Master at St. Johns

The Master at St. John's, Part One

By John Taylor; 2006 September 16

A Baha'i friend here in Dunnville wondered aloud the day after the recent showing of the slide presentation on the Master's trip to the West whether the non-Baha'is present might have been put off by seeing so many pictures of the Master, dressed in His Eastern traditional clothing. After all, in the media the only time you encounter such clothing is in association with dismal reactionaries. Of course it is forgotten that not only the Mullah's dressed like that back then, everybody in Persia dressed in that exotic manner. The priesthood was distinguished only by relatively slight variations, such as a different type of head dress. I recalled that the Master's dress even at the time was strange to Western eyes, though perhaps at the time it seemed more exotic than threatening. Here is how Mahmud recorded the Master's response to that suggestion while walking through a park in Denver,

"All eyes were attracted to 'Abdu'l-Baha, to His glory, dignity and grandeur, as He walked with His companions dressed in their kulaks and Persian clothes. One of the Master's companions remarked that the people viewed this picturesque sight as an amusing comedy. He replied, 'Yes, it is a heavenly act, a performance of the Kingdom, a wonderful pageant.'" (284)

As promised, today we will plunge into the Master's pregnant words at St. John's church in Westminster, spoken on the 17th of September, 1911.

"O Noble Friends! O Seekers for the Kingdom of God! Man all over the world is seeking for God."

We are all off on an impossible dream, an unattainable quest. Our holy grail is something that we can never hold in our hands. But, as the noonday prayer says, God did create us to know and worship Him. God Himself set us off on this quest. God would not ask what cannot possibly be done. So maybe this is not the impracticable plan that it seems to be at first blush. With God all things are possible. Given His aid, we will come to know and love God adequately if and only if, as the Master hints here, we take on the attitude of an ardent seeker.

"All that exists is God; but the Reality of Divinity is holy above all understanding."

The answer is right before our very eyes. But we cannot see the forest for the trees, or the trees for the forest. The idea that all things, from atoms to galaxies, are expressions of God is very ancient. It is featured in Jewish Rabbinic writings as well as Hindu scriptures. On the other side, the idea that God is inherently above our ken is part of the very definition of the word. But the Master is not reiterating an ancient platitude. He is edging us towards an aspect of the Oneness of God that is rarely emphasized. In His philosophy it is crucial, it allows One God to be treated as a world transforming principle. It makes OG the mother of all Baha'i principles.

"The pictures of Divinity that come to our mind are the product of our fancy; they exist in the realm of our imagination. They are not adequate to the Truth; truth in its essence cannot be put into words."

Here is the heart of One God, any image of Him is forbidden -- the first few of the Ten Commandments -- along with the result of that, any words, especially reproductions of words, are also Verboten. Plato understood the latter consideration with his surprising suspicion of books and the written word. A book cannot learn, argue or answer questions, it is passive, dead information. As a teacher it can never take the place of direct contact with another human being. But images are worse than words; they are grasped quicker, and are therefore more deceptive and contagious.

This is because, as Baha'u'llah Himself affirms, first comes vision, then understanding. Hence, the principle of One God teaches first of all that we can neither see God nor speak of Him without being led astray by an illusion. Images and words may help, but in sum they obstruct. It is just like the way we all collect piles of possessions. Each item is potentially useful or valuable, but soon the clutter renders it all more of a burden than a treasure trove. Some poor souls become so attached to hoarding that they are literally buried under their piles of accumulated goods and suffocate to death. On a broader scale, the latest evidence indicates that the hugest mass extinctions of the dinosaurs and before were caused by a similar process. According to an article in the latest Scientific American, at these times most life on earth may have been suffocated by accumulated poisonous gasses emerging from the ocean, spawned by a process now known as the killer greenhouse effect. My life, your life, all life depends upon a balance between proper intake and constant casting off, purification. First and foremost, our relationship with God must be constantly renewed and purified. This leads us to the crux,

"Divinity cannot be comprehended because it is comprehending."

This chasm we will try to plumb next time.