A Feeling in the Guardian's Heart

Another time he came over for dinner and he was rather disturbed. He had some cables from America about certain matters, and some actions had been taken, and he was a little disturbed at the actions which were taken, actually, and he started to talk about it, and discuss it, and he read the cable that had been received, and he turned to me and said, “Roy, you were on the National Assembly when this thing happened, when it first came up, weren’t you?” And I said, “Yes, sir, I was.” And he said, “Can you tell me what happened there at that first meeting?” So I started to tell him what happened. He stopped me when I got about one-fifth of the way, and he said, “No, no, no, I will tell you what happened, and then you tell me if I’m right or wrong.” And then he proceeded to discuss that meeting, what had taken place. The spirit behind the actions which were taken, which was the thing I was trying to convey to him, because the action was simple. You know, you did this. But why did you do this? That’s the important thing. But the spirit behind it. And he described that in detail, and he said, “Am I right or am I wrong?” And I said, “Shoghi Effendi, you are right even to the details.” He said, “You see, I don’t have to have all this information. God gives me a feeling in my heart. And when I have that feeling and I have it strong, I know what the situation is, and it doesn’t make any difference what anybody says, what anybody does, what anybody gives me or how much they say, but that’s the situation and I know it, in any part of the world it’s the same thing.”

Source: Leroy Ioas, In the Days of the Guardian, a talk given in Johannesburg, South Africa, 31 October 1958 (published on cassette by the US Bahá’í Publishing Trust; transcript at bahai.works).

Collected from bahaistories.com (Subject: efficiency).

Various. *bahaistories.com archive*. https://bahaistories.com/subject/efficiency