12 November 1996
Dear Bahá'í Friend,
With regard to your email of 8 August 1996, we have been asked to say that it is true that Shoghi Effendi considered that his letter to the Bahá'ís of the West dated 8 February 1934 outlined certain fundamental verities of the Faith, and, therefore, it should be given primary importance in the systematic study of the Cause. However, as you further observe, the term is used in a variety of contexts, since it also refers generally to the basic beliefs, teachings, laws and principles of the Faith. Three such instances help illustrate the range of referents to which the Guardian was wont to apply the term. First, he wrote in a letter to the All-America International Teaching Conference which gathered in 1953 that the House of Worship is, "dedicated to the three fundamental verities animating and underlying the Bahá'í Faith -- the Unity of God, the Unity of His Prophets, the Unity of mankind". Elsewhere, he emphasized that
“The education of the members of the community in the principles and essential verities underlying the Covenants of Bahá'u'lláh and of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá as well as the Administrative Order of the Faith -- the twin pillars sustaining the spiritual life and the institutions of every organized Bahá'í community -- must, at all costs, be vigorously pursued and systematically intensified.”
And in still another letter, the following clarification is offered on behalf of Shoghi Effendi:
“By ‘verities of the Faith’ he means the great teachings and fundamentals enshrined in our Bahá'í literature; these we can find by reading the books, studying under Bahá'í scholars at summer schools and in classes, and through the aid of study outlines.”
Moreover, the term fundamental verities was often used in the correspondence of the Guardian when introducing the basic aspects of the Faith in which all of the believers should be deepened and grounded, as for example: