# Baha'u'llah's Most Sublime Vision

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Wolfgang A. Klebel, Baha'u'llah's Most Sublime Vision, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Bahá’u’lláh’s “ Most Sublim e Vision”
> 
> Wolfgang Klebel
> 
> Introduction
> While the concept of Unity in the Bahá’í Faith is central and
> well documented and expressed as Unity of God, of Religions
> and of Humanity, the phrase ‘Revelation of Unity’ cannot be
> found as such in the Writings. In fact, the idea of Unity is a
> prevalent topic of teaching and is described as one of the most
> important aspects of the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, Who calls
> complete and enduring unity the distinguishing feature (G 97) of
> His Revelation.
> Neither is the inverse statement ‘Unity of Revelation’ as such
> expressed in the Bahá’í Writings. Yet, how “Unity” is
> understood in this dispensation is of importance, as Bahá’u’lláh
> has stated in a prayer: “I entreat Thee, (…) to open the eyes of
> Thy people that they may recognize in this Revelation the
> manifestation of Thy transcendent unity.” (PM 307`)
> This paper investigates the question: What philosophical
> viewpoints are necessary to understand what Bahá’u’lláh calls
> “Thy transcendent unity” i.e., the concept of unity and oneness,
> which are ubiquitous in the Bahá’í Writings? The traditional
> understanding of the unity between the whole and its parts, as
> presented in philosophy, will be considered in the light of the
> Bahá’í Writings. The new vision of the ‘Integral Whole’ (“das
> integrale Ganze“) will be used to better understand what the
> Writings of Bahá’u’lláh have revealed as the unity and oneness
> of the world. This new worldview is more than a political and
> social principle and needs to be considered as the heart of the
> New World Order (GWB 136) and of The Most Sublime Vision
> (ESW 54) of Bahá’u’lláh; therefore it is an ontological and
> metaphysical principle. Furthermore, this understanding relates
> to the new findings of quantum mechanics, which will be
> described in another paper as Entanglement and as a
> fundamentally holistic vision of the universe.
> It can be said that this paper is written with the intention to
> 30                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> assist in the correlation of the Bahá'í Faith with current
> thoughts, as expressed in philosophy and science, following the
> advice of the Universal House of Justice:
> Newly enrolled professionals and other experts provide a
> great resource for the development of Bahá'í scholarship.
> It is hoped that, as they attain a deeper grasp of the
> Teachings and their significance, they will be able to assist
> Bahá'í communities in correlating the beliefs of the Faith
> with the current thoughts and problems of the world.
> (SCH 13)
> While it is quite obvious that to attempt such an endeavor
> today surpasses by far the capacity of any scholar, and while the
> understanding of the Bahá’í Revelation will take one millennium
> to be fully completed, this paper is a simple beginning to first
> raise the question, and then to try finding a provisional answer.
> In other words, this paper seeks to find the answer which is
> available today, but which will need to be revised over time as
> our understanding of the Revelation is relative and progressive
> according to the beloved Guardian. About the World Order of
> Bahá’u’lláh, he said: “Its teachings revolve around the
> fundamental principle that religious truth is not absolute but
> relative, that Divine Revelation is progressive, not final.”
> (WOB 57) In pointing towards a change in philosophical
> thinking that has developed after the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh,
> it is hoped that this beginning will open the way to better and
> more erudite responses in the future.
> The new life of the seeker is described by Bahá’u’lláh, when
> He said:
> He will find himself endowed with a New Eye, a New Ear,
> a New Heart, and a New Mind. (KI 195)
> Therefore, this new understanding of “Thy transcendent
> Unity” requires in the seeker the endowment of a new eye, ear,
> heart and mind. It needs to be understood, right at the outset of
> this contribution to the ‘Irfán Colloquia, that this “Most
> Sublime Vision” of Bahá’u’lláh can only be appreciated when
> the seeker – and that hopefully includes all of us – is “endowed
> with a new eye, a new ear, a new heart and a new mind.”
> 
> Bahá'u'lláh’s “Most Sublime Vision”
> The question is: how can we approach this Vision of
> Bahá’u’lláh, which He himself described as being “Most
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    31
> 
> Sublime”? The word sublime, used by the beloved Guardian in
> his translation, has in English the following meanings: inspiring,
> inspirational, uplifting, awe-inspiring, moving, transcendent,
> and magnificent – all of which are fitting description of the new
> Vision of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.
> “Awe-inspiring” and “magnificent” indicates the relation of
> this vision to Bahá, i.e., ‘Glory,’ which is a key concept in the
> Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, Who’s name is translated as the
> “Glory of God” and it is part of the Most Holy Name of God,
> “Allah-u-Abhá,” translated as “God is the All-Glorious.”(KA
> 170)
> “Inspirational,” “inspiring” and “moving” indicates the effect
> this Vision has on the seeker, the person who seeks to find God
> through Bahá’u’lláh. And the word “transcendent” indicates the
> total otherness and newness of this Vision. Bahá’u’lláh describes
> His Vision as ‘most’ sublime, announcing that this Vision has
> some likeness to these concepts, but is beyond all of the above
> mentioned attributes.
> Describing the effect of this Vision, Bahá’u’lláh stated:
> “Were the breezes of Revelation to seize thee, thou wouldst flee
> the world, and turn unto the Kingdom, and wouldst expend all
> thou possessest, that thou mayest draw nigh unto this sublime
> Vision.” (ESW 56) This statement can well be compared to
> Christ’s parable about the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:45-
> 46): “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man,
> seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of
> great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”
> It further must be kept in mind that the Vision of Bahá’u’lláh
> is the cause of the seeker’s new ability to understand this very
> Vision. It moves, inspires, transcends and renews the seeker’s
> capacities. That means that the course of action moving
> towards understanding this Vision is a circular and continuing
> process: we have to accept the Vision, and then we will be more
> and more endowed with the capacity to understand this Vision
> with our increasingly renewed ear, eye, heart and mind. In a
> previous paper this writer has described this process under the
> concept of progressive theology.
> This process defies both deductive and inductive logic as we
> know it. Therefore, this process has to be first developed in this
> paper in order to understand its subject matter. Another equally
> important pre-consideration of a move towards this Most
> Sublime Vision is the fact mentioned by Bahá’u’lláh that our
> 32                                  Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> life has to be more and more consonant with this Vision in
> order to be able to understand it.
> “Purge your hearts from love of the world, and your tongues
> from calumny, and your limbs from whatsoever may withhold
> you from drawing nigh unto God, the Mighty, the All-Praised.
> Say: By the world is meant that which turneth you aside from
> Him Who is the Dawning-Place of Revelation, and inclineth you
> unto that which is unprofitable unto you. Verily, the thing that
> deterreth you, in this day, from God is worldliness in its
> essence. Eschew it, and approach the Most Sublime Vision, this
> shining and resplendent Seat.” (ESW 54)
> The same was expressed by Bahá'u'lláh when He admonishes
> philosophers and scientists:
> For God doth not ask you of your sciences, but of your
> faith and of your conduct. Are ye greater in wisdom than
> the One Who brought you into being, Who fashioned the
> heavens and all that they contain, the earth and all that
> dwell upon it? Gracious God! True wisdom is His. All
> creation and its empire are His. He bestoweth His wisdom
> upon whomsoever He chooseth amongst men, and
> withholdeth it from whomsoever He desireth. (SLH 234)
> Furthermore, we have to understand that this Vision can only
> be perceived by the “unstopped ear of the inmost heart.” (SLH
> 86)
> It is not accidental; it is rather significant and surprising that
> this new life of the seeker is here described in an unmistakable
> progression. First is the new ear, which will allow us to hear the
> Word of God; then the new eye is mentioned, because God’s
> Manifestation can be seen in the whole world and in our own
> life after we have perceived the Word of God. The next step in
> this process is the new heart, which is the place where this
> Vision can become part of the seeker. The last step is the new
> mind, a mind that will finally be able to get the picture of this
> Sublime Vision, so this vision can become a world vision, a view
> of the world, or, we could say, a new “Weltanschauung.” The
> terms “hearing of thine heart” for the New Ear (GWB 217), “eye
> of thine heart” for the New Eye (KI 57), and “understanding
> heart” for the New Mind (GWB 35), are all expressions revealed
> by Bahá’u’lláh.
> The role of the heart in regards to this Vision is crucial and
> will be mentioned in another paper. It is just in the last 30 years
> that the role of the heart in the neurological aspect of the body
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    33
> 
> and mind is being researched and the findings are rather
> surprising. Even in a cursory view into this matter it is clear
> that the heart’s function was not understood previously in the
> traditional medical neurology. When the human body is only
> seen as a mechanical system, the heart is just a pump. The long
> tradition to attribute to the heart so many more functions was
> totally ignored and never critically researched.
> It needs to be stated right in the introduction that this paper
> attempts to see the world differently and in a new way. ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá has clearly stated that the Bahá’í Cause is a new beginning,
> and the newness encompasses everything that is to be discovered
> in the world. We have a new age, and we need to consider the
> whole creation as being reborn. For improved clarity, the
> following statement is broken down according to the topic
> described:
> Now the new age is here and creation is reborn…
> Arts and industries have been reborn, there are new
> discoveries in science, and there are new inventions…
> And all this newness hath its source in the fresh
> outpourings of wondrous grace and favour from the Lord
> of the Kingdom…
> … until the old ways, the old concepts, are gone and
> forgotten, this world of being will find no peace (SWAB
> 253)
> What is most important about this statement, are these facts:
> • This new age will lead to new discoveries in science,
> industry and in inventions.
> • All this newness is caused by, and is an outpouring from,
> the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.
> • The peace of this world is dependent on a change of
> understanding of this new worldview and of forgetting the old
> understanding.
> A new conceptualization of the physical world is also
> required by the discovery of quantum mechanics, as Einstein has
> said:
> This discovery [i.e., the quantum theory] set science a new
> task: that of finding a new conceptual basis for all of
> physics.
> 34                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> This new age starts in the heart of the believer and is a
> renewal of the spirit and of the understanding of this world, as
> Bahá’u’lláh described it in the beginning of His Mission in the
> Seven Valleys:
> Nor shall the seeker reach his goal unless he sacrifice all
> things. That is, whatever he hath seen, and heard, and
> understood, all must he set at naught, that he may enter
> the realm of the spirit, which is the City of God. (SVFV 7)
> This principle – that any change starts in the heart and from
> there will eventually renew the world – defines the structure of
> the New World Order as initiated by Bahá’u’lláh.
> This paper is based on the vision that all that is new and
> valuable today, in science, art, technology and philosophy, is
> caused and originated by this Revelation. Consequently, and
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá clearly stated it, we have to forget the old ways
> and old concepts, i.e., we have to reconsider our whole way of
> thinking and perceiving this world in order to bring this world
> to peace in the New World Order. While this paper attempts to
> follow this direction of the Master, it is obvious that this
> attempt is only a beginning, at best, in this pathway into a new
> age and new world.
> 
> Revelation of Unity of God – Religion – World
> In this chapter an important question about unity is raised: Is
> it the same or something different that is understood by the
> word “unity” in the two different contexts of God and of the
> world, of the Creator and of the creation? Usually, when we talk
> about unity or oneness, we uncritically take for granted that we
> all understand what that means, and that there is only one
> meaning to these words.
> Consider that in the English language the word “unity,”
> compared with “oneness,” has a slightly different flavor. Both
> words are derived from the English word “one” or from the
> Latin word “unus,” which both have the same original meaning
> in their respective languages.
> The definition of these two words in Webster’s Dictionary is
> not the same. This fact is relevant to this paper and will be
> presented below.
> ONENESS
> 1. The quality or state or fact of being one
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    35
> 
> 2. Uniqueness, Singleness
> Wholeness, Integrity
> Harmony, Concord
> Sameness, Identity (numerical), Unity, Union
> 3. Solitariness (archaic)
> Unity, on the other hand, is defined more extensively.
> UNITY
> 1. The quality or state of being one or consisting of one,
> Oneness, Singleness
> 2. A condition of concordant harmony
> Continuity without deviation or change, absence of
> diversity
> 3. The quality or state of being made one, unification
> A combination of ordering of parts
> 4. The quality or state of constituting a whole
> The totality of related parts, a complex or systematic
> whole
> (Other meanings are related to mathematics, art, drama, and to
> law, which we will not mention here.)
> Obviously the definitions are overlapping, but the emphasis
> is different. Oneness is the more general and practical term,
> while unity is used in a more specific and technical sense, which
> is generally true for all duplicated words in the English language
> derived either from Anglo or Latin roots, for example liberty
> versus freedom. Additionally, Integration is only mentioned
> under oneness and Unification is mentioned only under unity.
> The relationship of the whole and the parts is only mentioned
> under Unity, and the meaning of this relationship is expressed
> under different subheadings. Furthermore, the word Unity (of
> Latin ‘unus’) has many more derivatives in the English language
> such as, Union, Unit, Unite, Unitarian, and other combined
> words such as Unification, Uniformity, Universe, Univocal,
> Unison, Universal, Unipotent, and many more.
> In general we will use these two terms interchangeably, but it
> is important to keep the differences in mind. In the English
> translation of the Writings the word Unity is more frequently
> used, for example in the Gleanings from the Writings of
> Bahá’u’lláh, officially translated by Shoghi Effendi, the word
> Unity is used five times more often than the word Oneness. We
> 36                                 Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> have to ask if there are similar differences in the Persian or
> Arabic languages, or if the difference was made by the
> Guardian, translating the same words differently into English
> according to the context. It appears that there are more than
> two words in the original language; however Shoghi Effendi
> used the two English words, not in correspondence to the
> original text, but related to the context.
> Contrary to the Bahá’í Writings, Webster excludes diversity
> from unity, and uses a similar word only as an entry for “unity
> in variety” as an aesthetic principle related to the fusion of
> various elements into an organic whole, which definition comes
> closest to the Bahá’í use of the phrase “unity in diversity.”
> There are two major reasons why we need to look at this
> word more closely. One is the social and political use of the
> concept of unity, which had vast and potentially devastating
> consequences as it was applied during history and especially
> during the last century. The different ways of understanding the
> word unity was propagated by different political movements in
> the past and is still used today. We have a spectrum of
> meanings, from uniformity and identity of parts to aggregation
> of unrelated parts, i.e. from totalitarian dictatorship to extreme
> and almost anarchic individualism. Later, in the philosophical
> section, this will be explored more deeply.
> The other reason why this word is the topic of this paper is
> the fact that the Bahá’í Writings distinguish clearly between the
> word unity as it is used in the created world and the same word
> when it is applied to the Creator. Without going into details
> here, we can already conclude that any application of the word
> unity to God is false if it implies any relationship to numbers,
> to multiplicity or any separation of parts, or even any
> understanding of unity in the way as unity is understood in our
> physical world.
> We have to consider first the different use of the word unity,
> as applied to God, to the Manifestations and to the world of
> humanity, as well as to all the religions of God. The separation
> of the different meanings of the word unity, or oneness, in
> relation to God has been clearly stated by Bahá’u’lláh when He
> said in a prayer:
> And if I attempt to describe Thee by glorifying the
> oneness of Thy Being, I soon realize that such a
> conception is but a notion which mine own fancy hath
> woven, and that Thou hast ever been immeasurably exalted
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    37
> 
> above the vain imaginations which the hearts of men have
> devised. (PM 123)
> It follows from this verse that oneness or unity can be
> understood in different ways, depending if we talk about
> created oneness, or the Oneness of the Creator, of God. There
> are ways in which applying the concept of unity or oneness to
> God is nothing but a vain imagination of the human heart and
> an attempt to make God an object of human thinking and
> understanding; in other words, trying to make the unknowable
> essence of God knowable, thus creating an idol rather than
> knowing God.
> On the other hand, when the word unity is applied to the
> Manifestations of God, we can follow the words of Bahá’u’lláh:
> Conceive accordingly the distinction, variation, and unity
> characteristic of the various Manifestations of holiness,
> that thou mayest comprehend the allusions made by the
> Creator of all names and attributes to the mysteries of
> distinction and unity, and discover the answer to thy
> question as to why that everlasting Beauty should have, at
> sundry times, called Himself by different names and titles.
> … (GWB 22)
> When considering the Manifestations we can legitimately talk
> about distinction, variation and unity characteristics. Here we
> have a unity that is the unification of variation and of
> distinctions, a unity that is the sign of creation. As a matter of
> fact, Bahá’u’lláh expresses this in a prayer:
> Thy unity is inscrutable, O my God, to all except them
> that have recognized Him Who is the Manifestation of
> Thy singleness and the Day-Spring of Thy oneness. (PM 57)
> It could be said that the Manifestations in their historical
> plurality are the manifestation of God’s unity. They alone give
> access to the inscrutable unity of God to those that have
> recognized them. Clearly it is stated here that the unity of God
> is unknowable and can only be recognized in the unity of the
> Manifestations. Only when this unity is accepted, only when it
> is understood that all the Manifestations are one, can the unity
> of God be praised. This understanding is prefaced by the
> following words indicating the role “of the spirit within the
> innermost chamber of thy heart” in comprehending the Divine
> inscrutable unity:
> O brother! kindle with the oil of wisdom the lamp of the
> 38                                  Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> spirit within the innermost chamber of thy heart, and
> guard it with the globe of understanding, that the breath
> of the infidel may extinguish not its flame nor dim its
> brightness. Thus have We illuminated the heavens of
> utterance with the splendours of the Sun of divine wisdom
> and understanding, that thy heart may find peace, that
> thou mayest be of those who, on the wings of certitude,
> have soared unto the heaven of the love of their Lord, the
> All-Merciful. (KI 61)
> The unity of God is frequently expressed in the Bahá’í
> Writings but must be understood in this very specific sense. It
> is being manifested in the unity of the Manifestations of God.
> It is not an abstract or philosophical concept that can be
> manipulated and compared with what can be called created
> unity. Created unity is always a unity in diversity, or a unity
> consisting of parts that need to be unified. This unity brings
> with it forever the philosophical and scientific conundrum: how
> the relationship of the whole and the parts can be logically
> described, and how the physical reality of this world is
> composed. In the philosophical section of this paper this issue
> will be further developed.
> The unity of the world of humanity and the unity of all
> religions is another principle of the Bahá’í Faith. It is, one could
> say, the most important, most actual and the most emphasized
> principle of the Faith, for it undoubtedly is what the world
> needs most today. Bahá’u’lláh has expressed this need by
> directing us to the situation of our time, when He said:
> Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live
> in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and
> requirements. (TU 1.4)
> It could here be developed how the understanding of the
> relationship between the whole and its parts affects not only the
> political and social structures of humanity, but the basic
> understanding of this world. One could say that the Christian
> theology in its Platonic or Neo-platonic interpretation
> emphasizes the unity and degrades the multiplicity of its parts.
> Consequently the spiritual is evaluated by devaluating the
> material.
> This is the reason why the Aristotelian solution that gives the
> whole priority over the parts (form over matter), but considers
> both as equally real, was so well received in Christian theology
> since the time of Thomas Aquinas. This is actually a progress in
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    39
> 
> the right direction from the Neo-Platonic understanding that
> only the whole is real, and everything partial is derived from it
> as an emanation, an overflow, and therefore less real.
> The opposite is happening in modern science and modern
> philosophy: the material, the parts, the aggregation of the
> elements of nature in causality are emphasized, and exclusively
> preferred, without consideration of the value of the whole, this
> way of thinking devaluates all spiritual aspects of life and
> deprives the world of enchantment, of value and meaning. As
> will be pointed out in another paper, this is changing since the
> findings of quantum mechanics are slowly influencing science.
> It appears to this writer that the cosmology inherent in the
> Bahá'í Writings gives us a new and revolutionary way of seeing
> this relationship. Neither spirit nor matter is devaluated or
> negated. The unity of the world is deemed as equally valuable as
> the multiplicity and diversity of things material, and both are
> seen as elements of the Creation. A problem is only created if
> humanity finds one-sided attachment either to the spiritual, as
> in some forms of mysticism and in the attempts to reach God in
> His unity through meditation, or to the material, in the modern
> emphasis on physical reality in all materialistic and
> reductionistic systems of thinking. While this new way of
> thinking could be developed from the Bahá'í Writings in a
> thorough analysis of how they see the relationship between the
> one and the many, the spiritual and the material in all aspects of
> life, only some samples can be presented here.
> The fact that Bahá’u’lláh states that prayer to God and
> service to mankind are equally valuable presupposes the fact
> that both the spiritual and the material are created by God and
> are basically good. Bahá’í spirituality, therefore, needs to be
> conceptualized on the idea of unity in diversity, and its
> practical development in the future cannot really be seen today.
> Shoghi Effendi’s description of the future Bahá'í
> commonwealth is based on similar premises, as will be pointed
> out below.
> What this unity of humanity is and how it should be achieved
> and protected in the future is a most important question of
> which the beloved Guardian has said:
> World unity is the goal towards which a harassed humanity
> is striving.
> …The unity of the human race, as envisaged by
> Bahá’u’lláh, implies the establishment of a world
> 40                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> commonwealth in which all nations, races, creeds and
> classes are closely and permanently united, and in which
> the autonomy of its state members and the personal
> freedom and initiative of the individuals that compose
> them are definitely and completely safeguarded. (WOB
> 202)
> Describing this unity of the human race and this world
> commonwealth, Shoghi Effendi depicts many of its features and
> lays down the principles of its organization. However, he states
> that the actual structure and the functioning of this world unity
> cannot be visualized at this point:
> Who can visualize the realms which the human spirit,
> vitalized by the outpouring light of Bahá’u’lláh, shining in
> the plenitude of its glory, will discover? (WOB 205)
> 
> Unity of the Bahá’í Revelation
> This is a principle of the Faith that is not stated as such in the
> Writings. It is, nevertheless a constituting principle without
> which the Faith cannot be conceived, and it further includes the
> unity of all Revelations of God throughout history, which is
> implied in unity of religion, and is expressed in the Bahá’í
> principle of progressive revelation.
> Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, clearly
> pointed out the unity of all the Writings when he made the
> following statement about the Will and Testament of ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá and the Kitáb-i-Aqdas of Bahá’u’lláh:
> A comparison of their contents with the rest of Bahá’í
> sacred Writings will similarly establish the conformity of
> whatever they contain with the spirit as well as the letter
> of the authenticated writings and sayings of Bahá’u’lláh
> and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. (WOB 4)
> This is an explicit statement about the unity of the
> Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and it is noted that this conformity is
> related to whatever the Writings contain, i.e., to all of the
> Writings, and it extends to the spirit as well as to the letter of
> the authenticated Writings of the Báb, of Bahá’u’lláh, and of
> His official interpreters, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi.
> John S. Hatcher in his book about the “Art of Bahá'u'lláh”
> approached this Revelation with the tools of literary criticism.
> He has adapted these tools to study the context and style of the
> “Ocean of Bahá'u'lláh’s Words”, stating:
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                               41
> 
> The more intimate we become with the art of Bahá'u'lláh,
> the more we come to appreciate this context of the
> Revelation as having continuity and integrity. And the
> more we come to discover this overall unity to the
> Revelation, the more we appreciate that no single work
> can be fully studied apart from this context any more than
> a single passage can be analyzed out of the context of the
> work in which it appears.
> The concept of progressive revelation expands this
> continuity of all Manifestations of God throughout history,
> disregarding their need to bring the Message in accordance to
> the understanding of their audiences and in consideration of the
> fact that their words have not always been transmitted to us in
> their original form.
> The unity of the Revelation of the Báb, and of Bahá’u’lláh is
> rather remarkable, but can be seen only after a meditative
> involvement in the Writings. It is not a superficial unity; it is an
> integral and pervasive unity. Even though it includes the
> obvious and literal meaning, as well as any deeper and spiritual
> meaning, it also encompasses the different styles of the
> Writings as Bahá’u’lláh has stated:
> At one time We spoke in the language of the lawgiver; at
> another in that of the truth-seeker and the mystic, and yet
> Our supreme purpose and highest wish hath always been to
> disclose the glory and sublimity of this station. God,
> verily, is a sufficient witness. (ESW 14)
> 
> Tabernacle of Unity
> Is ther e?   Praise of Cr eatio n      Pathwa ys True o f          Taberna cle
> of L ove Thysel f           of U nit y
> Prayer of Bahá’u’lláh                  Bahá’u’lláh Bahá’u’lláh     Bahá’u’lláh
> the Báb   (SVFV 2)                     (SVFV 25) (SVFV 27)         Tablet to
> (SWB 217)                                                          Zoroastrians
> 5.1
> Praise       First Fire Lit from Lamp Creature      Inwardness     Ascent
> be God       of Preexistence and         to         (Spiritual)    Lightness,
> Singleness (“The fire Thou True One                   Heat (To the
> hast kindled in me”)                                  Spirit)
> He is        First Sun Risen in the      True One   Firstness      Motion
> God          Heaven of                   to         (Individual)   (Active, Form)
> Eternity (“From this sun is True One
> generated, and unto it
> must return, the light
> which is shed over all
> 42                                       Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> thing.”)
> All are     First Morn Glowed from      True One   Outwardness Descent (From
> His         the Horizon of              to         (Material)  the Spirit)
> servants    Oneness (“Thou didst        Creature
> illumine my outer being
> with the morning light of
> Thy favor”)
> All abide   First Sea Branched from     Creature   Lastness       Stillness
> by His      the Ocean of Divine         to         (Collective)   Weight,
> bidding     Essence (“The water with    Creature                  Density
> which Thou hast created                               (Passive,
> me”)                                                  Matter) Have
> come into
> being through
> the will of the
> Lord of all that
> has been and
> shall be.
> 
> Above is a sample of the unity of the Writings that can
> certainly be improved upon and changed, but it can give us
> some understanding of how all the concepts and thoughts, the
> literal and the spiritual meanings of the texts, can be seen in a
> unified vision and meditated together.
> The first column of the picture is from a prayer of Báb, and
> it includes the last four statements of this prayer.
> The second column is from the introduction of the Seven
> Valleys of Bahá’u’lláh. Other explanatory verses of Bahá’u’lláh
> have been added in parentheses to place these terms in context.
> The verses directly under the underlined concept are the
> explanation given in the original text.
> The four Pathways of Love are again from the Seven Valleys
> and do not need much explanation; these verses originally
> inspired this writer to compare them with the prayer of the Báb,
> and this conformity was developed in an unpublished paper and
> in many presentations.
> The next column is again from the Valley of Unity and is the
> topic of a paper by this writer, presented and published in the
> Lights of ‘Irfán in 2005.
> The final column is from a newly translated early Tablet of
> Bahá’u’lláh and again presents four concepts in harmony with
> the previous texts. Its importance is explained in the words
> following these four ideas, where it is said that they “have come
> into being through the will of the Lord of all that has been and
> shall be.”
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                      43
> 
> In the picture below, the Tabernacle of Unity is organized in
> a different way, following the organization suggested by the
> Seven Valleys and as described in the paper True of Thyself by
> this writer. Some elements are omitted to make the picture less
> cluttered and the Bahá’í principles of Prayer, Service, Unity, and
> Order are added. The organizing elements are what Bahá’u’lláh
> calls the four stages of man when He wrote:
> And thus firstness and lastness, outwardness and
> inwardness are, in the sense referred to, true of thyself,
> that in these four states conferred upon thee thou shouldst
> comprehend the four divine states, and that the
> nightingale of thine heart on all the branches of the
> rosetree of existence, whether visible or concealed, should
> cry out: ‘He is the first and the last, the Seen and the
> Hidden....’ (SVFV 27)
> The harmony of the Writings is evident in this comparison. It
> is the Most Sublime Vision of Bahá’u’lláh. Its meaning becomes
> a proper subject of meditation and allows the believers to
> immerse themselves deeper into the Ocean of the Revelation of
> Bahá’u’lláh.
> The unity of the Bahá’í Faith, in itself and in its Writings, is
> not the whole story; it is rather the primary and present day
> example illuminating the history of humanity. According to the
> principle of progressive revelation and the unity of the
> Manifestations, which are especially developed in Bahá’u’lláh’s
> early and most significant book, the Kitáb-i-Íqán, all Divine
> Manifestations throughout history and all of their Revelations
> constitute the Unity of God’s Revelation throughout the history
> of humanity. Speaking about all of the Manifestations of God,
> Bahá’u’lláh says:
> … thou mayest behold them all as the bearers of one Name,
> the exponents of one Cause, the manifestations of one
> Self, and the revealers of one Truth, and that thou mayest
> apprehend the mystic “return” of the Words of God as
> unfolded by these utterances. (KI 159)
> They not only present the unity of God’s Revelation
> throughout history, they all are the Revealers of one Truth, the
> Truth of God. This unity of all Manifestations and of the Truth
> of their Revelations was described by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Who
> indicated that this understanding is new and has not been
> mentioned before in any other Revelation:
> His    Holiness     Bahá’u’lláh   has   announced   that   the
> 44                                  Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> foundation of all the religions of God is one; that oneness
> is truth and truth is oneness which does not admit of
> plurality. This teaching is new and specialized to this
> Manifestation. (BWF 246)
> That unity or oneness of truth belongs in the same vision as
> the unity of all Revelations is here expressed. Yet, according to
> some postmodern philosophers, there is no unity of truth, and
> truth is totally dependent on the subjective understanding of
> the individual expressing it, a concept totally alien to the Bahá’í
> Revelation.
> Bahá’u’lláh clearly applied this truth to all Revelations and
> mentioned Jesus in this context saying:
> … Jesus, the Spirit of God, [and] His proclamation of the
> unity of God and of the truth of His Message! (GWB 57)
> This is a direct reference to the words of Jesus in the Gospel
> of John (18:37-38)
> Pilate therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus
> answered, Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I
> born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I
> should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of
> the truth heareth my voice. Pilate saith unto him, What is
> truth?
> We can easily understand the doubtful answer of Pilate, and
> many post-modernists and modern bible critics would agree
> with him. While the philosophical question of “what is truth”
> will not be developed here, it is important to indicate that the
> Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh has a clear and expressed view of this
> issue and stands in the tradition of classical philosophy and its
> claim that human reason has the ability to recognize truth.
> 
> Unity of God in Christianity, Islam, and the Bahá’í
> Faith
> In the following, a lengthy paragraph from the Writings of
> Bahá’u’lláh will be presented because it brings the questions of
> what unity is and how it has to be understood in a new and
> surprising focus. We will first quote the whole section, and then
> discuss it sentence by sentence. Metaphysics and physics of
> consciousness can facilitate this understanding of the Bahá’í
> Revelation, if compared to the sacred Writings of the Faith.
> He is a true believer in Divine unity who, far from confusing
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                     45
> 
> duality with oneness, refuseth to allow any notion of
> multiplicity to becloud his conception of the singleness of God,
> who will regard the Divine Being as One Who, by His very
> nature, transcendeth the limitations of numbers.
> The essence of belief in Divine unity consisteth in regarding
> Him Who is the Manifestation of God and Him Who is the
> invisible, the inaccessible, the unknowable Essence as one and
> the same.
> By this is meant that whatever pertaineth to the former, all
> His acts and doings, whatever He ordaineth or forbiddeth,
> should be considered, in all their aspects, and under all
> circumstances, and without any reservation, as identical with
> the Will of God Himself.
> This is the loftiest station to which a true believer in the
> unity of God can ever hope to attain. Blessed is the man
> that reacheth this station, and is of them that are steadfast
> in their belief. (GWB 165)
> The first paragraph clearly distinguishes the Divine unity
> from all created unity. Created unity cannot be conceived other
> than as a unity in multiplicity, a unity that forms a whole from
> the unification of parts, which parts than can be numbered.
> Therefore, any concept of unity consisting of numbers of parts
> and elements that form the unit cannot be attributed to the
> Divine unity. This understanding of unity excludes the Christian
> concept of the Trinity, as it is usually understood as three-in-
> one or one essence in three persons.
> Even the so-called atom, which means the fundamental part
> of all matter that cannot be further divided (a-tomos means
> indivisible, not being able to be divided), has been divided in
> modern physics, and the last of its parts that are studied have
> been found, at least in quantum physics, as not being a-toms
> either, or indivisibles, but are perceived as elements that are on
> the border between wave and matter, one could say between a
> spiritual or physical entity, as some interpreters of these studies
> claim.
> In the next paragraph Bahá’u’lláh states something surprising
> and unexpected. Talking about the essence of belief in Divine
> unity, He makes a statement that can be easily mis-understood
> in the sense of the Christian Trinitarian theology, especially if
> the paragraph before and after this sentence is not understood,
> and some crucial words are overlooked.
> 46                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> The essence of belief in Divine unity consisteth in
> regarding Him Who is the Manifestation of God and Him
> Who is the invisible, the inaccessible, the unknowable
> Essence as one and the same. (GWB 165)
> Let’s imagine that this sentence would have been presented in
> the Council of Nicaea, in 325, where the Trinity Theology was
> developed, and let’s further replace the Manifestation of God
> with Jesus Christ, who certainly is a Manifestation in the Bahá’í
> understanding. So the sentence would look like this in this
> adapted and shortened form:
> The essence of belief in Divine unity consists in regarding
> Him, Jesus Christ, and the Divine Essence as one and the
> same.
> We deliberately left out the fact that Bahá’u’lláh describes
> the Divine essence as inaccessible and unknowable. Certainly,
> the followers of Athanasius would have agreed, one and the
> same is their catchword: “homo-ousios” (of the same substance
> or essence). The followers of Arius would have protested. “Not
> the same,” they would have screamed, “only of similar
> substance, homoi-ousious.” (I am aware that these two words
> were actually coined later as the battle cry of these two camps.)
> The emperor, who according to Eusebius, entered the council
> in his golden splendor, would have agreed as well, even though
> he later followed the Arian interpretation. We must consider
> that the emperor got baptized only later on his death bed and
> that the bishops were probably dressed in simple garments, some
> of them still carrying the marks of previous persecutions. The
> council had been called by the emperor, and he allowed the
> bishops to travel at the government expenses. The bishop of
> Rome, too old to travel, sent two priests as his representation
> to this council, which was mainly attended by bishops of the
> Eastern Roman Empire.
> What we left out – the description of the essence of God as
> being inaccessible and unknowable – and the next sentence of
> Bahá’u’lláh, if it would have been presented in Nicaea, would
> probably not have been understood at all at that time. The
> bishops might have quoted John 6:60 “Many therefore of his
> disciples, when they had heard this, said, This is an hard saying;
> who can hear it?”
> Bahá’u’lláh continued to say:
> By this is meant that whatever pertaineth to the former, all
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                   47
> 
> His acts and doings, whatever He ordaineth or forbiddeth,
> should be considered, in all their aspects, and under all
> circumstances, and without any reservation, as identical
> with the Will of God Himself. (GWB 165)
> What must be considered is the fact that this sentence does
> not limit the previous statement but puts it in the right
> perspective. The context of understanding of this statement is
> the fact that God is unknowable. So, any sameness or identity
> between a creature and God can only be in what is knowable
> and pertains to God, i.e., His Word, or His Will and Command,
> or, in other words, the Revelations of His Manifestations.
> The distinction between unknowable and unknown is usually
> not taken very seriously. In the Acts (17:23) Paul is reported to
> talk about an unknown God:
> For, as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an
> altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
> Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto
> you.
> At the time of Paul, the idea of a god or gods was a well
> known and an accepted fact to people in general; only a specific
> god could have been unknown in Greece. Paul does not raise the
> question if God can be known; that was not a question that
> could have been asked at that time, because in the common
> sense everyone knew about the gods. It is a question of
> importance today, where atheism and agnosticism is widespread,
> and was the public policy in a third of the human population
> not long ago. It took several centuries to develop this question.
> At about the 6th century, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,
> following the Neo-Platonic tradition, developed the “via
> negative” and affirmed the fact that we know nothing about
> God. Karen Armstrong calls this an attempt to combine the
> Semitic and the Greek conception of God.
> We may ask: what is unknowable today, where science and
> technology opened so many ways of knowing things? The only
> thing that is unknowable in this world is the “personal” and the
> “subjective” and even science cannot make it known
> objectively. The crucial issue is human consciousness, the
> fundament of human personality. We do not know what goes
> on in anybody’s mind, unless they talk to us. As a matter of
> fact, even neurobiological studies can only tell us that there is
> something going on, but not what is going on. Even our
> knowledge of our own mind is limited by our ability to reflect.
> 48                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> Psychology, with all its tests and clinical evaluations, has to
> recognize the fact that there is always a substantial part of the
> person which is unknowable. That’s why the therapeutic process
> is based on honesty and honest communication with each other,
> honesty with oneself and honesty of the patient, a virtue the
> patient has to learn in the process of therapy. That was clearly
> expressed by the psychoanalyst Loewald’s description of
> therapy:
> Our object, being what it is, is the other in ourselves and
> ourselves in the other. To discover truth about the patient
> is always discovering it with him and for him as well as for
> ourselves and about ourselves. And it is discovering truth
> between each other, as the truth of human beings is
> revealed in their interrelatedness.
> This is the psychoanalytic description of what the dialogical-
> personal thinkers called personal versus substantial knowledge.
> Ferdinand Ebner has formulated this truth in the following way:
> What exists as personality, can never and in no way be
> conceived as existing in the way of a substance. If we
> make the concept of substance the basis of the
> understanding of reality, then we lock out forever any way
> to recognize that, which exists in the way of personality.
> To a being of a personality we can only have a ‘personal’
> relation, in the final analysis no other relation as the
> relation of the ‘I’ to the ‘Thou.’ To a substance we can in
> no way have a personal relation – therefore in our relation
> to it the ‘I’ disappears in a sense.
> Concluding, it can be stated that God is unknowable in any
> substantial, scientific and objective way. What we know about
> God is what He has revealed to us through His Manifestations,
> so it is an eminently personal knowledge that is expressed in
> praise and prayer, not in any knowing of what God is.
> Therefore, the sameness between God and His Manifestation is
> not an essential one of “ousia” or substance, as the Council of
> Nicaea understood it, but a personal one. It is based on the
> Revelation of God’s Will or Word in His Commands, as
> Bahá’u’lláh so clearly describes this oneness as related to the
> acts of the Manifestations with the Will of God:
> By this is meant that whatever pertaineth to the former, all
> His acts and doings, whatever He ordaineth or forbiddeth,
> should be considered, in all their aspects, and under all
> circumstances, and without any reservation, as identical
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    49
> 
> with the Will of God Himself. (GWB 165)
> The mistake, and at that time any other solution might have
> been even more wrong than the Nicaean Creed, was not in the
> identification of sameness between God and His Manifestation,
> but in placing the sameness into the substance, the hypostasis,
> or the “ousia”, or essence of God.
> This is still true about Catholic Theology today. Karl Rahner,
> making a statement in his Theological Dictionary about the
> Hypostatic Union (as the explanation for the concept of the
> Trinity is traditionally called), said:
> This formulation is the fruit of the great Christological
> controversies of the first four centuries. These arose of
> intellectual speculations which unsuccessfully attempted
> to elucidate the fact, evident in Scripture, that Jesus
> Christ is true man and true God. … (p. 218-219)
> It is remarkable that even Rahner calls it no less than an
> intellectual speculation and an unsuccessful attempt. From the
> point of view of the Bahá’í Revelation it has become clear that
> this speculation probably was unavoidable, but it could not be
> successful, because it attempted to understand intellectually
> what is unknowable and inaccessible, i.e., the essence or
> substance (‘ousia’) or nature of God.
> That this intellectual speculation has to be unsuccessful, that
> the nature of God cannot be conceived or described, was stated
> by Bahá’u’lláh when He revealed in a prayer:
> Every praise which any tongue or pen can recount, every
> imagination which any heart can devise, is debarred from
> the station which Thy most exalted Pen hath ordained, how
> much more must it fall short of the heights which Thou
> hast Thyself immensely exalted above the conception and
> the description of any creature. (PM 194)
> Islam has totally rejected the concept of Trinity and accused
> Christians of believing in more than one God, accusing them of
> Tritheism, a heresy in Christian theology which never reached
> importance in theology, even though some practices of
> Christians today are not far away from this way of thinking. For
> example, there are medieval pictures, which depict God with
> three heads on one body. This way of depicting the Trinity was
> condemned by the church as clearly wrong,
> What is rather interesting is the fact that in Islam the person
> 50                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> of Muhammad, the Prophet, does not reach the same veneration
> than Christians give to Jesus. This means that in the Muslim
> faith it is the Book that attracts the special attention; it is the
> Qur’an, which has come from heaven through the Prophet. In
> Christianity, the Book, the Bible, is secondary to Jesus; it tells
> us about Him, and that is its importance. The emphasis on the
> human station of Mohammad, the Prophet, can be understood
> as a reaction to the understanding of Christ’s Divinity, as it is
> expressed in the concept of the Trinity.
> In the Bahá’í Faith these two aspects are combined and
> corrected. Jesus and Muhammad are placed in the same position
> as all the other Manifestations of God, and the holy Books are
> equally seen as testimonies of the Revelation of God. It is the
> person of the Manifestation, as well as His Revelation and His
> Writings that are the testimony to the truth.
> In the Most Holy Book, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, (p. 134),
> Bahá’u’lláh has combined these two traditions in calling the
> Manifestation the “Living Book,” contrasted it with the written
> Book of His Revelation (the Báb, in His Writings, has used this
> concept of living book before):
> Take heed lest ye be prevented by aught that hath been
> recorded in the Book from hearkening unto this, the
> Living Book. (KA 66)
> Another verse of Bahá’u’lláh specifically explains how the
> testimony of the truth of this Revelation is established in the
> Person of the Manifestation, in His Revelation, and in the
> resulting Book of His Writings, and how this can be recognized
> by every soul:
> Say: The first and foremost testimony establishing His
> truth is His own Self. Next to this testimony is His
> Revelation. For whoso faileth to recognize either the one
> or the other He hath established the words He hath
> revealed as proof of His reality and truth. This is, verily,
> an evidence of His tender mercy unto men. He hath
> endowed every soul with the capacity to recognize the
> signs of God. (GWB 105-106)
> The solution to this age old problem of the Oneness of God,
> that has caused discord and strife, war and hate between the
> followers of these two Revelations of God, is the fact explained
> in the above quoted verse of Bahá’u’lláh, that the essence, the
> substance, the nature or ‘ousia’ of God is unknowable and
> inaccessible. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has formulated this truth revealed by
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                     51
> 
> Bahá’u’lláh, when He said:
> But, that Essence of Essences, that Invisible of Invisibles,
> is sanctified above all human speculation, and never to be
> overtaken by the mind of man. Never shall that
> immemorial Reality lodge within the compass of a
> contingent being. His is another realm, and of that realm
> no understanding can be won. No access can be gained
> thereto; all entry is forbidden there. The utmost one can
> say is that Its existence can be proved, but the conditions
> of Its existence are unknown. (SWAB 54)
> Bahá’u’lláh describes this complicated issue by affirming that
> the Manifestation can say “I am God,” just like the Christian
> believes that Jesus is God. Because all of what we know about
> God derives from the life and Revelation of His Manifestation,
> Christians and Muslims can say about their Prophet that He is a
> “Messenger of God,” and Bahá'u'lláh emphasizes that this is only
> possible when the human aspect of the Prophet is seen in its
> “uttermost state of servitude”:
> Were any of the all-embracing Manifestations of God to
> declare: ‘I am God!’ He verily speaketh the truth, and no
> doubt attacheth thereto. For it hath been repeatedly
> demonstrated that through their Revelation, their
> attributes and names, the Revelation of God, His name
> and His attributes, are made manifest in the world. …
> And were any of them to voice the utterance: ‘I am the
> Messenger of God,’ He also speaketh the truth, the
> indubitable truth. …
> And were they to say: ‘We are the servants of God,’ this also
> is a manifest and indisputable fact. For they have been
> made manifest in the uttermost state of servitude, a ser-
> vitude the like of which no man can possibly attain. (KI 178)
> This is nothing more than an explication of the statement of
> Christ in the Gospel of John (10:30) “I and my Father are one.”
> And later (John 10:37-38) “If I do not the works of my Father,
> believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe
> the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in
> me, and I in him.”
> To close this excurse into Christian dogma, it appears that at
> the time of early Christianity the concept of an unknowable
> God was unconceivable, since everyone was believed to know
> God. It was a time when the statues of many different gods
> 52                                 Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> covered the sanctuaries of the land, and the whole world was
> conceived as functioning in dependency to these gods. The
> Jewish belief in one God only, was tolerated by the Romans as
> peculiar and as a historical tribal idiosyncrasy. On the other
> hand, the same belief was conceived so aberrant in non-Jews
> that Christians who shared that belief were called atheists by the
> Romans. To them, belief in only one God was nothing other
> than un-belief, a-theism. Christians were persecuted on the
> Emperor’s mandate for such beliefs and put to death for it.
> How could people raised in this environment conceive of an
> unknowable God, Who is only known through His
> Manifestation? So, they had to describe the relationship
> between Christ and God in their own way, inventing the
> concept of the Trinity and attributing the same essence,
> substance, or ‘ousia’, to both Christ and God the Father. This
> was a logical and possible unavoidable conclusion taken at the
> Council of Nicaea and then carried forth into 2,000 years of
> Christian Theology.
> Today, after the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, we can
> understand that the mistake of their solution was the fact that it
> is totally incorrect and impossible to talk about essence,
> substance, nature or ‘ousia’ of God; God is absolutely
> unknowable in any such way.
> Even today, even among the followers of Bahá’u’lláh, who
> came from a Christian background, it is quite likely that this
> issue is not clear, and our understanding of God is not yet what
> it should be in keeping with the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith.
> We have not consequently followed through with the idea that
> we do not know and cannot know God in any substantial and
> objective way, that we cannot even talk about God in this way,
> or talk about the essence, the substance or ‘ousia’ of God.
> On the other hand, we are exhorted, invited and even
> obligated to know God and love Him, not in a scientific and
> objective way, but in a personal approach. God has spoken
> through the Word of the Manifestations to us, and has allowed
> us to speak back and praise Him through prayer and service
> The following Verse from a prayer of Bahá'u'lláh can best be
> understood in the same way
> Here am I with my body between Thy hands, and my spirit
> before Thy face. (PM 243)
> As in Genesis 2:7
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                       53
> 
> And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
> ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
> and man became a living soul.
> God formed the body of Adam, so Bahá'u'lláh talks about the
> material body between God’s forming hands. The living soul
> was given to Adam through the breath of God, which breath
> comes from the face in the picturesque language of the first
> book of the bible, hence the many allusions to the face or
> countenance of God as a indication of the spiritual aspect of
> man. Here clearly the difference between the material and the
> spiritual of man is described. Without exaggeration we can say
> that the consequences of this understanding will certainly change the
> whole structure and meaning of religion in the future.
> Concluding the previous two chapters the following can be
> stated: The difference in the concept of unity between the
> Creator and the creation is important and has to be understood
> in the way this unity is manifested in the Prophets of God. It is
> not their nature or essence; it is their Word, their Revelation,
> and their Message which manifests the unity of God. That
> means that the unity of God can only be seen in the unity of the
> Manifestations with each other and in the unity of their
> individual Revelations, which is the Word of God and originates
> in the Will of God. Any other understanding of the unity of
> God is vain imagination, as Bahá’u’lláh stated in the prayer
> mentioned before.
> Consequently, the unknowability of God could be described
> in this way: The essence of God is unknowable, so all that can be
> known about God is what He makes known of Himself. What
> God makes known to humankind is called Revelation, and it is
> known to humanity through God’s Messengers, through His
> Manifestations, or biblically through His Word, which was
> incarnated in Christ.
> In other words, nothing can be known about God except
> what was revealed through His Manifestations. Secondarily,
> God reveals Himself in His creation, which is the place where
> God makes Himself known through His Manifestations in
> another form, as all that was created was created through His
> Manifestation, through His word, as it is said in John 1:1-3 “In
> the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
> the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All
> things were made by him; and without him was not any thing
> made that was made.”
> 54                                    Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> There are three ways of knowing God: through the life of the
> Manifestation, through the Revelation of the Manifestation,
> and through the world as being created by the Manifestation. It
> needs to be remembered that humanity is part of creation, and
> therefore the knowledge of God is innate to humans as well.
> These three ways of knowing God are described by
> Bahá’u’lláh:
> All knowledge of God comes
> 1. through the Manifestation,          through    His    life,
> described as the “Living Book”
> Say: God, the True One, is My witness that neither the
> Scriptures of the world, nor all the books and writings in
> existence, shall, in this Day, avail you aught without this,
> the Living Book, Who proclaimeth in the midmost heart
> of creation: ‘Verily, there is none other God but Me, the
> All-Knowing, the All-Wise.’ (KA 81)
> 2. and through their Revelation, their written Book:
> The source of all learning is the knowledge of God, exalted
> be His Glory, and this cannot be attained save through the
> knowledge of His Divine Manifestation. (TB 156)
> 3. and all knowledge of God is evident in His creation,
> because all things were made by the Manifestation:
> From that which hath been said it becometh evident that
> all things, in their inmost reality, testify to the revelation
> of the names and attributes of God within them. Each
> according to its capacity, indicateth, and is expressive of,
> the knowledge of God. So potent and universal is this
> revelation, that it hath encompassed all things visible and
> invisible. (GWB 178)
> 
> Overview of a Philosophy of Integral Unity
> In a very cursory form we will present the history of the
> unity concept in philosophy by mentioning the major
> philosophers and indicating their understanding. Certainly, this
> topic could be the subject of an extensive monograph, but here
> only a very short overview of the most important authors will
> be presented, assuming that the details are known.
> B. R. Kadem has described the “Origin of the Bahá’í Concept
> of Unity and Causality, A Brief Survey of Greek, Neo-Platonic,
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    55
> 
> and Islamic Underpinnings” and has pointed out the distinctive
> features of the Bahá’í account. One of the most important
> differences is the assertion that the unity concept is attributed
> to the Manifestation of God, not to God Himself as in the Neo-
> Platonic and Islamic tradition. Therefore he states
> The Bahá’í concept of the unity of being is laden with
> implications unprecedented in the Greek, Neo-Platonic, or
> Islamic forbears. The understanding of these implications
> are therefore now part of the current and future labors of
> thought for Bahá’í thinkers. (p. 115)
> He further states that there is a need to re-think the Neo-
> Platonic concept of emanation, when used in the Bahá’í context.
> In this paper the concept of Revelation of Unity is carried
> further into the present scientific and philosophical thinking,
> and only the following very brief reference is made to the
> historical aspect of this question.
> Pre-Socratic Philosophers: Monism versus Pluralism
> Parmenides (and in similar way much later Spinoza, and in
> some ways Hegel): One Reality, Monism. His understanding
> pervades all of European philosophy, from Plato to the Neo-
> Platonists, and into the Christian Philosophy by Origin and
> others, especially in the tractate of the Trinity by Augustine. It
> further implies an emphasis on unity (spirituality) and distrust
> for plurality (materiality).
> Democritus (and in similar ways modern science): Atomism.
> The whole is the sum of its parts, a mechanical, accidental and
> material universe. Any concept derived from the whole and not
> the parts is without value and can be neglected; all phenomena
> can be reduced to their “atoms,” and truth can only be found in
> this reductionistic way of thinking.
> Classical Greek Philosophy
> Plato: The reality is in the idea; any multiplicity is only a
> shadow of reality. Neo-Platonism has developed this further and
> was critical in influencing Christian theology towards the
> depreciation of the reality of this world
> Aristotle: Unity (or Form) and Plurality (Primal matter).
> Reality is the unity of form and matter that explains movement
> and change; Aristotle developed his meta-physic after studies in
> physics (nature). This understanding was renewed by Thomas
> Aquinas and became the centerpiece of scholastic philosophy. It
> 56                                  Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> is taught in Catholic Universities even today, making Christian
> philosophy more realistic and directed towards the reality of
> this world. As a matter of fact, this more realistic understanding
> was one of the causes of the development of modern sciences.
> Modern Philosophy: Idealism versus Materialism
> Hegel: Idealism, Unity of Ideals, of the Spiritual, Dialectical
> process of these ideas verified in the social arena of the ideal
> Prussian State
> Marx: Materialism, Economic evolution of World Unity to
> be brought about by violent revolution, and cumulating in the
> dictatorship if the proletariat, even though it is predicted to
> happen with iron necessity. (Before and after Marx, Feuerbach,
> Darwin and Freud can be counted in the same group.)
> The different ways unity and multiplicity were understood is
> a theme with many variations throughout the history of
> philosophy. It seems to have come to a harmonious solution
> only recently, after the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, and not
> without the influence of this Revelation, as was noted by
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in the above mentioned quote:
> And all this newness hath its source in the fresh
> outpourings of wondrous grace and favour from the Lord
> of the Kingdom. (SWAB 253)
> What is the newness in the philosophy of today that relates
> to the one and the many, to unity and diversity? In a previous
> paper of this writer, the history of this vision of the “Integral
> opposition of Unity and Plurality” (“Der integrale Gegensatz
> von Einheit und Vielheit”) was briefly described, and the
> relevant authors were mentioned. Here the thoughts of
> Augustinus Karl Wucherer-Huldenfeld, as described before, will
> be more extensively presented as they are important to better
> understand the concept of unity in the Bahá’í Writings.
> The Integral Whole is described by Wucherer-Huldenfeld in
> the following points:
> • The Whole relates to the parts integrating or
> complementing them in a structure of a real synthesis
> • The parts, in their internal unity and diversity, are
> equally original and essential, constituting equally the
> respective whole, which they build with each other and
> for each other
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                    57
> 
> • The greatest unity of the whole is realized with the
> greatest independence and freedom of its diverse parts
> or elements
> • In the whole the parts are “healed” and integrated;
> through the parts the whole is “healed,” it is made whole
> • A dialectic of different conceptions of Unity & Plur-
> ality can be developed: Totalitarian dissolution of
> Plurality versus Radical Plurality (Postmodern Pluralism)
> • From an article on Teilhard de Chardin: Unification
> differentiates; the more unity the more complexity is
> possible; unity of spirit and matter: Spirit-Matter
> The drastic change and the newness of this thought are not
> obvious, unless we consider the social and political application
> of it. That is really the topic of Shoghi Effendi’s considerations
> about the New World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, even though it is
> not expressed in philosophical statements in his writings. The
> Guardian does clearly state that all previous social and political
> forms of political unity are obsolete and that a new form will be
> developed in the Bahá’í Commonwealth:
> “The unity of the human race, as envisaged by Bahá’u’lláh,
> implies the establishment of a world commonwealth in which all
> nations, races, creeds and classes are closely and permanently
> united, and in which the autonomy of its state members and the
> personal freedom and initiative of the individuals that com-pose
> them are definitely and completely safeguarded.” (WOB 203
> In this brief formulation, which is more extensively described
> in the Guardian’s communication to the American Bahá’ís, it is
> remarkable that the unity of all nations, races and creeds is
> combined with a complete safeguard of the autonomy of the
> individual states as well as with the promotion of the personal
> freedom and initiative of all individuals.
> What is crucial in the Guardian’s understanding of unity in
> diversity is the fact that in this understanding the parts reach
> their advantage from the whole and the whole has to guarantee
> the welfare of the parts.
> The advantage of the part is best to be reached by the ad-
> vantage of the whole, and that no abiding benefit can be
> conferred upon the component parts if the general interests
> of the entity itself are ignored or neglected. (WOB 198)
> 58                                     Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> Seen from the side of the parts Shoghi Effendi states that any
> distress to the parts affects the whole; they are mutually
> dependent, that is, they constitute each other mutually. Neither
> is prior, neither is more or less than the other.
> The welfare of the part means the welfare of the whole, and
> the distress of the part brings distress to the whole. (PDC 122)
> Philosophically this conception is only possible in the above
> proposed understanding of the unity of the integral whole. It is
> remarkable to note that this philosophical thought was only
> fully developed after the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, even though
> it happened in a tradition that prepared for this development.
> There are many statements in the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith
> that envision a similar unity, where the parts are equally
> protected, cherished and found to be essential to the unity,
> especially the many comparisons of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá of the unity
> of the world and mankind with a flower garden. Here some
> examples how the diversity and variety of a garden adorns its
> beauty and increases its perfection.
> How unpleasing to the eye if all the flowers and plants, the
> leaves and blossoms, the fruits, the branches and the trees
> of that garden were all of the same shape and colour!
> Diversity of hues, form and shape, enricheth and adorneth
> the garden, and heighteneth the effect thereof. In like
> manner, when divers shades of thought, temperament and
> character, are brought together under the power and
> influence of one central agency, the beauty and glory of
> human perfection will be revealed and made manifest.
> (SWA 291-292)
> The importance of variety in oneness is emphasized in this
> sample from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Writings:
> When there is variety in the world of oneness, they will
> appear and be displayed in the most perfect glory, beauty,
> exaltation and perfection. (TH 14)
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s beauty in the diversity of the garden expresses
> the new understanding of the relationship between the one and
> the many, the whole and the parts. It is described as a gift of
> God and the felicity of the human world in another statement:
> Therefore, the part is expressive of the whole, for this seed
> was a part of the tree, but therein potentially was the
> whole tree.
> Lights of ‘Irfán Book Nine                                      59
> 
> So each one of us may become expressive or representative
> of all the bounties of life to mankind.
> This is the unity of the world of humanity. This is the
> bestowal of God. This is the felicity of the human world,
> and this is the manifestation of the divine favor. (PUP 16)
> The importance of what Shoghi Effendi called the
> “watchword” of the Bahá’í Faith, “unity in diversity,” can hardly
> be overestimated. Is it not the basis of any future political,
> sociological and philosophical development which the Bahá’í
> Writings predict, and is it not the need of our age? This is
> expressed by Bahá’u’lláh in these words:
> Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live
> in, and centre your deliberations on its exigencies and
> requirements.
> In the Bahá'í Faith the spiritual is not evaluated by
> devaluating the material; both are valued and equal in their own
> right. Neither is unity extolled at the cost of diversity and
> multiplicity. That means that any devaluation of any aspect of
> God’s creation is wrong and alien to this Faith.
> A basic difference to previous dispensations, like
> Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, and others, is the value given
> to the world as God’s creation. This value judgment is not
> placed on the ontological structure of the world, but on the
> choices humans make in dealing with the creation. Any
> overestimation of one aspect over the other is wrong. When the
> material, the multiple, and the diverse is overestimated, we have
> materialism and a station of man that is lower than the animal.
> On the other hand unity – or the spiritual – should not be over-
> estimated either to the detriment of the diversity and the material.
> Bahá'u'lláh made this clear in the rejection of asceticism and
> monasticism and of certain forms of mysticism.
> Bahá'í Unity is understood as unity and diversity, as variation
> and oneness, as oneness in multiplicity, which is characteristic
> for this created world, and neither can be evaluated by
> devaluating the other, neither can be affirmed by negating the
> other, yet both are transcended by the inner meaning of the
> Word of God, as it is stated by Bahá'u'lláh
> Please God, that we avoid the land of denial, and advance
> into the ocean of acceptance, so that we may perceive,
> with an eye purged from all conflicting elements, the
> worlds of unity and diversity, of variation and oneness, of
> 60                                   Bahá’u’lláh’s Most Sublime Vision
> 
> limitation and detachment, and wing our flight unto the
> highest and innermost sanctuary of the inner meaning of
> the Word of God. (KI 160)
> Bahá'í spirituality, therefore, needs to be conceptualized on
> the idea of unity in diversity, and the consequences of this new
> approach cannot be fully understood today, neither can the
> practical applications in the future be seen in our present world.
> Shoghi Effendi’s description of the World Order of Bahá'u'lláh
> is the most that can be said today about this future
> development. And yet, it can easily by understood that this new
> vision will bring a revolutionary change to all religions in the
> future, affecting theology, philosophy and the practical life of
> all the followers of the world religions. Summarizing we can
> make the following conclusions.
> • God’s Unity is transcendent, beyond unity and
> multiplicity, transcending numbers and comprehension,
> i.e., unknowable.
> • God’s Unity is revealed only through the Unity of the
> Manifestations, their words and laws, expressing God’s
> Primal Will and Word
> • Created unity is always “unity in diversity”, “oneness in
> multiplicity”
> • Created unity is constituted by the integration of the
> whole and the parts, which are equal and both original;
> they are the “same and different” (TB 140)
> • The concept of integral unity, or unity in diversity, has
> implications for the future, and its practical application in
> the future Bahá’í commonwealth was described by Shoghi
> Effendi as far as this is possible today.
>
> — *Baha'u'llah's Most Sublime Vision (Used by permission of the curator)*