s; his lips stayed parched; he was
confused, perplexed, and felt that he had wandered from his path. The
reason was that in all those circles he had found no passion; no joy, no
ecstasy; no faintest scent of love. And as he went deeper into the core of
those manifold beliefs, he discovered that from the day of the Prophet
Muhammad's advent until our own times, innumerable sects have arisen:
creeds differing among themselves; disparate opinions, divergent goals,
uncounted roads and ways. And he found each one, under some plea or other,
claiming to reveal spiritual truth; each one believing that it alone
followed the true path--this although the Muhammedic sea could rise in one
great tide, and carry all those sects away to the ocean floor. "No cry
shalt thou hear from them, nor a whisper even."(3)

Whoso ponders the lessons of history will learn that this sea has lifted
up innumerable waves, yet in the end each has dissolved and vanished, like
a shadow drifting by. The waves have perished, but the sea lives on. This
is why 'Ali Qabl-i-Akbar could never quench his thirst, till the day when
he stood on the shore of Truth and cried:

Here is a sea with treasure to the brim;
Its waves toss pearls under the great wind's thong.
Throw off your robe and plunge, nor try to swim,
Pride not yourself on swimming--dive headlong.

Like a fountain, his heart welled and jetted forth; meaning and truth,
like soft-flowing crystal waters, began to stream from his lips. At first,
with humility, with spiritual poverty, he garnered the new light, and only
then he proceeded to shed it abroad. For how well has it been said,

Shall he the gift of life to others bear
Who of life's gift has never had a share?

A teacher must proceed in this way: he must first teach himself, and then
others. If he himself still walks the path of carnal appetites and lusts,
how can he guide another to the "evident signs"(4) of God?

This honored man was successful in converting a multitude. For the sake of
God he cast all caution aside, as he hastened along the ways of love. He
became as one frenzied, as a vagrant and one known to be mad. Because of
his new Faith, he was mocked at in Tihran by high and low. When he walked
through the streets and bazars, the people pointed their fingers at him,
calling him a Baha'i. Whenever trouble broke out, he was the one to be
arrested first. He was always ready and waiting for this, since it never
failed.

Again and again