Trailblazer
Veteran Member
the Holy Spirit which comes to man -- but HOW does the Holy Spirit come to man? It comes through the Manifestations of God, it does not come directly to man.It's true that we cannot understand the soul or God, there are some things in religion that we can understand. The Holy Spirit can illumine our minds about such things:
But the bounty of the Holy Spirit gives the true method of comprehension which is infallible and indubitable. This is through the help of the Holy Spirit which comes to man, and this is the condition in which certainty can alone be attained.
(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 298)
One caveat though. How does one know that one's inspiration is the Holy Spirit? Also the Holy Spirit comes through in different strengths for me, is everything I think right when the Holy Spirit only comes through faintly? I don't think so. Only for a very spiritual person or a Manifestation of God is it certain. I once was high on the Spirit, then I thought I was a prophet of God, and I knew that wasn't right. But the more the Holy Spirit comes through the more certain we can be. It still has to be weighed against all of the scriptures and reason. In another place Abdu'l-Baha also examines how we acquire knowledge and also concludes that inspiration can be faulty and doesn't mention the Holy Spirit. This indicates to me that I am on the right track. If we combine our senses, reason, scripture, and inspiration we can arrive at the truth of a matter. This is the best way.
You said: "But the more the Holy Spirit comes through the more certain we can be. It still has to be weighed against all of the scriptures and reason."
There is no way you can be certain because there is no way you can know it is the Holy Spirit and not your own thoughts.
This is simply my bias. If people want to believe that the Holy Spirit comes to them they can believe that. It is possible that the Holy Spirit comes to man, but my point is that we can never know if it does or not. Moreover, people thinking that they know that the Holy Spirit came to them can lead to all sorts of delusions so there is a danger in believing that.
The upshot of all this is that these spiritual experiences are only valuable for the people who have them, and they can be misleading, like a Christian who told me that the Holy Spirit told him that Baha'u'llah was a fraud.... Was that the Holy Spirit, or just his imagination?