The Silences Resuman El impacto de la Palabra de Dios ha of God: dominado la historia de la religión y nuestra definición de la madurez A Meditation en evolución de la humanidad. Sin embargo, en una edad en que el poder de las palabras ha sido sistemáticamente BAHIYYIH NAKHJAVANI erosionado y la ortodoxia del lenguaje ha sido cuestionada, podría ser que nuestra consciencia acerca del silencio de Dios sea Abstract esencial en moldear nuestras selecciones The impact of the Word of God has dom- individuales y al definir nuestras historias inated the history of religion and our defi- colectivas. Este ensayo explora algunas nition of the evolving maturation of hu- de las maneras en que el silencio Divino mankind. But in an age in which the power es inferido en los escritos de Bahá'u'lláh of words has been systematically eroded y ofrece una meditación sobre cómo el and the orthodoxy of language has been mismo juega un rol vital en ayudarnos a questioned, it may be that our awareness entender Sus palabras. of God's silence is essential in shaping our individual choices and defining our collec- "The silence of the unsaid," according tive histories. This essay explores some of to John Berger, "is always working the ways that Divine silence is inferred in surreptitiously with another silence, the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh and offers a which is that of the unsayable. What meditation on how it plays a vital role in is unsaid one time," he continues, "can helping us understand His words. be said on another occasion. But the unsayable can never be said—unless Resumé L'influence du Verbe de Dieu a dominé maybe in a prayer."1 The Argentinian l'histoire de la religion et notre définition writer Borges, who was blind, believed de l'évolution de l'humanité vers sa that to have a word for "silence" at all maturité. Mais, à une époque où le pouvoir was an aesthetic event, if not actual- des mots subit une érosion systématique ly a prayer. And if speech was to be et où l'orthodoxie du langage est remise "right" according to the poet W. B. en question, notre conscience du silence Yeats, it might only be "after long si- de Dieu pourrait bien jouer un rôle lence." That may be why Hamlet died déterminant dans l'orientation de nos with the words, "The rest is silence" choix personnels et de notre expérience on his lips, after four and a half hours collective. Dans le présent essai, l'auteur of talk, in spite of which critics of the explore certaines allusions au silence play have been chattering about what divin que nous trouvons dans les écrits de he meant for the past five centuries. Bahá'u'lláh et il propose une réflexion sur la façon dont ce silence joue un rôle vital 1 Preface to Timothy O'Grady, I Could dans notre compréhension de Sa Parole. Read the Sky. 50 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

And in keeping with the words of po- ets and other tragic heroes, my broth- er once told me that he wondered when God might one day send us a Manifestation of His Silence—"Just for a change," he added, "because we never seem to listen to His words." But I am going to ignore all this good advice. Despite Bahá'u'lláh's that "[t]he essence of true safety is to observe silence [and] look at the end of things" (Tablets 156), I shall take the risk of speaking about the impact of God's silences on us and of writing about how His words can, and perhaps must, ultimately render us mute. God's silences have always pre-empted our words. Poets have tried to fill them. Philosophers have sought to question them. Theologians of all cloths have attempted to define their dazzling darknesses. The history of religion itself, like the science of cosmology, is as thick as the spangled night sky with the silences between the stars. Sometimes these gaps have been seen as challenges to our aware- ness, creative challenges that enable us to aspire to seek that wholeness we call "truth." At other times, they have been interpreted as contradictions in the world and in ourselves, incongruities that can never be resolved and that remind us of the endlessness of hu- mility. We have all failed, by and large, to gauge these breathless immensities. We have either repeated each other's errors in different languages or have disagreed with them using different metaphors, or we have simply echoed The Silences of God the assumptions of our predecessors regarding these huge vacuities. And in the end, as Eliot says, "And what there is to conquer / . . . has already been discovered / Once or twice, what there is to conquer has already been discov- ered / Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope / To warning emulate" ("East Coker," v., ll. 11-14).2 We have invariably misunderstood. But perhaps all our theologies, like our ancient astrologies, have been con- structed on fictitious constellations. Perhaps our attempts to understand the wheeling mysteries of God have been built, like the Ptolemaic universe, in ignorance of these subtle black holes in our understanding, which can only be filled gradually, and over time. The study of religion has traditional- ly been based on meditations of Holy Scripture. But perhaps a meditation on the silences between these holy words will bring us closer to the fundamental unity underlying our faiths. All reli- gions are equally concerned with the interpretation of Divine silence. They all direct our attention to its infallible mysteries and claim to hold the key to its understanding. They all caution us, too, about its impact, about its import on our lives. It is recorded, in The Book of Revelation that, after the seventh seal was broken, God withdrew into His silence for the length of half an hour. It must have been the most unbearable half hour in all creation. A single moment more and the universe would have imploded. 2 Quartet no. 2 of the Four Quartets. 51

Certainly it was sufficient to render are invalidated, our suppositions swept the angels mad. But there is much to aside, our institutions and ideologies be learned from that brief half hour. all undermined by the impact of It is a reminder that, contrary to what He has told us. His utterances, received opinion, God is not actually moreover, are not only brief but long all that voluble. He does not, generally term in their effects—so vast that they speaking, waste words. His messages stretch beyond the grasp of human are brief; His silences much longer minds; so dense and packed with than His passages among us. In fact, meaning, so gnomic and enigmatic in His reticence is as significant as His their import that it takes millennia Revelation—both contain secret to unpick the knots, break open the wisdoms, mysteries that require our seals, and understand them. He comes deepest meditation. among us intermittently, traces His Indeed, if we compare the book Will briefly on our human shores, and of Revelation with the book of leaves us measuring His tracks in the Creation, there appears at first glance sands for centuries. to be considerably more surplus in "In My presence amongst you," the latter. Whether due to human writes Bahá'u'lláh, "there is a wisdom, obtuseness or some graver mystery, and in My absence there is yet another, God's words tend to double up, like inscrutable to all but God, the Incom- puns or reversible clothing, and seem parable, the All-Knowing" (Kitáb-i- to serve more than one purpose at a Aqdas ¶53, 39). A sigh from the An- time. They reach beyond evolutionary cient of Days can cause each atom to utilitarianism, like wonder, like beauty, acquire its own unique and separate or, as Nabokov noted, like a butterfly's character. A breath from His lips can wings. Perhaps this is another meaning set the fires of hell ablaze and open of divine economy: the exquisite paradise before men's eyes. Meaning is capacity of God's silences to resonate blasted into a thousand pieces by one with the alternative meanings of His syllable from Him, and words, stripped words. naked by the stroke of His Pen, are When He does speak, His sent scuttling into the world, like intervention in human affairs is not monks shorn of their old habits. We only creative but destructive, too. live and die as He breathes through We are revived by the breeze of His our collective histories. For He is the presence: we are restored, resurrected, Cleaver, the Ravager, the Inflictor of rendered vivid to our selves whenever Trials. He is the supreme Love and the He passes by. But our lives are Slayer of lovers, all in one. simultaneously reduced to rubble by the resonance of His comings, the echo left by His goings: our theories 52 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

THE DEATH OF WORDS 'Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone, End-of-the-world vocabulary strikes All just supply, and all relation...." an ominously repetitive note in the ("The Anatomy of the World," human ear. We are fatally familiar ll.205-14)3 with it. We have heard it all before. But although we like to believe that each At the start of the twentieth of these turning points in history is century, Yeats, too, described a collapse hyperbolically unique and each end of significance as well as of society; he absolute, no resurrection is entire, no brooded over the demise not only of rebirth final. We seem to be afflicted, as Ireland, but of all civilization: a species, by an inclination toward the supremacy fallacy, that fatal propensity Things fall apart; the centre to imagine ourselves chosen to be the cannot hold; first or doomed to be the last, to assume Mere anarchy is loosed upon the we are unique and believe ourselves to world, be the only. But beginnings and ends The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, have always involved re-interpretation. and everywhere Turning points in human history have The ceremony of innocence is invariably coincided with inquiries into language and a questioning of drowned .... words. Clichés have to die in order for ("The Second Coming." ll.3-6)4 poems to be reborn. And we do not even need God to And one of the characteristic tell us this, because poets have done nightmares of our own times is to find so over and over again. John Donne ourselves standing on ground zero of not only bore witness to the end of an language itself. Not only have culture epoch in the seventeenth century, but and tradition given way over the course to the breaking of a poetic tradition, of two world wars and their rumbling the shattering of meter, the revolution consequences, but the very foundation of rhyme: of words has been eroded. Writers in the Western literary tradition have And new philosophy calls all in been pondering this collapse for the doubt, past two centuries. We cannot talk The element of fire is quite put out, 3 Norton Anthology of English Literature The sun is lost, and th'earth, and (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), Vol. B, no man's wit pp. 1293-94. Can well direct him where to look 4 Norton Anthology of English Literature for it. (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), Vol. F, …. p. 2036. The Silences of God 53

without being conscious that we are its surcease inevitable success, our cloning the same clichés, echoing immediate response to the silences the same dead phrases. We cannot of God is to feel the heartbeats of open our mouths without reiterating terror, the sweat of panic and remorse. the same trivialities. We stand in the Instead of being suffused with awe, we rubble of buildings undermined by associate these moments with fear and our own echoes, entertaining ourselves guilt, with the earth-shaking tread in a vacuum of meaning, "playing," as of Jove, with the thunderbolts of a Auden put it, forever-wrathful Jehovah. And so it is that instead of listen- … among the ruined languages ing to these silences, we rush in and So small beside their large make fools of ourselves by talking. confusing words, We stuff the absence that intervenes So still before the greater silences, between His brief passages among Of dreadful things you did…. us with a veritable cacophony of our ("Anthem for St. Cecilia's Day," own. We interpret, analyze, comment, III, ll.11-14)5 and define. We theorize and theologize the infinite meanings of His Words in We have been raised to dread the resonating gaps between them. We such "greater silences." According respond to each moment of God's in- to the traditional Judeo-Christian finitely plangent silences with centu- and Islamic relationship to God, the ries of verbal superfluity and fill the disintegration of language, witnessed chance to meditate upon them with in the story of the collapsing Tower our chatter. of Babel, is synonymous with All nature abhors a vacuum. It is punishment for pride; the death of small wonder, then, that human nature words is associated with dark and will do anything to fill a perceived chaotic times before the utterance of spiritual void. Our kind, as Eliot the angel Gabriel brought meaning avers, "cannot bear very much reality" to the world. Since we associate the ("Burnt Norton, I, l.34).6 But reality, as Word of God with our beginnings, Bahá'u'lláh suggests in His Writings, we naturally assume His silence could beckons us into it through the very mean our ends. And since our ends are power of silence. We may be missing rarely consummations "devoutly to the point by not listening. be wished" but rather a consequence that does not always promise with GOLD AND SILVER 5 Set to music by Benjamin Britten, Op. 27. privately printed 1941, published One of the distinctions of this Dis- one year later as a musical score, New pensation may be that Bahá'u'lláh has York: Boosey and Hawkes, 1942. 6 The first of the "Four Quartets." 54 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

invited us to think about the golden si- the Sovereign, the Mighty, the All- lences of God as well as the unsullied Praised" (¶ 115, 61), He is summoning silver of His Words. He has drawn us to enter into that primary silence. our attention to their reciprocity. Per- Once the listening soul steps into that haps there are as many lessons to be sacred space, attunes itself to the re- learned from the former as there is membrance of God, and implores His guidance implicit in the latter. It may forgiveness, we become receptive to even be that we can only understand understanding the Word of God, but the fundamentals of His Covenant in only if we give it our undivided at- the relationship between the two. tention. And if we are to attend to all No one can speak and listen simul- the meanings implicit in the Word of taneously. Words require silence to God, the purest silence is required. be heard. Even the least significant But it is hard to hear the Voice of speech, uttered at the most primary the Ancient of Days in the middle of level of communication, depends on the cacophony of daily life. We are the assumption that someone is lis- surrounded by noise: the vapid chatter tening. And this is a fundamental law, of political campaigns, the rumble of an absolute prerequisite for commu- collapsing ideals, the grunts of lust nication, which we ignore to our cost, and howls of greed on every side. and it is one of the crucial lessons we If we catch His accents behind the learn from silence in this Dispensa- uproar, we are lucky. Shoghi Effendi tion. 'Abdu'l-Bahá confirms this prin- vividly describes this challenge using ciple in Paris Talks when He observes, the metaphor of light and darkness: "Bahá'u'lláh says there is a sign [from "Amidst the shadows which are God] in every phenomenon: the sign increasingly gathering about us," of the intellect is contemplation and he writes, "we can faintly discern the sign of contemplation is silence, the glimmerings of Bahá'u'lláh's because it is impossible for a man to unearthly sovereignty appearing do two things at one time—he cannot fitfully on the horizon of history" both speak and meditate" (174). (World Order 168). Silence is therefore essential for And the counterpoint between what understanding. When Bahá'u'lláh we see and what we hear, between the writes in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, "Blessed shrillness of our age and God's silenc- is he who, at the hour of dawn, cen- es, is depicted by the Guardian in an- tring his thoughts on God, occupied other remarkable sentence. Here, were with His remembrance, and suppli- it not for the basso ostinato of God's cating His forgiveness, directeth his Will that keeps the syntax steady, the steps to the Mashriqu'l-Adhkár and, hiss and spit of our own noise would entering therein, seateth himself in literally wind around our throats and silence to listen to the verses of God, strangle us: The Silences of God 55

Mysteriously, slowly, and re- we listen. Democracy resides in our sistlessly God accomplishes His right to think, to ponder the silences. design, though the sight that Bahá'u'lláh has liberated us to an meets our eyes in this day be the equality of hearing in this Revelation; spectacle of a world hopelessly He has invited us into a democracy of entangled in its own meshes, ut- listening, of meditating on His words. terly careless of the Voice which, Each one of us has this God-given for a century, has been calling it right, this freedom. In fact, He has to God, and miserably subservi- granted it as an obligation, a necessity ent to the siren voices which are for our spiritual independence. While attempting to lure it into the vast abrogating individual authority and abyss. (Promised Day 116) placing power in His divinely con- ceived institutions, He has freed us to We would never have reached the last ponder His meanings, to plunge into of these subsidiary clauses had we not the ocean of His Revelation without kept hold of the main sentence that carrying the burden of influence on quietly reminds us that God does and others, without being weighed down always will accomplish His design. by individual power. He has literally Silence, in such circumstances as we released us to be lovers rather than live, is synonymous with spiritual life. priests. The true pearl diver in this Small wonder, therefore, that in this age cannot barter what he has found in Dispensation Bahá'u'lláh has annulled the marketplace of power because the the role of the chattering theologian, proof of his treasure lies in the fact invalidated the authority of the priest. that he has drowned. Our response to God's silence cannot be passive, but neither can it be foisted EARS TO HEAR on others. The principle of autocracy in the Bahá'í Faith lies in the authen- But we are not, by nature, inclined to ticated texts of this religion, in the drown. We cling to the dry land of absolute authority of the words writ- received ideas, the sand and pebbles ten by its Founder and His appointed of inherited notions. We turn our Interpreters. No individual can usurp backs on the ocean and become adept that autocracy; no one has to right to at cultivating spiritual deafness, impose his or her personal interpreta- especially when it is too much of a tions of those words over others'. But challenge to hear the uncomfortable the principle of democracy also exists, truth. As a result, there is another kind not only in how we vote, nor just in of silence buried between the words how we consult, or are governed by of God, which is caused not only by elected institutions rather than ap- our inability but by our unwillingness pointed individuals, but also in the way to listen. 56 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

There are times, Bahá'u'lláh ex- a proof of truth as the words when plains, when God chooses to be silent they are uttered. He reminds us of the because of "the impediments that have wisdom of this withholding silence by hindered Thy people from recognizing highlighting the relationship of words Thy truth" (Gleanings 28). He with- to time as well as to circumstance: holds His Words when He knows we "Not everything that a man knoweth are not listening to them; He speaks can be disclosed, nor can everything only if we are ready to hear, for "words that he can disclose be regarded as are revealed according to the capacity timely, nor can every timely utterance of the people." And, as He tells us, be considered as suited to the capacity with beguiling candour, "as there were of those who hear it" (Gleanings 176). few ears to hear, for some time the Pen Once we understand this wisdom, our has been silent in its own chamber, and hearts might be more willing to absorb to such a degree that silence has had the import of His Words. But until we precedence over utterance" (Bahá'í do so, we are effectively deaf. And our Scriptures 133). deafness delays the inevitable. In the Hidden Words, Bahá'u'lláh "How manifold are the truths," He goes even further and establishes this tells us, "which must remain unuttered reciprocity between the ear and the until the appointed time is come!" tongue as a spiritual principle. The (Gleanings 176). And even when the method of the Manifestations, in oth- right time comes, how often do truths er words, is one which we should emu- remain unuttered because we are still late: "The wise are they that speak not not listening? unless they obtain a hearing, even as the cup-bearer, who proffereth not his SUFFERING IN SILENCE cup till he findeth a seeker, and the lov- er who crieth not out from the depths Once we do begin to listen, however, of his heart until he gazeth upon the we hear new layers in all that God does beauty of his beloved" (Hidden Words, not say. His silence, we discover to our Persian n.36). Such words not only shame, can be filled with sadness, with disappointment on our account, which caution us to weigh what we say but is that terrible alternative to His good invite us to meditate on the reasons for pleasure. and causes of silence. "O Bond Slave of the World!" God's silences cannot, by their very writes Bahá'u'lláh in the Hidden Words, nature, be fathomed, but the withhold- "Many a dawn hath the breeze of My ing ones caused by our unreadiness to loving-kindness wafted over thee and listen, our inability to hear, are worth found thee upon the bed of heedless- pondering. To be responsive to the ness fast asleep. Bewailing then thy receptivity of the listener, Bahá'u'lláh plight it returned whence it came" seems to suggest, can be as eloquent (Persian n.30). The Silences of God 57

The sorrow of the Best Beloved and gone as far as assuming that God's si- the Friend is more dreadful, perhaps, lence, like the darkness of outer space, than the wrath of the Father. Divine is synonymous with a vacuum. If and displeasure is more difficult for us to when we finally realize how plangent bear than any punishment, because it it is with sorrow on our behalf, how resonates with the silence of God's quiet with patient forgiveness, we forbearance, it echoes with His long may be even more ashamed than if we suffering: had been hauled up by the heels and whipped until we cried for mercy. As At many a dawn have I turned our understanding of this new Dis- from the realms of the Placeless pensation of Bahá'u'lláh evolves, we unto thine abode, and found thee begin to become unnervingly aware of on the bed of ease busied with a very dangerous, very mature kind of others than Myself. Thereupon, silence that lies between His Words. even as the flash of the spirit, I returned to the realms of celes- NO ANSWER CAME THE STERN REPLY tial glory and breathed it not in My retreats above unto the hosts A corollary to the silence of God's of holiness. (Bahá'u'lláh, Hidden sorrow is the silence of His response. Words, Persian n.28) It is against that gong that we hear our follies reverberating a hundredfold; it It is that "breathed it not" which is in that quiet echo that we register really confounds us. It is that delicacy the hollowness of our own sounds. of His keeping silent on our account, God's way of answering our urgent of His "desiring not" our shame. He questions with silence is the most would not advertise our faithlessness painful kind of all. nor have our stupidity trumpeted be- We are all familiar with that omi- fore the angels. "And whenever the nous silence that counters our insis- manifestation of My holiness sought tent prayers, our anxious beseechings. His own abode," He reminds us, "a We are well acquainted with those stranger found He there, and, home- waves of silence that lap against the less, hastened unto the sanctuary of dry shores of our shrill demands. We the Beloved. Notwithstanding I have expect a response that suits our crite- concealed thy secret and desired not ria of logic, our perception of reality, thy shame" (Bahá'u'lláh, Hidden Words, our immediate needs, and are outraged Persian n.27). by its absence. We hurl our indignant This sin-covering silence of God requests against the concave sky-blue has emboldened us, and made us bra- shell of His ear and become frustrated zen. It has permitted us to persist in at the mocking echoes that redound our follies to such a degree that we have upon us. What we perceive to be the 58 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

implacable silence of God's response which is in truth praiseworthy" has provoked us to cynicism as well as (Selections 48). Why such a silence is to despair. "praiseworthy" is best explained by Indeed, most of twentieth-century 'Abdu'l-Bahá, Who, with an ineffable literature has been an exploration the lightness of touch, reminds us of our pointlessness of asking questions, in total dependence on that Will when inadequacy as well as compulsion in He affirms that "He doeth as He doeth, our use of words. The characters of and what recourse have we?" In the last Vladimir and Estragon talk incessant- analysis all our fury and frustration is ly as they wait for the reply of Godot, a waste of breath because "He carrieth which never fully satisfies even when it out His Will, He ordaineth what He comes7; the Marabar caves in Forster's pleaseth" (Selections 51). A Passage to India render all words The seeming non-response of God equally meaningless, even as their to our appeals is therefore sometimes a echoes can be interpreted in a myriad clear answer, had we the ears to hear it different ways; Joyce has taken inco- and the hearts to understand. As 'Ab- herence to such heights of creativity du'l-Bahá continues to assert, "Then in Finnegans Wake that language has better for thee to bow down thy head become a mockery of itself in the ab- in submission, and put thy trust in the sence of any other meaningful game All-Merciful Lord" (Selections 51). For to play. The vacancy underlying words if we listened to the resonance beneath has become a way for contemporary this kind of silence we might realize artists to bear witness to our stoicism, that the demands we have been mak- and also to our folly as human beings. ing, the requirements we have set, the It sums up the existential as well as logic by which means we seek to mea- aesthetic dilemma of contemporary sure God's response can only reap dis- existence. But interestingly enough, appointment at best, or bring us harm in the Bahá'í Writings we not only ex- at worse. They echo with the folly of plore the futility of asking questions our demands. His silences, in this case, but find confirming answers implicit are a mercy to our own selves. They in this silence. are the equivalent of pure compassion. According to the Báb, these silences are themselves ordained by God and, AT A LOSS FOR WORDS as such, are an expression of His Will. He states, "O Ye servants of God! Ironically enough, the knowledge of Verily, be not grieved if a thing ye such silences can, in the last analysis, asked of Him remaineth unanswered, strike us dumb. When the ear of the inasmuch as He hath been commanded spirit inclines in their direction and we by God to observe silence, a silence begin to hear all that is in these silenc- es of God, another wind stirs in the 7 See Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot. The Silences of God 59

soul, another note strikes the bone. "It contain are muted, we find our defi- behooveth you to remain silent before nitions dissolving, our languages dis- His Throne," observes the Báb, "for in- integrating. All words tend toward deed of all the things which have been self-destruction, but God destroys created between heaven and earth words absolutely in order to recreate nothing on that Day will be deemed them. His silence, too, absorbs all oth- more fitting than the observance of er sounds into itself and turns them silence" (Selections 164). into music: "Be ye not sad nor dejected For the silences as well as the words on account of the disturbance and up- of God have a curious impact on the roar of the people of desire and pas- uproar in our heads. They can leave sion," writes 'Abdu'l-Bahá. "Ere long us at a loss for words. They can ren- the symphony of the Kingdom shall der us mute. When we listen to them, silence all the other noises" (Tablets, we hear something beyond the actual vo1. 1, 223). sounds and syllables. When we stop Similarly, Bahá'u'lláh urges the true our ears to our own noises, some un- seeker to free himself from all acquired spoken understanding is communicat- meanings, to purge his heart of all idle ed to us that rises out of our darkness fancies and false assumptions. He urges like a murmuring remembrance. As us to strip away the shadow of words Bahá'u'lláh states in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, that cloud our understanding of their spirit, for when "the mention of God When the stream of utterance hath become an empty name" and "His reached this stage, We beheld, holy Word a dead letter" (Kitáb-i-Íqán and lo! the sweet savours of God 29), it is necessary to breathe a new were being wafted from the day- creativity into it through the arteries spring of Revelation. . . . It made of language. all things new, and brought un- When the connotations of words numbered and inestimable gifts thicken with use and abuse, we react to from the unknowable Friend. The their "shadows" merely and lose sight robe of human praise can never of their "spirits" altogether, as the Báb hope to match Its noble stature, infers: and Its shining figure the mantle of utterance can never fit. With- The reason for this command is out word It unfoldeth the inner that haply, in the Day of the Reve- mysteries, and without speech It lation of that supreme Truth, the revealeth the secrets of the divine feet of the people shall not falter sayings. (59) upon the bridge, and that they shall not pronounce judgment Once our human noises are mo- against the Fashioner of their ex- mentarily hushed, once the voices we istence, adducing against Him the 60 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

very shadow of His verse in their THE TOUCHSTONE heart, and rendering naught, and at once, all their inmost realities "Ponder this in thine heart" (Gleanings and deeds, without even perceiv- 46, 76; and Kitáb-i-Íqán 125, 149, ing it. (Persian Bayán 6:8; qtd. in 167), writes Bahá'u'lláh repeatedly, Saiedi, Gate of the Heart 37) and "meditate" on the Word of God. The act of pondering, of meditating, And therefore must each new revela- has traditionally been depicted as a tion cast aside the definitions of the thoughtful one, an inward-turning one. old, like outworn robes. We must strip It has implied a certain conjunction of ourselves to seek for truth, not only body and mind that indicates poise, humbled and in silence, but quite na- that implies a quiet control and a ked: "O brother," Bahá'u'lláh writes in steadiness of concentration which the Kitáb-i-Íqán, is both physical and spiritual. In this state of inward and outward listening behold how the inner mysteries we reach for the touchstone of of "rebirth," of "return," and of understanding. Sometimes, by grace, "resurrection" have each, through we attain it. And the thrill is eternal. these all-sufficing, these unan- The well-known icon of the West- swerable, and conclusive utteranc- ern meditative tradition, that of a man es, been unveiled and unravelled contemplating a death's head, contains before thine eyes. God grant that its own inherent thrill. The mirroring through His gracious and invisi- of skulls, the eyeing of the hollow ble assistance, thou mayest divest eyed has always hinted at the possible thy body and soul of the old gar- reversal of the roles. If Rodin's stat- ment, and array thyself with the ue The Thinker and Mona Lisa's smile new and imperishable attire. (158) still hold their power over us, it is pre- sumably because of this. When the In the final analysis, this "new" na- observer becomes aware of being ob- kedness is the only attire that is rel- served, a shudder passes through him. atively imperishable on this side of A perturbation seizes his mind. He is the grave. Like silence, such a divest- filled with dread that perhaps he is the ment of old garments is actually what one who is actually being read. That renders us immortal. We may have awareness is a step in the direction of imagined that writing words would true understanding. eternalize us, but ironically enough, it Religion, like art, points toward that is unadorned by words that we might heightened self-awareness. By telling live forever. us to "ponder" and to "meditate" on the Word of God, Bahá'u'lláh is giving us the key to a new and hidden language. The Silences of God 61

For it seems that when God splits standard, this is the Touchstone the stone tablets of His silence, His of God, wherewith He proveth Word actually gives utterance to us. His servants. (Kitáb-i-Íqán 254) It reverses our position as speakers, as wordmongers, and forces upon us the In a letter8 to the Universal House uneasy recognition that we ourselves of Justice, the Research Department have been breathed forth, that we are at the Bahá'í World Center notes, "[R] the ones being interpreted, even as ecent scholars . . . assert that, within we speak. "Yea," Bahá'u'lláh confirms, the Qur'án itself, the form of humour in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, "such things as most prevalent is irony." This irony throw consternation into the hearts it defines as "the perception of a clash of all men come to pass only that each between appearance and reality, be- soul may be tested by the touchstone tween the ideal and what actually is." of God, that the true may be known Only when we respond to this divine and distinguished from the false" (52). irony—only when we are conscious Whenever multiple meanings are at of what is concealed and what is re- work, language permits and delights vealed—do we begin to grasp the in irony. And whenever words contain fundamental purpose of the Word of irony, they retain elasticity, they resist God. As long as we cannot hear the literalism and obfuscation. When lan- silences between His words and the guage invites us to play games with ironies in both, we will not recognize perspective and scale, with appearance their echoes in ourselves. As long as and reality, it keeps our minds and we cannot see these multiple layers spirits alive, it jolts us out of our old and simultaneous scales of signifi- habits. And the myriad silences con- cance, we will be deprived of their tained between the words of God are creative power. This Word and Its perhaps the most creative use of irony silent shadow, sifts and fashions and in the world, for they force us to ques- shapes us—It is the divine assayer of tion all our assumptions, all our habits. our souls. Bahá'u'lláh affirms that, Indeed, in order to prove this very truth to us, the Manifestations of the Birds of Heaven and Doves the Word of God submit themselves of Eternity speak a twofold lan- to the most grievous ordeals and al- guage. One language, the outward low themselves to be harrowed by language, is devoid of allusions, the greatest tests of all. "It is Thou, is unconcealed and unveiled. . . . O my God, Who hast called me into The other language is veiled and being through the power of Thy concealed, so that whatever lieth might, and hast endued me with Thy hidden in the heart . . . may be 8 Memorandum titled "The 'Humorist'" made manifest. This is the divine 12 Jan. 1997. 62 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

grace to manifest Thy Cause," attests face, and Gabriel overshadowed me, Bahá'u'lláh in one of His prayers. and the Spirit of Glory stirred within "Wherefore I have been subjected to my bosom, bidding me arise and break such adversities that my tongue hath my silence" (Gleanings 103). Although been hindered from extolling Thee He calls on God "with a stammering and from magnifying Thy glory" tongue" and with an "afflicted pen" (Prayers and Meditations 208). (Prayers and Meditations 8), were He to What must it mean for these ex- keep silent, He says, every hair on His traordinary Beings Who know better head would vibrate with its music, each than anyone the impossibility of com- bone of His body would flute with its prehending God's Word, to have to be song, His very blood would sing: "Glo- the Ones Who utter it? rified art Thou, O Lord my God! My tongue, both the tongue of my body The domain of His decree is too and the tongue of my heart, my limbs vast for the tongue of mortals and members, every pulsating vein to describe, or for the bird of the within me, every hair of my head, all human mind to traverse; and the proclaim that Thou art God, and that dispensations of His providence there is none other God beside Thee" are too mysterious for the mind (Prayers and Meditations 112). of man to comprehend. His cre- Those Who are the Embodiments ation no end hath overtaken, and of His Names and Attributes not only it . . . will continue to the "End that endure the paradoxes implicit in God's knoweth no end." Ponder this ut- mysterious Will, but contain them. terance in thine heart, and reflect The mysterious mingling of Their di- how it is applicable unto all these vine and human nature symbolizes the holy Souls. (Kitáb-i-Íqán 167) ultimate irony of God. What could be more perturbing than this duality? When Bahá'u'lláh writes of the When people "discover suddenly," as Word of God summoning Him to Bahá'u'lláh says in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, speech, the darkness from which It ris- "that a Man, Who hath been living es not only perturbs His rational mind in their midst, Who, with respect to but seizes upon Him, like an involun- every human limitation, hath been tary Will. "Had it been in my power," their equal, had risen to abolish every He writes, "I would have, under no cir- established principle imposed by their cumstances, consented to distinguish Faith—they would of a certainty be myself amongst men." But when He veiled and hindered from acknowledg- chooses to hold His peace, "lo, the ing His truth" (74). voice of the Holy Ghost, standing on No wonder the Manifestations of my right hand, aroused me, and the God in every age pose the ultimate Supreme Spirit appeared before my test for the human race: "Verily, God The Silences of God 63

caused not this turmoil but to test and We therefore . . . made Our verses prove His servants" (Kitáb-i-Íqán 51). testimonies for all to witness. . . . We are perturbed by the nature of However, in this Dispensation, the these living symbols and metaphors. one True God—Glorified be His We can barely understand heaven and Name—hath purposed that most earth, but "whatever lieth between of the believers who are wholly them," namely the Manifestations devoted to Him should speak in themselves, remains the ultimate the language of divine verses. enigma. These divine Embodiments Therefore, we have ordained that speak only in veiled language about a proof other than the revelation their dual nature. In the last analysis of divine verses be produced to the Word of God offers no rational vindicate the truth of the next Manifestation." (Vol. IV, 93; explanation to Their mystery, and provisional trans.) we are left to respond in the silences, "inasmuch as the divine Purpose hath Clearly the significance of words decreed that the true should be known has been so democratized in this age from the false, and the sun from the that new proofs must be found to com- shadow, He hath, therefore, in every municate the Primal Will to human- season sent down upon mankind the kind. I do not know whether this is an showers of tests from His realm of indication that we will one day probe glory" (Kitáb-i-Íqán 53). the silences of God in prose rather And so, the final purpose of than verse, or whether my brother was God's silences is to test us. It is prophetic, after all, in suggesting that the touchstone whose ambiguities in some future dispensation, a female destroy and undermine our facile Manifestation of God might appear, interpretations. It is a double-edged simply smile, and say nothing at all. sword that has been tempered, like But certainly we shall be tested by steel, in the fires of paradox. And whatever is "other than the revelation the fact that these divine paradoxes, of divine verses." in turn, test our understanding may And with that thought, I will be implicit in Bahá'u'lláh words, in for my own safety's sake, "observe the Ma'idiy-i-Asmani, in which He silence," "look at the end of things," anticipates a different "proof " in the and "renounce the world" (Bahá'u'lláh, next Dispensation than what we have Tablets 156). been led to expect from those of the past. "As My previous Manifestation decreed that the proof of My Dispensation should be the revelation of divine verses," He states, 64 The Journal of Bahá'í Studies 24.3/4 2014

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