Dear Brent,
On this point I would disagree with you...; if you are saying "Baha'u'llah did not see a Maiden" and I believe that is what you are saying.
Shoghi Effendi does not say the "images" were symbols conjured up by the Manifestations to relate Their experience. He says the "images" were symbols of the "Most Great Spirit". I feel the Guardian is saying that although the "images" appeared in different forms they all were "symbolically" the ONE "Most Great Spirit".
My understanding is that the various images describe the "form" or appearance of the "Most Great Spirit" as visualized/imagined by each of the Manifestations.
Lovingly, Sandra
You wrote: <> It is my understanding that there was no Maiden. Shoghi Effendi writes of Baha'u'llah's vision of the Maiden in the Siyah-Chal that the Maiden, and all the other images used for the earlier Manifestations of God, were symbols:
...at so critical an hour and under such appalling circumstances the "Most Great Spirit," as designated by Himself, and symbolized in the Zoroastrian, the Mosaic, the Christian, and Muhammadan Dispensations by the Sacred Fire, the Burning Bush, the Dove and the Angel Gabriel respectively, descended upon, and revealed itself, personated by a "Maiden," to the agonized soul of Bahá'u'llá (Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 100) <>
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