I do agree with you about the Arc terraces. I found them cold, almost sterile. They were cut, styled and controlled to such a degree that it felt almost plastic, not a living, breathing, alive “thing”. I have never felt less in tune with nature, while around trees and plants. The whole thing was just a kitsch ordeal one has to undergo on the way to the Shrine of the Bab.

Now there was a powerful experience (shrine). Perhaps sometime I’ll write about it.

Teaching and Giving the Message are used interchangable but are worlds apart.

Proclamation is not teaching its giving the message.

I’ve been to all the places mentioned, but until then I never used the word Haj, now I do.

They are two Pilgrimages in Haifa one the holy sites, the other the Bricks of the arc.

The Bricks are distracting

I think the blog medium is going to have its day now, and the discussion list medium is on the decline. The good thing about a blog over a discussion list is that opponents cannot steal your agenda. And people like yourself get to truly blossom.

I’m afraid you didn’t read what I wrote with enough attention. I didn’t say that those words quoted from the website imply “that the pilgrimage to the Holy Land is a supreme obligation.”

Here is what I did write:

“This excerpt is implying that a Baha’i visitor to the Holy Land is a pilgrim and the “supreme obligation” of all Baha’is who go, is to visit the shrines of the three central figures of the Faith. While visiting and spending time in reverent meditation and prayer at those special places is the choice of every Baha’i, it is wrong to imply or state that this is Baha’i pilgrimage.”

The problem with referring to a trip to the Holy Land as “pilgrimage” is that it is wrong, according to what Baha’u'llah explicitely said. Pilgrimage is to, either, the House of the Bab in Shiraz or to the House of Baha’u'llah in Baghdad. Period.

As for your question why have I not contacted the UHJ to ask about this issue? What makes you think I haven’t? Taking into account the fact that they move as fast as molasses on a January morning, I estimate that my great-grandchildren may receive a vague, half-hearted attempt at an answer.

Good point! I spoke unclearly. What I meant was that the first level of meaning is, of course, always literal. No one can deny that. I meant that everything then ascends to ever higher and higher refined levels of spiritual meaning based upon the spiritual understanding of the soul.

This is precisely how Baha’u'llah interprets many of the scriptures of other religions in the Kitab-I-Iqan. That the meanings are not literal at all on the deepest truths of the human race.

That was what I was trying to say.