Unseen Heights

Seeing Through the Unseen Heights

By John Taylor; 20 March, 2006

Again my six-year-old son Thomas is sinking under a flu-like bug,
marked by a fever that lasts days on end. Perhaps he had it already
and it recrudesced. He will be missing yet more school now that March
Break is over. I find this extra sad and distressing now that I know
exactly what they are going through. It is one thing to suffer
ourselves and yet another to witness an innocent suffer.

The novel I am reading is Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, which was
translated in unabridged, accurate format for the first time in 2002.
Mysterious Island is Verne's masterpiece but it is only one of about a
half dozen other novels that he wrote in the castaway genre. I ordered
a film version of this story from the Hamilton Public Library but
found to my disappointment that it was just a cartoon for kids. We all
watched the video together, not a high budget production. Even the
normally uncritical Silvie noticed its rough edges. Still I had to
admit that in many ways it is the most faithful filming of the actual
events in the novel of any I have seen. Not a dinosaur to be seen.

As I watched this sorry cartoon I thought about how you might make a
really good film about Mysterious Island. Start with a virtual reality
simulation of a virgin island and strand on the island virtual sim
creatures. Make it realistic enough that they will starve without
carefully chosen periodic care packages from you, the player. Thus you
play the role of Captain Nemo in Verne's story, who observes events
and intervenes only when absolutely necessary. Make this a computer
situation and release so that, unlike ordinary games, it would record
the collective experience of all players and feed data back to the
Mysterious Island Central. Thus the most interesting permutations and
results would change the rules of the simulation itself. The film's
directors and actors would play the simulation over again and again,
which would make Verne's purpose in writing the book clear. Verne's
ostensive goal, by the way, he laid out in letters to his publisher:
he wanted to go over ground covered by those two great predecessors in
the castaway genre, Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson, whose
stories had illuminated his own childhood. He wanted to uncover
something new, something missing in the earlier stories. Perhaps one
day, with the aid of computer simulations and better film making
techniques, someone will do Verne's story justice.

There is a castaway element to the Greatest Story Ever Told, that
recounted in scripture. Consider this, from the first verses of the
seventeenth Surih of the Qu'ran, Night Journey, the one the Bab
renamed "Children of Israel,"

"Say: Verily, were men and Djinn assembled to produce the like of this
Koran, they could not produce its like, though the one should help the
other. And of a truth we have set out to men every kind of similitude
in this Koran, but most men have refused everything except unbelief."

There are many ways that this "producing its like" could be
understood. It could mean just copying it. The Qu'ran survived a
thousand years by being transcribed periodically, then for many
centuries it was printed in presses. Now we can do this very easily,
just hit a few buttons on the computer and "cut" the text of the
Qu'ran and "paste" it into as many places we wish. Simple reproduction
cannot be what is meant by "producing its like," can it?

I think the most elaborate attempt to "produce its like" is the
Enlightenment tradition, which in a thousand areas of life would
replace religion with science. The castaway novel itself is an attempt
to get down to basics, to cut through the superstitions of human
history and find a means of survival that uses science and reason
alone.

What then is the counterpart to the castaway novel in the Book of God?
I think it may be the story of a life of suffering, any life of
suffering, every life with suffering. For pain has a way of isolating
us on the isolated shores of worldly hopelessness. It cuts off from
all our baggage of outer supports and inherited goods and bads. In
pain, all is cut away save frail faith; you have only "producing the
likes" of Holy Writ to get you through to the other side. And once you
start writing that, only God can carry the project through. As the
Lord declared to Samuel,

"...when I begin I also make an end." (Sam 3:12)

The case of Ludwig Von Beethoven springs to mind. He had nothing to
console him as he descended into the isolation of deafness, the
ultimate hell for a musician and composer. His affliction inspired him
to write his climactic Ninth Symphony, some say the sublimest music
ever written. In these testing times he is reported to have kept above
his piano these five words, evidently taken from the Bhagavad Gita,

"...for above all things, God."

That is the principle of the Oneness of God, simply keeping Him above
all things, understanding the huge chasm between us and the One. The
like of this is can never be produced by human means. If the endless
gap between God and not-God, between Perfection and imperfection,
ceases to block but actually turns into a bridge, one that shines like
a sun, then it becomes a principle we can use. In this light
inequality coaxes as well as denies, like the light of Naw Ruz, that
shines out tonight. Baha'u'llah describes the process of this new
creation in explicit detail.

"I testify that no sooner had the First Word proceeded, through the
potency of Thy will and purpose, out of His mouth, and the First Call
gone forth from His lips than the whole creation was revolutionized,
and all that are in the heavens and all that are on earth were stirred
to the depths. Through that Word the realities of all created things
were shaken, were divided, separated, scattered, combined and
reunited, disclosing, in both the contingent world and the heavenly
kingdom, entities of a new creation, and revealing, in the unseen
realms, the signs and tokens of Thy unity and oneness. Through that
Call Thou didst announce unto all Thy servants the advent of Thy most
great Revelation and the appearance of Thy most perfect Cause."
(Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations, 295-296)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Fast Within a Fast

My Pre-Naw Ruz Fast Within a Fast

By John Taylor; 16 March, 2006

I come off over a week of violent illness with these impressions. Call
it "My Pre-Naw Ruz Fast Within a Fast" because I turned away meals,
even the thought of anything in my stomach made it turn. Not, that is,
a spiritual fast. It started probably in the weakness that early on
ended my spiritual fast two days after it started. The result is the
same, a fast within a fast. Like the play within the play in Hamlet,
it serves a function.

When this viral thing hit full force I was, more than anything, lost
in admiration at the stoic courage of these two kids, who lost the
week of school just before March Break to the same bug. If it had been
me in their shoes we would have been hearing nothing but, "Momka, make
it stop!" and "Momka, turn off the invisible toaster, I am roasting."
But we heard none of that, to the point where at times I imagined them
ready to return to school, whereas -- I now could see -- they were
far, far from it. The life threatening illness phase of this
affliction faded gradually into a latter stage of coughing fits that
keep me awake all night asking the question: which is worse, gross
suffering or utter misery? Can you trade one for the other?

My significant other, whatever her other merits, is the reverse of a
nurse and I was left in my darkest hours with a sorely depleted will,
stewing, tossing and turning in bed, stymied by decisions like,
"Should I get up and brush my teeth or should I keep retching at my
own bad breath?" or, "Should I fight my revulsion and drink more water
to reduce the migraine head pain, or should I just let the fever and
the head pain dance together here on my pillow?"

The worst was over with but the dry coughing remained. Starved for an
iota of human contact and warmth, I turned up early for our monthly
fireside, aware that it was unwise, I should not be there. I carried a
little mini-cassette tape recorder that I hoped to give to and ask
someone to tape the discussion. In my confused state, I had not
brought a tape for it. But I was reminded of my un-wisdom in showing
my face immediately by M, who fearfully passed by, face averted, mouth
covered, saying to me, "Go home." Meekly, I left before infecting more
victims. I hardly blame anyone for fearing this formidable virus.
Still if there were a moral spectrum of illness and cure, with viruses
on one end and `Abdu'l-Baha on the other, I would place believers like
this on the viral side, along with the green slime I cough into these
tissues. For them "Baha'i" is antinomian, a contagion not a reality
... a Baha'i visits the sick, nurses, helps them, shows concern, or at
least civility. A person who quails is unworthy to utter the word much
less mount a charger and enter the arena of spiritual endeavor. A
Baha'i thinks not of danger but of the law.

"But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he
meditates day and night." (Psalms 1:2)

As the fever mounted, much earlier on, I went to our Philosopher's
Cafe meeting on suicide in Wainfleet. Stu had to be at a teacher's
reunion and I was the only animator this time. Perhaps fortunately, I
was the only person to turn up. It would have been suicide for others
to do so. The person who suggested the topic was Mark, a handsome dark
haired young French teacher at Dunnville High School. He did not come
either, but last time he told of the problems that teachers here are
having counseling young people against suicide, the most common cause
of death among youths after accidents.

It seems that one of Mark's most brilliant students, with a good
family, a nice car, a pretty girlfriend, captain of the football team,
was having good times with some friends at his farm home when he
stepped into his bedroom, pulled out a shotgun and blew his head off.
Now all the others are saying, "This guy had it all, and he chose to
end it. If a winner like that could not deal with life, do not I have
even more reason to kill myself?" That, it seems, is how young people
think. God's law is not their delight, nor do they mediate on it, day
or night.

At the end of our most recent Haldimand Spiritual Assembly Meeting
someone read the usual closing prayer. It begins, in an early
translation, "Thou dost look upon us from Thine unseen Kingdom of
Oneness, [beholding] that we have assembled in this Spiritual
Meeting..." It hit me then that this explains exactly what this
principle of Oneness is all about. Unseen heights. Awareness that we
are being seen, that the light of the One pervades all. And, now that
I think of it, open sunlight fries viruses, doesn't it? So to get rid
of viruses, we just have to bring everything out into the light. We do
not need drugs or human cures, we just need the light of the law of
God. I hope that I will be able to live into the new year to continue
this series on the Oneness of God, and do it justice.

For me, the most characteristic aspect of Baha'u'llah's teaching is
the unity of word and deed. Okay, Jesus got riled against hypocrites,
but outside Jesus, I cannot think of any thinker who puts so much
emphasis on being and acting, not just talking. Consider this, where
Baha'u'llah defines "wise" as those who are not hypocrites; the
original word for "wise" being translated, I would guess, is "Hakim,"
which also means doctor, scientist, or person with "know-how" or
savoir faire.

"This Wronged One hath invariably treated the wise with affection. By
the wise is meant men whose knowledge is not confined to mere words
and whose lives have been fruitful and have produced enduring results.
It is incumbent upon everyone to honour these blessed souls. Happy are
they that observe God's precepts; happy are they that have recognized
the Truth; happy are they that judge with fairness in all matters and
hold fast to the Cord of My inviolable Justice." (Baha'u'llah,
Tablets, 62)

After so many hours of pain and misery, I read what He says here about
being happy with joy and longing. All I wanted, sunk in pain, was to
be happy, or at least to know that happiness exists somewhere in the
world. Baha'u'llah is saying that it is a possibility, if only we
observe God's precepts. Yet I turn on the television (the only time I
watch it, especially advertisements, is when I am sore sick) and I see
the reverse of that. Nothing but a death wish, a suffering wish. We
truly, deep down, spiritually are asking for nothing but a
bloodletting. That is why mindless violence pervades light
entertainment, it is the only consolation for not knowing real
justice.

I thought, well, I am suffering from cold, cough and sore throat, at
least I can relate to the cough medicine ads that used to be so
common. But I did not find any. No longer needed. I had been looking
forward to seeing my cough depicted in a moving plumbing chart. But I
found to my surprise that drug ads no longer find it necessary even to
mention any problem that their product may be deemed to stoop to cure.
They just say, "Gruffledyn. Ask your doctor about it." Or, more often,
just, "Gruffledyn." Why no emphasis on the problem, the pain and
suffering it relieves? Because people have gone beyond taking a pill
to solve an ache or a pain, they take pills as a reflex, like
breathing air. How else could prescriptions for insomnia medications
have shot up four or five times in the past four or five years? A
little tweak to doctors, a little to the public, and the reflex kicks
in; then sleep, a normal aspect of life is made into a money machine.
All you do is mention the brand name, and everybody knows what to do.

One light in my dark times was mentioned on a talk show, a satiric
comedy about industry's MOD squad (Merchants of Death, tobacco, booze,
and guns), which is soon to be released as a feature film, called
"Thank You For Smoking." Coincidentally, I had the book-on-tape among
many others on deck, and so I listened to the novel as I drove to
Hamilton to return my library materials. A very well crafted story
that made me think I should do more with my warning label dot com
ideas when I return to health. Somehow to combine humor with satire
with social reform, that would be glimmer of hope to make a mark.

I thought, well, I am suffering from cold, cough and sore throat, at
least I can relate to the cough medicine ads that used to be so
common. But I did not find any. No longer needed. I had been looking
forward to seeing my cough depicted in a moving plumbing chart. But I
found to my surprise that drug ads no longer find it necessary even to
mention any problem that their product may be deemed to stoop to cure.
They just say, "Gruffledyn. Ask your doctor about it." Or, more often,
just, "Gruffledyn." Why no emphasis on the problem, the pain and
suffering it relieves? Because people have gone beyond taking a pill
to solve an ache or a pain, they take pills as a reflex, like
breathing air. How else could prescriptions for insomnia medications
have shot up four or five times in the past four or five years? A
little tweak to doctors, a little to the public, and the reflex kicks
in; then sleep, a normal aspect of life is made into a money machine.
All you do is mention the brand name, and everybody knows what to do.
Call it antinomian medicine, a sickness within sickness.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Unseen Heights, I

The Unseen Heights, I; Book Four, Chapter III of Zenophon's Memorabilia

By John Taylor; 9 March, 2006

At this juncture in our exploration of the Oneness of God, it may be
appropriate to go through in detail one of the greatest documents on
this subject in ancient literature. This is the so-called
"Teleological Chapter" of Zenophon's Memorabilia. This book, you will
recall, is the memoirs of Zenophon about his teacher, Socrates.
Socrates, of course, was beyond the shadow of a doubt the greatest
teacher in history, outside of the Manifestations of God. Zenophon
begins by recalling those whom Socrates did not teach, those without
the prerequisites, as it were, for entrance into the school of
philosophy. He then proceeds to an argument about God and creation
which bears close resemblance in tone and content to how the Master,
Abdu'l-Baha, approached the Oneness of God. Finally, the piece de
resistance, we hear echoed the first two paragraphs of the Aqdas,
which admonishes all to recognize and obey God, and to do so according
to one's own lights, one's own cultural heritage and religious
background. Here is the birth of universal religion, one common faith.

"It may be inferred that Socrates was in no hurry for those who were
with him to discover capacities as speakers or as men of action or
invention, without a well-laid foundation of self- control
[Sophrosune, temperance, sanity of soul]. For those who possessed
abilities without these saving virtues would, he believed, only become
worse men with greater power for mischief. His first object and
endeavor was to instill into those who were with him a wise spirit, a
soundness of soul in relation to the gods. That such was the tenor of
his conversation in dealing with men may be seen from the current
accounts of others during his lifetime who were present on some
particular occasion. I confine myself to a particular discussion with
Euthydemus at which I was present.

Socrates said: Tell me, Euthydemus, has it ever struck you to observe
what tender pains the gods have taken to furnish man with all his
needs?

Euth. No indeed, I cannot say that it has ever struck me.

Well (Socrates continued), you do not need to be reminded that, in the
first place, we need light, and with light the gods supply us.

Euth. Most true, and if we had not got it we should, as far as our own
eyes could help us, be like men born blind.

Soc. And then, again, seeing that we stand in need of rest and
relaxation, they bestow upon us "the blessed balm of silent night."

Yes (he answered), we are much beholden for that boon.

Soc. Then, forasmuch as the sun in his splendor makes manifest to us
the hours of the day and bathes all things in brightness, but anon
night in her darkness obliterates distinctions, have they not
displayed aloft the starry orbs, which inform us of the watches of the
night, whereby we can accomplish many of our needs?

It is so (he answered).

Soc. And let us not forget that the moon herself not only makes clear
to us the quarters of the night, but of the month also?

Certainly (he answered).

Soc. And what of this: that whereas we need nutriment, this too the
heavenly powers yield us? Out of earth's bosom they cause good to
spring up for our benefit; and for our benefit provide appropriate
seasons to furnish us in turn not only with the many and diverse
objects of need, but with the sources also of our joy, pleasure and
gladness?

Yes (he answered eagerly), these things bear token truly to a love, a
beneficent regard for man.

Soc. Well, and what of another priceless gift, that of water, which
conspires with earth and the seasons to give both birth and increase
to all things useful to us; nay, which helps to nurture our very
selves, and commingling with all that feeds us, renders it more
digestible, more wholesome, and more pleasant to the taste; and mark
you in proportion to the abundance of our need the superabundance of
its supply. What say you concerning such a boon?

Euth. In this again I see a sign of providential care.

Soc. And then the fact that the same heavenly power has provided us
with fire -- our assistant against cold, our auxiliary in darkness,
our fellow-workman in every art and every instrument which for the
sake of its utility mortal man may invent or furnish himself withal.
What of this, since, to put it compendiously, there is nothing
serviceable to the life of man worth speaking of but owes its
fabrication to fire?

Euth. Yes, a transcendent instance of benevolent design. It may be
called an extreme instance of the divine 'philanthropy.'

Soc. Again, consider the motions of the Sun, how when he has turned
him about in winter he again draws nigh to us, ripening some fruits,
and causing others whose time is past to dry up; how when he has
fulfilled his work he comes no closer, but turns away as if in fear to
scorch us to our hurt unduly; and again, when he has reached a point
where if he should prolong his retreat we should plainly be frozen to
death with cold, note how he turns him about and resumes his approach,
traversing that region of the heavens where he may shed his genial
influence best upon us.

Yes, upon my word (he answered), these occurrences bear the impress of
being so ordered for the sake of man.

Soc. And then, again, it being manifest that we could not endure
either scorching heat or freezing cold if they came suddenly upon us,
note how gradually the sun approaches, and how gradually recedes, so
that we fail to notice how we come at last to either extreme.

For my part (he replied), the question forces itself upon my mind,
whether the gods have any other occupation save only to minister to
man; and I am only hindered from saying so, because the rest of
animals would seem to share these benefits along with man.

Soc. Why, to be sure; and is it not plain that these animals
themselves are born and bred for the sake of man? At any rate, no
living creature save man derives so many of his enjoyments from sheep
and goats, horses and cattle and asses, and other animals. He is more
dependent, I should suppose, on these than even on plants and
vegetables. At any rate, equally with these latter they serve him as
means of subsistence or articles of commerce; indeed, a large portion
of the human family do not use the products of the soil as food at
all, but live on the milk and cheese and flesh of their flocks and
herds, whilst all men everywhere tame and domesticate the more useful
kinds of animals, and turn them to account as fellow-workers in war
and for other purposes.

Yes, I cannot but agree with what you say (he answered), when I see
that animals so much stronger than man become so subservient to his
hand that he can use them as he lists.

Soc. And as we reflect on the infinite beauty and utility and the
variety of nature, what are we to say of the fact that man has been
endowed with sensibilities which correspond with this diversity,
whereby we take our fill of every blessing; or, again, this implanted
faculty of reasoning, which enables us to draw inferences concerning
the things which we perceive, and by aid of memory to understand how
each set of things may be turned to our good, and to devise countless
contrivances with a view to enjoying the good and repelling the evil;
or lastly, when we consider the faculty bestowed upon us of
interpretative speech, by which we are enabled to instruct one
another, and to participate in all the blessings fore-named: to form
societies, to establish laws, and to enter upon a civilized existence
-- what are we to think?

Euth. Yes, Socrates, decidedly it would appear that the gods do
manifest a great regard, nay, a tender care, towards mankind.

Soc. Well, and what do you make of the fact that where we are
powerless to take advantageous forethought for our future, at this
stage they themselves lend us their co-operation, imparting to the
inquirer through divination knowledge of events about to happen, and
instructing him by what means they may best be turned to good account?

Euth. Ay, and you, Socrates, they would seem to treat in a more
friendly manner still than the rest of men, if, without waiting even
to be inquired of by you, they show you by signs beforehand what you
must, and what you must not do.

Soc. Yes, and you will discover for yourself the truth of what I say,
if, without waiting to behold the outward and visible forms of the
gods themselves, you will be content to behold their works; and with
these before you, to worship and honor the Divine authors of them. I
would have you reflect that the very gods themselves suggest this
teaching. Not one of these but gives us freely of his blessings; yet
they do not step from behind their veil in order to grant one single
boon.

And pre-eminently He who orders and holds together the universe, in
which are all things beautiful and good; who fashions and refashions
it to never-ending use unworn, keeping it free from sickness or decay,
so that swifter than thought it ministers to his will unerringly --
this God is seen to perform the mightiest operations, but in the
actual administration of the same abides himself invisible to mortal
ken.

Reflect further, this Sun above our heads, so visible to all--as we
suppose--will not suffer man to regard him too narrowly, but should
any essay to watch him with a shameless stare he will snatch away
their power of vision. And if the gods themselves are thus unseen, so
too shall you find their ministers to be hidden also; from the height
of heaven above the thunderbolt is plainly hurled, and triumphs over
all that it encounters, yet it is all-invisible, no eye may detect its
coming or its going at the moment of its swoop. The winds also are
themselves unseen, though their works are manifest, and through their
approach we are aware of them.

And let us not forget, the soul of man himself, which if aught else
human shares in the divine--however manifestly enthroned within our
bosom, is as wholly as the rest hidden from our gaze. These things you
should lay to mind, and not despise the invisible ones, but learn to
recognize their power, as revealed in outward things, and to know the
divine influence.

Nay, Socrates (replied Euthydemus), there is no danger I shall turn a
deaf ear to the divine influence even a little; of that I am not
afraid, but I am out of heart to think that no soul of man may ever
requite the kindness of the gods with fitting gratitude.

Be not out of heart because of that (he said); you know what answer
the god at Delphi makes to each one who comes asking "how shall I
return thanks to heaven?"--"According to the law and custom of your
city"; and this, I presume, is universal law and a custom everywhere
that a man should please the gods with offerings according to the
ability which is in him.

How then should a man honor the gods with more beautiful or holier
honor than by doing what they bid him? but he must in no wise slacken
or fall short of his ability, for when a man so does, it is manifest,
I presume, that at the moment he is not honoring the gods. You must
then honor the gods, not with shortcoming but according to your
ability; and having so done, be of good cheer and hope to receive the
greatest blessings. For where else should a man of sober sense look to
receive great blessings if not from those who are able to help him
most, and how else should he hope to obtain them save by seeking to
please his helper, and how may he hope to please his helper better
than by yielding him the amplest obedience?

By such words--and conduct corresponding to his words--did Socrates
mould and fashion the hearts of his companions, making them at once
more pious and devout and sounder of soul, more virtuous.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Several Brief Topics

Several Brief Topics

By John Taylor; 8 March, 2006

Yesterday we reviewed Jules Verne's "Paris in the Twentieth Century,"
which he foresaw as a time of commercial and scientific prosperity at
the cost of the neglect and degradation of music and literature. I
ended yesterday's book review with an evocative Leonard Cohen song,
"Everybody Knows." Verne and Cohen's pessimistic anomie, with
variations, continues into this century. It contrasts with the
Master's understanding of the last century as the precursor of an age
of wonders, the Most Great Peace, as well as the end of a very long,
very dark period of barbarism and unbelief. Here is what the Master
said in 1912 about the "radiant" Twentieth Century:

"As this is the radiant century, it is my hope that the Sun of Truth
may illumine all humanity. May the eyes be opened and the ears become
attentive; may souls become resuscitated and consort together in the
utmost harmony as recipients of the same light. Perchance, God will
remove this strife and warfare of thousands of years. May this
bloodshed pass away, this tyranny and oppression cease, this warfare
be ended. May the light of love shine forth and illumine hearts, and
may human lives be cemented and connected until all of us may find
agreement and tranquility beneath the same tabernacle and with the
standard of the Most Great Peace above us move steadily onward."
(Promulgation, 116)

Both pessimists and optimists march forward under a standard or flag
blazoned with "Most Great Peace" on it.

I do not have leisure to continue this theme as it deserves today, so
I will quickly comment upon some news stories.

Every day I peruse the world's greatest newspaper, the Most Great
Meta-Journal, Google News. It is endlessly fascinating to see how
identical information is twisted around and given clever headlines in
various world newspapers.

For example, lately a group of University of Utah researchers examined
healthy couples in their 60's. They found, perhaps not surprisingly to
a Baha'i, that couples who consulted in a friendly, kindly manner
tended to have good heart health. On the other hand, the bickerers and
verbal sadists were inevitably teetering towards cardiovascular
breakdown. The prize for the cleverest introduction to their report on
this study goes to Melissa Healy of the Los Angeles Times, whose
article is called "Try a little tenderness." She writes,

"You care about your heart, so you don't smoke, you eat a healthful
diet and you exercise regularly. Maybe you should also lay off the
negativity and controlling comments when you talk to your spouse."
(March 6, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-capsule6mar06,1,377351.story?coll=la-headlines-health&ctrack=1&cset=true)

She reports that there is a clear gender difference. Women's arteries
clog when there is general negativity and hostility. Men's problem is
control (presumably they mean bullying or "manhandling"), whether by
themselves or their spouse. In either case, "a low quality
relationship," the study concludes, "is a risk factor for
cardiovascular disease."

I have always thought this. It is a Cohen "everybody knows" thing.
Everybody knows we say things that wound, and that the wounds count as
stress, and that we should watch what we say and try to be kind to
others, to ourselves and especially to those who are close to us. I am
sure that the main reason multiple relationships are more attractive
than stable ones now is that in the early stages one has to be kind in
order to be attractive, and that this euphoric kindness is addictive,
desperately needed. But that need not be the case.

I have always thought that marriage counselors are wasting their time
sitting back and listening to what couples say about each other. They
should be more like personal trainers, involved in day to day
transactions. They should record everything a couple says to each
other in a week and run it through a relationship analysis computer
program (admittedly such a program does not exist, but if we can send
mirv missiles to blow out dozens of cities on the other side of the
planet, we can do this) which would label every statement. Then when
they meet the relationship coach each would have a score for the week
to work with. The husband might have, say, 40 percent hostile
comments, 30 percent controlling, and 30 percent kind. Needless to
say, I am not saying that if the wife scores 31 percent kind, she will
"win" for that week. A good scoring system would chart their progress,
compare it with an average for couples of that age, and allow them to
improve their score in comparison with that. It would at the same time
measure their physical progress, blood pressure, etc., as a control.

I'd like to briefly review a remarkable documentary, strangely titled:
"9/11: The Filmmakers' Commemorative Edition." This is the result of
two French brothers who started out filming the story of a rookie
firefighter in New York, but then they ended up in the middle of the
collapse of the twin towers of the World Trade Center. By some
miracle, the whole firehouse was spared. The documentary is cleverly
made because you can watch it from start to finish and you still have
no idea how these guys were not most, if not all killed.

These fire jockeys were used to the WTC, and would often visit it
several times on a single shift. They were checking out a gas leak
around the corner and saw the first plane hit; being the first on the
scene it seemed to be like a routine fire and they treated it with the
usual methods. For the longest time, the lobby was filled with people
frantically talking on their old fashioned walkie-talkies. The WTC's
own security centre had been destroyed by the plane. The whole world's
media was focused on the WTC but they were wandering around with their
privileged com-links with absolutely no idea in what grave and
imminent danger they were in. Lots of talk and no communication. The
camera shows one poor official trying to hail someone in the
elevators; he comments, "There are ninety elevators in this building."
Ninety of them! What kind of disaster waiting to happen was this
building? There is no way a building should go higher than 18 floors,
and even that is pretty insane.

It is only by a hunch, a bad feeling that the chief happens to feel
(as the number of crashing bodies from high above increases all around
them), that he hits upon the decision to abandon ship, a choice that
saved all of their lives. This is an amazing document and I recommend
it.
Here is another article about the benefit of knowing several languages
that may be of interest.

Better living through video games? Globe and Mail,

<http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060209.gtbrains09/BNStory/AtPlay/>
CAROLYN ABRAHAM, MEDICAL REPORTER

When he snags downtime from his schoolwork, Ryerson University student
Brad Evans gabs with friends, grooves to Kanye West on his MP3 player
and races virtual hotrods on his Sony PlayStation. All at the same
time. Before you assume gadgets and video games fry the minds of the
future, consider this: Canadian researchers are finding evidence that
the high-speed, multitasking of the young and wireless can help
protect their brains from aging.

A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits
similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind. Just as people fluent
in two languages learn to suppress one language while speaking the
other, so too are gamers adept at shutting out distractions to swiftly
switch attention between different tasks.

A new study of 100 university undergraduates in Toronto has found that
video gamers consistently outperform their non-playing peers in a
series of tricky mental tests. If they also happened to be bilingual,
they were unbeatable.

"The people who were video game players were better and faster
performers," said psychologist Ellen Bialystok, a research professor
at York University. "Those who were bilingual and video game addicts
scored best -- particularly at the most difficult tasks."

The York study, which tested subjects' responses to various misleading
visual cues, is to be published next month in the Canadian Journal of
Experimental Psychology. Three other studies published in the past two
years have also concluded that action video games can lead to mental
gains involving visual skills and short-term memory. No one is certain
how this translates to general learning or everyday life. But Mr.
Evans, 21, an aerospace engineering student, said years of gaming have
added valuable dimensions to his thinking.

"I grew up with video games, starting with Nintendo and SuperMario . .
. from the age of 8 or 9," he said. "I know it helps with my
dexterity; it's good for co-ordination and faster reflexes."

Prof. Bialystok suspects video gamers, like bilinguals, have a
practised ability to block out information that is irrelevant to the
task at hand.

"It's like going to the gym," she said. "You build up the ability to
control impulses with practice."

Brain-imaging research released this week shows that the physical
inability to silence mental noise is key in making the elderly prone
to distraction and poor multitaskers. That study, published in the
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, shows the elderly lose the ability
to power up brain regions, such as the frontal lobe, needed to focus
on a task, and to turn down activity in inner brain regions that are
most active when a person is in idle or default mode.

"You can't turn off the extraneous things . . . the areas involved in
thinking of the self -- 'What do I have to do? . . . Gee, I have a
really bad headache," said study leader Cheryl Grady, senior scientist
and associate director at Toronto's Rotman Research Institute at
Baycrest.

In contrast, the brain images of people between ages 20 and 30
displayed a far more dramatic see-saw effect activating and
de-activating regions as they shifted out of idle to task. The study
found this pattern begins to dull in middle age and actually results
in cognitive deficits beyond age 60.

Dr. Grady said the results suggest that the brains of today's youth
might grow up differently.

"Young people using all of these gadgets all of the time, at the same
time, it may actually make a difference when they're old, like
bilingualism does," she said. "We know that practice changes the
brain, as with playing an instrument, a motor task -- it makes
physical changes in the brain. Maybe those kids who play video games
and who are also bilingual will be the best of older adults at
filtering out distractions."

Neuroscientist Shitij Kapur, chief of research at Toronto's Centre for
Addiction and Mental Health, said "it would be quite reasonable to
expect that these teens are good at multitasking, because they grow up
in a world that demands it."

But, he noted: "Today's teens may be better than their grandparents,
but when they are in their 70s, their grandchildren will say, 'Hey, he
can only play three games at the same time and I play seven.' It's
relative impairment. Their grandchildren will not think any higher of
them."

Prof. Bialystok first noticed bilingual children were proficient in
blocking out irrelevant information about 20 years ago. When asked to
identify a grammatically correct sentence, for example, both
bilinguals and monolinguals are, by age 5, able to choose, "Apples
grow on trees," over "Apple trees on grow" as the correct one.

But when it came to asking "Apples grow on noses" versus "Apples nose
on grow," only the bilingual children were able to choose the right
answer. Although the first sentence is grammatically correct,
monolingual children could not get over its silliness. "That's crazy,"
they'd shout, "You can't say that!"

"We have been able to show on a huge range of cognitive tests that
bilinguals are always better at problems with tricky, misleading
information," Prof. Bialystok said.

On average, she said, monolingual children take a year longer to learn
to block out irrelevant information and focus on a specific task.

Skeptics have argued that this matters little since monolingual
children eventually catch up to bilingual ones. As well, children
fluent in two languages can take slightly longer in tests identifying
objects and also go through a period when they might have smaller
vocabularies than those fluent in just one language. But for anyone of
two minds about learning a second language, researchers are finding
that bilingualism -- be it in French, Greek, Portuguese or Hindi --
has lifelong benefits.

"Does bilingualism protect you from cognitive decline? Every study
we've done suggests that it does," Prof. Bialystok said.

The York team recently compared 94 bilinguals and monolinguals between
the ages of 30 and 80. It found that while both groups started showing
cognitive decline by age 60, the rate of slowing for bilinguals was
much slower. Now young people who play video games are showing this
similar pattern of high performance in resisting irrelevant impulses.
The current report compared 50 avid players against 50 non-players and
then subdivided each group between bilinguals and monolinguals.

When asked to describe the colour of the word "blue," for example,
when it is written in green ink, non-players were far more likely to
choose the dominant impulse and say "blue," though the colour is
green. "The [video game players] are much harder to mislead, to
trick," Prof. Bialystok said. Although Prof. Bialystok is a strong
proponent of bilingual education, she is less enthusiastic about video
games. Recent studies have found overexposure to violent video games
may desensitize children to violence and that gaming can become
addictive enough to distract from other activities.

"I'd still be plenty concerned if my child played them all the time,"
Prof. Bialystok said. "Sure, they're getting better at rapid search
and response problems, but I really would prefer my child read a
book."

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Paris in the 20th Century

Book Review: "Paris in the Twentieth Century," by Jules Verne, Random
House, NY, 1996

By John Taylor; 7 March, 2006

Reading this novel now is a surreal time capsule of a reading
experience. It is Verne's second novel, which was rejected by his
publisher and left in manuscript form on the shelf until his literary
executors twisted the truth, staged a publicity campaign calling it a
"lost manuscript," and finally had it published in French in 1994, in
English in 1996. It was written in the early 1860's, around the time
of the Kitab-i-Iqan, so it is of interest to Baha'is from a futurist
perspective. The Iqan argues that religion in pure form will never
lose its relevance, that it will be a help to humanity if we can see
it as the origin of relativism, not as a huddling refugee from it.
Verne stands in the opposing enlightenment tradition, regarding faith
as irrelevant, outmoded, as quite literally out of the question. His
view of the future in this novel is a product of that.

Verne envisions an expansion of the public school system until in 1960
the novel predicts that it would shelter about 155,000 students in a
single "Academic Union," in effect one vast university; the editor in
the introduction explains that this is pretty close to the actual
figure for France in 1960. Coincidentally, I had just read that right
now the largest university in the world is the University of Mexico
City, with well over three hundred thousand students. There are half a
dozen bigger schools now than Verne pictured oppressing the soul of
France.

Surprisingly to a Baha'i, Verne sees war as no longer a problem a
century into the future. A character comments,

"Courage was outdated, like the cannons. Machines fought, not men;
hence the impulse to put an end to wars, which had become ridiculous."
(Paris In the Twentieth Century, Jules Verne, Random House, NY, 1996,
p. 134)

While he is right (and agrees with Baha'u'llah) about the increasing
folly of war when super efficient killing machines do all the
fighting, at heart this is not a profound analysis of the human
condition. Generally speaking, soldiers do not fight and countries
have never gone to war to prove their manliness or valor. Their
motives are not that noble, if you can call that noble. Kant, for one,
agreed with Baha'u'llah that you either have perpetual peace or you
have war and continual preparation for war. War and peace is hell or
heaven, with nothing in between; it is a coin that does not stand on
its edge. If anybody doubted it, the fall of the Berlin Wall proved
that you do not even have to have superpower rivals to have arms
buildups and massive waste of money on security and preparation for
war. All that is needed is an excuse, a threat, any kind of threat,
even the possibility of a threat suffices.

Not that Verne is optimistic, he just sees the problem coming from a
slightly different direction. His dystopia is a huge exaggeration of
the rivalry that you see in every university between the nerds and the
jocks, between artsie-fartsies and the practical guys in disciplines
like engineering and science. He sees business exploding in influence
(he is right about that, to say the least) and then jumping onto the
side of the jocks, and by their influence suppressing literature in
favor of non-fiction.

Not that anybody is forced. He sees the change as a wholly democratic
thing, the long, proud tradition of French literature and music dies
not because it is illegal or officially discouraged but simply from
lack of interest. A central character in the story gets his precious
library on the cheap, from the bargain bin, like, well, my little
library. He cannot protest against a tyrannical government forbidding
reading, as in Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, but simply foresees a
universal boredom with fiction, as opposed to non-fiction. People
prefer to sit down and read tables of shipping statistics rather than
a good novel.

Verne's own spectacular literary career, which took off months later,
must have come as great a surprise to him as it did to everybody who
knew him, and it helped to dispel his own dire prediction of the death
of literature. People, like Jules Verne himself, were and are
passionately interested in both fiction and science, and even more in
the marriage of the two; hence the growth of a new genre that Verne
called scientific novels and we now call science fiction. When he did
what his heart was telling him, to combine his own fascination with
science (which, as a lover of literature, worried him) with a ripping
melodramatic tale, his books sold like hotcakes.

That is probably why even in old age Verne never made any effort to
have this novel published, in spite of the accuracy of its
predictions, most of which are startlingly precise. The reason his son
and literary executor, Michel Verne, did not try to have "Paris in the
20th Century" published is even more amusing. The protagonist of the
novel is named Michel and Verne clearly was imagining what his newborn
son would be like when he grew up. Unfortunately the fictional Michel
is very much a klutz, a dreamer and a ninny. Who can blame the real
Michel for keeping the manuscript Sub Rosa, especially when he had
been such a ninny, practically a delinquent, in his real-life young
years? Verne himself was to blame for being so accurate in predicting,
since, like most fathers of the time, he was completely distant and
uninvolved in Michel's early upbringing, even though they lived under
the same roof. Early childhood education was an exclusive province of
wives, not husbands.

On the whole Verne's big mistake is to vastly overestimate the
intelligence of the human race. For example, he sees Paris running on
a transit system based upon elevated commuter trains, like the "El" in
Chicago. They run on a wierd but apparently practicable combination of
magnetic levitation and pneumatic tubes. That is, an ordinary train
track has a narrow tube running between the rails, like the electric
"third rail." It pushes metal disks through the semi-evacuated tube by
means of atmospheric air pressure. The train gains locomotion from
this tube underneath by simply turning on an encircling electromagnet,
which latches onto the disk in the tube, which pulls it all forward.
To stop, you just shut down the air pressure. Even simpler, why not
just turn off the power of your electromagnet and let the train grind
to a halt? Anyway, Verne attributes this "Williams system" to a 19th
Century Belgian engineer called Jobard. (p. 22) If only this guy got
the credit he deserves.

These trains run in what he calls a "viaduct," which may mean that
water lubricates them, I do not know. Being of lightweight
construction the trains do not need heavy supports or a separate
locomotive; they run every ten minutes, each holding a thousand
passengers. Best of all, the energy for these pneumatic tubes comes
directly from wind farms in the countryside. No problems with the
inefficiency of energy conversion, the air is pumped directly by the
wind. No problems with global warming! Just amazing.

Naturally Verne does not guess that petroleum and the automobile would
become addictive substances sucking the life out of the whole planet.
If people have an adequate transit system, why choke everybody to
death? There would be no point. Still, he accurately predicts
horseless carriages using internal combustion engines running on
hydrogen, no less. He just sees them as a supplement, not an
obsession. Their great advantage, he points out, is that they do not
eat fuel when they are not running, like those stupid, wasteful horses
do. Still, "these gas cabs were responsible for a tremendous
consumption of hydrogen, as were those enormous trucks loaded with
stones and paving materials, which deployed some twenty to thirty
horsepower." (p. 25) What sort of whacko would predict a public
macho-dumb enough to buy a sports horseless carriage with a 500
horsepower engine? That would be just insane.

As far as the feeling of the age, I do not thing Verne was far off
either. The death of literature is just a symbol for him of a deeper
spiritual loss that he knew would not get better without something
big, even as the Revelation of Baha'u'llah was beginning to shine
forth. I think it is summed up in a song that Canadians have been
hearing a lot lately on radio and television, with its induction into
the Music Songwriter's Hall of Fame. It was new to me, and it seems to
have been written around the time when this novel takes place, 1961 or
so; it sums up what both Verne and I worry about, the nameless
impotence, a lack inside that sucks the life out of common knowledge,
that divorces imagination and planning, a personal void of ignorance
and lack of love that renders the public thing into a corrupt nullity.

Everybody Knows

By Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that its now or never
Everybody knows that its me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that its moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu
Everybody knows its coming apart
Take one last look at this sacred heart
Before it blows

And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

GR and OG part II

The Golden Rule and the Oneness of God (second part)

By John Taylor; 6 March, 2006

My first essay about One God and the Golden Rule tried to connect sex
and family with the rule of love, the Golden Rule, and I was not
entirely successful. I remember my old writing teacher, Homer Hogan,
criticizing one of my shiny but flawed efforts by comparing me to a
juggler who keeps tossing more and more objects into the air. The
reader knows that they are all going to come down on my head, the only
question is, "When will the crash come?" Probably I worked out the
short essay as my medium of choice because I can shut the stage
curtains just before everything comes down on my head, thus saving me
a great deal of pain and embarrassment. That Golden Rule essay was an
example of a performance where the curtain closed too late and the
deluge of floating themes and ideas fell down on my head; and then the
fast started...

I was saddened having to stop fasting due to health and it was not
until last night that my sleep normalized and I recovered to some
extent from the nagging migraine monkey on my back. But then I had a
dream that in a strange way consoled and inspired, wherein I attended
a talk given by my spiritual sister, AP. What she said and the way she
said it was different from any speaker I had ever heard. I was lost in
admiration at that strange, ineffable spiritual quality about her.
Afterwards I said to her, "It is as if you have limned an entirely new
dimension onto your character." Later, I was napping in a Mount Hope
airport lounge's couch and she saw me and fell on my sleeping form and
began hugging me tight, with all her might. I began to wonder, did she
gain her charisma and insight from some great joy, or perhaps some
terrible tragedy? The dream did not answer that and I awoke. Maybe
this was the dream that Stu predicted would answer why I am afflicted
with migraines, that would give an understanding that consoles and
cures.

The question remains, how to connect the disparate ideas, sex for
consistency and justice, for adaptation to change, family, reciprocity
and ultimately the Oneness of God? Jesus' parable of the wedding feast
(Matt 22:1-14, WEB) is probably the ticket. It describes how the
Kingdom of God calls many, but few are chosen, just as love is
universal and it is also personal, that is, eros and familial in
nature. Let us go through it in detail.

A harsh king, an absolute monarch with an imperious, arbitrary temper
(ie, not to be confused with a God of love) invites certain nobles to
be his honored guests at the wedding feast of his son; he follows
normal protocol in inviting his guests but they in return slight his
authority. Needless to say, in a monarchy the wedding feast of the
firstborn son has immense political implications. It is how
governmental power will be extended into the future. To ignore this
event is to challenge present as well as future authority.

"But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm,
another to his merchandise, and the rest grabbed his servants, and
treated them shamefully, and killed them."

Worse than begging off an invitation, they offer a direct,
contemptuous insult. The ability to run a farm and engage in trade is
a result of peace, which in turn results from the power of government
to maintain order and keep out invaders. Finally, the scum take the
offensive by torturing and murdering his representatives. In this
version of the story the king immediately responds in kind, burning
their cities to the ground.

He sends the king's servants to stand at the crossroads and invite all
comers. The lowborn, the poor and other stragglers freeload at the
wedding feast but are expected to treat the host with due gratitude
and respect. One of them turns up at this formal occasion in street
cloths. Why do you not have wedding clothing? the king asks, and the
man has nothing to say. He orders that he be thrown into the outer
darkness "where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth." (22:14)

Such protocol is seen in holy scripture. Baha'is talk of the three
onenesses, the Oneness of God, Oneness of His Manifestations and
oneness of humanity. According to this order, Baha'u'llah began His
mission in Sulaymaniyyih (Solomon's mountains) addressing Sufis and
mystics (specialists in Spirit and the Godhead), then went on to the
priests (guardians of divine law) and ended by addressing the kings
(outer power) in His Proclamation. Again, Baha'u'llah began His
Mission alone, as a dervish in the Sulaymaniyyih mountains, finally
befriending and addressing certain high Sufi mystics inhabiting that
center of Islamic mysticism. This brought about His early works such
as the Four Valleys and the Ode of the Dove. This connects the need to
hold to One God, which means "He doeth what He willeth," one boss, one
absolute authority. Anything less is a slight, and no love or
compassion comes through. Witness these parallel passages, the first
from Jesus, the second from the Hidden Words.

"No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and
love the other; or else he will hold to one, and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and Mammon." (Matt 6:24, WEB)
"Ponder awhile. Hast thou ever heard that friend and foe should abide
in one heart? Cast out then the stranger, that the Friend may enter
His home." (PHW61)

The farm, or mammon, is growth, the mindless lust for expansion that
permeates those with the power to decide, who are literally choking
the life out of our planet. Next in doctrinal works like the
Javahiru'l-Asrar and the Kitab-i-Iqan, He addressed the substance or
propaganda of the Mullahs and priests, the merchant in the parable of
the Wedding Feast. Finally He invited the leaders of the world to the
feast in His Proclamation to the Kings, and they killed the messenger.
The poor are allowed into the feast but at least one is wholly unaware
of the gravity of the occasion and is tossed down, down to the most
un-toothsome of locations, hell.

The point is that this king seems so arbitrary and angry because of
our own insolence not out His love for us, which is infinite. We are
in utter need of help, but our only hope is to deal with a Being Who
is wholly other, whose knowledge is inherently beyond us. To do that,
you must treat Him as such. As Baha'u'llah writes in the Four Valleys,

"Were all the denizens of earth and heaven to unravel this shining
allusion, this darksome riddle, until the Day when the Trumpet
soundeth, yet would they fail to comprehend even a letter thereof, for
this is the station of God's immutable decree, His foreordained
mystery. Hence, when searchers inquired of this, He made reply, "This
is a bottomless sea which none shall ever fathom."(Ali) And they asked
again, and He answered, "It is the blackest of nights through which
none can find his way." (SVFV, 57-8)

Stu passed to me a book beautifully titled "Survival of the Wisest" by
Nobel Prize winner Jonas Salk. Unfortunately his turgid style obscures
what he says, but I flipped to this passage, which inadvertently
illuminates this point about the Oneness of God, sex, Golden Rules,
and the wedding feast.

"Since many of the problems for which Man seeks solutions are an
inherent part of the process of human development itself, and since he
is both a contributing cause as well as a sufferer, his position as
both patient and physician is a difficult one. And yet he must be
both." (Salk, Survival of the Wisest, Harper and Row, New York, 1973,
p. 118)

A person who acts as his own lawyer has, as the saying goes, a fool
for a lawyer, and it is illegal for a physician to prescribe his own
cure or to treat a member of his own family. This is because one has
not the objectivity, even if the knowledge is there. In the same way
humanity cannot cure itself, it needs a separate, a divinely inspired
physician to offer an assured, safe, sanctioned cure. The gulf between
us and divine perfection is offers that objectivity. That in essence
is why the principle of the Oneness of God starts, in every nook and
cranny of religious history, with the Golden Rule, and why the Rule is
always applied according to the judgment of His few, chosen,
authorized Representatives.

"In brief, the sun is one sun, the light is one light which shines
upon all phenomenal beings. Every creature has a portion thereof, but
the pure mirror can reveal the story of its bounty more fully and
completely. Therefore, we must adore the light of the Sun, no matter
through what mirror it may be revealed. We must not entertain
prejudice, for prejudice is an obstacle to realization. Inasmuch as
the effulgence is one effulgence, the human realities must all become
recipients of the same light, recognizing in it the compelling force
that unites them in its illumination." (Promulgation, 115)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Fast and Date Rant

Fast, Day Three; Date Rant

By John Taylor; 4 March, 2006

We had a delayed Feast of Ala on the first fast evening, and since few
were committing to come, the venue was moved to Anne's house. The kids
have learned to anticipate such small Feasts wherein they can easily
wangle their way onto the program. Silvie started off their impromptu
children's section by reading a comic book version of Rumi's fable
about the four blind men, as portrayed in an older Brilliant Star
Magazine. She then went on to her own little play, "Millie and Flavie
Return to the Land of Magic." Since this was a sequel, Silvie read her
script of the original play. Millie and Flavie, you see, are two cats
who find a magic carpet and go to a land of magic and adventure. Since
they are kittens, nothing too dangerous or traumatic happens and the
ending is happy. The audience got is amusement from her stage whispers
to her little brother, who did not always agree with the line he was
being prompted to say. If we left these two to their own devices, they
would spend the whole weekend, every spare moment they have, going
through these plays; these are a happy combination of plays and play
for them.

Unfortunately, there was a faint smell of wood smoke at that Feast. It
went straight to my head, gave me minor pain and pushed me parlously
close to a full blown migraine attack. Then, the next fast evening, I
did get a migraine. Strangely, I was still able to beat Stu five games
to one at table tennis; I was weakened and from the start could not
find my rocket serve. However, that hour of daily training in my
garage has made my shot placement quite deadly. Then even more
unbelievably, I beat him at chess in spite of the head-splitting
karaoke music in the background. When I told him of my migraine woes,
Stu gave this advice:

"Ask yourself the question `Why am I getting these attacks?' before
you go to sleep at night. You will then have a dream that will reveal
the reason, and once you know that, they will go away forever."

I fail to see the logic of that. What if God, while explaining the
reason to me in a dream suddenly realizes that I need more, not less,
affliction in my life? Then where would I be? No, I prefer to let
splitting heads split and not try to reason why. Mine is but to
screech and writhe.

Nonetheless, it looks like I will have to give up fasting for this
year, since it is pretty clear that it is pushing me beyond my narrow
physical limits. My main defense against migraine is to drink water
constantly, to hit the water bottle worse than any alcoholic ever hit
a booze bottle. Whenever it occurs to me, especially when an attack
seems imminent, I down water until I feel that I am going to burst,
then I pace up and down a few minutes and then force myself to down
another two or three more big water glasses. It seems strange but it
works, and I cannot complain that this medication is too expensive or
has any side effects, other than the obvious.

You know.

All day I feel like a runner in that old Monte Python skit, "The
Incontinence Race," a marathon of incontinent contestants who must
stop running and rush off into the bushes to relieve themselves every
few seconds. Really, wherever I go now my first thought is, "Where is
the bathroom?" But compared to the alternative, having your head
tightened by a band while at the same time being split apart by an ax,
this is a minor inconvenience. I find that I can even pump myself to
bursting with water during the nausea stage of a migraine, when even
the thought of food or drink intake makes me want to puke. I tell
myself then, it is only water, so what if it comes back up again? So
far the water gets past the gates and does its brain irrigation;
unlike coffee, it has not once been upchucked since I hit upon this
ploy.

Whither the Badi' list now? I was planning on publishing a 51 page
brochure on Oneness of God, first in a series on the Baha'i
principles. But next Thursday our Philosopher's Cafe in Wainfleet is
discussing suicide; maybe I will revamp the series of essays on that
topic that I wrote a few years ago. I have had time to grow detached
from the suicide essays and going over them would be good preparation,
since Stu cannot make it and I will be facilitating the Cafe alone,
for the first time.

My publishing plan is to semi-self-publish these little tracts on
lulu.com. No annoying middleman publisher to suck away the profits,
or, as his publisher did to Jules Verne, swindle me out of the income
from the most profitable item, the illustrations. In any case, it
takes months if not years to get these things reviewed by the NSA (the
Baha'is, not the NSA spies, who review everything anyway, without our
knowledge or consent), so do not expect anything soon. I would like to
be able to predict what I am going to do from minute to minute but I
cannot, so who knows what I will publish first, if anything.

I read recently the last novel Jules Verne published in his lifetime,
The Invasion of the Sea, as translated, heavily edited and published
by the Westlayan University Press. I kept asking myself, why am I
getting through this obscure and rather insipid novel when I have lost
interest in so many others, including Verne's most popular and exiting
works? It was packed with footnotes and was about a proposed, long
abandoned project to flood a large section of the Tunisian Sahara
which happens to be below sea level. Then I realized that it was the
footnotes. They are not a drawback for me, I actually like my novels
full of footnotes. Back in my school days I recalled that I was
thrilled with GM Frazer's Flashman novels, replete with fake footnotes
explaining the historical background of the events in question. Last
year I came across a new Flashman novel by Frazer, and though I never
read novels these days I devoured that one. Eureka, it was the
footnotes! My essays are nothing else but long footnotes to the
Writings, that is how they keep my interest up.

One of the questions occupying Verne scholars about this last novel
is, "Was Verne fer or agin' this flooding of the Sahara?" Some say he
was on the side of the Berber tribes in opposing it, others say he
liked the idea of a technological improvement on a huge scale. Well,
allow me to interpose my own little footnote.

In my opinion Verne would have been all for the flooding except for
one crucial factor. Like me, he must have been a date lover. He points
out early on, and not even in a footnote, that this part of the Sahara
produces the finest dates in the world. One variety, he lovingly adds,
is completely transparent, a sort of ghost date. This wonderful
quality is because of one thing alone, the Berbers believe, the
extremely dry desert climate. If the Sahara here were flooded it would
be goodbye delicious date crop. Furthermore, he says, there are no
fewer than one hundred and fifty varieties of dates grown in this
region of Algeria and Tunisia. I had no idea. I call myself a date
lover and here I was imagining that there is just one kind, the
Iranian Parnoosh dates that have become my staple, my one and only
snack food ever since I read that that was `Abdu'l-Baha's favorite,
that He often had a handful of dates instead of a meal.

Last year there was a study that found that most Americans get most of
their anti-oxidants from coffee, even though there is a tiny amount of
anti-oxidants in a cup of coffee compared to a handful of dates. The
researcher commented, "We ignore the dates because they are not a part
of the American diet, coffee is." That made me jump up and down and
scream in frustration. Why not make dates part of our diet, or at
least inform people of the reality of the choice so that they can make
changes that have to be done sooner or later anyway? Do we all have to
die of cancer and heart disease before someday somebody says, hey why
not make some easy dietary switches? Switching to dates is like
switching to chocolate bars, only tastier and sweeter. Why is it so
bloody inconceivable that Americans will have the intelligence to make
dates a major part of their diet?

You see what I mean about not knowing what I am going to write next.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Dementia, Gandhi Thesis

Day Two of Fast Dementia, Gandhi Thesis

By John Taylor; 3 March, 2006

Stu asked me about this fasting thing and I realized I could say that
I had been doing this annual fast since I was eighteen years old, some
thirty odd years. Fasting, we have faith, is like a mining expedition.
As the Great Being said, regard man as a mine rich in minerals of
great value. Yeah, that is the ticket. Like Shrek the ogre, we are
like onions, we have layers. The fast strips off layer after layer
until just before the sundown meal, we are what we really are. In my
case, it is a very annoyed, impatient, critical, harping, bitter
pessimist. I start off in the morning this fat, tolerant, content,
kindly individual and at the end I slouch about, a horrible,
hypercritical, sniveling, complaining, rampaging, well, ogre. Just ask
my family. We had a horrible meal last night, until I got some hooch
in my belly and changed back again. This is the valuable mineral
underneath being exposed by fasting, an angry, embittered non-entity
incapable of remembering from one minute to the next. Call it "fast
dementia." Maybe my gems just need processing, maybe these essays will
polish them.

After all these years, I know just what to expect from the fast, and
from myself; that is, a great deal less. I have learned not even to
try to continue on in a straight line with my little investigations,
which tend to be scatterbrained at the best of times. Experience
conditions me to expect nothing better than nineteen days of
puttering. Not that I can complain, I have mountains of puttering to
do. If in the future others work like me, Naw Ruz will be followed by
the world's biggest garage sale season.

Yesterday, fast day one, I woke at four AM -- the fast long ago
changed my sleeping schedule, so that not only during Ala but year
round my sleeping schedule is that of a farmer, very early waking,
very early retiring to bed. First thing, I ate my gazpacho soup along
with breakfast, and started into inanition and aridity by rapidly
finishing off a half finished essay on One God and the Golden Rule.
Its structure was what the French call "broken sticks," scattered
about worse than usual, but at least it was done.

Then I set in on an extended puttering session, meant to last as long
as my limping cognitive faculties endured, after which I had prepared
a pile of library VHS tapes and DVD's to take me through the long,
long late afternoon of the fast.

For months I had missed having a stereo system in the living room, so
I scrounged parts from disparate components in the study and the
living room and connected them to the tower speakers waiting there,
lonely and unused. In the process two of the scrounged stereo
components broke down; I ran out into the snow flurry and dumped them
into the trash can. My stereo equipment all comes from the garbage can
or the garage sale, which does not make me feel deprived, since the
technology in the 1960's surpassed the ability of the adult ear to
hear its subtleties. Still, this old equipment is very time consuming
to set up, and I could see why people spend money on new stuff.

Finally I got it all together well enough to listen to a cassette on
the tape deck as I puttered. It was the last side of a book-on-tape I
have slowly been going through, "The Happy Isles of Oceania, Paddling
the Pacific," by Paul Theroux. In spite of his French name, this
American novelist and travel writer is, for an American, typically and
topically anti-French; though in this case quite understandably so, in
view of the devastation they have wrought upon their colony in
Polynesia, which is, he observes, one of the ugliest places in the
whole ocean. He portrays their "Tahiti Day" celebrations as an act of
intimidation, their fiercest legionnaires marching down the street
before a glum, silent crowd of natives. His impression of that island
contrasts sharply with the American Hawaii, wherein he settles with
palpable relief, as if at home, which it is, being a state of union.

Theroux's are the observations of a very well traveled tourist, and
are all the more interesting for his broad experience. When he says
that Easter Island temporary workers, and Australians on the outback,
both white and "Abo," are rivaled only by winter-bound Finns for their
determination to use every spare moment of their lives to drink
themselves into oblivion, you tend to believe him. He has nothing but
contempt for the natives on the islands who have adapted to the touch
of Western civilization. He seeks every opportunity to dig out what he
calls the "traditionalists," who can be seen at a distance, since they
build their thatched houses in the old way, out of local materials.
They do not use corrugated metal for their roofs. Theroux has done
ample background reading and fits many of these isolated places into
their context in the history of literature and discovery. He compares
the islands of the Pacific to stars of the sky, very far apart,
separated by an endless ocean.

Most uniquely, Theroux has found a wonderful way to get out of the
trodden tourist pathways. He carries along with his normal baggage a
collapsible kayak. It is made of canvas, is very serviceable and takes
him to the most unexpected places, and it all folds up into the size
of two suitcases, evidently. I have been out on the open ocean in a
Northumberland Sea lobster trawler and the very thought of braving
those waves the size of small mountains in a tiny kayak makes me break
out in a cold sweat. But you cannot argue with the fellow's success in
getting away from corrupted locales into some wonderful, beautiful,
unspoiled, tiny islands that are otherwise inaccessible. Maybe some
Baha'i travel teacher should do the same thing, as long as that
teacher is not myself. I would restrict myself to a folding bicycle if
ever I got away from the Dunnville area.

Here I am at paragraph eight of my daily essay, and I am already
losing it. So let me interject a fragment from my junk writing bin
something I started months ago but abandoned, called "Gandhi Thesis."
It seemed pretty terrible until my brain slipped down a notch a few
minutes ago and now, suddenly, it is better than anything I could
conceivably write right now.

Gandhi thesis

Love breeds love, and hate breeds hate. Love stands for life, hate is
its denial. Between life and death, between the realm of the heart and
that of the body, there is a huge gap that cannot be crossed. It
cannot, yet it must be.

The story of Mohandas Gandhi is the Brothers Karamazov told in the
East, with a special eastern twist. Having read a little about him
lately, I ask myself, was Gandhi a politician, as some consider him to
have been, or was he a spiritual leader, as he thought of himself?
Consider this,

"I can say without the slightest hesitation ... that those who say
that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what
religion means."

Gandhi said that. My question is, would a Baha'i agree? I am inclined
to say, perhaps yes, but with a huge amount of hesitation. Far more
than Gandhi had, who as he says had not the slightest hesitation in
saying it.

Yes, religion has a huge formative impact on the grounds of politics,
nobody can deny that. Politics is a tree that grows out of our
thought, and thought is conditioned by the heart, the concern of
religion. Baha'is have a principle of non-interference in politics. At
the same time, we do not. On one hand, the meddling of religious
leaders in political affairs, and vice versa, confuses all camps, both
religious and political. On the other, you cannot draw thick lines
between them, such divorces betray the oneness of nature, of humanity,
and ultimately of God. Everything loves, serves and depends upon
everything else, under one sun.

You need look no further than the life of Gandhi himself to see the
dire dangers of confounding politics for religion, and vice versa.
Gandhi was a religious leader, but he was also very much a politician
with political goals. A religious teacher has educative goals and
cannot be concerned with policy and implementation. Or, not. If
religion is totally quiescent, it is useless. Baha'u'llah said, if
something begins and ends in words, it is fit for fire. But as things
are right now, charged and inflamed, a spiritual leader cannot stick a
finger in without getting it chopped up. Things are not working now.
We need to make a world where politico and pastor both have clear jobs
and do not interfere with one another.

In the end Gandiji was assassinated by one Nathuram Godse, who
excoriated both Gandhi's politics and his religion, accusing him of
bringing back superstitious beliefs such as the power of the soul, the
inner voice, fasting, prayer and purity of mind. Later the Hindu
nationalists got even more bloody minded. The Hindutva and Bajrang Dal
movements regard Gandhi's Hinduism as weak and effeminate. You can go
to www.hinduunity.org and see them urging Hindus to exterminate Islam.

This is Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov playing out in real life.
Dostoevsky's story was the story of denial of God and love told in
Western terms; one brother denies out of conscience, the second
brother out of habit, and the last carries them through to the logical
conclusion, premeditated murder. In the Eastern story of Gandhi, it
was not denial that degraded into murder, it was crossing the line,
confusing faith with praxis. It was faith meddling with politics, it
was politics infecting religion, and it was both missing the point
completely, the point being love and unity.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

God and the Golden Rule

The Golden Rule and the Oneness of God

By John Taylor; 1 March, 2006

I wish to talk today about how reciprocity, the Golden Rule, relates
to Oneness of God.

Last time, we looked at how life thrives, innovates and maintains
consistency of past with future by means of sexual reproduction. By
means of sex, organisms for billions of years have conserved the best
of past experience while adapting to change and accommodating
innovation. In humans, sex is controlled and domesticated by the
family. The institution of the family is how humans maintain history,
consistency over many generations. For that reason sexual morality is
the first concern of the law of God. Sex informs its very structure.

A striking example is the Ten Commandments. The Decalogue starts with
three laws maintaining the oneness of God; one, it forbids other Gods,
idols, two, it disallows taking God's name in vain, and three, no work
permitted on the Sabbath. After these three spiritual laws, it
immediately proceeds to obedience to parents. Then, "thou shalt not
commit murder," and third, adultery is forbidden. That is, two out of
these first three social laws are designed to maintain the consistency
of family with a jealous God who shows "steadfast love to thousands
who will love me and keep my commandments." (Deut 5:10, RSV) It would
be impossible to tease sex and family out of this legal system; even
the Oneness of God and our love for Him is framed in sexual terms; God
is pictured as a "jealous" Deity, one who will avenge Himself when
spurned. To say "God is love" has consequences, and not all are always
pretty. But there is a clear reason for it all, and that is
consistency.

Some essays ago we noted a good point about consistency that a Muslim
intellectual made, that in many respects we keep our private faith and
ideals separate from our public, community life, that we do not force
our beliefs into the public forum where they are not welcome or
appropriate, however the principle of consistency requires that we
live up to what we believe, that we reflect in word and deed the best
of our private ideals in all aspects of life. Conversely, the needs of
society should be an intimate concern of our inner life too. Such
consistency is a requirement of justice.

The moral philosopher who dealt with this most incisively was Joseph
Butler, who argued against hedonists' tendency to draw artificial
dichotomies, to divorce private pleasure from public service. Arguing
on scriptural grounds, Bishop Butler held that both sides enhance one
another; what is bad for personal enjoyment is bad for the public
good, and what is good for one upholds the good of the other. His
prose is admittedly terse and difficult but I think it repays what it
demands of the reader. He says,

"And since the apostle speaks of the several members as having
distinct offices, which implies the mind; it cannot be thought an
unallowable liberty; instead of the body and its members, to
substitute the whole nature of man, and all the variety of internal
principles which belong to it. And then the comparison will be between
the nature of man as respecting self, and tending to private good, his
own preservation and happiness; and the nature of man as having
respect to society, and tending to promote public good, the happiness
of that society. These ends do indeed perfectly coincide; and to aim
at public and private good are so far from being inconsistent, that
they mutually promote each other... we were made for society and to do
good to our fellow-creatures, as that we were intended to take care of
our own life and health and private good: and that the same objections
lie against one of these assertions, as against the other." (Butler,
in Meldon, 240-1)

Butler makes clear a connection that we often forget between the term
"organic" and the analogy of the body politic, of the human race as a
single body. "Organic" is not just a catch phrase, it means literally
as interdependent as an organ of the body. Your skin or your heart or
any other bodily organ cannot get up and walk away from you. If it
did, it would die and the whole body would die. That is organic unity.
Similarly, Butler defines human nature in organic terms; the natural
is whatever is "proportionate to our nature." Virtue, then, is the
very architecture of our nature, of the soul and of politics. Butler's
belief that we are made for virtue, that virtue is natural to both
public and private is something to bear in mind as the fast begins
today. I not only can do this, I was created to bear it; I am at my
best now, in the tough times, and this good has to be good in the long
term for the world too. That is what I will tell myself.

We also mentioned earlier that this principle of consistency is a
cornerstone of mathematics, for example in laws like that of
transitivity. The transitive law decrees that when A bears a relation
to B and B bears it to C, then A has the same relation to C. The
principle of oneness of God is transitive, for insofar as I reflect
the One, and you reflect the One, we are both one at heart, at the
deepest level of our being. In other words, love. We love God,
therefore we love one another.

"If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for
he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God
whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he
who loveth God love his brother also." (1 John 4:20-21)

In the moral sphere, this transitive law of One God of love is often
called the Golden Rule. It encapsulates all the outer forms of
religion and every expression of spiritual life. "For all the law is
fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself." (Gal 5:14)

A while back I was surfing the Net semi-randomly and came across some
comments in a student newspaper by a pastor at Brock University. At
their pastor's booth during opening ceremonies he had handed out
little rulers labeled "Golden Rule" to incoming students. He expressed
shock and dismay at the number of young people who did not understand
the pun "Golden Ruler" simply because they had never even heard of the
Golden Rule in the first place. He pointed out what Baha'is know well,
that it is as close to a universal moral teaching as you could ask
for. The good pastor then offered a nice sampling of quotes from a
variety of religions and philosophical traditions. I then surfed over
to a site devoted to the Golden Rule and found many more examples,
including a pair of counter examples. Only two denominations are known
to reject the Golden Rule completely, the Church of Satan and the
White supremacist "Creativity Movement." (cf. religioustolerance.org)
In spite of this startlingly broad agreement among faith traditions,
the fact remains that if most people have never heard of the Golden
Rule, the result is the same as if they had all disagreed with the
rule. Passive consent can often end up the same as active rejection.

I do not think things could have come to this pass if a majority
realized how intimately linked the very concept of One God is with
justice and the Golden Rule. Everybody has heard of the word "God,"
and something like eighty percent accept His existence, at least
theoretically. Yet can you even say the word "God" without knowing
well what the Golden Rule is? I think not. Why is it called "Golden"
in the first place? Is the Golden Rule a gold colored ruler that you
can hand out to bystanders in the street? Um, no. I think it is called
golden because it is like the philosopher's stone. A touch of it and
it transforms base metals into gold; a touch of the Golden Rule and
unworthy human motives are made bright, precious and valuable as gold.
Gold is a symbol of love, and God is love. Alexander Pope put it
poetically in his Essay on Man,

"Ev'n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others' wants by thine."

To say "God is love" is to talk of the Golden Rule at work. Unlike a
Philosopher's Stone or Midas's touch (a technology to transmute matter
could conceivably be invented one day), love is already here, it
always works, we are made to use it, and its effect is inevitably
good, without drawbacks. In the form of the Golden Rule, love has a
miraculous ability to do nothing but good. By contrast, the story of
King Midas is perhaps the earliest example of dystopian fiction; it
teaches that the ability literally to change objects into gold would
be a curse rather than a blessing. Like all material gifts, taken to
an extreme it crushes the value in all else.

Divine love is the perfect philosopher's stone because it is born in
Oneness of God. It unites naturally, justly, organically, harmonizing
as it unifies. It works the fabric our lives together like a weaver
intermingling vertical and horizontal thread, warp and woof, to make a
single design in cloth. Our human will and that of God intermingle to
make a single fabric called providence. This creative collaboration
has also been compared in scripture to writing.

"All this ...the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon
me, even all the works of this pattern." (I Ch 28:19)

Material love and temporal thought, on the other hand, do not weave
things together in the way of the Golden Rule, they dissect, split
apart, killing what they analyze. This imperfection is the result of
their being incomplete, for they need the love of God. It is at this
Golden point where the Master's concept of Oneness begins. For Him, to
love the vision of truth is to plug into an infinite power source that
illumines and vivifies the entire creation. The love of God is a sun
illuminating all things,

"The lights of earth are all acceptable, but the center of effulgence
is the sun, and we must direct our gaze to the sun. God is the Supreme
Center. The more we turn toward this Center of Light, the greater will
be our capacity." (Promulgation, 15)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com