Aqasi's Spawn

Expunging Aqasi's Spawn

By John Taylor; 9 November, 2005

It is late Tuesday night and in this gloomy night of despair I turn to
Thee, as instantiated in the Tablet of Ahmad. That holy tablet is the
story of my life, it is all in there, there is nothing that is JET
that is not to be found in that brief tablet. Especially I turn to the
promise at the end, my friends, the promise of an end to all this
misery and the hopeless futility of existence in this ringing, empty
sphere ... for here is a promise in no uncertain terms that there will
be a meaning, somewhere, somehow. It orders me to learn it well, not
to keep my pathetic flagging soul back, to recite it on a daily basis,
and I do, mostly. When I don't, the putrid odor of this life soon
drives me back to its daily repetition. I missed a few days and, just
now, I woke in the literal and figurative darkness of a very late
night and said it once more and it comforted, as it always does.

I return to thee, TofA, as a lover, a more faithful lover than any
worldly one can ever be, for you give me peace in my dark nights. But
before you give the Big Promise, I'll call it the Big Promise, the
Most Great Promise, the daily devotional crumb that keeps me, like
Hansel and Gretel, on the Path, ever hopeful when there is not a trace
of outward success in work and career. The Ahmad tablet gives me that
as the kicker: "that thou mayest be of those who are grateful." It is
why it is there, for gratitude is key, it is why God gives the bounty.
Grateful I am for the light and the dark, for the brilliance and dark
shadows of morning's light, for noon's overhead light above and total
shadow below, for evening's light on my other side and the long
shadows again, and for total dark everywhere again now, now that night
gives me this chance to be alone with you again, O Tablet of O Ahmad.
Grateful for it all. I am.

I am grateful to Jim for inviting me to the fireside, to Nancie for
persuading me to convert that late Tuesday night, and I am grateful to
Gordon for marking the occasion soon after by reciting the Tablet of
Ahmad by heart. So impressed was I with his feat of memory that I was
given the gumption to memorize it too, a mental feat that I have never
been able to repeat with anything else since then, but I am grateful
for this. I thank God that I made that effort for it made this Tablet
into a sort of invisible mark, a semiotic, a divine, invisible
signature of the enduring gift of faith that I was given that late
night. And I am grateful for the lesser gifts of this life too, gifts
of light and gifts of dark too.

Gratitude for my life no doubt is the first door I have to get through
in order to get to the Most Great Promise that comes next. But there
is another one too. Sincerity. Not my weak, fleeting will o' the wisp
kind of sincerity but absolute sincerity, the kind of iron quality
that only God or His Delegate can stand up to. "By God, should one who
is in affliction or grief read this tablet with absolute sincerity..."
Read it with His sincerity. The sincerity of the One who takes the
sins and suffering of the world upon His back. The one who takes the
crushing burden of the guilt of this age, and need I remind you of the
extent of that guilt? What is the running count now? A baby dies every
three or four seconds needlessly, a young, pure life snuffed out for
nothing, easily avoided if only the hypocritical moneyed nations would
live up to their own promises of foreign aid to Africa. Only He can
wash off that negligent, collective guilt.

The Bab mentions absolute sincerity too, in His letter to the fellow
who I believe is now considered the Anti-Christ of His revelation,

"O Minister of the Shah! Fear thou God, besides Whom there is none
other God but Him, the Sovereign Truth, the Just, and lay aside thy
dominion, for We, by the leave of God, the All-Wise, inherit the earth
and all who are upon it, (Q19:41) and He shall rightfully be a witness
unto thee and unto the Shah. Were ye to obey the Remembrance of God
with absolute sincerity, We guarantee, by the leave of God, that on
the Day of Resurrection, a vast dominion shall be yours in His eternal
Paradise." (Selections, 42-43)

This Prime Minister, Haji Mirza Aqasi, was a wheedling snit who had
brainwashed Muhammad Shah in his youth when he was his tutor. He
manipulated the sovereign endlessly and mercilessly when he attained
to power. When the Resurrection Dance began to play he did the worst
thing possible, he turned his young mind slave away from true, sincere
belief just when the Shah was swinging to within an ace of meeting
with and then surely accepting the Bab. It was an evil deed, and no
doubt its infamy has bred and festered until now world leaders and
their advisors, Aqasi's spawn, prance their hypocritical dance around
the summit table as innocent babes die minute by minute, second by
second. Same story then as now, power monger give up your power, step
aside and let the Sovereign Truth, the Just, take over.

That is the ticket. Sincerity means never having to bother with
running what God alone is worthy of controlling. You cannot be
absolutely sincere and hold for a second to corruptive power. Just
pass the hot potato. If I were successful and powerful like those
summit dancers, would I be turning to you, TofA, in the middle of my
night of despair? Not a chance. All power is God's, and it must be
passed back to him; that is what the passage from the Qu'ran that the
Bab cites above says:

"But warn them of the Day of Distress, when the matter will be
determined: for (behold,) they are negligent and they do not believe!
It is We Who will inherit the earth, and all beings thereon: to Us
will they all be returned." (19:39-40, Yusuf Ali)

Or, in Rodwell's incomparable rendering:

"Warn them of the day of sighing when the decree shall be
accomplished, while they are sunk in heedlessness and while they
believe not. Verily, we will inherit the earth and all who are upon
it. To us shall they be brought back."

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com