On July 9, 1912, Abdu’l-Baha asked Juliet Thompson to take him to the Museum of Natural History (in Washington D.C.), where He seemed more interested in talking outside to an elderly museum guard than in seeing the museum’s artifacts. When the man asked if He wanted to see more of the museum, Abdu’l-Baha said He was tired of this world and more interested in things of the spiritual world. The old man responded with a preference for the material world, as it is something known. "But you do not lose it when you have attained the spiritual world,” said Abdu’l-Baha. “When you go upstairs in a house, you don't leave the house. The lower floor is under you.""Oh I see!" cried the guard, his whole face lighting up.
Juliet asks: "Why had the Master visited a Museum of Natural History in the hottest hour of a blistering July day? Had He instead visited a soul whose need was crying out to Him, to open an old man's eyes so that he might see to climb the stairs, to take away the dread of death?"I find this story quite interesting. Apparently Juliet went back to the museum the next week, and the man no longer worked there. Her thought was that he had passed on.
From: 'Abdu'l-Bahá's Journey in America: Celebrating the 2012 Centenary
