Imagination is not true worship of the teachings of God, but blind adherence to that which hath gone before.

 

123. Imagination is not true worship but blind adherence to that which hath gone before, or that which is believed to be true which is an illusion of what is right. Man must put away vain imagination and illusion and seek with an open mind that which is true: People imagine in their hearts that they know the truth about religion when in fact many are just following the practices of their ancestors before them and their beliefs are just pure imagination.  Judaism: Jeremiah 13:10 “This evil people, which refuse to hear my words, which walk in the imagination of their heart, and walk after other gods, to serve them, and to worship them.” This is one of the main reasons that the people in the time of a manifestation of God reject the words of God’s holy prophet to mankind and cause untold hardship to God’s holy ones and to the followers of God’s truth.  Christianity: John 5:46 “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me.” John 5:47 “But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?” Jesus Christ is clear on this, had the people of his time truly believed the words of Moses, with a searching and pure heart, they would have seen the truth of Christ’s words and hearkened to God’s call to mankind, but instead, they blindly followed the dictates of their fathers before them and their vein imaginations and put God’s holy one to death and rejected Christ’s truth.  Judaism: Jeremiah 7:24 “But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.”  Christianity: John 4:22 “Ye worship ye know not what…..” This is the state of the people of today they know not what they worship?  Judaism: Psalms 2:1 “……the people imagine a vain thing?” The people imagine a vain thing and call it truth, but, according to Paul what they believed was truth was still a vain thing during the time of Christ.  Christianity: Acts 4:25 “……the people imagine vain things?” This practice hasn’t changed for today either. A great many people are still holding onto their vain imaginings while turning away from God’s truth for this day. 2 Corinthians 28:5 “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” is what the people should be doing, but instead the people, for the most part, just seal up their ears and reject God’s holy prophets without truly investigating and image a vain teaching as truth.  Judaism: Jeremiah 11:8 “Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked everyone in the imagination of their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I commanded them to do; but they did them not.” Jeremiah 16:12 “And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart,” Jeremiah 18:12 “And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart.”  Christianity: Romans 1:21 “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” We must cast aside our imaginations if we are to truly know the words of God and recognize God’s holy manifestations during this life time. 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;” 2 Timothy 4:4 “And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Titus 1:13 “This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith;” Titus 1:14 “Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.” Turn we, turn we away from the commandments of men and seek out the truth with our own hearts opened to the true spirit of the word’s of God; in which case, I repeat the words offered by the Apostle Paul in Corinthians:  2 Corinthians 10:5 “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” This is something we must try to do, for whatever manifestation you have been raised to believe in, and as a courtesy to our Creator. Seek out the truth!

BAHA’I FAITH: “The first teaching of Bahá’u’lláh is the duty incumbent upon all to investigate reality. What does it mean to investigate reality? It means that man must forget all hearsay and examine truth himself, for he does not know whether statements he hears are in accordance with reality or not. Wherever he finds truth or reality, he must hold to it, forsaking, discarding all else; for outside of reality there is naught but superstition and imagination. For example, during the days of Jesus Christ the Jews were expecting the appearance of the Messiah, praying and beseeching God day and night that the Promised One might appear. Why did they reject Him when He did appear? They denied Him absolutely, refused to believe in Him. There was no abuse and persecution which they did not heap upon Him. They reviled Him with curses, placed a crown of thorns upon His head, led Him through the streets in scorn and derision and finally crucified Him. Why did they do this? Because they did not investigate the truth or reality of Christ and were not able to recognize Him as the Messiah of God. Had they investigated sincerely for themselves, they would surely have believed in Him, respected Him and bowed before Him in reverence. They would have considered His manifestation the greatest bestowal upon mankind. They would have accepted Him as the very Savior of man; but, alas, they were veiled, they held to imitations of ancestral beliefs and hear-say and did not investigate the truth of Christ. They were submerged in the sea of superstitions and were, therefore, deprived of witnessing that glorious bounty; they were withheld from the fragrances or breaths of the Holy Spirit and suffered in themselves the greatest debasement and degradation.”

(Bahá’í Faith, Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 62)

 ISLAM: 48. “To thee We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the scripture that came before it, and guarding it in safety; so judge between them by what Allah (God) hath revealed, and follow not their vain desires (imaginations), diverging from the truth that hath come to thee.”

(The Qur’an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah   5)

Islam: 62. “That Day Allah will call to them, and say: ‘Where are my partners?  whom ye imagined (to be such)?” 10. “Behold! they came on you from above you and from below you, and behold, the eyes became dim and the hearts gaped up to the throats, and ye imagined various (vain) thoughts about Allah!” Again, now in Islam, we find Muhammad warning the people to turn away from their evil imaginations which they joined to Allah as partners; when in fact, they were only vain conceptions created out of the minds of men.

(The Qur’an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surahs 28 and 33)

Islam: 6. “And that He may punish the Hypocrites, men and women, and the Polytheists, men and women, who imagine an evil opinion of Allah. On them is a round of Evil: the Wrath of Allah is on them: He has cursed them and got Hell ready for them: and evil is it for a destination.”

(The Qur’an (Yusuf Ali tr), Surah  48)

 ZOROASTRIANISM: “Let him that knows inform the wise; no longer let him that knows nothing deceive (teaching their vain conjectures to others). Be to us, O Mazda Ahura (God), the Teacher of Good Thought.” “To withstand the wicked one that deceives that causes the destruction of the world.”

(The Zend-Avesta, Avesta – Yasna 31)

 Zoroastrianism: Denkard. Zoroaster, “Be it known that, for a man to act so as to obtain his deliverance, this, consists in living properly and in making inquiries and search in the good religion regarding the wishes of Ohrmazd, (Ahura Mazda, God) and in doing, for (obtaining) it, (i.e. deliverance,) what may be fit to be done according to the knowledge (found) in the good religion, and in keeping aloof from doing (vain imagination) that is injurious. and is fit to be abstained from: for, when man improves himself by means of the superior ways of Ohrmazd and lives in accordance with the commands of reason, he becomes like to a thing in accordance with the wishes of Ohrmazd (Ahura Mazda, God). And it is owing to his obtaining that knowledge that man becomes fully fit for (adopting) means for preserving true things connected with himself.”

 HINDUISM: “Call it guna, intellect, buddhi, manas, mind, ahankara, egotism, it is not the mind that acts, but he sees by the mind (as his instrument), he hears by the mind; and all that we call desire, imagination, doubt, belief, unbelief, certainty, uncertainty, shame, thought, fear, all that is but mind (manas). Carried along by the waves of the qualities, darkened in his imaginations, unstable, fickle, crippled, full of desires, vacillating, he enters into belief, believing I am he, this is mine, and he binds his Self by his Self, as a bird with a net. Therefore a man, being possessed of will, imagination, and belief, is a slave, but he who is the opposite is free. For this reason let a man stand free from will, imagination, and belief this is the sign of liberty, this is the path that leads to Brahman, this is the opening of the door, and through it he will go to the other shore……All desires are there fulfilled.”

(Hindu, Upanishads vol. 2, Maitrayana-Brahmaya-Upanishad)

 Hinduism: 1.7. “Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.” “Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions (imaginations).”

(Hindu, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali)

 Hinduism: 5. “One man they call a laggard, dull in friendship: they never urge him on to deeds of valor. He wanders on in profitless illusion: the Voice he heard yields neither fruit, nor blossom.”

(Hindu, Vedas, Rig Veda – Book 10)

 BUDDHISM: “Depending upon and attaching itself to the dualistic habit of mind, they accept the views of the philosophers founded upon these erroneous distinctions, of being and non-being, existence and non-existence, and there evolves what we call, false-imaginations.” (Buddha, Lankavatara Sutra)

 Buddhism: “Discrimination of bondage and imagination is like imagining that there is something bound because of something binding, as in the case of a man who ties a knot and loosens one. These are the various features of false-imagination to which all the ignorant and simple minded cling” (Buddha, Lankavatara Sutra)

 Buddhism: “The ignorant and simple minded people fascinated with their self-imaginations and erroneous reasonings keep on dancing and leaping about, but are unable to understand the discourse of the words about the truth of self-realization, much less are they able to understand the truth itself.” (Buddha, Lankavatara Sutra)

 Buddhism: “These are the various features of false-imagination to which all the ignorant and simple-minded cling. Those attached to the notion of relativity are attached to the notion of the multitudinousness of things which arises from false-imagination. It is like seeing varieties of objects depending upon Maya, but these varieties thus revealing themselves are discriminated by the ignorant as something other than Maya itself,” “all things are imagined and clung to because of the multitudinous of individual signs, that they are like Maya; it is because they are alike unreal and as quickly appearing and disappearing.” (Buddha, Lankavatara Sutra) Thus, by reason of discrimination of that which by nature is Maya-like and unreal false-imagination and erroneous reasoning.” “With the cessation of mortal-mind the entire world of Maya and desire disappears.” (Buddha, Lankavatara Sutra)

 SABEANISM: “They have forsaken images, pictures and idols of clay, gods (made) of blocks of wood, and vain rites.” “It is time to pray the ‘Devotions’ The great moment for humble worship,” and set aside the empty, vain imaginations of the world. (Sabeanism, Ginza Rba- chapters 35 and 118)

This is also true for today with the coming of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. The people of today are also holding onto the practices of their fathers before them and are again rejecting God’s truth for today and holding onto traditions and vain imaginings.  Babi Religion: “Reduce not the ordinances of God to fanciful imaginations of your own; rather observe all the things which God hath created at His behest with the eye of the spirit, even as ye see things with the eyes of your bodies.”

(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 145)

BAHA’I FAITH: “They follow superstitions inherited from their fathers and ancestors. To such an extent has this prevailed that they have taken away the heavenly light of divine truth and sit in the darkness of imitations and imaginations. That which was meant to be conducive to life has become the cause of death; that which should have been an evidence of knowledge is now a proof of ignorance;”

(Bahá’í Faith, Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i World Faith – Abdu’l-Baha Section, p. 238)

 BABI RELIGION: “The goal for which the world has been striving is now here, free from veils and obstacles. The sun of Truth has risen and the lights of imagination and imitation have been extinguished. Fix your eyes upon the Báb, not upon me, the least of his slaves. My wisdom compared to his is as an unlighted candle to the sun at midday. Know God by God and the sun by its rays.”

The Bab: (Shoghi Effendi, The Dawn-Breakers, p. 533)

BAHA’I FAITH: “People for the most part delight in superstitions. They regard a single drop of the sea of delusion as preferable to an ocean of certitude. By holding fast unto names they deprive themselves of the inner reality and by clinging to vain imaginings they are kept back from the Dayspring of heavenly signs. God grant you may be graciously aided under all conditions to shatter the idols of superstition and to tear away the veils of the imaginations of men. Authority lieth in the grasp of God, the Fountainhead of revelation and inspiration and the Lord of the Day of Resurrection.”

(Bahá’í Faith, Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 58)