As Baha'u'llah has stated, we must all learn to think for ourselves,
and to seek truth and greater spiritual understanding all our lives.
It is never wise to make your decisions simply because
your "leaders" so decree, or the majority of the people think that
way, Seek truth and follow the best truth you can discover, despite
criticism of the conventional thinkers. Also, none of us are perfect,
and we should acknowledge it when we make an error in judgement, and
learn from our mistakes, so that we do not repeat them and can use
them in our spiritual development.
For almost everyone the turmoil of this age in itself presents
countless tests, for it is a time of the moral disintegration of
society, the end of one civilization and the beginning of the birth
of a new civilization. And yet the coming of a new Manifestation is a
far greater test of faith for almost everyone in these times. In all
past ages, whenever a Manifestation of God has appeared, the majority
of the followers of the previous Dispensations, often led by their
priests or other religious leaders, have denounced and persecuted
God's Chosen Ones. Because of the multitude of differing
interpretations of the Writings of the Manifestations, -- the manner
in which the Manifestations of God appear and declare Their Missions,
never seems to please the people of the previous Dispensations, nor to
fulfill their immature expectations. God has always tested His
servants in the past, and we cannot expect to escape His Divinely
ordained tests today. "...Inasmuch as the divine Purpose hath decreed
that the true should be known from the false, and the sun from the
shadow, He hath, therefore, in every season sent down upon mankind the
showers of tests from His realm of glory." Baha'u'llah, in Kitab-i-
Iqan, p. 53
"Notwithstanding the divinely-inspired admonitions of all the
Prophets, the saints and the Chosen Ones of God, enjoining the people
to see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears, they have
disdainfully rejected their counsels and have blindly followed and
will continue to follow the leaders of their Faith." Baha'u'llah,
Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 164
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