5 May 1996: To the Youth gathered at the Youth Forum in Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Dear Friends,

We are delighted that, at this very early point in the Four Year Plan, you have gathered together in Kingston to chart your course for the extraordinary period of opportunity ahead between now and the end of the century. We send our heartfelt greetings to each and all of you.

At every stage in the growth of the Faith, young people have arisen to play a vital role in its propagation and consolidation. In this day, the opportunities available for Bahá’í youth to contribute to the awakening of mankind to the divine purpose of human existence are vast, and the privilege of leading not only your peers but all people towards the world civilization of Bahá’u’lláh is within your grasp. May this forum mobilize your energies and strengthen your ardor to spread the Divine Teachings, and reinforce your eagerness to assure that the standard of the Cause of God is raised in every province, territory, city and hamlet in Canada.

Although the task before you is great, do not hesitate. Equipped with the Sacred Writings for your guidance, and with complete trust in the unfailing aid of the Blessed Beauty as your strength, you are assured of success in all that you endeavor on His behalf.

We shall remember you with love in our prayers at the Sacred Threshold.

With loving Bahá’í greetings,

The Universal House of Justice

(Messages from the Universal House of Justice 1986-2001)

Ridván Message 1997

To the Bahá’ís of the World

Dearly loved Friends,

We acclaim with grateful hearts the eager response on all continents to the Four Year Plan launched last Ridván.

Consultations of the Continental Counsellors and National Spiritual Assemblies started an extensive planning process, also involving Auxiliary Board members and Local Spiritual Assemblies. Through such a process the national and regional character of the derivative plans took shape. But this world-encompassing exercise did more than yield distinctive schemes for the different countries; it also boosted the collaborative relationship of the two arms of the Administrative Order, a most welcome portent of the victories yet to come.

A sign of the immediate impact of the Plan was the speed with which steps were taken to establish nearly two hundred training institutes during the last twelve months. Many of these have gone far beyond the point of designing their organization; they are actually in operation and have offered their first courses. Moreover, in the movement of homefront and international pioneers and traveling teachers; in the increased attention given by individuals to deputizing teachers; in the preparations made to ensure the formation of Local Spiritual Assemblies only on the first day of Ridván; in the increasing endeavors to hold regular devotional meetings; in the widening efforts to make use of the arts in the teaching work and community activities—in all these respects could be discerned the friends’ keen awareness of the importance of concentrating on the requirements of the major aim of the Plan, which is to effect a significant advance in the process of entry by troops.

Nor can we neglect to recognize other developments during the past year which confirmed the high merit of the manifold efforts being exerted by our world community and the results being achieved. Among these, to mention a few, were: the acquisition of the apartment at 4 Avenue de Camoëns in Paris where the beloved Master, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, resided during His historic visit to the city; the special session on 14 August of the Federal Chamber of Deputies in Brazil to mark the 75th anniversary of the introduction of the Bahá’í Faith into that country—a unique, official occasion at which Amatu’l-Bahá Rúhíyyih Khánum was present as the honored guest; the launching last July of the Bahá’í International Community’s site on the World Wide Web, entitled “The Bahá’í World,” which to date has received from more than 90 countries and territories over 50,000 visits, averaging some 200 per day.

Ridván 153: To the Followers of Bahá’u’lláh in Australia, the Cook Islands, the Eastern Caroline Islands, the Fiji Islands, French Polynesia, the Hawaiian Islands, Indonesia, Japan, Kiribati, Korea, the Mariana Islands, the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and the Western Caroline Islands

Dearly loved Friends,

You are privileged to live in a region of the world unique in the opportunities it offers to advance the interests of the Faith during the course of the Four Year Plan. You constitute Bahá’í communities within, or on the fringe of, the vast Pacific Ocean, with which is associated this promise of Bahá’u’lláh: "Should they attempt to conceal His light on the continent, He will assuredly rear His head in the midmost part of the ocean and, raising His voice proclaim: 'I am the life-giver of the world.'" At a time when the dear Bahá’í friends in the Cradle of the Faith yearn for the yoke of oppression to be lifted from their shoulders, you can compensate for their present and temporary inability to propagate the Faith if you undertake a sustained endeavor to convey the Divine Message to the peoples of your countries and multiply Bahá’í institutions throughout these lands.

Within your region is to be found a vast diversity of races, cultures, languages and religious traditions, illustrative of the major influences which have shaped the affairs of humanity throughout history. One of this region's distinguishing features is described by the Guardian as "a spiritual axis, extending from the Antipodes to the northern islands of the Pacific Ocean―an axis whose northern and southern poles will act as powerful magnets, endowed with exceptional spiritual potency, and towards which other younger and less experienced communities will tend for some time to gravitate." This emphasizes the vital role to be played by the Bahá’í communities of Northeastern Asia and of the Antipodes in the spiritual illumination of the surrounding areas.

Every country of the region must witness, in the course of the Four Year Plan, a significant advance in the process of entry by troops. It is essential that the plans formulated on national and local levels reflect this vital aim. The advancement of this process will require that greater attention be given not only to fostering individual initiative in the teaching work, but also to developing human resources through the establishment and efficient operation of training institutes and other centers of learning, and to vastly increasing the strength and quality of the functioning of the Local Spiritual Assemblies.

Ridván 153: To the Followers of Bahá’u’lláh in Western and Central Asia

Dearly loved Friends,

As a turbulent yet luminous century draws to a dose, the Bahá’í cornmunity is embarking on another campaign in the progressive unfoldment of the Divine Plan. The global enterprises thus far executed by the consecrated adherents of His Cause have systematically spread the light of Bahá’u’lláh's Revelation to every corner of the earth and have firmly established the institutions of His Administrative Order. The Four Year Plan, whose primary aim is to effect a significant advance in the process of entry by troops, is being launched at a time when the Cause of God has emerged from obscurity, when its contributions to society are being increasingly acknowledged, and when humanity's prolonged and continuous suffering has created an atmosphere of search for spiritual values and has raised the level of receptivity to the Cause.

We call upon our much-loved coworkers in the western and central parts of the Asiatic continent, the home of the oldest and most venerable Bahá’í communities, to rally round their divinely ordained institutions and to arise during these years to demonstrate once again the devotion, valor and determination which have already conferred matchless distinction upon them. You have the honor of serving the Faith in a region above whose horizon the dawn of the Great Day of the Lord appeared, in whose bosom the infant Cause of God was nurtured, on whose soil so much sacred blood was shed, on whose western shores the Qiblih of the people of Bahá is established, within whose embrace the first Mashriqu’l-Adhkár was raised, and from which hosts of devoted and committed Bahá’ís have, in the past decades, set out to bear the banner of the Faith to every part of the globe.

Our thoughts turn first to the community of Bahá’u’lláh's lovers in the land where His Faith was born. Although they are still denied the freedom to resume direct participation in the series of campaigns by which the Cause is steadily advancing throughout the world, their achievements constitute irrefutable proof of the creative power of the daily sacrifices they are making for the vindication of the Faith. What is becoming apparent, as this new global Plan opens, is that the build-up of spiritual strength within the Iranian Bahá’í community―purified by suffering and steeled by adversity―represents a reservoir of energy that will, in God's good time, bring incalculable benefits to the Cause. "Say: The springs that sustain the life of these birds are not of this world. Their source is far above the reach and ken of human apprehension."