Three Things

About Three Things

By John Taylor; 2007 June 29

Three Things

One: Cause of God Dream; Tao, Yin, Yang, Adl
Two: Bad News Science
Three: More on Vegetarianism

Cause of God Dream; Tao, Yin, Yang, Adl

A few days ago I had a dream. I had been reading in a magazine that this is the dawning of the age of transparency, a crashing end to the privacy and anonymity we used to enjoy. Now that everybody has a website or some other personal expression on the Web, you can no long hide who you are. A stranger who learns your name, or a prospective employer, can find out all about you at the push of a button. That knowledge conditioned my dream, which was sort of about that, along with my relationship to the Cause of God.

I dreamed that I woke and got right out of bed, still wearing only my underwear. I was in a huge lecture theatre with only one or two people. Nothing was going on at the front, so these early comers were sitting alone, mostly hunched over reading a book or newspaper. Unlike them, I found what was going on at the front extremely interesting. I had to hear about it, so reached back and pulled off the bed sheet and covered myself in that while I sat in the back row. I had to know more about what was going on with this Baha'i Faith so I worked my way forward until I was sitting in the front row. A few people had wandered in but they were still preoccupied with their own reading, obviously waiting for it to start, as yet paying no attention to what was going on at the front.

I absolutely could not take my eyes off that empty stage. I had to go up there. Nobody was watching. So I threw off the bed sheet and started crawling on my belly along the floorboards, still in my underwear. I reached center stage and suddenly everything was active, the show was about to start, stagehands were puttering about, and I looked back and saw that the hall was now packed, everybody was eagerly looking up at stage at me, waiting for the show to start. I had no business there but I now could not even slink back into a seat. I was highly embarrassed and wondered what to do, where to go, standing in my knickers in front of the whole world. End of dream.

A different take on entry by troops, I know, but one has no say on what happens in one's dreams. Maybe this is a sign that I had better start separating my personal essays from my professional and religious interests. Maybe they no longer mix as well as once they did.

Or maybe the nightmare has something to do with China. I have been listening to an excellent book about Taoism. As far as I can see, and the more I learn about Taoism the more this Chinese word "Tao" seems to signify everything that a Baha'i means when she speaks of God. The most important, opening words of the Tao-te Ching say, "The tao that can be spoken is not the Tao." Exactly. You could do a search and replace and put Tao in wherever you see "God" or "Holy Spirit" in the Writings. Or, when Baha'u'llah mentions "primal will" in the following, that could be the Tao too,

"`No vision taketh in Him, but He taketh in all vision; He is the Subtile, the All-Perceiving.' [Qu'ran 6:103] No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible." (Iqan, 98)

Similarly, the idea of Yin and Yang. These two are more a strain of Chinese culture than anybody's philosophical stance, according to this expert. Yin and Yang, as far as I can see, are identical with what Aristotle talked about: virtue as moderation of two extremes, as a balance between "too little" and "too much." Ditto with Muhammad and His concept of "'Adl," or justice as balance.

Or is Adl a refinement of Aristotle's teaching? Adl emphasizes not "too much" or "too little" but takes a different ruling analogy, the even distribution of weight in two packs on either side of the back of a horse, donkey or camel. Too much weight on one side and the pack animal will topple. This would highlight justice not as a degree but as a zero sum quantity that either works or it does not. Yin and Yang use the shadowy and sunny side of a rock as core analogy, and are therefore more ethereal. But Adl is justice as balance, literally as a balance or weight scale; if the two sides of the scales are not the same, or if the camel is not perfectly stable, the scales will unbalance, or the camel will waste limited energy constantly trying to right itself as it walks.

It does not help a pack animal to pretend to balance its load equally, by say leaning a hand on one side. As soon as you walk away, the animal will suffer the loss of its Adl. Thus for 'Adl, justice is economy, efficiency and elegance based upon advance under the perfect distribution of two hemispheres. Which is why Muhammad and the Qu'ran were adamant that when it comes to matters of conscience, one does not put one's fingers on the scales and tip the balance. You would never guess that by looking at those who claim His name today, but that is the clear teaching of the Qu'ran:

"Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in God hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And God heareth and knoweth all things." (Q2:256, Yusuf Ali)

Bad News Science

I read Popular Science, "The What's New Magazine," to get a lift, to get some sort of feeling that there is hope that things are getting better. But this month the bad news crept in even here. They have an annual list of the ten worst jobs in science, and the winner was not surprising, the guy who has to dive into toxic cesspools full of razors and other hazards dressed in a protective diving suit. But job number two was what I found surprising and depressing. The winner this time was oceanographer, one of the profession that I in High School coveted for a while as a possible career choice. And the oceanographer won not because of the physical but the moral danger. Read what they have to say about the second worst job in science this year:

"Nothing but bad news, day in and day out."

"Scientists estimate that over-fishing will end wild-seafood harvests by 2048 and that Earth's coral reefs will be rubble within decades. About 200 de-oxygenated dead zones dot the worlds coasts, up from 149 in 2004. Meanwhile, a vortex of plastic the size of Texas clogs the North Pacific, choking fish and birds; construction is destroying coastal habitats; and countless key marine species are nearly extinct. To top it all off, if global warming goes the way scientists predict, the uptick of carbon dioxide levels in the seas will acidify the water until little more than jellyfish can live there."

"With so much going on, there is plenty of work for oceangoing scientists -- if they can stomach bad news. Carl Safina, the founder of the nonprofit Blue Ocean Institute, is proud of the work he has done to battle over-fishing in the U.S., where some species are actually on the mend. Nevertheless, he says, humans are poised to remake the ocean into a new kind of environment that might require a toxic-containment suit. Recently, Ron Johnstone, an Australian marine biologist, broke out in boils while studying sediment. He was poisoned by fireweed, a toxic cyanobacteria exploding across the globe in response to pollution."

This job is so depressing because, like the skies, there are no borders writ in the ocean. It is the possession of all, therefore the possession of none, the responsibility of all, therefore the responsibility of none. The tragedy of the commons. The same problem goes in in theology. If God is everything, then God is nothing. It even goes on on our kitchen table lately. It is a common space that nobody takes it upon themselves to clean up. Everybody dumps a sheet of paper there, and now we cannot eat there, or even see each other over the pile of important, to read papers. Depression is a symptom, then, of lack of organization, and delegated responsibility. It is carrying a load in life that has not been balanced by Adl, or the Baytu'l-Adl. Hope, then, is a gift of God's Kingdom on earth, and nothing else.

More on Vegetarianism and the Baha'i Faith

A reader, noting my advocacy lately of vegetarianism, sent me this quote from the Proclamation to the Kings,

"Say: O concourse of priests and monks! Eat ye of that which God hath made lawful unto you and do not shun meat. God hath, as a token of His grace, granted you leave to partake thereof save during a brief period." (Baha'u'llah, Summons, 1.154, p. 80)

This is from the Tablet to Napoleon III. Baha'u'llah goes on to advise the monks to "Forsake all that ye possess and hold fast unto that which God has purposed. This is that which profiteth you, if ye be of them that comprehend." He then recommends "a fast of nineteen days in the most temperate of the seasons, and we have in this most resplendent and luminous Dispensation relieved you of more than this."

Maybe my readers with a Catholic background can enlighten me on this, but as far as I know, priests and monks were not forbidden to eat meat. Well, at least not normally; on Fridays they were supposed to eat fish instead of meat. Is that what Baha'u'llah is referring to? In any case, as far as I can see, His main concern here is to remove dietary regulations from the slate as a religious expression or as a sign of renunciation. The dietary laws of the church are thus lumped in with all of its other "possessions," all of which it is called upon to renounce, as He says, for their own good. The symbol and replacement for these legal "possessions" is the 19 day fast. From a faith perspective, it is not what you eat but what you do not eat that makes a difference.

So, since our choice of diet is no longer a direct concern of religious law, one might conclude that it does not matter at all. Not quite true. The House makes it clear that at least part of our choice should be turned over to trained professionals, scientists, dietitians, and doctors.

"In matters of health, particularly regarding diet and nutrition, the House of Justice advises the friends to seek the help and advice of experts and doctors. This is what Baha'u'llah has recommended and He does not indicate which school of thought or practice they should belong to. However, as you particularly ask about references in the Old Testament as they relate to meat and fish, the House of Justice has asked us to quote for you the following excerpt taken from a letter written on behalf of the beloved Guardian by his secretary to an individual believer: '...there is nothing in the teachings about whether people should eat their food cooked or raw; exercise or not exercise; resort to specific therapies or not; nor is it forbidden to eat meat.'" (From a letter written on behalf of the Universal House of Justice to an individual believer, June 19, 1977; in LOG #1017)