The Seeds at Pleasanton

A retelling based on Mahmud's Diary by Mirza Mahmud-i-Zarqani. Short phrases in quotation marks are words preserved in that account.

Early on the morning of Tuesday, 15 October 1912, Mrs Phoebe Hearst brought 'Abdu'l-Baha flowers of many colours and scents. If He wished, she said, He might walk through the gardens and the nursery around the house.

He looked round the house first, and then went out to the nursery, which was full of beautiful flowers. A few rare kinds caught His attention. The seeds of those flowers, He said, should be sent to the Holy Land, to be grown in the gardens beside the Shrines of the Bab and Baha'u'llah.

Then He went on: "The real flowers are those in the garden of the hearts. The flowers of the love of God which are grown with the warmth of the Sun of Truth perfume the peoples of the world and never wither."

He had been her guest since Sunday. Mrs Hearst was a wealthy and prominent woman who had visited the Master in the Holy Land some years before; since then, Mahmud records, she had become distant. While He was staying in San Francisco, she asked permission to visit Him. Once she had been in His presence, she invited Him and His companions to her home. Because the invitation was sincere, Mahmud writes, it was accepted.

The motor car had taken them through the streets of Oakland and Berkeley, then out through green hills and valleys to her large house on a hillside at the edge of Pleasanton, surrounded by gardens and lawns and paths overflowing with flowers. Some of her relatives were among the guests. They were people of many different backgrounds, and He shaped His speech to suit them. "Many important ideas," Mahmud noted, "were couched in short sentences, giving the maximum effect with a minimum of words."

On that first evening, after dinner, He spoke only briefly. "Every universal matter is from God; and limitations are from man." Work done for the good of all, He said, is acceptable to God and leaves lasting traces; every other effort is limited and passes away. Then, with His permission, the guests sang songs at the piano.

At lunch the next day, at the request of those around the table, He chanted a prayer: "He is God! Thou seest us, O my God, gathered around this table, praising Thy bounty, with our gaze set upon Thy Kingdom."

Day by day, Mahmud observed, the humility and sincerity of these prominent people grew in His presence.

Now it was Tuesday. At lunch He turned to Mrs Hearst's grandchildren. Children, He said, are the ornaments of the table, "especially these children, who are very sweet!" A person's heart, He added, must be like a child's, pure and free from all contamination.

At dinner He talked about the kings of the world and told how Alexander had died. When the lamp of the conqueror's life went out, the wise men gathered beside his body. One of them said that yesterday the whole world could not hold this ambitious man, and today a small plot of earth was enough for him. Another said: "With all his greatness, glory and eloquence of speech, Alexander never advised us in such a manner as he is instructing us today with this silence."

After dinner the company went into the salon.

Mrs Hearst had been cautious and had not spoken openly to her relatives about the Faith. But by now, Mahmud writes, she and her guests were so drawn by His words and actions that she asked Him, without hesitation, to speak to them about the teachings of the Cause of God.

He spoke of devotion to the Cause, of the lights of the Kingdom appearing, of universal peace and the oneness of humanity. Then He spoke for a while about the great variety in human capacities. "Christ likened divine words to seeds," He said, "and the hearts and capacities of his listeners to soil of different kinds."

Mrs Hearst began to speak of her days in 'Akka, and of her joy at hearing a prayer chanted in the Holy Land. She asked Him for one now.

In a melodious voice He read a prayer in eloquent Arabic. None of the listeners understood Arabic. Even so, most of them said afterwards that the beauty of the Tablet and of His voice had drawn them nearer to God. Some of them said that evening that they wished to accept the Faith. They had known about the Cause before, they said, and had spent time among the believers. But listening to the Master, they now understood more.

The next day, when it was time for Him to leave, Mahmud saw a change in some of Mrs Hearst's relatives who had been narrow-minded and aloof. They were, he wrote, "humbled and transformed." Before He went, 'Abdu'l-Baha called the household staff to stand before Him in a line: the maids, the orderlies, the cooks and the butler. He urged them to be truthful, honest and devoted to their work, thanked them, and left each of them a gift to remember Him by. Mrs Hearst begged to go with Him as far as San Francisco, and He let her.

This is a retelling. For the fuller account, see Mahmud's Diary by Mirza Mahmud-i-Zarqani.

Mahmud-i-Zarqani, M.. *Mahmud's Diary*.