It is clear and evident, therefore,
that the first bestowal of God is the Word, and its discoverer and recipient is
the power of understanding. This Word is the foremost instructor in the school
of existence and the revealer of Him Who is the Almighty. All that is seen is
visible only through the light of its wisdom. All that is manifest is but a
token of its knowledge. All names are but its name, and the beginning and end
of all matters must needs depend upon it.
(Baha'u'llah,
The Pen of Glory: 94)
In this series of posts I have been exploring the
appropriate mode of language for the new age in which we live. I have named the model of this new mode of
language the kerygmatic, or proclamation mode of language. It proclaims God
because it emanates from the divine aspect of the human reality.
The opening quote brings us full circle, though a higher
turn of the spiral is the better image, because it again states the primal
relation between human understanding and what it is meant to understand at its
highest level of work.
The age of maturity is a new age. It is not nor will it
ever be simply more of the same only better. Rather all the essential and
fundamental relations, from atoms to galaxies, from families to the family of
man, are undergoing transformation and reorganization. But, too, though the new age of spirituality
and divinity is just dawning and the signs of its appearances are small,
undeveloped and mostly undetected, dwarfed by the full panoply of powers
characterizing the mature human level, the human level, however mature it may
be, is not our true maturity, and is destined to pass away by being
incorporated into and finding its real purpose in its consummation in the
higher level of divinity. Thus, the
powers manifest in the full maturity of the intermediate level are, even when combined,
never as great as the smallest manifestation of the greater level above
it. We are passing out from the human
level into the divine level, from intellect to heart, not just progressing to a
higher level within the human, so all, both within and without, is undergoing
that ultimate transformation named transcendence. The Old Testament prophet Joel intimated this
in his prophecy of the last days that God revealed to him: “And it shall come
to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons
and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young
men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in
those days will I pour out my spirit.
“And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,
blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.” (King
James Bible, The Book of Joel 2: 28-30)
Any great transformation that is actually transcendence
is preceded by a time of terrific destruction, as the old forms are engulfed in
a fire of consummation, so that the highest consummation of the ages may occur. There are two fires—as there are two of
everything in the Faith, i.e. the spiritual reality and its appearance in the
mirror of creation, which is opposite to it.
These two are the fires of love and of hate, of longing attraction and of
angry rejection, of acceptance and denial.
The consuming fire, meaning that it consumes the old, thereby cleansing
the world of its corruptions and pollutions, is how the heat energy of the new
is felt and interpreted by those who reject it and deny its Source. It is the
fire of the love of God, both as what emanates from Him and how that emanation
feels in the heart.
The two fires, both named consummation, come from the
complementary effects aroused by the coming of the new Revelation that births a
new foundational principle of human existence and a new operational principle
of social life and organization. The new
foundational principle is the oneness of humankind, and the new social
principle of unity is justice. Further, not
only is a new order emerging but that new order is built upon the opposite
principle to the one that built the passing order, and this opposition/attraction
creates frustrations, anxieties, rages, confusion, hates, loves, compassion and
understanding. This opposite principle,
though, is really a part of a larger structure and it ascends from its state of
latency to become the ruling or master principle in order for that larger
structure to achieve completion and perfection.
The Master explains: “According to an intrinsic law all phenomena of
being attain to a summit and degree of consummation, after which a new order
and condition is established. As the instruments and science of war have
reached the degree of thoroughness and proficiency, it is hoped that the transformation
of the human world is at hand and that in the coming centuries all the energies
and inventions of man will be utilized in promoting the interests of peace and
brotherhood.” (Abdu'l-Baha, The
Promulgation of Universal Peace: 124)
Baha’u’llah wrote: “No sooner had that Revelation been
unveiled to men's eyes than the signs of universal discord appeared among the
peoples of the world, and commotion seized the dwellers of earth and heaven,
and the foundations of all things were shaken. The forces of dissension were
released, the meaning of the Word was unfolded, and every several atom in all
created things acquired its own distinct and separate character. Hell was made
to blaze, and the delights of Paradise were uncovered to men's eyes.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 296)
Again, these fires
are actually—again as is usually the case symbolically—the same fire, the
second and destructive lit by the first and constructive. But they separate into different feelings of love and hate, acceptance and denial, in
respective hearts. The fire both wounds
and heals, destroys and cleanses, removes barriers and is a barrier itself. The barriers, often called veils in the Bahá’i
Writings, to be burned away so that new perceptions may grow are in the mind
and heart. They are the prejudices, false notions, and smaller ideas that are taken
to be final. Thus the mind and heart are
also where regeneration of the spirit begins, Baha’u’llah alludes to these
barriers when He writes in His Tablet of Ahmad: “For the people are wandering
in the paths of delusion, bereft of discernment to see God with their own eyes,
or hear His Melody with their own ears. Thus have We found them, as thou
also dost witness.
“Thus have their
superstitions become veils between them and their own hearts and kept them from
the path of God, the Exalted, the Great.”
The Master speaks of the reviving of spirit when He
writes: “(T)he Sun of Reality, when it illumines the horizon of the inner
world, animates, vivifies and quickens with a divine and wonderful power. The
trees of human minds clothe themselves in new and verdant robes, putting on
leaves and blossoms and bearing spiritual fruits of the heavenly glad tidings.
Then fragrant flowers of inner significances appear from the soil of human
souls, and the whole being of man awakens to a new and divine activity. This is
the growth and development of the inner world through the effulgent light of
divine guidance and the heat of the fire of the love of God.” (Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 271)
This spiritual fire kindled with the human soul by the
divine fire overcomes the barriers of false knowledges bred into our souls. The fire of the
love of God burns away the veils of ignorance, doubt, uncertainty and confusion
that
block our power of understanding from knowing the reality of our true
being. ‘Abdu’l-Baha again: “By the fire of the Love of God the veil is burnt which
separates us from the Heavenly Realities, and with clear vision we are enabled
to struggle onward and upward, ever progressing in the paths of virtue and
holiness, and becoming the means of light to the world.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks: 82) It is the means of the birth of the divine
being, the angelic aspect, latent within us: “And now, concerning His words: "And He
shall send His angels...." By "angels" is meant those who,
reinforced by the power of the spirit, have consumed, with the fire of the love
of God, all human traits and limitations, and have clothed themselves with the
attributes of the most exalted Beings and of the Cherubim.” (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan: 78-79)
Now this is
an old story, yet ever new. “John the Baptist
baptized the people with water, but he said that the one who was to come after
him would baptize with fire. What is the meaning of this, for in the material
world, these two elements are contrary the one to the other, and then, if Christians
take the water literally, they ought also to take the fire literally. The meaning
is this: as everything in the material world has its beginning of life in
water, so water is a type of the beginning of the spiritual life—the new birth,
which also John preached when he exhorted people to repent, and so their hearts
were changed from material desires to a living faith in God. When the soul has
begun this new life, then the fire of the love of God will purify them into a
higher condition.” (Compilations, Baha'i
Prayers 9:52)
What is different today is that humanity must not just
raise up individuals of spiritual distinction but whole communities of
spiritual distinction, distinct not only in the speech, but also in the
behavior, of its members. Language knits
reality together into patterns that can be recognized and understood by others. To infuse one’s speech with revelations of
God is to weave that spiritual reality.
It means that one loves God, and wants, as all lovers do, to talk of
nothing but one’s beloved. This is part
of the social and psychological sciences that reveal the great science of the love
of God that shall renovate all the conditions of existence.
Language knits together the realties emanating from
the Word that are received and discovered by the power of understanding into a
new mental reality. Yet, speech, however
beautiful and enthusiastic (a word meaning filled with God) is not enough to
transform society. The House of Justice
admonishes: “High aims and pure motives, however laudable in themselves, will
surely not suffice if unsupported by measures that are practicable and methods
that are sound. Wealth of sentiment, abundance of goodwill and effort, will
prove of little avail if we should fail to exercise discrimination and
restraint and neglect to direct their flow along the most profitable channels.
The unfettered freedom of the individual should be tempered with mutual
consultation and sacrifice, and the spirit of initiative and enterprise should
be reinforced by a deeper realization of the supreme necessity for concerted
action and a fuller devotion to the common weal.” (Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol II: 87-88) That is the next post.
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