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

Vows and Proofs

Vows and Proofs

By John Taylor; 30 January, 2006

The prayer from Baha'u'llah that was part of my morning ablutions
today included this petition:

"Write us up, then, with those who have fulfilled their pledge to Thy
Covenant in Thy days, and who, through their love for Thee, have
detached themselves from the world and all that is therein." (Prayers
and Meditations, 174)

It asks not for the usual steadfastness in the Covenant but to be able
to plan it, live it out, and fulfill vows in it. My pledge over the
past year has been to build up my health, and I have not been entirely
unsuccessful. Fortunately, food is cheap these days; if you can slough
off the advertising sirens (see the mention of detachment in the above
prayer), we can eat better now on a smaller budget than any time in
history. I realized last year that I had no excuse not to eat as well
or better than 99 percent of our ancestors.

As the Badi' faithful know, I restrict myself to one recipe, gazpacho
soup, hence my nickname, Gazpacho Guy. I have little time and energy,
so I keep it simple. I make a quick gazpacho, it takes a couple of
hours to prepare a batch that supplements three meals a day for at
least a week. To save more time, I dip a mug into the pot rather than
ladling it into a bowl. Over five months I have become a fairly expert
gazpacho cook -- if "cook" is the word since there is no cooking, it
is a cold soup. A big pot sits in our fridge most of the time. Even
when Mom makes her kid friendly meals my bowl of gazpacho weakens my
appetite and I take only a token portion. Not that anyone partaking of
my soup would be impressed by the taste, for I am no gourmet; I cook
for health not taste. I have added to the basic gazpacho ingredients
of tomatoes, cucumbers, celery, onions, olive oil and apple cider
vinegar. Now I include, well, basically whatever I see turning up in
studies as beneficial. That means heaps of garlic in every batch for
one thing. My breath, even with all the parsley I throw into the mix,
is powerful enough to melt non-ferric metals with a single puff. But I
do not care. It feels good, this permanent taste of garlic. It marches
like an army in my mouth, sinking into soft tissues like the claws of
a purring cat. It feels like health.

Another big hurdle I surmounted was the sorry lack of exercise in my
routine. Energized by the gazpacho, I now go for a one hour walk out
to Taylor Road and back (about three clicks) every morning. Then after
work in the afternoon I practice table tennis in the garage, another
hour. I find that ping pong is the only aerobic exercise that captures
my interest enough to continue at it. My stationary bicycle remains in
the garage, unused. In fact I have become so enthusiastic about my new
sport that my difficulty is limiting it. Left on its own my brain
would rehearse overhand table tennis shots full time, over and over.
To cure me of that, I go to my Mac Mini to play a few chess games on
its Gnu Chess program. Being crushed at chess by an object smaller
than a cereal box somehow restores my mental balance and after that I
can go on to other things.

None of this enthusiasm for table tennis would be happening now if it
were not for the new friend I made last year at the Wainfleet
Philosopher's Cafe, Stu. He comes twice weekly to the Youth Center and
we have built up quite a little rivalry on both the chessboard and the
table tennis table. Stu comes on Thursdays for a homework club; as a
retired grade school teacher he helps our children and several others
with homework. On Friday he runs a chess club in the Youth Center, but
lately nobody has turned up and we devote our time to our chess and
table tennis matches. He is a much more experienced ping pong player,
smart and flexible. Until recently I suspected that he was holding
back from utterly humiliating me. On the chess board we are as even as
two players can be, sometimes I dominate and sometimes he does.

For a couple of years I practiced table tennis off and on at the youth
center. Not having much game experience, whenever even casual
onlookers challenged me to a game, they would crush me. Then Stu gave
me a focus. I began more regular practice. Years before I had bought a
table tennis table from Dominic, the founder of the Youth Center not
long before he died. It sat idle in the garage until a couple weeks
ago when I broke it out and practiced there daily in order to get an
edge on Stu. I was making little improvement until a believer from
Smithville, Dale, came over to buy a lathe in the garage. He noticed
the table and though he had not played for years he agreed to a game.
Dale, turned out to be in a wholly different league from anything I
had experienced. He has a frightening ability to propel the ball to
near-supersonic speeds. I found myself flinching and even ducking when
a smash came too close. Once he missed the table and it hit my leg,
and the ball stung like a bee, even through thick jeans. Of course,
after a few minutes of readjustment he blew me off the table -- though
like a good Baha'i, never without an encouraging word. But the thing
is that I am the sort that thrives on defeat. Now my game has gone
into "post-Dale" mode. Do not tell Stu this, but I play my best when
certain defeat is hanging over my head. Why else would I even be here,
alive, writing to you? Though Dale has not come back yet for a
promised rematch, the very fact that such a player exists and could
come any time has improved me immensely. I am catching up to Stu in
our win-loss tally. Best of all, now when a casual non-player sees me
practicing at the youth center and challenges me to a game, I do not
lose. My serves come over too fast and curvy to return. Thank God for
small mercies...

I have been doing a little research on table tennis. One website
claims that it is the second most popular sport in the world, after
soccer. How could that be? thought I. I cannot find a table tennis
club within an hour's drive of here, nor have I ever seen a single
match on television. What are they talking about? Then I realized. Of
course, China. A billion enthusiasts make a difference. I also read on
the net an amusing account of a better-than-average North American
club player who happened to travel to a Japanese school. He met some
eleven year old girls who were playing table tennis, all the age of my
daughter Silvie. When he challenged them to a game they all won
easily. He noticed that before each match they engaged in a little
game using hands and fingers. When they had finished, one or the other
would come over to play him. Later on, he asked them what they had
been doing.

"We were deciding who would play with you."
"You mean the winner got to play?"
"No," they answered, embarrassed, "The loser."

It seems that the level of play here will have to make big strides
before it can touch a Japanese schoolgirl.

I had written the above and was proofreading when Silvie came along
and pointed out several errors, including spelling slips and the wrong
date. With each correction she would gleefully exclaim: "The spoiler
strikes again." Well, keep it up, spoiler, you may have a future as a
copy editor.

Before I go on to our reading for this morning from the Bab's Seven
Proofs, let us note a newspaper report. Although the new Pope Benedict
has gone out of his way not to innovate like his predecessor, one
commentator noticed that while addressing the Jews of Rome he called
Jews "the people of Israel." This was an apparent shift from a
long-held dogma that Catholics replaced Jews as the people of God. ("A
pope who trusts in basics," Daniel Williams, Hamilton Spectator,
January 28, 2006, D16) Be that as it may, the Qu'ran too made that
concession quite a long time ago. It confers upon the Jews that
crucial title, given by God Himself to Abraham, notably in the third
verse of its 17th Surih,

"And we gave the Book to Moses and ordained it for guidance to the
children of Israel - `that ye take no other Guardian than me.'"
(Rodwell)

The Bab in the Seven Proofs (Dala'il-i-Sab'ih) singles out this verse
and actually renames the 17th Chapter of the Quran, "The Children of
Israel" despite its commonly recognized name, "The Night Journey."
Speaking of the question of proofs of validity in religion, the Bab
cites another passage from this 17th Surih,

"The evidences which the people demanded from the Apostle of God
through their idle fancy have mostly been rejected in the Qur'an, even
as in the Surih of the Children of Israel it hath been revealed..."
(Selections, 121-122)

The verse from this chapter of the Qu'ran (17:92) that the Bab then
cites details a long list of idle and presumptuous requests for
"proofs" of Muhammad's divine mission. They wanted him to magically
conjure up gardens, fruits, rivers, a house of gold, and on and on.
This refers back to the point the Bab made earlier, which I cited the
other day, which stresses that if Muslims had used the same criteria
and proofs for themselves that they offer to other faiths, everyone
would have become a Babi instantly He announced Himself. After citing
these verses from Surih 17, the Bab continues to point out the folly
of demanding of God made-to-order religious proofs. How could they,
when their own scripture condemned and rejected that so emphatically?

"Now be fair! The Arabs uttered such words, and now, prompted by thy
desire, thou dost demand yet other things? What is the difference
between thee and them? If thou dost ponder a while, it will be evident
that it is incumbent upon a lowly servant to acquiesce to whatever
proof God hath appointed, and not to follow his own idle fancy. If the
wishes of the people were to be gratified not a single disbeliever
would remain on earth. For once the Apostle of God had fulfilled the
wishes of the people they would unhesitatingly have embraced His
Faith. May God save thee, shouldst thou seek any evidence according to
thy selfish desire; rather it behooveth thee to uphold the unfailing
proof which God hath appointed. 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?"
(Selections, 122)

The Bab points out here the first essential to religious proof,
getting at the right kind of evidence. Who decides what is evidence?
Do we? No, it has to be God not imperfect mortals. God tests and sets
the criteria for testing. Students do not examine teachers, students
do not make up exams or decide professional qualifications. That is
absurd. Teachers examine students. In the same way, patients do not
treat doctors, doctors treat patients. In a sane, ordered universe it
cannot be the place of lower intellects to test the All-Highest
Intelligence or set the criteria for testing Its work.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Secrecy, Cats and the Market

Eliminating Secrecy, Military Industrial Cats, Charity as Friendship Market

On the slate today:

Eliminating Secrecy,
Military Industrial House Cats
Charity as Bargain Friendship Market

The House Cat essay I started in December, but it seems apposite here.

Eliminating Secrecy

I admit I am a bit of a spy story fan. I love cloak and dagger
activity. Secrecy gives zing to a story. Indeed, secrecy is
unavoidable, an essential part of drama. Every plot, even the plots of
fiction and poetry, involves a secret, the slow unveiling of reality
behind illusion, meaning behind confusion. God does it; we his mirrors
are born ignorant and gradually learn to reflect the secret meanings
of life. A good teacher "spies" by detecting the learning style of
students and helping them progress. Every good lesson plan is a secret
gradually unveiled. But still, my love for James Bond and his
colleagues does not mean that I think of espionage is a good thing.
True, without spies there would be no spy stories, just as without
crime and clever murderers there would be no detective novels. No
Agatha Christie fan, no matter how dedicated (like my wife Marie -- I
sometimes think that she learned English just to be able to access the
complete works of Agatha in the original) ever imagines that murder is
desirable.

But incredible as it may seem, there is a conference being put on in
Washington on the ethics of espionage. Many in the intelligence
community are dismayed as I am pointing out that "moral spy" is an
oxymoron, that spying is an inherently unethical activity. Spies lie,
cheat, steal and persuade other nationals to betray their country. One
presenter on the slate in the end could not present because her paper
was gutted by the CIA, due secrecy concerns. She told the press that
she used two handy moral rules of thumb in her decades as an operative
in the Middle East. She would ask herself, What would my mother think
of this? Or she would ask: What would this activity look like if it
were plastered on the front page of a newspaper? These are very good,
I admit, and could be used to good effect in any family or business.
But still, it seems to me that the question remains as to whether
spying should be eliminated entirely. In a united world there is
information gathering but spying can only be only spying on yourself,
since humanity is one. Espionage is a symptom of war, and as soon as
peace enters the political equation espionage must be criminalized and
expunged.

This leads to the Baha'i attitude to secrecy. Shoghi Effendi had only
been Guardian a couple of year when he wrote to us North American
believers: "They must at all times avoid the spirit of exclusiveness,
the atmosphere of secrecy, free themselves from a domineering
attitude, and banish all forms of prejudice and passion from their
deliberations." (Lights of Guidance, 32) He recognized something that
many ethicists forget, that avoiding moral compromise involves not a
single decision or set of moral choices but complete restructuring of
one's life.

"Let them so shape their lives and regulate their conduct that no
charge of secrecy, of fraud, of bribery or of intimidation may,
however ill-founded, be brought against them." (Lights of Guidance,
448)

This holistic reform applies not only to our attitude but also to our
procedure in approaching any group activity, and especially the Holy
Institutions,

"This indirect way of expressing your views to the Assembly not only
creates an atmosphere of secrecy which is most alien to the spirit of
the Cause, but would also lead to many misunderstandings and
complications. The Assembly members must have the courage of their
conviction, but must also express whole-hearted and unqualified
obedience to the well-considering judgement and directions of the
majority of their fellow-members." (Lights of Guidance, 177)

The Guardian in his personal attitudes seems to have lived up to this
ideal. May Maxwell met Shoghi Effendi in 1924 and noted later on in a
published pamphlet:

"... Shoghi Effendi discusses the affairs and conditions of the Cause
with astonishing openness and frankness; he does not like secrecy and
told us many times that this openness, frankness and truthfulness
among the friends constitutes one of the great remedies for many of
our difficulties, and he sets us the example of free and open
consultation, with a modesty and simplicity which one must see in
order to appreciate because it is foreign to our American temperament;
he invites suggestions and consultation from the visiting friends and
from those around him... The spirit of criticism is abhorrent to
Shoghi Effendi ..." (from Ugo Giachery, Shoghi Effendi -
Recollections, 190)

As noted, alienation and secrecy are symptoms of war; war in turn is
caused by tyranny and over-centralization of power. When government is
not a friend of the people, individuals defend themselves by keeping
secrets; conversely, leaders keep secrets from the people in order to
avoid insurgency and retaliation. Persia is a supreme example of such
a society, infected by the "habit of secrecy."

"Only a close and unbiased observer of the manner and habits of the
Persian people, already familiar with the prevailing tendencies of
different sections of the population, such as their apathy and
indolence, the absence of a sense of public duty and of loyalty to
principle, the lack of concerted effort and constancy in action, the
habit of secrecy and blind surrender to the capricious will of an
ignorant and fanatical clergy, can truly estimate the immensity of the
task that faces every conscientious believer in that land. He will
moreover readily testify to the high standard already attained by the
Baha'is of Persia in their efforts to inculcate in the minds of their
fellow-countrymen the principles of the Divine Civilization ushered in
by Baha'u'llah." (Shoghi Effendi, Baha'i Administration, 172)

The institutions of God and those serving on them have as part of this
war recovery mandate the goal of eliminating any contagion of secrecy
and intrigue that enter it from the broader community.

"Theirs is the duty to purge once for all their deliberations and the
general conduct of their affairs from that air of self-contained
aloofness, from the suspicion of secrecy, the stifling atmosphere of
dictatorial assertiveness, in short, from every word and deed that
might savor of partiality, self-centeredness and prejudice." (Shoghi
Effendi, Extracts from the USBN)

Military Industrial House Cats

Wherever humans go, cats go too. Kittens are winsome, and grow into
pleasant companions as adults. What is wrong with that?

The problem is that cats are wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem
wherever humans live. Some cats kill as many as three or four small
birds and rodents each outing. When told of the depredations of their
feline charges, cat owners say, "Well, that is the balance of nature."
Which is fine, except that the creatures in the wild have to stay out
in the cold and fend for themselves often under famine conditions.
Meanwhile pampered house cats are fed scientifically designed diets
and kept in peak hunting condition. There is no balance of nature for
them and killing is a pleasant hobby for them. Some domestic felines
may be sated by the easy life and are content and lose their hunting
edge, others learn to be experts at killing for sport.

The same depredation occurs in the economy with what Dwight D.
Eisenhower, himself a former general, called the greatest threat to
the world, the military industrial complex. Defense contractors and
academic researchers, indeed large sectors of the economy of so-called
"developed" nations are protected by the threat of war from the
competitive discipline of a "wild," decentralized market. There is no
"balance of nature" for large corporations with ties to the defense
industry.

Like lean and mean house cats, these large corporations invade areas
considered strategic (including most notably the automobile, oil,
nuclear and other energy industries) are pampered by their
governmental keepers and kept in peak killing condition. Big
government sees to it that, as Chomsky puts it, risk and cost are
socialized while profits are privatized. Well fed but still ferocious
corporations then go out and "compete" with smaller companies that
have to survive on their own in the wild of real competition, who must
pay for their own basic research and underwrite their own startup and
marketing costs.

This sloping playing field is difficult enough to play on in wealthy
lands where literacy and education are virtually universal and the
English language predominates. For all others, justice is unknown. The
obligatory prescription of the World Bank until recently has been what
they termed market liberalization. Such liberty is unknown in the home
economies of those pushing the idea, but the fat cats are too content
and are having too much fun killing to split moral hairs.

Market liberalization means that no investment by taxpayers in their
own economic infrastructure is allowed -- that is "unfair" --much less
putting their own money into building up their own military industrial
complex. Just stand aside and let free market forces weed out the
inefficient players; just be sure to permit our housecats,
multi-national corporations, into the mix. They need to compete with
locals on a level playing field. Oh, you need to defend yourselves? We
have just the thing, piles of second generation arms here that our
taxpayers have already researched and paid us to make in huge
quantities; we will sell that to you at a discount. Ditto for energy,
transportation, and other strategic industries. It is only fair, we
help you, you help us.

The military industrial house cats have done very well by this policy
until now; as long as the mass media was under control and their
resold second hand weapons were a threat to nobody, world order and
prosperity at least for the few, were assured. Until recently it was
impossible for upstart, low budget terrorists to compete with state
sponsored terror. Retaliation was rare and ineffectual.

For better or worse, this is changing rapidly. I follow technology
news closely and in the past five years almost every new invention
favors not centralized armies but small insurgency forces. I used to
read tech news to keep up the fires of hope for a better world, but
even this area is becoming too frightening to read. The big guys,
seeming unaware of the trend, are arming the little guys with
frightening weapons. What will it be like when small groups of ten or
twenty people with a tiny budget can bring order and civilization to
its knees? Suitcase a-bombs, biological doomsday weapons in a test
tube, the list goes on and on.

O God, let us give peace a chance! Save us from the house cats, and
from the rats that the house cats are arming!

True, the Internet is a hopeful sign in the long term. It is making it
very hard any more to keep dirty tricks under wraps. And we have to
believe that spiritual progress is going on. It may even catch up with
material advance. One hopeful sign is that, as the normally
pessimistic Noam Chomsky pointed out, in recent years American
citizens are actually going to live with the victims of their own
government's state terror operations. This makes it very hard to keep
mass upheavals from the home press corps, who tend to show rebellious
concern when their own citizens fall victim to CIA trained operatives.
Such a thing has never happened under any Imperium in history. This is
an astonishing credit to the spiritual perceptiveness of Americans.
Imagine, for an imperial power to have its own members join in
solidarity with its victims. This is a sign of the end of power
mongering, a sign of the spiritual leadership that `Abdul-Baha foresaw
for the Americas.

Will it be enough, or is the genie out of the bottle, never to be
tricked back in again?

Charity as Bargain Friendship Market

Zenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates Book II, Part X

Here is an excerpt on friendship from Xenophon's Socrates, the last
one slated for inclusion in our Badi' essays. I have called it
"charity as a bargain friendship market" because it suggests that when
times are tough those in a position to help out should rush to do so,
for the same reasons that low prices or a sinking stock market are
attractive to bargain hunters. Would it were so...

Again I may cite, as known to myself for which I can personally vouch
the following discussion; the arguments were addressed to Diodorus,
one of his companions. The master said:

Tell me, Diodorus, if one of your slaves runs away, are you at pains
to recover him?

More than that (Diodorus answered), I summon others to my aid and I
have a reward cried for his recovery.

Soc. Well, if one of your domestics is sick, do you tend him and call
in the doctors to save his life?

Diod. Decidedly I do.

Soc. And if an intimate acquaintance who is far more precious to you
than any of your household slaves is about to perish of want, you
would think it incumbent on you to take pains to save his life? Well!
now you know without my telling you that Hermogenes is not made of
wood or stone. If you helped him he would be ashamed not to pay you in
kind. And yet--the opportunity of possessing a willing, kindly, and
trusty assistant well fitted to do your bidding, and not merely that,
but capable of originating useful ideas himself, with a certain
forecast of mind and judgment--I say such a man is worth dozens of
slaves. Good economists tell us that when a precious article may be
got at a low price we ought to buy. And nowadays when times are so bad
it is possible to get good friends exceedingly cheap.

Diodorus answered: You are quite right, Socrates; bid Hermogenes come to me.

Soc. Bid Hermogenes come to you!--not I indeed! since for aught I can
understand you are no better entitled to summon him that to go to him
yourself, nor is the advantage more on his side than your own.

Thus Diodorus went off in a trice to seek Hermogenes, and at no great
outlay won to himself a friend--a friend whose one concern it now was
to discover how, by word or deed, he might help and gladden Diodorus.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Watchdog

Archedemus, the Watchdog

By John Taylor; 28 January, 2006

Today is Peacemakers day, the unique children's class run in Caledonia
by our LSA chair, family counselor and retired schoolteacher, Pat
Kvarsgaard. Her virtues program is based upon the badge system used by
Guides and Scouts; whatever she does, it is popular with the kids and
we have no trouble getting them to go. This leaves little time for an
essay before we leave, so I will let others do the writing today.

Lately I shared the essay I wrote on the Hindu Gayatri mantra with the
Hinduism speaker at our World Religion Day, Swadesh Sachdeva. She
kindly replied, and here are her comments.

Gayatri

(The) word "mantra' means prayer coming from our hearts to God. (Here
is an alternate) translation of Gayatri:

"Om is the Giver of life, the Dispeller of miseries and the Bestower
of happiness. We should meditate upon tha Creator the most acceptable
and the most knowledgeable God. May that that God inspire and lead our
intellect " -Gayatri mantra, Rig Veda, Mdle 3, Hymn 62. In Yajur Veda,
Chp 36, mantra 3.

Hinduism is not a religion but more a way of life. People interpret it
as they wish according to their own understanding. There are Jim
Joneses and Koreshes in every faith. 90% of Vinay Lal and Britannica
makes no sense to me. You may wish to refer to "Vaidya Mantras &
Translations " by Uma A. Saini The U.K. Publishing Co., Rockville,
Maryland, USA

How to be Omnipresent

Recently the technology columnist for the New York Times wrote a list
of ways that you can be an email boor, or what he calls an "internet
pill." A reader pointed him to the following article, How to be a
Disagreeable Companion," written centuries ago by Benjamin Franklin,
which covers the same ground, minus the electronic gadgetry. From our
Baha'i perspective, this could well be entitled, "How not to Consult,"
or "How to be a Gossip." I especially like it when Franklin points out
that the non-spiritual person can attain an almost god-like
omnipresence: a polite person "can please only where he is, you
where-ever you are not."

Rules for Making Oneself a Disagreeable Companion

-originally printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette, November 15, 1750,
The Writings of Benjamin Franklin: Philadelphia, 1726 - 1757 Volume I
BOSTON & LONDON URL:
<http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf2/disagree.htm>

RULES, by the observation of which, a man of wit and learning may
nevertheless make himself a disagreeable companion. Your business is
to shine; therefore you must by all means prevent the shining of
others, for their brightness may make yours the less distinguish'd. To
this end,

1. If possible engross the whole discourse; and when other matter
fails, talk much of your-self, your education, your knowledge, your
circumstances, your successes in business, your victories in disputes,
your own wise sayings and observations on particular occasions, &c.
&c. &c.;

2. If when you are out of breath, one of the company should seize the
opportunity of saying something; watch his words, and, if possible,
find somewhat either in his sentiment or expression, immediately to
contradict and raise a dispute upon. Rather than fail, criticise even
his grammar.

3. If another should be saying an indisputably good thing; either give
no attention to it; or interrupt him; or draw away the attention of
others; or, if you can guess what he would be at, be quick and say it
before him; or, if he gets it said, and you perceive the company
pleas'd with it, own it to be a good thing, and withal remark that it
had been said by Bacon, Locke, Bayle, or some other eminent writer;
thus you deprive him of the reputation he might have gain'd by it, and
gain some yourself, as you hereby show your great reading and memory.

4. When modest men have been thus treated by you a few times, they
will choose ever after to be silent in your company; then you may
shine on without fear of a rival; rallying them at the same time for
their dullness, which will be to you a new fund of wit.

Thus you will be sure to please yourself. The polite man aims at
pleasing others, but you shall go beyond him even in that. A man can
be present only in one company, but may at the same time be absent in
twenty. He can please only where he is, you where-ever you are not.

Archedemus; from Zenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates Book II, Part IX

The following discusses the service of protection that a friend can
play for his or her friends. I just love this. Some screenwriter could
make a successful movie out of this material; you could call it "The
Watchdog."

At another time, as I am aware, he had heard a remark made by Crito
that life at Athens was no easy matter for a man who wished to mind
his own affairs. As, for instance, at this moment (Crito proceeded)
there are a set of fellows threatening me with lawsuits, not because
they have any misdemeanour to allege against me, but simply under the
conviction that I will sooner pay a sum of money than be troubled
further.

To which Socrates replied: Tell me, Crito, you keep dogs, do you not,
to ward off wolves from your flocks?

Cr. Certainly; it pays to do so.

Soc. Then why do you not keep a watchman willing and competent to ward
off this pack of people who seek to injure you?

I should not at all mind (he answered), if I were not afraid he might
turn again and rend his keeper.

What! (rejoined Socrates), do you not see that to gratify a man like
yourself is far pleasanter as a matter of self-interest than to
quarrel with you? You may be sure there are plenty of people here who
will take the greatest pride in making you their friend.

Accordingly, they sought out Archedemus, a practical man with a clever
tongue in his head but poor; the fact being, he was not the sort to
make gain by hook or by crook, but a lover of honesty and of too good
a nature himself to make his living as a pettifogger.

Crito would then take the opportunity of times of harvesting and put
aside small presents for Achedemus of corn and oil, or wine, or wool,
or any other of the farm produce forming the staple commodities of
life, or he would invite him to a sacrificial feast, and otherwise pay
him marked attention. Archedemus, feeling that he had in Crito's house
a harbour of refuge, could not make too much of his patron, and ere
long he had hunted up a long list of iniquities which could be lodged
against Crito's pettifogging persecutors themselves, and not only
their numerous crimes but their numerous enemies; and presently he
prosecuted one of them in a public suit, where sentence would be given
against him "what to suffer or what to pay."

The accused, conscious as he was of many rascally deeds, did all he
could to be quit of Archedemus, but Archedemus was not to be got rid
of. He held on until he had made the informer not only loose his hold
of Crito but pay himself a sum of money; and now that Archedemus had
achieved this and other similar victories, it is easy to guess what
followed.

It was just as when some shepherd has got a very good dog, all the
other shepherds wish to lodge their flocks in his neighbourhood that
they too may reap the benefit of him. So a number of Crito's friends
came begging him to allow Archedemus to be their guardian also, and
Archedemus was overjoyed to do something to gratify Crito, and so it
came about that not only Crito abode in peace, but his friends
likewise.

If any of those people with whom Archedemus was not on the best of
terms were disposed to throw it in his teeth that he accepted his
patron's benefits and paid in flatteries, he had a ready retort:
"Answer me this question--which is the more scandalous, to accept
kindnesses from honest folk and to repay them, with the result that I
make such people my friends but quarrel with knaves, or to make
enemies of honourable gentlemen by attempts to do them wrong, with the
off-chance indeed of winning the friendship of some scamps in return
for my co-operation, but the certainty of losing in the tone of my
acquaintances?"

The net result of the whole proceedings was that Archedemus was now
Crito's right hand, and by the rest of Crito's friends he was held in
honour.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Gazpacho Guy Meets Jules Verne

Gazpacho Guy Meets Jules Verne

By John Taylor; 27 January, 2006

When I was working on my mound construction book last fall I
researched the history of proposals for tube transit, floating cities
and flying cities. I found my paths led back to one source, my
childhood favorite writer, Jules Verne. Although in recent years I
have rarely found it in me to crack a novel of any sort, I do read
biographies of novelists. I just completed this one of Verne,

Peter Costello, Jules Verne, Inventor of Science Fiction, Hodder and
Stoughton, London, 1978

I do not recommend this biography, it has many errors and typos and
the research is incomplete and out of date. Nonetheless it has its
virtues, offering a critical overview of his vast work, and insights
into the interplay of his thought with personal problems. Costello
gives a good picture Verne's illustrious career and that is what
interests me at the moment. Coincidentally this biography came out in
1978, the year my own successful writing-to-survive career began (it
is successful because I have survived, until now, and that has to be
enough). In the years since 1978, Verne's reputation took off like a
rocket to the moon, though I am certain that happened in spite of this
bio, not because of it. There is an active Verne society with a
newsletter now, and Verne's later novels are coming out in annotated
versions, often translated into English for the first time. Thanks to
critics like Roland Barthes, academics are coming to realize that
there is much more to Verne than the children's novelist he is made
out to be in the English speaking world. In reality he wrote only one
or two novels specifically for children, and they are not ones that
you would recognize or even find in the children's section of your
neighborhood library.

Jules Verne called his oeuvre "scientific novels," and readers are now
realizing that it fits much better than the later term, "science
fiction." Verne spent his apprenticeship as a writer slogging for ten
or fifteen undistinguished years writing light musical dramas for the
stage. In order to make ends meet, he worked on the stock exchange for
a while. His father disapproved in an age when a father's approval
meant something. Then Verne turned a corner; he met a receptive
publisher and learned how to turn his dramatic skills to better ends.
He combined melodrama with his love for science, exploration, music
and the sea. Most important, though not mentioned in this bio, this
publisher forced him to take the edge off his bred-in-the-bone
cynicism and pessimism. For a time at least he wrote optimistic,
encouraging novels about the possibilities of scientific discovery.
The world loved him for it, but ignored him when he reverted to his
natural disposition. Verne built up a large file cabinet full of cards
(now it would be called a database) recording snippets from press
reports and scientific journals. This database was the raw material
and inspiration for his novels to the end of his life.

One thing that strikes me from this life is Verne as father. Verne
married late to a widow with two small children, and she bore him one
son, Michel Jules Verne, after which there were marital problems
probably caused by a mistress or two, all trace of which Verne
succeeded in expunging from the record before he died. The
estrangement with his wife persisted for many years, though eventually
they reconciled. Verne was a distant father and his son grew up
delinquent in his eyes. He was very critical of his son in
adolescence, and, in the words of this biographer, Michel "lived down"
to his father's expectations. Eventually though, they reconciled too
and in his last years Michel became Verne's literary executor and
finished many of his unfinished projects.

Michel turned out to be a talented and original writer in his own
right and several times wrote, submitted and published novels of his
own, taking advantage of the similarity of his name to that of his
father. Indeed several of the ideas that attracted me back to Verne
actually seem to have been cooked up by Michel rather than Jules. If
Verne had lived up to his responsibility as a father he would have
taken an effort not only to apprentice Michel but, when his skills
were ready, he would have pushed him into the limelight so that he
could have had an independent career. As it was, Michel never made it
on his own; though he wrote a handful of original works in later years
there were few readers to notice.

Not that you can blame Jules Verne for this neglect since he made very
little effort at promoting his own career either, much less that of
his son. After the spectacular successes of his early books, he
settled down like a factory worker punching a clock, producing two
novels a year until his death. He learned his dramatic métier but
avoided learning the necessary corollary, the art of self-promotion.
He let his publisher take the lion's share of the profits from his
early books, and just kept on writing regardless. When he traveled it
was not to promote his books, it was in virtual anonymity, though his
wife was very pleased with all the attention from notables. Verne's
readership over two decades went down from hundreds of thousands to
sales of a mere few thousand per book, which is as much as your
ordinary, run of the mill, unknown, hack novelist can expect.

To put this another way, Jules Verne was an exemplary Catholic in one
way especially, he genuinely hated Mammon. In spite of his being a
former stock broker, the very idea of profit and money grubbing was
repugnant. Many critics are surprised at the high praise Pope Leo gave
his work for "purity" when Verne and crew were given an audience with
him in Rome. They point out that there are virtually no references to
God, Jesus, sin or salvation in anything he wrote. But when it comes
to this, Verne's dislike of money was Catholic to the core. This is
why I have always had problems with Verne's greatest character,
Captain Nemo. The fellow invents a submarine, plunders undersea
treasures around the world, then condemns other people for corrupt
money grubbing. That I just find strange, incomprehensible, more
hypocritical than righteous. Nemo is far from a sympathetic character
to me.

Okay, you guessed it, I focus on this aspect of Verne because it hits
close to home. I am no self promoter of my career either. Worse, I
have no moral scruples about profit like Verne did, so why my problems
forcing myself to grub for it? Like Verne, I like the process of
writing more than being a famous personality. And like Verne I resent
the fact that I would have to go out and scrounge for my career to
flourish, to stop writing and start schmoozing for a large enough
readership to sustain our family. If this was true even for the
world-famous Jules Verne, it is especially so for me. At least that is
how I think until my next failure in health, after which the whole
thing is mooted again, for the thousandth Sisyphonian time.

It was surprising to learn that Verne ran for election on the local
city counsel in the late 1880's and held the position of what we would
call an alderman to the end of his life. True, his scientific novels
involve much city planning, so local political decisions, especially
having to do with his old love the theatre, did hold his interest.
Myself, I have the same revulsion for administration and bureaucracy
that Verne had for Mammon, and I find it hard to understand why he
would voluntarily subject himself to all of that. Yes, he was schooled
as a lawyer, but still... The hardest thing by far for me about being
a Baha'i is serving the Administrative Order in an official capacity;
if I had a free choice, I would be an observer and supporter from far
back in the wings, not a participant in the grind of decision making.
Consultation is for me like the cross was for Jesus; I would have God
make the cup disappear if I had my druthers.

Before I end let me say that although I am not a novelist and do not
even read novels (though I watch avidly every filmed version of
Verne's stories that I can get my hands on, even the butchered
made-for-television productions -- like the abominable adaptation of
Mysterious Island that hit the video stores this week), I have a deep
love for what Jules Verne loved, discovery, exploration, the sea,
justice, music, storytelling, and the possibilities opened up by
technology. In the spirit of Verne, let me speculate a little about
the possibilities for the immediate future stirred up by reading about
his life and career.

First of all, careers are a crock, especially for writers. The
Guardian said that in future history will be written by groups, not
individuals. I say that this is not the half of it. Not only writing
about history but almost all writing, in my opinion, will be done in
packs. Wolves, the most intelligent of all predators, run in packs, so
why not original writing? In view of the scientific discoveries
outlined in Surowiecki's Wisdom of Crowds, group writing must
predominate more and more over individual careers.

This is already happening. Work is carved out by advancing information
technology and distributed to writers' studies around the world. Take
Wikipedia, a group writing project on a grand scale, the logical
continuation of the Enlightenment's Encyclopedie, only it is being
written not in French or English but in all human languages, all at
once, by millions of enthusiastic writers around the world. Open ended
writing, moderated by self effacing authority, born in and of the
Internet, is the writing of the near future. Or take video games, or
MUDs on the Web. These soon will become the writing paper of the
future; they are novels, movies, entire virtual worlds all mashed into
one. Hook them up to a stationary bicycle or other virtual reality
exercise machine, run them under an open regime devised by teachers
and health professionals promoting virtues like wisdom and moderation,
and such invention can easily be made into utopia generating devices
of monumental proportions. All it will take is the spirit of true
Baha'is working together, and our world will be transformed beyond
Verne's wildest imagination.

All thoughts in these essays are humble offerings to the Holy Word,
for they originally derive from communion with It in my obligatory
morning reading and prayer. Today's reading comes from the Bab's Seven
Proofs, and follows upon proofs cited yesterday:

"Now consider the Revelation of the Bayan. If the followers of the
Qur'an had applied to themselves proofs similar to those which they
advance for the non-believers in Islam, not a single soul would have
remained deprived of the Truth, and on the Day of Resurrection
everyone would have attained salvation." (Selections, 120)

This points to the complete dependence of groups upon critical
abilities of the individuals in the group. Without that, hypocrisy
rules, we criticize others instead of ourselves. Creeping tyranny
rises to the top in group functions, and artist and groups divorce.
Creative workers are corrupted by lack of self-criticism, and groups
fail in their function along with them. Hard as it is, an artist must
work in and with groups, for consultation is key. No individual ever
compares in power and correctness to a group. Conversely, assuming
that consultation is done properly and in a spiritual manner, groups
need not cramp the style and originality of an inspired genius like
Verne.

No, more. I believe that if Jules Verne had been part of a "scientific
novel" production group cooperating with working scientists, his
imaginative output and accuracy and relevance might not have tanked as
they did. He and his son after him might have gone on to world
changing influence. In view of his concern for the environment and
beauty in his city planning career in city hall, we might not be in
the mess we are today if he had worked his full potential as an artist
in a group. Today, scientists and astronomers are increasingly
recognizing the importance of the role of science fiction in promoting
and popularizing the ideas and ideals that they deal with technically.

The reason groups and artists need each other is that working alone,
no matter how brilliant, an artist inevitably hits his level of
incompetence. The quality of their words suffers the moment he or she
(Margaret Atwood is a name that springs to mind) becomes prominent
enough that the opinions of publishers, editors and copy writers cease
to carry due weight. Every individual must recognize that creative
freedom, like all freedoms, ceases to be a good when carried to
excess. Like the French Revolution, too much rebellion, freedom and
independence become violent and eat their own children. The flashing
brilliance of the Renaissance happened when, for a brief time,
scientists, artists and planners worked in harmony as teams. Let us
pray that this happens again on a world level. Today's prayer was for
just that:

"Darkness hath encompassed every land, O my God, and caused most of
Thy servants to tremble. I beseech Thee, by Thy Most Great Name, to
raise in every city a new creation that shall turn towards Thee, and
shall remember Thee amidst Thy servants, and shall unfurl by virtue of
their utterances and wisdom the ensigns of Thy victory, and shall
detach themselves from all created things. Potent art Thou to do Thy
pleasure. No God is there but Thee, the Most Powerful, He Whose help
is implored by all men." (Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations, 171)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com

Baha'u'llah's Brave New World

Baha'u'llah's Brave New World

By John Taylor; 26 January, 2006

The Marquis de Sade shot past the 18th Century deists and wrote "A
Dialog between a Priest and a Dying Man," an apology for atheism, a
refutation of Christianity and all it stood for. More than any other
philosophe, Sade captured the anti-religious undercurrent of the
"Enlightenment." As a former atheist myself, reading a summary of this
dialog infuriated me and I plan to get a hold of an etext, if I can,
and deal with it in detail. It was especially distressing to read that
what the dying man regarded as his most devastating ammunition against
belief in God is now actually fully accepted by most believers,
especially by us Baha'is. The very nature of belief in God is
completely different now. Now, we believe in a reasoned manner. Proofs
enter in. Consider this, from another in the series I am reading, this
time, "Introducing Philosophy,"

"But all of them (philosophers) believe that philosophers are obliged
to provide some kind of explanation, proof or evidence for their
ideas. And this obligation marks the one obvious difference between
philosophy and religion." (Introducing Philosophy, Dave Robinson and
Judy Groves, Icon Books, Duxford, UK, p. 5)

Splutter, splutter. I think that the reason that such an extraordinary
distinction can pass muster in Europe must be that so few ever read
the Qu'ran. Depending on the translator, there are between 9 and 55
mentions of proof in that Holy Text alone. If de Sade's dying man had
a mullah instead of a priest by his side, he might not have won so
decisively. But still, Jesus did say, "By their fruits ye shall know
them," does that not count for anything? Besides, the KJV offers six
mentions of the word "proof," and the World English Bible ten. The
dying man's priest should have searched them on his Blackberry.

Take a deep breath, John, and count to ten. Let us back off from this
and take another tack. What is to follow is ground I have covered
before but it is worth plowing it over, perhaps annually, like a crop.
The House of Justice begins "One Common Faith" with a special
reassurance that we can be confident that the,

"period of history now opening will be far more receptive to efforts
to spread Baha'u'llah's message than was the case in the century just
ended. All the signs indicate that a sea change in human consciousness
is under way."

Let us focus in on this phrase, "sea change in human consciousness."
Consciousness is a slippery word, hard to nail down almost by
definition. John Lock defined it as the "perception of what passes in
a man's own mind." Dictionaries suggest a broader definition, an
awareness or concern for something, be it within or without the mind.
As for "sea change," this interesting expression was born, like many
English words, in the imagination of the Bard. His last play, his swan
song, and my favorite of them all, The Tempest, has prince Ferdinand
stranded on a beach thinking that his father and all hands are dead in
a storm and shipwreck from which he has barely escaped. He wonders
about some music he thinks he hears,

"Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth?
It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon
Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank,
Weeping again the king my father's wreck,
This music crept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it,
Or it hath drawn me rather."

Shakespeare then has the airy spirit Ariel sing the song again. Since
Shakespeare, Ariel has become a symbol for poetic inspiration, but
here she offers a song of Dutch comfort; it is consolation passing
strange, assuring Ferdinand that his father is dead, drowned and
gradually being encrusted by jewels under the sea:

"Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell"

It turns out that this song of Ariel is a spell, not to say a lie,
that Ariel has been charged by Prospero to cast upon the young prince.
The image reflects the anger of Prospero, a brother wronged by the
present king of Milan. Ferdinand's father, the present king of Milan,
is in reality alive and stranded elsewhere on the island. However, the
plot of the play does offer real sea changes to all concerned,
anointed by the magical imagination of Shakespeare. Many magical
twists and turns finally correct the dislocated political situation.
Wrongs are righted, Prospero regains his usurped crown, Ferdinand
meets and falls in love with Miranda, his cousin and Prospero's
daughter. When she first meets Prospero, Miranda has no memory of life
off of the desert island, and has never seen a man other than the base
and deformed Caliban and her aged father. She declares,

"O, wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous
mankind is! O brave new world that has such people in't!"

Aldous Huxley took Miranda's innocent wonder at what a beautiful thing
a healthy youth in full flower can be, and made it infamous by
entitling his satire of our technology and pharmaceutical obsessed
life, "Brave New World." A thousand times, alas. Now, you cannot say
"brave new world" without echoing Huxley's rank cynicism, the reverse
of what Shakespeare's poetic expression intends. Fortunately, "sea
change" did not undergo such a bad sea change. It still implies not a
bad change (like the encrustation that actually happens to an object
left for centuries under the sea) but an imaginary transformation of
our "fading parts" into something "rich and strange;" moldering flesh
in the sea of imagination turns into coral and diamonds, into a
precious, rare and wonderful thing.

Now the reason I am alive and still have hope, the reason that I am a
Baha'i, is that I still look forward to a brave new world without
qualm or hint of irony. I really believe that if we could see with our
inner eye we would witness this sea change going on in our soul and in
the general consciousness of society. However ugly it may look
outwardly, I believe with all my heart that a sea change is in the
offing, a wonder is in the making. I believe that the day will soon
come that anyone entering a religious gathering, not just a Baha'i
meeting but any gathering of sincere believers in God, will make that
very declaration that Miranda made upon seeing her cousin Ferdinand:
"How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world that has such people
in't!" Why would people of faith turn from objects of revulsion into a
thing of beauty? The Bab made it clear when he defined the word
"manifestation" in the following passage. Speaking of Islam's promised
Qa'im, he wrote,

"God hath made Him manifest invested with the proof wherewith the
Apostle of God was invested, so that none of the believers in the
Qur'an might entertain doubts about the validity of His Cause, for it
is set down in the Qur'an that none but God is capable of revealing
verses." (Selections, 118)

A prophet points to a future time when religion and faith will be
known and understood. The followers of a prophet place their trust in
his insight, they do not really know anything of themselves. A
Manifestation of God, though, makes all clear by offering proof. He
sets forth arguments that stand on their own before any who try to
comprehend. Proof is the big criterion, the difference between now and
past ages of prophesy. Today there need no longer be any "doubts about
the validity of His Cause" because His proof is set out in revealed
verses, a body of literature that backs it all up. The Bab continues
with His proof, pointing to His own lack of qualifications, especially
his youth,

"Now the Ever-Living Lord hath made manifest and invested with supreme
testimony this long-awaited Promised One from a place no one could
imagine and from a person whose knowledge was deemed of no account.
His age is no more than twenty-five years, yet His glory is such as
none of the learned among the people of Islam can rival; inasmuch as
man's glory lieth in his knowledge." (Id.)

The glory of the coming brave new world will be that not one or two,
but many, many people will be intellectually equipped to stand up and
offer extempore all necessary proofs of the existence and relevance of
the One True God. It will all be manifest, obvious. Let me, O God, one
day be in that number.

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com