Two Obvious Truths

Reconciling the Two Obvious Truths

By John Taylor; 19 February, 2006

Yesterday we ended with two truths about God held by Abdu'l-Baha to be
self-evident, or at least that He described as "obvious." The first
was that if we were to believe that creation is an accident "we would
be forced to admit that the Creator is accidental ... No cessation is
possible to the divine bounty, just as no cessation is possible to the
rays of the sun." (Promulgation, 463) The other obvious thing was that
since humans are at such tremendous variance, with many tastes,
thoughts, native lands, races and languages, that we need a
"collective center" to "counterbalance" and unify them. Outer,
material things do not suffice, only a spiritual power; as Jesus said,
with man it is impossible, but with God all things are easy.

"It is possible, however, for all to become unified through one
spirit, just as all may receive light from one sun. Therefore,
assisted by the collective and divine center which is the law of God
and the reality of His Manifestation, we can overcome these conditions
until they pass away entirely and the races advance." (Promulgation,
164)

`Abdu'l-Baha chooses the expression "pass away" to describe how the
"collective center" makes bad and harmful difference into something
good and beautiful. It is easy, natural, like old skin falling off a
lizard's back. Nothing need be violent, forced or arbitrary. Progress
follows smoothly from the spread of education, especially spiritual
sophistication. Here the two "obvious truths" meet, for it is of the
nature of creation to reflect God; this is necessary and not a matter
of choice or free will. Unification must come, it is an absolute
necessity arising from the Oneness of God.

How is absolute necessity reconciled in His philosophy with human
freedom? In other words, how is it that "all abide by His bidding,"
when so many willfully do their best to thwart the call of God?
`Abdu'l-Baha does this by distinguishing between two kinds of faith,
subjective and objective. Here is His exposition on that subject.

"Thou hast written of a verse in the Gospels, asking if at the time of
Christ all souls did hear His call. Know that faith is of two kinds.
The first is objective faith that is expressed by the outer man,
obedience of the limbs and senses. The other faith is subjective, and
unconscious obedience to the will of God. There is no doubt that, in
the day of a Manifestation such as Christ, all contingent beings
possessed subjective faith and had unconscious obedience to His
Holiness Christ.
"For all parts of the creational world are of one whole. Christ the
Manifestor reflecting the divine Sun represented the whole. All the
parts are subordinate and obedient to the whole. The contingent beings
are the branches of the tree of life while the Messenger of God is the
root of that tree. The branches, leaves and fruit are dependent for
their existence upon the root of the tree of life. This condition of
unconscious obedience constitutes subjective faith. But the discerning
faith that consists of true knowledge of God and the comprehension of
divine words, of such faith there is very little in any age. That is
why His Holiness Christ said to His followers, "Many are called but
few are chosen." (`Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, 364)

This comparison of truth in the universe with a tree whose roots go
deep underground into spirit reconciles Eastern and Western
philosophies. The tree beyond which lies only God is at the center of
Judaism (the burning bush), of Christianity (the Kingdom as a tiny
mustard seed that grows into the largest tree), of Islam (the Sadrat
of the boundary), and of course the Bodhi tree is a preoccupation in
Buddhism.

In my recent superficial foray into Eastern philosophy I was
interested to learn not just that Eastern thought pictures knowledge
and reality as a huge tree, which is common enough. Rather to my
surprise the image of this tree is utterly different from the way we
see a tree. Often the tree is pictured upside down with its roots
going upward. Even more disturbingly, the tree of knowledge is
imagined from the inside, as it were; it seems to extend into four,
five, or even more dimensions. You take a mental step and end up
inside a branch, another step and you meld into a twig or a leaf.

It takes strenuous mental gymnastics to get the brain around this
concept. I think though that it has gotten easier with the invention
of the Internet. I remember a journalist last year complaining that
before you could make reliable assumptions about people. You had a
good idea of what they thought and believed if you knew their
background or ethnicity. Now your neighbor can become a terrorist or a
pacifist without warning. The person in the next cubicle can shift
from a rightist or to a leftist, a saint to a sinner, and back again,
just by taking some wrong turn on the Net, by loading the wrong or the
right website.

I suppose what the Master is teaching is that this chaotic randomness
of our age will only be a temporary phase. We all have faith, be it
subjective or objective, and since there is only one truth, truth will
out, it will gradually unite and a new order will be restored. "The
contingent beings are the branches of the tree of life while the
Messenger of God is the root of that tree. The branches, leaves and
fruit are dependent for their existence upon the root of the tree of
life." (`Abdu'l-Baha, Baha'i World Faith, 364) Because the twigs and
leaves and branches of this tree permeate the universe, the agitation
of our mental atoms will stop shaking and rustling, they will begin to
orient around the invisible limbs of a tree that holds up the
universe. Here is peace, and this, `Abdu'l-Baha teaches, comes
straight out of the nature of things.

When I became a Baha'i, this was one of the unexpected fruits of the
invisible tree that I had learned to cling to. I could meet a person
from anywhere in the world, a person of any ethnic background, and the
fact that we were both Baha'is united us in every essential. It was as
if we shared the same spiritual DNA, as if the branch of the tree of
truth were growing inside us as well as outside. The Writings and
service to the Cause made us one, in a profound way that would be
inconceivable even with people of the exact same background or
ethnicity. And the tree is growing, that is the wonder of it all.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

One Suffices

One Suffices; 'Abdu'l-Baha and the Principle of Sufficient Reason
Oneness of God series, Part VII

By John Taylor;

We have been discussing the principle of the Oneness of God as
expounded by the Bab and Baha'u'llah. Today I will concentrate upon
the Master's views of the principle, which tend to take in natural as
well as divine philosophy. The following comes from an interview with
`Abdu'l-Baha that we regard today as a mere pilgrim's note but in its
time it was among one of the first eyewitness glimpses into the
Master's pure philosophy in a time when Baha'is had virtually no
access to the Writings, even in translation.

from: Daily Lessons Received at Akka, January 1908, by Helen S.
Goodall and Ella Goodall Cooper Wilmette, IL: Baha'i Publishing Trust,
1979, pp. 21-22, text available at:
<http://bahai-library.com/?file=goodall_cooper_daily_lessons>

Question: Are there accidental happenings, or do all events occur
according to Divine plan?

Answer: "God's creation is perfect. Every part of the universe has its
connection with every other part, according to a Divine system. We
compare the body of the universe with the body of man. The members of
the body of man are closely connected; so, also, are the parts of the
great universe. The great events which happen are due to this
connection. There is day, there is night; sometimes there are
eclipses, etc.--all according to the requirements of this Divine
system. All the created beings are connected with each other, and all
occurrences and events are indicative of the requirements of this
connection and interrelation.

"In the body of man, all the members and parts are interdependent; for
example, the heart feels the things seen by the eye; the ear hears,
and the soul is thereby moved; the nostrils inhale a sweet odor, and
the whole body is delighted. This is a proof that all the parts of the
body of man are interrelated. This is according to a Divine plan, and
it is also evident that there is a great wisdom therein. Even
unpleasant things, such as chill in the feet which is felt in the
head, a disagreeable odor which affects the whole system, or trifles
(which are endless, and seem to be accidental) such as a small hair
appearing in an unusual place on a man's face, should also be
considered as having a place or part in this general system.
Therefore, what we call an accident is the effect of the connection of
all the parts, and no events transpire in vain."

`Abdu'l-Baha asked that we observe the unity of the universe in the
microcosm of the body -- the concept of a body politic is among the
most ancient and is still the most useful paradigm. We feel the
integrity of our body and conclude that there is oneness in
everything. That is not to say that we can understand everything in
the universe, any more than we understand all the mysterious
operations of our body, however intimately we may feel its presence.
But still the fact that it all works together proves that there is a
single spirit behind it. One philosopher who explored this in science
and mathematics was Gottfried W. Leibniz. I believe that the Master
was talking about Leibniz in the following, from the amazing proof of
deity that he presented in his Chicago hotel on 2 May, 1912.

"When we carefully investigate the kingdoms of existence and observe
the phenomena of the universe about us, we discover the absolute order
and perfection of creation. The dull minerals in their affinities,
plants and vegetables with power of growth, animals in their instinct,
man with conscious intellect and the heavenly orbs moving obediently
through limitless space are all found subject to universal law, most
complete, most perfect. That is why a wise philosopher has said,
"There is no greater or more perfect system of creation than that
which already exists." (Promulgation, 79-80, talk given at Hotel
Plaza, Chicago)

Leibniz worked out the principle of sufficient reason, a major pillor
of science as well as religion, from his idea that this is the best
universe possible. For a believer this may seem obvious, that God
would not bother to create a second rate, or third rate creation, but
it is still surprising how much science depends upon the idea that
there is a good reason, if not the best reason, behind everything.
Here is what my encyclopedia has to say about the "best of all
possible worlds" proposition.

"Among all possible worlds that God could have created, his actual
choice of one over the others required a sufficient reason, which, for
Leibniz, was the fact that this world was the best -- despite the
existence of evident evils; for any other possible world would have
had evils of its own sort of even greater magnitude. Had it lacked a
sufficient reason to explain its existence (and implicitly its
contingency), the world for Leibniz would have existed of necessity.
Voltaire's Candide (1759) was a satirical rejection of Leibniz'
optimistic view of the world." (Encyclopedia Britannica. 2006.
Encyclopedia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD 18 Feb.
2006)

Leibnitz built an early calculator and invented the binary system, the
basis of the modern computer. His motto was: "Omnibus ex nihil
ducendis sufficit unum," (one suffices to derive all out of nothing),
and indeed without a one and a zero, one and nothing, computers could
not take a mental step. Leibniz hoped to derive a universal language
out of symbolic logic, which he single-handedly invented. He also laid
the groundwork for quantum physics with his idea of monads, basic
"atoms" of the logical universe, some truths of which he considered to
be necessary -- that is, their non-existence involves a contradiction
-- and some were truths of fact, which are contingent, dependent upon
more basic grounds. His principle of sufficient reason accounts for
the existence of the latter by asserting that,

"there is an adequate reason to account for the existence and nature
of everything that could conceivably not exist. In each such case, the
ultimate sufficient reason is the free choice of God." ("sufficient
reason" Britannica, id.)

Yesterday I told of our kid's bedtime reaction to the article about
the omega number written by Gregory Chaitin, the inventor of
algorithmic information theory. This is yet another science that,
Chaitin says, was anticipated in most important ways by Liebniz.
Chaitin write that evidence is not enough for mathematicians, they
require proof, which is part of the principle of sufficient reason.
Yet there is complexity and randomness.

"If Leibniz had put all this together he might have questioned one of
the key pillars of philosophy, namely, the principle of sufficient
reason -- that everything happens for a reason. Furthermore, if
something is true, it must be true for a reason. That may be hard to
believe sometimes, in the confusion and chaos of daily life, in the
contingent ebb and flow of human history. But even if we cannot always
see a reason (perhaps because the chain of reasoning is long and
subtle), Leibniz asserted, God can see the reason. It is there! In
that, he agreed with the Ancient Greeks, who originated the idea."
(Scientific American, March 2006, p. 77)

The reason that Leibniz did not question it was because of the "G"
word. His central point was that God understands, not that we can
understand or ever hope to do so in the future. The incompleteness
proofs based upon the liar's paradox only apply to us, not to God, Who
alone unifies opposites without contradiction. Needless to say, the
Master gives this issue a great deal of attention in all His Writings.

I have picked out two examples based upon a whim that inspired me as I
was researching this essay in my sleep. I had been remembering how my
daughter told a story about an "obviously bird," a bird who obviously
got up one obvious morning and saw that it was obviously going to be
an obvious day, and so on. To my amusement I found out that she had no
idea what "obvious" means, she only found it an interesting game to
use it as a universal modifier. This reminded me of a brief visit I
once had to a logician's home. The logician happened to be watching
the news on television. Every time a speaker used the word "obviously"
he would repeat it, to the great annoyance of his wife, who
continually asked him to stop that, she wanted to hear what they were
saying. Myself, I was amazed at how often people in "man in the
street" interviews really do use that word. He was repeating that
word, "obviously," every few seconds. He turned to me and said, quite
logically I thought, "If something is obvious, you do not have to say
it. Why are people constantly saying things that they recognize
themselves do not need to be said? Why don't they just shut up?"
Amusingly, this infuriated his longsuffering spouse. I concluded that
logicians do not make good marital material.

Anyway, with that in mind I wondered how often `Abdu'l-Baha used a
word that the translator decided meant "obviously." It turned out that
he only said it three times in all his talks in Canada and the United
States. Here is one of the three, from a talk He gave to the
Theosophists:

"To be brief: Our purpose is to show that the divine sovereignty, the
Kingdom of God, is an ancient sovereignty, that it is not an
accidental sovereignty, just as a kingdom presupposes the existence of
subjects, of an army, of a country; for otherwise the state of
dominion, authority and kingdom cannot be conceived of. Therefore, if
we should imagine that the creation is accidental, we would be forced
to admit that the Creator is accidental, whereas the divine bounty is
ever flowing, and the rays of the Sun of Truth are continuously
shining. No cessation is possible to the divine bounty, just as no
cessation is possible to the rays of the sun. This is clear and
obvious." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 463)

I will only afflict you with one more of the three obviously quotes,
from a talk given in New York at the Church of the Ascension,

"It is self-evident that humanity is at variance. Human tastes differ;
thoughts, native lands, races and tongues are many. The need of a
collective center by which these differences may be counterbalanced
and the people of the world be unified is obvious. Consider how
nothing but a spiritual power can bring about this unification, for
material conditions and mental aspects are so widely different that
agreement and unity are not possible through outer means. It is
possible, however, for all to become unified through one spirit, just
as all may receive light from one sun. Therefore, assisted by the
collective and divine center which is the law of God and the reality
of His Manifestation, we can overcome these conditions until they pass
away entirely and the races advance." (Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, 164)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Middle of Nowhere

Life in the Middle of Nowhere

Oneness of God series, Part VI

By John Taylor; 17 February, 2006

At the 7 February Feast Thomas nudged me after a prayer was read about
the omnipresence of God and whispered: "You said before that God is
everywhere but I know a place where He is not." Where might that be?
"Nowhere." My question is, where do kids get these ideas? I know,
nowhere.

The wife, concerned that the kids not lose their Czech language
heritage, has shut me out of the bedtime story biz of late. But the
other night something came up, I think her sister called, and I was
suddenly plunked in the bedside hot seat with nothing better to read
than the latest March 2006 edition of Scientific American. I turned to
an article called "The Limits of Reason" by Gregory Chaitin on page 75
and showed them an impressive illustration of a classical building
being demolished by a wrecking ball with the Greek letter Omega
printed on it. I told the frightening story of how this terrible Omega
number had utterly destroyed the entire edifice of mathematics in one
fell blow. Watch out for the Omega wrecking ball!

Thomas was suitably impressed with this picture but unfortunately he
confused this mathematical omega with the omega 3 eggs that I have
been eating two of each day -- it seems that if you stuff chickens
with flax seed feed, they produce eggs crammed with omega 3 fatty
acids, which reduce cholesterol rather than raising it as ordinary
eggs do. Anyway, I was taken aback and had to say that as far as I
know, omega fatty acids in food have nothing to do with the omega
number. The article's caption explains that omega is "a specific,
well-defined number that cannot be calculated by any computer program
(It) smashes hopes for a complete mathematics in which every true fact
is true for a reason." It seems that Kurt Godel used an early version
of the omega number to destroy David Hilbert's theory of everything.
To my surprise and delight I learned that Godel's incompleteness
refutation is based on two ways of expressing the liar's paradox that
have so preoccupied this Badi List over the past few months. Godel's
paradoxes are:

"This statement is false."
"This statement is unprovable."

I used most of the time taken up by Marie's telephone conversation
explaining laboriously what the liar's paradox is and how it makes the
true statement false and at the same time the false statement true. To
my astonishment Silvie called out confidently from the upper bunk that
she could easily solve that problem. How so? It has defeated every
thinker in history, thought I, what makes you an eleven year old
non-prodigy think that you can solve it?

Her brainstorm was this: you just apply Solomon's Choice to the
problem. You remember, in a child custody dispute Solomon threatened
to cut the baby in half. The prospect of cruel and summary execution
immediately exposed the real mother who was the only party willing to
give up her claim on the child in order to save it. Now I suppose in a
sense what Chaitin and other mathematicians do with the liar's paradox
is just that. Since Godel's incompleteness proof they have given up
their claim on quandaries like the Liar's Paradox and the omega number
as axioms, as unexamined givens. As Chaitin says, there are just
rather more axioms than anyone expected. Or perhaps this is not
Solomon's Choice but Abraham's choice, when He decided He was willing
to sacrifice His long awaited first born son as soon as Yahweh ordered
him to do so. God did not allow him to actually follow through, the
readiness was all. There was a second, though, when the lineage of the
divine covenant was about to be snuffed out and it was renegotiated
with a view to mercy. Consider this, from another document in the
history of science that we have been highlighting:

"Political revolutions aim to change political institutions in ways
that those institutions themselves prohibit. Their success therefore
necessitates the partial relinquishment of one set of institutions in
favour of another, and in the interim, society is not fully governed
by institutions at all." (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962, Ch. 9)

As Chaitin points out, the fact that basic foundations of logic,
mathematics and science are incomplete and are easily toppled is not
bad but good news. It means we have creative freedom, that autocratic
tyranny is banished; we will always have to tear things down and
rebuild them again. This has political consequences, and they
ultimately are reflections of the underlying spiritual reality.

Abraham's progeny were not snuffed out by that baby sacrifice, they
went on from victory to victory, eventually to Baha'u'llah Himself,
Who of course was descended from that holy genealogy. The great change
in governance in this age is a switchover from arbitrary power to
justice based upon universal recognition of fundamental limitations, a
more autonomous, provisional, tentative, creative, flexible style of
leadership and authority. Right now we are in the crossover time, the
period of chaos when every established convention and institution
contradicts all others. In other words, as Thomas pointed out to me at
the Feast, we are at the place where God cannot be, in the middle of
nowhere.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Proof, the Great Being and the Baha'i Principles

Proof, the Great Being and the Baha'i Principles
Oneness of God series, Part V

By John Taylor; 22 February, 2006

Yesterday we cited in their full context and in the order in which
they appear every quote preceded by the "Great Being saith" in
Baha'u'llah's late, great Tablet, the Lawh-i-Maqsud. Today, at the end
of this essay, I have arranged the same "Great Being" selections in a
different order; I placed them under the headings of sixteen of the
Baha'i principles later popularized by Abdu'l-Baha. In some cases the
quotes are slightly pared down from their context in the Tablet. To my
surprise I was able to categorize them under these headings with
relatively little stretching. True, there is no specific mention here
of several principles exactly as the Master phrased them, such as
elimination of prejudice, a universal language and equality of the
sexes. However, the Great Being selections that I placed under these
headings do not seem entirely disharmonious with the spirit of what
the Master was after.

For purposes of memorization -- should there be anyone out there who
agrees with me that this may be partly why Baha'u'llah flagged these
passages -- I think that placing the quotes under the principles,
which many of us have already memorized, may make it easier to summon
and put them to use in conversation. If I have the chance, I would
like to expand upon my own thoughts about these "Great Being" synopses
of principle in an essay or series of essays.

However, for the balance of today, I will look further into the
concept of proof in the Bab's Writings, and His Book, Baha'u'llah in
the Tablet of Ahmad says, constitutes the "Mother Book, did ye but
know." By the way, what did Baha'u'llah mean by this strange turn of
phrase: "did ye but know"? Is He saying that our ideas and
understanding, like a child running to its mother, should spend a long
period visiting Mom and being nurtured there, or else, "did ye but
know," we will think we know but really will not. Certainly over the
past few months my little essays have been enriched immensely by the
Bab's Writing, as I hope you have noticed. Without really planning it
my toddler's understanding teeters its way again and again back into
mother's arms, to the Bab's Mom Book.

Here, from the Persian Bayan, is what she lately spooned into my open
mouth about proof and evidence:

"Should a person lay claim to a cause and produce his proofs, then
those who seek to repudiate him are required to produce proofs like
unto his. If they succeed in doing so, his words will prove vain and
they will prevail; otherwise neither his words will cease nor the
proofs he hath set forth will become void. I admonish you, O ye who
are invested with the Bayan, if ye would fain assert your ascendancy,
confront not any soul unless ye give proofs similar to that which he
hath adduced; for Truth shall be firmly established, while aught else
besides it is sure to perish." (Selections, 131)

It seems to me that the Bab is not only talking to His followers in
the upcoming period between Manifestations. He is looking ultimately
toward a "religious method," like the scientific method. He predicts a
drastic reduction in the number of causes and movements, since each
will have to justify itself according to fair criteria, beyond simply
gulling the innocent.

As more people learn and apply His established standards for proof and
argument, there will be less conflict, more agreement. People will
learn to seek only what is appropriate to whatever kind of knowledge
they seek, and will not be afraid to reject what is not. Once that
happens the myriad leaders and diverse organizations that stake their
claims on our attention will cease to proliferate. Abdu'l-Baha was
perhaps close to quoting the last sentence in the above (we know that
in His youth He memorized long passages from the Bab) when He said, in
explicating the principle of search for truth,

"As reality is one and cannot admit of multiplicity, therefore
different opinions must ultimately become fused into one."
(Selections, 298)

This fusion, this e pluribus unum, is a characteristic of religious
truth, as opposed to science. Faith is ruled by One God, but science
will have to restrict itself to tentative stances as long as
materiality remains in flux. In science, theories or paradigms clash
but only for for those with their noses close enough to the grindstone
to feel its revolutions. Thomas Kuhn wrote:

"Scientific revolutions ... need seem revolutionary only to those
whose paradigms are affected by them. To outsiders they may, like the
Balkan revolutions of the early twentieth century, seem normal parts
of the developmental process. Astronomers, for example, could accept
X-rays as a mere addition to knowledge, for their paradigms were
unaffected by the existence of the new radiation. But for men like
Kelvin, Crookes, and Roentgen, whose research dealt with radiation
theory or with cathode ray tubes, the emergence of X-rays necessarily
violated one paradigm as it created another. That is why these rays
could be discovered only through something's first going wrong with
normal research." (Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions, University of Chicago Press, 1962, Ch. 9)

In science the lay person can afford to sit back and let the debates
and paradigm shifts go on unattended. Nobody has time to read the
latest developments in every science, much less follow the discussions
and speculations of specialized researchers. But in religion, we all
have a stake, for we all have an eternal soul. The Bab is expecting a
much higher level of sophistication in matters of faith. My 11
year-old daughter Silvie shared this anecdote from her GEMS Christian
girls' class. The instructor told them that many people pass by God,
but, she asked them, what is the result in their lives? One girl in
the class volunteered this: "Um, he will come back and haunt you?" A
good answer, for if we do not live up to the demands of His Oneness or
meet the proofs on their own level, we will be haunted by regrets and
"might-have-beens" for the rest of our existence.

Out of the Lawh-i-Maqsud; the Great Being lays out Baha'i principles

Oneness of God

"The Great Being saith: The Tongue of Wisdom proclaimeth: He that hath
Me not is bereft of all things. Turn ye away from all that is on earth
and seek none else but Me. I am the Sun of Wisdom and the Ocean of
Knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding
Light that illumineth the way. I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the
Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start
it on its flight." (Tablets, 169)

Power of the Holy Spirit

"O friend of mine! The Word of God is the king of words and its
pervasive influence is incalculable. It hath ever dominated and will
continue to dominate the realm of being. The Great Being saith: The
Word is the master key for the whole world, inasmuch as through its
potency the doors of the hearts of men, which in reality are the doors
of heaven, are unlocked." (Tablets, 173)

Search for Truth

"The Great Being saith: The heaven of statesmanship is made luminous
and resplendent by the brightness of the light of these blessed words
which hath dawned from the dayspring of the Will of God: It behoveth
every ruler to weigh his own being every day in the balance of equity
and justice and then to judge between men and counsel them to do that
which would direct their steps unto the path of wisdom and
understanding. This is the cornerstone of statesmanship and the
essence thereof. ... The secrets of statesmanship and that of which
the people are in need lie enfolded within these words." (Tablets,
166-167)

Oneness of Humanity

"The Great Being saith: O well-beloved ones! The tabernacle of unity
hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the
fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch." (Tablets, 163)

"That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the
service of the entire human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and
happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples
and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It
is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather
for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and
mankind its citizens." (Tablets, 167)

Oneness of Religion

"The Great Being saith: O ye children of men! The fundamental purpose
animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the
interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the
spirit of love and fellowship amongst men... Our hope is that the
world's religious leaders and the rulers thereof will unitedly arise
for the reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its
fortunes. Let them, after meditating on its needs, take counsel
together and, through anxious and full deliberation, administer to a
diseased and sorely-afflicted world the remedy it requireth."
(Tablets, 168)

Science and Religion

"The Great Being saith: The man of consummate learning and the sage
endowed with penetrating wisdom are the two eyes to the body of
mankind. God willing, the earth shall never be deprived of these two
greatest gifts. That which hath been set forth and will be revealed in
the future is but a token of this Servant's ardent desire to dedicate
Himself to the service of all the kindreds of the earth." (Tablets, p.
170)

Elimination of Prejudice

"O my friend! In all circumstances one should seize upon every means
which will promote security and tranquillity among the peoples of the
world. The Great Being saith: In this glorious Day whatever will purge
you from corruption and will lead you towards peace and composure, is
indeed the Straight Path." (Tablets, 171)

Economic Readjustment

"The Great Being saith: The structure of world stability and order
hath been reared upon, and will continue to be sustained by, the twin
pillars of reward and punishment." (Tablets, p. 163)

"The Great Being saith: The learned of the day must direct the people
to acquire those branches of knowledge which are of use, that both the
learned themselves and the generality of mankind may derive benefits
therefrom. Such academic pursuits as begin and end in words alone have
never been and will never be of any worth. The majority of Persia's
learned doctors devote all their lives to the study of a philosophy
the ultimate yield of which is nothing but words." (Baha'u'llah,
Tablets of Baha'u'llah, 169)

Promotion of Education

"The Great Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of
inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its
treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom." (Tablets, 161)

Universal Language

"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 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)

Equality of the Sexes

The Great Being saith: One word may be likened unto fire, another unto
light, and the influence which both exert is manifest in the world.
Therefore an enlightened man of wisdom should primarily speak with
words as mild as milk, that the children of men may be nurtured and
edified thereby and may attain the ultimate goal of human existence
which is the station of true understanding and nobility. (Tablets,
173)

Ethics

"And likewise He saith: The heaven of true understanding shineth
resplendent with the light of two luminaries: tolerance and
righteousness." (Tablets, 169-170)

Universal Peace

"The Great Being, wishing to reveal the prerequisites of the peace and
tranquillity of the world and the advancement of its peoples, hath
written: The time must come when the imperative necessity for the
holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be
universally realized." (Tablets, 165)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Sun and Shield of Wisdom

Maqsud, the Great Being, and the Sun and Shield of Wisdom

Oneness of God series, Part IV

By John Taylor; 21 February, 2006

The Bab at one point named the One "Whom God shall make manifest" the
"Primal Veil" of God. "Above this Veil ye can find nothing other than
God, while beneath it ye can discern all things emanating from God."
(Selections, 131) In the teachings and Person of Baha'u'llah
brilliancy shines through a diaphanous fabric; all things are
purified, all illusion dispelled and whatever is true, right and
natural vivified and illuminated. This was sung of old, "For the Lord
God is a sun and a shield," (Ps 84:1) for He both nurtures and
protects. The "Primal Veil" acts like the earth's atmosphere and the
magnetic Van Allen belt, It absorbs and filters out harmful forms of
radiation in order to protect life, and allows other, beneficial light
to shine through and provide all things with light and energy. In our
mind and heart, this is the greatness of the Great Being. His primal
principle, the Oneness of God, nurtures and protects as sun and
shield.

As mentioned, outside of once in the Tablet to the Son of the Wolf,
the balance of mentions of "Great Being" in Baha'u'llah's so-far
translated Tablets are all to be found in the Lawh-i-Maqsud. The
Guardian picked out the Tablet to Maqsud, along with a handful of
other late Tablets, calling them the "mighty and final effusions of
His indefatigable pen -- (they) must rank among the choicest fruits
which His mind has yielded, and mark the consummation of His
forty-year-long ministry." (God Passes By, 216). By all standards the
Lawh-i-Maqsud is a definitive document, an earth shaking distillation
of Baha'u'llah's Teaching and ideals. Reading it over in preparation
for this essay, I was strangely reminded of Bugs Bunny's portable
hole. Whenever Elmer Fudd got close to catching Bugs, he would drop
the hole behind him and Elmer would plunge in and disappear into the
black void. And so it is with all our quandries and debates, our
ambiguities and hairsplittings, they go away instantly as soon as the
Great Being speaks. Everything that stymied us is gone, suddenly and
finally into a total vacuum. This is the Sun and the Shield at work in
all their splendor.

I surely would disappear too into this mini-Black Hole should I
attempt to do justice to this Tablet in detail. Suffice to say, the
Tablet to Maqsud was written to one Mirza Maqsud, a devoted teacher of
the Faith who was living in Syria at the time. Beyond this I could
find no biographical detail about him, much less examine a copy of the
letters he wrote to Baha'u'llah. The first part of the Tablet to
Maqsud is written to the collectivity of humankind and is phrased in
the most universal terms possible. The second half is more of a
personal letter, written to a breathing, believing human being. It
offers words of encouragement in the face of Maqsud's evident
rejection by Palestinian locals in all his attempts to teach the Cause
there. As well, this second section answers several specific concerns
raised by Maqsud apparently in a letter that arrived later, while the
first half was still being dictated. The direct mentions of "Great
Being" all occur in the first section.

Most distinctively to this Tablet, Baha'u'llah at times takes on the
persona of His secretary, as if the letter were written by Mirza Aqa
Jan instead of Himself. We are assured in a note that every word is
from Him, though, and every word is authentic holy scripture. We are
also informed that this literary device is not uncommon in His
Tablets, and was done in order to assuage the tendency of faithful
adherents to be overawed by the One addressing them. As far as I know,
the Tablet to Maqsud is the only Tablet using this convention that has
been translated into English.

Although there is no reason to doubt the veracity of what the editors
say, reading the Tablet over I find this explanation rather strange.
The mentions of "Great Being" seem to come at almost random intervals,
and in very general contexts. There seems little attempt to pretend
that it was the secretary, Mirza Aqa Jan, who was writing and
periodically citing Baha'u'llah as the "Great Being." Indeed, if this
were so, one would expect the mentions of "Great Being" to be more
frequent in the second, more personal half of the Tablet, but this is
not the case. However I can only refer this question to the
specialists concerned, and to your own judgment, and carry on
regardless. My hunch, be it valid or a vain illusion, is this: the
term "Great Being" is a flag or pointer directing our attention to
something important, perhaps even to openings in the Veil, junctures
where Oneness of God merges into the pure light of praxis, the
specific, social Baha'i principles.

Certainly the overall concern of this first part of the Maqsud is with
the Oneness of God as world principle. The first paragraph is a
succinct summary of the idea of Manifestation as captain, salvation or
cure for the world's ills, all the ideas that we have been discussing
over the last several essays. We can imagine Maqsud reading "his"
Tablet to friends and close contacts. In view of this, the first
paragraph may have acted as a summary and practical demonstration of
how to approach this cornerstone of Baha'i belief. The body of the
section is concerned not so much with principle but the attitude
behind principle. That attitude or "value system" can be summed up in
one word, wisdom. Wisdom is a recurrent theme throughout. So, we visit
the Veil of the Oneness of God and come away changed beings. If you
are a man, you are a wise man, if a woman, you are a wise woman. You
are yourself a sun and a shield, you are tranformed. Significant,
then, that the first section of the Maqsud ends with this:

"Methinks people's sense of taste hath, alas, been sorely affected by
the fever of negligence and folly, for they are found to be wholly
unconscious and deprived of the sweetness of His utterance. How
regrettable indeed that man should debar himself from the fruits of
the tree of wisdom while his days and hours pass swiftly away. Please
God, the hand of divine power may safeguard all mankind and direct
their steps towards the horizon of true understanding." (Tablets, 174)

I will at the end of this include all of the these "fruits of the tree
of wisdom," or at least the ones that mention the "Great Being," in
the order in which they occur in this first section of the Maqsud. But
first a personal note.

Yesterday I viewed a movie that I had bought second hand, a beat-up
VHS video tape called "Jesus," whose jacket boasts that it is the most
translated film in history. Towards the end the kids came home and
gathered around too, pointing out the parts they recognized from their
cartoon versions of the story. The film is taken almost word for word
from the Book of Luke. The producers with marvellous self restraint
force themselves to shut up until Jesus is dead and resurrected before
they start in about how this is the most unique story in history,
uniquer than even the most unique of unique uniquenesses, blah, blah,
blah. Who really crucified Jesus? These blatherers, if you ask me, for
they incessently and obliviously rob him of context, and without
context nothing means nothing. The best part of Jesus is not
necessarily the unique part, it is the part that fits in, that shines
on and shields all of humanity and its struggles.

Anyway, the parable that most impressed me was that of Lazarus and the
rich man, separated in life and in death by a vast gulf of glory. Then
Jesus told his disciples,

"It is impossible that occasions of stumbling should not come, but woe
to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a
millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were thrown into the sea,
rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he
repents, forgive him." (Luke 17:1-3, WEB)

To me, Jesus is not talking here about sin but as it were "meta-sin."
Meta-sin is not when you do a direct wrong yourself, it is a truculent
better-than-you attitude that causes others to slip into the same
wrong. It is what made the rich man refuse to reserve a scrap from his
table for the starving Lazarus. As Jesus says, coming back from the
dead will not help that, the reading of scripture has to suffice to
change him, for that is what it was written by God to do. Meta-sin is
the reverse of wisdom. It is when even when what you say is dead
right, you are still dead wrong. This is the "edginess" of one's
attitude, a leaning to immoderation that provokes, instigates,
polarizes and politicizes the context in which you happen to be.
Without context, nothing means nothing.

The Great Being, I hope you will agree when you read the following,
provides context, erases meta-sinning attitudes, reverses the rule of
the world into one ruled by sincerity, purity and wisdom.

Portable Black Holes; Mentions of "Great Being" in the Lawh-i-Maqsud,
in the order in which they occur

"Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath,
however, deprived him of that which he doth inherently possess.
Through a word proceeding out of the mouth of God he was called into
being; by one word more he was guided to recognize the Source of his
education; by yet another word his station and destiny were
safeguarded. The Great Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems
of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its
treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom. If any man were to
meditate on that which the Scriptures, sent down from the heaven of
God's holy Will, have revealed, he would readily recognize that their
purpose is that all men shall be regarded as one soul, so that the
seal bearing the words 'The Kingdom shall be God's' may be stamped on
every heart, and the light of Divine bounty, of grace, and mercy may
envelop all mankind. The One true God, exalted be His glory, hath
wished nothing for Himself. The allegiance of mankind profiteth Him
not, neither doth its perversity harm Him. The Bird of the Realm of
Utterance voiceth continually this call: 'All things have I willed for
thee, and thee, too, for thine own sake.' If the learned and
worldly-wise men of this age were to allow mankind to inhale the
fragrance of fellowship and love, every understanding heart would
apprehend the meaning of true liberty, and discover the secret of
undisturbed peace and absolute composure. Were the earth to attain
this station and be illumined with its light it could then be truly
said of it: 'Thou shall see in it no hollows or rising hills.' [Qur'an
20:106] (Tablets, p. 161-2)

"The Great Being saith: O well-beloved ones! The tabernacle of unity
hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the
fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. We cherish the hope
that the light of justice may shine upon the world and sanctify it
from tyranny. If the rulers and kings of the earth, the symbols of the
power of God, exalted be His glory, arise and resolve to dedicate
themselves to whatever will promote the highest interests of the whole
of humanity, the reign of justice will assuredly be established
amongst the children of men, and the effulgence of its light will
envelop the whole earth. The Great Being saith: The structure of world
stability and order hath been reared upon, and will continue to be
sustained by, the twin pillars of reward and punishment." (Tablets, p.
163)

"The Great Being, wishing to reveal the prerequisites of the peace and
tranquillity of the world and the advancement of its peoples, hath
written: The time must come when the imperative necessity for the
holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be
universally realized." (Tablets, 165)

"The Great Being saith: The heaven of statesmanship is made luminous
and resplendent by the brightness of the light of these blessed words
which hath dawned from the dayspring of the Will of God: It behoveth
every ruler to weigh his own being every day in the balance of equity
and justice and then to judge between men and counsel them to do that
which would direct their steps unto the path of wisdom and
understanding. This is the cornerstone of statesmanship and the
essence thereof. From these words every enlightened man of wisdom will
readily perceive that which will foster such aims as the welfare,
security and protection of mankind and the safety of human lives. Were
men of insight to quaff their fill from the ocean of inner meanings
which lie enshrined in these words and become acquainted therewith,
they would bear witness to the sublimity and the excellence of this
utterance. If this lowly one were to set forth that which he
perceiveth, all would testify unto God's consummate wisdom. The
secrets of statesmanship and that of which the people are in need lie
enfolded within these words. This lowly servant earnestly entreateth
the One true God -- exalted be His glory -- to illumine the eyes of
the people of the world with the splendour of the light of wisdom that
they, one and all, may recognize that which is indispensable in this
day." (Tablets, 166-167)

"That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the
service of the entire human race. The Great Being saith: Blessed and
happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples
and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It
is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather
for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and
mankind its citizens." (Tablets, 167)

"The Great Being saith: O ye children of men! The fundamental purpose
animating the Faith of God and His Religion is to safeguard the
interests and promote the unity of the human race, and to foster the
spirit of love and fellowship amongst men. Suffer it not to become a
source of dissension and discord, of hate and enmity. This is the
straight Path, the fixed and immovable foundation. Whatsoever is
raised on this foundation, the changes and chances of the world can
never impair its strength, nor will the revolution of countless
centuries undermine its structure. Our hope is that the world's
religious leaders and the rulers thereof will unitedly arise for the
reformation of this age and the rehabilitation of its fortunes. Let
them, after meditating on its needs, take counsel together and,
through anxious and full deliberation, administer to a diseased and
sorely-afflicted world the remedy it requireth." (Tablets, 168)

"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 Great Being saith: The learned of the day must direct the people
to acquire those branches of knowledge which are of use, that both the
learned themselves and the generality of mankind may derive benefits
therefrom. Such academic pursuits as begin and end in words alone have
never been and will never be of any worth. The majority of Persia's
learned doctors devote all their lives to the study of a philosophy
the ultimate yield of which is nothing but words." (Baha'u'llah,
Tablets of Baha'u'llah, 169)

"The Great Being saith: The Tongue of Wisdom proclaimeth: He that hath
Me not is bereft of all things. Turn ye away from all that is on earth
and seek none else but Me. I am the Sun of Wisdom and the Ocean of
Knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding
Light that illumineth the way. I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the
Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start
it on its flight." (Tablets, 169)

"And likewise He saith: The heaven of true understanding shineth
resplendent with the light of two luminaries: tolerance and
righteousness." (Tablets, 169-170)

"The Great Being saith: The man of consummate learning and the sage
endowed with penetrating wisdom are the two eyes to the body of
mankind. God willing, the earth shall never be deprived of these two
greatest gifts. That which hath been set forth and will be revealed in
the future is but a token of this Servant's ardent desire to dedicate
Himself to the service of all the kindreds of the earth." (Tablets, p.
170)

"O my friend! In all circumstances one should seize upon every means
which will promote security and tranquillity among the peoples of the
world. The Great Being saith: In this glorious Day whatever will purge
you from corruption and will lead you towards peace and composure, is
indeed the Straight Path." (Tablets, 171)

"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)

The Great Being saith: One word may be likened unto fire, another unto
light, and the influence which both exert is manifest in the world.
Therefore an enlightened man of wisdom should primarily speak with
words as mild as milk, that the children of men may be nurtured and
edified thereby and may attain the ultimate goal of human existence
which is the station of true understanding and nobility. (Tablets,
173)

"O friend of mine! The Word of God is the king of words and its
pervasive influence is incalculable. It hath ever dominated and will
continue to dominate the realm of being. The Great Being saith: The
Word is the master key for the whole world, inasmuch as through its
potency the doors of the hearts of men, which in reality are the doors
of heaven, are unlocked. No sooner had but a glimmer of its effulgent
splendour shone forth upon the mirror of love than the blessed word 'I
am the Best-Beloved' was reflected therein. It is an ocean
inexhaustible in riches, comprehending all things. Every thing which
can be perceived is but an emanation therefrom. High, immeasurably
high is this sublime station, in whose shadow moveth the essence of
loftiness and splendour, wrapt in praise and adoration." (Tablets,
173)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Eupraxia

Captaincy and Eupraxia; Under the Evidence-Based Scalpel
Oneness of God Series, Part III

By John Taylor; 13 February, 2006

Yesterday we proposed that the principle of One God is a razor
principle, cutting off useless, distracting speculation. Only what is
needed and nothing more can inform our understanding and application
of the divine will and teachings. This razor is most often associated
with the medieval philosopher William of Ockham, but as we saw it goes
far back into the pre-history of divine instruction, as far back as
when Moses saw the burning bush and was told, "take off your shoes,
for you are on holy ground." The razor starts by warning against
drawing direct comparisons with the Godhead, analogies that profane
what is sacred because the holy is inherently beyond human
comprehension. It is just wrong to assume that we can meddle with
certain givens, as the parable of the tares demonstrates.

Try this thought experiment. I take your picture, or perhaps draw a
caricature of your face, and then I pass it around a Kindergarten
class. Would "you" in any sense be changed? Would the children
understand you better? Would your name and reputation be affected?
Perhaps it might ... how would you feel if I handed back the photo
later and you saw that they had drawn devil's horns on your forehead?
Or how about other insulting doodles, like a turban on your head
wrapped around a bomb? You may care about what these young ones think
about you, or you may not. However I think most people would prefer to
be known to the next generation on their own terms. They would want to
be known, but only accurately, with due respect. They would not want
just any image of them to be bandied about, to be allowed to take on a
life of its own. Nor would they allow just anything to be said about
them. So why expect that God and His Manifestation would want anything
less?

We noticed that the Bab points out why most people most of the time
err about God. They trip up because they themselves assign the proofs
and evidences for God. God insists that He do that himself. Why should
we balk? We bow to experts every moment of the day. We buy products
and hope that they will work as advertised. We go to doctors and
dentists and trust they know and care about what they are doing. We
get into our car and expect that a thousand gadgets designed by a
thousand experts will all work together as promised. We literally bet
our life on it. Similarly, we must trust in the divine. Yet none of
the experts who made the car is telling us where or how to drive it.
We learn that on our own, we do it for ourselves. Same thing for the
expertise of God. God does not do anything Himself, only a razor
before us and ask us to use it, the razor of evidence-based faith.

Before Christmas last year a friend recommended a medical cure for
migraines, not to mention just about any other illness. He even gave
me a sample for one month and insisted I try it. It was a nostrum
inspired by a genuine scientific discovery about a certain sugar
needed for synaptic activity; the finding won for a certain researcher
a Nobel Prize in 1998, I think it was. His research on sugars was real
science; our nerves really do need these sugars in order to function.
However, since 1998 a thriving cottage industry has sprung up selling
these sugars based upon the presupposition that the body cannot
produce them on its own out of other chemicals.

I had taken the medicinal sugars for about a week when I started to
feel nervous. I checked them out on the Web. Once I elbowed past the
hucksters the hard medical evidence for these sugars seemed flimsy
indeed. One Australian doctor noted that there have been no controlled
trials of these sugars and that anyone concerned for "evidence-based"
medicine should ignore them until we know whether they help or harm.
This sage advice persuaded me to give back the sample immediately. I
have no desire to ingest untested chemicals, even an ordinary sugar,
or to make myself a guinea pig in an uncontrolled shooting gallery.

But I greatly admired the turn of phrase of this good Aussie doctor.
"Evidence-based" sums up beautifully of the scientific method. That is
all science is: due attention to evidence. Every one of thousands of
diverse scientific disciplines has arrived at its own set of criteria
based upon its own limitations. A discipline is a way of testing,
proving and arriving at conclusions based upon established criteria.
This is the result of long experience, not of one thinker but of many.
Yes, their criteria do change with time, but a non-expert challenges
them all at his peril. These sciences are well described as
disciplines, for it takes discipline to learn what is cogent, and what
is not. To ignore discipline is dangerous, and most especially in
matters of health.

As the Bab taught, "evidence-based" sums up the religious method just
as well. Faith is attention to due evidence. In fact, proof is even
more indispensable in mystic matters, surely, for the well being of
the body is superficial and temporary compared to the eternal soul.
And this method starts in the Oneness of God, the discipline of God's
duly appointed Manifestations, the true Ship Captains of souls.

Plato dealt with ship captaincy in the fifth or sixth book of his
Republic, but less familiar is Zenophon's version, which I tend to
take to be closer to what Socrates himself actually thought, since
Zenophon was not a philosopher in his own right. Let us end today with
Zenophon's account in the Memorabilia. Especially interesting is the
brief mention of equality of the sexes. Abdu'l-Baha mentions it often:
expertise is the sole basis for any distinction, including those
between the sexes. The fact that Socrates taught this explains why
Plato allowed women into his Academy on an equal basis, an almost
unique case of lack of gender discrimination before modern times.

Captaincy, from Zenophon, Memorabilia III, 9

They are not kings or rulers (he said) who hold the sceptre merely, or
are chosen by Tom, Dick and Harry out of the street, or are appointed
by lot, or have stepped into office by violence or by fraud; but those
who have the special knowledge (episteme) how to rule. Thus having won
the admission that it is the function of a ruler to enjoin what ought
to be done, and of those who are ruled to obey, he proceeded to point
out by instances that in a ship the ruler or captain is the man of
special knowledge, to whom, as an expert, the ship owner himself and
all the others on board obey. So likewise, in the matter of husbandry,
the proprietor of an estate; in that of sickness, the patient; in that
of physical training of the body, the youthful athlete going through a
course; and, in general, every one directly concerned in any matter
needing attention and care will either attend to this matter
personally, if he thinks he has the special knowledge; or, if he
mistrusts his own science, will be eager to obey any expert on the
spot, or will even send and fetch one from a distance. The guidance of
this expert he will follow, and do what he has to do at his dictation.

And thus, in the art of spinning wool, he liked to point out that
women are the rulers of men--and why? because they have the knowledge
of the art, and men have not.

And if any one raised the objection that a tyrant has it in his power
not to obey good and correct advice, he would retort: "Pray, how has
he the option not to obey, considering the penalty hanging over him
who disobeys the words of wisdom? for whatever the matter be in which
he disobeys the word of good advice, he will fall into error, I
presume, and falling into error, be punished." And to the suggestion
that the tyrant could, if he liked, cut off the head of the man of
wisdom, his answer was:

"Do you think that he who destroys his best ally will go scot free, or
suffer a mere slight and passing loss? Is he more likely to secure his
salvation that way or to compass his own swift destruction? Again, is
that to choose the path of safety, think you? Is it not rather to sign
his own death-warrent?"

jet: Zenophon then proceeds from captaincy to Eupraxia, the
confounding mystery as to why the Manifestation is always outwardly
persecuted and defeated, and more broadly why in a milieu of liars a
truth teller always fails and messes up.

Eupraxia versus Eutukhia, from Zenophon, Memorabilia III, 9

When some one asked him: "What he regarded as the noblest study, the
best pursuit or business for a man?" he answered: "Successful
conduct," (translator's note: eupraxia, to do well, in the sense both
of well or right doing, and of welfare, and is accordingly opposed to
eutukhia, mere good luck or success. Cf. Plat. "Euthyd." 281 B); and
to a second question: "Did he then regard good fortune as an end to be
pursued?"--"On the contrary," he answered, "for myself, I consider
fortune (eutukhia) and conduct (eupraxia) to be diametrically opposed.
For instance, to succeed in some desirable course of action without
seeking to do so, I hold to be good fortune; but to do a thing well by
dint of learning and practice, that according to my creed is
successful conduct, and those who make this the serious business of
their life seem to me to do well."

They are at once the best, dearest and most favored in the sight of
God (he went on to say) who for instance in husbandry do well the
things of farming, or in the art of healing all that belongs to
healing, or in statecraft the affairs of state; whereas a man who does
nothing well-- nor well in anything--is (he added) neither good for
anything nor dear to God.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Razor of Oneness

The Razor of Oneness; Oneness of God Series, Part II

By John Taylor; 12 February, 2006

Last time we zoomed in on a passage in the Epistle to the Son of the
Wolf with the only mention of "Great Being" outside of the
Lawh-i-Maqsud. Here Baha'u'llah offers a prayer for a leader to say,
to ask God to "sanctify the ears, and the eyes, and the hearts of
mankind, and to protect them from the desires of a corrupt
inclination." (Epistle, 96) Distractions and corrupt leanings, He
says, cause the illness of malice, which blocks out the sun of faith
and acts as a "mighty obstacle" to recognizing the "Great Being." So
here at least "Great Being" refers to the identity of God with His
Representative. This Manifestation is charged with ruling the world
and acting as a captain in the ship of the human soul,

"So also, when the head of the army is unrivaled in the art of war, in
what he says and commands he does what he wishes. When the captain of
a ship is proficient in the art of navigation, in whatever he says and
commands he does what he wishes. And as the real educator is the
Perfect Man, in whatever He says and commands He does what He wishes."
(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions, p. 174)

This autonomy of the expert is the distinguishing characteristic of
the Baha'i principle that we are now concerned with, the Oneness of
God. Just as Moses' Ten Commandments all proceeded from obedience to a
single God, a deity who is "jealous" of rivals, so all of the
principles of Baha'u'llah emerge from an understanding of this center,
rather like a butterfly unfolding its wings out of its cocoon. This
gradual enfoldment is evident in the history of religion.

God inspired Isaiah to lay the groundwork for Oneness of God by
stressing the importance of clarifying the unity behind externals, and
of understanding that this unity is personal, for the soul and for the
Lord. "I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there
was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the
Lord, that I am God." (Isa 43:12) In life one is a "witness" to the
operations of providence, which offers proof of the Lord's expertise.
"In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall
glory." (Isa 45:25) Similarly, the Book of Revelations prophesied a
time when, "The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our
Lord..." (Rev 11:15) when we would declare: "Behold, the tabernacle of
God is with men." (Rev 21:3)

The Qu'ran emphasizes the practical benefits that would accrue from a
consensus based upon pure monotheistic presuppositions. "They worship
helpless idols which can confer on them no benefits from heaven or
earth. Compare none with God: He has knowledge, but you have not."
(16:74) This flows naturally out of the admonition of Jesus to know
them by their fruits, but it includes an entirely negative dictum, "do
not dare compare anything to God." From this were born similar knives
designed to cut away needless, fruitless speculation, such as Ockham's
razor, "It is foolish to do with more what can be done with less."
Earlier on in the East, Buddhism had negated immoderate devotions and
the rank metaphysical obsession of Hinduism by prescribing a Middle
Way. It consummated in Zen Buddhism, a razor that cuts as deep as deep
can cut, past language itself.

The Baha'i principle of Oneness of God is a razor principle, born of
humbly accepting that freedom is only in silence about what we know we
do not know, in submission to God's higher intelligence, a Mind that
is incomparable and ineffable by nature. Only that Mind is qualified,
and we should fear treading its ground insolently. The Bab wrote,

"Fear ye God, that haply it may be well with you. All things have been
created for your sakes, and for the sake of naught else hath your
creation been ordained. Fear ye God and take heed lest forms and
apparels debar you from recognizing Him." (Selections, 162)

This recognition comes only upon weighing evidence according to proper
criteria. The Bab laid these out, as well as the goal and the
methodology of principle very succinctly in His Seven Proofs.

"In every nation thou beholdest unnumbered spiritual leaders who are
bereft of true discernment, and among every people thou dost encounter
myriads of adherents who are devoid of the same characteristic. Ponder
for a while in thy heart, have pity on thyself and turn not aside
thine attention from proofs and evidences. However, seek not proofs
and evidences after thine idle fancy; but rather base thy proofs upon
what God hath appointed. Moreover, know thou that neither being a man
of learning nor being a follower is in itself a source of glory. If
thou art a man of learning, thy knowledge becometh an honour, and if
thou art a follower, thine adherence unto leadership becometh an
honour, only when these conform to the good-pleasure of God. And
beware lest thou regard as an idle fancy the good-pleasure of God; it
is the same as the good-pleasure of His Messenger. Consider the
followers of Jesus. They were eagerly seeking the good-pleasure of
God, yet none of them attained the good-pleasure of His Apostle which
is identical with God's good-pleasure, except such as embraced His
Faith." (Bab, Selections, 124)

The goal of principle in general is to gain the good pleasure of God
through thought and action. The methodology of principle is here too.
Its method is the same as any science, careful, disciplined attention
to proof. As he Bab says, "Ponder for a while in thy heart, have pity
on thyself and turn not aside thine attention from proofs and
evidences." In order to please God one must please His Representative.
For our purposes they are identical; the only way to know the sun is
by its light, heat, radiation and other effects. There is no ticket to
the surface of the sun. Those who deny this, the Bab asserts here,
inevitably glory in outer glory, and cynically dismiss pleasing God as
an "idle fancy." There is no end of fancies, but only One Truth, one
razor to cut away all that is not That.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Best of Deaths

The Death of Malice, The Best of Deaths

By John Taylor; 10 February, 2006

I was going to go straight on to the remaining references to the
"Great Being" in Baha'u'llah's Writings, but then I had a change of
heart. Let us continue to dwell on malice. The reason being, last
night we had our Philosopher's Cafe discussion on euthanasia, and then
late at night in my daily reading I came across this, the second
paragraph of the Bab's Kitab-i-Asma,

"Those who have deprived themselves of this Resurrection by reason of
their mutual hatreds or by regarding themselves to be in the right and
others in the wrong, were chastised on the Day of Resurrection by
reason of such hatreds evinced during their night. Thus they deprived
themselves of beholding the countenance of God, and this for no other
reason than mutual denunciations." (Bab, Selections, 129)

A footnote here explains that "night" refers to the dark period
between two Revelations of God when the Sun of Truth is obscure; to
back this up it cites another passage of the Bab advising believers
not to act so that the "fruits of your night" are brought to nothing.
What are fruits of the night? This has pragmatic as well as religious
meaning in Baha'i belief. Baha'u'llah in the Suriy-i-Vafa portrays
night and the sleep which occurs then as a potential proof of God and
His multi-layered creation. Abdu'l-Baha went so far as to recommend
using sleep to learn mystic truths and to answer prayers.

"When thou desirest and yearnest for meeting in the world of vision;
at the time when thou art in perfect fragrance and spirituality, wash
thy hands and face, clothe thyself in clean robes, turn toward the
court of the Peerless One, offer prayer to Him and lay thy head upon
the pillow. When sleep cometh, the doors of revelation shall be opened
and all thy desires shall become revealed." (Abdu'l-Baha, Tablets,
vol. 1, p. 104)

The Bab, then, portrays here a nightmare image of a resurrection
taking place only for those who love and refrain from hate, malice and
contention. Only those who escape the clutches of malice and the
insidious belief that I "am right and you are wrong" remain awake and
alive. This surely would make as frightening a horror film as
"Invasion of the Body Snatchers," or "The Night of the Living Dead," a
resurrection of malicious denouncers lashing out at humble lovers, who
are cut down one by one. Ten thousand Babis were killed in the "night"
between His revelation and that of Baha'u'llah.

These events had been prefigured by the French Revolution, in a period
known as the "Terror." The Terror saw some fifteen thousand souls
beheaded by the guillotine, an instrument of death that previously was
regarded as a relatively painless and merciful death, one reserved as
a last privilege for condemned aristocrats. The egalitarian Revolution
brought a malicious death to all, high and low. The orgy of executions
that resulted is an example out of historical experience of a
malicious circle becoming a slippery slope into socially sanctioned
violence. Malice is the real slippery slope, no escape but down into
the fires of hell.

Euthanasia means either "good death," or "quiet death." A good death
may be quiet, or it may not. Some may call "good death" an oxymoron,
but such paradoxes are fair fodder to the religious frame of mind. The
real quiet death is what happens spiritually to those who slip into
malicious thinking, they are left in the dark as a punishment just as
the true dawn breaks. Outwardly they seem to be killers and winners,
but inwardly they are already dead, they lost the game before it
started. Malice and fate put a torturer's knife or a guillotine into
their hand, and the result is many good but not quiet deaths.

The death of the martyrs is the best of deaths. Why? Because of the
light they shed on the heart. For a thousand years after a martyr's
death, whenever anyone begins to think a thought of "mutual hatreds"
or who sees "themselves to be in the right and others in the wrong,"
they see the slippery slope of malice teetering before them, they
recognize the danger and draw back to warm, enlightened thoughts of
love, harmony and unity. An end, once and for all, of "mutual
denunciations," for what greater thing could you give your life?

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Great Being & Oneness of God, Part I

The Great Being and the Oneness of God, Part I

By John Taylor; 9 February, 2006

My study of the Writings can be divided into two periods, an early
bookish period and most recently, a search engine phase. I edged into
this over several years; after much experimentation I found that the
best Baha'i search engine by far was one called "Ocean." The only
program I can imagine rivaling Ocean is Google's Desktop Search, which
I have not explored thoroughly enough to offer an assessment as yet.
Its interface is the same as the internet Google, and that is
flexible, familiar and convenient. It is possible to adapt the text
database that comes with Ocean to Google Desktop Search, which would
combine the best of both.

Anyway, I found that approaching the Holy Text from the point of view
of isolated keywords produced a little mystery that nagged at me for
years. Who is the "Great Being?" I had not wondered about it in my
bookish period but now in keyword searches the expression suddenly
jumped out; mysterious mentions of this "Great Being" seemed to be
part of every general pronouncement of Baha'u'llah. At times I
speculated that this "Great Being" might be the Bab, or Baha'u'llah,
or the Godhead, or the Holy Spirit. At one point I asked a group of
Baha'i scholars on an Internet list if they had any ideas, and though
there was the usual circumlocution no substantive answer was
generated.

Meanwhile, I was gingerly picking out passages to memorize -- like
Pooh Bear, I am of very small brain and must pick what to squeeze in
there very carefully. This is necessary because I sometimes find to my
horror that when a new memorization stays, other important memories
pop out, lost forever to memory. I may for instance succeed in
memorizing the Long Healing Prayer but my entire third year of
university will slide irretrievably into oblivion. I noticed again
that the chosen few memorizations, the ones that seemed most crucial
and most likely to used again and again, were once more accompanied by
this fateful phrase, "The Great Being Saith..." Was I onto something?
Is Baha'u'llah tagging the most indispensable passages for us Pooh
Bears of the world? Is He saying in effect: "You have a tiny brain, I
know, but this is something that you really must find room for. The
Great Being said it so it must be memorable."

Another speculation was that the "Great Being" may be a flag for the
principle that I am stewing over right now, the Oneness of God. Does
it mark a junction between the principle of Oneness of God and the
other major Baha'i principles? Well, decide for yourself. I will cite
them all and let you be the judge.

Baha'u'llah, in His last full length work, the Epistle to the Son of
the Wolf, addressed to a bloodthirsty Shaykh known pejoratively as the
"Wolf," a corrupt leader and notorious persecutor of Baha'is, mentions
the Great Being in the following passage:

"O Shaykh! Entreat thou the one true God to sanctify the ears, and the
eyes, and the hearts of mankind, and to protect them from the desires
of a corrupt inclination. For malice is a grievous malady which
depriveth man from recognizing the Great Being, and debarreth him from
the splendors of the sun of certitude. We pray and hope that through
the grace and mercy of God He may remove this mighty obstacle. He,
verily, is the Potent, the All-Subduing, the Almighty." (Epistle, 96)

We notice that the son of the wolf being addressed, one Shaykh
Muhammad Taqi, was indeed full of malicious sentiments not only
against Baha'is but other minorities, not to mention his Shah and
government, both of which he plotted against. His nameless hatred is a
microcosm of the secret malice that since then has become widespread.
Whether open or hidden, malice is a standing danger to peace and
security. As Baha'u'llah says, it is a contagious illness that blocks
humans collectively and individually from recognizing the "Great
Being," the God of love.

If anything is the mirror opposite of love, the desire to benefit
others, it would have to be malice. The word is defined in my
dictionary as a "desire to cause pain, injury, or distress to
another," or as an "intent to commit an unlawful act or cause harm
without legal justification or excuse." Malice is the distinction
between merely killing a person, termed manslaughter, and committing
murder; clearly the latter is much more dangerous than manslaughter,
since his malicious motive makes it more likely the crime will be
repeated whenever someone displeases him. Such a person is like the
wolf, a natural-born predator. Once it gets a taste of human blood,
will never satisfy itself with more difficult animal prey again.

Shaykh Muhammad Taqi is named Son of the Wolf because his malice is
prototypical. His goes beyond that of other murderers, for he murdered
the loved ones of the Great Being. Jesus admonished those who "build
the tombs of the prophets their fathers killed." This is a perfect
description of what Muhammad Taqi did to the wealthy Baha'is known as
the "King of the Martyrs" and the "Beloved of the Martyrs." Taqi
borrowed great sums of money from them, then plotted and stirred up
false rumours to offend the religious prejudices of the mob. That way
he not only murdered them for his own profit, he also gained popular
acclaim for doing so. He was a defender of the Faith. Jesus continues,
explaining why God in His wisdom sees to it such that tragedies take
place.

"Therefore also the wisdom of God said, 'I will send to them prophets
and apostles; and some of them they will kill and persecute, that the
blood of all the prophets, which was shed from the foundation of the
world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel to
the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the
sanctuary.' Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation."
(Luke 11:49-51, WEB)

Next time we will go over the balance of the mentions of "Great Being"
in Baha'u'llah's Tablets, all of which are to be found in the
Lawh-i-Maqsud.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

19 Day Agape

The 19 Day Agape and the Principle of One God

By John Taylor; 2 February, 2006

These Friday nights Stu and I meet at the institution run collectively
by local churches called the "Youth Outreach Centre," at which he runs
a little chess club; since usually nobody turns up lately, we spend
this time playing chess and table tennis against one another. I have
come to look forward to this contest all week. Associated with this,
every second Friday night a crafts program for 10 to 14 year old girls
called GEMS is held in a local church. The church lady running the
Youth Centre, Liz, invited Silvie back in November to come along. Liz
drives Silvie to GEMS, along with several other girls from the
neighborhood; the ride leaves the youth centre 15 minutes earlier than
the Youth Center's normal opening time on Friday. So we were just on
the point of departure last Friday when Silvie remembered out of the
blue that she had been asked by the GEMS instructor to look up a quote
from the Apostle Paul and memorize it before the next meeting. Thanks
to the Baha'i database program, Ocean, I was able to find it in a
trice, though the given chapter and verse was minimal (they did not
say whether it was I or II Corinthians) and with her school sharpened
mind, Silvie memorized it in less than a trice. Here is the quote:

"Do you not know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit
lives in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy
him; for God's temple is holy, which you are." (1 Cor 3:16-7)

Yes, a good thing to teach to pre-pubescent girls, undoubtedly. Love,
nurture and value your blooming body before the predator plucks it
forever. Later, reading it over, I thought that Paul's wisdom surely
also applies to the topic of our upcoming Philosopher's Cafe meeting,
euthanasia and mercy killing. It also applies for suicide, for that
matter. Reverence for life means not ending it. The spirit in the
temple of the body is holy, untouchable, and it demands that one never
desecrate temples (or, perhaps more accurately, countenance their
direct destruction) lest one call forth retaliation from the original
Owner, God.

As we noted here yesterday, St. Paul was a moral genius. His use of
Agape created a new word, new wine out of old. The Greek word before
him just meant love, plain and simple. But Paul made Agape into love
as a political thing. As the quote from Paul above (written not to an
individual but to a group of glum, nitpicking early Christians who had
lost their grip on the spirit) says, love is a spirit, untouchable; it
dwells in our bodily temple. By extension, this spirit dwells in us
together, in the holy body politic, in our collective life as well as
our personal spiritual struggles. That spirit of love in groups is
one, holy, sacrosanct. Mess up a group, and you mess with God Himself.
You risk his retribution.

Thus Paul's Agape is not just love of God in isolation, dry and
unconnected. It is love of God as a love feast, as charity, as
communion. Agape is charity, pure love for God expressed in selfless
acts for one's fellow man. By transforming this word, Paul united the
sacrifice of Jesus with the deepest meaning of the lesson philosophy
had learned from the death of Socrates. I firmly believe and repeat
here perhaps too often that if it were not for Socrates and the
hemlock, Christians would never have had a fair shot at understanding
the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. `Abdu'l-Baha in a tablet
explicitly mentioned the early Christians' Agape, love feast, as the
predecessor of our 19 Day Feast:

"...make of the Feasts occasions of joy and fellowship reminiscent of
the feasts that our forebears used to hold in connection with their
commemoration of the Lord's Supper..." (Compilation of Compilations,
vol. I, p. 428)

According to my Encyclopedia Britannica, there is long standing
confusion among Christians as to how closely the Agape love feast is
identified with the rituals of Holy Communion, but in view of what the
Master says here, I do not think Baha'is need trouble themselves with
doubts. The essence is the spirit of love among us, Agape, and that is
all that matters. Jesus once offered a sad prophesy while standing at
a distance from Jerusalem,

"Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, 'Blessed is he
that cometh in the name of the lord.'" (Matt 23:39)

This, I believe, foreshadows the uber-principle that Baha'is call
"Oneness of God." This is a Baha'i principle, but it is also the heart
of all other religions, the choicest ground of every philosophy, for
it is oneness, Agape. Baha'u'llah laid out the principle in His
"Crimson Book," the Kitab-i-Ahd, His Will and Testament:

"We fain would hope that the people of Baha may be guided by the
blessed words: 'Say, all things are of God.' This exalted utterance is
like unto water for quenching the fire of hate and enmity which
smoldereth within the hearts and breasts of men." (Tablets, 222)

Jesus will dwell among us, Baha'u'llah's holy Covenant will dwell
among us, the Kingdom will dwell among us when we come together in a
feast of love, of Agape. For the understanding that "All is God's" is
the only ultimate cure for the selfishness of individuals, and hence
all of the world's ills.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Sufficing Faith in One God

Sufficing Faith in One God

By John Taylor; 1 February, 2006

Friends, I am planning someday soon to extend this Badi' blog into a
"vlog," that is, a video web log, a sort of televised diary. That will
mean that when I have completed the latest revision of my research
database I will start to read aloud (and illustrate) a daily essay
instead of just writing it down. I have not decided whether to narrate
the latest essay or perhaps stagger them with one from the previous
year, or perhaps longer before. Or, I may go through the Badi' months,
the principles, or both, and build up a series of programs that would
be useful for feasts or in teaching Baha'i principles.

I plan to make the videos available on a spanking new service
instituted by Google, called, I think, "Google Store." This enables a
videographer to set her own price for a production and sell it to a
world wide audience, who can play them on their video ipods or other
players, or even, for that matter, televisions and computers. I figure
a price of a dollar or two per program might initiate a revenue
stream. Who knows, if my vlogs become popular I may soon be able to
start calling this the Badi' Research Institute! With this object in
mind, I have been going over past essays about the Baha'i principles.
I found to my shock and horror that I seem to have neglected to write
a single essay on the Oneness of God, the mother of all principles! By
a strange coincidence, my reading for this morning, from the Bab's
Seven Proofs, is a perfect launching point into this principle.

You will recall that the Seven Proofs has been dealing with proof in
religion, how presumptuous we are to demand the strange demonstrations
of religiosity that we do and call it support of God. The Bab says,
"The object of thy belief in God is but to secure His good-pleasure.
How then dost thou seek as a proof of thy faith a thing which hath
been and is contrary to His good-pleasure?" (Bab, Selections 122) The
Bab then proceeds with a wonderful demonstration of what faith is, in
the middle of which he offers a prayer for faith.

This prayer is my all time favorite. It is number one on my hit
parade. In my blackest hours, when suicide, despair or worse stuck
their ugly faces in my face and would not go away, this is what got me
through. In my dark night I would say it over and over until my voice
cracked, until it was dawn and my heart was assuaged. To it I owe life
and sanity. In fact in meetings I say it so often that members of our
community refer to it as, "You know, that prayer that John always is
saying..." Anyway, we will get to that soon enough. The Bab introduces
the prayer like this: "Rid thou thyself of all attachments to aught
except God, enrich thyself in God by dispensing with all else besides
Him, and recite this prayer." To paraphrase a song: "What is faith? I
do not know what faith is. Can you tell me what faith is?" Well, the
Bab is telling us. Faith is sitting back and detaching yourself from
all the garbage before you, the failure, the disappointments and
saying: This is not garbage, it has enriched me. It made me want to
chuck everything but God. Thank God for this! This excrement has done
what the greatest jewels in creation could never do, it made me want
God, it gave me the gut feeling that only He will be enough for me.
Nothing else suffices. So thank you Providence for shoving this misery
in my face, I love it, I love you, I thank God! The Bab then reveals
the prayer in question.

"Say: God sufficeth all things above all things, and nothing in the
heavens or in the earth or in whatever lieth between them but God, thy
Lord, sufficeth. Verily, He is in Himself the Knower, the Sustainer,
the Omnipotent."

As you see, this is slightly longer than the version printed in prayer
books. As far as the House and its research minions have found out,
this is the only authentic one. Apparently some translator in early
days truncated it. The truncated prayer, in my experience, works very
well too. It works so well that I really wish we had a name for it.
The other short famous prayer of the Bab we call the "remover of
difficulties." Why not call this the "faith prayer," or, better, "the
sufficiency prayer"? Until someone suggests a better name, that is
what I will call it. At any rate, here is how the Bab expands upon how
the sufficiency prayer works faith into the wound of ephemeral
existence.

"Regard not the all-sufficing power of God as an idle fancy. It is
that genuine faith which thou cherishest for the Manifestation of God
in every Dispensation. It is such faith which sufficeth above all the
things that exist on the earth, whereas no created thing on earth
besides faith would suffice thee. If thou art not a believer, the Tree
of divine Truth would condemn thee to extinction. If thou art a
believer, thy faith shall be sufficient for thee above all things that
exist on earth, even though thou possess nothing. (Bab, Selections,
123)

This reminds one of what Harry Emerson Fosdick said, "God is not a
cosmic bell-boy for whom we can press a button to get things." God is
master, we are servants and this faith is enough, if we are sincere.
This, I think, is what Paul was getting at when he said, "If I have
the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if
I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I
am nothing." (I Cor. 13:2, WEB) Even if we have infinite faith, God is
still not going to be our bell-boy! Get used to it. Faith is still a
function of love, and love is acceptance of what the Beloved is. And
this Beloved is above us, He is in charge. Though Paul never offered
quotes, I think it is pretty clear that he had in mind here a lesson
Jesus taught that is too easily misunderstood. It happened when His
apostles had failed to cast out a demon in a little boy. They had to
leave it up to the Master to do the dirty work.

"Jesus rebuked him, the demon went out of him, and the boy was cured
from that hour. Then the disciples came to Jesus privately, and said,
`Why could we not cast it out?' He said to them, `Because of your
unbelief. For most assuredly I tell you, if you have faith as a grain
of mustard seed, you will tell this mountain, 'Move from here to
there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. But
this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.'" (Matt
17:18-21, WEB)

Could it be that the sufficiency prayer is one such prayer referred to
here by Jesus? Is it a supplication that with fasting prepares for a
faith that moves mountains, that chases out the demons that nothing
else does? I certainly would say yes. Jesus is not just offering
advice here, I believe, he is prophesying that one day this wonderful
sufficiency prayer would be made available to dwellers of this world.

In sum, although Jesus' chief message was love, it took a Paul to
understand what this anecdote of Jesus chasing out demons means. It
does not mean that God will be a bell boy who will move mountains for
us if we summon up enough faith. It means only that God will be
sufficient for us, and that will be sufficient for the world… There is
a play about the Apostle Paul currently being staged in London and its
author (an atheist) is quoted as saying of Paul that, "Paul invented
and defined the concept of love. He was a moral genius." I think this
is demonstrably correct. It takes a moral genius to see that faith is
a function of love, not the other way around, and that mountains are
only moved by those who love enough, who pray and fast enough to be
pure. Such purity calls forth the power of the One True God to move
the mountains of hearts. Mountains of dirt and rock may be here or
moved over there and you or I or God will not much care, but the
heaviest lump in the world is a heart attached to the ephemeral, for
whom God is not enough. That kind of mountain moving Paul saw Jesus
doing, and he did it too. Later the Bab showed us exactly how to do
it, too. To repeat what the Bab says above,

"It is such faith which sufficeth above all the things that exist on
the earth, whereas no created thing on earth besides faith would
suffice thee."

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com