Most Great Thing

The Most Great Thing

By John Taylor; 2006 May 22

Going through each Baha'i principle in the spotlight of the Oneness of God, today we turn to language. God in a very intimate sense is language. The Bible states that "in the beginning was the Word and the Word ... was God," and Baha'u'llah entitled God the "Tongue of Grandeur." (Tablets, 47) Since God is without peer, his words ultimately find no listener. Like the light of the sun, virtually all of His enlightenment radiates off into the void. As the Hidden Word puts it,

"Myriads of mystic tongues find utterance in one speech, and myriads of hidden mysteries are revealed in a single melody; yet, alas, there is no ear to hear, nor heart to understand." (PHW 16)

The principle of universal language specifically is the eventual adoption by governments and schools everywhere of a common official second language for all. This would not only end the language barrier and the invisible structural iniquities that it instills, it would allow mortals reflect particularity and universality, the contradictory ability of God to be alone and unique yet omnient, omnipresent and all-powerful.

More broadly, this principle deals with language and its products, culture, literature and consultation. Our ability to apply language to share thoughts and mold one common purpose out of many is our defining attribute as human beings. Wonderful as this potentially is, misused language is our downfall. Words are the spark of war, terror and crime, and as long as we fall short of what Hindus call Ahimsa, total non-violence in thought and word as well as deed, these destructive forces will flare up spontaneously and spread uncontrollably.

For language blocks as well as promotes understanding of God. The word "God" itself can be understood in so many mutually exclusive senses that a believer in "God" is often closer akin to an atheist or agnostic than many who place fervent claims on the same "God." Consider Baruch Spinoza,

"Spinoza had used the word "God" for historical reasons: he agreed with atheists, who claim that reality cannot be divided into a part which is "God" and a part which is not-God. If God cannot be separated from anything else, it is impossible to say that "he" exists in any ordinary sense. What Spinoza was saying in effect was that there was no God that corresponded to the meaning we usually attach to that word." (Armstrong, History of God, 343)

Older Baha'is will recall Bill Sears and his lighthearted declaration to an atheist that he did not believe in the god that he did not accept either. But still, to understand that God is One is to accept a single purpose, and that there must be "locations" where God is closer in spirit than others. Blasphemous, horrible places exist where He and His remembrance are far removed. Such is a battlefield or where a terrorist bombing occurs, here most certainly God ain't.

Surely, surely God lives and abides wherever words marry deeds, where love and justice rule and life aims at more than merely growing and propagating physically. Just look at the illumination of the martyrs. From that we learn that the purest, most divine place is in and around the love inspiring words of His Manifestation; here are Nirvana, Ahimsa, where the remnants of God are most in evidence and whence we gain potential to share truth in consultation. This is the Most Great Thing, the key to our survival as a species.

 

We have been examining over several months the proposition that the "Great Being" statements in Baha'u'llah's Tablet to Maqsud may be meant to influence what some philosophers call "natural religion," the universal human impulse to faith, the leaning toward the Locus of God. Natural religion is beyond belief and conviction, it is faith in the unknowable that transcends the particular label we stick on belief, be it atheist, agnostic, theist, deist, or whatever.

There are two "Great Being" statements that seem to me to bring the Oneness of God into contact with universal language, and both focus upon consultation. Here is the first:

"The Great Being saith: The heaven of divine wisdom is illumined with the two luminaries of consultation and compassion. Take ye counsel together in all matters, inasmuch as consultation is the lamp of guidance which leadeth the way, and is the bestower of understanding." (Tablets, 168)

The very act of consulting in the right spirit, whatever the specifics, makes language a "lamp of guidance," a sum of agreement greater than the parts of belief that enter into it in the first place. As the Bhagavad Gita puts it, "their wisdom is unto them a sun..." (5:16) The consultative lamp illuminates variant opinions and shows their common aspects; this common vision makes the path to purpose clear.

This is the front door into what we entered into yesterday by the back door when we touched upon the "Abilene Paradox," a parable showing how important is the initial phrasing of questions at issue. If a problem is not put tentatively enough at the beginning of consultation the consultative stream grows into a mighty river whose course cannot be altered. Unfounded misconceptions and fallacies become entrenched and universal. Detachment is impossible, the truth politicized and all sides have everything to lose by it. A hint at change provokes preemptive truculence. In such clouds the light of God is diffused and consultation impossible. Hence our second "Great Being" statement is concerned with the holism of language, from initiation to expression to response:

"The Great Being saith: Human utterance is an essence which aspireth to exert its influence and needeth moderation. As to its influence, this is conditional upon refinement which in turn is dependent upon hearts which are detached and pure. As to its moderation, this hath to be combined with tact and wisdom as prescribed in the Holy Scriptures and Tablets." (Tablets, 172)

We will carry this as far as we can next time, when our strength is recovered.

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John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com