# The Artist and the Grammarian

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Otto Donald Rogers, The Artist and the Grammarian, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> The 27th Hasan M. Balyuzi Memorial Lecture
> 
> The Artist and the Grammarian
> OTTO DONALD ROGERS
> 
> I would like to express my appreciation for the opportunity given to me
> by the Association for Bahá’í Studies to present the Balyuzi Lecture. After
> giving a lot of thought to what I might say in this lecture, I decided to
> make a commentary—rather than offer what you might call a thesis—
> about two things that have concerned me, that is, the “mystic wayfarer”
> and the “grammarian.” We all have aspects of both of those conditions in
> each of us: on the one hand, we want to enthusiastically and with great
> zeal embrace the unknown, wandering a kind of invisible path in the hope
> of being confirmed in the living of our life; and on the other hand, we place
> limits on what life can manifest, afraid of going over the edge.
> First, however, I want to make mention of my parents Otto Victor and
> Mary Jane Rogers. Although their cultural background was limited, as
> was their knowledge of religion, they nevertheless made it possible for me
> to have an education in art and ultimately to embrace the Teachings of
> Bahá’u’lláh. My father was a prairie wheat farmer in western Canada and
> he related to the land as a poet would. He placed a loving hand on nature
> and he longed for a beautiful return. My mother, on the other hand,
> labored to achieve order in the unpredictable environment of dry-land
> farming. They had a good marriage and, so, as a youth, I came to under-
> stand that if you married poetry and order you would be in very good
> hands. Thus when I embraced my gift as an artist, it seemed quite logical
> because it consisted of striving for order and being poetically intoxicated.
> That was my beginning and, naturally, when I discovered the Bahá’í
> 
> 2             The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> Teachings, there was a confirmation of the majesty and beauty—the
> artistry—of Bahá’u’lláh’s Writings. His Revelation impressed me as being
> all-embracing and of such aesthetic potency, and it also embodied the idea
> of order, which appealed so much to my mind and my soul. I experienced
> the Sacred Writings as also embodying the language of art, so I came to
> understand that art was necessary for the development of higher con-
> sciousness. I am not sure that this fact is as fully appreciated as it might
> be. For example, we think of art as a decorative thing, but not necessarily
> as a means of education, as a means of elevating consciousness.
> As I speak, images of some recent paintings will appear on the two
> screens before you. I don’t intend to speak about them directly, but I
> thought it would be interesting for you to see them as a backdrop to the
> thoughts being advanced. There will be altogether four sets, and each set
> will remain on the screen for fifteen minutes. Now, if you don’t like the
> works, this may seem like a bit of a torture. However, we artists often
> lament the fact that people go to the gallery and look at the title of a work
> then glance at the work and walk on. We may be losing our ability to
> appreciate the static art form, the form that is still.
> I am very much moved by some of the statements in the Writings of the
> Báb where He speaks about motion as one condition of the divine creative
> act and stillness as another condition of that divine creative act; and then
> He says that, in reality, motion and stillness are one. This is one of the
> great beauties of pictorial art, of static art, because such art symbolizes
> and actually presents you with motion and stillness simultaneously. But
> you have to spend some time with it and take it in and allow that motion
> to begin to enter your consciousness, and you must also begin to appreci-
> ate its stillness. I sometimes think of the statement of Christ referring to
> the peace that passes beyond all understanding (Phil. 4:7). The whole
> nature of pictorial art has to do with the creation of a reality suspended
> between the material and spiritual realms, with the sense of peace being
> the inner condition reflective of the attributes of the soul. I am constantly
> amazed (and no doubt this is true of every discipline; I know it certainly
> is true of my discipline of painting) that the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh sim-
> ply surrounds it, elevates it, and pushes it forward into the future. The
> The Artist and the Grammarian                            3
> 
> principles of compositional order that are sought in art can be experienced
> in the Sacred Writings, thus confirming the relationship of the arts to
> spiritual development.
> I want to briefly touch on four commonly shared parts of any endeav-
> or, and illustrate how my experience as an artist and as a Bahá’í has
> become an interwoven pattern. I think it would be very good for people
> to understand that the artistic process is encompassed by Bahá’u’lláh’s
> Revelation. And, indeed, our Plans are artistic in nature as conceived by
> the Universal House of Justice. They are, really, an attempt to develop the
> kind of understandings that lead to activity, an objectification of a new
> consciousness, as can be seen in the four core activities. So you could say
> that the Bahá’ís have a plan at work in the world for creating visible
> forms, striving for what in the art world we call “high art.” It goes beyond
> that, of course, because this is the Plan of God, but it is interesting to
> reflect on the similarities.
> The first of these four parts, or realities, that I want to touch on is the
> tremendous gift that we have: that of the intellect. I don’t know if we con-
> template often enough how amazing this gift is. We couldn’t appreciate it
> enough if we got down on our knees every day and thanked our loving
> Creator for providing us with the mind.
> The second of these realities is the opening, or—you could think of it in
> many ways—the invitation. We are given an intellect, but, immediately
> after having received it, we find that embedded in this phenomenon is a
> desire to move into the unknown, to embrace the unknown, to be attract-
> ed to the invisible, to the spiritual world. It is almost as if we are given the
> means and the capacity whereby to move through infinite space—which is
> an unknown kind of space—and it takes an enormous amount of courage
> just to go through the very first veil, let alone all the other veils that inter-
> vene over the course of our life. So I want to speak a little bit about space.
> For the artist, the way compositional elements are ordered in the rectan-
> gle of the canvas, called the “pictorial plane,” becomes the means of devel-
> oping a metaphor of life itself. Spatial relationships are of primary concern
> to pictorial art.
> The third reality is that of process. I was very moved by the new book by
> 4             The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> Nader Saiedi, Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Báb. I
> found it enlightening, in part, because he has an entire section explaining
> the Writings of the Báb that have to do with divine creative action, and I
> want to make mention of that. Much of what the artist does has to do with
> the outcome of a particular process of creative action initiated in a given
> set of paintings.
> The fourth reality is that of form. In the art world many individuals
> speak about “significant form” or “high art.” Significant form is the kind
> of form that is like an archetype: it has the capacity to generate all sorts
> of other works of art and it raises consciousness: it elevates the human
> soul and it is timeless. You look at it and you think: “This was done yes-
> terday.” You blink and you look and you think: “No, this is something
> ancient; it is something that has always been.” These are the four parts of
> my presentation.
> I want to first touch on mind. I know that, as Bahá’ís, we all know these
> things. But it doesn’t hurt to come together on different occasions such as
> this one to be reminded of concepts and experience them once again while
> together. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that “[t]his supreme emblem of God stands
> first in the order of creation and first in rank, taking precedence over all
> created things. Witness to it is the Holy Tradition, ‘Before all else God,
> created the mind.’ From the dawn of creation, It was made to be revealed
> in the temple of man” (Secret 1). Mind is what is essential in the human
> spirit, but it is very interesting that, even with this tremendous gift, it
> does not accomplish very much unless it is married to the spirit of faith.
> Then it can move mountains. This tremendous gift of God can remain
> static, or have limited movement, or perhaps produce some material result,
> but in the end it does not fulfill its potential unless it is combined with the
> spirit of faith. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said that “[t]he first attribute of perfection is
> learning and the cultural attainments of the mind. . . .” (Secret 35). This is
> why I really want to stress—not that I necessarily need to prove it to
> you—the importance of aesthetics in the development of the mind, to
> study and create that which is beautiful. We know this, of course, from the
> Revelation itself because it is pure beauty.
> “From the dawn of creation it was made to be revealed in the temple of
> The Artist and the Grammarian                          5
> 
> man.” That is an amazing statement because it would appear from that
> statement (unless I am misunderstanding it) that mind was something
> created by God and then associated with, or deposited in, the human tem-
> ple. So, it has a reality as a creation of God, and it is the moving force in
> the spiritual, intellectual, and social evolution of humanity. And then, of
> course, physically the brain was given to us as an instrument of that
> mind, so long as we exist on this plane. And let it be stressed again that
> this mind without the spirit of faith cannot move mountains, but with the
> spirit of faith it can. And that is why the power of the Creative Word is
> so great: because the Creative Word fires the imagination and quickens
> the mind.
> I really think that it restructures the mind. I think that this wonderful
> prayer, the Tablet of Ah.mad that we heard so beautifully sung and recited
> before our session began, was so moving. I really felt as if the very fiber of
> my being had been taken apart and reconstituted. And, of course, that is
> what the Creative Word of God does: it clarifies thought, and as ‘Abdu’l-
> Bahá said, “The reality of man is his thought.” And that is why I think we
> are encouraged to commit the Word to memory, because the mind needs
> spiritual nourishment. I want to touch on that later—it is evolving and
> changing; its very architecture is capable (they believe now) of renewal
> over time, over our life span. We know that the House of Justice in 1989
> said to us: “The Holy Word has been extolled by the Prophets of God as
> the medium of celestial Power and the wellspring of all spiritual, social
> and material progress.” Just think of that: “the medium of celestial Power.”
> Think of all the things that humanity does to gain power, when in our
> very hands we have the medium not just of physical power, but we also
> have the medium of celestial power: the Holy Word of God. And they went
> on in this letter to explain that it was vital, of course, to personal trans-
> formation and to the emergence of divine civilization.
> A couple of decades ago, some very interesting experiments were made
> on the brain capacity of birds. The first researcher did his research with
> the birds locked up in cages. He was trying to discover whether or not
> brain cells could be regenerated, whether there was neurogenesis, because
> it was thought that creatures were born with a certain finite number of
> 6              The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> brain cells—you had to make do with those for the rest of your life—and
> that brain cells did not regenerate. His research actually proved that brain
> cells did not regenerate; however, another researcher came along and did
> his research with birds in a supportive and natural environment and dis-
> covered that not only did the neurons regenerate, but also the rate at
> which they regenerated was quite amazing: something like 3 percent of
> the total number of cells regenerated every day. And this, in fact, made it
> possible for the birds to sing. After a certain period of time, the birds in
> the cages lose their capacity to sing because their brain cells are not being
> regenerated. I think that this is an interesting metaphor or analogy. Many
> of the things I want to mention tonight are in the sense of a metaphor.
> They do not complete the argument as a dissertation would—I don’t nec-
> essarily have all the scientific evidence—but they stand as quite convinc-
> ing metaphors. I was thinking of this in relationship to the Creative Word
> of God: how the Word creates an environment and an atmosphere (I
> would imagine that in the future science will be able to prove the regener-
> ative power of the Sacred Word). The brain is the instrument for the mind,
> and that instrument can only be effective as the mind becomes enlight-
> ened. This is very important so long as we function in the material world.
> Thus we should be appreciative and careful of this trust of the intellect. In
> fact, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says:
> 
> O ye that have minds to know! Raise up your suppliant hands to the
> heaven of the one God and humble yourselves and be lowly before
> Him and thank Him for this supreme endowment and implore Him to
> succor us until, in this present age, God-like impulses may radiate
> from the conscience of mankind and this divinely kindled fire, which
> has been entrusted to the human heart, may never die away. (Secret 2)
> 
> It is of interest to note that this passage connects the gift of intellect to
> the human heart and thus instructs us that the two are a single reality.
> I want to mention briefly, then, the relationship of mind to art, because
> sometimes people have felt that art is just “self-expression.” Even artists
> are sometimes excused for not thinking very clearly because they are
> The Artist and the Grammarian                          7
> 
> poets and poets don’t have to think: it is not really a thing of the mind, it
> is “self-expression.” The philosopher Hegel said, “ Thus to be truly beau-
> tiful, a thing must have an element of mind in it and indeed be a product
> of the mind.” Further he says, “Insofar as works of art are produced by the
> mind, they are in themselves essentially spiritual.” And then he relates it
> to nature. He says, “The beauty of nature exists for us as but a reflection
> of the beauty of mind, as a thing incomplete and imperfect in itself, the
> real substance of which is contained in the mind” (2). And that is not too
> surprising for we who are Bahá’ís because Bahá’u’lláh said: “Dost thou
> reckon thyself only a puny form /when within thee the universe is fold-
> ed?” (Seven Valleys 34).
> The way in which our mind exists, it would appear, is along similar lines
> to the principles of nature, and that is why we find nature so appealing: we
> could say that the “shape” of the mind is the “shape” of nature. And for
> understanding and appreciating art there is always this dilemma on the
> part of the public: they expect the artist to mimic nature. It has been said
> that “[a]rt is man’s nature; nature is God’s art.” The nature of man is what
> is expressed in art; it is the sensuous aspect of the intellect which is pres-
> ent in a visual form. And in the Báb’s Writings, apparently, from this won-
> derful new book (Gate of the Heart) the Báb has made it very clear that the
> entire universe was brought into existence to delight the human heart.
> We talk a lot about the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh, but maybe we have not
> understood the effect that will occur in the future from the Twin
> Revelations, because the Báb’s Revelation has to do with the heart being
> intoxicated, and you cannot have a World Order unless the hearts of its
> citizens are intoxicated, at least, not a World Order as envisioned by
> Bahá’u’lláh. The hearts have to have zeal and they have to be intoxicated.
> The world of nature not only delights the human heart, but it also
> informs the mind as to the vastness of its own potential because, as we
> investigate the natural phenomena that exist, we also advance civilization
> and the mind becomes more opened as a result. The other really interest-
> ing relationship is to prove—if you need proof—that art is a spiritual
> enterprise (of course everything we do is a spiritual enterprise if it is done
> in the right spirit). ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that “no phenomenal organism can
> 8             The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> be possessed of two forms at one time.” In other words, if a tree is being a
> tree, it can only be a tree while being a tree. But, He says, “The reality of
> man, the human spirit, is simultaneously possessed of all forms and figures
> without being bereft of any of them. It does not require transformation
> from one concept to another (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 260).
> This is the spiritual nature of ourselves, and this is really interesting in
> relationship to painting—and I will give the example of Mark Tobey since
> some of you may know Mark Tobey’s paintings—when you look at a
> Mark Tobey painting, maybe the first thing you see is the texture of the
> painting, and then you blink your eyes and you see light, and then you look
> again and you see form. Thus, the texture of a Mark Tobey painting is not
> only composition, but it is also a means of holding the light. An effect in
> one part of the composition can appear as light, while in another it can
> appear as shade. We perceive in the “white writing” form, illumination, a
> tactical presence; we experience pattern, movement, and space, all at the
> same time, its execution convincingly rational but essentially spiritual.
> This is the process of art and also, by the way (not to bring down what
> we are doing and try to say it’s “nothing but art”), one could say the very
> same thing about the effort that the Bahá’í world community is engaged
> in. This activity is essentially spiritual in nature, so it is multiple in its
> effect: a person can be embracing the Faith and learning of its history and
> acquiring zest for service simultaneously. Knowledge, inspiration, and
> action are one as in the act of painting. These elements become signs,
> become spiritual discoveries. Every painting of Mark Tobey is a kind of
> spiritual discovery. As Bahá’u’lláh says, “‘We will surely show them Our
> signs in the world and within themselves’” (Gleanings 178).
> And I love what ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says about the singer, because this speaks
> of the mysterious connections between things: the invisible connection,
> because, He says, nothing leaves the singer and enters another person that
> is listening to the singer. There is no actual transfer of anything material:
> “[N]othing comes forth from the singer which enters into the listener;
> nevertheless, a great spiritual effect is produced. Therefore, surely so
> great a connection between beings must have spiritual affect and influ-
> ence” (Some Answered Questions 246). And then He says, “Although by
> The Artist and the Grammarian                           9
> 
> existing rules and actual science these connections cannot be discovered,
> nevertheless, their existence between all beings is certain and absolute. . . .
> the beings, whether great or small, are connected with one another by the
> perfect wisdom of God, and affect and influence one another” (Some
> Answered Questions 247).
> Relationships motivate me because a painting is simply a set of differing
> qualities and quantities, and the amount of knowledge that comes about as
> a result of these juxtapositions of a high visual order is profound. In fact,
> the way in which we must have become conscious in the first place was by
> comparing things. We saw that one thing looked this way, or we experi-
> enced night and we experienced day and we took note of the difference
> between night and day and that raised our consciousness. So experiencing
> difference is very important to learning. At the same time, if relationships
> are perceived in depth, one can begin to sense the oneness of reality.
> Space is an invitation for travel in the unknown, both for the artist and
> the wayfarer. The artist must carry out a physical design in space while
> also incorporating space in the configurations used. The mystery of time
> and space is also at play because beyond the physical a spiritual journey is
> underway. Within the pictorial frame, the artist is constantly working, as
> a composer orchestrates music, seeking deeply felt arrangements in the
> hope that the space within which the arrangements exist will somehow
> become filled with meaning. The whole idea of space—what space actual-
> ly is—is fascinating. Scientists don’t know the true reality of physical
> space; it was once called “ether,” and now it is called the “dark” force.
> There are all kinds of investigations going on. Perhaps one day they will
> actually prove what Bahá’u’lláh says, that it is in actual fact the love of
> God—which is so fantastic an idea that it would be hard for the present
> generation to believe. But He did say that if the love of God were to be
> withdrawn, the physical universe would collapse. And I think that
> although the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh are, of course, beautiful and poetic,
> they are also accurate: they are not mere metaphors; they have accuracy.
> Although the idea of space is, to an artist, fascinating, it is also fright-
> ening because it presents infinite possibilities once one becomes engaged.
> A refined discipline in the use of materials and means is critical, but to
> 10            The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> delay engagement in endless calculations will prevent creative evolution.
> I think that this is what was being talked about in the Four Valleys when
> the mystic wayfarer arrived at a great sea, which I imagine as a vast unde-
> fined space. The mystic knower knew immediately that movement with-
> in this space would lead him to what was desired, so he entered it with-
> out delay, whereas the grammarian hesitated. Of course, we do that all
> the time. I don’t think it is an “either/or”: some of the time we are hesi-
> tating, and some of the time we are going over the edge. And, of course,
> every time we do go over the edge, we are astounded at the results; as
> confidence and courage grow, greater and greater realities are made man-
> ifest. From this metaphor it is clear that, in order to move, we have to
> clear the deck, so to speak, but often we are preoccupied, so filled with
> concerns and anxieties and maybe even duties, or plans—maybe we can
> even over-plan at times—we are so attached that movement becomes dif-
> ficult; our condition blocks our movement in that infinite realm. And yet,
> were we to transcend that limitation, tremendous victories are waiting
> us, whether a work of art or whatever achievement in the Faith we want
> to carry out.
> I walk into the studio and I see an empty canvas. Recently I had some
> large canvases constructed for me, 5’ x 7’, which is thirty-five square feet
> of surface to keep alive, because the surface of a painting has to be sus-
> tained in time and in space. And, believe me, it is not easy to fine-tune it
> as a musician does with a musical instrument and to achieve what archi-
> tects call “architectonic tension.” Like a good piece of music, its presence
> is absolutely precise; it sings, it vibrates in just the right fashion because
> all of the parts are connected, and the “whole” or “significant form” is
> achieved. The philosophers of art equate this truth of form or “being at
> one with a greater reality” with the highest possible achievement for the
> artist as a mystic seeker. This fact is implied in what the mystic knower
> said: “The death of self is needed here, not rhetoric: Be nothing, then, and
> walk upon the waves” (Bahá’u’lláh, Seven Valleys 52). So, you see, it is pos-
> sible, and I think of this every time I go into the studio because the way I
> work I have absolutely no idea what the painting is going to look like, or
> how it is going to evolve. It isn’t that I’m mindless, because I bring my
> The Artist and the Grammarian                          11
> 
> mind to that edge and then I allow the process to move me forward. I run
> very hard to stay behind the process, to keep up with it. I don’t try to com-
> pletely control it because the process has almost a mind of its own, or it
> has a motion of its own which we intelligently have to follow and enhance.
> Cezanne, the great painter sometimes referred to as the father of mod-
> ern painting, at least in the Western sense, said, “If I think, I’m lost.” He
> didn’t mean to say that we should abandon our rational intellect, but
> rather that our rational intellect brings us to the point at which we can
> intelligently, in a sense, abandon it or at least set ourselves free of its lim-
> itations and allow the process to educate us. And it does so every time; this
> is the amazing thing. This phenomenon can be seen in the infallible guid-
> ance of the Universal House of Justice because they have presented us
> with a Plan that from every standpoint is “true to form.” If you were a
> very educated and experienced artist and you investigated the Plan of the
> House of Justice, you would be completely satisfied that it meets all the
> criteria of great works of art. This is what is so confirming to me as an
> artist. I don’t think that anyone’s paintings are more rational or more
> intellectual than Cezanne’s but, nevertheless, he indicates that if one hes-
> itates, one loses the way. Also, there is a mystery in the invitation that his
> use of space offers. In Cezanne’s paintings of mountains, he was one of the
> first artists to start leaving white gaps or blank spaces in between the var-
> ious brush strokes or clusters; there was a lot of empty canvas, and writ-
> ers have said that it made it possible for the viewer’s mind to move into
> those empty spaces and occupy them, thus completing the picture and
> becoming, in a sense, at one with the spiritual essence of the work.
> At the same time as Cezanne was making his paintings, physicists were
> beginning to discover that space wasn’t simply a curtain that hung behind
> everything, that everything was in space and space was in everything. It
> was an entirely new concept of space which a physicist could explain to
> you better than I. My interest in the “language of space” was further
> enlarged by some recent research on brain function because—again get-
> ting back to neurons—it was thought that neurons (in case you don’t
> know, you have something like two billion of them in your brain) were all
> connected together in one way like an electrical wire and then connected
> 12            The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> into a central location somewhere. Then, with the development of high-
> power electron microscopes, they were able to discover that each neuron
> is contained within its own membrane. Every one of these two billion neu-
> rons is a separate entity. The scientists were really perplexed because they
> said to themselves, “Well then how do they communicate?” Every memo-
> ry takes place because of a changed connection between two neurons or
> one cluster of neurons and another cluster of neurons. Every memory,
> every thought, requires a connection between the two, so if they are bound
> by a membrane, how do they connect? If neurons do not touch each other,
> how do they form memories and exchange information?
> Memory is a fascinating phenomenon. By the way, you don’t actually
> remember everything because, by the time you get around to remembering,
> your brain has so completely changed that the memory is not exact. The
> brain does not exist in a static state. Perhaps this is the reason why hus-
> bands and wives can never agree on what happened in a shared experience,
> when it happened, and how it happened, and who was there. Anyway, the
> remarkable conclusion that was made—and this is very inspiring for me as
> an artist—is that the vacant gaps between the cells are where the real
> information is taking place. And they even put a word on it, as scientists
> have a need to do; they called them “synaptic clefts,” and they say that these
> spaces are the “secret sites” of communication: the space between things.
> Look at this painting (see cover reproduction of “Appearance of Light
> II”): the painting is about the space between things. It is not about a land-
> scape, it is not about the sky; it is about connections made (communication
> between things) throughout the space. Observe how the central pink plane
> provides a space for the movement of shapes up to the top and down to the
> bottom, how the cool gray at the bottom “speaks to” the warm tones at the
> top, how the white shape on the lower right “communicates” with the
> black shape seen on the top right, and how that black shape has a further
> relationship to the parallel horizontal lines spaced from top to bottom on
> the left side, and also to the dark passage on the bottom far left.
> There are many other complex relationships at work in this pictorial
> space, such as between the vertical, horizontal, and diagonal divisions of
> the space. However, this may be enough to indicate that the “spiritual
> The Artist and the Grammarian                         13
> 
> memory” or the “meaning” of this work is the result of a set of visual ele-
> ments which exchange information and are mutually supportive of each
> other in the compositional scheme.
> If you are not educated in art, looking at pictures such as this one would
> likely be less educative. You would miss opportunities, I think, to elevate
> your consciousness because aesthetics is an aspect of mind. It is not an
> additional thing; it is not what we might call “culture,” as in “It would be
> nice to be more cultured, so let’s buy a painting and hang it above our
> couch.” There is nothing wrong with that—ornamentation is fine—but the
> educative need is greater than that; understanding and experiencing the
> creative process as an integral part of community development is vital in
> terms of the advancement of society. It has always been that way, hasn’t it?
> Every culture, every civilization, elevated its people and advanced its civi-
> lization and imbued its spiritual principles by means of aesthetics, and often
> artistic form was one of the main means. The Universal House of Justice is
> encouraging the creation of a new mind, so we have to consider the arts as
> an aspect of building that new mind and do a lot more, if we can, than we
> have been doing.
> Another dimension the brain researchers are working on (which I don’t
> understand but am fascinated by nevertheless) is that in this conversation
> that is taking place between the neurons across the space, actually some
> time is passing, and so they are investigating how the passage of time in
> the conversation between the neurons actually begins to reconstitute the
> architecture of the brain. One can imagine that in the future all such com-
> plexities of the creative dynamic will impact educational programs, and
> even such things as the language of high art will be more fully understood
> as essential to intellectual and social progress.
> What happens in a painting is that there are all of these elements and,
> over time, as you work on the painting, they seem to unfold their destiny
> in the pictorial scheme.
> Giving a talk, by the way, is very much like making a painting. You have
> a relationship between a speaker and the audience, and you have the space
> between them. And, believe me, as any of you who has tried to give a pres-
> entation knows, it is quite a frightening thing to pass through a kind of
> 14            The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> veil and engage the audience and still hold your own ground and transmit
> significant meanings from your set of understanding to another set the
> audience may have.
> So, for the artist, space is both a physical and a spiritual process. In the
> words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “It is said that Moses in the wilderness heard the
> voice of God, but that wilderness, that holy land, was His Own heart.”
> Isn’t that interesting that he would say that about Moses, that that wilder-
> ness was his own heart? “All of us,” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá continues, “when we
> attain to a true spiritual condition, can hear the Voice of God speaking to
> us in that wilderness” (in Rabb 42). So, I think that the artist (and, I would
> say, Bahá’í activity) seeks to so order a composition that one will sense the
> confirmation of the Holy Spirit in it.
> There is much more to be said about space, but now I want to mention
> process. I think we naturally have a fear of process because we have a sense
> of how majestic it is, and we are a little bit afraid that we might lose our
> identity so we hold back. We do not plunge ourselves into this unknown
> sea because it is a fearful leap to make, and we are quite concerned about
> possibly causing harm to ourselves, as maybe we should be. It probably is
> important to maintain our identity; maybe we would lose our mental fac-
> ulties if we did not hang on in a certain way. But the interesting thing is
> that it seems as though it is impossible to sacrifice it; you only think you
> are sacrificing, so you never really do relinquish your sanity. But, never-
> theless, the fear is real.
> Everybody loves waterfalls, I think, because they are a symbol or a
> metaphor for us: we see ourselves in the waterfall and we envy the water-
> fall because when the waterfall comes to the edge, it goes over it: it does
> not hold back. Fortunately it doesn’t have free will—I mean, fortunately
> for it—and, fortunately for us, we do have free will because consciousness
> leads us to making choices, and it is these important moments of decision
> that propel life forward. If you stand on the edge and you don’t go over,
> that is a choice that likely will affect your ability for future actions. Your
> destiny is going to be determined by whether or not you make certain
> choices, and also by the choices you do make. The waterfall just goes over
> the edge and it experiences a lot of turmoil: it falls over the rocks, it foams
> The Artist and the Grammarian                         15
> 
> up, it changes its form, it is quite agitated, but eventually it reaches an
> entirely new form—whether it is a lake or whatever—and it realizes, “I am
> the same. I am still water, but I have a new form. I have been transformed;
> I haven’t lost my identity.” It is a simple analogy, but one we could think
> about when confronted with the need for critical change in our life process.
> I have found that with every person that I have tried to interest in the
> Faith in my life as a Bahá’í teacher, there is always a moment of standing
> on the edge and helping that person to take that jump, and you have to take
> the jump with them. We are one with the process that engages us.
> Scientist Freeman Dyson said, “The more I examine the Universe and
> study the details of its architecture, the more evidence I find that the
> Universe in some sense must have known that we were coming” (qtd. in
> Barrow and Tipler 318). Isn’t that lovely? So, you see, if you relinquish a
> little bit of control and fear and go over the barrier, you will find that the
> path ahead was waiting for you, and all of the things that you need will be
> there. This has been my experience. For example, I often do not know how
> to move the development of a painting forward: I am fearful of losing the
> good things the image already has, but as soon as I take steps that chal-
> lenge the status quo, a whole new set of possibilities becomes available,
> and the things that I liked are replaced by things I like even more. But the
> trouble is, it has to be the result of our own thinking process, because God
> does not want a bunch of zombies, people who are programmed to act
> without understanding. However, understanding has limited value if it
> does not bring you to the edge of greater achievement. You have to stand
> on that edge, make a choice, hold your breath, and jump.
> I give you another nice example. There was recent research done on a
> certain kind of butterfly. These butterflies had migrated to a new region
> where they had not existed before and promptly began to be eaten en
> masse by the birds. Now, in that same region there was another species of
> butterfly that the birds did not eat because, apparently, they tasted very
> sour and the birds had learned, over time, not to eat them. The new flock
> of butterflies that had migrated into the region, if you can believe it—and
> they don’t know how they did it—changed their coloring completely to
> imitate the butterflies that tasted sour in that region: a change that was so
> 16             The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> complete it went right down to a little speck of black on the underside of
> the left wing that was so small you could barely see it. They mimicked the
> exact coloration of that other species of butterflies, and the birds stopped
> eating them even though they didn’t taste sour.
> I think of ourselves in that way: we have to be careful that we are not
> eaten; we had better change our colors and fit in with the guidance of the
> Universal House of Justice because we are migrating. It is a new process.
> But the other result of this research—which I found even more fascinat-
> ing—was that evolution has the power to constantly make changes, to
> adjust to whatever the requirements of the moment are. The process of
> evolution has built into it the capability for endless variation and change.
> However, the secret template is inalterable; it cannot be changed, it is
> sacred; it can never be destroyed. So is the system, or the evolutionary
> process that produced the butterflies in the first place: they radically
> changed their coloration, but they could not change the way in which
> species evolve: the built-in process is a divine, sacred template that is inal-
> terable. I thought this was a marvelous way to explain progressive reve-
> lation because religion is a phenomenon, a process, that can undergo con-
> stant change and adaptation to the needs of the age, but the sacred tem-
> plate is inalterable. It is still the religion of God, “eternal in the past, eter-
> nal in the future,” as Bahá’u’lláh said (Kitáb-i-Aqdas par. 182). So there is
> lots of evidence, even in the scientific world, that we can use to under-
> stand the nature of process and what we are about in the process of entry
> by troops.
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that “[a]ll sciences, knowledge, arts, wonders, institu-
> tions, discoveries and enterprises come from the exercised intelligence of
> the rational soul” (Some Answered Questions 217). That is why I used that
> sentence by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in an essay that was published in a book on my
> paintings, because He says “The first condition of perception”—and to an
> artist the whole idea of perception is very powerful because it means to see
> and to be moved by—“in the world of nature is the perception of the
> rational soul.” To exercise the intelligence of the rational soul indicates
> the importance of engaging aesthetic awareness. The principles of beauty
> do not stand apart from intellect; rather, they are part of the very nature
> of intelligence.
> The Artist and the Grammarian                        17
> 
> There is a very interesting thing about physical light and its compan-
> ion, enlightenment, that I want to share with you. One of the great archi-
> tects of America, Louis Kahn, spoke about how a beautiful form—a beau-
> tiful building or any beautiful form—does not really know that it is beau-
> tiful because it has no way of seeing its own beauty. But the moment it
> invites light to enter in (he was talking about the importance of windows
> in architecture) the window brings light into the inner form of the build-
> ing, the light envelops the form, and the form becomes aware, so to speak,
> of its own beauty, and the light becomes aware of its own reality because
> it has a form within which to relate. Thus, even in physical relationships
> of light in terms of an architectural work, there is the idea of enlighten-
> ment. This wonderful duality of everything: illumination in terms of the
> Creative Word of God is the equivalent of the physical light being invited
> and entering into the form of ourselves and transforming the form and
> telling the form how beautiful it is. Look at how beautiful this individual
> was that stood before us and played his music and recited the Tablet of
> Ah.mad. We saw and experienced the beauty of that soul because that soul
> had invited the light to enter it and the light was entering it and describ-
> ing it and we were experiencing it. That is art. We experienced art; we
> wouldn’t have needed this presentation at all. However, I was invited, so
> here I am.
> Now, something more about process. Of course it is difficult; it is a com-
> bination of order, preparation, and conscious knowledge. It has to be imag-
> inative—that’s where we fall down. The beloved Hand of the Cause
> Amatu’l-Bahá Rúh.íyyih Khánum used to tell us so often: “The Bahá’ís
> don’t lack sincerity. They lack imagination. If they could only imagine
> more, we could accomplish so much more.” The poetic aspect of every
> endeavor is absolutely crucial to its success because without poetry there
> is no intoxication and we seem to like to be intoxicated, or we need to be.
> We’re designed to be “on fire.” Imagine, if God brought the entire uni-
> verse into existence to delight the human heart, the extent to which our
> loving Creator has gone to delight us, to give us zeal and enthusiasm.
> That’s a tall order. The universe is rather large: two billion suns in our
> galaxy, which is considered one of the smaller galaxies.
> Here is another metaphorical example of process. I was inspired by
> 18            The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> Philippe Petit, a French tightrope walker who in 1974 strung a cable
> between the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and
> walked across it. The security people rushed up to take him off the wire.
> He came within three feet of the edge of one of the buildings, waved at
> them, laughed, turned around, and ran back to the middle of the wire. This
> was astonishing. There is a documentary about him, called Man on Wire,
> and it won an Academy Award in 2008 for Best Documentary. He said he
> was doing this as a symbolic gesture: he wanted to connect people’s hearts.
> He had a hard time of it because there were so many times during the
> preparation when he doubted that he could do it. He prepared for six
> years. He had seen a drawing of the twin towers in a magazine in a den-
> tist’s office, and he determined at that moment that he was going to string
> a wire and walk between them. For six years he studied how this could be
> done. He went to the building and visited it a number of times when it was
> under construction and he examined every aspect of the building and he
> tested the wind strength that would need to be factored into his approach.
> It was very rigorous.
> I thought about this in the same way that the Bahá’í world community
> tested the process of teaching and consolidation. Over years we gathered
> the information and experience that was necessary, and now we can walk
> the tightrope of “entry by troops” because we are prepared. We can do it
> now. And he had to suspend his disbelief. It’s a famous philosophic state-
> ment, the suspension of disbelief. He had doubts. And do you know what
> he said? “This is not a stunt. It’s a desire to carry my life through a diffi-
> cult process by the means of art.” He was a bit of a radical, but such a
> heart. He wanted to connect in a symbolic way the peoples of the world as
> represented by these two buildings. They arrested him. He said the most
> frightening thing about this whole experience was being arrested and
> pushed down the stairs. And then later on they gave him the key to New
> York and honored him and he moved to the United States.
> Process must lead to something, so now let us give some consideration
> to the idea of form because consciousness has to arrive at a point where it
> has some kind of substance, some kind of reality that you can touch. It is
> one thing to have the intellect; it is another thing to have the courage to
> move through space and to adopt methodologies of process. But those
> The Artist and the Grammarian                          19
> 
> three factors have to conclude by building something that will influence
> civilization or that will be civilizing. After the application of mind to move-
> ment and to process, a visible entity must appear: something of real sub-
> stance. In art, we say that the work in the studio has resulted in the “art
> object.” These concrete forms thus produced have the potential to become
> the cultural archetype housed in a public space such as a museum. Once
> the greater public is surrounded by significant forms, a transformational
> atmosphere can emerge. When one examines historic advances in civiliza-
> tion, one can see that they were brought about by new forms which
> attracted the participation of the people. In the current world Plan of the
> international Bahá’í community, the core activities can be understood as
> concrete “units of civilization,” each designed and evolved to become a
> transformational entity. No better atmosphere could be imagined for the
> objectification of a process engaging large numbers of the public and lead-
> ing to the renewal of civilization. The culture of learning called for is to
> be a new creation made visible by devotional gatherings, study circles
> which absorb the Creative Word and take action, and educational pro-
> grams for children and youth which create in them capacity to become
> progenitors of change.
> I am inspired by the section of Nader Saiedi’s book, Gate of the Heart,
> concerning the stages of divine creative action because he talks about
> the treatise that the Báb wrote on grammar, where he says that in the
> future children will be taught the spiritual foundation of grammar, and
> he mentions the ideas of verb and noun, and the preposition which is the
> connecting link between verb and noun. And then he says that the verb
> is like our will and the noun is determination and the preposition is our
> destiny because it is the connection between will and determination
> (205–6). Without will and determination there is no connection; there is
> no relationship. Will and determination connect in a space and that
> space is our destiny. This is the frightening thing: if you do not move
> into that space, there is no process and no object and your destiny can-
> not be realized.
> I remember one night, in the Pilgrim House at the Bahá’í World Centre,
> member of the Universal House of Justice Hooper Dunbar saying that if
> you do not make your contribution to the Bahá’í Cause, that contribution
> 20             The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> will never be made because no one else can make your particular contribu-
> tion. Your offering is totally unique: it is a result of your will and your
> determination: it is your destiny. Your destiny is what you can lay before
> Bahá’u’lláh. The Faith will go on and make tremendous progress, but it
> will forever be deprived of your part, and that is a sobering thought. For
> human beings’ true destiny is the agreement of their own will with the
> Divine Will. That is the struggle. It is also a struggle at the level of an
> artist because the force generated by an act of will must be applied over
> decades of time before important art objects can be determined, and that
> will can only be sustained by intimate contact with the Concourse on High.
> Having a given talent and the desire to witness its realization, being
> unafraid to enter an unknown space, and even having a workable process
> in hand, cannot guarantee progress. Harmony with the Divine Will is
> essential: “O Thou Lord of all nations! I have desired only what Thou
> didst desire, and love only what Thou dost love” (Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and
> Meditations 318). I would not suggest that my paintings are a result of the
> direct intervention of the Divine Will—I am not so foolish as to make that
> claim—but the Writings do say that it is the workings of the Celestial
> Concourse that influence the coming into being of the art object. For
> human beings, it is of great assurance to have guidance free from error in
> the path of service to God and knowledge of spiritual principle in pursuit
> of one’s profession. The realm of the heart is the throne of God, and it
> must take delight in its agreement with the Divine Will. And, as
> Bahá’u’lláh says, “All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be
> manifested only as a result of your own volition. Your own acts testify to
> this truth” (Gleanings 149).
> Just another word about a “mind-set” that leads to the creation of form.
> I love what the philosopher Teilhard de Chardin mentions because it
> seems to me that he was describing what the Bahá’í world community is
> now engaged in, as well as providing a very good definition of the process
> of art. (This is out of context a bit, but I think you will get the idea very
> easily.) He says, “From our experimental point of view, reflection is, as the
> word indicates, the power acquired by a consciousness to turn in upon
> itself, to take possession of itself as of an object. . . .” (165). This statement
> The Artist and the Grammarian                          21
> 
> relates directly to the practice of art because, really, every work of art
> comes into being as a result of reflection, of experience, giving shape to
> the art object. The more effort you make, and the more works of art you
> look at and create, the more you are able to acquire the attributes neces-
> sary to transform thought into significant form, into high art, into the
> greatness that characterizes true civilization. But that consciousness will
> not remain with you; it dissipates very quickly without continuance in its
> practice. That is why our present Plan is so beautiful: the practice is built
> right into the process. It is not passive learning. I could go into the studio
> every morning and stare at the canvas, and the results would be nil. I have
> to act. I have to take my reflection into the field of action. Then the beau-
> tiful thing is that, when the object arrives, it becomes a form by which we
> can contemplate and even gain further insight.
> I look at my own art—it is not an egotistical thing—but I enjoy it; I
> learn from it because it has taken place as part of a process that is larger
> than I am, representing more than I am able to think of at a given moment,
> and so it educates me. It is back and forth, back and forth. And this is exact-
> ly what our Plan is: the reflection of the cluster as a unit of consciousness,
> like a work of art, is made up of all kinds of points and relationships mov-
> ing in the direction of giving birth to a new world. I don’t want to over-
> stress relationships of art to the present development in the work of the
> Cause, but, as in art, a significant form is like a polished mirror within
> which the people want to see themselves reflected. The presence in a region
> of a highly developed cluster, as Teilhard de Chardin would say, “a unity
> that is conscious of its own organisation” (165), becomes like a mirror
> which attracts everyone. People ask about paintings, “Why do I like a cer-
> tain painting?” Well, you like it because you see yourself in it. If a paint-
> ing is good enough, it reflects universal principles. And when it reflects
> those principles, you are able to associate with them because your nature
> is constituted by God in like manner. You are being elevated from within;
> you are raised to a new level because you are made aware of your own spir-
> itual nature. And if these clusters are raised to the level of art, so to speak,
> then people would see themselves in them and would naturally gravitate
> to them. I don’t want to completely deviate from his statement because he
> 22             The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> goes on to say that “[b]y this individualization of himself, in the depth of
> himself which heretofore had been spread out and divided over a diffuse
> circle of perceptions and activities . . .” (165). This is like we were in our
> stage of development before the present Plan. We were acquiring capaci-
> ty for the present Plan. We were involved in a diffuse circle of perceptions
> and activities—isn’t that true?—for many decades. We were acquiring
> understanding about the nature of process itself so we would be able to
> apply it to the process of entry by troops.
> He continues with the observation that this business of being in a dif-
> fuse circle of perception and activities becomes constituted as a center, in
> the form of a point at which all the impressions and experiences knit
> themselves together and fuse into a unity that is conscious of its organi-
> zation. Doesn’t that ring a bell? And, further, he boldly states: “The con-
> sequences of such a transformation are immense, visible as clearly in
> nature as in any of the facts according to the physics or astronomy.” I
> replaced his word “being” with “community”: “The community which is the
> object of its own reflection, in consequence of its very doubling back upon
> itself becomes, in a flash, able to raise itself into a new sphere.” It’s a very
> beautiful analogy of what we are engaged in.
> I want to conclude by asking you to think about the Plan as having this
> great beauty, and to think of all of you as being artists because we are all
> engaged in a creative endeavor. I did not give the title to this presentation
> “The Artist and the Grammarian” to make the assumption that I, as an
> artist, was somehow superior. The artist that I was speaking about is the
> artist that we all are: one in possession of mind, standing at the edge of an
> infinite space, not fearful of going over the edge or fearful of losing our
> identity, engaged in a process leading to concrete results, and acting in
> “the spirit of faith.” Pierre-Yves read a sentence from an essay of mine in
> his introduction to this presentation which indicated that over my lifetime
> I have experienced over and over again that within the creative act lies the
> expectation of being inspired, being confirmed by knowing that you have
> always been assisted. It is guaranteed. There are countless Writings that
> guarantee it, so we do not need any further evidence of that.
> To conclude, I would like to challenge primarily the youth. I was struck
> The Artist and the Grammarian                       23
> 
> by the degree to which President Obama engaged the youth through the
> use of cyberspace. Whether this movement with such great potential will
> have long lasting results in the outside world is doubtful, but within the
> Bahá’í Cause the implications of such an engagement of youth are consid-
> erable. It is amazing to think that millions of souls responded to a vision
> of change and hope and the three simple words: “yes, we can.” How could
> that begin to compare to the power of the Creative Word of God, “the
> medium of celestial power”? Think about the numbers of people who
> would be servants of this Cause if this power of the Word were mindful-
> ly employed.
> Cyberspace is not my medium because I am a hopelessly old-fashioned
> artist—but I am hoping that the youth will take up this new medium, and
> I would urge them to initiate spiritual conversations in this space, be the
> mystic knower not the grammarian, be a new kind of artist. These spiri-
> tual conversations need to be elevated ones that are aesthetically merito-
> rious: they have to have excellence. And they can combine words, music,
> and images. I was reminded of a statement in the Four Valleys that
> 
> Every semblance, every shape that perisheth today
> In the treasure-house of Time is safely stored away.
> When the world revolveth to its former place,
> Out of the invisible He draweth forth its face. (Bahá’u’lláh, The Seven
> Valleys 56 n. 30)
> 
> I was thinking about how, in medieval times, Christianity was spread
> rapidly by means of the woodcut. Most people were illiterate—a lot of peo-
> ple today apparently are illiterate—but at that time the majority of people
> could not be enlightened by the printed word so the visual power of wood-
> cut images, easily multiplied, was a powerful teaching agent. Later on, this
> form evolved to the much higher art form of illuminated manuscripts. I had
> the thought that this could relate to what the passage quoted above was
> saying—although it would not really matter if we made a mistake and
> thought of it as applying to that and acted on it: we would not go wrong
> because Bahá’u’lláh is telling us that, out of the invisible, that which is
> 24            The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> stored can come back. So illuminated manuscripts can “come back,” in part,
> I think, by means of concrete forms within cyberspace, and be a tremen-
> dous force in spreading the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh.
> I asked some people who are very much up on the cyber-network, web-
> sites and so on, and I got quite a long list and I looked up all these web-
> sites, but I wasn’t overly impressed—I’m sorry to say—because some-
> times the artists would say, “Here I am, I’m an artist, I’m sitting in my stu-
> dio and these are my paintings and I love Bahá’u’lláh so I make these
> paintings.” But they weren’t very good paintings and also the site itself
> was not elegant. We had a speaker this morning saying that there is a
> necessity for elegance in everything we do. Even the simple presentation
> of the Tablet of Ahmad as we heard it today set to music would have a sig-
> nificant impact on the many thirsty souls wandering through cyberspace.
> It seems to me that countless websites could be developed by the use of
> that special new kind of intellect that the young people have along with
> their considerable organizational and artistic skills. Millions of people
> could be reached that way.
> There is a young man in New Zealand who has what he calls the “Small
> Man Project” and it is quite clever. He is a lovely Bahá’í, very deepened;
> he is a trained artist and he makes small sculptures of men. They are only
> about as high as a thimble, two inches high, and they are all red. They are
> cast in plastic and he makes thousands of them, and they are grouped as
> three or four people standing and they are holding a banner and the ban-
> ner says, “Look into the persecution of the Bahá’ís in Iran,” and then a
> website is given. He places these on park benches and on restaurant stools.
> It is not a public nuisance because they are so small. People sit down on
> the park bench and they see these three little red men and they read the
> banner and they go look up the website. He has had seven thousand hits:
> that is a lot. I know there are many others.
> I was told of a young woman who has developed games that employ
> spiritual principles from the Bahá’í Teachings and whose site has had a
> wide response. Eventually, after such sites multiply, they would have to be
> considered and guidance would be needed. We could come together in
> conferences and share experience gained. Mistakes will be made. The
> House of Justice says we should not fear making mistakes; our teaching
> The Artist and the Grammarian                         25
> 
> approaches and our individual efforts to open a spiritual conversation with
> others can be experimental. This is a plea that I wanted to take this oppor-
> tunity to make, especially to the young, because we have been called upon
> by the Universal House of Justice to make use of these great opportuni-
> ties. Millions of souls are already having countless conversations in this
> new space, and what better way to reach them than with the whole force
> of the Creative Word and aesthetic excellence?
> I want to leave you with a favorite passage of mine. Bahá’u’lláh says:
> “That which He hath reserved for Himself are the cities of men’s hearts.
> And of these, the loved ones of Him Who is the Sovereign Truth are, in
> this Day, as the keys. Please God they may, one and all, be enabled to
> unlock, through the power of the Most Great Name, the gates of these
> cities” (Gleanings 241–42). Thank you.
> 
> NOTE
> 
> This lecture was presented at the 33rd Annual Conference of the Association
> for Bahá’í Studies–North America, 15 August 2009, Washington, District of
> Columbia, USA.
> 
> WORKS CITED
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Secret of Divine Civilization. Trans. Marzieh Gail.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1957.
> ———. Some Answered Questions. Trans. Laura Clifford Barney. Rev. ed.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981.
> Bahá’u’lláh. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Trans. Shoghi
> Effendi. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1952.
> ———. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, The Most Holy Book. Haifa: Bahá’í World
> Centre, 1992.
> ———. Prayers and Meditations. Trans. Shoghi Effendi. Wilmette, IL:
> Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1938.
> ———. The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys. Trans. Marzieh Gail
> 26            The Journal of Bahá’í Studies 19. 1/4. 2009
> 
> and Ali-Kuli Khan. 4th ed. Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust,
> 1991.
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> — *The Artist and the Grammarian (Used by permission of the curator)*