Tuesday, February 26, 2008

p14 Day One

Seizing the Ayyam in Ayyam-i-Ha


By John Taylor; 2008 Feb 26, 1 Ayyam-i-Ha, 164 BE

It is Day One of Ayyam-i-Ha, the time set apart between the Badi' months of Mulk and 'Ala, the eighteenth and nineteenth months of our Calendar year. Since we know that in the Dispensation of the Bab there were also nineteen Letters of the Living, I just had a thought: could it not be that Ayyam-i-Ha is a symbol of the world of difference between the eighteenth disciple, Quddus, and the nineteenth, the Bab Himself?

The Days of Ha, Ayyam-i-Ha, are devoted to the Godhead, and that direct relation with God is the mark of the difference of station between the saintly but human Quddus and the Manifestation we call the Bab, the Manifestation, in fact, who gave us the very term "Manifestation" in the first place.

 When you think of the torture and suffering that Quddus went through before his martyrdom, a suffering that continues even today as the Iranian fanatic continues to desecrate his birthplace -- and recall that one of the Central Figures said that Quddus's agonizing end was more painful than the Passion of the Christ. All that gives an idea of what it must cost in human terms even to border upon the gap between the human and the high station of a Manifestation of God. Then you think of how much more pain the Manifestation goes through, knowing all and pardoning all, being possessed of all knowledge and all love, and therefore of all suffering, even as the proverbs say:

 "He who is surety for a stranger will suffer, but one who hates being surety is secure." (Proverbs 11:15)
 "No suffering befalls the man who calls nothing his own." (The Dhammapadha)

 The Manifestation has all surety, and stands in the place of God, the All-Possessing. That is why the Manifestation's suffering is an order of magnitude above what we go through. Little wonder that the fast follows; for those who can bear it, the whole time when the sun is on high during the entire coming nineteenth month of Ala', or Exaltedness, we keep our stomachs empty, void of new activity. That too is a symbol of the One who gives depth to our lives and hearts. Over the past few years it has been found by scientists that the stomach contains bacteria comprising well over 95 percent of the genetic material in our bodies, and that matter is foreign to our genome. Keeping the majority of what we are, in genetic terms, idle for one nineteenth of the year is surely a sign with huge, holistic implications to our place in nature.

 Yesterday I promised to highlight a passage about Ayyam-i-Ha written by someone who evidently has access to materials in the Arabic and Persian originals. Since I do not speak these languages, I can only quote her directly,

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 From: Ayyam-i-Ha: Days Outside of Time by Karla Jamir

 "Ha" is also the first letter of an Arabic pronoun commonly used in Arabic religious writings to refer to God, or "the Divine Essence." "Ha" by itself is used as a symbol of "the Essence of God," and was the subject of many an Arabic essay on its mysteries. In Baha'u'llah's Tablet of All Food the realm "beyond which there is no passing," or the realm of the Divine Essence is designated as "Hahut." In the Bab's interpretation of the letter "Ha" (quoted by Baha'u'llah in the Kitab-i-Iqan), the Bab speaks of martyrdom in the path of God and warns "even if all the kings of the earth were to be leagued together they would be powerless to take from me a single letter..."

 Baha'u'llah has designated the intercalary days "amid all the nights and days" as manifestations of the letter Ha" -- that is, as Days of the Divine Essence. These extra days stand apart from the ordinary cycle of weeks and months and the human measure of time. They are not "bounded by the limits of the year and its months"--just as the infinite reality of the divine Essence of God is unbounded and cannot be captured or comprehended within the cycle of time or any other human measurement.

 Thus Ayyam-i-Ha can be thought of as days outside of time, days that symbolize eternity, infinity, and the mystery and unknowable Essence of God Himself. Contemplation during these days of the timeless mystery of the Essence of God provides us the "joy and exultation" with which to "sing His praise and magnify His Name."

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The anti-theists often complain about how we believers are so all-fired concerned to please our God by praising Him. What, they ask, does an all-powerful Being care if its creatures praise it or not? Indeed, if God were on the mineral level He would not care, but since we believe that God is higher than anything we can conceive of, we offer Him what pleases us. We offer Him that especially during Ayyam-i-Ha, for what greater pleasure do so many human "party animals" enjoy than celebration, social intercourse and hospitality?

If God is above us, He can surely participate in our joy, even if it is a virtual participation. After all, when we see a puppy wagging its tail and falling all over itself in joy at seeing us, we do not say, "Hey, humans do not even have tails, so what do I care about what this beast is doing? Humans do not greet one another by falling on the ground. So what then do I have in this strange behavior?" No, we understand that this is a tribute to us, and we reciprocate the feeling, albeit without wagging or falling on the ground.

That is why we need in our time of good cheer not to forget the "ayyam" (days) in Ayyam-i-Ha, for we may not have access to the Ha, but we can live our days, and treat each day as it comes, and know in our heart that each moment is a free gift from our Beloved. That is what puts the ayyam not only in Ayyam-i-Ha but also in all our days, and especially our holy days. The Qu'ran says it all:

"And it is He Who made the Night and the Day to follow each other: for such as have the will to celebrate His praises or to show their gratitude." (Q25:62, Yusuf Ali)

We have to have the will, the will to celebrate. That is what makes it holy. In our days we thank him in the manner of the boisterous puppy, feeling the joy of meeting Him and His loved ones, by participating fully in the occasions of joy that the days of our lives provide, but also by exercising our will to act when the time comes for deeds, and to sacrifice in the time of sacrifice.

True, occasions of joy are fewer and farther between as the years go by, but that gives the wise even more joy. As worldly joys fade and disappear, there is all the less to distract us from devotion to Him. We always have the consolation of what He gave us, the Writings, the prayers, His meditations. Let us never deprive ourselves of the devotional bounty of the Long Obligatory Prayer --as I have done for several days during recent brushes with weather and migraine. For the time of fasting soon to come is the sun, and that prayer is the moon of our cheered and cheering hearts. As Rumi puts it:

 
"From weakness of vision you see not the new moon,
If I see it, be not angry with me,
O friend, within me is a proof
Which assures me of the transitoriness of the heavens,
I hold it for certain, and the sign of certainty,
In him who possesses it is entering into the fire.
Know this proof is not to be expressed in speech,
Any more than the feeling of love felt by lovers.
The secret I labor to express is not revealed,
Save by the pallor and emaciation of my face,
When tears course down my cheeks,
They are a proof of the beauty and grace of my beloved."
(Mathnavi, Whinfield, 208)

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