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,
Tabernacle of Unity: 3)
Let us begin by knowing something about the nature and
purpose of what Baha’u’llah calls above “the power of understanding.” It is the special gift from God to
humanity. Baha’u’llah wrote: “Know thou
that, according to what thy Lord, the Lord of all men, hath decreed in His
Book, the favors vouchsafed by Him unto mankind have been, and will ever
remain, limitless in their range. First and foremost among these favors, which
the Almighty hath conferred upon man, is the gift of understanding. His purpose
in conferring such a gift is none other except to enable His creature to know
and recognize the one true God—exalted be His glory. This gift giveth man the
power to discern the truth in all things, leadeth him to that which is right,
and helpeth him to discover the secrets of creation.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 194)
The gift of understanding is another
name for the rational faculty with which God has endowed the essence of the
human reality. This power, this gift, He
says, gives human beings “the power to discern the truth in all things.” Let us recall that the powers and qualities
of God are nested within each other, for all are connected with the rational
faculty.
The rational faculty’s power of
discernment is through the faculty of justice, which,
in turn, is directly connected with both unity, "a condition of the human spirit" (One Common Faith: 42), and consultation, the "operating expression of justice in human affairs". The House of
Justice wrote that: “justice,
as a faculty of the soul, enables the individual to distinguish truth from
falsehood and guides the investigation of reality, so essential if
superstitious beliefs and outworn traditions that impede unity are to be
eliminated.” (Universal House of Justice: Letter
to the Bahá'ís of Iran 2 March 2013)
Discernment is the ability to judge
accurately and fairly. It is the balanced,
middle way between an undiscerning and unguarded tolerance of every kind of thought
and action, and a rigid, legalistic, mechanical system of laws and principles.
Justice is the supreme operating quality for today, the harbinger of unity and
the foundation of peace.
What does
Baha’u’llah say about the soul’s faculty of justice? “The best beloved of all things in My
sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it
not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes
and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and
not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it
behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My
loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.” (The Arabic Hidden Words #2)
At
every level of human interaction, consultation will grow in importance as its
power to discern truth, unify people into community, and generate the knowledge
and insights that will solve seemingly intractable problems, defuse explosive
issues and harmonize contentious disputes is understood.
The
Prosperity of Humankind states: “[C]onsultation is the
operating expression of justice in human affairs. So vital is it to the success
of collective endeavor that it must constitute a basic feature of a viable strategy
of social and economic development. Indeed, the participation of those on whose
commitment the success of such a strategy depends becomes effective only as
consultation is made the organizing principle of every project. ‘No man can
attain his true station,’ is Bahá’u’lláh's counsel, ‘except through his
justice. No power can exist except through unity. No welfare and no well-being
can be attained except through consultation.’" (The Prosperity of Humankind:
Section III para: 6)
Certainly,
as one of the purposes of consultation is to investigate and ascertain the
truth, this power of discernment plays a central role in consultation. But in the context of true consultation, when
aided by love, fellowship and guided by spiritual principles, this power
achieves a remarkable transformation in strength and discernment.
Baha’u’llah
strongly stressed that: “In all things it is necessary to consult. This matter
should be forcibly stressed by thee, so that consultation may be observed by
all. The intent of what hath been revealed from the Pen of the Most High is
that consultation may be fully carried out among the friends, inasmuch as it is
and will always be a cause of awareness and of awakening and a source of good
and well-being.” (Consultation: A
Compilation: 3) Why should He be so
insistent that consultation be observed, even to saying that it “should be
forcibly stressed”?
One
reason may be that consultation is “a cause of awareness and awakening”. In another place He stated what I believe may
be the fundamental reason why it is so important to engage in true
consultation: “Consultation bestoweth greater awareness and transmuteth conjecture into certitude.
It is a shining light which, in a dark world, leadeth the way and guideth. For
everything there is and will continue to be a station of perfection and
maturity. The maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through
consultation.” (Consultation: A
Compilation: 3)
Transmutation
is to change the nature of something, as Baha’u’llah explained in the Kitab-i-Iqan where He discusses changing
copper into gold as a metaphor for the transmutation of soul. There, as a final
statement about the process, He stated: “It is evident that nothing short of
this mystic transformation could cause such spirit and behavior, so utterly
unlike their previous habits and manners, to be made manifest in the world of
being. For their agitation was turned into peace, their doubt into certitude,
their timidity into courage. Such is the potency of the Divine Elixir, which,
swift as the twinkling of an eye, transmuteth the souls of men!” (Kitab-i-Iqan: 156)
Again
we hearken back to spiritual principles, which are, in this case, the “Divine
Elixir”. They not only harmonize with
the human reality, but also in consultation they are an alchemical elixir of
thought, the divine element, which mysteriously transmutes conjecture into
certitude—that is, changes thinking from disparate ideas and musings and
opinions into a certitude of collective insight born of divine knowledge. Revelation instantly transmutes not only the
souls of human beings and their behavior, but also their thought “in the
twinkling of an eye”. It enables both of
them to reach their spiritual maturity.
Such
a profound change as is implied by the word transmutation is, in other places,
also described, following Baha’u’llah, as mystical. Thus, Shoghi Effendi states that “the core of
religious faith is that mystic feeling which unites Man with God. This state of
spiritual communion can be brought about and maintained by means of meditation
and prayer.” (Directives from the
Guardian: 86)
And
in relation to human individual and social development he wrote: “That mystic,
all-pervasive, yet indefinable change, which we associate with the stage of
maturity inevitable in the life of the individual and the development of the
fruit must, if we would correctly apprehend the utterances of Bahá'u'lláh, have
its counterpart in the evolution of the organization of human society.” (The World Order of Baha'u'llah: 163-164)
This
excursion into mystic transformation may seem odd in a discussion on
consultation, but it is just this connection with the spiritual dimension that
separates consultation from mere decision-making or other forms of group
dynamics. The House of Justice explains that the Bahá’i “world-view includes
the spiritual dimension as an indispensable component for consistency and
coherence.” (Compilations, Scholarship:
26)
And
what they mean by the phrase “the spiritual dimension” was summed up in another
document: “Although there are
mystical aspects that are not easily explained, the spiritual dimension of
human nature can be understood, in practical terms, as the source of qualities
that transcend narrow self-interest. Such qualities include love, compassion,
forbearance, trustworthiness, courage, humility, co-operation and willingness
to sacrifice for the common good—qualities of an enlightened citizenry, able to
construct a unified world civilization.” (Bahá’í International Community, 1993
Apr 01, Sustainable Development and the
Human Spirit)
One, of course, hears in this recitation of
qualities echoes of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s enumeration of the requisites for true
consultation: i.e. moral qualities of the heart that are inherent to and find
their origin in the spiritual dimension, and which are expressed as spiritual
principles, or human values, by the mind in speech.
In
regards to the work of consultation, Baha’u’llah’s statement just above may be
alluding to a mystic transmutation of individual and collective human thought
itself, an unprecedented psychological advance, historically unparalleled in
its depth and scope, that marks the change from adducing mere conjectural
evidence and opinions about the truth to having something more like a direct perception of it that is certainty, as is, perhaps, stated by Baha’u’llah in this passage: “Pass beyond the baser
stages of doubt and rise to the exalted heights of certainty. Open the eye of
truth, that thou mayest behold the veilless Beauty and exclaim: Hallowed be the
Lord, the most excellent of all creators!” (The
Persian Hidden Words #9)
This
advance marks the mystic transmutation into its maturity of the gift of
understanding.
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