More on the Master's First Talk

Deeper Meanings Under the Floorboards of the Master's First Talk

By John Taylor; 16 September, 2005

The best public talks I have ever heard have one thing in common, the
speaker seems assiduously to be consulting not mind or memory but
their own spirit during the discussion -- in the same way that another
might look up and down from a page of partially memorized notes. In
the Master's first talk in London He describes what goes on during
such communication:

"The sea of the unity of mankind is lifting up its waves with joy, for
there is real communication between the hearts and minds of men. The
banner of the Holy Spirit is uplifted, and men see it, and are assured
with the knowledge that this is a new day." (ABL, 19)

This assurance of oneness is what you feel when such an inspired
speaker reaches out and touches the heart. This is what the Master did
before all the imitators: He started spirits communicating on a deeper
level than words normally plumb. Older musicians speak of this
happening, rarely, during the most memorable live performances that
took place in the course of their lives. It comes without warning,
they say, in front of an audience that is small and not only
knowledgeable but somehow perfectly receptive to the message in the
music. I had an experience like this a few weeks ago listening to a
taped performance of -- who else? -- Johann Sebastian Bach. I dropped
off into an interstitial state; suddenly the notes seemed to step
aside and there between each of them loomed a universe, an entire
dimension of spiritual potential. I saw what the Master spoke of when
He said:

"This is a new cycle of human power. All the horizons of the world are
luminous, and the world will become indeed as a garden and a
paradise." (Id.)

It is easy to forget the tremendous power that is placed in our hands,
qua human beings. That is, not as individuals, not as groups but as
humans, as mirror images of the One. The power we get in this "cycle
of power" is from the reflection, not from ourselves. Our brilliance
and luminosity comes of God, and the only way that we will turn the
world into a "garden and a paradise" is for the pure and just to
reflect the light direct from the source, the sun.

One of the inspired speeches that I am thinking of when I talk of
spirit speeches is recorded on video by Renee Pasaro. This Californian
woman as an adolescent had a near-death experience while in the early
stages of investigating the Baha'i Faith. Our community showed it for
our monthly public fireside this week and -- following a suggestion
distributed on the Net -- the chair of the meeting invited anyone
interested to Ruhi Book One, which deals with life, death and
afterlife in its third section. We had several Baha'is attend and they
seemed appreciative, though none bit the hook.

Pasaro's experience in the next life included meeting up with a Being
Who called Himself the "Blessed Beauty," who spoke of a people called
"the just," a people who are, He said, the hope of the world. Her
brush with death gave her new values, a holistic perspective on the
meaning of life. Years later on pilgrimage she saw a new building
being erected. This was the very one that she had glimpsed in the next
world, the seat of the Universal House of Justice. Here was where "the
just" were centered.

I was moved to go over Plato's Phaedo once more with the lessons that
Pasaro shares in this video in mind. For example, she testifies that
the means of propulsion, as it were, in the next world is love. If you
do not have love for God in you, you stay still. You are like an
astronaut on an EVA whose jet pack runs out of fuel. If you love God,
you progress, if not you are stranded, crippled, done. Also, she was
told a simple but essential truth: the pain and suffering that seemly
blight our lives is, from the perspective of the next life, to be
regarded as a great opportunity. It is not sad or tragic but cause for
celebration.

This is what enables the eye to see: if all before us were brightness
and light, Pasaro was told, the eye would be blinded. Conversely, if
all were dark and blackness, the eye would, just the same, see
nothing. In order to function the eye needs both. We need bright and
shadow, white and black, to discern all the degrees and colors between
the extremes. In the same way, spiritual vision requires joy and
suffering, right and wrong, both extremes and all the degrees between
in order for truth and reality to be visible to heart and mind. If all
were joy, or all were pain, spiritual faculties would not work. Hence
the Manifestation experiences the greatest suffering --not the least
suffering -- because He is bringing the greatest joy, the light of the
divine. Great light casts the darkest shadows.

Socrates in the Phaedo discusses the consequences of this insight at
length, explaining why he and all philosophers are seeking death all
their lives and yet shy away from suicide or other direct means of
wasting one's life. He accepted death at the hands of the state not as
a shallow political protest but as a spiritual act, a sacrificial
oblation, literally. The hemlock he drank then allowed him to pause on
the way out and give us a message that is essential, even today. It
seems meant by God to ready us for understanding Jesus and the more
abstruse and complex messages of the Manifestations that followed
after.

What was most unique and difficult about Jesus? I lately read that His
method of teaching by means of parables is unique to Him; there is no
record of any rabbi using this teaching method until Jesus neither in
the Torah nor any other commentary. In a parable, the point of the
story is missing. It sacrifices itself by vacating, fleeing. In a
parable the specific moral is gone and the hearer must supply her own
according to her own spirit. In other words, only the just, who sees
with his or her own eyes and thinks with his or her own mind will ever
get it right. It is as if the meaning of Jesus along with His body
were put up on the cross and sacrificed. Only the just, those going in
His direction, can grasp His meaning. `Abdu'l-Baha in the City Temple
continued:

"The gift of God to this enlightened age is the knowledge of the
oneness of mankind and of the fundamental oneness of religion."

One human reality, one faith in that One. So, the only way to be just
is to perceive and act upon this gift and sacrifice self so that all
will reach this goal, as Others did before us. This mutual sacrifice
with its meaning hiding its head in the next world is the basis of the
"real communication" that He talks of.

What the Master lays out in the rest of His maiden speech we will
discuss next time. Blessings and peace be upon you.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com