Meditation Two
The Gifts
Materials:
- Meditation table
- 3 small, beautiful treasure boxes, the third being more dazzling.
- 3 accompanying candles in beautiful holders, the third being more dazzling
- matches
- Accompanying Quotes to display (see Reference Quotes))
- Oil lamp with shade
The Meditation
Introduce Verse
Place the following verse out on stand and read:
Thou are My lamp and My light is in thee.
Hidden Word Arabic 11
- Who is the lamp here? (You are)
- Who does the lamp belong to? (God)
- What does your lamp have within it? (God’s light)
Turn lights off. (I don’t see a light. You are not glowing.)
‘Abdu’l-Baha said a prayer – and this is what he said:
Place Quote on stand
I beseech God to make thee …
a lamp of dazzling light.
Tablets of Abdul-Baha Abbas, p. 446
So in camp this week we are going to ask the question how do you become a lamp that gives off dazzling light?
Or as ‘Abdu’l-Baha also said:
Place Quote on stand
The All-loving God created man
to radiate the Divine Light …
Abdu’l-Baha in Paris Talks
To radiate: to give off rays, to glow
How do you become a lamp of dazzling light that radiates Divine Light?
Any ideas of how you (or anyone in this room) can do this?
God is a great gift Giver. So God had to give you some gifts in order to become a lamp that radiates a dazzling Divine Light.
So let’s see what God has given you to be able to do this.
Gift One
Place out a candle/holder and a treasure box
Treasure box one will tell you what the gift is.
Read selection from Quote A (found in the treasurer box)
Man is endowed with an outer or physical reality.
Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Identify the gift and light the candle
So God has given each of us a material body.
The Baha’i Writings say that our bodies are like the glass of a lamp.
Show Quote:
Man is like unto the glass, …
Promulgation of Universal Peace 302-303
In other Quotes ‘Abdu’l-Baha says “glass of the lamp”
Place an oil lamp, unlit, next to the Quote.
The shade is like our body: Thou art My lamp …
So, you have been given the first gift, your material body, the lamp.
Is the lamp lit?
No, we need more gifts.
Gift Two
Place out a second candle/holder and a treasure box
Treasure box two will tell you what the gift is.
Read selection from Quote B (found in the treasurer box)
But man is endowed with a second reality, the rational or intellectual reality;
Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Identify the gift and light the candle
The gift of the second box is our minds.
So, let’s use our minds to talk about this lamp.
The lamp has oil.
We know that with oil the lamp can be lit.
It is the fuel for this lamp (like gas is to a car)
If a bird saw this lamp, what would it see?
But you know this lamp has possibilities. To give off a great light.
“Thou are My lamp and My light is in thee.”
How are we all like this lamp? We all have possibilities to develop (we can radiate a dazzling Divine Light.) Our mind knows this, thinks this.
However, is the lamp lit?
Does it have a dazzling light? (No)
So we need a third gift
Gift Three
Place out the third candle/holder (the most dazzling) and a treasure box (the most dazzling).
Treasure box three will tell you what the gift is.
Read selection from Quote C (found in the treasure box)
Yet there is a third reality in man, the spiritual reality.
Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Identify the gift and light the candle
The gift of the third box is that God has given us a spiritual soul to know about our Creator.
How is this candle different from the other candles we have lit?
It is more dazzling.
So the question is, how do you light this oil lamp so that it becomes not just an ordinary light but a dazzling light, and not just an ordinary light but a light that radiates Divine Light?
Note: Do not light the oil lamp.
A special match is needed.
I wonder what this special match is?
We will be thinking further about this.
Reference Quotes:
Quote A
Man is endowed with an outer or physical reality. It belongs to the material realm, the animal kingdom, because it has sprung from the material world. This animalistic reality of man he shares in common with the animals.
The human body is like animals subject to nature’s laws.
Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Quote B
But man is endowed with a second reality, the rational or intellectual reality; and the intellectual reality of man predominates over nature.
All these sciences which we enjoy were the hidden and recondite secrets of nature, unknowable to nature, but man was enabled to discover these mysteries, and out of the plane of the unseen he brought them into the plane of the seen. Foundations of World Unity 51-53
(recondite: obscure)
Quote C
Yet there is a third reality in man, the spiritual reality. Through its medium one discovers spiritual revelations, a celestial faculty which is infinite as regards the intellectual as well as physical realms. That power is conferred upon man through the breath of the Holy Spirit.
Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Thou are My lamp and My light is in thee.
Hidden Words Arabic 11
I beseech God to make thee …
a lamp of dazzling light.
Tablets of Abdu;-Baha Abbas 446
The All-loving God created man
to radiate the Divine Light …
‘Abdu’l-Baha in Paris Talks
Man is endowed with an outer or physical reality.
‘Abdu’l-Baha Foundations of World Unity 51-53
But man is endowed with a second reality, the rational or
intellectual reality;
‘Abdu’l-Baha Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Yet there is a third reality in man, the spiritual reality.
‘Abdu’l-Baha Foundations of World Unity 51-53
Man is like unto the glass, …
Promulgation of Universal Peace 302-303