Aphrodite

Oneness of Humanity (4)


Aphrodite, Rising


By John Taylor; 6 August, 2004




A Hadith says, "Whoever has no kindness has no faith." That sums up the
principle of oneness of humanity. Our oneness is in our humane qualities
and being kind makes us one. The principle could not be simpler, just be
kind to all, disregard all but loving thoughts, think only of our end,
God. God loved us and created us and that example is all that counts.
All else is piffle.

Let me say this. If there is anything I have learned on this trip
through the principles it is that even justice is a subcategory of
kindness. Not the other way around as the West tends to think. Kindness
is no extraneous appendage, it is the life force. Without it faith dies.
The first Arabic Hidden Word says to be kind and pure, only the second
sets up justice as God's favorite thing.

And before and above both, as the Hadith says, stands faith. These are
only the first two of a thousand things whose lack shows lack of faith.
But what shows faith? Virtues, I guess. I have been working on several
virtues, chastity, temperance, moderation, determination.

I wake each morning and see the obstacles before me and am daunted every
time. Obesity, enervation, migraine, faults of others, the list goes on
as long as the brain putt-putts along. I know, have faith. Each day is a
story of reaching for faith.

One thing that helps is to start the day reciting the Tablet of Ahmad.
I've been doing it the past few weeks and am amazed at my stupidity for
getting away from it so long. Trying to get by without it I was like
some dude pumping away to get electricity from a small bicycle generator
while a huge hydro-electric dam looms overhead. Saying this powerful
prayer has not dissipated my afflictions like a mirage, but the extra
oomph I get from it seems to allow for, condition my effort, to give
permission to strive. That has started to tilt the balance from a
downward slide to obese, indolent oblivion.

If it keeps swinging towards gradual self-improvement surely this will
be a greater bounty than just casting some quick and easy spell that
cannot be repeated. Every little step I make helps further steps. The
secret is to set up a new habit and then sit with my back against it and
push with my legs in order to break more bad habits. What helped is
partly what I have been reading.

I'm reading "The Wisdom of the Body," by Sherman B. Nuland. This is a
thoughtful account of his life's work by a surgeon. When I picked it up
I wondered why I had never read a surgeon's memoirs before. Chapter two
gave me the answer. Reading it in the bathtub, I was so disgusted and
weakened -- my usual reaction to kind of thing -- that I almost dropped
the volume into the bathwater. Allow me to parody this fellow's world
view.


"I cut out her spleen and held it up to the light. Blood was spurting
out into our eyes and we had to keep scooping out gobs of gore from our
ears, noses and hair. Blood in the operating room is like sand in the
desert, it gets into everything. Long ago we had stopped noticing it. It
gushed out of her stomach in such a torrent that the doors of the
operating theatre burst open and we were floating slowly down the
hallway. Someone said something about the elevator in the horror film,
"The Shining," and the general hilarity among the support workers
started to get out of hand. I wanted to keep their attention on the work
at hand. "Look here," I pointed to a part of the spleen that was
shimmering redder than the rest of the human offal that is the stock in
trade of a surgeon. You can see that this is a multiple (our term for a
mother who has given birth several times) and that the strain has caused
occlusions here and here and here. Everyone tried hard to keep a
straight face. That was when a diplomat burst in reporting that Red
China was lodging an official protest. It seems that so much blood had
rushed out of her belly that satellites were showing the United States
as red. Red China was definitely not amused at having another red one in
the community of nations. That was when I lost control of the levity and
even I had to smile at the naivety of the non-medicals and their silly
reaction to a little blood."


Anyway, this doctor's theory is that the only real healer is the will to
survive. He and his knife only help the body's will along in its desire
to continue existing. At one point he cites atheist philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer, who held that the only God discernable in nature is the
will to live. Actually, I don't think this is too far off the mark, even
from my perspective as a Baha'i. Will, Mashiyyat, is an attribute of God
that has its own day and month in the Badi' calendar. If you want
examples of superhuman will, you just have to read the stories of the
Baha'i martyrs. How they got that tremendous will to go on in the Faith
when its victory was so far off into the future is beyond the mind's
ability to comprehend.

SchopenhauerÂ’s "will to live" was only the ghost of a god. But Albert
Schweitzer, coming from the opposite direction as a Christian
theologian, also based his philosophy upon what he called, "reverence
for life." Also a doctor, Schweitzer adds kindness and worship to will,
but it is basically the same idea. Schweitzer further held that modern
civilization is in decline because we lack not so much the will to live
as the will to love.

As a race we have renounced love, and that doomed us. Why? Because the
will to love and the need to survive collectively amount to the same
thing. The will to live is the driving physical force that keeps
organisms going physically; the will to be kind is that same desire in
the higher reason. And out of all this doctoring by reasoning beings
emerges the Baha'i principle of oneness of humanity, Aphrodite emerging
from a sea of blood.



John Taylor
helpmatejet@yahoo.com
 
Blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/
 
Badi Web Site: TBA