Slow Meteor

The Slow Meteor and Our Mother of Oneness

By John Taylor; 24 March, 2006

I did not plan to write about the Oneness of God, it just happened, it
grew on its own. This has been a long winter of discontent, racked by
illness for me and mine and in this time of struggle and regression I
have come to think of the Oneness of God as more than a principle. It
is my mother. Yes, my brain already knows that it is the mother of all
principle, but I have come to think of it as much more, as an
intensely personal thing, well, not a thing but a person, as my nurse
and comforter in my darkest and saddest hours. There came a time in
the depths of illness and stagnation when I thought of stopping these
daily essays and doing something with my life. Making money or
something.

But then unhappiness plunged down like a torrent on my head and I had
to return to keep sanity. I could feel an ocean of melancholy,
palpable, heavy as a thousand mountains. Later, in my daily recital of
the Tablet of Ahmad I heard as for the first time the words "God will
dispel his sadness..." Clearly, the only way for my sadness to be
dispelled was to recite sincerely, and to write that silly daily
essay. I knew then that there is no choice. It does not matter if
anybody ever reads it or not, that is utterly beside the point.
Otherwise, the ocean of depression would slosh down, overwhelm and
drown me.

Even now the profound sadness of the strange vision that I had then,
when sadness was briefly not dispelled, oppresses me if I hesitate or
falter. What I saw was this.

Imagine a meteor hitting the earth and killing all life in an instant.
That would be tragic and disastrous. But the way things are, is it any
better? We are all living for our time, then we die. Life is born and
reproduces and then dies, constantly. Death comes just as inevitably,
it is just a matter of time, of more or less time. All of us, insects,
humans, young and old, are doomed to die every bit as much as if that
meteor were to hit and exterminate us instantly. No worse, at least we
would die together from that impact. That would be the end of it all,
there would be no more deaths if that happened. Dying together and
ending it forever, there would be comfort in that. As it is, we die
alone, at any time, unpredictably, separated from others, alone and,
ultimately, un-mourned. This earth spins us off it relentlessly,
continually, one by one, and there is nothing anybody can do about but
wonder who will fly off sooner and who will be a bit more tardy.
Instant or slow, all are just as dead.

That is the view from earth, and I cannot shake its black cloud off,
at least not until after I have written my little daily bit about the
Oneness of God. That experience dispels the shadow of the meteor, for
a time. The temerity of trying to tackle this principle would shake me
otherwise, had I a choice, for this is surely by far the most
difficult of all the principles. It is the principle of principle, the
mother, and it is in everything. But chased by the fury of that "slow
meteor" dealing intermittent death to all, I flee into her arms again
and again, every morning. They are loving arms...

Surely, there is a longer view than my slow meteor, a happier
perspective, one that means more in the broader scheme of things. I
have to believe that. But the view is obscure from down here. All I
see is a slow meteor, picking us off one by one. I see the slow meteor
in every face, in the faces of the old, the halt and the lame, but
worst of all I see it in the faces of children too. It lurked in dark
shadows under the eyes of my little ones, Silvie and Thomas, as
illness dragged them down. Hard to bear, hard to witness.

I cling to my mother for dear life, for dear hope. That means, for me,
in great part the Bab, for in my daily bread, that is, the Tablet of
Ahmad it says that His Book is "the mother book, did ye but know." In
His mother of all books He wrote this prayer,

"Magnified be Thy name. Hath aught else save Thee any independent
existence so as to be capable of hinting at Thy nature, and doth
anyone but Thee possess any trace of identity wherewith I could
recognize Thee? All that is known owes its renown to the splendour of
Thy Name, the Most Manifest, and every object is deeply stirred by the
vibrating influence emanating from Thine invincible Will. Thou art
nearer unto all things than all things." (Bab, Selections, 195)

When He says that "every object is deeply stirred by the vibrating
influence emanating from Thine invincible Will..." I see my
slow-motion meteor. It may even be what Heraclitus was talking about
when he said that all things resolve into fire and are born out of
fire. "Fire lives in the death of earth, and air lives in the death of
fire; water lives in the death of air, and earth in that of water."
(Intellectual Tradition, 65) The universe is opposites vibrating or
resolving back and forth, life and death, existence and non-existence.
"God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, satiety and
hunger; but he assumes different forms, just as when incense is
mingled with incense; every one gives him the name he pleases." (Id.)
And most of all there is not an atom, not a jot or tittle that can
escape or disobey His Will in the slightest.

"The sun will not overstep his bounds; if he does, the Erinnyes (three
sisters who avenge crime), allies of justice, will find him out."
(Id.)

I know these three Erinnyes girls personally, intimately, in my
sadness, for I have disobeyed, stepped over bounds and felt their
righteous blows. I have fled pain and fear it, but I have my mother to
protect me and guidance of the Master. `Abdu'l-Baha cogently
demonstrates how universal obedience to fire proves that there is
benign direction from the One.

"It is certain that the whole contingent world is subjected to a law
and rule which it can never disobey; even man is forced to submit to
death, to sleep and to other conditions -- that is to say, man in
certain particulars is governed, and necessarily this state of being
governed implies the existence of a governor. Because a characteristic
of contingent beings is dependency, and this dependency is an
essential necessity, therefore, there must be an independent being
whose independence is essential." (Some Answered Questions, 6)

This is the decree, the law laid out in the holiest of law books, the
Kitab-i-Aqdas,

"Everything that is hath come to be through His irresistible decree.
Whenever My laws appear like the sun in the heaven of Mine utterance,
they must be faithfully obeyed by all, though My decree be such as to
cause the heaven of every religion to be cleft asunder. He doeth what
He pleaseth. He chooseth, and none may question His choice."
(Kitab-i-Aqdas, 21-22)

Heraclitus could have been commenting upon this when he wrote: "God,
ordering all things as they ought to be, perfects all things in the
harmony of the whole. For god all things are fair and good and just,
but men suppose that some are unjust and others just." (Ib., 65-66)
Death and birth are both just, both good, in the aspect of eternity.
The meteor, be it slow or quick, is a good thing and all else is
nugatory.

Let us pray that we will see it with our very eyes one day. I can see
no way to end these thoughts other than with prayer. Here are five
prayers from scripture that seem to me particularly directed at the
Oneness of God as principle.

Five Prayers of Oneness of God

"O people! I swear by the one true God! This is the Ocean out of which
all seas have proceeded, and with which every one of them will
ultimately be united. From Him all the Suns have been generated, and
unto Him they will all return. Through His potency the Trees of Divine
Revelation have yielded their fruits, every one of which hath been
sent down in the form of a Prophet, bearing a Message to God's
creatures in each of the worlds whose number God, alone, in His
all-encompassing Knowledge, can reckon. This He hath accomplished
through the agency of but one Letter of His Word, revealed by His Pen
-- a Pen moved by His directing Finger --His Finger itself sustained
by the power of God's Truth." (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, LI, 104-107)

"Praised be Thou, O my God! This servant of Thine testifieth that
naught else except Thee can ever express Thee, nor canst Thou be
described by any one save Thyself. The thoughts of them that have
recognized Thy reality, however much they may ascend towards the
heaven of Thy praise, can never hope to pass beyond the bounds which,
by Thy behest and decree, have been fixed within their own hearts. How
can the creature who is as nothing comprehend Him Who is the Ancient
of Days, or succeed in describing the full measure of His sovereignty
His glory, and His grandeur?" (Prayers and Meditations, pp. 228-229)

"Glorified is He Who sendeth down His verses to those who comprehend.
Glorified is He Who speaketh forth from the Kingdom of His Revelation,
and Who remaineth unknown to all save His honoured servants. Glorified
is He Who quickeneth whomsoever He willeth by virtue of His word "Be",
and it is! Glorified is He Who causeth whomsoever He willeth to ascend
unto the heaven of grace, and sendeth down therefrom whatsoever He
desireth according to a prescribed measure." (Baha'u'llah, Summons of
the Lord of Hosts, Surih of Haykal, #2, p. 6)

"All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O Lord, when they hear
the words of thy mouth. Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the Lord:
for great is the glory of the Lord." (Ps 138:4-5)

"What I desire, however, O my God, is that Thou shouldst bid me unveil
the things which lie hid in Thy knowledge, so that they who are wholly
devoted to Thee may, in their longing for Thee, soar up into the
atmosphere of Thy oneness, and the infidels may be seized with
trembling and may return to the nethermost fire, the abode ordained
for them by Thee through the power of Thy sovereign might."
(Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations, 184)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com