Ruhi Study Circle on Book 4

5 Kamal 163 B.E. - August 5, 2006 A.D.


Today I attended the first session of the Ruhi Study Circle on Book 4: The Twin Manifestations. This book is divided into four section: "To the Collaborators", "The Greatness of this Day", "The Life of the Bab", and "The Life of Baha'u'llah". My mother and I will be attending this course every other week for the next few months. I've completed three books of the Ruhi Institute series and taken part of one book (I'll be completing this book soon). The books I've completed are Reflections of the Life of the Spirit, Arising to Serve, and Walking Together in the Path of Service. The books I need to complete is Teaching Children's Classes, Grade 1 and The Twin Manifestations, once those are finished, then I will worry about taking the others in the series.

The collaborators in a Ruhi course are both the students, taking the course, and the tutor, facilitating the course. The tutors in a Ruhi course or study circle are not called teachers, but rather tutors or facilitators. That's because all the participants, and not just the students, are equals and input equally in the course. I think collaborators is a good designation for the students and the tutor facilitating this class, because the Ruhi Study Circles are collaborative learning at its best.

The Study Circles combine study of the Baha'i writings with art projects, service projects, and learning verses from the sacred scriptures. The specific of Book 4 is learning to talk about the Bab and Baha'u'llah, to tell others about them, and to answer any question someone may have. The practice for Book 4 consist of being able to tell stories to other about the lives of the Bab and Baha'u'llah. I'm looking forewords to doing this.

I have not trouble writing a fiction story, but when it comes to telling stories verbally about history, I'm not that experienced. My problem usually comes down to making the story sound interesting, to putting excitement into it and people asking to here more. I expect to learn a great deal from this course and after the practice I will be about to tell a verbal story as well as a written story. We haven't did any art projects in the class so far, but I am going to write at least two poems with the lives the Bab and Baha'u'llah as their themes. I find the events surround these two Manifestations interesting and intriguing. From the first time I heard about them their lives interested me.

There are two Power Point presentations that go along with this book. The first presentation is called The Bab: The Herald of a New Day and the second is called Baha'u'llah: The Glory of God. The pictures in these presentation would make a good accompaniment to telling about their lives. The Bab was born on October 20, 1819 and Baha'u'llah on November 12, 1817. The Bab declared his mission in 1844 and Baha'u'llah in 1863. We live in a glorious age because it is blessed by the appearance of two Manifestations of God. A Manifestation of God reflects the attributes of God to humanity. The only way for humanity to know God is through the these divine revealers.