Ali Nakhjavani Speaks on the Covenant (Part 3)

Here is the third and last part of the talk by Dr. Ali Nakhjavani on the Covenant, a question and answer session with the audience:

If you have not watched from the beginning, Part One and Part Two.

63 Responses to “Ali Nakhjavani Speaks on the Covenant (Part 3)”


  1. 1 Dan Jensen

    “Shoghi Effendi himself–in his will–”

    Oops. Slipped. Not supposed to talk about Shoghi Effendi’s will before the believers. Ooh. I hope they didn’t notice.

    :-)

  2. 2 Harlan Lang

    Very inspiring and very clear. You can’t get much clearer. It’s always refreshing to be reminded that Covenant Breaking is a way of cleansing the Faith. These people imagine that they have left the Faith when in fact they have been swept out by the Hand of God.

  3. 3 Dan Jensen

    Very inspiring and very clear. You can’t get much clearer. It’s always refreshing to be reminded that Covenant Breaking is a way of cleansing the Faith. These people imagine that they have left the Faith when in fact they have been swept out by the Hand of God.

    So true. With an omnipotent God, one cannot exactly go around claiming credit for one’s own wickedness. To do so would clearly be blasphemous. There is no power but God.

  4. 4 Werdna the Wizard

    “Humbug is an astonishingly wide-spread phenomenon — in fact almost universal.” P.T. Barnum

  5. 5 Grover

    So true. With an omnipotent God, one cannot exactly go around claiming credit for one’s own wickedness. To do so would clearly be blasphemous. There is no power but God.

    Sinners rejoice! We’re not responsible! So much for judgement day in heaven lol!

  6. 6 Dan Jensen

    Now hang on a minute there pardner! You stiyl gonna burn; you jeust ainta blame, thas all!

  7. 7 Brendan Cook

    A ninety-minute talk with forty-five minutes for questions and answers! This Mr. Nakjavani must be one heck of a speaker to hold his audience that long. Maybe it seems more exciting when you’re there in person. Certainly, it would be hard to sneak out without attracting attention.

  8. 8 Craig Parke

    I have always liked Mr. Nakhjavani. But the tragedy of the Baha’i Faith is the same tragedy of all of the Abrahamic Religions that went before it. You cannot take an honest spirituality in human beings and put in into an organization and expect it to survive. Many thoughtful and earnest people, including myself, joined the Baha’i Faith and served many long decades hoping for something better in the long tortured history of organized religion. Alas, it became the same old, same old. Witch hunts over orthodoxy. Looking for enemies under every rock and bush. Every harebrained dismal dysfunctional irrational human failure a “Divine Mystery.” It just all ain’t going to fly in the New World Age. The thoughtful mass communication of the Internet IS the Covenant of Baha’u'llah now. Thinking cannot be stopped anywhere on Earth. These guys are all going to have to find something else to do in life. I suggest learning Adobe Flex 3. It is the next big thing.

    Everyone keep posting.

  9. 9 Dan Jensen

    […] I suggest learning Adobe Flex 3. It is the next big thing.d […]

    *Gasp* Craig! You must not say things like that! It hasn’t been a thousand years yet!! ;-)

  10. 10 ep

    LAAAAWWWWD HAVE MERCY. Horrendous stuff. Glad to be an XL-ex-bahai.

    I skipped through #3, and saw no evidence in it that the bahai “leadership” elites have any understanding of how medieval their position is, or how to break the current static nature of the bahai system so that the religion becomes dynamic, evolutionary, relevant, just, fair, balanced, meaningful, and so forth.

    Ali Nakhjavani seems like a nice man who is smart, but is stuck in a paradigm that contains very little self-awareness.

    In other words, per-modern, ethereal spirituality, divorced from the sullied realities that the unenlightened “non-bahai” peons of the world live with.

    Obsessed with the minutea of legalisms.

    Superficial, instrumentalized spirituality/mysticism.

    (All the stuff that the babai/bahai religions were originally “opposed to”.)

    bahai religion is not need to attain transcendence, to understand evolution, or to participate in the building of a better social, cultural, economic or political world.

    there are many other groups that do any of those things much better, without the bizzare trapping of pre-modern “covenental” theology (which is, in jungian-archetypal terms, nothing other than “universalized tribalism” based on a myth of “god’s chosen people”).

    […] those who have an interest in Baha’i shari`a.  I’ve been watching UHJ member Ali Nakhjavani on “the Covenant” up at Baha’i Rants. One of the questions he fielded was why did […]

  11. 11 Craig Parke

    Meanwhile, the New World Age moves on at high broadband throughput doe people who can pay their cable bill…

    http://www.solstation.com/x-objects/and2disk.jpg

    The U.S. is facing one of the most important elections since 1860, 1932, and 1960. Until the Baha’i World State can provide me with really, really, really good medical insurance, I think thinking about these issues IS important.

    Does anyone know if there is a Ruhi Book on “Do-It-Yourself Medical Procedures Without Anesthetic”?

    Copy and paste this list into a Notepad file and get busy actually thinking with your God given brains and discussing ideas vital to the ACTUAL future of the United States if you are a citizen.

    The rest of you out there in the world are also greatly affected by what happens here. You can start PRAYING that rational Americans will step up to the plate.

    Does anyone know what the UHJ’s position is on the Lehman Brothers collapse or the Bear-Sterns, Fannie, Freddy, AIG, and Trillion Dollar Plan bail out? Does the Faith have the money to cover this for the U.S. since, well, we are spending 10 billion a month so, uh, er, Baha’is can eventually step over the bodies of American soldiers and go on “full” Pilgrimage in Iraq.

    Get busy people:

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  12. 12 Craig Parke

    […] I suggest learning Adobe Flex 3. It is the next big thing.d […]

    Dan Jensen WROTE:

    *Gasp* Craig! You must not say things like that! It hasn’t been a thousand years yet!! ;-)

    Carrying out the World Age now is all in the electronic runes. “Think globally. Act locally.” Or more to the point “Think. Act.” That is no longer the Baha’i Paradigm. It is more “Think you are thinking. Think you are acting.”

    They are going door to door while hundreds of millions of people are on-line hour after hour every single day. DUH!

    Adobe Flex 3 is really, really good! There will be lots of new jobs with it. It is a good skill for all of the lifetime incumbent professional cadre of the Baha’i Faith when they find themselves and their families having to get a real job. As this is a real skill rather than a paper skill, it will give them a leg up over
    the unemployed Lehman Brother Investment Bankers in line trying to get jobs.

    How does that tune go?

    “I used to run railroads that ran on time…brother can you spare a dime?”

    What a planet!

  13. 13 Grover

    You know the Covenant is bloody simple really. Its all about trying to make sure there is no fuss over who is in charge after the head honcho dies. But call me a spiritual heathen or whatever, why on earth is there all this inflation in the Faith of what should be quite a simple concept? E.g “The Power of the Covenant”, “The most mighty unifying force”, “the greatest mystery”. And in my community you get these know-it-alls who run around with superior expressions on their faces saying “The Covenant is most profound, no one is really deepened in it, it takes years, and a deep spirituality to understand” etc etc. What are they really saying? The rest of us aren’t indoctrinated enough because we’ve still got some independence of thought? Or are they trying to have some excuse for their own lack of obedience?

  14. 14 Dan Jensen

    […] You know the Covenant is bloody simple really. Its all about trying to make sure there is no fuss over who is in charge after the head honcho dies. […]

  15. 15 Dan Jensen

    [Well I guess that quote “comment” attribute isn’t what I thought it might be.]

    I just wanted to say “Well said, Grover!” Your covenant sounds more like a Sunni Muslim covenant than what I’ve read in the Baha’i writings, but I like it!

  16. 16 Larry Rowe

    Howdy Grover, Dan, Craig and all,

    Just what is the Baha’i Covenant exactly and how is it conveyed?

    If it is conveyed through the Bab’s W&T, Baha’u'llah’s W&T and Shoghi’s W&T (oops forgot there isn’t such a thing) then it is quite obvious that this supposed W&T is without substance.

    How so? The Bab’s W&T appointed Baha’u'llah brother Azal as the inheritor of his Covenant. Did Baha’u”lah follow or respect the Bab’s Covenant? Hope.

    Baha’u'llah Covenat as expressed in his own W&T appointed Abdu’l-Baha’s brother Muhammad to be the inheritor of his Covenant after Abdu’l-Baha’. Did this occur? Nope. Muhammad was written out of Baha’u'llah’s W&T; on whose authority I’m not sure. Is there any higher authority in Baha’i than Baha’u'llah’s own word?

    Abdu’l-Baha’s Covenant as expressed in his W&T clearly stated that there was to be a living Guardian as head for life of any future Universal House of Justice. Has this situation ever existed. Nope.

    Then there is Ruhiyyih Khanum’s open admittance that the Hands had no authority to take control over the Baha’i faith:

    How to assume the reins of authority, with no document to support us, other than the general theological statements about the Hands?

    (Custodians, Ministry of the Custodians, p. 9)

    So what exactly is this supposed Covenant? Is it a clear and legitimate passing of lineage and authority? Nope. Nothing clear or legitimate about it.

    Interesting that Nakhjavani let slip that Shoghi actually left a W&T. Wonder what it contained, wonder why the Hands keep it too themselves.

    Cheers

    Larry Rowe

  17. 17 Craig Parke

    I am watching Barney Frank on Lou Dobbs. Since the U.S. is the “Cradle of the Administrative Order”, what is the position of the UHJ on “credit swaps” among now failing investment banks and how that influences derivatives held by hedge funds? Does anyone know? These guys are infallible and freed from all error. I need guidance? Has Peter Khan spoken on this in any of his endless talks? Does anyone know? We in the U.S. have to have this solved by Monday morning. Help!

  18. 18 Grover

    Thanks Dan :)

    Hey Larry, good points! Sorry to sound like an apologist…

    Baha’u'llah = “messenger of God” to those who believe so he can do what he likes I suppose, irrespective of what the Bab said.

    Re Abdu’l-Baha, was it his right to choose a successor or let his half brother take over? Its hard to say, Baha’u'llah’s W&T was vague on Abdu’l-Baha’s responsibilities etc apart from that everyone had to turn towards him after Baha’u'llah had died. If his half brother was being a prat, would it have been sensible to have him as the head of the Faith? Probably not.

    The interesting thing about all this was how Baha’u'llah never really mentioned anything about the Covenant apart from how various people broke their covenant with God and did all kinds of nasty things to the Baha’is. It was ‘Abdu’l-Baha who set the basis for the Covenant and Covenant Breaking (mainly due to the disputes I suppose within his family and the relatives) and I presume Shoghi Effendi who set the basis for the concept of infallibility. So what seems to be a central tenant of the Faith never really came from Baha’u'llah but from ‘Abdu’l-Baha and Shoghi Effendi. All Baha’u'llah said in his W&T was to follow ‘Abdu’l-Baha and in another place that whoever went against ‘Abdu’l-Baha went against God. Did that make ‘Abdu’l-Baha infallible? And was Shoghi Effendi and the Universal House of Justice really infallible or was it just a concept encouraged to prevent people arguing too much with whatever was decided by the powers-that-be?

  19. 19 Wahid Azal

    Some of you who follow TRB will note that almost 5 years ago I broached the issue of the actual existence of a will and testament of Shoghi Effendi and a successor he had most probably nominated in that document (not Remey). Whether this was an old man’s slip-up or something else, the fact is that among some circles who at one time worked within the bureaucracy proximate to the upper levels of the Haifan politburo, it has been an open secret that some sort of testamentary document belonging to SE does in fact exist - or at least *did* exist in an original as of November 1957. I will leave to your speculations as what has become of this document. But this is what I said today to someone else regarding it,

    “The will and testament of SE probably had nominated a successor from among one of the remaining Afnans. At the time the rivalry between his wife and all elements of SE’s extended family was pretty intense. The Montreal socialite elite/NYC/London Axis take-over of the Bahaim org. inc. could never be fully consummated if a family member was at the helm, since more than likely this successor would’ve re-organized the power structures and sidelined several of the key players in it, including Remey. One of Ruhiyyeh Maxwell’s primary allies in the coup of 1957 was Bora Kavelin, a super-wealthy NYC Jew with deep connections to the Wall Street mafia (who themselves in turn had bankrolled Israel in its first few years of existence). Kavelin became one of the charter members of the uhj in 1963. If a member of Shoghi Effendi’s family had taken the reigns, perhaps the intimate relationship shared between this organization, Israel and the American Jewish lobby - and the triangular relationship between this estate, the British establishment and global financial elites - would not be all that cozy or lucrative.

    Despite the confirmation a few years ago by one of my contacts in Israel that this thing does exist, there is no doubt in my mind that SE had a w&t. One day eventually this thing will be released to the public, and then the shit will really hit the fan. Maybe we’re not that far away from such a day. With Wallstreet crashing and the Jewish-British-American financial empire in the initial crumbling stages, the biggest peripheral losers will be these guys. When that happens, expect a lot more than the will and testament of SE to come to public attention.

    Just pray - and pray hard - Obama wins.”

    I also draw your attention to the following blog,
    http://jewbahais.blogspot.com/

    And would point out that there is no coincidence in the timing of the global financial meltdown and the present clamoring of an American (”Ashkenazi”) Jewish-Bahaim contingency for the lifting of the ban on proselytizing Jews in “Israel”. Some of you who actually visited Haifa-Disney would recall that for years (esp. in the 80s) the justification for the purchase of the land for the construction of a Mashriq’ul-Adhkar in Israel was tied to the *eventual* conversion of Israeli Jews to Bahaism and the transformation of the “Jewish state” into a “Bahai one.” People should dismiss this stuff as “conspiracy theory” and “fantasy” at their peril - like 911 and its aftermath!

    W

  20. 20 ep

    Craig,

    Please look up what Ron Paul is saying about the economic crisis. And let me know what you think.

    I do not understand why thousands of bankers and scammers aren’t being prosecuted for fraud, financial malfeasance, ripping off the working people of the USA (and investors both here and from elsewhere), etc., and being thrown in prison.

    “Spiritual solution to economic problems”. hehehe. right.

    I am watching Barney Frank on Lou Dobbs.

  21. 21 ep

    Nima,

    Is that you? :)

    In any case, thanks for the fascinating material!

    Considering how horribly wrong abdu’l-baha’s attempt to implant bahai in the west has gone, it makes sense that some sort of corrupt power grab was made behind the scenes in the late 50 and 60s.

    regards,
    ep

    Some of you who follow TRB will note that almost 5 years ago I broached the issue of the actual existence of a will and testament of Shoghi Effendi and a successor he had most probably nominated in that document (not Remey).

    W

  22. 22 Wahid Azal

    The name is WAHID.

    […] I do not understand why thousands of bankers and scammers aren’t being prosecuted for fraud, financial malfeasance, ripping off the working people of the USA (and investors both here and from elsewhere), etc., and being thrown in prison.[…]

    Because this Wall Street meltdown is obviously a social engineered global economic demolition job in order to implement greater monetary and banking amalgamations, and thus total global fiscal controls via a longterm amalgamated, centralized system. Who is behind it? The very same people who hold the portfolios to these melted down Wallstreet companies.

    As for greater international fiscal controls, Gordon Brown let the cat out of the bag:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/sep/25/gordonbrown.marketturmoil

    Here is your New World Order (= Annuit Coeptis) in the making in *real time*. With the dollar shrinking by the day as a result, expect the Amero and the North American Union to be the hot topic under the next US administration - and probably in the stages of implementation by the middle of the next administration’s term. America’s sovereignty is finished, no thanks to the people you all put into office in 2000!

    Abbas Effendi’s effort to implant his father’s manufactured creed in the West was also by design. It is remarkable that British and Canadian establishmentarian socialites bankrolled that enterprise throughout and were ultimately responsible for diffusing it. I am thinking of the Lady Blomfields and similar. As such the diffusion of Bahaism in the West is very much a product of Western elite social networks and social engineering, larger colonialist endeavors and agendas, appropriating an ideology originating in the East to their own ends - with people such as Abbas Effendi acting in the role of convenient accomplices to such end. If Shoghi Effendi had somehow run afoul of certain elements of this elite towards the end of his life, which is the rumor, it is only natural that they would do him in and go for total control of the enterprise. After all they had his pretty much estranged Canadian well-to-do, Montreal socialite pedigree “wife” to help them do him and then cover up the act (i.e. no autopsy; hastily implemented funeral arrangements).

    W

    p.s. BTW contrary to an earlier expressed speculation of yours put up here in explaining things to that widely recognized fraud Lobo Siete Truenos aka Francis de la Maza - a speculation which I am sure came from either Susan Maneck and Terry Culhane -, I did not join a Sufi commune for a whole year. I was initiated into a Qadiri-Safialishahi sub-branch of the Iranian Nimatullahi Sufi Order in 1993 and between 1997-99 I was the Order’s American representative holding an ‘ijaza as a bona fide shaykh of the lineage. FYI

  23. 23 Craig Parke

    ep WROTE:

    Craig,

    Please look up what Ron Paul is saying about the economic crisis. And let me know what you think.

    I do not understand why thousands of bankers and scammers aren’t being prosecuted for fraud, financial malfeasance, ripping off the working people of the USA (and investors both here and from elsewhere), etc., and being thrown in prison.

    “Spiritual solution to economic problems”. hehehe. right.

    I am watching Barney Frank on Lou Dobbs.

    Naturally, I was up late talking politics tonight on Skype. This election is right up there with 1860, 1932, and 1960. Everyone in my family worldwide was talking history. We all read a lot.

    I am familiar with Ron Paul on economics. I worked right next to a guy who was his local organizer in my area. The guy gave me lots of pamphlets to read as we worked together every day at that time. A very young guy maybe 22 doing tech support. He would come and help me some times when we had some network issues. Even took memory out of his own computer once when I needed 4GB on a special project and UPS messed up the order and we were a day behind. I fully understand where Ron Paul is coming from. I read and article where he says “no” on the bailout. The other argument is about liquidity on Main St. I don’t know who is telling the truth so I am investigating it. I think the Administration is lying on this, but I am not sure. A couple of Wall St. guys on Daily Kos were explaining it from their viewpoint with something like 700 follow up comments. they basically are saying the Administrating is lying about it. But then you hear rumors about the Chinese banks. Hummm. Too bad about WaMu too. Bummer. Not looking good at all. But if J.P. Morgan can carry the F.D.I.C hit that they say would have been $35 Billion, well, we did dodge a rather massive scatter shot target pattern of several million 7.62 millimeter NATO rounds that would eventually have had pretty much every person on this Blog with a round with their name on it at 800 ft per second per second. So I will accept that deal. I have found several good articles to study this week on the liquidity argument and not having the credit markets freeze up on commercial paper of all kinds worldwide. All I know is have a moratorium on capital gains taxes for two years as a rider on the bill, just doesn’t sound like a very stellar solution…Yep. the new term is crisis capitalism. Not good.

    But I did absolutely love these wonderfully sarcastic videos up on YouTube made by a now infamous Ron Paul supporter during the Primaries. Good stuff!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5SbWHQ0uZg

    And this one too!

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx6oczHss24

    On another aspect of this election, have you seen this one?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKvgtfZpV1I

    As far as Peter Khan’s draconian book using quotes by Shoghi Effendi on non-involvement in politics - sorry - I’m getting off the Baha’i train - and secondly I don’t think sarcasm and comedy should EVER be off limits anywhere in the world now. It’s all part of the New World Age. Just like rock and roll. I preach the New Day - at maximum download broadband speeds.

    I’ll get back to you on my view after I read those articles on liquidity this week. My gut is they are lying, but I honestly don’t know yet.

  24. 24 Craig Parke

    Craig,

    Please look up what Ron Paul is saying about the economic crisis. And let me know what you think.

    I do not understand why thousands of bankers and scammers aren’t being prosecuted for fraud, financial malfeasance, ripping off the working people of the USA (and investors both here and from elsewhere), etc., and being thrown in prison.

    “Spiritual solution to economic problems”. hehehe. right.

    I am watching Barney Frank on Lou Dobbs.

    EP,

    I did listen to a one hour interview with Ron Paul on KDKA here over the weekend. I also found out Ron Paul is originally born and raised in Pittsburgh (Greentree) and went to Dormont H.S.! He also held two PA state track records in high school (220 and 440 sprints). But the interview was on his economic views. He is too much a gold standard guy for me. I don’t think we can ever go back to it. Federal Reserve fiat money and commercial banking fractional reserve money creation is here to stay. The key now is oversight and regulation of sane practices. That is still my view. Libertarianism sounds nice. But I don’t trust it either. But… what do you think of this analysis? Things are not looking good. Things are not looking good at all. Dow down 700 today. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. According to this article, it will not be good. But we can hope.

    http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_3803.shtml

  25. 25 Dan Jensen

    Craig and EP,

    This is of course beside the point, because we know the UHJ would solve all of this in a flash if they were given the reins of power. ;-)

    But just for the sport of it, here are my two cents.

    1. Once again, the motley fool has taken hold of our minds. Everybody seems to have thought housing prices were going to continue to rocket up relentlessly, and that was supposed to cover all our losses. Why? Because of a new age market dynamic? It’s irrationality bordering on the religious!

    2. Look at the popularity of lotteries. The USA is a society obsessed with quantity yet utterly ignorant of the laws of statistics. The lenders and the borrowers are equally guilty. Should we permit the economy to tank out naturally? I think that perhaps we should, if that’s the only way we’re going to learn. We have lost touch with the wisdom of my parents’ generation (the depression kids).

    3. No more of this fanciful investment deregulation crapola. It only makes the privatization of gains and socialization of losses inevitable. Shame on you, Mr. Senator from Arizona. The only honorable thing for you to do now is admit that you went way too far, and face the voters like a man.

    Paul Krugman on what McCain has learned from his Dec 2000 deregulation:
    http://tinyurl.com/48cd2a

    4. So far all I’ve really heard in defense of the $700 billion bailout is that it will buffer confidence; that is, it’s a 700 billion dollar sugar pill.

    Oh well. Two cents; three cents, four cents; 700 billion dollars. What’s the difference?

    -Dan

  26. 26 Craig Parke