Howard Colby Ives - Portals to Freedom

Bah Publishing

415 Linden Avenue, Wilmette, Illinois 60091-2844

Copyright 2012 by the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahs of the United States

All rights reserved. Published 2012

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

15 14 13 12 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ives, Howard Colby.

Portals to freedom / by Howard Colby Ives.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 215).

ISBN 978-1-931847-99-5 (alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-618510-37-2 (ebook)

1. Abdul-Bah, 18441921. 2. BahaisBiography. 3. Bahai Faith. 4. Ives, Howard Colby. 5. Spiritual biography. I. Title.

BP393.I8 2012

297.93092dc23

[B]

2012001997

Cover design by Andrew Johnson

Book design by Patrick Falso

Photograph of Abdul-Bah taken in Dublin, NH reproduced with permission of the Bah International Community

To

Shoghi Effendi

The Grandson of

Abdul-Bah

By Him Appointed

Guardian of the Bah Faith

Abdul-Bah in Dublin, NH

In preparing this new edition of Portals to Freedom , a work previously published in the UK, the editors have adjusted various spellings and punctuation marks in order to conform with modern American usage, and in order to make the book more easily read by the modern reader. The publisher has been careful, however, not to alter the content in such a way that the original intent of the author is in any way compromised. It should be noted that the views and understandings presented by the author regarding the Bah Faith should not be considered authoritative, but should be seen as representing the authors personal understandings.

Portals to Freedom was written at a time when many of the current translations of the writings of the central figures of the Bah Faith had not yet been published. Throughout the volume, author Howard Colby Ives refers to passages, the wording of which no longer matches the current editions of the works being cited. Many of the early translations, which were circulated at the time of the authors writing, have since been replaced with newer translations and are no longer in print. Where possible, passages have been replaced with up-to-date translations, or endnotes have been inserted to refer to current editions of the works referenced. Some of the works cited Tablets of Abdul-Bah Abbas, vols. 13; Bah Scriptures; and Bah World Faith contain passages of which there are questions concerning accuracy of translation and authenticity of original documents. These works are cited here, however, in an effort to accurately preserve the book that Mr. Ives wrote and to reflect the material that was available to him at the time of his writing. There are also some instances in which words are attributed to Abdul-Bah for which no sources have been found. It is possible in some cases that Mr. Ives was recounting words spoken by Abdul-Bah in his presence, which were not otherwise formally recorded.

It should be noted that throughout the volume, Mr. Ives refers to the reported utterances of Abdul-Bah. These utterances should not be considered authoritative statements of Bah teachings nor should they be considered Bah scripture. Abdul-Bah, as the son and appointed successor of Bahullhthe Prophet and Founder of the Bah Faithis, from a Bah perspective, the authorized interpreter of the writings of his Father as well as the perfect exemplar of the Faiths teachings. The writings of Abdul-Bah are considered divine in origin and authoritative in nature. His recorded utterances, however, do not have the same status as they are less reliable renderings of His words.

I beg of Thee, O my God, by Thy most exalted Word which Thou hast ordained as the Divine Elixir unto all who are in Thy realm, the Elixir through whose potency the crude metal of human life hath been transmuted into purest gold, O Thou in Whose hands are both the visible and invisible kingdoms, to ordain that my choice be conformed to Thy choice and my wish to Thy wish, that I may be entirely content with that which Thou didst desire, and be wholly satisfied with what Thou didst destine for me by Thy bounteousness and favor.

Bahullh, Prayers and Meditations , p. 53

What is that mystery underlying human life that gives to events and to persons the power of mutation, of transformation? If one had never before seen a seed, nor heard of its latent life, how difficult to believe that only the cold earth, the warm sun, the descending showers, and the gardeners care were needed to cause its miraculous transformation into the growing form, the budding beauty, the intoxicating fragrance of the rose!

Or who can understand the reason why a chance perusal of a book, the presence of a friend, or the meeting with a stranger often alters a determined course of action, profoundly affects our attitude toward life, and, not seldom, so nearly reaches the roots of being and the springs of action that never after is life quite the same?

It is as if some super-Luther Burbank had, by that seemingly chance event, grafted into the branch of our crabapple being the bud of the Tree of Knowledge, or into the bramble of the wilderness of human thought the rose of paradise.

To this mystery of mysteries the philosophy of the schoolmen offers no adequate explanation. We only know that it is a common experience of us all. The effort toward the description of this catalysis is the essence of all poetry; the abortive attempt to explain it is at the root of all philosophy, while the experience of it is the one cause underlying the transformation of human life and character. All history is its witness and every saint its justification.

In offering to the reader this inadequate account of one such experience, my only excuse is its totality, its all-inclusiveness, its grandeur. It is unique not because it is rare, since every contact of man with his fellowmen demonstrates it, but because of its supremacy over other transforming contacts. One might liken it to the difference in effect between touching a cold clod and the grasping of a galvanic battery, or the meeting with a debased criminal and the meeting with an Abraham Lincoln.

To those who met Abdul-Bah in the summer of 1912, when He spent eight months in this country, such comparisons will seem highly inadequate. While to many that meeting did not convey more than a contact with personified dignity, beauty, wisdom, and selflessness, and so led them, at least, to higher altitudes of thought and life, to hundreds of others that meeting was the door to undreamed-of worlds; to a new, a boundless, an eternal life.

We realize the difficulties faced in attempting to bring to the reader a quarter of a century later, the atmosphere created by this meeting for those who had the eyes to see, the ears to hear, and minds to comprehend, even slightly, the new and divine world opened before the eager and courageous feet. In fact to do so with any degree of accurate completeness is all but impossible. To those bred in the Christian tradition one might ask what would be the probable effect upon them if they could have been among the audience when the Sermon on the Mount was spoken, or if one of them, like John, could have reclined upon the breast of the Master. Without daring to suggest that the comparison is parallel, my own experience, when brought into close association with Abdul-Bah, was so overwhelming, so fraught with sensations suggesting an entrance into a new and super-mundane world, that I can think of no other comparison more adequate.