p19st Four Kinds of Fruit Bearing

Inspired by the 81st PHW

By John Taylor; 2008 Apr 23, 14 Jalal, 165 BE

 

Our reading for today is the 81st Persian Hidden Word. As a disabled person, prevented by constant migraine attacks from pursuing my calling professionally, more than most I read this Hidden Word with fear and trembling. Yet I look around and many able bodied souls fail in what they set out to do. Few bear the fruits they intend, and few of these are needed or wanted by posterity.

 

"O MY SERVANT! The basest of men are they that yield no fruit on earth. Such men are verily counted as among the dead, nay better are the dead in the sight of God than those idle and worthless souls."

 

Here, it seems to me, is the difference between baseness and nobility. Noble, of course, meaning worthy of entering God's aristocracy, not the elites that the world calls a nobility. A noble life is productive of fruits God wants to see; it shows up on the bottom line of the divine balance sheet. Nobility is obedience to the command: bear fruit and multiply. Baha'u'llah seems to have written this to supplement or extend the seed saying of Jesus Christ, "let the dead bury their dead." Pay attention, that is, to what counts, and ignore what does not conduce to eternal life.

 

Life has a purpose, and the lesson here is that it is possible, indeed all too easy, for a life of diligent effort to count as a liability rather than an asset on the divine spreadsheet. The environmental debacle that we are living through in these times proves this: many busy lives and outwardly successful careers are, in the eyes of God, worse than if they had not been lived at all. If the fruit of our labor is blithely to destroy the world and obliterate any chance that future generations will live at all, well, it is an understatement to say that that life was worse than being counted among the dead.

 

The lesson of this Hidden Word is clear: Even if we are alive and productive outwardly, it is our God-given obligation as servants to constantly check and be sure that we really are alive, that we really are productive. The difference between a life that bears fruit and an idle existence is just what this and other Hidden Words hint at: incessant self-examination. We are always to ask: Are my efforts bearing the fruits intended?

 

But how do we take into account our actions, before and after the fact?

 

Here is an idea. Like a pilot, we could put every day of our life through a preflight checklist in the morning and a post-mission debriefing at the end. Dante offered a four step process by which the meaning of every action can be judged: the historical, anagogic, tropological and the allegorical. Let us go through this scheme one by one,

 

Historical: How do my acts fit into the overall story of my life, my family and the human race? Are they making it better? Morning: let my planned acts follow through on the best story of me and us so far. If I forget the history, let my choice of morning reading remind me now. Evening: Did I see my errors? How can I fit their lessons into the plan for later? Make notes for future reference.

 

Anagogic (mystical, what leads to God): Refer all acts to the king, as befits a member of His nobility. Morning: Let me pray for the success, not just outward but anagogic, of every phase of today's plan. If I lose outwardly, let me rejoice inwardly nonetheless, for the success I aim at is not registered here. Evening: Did all my acts serve mere superficial ends, or did I do a pure act, beyond logical understanding? Let purity be my holy grail.

 

Tropological (moral): Bear in mind that every deed is as seed, as Aeschylus said, "The impious act begets more after it, like to the parent stock." And as Baha'u'llah teaches, the reverse is true, a righteous act has endless power. Morning: Perform a good deed or take a moral stand each day. Walk against the current, do a right thing you otherwise would not have done. Evening: Clean up after yourself in your prayers. Pray that the good will reproduce, the bad die, dry and fly.

 

Allegorical: Life is a matrix, a simulation, an unheard conversation behind all things. God is carrying it on with God, and the noble hear it. The noble learn politely to edge their daily plans and efforts into that silent conversation. Morning: Plan your words, not just your acts. Try to say what fits into the Allegory, the Dialectic. Speak seriously to avoid gossip. Evening: Did my words reflect my subsistence diet of God's Word? Did I seed It into the earth of my heart today? Am I listening every moment? What were the conversation-starting words I spoke that would please the Manifestation? Did I make my day into His Day? Did I ignore all the rest?

 

"Devotion to the tree is profitless, but partaking of the fruit is beneficial. Luscious fruits, no matter upon what tree they grow or where they may be found, must be enjoyed. The word of truth, no matter which tongue utters it, must be sanctioned. Absolute verities, no matter in what book they be recorded, must be accepted. If we harbor prejudice, it will be the cause of deprivation and ignorance. The strife between religions, nations and races arises from misunderstanding." (Promulgation, 151-152)