What cup is there more bitter than Time?
All life’s beauty, lain in the dust;
all tomorrow’s hopes, forgotten.
To our lips we raise a vinegared tang,
where only yesterday, there was wine.

Trust not the deceit of color or song.
To the eyes, a wondrous thing;
to the ears, a paean of heaven.
Already the Puppeteer readies his box,
where he hides them all before long.

Yet, in the lover’s heart lies a secret.
A knowledge unknown to tongues;
a truth hidden even from minds.
That in the heart of pain lies a door,
one step beyond grief and regret:

That if we had not loved, we should not hurt;
that if we’d been not warm, we would not shiver.
All bitterness we taste is in memory of sweet;
all longing we feel, a proof of union.

For this terrible pain we call our life,
is knowledge that the soul knows of better.

It is written:
  “Verily, we are from God,
  and to Him shall we return.”

The idea of detachment has puzzled me for a long time, mainly because its basic tenant — as pursued by many of the people I know — seems to embrace a fundamental contradiction:

If the aim of religion is to foster unity, amity, peace and contentment, how can a pursuit be called religious if it divides, provokes enmity and unrest, or leaves a person dissatisfied? Yet this is exactly what occurs when a person constantly rebels against their desires: they become an individual at war. It is a kind of internal jihad — as the Islamic word “mujahiddin” actually connotes.

A person who strives to be detached in this way — when the very nature of the heart is to form attachments — is committing internally what would appear as an atrocity seen from outside. If one group (the conscious mind) suppresses and dictates terms to all other groups within, this is awfully familiar to those theocracies who have already laid a bloody trail towards their God.

I think humanity’s relationship with detachment has suffered from an immature reading of the Holy Texts. When people feel guilty and undeserving, they will naturally look to take this out on the person they feel is to blame: themselves. Detachment becomes a perfect weapon in that pursuit, a tool for the righteous mind to chastise the “unruly (and hated) self”.

But what if the nature of detachment were actually religious? What would a religious detachment look and feel like?

I’ve thought of one simple example: Let’s say that I like hot dogs. I love hot dogs, those nice, beef quarter pounders slotted in a thick potato roll. If someone tries to tell me to be detached from hot dogs, they better go someplace else, because even if I were to deny myself from such juicy beauties, the memory would still carry on in my heart.

But along comes someone who offers me a perfectly cooked filet mignon steak. Now, despite my love of hot dogs, a steak is a vastly better thing. There is no way I would fill up my stomach with a hot dog, when I knew a steak was on its way. I would even wait, passing up the hot dog, if I knew for certain such a steak was soon to come.

In this situation, my detachment from hot dogs can only be driven by a love for steak. I cannot be detached from something in the absence of a better alternative. And I must have complete faith in that alternative — feel its certainty humming within me — if detachment is to become a natural resonance of my heart.

So I begin to think that truly religious detachment is not at all about denying one’s self the world, but of coming to anticipate the beauty of God — and that the specious beauties of the world sometimes hinder that perception.

If a friend of mine later came along and saw me not eating my hot dog, he would say, “My goodness, how can you be so detached?” But to me it would not be detachment at all. I’m simply communing with my steak-to-be.

Also, there is another aspect of detachment which has always felt like a deep conundrum to me: It is a basic feature of human psychology that to earnestly involve ourselves in something, we must care about it — but to care deeply is synonymous with being attached.

A young man who is attached to his automobile will take fantastic care of it: he keeps it clean, keeps engine running, the interior vacuumed… By contrast, a person who “doesn’t really care” often ends up with a messy car and too-late trips to the mechanic. (I know I certainly fall into the latter category).

I’ve seen the same thing at my work. As a programmer, I notice a vast difference between the quality of work of someone who cares about what they do, and the quality of someone “just looking to get the job done” — who only wants to create a functional solution and to move on as quickly as possible. At a cursory glance, this detached emphasis on a solution rather than its details seems best; but in actual fact, such hapdash solutions almost always come back to bite you once the initial feelings of correctness are gone. Programs written without care more often than not do not stand the test of reality.

And yet, if a person cares too much, they agonize so dearly over every detail of the problem that they lose sight of their original purpose altogether. This leads to equally poor solutions, owing to their inherent complexity and attempts to forsee issues which never materialize. A similar situation happens if the car lover mentioned above cares too much: He reaches the point of never driving his vehicle at all so that he can always keep it safe.

I’m not sure detachment is simply the middle road. You have to care to be involved. Heck, I have to care about something before I can even remember it. Care too little and you lose connection, resulting in a decrease in quality of attention; care too much, and you cut off perspective, decreasing quality of purpose. What is the answer?

Maybe it lies in what we care about. In the case of the car, you need to care about the car, but there are two forms of caring: direct, in which your concern is for the beauty of the machine itself; and indirect, where you concern is for the suitableness of the car in a driving situation. As long as you care about driving more than what you drive, you have a decent marriage of form and function.

So too, in life, we need to care about our bodies, our work, our education: but it is an indirect caring, as these are means to the realization of our soul’s ascent. It cannot be achieved through not caring about the world, but by relegating the world’s importance to its relative value.

But even this can go too far: Are we to regard the people we meet as merely our stepping stones on the path to God? Such insincerity is not what other hearts are looking for.

It strikes me as a delicate virtue, like a fine blade, that can cut before you realize your finger is lost.

As I was playing chess on my favorite online server today (http://freechess.org), I found myself losing just a tiny bit less than my typical runs — where I can easily drop ten games without so much as a shred of dignity.

The difference this time is that I was calm. It may sound simple, but it lead to a relation about life that connects to my attitudes in chess:

In chess there is simply no room for negative emotions. Anger will not help you; frustration will certainly not help you. Being determined to drive your opponent into the dust will not even help you. In fact, such attitudes make things far worse, as they cause you to rush your judgments, underestimate your opponent, and open yourself to irrational decisions with no connection the board. If you adopt the attitude that you “should” be winning — and that whatever’s happening is somehow the universe being out to get you — well, on those days my ratings take a sharp dive.

However, this is not to say that chess should be played without feeling. In fact, a fine aesthetic sense can greatly assist you, by allowing your unconscious to express its opinions through showing you that a certain position “feels wrong”. Or feelings of graciousness can lead you to appreciate your opponent’s skill — and thus permit your mind to see things from his side, sometimes making his plans much clearer to you.

In short, chess is best played from a standpoint of subtle and joyful calm: not to be rushed; where winning has little emotional value; and where the game itself is worthy of a complete absorption of heart (in the form of caring about the quality of your position) and mind (by pouring through calculations, rather than ranting why things have reached their current state).

I only sometimes realize how helpful this is in general — especially when dealing with people. But in chess I’ve found it’s essential. Without it, I just plain lose.

If a wise man speaks to a fool,
he will use the fool’s language —
lest the language of the wise
lead him to greater folly.

Yet if the fool pays too much heed
to the words and forms adopted,
he will mostly see in them
the shape of his own reflection…

He should wonder less the form,
and more what could not fit it:

  Forget the drop, drying on your nose;
  ponder the clouds and thunder.

The more certainly we define ourselves, the more we fear an unraveling of that knowledge in the face of change and death.

As I watched television today, I was struck by how constantly two themes are reiterated: doom and escape. We flirt with our fears, and then dream of keeping them away through money, distance and association. There are programs describing how wars might destroy us, or our failing energy reserves, or the climate, or nature — or the slow decline of creativity as we submit to technology. And all of these are accompanied by heart-pounding music of the sort you might find in a horror movie.

The underlying theme is quite obvious: existence is coming to get you. You’ve struck a claim of self-independence against the vast improbability of time and space, and now your debt is being called. Can you run fast enough to escape it?

Those who can run fastest and furthest — who gain popularity through outstanding achievement, or who imprint their memory on the minds of many — have seemed to cheat for a moment the gaping maw of oblivion. But what’s really been achieved that time will not ultimately scorn? What sort of numbers game can mankind hope to play against Eternity?

I’ve watched films like Dead Poet’s Society, that make philosophies like carpe deum seem worth following. (That is, those who make today their own are able to defy the anonymity of their passing days). But even this film was not truly about the present. It seemed to imply that the present could be used to make a claim on the future: that what we do today can have a significance beyond the moment.

If so, it is just another idea of escape. Time cannot be distracted, or bought, or logically disproved. Can anyone reading this even recall what their infancy was like? Or truly what their childhood was? Time has swallowed parts of each of us already. Even if a thread of continuity really remains, what we were does not. There is no self that can know itself through every stage. The self who engages in reflection is no longer the self of non-reflection.

Then if everything we write is erased, why write at all? I think understanding this is everything. Otherwise, if there is too much investment placed on the background and future of what we do, we will end up spending most of our energy protecting what we believe can be possessed. In fact, the belief of possession is best evidenced through a need to protect, and thus our fears themselves are of the essence of establishing a sense of permanency in time. If we were never afraid, it might mean there was nothing substantive enough to fear losing.

The more we are sure of who we are, the more daily life turns into a battle against entropy: a war with the very days of our lives, each day spent arduously defining something less durable than a mayfly. Yet it is the beauty of our nature that we flit among the mystical planes, changing in definition as rapidly as our thoughts. Like the quantum physics we develop, to reflect upon our being is to change the nature of its subject. A watch is named because it marks time, not because of particular times it has or will show.

I think an answer to the rabid fear I see on television and in society must begin by letting go. To acknowledge that physics has not described our universe; that psychology has not explained the mind; that history has not ever told us what really happened; that sociology cannot define cultures. Whatever role these ideas play in our development, the actual reality of the present moment is forever beyond classification. It flirts with death. It is unstable, unsure, and largely ignorant. We do not know what happiness is, or how to find it. We are never sure of the meaning of life, or of our role in it. The more certainly we attempt to describe these things to ourselves, the more tightly we create our bonds of fear. And thus conversely: the more powerless we know ourselves to be at describing and knowing reality, the more we are ready to experience and accept whatever it actually is.

Yet even at the heart of such impenetrable mysteries: this breeze is indescribably fine; these words please me to write them; and a fine bed is waiting for me.

As I pondered the story of Khidr again (search for “Khidr” here if some background is needed), a new thought came to me:

The actions of Khidr are used to demonstrate the full reach of God’s wisdom whenever He undertakes an action. However, the Prophets of God — who represent His Vicegerents on Earth — never act in a manner similar to Khidr. That is, Khidr does as He does because God’s wisdom is deeper than we can fathom; yet the doings of the Prophets of God fall mostly within the limits of man’s comprehension: They by-and-large refrain from acts which would seem unjust to our eyes.

Why does Khidr appear to act as a free agent — his actions framed only within God’s understanding — while the Prophets follow a pattern of action mostly in conformance with our own understanding?

My first thought was that we wouldn’t listen if They did otherwise: if They acted beyond our grasp. But then again, we don’t really listen anyway. And moreover, we’re repeatedly warned against judging Them according to our own moral standards, because such judgments can only confirm as truth the same truths they were founded on to begin with. Such a cycle simply does not allow for the entirely new.

It’s quite a puzzle, actually. We develop a model of life based on the hodgepodge we were brought up with, knowing full well it’s riddled with holes by the time we’re teenagers. We patch it up with our own experience, we mend it and sew the tears, trying to reach an acceptable compromise with our fellow beings by the time we’re adults.

Then a Messenger comes with something completely new — however much the core principles might remain the same. It’s too dangerous just to replace everything we’ve worked on, because who knows what the end result will be? So we cautiously compare note by note, to see if the effects of the new teachings will be profitable or damaging. But here lies the problem: our understanding of what is profitable or damaging is a key concept of our own morals! We’ll only let through what we can recognize as good — even though “recognition” requires that what we’re looking at not be new at all. The end result is that nothing really new can enter our lives until we accept a bit of madness and try it, damn the consequences.

Yet not every “Messenger” is what they claim to be. Arbitrarily substituting moral codes, without fully knowing the merits of the author, can be worse than never accepting anything new in the first place. It’s quite a risk, causing many to avoid the problem and go neither route: just stick with what mostly works — even if that something is barely suitable for the ever-changing times we live in.

Were Khidr to cross our paths at some point, He would forcibly insert the good, acting in ways to defy every code we know that God’s Will might work toward some unseen benefit. We would have to reject Khidr, constantly, in direct proportion to our faith in our private credo. Only a faithless man would laugh no matter the outcome.

The Messengers, however, cross our paths but do not forcibly insert Their Teachings. They craft them into a pill we can actually swallow — if we put a will behind it. But do we? And how do we ferret it out from what everyone else would love to shove down our throats? Having the freedom to override moral codes would be the fantasy of any despot.

So maybe the Messengers act within our bounds, not because the Will of God is constrained by us, but in order to make it possible. Perhaps the truths we receive are in direct proportion to our willingness to be offended by the pursuit of them. We may all be standing at the Ocean of Life, but each has his own straw.

O Son of Beauty! By My spirit and by My favor! By My mercy and by My beauty! All that I have revealed unto thee with the tongue of power, and have written for thee with the pen of might, hath been in accordance with thy capacity and understanding, not with My state and the melody of My voice. — Bahá’u’lláh

Only the soft rains do I hear…
The sheets of water on my back;
the thunder and wind.

For all of the noise
there is the deepest silence.
My footfalls are a clamor.

I walk the shores
of a swollen river,
the nighttime at my back.

A while back, I wrote about being content with the will of God under all circumstances — a state of being referred to in Arabic as being “raazi”. But peaceful though such a state must be, it is by no means the height of contentment. One may be accepting, as Job was, no matter the trials sent by God; but to experience every moment as the best possible world is another thing entirely.

The contentment of being raazi is one of peace. One may not know how things will work out, but the soul is assured of the hand of God behind all things. Or one may not have everything he wants, but in his heart, he knows that even poverty can lead to riches.

Beyond this is another state, called being ghani. To be ghani implies a wealth taken to the point of excess. One who knows this kind of contentment does not view poverty as a soulful emptiness; rather, to him the greatest emptiness is an abounding fullness. It is not a condition of peace, but of a joy which threatens all stability.

If God who wears the cloak of the world in order to reveal Himself, then those who are raazi know it; but those who are ghani see it with their very eyes.

Becoming raazi is one of the powers of faith, when one’s inward vision penetrates the Unseen. It’s like the peace of a farmer who has planted all of his crops, knowing from experience what must happen in time. It doesn’t matter that the seeds lie quiet under the ground; the farmer’s awareness spans time, it is not confined by the immediate. The deeper and fuller one’s awareness of such unseen processes, the less complaint there will be over particular, sudden forms.

Being ghani is being present at the time of harvest. The real question being: why should time be necessary? Between the seed’s being planted, and fruit falling from the tree, our bodies must endure a requisite lapse of time. But the soul is, in theory, free of such limitations; its sentiments need not be dictated by the body. The two move in separate realms, although it seems natural for the body to set the pace of things.

Time is like a someone telling a joke; once you get the punchline, you’ll laugh from the first word the next time you hear it.

I believe God is unveiling Himself to us through the mechanism of the world — that the world exists to suit the nature of our understanding; but once we grasp where this tale is headed, we needn’t wait for all of the particulars. There can be a moment of insight, at which point further explanation is unnecessary. From that moment on there can be direct relation, like a painter with his brush once he grasps the principles of the art.

I have been thinking lately that material things satisfy us only because their reality draws from a deeper Source. What brought this to a point for me is a statement by Bah’u’llh, where He projects God as saying to humanity:

O Son of Light! Forget all save Me and commune with My spirit. This is of the essence of My command, therefore turn unto it.

This is one of my favorite statements of His, and I say it to myself each night before going to bed. What does He mean to “Forget all save Me and commune with My spirit”? It would seem to suggest dispensing with all consciousness of the world, to reach a purer consciousness of “My spirit”. But in other places He rejects asceticism entirely, so I don’t believe He means for us to turn away from the one reality we know, to point ourselves toward one we can know nothing of.

I’m beginning to think that by “spirit” He means that which makes this world come to life (in the same way our own spirit makes our bodies come to life): it’s Quality. After all, there is somehow a difference between a mere collection of atoms and a refreshing glass of water.

Material forms have a capacity to lift our spirits, but my question is: how do they have this capacity? I understand that light stimulates photoreceptive cells in my eye, which stimulate electrochemical signals throughout the neurons of my brain — but at what point does this chain of events end in the experience of beauty? What final chemical, or electric charge, is it that comprises the transporting feel of great art?

I think these base media are simply carriers. They bring to us a message — albeit filtered by the limits of each medium. But no matter how reduced from its original perfection Quality may become — whether in the form of a drink of water, a painting, a chocolate bar — the underlying character of its manifestation is always the same.

Take light, for example. Most of our light originates from a blinding source too far away to grasp. It illuminates everything indiscriminately, yet is reflected from each place according to the nature of that place. Although the manifestations of light are unique in themselves, the underlying properties of its illimunation remain the same. That is, some places reflect the light in a manner closer to its pure form, such as mirrors, while others absorb most of its energy, presenting us with a silhouette of darkness. Yet what reaches our eyes in every case are those original quanta of energy from our faraway star. However filtered, the essential properties of the light remain undisturbed: in effect, everything we see when we go outside is the Sun, seen through a lens of Earthly form.

Now if we are beings meant to commune with the potentialities of God’s spirit, then it is with that Spirit we should form our closest bond. Continuning the analogy of light to spirit: A painter may use a brush and canvas, but his real task is carving the light, so as to present what it’s capable of revealing. The pen and paper are not significant in themselves — however important in their role as media — it’s the Reality conveyed by their means which is the raison d’etre.

One could even suggest that such a being discount the medium entirely, until they have transcended its utility — beyond, to what it serves to manifest. “Forget all save Me and commune with My spirit”. Bah’u’llh statements now suggest to me that all things reflect His spirit, but we should never get caught up in the things themselves. Rather, penetrate them, move with the eye of the soul beyond their immediate appearance, until one reaches what they were created to convey.

Another example of this is found in watching a television program. Assume it’s a good program; a great program! Something which moves you and causes you to experience a genuine beauty.

First, there is the television signal transmitting the program. Since it’s invisible to you, there’s no way for it to reach you or touch you. A television is required. Thus, by necessity, we bring in the physical medium of the television. One may even love their television, but in fact it only serves to bring those programs into the scope of your vision.

Let’s say the television is a bit old: it has scratches on the screen, it’s dusty. As you watch, you might get distracted by these things. You may want another television altogether. But if you concentrate on the program you’re watching, it’s funny how all these minor flaws quickly disappear. Soon, no matter how tiny or beat up or black and white your television may be, it becomes all about the program.

Yet even the program is only a form of expression. There are sets, actors, dialog, etc. One could get caught up even here: attracted to a beautiful actor, disturbed by another’s voice. But if the material of the program is really worth it, even these are passed in your mind: you focus deeper, to what the program is about, to the ultimate message beneath.

In the end, if all of these stages of manifestation are passed beyond, and the heart is filled and the soul informed, then all of these physical realities will have served their purpose: of bringing you into connection with something you deeply desire. To get there requires bridging each of the gaps placed in your way, all of the physical obstacles in the way of spiritual experience. But it’s not that these obstacles don’t belong between you and the experience — they are even necessary to it! But depending on your point of view, they may or may not get in the way.

I think what Bah’u’llh says in this quote is that the world is only a vehicle, much like an Existential Television. It uses matter and form to present a message to us, for the sake of our souls. How much we receive of that Message is directly up to us, and deeply we choose to look.

It strikes me that the private destiny of each individual is something other than achieving the perfections he imagines for himself.

My first clue to this has been the fact that I’ve yet to meet a single person — of any age or level of achievement — who believes they deserve Heaven on their own merit. That is, if such were the measure of spiritual success, I have found none who would grant themselves that reward.

How can it be fair that we remain perpetually undeserving? One of the most widespread issues I encounter is people believing they are not good enough, that they do not deserve happiness in life. This mentality presents a very specific picture: That things begin in a crude state, and since this crude state must be overcome to enter a perfected state, only those efforts which bend the crude toward the perfected are acceptable. Anything else is “sin”, an opportunity for advancement missed, a betrayal of promise.

However, something in our nature rebels against this philosophy. We know that a joyful condition is better than sorrow; we see how an hour spent in joy can yield ten times its output in work. Even adults at a regular job requires breaks and diversions, lest the mind become dull.

If I put this aside for a moment: perhaps Heaven desires something other than completeness; an aspect of what we’re given — rather than what we acquire — as our key to that Place.

This became clearer for me recently because of a very strong dream. It made such an impression on me, during the dream itself, that for several dreams afterward I found myself telling different characters about what I had heard, repeating it to myself so I would remember it after I awoke.

I was in a terribly dangerous swamp. There were traps everywhere, and all kinds of fatal mistakes to be made. There were dinosaurs, and huge crocodiles, and deadly plants.

Somehow, in the middle of it all sitting on a log, was God, in the form of the actor Alan Rickman (I’d just seen the wonderful movie, “Something the Lord Made”, whose title itself is a commentary on what I learned). Anyway, when I walked up to God, He said that there was only one way to escape from my predicament and enter a better place. I asked, “What’s that?” He said, “You must bring Me something I do not already have.”

I thought about His request for a while and came up with several ideas: love, happiness, independence, virtue, etc. But I could tell that none of these were close to the mark. Then it hit me — I could tell by the feeling which came over me that I had found the right answer. It was: my limitations. My limited nature was the one thing God did not possess for Himself; and to offer this to Him was the reason I’d been created. Alan just smiled, and the dream moved on to another.

After I woke up, the realization didn’t seem quite as intense or special, but it left me with a gnawing sense there was something behind it. That is, it’s not so much the perfections I develop in this life which matter — such as becoming knowledgable, skilled, or accomplished — but the depth of my appreciation for my limits. To the extent that I discover within them a special beauty. It’s like that saying where the greatest strength is knowledge of one’s weaknesses.

This put me in mind of a prayer by Bah’u’llh, where He writes:

… Thou hast ordained that the utmost limit to which they who lift their hearts to Thee can rise is the confession of their powerlessness to enter the realms of Thy holy and transcendent unity, and that the highest station which they who aspire to know Thee can reach is the acknowledgment of their impotence to attain the retreats of Thy sublime knowledge…

We have always sought Truth.
But the terrible irony is:
In its pursuit, we haven’t its aid.

That is: We cannot use
a Truth we do not know
to measure those we think we’ve found.

Thus history is replete
with such cases of irony;
of believing we already know
the name, or the face
of Whom we seek.

We imagine it will come
from kings or royal lineage;
when it appeared from a carpenter
of unknown descent.

Or we believe it can be told
by learned men and scholars;
when it came from a desert nomad,
illiterate and cast out.

We look to men of virtue
or a proven character;
when deliverance came
from the hands of a killer.

Or we long for personages
of fame and great reknown;
when the final word
was the word of a prisoner.

If history has taught us anything:
In matters of Truth and wisdom,
never trust your expectations.

The following entry is little more than a fantasy, but I use it to help place some of the experiences I’ve had in my life. I don’t begin to claim it holds any truth; it simply helps me wonder.

Have you ever been somewhere and suddenly had a sense of the way events might go? And then been frustrated, not because they turned out that way, but because you knew it would happen? It’s almost as if time gives you a little taste, and then that flavor fulfills itself. Or maybe it’s just subtle clues the subconscious tunes in to.

Or have you been talking with someone, and briefly certain images flit through your mind, sometimes with word associations. They feel unbidden. Was it a spark of creativity, or an impression of some kind? So you speak it out loud, and the other person thinks you read their mind. You don’t know if you just picked up on the idea, or had the idea yourself and somehow projected it.

Or the phenomenon of thinking about a person and then hearing them call on the phone shortly after. I’ve heard this so many times from my friends it seems commonplace now. One friend even said she knew whenever I came to visit — it was usually out of the blue — because she always dreamt about it the night before.

Or when I finish matching a film where incredible things are possible, I notice my reflexes and coordination become much smoother. I’m able to take my car keys out of my pocket and insert them into the lock, almost without looking in one fluid motion. How different from those days when nothing seems to go right. Is this me being more confident, or is “life” cooperating somehow because my outlook has been subtly changed?

These events only touch the surface of the strange things I’ve experienced. They cause me to think about the nature of human consciousness, and whether we may be part of something larger, which spans our existence across barriers even of space and time.

I think every part of the universe serves as a model for the whole. That is, each thing symbolizes an aspect of the underlying pattern. An example of this is the way larger systems are composed of smaller ones. We have cells in our bodies, which are made of molecules, they of atoms, then of quarks, etc. Or going higher, we have social networks, then planets, solar systems, galaxies, galactic clusters, etc.

But these are only spatial delineations. What if there are bridges between consciousnesses as well? No one part of our body may be said to have awareness — no more so than a single neuron represents the whole mind — yet the author of this entry is certainly aware. My whole being produces a coherent aspect, which I refer to as my self.

Such synergy could represent a deeper pattern. What if, just as my cells comprise a body and mind who is self-aware, many minds likewise participate in a higher order which has an awareness of its own kind? And these together, and so on, until there is a master consciousness whose waking dream is the pith of existence? This is something I would call the “Ur-soul”, which we are all a part of even while we remain distinct — in the same way my liver’s cells are a part of my existence, yet exist separately in themselves.

But that is just an example in space. Consider time: as an infant I was very different from the person I am now. My childhood — the presence of my thinking during childhood — is impossible to recall now. I cannot see and feel things the way I did then, when the whole world almost fit in my neighborhood. So too with the teenage years, which were filled with a turmoil I simply don’t experience now. Who were those people? They were all separate, in a way; but they also contributed to this present whole.

If I can be divided in both space and time, where is the “me”? Where do I begin and end? If I refer to myself, am I a part of something, or a culmination of parts? What if I am all of these at once?

I think the development of individual awareness is a part of who are. However, believing in a concrete individuality is too much. It’s like that liver cell believing it exists independently from its host. Yet this is the way our selves function: we disbelieve we are merely abstractions of a shifting order — a kind of wave-function riding on unfathomed waters. We envision ourselves wholly isolated; and this, I think, denies us a true consciousness of what we are.

In Zen I once encountered the idea of mutual realities. Take a rain umbrella, for example. Rain umbrellas only exist because of rainfall, even though such umbrellas still exist when there is no rain. As an object, it can be said to have a separate existence from its purpose; but in truth, it does not. If there were never any rain, there would be no such umbrellas. They exist as a part of “rain” — in the form of our desire to be protected from it. In a sense, they are the rain, in just one of its many aspects.

Because where does the rain begin and end? Is it only a single drop? That would not be rain. Is it many drops? How many? Must they fall from the sky? If so, then the cloud is also a part of what “rain” is. Since we have added another object to the idea of “rain”, where does it end?

In fact, there is an entire complex, too diverse to describe, which comprises the experience we abstract as “rain”: the smell, the umbrellas, the wet dogs, soggy shoes, the approaching thunder, the nights when we sit watching fat drops pelt the window. Rain does not begin or end anywhere; it is none of these individual objects: it exists as the entire sum. And yet even there it does not end. There are still many experiences for us to know, each of which will be individual, and will add to our sense of “rain”.

So too with the concept of “self”. Our attention rests in the optic nerve, but we are as much who we feel ourselves to be as we are the experiences that give us those feelings. To feel the wind on one’s face is to be, for that moment, a union of the two: for what kind of experience could we have if there were no stimulus of experience? If there were no wind, no memory of wind, no nothing of any kind, what “self” would there be but mere potential?

In deconstructing my self this way, I mean to suggest that our boundaries are not as clear as we feel them to be. We are conditioned to separate our thoughts in terms of time and space, but these are only delineations. What is the truth of our reality, and the realities we are a part of? Do I sense people’s thoughts sometimes because of a particular sensitivity — or because we are individual parts of one whole, like the cells that make up a larger organism? Are there even higher orders of consciousness, the awareness of which requires us to transcend the confines of selfhood?

When I relax my thoughts, there seems to be a larger flow I join up with, something only loosely affiliated with my present understanding. It is not that I see with other eyes; it’s more like I begin to hear a song echoing from many places — a song which makes its own kind of sense. Things begin to taste “right” or “wrong”, in ways I cannot explain; as if there were a greater harmony, a grander scale of happiness, than what my single body can feel alone.

And if goes on like this, without limit, until the best I can do is abstract the whole under a single name — a global entity with its own purpose, not possessing singular boundaries — whose reality is expressed by and throughout the whole, each part having its own purpose and yet summing to produce the whole. What is this? Do I exist to be a part of its self-knowing? To contemplate and feel the Ur-soul?

I have heard the sea
pour out its mournful lament;
and the dirge of the clouds
with their rumbles and lightnings.

I have watched the grey sky
enfold us in a shroud of sorrow;
as the pall-bearer drops
loose their lugubrious weight.

These storms that feel
like unending death:
yet they kiss the ground
with bright green hope.

Several times now in the past few year, I’ve encountered a particular argument: Whether it is nobler to forgo faith in any higher agency, so the mind may remain free and clear; or to surrender judgment if one believes they’ve discovered a higher Power. To maintain freedom and aloofness seems to strengthen the individual; while giving up everything — even the mind — in the name of love seems positively transcendent.

In one case, recently, a person asked whether Baha’is should accept the authority of their Prophet, Bah’u’llh, utterly and without question. To do so implies accepting even those things we have not yet understood — things that have not seen the light of reason. This is especially true since so many of Bah’u’llh’s texts remain untranslated into English so far, and who knows what they might contain?

But if I understood him correctly, his argument was not against Bah’u’llh and religion, but rather utter resignation to any authority. This impairs human development because it closes the mind, truncates judgment, and relativizes the meaning of “truth” to that authority.

The example was given of resigning in the present to dictates whose future character cannot be known. Using Bah’u’llh as an example of this was a good one, since His believers presuppose perfection on the part of that authority, thus condoning any and every prescribed future action no matter its appearance or consequences — because that guidance is “perfect”. This removes judgment and understanding from the human realm and places them wholly on the altar of a chosen God.

The danger I believe he picked up on is that our relationship to “God” is always framed within the confines of human understanding. For example, Bah’u’llh’s pronouncements were rendered in human language, and must be applied by human minds. No matter the perfection of His original intent, its expression and realization must occur within the fallible realm of a human translation of that intent into behavior.

Because the Bah’ community believes their Source to be perfect, they may implicitly ascribe a transmission of that quality of perfection down to the ultimate acts themselves. This phenomenon has been used throughout history to condone the worst violence against humanity, since the perfection of the Source was believed to reflect itself in the perfection of the believer’s interpretations, and then to the perfection of the believer’s actions. Thus we have the idea of a believer “doing God’s will”, even if that will gets translated into putting thousands of innocent people to death.

I think that to believe, once one has “found” Bah’u’llh, that they may submit their will entirely and be forever guided on the straight path, is just not possible given our human condition. What I mean is, even if one has found Bah’u’llh, they have not found Bah’u’llh; even if one has discovered a perfect testament to God’s nature, they have not read it; and even if Bah’u’llh’s laws are perfect for the ordering of society, we have not begun to follow them, and never will.

By this I do not mean that Bah’u’llh is fallible or His laws are incomplete, but rather that our understanding is fallible and our application of those laws is incomplete. The perfection of a Manifestation’s authority simply cannot survive crossing the boundary between the divine realm and a human one. We will corrupt whatever we are given the moment we hear it. Even using the word “God” is a corruption, since an infinite being cannot be bound by our terminology or understanding. We just don’t know what we’re talking about; we don’t know Who Bah’u’llh is; and we don’t know what a single one of His words really means.

What this requires of the believer is that he never cease in his pursuit after the truth. Every day, it’s possible to “find” a Bah’u’llh whose reality one was unaware of the day before. In a sense, a believer cannot “belong” to a faith and remain honest to his nature. The Faith he belongs to on any given day is subject to his own immaturity on that day, and will not be the same as tomorrow’s Faith — if he continue ardently in his search.

And yet, there is hope in this. What religion requires of us is that we grow and develop our understanding, not that we close our minds and relax in the perfection of our leader. His perfection is not accessible to us; this is the meaning of having imperfections. “The imperfect eye sees imperfections”, said `Abdu’l-Bah. So too, when we read the Writings of Bah’u’llh, or listen to the decisions of the House of Justice, we are seeing a divine light filtered by the flaws of our own eye. What we really see is a product of our own selves, and we may never wholly trust in such mirages.

What this requires of the believer is faithfulness. Faith is not properly a noun, as in a place where the heart may dwell. It is an adjective, describing the terms of our relationship to God. Compare this to the old saying, “keeping faith”, meaning that one remains true to the spirit of an agreement. Our faith in God means that we trust in the perfection of His Messenger, and continue to seek the meaning of that perfection throughout the rest of our lives. It’s in believing that we’ve “found” what we’re looking that we become doomed.

So, if one no longer calls themselves a “Baha’i”, I would say bravo. I have never been a “Baha’i”. That word identifies a concept whose meaning is not only highly personal from day to day, but whose stasis is foreign to my nature. What I am is a seeker after truth, and I inhale from the fragrance of Bah’u’llh’s words the fragrance of truth. This is why I pursue them, and continue to pursue, hoping to become transformed by an ever developing understanding and application of His teachings.

And if He commands things beyond my understanding, what then? Do I judge them according to what I understand so far, or do I surrender my judgment and follow anyway? And yet, what would I be judging them with, and what would I be surrendering to? Both options exist within my own understanding. Both will be wrong. So what is a believer to do?

I guess what I’m saying is that we are always “wrong”, but this does not mean we cannot be faithful. Religion is about love, not absolute truth. Be true to your heart, be honest, be good as far as you know how — and keep at it. I have never aimed at forming the world into a certain image. I think this is ridiculous. What I do aim at is increasing the joy in my heart, and being conducive to happiness and the well-being of society as I understand it. Of course, Bah’u’llh’s Writings and Institutions are my guide in this search and I follow them as closely as I’m able. Yet I will always be wrong in the sense of knowing truth; I will never be a true follower of my love. Yet I will always have that love, and the truth of my Beloved One.

So yes, I believe in something I can neither know nor understanding. All I have to go on is the joy of my pursuit, in much the same way we locate a fire by following its heat. And yet, whoever said I was looking for something that could fit within the confines of my mind? Even my own heart does not fit in such a confined space! What I am seeking is a mystery whose nature engulfs me; and whenever I’m immersed in its waters, I feel my purpose — to know Him, and to worship Him.

I was a crystal chalice
open, and waiting for the rains to pour.
Since youth I had longed for fullness.
It seemed my being had been made
in the shape of something
I was meant to find.

But for so long, I was a bearer of hollows.
My bones made dull groans
as the winds passed over me.
I trembled when the Earth trembled,
and viewed every precipice
with shattered dreams.

The she came into my life.
She poured forth, from a long, fluted stem;
filling all my spaces with her ruby kiss.
She intoxicated me, my lady Wine,
and made every dark place
smile with an inner glow.

We are quite a pair, she and I.
When other lips come for sohbat
they stumble away down dark alleys,
unable to bear the heady laughter.

I was a chalice, once;
now I am only a taste, divine,
borne aloft in Saghi’s arms.

A few days ago I wrote that the essence of morality lies in valuing life, since we tend to do right by what we care about most — which is another way of saying that real morality starts with love. But while this describes the what, it does not address the how. Where does our sense of value come from? How can we value ourselves more — as the basis of integrity — when self-loathing is so much the norm?

What makes it even more difficult is a principle I’ve noticed in my own nature, and which I believe to be universal: that love cannot be governed by will. We simply do not choose our interests.

This principle would seem to suggest that morality is not a matter of choice — but that isn’t quite what I mean. A better way to put it is that one cannot develop his morality directly. Any attempt to do so involves duplicity, as we start patterning our actions differently from our interests. We do one thing, but in our hearts we want to do another. Yet the morality I dream of begins in the heart, not in the mind; it does not require an inner conflict — since I believe love cannot be fostered by any kind of violence.

This means that true morality — which proceeds from one’s inward being — must be developed indirectly. There is another variable we can tweak, and which is subject to our will. And if our heart is driven by what we love most, this variable must be: to look deeper into the nature of things, until we discover a more universal love.

First of all, it strikes me as very odd that we cannot choose what we love. Love is such an amazing source of energy and motivation — it allows us at times to completely transcend our limitations. A person in love is devoted to his object; he draws on reservoirs of energy that the will has no access to. Love, in effect, ignites our being and makes our potential come alive.

It’s almost as if human beings are a kind of appliance: once we find the right socket to plug into, everything changes. We enter a new realm of being. I think we were designed to operate on this level, and that the meager energies we possess without it are only there to help us to get there.

Once we encounter this torrent of love, it is in our interest to channel and heighten the experience, much like focusing light into a beam. Only if a person is unaware that this can be achieved does he ignore it. Otherwise, why content one’s self with less, when more can be had? If we know the first level of something is good, and the second level is better, who will not reach for it if he knows it’s close?

That is the role of morality, I believe: a set of guidelines to enhance our connection to love. Take the morality of an engineer. He uses math and measurement to decide whether a certain design is “good” or not. He defines goodness by the fitness of the end product; but only if cares about that product will he strive to use the guidelines to their utmost; only if cares can they act to enhance his connection through the perfection of the final result. And when it’s done, and done well, he will experience the joy of using it for its intended purpose. In this way, the refinement of his actions bonds him with his goal.

Since morality is aimed at the beloved, we need to see our goal clearly in order to make proper use of what is moral. The variable we can control is our vision. What is it that we want? Have we looked everywhere to find it?

For example, a person may look for someone to deeply love, but will alone cannot manifest that person, not even among those he knows, since will-power does not determine love — and without love there is no basis for that kind of relationship. He may act (pretend morality) toward someone he knows, as if doing so will create what he seeks, but this is a lie. In order for genuine actions of love to appear (real morality), the beloved must be found. Since love cannot be changed, what he must do is to seek out more people — to increase his vision by discovering more possibilities. Doing this is well within his power, and only by operating at that level can he ever hope to act honestly as one in love.

I think spiritual morality is no different. We possess a set of guidelines for living whose purpose can only be reasonably defined in terms of the Beloved. Without that essential piece, they are just actions serving as an end in themselves. Find the Beloved, however, and they become extremely pragmatic, being most effective ways for us to gain closer proximity.

So the “how”, from all of this, is in effect education: to sharpen our vision; see more clearly, more deeply, more broadly. There exist certain things, revealed in nature — whether it be objects, people, ideas, feelings — that are able to engender a spontaneous, radical response in the human spirit. Morality comes into play both at the beginning to help us find it, and afterwards to draw us nearer.

Furthermore, I believe — from reading certain mystical texts — that the whole of life is much more than we take it to be. In this sense, education means unwrapping the veils that obscure its true nature, until we find that the Beloved is all. Which is also the only way that human beings can ever act morally towards all with honesty.

There is a phenomenon of consciousness which I’ve observed to be the cause of much heartache in the field of religious pursuit. It is something which causes the believer to strictly divide in his mind between the earthly reality that appears here, and the supposed heavenly realities which await him at the end of his trials. This fissure in his view of the world causes him to maintain a harsh distinction between where he is — his current state — and where God is believed to dwell. Always He seems infinitely far off, never close, never “as near as our life’s vein”.

This attitude is not simply a mental position, but a fissure at the heart of our spiritual awareness. No wonder so many faiths equate reunion with their Lord to the ending of the world: more than a few of them view this fault as an essential failing of reality itself, a mistake destined to be corrected. We were meant to live as a unity, but something wicked crept into man so that for now, we dwell apart in this mortal penance.

But what is this belief, and where did it come from?

This “split” envisions a barrier between ourselves and our Goal so real, our belief in this life as partitioned off is complete. Of those who pray, who hasn’t said a prayer and wondered if it reached its destination, as if the syllables themselves had faced a terrible hike of some kind?

We’ve been conditioned by our experiences in space and time to imagine most concepts in terms of scale, measure, duration, etc. Even if we think of “eternity”, we picture it as an unending duration. Things exist in compartments with clear divisions, such as the “universe” (though we’ve never seen its end), and “Heaven” as a place we go to after we die.

and never fully approving of who we’ve become, since where we are is never where He is. The failure to satisfy an Entity Whose motives and thoughts we simply cannot imagine causes a persistent sense of separation — a rift in our consciousness of God, which I have come to call “the split”.

Depsite its ill effects, the Split seems to be a necessary stage in the development of consciousness. As children, we begin to realize that we are not our parents, and that our wishes are not the same as the wishes of existence. Here the “we/they” gap begins, but from there it is vastly widened: not only are we different from the others we meet, but we begin to perceive a difference between who we are, and who we had the potential to be. As soon as we’re scolded for doing something wrong, for example, there is presented to us an image of ourselves having not done the thing in question — and alternate path, so to speak. This makes sense of the question, “Why did I do that?”, as if some greater I had had the choice between two paths and the questioner is only the result of one of them.

To me,
my days are as diamonds.
The moments of my life
are a precious gold;
the minutes and the hours — priceless.

I should not sell them cheaply.
If I do not have time
for what concerns me most,
then who has my time?
And at what price did I barter it away?

A loving Creator
has created this mote of love.
My seconds are the soul of the gift.
They are, in fact, all that I am.
There can never be a dearer possession.

O, do not waste my days
in concern of where I am going!
or even of what I have been.
The Lover has summoned His friends.
Relax… enjoy the relationship.

If a perfect Creator loves His creation, can it be possible for us, as witnesses, to impute to Him a lacking heart? And yet, even in my own relationship to God I have found deep-welling evidence of such beliefs; that in the end I’ve been left out to dry in consequence of my incompleteness, my short-comings, or whatever.

But I wish to argue the other side for a moment. Anyone who has had parents knows that love often fails to manifest itself as what we desire or expect. It can come in forms that leave us in tears throughout the night. Or if love shows us a grim, or quiet face — perhaps for long days — it doesn’t imply abandonment, or flagging concern.

It would seem that to properly arraign the qualities of a lover, we must examine the case from his point of view. An action leading even to our deaths may be perceived differently by the affected souls afterward. Of course — in the case of human lovers — the context itself may be flawed; but when we consider the issue of a perfect Lover, it refers to a context beyond our ken.

Such was the mission of Khidr: to deliver those missives whose contents must sting the eye. We see it happening all around us, in the wretched conditions of the world, the fearful nature of the future, the frustrations that assail us from every side. We might even come to the conclusion that there is no love here; that to suggest it is ludicrous! That a hopeful Creator may have brought us into being, but His reactions since have shown His discontent.

This was the state of my own mind up to the summer of 2002. Religion had come to feel like an oppressive duty back then, and I was very dissatisfied with the community I found myself in. There was no shortage of people to commiserate with, either. It seems most people are dissatisfied with a great many things about Life, and the way it’s been setup.

Anyway, I was going through a divorce at the time, and my heart was bleak. I recall driving down a beautiful country road in Tucson, Arizona, with my windows down despite the blistering heat. To feel the hot breath of the wind somehow made me feel closer to living. I was thinking then of my religious community, and how angry I’d become that we weren’t connecting like true friends. This, after all, is the essence of community — fellowship — but I was feeling little of it. It seemed that for lack of anything better, we’d fallen on administration and proclamation in order to imagine we were doing good for the world. But if religion can’t unite the hearts of individual people, how can any plan for global unity succeed?

As I was thinking these dark thoughts, a flash came to me from nowhere — it felt almost like a thunderclap. I was instantly excited, and my heart began to beat faster. It was one of those moments where your mind has learned something, but the slowness of conscious thought has yet to reveal it to you. You know what you’ve learned, but the you that regards yourself still doesn’t know what you know.

I mention this realization because it was epochal for me. It drew a dividing line: between my experience of religion as a thing of chore and drudgery, to a vast, enchanting realm of possibilities. It was at that moment I became aware of a Life within life, of a secret world lying just beyond perception — a journey of vision, where the ordinary is transformed into the miraculous merely through a process of discovery. In short, this was my own personal awakening, in the midst of such troubling thoughts.

For what I had realized in that brief instant was this: In order for me ever to love my community, I had to love them for who they were. Not love them in the sense of nurturing them to become something else, but love them to the extent that I would never ask them to change. If all the world experienced stasis, my feelings would not hold their breath. Love is timeless, unconcerned, perfectly undemanding. If they change for the better, it would be to their benefit; but all I should want is the honor to know them.

This left my heart racing because it was a truly novel concept for me. Until then, I had always thought in terms of change: of the future, of progress, of results. If our faith was about world unity, I wanted to see it happen. Anything less than unity everywhere was an affront to my dedication.

But this was an utterly different philosophy. It said that world unity exists the moment you are unified with the world. That love is not a question of numbers or scale. World unity is that essential feeling of joy in simply knowing the people around you. Once this is found, nothing else is needed. And there exists no better way to spread it than by the words and deeds most natural to it: appreciation, assistance, love. Now, achieving this was a life’s work worth pursuing.

Just as that thought started to trickle down into my real consciousness (as opposed to my theoretical models of the world), another bolt struck, maybe ten minutes later. It was connected, and I had to think for a moment to discover what it was. It affected me even more powerfully than the last. It was this: Just as love means never asking my community to change, never expecting or demanding them to be anyone other than who they are, so love means I would also behave this way toward myself.

Even more strongly than my dissatisfaction with the community, I realized, was my horrid dissatisfaction at my own self. If I ever thought they were undeveloped, imperfect or lacking, I had leveled the same accusations at myself a hundred times over. However, I knew that it wasn’t personal change for change’s sake I wanted, but a change that would result in true love; but how could that happen if I began by disapproving of my own self? It undermines my capacity to love, if my own home is built up of frustration. Love has to begin at the beginning; it doesn’t wait for things to end; it is a thing of process, not product.

Seeing that hatred of my present self cannot ever produce a loving nature, I saw that my frustration with the community was just another part of “my way of doing things”. In all things, I was proceeding toward spirituality by loathing the material; I was hunting the future by wishing the present gone; I was longing for perfection by hoping the imperfect would finally disappear. My own faith had become a negative journey. I didn’t want the world to be a better place; what I really wanted was to magically find myself someplace else.

The opposite of such a negative approach, of course, is the positive: to begin here and now. To make spirituality a thing of the present and to regard love as something that only ever is. It is not a concept, or project, or ideal to hope for. Love is what you feel when you see someone at the grocery store buying candy, and it makes you happy to think of the pleasure they’ll feel when they get home and eat it. Love is that radiating power you send into other living beings, simply by wishing them well. Love doesn’t ask for another to become a Baha’i, or this person to stop being a Muslim, or for anyone to change anything about themselves whatsoever. Love is the feeling you receive from other people when they honestly enjoy who you are, today.

This discovery alone would have rocked my world — and it continues to do so, as I struggle between ancient programming and new patterns of thought — but it was followed by a third and final bolt. This final realization was the strongest of the three, and in a way was something my soul had been longing for for a long time.

You see, until that time I had always felt extremely distant from God. As if He weren’t even in town; I would ring up the address, but nobody ever answered. I had been left to face life on my own, with no other purpose than the steady arrival of tomorrow.

My third understanding forged a bond which has continued until now, and remains the core of my religious experience. Everything else is secondary — a part of the journey — but this is its pith and purpose: As I have described love and its character above, so God loves each and every one of us, always and without exception. From the misbegotten soldier who kills wantonly, to the nuns who expend their days in service of the poor. God loves without reservation, without limit — simply put, He loves perfectly. His is an unfailing love.

To know in my heart, not just my thoughts and hopes, that God loved me so truly, was to know that He loved me as I was, on that day and every day since.

This thought immediately caused a feeling somewhat like warm liquid to well up in my chest, which spread outward to my arms and legs and my head. It felt somewhat like taking a warm bath on a holiday, or resting on the beach during vacation, or having a person you love put their arms around you. It was this feeling that carried me through that divorce, and in fact became my entire reason for continuing my relationship with God. Prayer became a time to focus on that connection, and to feel its warmth unhinging my tensions. Even now, whenever I grow sad or feel alone, I recall that unerring bond and I always feel the same love pour into me. It was nothing other than the simple knowledge that a loving Creator does indeed love His creation — always, and unfailingly.

It was only those three thoughts — all connected, reflecting on each other — but it rewrote my understanding of faith and the meaning of religion. It is about you, dear reader; not your affiliation, or who you donate to, or what kind of afterlife you expect. Personally, I don’t care if you never believe He loves you, because it’s you that He loves — not your belief. Your knowing it is for your own sake, but not something He requires to love you — just as opening your eyes is something you do on your own, which the sun and the wind in the trees have never asked of you.

Someone asked: Suppose someone investigates a matter, sincerely and honestly, to the best of her ability and with what resources are available to her. After considering things, she forms a conclusion as best she can. What happens if her honest investigation leads her to a conclusion which is not in accord with what most Bahá’ís believe, or which even seems to conflict with some statement of one of the central figures of the Bahá’í Faith? Should she investigate the truth as best she can, even if she reaches non-Bahá’í conclusions, or should she renounce her investigation of the truth and take things “on faith”?

The paradox seems to be this: If a person is granted the free right to seek, but only if that seeking leads to one place, isn’t it all a lie to make the Faith seem open, when in reality it’s the same as any other system of belief on the planet? How can one search for an assumed truth? Isn’t that like looking for something already in your hands?

Since I study and practice philosophy, this question is dear to me. I hope I can offer something to your query.

First, I wish to distinguish the common sense usages of religious truth and Bahá’í belief.

Bahá’í teachings describe many attributes of God, such as love, peace, forbearance, abstinence from contention and conflict, etc. I presume that a possession of the truth would be indicated by the presence of all these things. Therefore, “believing” in the tenets of the Faith is not “truth”, because one can hold such beliefs and still violate all of its principles.

In support of this, I find that `Abdu’l-Bahá said: “If religion becomes the cause of enmity and bloodshed, then irreligion is to be preferred, for religion is the remedy for every ailment, and if a remedy should become the cause of ailment and difficulty, it is better to abandon it.”

And Bahá’u’lláh wrote, “The purpose underlying the revelation of every heavenly Book, nay, of every divinely-revealed verse, is to endue all men with righteousness and understanding, so that peace and tranquillity may be firmly established amongst them. Whatsoever instilleth assurance into the hearts of men, whatsoever exalteth their station or promoteth their contentment, is acceptable in the sight of God.”

Again, the emphasis is on actual behavior, not profession. That is, religion relates to an essential reality, not an outward form.

I do not believe religion’s purpose is for us to have fixed ideas about things. The stated goal is union with God, and the stages of that union are described in the “Seven Valleys”. Unless I see the signs of such a transformation, either the person has gone nowhere or I was too blind to notice.

“Holding Bahá’í beliefs” can even be a stumbling block to progress in some cases, because it can lead to an arrogant assumption of superior knowledge. “We’re the most recent Faith, and you aren’t.” This is not knowledge, but a bolstering of self by illusions of righteousness. It should not be confused with the Faith, since it is distinctly abhorred by it:

Verily I say unto thee: Of all men the most negligent is he that disputeth idly and seeketh to advance himself over his brother. Say, O brethren! Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.

Second, considering the idea of an undirected, pure search, where the only goal is a deeper understanding of reality.

There is a verse in the Qur’án which says:

Whoso maketh efforts for Us, in our ways will we guide him.

Also, Bahá’u’lláh in one place quotes an Arab proverb which says, “He who seeketh out a thing with zeal shall find it.”

It seems to me from these, and other sources, that sincere effort will produce results, no matter the direction, since purity of the effort attracts God’s aid. “At every step, aid from the invisible realm will attend him, and the heat of his search for grow.” So the question here is: What is her motive, and what is she really seeking? Bahá’ís or not, people who employ religion for a sense of security are totally missing the boat. Do they really think the journey ends with acceptance? The Qur’án says: “Do men think when they say `We believe’ they shall be let alone and not be put to proof?”

Third, the Writings state that freedom of spirit is integral to understanding religious truth, and not the outward assumption of a set of beliefs — and that such a spirit, if it love God, will transform in its journey toward Him. It is the spirit of religion which is significant, not its dogma. And this is attained not through assumption, but purity, chastity, freedom and effort:

The understanding of His words and the comprehension of the utterances of the Birds of Heaven are in no wise dependent upon human learning. They depend solely upon purity of heart, chastity of soul, and freedom of spirit.

Fourth, I see the “Bahá’í Faith” not as the truth per se, but a portal leading to truth. Bahá’u’lláh even states that what has been revealed to Us is according to our capacity (i.e., related to Us), not a full expression of His reality:

By My spirit and by My favor! By My mercy and by My beauty! All that I have revealed unto thee with the tongue of power, and have written for thee with the pen of might, hath been in accordance with thy capacity and understanding, not with My state and the melody of My voice.

So the Faith may spring from the source of Truth, but ten thousand years from now, will not our forbears be amused at our ignorance? For us, the Word of God is truth unalloyed (relative to our state); but even if we repeat the words, we have done nothing but exercise our vocal chords. To experience the truth contained in those words, we must immerse ourselves in that ocean:

Immerse yourselves in the ocean of My words, that ye may unravel its secrets, and discover all the pearls of wisdom that lie hid in its depths. Take heed that ye do not vacillate in your determination to embrace the truth of this Cause — a Cause through which the potentialities of the might of God have been revealed, and His sovereignty established. With faces beaming with joy, hasten ye unto Him. This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future. Let him that seeketh, attain it; and as to him that hath refused to seek it — verily, God is Self-Sufficient, above any need of His creatures.

Do you see the difference? Someone can say to me, E is mc2, and I can nod back at him and say, “Yes, I heard you just fine.” But a world of difference exists between those who merely hear, and those who understand. To go into the problem, to root out its implications, to nestle it within your heart, and mix its ingredients with the essence of your own being… THAT is seeking after truth. Anything else is pale mimicry.

Lastly, if your friend seeks after truth earnestly, I believe she will find it. I do not know what it will look like, and I must say I’d be surprised if she found it without ever considering — even indirectly — the revolutionary ideas found in the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh. Who before Him suggested that all Faiths had one source, that science is the supporter of religion, that the mind is the mightiest pillar supporting the Faith of God, that women and men and all the races are equal in their spiritual reality, that evil is but an illusion before the reality of good, and that all souls continue to develop eternally in their quest for God? Where else are all the Faiths described as intrinsically united in their purpose, and what else delves into the idea of unity with such depth and completeness? I wonder if what she finds will be the product of a True Mind, and not simply the elaborations of a fellow seeker.

At some point, possibly, her outward behaviors and beliefs may come to coincide with the members of our Faith. But we are not all equal in the status of our search; every human is unique in his condition. To say that seeking will result in following a mold, is like saying that God’s purpose in making people with free-will, was only to transform them into automatons.

In conclusion, I think “truth” is essentially something people do not, and will never, know, because there is infinitely much that is unknown, and truth includes all. Hence the notion of eternal progress and discovery.

It may be “true” that Bahá’u’lláh is a Messenger of God, and that His words contain the wisdom needed by humanity at this stage of its spiritual evolution. But we are not seeking after “true things”. If we were, learning that 2+2 is 4 should make us satisfied. To truly seek is to go where no one else has gone, because how can another person’s experience of life be identical to yours?

I suppose the ultimate dilemma we still come to is: Will her search necessarily lead her to the Bahá’í Faith?

I guess it will or it won’t. In fact, that would be a pretty good test of its truth, wouldn’t it?

I believe that morality is this: to see people and the world we live in as one’s highest value. The direct corollary, of course, is that “the good” begins by valuing one’s own life supremely. After all, we take the best care of what we admire most. Who can truly attend to spiritual development who has little regard for their own life?

Paradoxically, religion — its essential mission being the welfare of mankind — often interprets its writings in such a way as to violate this underpinning of morality. By preaching us to disregard the world, and perceive souls rather than individuals, our moral decisions become more and more a thing of theory, proceeding from the mind instead of the heart. And since we then find ourselves living a life contrary to lofty values, there can be no peace. We are souls at war with the bodies we find ourselves in. No matter that God created both, we choose to thrown one away while still in it.

Since the life we live is thus split between actual considerations of a contemptible world, and potential realities of a world beyond perception, no wonder we fall into a lackluster approach to morality: even finding ways to subjugate it altogether to temporal interests (of course feeling guilt about it, or maybe no guilt at all). This may be why, although religious scripture underscores patience, kindness and truthfulness as the most important values in existence, we find everywhere war, hatred and duplicity in the ranks of the churches. How to explain it other than that these organizations have inwardly come to despise their own being? The being we know, after all, must be of a material nature; and this is exactly what the clergy vociferously attacks. We are a being divided, with only hate to bridge the gap.

But I believe, looking at the scriptures themselves, that love alone is the byword of faith. Rather than employing hatred to separate our dual natures, love is meant to unify them in a harmony. When such a harmony exists, morality becomes the natural expression of one whose values are dear to heart. Observe anyone who truly loves his work, and you will see how much honesty and compassion he pours into it; he can’t sleep right if some flaw mars the overall composition. Then what if we regarded ourselves this way? As a spiritual work of art? If we loved all of ourselves — and others as ourselves, the way a poet admires fine composition from any hand — wouldn’t this sustain a moral attitude toward humanity?

Lately I have gotten into the habit of drinking tea. Persian tea, to be precise. And also of making it, of seeking out the implements and ingredients that will allow me to brew the ultimate cup of this tasty, coppery beverage.

For those also seeking adventure, here is what I’ve done so far. Let me just say that a well-done cup of tea not only tastes delicious, it also feels wonderful upon drinking it — something of a mildly euphoric lift combined with the same accelerating feel that coffee gives you, although without the jittery side-effects.

First, I blend three kinds of tea. They must all be loose-leaf tea, and you should be able to find all of these brands at a Middle Eastern grocery. I cannot tolerate tea-bag tea anymore (or what my Persian family calls taqallobi, or “cheater tea”). It tastes to me now a bit like the way dishwater looks.

The first kind of tea is purely for taste. For this I use Chaye Ahmad (Ceylon) in the green box. For two cups, I use 3/4 teaspoon of Ahmad.

The second kind of tea is for the wonderful scent of Bergamot, found in Earl Grey. For this I use Chaye Sadaf (Earl Grey), also found in a red box. For two cups, I use one teaspoon.

The third kind of tea is for color, that beautiful amber/burgundy that denotes a fine cup of bliss. For this I use Chaye Golabi, the “Barooti” variety. For two cups, I use 3/4 teaspoon of Golabi.

Beware! All three tea makers offer several variations, so pay attention to the labels. You could substitute Ahmad in the green tin for Sadaf in the red box, but don’t get Ahmad in the green tin alone. Ahmad is the best tea for taste, so my more experienced friends tell me.

Pour all of this loose-leaf tea into a dried quurii, or small teapot. Leave it there. Now put about a liter of pure water into a ketrii, or large teapot. I use an electronic water boiler for this, since it only takes about three minutes to boil the water.

Once the water is up to a rolling boil, pour in enough to fill the small teapot either halfway or all the way, depending on how many people there will be. Put a lid on the quurii and wait anywhere from five to ten minutes. Do not stir the tea or push it around. Just let nature does it’s work.

While the time is approaching, put the ketrii back on the flame and let it come to a rolling boil again. It can just keep boiling while the quurii steeps.

When the quurii is ready — and a glass quurii is helpful here, because you’re waiting for it to reach a deep amber color — pour some of the tea water into a glass. If you like your tea light, or “kam rang”, fill the glass 1/4 full. If you like dark tea, or “pro rang”, fill the glass half full. If you drink straight from the quurii, you are probably going to pucker like a blowfish.

Now top off your glass with the boiling water from the ketrii. This ensures that your tea is as hot as possible, without damaging the tea. That said, you never want to boil the water in your quurii. The ketrii is for water only, and boiling only. The quurii is only for steeping.

If you want to drink tea in the Persian style, put a sugar cube on your tongue and drink the tea past it. The cube not only cools the water slightly on contact, it gives you a variable sweetness between sips that I like. Otherwise, you could just stir your sugar in directly. Or drink it straight.

Properly done, the end result should have a pleasing color, a great aroma, and taste wonderful, with a mellowy smoothness that rides along your tongue. It should feel good in your stomach, and produce a feeling of lift and relaxation. It should make you want more, even though you’re already about to jump off the walls. This is good tea.

A friend and I have often questioned the pursuit of fame. One hopes to pursue a thing for its merit: if it satisfies the heart or has some value. But often there’s a nagging question behind our efforts: Will anyone remember what I do? It makes it very hard to live for the present, if our inner eye is so often distracted by the future. In a way, it tears us in two, makes even humility an avenue for ego (in the hopes that humble actions be remembered), and inevitably leaves us dissatisfied with our as yet unrecognized lives.

As I thought about it more today, it occurred to me that perhaps I’m being tricked by my perspective. After all, in some ways my adult life is as separate from childhood as life is from death: I cannot go back, I no longer walk those paths, and I live now in a world of completely different values and awareness. So I put the question: Does it trouble me that none but a few remember my childhood antics? Would I wish for more to have known them? Do I want to be known more for who I was then, than who I am with each passing day?

In fact, if everyone knew all the things I thought and did back then, it would certainly be more cause for shame than celebration. Yes, some things were cute, or innocent, but the merit of those is due to childhood itself, and not mine alone! On the whole, I’m glad to have a relatively clean slate at this age, and not to live my life under a feeble shadow.

Then how will I feel when this childhood is ended and I journey onward? If people remember me fondly, they are bound to exaggerate what I consider memorable, just as I hear people doing this constantly with respect to anyone they admire. And if they criticize me, will it really be on the points I care about? Is there anyway for posterity to accurately capture who I think I am, or will every enduring memory turn into a public creation, branded only by a name as if the locus of their own ideas — eventually becoming much more a myth than a reality?

If this is so — and my reflections on the great fame of others leans that way — how can fame in this life be anything more than an awkward mis-labeling in the next? No matter what people may have said about my childhood, would it really depict me as I am now? Or would it limit me to moving constantly against a current of expectations, striving to redefine myself against an overwhelming past. It might, in some cases, open doors, but those doors would be held open by benefactors expecting a ghost to walk through.

I have a feeling that perhaps I’ll look back with fondness on the actions mostly forgotten. Made the more precious because I did not fully notice them — things I did with such genuine intent, I never framed a consciousness around them. Or of the joy of an unfettered present, moving agilely with or against the current as I chose. For this I may need a degree of trust and respect from those around me, but not the world-encircling fame my friend and I always talked of.

We look at how the great ones are remembered and sometimes think: I want that. But perhaps we are hearing far more of the psyche of those speaking, than of their beloved object. Maybe fame is just a focal point; and a fairly awkward one at that, given sufficient distance.

Perceiving with divine insight

The Valleys depict different world-views. As Bahá’u’lláh states:

Thus it hath been made clear that these stages depend on the vision of the wayfarer. In every city he will behold a world, in every Valley reach a spring, in every meadow hear a song.¹

To have knowledge of each Valley is not enough. One cannot comprehend it from the outside. To be a “wayfarer” is a question of residence, not familiarity.

This is a good time to review something from the Valley of Knowledge. In Persian there are two words commonly used for knowledge, `Ilm and `Irfán. They are as different as studying about the ocean, and swimming in it.

The translation “valley of knowledge” is not really accurate, given the common meaning of this word. The Persian text says “Ma`rifat”; which my dictionary translates as meaning “insight into divine matters” (the word is derived from `Irfán, which can mean wisdom or insight).

It means that those in the valley of knowledge have come to fully appreciate and trust God’s planning. This is no simple matter. Even Moses failed this test, as Muhammad relates in the story of Khidr:

So [Moses] found one of Our servants (Khidr), on whom We had bestowed Mercy from Ourselves and whom We had taught knowledge from Our own Presence.

Moses said to him: “May I follow thee, on the footing that thou teach me something of the (Higher) Truth which thou hast been taught?”

(The other) said: “Verily thou wilt not be able to have patience with me!”

“And how canst thou have patience about things about which thy understanding is not complete?”

Moses said: “Thou wilt find me, if God so will, (truly) patient: nor shall I disobey thee in aught.”

The other said: “If then thou wouldst follow me, ask me no questions about anything until I myself speak to thee concerning it.”

So they both proceeded: until, when they were in the boat, he scuttled it. Said Moses: “Hats thou scuttled it in order to drown those in it? Truly a strange thing hast thou done!”

He answered: “Did I not tell thee that thou canst have no patience with me?”

Moses said: “Rebuke me not for forgetting, nor grieve me by raising difficulties in my case.”

Then they proceeded: until, when they met a young man, he slew him. Moses said: “Hats thou slain an innocent person who had slain none? Truly a foul (unheard of) thing hast thou done!”

He answered: “Did I not tell thee that thou canst have no patience with me?”

(Moses) said: “If ever I ask thee about anything after this, keep me not in thy company: then wouldst thou have received (full) excuse from my side.”

Then they proceeded: until, when they came to the inhabitants of a town, they asked them for food, but they refused them hospitality. They found there a wall on the point of falling down, but he set it up straight. (Moses) said: “If thou hadst wished, surely thou couldst have exacted some recompense for it!”

He answered: “This is the parting between me and thee: now will I tell thee the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience.

“As for the boat, it belonged to certain men in dire want: they plied on the water: I but wished to render it unserviceable, for there was after them a certain king who seized on every boat by force.

“As for the youth, his parents were people of Faith, and we feared that he would grieve them by obstinate rebellion and ingratitude (to God and man).

“So we desired that their Lord would give them in exchange (a son) better in purity (of conduct) and closer in affection.

“As for the wall, it belonged to two youths, orphans, in the Town; there was, beneath it, a buried treasure, to which they were entitled: their father had been a righteous man: So thy Lord desired that they should attain their age of full strength and get out their treasure — a mercy (and favour) from thy Lord. I did it not of my own accord. Such is the interpretation of (those things) over which thou wast unable to hold patience.”²

Bahá’u’lláh also refers to this story in the Seven Valleys, by quoting Rúmí’s verse:

  If Khidr did wreck the vessel on the sea,
  Yet in this wrong there are a thousand rights.³
  

All events happen for our benefit

God works mysterious good in our lives, which is not fathomable to those lacking “insight into divine matters”. It has been stated often that all of God’s workings, whether they appear good or evil to us, benefit His faithful ones in the end:

Whatsoever occurreth in the world of being is light for His loved ones and fire for the people of sedition and strife. Even if all the losses of the world were to be sustained by one of the friends of God, he would still profit thereby, whereas true loss would be borne by such as are wayward, ignorant and contemptuous. Although the author of the following saying had intended it otherwise, yet We find it pertinent to the operation of God’s immutable Will: “Even or odd, thou shalt win the wager.” The friends of God shall win and profit under all conditions, and shall attain true wealth. In fire they remain cold, and from water they emerge dry. Their affairs are at variance with the affairs of men. Gain is their lot, whatever the deal. To this testifieth every wise one with a discerning eye, and every fair-minded one with a hearing ear.⁴

It is not so hard to “understand” that God means us well in all things. It is an entirely different thing to “know” — to have the necessary insight — to behold something terrible occurring, and yet praise God for allowing it. The atrocities of war are most often used as proof of this. Yet the Seven Valleys say of the wayfarers in the path of Knowledge: “And if he meeteth with injustice he shall have patience, and if he cometh upon wrath he shall manifest love.”⁵

I will copy here the story of the lover and the beloved, from the Seven Valleys, since it shows Bahá’u’lláh’s own elucidation of this theme:

There was once a lover who had sighed for long years in separation from his beloved, and wasted in the fire of remoteness. From the rule of love, his heart was empty of patience, and his body weary of his spirit; he reckoned life without her as a mockery, and time consumed him away. How many a day he found no rest in longing for her; how many a night the pain of her kept him from sleep; his body was worn to a sigh, his heart’s wound had turned him to a cry of sorrow. He had given a thousand lives for one taste of the cup of her presence, but it availed him not. The doctors knew no cure for him, and companions avoided his company; yea, physicians have no medicine for one sick of love, unless the favor of the beloved one deliver him.

At last, the tree of his longing yielded the fruit of despair, and the fire of his hope fell to ashes. Then one night he could live no more, and he went out of his house and made for the marketplace. On a sudden, a watchman followed after him. He broke into a run, with the watchman following; then other watchmen came together, and barred every passage to the weary one. And the wretched one cried from his heart, and ran here and there, and moaned to himself: “Surely this watchman is Izrá’íl, my angel of death, following so fast upon me; or he is a tyrant of men, seeking to harm me.” His feet carried him on, the one bleeding with the arrow of love, and his heart lamented. Then he came to a garden wall, and with untold pain he scaled it, for it proved very high; and forgetting his life, he threw himself down to the garden.

And there he beheld his beloved with a lamp in her hand, searching for a ring she had lost. When the heart-surrendered lover looked on his ravishing love, he drew a great breath and raised up his hands in prayer, crying: “O God! Give Thou glory to the watchman, and riches and long life. For the watchman was Gabriel, guiding this poor one; or he was Isráfíl, bringing life to this wretched one!”

Indeed, his words were true, for he had found many a secret justice in this seeming tyranny of the watchman, and seen how many a mercy lay hid behind the veil. Out of wrath, the guard had led him who was athirst in love’s desert to the sea of his loved one, and lit up the dark night of absence with the light of reunion. He had driven one who was afar, into the garden of nearness, had guided an ailing soul to the heart’s physician.

Now if the lover could have looked ahead, he would have blessed the watchman at the start, and prayed on his behalf, and he would have seen that tyranny as justice; but since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his pliant in the beginning. Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger.⁶

We are all familiar with this “watchman”, and some of us have found the “beloved” on the other side of the wall. But how many can say that we pray before the discovery?

O Son of Man! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.⁷

O Son of Man! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.⁸

The elimination of fear

Each Valley seems to represent a spiritual station. Knowledge (divine insight), appears to be the station of: “God doeth as He pleaseth.” As someone else wrote, we become like the Sufi who is delighted at being thwarted, because he knows that God is pushing his life in a better direction — albeit invisibly at the start.

This station is called “the last plane of limitation” in the Seven Valleys. A question: Do you think this station is also being described in the following quote, from the Kitáb-i-`Ahd?

We fain would hope that the people of Bahá 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 smouldereth within the hearts and breasts of men. By this single utterance contending peoples and kindreds will attain the light of true unity.

If so, might this verse — this Word, this station — be the one that Bahá’u’lláh refers to elsewhere in these words?

In the treasuries of the knowledge of God there lieth concealed a knowledge which, when applied, will largely, though not wholly, eliminate fear… A word hath, likewise, been written down and recorded by the Pen of the Most High in the Crimson Book [this refers to the Kitáb-i-`Ahd] which is capable of fully disclosing that force which is hid in men, nay of redoubling its potency. We implore God — exalted and glorified be He — to graciously assist His servants to do that which is pleasing and acceptable unto Him.

What is fear but apprehension of the unknown? And what is the station of “All things are of God” but that of welcoming the Unknown? I’ll end by including a verse from the Valley of Knowledge, which so completely empitomizes this attitude:

The wayfarer in this Valley seeth in the fashionings of the True One nothing save clear providence, and at every moment saith: “No defect canst thou see in the creation of the God of Mercy: Repeat the gaze: Seest thou a single flaw?” He beholdeth justice in injustice, and in justice, grace. In ignorance he findeth many a knowledge hidden, and in knowledge a myriad wisdoms manifest.

Quotes from the original Valley of Knowledge

The Conference of the Birds, Mantiqu’t-Tayr, is a story of thirty birds who are all seeking to reach the immortal King. Their guide, the Hoopoe bird, describes to them seven valleys which all must pass through before they can achieve their final destination. It is these seven valleys which Bahá’u’lláh elaborates in His text “The Seven Valleys”.

As a side note, in case some were wondering, the word for “valley” in these texts does not mean a lush ravine between mountains. The word “vádí” refers to what people in the Southwestern USA know as an arroyo. It is a dry river, useful as a guide when making one’s way through a desert.

The following quotes come from two different translations of the Conference of the Birds; all of them are from that book’s Valley of Knowledge (which is also translated as Valley of Understanding, and Valley of Mystic Insight).

When the mystery of the essence of beings reveals itself clearly to [the wayfarer] the furnace of this world becomes a garden of flowers. He who is striving will be able to see the almond in its hard shell. He will no longer be pre-occupied with himself, but will look up at the face of his Friend. In each atom he will see the whole; he will ponder over thousands of bright secrets…

Real knowledge becomes the possession of the true seeker. If it is necessary to seek knowledge in China, then go. But knowledge is distorted by the formal mind, it becomes petrified, like stones. How long must real knowledge continue to be misunderstood? This world, this house of sorrows, is in darkness; but true knowledge is a jewel, it will burn like a lamp and guide you in this gloomy place. If you spurn this jewel you will ever be a prey to regret. If you lag behind you will weep bitter tears. But if you sleep little by night, and fast by day, you may find what you seek. Seek, then, and be lost in the quest.

Of those who dwell in this Valley it is said:

He will perceive the marrow, not the skin —
the self will disappear; then, from within
the heart of all he sees, there will ascend
the longed-for face of the immortal Friend.

A hundred thousand secrets will be known
when that unveiled, surpassing Face is shown —
a hundred thousand men must faint and fail
till one shall draw aside the secret’s veil.

Perfected, of rare courage, he must be
to dive through that immense, uncharted sea.
If you discern such hidden truths and feel
joy flood your life, do not relax your zeal!

Though thirst is quenched,
  though you are bathed in bliss
beyond all hypothesis,
though you should reach the throne of God,
  implore Him still unceasingly:

  “Is there yet anymore?”

The Seven Valleys is “a guide for human conduct”

The following tradition, attributed to the Imám `Alí, is from the book The Way of the Sufi by Idries Shah:

You probably seem to yourself to be a believer, even if you are a believer in disbelief.

But you cannot really believe in anything until you are aware of the process by which you arrived at your position.

Before you do this you must be ready to postulate that all your beliefs may be wrong, that what you think to be belief may only be a variety of prejudice caused by your surroundings — including the bequest of your ancestors for whom you may have a sentiment.

True belief belongs to the realm of real knowledge.

Until you have knowledge, belief is mere coalesced opinions, however it may seem to you.

Coalesced opinions serve for ordinary living. Real belief enables higher studies to be made.

This theme of self-examination is echoed in `Abdu’l-Bahá’s words, where he calls the Seven Valleys “a guide for human conduct”:

It is my hope… that you may search out your own imperfections and not think of the imperfections of anybody else. Strive with all your power to be free from imperfections. Heedless souls are always seeking faults in others. What can the hypocrite know of others’ faults when he is blind to his own? This is the meaning of the words in the Seven Valleys. It is a guide for human conduct. As long as a man does not find his own faults, he can never become perfect. Nothing is more fruitful for man than the knowledge of his own shortcomings. The Blessed Perfection says, “I wonder at the man who does not find his own imperfections.”⁹

Related meditations from the Hidden Words

Here are some meditations from the Hidden Words which seem to relate to the themes of the Valley of Knowledge:

O Son of Man! Thou art My dominion and My dominion perisheth not; wherefore fearest thou thy perishing? Thou art My light and My light shall never be extinguished; why dost thou dread extinction? Thou art My glory and My glory fadeth not; thou art My robe and My robe shall never be outworn. Abide then in thy love for Me, that thou mayest find Me in the realm of glory.

O Son of Man! For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.

O Son of Man! The true lover yearneth for tribulation even as doth the rebel for forgiveness and the sinful for mercy.

O Son of Man! If adversity befall thee not in My path, how canst thou walk in the ways of them that are content with My pleasure? If trials afflict thee not in thy longing to meet Me, how wilt thou attain the light in thy love for My beauty?

O Son of Man! My calamity is My providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy. Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.

The worlds of the “beginning” and the “end”

There is another recurring theme in the Writings, both Islamic and Bahá’í, of four divine states which are referred to in the verse: “He is the first and the last, the Seen and the Hidden.”¹⁰ It is also found in the New Testament, where it says “I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.”¹¹

Bahá’u’lláh expounds on this theme in the Valley of Unity, yet it is also found in the Valley of Knowledge. In the story of the lover and his beloved, the lover starts in the “world of the beginning”. After he is pursued by the watchmen, he comes upon his beloved and is transported to the “world of the end”.

These two worlds exist in the vision of the wayfarer. Between them is the illusory reality of Time, through which men must pass. Owing to these two worlds, change is witnessed. Because of them, the Prophets appear to have different names, and speak in different tongues. Otherwise, in the realm of unity, “This is the changeless Faith of God, eternal in the past, eternal in the future.”.¹²

Consider yourself in a difficult situation. Without knowing the outcome, you may be seized by fear, or wonder at what may happen. You are in the “world of firstness”. In this condition “the end is veiled to you”, and people are wont “to make their pliant in the beginning.”

After the passage of time, and the appearance of change, we learn the outcome of our situation. We may be happy, or sad, but now things are complete. We have entered “the world of lastness”, and come to the end of our waiting.

It is possible, through faith, and insight into the ways of God, to perceive “the end in the beginning”. That is, while dwelling in the world of the first, it is as though we look across a gorge, and see the details of the world of the last. We take heart in what we see, and our apprehension of the unknown leaves us. Because God “[has] ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things”,¹³ we come to perceive even the next life from the vantage point of this life, and learn that everything which occurs materially is for the benefit of spiritual progress. Thus the gap of death is bridged, and we are filled with a spiritual joy that is beyond this world.

This is the station of those in the valley of Knowledge, and by such insight the wayfarer can reach across the boundaries of Time. It is an attribute of those who see the large in the small, the tree in the seed, the future in the present. This is the last world of limitation, for limitations require separation, and separation implies differences.

He says, “… the people of the Valleys above this see the end and the beginning as one…” In this condition, the world of the beginning is not different from the world of the end. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, and however we may seem to other people, we are actually dwelling in the world of the end, though our surroundings have the appearance of the world of the beginning.

To give a concrete example of this: In the game of chess, players are ranked according to their ability on a scale from 0 to 3000. The greater the numerical separation between players, the greater the likelihood that the higher player will win.

At a tournament, where people are playing to win, let’s assume that you are rated 3000, and your opponent is rated 0. This means that you have no possibility of losing. Although no pieces have been moved, and you sit in the world of the first, because of your certitude you already count the game as won. You already experience the joys and emotions of the world of the last. Indeed, no matter what apparent “changes” occur on the board, they have no reality, and time in this case is just a show.

Likewise for the other player. The end and the beginning are one, and while we may see the players at the “beginning”, they themselves already dwell in the “end”. They do not just see the end in the beginning; their emotions, vision, and reality concerning the end and the beginning is one.

This is the station of `Abdu’l-Bahá saying “The Temple is already built.” For Him, Who saw the condition of the believers at that time, the Temple already existed in its full splendour. I imagine He was able to revel in the creation of the believers, and experienced joy at what they had/will build. Time was but a show, a non-thing. In the spiritual worlds, the cornerstone and the Temple were one.

This implies a complete transcendence of the conditions of this life, which seems so ruled by boundaries and temporal causation. It is no wonder that Bahá’u’lláh said that the valley of Knowledge “is the last plane of limitation”. Here the spirit is free, and appearances no longer affect it. Owing to the saying, “Verily we are from God, and to Him shall we return”, he sees the Face of God everywhere, for has he not already returned? Bahá’u’lláh says, “… what life have words, on such a plane, that `first’ and `last’ or other than these be seen or mentioned! In this realm, the first is the last itself, and the last is but the first.”¹⁴

He then continues, “Nay rather, the denizens of the undying city, who dwell in the green garden land, see not even `neither first nor last’; they fly from all that is first, and repulse all that is last.”¹⁵ In Gems of the Mysteries¹⁶, Bahá’u’lláh writes, “In this station change and alteration are pure idolatry and unadulterated belief.”¹⁷ In this realm of the Infinite, change is not only unreal, it is uncreate. “Knowledge is a single point, but the ignorant have multiplied it.”¹⁸ Here there is no believer, for as He said, “There was God and there was naught beside Him”. And further, “This is the plane whereon the vestiges of all things are destroyed in the traveler, and on the horizon of eternity the Divine Face riseth out of the darkness, and the meaning of ‘All on the earth shall pass away, but the face of thy Lord…’ is made manifest.”¹⁹

Even love, which implies a lover, debars one from this realm, as it says in the poetic, “Love is a veil betwixt the lover and the loved one; more than this I am not permitted to tell