know thou those souls partake of the Eternal Life in whom the Spirit of
Life is breathed from the Presence of God and all beside them are dead without
Life, as Christ hath explained in the texts of the Gospel. Any person whose
insight is opened by God seeth the souls in their stations after the
disintegration of the bodies. Verily they are living and are subsisting before
their Lord and he seeth also the dead souls submerged in the gulfs of
mortality.
A prime element in the careful and wise direction needed is
the achievement of victory in the Seven Year Plan, paying great attention to
the development and strengthening of Local Assemblies. Great efforts must be
made to encourage them to discharge their primary duties of
No sooner had He proclaimed Thy Cause, and risen up to carry
out the things prescribed unto Him in the Tablets of Thy decree, than the Great
Terror fell upon Thy creatures.
…to improve the characters of men; to extend the scope of
knowledge; to abolish ignorance and prejudice; to strengthen the foundations of
true religion in all hearts; to encourage self-reliance and discourage false
imitation; ... to uphold truthfulness, audacity, frankness, and courage; to
promote craftsmanship and agriculture; ... to educate, on a compulsory basis,
children of both sexes; to insist on integrity in business transactions; to lay
stress on the observance of honesty and piety; ... to acquire mastery and skill
in the modern sciences and arts; to promote the interests of the public; ... to
obey outwardly and inwardly and with true loyalty the regulations enacted by
state and government; ... to honour, to extol and to follow the example of
those who have distinguished themselves in science and learning. ... to help
the needy from every creed or sect, and to collaborate with the people of the
country in all welfare services.
In our concern for such immediate obvious calls upon our
succor we must not allow ourselves to forget the continuing, appalling burden
of suffering under which millions of human beings are always groaning -- a
burden which they have borne for century upon century and which it is the
mission of Bahá'u'lláh to lift at last. The principal cause of this suffering,
which one can witness wherever one turns, is the corruption of human morals and
the prevalence of prejudice, suspicion, hatred, untrustworthiness, selfishness
and tyranny among men. It is not merely material well-being that people need.
What they desperately need is to know how to live their lives -- they need to
know who they are, to what purpose they exist, and how they should act towards
one another; and, once they know the answers to these questions they need to be
helped to gradually apply these answers to everyday behavior. It is to the
solution of this basic problem of mankind that the greater part of all our
energy and resources should be directed. There are mighty agencies in this
world, governments, foundations, institutions of many kinds with tremendous
financial resources which are working to improve the material lot of human
beings. Anything we Bahá'ís could add to such resources in the way of special
funds or contributions would be a negligible drop in the ocean. However, alone
among men we have the divinely-given remedy for the real ills of mankind; no
one else is doing or can do this most important work. . . .
It is clear and evident that, in this Dispensation wherein
the banner of utterance hath been raised aloft and the candle of discernment
hath been lit, there is no Lord but the Exalted One. [the Báb] He it is Who is
one in His essence and one in His attributes, single in the kingdom of names
and peerless in the realm of actions. It is by virtue of His blessed name that
the seas of Divine Unity have been made to surge; it is through the power of
His resistless command that the immutable decrees of destiny have been
enforced; it is through the potency of His sovereign might that the dictates of
fate have been fixed. Who hath the power to soar in that exalted atmosphere or
to cherish another beloved than Him? We all abide beneath His shadow and seek
our portion from the ocean of His grace. However far the gnat may fly, it can
never traverse the length and breadth of heaven, and however high the sparrow
may soar, it can never attain the tree of immortality.
You have asked if the mere declaration of faith by a
newcomer suffices to recognize him as a Bahá'í, and whether living the Bahá'í
life should not be regarded as the basis of admission into the Faith. You
should bear in mind that the signature on a card, in the sense that it
represents a record of the date of the declaration and data about the
declarant, is to satisfy administrative requirements enabling the enrollment of
the new believer in the community. The deeper implication of the act of
declaration of faith are between the individual and God. Shoghi Effendi has
made several statements on this important subject, and we have been asked to
share with you the following two excerpts from letters written on his behalf to
individual believers:
