# Under the Divine Lote Tree: Essays and Reflections

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Jack McLean, Under the Divine Lote Tree: Essays and Reflections, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Under the Divine Lote Tree
> Essays and Reflections
> 
> J.A. McLEAN
> 
> GEORGE RONALD
> OXFORD
> GEORGE RONALD, Puhlisher
> 46 High Street, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 2DN
> 
> ©J.A. McLean 1999
> All Rights Reserved
> 
> British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
> 
> A catalogue record for this book is availablt: from the British Library
> 
> ISBN 0-85398-438-7
> 
> COVt'T painting: ([) Carol E\'am
> 
> Veils of Ligbt (detail) (www.carolcvans.com)
> 
> Typesetting by Beatrice Reynolds, Geneva. Switzerland
> Printed and bound in Gn':Jt Britain by
> Biddies Ltd, Guildford and King", Lynn
> This book is dedicated to
> my mother
> Joyce Mary Halsted McLean
> with deepest gratitude
> 
> 'By My Life!
> The names of handmaidens who are devoted to God
> are written and set dOWtI by the Pen ofthe Most High
> in the Crimson Book..
> BAHA'u'LLAH
> 'The 'World passeth a'U,'ay
> and thaI 'ii;hicb is everlasting is
> the love of God.'
> BAHA'u'LLAH
> Contents
> Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. xi
> 
> Introduction ....... .......................................... 1
> 
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE ............................... 5
> The Dream of Knowledge ................................ 7
> Beyond ................................................ 9
> Time ................................................. 10
> Midpoint in Time . .................................... . 11
> Defeating Tyrannical Time .... .......................... . 13
> The Soul: Both In and Out of Time ....................... 14
> Mystery and the True Name ....•......................... 15
> The Beginning and End of Names ...............•......... 17
> Questionable Logic: Nothingness and the
> End of Philosophy ........................•......... 18
> Christ in Gethsemane: The Existential Moment and the
> Irony of Knowledge ................................. 24
> Science, Consciousness and the Personal Category ........... 29
> The Cosmic Space Traveller and the Oneness of the
> Spiritual Universe . ................................. . 32
> 
> THE FRAGRANCE OF SPIRITUALITY ....................... 35
> Spirituality: A Short Definition ........................... 37
> Analogies on Crystals and a Spirituality of Imperfection . .... . 37
> Divine Fragrance: Thoughts on an Anecdote ................ 39
> Happiness for its Own Sake .............................. 41
> viii                      UNDER THE D,V,NE LOlE TREE
> 
> Sun and Shadow .................. .                                       .44
> Divine Daring. and Fear and
> Trembling in the Pilgrim's HC,lrt ....••.                           . .. 44
> Thl' Silence of the Sacred ... , .. , .. , ..... .                          46
> The Void of forgetting ..... , ... , . , .. , ..                    . .... 46
> Mfr7.a Abu'l-ra~I's Humility and
> One's Gifts and Accomplishml'nts ..                                . .. 47
> Heart's Desire                                                            .49
> 
> FIRE AND LIGHT .... .                                                              51
> I.ow is Cogniti,,ác .... .                                              .53
> Love Divine ............ .                              . .............. 53
> Truc Love ................ .                                     . ........ 55
> Pafcet Faith Means the Then is Now.                           . .......... 57
> Wonderful Trust .................. .                                  . ... 5lJ
> LeJrning 10 Trust Lon' ..                                              . .. 59
> Pcrfec( Lon: .......... .                             . .............. 61
> Loving All of Him ..                                      . ........... 61
> 
> IN SEARCH OF NOTHING.                                                    . ...... 63
> Positive Detachment.                                                     ... 05
> Only Seek What God Has Laid Out For You. . . . . . . . .                 . . 67
> What Can I Refuse to the Universe? .... , ..... .                   . .... 68
> Gravity and Flight. ......................... .                   . ...... 69
> Acceptance Jnd Self-Affirmation ... .                                     .70
> The Blessing of rhe Impossible Dream.                    . ............ 72
> 
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN ............. .                                          . .. 75
> The Human Person ..................... .                   . ............ 77
> The Livin~ Question ..                                             . ..... 78
> A Vision of the Children of Tomorrow. .  . ............. 79
> Dancing Angels? A Spoof on Pseudo-Theology. .       . ... 79
> Ego and the Scholar ........................ , , . . . . .             . .. f; 1
> The Mystic..                . .. . ... ... . .. . . ... . . ... . .     . .. 83
> L~,.'t Mystic Souls Appear ................. , ..... , .                   . 85
> The Cult of the Peuy Personality. . . . . . . . . . . . . .         . .... 8S
> The Laughin~ Saint.                                                   . ... 86
> John H. Wileott: Cowboy Pioneer .....                           . ....... 86
> CONTENTS                               ix
> 
> THE BODY BEAUTIFUL. ...............•.....••••......•... 89
> Love and the Body Beautiful .........•................... 91
> Consumer Psychology and Glorifying the Body ............. 92
> Goodness is Now Obsolete .............................. 94
> The Metaphysics of History and Fine Art ................... 94
> Ecstasy. An and the Brevity of Life ........................ 97
> Beauty ................................................ 99
> 
> NOTHING GOLD CAN STAy .......•............•...•..... 101
> Divine Losses and New Beginnings . ...................... 103
> The Sense of the Platonic and Paradise Lost ......•......... 103
> 'Nothing Gold Can Stay'. or the Beginning of
> Knowledge and the End of Innocence ............••.... 105
> In Praise of Failure .................................... 108
> 
> IN EXTREMIS ........................•.........••...••.... III
> True Joy ...................•.....•........•....••.... 113
> Golden Joy ................•....••........••......... 113
> In the Ebb and flow of Joy and Sorrow ................... 113
> For the Brokenhearted True Believers ..................... 114
> The Existential Moment . ............................... 115
> The Epiphanic Moment ................................ 116
> Wherefore Anger and Pain? ......................•..... 116
> The Plummet into Sorrow . ............................. 117
> 
> ON REAL GROUND ...................................... 119
> The Call of Truth ................•.....••............. 121
> Truth and Discipleship .........•...•................... 121
> Simple Truths ......................................... 122
> The Biggest Lie of All ...................•.............. 123
> What the Martyr Knows .................•.............. 123
> The Martyr and the Lie ................................. 124
> 
> LOGOSANDMYTHOS .................................... 129
> The Convergence of Theology and Poetry ........•........ 131
> The Power of Poetry and Holy Writ ...................... 136
> x                     UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> 'Fain Would They Put Out His Light
> With Their Mouths' ................................. 138
> Caught in the Web of Words ............................ 139
> The Four Books ...................................... HI
> The Sound .nd the Fury ................................ 141
> 
> BEING-IN-THE-WORLD ................................... 143
> Self-Revelation and Community . ........................ 145
> The Rove.lingSelf .................................... 146
> The Abolition of Priesthood:
> Self-Knowledge and Ministering to Society ...... ....... 146
> We Can Still Celebr.te the World ........................ 147
> The Call ofthe Wild ................................... 149
> 
> THE LONG JOURNEY HOME ............................. 151
> Death as a Going Away to a Far L.md ..................... 153
> The Dead and Gone. and Divine Motion . ................. IS3
> Death Ilreaks Nature', Endless Cycle ..................... 155
> The Best Legacy ...................................... 156
> 
> Bibliography . ................................. .     .. ........ 158
> 
> Notes a11d Referellces ... , ..................................... 164
> Acknowledgements
> Authors usually write to be published and while there are other valid
> reasons for writing~ most writers hope to share their thoughts with
> as wide an audience as possible. My first vote of thanks consequently
> must be warmly extended to May Hofman of George Ronald
> Publisher for supporting a creative composition that is somewhat
> atypical in approach. Her thorough review of the manuscript resulted
> in the revision of several passages and a clarification of my intended
> meaning. In spite of the broadcasting capability of the Internet and
> other electronic media, book publishing still makes possible the
> realization of 'Abdu'I-Bahi's statement: 'The publication of high
> thoughts is the dynamic power in the arteries of life; it is the very soul
> ofthe world' (The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 109).
> I would also like to thank Christopher Buck of the Department
> of Religious Studies at Milliken University; Decatur, Illinois for his
> several suggestions relating to the Table of Contents. I am also
> grateful to Stephen Lambden for sharing his article The Lote-Tree
> Beyond Which There Is No Passing (Sidratu'l-Muntahd)' which
> supplemented my own notes with pertinent information used in the
> Introduction.
> Thanks are likewise extended to all those who over the past few
> years have taken the time to send mail or otherwise express appre-
> ciation for a previous work, Dimensions in Spirituality: Reflections
> on the Meaning of Spiritual Life and Transformation in Light of the
> Baha'i Faith (George Ronald: Oxford, 1994). It is gratifying to
> know that this book has struck a responsive chord and to have been
> of assistance and encouragement to others, either in their spiritual
> xii                  UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> journey or in the work of scholarship. The many discussions I
> have had with friends and scholars over the years both in the
> Associations for Baha', Studies in Canada, the United States or the
> United Kingdom, and elsewhere, have all greatly added to the
> stimulus needed for writing.
> I would like especially to mention here Wendi and Moojan Momen,
> Stephen Lambden, Todd Lawson and Udo Schaefer, whose ongoing
> accomplishments and dedication to the discipline of scholarship
> continue to inspire me in my own work and whose friendship has been
> a much-appreciated source of enrichment.
> Introduction
> Under the Divine Lote Tree reflects a diversity of thoughts, moods and
> voices. These have been arranged thematically in what is intended to
> form a greater ensemble. Two common threads, however, bind these
> eighty-five pieces together: the search for truth and spirituality. I count
> these two as one in our continual quest for the knowledge of God, self-
> understanding and spiritual transformation. As the subtitle indicates,
> this book is not intended to be a thorough-going metaphysic. But it
> does share, at least, a similar aim to that of speculative philosophy as
> 'a flight after the unattainable'.! Spirituality I define broadly here as the
> experience of God and the soul in relation to other souls on OUf
> common journey that 'Abdu'I-Baha has called a 'pilgrimage',' whose goal
> is the celestial city, the heavenly kingdom and the sanctuary of the soul.
> About a third of the following pieces are more academic in
> tone but all have been written with the thoughtful reader in mind. Most
> of these essays are 'personal' and correspond to what might be called
> reflection. or to creative or insight writing. Even these designations are
> not meant to be taken too definitively for there are also testimonial,
> evocative, even lyrical elements in the pages that follow. The essays are
> fairly brief but I have tried to provide insight or inspiration, and in
> some cases to clarify or question the commonplace. Most essays are a
> few pages in length. Some thoughts are contained in only a paragraph
> or two. Others are brief pensees, consisting of a few sentences, although
> there are no maxims.
> While Baha'u'IIah highly praised learning, the following saying from
> one of his chief mystical works might be taken as encouragement
> 2                      UNDER THE D,V,NE LmE TREE
> 
> of more free-ranging, creative forms of writing: '... for quotation from
> the words of others proveth acquired learning, not the divine bestowal.'
> Creativity is one of the many forms of 'divine bestowal'J which is,
> of course, a chan"s - a grace, a heavenly gift.
> The question is sometimes raised as to what extent personal
> experience is reflected in the writer's craft, but for writers of spiritual
> literature or philosophical theology, this question is far less ambigu-
> ous. While some of these essays are expository and didactic, my own
> experiences thus far gained on the journey of life have formed the
> existential background and inspiration for a good number of them.
> A few derive directly from what I can only call mystical experience.'
> for in order to be genuine. spiritual writing must correlate knowledge
> and experience. In this endeavour. one is always conscious of
> Baha'u'ILih's admonition that words should not exceed deeds. In any
> casc, if they do, life has a relentless wa), of catching up. with a
> reminder to be authentic or at least to always strive to be authentic.
> I take this to mean being as true as possible to the expression of
> spiritual principles in what is commonly, but well and truly called
> 'real life'. Anything else would be a delusion.
> 
> For those who may be unfamiliar with the meaning of the title, I
> include in this introduction a brief \\'ord of explanation. The
> original context is Islamic. The complctc Arabic expression from
> which the translation (divine lote trcc' derives is Sitlratu'l-Muntahd.
> rendered as 'the lote-tree beyond which there is no passing' in
> George Sale's 1734 translation of the Quran and adopted by Shoghi
> Effendi.' Quranic references to the tree are found in 53:14,16;
> 34:16[15J; and 56:28 [27]. Rodwell in his translation of the Qur'an
> (1861) stayed close to the Arabic original when in the surah of The
> Star (53:14) he translated this phrase as the 'Sidrah-tree which
> marks the boundary'. No such tree exists by that name. The species
> is. however. extant as the lote tree (var. lotus) or zizypbyus plant,
> although the specific variety to be identified with the Sidrah tree of
> the Qur'an is disputed. The lote tree has an extensive sacred
> symbology and is sometimes contextualized as the 'divine lote tree'.
> INTRODUCTION                              3
> 
> Shoghi Effendi transliterated the expression as Slidratu'l-Muntahd
> in his translations of the Baha'i sacred writings. In a few translations
> of this expression, Shoghi Effendi simply retained the Arabic original
> as a substantive. One of Baha'u'llah's prayers, for example, he
> translated 'to make whosoever arises to serve Thy Cause as a sea
> moving by Thy desire; ablaze with the fire of Thy Sad rat, shining from
> the horizon of the heaven of Thy will'. 6 Here the word Sadrat is used
> as a proper noun. The translation of the 1991 edition of Baha'i
> Prayers, however, replaces Shoghi Effendi's translation with the
> looser, more generic expression 'Thy Sacred Tree'. Elsewhere, Shoghi
> Effendi translated the same expression as 'the Divine Lote-Tree"
> which I have adopted for the title of this book.
> While the more recent translation 'Thy Sacred Tree' might be more
> widely understood, with associations harking back to the burning
> bush out of which God spoke to Moses on Sinai, Shoghi Effendi's
> modified Arabic version Sadrat, regardless of its botanical or linguistic
> correctness, both invokes curiosity and invites learning. In other
> words, upon further research, the seeker discovers that the word is
> rooted in a Quranic context and that the expression is not only
> significant for Muslims but is also prophetic for Baha'is, for the
> Sadratu'l-Muntahd is a clear reference to Baha'u'llah, as both He
> himself and Shoghi Effendi have declared.'
> The identity and nature of the Late (Sidrah/Sadrat) Tree has
> resulted in a rich tradition of commentary within Islam. The tree
> stood at the apogee or high point in Muhammad's mystical vision
> of paradise encountered during the mi'rdj (night journey). Beyond
> it lay the domains of Alldh, realms impenetrable even to the Prophet
> of Hijaz. The symbology of the Divine Lote Tree is diverse:'
> the source and station of all prophets and divine revelation; the
> individual and universal soul; the ultimate seedbed of faith and
> the faith of the individual believer; the outer limit of all human and
> divine knowledge and at the same time its source; the tree of life
> on whose leaves are written the destinies of all souls - all these may
> be included in the meaning. Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes
> writes of the cosmological significance of the late tree when he
> states that commentators interpreted its meaning as 'un arbre de
> lotus nabaq [fruitJcapable d'embaumer I'univers'. ('a nabaq late tree
> 4                      UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> capable of perfuming the universe')." Here it is a symbol of
> spirituality.
> One can also consider the Divine Lote Tree (Baha'u'llah) as being
> the archetypical or preeminent 'Cosmic Tree' whose symbolism has
> been studied by historian of religion/comparative religionist Mircea
> Eliade,ll Eliade writes: 'One can even admit the possibility that all the
> variants of the Cosmic Tree come in the last analysis from one single
> center of diffusion.''' Taken theologically, Eliade's statement has
> special significance for J Baha'i. For it rarely occurs to one that when
> Baha'u'llah addresses humanity with the words 'Ye are the fruits of
> one trec, and the leaves of one branch', IJ He points at the same time
> to Himself as the regenerative symbol. the Tree of Life that sustains
> a single humanity. Eliadc's designations of the cosmic tree as imago
> mundi and axis mundi 14 may both be theologically interpreted to
> apply to Baba'u'ILih. For Baha'is view Baha'u'llah as the divine pattern
> or ur-archetype on which the spiritual meaning of world order is
> patterned and the pole or axis which sustains the world and makes
> possible communication (revelation) between heaven and earth.
> 
> J.A. MeLeall
> Salt Sprillg Island
> Rritisb Colmnbid, Canati,l
> JlIly 1999
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE
> The Dream of Knowledge
> In order to acquire knowledge, I must dream. True knowledge
> cannot emerge merely from intellectual effon and a slavish obser-
> vance of the dialectical process. The dialectical process consists of
> what I will to discover when once I have focused my attention on a
> specific question or issue. Dreaming, however, allows the mind to
> rest from intentionality and opens the way to the more free-ranging
> world of symbol and spirit, thus allowing them to present to
> consciousness what they will, following their own wisdom. The
> various stages of research and analysis confine the thinker to the
> limits of waking-consciousness and thought. In order to gain more
> comprehensive knowledge, we must avail ourselves of the free-
> flowing powers of the oceanic world of subconsciousness in which
> we are immersed in dreams.
> The powers of the dream of knowledge release themselves, not
> only in deep sleep, but also in the waking states and half-states of
> reverie when ego-consciousness is partially suspended. Indeed, there
> in that reality where a perfect correspondence is suddenly struck
> between the subconscious and conscious worlds, remarkable truths
> are discovered. Dreaming releases elements of myth, poetry and
> story, the symbols and hypostatic meanings that conscious thought
> cannot so easily access. Through such processes reality is presented
> to us in its various guises. After all, it is reality (Ar.=al haqq) that
> the believer, thinker and scholar are after, not just one of its more
> constricted forms.
> The conscious interpretation of reality requires, of course, the
> collaboration of analytic reasoning. It is in this collaboration of
> 
> 8                      UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> conscious thought and subconscious processes, of symbol and spirit
> on the one hand, and logic and analysis on the other, that more
> comprehensive knowledge will emerge. Especially, it is the knowledge
> of self that the dream of knowledge reveals. Once I awake from the
> dream of knowledge, even though I enter the daylight world, the
> dream still lingers on like a vapour trail, carrying its discoveries into
> the conscious mind. Thus comprehensive knowledge or the discovery
> of truth may be viewed as a continual transiting and exchange
> between the subconscious and the conscious wor1ds.
> We should be careful of too closely guarding our thoughts or of
> thinking that we own them as a type of intellectual property. Our
> thoughts merely surround us as an atmosphere forming the larger
> world of our elemental life, just as the swimmer is immersed in the
> water of a lake Dr an ocean. To use another analogy, the thinker is like
> the boatman on a river. The river (the world of thought) carries the
> boatman along. He may well steer his craft but he does not entirely
> control the current. In this sense, the thinker is just the manager of
> the mental processes that come to consciousness. Although it may
> seem that the thinker 'owns' his thoughts in some sense, he is actually
> highly dependent on a vast reservoir of pre-existent thought in the
> same way that the sculptor or the fine artist is dependent on the
> materials oui of which objets d'art are fashioned. If I am able to think,
> then what I do think is not really created by me. I have merely
> discovered it.
> The dream of knowledge arises with the grace of effortless
> attainment. At a higher level, the thinker begins to discourse freely
> by himself. When this happens, the thinker is no more in control of
> his thoughts. He becomes their inspired instrument and merely
> gives them voice, in the same way that the singer sings the song or
> that the poet writes verse.
> The angel friends who direct our actions also direct our thoughts
> from the unseen world. This guidance is often revealed in dreams and
> in those awe-filled moments that have a significant impact on our lives
> or our current preoccupations. But in order to find this guidance, we
> have to let ourselves dream. We have to allow the mind quiet times
> of rest, ro momentarily desist from ceaseless 'mental fight',' even
> though this mental fight is also an integral part of the process. As in
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                               9
> 
> other areas of our spiritual life, the virtue of surrender will prove
> efficacious in unlocking the great door of knowledge.
> Angels attend us unawares, and though few of us may see them,
> sometimes we can heartheir wings rustling. So is it true, as the child
> asks, that when it rains the angels are crying? In the mythopoeic
> answer to this question the dream of knowledge lies hidden.
> 
> Beyond
> One of the most captivating words in English is beyond. Beyond
> belongs simultaneously to the realms of time, place and space. It
> points to an ideal. Beyond has an unique evocative quality. It says: 'Be
> on' ... Be on your way' ... 'Travel'. The word transports beyond self,
> past Baudelaire's rapt adoration of the clouds, '...j'aime les nuages ...
> les nuages qui passent.. .la-bds... la-bds ... les merveilleux nuages!,2 and out
> into the vastness of the cosmos. Beyond evokes a vision of things far
> away and unattainable, things purely platonic whose lofty Olympian
> beauty can only be admired from a distance, not grasped. The word
> beyond recalls Victor Hugo's haunting phrase - 'Ie ne suis qu'une force
> qui va' - a sentence that tells of a mystery of movement leading where,
> we do not know.
> Beyond indicates that wherever we may be right now or expect
> others to be, they may already be past that point. That in itself bodes
> well or ill. For individuals may be beyond others in goodness and
> virtue, or beyond in things reprehensible. The word beyond indicates
> that the usual barriers have been broken down, those norm~tive and
> comfortable confines in which most individuals circulate. So there is
> a freedom in being beyond, and a daring, but a great risk too.
> Icarus was beyond when he flew too close to the sun, catching his
> wings on fire and falling into the Aegean Sea.' The beyond that Icarus
> invaded was a violation of the golden mean, a maxim that was for the
> Greeks, who valued proportion in all things, almost a religion. For if
> we dare to reach beyond, we may surprise ourselves to find that we
> have indeed gone beyond and have arrived at that point which we once
> sought to grasp. In reaching this point, we may find that either we
> have made new empowering spiritual advances or have reached a hard
> place from which it proves difficult to return. For the beyond can be
> 10                          UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> realised, and if it is, then it is no longer the beyond. It becomes the
> here and now, in this space around me, a space that is no longer away
> ahead of me, nor hopelessly out of my reach, as it once was. This once
> beyond has become the present realisation.
> BfJ'onti points to transcendence, to every holy thing that is in the
> heavens above and sustains OUT world without our even knowing it.
> Transcendence is a state beyond. It is also called heaven. There is a
> time beyond. It is called eternity. There is a place beyond. It is called
> the placeless. There is space beyond. It is called infinity. Lastly, there
> is attaining the beyond ourselves, where all things cease - the point
> of detachment, the station of self-sacrifice and spiritual
> transformation where we begin to live in and for God.
> 
> The follCYIi:ing fOllr essays deal'ii.:itb time frum co1ltrastillg perspectiv(ás. Time
> presf!1lts a l1U'tdph),sicallmderst.mdillg oftime ami t:ieu:s time. OIKe its 111)'5(('1)'
> is grasped, as d friend. Midpoint in Time tI,>"ls u'ith thf! ('xistelltial '"01KffllS of
> fadllg the peut, pn'smt ,md future 011 the life jorfmey. Defeating ~Hannical
> Time. a shorter piece, mmicieN time to be a hearth's5 god u:ho m,ikes imperiom
> demands 011 rmrli't'es but u:ho md)' be defeat('d by beluga/err to tbe potmtialities
> ofthe prese1lt mom('1ltalu''')'$ "boltt to be bom. The Soul: Both In and Out of
> Time n11ects 011 the ('01ltmsting experiences of the soul ill tbe Iigbt of etrmit)'.
> 
> Time
> lime is a mysterious creature. Somctimes it gocs so fast we can
> scarcely imagine that it has gone. At other times it drags on painfully
> slowly, and no matter what we do we cannot speed it up. Sometimes
> there is no time, as when they say: 'We are out of time.' Then at
> another moment we are told that there is 'all the time in the world'.
> But how much time is 'all the time in the world'? Surely, it cannot be
> measured. And yet we do measure time. We measure it in seconds.
> minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years and so on. Unlike the
> atom, however, time cannot be split. Neither can it be manipulated
> in any way. But it can be used, foolishly or wisely.
> They say time is wasted, but it is not so, for time outlasts
> everything in the universe. It is our lives we waste. As long as the
> universe lasts, there will be time. They talk about the beginning and
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                         11
> 
> the end, but there is no beginning and no end, really. Beginnings and
> endings are just turning points) significant events, heart beats or
> moments of high drama in the lives of individuals or in history.
> Something has always preceded these beginnings, and something
> will always follow these endings.
> There is no beginning, no end of time. There is only the beginning
> and the end of the lives of sentient beings, those who are conscious
> and who can either use or measure time. When there is an end to time,
> the universe as we know it will no longer exist. In one very real sense,
> there is only the now.
> The child is either oblivious of time or feels it as a burden and a
> mystery. 'When will I grow up?' the child asks. 'When will we be
> there?' asks the impatient, travel-weary young one. For the youth,
> time is an opportunity to affirm the powers of self, to become what
> one is becoming, to find an identity. Only the aware individual is
> really conscious of passing time.
> We may well fear time, and fear it with reason. For like the tide,
> as the maxim says, it waits for no man, will not indulge the
> hesitation of any woman. It is more precious than gold but cannot
> be bought or sold. Though its effects are ever-determinative, it is
> intangible. It runs more freely than water through our fingers. The
> only way to truly understand time in this world is to measure and
> use. This is all that can be done with time. Measure and use.
> This old and venerable, kindly father will smile on you if you
> respect his ways. If time becomes your benefactor and your patron,
> he will laud your persistent efforts with kindly praise. But I tell you
> there is a real secret and a solemn mystery to time. Very few
> discover it while they are here. This is the secret: to know that you
> are now in eternity and that time is your friend.
> 
> Midpoint in Time
> Each pilgrim is on a journey midway between the past and the future.
> That midpoint is, of course, the present. The future lies before us like
> an open road, bright and full 01 promise. But at the same time, we are
> at certain moments in our lives only too fully aware that the past
> lingers on, determining in part today's moods and feelings. II the past
> 12                     UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> has been a happy one, there may be little to trouble the mind in the
> present. If, however, the past contains regrets -and few of us do not
> have some - we know that the only profitable thing we can do with
> this past, both for our own good and for the sake of others, is to learn
> its valuable lessons and turn the page to the next chapter of our lives
> in order to write a more congenial script. I am learning that sub-
> mission to one's fate and thankfulness for all that life brings to my
> door are great liquid assets in fulfilling my 'unfolding destiny"
> without which acceptance would be a formidable difficulty.
> While the past may inspire confidence to face the future, especially
> for those who can count blessings among their legacy, it is future
> expectations that offer that most life-giving of attributes - hope. Now
> hope is a powerful alchemy of both desire and expectation, and to
> make good its promise, hope is best accompanied by the confident
> expectation of fulfilment; othenvisc it proves not to be sanguine.
> Luke-warm hope always undermines its true spirit which fully
> anticipates realisation.
> While the past may store confidence to face the future, it does
> not offer hope. The past reflects back memories, full of satisfaction
> or tinged with regret. For most of us, memories of the past are
> bitter-swet'l and that oxymoron, it seems, is a singular feature of the
> human condition. The unending search for tomorrow beckons [he
> wayfarer, for although tomorrow contains no memories. it holds
> nonetheless rhe potential for brighter ones. This potential is itself a
> boon. for great expectations feed the soul. Tomorrow contains the
> glowing promise of a better life.
> Yet it is hard to live for tomorrow, bright though we believe it to
> be, harder than to live for yesterday. For tomorrow, unlike the past,
> is and will remain undefined. And if tomorrow, contrary to the
> dictum. docs finally come. it is not exactly as Wl' expected. But
> anticipated in the spirit of faith, strength can be derived from the
> promise of another day. We increase both faith and strength in the
> firm belief that tomorrow will bring other journeys, fresh adventures,
> friendly faces and fast friends.
> And what of today? The saints, the mystics and the sagacious, both
> of the past and the present, have discovered the answer to that
> question. It was and is to live in the now. The 'spiritually learned" know
> THE BoOK OF KNOWLEDGE                          13
> 
> that the future is best made ready by fully experiencing the present,
> by completely living this instant, by attending fully to the task at hand,
> to the goal to be won, by being fully conscious that this moment - now
> - is the only bit of time that we shall ever own. These select few who
> have learned the secret of the now - not to forever mourn the past nor
> dissipate present opportunities by living in too great an anticipation
> of the future - have discovered the way to contentment. They know
> that by overcoming today's test, by attending to today's problem as
> best they can, by assuaging today's pain and solving today's riddle, they
> will be empowered to break the vicious circle; they 'will be freed from
> the darkness of continually repeating the past'á and become capable
> of creating for themselves a new life at every moment.
> 
> Defeating Tyrannical Time
> Time can be a harsh taskmaster, even a slave-driver. But the tyrant of
> time can be governed. The despot of time can be conquered. The way
> to humble time, the trick in discomfiting Kronos, is to goad him into
> combat, to engage him in sport, to challenge him to defeat you in the
> arena of the busy life. This contest, this sport, this bloodless war must
> be waged at sunrise. The gauntlet must be taken up in the early hours
> of day. The tyrant of time is overmastered by the strategy of the slow
> and steady pace. The race is won by running long into the hours of
> evening. Time is routed by the marathon that continues late into the
> night, even unto the first streaks of light at early dawn.
> Time is fleeing away this very moment like the grains of sand
> dropping through the hour glass. Let me make now the best of time
> - which is to make the best of the present moment. Let me stop this
> oppressive tyrant though it be just for a breath, in the here and now,
> in the Dasein,' in the just-being-there, in being fully present to the
> possibilities of the now and ever-alert to the potentialities of the
> radiant moment that is about to be born. The true believer knows
> that time is only a tyrannical false god that reigns but briefly, then
> dies. He is to be served while he yet lives and is able to make his
> imperious demands. But the true believer serves him in the knowl-
> edge that one day the tyrant of time shall fall victim to himself and
> be no more.
> 14                      UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> The Soul: Both In and Out of Time
> 
> He who bil/ds to himselfa JO)',
> Does the "'il/ged life destro),:
> But he u'bo kisses the joy tIS it flies.
> Lh'es ;11 Etemity's sun-rise.
> WILLIAM BLAKI;K
> 
> It is both a consolation and a hope to realise that the soul lives both
> in and out of time. According 10 'Abdu'I-Baha, the soul is a created
> phenomenon and has thus been created in time, yet lives eternally
> from the moment of its creation.' It lives both in the now and the
> forever. The soul shares with the body its mortality but outlives the
> body when it puts on the garment of immortality. Wh,lI does this
> mean for human experience?
> While it inhabits the body, all the experiences of the soul are
> present in the psyche and available to the human mind. Most
> individuals forget about unpleasant experiences or events in time -
> or at least their impact fades - as does indeed the effect of pleasant
> ones. The human tendency is 10 live in the dynamic of the now, what-
> ever that dynamic may be.l'or it is the now that usually occupies the
> immediate attention of the soul.
> Yet the soul wants 10 carry its most meaningful, joyous or richly
> transformational experiences into eternity. It will be a cause..' of joy to
> the soul if it is still possible 10 repeat such experiences in the present,
> or at least 10 remember them. But it will be a cause of sorrow to the
> soul if these experiences arc no longer available 10 us and if we regret
> their passing.
> Precisely at such times, when we are simultaneously rewarded and
> vexed by 'the remembrance of things past',10 it is a consolation to
> remember that the soul lives in eternity - that what once was, still is.
> And we can best remember through detachment. The sorrow of the
> 'remembrance of things past' can be transcended through detach-
> meot. The practice of detachment will help bring the soul back into
> eternity and back into joy. By simply remembering the moment
> without clinging to it, without desiring its repetition, "'e shall live it
> once again, and by the same process, experience eternity.
> THE BoOK Of KNOWLEDGE                            15
> 
> This is admittedly difficult to do for it is in the nature of the soul
> to long for the repetition of 'peak experiences'." But if we are able to
> escape or to abandon the all-too-human desire to repeat the self-same
> experience in the here and now - which is an impossibility because the
> circumstances are by now different - by a surprising paradox we shall
> know the joy of the experience afresh. It is only the regret of not being
> able to relive the self-same experience that causes pain. The point is
> that for the part of the soul that lives in eternity, the joy of such
> experiences is always available to us, that is, if we are satisfied to simply
> remember them with gratitude, without longing, without regret, with-
> out the desire to possess them again. If such experiences or events were
> (are) truly pure and truly lovely, were (are) selfless and sincere, I believe
> that they will live eternally and we will find them again, for 'Surely He
> will not sufferthe reward of His favoured ones to be 10st'Y As for the
> memory of unhappy experiences, the best remedy here is to create new
> experiences which will become a remembered source of joy.
> 
> Mystery and the True Name
> 'What is it?' is a commonsense and fundamental question raised by cer-
> tain philosophers who seek to discern the identity of any thing. Names
> are an attempt to answer that question. In Pascal's understanding, there
> are such things as essential names. Essential names are 'divested of
> all other meaning'." These names cannot be reduced to any other
> signifier. They are essential signs and cannot really be understood in
> terms of synonyms or substitutes. Any other signifiers used to describe
> them are only approximations. When we have reached the point where
> something cannot be described in other words, we have reached its
> identity as a true name.
> A true name, then, is something that cannot be given any other
> name than its own, any other name than the one it already has. Thus,
> 'Abdu'l-Baha said in a famous passage: 'My name is 'Abdu'l-Baha
> [Servant of Baha]. My qualification is ~bdu'l-Baha. My reality is
> ~bdu'l-Baha. My praise is 'Abdu'I-Baha.'14 ~bdu'l-Baha is the true
> name. The 'Servant of Baha'is his reality. When Moses, the great
> legislator, met Yahweh on Sinai, He inquired of God what God's name
> might be. According to the Eloist tradition, God told Moses to tell
> 16                      UNDER THE DIVINE lOlE TREE
> 
> the people of Israel that 'I am who I am (Ebyeh asher ebyeh) 15 sent me'.
> The 'I am' (the Eternal One) is in this example one of God's true
> names which cannot be explained by any other reference.
> The familiar example of colours comes to mind to furtherelucidate
> the true name. If you did not know colours and were to ask: 'What
> colour is this apple?' one would respond, 'red' or 'green' and you would
> understand immediately. If you wanted to inquire further. you might
> ask: 'But what is rcd?' At this point you would be obliged to resort to
> analogies that share the common property that we call red: the red of
> the rose. the red of blood. the glow of sunrise or sunset. the red of the
> beloved's cheek. etc. An esoteric passage in the writings of the Bab
> depicts a quintessential red. ' ...the Maid of Heaven. begonen by the
> Spirit of Baha. abiding within the Mansion hewn out of a mass of ruby.
> tender and vibrant .. .'I6Yet. however abstruse the explanation might be.
> the answer is simply that 'red is red'. It is nothing other than itself. True
> names result at the point of an essential understanding or bare reality,
> that point beyond which there is no defining.
> Now what is the point of the foregoing? The bare essential of the
> true name underscores the fact that both language and human thought
> are incapable of transcending their own limitations. Baha'u'llah has.
> of course, alluded to this very theme several times in his writings. In
> one passage he says:
> 
> How greal [he multitude of truths which the garment of words can never
> contain! How vast the number of such verities as no expression can
> adequately describe. whose significance can never be unfolded, and to which
> not even the remotest allusions can be made! How manifold arc the truths
> which must remain unuttered until the appointed time is comeP7
> 
> It is to be emphasized, however. that the true name. though it be
> familiar or commonplace. does not reveal the essential mystery of
> any being. Thus. even though we name things. in so doing we do nOt
> capture their essence. disempower them or even necessarily make
> them familiar or bring them into closer relationship with us. They
> remain surrounded in mystery. Language and human thought in no
> way pierce the veils of mystery that encompass the slightest things
> in creation. The water droplet. the blade of grass. the speck of sand.
> THE BoOK OF KNOWLEDGE                           17
> 
> the crystal, the smooth stone all retain their essential mystery.
> Think, then, of the mysteries contained in the human being, that
> most subtle and complex of all creatures, alluded to in the saying
> attributed to the Imam 'Ali: 'Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny
> form when within thee the universe is folded?')' How much more
> so is this idea true of God Himself, that mystery of all mysteries!
> Whatever we name the Divinity, even when He names Himself
> Bahd, His most essential true name, such naming does in no way
> capture His essential reality. Thus, the true name remains and will
> always remain shrouded in mystery. That mystery is the hidden
> name within the name, the unknown attribute of God.
> 
> The Beginning and End of Names
> Where did naming begin? In the Judaeo-Christian tradition at least,
> the Book of Genesis tells us that naming began with Adam. Adam,
> that first link in the prophetic chain that bears his name (the Adamic
> Cycle)," named with God's permission the birds of the air and the
> beasts of the field.20 This naming of the creatures by Adam also
> signifies that Adam possessed the science of knowing their true
> identity. It also indicates that Adam was God's deputy or representa-
> tive, for clearly God might have named the creatures Himself,
> dictating the names to Adam. The Book of Genesis states, however,
> that God 'brought them [the creatures1unto Adam to see what he
> would call them'.21 Here is one evidence of Adam's prophetic power.
> Where do names end? Names will end when we know the true
> identity of things. Once we are able to perceive the essence of a thing,
> once we come to visualise its pure identity, we shall no longer need
> to identify it by name. Names will disappear when we no longer need
> to ask the questions: 'Who are you?' 'What is it?' For then we will
> know the thing itself and understand its essence and no longer 'see
> through a glass, darkly'. St. Paul had a clear intimation of this essential
> knowledge when he wrote: 'For now we see through a glass, darkly;
> but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even
> as also I am known.''' I imagine that in that vast world beyond, in the
> spiritual birth that breaks forth after death, we shall not have names,
> nor need them, even though we shall recognise and be recognised.
> 18                     UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> Questionable logic:
> Nothingness and the End of Philosophy
> 
> Philosophy is a complex mass of reflections that at higher levels
> aims at simplicity, a simplicity clearly discernible in the writings of
> the great thinkers. Few philosophers reach this stage, but in several
> of the great ones such as Plato, Kant or Spinoza, this drive toward
> simplicity and synthesis becomes more apparent. Spinoza at least,
> unlike some of the philosophers of idealism such as Hegel, was
> never impressed with the sophistry of words, with the spinning of
> verbal webs, with the intoxication of the phonic tollr de force. There
> is a beautiful clarity running through a great deal of Spinoza's
> thought. I do nO! mean by this that everything Spinoza wrote is
> simple; only lhat his work is admirable for its clarity as well as its
> profundity, particularly his writing on virtue in the Ethics."
> No\\" and again something remarkable happens to the philosopher's
> work at these higher levels. Sometimes in the later stages of analysis,
> an abrupt shift in thought occurs. The bifurcation radically changes
> the earlier thought, or at least departs from it in a significant way. We
> sec this shifting panern in the earlier and later Wingenstein. The ear-
> lier Wingenstein was associated with the linguistic positivism of the
> Vienna circle, so heavily influenced by the growing ascendancy of
> twentieth century science but, unlike Adolf Carnap who was an acer-
> bic critic of the 'nonsense' of all metaphysical language, the later
> Wingenstein clearly recognized the meaningfulness of all language,"
> and indeed, posited forms and families of language as more discrete
> and characteristic languages within language itself. Most embarrass-
> ing of all to the analytical philosophers, the once earlier positivistic,
> ultra-rational Wingenstein later alluded to mysticism and such things
> incomprehensible. Like the silent theologians of the via negativ" and
> the mystics, Wingenstein could write such things as 'There is indeed
> the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical.'''This statement
> caused the poet Julian Bell to recognize in Wingenstein an anti-philo-
> sophical philosopher and declare him to be what he was:
> He smuggles knowledge from a secret source
> A mystic in the end. confessed ano plain
> The ancient enemy returned again ..:!'"
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                          19
> 
> We also see this pattern in the earlier and later Heidegger. Agnostics
> could claim that the earlier Heidegger belonged to them. The later
> Heidegger, still preoccupied with Sein and Dasein," although still
> veiled as ever, whispered his concern for all Being, but spoken now in
> a more careful way, in open, sensitive and sober tones that might
> be described as a mystical monism. Whether he excogitated this
> mystical monism with or without theism, Heidegger has left us guess-
> ing, but he was one who cenainly recognized the spiritual power(s)
> inherent in an increasingly personal Being or beings of the universe.
> In the case of St. Thomas Aquinas, nigh unto death, he suddenly
> stopped writing altogether, saying that everything he had written
> previously 'now seems like straw'. Z8 What happened to Aquinas we do
> not precisely know, but a year before he died on 7 March 1274 he had
> a 'mysterious experience o29 while saying Mass. A vision or a mystical
> occurrence that profoundly shook his soul is one interpretation. But
> whatever happened to him, it made the world of thought, for all its
> precision and nobility, all its concern for truth, seem meaningless.
> Another, more sceptical, interpretation has it that Aquinas suffered a
> mental breakdown.'o Death, however, sometimes intervenes and the
> philosopher is removed from the scene so that the later thinking
> cannot be developed in a more systematic, thoroughgoing way.
> The presence of the thought-shift bears out 'Abdu'I-Baha's state-
> ment that the philosopher, through the self-same mode of logic, will
> overturn a previous conclusion and advance a new one. 'Abdu'l-Baha
> teaches that Plato first proved by logic the geocentric theory of the
> eanh and the sun and then by the same logic proved the heliocentric
> theory." My reading is that ~bdu'I-Baha's observation is meant to
> caution against relying too heavily on the epistemological tool of
> reason or logic as an absolute guide. The same caution is sounded with
> respect to the other epistemological tools." A judicious balance
> among them offers a surer picture of reality.
> ~bdu'I-Baha's caution needs to be heeded. Even with Kant's
> impressive critique of the powers of reason,3) from the time of the
> Enlightenment (and for centuries afterward) rcason or logic took on
> an absolute character in western philosophy. But anything other than
> God that poses as an absolute must be imperfect and its defects recog-
> nised and exposed. The same may be said of any other epistemological
> 20                       UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> tool that attempts to pass for the Absolute. In 'Abdu'I-Baha's teach-
> ing. however, it is only God who bestows absolute cenainty, working
> through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as It illuminates the faculties
> of understanding:
> 
> But the bounty of the Holy Spirit gives the true method of comprehension
> which is infallible and indubitable.This is through the help of the Holy Spirit
> which comes to man, and this is the condition in which certainty can alone
> be attaincdá 34
> 
> These affirmations lead us clearly in the direction of the
> prophetic figure as the sole sure source of knowledge and wisdom,
> for it is only He who claims to be so possessed of the Holy Spirit
> and to speak with such certitude.
> Western philosophers have generally not paid close enough
> attention to the weaknesses inherent in their own epistemology.
> Logic is notorious for becoming caught in a trap of its own making,
> for being prone to antinomies 35 and for being subject to circular
> reasoning from which it can escape only by exiting. Intuition is far
> more synoptic. Moreover, logic deduces only those correct con-
> clusions or 'therefores' that are already implicit in and follow
> unavoidably from its own premises. In this sense it is all too
> predetermined and predictable.
> Euclid's geometry is valid only if we are measuring space by the
> axioms that lie at the basis of his system. Once we leave Euclid's
> mathematical world, the geometrician begins to measure according
> to  a diffferent, non-Euclidian, standard. Bernhard Riemann's
> (1826-1866) elliptical geometry, for example, went beyond Euclid's
> work to include the concept of unbounded, curved space.'" The
> non-Euclidian cannot say, of course, that Euclid was wrong; only
> that Euclid has calculated according to another measure, a standard
> that the non-Euclidean does not employ. Now, someone may argue
> lhat if there be contradiction, faulty logic must perforce be at work.
> Perhaps. But it must also be said that Bertrand Russell's affirmation
> thaI there is a single, universal and undeniable propositional logic
> was destroyed by G6del's proof in 1931. G6del affirmed that every
> mathematical system of logic which will repeat its operations
> THE BoOK OF KNOWLEDGE                        21
> 
> infinitely must necessarily contain propositions which cannot be
> proven by the same system - a kind of mathematical faith.
> These considerations raise at the same time another question.
> That question is 'so what?' The 'so what?' question implies that
> even when logic is faultless, is consistent with itself, and when
> arbitrary and unavoidable conclusions inevitably follow from first
> premises, this mode of reasoning still runs the risk of passing for an
> end in itself, rather than a means.
> Logic above all should be a means 10 an end: namely, the
> elucidation of a truth, and nOt purport 10 be the proof of the Truth.
> The fact that P=Q is proven, once the conclusion is drawn and the
> 'therefore' stated, may in fact be meaningful only to the logician and
> to a few others who are interested in such demonstrations. The 'so
> what?' question has 10 be raised in the face of what has been called
> the 'violence of logic'. The hyperbole expressed in the word
> 'violence' indicates that when logic is used outside of its valid norms
> and attempts to become the exclusive vehicle for understanding
> reality, it tends 10 crush forms of reasoning that the logician has
> falsely concluded are less sure than itself.
> Logic by itself is woefully deficient in meaning and where there
> be no meaning, to slightly vary a phrase from the Book of Proverbs,
> 'the people perish'." How meaningful is it to the life and death of
> the individual 10 say that P=Q without contradiction? It is only
> meaningful to those who conceive of human reasoning in such a
> narrow and restrictive fashion, and who allow for no other mode of
> reasoning. When one lies close to death, is one then moved to
> salvation by the inescapable conclusion that P=Q? If one is not in
> any case interested in salvation, then either my point is proven, or
> there is no logic present at all.
> Is it rather not more meaningful and reasonable 10 wonder what
> will loom up when we close our eyes for the last time, or to wonder
> what our fate will be when once we are delivered from the agony of
> death? Is it not more meaningful 10 hope and to pray, indeed 10
> know, that a higher and more glorious form of being will, in some
> other dimension, be ushered in, when in what surely must be the
> greatest of all surprises, we shall have discovered that we have not
> died at all but have been born again?
> 22                     UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> I am not arguing here simply in extremis, from the most apocalyp-
> tic example in an individual's life, the moment of death itself, when we
> come to dwell for all eternity in the land of the last things. All of life,
> every waking tum, calls us to discover moments of significance. They
> come as moments of revelation, or as moments of intimate disclosure
> in which the universe speaks to us, in Manin Buber's word, as a
> 'Thou'." They come as quiet, simple and loving moments full of
> transpon, exaltation or ecstasy of soul, or quiet but assuring incre-
> ments in 'the peace of God which passeth all understanding'. 3. Herein,
> I think, lies the true meaning of meaning.
> Another significant and curious thing happens to the mind of the
> philosopher, once again at these higher levels. The tendency towards
> simplicity to which I have referred above becomes even further marked
> as the mind of the philosopher reaches the end-point of systematis-
> ation and makes breakthroughs into higher forms of consciousness.
> These higher forms of consciousness are usually a clear recognition of
> the limits of the power of the human mind to fathom the Grand Plan
> that is called Reality. Prospero's broken staff in Shakespeare's play The
> Tempest (Act V. sc.l), a symbolic gesture that the poet and writer
> Horace Holley has interpreted as applying to Shakespeare's own
> 'self-recognized limitations as a writer'40 is an indication that there
> were other powers and other realms that were not at his command.
> The work of the enlightened philosopher at these higher levels
> ventures further away from writing as chatter and further and
> further into silence, and then increasingly into nothingness. By this
> I mean that at some significant point in the philosopher's life, he
> realises that somehow his philosophy must be expressed in concrete
> action, in morality, in real living. Kant knew this truth. He called it
> the exercise of 'die praktische Vemunft' or practical reason; that is,
> reason put into practice in the service of morality. Kant realised that
> any system of ethics must lead to peace with one's neighbours,
> human dignity, and a life of duty and virtue in which reason assents
> in the exercise of free will to fulfil a higher moral purpose.41
> It is precisely here that philosophy tends toward nothingness to
> find fulfilment. By nothingness, however, I do not intend the void
> of meaninglessness, the dubious negation that had inveigled the
> imagination of Jean-Paul Sartre, a negation that leaves the individual
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                           23
> 
> with that most questionable and obscure possibility of freedom,
> that of being able to 'annihilate nothingness'(neantiser Ie neant).42
> For what kind of freedom is it to be able to negate nothingness?
> Does the negation of nothingness somehow usher us into the world
> of being? How can two negatives somehow create a positive? Only
> being can annihilate nothingness.
> The nothingness to which I refer is rather the silent eloquence of
> the deed; the deed that does not draw attention to itself, the
> nothingness that is selflessness. It is the cessation of discourse and
> the articulate testimony of the deed that sounds both the end and
> fulfilment of philosophy. This nothingness is the nothingness that
> results when the philosopher realises that all he has written signifies
> nothing unless he lives, or seriously attempts to live, a life of devotion,
> reverence for all of life, and spiritual virtue. Such nothingness is the
> nothingness and the insignificance of what I have written, the
> insignificance that pales before the unavoidable imperatives of the-
> what-I-must-be, the what-I-must-do and the-what-I-must-live. For
> all great philosophy must at some point end in silence; at that point
> where words end and deeds begin.
> Although as the scriptures testify, it is the prophet who prepares
> the way for the prophet who is to come, in another back-handed sense
> the philosopher also makes the ground ready. For what the prophet
> teaches cannot be taught by the philosopher, although he may lead
> us to the door. As Holley has said of Shakespeare, the notes that the
> writer sounds - and I take his point to apply equally well to the
> philosopher - consist only of the notes that he or she can hear and
> compose, however moving and beautiful the melody may be. 'Thus
> it seems to most students that Shakespeare is and must be supreme
> in literature for all time. Shakespeare, it seems, sounded all the
> available notes on the keyboard of life.''' Shakespeare sounded all the
> available notes, says Holley. This implies that other notes there were,
> silent notes that Shakespeare could neither hear nor play.
> But the symphonies composed by the prophets are written in other
> keys and in scales with which we are not immediately familiar or can
> scarcely hear in the beginning. Their compositions originate in that
> sacred silence that is the end of philosophy and the beginning of
> wisdom and truth. Those who are willing to listen will soon discover
> 24                     UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> the delights of the prophetic song and will desire to make music after
> their fashion. All that the prophets have said and done bears fruit in
> the silent witness of the life lived for God, at that point where
> philosophy ends and is fulfilled, in the fragrance of spirituality.
> 
> Christ in Gethsemane:
> The Existential Moment and the Irony of Knowledge
> As a philosophy, existentialism is closer to real life than any other, for
> its roots do not lie in philosophical speculation at all, but rather in a
> profound reflection and experience of the depths of those living,
> determinative, divine realities that we call life and death and in the
> affirmation or denial of self and others. We find especially telling
> examples of the existential moment during those rare days when 'God
> walks among men', in the lives of the prophets, apostles, manyrs and
> saints. These examples can be found in the events of the Hebrew Bible
> and the Gospel and indeed in any spiritual history which tells us of
> the Divine Epiphany revealed in its encounter with the human world.
> One of the deepest roots of existentialism lies in its contrary, in the
> possibility and threat of non-existence, the risk that life may be snuffed
> out. 'Abdu'I-Bah:i when speaking of death, says for example: 'Death
> is the absence of life. Therefore, on the one hand, we have existence;
> on the other, nonexistence, negation or absence of existence.'''4 The
> deeper questioning resulting from the contemplation of our own
> annihilation (the fear of death), leads us to the philosophical disposi-
> tion that is called the existential. This fear of annihilation, whether
> from the uncenainties in our personal lives, the still persistent nuclear
> threat orthe certainty of death, has risen up like a tidal wave of despair
> to engulf entire nations, producing the psychological angst that has
> been so pervasive in the second half of the twentieth century and which
> has defined the mood of much existential literature. Yet when taken
> in a more positive spiritual perspective, existentialism does not convey
> that pessimism with which it has been associated. Viewed with the eyes
> of faith, the existential moment leads to realism and beyond realism
> into hope and spiritual transformation.
> In the Christian tradition, the Gospel accounts of the betrayal,
> passion and crucifixion of Jesus as well as Peter's momentary denial
> THE BOOK OF KNOWlEDGE                           25
> 
> of Christ furnish meaningful examples of the existential moment.
> Here we find the Anointed of God earnestly praying in the Garden
> of Gethsemane, supplicating his Father for strength during his last
> few hours on earth, looking into his soul so that he may offer up in
> a sacrificial spirit his blessed life. The prayer is so heartfelt, so deep,
> that his luminous brow is beaded with drops of sweat like pearls of
> blood. St. Luke's account reads: 'And being in an agony he prayed
> more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood
> falling down to the ground.";
> In those agonizing moments, Christ spoke a few words that have
> caused no small amount of wonderment: 'Father, if thou be willing,
> remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be
> done.''' Some have concluded that Jesus spoke thus in a moment
> when nerve failed; when the human nature of the man Yeshua, not the
> deified Christ, was praying for mercy, for the chance to escape the
> supreme sacrifice destined for him that day. Such interpretations have
> been justified by recourse to the human nature of Jesus; that Yeshua
> was experiencing the fear and anguish that all men experience,
> begging God to release him from the fate that awaited.
> Yet these poignant words might be understood in another way - as
> the prayer of the Son trying to read the divine mind of the Father, the
> prayer of the sacrificial lamb struggling to discover what the holy will
> and the irrevocable decree of the Father might be. For who, even the
> Son, may read the final will of the Father until that will is fully
> disclosed? From several other Gospel passages we know that Jesus
> prophesied his own death," a death that came as a certainty decreed.
> Yet while the tragic but triumphant story was still unfolding, who could
> know, even the Son himself, what the Almighty might finally enjoin?
> For in all sacred history, in all readings of the divine will, as both
> Bah.'u'll.h and 'Abdu'l-Baha have clearly indicated, there is a word
> that points to a divine uncertainty, to a condition of doubt that
> indicates that things may turn out to be either this or that. That word
> is 'impending'." Now impending means that the ensuing result is not
> a decided issue. It may also point to an event that is likely. The event
> may be probable, even imminent, but neither imminence and
> probability necessarily mean that the result has already been
> decided. The divine decree just might surprise us in a sudden twist or
> 26                      UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> turn and declare the outcome otherwise. One of the greatest
> freedoms that God possesses is the possibility of changing the Divine
> Mind; this changing of the Mind of God encloses the deepest
> wisdom. Then might it not also have proven to be the supreme mercy
> and wisdom of God to have let that cup pass from Jesus? Could
> Christ, locked into the dark heart of the passion in Gethsemane,
> despite the prophecies of his own death, have so easily and clearly read
> the Divine Will as it was unfolding? No, there is another inter-
> pretation to this pathetic scene than a slip in steadfastness.
> The disciples, however, could not watch with him. Their eyelids
> closed. One has to wonder why they did not sense that this might be
> his last night on earth, his last hours with them. Perhaps in their naivete,
> they never imagined that one so glorious, one so much in touch with
> powers not of this world could be taken from them. And as sleep
> invaded their eyes, a profound note of human frailty is sounded.
> There in that nocturnal garden in Jerusalem, we encounter the
> existential moment: the aloneness, the utter solitude of the self bear-
> ing up under its burden, the naked self heavily labouring, watching,
> waiting, struggling, trying to read and to acquiesce to the will of God,
> waiting for some sign, struggling to be born again into a stronger,
> clearer state of courage and acquiescence.
> 
> I come now to a clarification of the meaning of the phrase 'the irony
> of knowledge'. Its reference points are Judas Iscariot and Saint
> Peter. In that moment of consternation when Christ had announced
> to the disciples who had gathered to celebrate the Paschal Meal for
> the last time that one of them would betray him, Judas along with
> the others said to Jesus: 'Master, is it I?' Christ replied to Judas:
> 'Thou hast said.'''
> Here is a cogent example of the irony of knowledge. We are accus-
> tomed to believing that knowledge is power and that to be forewarned
> is to be forearmed. We are taught that with knowledge and foresight
> souls can be educated, behaviour can change. Judas, however, could not
> be dissuaded by the foreknowledge of Christ from enacting the treach-
> erous deed which according to 'Abdu'I-Baha was motivated by a
> conflagration of hate and envy which had consumed his heart:
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                            27
> 
> Judas !scariot was the greatest of the disciples, and he summoned the people
> to Christ. Then it seemed to him that Jesus was showing increasing regard
> to the Aposde Peter, and when Jesus said. 'Thou an Peter, and upon this rock
> I will build My church: these words addressed to Peter, and this singling out
> of Peter for special honour, had a marked effect on the Apostle, and kindled
> envy within the heart of Judas. For this reason he who had once drawn nigh
> did turn aside, and he who had believed in the faith denied it, and his love
> changed to hate, until he became a cause of the crucifixion of that glorious
> Lord. that manifest Splendour. Such is the outcome of envy. the chief reason
> why men turn aside from the Straight Path.50
> 
> The meaning of Judas's existential moment is that fore-
> knowledge is a useless thing in the face of the malevolent will. And
> in the face, too, of the inexorable will of destiny by which such woes
> must come into the world."
> The irony of knowledge is again revealed in Peter's denial of Christ.
> Peter swore and protested aloud at that same table that he would rather
> die than deny his Lord: 'But he spake the more vehemently, If I should
> die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise.''' But he did nonethe-
> less. In this Peter, like Judas, had foreknowledge that did not prevent
> him. For when a maidservant identified him as being with the Galilean,
> he swore that he knew him not53 and he did so swear to save his life.
> Peter for all his oaths was caught in the trap of his own denial. 'Surely
> thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth [betrays1thee,'''
> they said to him. But he only swore the harder.
> We also in our aloneness, when our friends and companions are
> powerless to lift the burden from our shoulders, or we from theirs,
> when we can do nothing but go through the fires of purgation our-
> selves or watch our friends being consumed by the flames, live out
> then our own existential moment.
> The Gospel stories of Judas and Peter are an object lesson in the
> powerlessness of knowledge when the human will fails. As the great
> Aquinas has written, even though the intellect moves the will, will also
> moves intellect and thus our actions. 55 Judas's mind condemned his
> action; otherwise he would not have later sought death by his own
> hand. But he was overcome by the passions of self and thus suffered
> from a grievous defect of the will. For it is will that determines to a
> 28                      UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> great extent human conduct. It is the will that resolves whether or not
> we will believe, whether we will affirm or deny, whether we will do
> or not do, either to seek to do good or to seek to do harm - that and
> the mercy of God. Without will, knowledge is lame.
> But the story does not end here. Unlike Judas, who was so filled
> with self-loathing that he went out and hanged himself, Peter's
> story ends happily. After walking alive through the fires of remorse,
> Peter was transformed and became the 'rock' (Gk.=petros) that
> Christ had foretold. No doubt Peter was saved by the prayers of his
> Master: 'And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath
> desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed
> for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted,
> strengthen thy bretheren.'56 Simon bar Jonah ultimately came to
> manifest the steadfastness his Master had foreseen in him and for
> which He had prayed. Peter became firm in the end, after coming
> through his own Gethsemane of sorrow - the denial of the One he
> loved most in the world.
> It would be difficult to fully imagine the fires of sorrow and
> regret that seared Peter's heart once the full realisation struck him
> that fear and cowardice had compelled him to deny his Master, that
> One who had bestowed upon him the very essence of love and
> kindness. But in time the fever of remorse was stilled, the shameful
> deed was assuaged, and the man became again a tower of strength,
> in steadfastness constant, and more importantly, for all time. The
> fisherman who became caught in his own net stumbled and fell, but
> then rose up to cast again into salvific waters and in the name of
> Christ gathered up thousands of souls.;7
> The existential moment, then, is the moment of that inner solitude
> and vulnerability when we must needs come face to face with self,
> with our own identity. Truthfulness takes many forms. Coming face
> to face with the reality of self is one of the most difficult truths to face
> and accept. Although we may evade and deny for a time, if we
> ultimately deny this moment of truth, we shall deny the condition of
> our own soul and the possibilities for spiritual growth. The
> existential moment is that moment of truth when the soul is plunged
> into a wasteland of meaninglessness, when all the knowledge in the
> world seems as useless as a weed. Meaning and transformation are
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                                29
> 
> forged in the fiery ordeals of the moment.
> The existential moment cannot be fully foreseen. Its apocalyptic
> descent precludes preparation. It cannot be analysed away. Yet, most
> importantly, this moment can be the prelude to spiritual trans-
> formation and so has proven to be many times throughout sacred
> history. The existential moment is the lesson of life itself, the lesson
> that only life and nothing else can give, the lesson that no book of
> philosophy nor any human writing can convey.
> 
> Science, Consciousness ond the Personal Category
> In the late twentieth century and as we prepare to enter the third
> millennium, scientists have been attempting, through a variety of
> approaches. to fuse quantum mechanics and general relativity into a
> single 'unified' post-quantum theory. In so doing they have come to
> realise that science is not just a collection of detached, objective state-
> ments about the universe, but that the universe is a reflection of what
> is in the mind itself. The workings of consciousness are becoming an
> object of scientific reflection. Physicist Bob Toben has called
> consciousness 'the totality beyond space-time' and 'the missing hidden
> variable in the structuring of matter'.58 Other physicists such as John
> Wheeler," David Bohm 60 and Fritjof Capra," albeit in varying degrees,
> have invoked mystery, holism, philosophy, and eastern mysticism, and,
> most important, the role of the mind itself, in bringing science and
> religion closer together. Consequently, it is rather more likely that the
> 'Grand Unified Theory' will work on a larger scale, uniting the timeless
> truths of philosophy; mysticism and religion with a scientific world-view.
> Sir Arthur Eddington, who was knighted in 1930 for his con-
> tribution to astrophysics, wrote these telling words about the
> centrality of the mind itself in relation to science:
> 
> Recognizing that the physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality
> apart from its linkage to consciousness, we restore consciousness to the
> fundamental position instead of representing it as an inessential complication
> occasionally found in the midst of inorganic nature at a late stage of
> evolutionary history... all features of consciousness alike lead into the external
> world of physics. 62
> 30                      UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> In another celebrated Eddington phrase, he said crisply: 'The
> stuff of the world is mind stuff.'''
> Now, that which is nearest the self is and must be personal. Mind
> or consciousness is not only nearest the self. In onc sense, it is the self.
> The synthesizing scientists mentioned above (and there are a number
> of others) are telling us that the further we advance into science, the
> further we travel both within and without; the deeper we travel into
> outer space, the more we penetrate inner space. Unavoidably, with
> mind, both the personal and the spiritual begin to unfold. These
> scientists have already begun to realise the implications of a more
> personal view of the universe, one that does not destroy the
> foundations of science but rather augments and complements its
> morc traditional views. Science in and of itself cannot furnish a total
> 'world-view', for it is only the parr, not the whole. The total world-
> view must necessarily derive from both science and religion.
> Philosophy has a central role to play in the new synthesis of
> religion and science. However, its limitations must be recognised.
> Within its ordinary constraints, philosophy does not venture beyond
> the objective and the detached. Although analysis, objectivity and
> rational constraint constitute philosophy's strengths, they are also at
> the same time its weakness and limitation. Earnest seekers beg for
> experience. They want not only to analyse and describe, but also to
> taste. They wish, not only to describe flight, but to fly. They are
> seekers after God. We arc bound, at some point on this journey, to leave
> the excogitations of philosophy behind to strive to enter the mystical
> realm, to go beyond theory and engage inpraxis [ = theory + practice].
> Mysticism is characterised paradoxically both by silence and by
> dialogue. In silence, one speaks with oneself and in dialogue we enter
> into conversation with others. When we enter the realm of the
> mystical, we realise that the universe is speaking to us as the reflection
> of a living God who without being a person is nonetheless a personal
> Being in the most intimate sense. The universe during such experi-
> ences becomes transformed, as viewed through Buber's categories,
> from an impersonal and remote 'it' into a living 'Thou'.64 The leaves
> on the trees and the blades of grass, every living thing declares
> mystery and rapture in a transpersonal language that is intensely
> bright with colour and meaning. In that moment, all our senses come
> THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE                              31
> 
> alive from out of the numbness of our half-knowing. In this vision
> of things, the world is, in 'Abdu'l-Baha's phrase, 'beautiful in colour
> and redolent of fragrance in the kingdom of God'.á' Thus mysticism,
> like science itself, heightens consciousness in an acute way.
> Erwin Schrodinger (1887-1961) not only discovered a form of
> wave mechanics (Schrodinger's wave equation) and won the Nobel
> Prize for physics in 1933, but also wrote lucid mystical prose replete
> with poetic feeling. The following is a passage that Schrodinger
> wrote about the relationship of our oneness with 'Mother Nature'
> experienced in the eternal now. This gifted physicist was at the same
> time able to envision and experience nature in a hypostatic mode.
> 
> Thus you can throw yourself flat on the ground. stretched out upon Mother
> Earth, with the ccnain conviction that you are onc with her and she with you.
> You are as finnly established. 3S invulnerable. as she - indeed. a thousand times
> finner and more invulnerable. As surely as she will engulf you tomorrow, so
> surely will she bring you forth anew to new striving and suffering. And not
> merely 'some day': now, today, every day she is bringing you forth. not once,
> but thousands upon thousands of times. just 3S every day she enguHs you a
> thousand times over. For eternally and always there is only now. one and the
> same now; the present is the only thing thai has no end. M
> 
> She sounds like a living being, a personal being, does she not? Just
> symbol and metaphor? Perhaps. But at the heart of Schrodinger's
> statement is a profound personal relationship of communion with
> something that is both within and beyond oneself.
> At the heart of the personal realm beckons the experience of
> prayer and meditation and our discovery of that living and loving
> Spirit who cares for each of His creatures and all their move-
> ments, trials. thoughts and aspirations, just as if this one poor
> solitary creature had been the sole object of all of His loving and
> creating. God is the essence and epitome of all that is personal. His
> creation consequently, when perceived according to its divine
> intention, cannot be anything other than personal. This person-
> hood includes as much the mind of the scientist as that of the
> mystic - which arc increasingly coming to be recognized as one
> and the same mind.
> 32                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOlE TREE
> 
> The Cosmic Space Traveller
> and the Oneness of the Spiritual Universe
> 
> Today's cosmic space travellers must summon up the same courage
> as the great explorers of the Renaissance who set their very lives in
> the balance, and relying on the new theories of Copernican science,
> set out in their little Caravels to explore far-away continents across
> vast oceans. Unlike some Renaissance adventurers, however, today's
> cosmic space traveller will always return safe from his spiritual
> wanderings. Indeed he will be more alive than ever, for his travels will
> have added to his perceptions and knowledge. Just as the Renaissance
> explorers discovered one 'round' geophysical world, the cosmic space
> traveller of today will also discover the spherical unity of the 'great
> chain of being'.
> The critical thinker may be sceptical of this purported oneness. Yet
> certain commonalities in the world's religions have been identified by
> the Perennialist Aldous Huxley as his 'four fundamental doctrines','7
> by Joachim Wach in his chapter on 'Universals in Religion'," and in
> Friedrich Heiler's 'seven principal areas of unity?'" to name but a few.
> Further, the unity of the great religions is either implicit or explicit
> in the writings of several of the outstanding comparative religionists
> and scholars of religion today such as Huston Smith,'O Wilfred
> Cantwell Smith 71 and Frithjof Schuon. 72 That such a common core
> might not lend itself to a rigid codification or universal assent still
> does not invalidate the reality of the oneness of spiritual truth. The
> sceptic who doubts such affirmations suffers from spiritual myopia.
> He lacks that susceptibility that philosopher-poet George Santayana
> apdy expressed in describing Henri Bergson's idealism of the
> universal mind as a 'cosmic sensibility'.73
> The oneness of the spiritual universe is a given. Its giver is God.
> It is as much 'one' as the world that we see every day with physical
> eyes but are unable to conceive in totality. As we need the
> perspective of altitude in space to observe the geophysical oneness
> of this planet, so too we require a higher and broader vision of
> spiritual truth to perceive the metaphysical oneness of the great
> religions. The oneness of truth is as much a pure gift as the 'being'
> of the physical world we now inhabit. But unlike the physical
> THE BooK OF KNOWLEDGE                         33
> 
> universe that we take for granted upon the undeniable evidence of
> its existence, we are still loath to accept the oneness of the spiritual
> universe. Even though we have known for centuries that the earth
> was 'round' (spherical), it was not until our beautiful blue planet,
> partially veiled in stratospheric clouds, was photographed in the
> cold darkness of infinite space, that we became fully conscious that
> 'the earth is one country'.74 The time is soon coming when the
> consciousness of the oneness of the spiritual universe will be as
> widely accepted as the geophysical oneness of our planet.
> For whatever journey we plot for ourselves and in whichever
> direction we travel, some things are inevitable. All spiritual explorers
> share the same human condition. We are all born, live, love and laugh,
> suffer and die. If we so choose, mariners may meet in the 'midmost
> hean' of the ocean. 75 And in our cosmic rendezvous, we shall discover
> that the ocean of existence which has given life to all, and upon which
> we all sail for a time our little craft, is common property, claimed,
> shared and cherished by every sailor.
> The new synthesis of metaphysics, spirituality and science that is
> being forged by the brightest minds today beckons us to explore a
> unified cosmos to which Huxley's bold and imaginative title 'brave
> new world' (borrowed from Shakespeare) might truly apply. The
> new synthetic science will have as profound an effect on the unity
> of humanity as the Copernican Revolution did on the obsolete
> geocentric theories of the first Italian Renaissance. Every spiritual
> explorer who goes journeying today will find that he or she has
> contributed to the making of a new map, whose vastness is as yet
> unrealised - the chart of the human soul and the commonality of the
> world's great religions - two of the brightest reflections of the Divine
> Mind. This map will reflect a new creation, outlining the shapes and
> patterns of the spiritual potentialities inherent in the new world
> order. Bathed in light, it will far eclipse in detail and depth the
> geophysical maps of old.
> THE FRAGRANCE OF SPIRITUALITY
> Spirituality: A Shart Definitian
> Spirituality, for centuries confined to the house of worship, the convent
> or hermitage, the monastic hall or the divinity school, has by now
> entered the home, the office, the secular institution of learning and
> society at large. Two fundamentals of spirituality are devotion and service
> to God and humanity. How can we better serve God and the human
> family? In answering this question, we shall come closer to an
> understanding of spirituality. We serve God through love, prayer, self-
> sacrifice, charitable deeds, through striving to know and to love God and
> His friends, by teaching others, by pioneering into new realms of service.
> Some serve God by study, writing, teaching and research. By
> examining our own confused thoughts, we may make them less
> obscure and thereby illumine with a little light our own lives and the
> lives of our friends. We may serve God, too, through contemplation,
> and as Milton said, by patience in difficulties, by standing and waiting
> - 'They also serve who only stand and wait" - watching the divine
> plan unfold in our long hours, anticipating His presence and working
> through the greater and lesser tests of life.
> No understanding of spirituality can be merely academic, for this
> would be a travesty of its true spirit which demands continual
> practice. The spiritual life makes eloquent testimony of itself. It needs
> no other proof.
> 
> Analogies on Crystals and a Spirituality of Imperfection 2
> Few things in nature seem more perfect than a crystal. Geologists tell
> us that the perfection of the crystal results from its very large
> 
> 38                    UNDER THE DIVINE lOlE TREE
> 
> numbers of atoms or molecules that are concentrated in near-perfect
> mathematical alignment. Rarely is even one atom in a thousand out
> of line with another. But many crystals could not have grown into
> luminous multi-coloured gems without imperfections. The colour of
> gemstones, for example, is due mainly to imperfections. Imper-
> fections enable the atoms within crystals to move about and chemical
> reactions to take place. Crystals and gemstones owe their special
> characteristics of beauty and perfection to flaws.
> These rudimentary notions of crystallography suggest rich
> analogies with spiritual development. The crystal is near-perfect
> because the design of its atomic structure is 'in line'. By analogy, the
> righteous soul is in line or conforms to the law of God: 'In all these
> journeys the traveller must stray not the breadth of a hair from the
> "Law", for this is indeed the secret of the "Path" and the fruit of the
> Tree of "Truth":' From this alignment the believer derives strength
> of character and spiritual beauty, and acquires perfections.
> Another commonplace but nonetheless useful comparison
> between crystallography and spirituality is the idea that every soul is
> a precious gem, each having its own particular hue or colour. Some
> gems are more common than others but they arc still nonetheless all
> beautiful. Some souls, like the blue or pink diamond, are rare and it
> is their rarity that makes them precious. When such souls shine with
> the light of virtue or reflect the lustrous depths of Lady Wisdom, we
> arc struck by their rich value. Rarer still than diamonds or pearls is
> the ruby. A ruby is by analogy any unique and precious soul, a deep,
> rich gem of inestimable value. Such a soul shines with the deep ruby
> red lustre of celestial love.
> The science of crystallography teaches us by analogy that JUSt as
> imperfections in the crystal cause its growth and produce its lasting
> beauty, human imperfections are an indispensable function of
> spiritual development. We do well to remind ourselves consequently
> that the imperfections that we often see in our own moral and psycho-
> logical make-up are but God's way of helping the soul to att.in th.t
> unattainable goal of spiritual perfection. For it is to the extent that
> the careful and conscientious individual strives to overcome character
> flaws that he or she draws closer to God. Imperfections can act as
> catalysts or reactors that precipitate alchemical changes in the life of
> THE FRAGRANCE OF SPIRITUALIlY                      39
> 
> the soul. But the soul in struggling against the imperfections of self
> not only acts and exercises free will and determination, but is also
> acted upon by the forces of divine confirmations. Through patience
> and effort and the ebb and flow of activity and passivity, such a soul
> gains colour, beauty and perfection, and just as important,
> individuality. Imperfections are, in Daniel C. Jordan's cogent little
> phrase, but the means for 'becoming your true self'.' The true
> jewellers and gem polishers of humanity are the prophets of God.
> 
> Divine Fragrance: Thoughts on on Anecdote
> The Baha'i writings speak in several passages of 'divine fragrance'.
> In the Kitab-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book) Baha'u'IJah says, for
> example, 'Happy is the lover that hath inhaled the divine fragrance
> of his Best-Beloved from these words, laden with the perfume of a
> grace which no tongue can describe." In the same book He writes
> that those who recite the verses of God 'in the most melodious
> of tones ...will inhale the divine fragrance of My worlds .. ." This
> phraseology, it st:,ems to me, is not just poetry.
> I propose here that divine fragrance is not only a poetic symbol
> but also a sensible substance. In the same way that perfume can be
> detected by the olfactory sense, the spiritual fragrance of an individual
> or a piece of writing, a musical composition, painting, sculpture, or
> other great work of art can be detected from the aesthetic atmosphere
> surrounding that individual or creative work. Although the scientist
> or the sceptic may doubt that anyone possesses an ability to tangibly
> detect spiritual fragrance from an aesthetic world just beyond the
> fringe, it is nonetheless as real as the scent of a woman passing, but
> alas, just as fleeting. It may be rare, but is nonetheless real, this ability
> to detect the fragrance of a work of art that is, in Keats's expression,
> both beautiful and true.'
> The question of a divine or spiritual fragrance poses the conundrum
> of a literal or figurative interpretation of Baha'i scripture, interpreta-
> tion that has to be seen in light of human experience. Faced with a
> literal and/or symbolic interpretation of those writings that mention
> divine fragrance, a reader may well ask if one can really inhale spiritual
> fragrance. The possibiliry should not be so quickly dismissed. Science
> 40                     UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> may tell us that scents cannot issue from nonexistent organic sources.
> Yet more than one soul will testify that the smell of roses permeated
> the air when there were none in the vicinity or that the scent of lilacs
> was strong where no garden was to be found.
> In addition to my own experiences, there are testimonials. I
> relate one of these here.' While travelling in England in July 1993, I
> met Mrs. Dorothy Brown at a fireside meeting to which I was
> invited to speak at the home of Roger and Muriel Wilkinson of
> Kendal, Cumbria. It was in fact Dorothy's decisive experience of
> the divine fragrance that had caused her to declare herself a Baha'i
> fifty years before. Dorothy recounted to me that when she had first
> heard of the Baha'i Faith, in her then sceptical frame of mind she
> had audaciously challenged her teacher Audrey Thompson by
> saying something to this effect: 'If this God of yours knows that the
> very hairs of your head are numbered, why doesn't He come and tap
> me on the shoulder?'
> At that very moment, Dorothy said, the room was suddenly filled
> with the unmistakable, overpowering scent of roses. Dorothy was not
> alone in smelling the fragrance. Audrey smelled it too, and, Dorothy
> said, she turned as white as a sheet. As for Dorothy, she required no
> further proof. She was transformed by this experience and became a
> believer. Dorothy trembled as she told the story, recalling her audac-
> ity at the time in challenging God in such a bold way. The scientist or
> the sceptic who would like to explain the experience in terms of the
> imagination stimulating chemical reactions in the brain would have to
> explain not only what stimulus caused the reaction, but also how two
> people could share the same experience simultaneously. Doubtless
> they did not share the same brain.
> I found further confirmation about divine fragrance a few days
> later in Caernarfon, North Wales, when I was visiting my friend
> Robert Parry. While there, I came across this text as I was reading
> the Baha'i writings one morning:
> 
> He will come to your aid with invisible hosts, and support you with armies
> of inspiration from the Concourse above; He will send unto you sweet
> perfumes from the highest Paradise. and waft over you the pure breathings
> that blow from the rose gardens of the Company on high.'
> THE FRAGRANCE OF $PIRITUAUTY                      41
> 
> It is entirely possible that this text refers to a state that is other
> than a purely symbolic, a state where the spiritual and the physical
> meet in perfect correspondence.
> I have not concluded, however, that the individual who experiences
> such occurrences possesses any rare or mystical gifts. Such experiences,
> though they may count as personal confirmations, are incidental and
> not basic to faith. They can be meaningful for no one but the individ-
> ual who experiences them. In terms of a proof of faith, the anecdote
> that I have related above must be classified as weak; it falls into the same
> category as miracles. These are proofs for those who see (or in this case
> smell), but not proofs for those who have not seen (or smelled) 10 -
> privileged proofs, one might call them, valid for the individual only. I
> look upon such experiences, nonetheless, as tangible expressions of the
> existence of spiritual substances, the 'proof' that the Holy Spirit at
> times allows itself to be verified by other than rational means. In this
> case, the means are through the senses, which are paradoxically in other
> situations quite unreliable and at times very misleading.
> That one may conceive of the fragrance of spirituality in this way,
> as a real perfume emanating from the bower of heaven, does not
> indicate the wholesale adoption of a thorough-going scriptural
> literalism. There are, however, many things which defy explanation
> and which exist nonetheless. Spiritual fragrance is a sign, albeit rare,
> of the divine presence, a vital manifestation from that 'prayer-
> hearing, prayer-answering God'lI who is able to touch seekers
> directly with a message from His presence as a loving token and
> grace, as a confirmation from a world beyond. Spiritual fragrance
> means that Spirit is sensible 12 - and must be - while we are still in
> the world, as sensible as the fragrance of the spring rains and the
> moistening earth that release the fragrance of the flower and the
> myriad other forms that come to life from within the earth.
> 
> Happiness for its Own Sake
> We can venture only so far into an understanding of happiness, for
> happiness is above all to be lived rather than analysed. Although
> much has been written and said about the nature of happiness, this
> pearl of great price remains an inexhaustible theme. I contrast this
> 42                     UNDER THE DIVINE lOlE TREE
> 
> view of happiness with the one that says happiness is a by-product
> of something else, of virtuous living, for example. Although this no
> doubt m;y be true, it will not prove true in every case. For one may
> well be virtuous but not happy, although it docs not follow that one
> can be happy and vicious.
> The world has its own kind of happiness, what I call the spirit of
> living for the world alone." This is that sense of well-being which
> ignores the spiritual realm, and gets along quite happily according to
> the comfortable ways of natural law. sociability and human sentiment.
> I t is the way of happiness that takes what the world has to offer and
> does so with a happy heart. Most people seek happiness this way and
> doubtless many find this kind of happiness in the world for a while.
> The happiness the world has to offer is, however, by nature not
> durable, and so proves to be. It will escape us in the end. But by fixing
> our attention on end things we shall not be deceived.
> Living for the world alone cannot procure divine happiness. Divine
> happiness resides in another order of being. It is based, not upon
> natural sentiment, that is, neither the subtle or volatile emotions, but
> upon what 'Abdu'I-Bah:i calls 'spiritual susceptibilities'." This means
> being susceptible or open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, the
> lofty thoughts that filter down from the ether of divine knowledge,
> and enjoying the satisfaction that comes in the conscious realisation
> of being created in the divine image and of fulfilling a divine purpose.
> This is trile happiness. While the man or woman born of the Spirit
> may share with anyone all the legitimate pleasures and joys that life
> offers, the man or woman lacking a spiritual mind cannot share in the
> delights of faith and certitude and the satisfaction of deciphering the
> geometry. of the mind of God.
> I oppose the notion of self-existent happiness to the concept of
> happiness as functionality, to its being dependent upon observing
> ethical practices, rules or norms. I am not advocating, of course, the
> flaunting of the momllaw. I am rather seeking that flight of mystic
> joy, of unrestmined celebration, a relaxation of the self-directed will,
> a laying down of the burden of self, a forgetting of sin. Happiness is
> a gift to be cherished and celebrated merely because it is a divine
> birthright, in the nalUre of things. If I think otherwise, then I must
> also think that I must perform a, band c in order to be happy. In other
> THE FRAGRANCE Of SPIRITUAUTY                      43
> 
> words, that I must deserve my happiness. Such thoughts can in fact
> be counter-productive to the creation of the very happiness I seek.
> For at what point are we competent to judge that we have done
> enough to deserve to be happy? The happiness I seek comes as an 'ode
> to joy'. It is simply for the thing itself, because of the thing itself.
> Such happiness is like the smile. You may be smiling because you
> are happy. But some people smile because they love to smile. They
> smile for no other special reason. If you ask someone 'Why are you
> smiling?' they may say 'Because I am getting married today', or
> simply 'Because I like to smile'. It is in the nature of the human
> being to enjoy and to share in happiness. Happiness is a free gift, a
> gratuitous act. And this ever-present consciousness that happiness is
> a free gift in the nature of things, as the greatest bestowal of God,
> causes the perpetuation, increase and re-creation of happiness.
> We should not be deceived by the appearance that others enjoy
> a greater happiness than ourselves. For happiness, like water, finds
> its own level. To envy those who seem happier is illusion. Happiness
> coexists simultaneously at several levels and in this sense happiness
> is relative. At any time, we may find ourselves ascending to a higher
> level or descending to a lower one. So we rejoice at our own level.
> Happiness is the possession of all those who love God.
> Birds are happy when they fulfil their own natures; when they can
> make nests and find the seed necessary to ensure their survival. But
> for human happiness, we must look beyond material necessity.
> ~bdu'l-Baha said the cow lived 'blissfully',1> not merely because the
> cow was created by God, and so is blessed, but because the cow
> 'knows' a kind of sensual happiness. 'Untroubled'l6 it enjoys the
> fulfilment of its bodily functions; chewing the sweet grass, giving
> milk and grazing undisturbed. This must be a kind of happiness.
> However, the happiness of the material mind and the worldly-wise is
> not the happiness of the spiritual soul. Those who have experienced
> spiritual happiness know what it is.
> There is another consideration. Many things will eclipse this happi-
> ness of mine, if only for a time: ill health, misfortune, relationships gone
> bad, the death of loved ones, and not least of all, my own ignorance or
> folly. But spiritual happiness has the power to shine through the clouds
> of mental and emotional disarray, bringing healing in its wings.
> 44                      UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> 'Abdu'I-Bah. qualifies as truly noble those who are happy in the
> midst of trials:
> 
> In circumstances of ease and comfort. health and well-being, gratification and
> felicity, anyone can live contentedly; but to remain happy and contented in
> the face of difficulty, hardship and the onslaught of disease and sickness -
> this is an indication of nobility, 17
> 
> For when life is good, and one can 'feed on the fat of the land'
> (Gen. 45:18)," it is easy to be happy. It is at this relatively low level
> of unchallenged happiness that most people function. But when we
> realise that happiness exists for its own sake, as a gift from God who
> desires happiness for us, we can rejoice in spite of adverse conditions.
> It is those who are happy in the end who shall be truly happy.
> 
> Sun and Shadow
> When we choose to stand in the light of the sun, our shadow side is
> unavoidably going to be revealed. When we see our shadow, we
> contemplate that great dark void, the vast potential of formless non-
> entities that have not yet become well-defined spiritual attributes.
> OUf   shadow is a reminder that our dark side is an ever-present
> condition of the light, a symbol both of what we are and what we
> might still be. Above all, we are reminded that in this world, sun and
> shadow dwell ever together.
> 
> Divine Doring, and Fear and Trembling
> in the Pilgrim's Heart
> We must be not only willing but also daring enough to venture to
> enter the mysterious and majestic presence of the sacred. For the
> blessed few, that daring may have been realised as a real encounter
> in historical time with a holy figure. Sometimes it is expressed as
> an arduous search for truth, or by sacrificing oneself for a worthy
> cause or loved one. Sometimes it means to venture bravely into the
> mountains and valleys of the mystical or to plunge into the heart of
> prayer or to pioneer into new realms. But wherever such daring leads,
> THE FRAGRANCE OF SPIRITUALITY                   45
> 
> spiritual life cannot be truly experienced without audacity, without
> the spirit of adventure.
> Without this daring, one cannot experience divine confirmations.
> Without this daring, the depths of love could not be brought to the
> surface of human relationships from the most profound recesses of
> the heart. Without this daring, the pilgrim soul could not receive
> the tangible spiritual proofs and evidences coming from the bounty
> of God. Without this daring, heroic souls could not become the
> robber barons who 'seize and possess the hearts of men'" for their
> sovereign lord.
> We know from historical accounts that some Baha'i pilgrims, when
> they first saw an individual whom they misperceived to be 'Abdu'l-
> Bah., felt their spirits crushed. Plunged into momentary despair, such
> souls might have lost faith had the Master not soon appeared to fulfil
> all their expectations and fill their hearts with His love. But what is
> interesting in these cases of momentary disappointment is that the
> great expectation, the fear and trembling that first arose in the
> pilgrim's heart, both precipitated the test of the believer's faith and
> at the same time allowed for its satisfactory resolution.
> Now there is to be sure a certain risk in going into the presence
> of the Chosen Ones of God, a risk that we will be found out, that
> our life and character with all its warts will be exposed. Some feared
> this and did not gO.20 But the heavenly love let loose in the believer's
> heart for these Holy Beings was so oceanic that it overcame any fear
> of inadequacy. In place of fear, the pilgrim felt comfortably at home.
> The strange irony is that the pilgrim was found out anyway but in a
> way not anticipated - with. gentle lifting of the veil .nd with the
> greatest courtesy, sometimes with merely a kind word, a look or a
> glance. This truer insight into the inadequacies of self was .Iso part
> of the bounty of the pilgrimage, one facet of the benediction.
> Now if one thinks of these Sacred Figures as divine assayers, as
> celestial jewellers who are able to gaze into the divine gem of the
> soul and tell its worth at a glance, one should also consider the
> mercy of their sin-covering eye. It is good to think about this sin-
> covering eye, that these Great Ones did not see the flaws - or if they
> did, overlooked them with that divine magnanimity that the critical
> mind prone to look for the fault cannot understand. They looked,
> 46                     UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> not at the cracks and dark spots that beclouded the lustre, but
> instead marvelled at the gem that was shining with the love of God.
> 
> The Silence of the Sacred
> The sacred has a myriad methods of touching the human soul, in
> drawing the spirit to itself. Sometimes the sacred will gently invade
> the citadel of the soul as the touch of a soft breeze or the caress of
> a whisper. In such moments, we experience a wcicome, temporary
> suspension of our busy senses. All creation seems to hold its breath
> while the sacred whispers its secret mysteries to our enchanted ears.
> Now the cosmic voice has faded to the faintest echo. We listen for
> the songs of the spirit and enter the unmistakable realm of sacred
> time. We dare not utter a sound, for the spoken word might break
> the fragile silence. }f"'b....
> What shall we call the sacred? How shall we name the holy? We
> know not how to name the unnamable. If we write down the Beloved's
> name, we shall profane the memory. We ponder in our hearts the sweet,
> silent lessons of love. The silence of the sacred is eternal. It is always
> there. Patiently. it awaits our rapt attention. longing to fill our souls
> with peace. to enchant us with mysteries. to transport us to the Elysian
> Fields. to the blessed isles of the West.
> 
> The Void of Forgetting
> In Mahayana Buddhism, the notion of Shm,ayata (Sk.= emptiness,
> void) is fundamental. I consider here the Buddhist notion of the
> void simply as the departure point for a personal reflection on the
> void as forgetting. a void that comes in the form of grace. This
> emptying of the mind is a cleansing. a suspension of the ego-drives
> of minutes. hours. days or months ago. drives that no longer compel
> the ego to seck their fulfilment in yiolation of the voices of reason
> and wisdom. The ambitious project that was once under way. that
> waybill of the ego's plans and schemes. has been voided.
> A power exists in prayer. in a dream or even in a dreamless sleep
> that can void the selfish desire, or the strongest of impulses, that
> craving for ego fulfilment. Once we descend into the void. the slate
> THE FRAGRANCE OF SPIRITUAlITY                  47
> 
> of the mind is wiped clean. Distorted or unhappy memories are
> erased from the psyche and the tentative script of the writer's vain
> imaginings, the half-formed letters of all those hazy or impossible
> dreams that once seemed legitimate and true.
> The restless mind and the wayward heart pursue their own self-
> interest. And self-interest, I should note, is not always selfish
> interest. But sometimes the seemingly legitimate needs, plans and
> schemes of the moment are voided in the interests of the
> development of a greater self and a more magnanimous plan. The
> void of forgetting is a sign that a greater power is at work, evidence
> that a greater will has countermanded a lesser one. It remains to be
> seen whether or not the void will find acceptance in the seeker's
> mind or rather prove to be mere suspension.
> For now, the desires of the heart will have to wait. Let the seeker
> who desires to know the Will of God watch and wait, be patient,
> reflect, consider the movements of her own soul, experiment, seek
> and discover. Let the seeker pray earnestly and supplicate at every
> moment that she be alert enough to discern the Will of God and
> content enough to dwell happily in the now-of-what-God-has-
> ordained. The seeker will thus come to know whether or not the
> waybill of the self-directed project is to be stamped with approval
> or be declared void. She will see whether or not it conforms to the
> will of self or the Will of God, or both.
> 
> Mirza Abu'I-FoQI's Humility and One's Gifts
> and Accomplishments2l
> The great Baha'i scholar-saint and 'learned apologist'" Mirza Abu'l-
> Fapl (pron. Fazel) is said to have wept on occasion when his friends
> and admirers paid him a compliment. More than simply embarrassed
> by such effusions of praise, he wept perhaps because he knew to
> whom he really owed his gifts. Mfrza Abu'I-Fapl knew that the
> measure of his achievement was in no way proportional to its source,
> the grace of Baha'u'llah. As a true Baha'i scholar, he wrote only out
> of a desire to love Baha'u'llah more perfectly and for a love of truth.
> I well imagine that Abu'I-Fapl, in a spirit of loving-kindness, was
> often grateful for the kind words spoken in his favour by his friends.
> 48                        UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> But he knew that what friends and admirers eulogized in him was
> nothing other than what Baha'u'llah had chosen to reveal. Mirza's
> tearful reaction to praise suggests that he felt it was not fitting to
> applaud the vehicle, that praise of the instrument in some sense
> devalued the Celestial Composer. His pain was that his admirers
> were not always conscious of this.
> Praising the vehicle or the instrument is somewhat like praising
> a beautiful woman or a handsome man for beauty or good looks.
> Though they may enjoy the compliment, what merit do they
> possess in being beautiful? They did not earn it but rather came by
> the gift through inheritance or good fortune.
> Some may disagree with my drawing analogies between a man or
> a woman's beauty and the accomplishments of the learned because
> the scholar works hard for success and thus deserves it. Beauty is
> not gained through striving but knowledge, according to the
> principle of just deserts, is gained by dint of effort, nOt granted.
> What I am considering here, however, is that the very capacity for
> discipline or insight. for learning and achievement, has itself a
> source. It did not create itself. The ultimate source does not lie
> within the individual. It lies with Baha'u'llah. The learned merely
> share in the bounty that He has bestowed. Of course, unless one
> exercises the gift or strives to fulfil the potential, one cannot share
> in that bounty. What would be regrettable is that one would not
> develop the gift nor cultivate the fallow ground.
> Nor should false humility playa part in the recognition of one's
> successes, for Shoghi Effendi has qualified this as 'hypocritical' and
> 'unworthy of a true Baha'I':
> 
> There is nothing more harmful to the individual-and also to society - than
> false humility which is hypocritical, and hence unworthy of a true Baha'i. The
> true believer is one who is conscious of his strength as we1l as his weakness .. ,23
> 
> It is rather simply a question of recognizing the True Source of all
> gifts. The potter honours the vessel. The vessel does not honour itself.
> The vessel may well be admired but it is the potter who receives the
> praise. This is one of the meanings of non dignus sum (Lat. = I am not
> worthy), a phrase so often on the lips of the great ones of old.
> THE FRAGRANCE OF SPIRITUALITY                    49
> 
> Hearl's Desire
> 
> Somewhere at the end of this multi-coloured rainbow, at journey's
> end, lies the fulfilment of all the desires of the heart. The greatest of
> these is that He might love us, bestow upon us the breath of life,
> make us His own and grant us that greatest and most unimaginable
> of all pure graces - to live with Him forever.
> FIRE AND LIGHT
> love is Cognitive
> The logician imagines that the cognitive statement is the impregnable
> fortress of human thought because it clearly distinguishes true from
> false. When the false is eliminated, truth remains, pure, incon-
> trovertible, unambiguous rational thought. According to this logic,
> pure rationality affords the highest possible degree of certitude. Such
> confidence endows the cognitive statement with epistemological
> authority, that much sought-after prize cherished by the scientifically
> minded. But love, I argue, falls as much as logic within the realm of
> the cognitive, for love toO is rational. The cognitive distinguishes the
> true from the false. Love also proves to be true or false. Consequently
> love is cognitive. True love is at the same time real, rational and
> endowed with authority. False love is unreal, irrational and unbeliev-
> able. Pascal, who proved himself both as mystic and mathematician,
> comes to mind. His famous dictum says: 'Le coeur a ses raisons que la
> raison ne connait pas' (The heart has its reasons which reason does not
> know). His next line, not so well known, is equally beautiful: 'We feel
> it in a thousand things: Then he says: 'Is it by reason that you love
> yourself?'! Love's reasons far surpass those of logic.
> 
> love Divine
> The mystical experience described in paragraph three of the essay below began
> in a mundane moment that quickly became transfonned into an extraordinary
> event. It occurred one Saturday evening after supper as I was preparing to go out.
> 1 was actually standing at the ironing board pressing my clothes - a thoroughly
> mundane activity. Although I did not note the exact time and date, the experience
> 
> 54                         UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> took place at about 70 'clock hI the evening itl (ájlber March or April - in central
> Canada a transition time between winter and spring.
> It was already quite dark outside but a strangely comrasting luminosity
> played agaimt the horizml. It was unusually mild that even big a"d a warmish
> wind was blowing. I opened wide the balcony doors to look outside and let
> the fresh air into the apartnumt. The umtsual combinati01I of luminosity and
> the movement of the 'warnl u";lld in the branches ofthe trees Olftside created a
> strange. eerie atmosphere. I had returned to the ironing board and picked up
> the iron again, when suddenly I became conscious ofan unmistakable mental
> and spiritual transformation, This experience was not dramatic. as some other
> mystical experiences of mi"e have been. but it 'W'as "onetheless just as real,
> The preclailing state was a pervasive peace and a sublime. hea7,.'enly love that I
> had never before knUliln and the quiet, assured, undisturbed consciousness ofa higher;
> living present'e, Although my everyday state ofconsciollSness was momentarily sig-
> lIificantiyaltered, I remained 1I0netheless very much mysel[and I u'as fully aware
> ofthe change that had come over me. I had bem IfShered illtoa higber,purerimi-
> mation ofdivine life, This mystic visitation came. as it sometimes does. in a time of
> great duress alld so brought a wollderful consolation. The troubled tboughts I had
> been experiendng only minutes before had completely disappeared. The real sel[had
> emerged within the real wor/d. I "'as experiencillg aforetaste ofhe""ell, that divine
> love which is all peace and ""hich sustains the life ofboth heavell alld earth.
> 
> 'Abdu'I-Baha says that there are only four types of love: (1) the
> love of God for man (2) the love of man for God (3) the love of
> God for the Self of God (4) the love of man for man (humanity for
> one another).' The love I write of here is the first type: 'the love that
> flows from God to man'.J He says that 'this love is the origin of all
> the love in the world of creation'.'
> Human love when practised selflessly by lovers is a beautiful and
> noble thing. All too often. however. as the great love stories of
> literature attest and as daily experience reveals. human love can be
> pain-filled and contradictory. full of longing. struggle and regret. In
> its more dramatic and darker manifestations. death and tragedy result.
> Heavenly love. divine love. in marked contrast. issues from a realm
> that is all peace. This type of love cannot. however. be reduced to
> peace alone. for such love is more than peace. It is peace and eternal
> life. Heavenly love. as its name indicates. is born in heaven and
> FIRE AND LIGHT                            55
> 
> envelops the world in all its graces. This is a love that is solemn and
> sacred but without severity. It is an extraordinarily great love, moving
> within the inmost heart of the world but still suffusing all things
> above and below. This is a love both lucid and still, a love that enriches
> to the point where we feel enabled to easily dispense with all else. It
> is human love, personal love, but purified and detached, expanded,
> heightened, strengthened. It seeps into the depths of the All and
> circulates throughout the veins and arteries of the body of the
> cosmos, moving with a great regularity, like the life-giving flow of
> blood that sustains the whole body and on which it depends. It
> bestows 'the peace of God which passeth all understanding'.'
> Heavenly love moves in that coincidence of opposites in which
> all things are passing away and simultaneously being born anew at
> every moment. It is a love that exists in the paradox of eternity that
> contains past, present and future alike, both death and eternal life.
> When, by some mysterious grace of God, such a love enters our
> heart, we have no troubled thought. There is no cry of anguish, no
> utterance of pain, sorrow or regret. The soul is wrapped in equanimity.
> It lives in eternity. For a moment it dwells in heaven on earth. This
> form of heavenly love brings balance and peace of mind to the soul
> and liberates all its faculties. Through the aegis of love divine,
> everyday waking consciousness is transcended and the soul is lifted
> up to some higher station but remains at the same time grounded in
> itself. It exists both in the heights and in the depths. This love enriches
> as nothing else can.
> When love divine invades your heart, you will recognize yourself
> as another self, purified, stabilised and brought to some great fulfil-
> ment. Through love divine the soul auains maturity. You will become
> as the ocean itself, hugging the breast of the vast shores of earth.
> 
> True love
> True love does not complain of the pain endured in its path. It is a
> flourishing branch when once watered never dies. a yearning to
> break forth into the higher. purer realms of freedom and grace. True
> love is all at once an affirmation, an acceptance, an invitation and an
> embrace. a saying yes to God and yes again. This love causes us to
> 56                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOlE TREE
> 
> emerge from the hell fire of doubt, denial and despair into the
> affirmation of belief and trust and dispenses that power divine
> which God has bestowed upon humanity for the dispelling of grief.
> It grants the gift of solace to the world.
> True love is the most sublime instrument for uniting all hearts. It
> points the way to peace and concord and makes a way for the willing
> heart to find love's reasons in the face of an arbitrary and irrational
> spirit. True love will never knowingly seck to disappoint or hurt
> another and will give freely of itself without asking recompense. It
> makes light of time, place and age, builds bridges across the void of
> days and the diversity of human experience.
> Such love knows neither race, colour nor hue bue lifts up its voice
> to sing the sweet song of the universal. True love is everywhere and
> always the same. It is here and now. Its re-creation lies in the genesis
> of its own experience, a perpetual, self-replenishing stream of healing
> waters, a balm to each sick and sorry soul) an inspiration to every
> aspiring heart. True love decks out the festal board of fellowship and
> invites the honoured guest, the special friend to come and sup at the
> banquet table of God's love.
> True love is a communion of the heans, a meeting of the minds,
> and a taking of delight in the company of God's loved ones. It is an
> ever-awakening and perpetual discovery of the beauties of soul of all
> those who walk the spiritual path. It discovers at each new and
> wondrous turn a springtime of joy. True love brings stimulation to
> the mind and refinement of the sensibilities. Through the force of
> this all-conquering love, humanity will be irresistibly drawn to that
> common bond of unity which shall doubtless conquer the ugly
> spectacle of malice, discord, hate and war.
> True love turns to face the fearful shadows that stalk us at every
> turn and dispels them with nothing but a word from Him. It opens
> the eyes of the blind and becomes eyes to those who cannot see. It
> lightens the burden of those who are in misery and sets them free.
> True love is the only hope we may hold in store for the present and
> future happiness of the human race. Within the graceful, soaring
> wings of this white dove of peace lie concealed every inestimable
> grace that God has chosen to bestow upon His people. It is, in sum,
> our final salvation and our only hope. It is our first and last prayer.
> FIRE AND LIGHT                           57
> 
> Perfect Faith Means the Then is Now
> 
> Trust in God, which Baha'u'ILih says is 'the source of all good',' is a
> learned experience. An intellectual understanding of trust will not
> serve in moments of crisis. It is, moreover, precisely in moments of
> crisis that we learn to trust God, not with our heads hut with our
> hearts, and with every fibre of our being. Nothing less will bring us
> safely through adversity. Like so many other realities in spiritual life,
> there is something mysterious in this process of trust. We may try,
> we may falter for as long as it takes, but if we persist through our
> pain we shall discover in one sublime moment that wonderful
> release that comes with truly placing 'all our affairs" in His hands.
> As we learn to trust God, we learn also to grow in faith, for faith is
> essentially trust (Gr.pistis). Christ admonished us to be as perfect as
> our heavenly Father when He said: 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as
> your Father which is in heaven is perfect." I understand this
> admonition to mean that we are called to have perfect faith.That
> formidable word 'perfect' found in Christ's admonition suggests
> something redoubtable, a perfection impossible to attain but one that
> we cannot help striving for because perfection in the individual sug-
> gests not only moral integrity but also beauty of character.
> What does it mean to have perfect faith? There are many meanings
> to the phrase. One primary meaning, however, has already been
> indicated by both Christ and Baha'u'llah. It is the sure knowledge that
> what one has asked of God has already been received. The person of
> perfect faith already lives in that future condition when the petition
> has been granted. Stated simply, perfect faith means the then is now.
> Christ said in SI. Matthew's Gospel: 'And all things whatsoever ye
> shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.'á In The Seven Valleys
> Bahi'u'llah alludes to that spiritual condition of being able to see the
> end in the beginning. He writes of the mystic wayfarers in the Valley
> of Knowledge: 'Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowl-
> edge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and
> friendliness in anger.''' For these pilgrims, the then is now.
> Seeing the end in the beginning or believing the prayer of petition
> has already been granted depends upon a certain visionary experience
> of seeing the future in the present. Baha'u'llah certainly knew of the
> 58                     UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> difficulty of attaining this condition when He wrote of it, of how
> trying it is for frail human beings to see a victorious end when they
> feel as if they are only at the beginning of their journey or still in the
> thick of their troubles. Yet for all His great compassion, this is
> nonetheless the spiritual condition that He calls us to allain.
> Baha'u'llah says something quite astonishing in the Prayers and
> Meditations that bears on this theme: 'I bear witness that Thou hadst
> turned toward Thy servants ere [before ] they had turned toward Thee,
> and hadst remembered them ere they had remembered Thee.'" I take
> this text to refer to both God and Baha'u'lIah, for according to the
> belief in divine unity, divine omniscience is a special attribute of the
> Divine Manifestation. Baha'u'lIah, as the Manifestation of God, not
> only knows the question before it is asked - He grants the request
> before it is made. Put differently in Aristotelian terms, He knows not
> only the potentiality but also the actuality, which in this case must be
> an actuality not yet realised or thus far not experienced in time. 'Abdu'l-
> Baha saw this actuality in the potentiality when, after He laid the
> dedication stone of the MotherTemple of the West in Wilmette, Illinois,
> on 1 May 1912 is reported to have said: 'The temple is already built.'12
> To render this idea somewhat clearer, we may try to imagine a full-
> grown oak tree while holding an acorn in our hand. We can imagine
> the acorn full-grown because we have seen other oak trees and are
> familiar with them. Although we can visualise the full-grown tree, we
> cannot actually see this particular oak full-grown when it is still a seed.
> But this is precisely what Baha'u'llah can do. He can see the very, indi-
> vidual oak in the acorn and see it as it will be. When He asks us to see
> the end in the beginning, He is asking us also to dare to have such faith.
> This prophetic power is not the same thing as mere clairvoyance
> or seeing into the future. For Bah.'u'lI.h not only grasps the person
> or the thing as he/she/it will be, but also sees into his/her/its very
> nature and understands the essence. This is a power that is reserved
> only for the Manifestations of God and differs categorically from
> those powers possessed by psychics and spiritual souls.
> When He says that He hears our prayer even before we have
> turned to Him, we begin to realise something of the unfathomable
> greatness of Baha'u'llih. Who has ever said before that He heard the
> rising dirge of our prayer while there was still the silence of despair?
> FIRE AND LIGHT                           59
> 
> Who has yet proclaimed that He saw the mighty oak of our faith
> when it was still an acorn. that is. even before the seed was planted!
> Who has said before that He saw the brilliant. luminous jewel of our
> soul when it was still the splintered fragment of a cloudy crystal?
> It may happen that these two types of perfect faith - the sure
> knowledge that the prayer has already been answered and seeing the
> end in the beginning - are combined in one and the same experience.
> For seeing is a form of knowing. just as knowing is a form of seeing.
> 
> Wonderful Trust
> The way of salvation is the way of trust. If we want to overcome our
> fears, we must begin to trust Him, to cast away our life with all its will-
> ing, controlling, manipulating and predicting. We must be wary of the
> sly insinuations of the subtle ego and truly put our life in His hands.
> When we become His standard bearer, He shall reveal us to the
> world. When we bear aloft the ark of His covenant, He shall bear us
> on His shoulders through the battle. When we throw ourselves into
> His ocean, we shall walk on water and find safe haven in the arc of
> salvation that weathers the fiercest gale. When we cease to be self-
> directed, we shall discover what it means to be God-directed.
> Our mental afflictions and petty annoyances will disappear little
> by little. By paying no heed, we shall not be excessively disturbed
> by them. By just continuing in His way and abandoning our life to
> Him. we shall begin to know true freedom and true joy. And once
> we enter that placeless realm of trust, we shall /ly through the open
> skies of the Spirit and our hearts shall rejoice, for we shall know that
> we have found the way to true freedom.
> 
> Learning To Trust Love
> As time passes, I am learning to trust the many faces of love I have
> known throughout my life, even the ones that rent my being in
> two, the ones I thought so pure and could not bear to live without. I
> see now that these many faces of love had something supremely
> important to teach me and they go on living inside me, teaching me
> even now their own special lessons. For in time, I begin to see more
> 60                     UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> clearly the reasons for lessons once so painful and obscure. Time and
> patience help to put all things, even love, into perspective. At least, I
> should s~y into a certain perspective, for there is no mystery greater
> than love and nothing more confounding and difficult into which to
> see clearly. I have also learned to trust the wisdom of my own tears,
> for I have found in them, and perhaps especially in them, the secrets
> of life's great blessings.
> A child's love, though pure, cannot stand the rigours of love. As
> adults, we retain and must retain something of the child's love. We
> sometimes think that if we can love as children do, we will be happy.
> But it is not quite that simple. Love requires something greater than
> the innocence of the child. Love requires discipline. Love requires
> what the great Carl Jung called 'soul-work'.
> With the passing years, I am learning to trust the lamp of Lady
> Wisdom, lovely Sophia who burns her golden globe inside me. When
> her still, small voice speaks with assured, quiet clarity and when the
> multiple voices of guidance are heard as one, we know she speaks
> truly. But even this guidance must be tested by experience, one of the
> many faces of wisdom. for sometimes our intuitions prove wrong.
> As we contemplate our little plans and schemes and those cherished
> dreams that have gone astray, we see ever so clearly that God does what
> He wills. And faced with His inexorable will, we are quite powerless.
> We empower ourselves only in submitting to that will. Even when we
> pray with all our hearts, with the very fibres of our being, we must not
> think that we shall set the course of love and detennine love's destiny.
> For Love itself sometimes answers our prayers in ways contrary to our
> first heartfelt expectations. Try as we may, we cannot set the course of
> the of-where, the of-how, the of-why our prayer may fly throughout
> the universe to knock at the threshold of God's door. We cannot fix
> the of-whom it shall mark, the souls it may join together or tear apart
> on their appointed courses so that they may be 'sustained by the power
> of Truth',13 so that the One Great Will may fulfil Its purpose in our
> little lives. Even sincerity cannot hope to rule the Will of God.
> We pray for what we will. Yet blinded as we sometimes are by self
> and passion, we cannot know before clarity descends, cannot under-
> stand the broader sweep, the larger plan, cannOt discern the arc of
> destiny, the rod of deliverance, cannot yet completely fathom while
> FIRE AND LIGHT                              61
> 
> we are in transition, the greater destiny, the bounties that await, the
> purer love that is about to be born.
> 
> Perfect Love
> There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath
> torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
> 1 JOHN 4:18
> 
> Perfect love accepts all, does not manipulate, is content. asks
> nothing, gives freely, does not mourn, is not consumed with
> longing, has no regrets." It is the available warm heart that offers
> itself gladly, that joyfully embraces other hearts, both now and
> forever. Perfect love is the pure gift of being. gladsome and free,
> without condition, a pure gift that simply is.
> 
> Loving All of Him
> Existentially, the love of God makes unconditional demands. Faith
> and love are total experiences. The great commandment of Moses,
> uttered by Jesus to a Pharisee that 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy
> God with all thy heart. and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
> and with all thy strength'." makes this call to totality clear. The love
> of God is with the whole being. The total demands of faith have
> made of religion a very powerful, moving force for the development
> of civilization. Sadly, as the historical record also attests, this total
> response has made religion a terrible force for destruction in the
> hands of the fearful, the ambitious and the fanatic.
> Loving God means loving all the attributes of His unknowable
> essence, however imperfectly we perceive that essence. God is
> primarily love, knowledge and will. The Baha', sacred writings declare
> that God first created and ordered the universe through the Primal
> or First WilL" He said: Be, and it is 17 Will is primary in the knowledge
> and experience of God.
> What does this mean for spirituality? It means in practical terms
> that we cannot say we love God if we detest what is happening in our
> personal lives. We cannot say we love God if we deny our destiny.
> 62                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> Loving God means loving all of Him and that must mean loving what
> He has willed for us now. What we are experiencing now is our
> destiny. Only through fully accepting our destiny can we come to
> know and to love God and to know and to love ourselves. Ultimately,
> knowing and loving God and knowing and loving self mean the same
> thing; 'He hath known God who hath known himself:" It follows,
> then, that he has loved God who has loved himself.
> One of the meanings of divine unity, whether that unity is
> relationship to another or relationship to God, is that the lover sees
> God's will in our will and in our will His own. Every true lover of God
> realises that the most acute and painful experiences of life. and
> perhaps especially these, reflect the wisdom of the divine will. When
> we can begin to look upon life tests as instruments for divine healing,
> or opportunities for confronting self and for spiritual growth, we will
> learn to welcome such adversities and to benefit from them. If we are
> able to embrace pain with a willing heart, for the nobler purpose of
> our own spiritual development - and by our own spiritual progress
> furtherthat of the community and the world - we shall be able to find
> love's hidden. gentle consolation. The Divine Archer lets fly love's
> arrow truly. With great skill and mastery does His shaft of love speed
> to the heart of things. And His dart is a better remedy for our ills than
> all the medicines of earthly physicians.
> IN SEARCH OF NOTHING
> Positive Detachment
> Detachment might be defined as an individual's being unaffected by
> the negative influences of the world. This definition, however, is
> incomplete. The more complete formulation would also express the
> converse - being attached to the positive influences of God. Without
> qualification, detachment might make a negative definition only. One
> might be detached but aloof, unfeeling, uncaring or uninvolved. In
> common parlance, detachment has an antisocial nuance, implying
> withdrawal from the world. By contrast, the attribute of detachment
> in Baha'f spirituality always implies the positive affirmation of attach-
> ment to the will of God. Detachment cannot support notions of
> negativity or even neutrality. Neutrality is temporary disengagement.
> One may temporarily disengage from the world but how does one
> temporarily disengage from God or from the will of God?
> But from what are we freed, if detached, and how are we to
> become so? Detachment expresses itself in one of its meanings as
> 'Abdu'l-Bah.'s definition of self-mastery. It is self-forgetfulness l
> We become detached by forgetting - forgetting the 'thorn in the
> flesh',' the demons in the head, the afflictions of the spirit and even,
> and just as important, our subtly concocted thoughts. When we
> cease to be possessed by thoughts of self, even by our own joys,
> sorrows, preoccupations or intellectual schemes, we shall become
> possessed by the things of God.
> Now another question arises in relation to detachment and the
> pervasiveness of pain. How does the wilful or afflicted spirit forget
> its own hurts or desires, its pleasure or pain? Simply by attaching
> itself to the will of God. Attaching here means letting go and
> 
> 66                     UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> trusting. I say 'simply' but nothing proves more difficult. However,
> with constant practice through the tests of life the seeker does learn
> to let go. We feel joy in turning over the insistent self with all its ego
> drives to the One who holds in His hands the destinies of all things
> and who is able to heal all our ills.
> The more we trust, the more we become free. The more we let
> go, the less attached we become. Detachment becomes real in those
> wonderful moments when we give up our will to God and really
> acquiesce to His decree. The ultima thuM (Gk.=furthest island) in
> this journey is that safe isle in the ocean of God's love where we live
> in and for Him. Such detachment is epitomized in that last of
> Baha'u'llah's universe of the valleys, 'the valley of true poverty and
> absolute nothingness' when He says: 'This station is the dying from
> self and the living in God, the being poor in self and rich in the
> Desired One."
> In this valley, you find yourself sinking deeper within the self as
> if you were immersed in water. But suddenly you discover yourself
> standing on ground zero. At that point you have reached land's end.
> You have arrived. You are grounded, contented and at peace. In this
> state, you remain conscious of both your body and your thoughts
> but the body becomes a lighter, more transparent medium. Your
> thoughts are no longer wrung out of the mind with so much
> intensity and effort. They float by, as Thomas Merton says,like 'big
> blue and purple fish' that swim past in the darkness of conscious-
> ness ... this sea which opens within me as soon as I close my eyes." I
> imagine Merton's big blue or purple thought-fish swimming up to
> the surface to catch a rare glimpse of the light, perhaps to make a
> break for an insect on the surface of the water, then to glide back
> down into darker waters where the sea grasses sleep. Merton's
> thought-fish swimming along in the sea of the mind parallels
> Baha'u'llah's metaphor of His revelation as the 'most great Ocean'
> containing all the aquatic life forms: 'This most great, this
> fathomless and surging Ocean is near, astonishingly near unto you.
> Behold it is closer to you than your life-vein!"
> At deeper levels of detachment, you momentarily lose self-
> consciousness. You become totally abstracted. Then, when you return
> to yourself, you realize that in a rare moment you have been touched
> IN SEARCH OF NOTHING                       67
> 
> by the bliss of the Glory of God. But you cannot sustain such states
> long. They are like Blake's analogy of joy as a winged creature:
> 
> He who binds to himself aJoy
> Does the winged life destroy;
> But he who kisses the Joy as it flies
> Lives in Eternity's sun-rise.f':>
> 
> Only Seek What God Has Laid Out For You
> One Sunday morning in an anxious moment I found myself invoking
> God in these words: '0 God! Where shall I go now? What would you
> have me do?' I stood looking out of the kitchen window into the back
> yard, that stretch of lawn I had so badly neglected over the years. The
> rectangular plot was far from being the ideal model of suburban
> greenery. It had become unsightly with the passage of time, overrun
> with patches of wild clover, plantain, dandelion weed, and nondescript
> vegetation growing up between what was left of the grasses, choking
> them out of existence on the dry, lumpy, clay-filled soil.
> No sooner had I voiced my thought when about a dozen sparrows
> flew in from the back yard next door where they had just been feeding
> on a narrow strip of grass that ran alongside the neighbour'S garden.
> They flew up into the Russian Olive tree in the adjacent yard, rested
> there for a moment, and then in one quick motion swooped back
> down onto my weedy stretch of lawn.
> They seemed happy, those little sparrows, just flocking together
> and feeding on the seeds of that poor excuse of a lawn that I had
> judged by my own neglect to be so useless. But I fclt nonetheless a
> surge of contentment that these little creatures could find sustenance
> there. Only moments before, my yard had seemed nothing but an
> eyesore. Now, as I watched the birds feed, I saw that weedy plot trans-
> formed into a land of plenty. A moment later the sparrows flew back
> to the fence, up into the Russian Olive again and down once more for
> a final feed. Once sustained, they flew away.
> What a life of simplicity, I thought. And in that simplicity came
> the answer to the anxious question posed only minutes before. These
> 68                     UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> sparrows were merely following what God had laid out for them,
> seeking their sustenance on the wing, flying together, being happy.
> The answer to my question came in that epiphanic moment/ in the
> beautiful simplicity of their example. 'Go nowhere. Do nothing,'
> came the reply. 'Be content simply to follow what God has laid out
> for you, flocking together with those whom you love and who are of
> like mind. Move from seed to seed in the garden of God's grace,
> feeding on what precious moments of spiritual meaning and
> contentment the breaking day offers.' Above all, these happy avian
> creatures brought the message that I need not seck after anything at
> all. What I sought after. God had already generously provided.
> 
> What Can I Refuse to the Universe?
> One cold winter afternoon I returned home. struggling with a severe
> test. In my combative mood. I heard a militant voice rising up inside
> me saying: 'I will refuse this test.Jihad' is justified.' As I walked along
> the snow-packed street. I began to gaze up and away to the southern
> horizon where a pale January sky hung over the edge of the Ottawa
> Valley. From the hill where 1 stood in Gatineau. I surveyed the city of
> Ottawa. a few miles distant. palled over with snow. The Ottawa River
> lay inen below. a frozen. naked ribbon of white. The light of the late
> afternoon had begun to fade from the winter sky. The first city lights
> along the crown of the capital were just beginning to glimmer.
> 1 resumed my walk but in the next instant slowed my pace again
> and paused. Standing motionless, I looked intently at the winter
> panorama stretched out before me. As I stood surveying the frozen
> scene, I sensed some deeper force at work. I began 10 hear a slow, barely
> audible heanbeat. a great. low rumbling sound from deep within the
> world. My impression was one of some awesome and majestic, unseen
> force, the world soul containing, sustaining and moving the All. In that
> dawning of a higher. deeper consciousness, I became silently aware of
> a great mastermind that with the greatest of ease drives all things.
> Brought to the conscious realization of such an organization of
> power. I began to acquiesce to my situation. My thoughts shifted. The
> tension eased. I said to myself: 'What shall I now refuse 10 accept
> faced with all this might? What shall I now not accept in the face
> IN SEARCH OF NOTHING                         69
> 
> of this vast and vibrating mechanism,' this "divinely-appointed
> system,"10 this universe of life? What shall I now refuse to It? For
> does It not sustain all, and all who dwell within It, through Its own
> profound laws, Its own skilful unseen ways, Its own hidden wisdom?
> What am I and my troubles in the face of this mighty motion? Why
> should I refuse to accept the road that I am bound to travel? For the
> Maker of that road and the road itself enclose a wisdom that I am
> ignorant of. Only let me find a greater trust.' Such thoughts as these
> came to me that day as if welling up from a deeper, purer stream that
> assuaged the struggles that sometimes pit us here against one another
> and set self against self.
> I felt my ego shrinking on the face of the cold earth. My former
> combative self became greatly pacified against the backdrop of the
> grand organization that I contemplated. 'Where was my place: I asked
> myself, within such a 'wondrous system'?" My place, I realized, was
> to become minute, to adjust myself to the workings of the rhythm of
> this great Tao."
> More than this. I found satisfaction in the thought that I might not
> only shrink, but one day disappear without a trace and become a thing
> forgotten, like a drop in an ocean. No nihilistic urge was this. It
> seemed rather the appropriate reflection for one small creature living
> for such a brief time on the face of this gigantic sphere spinning and
> orbiting in space. Thus I discovered on that cold January afternoon
> consolation in the grandeur of our world and solace in the thought
> that my petty problems would be managed well and would eventually
> disappear in the cosmos.
> 
> Gravity and Flight
> Everyone has two contending tendencies of soul. One is to fly.
> The other is to remain grounded. The desire for flight is a longing
> for spiritual freedom, a yearning after brilliance, to know fire and
> light, to soar in the rarest of climes. It is to be learus.1l When we
> experience gravity, we seck the cool darkness of the night season.
> We experience desire. We want to be held down, to mix with the
> earth and the elements, to remember that we are made of blood and
> bone, to take delight in the flesh.
> 70                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> Gravity is not materialism or gross sensuality. It is connectedness
> to earth mother. It is recalling our origins in the womb, of being
> nurtured at our mother's breast, remembering that we have come
> from the matrix of life. It is a desire to return to the source and as
> medieval pilgrims once did in the great cathedrals of Europe, seek
> sanctuary and protection. Gravity is knowing that only through the
> body and the senses can the spirit express itself. Gravity says that
> the body takes on qualities of soul, that the soul becomes flesh, that
> it seeks the heart's other half, the animus/anima.
> But gravity can become a prison. We can easily become
> enmeshed in gravity. If the bird of the soul flies too low, it becomes
> trapped in the fowler's net. Then it flutters helplessly until it is
> either consumed or released by the fowler. Gravity can become
> addiction in its many forms, 'the multiple identities that were born
> of passion and desire', \4 in the frenetic, inverted search for peace.
> We must learn to walk a tightrope between two worlds, to dance
> between heaven and earth, to walk on air and return gently to terra
> firma. We must learn to raise aspiring, upraised hands to the sky while
> moving carefully over ground. We must glance heavenward even as we
> dip our feet into the fast-flowing stream of the source of life. For if we
> linger too long on earth, our wings will become sullied and we may find
> ourselves forced to dwell in the dust, unable to take flight again.
> We know when gravity becomes life-threatening, for we hear an
> ominous nOte of caution being sounded. If the joy that we have
> sought is followed by sorrow, than we know that we are being
> overpowered by gravity. If we find ourselves caught in a tournament
> of fears, when sorrow jousts repeatedly with joy and passion
> altercates with pain, we are being held fast by gravity. Then we must
> fly upward again where the air is pure and sweet and where the sky
> is clean and blue. As we learn to defy gravity and fly, even as we
> welcome the return to earth, we shall no longer be forced to dwell
> in the dust, but shall spread our wings and fly again with ease.
> 
> Acceptance and Self-Affirmation
> Acceptance is everything in spiritual life. First, we have to accept the
> fact that we have been born. If we do not accept that we are in the
> IN SEARCH OF NOTHING                          71
> 
> world, life becomes hateful. The sad spectacle of suicide occurs when
> the soul is unable to accept life in this world. Once we accept being-
> in-the-world, we have to accept our share of life's tests and difficulties,
> its 'changes and chances'," its hard knocks and 'body blows'."
> Many of us also have to accept failed relationships. The ego
> reluctantly admits responsibility for its actions, but acceptance is
> salutary. Many good lessons are to be found in failure that serve us
> positively in the next stage of life. Perhaps the hardest thing is to
> accept death, either our own or another's. To lose someone we have
> lived with for a long time and loved dearly is not easy. Nor is it easy
> to lose a child, that most cherished fragment of your heart and soul,
> that still fresh flower of youthful possibilities. But time brings
> acceptance and acceptance brings peace. The death of self likewise
> proves very hard, for self does not die without a fight.
> 'Growing old gracefully', even though it witness the gradual
> decline of powers and abilities, is an attitude we can cultivate and
> even rejoice in, for all stages of life contain their own particular joys
> and sorrows, rewards and punishments. One day we shall see that
> death, that grand imposter, is not the end at all, but a new and radiant
> beginning, when we shall be thankful for all we have experienced
> and endured.
> Some might view acceptance as a rather passive virtue. It is not
> valued in a consumer society that puts a premium on control -
> regrettably there is no premium on self-control- on setting one's own
> agenda and gratifying desire. But passivity is not to be equated with
> weakness. Clay is a passive recipient in the hands of the sculptor but
> as the sculptor moulds the material, a new form is created. Passivity
> indicates a willingness to be acted upon by the force or forces greater
> than self, the forces of tension and test, of love and will.
> But what if the heart breaks? The broken heart learns in time to
> become the willing heart, the heart that is open, the heart through
> which the warm blood of life still flows. The broken heart is the
> heart that God does not despise: 'The sacrifice acceptable to God is
> a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, a God, thou will not
> despise.'l7 Willingly receiving something that is imposed, some
> weight or burden that one cannot so easily throw off, is precisely
> what makes acceptance such a mighty virtue in spiritual life.
> 72                     UNDER THE D,VINE LorE TREE
> 
> The sister virtue of acceptance is self-affirmation. Without self-
> affirmation, acceptance makes us victims. When we combine accept-
> ance with self-affirmation, we become active agents for creative
> possibilities. Rather than submitting passively to 'the slings and
> arrows of outrageous fortune', IS we become active participants in the
> creation of our own destiny. We seize the threads of life and begin to
> weave our own pattern. We run swiftly with the ball we have been
> handed in the game of life, We playas judiciously as we can the hand
> we have been dealt. Whatever is in the cards or in the stars, we shall
> count as gain in the end.
> 
> The Blessing of the Impossible Dream
> The song from Carousel, the 1960s' musical, says that we should
> 'Dream the Impossible Dream', Yet I am thinking that it is sometimes
> better, sometimes wiser, not to dream the impossible dream. I would
> like to fly off the ground but I cannot. I should like to travel with my
> body at the speed of light but it can't be done. I may desire friendship
> with a certain person hut such a friendship does not happen or is not
> advisable. I may desire to overcome an adverse condition with prayer.
> But prayer alone does not suffice. I shall have to take actual steps,
> physical steps, or perform certain deeds in order for my prayer to be
> realised. I may desire with all my heart that a certain door open but
> it remains shut and with good reason.
> The voice that says 'nothing is impossible' as it pursues its own
> lusty plan may be speaking with the exalted voice of hubris. Now
> Christ did say that 'with God all things are possible'.J' But I hear an
> unspoken note of wisdom in Christ's saying, a voice implied in
> these authoritative words. That voice says that all things possible are
> not desirable. It is good for us to determine which of these 'all
> things' of which Christ speaks are the things of God.
> Now the imagination can easily conceive of things impossible
> and through this ability imagination proves to be an incredible
> power. I may well imagine, for example, that I find a block of ice in
> the middle of the Sahara Desert, but reason tells me that even if I
> can find such a thing, it will not be there for long. Even though I can
> create the image in the mind's eye, I know that such a conception
> IN SEARCH OF NOTHING                       73
> 
> exists only in the imagination. Here dreaming the impossible dream
> produces neither practical result nor benefit.
> Faith does indeed have the power to defeat nature and so render
> the impossible dream possible. But sometimes it is better to let
> nature defeat us. In jurisprudence, the legal meaning of 'impossible'
> is 'impracticable in the nature of the case'. We may well 'hitch our
> wagon' of imagination to the 'star' of faith, but we should decide
> whether or not the dream is really desirable before making it a
> reality. This mismatch of the dream to reality explains the meaning
> of the commOn saying about prayer one sometimes hears these
> days: 'Be careful what you pray for. You may get it.' Or as the jurist
> might say, the impossible dream is 'not practicable'. The question is:
> do we really desire to have what we do not really want? We may well
> conceive something imaginatively but once the thing becomes ours,
> we sometimes no longer know what to do with it. We JUSt cannot
> execute our plan because we really know better. At such times, the
> voice of Lady Wisdom is whispering in our ears: 'not practicable'.
> We ignore that voice at our peril.
> Those things that can be conceived when faith and imagination
> conspire are literally incredible; that is, they are beyond belief.
> 'Beyond belief' means here that belief has become reality. Energy
> has been poured forth to bring the impossible dream into reality.
> Reality is beyond belief because it is already in the here and now. We
> do not have to believe in existence. We are in existence.
> To dream the impossible dream, something more than dreaming
> is required. Will power is required. Love is required. Labour is
> required. Discipline is required. Commitment is required. When faith
> and imagination join forces, things happen, great works are accom-
> plished in deed, not just in thought or word. Some plans deserve to
> be born. With them our labour is justified since they are a benefit to
> others and to ourselves. But other plans miscarry. And miscarry they
> should, where nature has deemed, through her own wisdom, that they
> are not fit to live in the world.
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN
> The Human Person
> Man is the supreme Talisman. 1
> IIAHA'u'llAH
> 
> The human person is the model, the life form on earth beyond which
> 'there is no passing'.' Without the human being there would be no
> literature, no 3rt, no philosophy, no science, no history; in short, no
> civilization at all. While this last statement may be a truism, it bears
> reflection nonetheless. Without the human being, there would be
> nothing but a void and meaningless world; in fact, no world at all since
> we would not be in it. 'Abdu'I-Baha says: 'For the enlightenment of
> the world dependeth upon the existence of man. If man did not exist
> in this world, it would have been like a tree without fruit." The world
> found meaning in human terms only when Adam, as recorded in the
> opening passages of the Book of Genesis, endowed creation with logos
> by naming the creatures.' This naming of the creatures by Adam is an
> extraordinarily significant act in the history of human thought. In one
> sense it announces the beginning of philosophy, for the ability to name
> things means that one has discerned their identity. It is the human
> being who ascribes meaning to creation at the bidding of God.
> In this connection, philosophers have failed to direct their atten-
> tion to an essential relationship in the world of existence. Although
> they have analysed in detail the meanings created by the meaningful
> one (man), they have not scrutinized the source of meaning, man
> himself. There are, consequently, philosophies of all sorts of things,
> but no anthrophilosophy; there are philosophies of life, but structured
> philosophies of the human being are only just beginning to emerge.
> 
> 78                      UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> Is it not better to attempt to understand the one who ascribes mean-
> ing, as well as the meanings themselves? Understanding the source of
> meaning (the human being) is cenainly as desirable as understanding
> meaning's derivatives (philosophy).
> Regarding the revelation of the names and attributes of God in
> the world of creation in relation to man, Baha'u'lhih has written:
> 
> How resplendcnt the luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and
> how vast the oceans of wisdom that surge within a drop! To a supreme degree
> is this true of man, who. among all created things. hath been invested with
> the robe of such gifts. and hath been singled out for the glory of such
> distinction. For in him arc potentially revealed all the auributcs and names
> of God to a degree that no other created being hath excelled or surpassed.
> All these names and a[tributes arc applicable to him. E\'en as He hath said:
> 'Man is My mystery. and I am his mystery.';
> 
> Like ~bdu'I-Baha who is the Greater Mystery," man is the lesser
> mystery of God. Bending the mind to discover the multiple meanings
> of the whole human person in an integrated anthrophilosophy bids fair
> as a promising project, as a great intellectual enterprise. As we delve
> deeper into this new spiritual anthropology, we shall enter into a
> second Renaissance, one that will far outshine the movement of the
> ans and sciences that radiated outward from nonhern Italy in the
> fourteenth century. We arc now on the verge, not merely of that second
> Renaissance, but of the entirely new and unprecedented birth of a uni-
> fied global community. One of the distinguishing features of the world
> about to be born will be the full recognition of spiritual personhood.
> 
> The living Question
> Where did you come from, little one? Who are you? Where do you
> belong? Where are you going? Who are you, venerable one? What
> is your story? What is your reason? What tales lie wrapped up inside
> you? What countries have you travelled through? Let me hear your
> rhyme. What times you must have lived in, what climes you must
> have seen! Ah, to me you are a living question, a wonderful mystery.
> You are old, but you arc still young. Your face is wrinkled, your
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN                          79
> 
> body frail, but your soul has the freshness of youth. Why must you
> leave the world so soon? I will miss you.
> 
> A Vision of the Children of Tomorrow
> I see in my dream the children of tomorrow seated between the freshly
> planted rows in the garden of knowledge. They peacefully absorb with
> all the reverent concentration of which they are capable. These pure
> souls are wedded to knowledge from an early age. Through the
> solicitous care of their elders, they learn to revere spiritual education.
> They are ever eager to assimilate every truth planted in the green garden
> of mysteries and to drink, in earliest childhood, from the fountain of
> divine truth.
> 
> Dancing Angels? A Spoof on Pseudotheology'
> The theologians and their students leaned a little more closely
> together to engage the debate. The question was put by the chair.
> 'What we have here, my friends: the cleric intoned, 'is not a case in
> the artifice of oratory, nor an example of deceptive ambiguity,
> but a question not at all, you see, devoid of substance. I pose today's
> question as follows: do we dance around the angels orthey around us?
> 'This is not, do not be deceived, a mere trifling matter or a now
> outmoded quodlibetS of schoolmen that once resounded throughout
> our hallowed lecture halls. This is a question vital to all those devoted
> to the Cause of Truth.'
> Heads nodded in agreement, as the theologian plodded on,
> underscoring the weightiness of the subject.
> 'Beware of thinking that it does not matter. Of course it matters!
> We make mention here of angels. We converse in this place about
> God. What subject could be more important, what issue more
> weighty? Lack of interest in such a question would be tantamount
> to neglect of the worthy pursuit of metaphysical truth.' A murmur
> of assent ran through the hall.
> With these opening remarks, the discussion was engaged. A
> learned theologian, supported by his students, took up the case for
> the affirmative.
> 80                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> 'We argue', he began, 'in favour of the second proposition. We
> declare that the angels dance around us. The angels dance around us
> because the fact that they are able to dance means that they have free-
> dom of movement. Having freedom of movement clearly infers that
> they have greater power. If you are able to dance around someone, as
> in the expression 'she danced rings around him', you are unquestion-
> ably possessed of superior power and ability. Furthermore, the fact that
> the angels dance around us, that is, in a circle, is very suggestive.
> Esoterically, it indicates that they have become initiates into that
> ancient symbol of unity. Only inductees into the sacred temple of the
> divine mysteries enjoy the hidden mysteries claimed by those initiates.
> These angelic beings alone may claim the right to dance in a ring.'
> The theologian waded ahead. 'Consider further these arguments.
> Those who are able to dance around us would ostensibly be free to
> move, while we would be obliged to sit still in the middle of the circle.
> This sitting still indicates that we are motionless; in a sense, that we
> do not have the right to move since we are surrounded by them. This
> clearly indicates the superior power and privilege of the angels.
> Unavoidably, the conclusion must be drawn that the angels dance
> around us,'
> A respectful hush fell over the assembly as it sat quietly reflecting
> on the presentation just made. At the appointed signal from the chair,
> a second theologian arose and gravely began to make his case, this
> time for the negative. Without hesitation and with great enthusiasm,
> he launched into his demonstration.
> 'My learned friend has presented an impressive argument, but
> with all the respect due to the wise in holy orders, he errs. I argue,
> consequently, in favour of the first proposition: that we dance around
> the angels. It is abundantly clear, following the courtly analogy, that
> we must dance around the angels because only kings and nobles have
> the right to sit undisturbed while their attendants move about them.
> It is clear that we, occupying a rank lowerthan the angels, must move
> about them at their pleasure, and busy ourselves doing their bidding
> and fulfilling their every want and need. Such exalted spiritual powers
> must be waited upon. They do not wait upon others. Therefore, we
> can safely conclude that we dance around the angels, that is, we do
> their obeisance, not the reverse.'
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN                       81
> 
> The assemblage listened in rapt attention. 'Further, to dance
> around others indicates that only those at the centre of the circle are
> entertained by the dancing. The dancers are engaged in dancing, not
> enjoyment. It is clear in this case that it would necessarily have to
> be the angels who would enjoy such dancing. We would not be
> entertained by their dancing, for the dignity of their rank and
> station would prevent this. To be entertained by them would not
> befit their exalted position. Therefore, it is clear that only those of
> a lower rank would dance to entertain those of a higher rank.
> Therefore, it must be that we dance around the angels.'
> A deep silence fell, followed by a flurry of voices while the newly
> exercised theologians excogitated meaningfully in order to settle the
> vexed question and to ponderthe merits of thesis and antithesis. Just
> then a 'still small voice" - that of a unnoticed choirboy who had been
> watching from the precincts outside the learned circle - dared to
> speak up. With mild but disarming penetration the innocent child
> raised the question: 'But, reverend sirs, we cannot see the angels. How
> would we know that they dance around us or not?'
> The theological society fell into an embarrassed silence, the
> tangled web of words broken by youthful innocence and wisdom.
> 
> Ego and the Scholar
> Ego, that subtle seducer, is an ever-present danger to the scholar.
> Even though one be motivated by a love of truth, the dangers of ego-
> entrapment loom up all the same, casting long shadows over the
> scholar's work. The calculated risk of scholarship is that one become
> self-centred rather than truth-centred. Here we encounter the
> conundrum of the relationship between the scholar and his/herwork.
> The pretended 'objective' status of scholarship is a delusion. The
> claim that scholarship is an independent body of knowledge, unrelated
> and unconnected to the scholar, existing, in some sense outside the self
> as pure argument, elucidation or concrete findings, is untenable. For
> the scholar shares at least this in common with the poet. Both are
> engaged in the act of poie" (I make). Both make something. In this
> sense, scholarship is a creative expression or labour, an extension, as
> it were, of the self. Scholarship is thus a highly subjective act.
> 82                       UNDER THE DIVINE lorE TREE
> 
> While truth may be the supreme objective, the scholar is unavoid-
> ably engaged with self as the medium through which truth emerges.
> This subjective engagement means that no scholar can present his or
> her understanding of truth in a totally objective, Olympian fashion.
> The nature of the scholar's task is always to fall back on one's own
> thoughts, research, resources and defences - in shon, one's own
> view of this or that particular corner of the universe of thought. To
> the extent that the scholar is attached to his own views, he or she is
> ego-bound.
> While the free exercise of the reflective self is the mainspring of
> scholarship, this privilege carries at the same time certain respon-
> sibilities. Like a missile flying through space that must correct its
> trajectory to remain on course, the reflective self is likewise in
> constant need of correction. Spirituality is the best remedy for the
> work of the scholar and indeed must exist in a symbiotic relationship
> with the pursuit of knowledge. It is all too easy to fall into the tangled
> web of one's own conceits. Standing back from the work and
> removing the self as much as possible aid in this process of retaining
> clarity of vision.
> To the proud and ostentatious, as Baha'u'llah has often warned,
> knowledge becomes a veil that makes one blind not only to divine
> truth but, just as important, to one's own conceit. That one can be
> 'massively learned'lO but spiritually blind or morally defective is one
> of the strange maladies that afflict certain academics.
> Baha'u'llah has drawn a clear demarcation line between divine
> and satanic knowledge. In a trenchant passage, He categorizes the
> arrogant among those versed in the satanic:
> 
> Know verily that Knowledge is of two kinds: Divine and Satanic. The onc
> welleth out from the fountain of divine inspiration; the other is but a
> reflection of vain and obscure thoughts. The source of the former is God
> Him.e1f; the motive-force of the latter the whisperings of selfish desire. The
> one is guided by the principle: 'Fear ye God; God will teach you;' the other
> is but a confirmation of the truth: 'Knowledge is the most grievous veil
> between man and his Creator: The former bringeth fonh the fruit of
> patience. of longing desire. of (rue understanding. and love; whilst the latter
> can yield naught but arrogance. vainglory and conceit. I I
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN                         83
> 
> No hyperbole, this passage indicates that for some strange souls,
> the acquisition of learning proves to be an insidious disease. But
> however one defines satanic knowledge, if knowledge is gold, then
> we should be wary of 'the men who moil for gold'á2 in a fever. For
> learning that leads to 'arrogance, vainglory and conceit' will make
> one blind to the colour of gold itself.
> The tempests of ego really mount up in a fury when a scholar is
> driven to control, manipulate or dominate others by dint of
> reputation or learning. Here is the perverse side of scholarship. Such
> fierce storms have laid waste many a fair land.
> 'Abdu'l-Baha writes that •... self-love is kneaded into the very clay
> of man ..:" One expression of this self-love is the desire to be
> always at the centre of things. Egocentrism is dangerous, not only
> because it impedes the spiritual progress of the scholar, but also
> because it increases the fawning of the obsequious or produces its
> own naive victims who are over-awed by learning.
> The truly learned would despise conceit if such loathing did not
> further arm the ignorant. It is a powerful voice that says: '1 know.
> You do not;' but it is a voice that rings patently hollow. Whether
> shouted aloud, quietly affirmed or merely implied, this voice either
> disappoints, angers, or alienates. Bah:i'u'll:ih commanded that
> certain of His writings be thrown into the Tigris. This gesture
> demands profound reflection on the part of every scholar who
> values detachment.
> 
> The Mystic
> While the scholar is exposed to the dangers of egocentrism, certain
> drawbacks are also inherent in the life of the mystic or the
> contemplative, as they themselves have often testified. Excessive
> solitude and a certain aloofness from engaging in and with the world
> impede the process of contributing to 'an ever-advancing
> civilization'." The mystic life, however, is not a project of erecting
> a framework for the objectification of intellectual truth, but rather
> a journey, an experience of the active and growing realization of the
> Self of God within the immortal soul, the bride of the Beloved. The
> mystic takes up the infinitely difficult task of the 'practice of the
> 84                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> presence of God' from moment to moment, of finding traces of
> God's face in all of creation and hearing some faint echo of the
> Divine voice in the human hean and amid the complexities of
> human experience when one's guide must be as much oneself as the
> written word.
> The dangers of spiritual pride, passivity and self-absorption are
> ever-present to both scholar and mystic alike. But the mystic knows
> that ultimately it is the awakening of the mind and the
> spiritualization of the soul that alone will win salvation. The mystic
> knows that formal learning and its accomplishments, unless they be
> entirely dedicated to the service of God, have a relatively minor role
> to play in the salvation of the soul.
> The mystic sets out alone to trek across the endless desert of the
> divine mind. To sail upon the boundless ocean of existence mystics
> rely, not upon the knowledge of others, but on nothing other than
> the all-sufficing grace of God, 'and with unquestioning reliance on
> His promises as the best provision for their journey'." And while
> seeking communion with the Spirit of God, mystics must endeavour
> at the same time to become a source of social good and contribute to
> the advancement of society, without becoming either a slave or a
> victim to its demands.
> The mystic transcends all earthly loves in order to find love
> divine. And if he does find earthly love, he knows that it can survive
> only if sustained by that larger, more spacious reality of divine love.
> He flees from the dialectic of subtle disputation in order to hold
> holy discourse. He tires of endless words, conferences and debates,
> no matter how brilliant. He would rather be back in his study with
> his books and his God, thinking things over, and, Zen-like, 'sitting
> quietly, doing nothing."á
> He regrets if at any time he has become drunk with the power of
> his own words or has insisted too strongly on his own opinion. All
> this defining, qualifying, being precise, has a hollow ring and fades as
> fast as the echo of a lone voice in a canyon. He would like to leave
> behind the learned assembly that struggles with itself, to abandon the
> loquaciousness, the gifts displayed. He would rather simply think
> things over and thank God for ever-present favours and beseech Him
> lest he slip unknowingly into the firepit of his own ego.
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN                             85
> 
> let Mystic Souls Appear
> 
> I know that God has created mystic souls in the world and I am
> longing for them to appear, so that they may touch me and teach me
> what they know. I am longing to meet them and to share with them
> the secrets and mysteries of the divine life. I am longing juSt to share
> their company and be in their presence so that they may heal me and
> change me forever.
> 
> The Cult of the Petty Personality
> o friet1ds! Let not the deceptive glamour of this fleeting world - to whose
> impermanence all things attest - cut you offfrom God's l71during bestowals, nor
> deprive you from partaking of the spiritual sustenance that He hath sent dawn
> from the heavet1 of His bounty. "
> BAHA'u'LLAH
> 
> The cult of the petty personality, which has by now permeated all
> industrialized societies and is rapidly colonizing the developing
> world, is both shallow and false because it ignores the meaning of
> true artistry and degenerates into narcissism.Those who idolize the
> actor or the pop artist, who idealize the current leader or
> mindlessly follow or cater to the influential personalities of the day,
> fail to realize that the qualities they have imagined have a greater
> source outside and beyond the individual, who merely reflects
> them. These devotees of 'pop culture' are not at all conscious that
> any such gifts are not the proprium of the artist, leader or celebrity.
> Their gifts are by nature endowments, a point I have touched on
> elsewhere. ls By definition, an endowment is something one has
> received. If anything, one should be grateful to the source of the
> endowment, rather than idolizing its recipient. The cult of the
> petty personality will persist as long as its followers fail to observe
> these words of Baha'u'llah: 'God grant that all men may turn unto
> the treasuries latent within their own beings.'!' The only remedy
> for the mindless adulation of the rich, the powerful and the famous
> is to become fully conscious of the divine bestowal of one's
> self-worth.
> 86                     UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> The Laughing Saint
> 
> The French have a saying pertinent to my theme - Un saint triste est
> un triste saint (A saint who is sad is a sad saint indeed). The flavour
> of the double entendre is lost in the translation but the message is
> nonetheless conveyed. Some of the funniest people I know are saints.
> Real saints have learned to laugh at themselves and this ability is, I
> think, one of the deepest roots in the psychology of humour. These
> saints are happy because they have learned to laugh at the very things
> that in other circumstances gave them embarrassment or pain. It takes
> a secure and liberated person to laugh at oneself. The insecure person
> is always offended by the joke that pokes fun at self or others, for he
> wrongly imagines that deprecatory laughter is humiliation.
> What the self-righteous do not realize, however, is that laughing
> at oneself or others is really just another way of loving the imperfect
> creature in us all. For it is precisely the imperfections of the self that
> make it profoundly winsome and loveable. At a deeper level, we love
> those whom we love, not in spite of, but because of their faults. The
> 'perfect person' without foibles, who lacks any aura of humanity, is
> not really very appealing. The laughing saint knows, as William Sears
> wrote all those years ago, that 'God loves laughter'." The laughing
> saint recognizes in these three words just another door to self-
> transcendence and liberation.
> 
> John H. Wilcoll: Cowboy Pioneer
> John H. Wilcolt was a cowboy pioneer who settled in Kendall,
> Montana. An old photograph" shows him mounted on a fine horse
> with his ten-gallon hat cocked to one side. His lasso is hanging down
> from his western saddle horn and the handle of a redoubtable
> six-shooter sits in full view high up on his hip. He is wearing a
> handsome bandanna and his chaps are decorated with engraved silver
> buttons. Fearsome spurs jut back from his cowboy boots and his
> sleeves are rolled up to the elbows. If you look at his picture closely,
> you'll see a robust man with a zest for life, a man proud of his new
> accomplishments, who had found himself at last on the plains of
> Montana.
> THE SUPREME TALISMAN                        87
> 
> John H. Wilcott was no tenderfoot. When he went for the mail,
> he carried a gun because of wild steers and snakes. 'This country is
> wild with rattlesnakes and wolves,' he says in a letter dated 1910.
> 'Oil costs fifty cents a gallon, potatoes four cents a pound. Before
> the cold weather came I used to lie in bed in the morning and shoot
> sage hens or prairie chicken:22 Since the country was infested with
> rattlesnakes, he and his mama dared not sleep with an arm outside
> their beds. The hens and chickens would destroy their garden and
> four or five times a day he would venture out and drive them away
> along with the rabbits.
> Mr. Wilcott had settled in Montana 10 proclaim the Baha', Cause.
> He brought the Baha', teachings to frontiersmen who would swear
> at him when he gave them a pamphlet, and curse the name of God.
> So he gave them instead an old newspaper from Santa Anna sent to
> him by a missionary offering Christ crucified, or a book called
> Indian Wars and Brave Deeds.
> From her tent on the plains, Mama Wilcott tended to sick
> cowboys, sheep herders, the newly-settled and wanderers. I wonder
> how many of those rough and ready men had an inkling who this
> 'diploma doctor' really was, the one who ministered to their physical
> ailments and nursed along that rarer spiritual need she detected in a
> few. Along with the few medicines in her possession, she poured out
> on them the balm of the love of God.
> Before he became a cowboy pioneer. John H. Wileott was a one-
> time city dweller in Kenosha. Wisconsin. In 1910 he left Kenosha,
> once called Pike Creek village and later Southport, a city that had a
> fine situation above Lake Michigan and an excellent harbour, a
> prosperous manufacturing centre, a historical and art museum and the
> Petrifying Springs Park. All this he left to become a cowboy pioneer.
> John H. Wileott was no great artist who desperately seeks and
> finally finds fame, the kind of fame the ambitious will die for. He did
> not need any descent into hell to transform his spiritual consciousness,
> no deranging of the senses so that he could emerge purified. John H.
> Wilcott needed no Dionysian excesses to find out who he really was.
> He knew what the greatest deed in the world was and he did it.
> Now who is going to remember John H. Wilcott? A fewofus may
> end up being remembered as a footnole in a scholarly article. or as a
> 88                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> book on a fond reader's shelf. Some may be interviewed on the radio
> or even on Tv. A very few of us will end up being remembered by
> history, or they may write an article for an encyclopedia or better still
> be in an encyclopedia. Most of us, however, will die obscure, just
> one of the millions who pass this way throughout the dusty ages on
> planet earth.
> But this cowboy pioneer who roamed the bleak plains of
> Montana rode in the Lord's vineyard. John H. Wilcott knew who he
> was. He knew that 'in the land of the free and the home of the brave'
> the way to glory was to become a cowboy pioneer.
> THE BODY BEAUTIFUL
> Love and the Body Beautiful
> Today the 'body beautiful' has become an overt sex object, flaunted
> on the commercial market, just one more product of desire. This
> enslavement of corporeal beauty to carnal desire has in effect reduced
> and deprived beauty of its more subtle powers to awaken, to refine, to
> captivate and to please. Beauty as reflected in the more quiescent
> organic and inorganic life forms that we find in nature and the
> creatures, or in the elegance of architecture and the variegated patterns
> found in works of art, has today become sacrificed to more sensual
> appetites.
> By contrast, for the ancient Greeks, in whose sculpted and linear
> proportions we find the rOOts of western aesthetics, and for Plato
> especially, the love of beauty was intimately interwoven with the
> love of God. In Plato's account of the 'ladder of love' in his superb
> dramatic dialogue The Symposium, Plato elaborated his philosophy
> of love in the ascent of the soul upward to the world of Forms as being
> caught up in a vision of beauty at the end point of knowledge. Plato's
> idea of beauty being wedded to knowledge concords with an idea of
> 'Abdu'I-Baha on the same theme. 'Abdu'I-Baha says: 'If, then, the
> pursuit of knowledge lead to the beauty of Him Who is the Object
> of all Knowledge, how excellent that goaL." In Diotima's speech to
> Socrates at the dinner-party (symposium), Diotima argues that the
> soul ascends by the initiate's ability to be rightly led from the lower
> forms of physical beauty upward to moral beauty and then on to the
> beauty of knowledge whose true object is 'absolute beauty and knows
> at last what absolute beauty is'.' For both Plato and 'Abdu'I-Baha,that
> absolute Beauty is an ecstatic vision of the Beauty of God.
> 
> 92                       UNDER THE DMNE LOTE TREE
> 
> For Plato, at the highest levels in the world of Forms, all the
> sublime attributes tend to coalesce. Thus, not only love, knowledge
> and beauty, but also the virtues and truth itself are all expressions of
> one manifold:
> 
> Do you not see that in that region alone where he [the contemplative] sees
> beauty with the faculty capable of seeing it, will he be able to bring fonh not
> mere reflected images of goodness but true goodness, because he will be in
> contact not with a reflection but with the truth?]
> 
> For Plato true love causes us to perceive 'absolute beauty in its
> essence, pure and unalloyed ... divine beauty where it exists apart and
> alone'.' Plato's aesthetic vision consisted, then, not only of a trans-
> cendent fusion of love and beauty but also of that essence which
> contains virtue, purity and truth.
> How fitting it is to remember in this context that one of the many
> titles of Baha'u'lhih is the 'Blessed Beauty' Uamal-i-Mltbarak) and
> that those who love and contemplate Him may experience Plato's
> radiant fusion of love, knowledge and beauty as a high point in the
> soul's ascent. This is one of the meanings of the beatific vision spoken
> of by the mystics.
> 
> Consumer Psychology and Glorifying the Body
> It seems to me that today's frenetic society has missed a fundamental
> point of logic with its on-line, no-wait, quick-bred consumer
> psychology. In all affluent societies, manufactured goods have become
> the idols that masquerade and substitute for spiritual values. They are
> the body that is worshipped without the spirit. North Americans
> especially have developed the cult of the body beautiful in an
> obsessive, sensate, corporeal materialism that would have astonished
> the ancient Greeks. Sensate appetites are being fully exploited in the
> media by commercial interests, in a denatured and desperate drive to
> possess the soul. Sophisticated consumer items have become the little
> rewards to which one treats oneself, the badges proudly worn that mark
> success, the soothing comforts one freely bestows upon oneself or
> others to relieve the nerve-shattering stresses of our frenzied way of life.
> THE BODY BEAUTIFUL                        93
> 
> A recent luxury automobile television commercial tells the story
> of substitute values. It opens with the strains of celestial music, the
> intoning of a heavenly choir. The coveted white status symbol glides
> into the picture screen, slinking sleekly around a comer into full view.
> The heavenly music crescendoes. The celestial voices are raised to an
> exalted pitch. The apocalyptic moment has come at last - the victo-
> rious entrance of the promised one. Hosanna in the highest! The
> accompanying voice message is terse, proud and challenging.
> 'Celebrate the guts and the glory.' The inversion is complete. A cause
> for celebration, the acquisition of courage, the celestial attribute of
> glory, are now made readily available to those with the requisite cash
> flow or viable credit margin.
> But even such crass commercial messages provide us with meta-
> physical food for thought. If the avid promoters of consumer products
> want to glorify the objects they hold up for public envy, why not
> glorify instead the spirit that made such things? We do not have to
> inject God and religion into the discussion at all. Is not the human
> genius that made the car greater than the car itself? The compact disc,
> the multimedia computer, the cellulartelephone, the 'surround sound'
> high-definition television and all the other techtronic' miracles being
> hatched out in the research labs of the industrialized nations - not to
> forget the item that framed this reflection, the luxury automobile - are
> marvellous inventions every one. But if one wants to idolize them in
> such a fashion and sing their praises, why not be prouder of the spirit
> that created such things than of the things themselves?
> It would make much more sense for those who have jettisoned
> God and religion in this consumer-oriented society, to found a
> purely secular religion based on the adulation of the human mind.
> At least it would lead to the worship of the intellectual as well as the
> material. Atheistic though such a hollow religion would be, it would
> still be better than the worship of the fabricated objects so keenly
> coveted by the consuming public. This is only slow logic. But the
> late twentieth century dedicated consumer is not only possessed..
> For all his sophistication and know-how, he has become deaf and
> dumb. In his blind adoration of technically performing material
> goods, he cannot even lift up his sights to recognize that the human
> spirit is greater than the thing it has made.
> 94                     UNDER THE D,V,NE lOlE TREE
> 
> Goodness is Now Obsolete
> 
> Today goodness holds little interest for the popular imagination and
> is regarded as virtually obsolete. It has consequently become void of
> the power of moral persuasion it once enjoyed. Nothing can be got
> from goodness. So the people think. For them, it is a useless, devital-
> ized thing. In postmodern literature, for example, the genuinely good
> person is largely ignored by writers as being a lack-lustre individual.
> This is one of the failings of modern characterization generally, that
> the hero or 'good person' has suffered an eclipse. The virtuous
> character, if not actually suspect, is perceived as uniformly flat and
> has consequently received little attention from loday's writers, except
> to be cast in the role of victim or as a modicum of mediocrity.
> Goodness. however, implies not JUSt something benign, but also a
> quality of strength. Today's fiction writer may well find a challenge
> in creating reader interest through depicting the strong, vinuous
> individual, but we all stand to be enriched and inspired by the reinte-
> gration of a certain moral authority into contemporary literature. It is
> not a forgone conclusion, even in roday's post modern mind set, that
> goodness or strength of character will not sustain reader interest and
> serve the best interests of contemporary writing. For is it not true
> that goodness and strength are what we end up loving most?
> 
> The Metophysics of History and Fine Art
> Over the millennia civilizations have come and gone, but still their
> traces remain. In the spare and graceful lines of temple columns, in
> script, in artifacts of all sons, the remnants of ancient peoples still
> bear witness to their pas!. Behind the desire of the historian to
> know and to record history integrally, to capture the whole sweep
> of evolving, organized human life on the planet, lies the quest for
> etern ity. All history radiates onward as one flowing stream of
> spiritual energy, as fluctuations of a wave. Just as science attains the
> personal the more it advances,' so does history attain the infinite the
> more widely it surveys. I~rom the atomic moments of particular
> civilizations, the historian broadens his vision to survey patterns, to
> observe the 'rise and fall', a metaphorical phrase itself dependent on
> THE BODY BEAUTIFUL                           95
> 
> the metaphysical notions of causality, space and time. The desire to
> discover, in the German historian Leopold von Ranke's well-known
> phrase, 'wie es eigentlich gewesen' (how things really were or what
> really happened), points to interpretation. Providential history espe-
> cially has an inescapable metaphysical component.
> In the abstract sense, as there is only one religion, the religion of
> humanity, there is only one history, the history of the human race
> on the planet earth. Although only rocks and rubble, broken and
> silent temple columns and long-deserted arenas and amphitheatres
> may survive from past ages, these remains are very much our history.
> For it is our history's roots that lie in those rocks and rubble, in
> those mute pillars of the temple, in the silent amphitheatre or the
> decaying spons palace. The historian reestablishes the continuity,
> forges the direct links between the ancestors and ourselves.
> As a quest for the infinite and the eternal, history cannot be under-
> stood without an effort of the imagination. It is with imagination as
> well as with documents and artifacts that history is reconstructed.
> Imagination works the creative synthesis that assists in the recon-
> struction of past events. In this sense, the writing of history is a creative
> act. The historian must imaginatively reconstruct the ancient
> scenarios that he or she surveys. Since the historian is distant in time
> from the scene or events, this reconstruction must be a kind of re-
> creation. The historian must make the sought-after events come alive
> again in a process that cannot be achieved without the collaboration
> of both intellect and imagination. But the synthetic powers of
> imagination in this case can never be exact. They are only loosely
> representative of the events they seek to recreate.
> Many consider history, like art, to be immobile. One speaks, for
> example, of 'the dead weight of the past' as if past events were buried
> and inert. But the paradox of history is that the past is both dead and
> alive. History is dead in the sense that the selfsame event can never
> be relived exactly as it was. But it remains alive and moving in the
> major events that shape the present age and in the everyday gestures
> of individuals, as well as in the life of nations. History is alive in the
> present tense of current events and in individual lives; the happenings
> of the past, for good or ill, perpetuate themselves into the present and
> have to a great extent determined what we are doing now. Especially
> 96                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> in the history of technology does the past project itself into the
> present. Our sophisticated, clever gadgets and labour-saving devices
> have developed from their more rudimentary historical antecedents,
> dating back to early Palaeolithic times. Within these modern tech-
> nologies, we find more primitive forms encapsulated and transformed
> into more complex ones.
> To say that the past lives on in the present moment is true, not just
> in current events and contemporary history, but in all of time. For the
> moment that has just died is continually being reborn in the moment
> that is now. JUSt as the past has a decisive impact on the present, so
> will the present impact decisively upon the future. In this sense, there
> is only one eternal continuum. In mythology, the Titan god Kronos
> bestowed upon humanity that most important single element which
> makes all life possible and upon which history depends and becomes
> eternal- time. As long as there is time, there will be history. History
> must be concerned with this eternity or 'all time'.
> What the artist shares with the historian is the concern to
> capture the moment or the scene and to preserve its living quality.
> The creation of great art results in a paradox, for works of art are
> only deceptively static. In great art one senses that the static form,
> the medium through which the artist creates, actually moves or is
> alive. In reality the fine artist actually achieves the sense of a moving
> or living image preserved in a motionless form. Thus, as the artist
> works, there is a mighty striving to freeze eternity in a moment and
> to create motion in immobility.
> This motion in immobility is~ of course, one of the characteristics
> of both the Divine Manifestation and the human soul. Baha'u'llah
> proclaims about His own coming:
> 
> He Who is both the Beginning and the End, He Who is both Stillness and
> Motion, is now manifest before your eyes. Behold how, in this Day, the
> Beginning is reflected in the End, how out of Stillness Motion hath been
> engcndered. 7
> 
> In what is rightly called a 'coincidence of opposites', He writes
> of this paradoxical nature of the human soul which reflects its
> qualities in art:
> THE BoDY BEAUTIFUL                               97
> 
> It is ~till, and yet it soareth; it moveth, and yet it is still. It is. in itself, a
> testimony that beareth witness to the existence of a world that is contingent.
> as well 35 to the reality of a wor1d that hath neither beginning nor end. 8
> 
> In the same way that love and death, and the loss and regaining
> of identity or true self, have been the motivating force for much
> great literature and philosophy, so the quest for eternity and the
> thirst for the infinite are the source of all true art and history. Even
> at the level of worldly fame, the most cherished desire of those who
> withdraw from public life is to be remembered favourably 'when
> history is written'. Thus, the quest for eternity lives on, even at the
> most mundane levels.
> The historian must consequently seek the total picture, the
> meaning of the whole so as to make sense of humanity's ordered
> life, at this date now much disordered. If historians mechanically
> reconstruct only minuscule atomic moments, specific episodes or
> even periods or ages, they do not really succeed in capturing history.
> If they do not succeed in capturing the meaning in the pattern of
> events they interpret and the telos' of history, they have not really
> succeeded, for history is the manifestation of the human spirit in
> the concrete act and can never be devoid of a higher significance. He
> who does not learn the lessons of history, learns history not at all.
> Without the sense of the metaphysical, history remains deprived of
> a deeper meaning and it cannot afford to be so deprived. Without
> the sense of the metaphysical, art can never become fully conscious
> of its eternal value.
> 
> Ecstasy, Art and the Brevity af Life
> The whistling train that passes in the dark of night has been for
> many years my private symbol for the brevity of life. Until now, I
> have never analysed the reason, having been content to imbibe and
> enjoy this haunting sound in a quiet, reflective moment. But I
> suppose it is because the whistle of the passing train, like the human
> voice, sounds briefly, then dies. It returns to life, but ultimately
> fades away. The nocturnal whistle of the passing train contains the
> mystery of return. It is a haunting sound that swells and fades,
> 98                     UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> returns in refrain, then disappears. It whistles from we know not
> where, over there in the distance, this enigma of a train just passing
> through. Life too comes from we know not where, then passes by.
> For many, the brevity of life has generated much fear in the soul,
> deep dark pools of anguish and angst. Many who love life cannot bear
> to contemplate the fact that one day they will die, will no longer be
> able to continue to enjoy what they take pleasure in doing now. To
> many souls the prospect of death is terrifying, unless the thought of
> extinction and the cessation of consciousness bring them consolation.
> In order (Q escape from such grim realities, men and women drive
> themselves to attain dizzying heights of passion and pain, succumbing
> to a frantic search for strong sensations, desperately hoping to numb
> themselves against the aching meaninglessness and sharp pain of life.
> But by seeking liberation in a misdirected quest for pleasure, we
> will never be able to discover true joy. True joy cannot be had by
> desperate attachment. Souls in flight desire Eros but they do not know
> that true Eros is the ecstasy of the love of God. In the flight from self,
> they never discover that it is in the 'possession' of their souls that they
> will escape death and all the dark fears surrounding it. In possessing
> the soul they will step into eternity and attain a larger life of bliss and
> transfiguration. And to rephrase a teaching of Jesus, to possess onc's
> soul, one must lose it. 10
> However, this ever-larger-looming spectre of life's brevity has
> been not only the cause of the great escape and the desperate search
> for the pleasure principle, but also the source of much great art and
> literature. In such creative work lies hidden the quest for immor-
> tality. Artists desire most through their work, not only to move
> their own souls and the souls of others, but also to perpetuate their
> existence, to live on and through the work that they have created.
> In all great art is heard the sometimes faint, sometimes booming
> voice of a prayer for immortality! a prayer that cries: 'Let me not die
> a thing forgotten, a thing obscure. Let me live.' Such a prayer
> contains within it the seed of its own realization. The imaginative
> individual faces, then, the contemplation of fast-fading life in pro-
> ductive instead of destructive ways. Life's brevity impels the artist
> to self-transcendence, which is but creativity and immortality in
> another form.
> THE BODY BEAUTIFUL                        99
> 
> Beauty
> 
> One of the functions of beauty is simply to be beautiful for beauty's
> sake. Of course, beauty does increase our sense of pleasure, wellá
> being and delight, or creates a plenitude and contentment of both
> senses and soul. But as the expression so aptly puts it: 'Beauty is its
> own excuse for being.' Beauty has no right, either earned or con-
> ferred, to exist. It simply does exist in the nature of things and
> requires nothing else to justify its existence. Functionality may apply
> to beauty, but if so applied, is secondary. Beauty's main function is to
> be beautiful and thus augment that sense of deep tranquillity, joy and
> admiration that the onlooker experiences. We should be cautious
> when praising beauty or when recognizing the merits it possesses. If
> beauty is rewarded, it is not because it has earned recompense, but
> rather simply because it has been itself. Beauty owes the world
> nothing and the world owes beauty nothing other than its admiration,
> if admiration can ever be owed. Those who mindlessly adore beauty,
> however, are mistaken if they do not adore beauty's source rather
> than its reflection. True beauty is not vain and does not wish for
> wanton idolaters.
> NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY
> Divine Losses and New Beginnings
> If we have lost a love, then surely another is waiting to be found. If
> we look deeply into the ash pile of our broken dreams, we will find
> a glowing ember waiting to rekindle the flame of love's ancient
> story. When perennial flowers wither and die, their seed contains
> the germ of a new beginning. So it is with the aspiring soul. An ever
> more abundant life stirs within her being.
> However lovely and fragrant, it is the same flower that returns
> every spring. Not so with the soul. After the agony of loss and the
> winter of discontent comes spiritual rebirth. Following the long
> sleep of death, the soul experiences a new awakening. Unlike the
> perennial flower which maintains the same form year after year, a
> purer, more stable and refined self appears in the divine springtime.
> With the passing days, the spiritual soul becomes more ' ... beautiful
> in colour and redolent of fragrance in the kingdom of God'.'
> If we feel as though we are dying, let us willingly accept death while
> remembering that we are sure to be resurrected. The layers of the old
> self, no longer fit for the present task, are being torn away by the pain.
> As the mask of the former self comes unglued, a stronger, more beau-
> tiful face of spirituality is taking form. We are not losing but gaining.
> A new self is emerging. We are being born again.
> 
> The Sense of the Platonic and Paradise Lost
> It is both strange and true that those things we have lost, or at least
> imagined we have lost, or paradoxically not yet attained, seem to be
> the most beautiful, most real things in the world. Of course, in the
> 
> 104                     UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> Platonic sense this must be so. Plato's Ideas in the world of Forms
> enjoyed an ideal beatified existence in a world beyond. Whether that
> world was to be found in some transcendent spiritual realm or existed
> only within the mind of the contemplative philosopher matters little.
> The far-off, unattainable nature of the Ideas, as much as their being
> the only ultimately real things in existence, accoumed for their appeal.
> I have often wondered at this paradise lost and paradise not yet
> attained. reflecting on the meaning of Proust's phrase that 'the real
> paradise is the paradise we have lost'.' We might well add to the French
> writer's aphoristic expression, 'or the one that we have not yet gained'.
> The paradisiacal point which we so strongly believe in, love or long for,
> whether it lies in the misty past or still looms up before our eyes, bright
> with the fair promise of future things, is nothing other than a vision
> of happiness welling up from the deepest desires of the soul.
> On the one hand, this paradise of happiness seems to be held
> firmly in the grasp of the fair maiden of the future. The lover who has
> not yet met with destiny, the ailing body who longs for healing, the
> poor or destitute one who desires wealth, the troubled soul who longs
> for inner peace, the ambitious person who desires success - this
> earnestly sought-after happiness is connected with a moment that
> is not in the now, but in the future. And if and when that future
> becomes the now, in that moment when the secret desires of the hean
> are attained, then the happiness we once imagined becomes another
> happiness. It becomes a happiness transmuted, now tinged with the
> wan light of reality and sometimes with disappointment.
> There is, consequently, a note of caution to be sounded here. If this
> happiness is not really attainable, and each seeker must decide for
> himself when it is no longer attainable, then the seeker, if he truly
> loves himself and has mercy on his own soul, will tear up the unreal
> script of his own desires. For this unrealized happiness will become
> as bitter as gall and will serve only to frustrate and to disillusion his
> present and future hopes.
> And what of the paradise past? Wherein lies the lure of' ... the days
> that are no more'?' This paradise is the paradise of the secret garden,
> of that lost Eden through which we once freely roamed. It is the
> paradise of that place whose access we once enjoyed unencumbered
> but whose entrance is now barred by angels with a flaming sword.'
> NOTHING GOlD CAN STAY                       105
> 
> This is the paradise of the forbidden return. 'No!' the angels say. 'You
> may not enter here again. Go on with your journey, whatever it may
> be. Be faithful to the truth you have come to discover and we will show
> you another Eden, so lovely that you will long for this one no more.'
> But in our sorrow and our longing, when we are •...wild with all
> regret? if we continue to cling to this lost paradise ever the more
> desperately in the hope of regain, we shall be cast down. Cast down
> until that moment when, by virtue of a greater wisdom and the
> grace of God, we are ushered again into that larger, clearer vision of
> reality that alone can set us free. Then we shall realize that in the
> Plan of God, and for all those who love Him and who seek that
> special destiny He has set down for each aspiring soul, nothing is
> ever really lost and every heartfelt prayer is answered.
> 
> 'Nothing Gold Con Stay',
> or the Beginning of Knowfedge
> and the End of Innocence
> Experience soon teaches that much of life's sorrow stems from loss.
> Yet fonnal education provides poor preparation for the inevitable
> losses that all must face over the course of a lifetime. Such losses
> bring in their wake the psychological distress and trauma that occur
> most poignantly with the death ofloved ones or the end of relation-
> ships, or in times of transition.
> The child or youth, if he is happy, tends to live in the false
> security of present circumstances. He never suspects that all that is
> familiar to him - the playground, the park, the school, the vacant lot
> or open field, the familiar street, the family and friends - cannot be
> a permanent setting in his life. He cannot envisage that soon he will
> be banished from this green garden. Especially, the child or youth
> never contemplates that those who share the inmost recesses of his
> heart, or tutor his soul, will one day move on, or he will leave them.
> If he does suspect this truth, he does not want to believe it.
> The American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963), writing in the
> tradition of wisdom literature, sought to convey the truth that life's
> golden moments must be followed by inevitable losses. None of
> that pure gold can stay:
> 106                    UNDER THE D,V,NE LorE TREE
> 
> Nature's first green is gold,
> Her hardest hue to hold.
> Her carly leaf's a flower;
> But only so an hour.
> Then leaf subsides to leaf.
> So Eden sank down to grief.
> So dawn goes down to day.
> Nothing gold can stay./:.
> 
> Thest! verses demand the cultivation within ourselves of a certain
> informed realism without which we cannot successfully navigate
> through the stormy seas of life's tests. When B.h"'u'lh'h warns us to
> contemplate what might befall us in the future,' far from promoting
> a fear-ridden pessimism He must. I think. be warning us to be sharp-
> sighted and to be wary of a certain naivete vis-a-vis the world. For
> there are no guarantees against the instability of human affairs.
> But there is something else connected with these necessary losses.
> The Hebrew Bible teaches that 'in much wisdom is much grief: and
> he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." It is a hard fact of
> life to realize that we mature more through trial and suffering than
> we do through the ' ... ease of a passing day'.' Sorrow has much to do
> with the acquisition of knowledge and particularly the knowledge of
> self, for the acquisition of self-knowledge must signify an end to naive
> innocence. The innocence and credulity of the child's mind and the
> gusty enthusiasm of youth, for all their sweetness and sincerity, must
> sooner or later evolve into that vision of the world that seeks some-
> thing greater than the repetition of its own happiness. Adults must
> learn the same lesson.
> Now there is, to be sure, a certain winsomeness and purity in this
> outlook of innocence, in this anticipation of the eternal return of
> the ever-lovely. But there is nonetheless a flaw in it, an irksome fly
> in the precious ointment of the golden moment. It is precisely the
> defect of unknowing, the impairment of not being acutely aware of
> 'all things passing away', of not being cognizant that 'nothing gold
> can stay'. The French Canadians have retained in their sometimes
> picturesque speech an inkling of this connection between innocence
> and the failure of knowledge, for even today when they say 'Ii est
> NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY                         107
> 
> bien innocent', they do not mean that he is innocent, but rather that
> he is naive.
> The child's innocence, says 'Abdu'I-Baha, is pure but untried lO
> and is consequently not based on the conclusions of the sure mind.
> What is ideally supposed to happen is that the child or youth's
> experience of transitory events becomes the cause of the acquisition
> of real self-knowledge that will help ground him in the mature
> experience of the adult.
> There is, however, a paradox to be lived in this experience of the
> loss of innocence and the acquisition of the knowledge of self. In the
> process of becoming worldly-wise and of having to sew 'aprons' of
> 'fig leaves' over our naked bodies, 11 the individual should in later years
> continue to maintain the innocence of childhood and the enthusiasm
> of youth. Something of this innocence must be preserved in the faith-
> state of adulthood, for Christ has said that unless we become as little
> children, we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven: 'Verily I say unto
> you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child
> shall in no wise entertherein.''' There should never be an end to this
> purity of heart, this vulnerability, this spontaneous wonderment and
> willingness to believe which are the blessings of childhood.
> In time, we learn to see with the eyes of faith that even in loss (and
> sometimes especially in loss) there can be great blessings. The sense
> of loss and mourning, whatever its origin and despite its bitter
> poignancy, causes the bounds of the soul to be stretched to the limits.
> to rise to greater heights of reliance upon God or to plummet further
> into the depths of human experience. Such fiery ordeals mature the
> soul with understanding, make it mellow and touch it with pathos. a
> pathos that more greatly sensitizes the soul to the sadness and
> suffering of others. For sorrow is of little value if it does not in some
> way make us wiser or better people. more ready to assist our friends
> who themselves have been touched by the sad things of life.
> The lesson that 'nothing gold can stay' also has a larger and
> immense creative value, for its compensation is to be found in the
> quest for a philosophy of wisdom. and in the time-tested universal
> truths contained in literature and religion. For gold that does not
> stay spurs us on to find a currency that is of everlasting value. one
> that is always good on every market and in every time and clime.
> 108                   UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> Another question arises. How to teach the child or youth detach-
> ment to prepare for the inevitable changes that must accompany the
> journey of life? How do we teach the child or youth to enjoy and to
> love the things that now fill his world, yet not cling to them? That is
> a great question, one to which I have no ready answer. Only the life
> experiences themselves that come with the passage of time will ready
> the child or youth for future developments and that slowly-ripening
> sense of detachment that usually comes with age. Somehow, the child
> must be made aware that some of these things that he or she loves and
> cherishes will not always be here. And the best way to make aware is
> with a gentle wisdom.
> But there is, I think, another means to convey the sense of the joy
> of sacrifice, of laying down the things we love, and the elemental self
> we love, with singing. This joy of sacrifice to compensate for loss can
> never be learned without complete trust in God and without the assur-
> ance of His never-failing love and compassion.
> 
> In Praise of Failure
> Guilt-ridden, gloating western society seems to be preoccupied
> more by its failures than its successes. Failures abound these days.
> We hear, for example, that a corporate merger attempt has failed,
> some ambitious engineering project has failed, a much touted
> scientific experiment has failed. The world of scandal that so rivets
> the public's attention is intimately connected with moral failure.
> Sentimentalists like to indulge their failures. Romantics sorrow
> over paradise lost, over the what-could-have-been-that-never-was.
> Some sad and sorry pan of ourselves disappears or dies with the
> failure. It loves to be sweetly mourned. Much self-love, I think, must
> linger in many a failure.
> The religious. particularly, with their conscious or unconscious
> inheritance of original sin and consequent paradise lost. seem to be
> always mourning losses. 'Ah, what a shame,' they say when they hear
> another couple has divorced, when friends knew all too well the
> union was pathological. Or 'Fred lost his job just yesterday and the
> prospects arc dismal. It's just too bad,' they say. Yet the sympathy is
> understandable. The tender zone of the heart, the compassionate
> NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY                        109
> 
> friend, wants to commiserate with the victim. The tough part,
> however, the Spartan soldier wants to say, 'Stand up and take it like a
> man' (now a politically incorrect statement). Let us rephrase: 'Stand
> up and take it like a human.' German speakers put it better. 'Stand up
> and take it like a Mensch. Be a Mensch (human being)'. Yet failure
> raises the question, and has to: why is unsuccess so endemic to human
> existence? Such a ubiquitous pattern in human experience must be
> here by design, be it ever so unconscious.
> Failure may be an indication that one is ignoring or violating the
> workings of spiritual law. The notion of spiritual law has existed in
> Hinduism and Buddhism for millennia as Karma (action, deed) 13
> and is well-expressed in its biblical textual parallel in the Epistle of
> Paul to the Galatians: 'for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
> also reap'(6:7),14 no doubt ancient rabbinical teaching. Spiritual law
> is simply the metaphysical demonstration of the scientific principle
> of cause and effect. Like it or not, it is as predictable as the rise of
> the northern star. According to spiritual law, those who fail, fail
> predictably. Sadder but wiser, they may wish that they had not left
> the ranks of the humble, the naive and the innocent who did not
> dare to try the tempting experiment. If they accept their chastise-
> ment and are still functional enough to tell the tale, they will have
> another opportunity. Failure, then, can become an eventual cause
> for celebration, for it causes us to become more aware of our own
> motives, to work more consciously with and for the creation of our
> own destiny, rather than passively submitting to what we might
> view as the outrages of fate and fortune.
> Failure, if accepted as an opportunity to relearn the lesson, can
> prove to be a fruitful discipline. I have not consulted the historical
> record to determine the count, but for every successful experiment
> of the prodigious American inventor Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931),
> there were many failures. Edison's workshop and laboratory at Menlo
> Park and later at Orange, New Jersey exemplified the principle that
> for the patient and the assiduous worker, failure is often the prelude
> to success. Edison came to understand, however, that some of his
> experiments, no matter how many times repeated, were destined to
> be failures. They were blind alleys. No mailer how many times you
> run up a blind alley, you will always hit the wall. In this case, Edison
> 110                    UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> learned to move away or to take another tack. He was successful
> precisely because he learned to move away at the right time and to see
> the possibility of another victory in defeat. It is self-defeating to stand
> at the wall for too long.
> Through twists, turns and accidents - and accidents, we do well
> to remember, are also pan of the scientific method - some of Edison's
> 'failures' turned out to be his greatest successes. For Edison and his
> (cam. as for spiritual scientists, the road to success requires the
> implementation of Thomas Kuhn's 'paradigm shift',I; a shift in
> consciousness. a looking at the bigger picture, at what is trying to
> emerge in the now. When faced with failure, Edison and his team were
> able to seek other solutions and step back to apprehend the way that
> nature seemed to be leading them. What is true for the inventor is
> likewise true for the spiritual artisan. When we are able (0 put aside
> our own wilful designs and preconceptions. we too are led to make great
> discoveries. Sometimes it is just a case of relentless trial and error.lf>
> When failure strikes, we do well to regroup and look at the
> bigger picture, to wrestle with the experiment. Where is it taking
> us? Let it lead the way. Our failures, although often self-determined,
> contain their own hidden wisdom and justice. Once we begin to
> take a more detached view and really listen to the needs of our own
> soul, and to the needs of olhers, we toO shall find what we seek.
> Finally, one has to remember this. Not everything that initially
> looks like failure proves to be so in the long run. What the world
> loves to write off so quickly in judgemental fashion often proves in
> the 'fullness of time' to be surprisingly resilient, and to come back
> with poetic justice as a resounding success.
> IN EXTREMIS
> True Joy
> Teach us, 0 God, to know that there is something greater than our
> sufferings, something greater than the loves we have known. It is
> Thou Thyself. Thou art true joy.
> 
> Golden Joy
> All our suffering is in some sense sacred. Suffering is the natural
> tendency by which we rid ourselves of imperfections. Whether that
> suffering be God-scnt or self-caused, if we are able to accept the
> visitation of the holy and redemptive discipline that suffering brings
> in its wake, we shall discover its salutary effects in understanding,
> growing, healing, transcending, becoming free, finding balance,
> seeing once more with clarity, renewing and doing afresh. We are
> happy when we discover that in this fast-fleeting world of illusion,
> the mask of sorrow conceals the shining face of joy. By some dimly
> understood law of opposites or by the mysterious mercy and grace
> of God, we discover that beyond 'the thorns and briars of sadness
> and despondency'\ awaits the gold of joy.
> 
> In the Ebb and Flow of Joy and Sorrow
> We are all of us seekers after joy. As 'Abdu'l-Baha has said in a
> pointed phrase, 'Joy gives us wings!" We ascend on the wings of joy.
> When stirred by joy, we feel as if we touch the face of God. The
> ecstatics among us want joy to be everlasting. Yet more often than
> we care to be, we are visited by sorrow. We come all too slowly to
> 
> 114                    UNDER THE DIVINE lOlE TREE
> 
> the realization that the 'steady state' does not reside in the ebb and
> flow of the tides of human feeling.
> We mistakenly cling to joy, just as we mistakenly resent sadness
> as a wearisome, oppressive intruder. We do well to remember,
> especially in our darker moments, that in one sense both joy and
> sorrow arc imposters - 'imposters' because the polarities of human
> existence reveal themselves to be only the shifting features on an ever-
> varying countenance, dancers in a minuet of changing partners.
> Both joy and sorrow are to be embraced and accepted with equa-
> nimity in the multi-textured fabric that defines our life. When gripped
> hard in the clutches of sorrow, it is a consolation to remember that
> sorrow's face is as liable to fade as quickly as that of joy. We are
> mistaken if we believe that sadness will last forever, just as we
> mistakenly cling to joy as if she would so brightly define all our
> waking moments.
> When we find ourselves laughing through our tears, we realize
> then just how fluid joy and sorrow are, and how very closely the one
> is linked to the other. If we are cast down deeply enough into the
> heart of sorrow, we will soon find ourselves uplifted on soaring
> spirits. Indeed, the depths of sorrow produce their corresponding
> heights of joy. Perhaps this is why 'Abdu'I-Baha wrote these
> wonderful words which may first read as a puzzlement: ' ... affliction
> is but the essence of bounty, and sorrow and toil are mercy
> unalloyed, and anguish is peace of mind .. :' True words for those
> who accept with equanimity the contrasting movements of the
> human soul.
> 
> For the Brokenhearted True Believers
> One of the believer's greatest tests is the test of 'Dear God, this is not
> what I had prayed for,' the test during which the soul cries out 'Father,
> no, this cannOt be!' The believer has prayed that God in His mercy
> would answer the heartfelt supplication, would not visit this test upon
> him. The deepest desire of the heart is not granted, the fondest of
> prayers not heard. If he has fcared much, like Job, his worst fears have
> come upon him: 'For the thing which I greatly fcared is come upon
> me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me:'
> IN EXTREMIS                             115
> 
> But we must wait a moment. The end is not yet. Hope still rings
> out in the cathedral bells of the words 'in a little while'. Consolation
> is breathed into the phrase 'in God's good time'. Next time the
> fulfilment of our prayer will be found in the words 'as you would
> have me do'.
> Whatever we have lost, we have Baha'u'liah. This is our supreme
> consolation. He is our salvation and eternal life. What then have we
> lost? What choice is there to be made? Our solace can be found in
> remembering Robert Browning's words:
> 
> Grow old along with me!
> The best is yet to be.
> The last of life, for which the first was made:
> Our times are in His hand
> Who saith, 'A whole I planned,
> Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be afraid!,s
> 
> The Existential Moment
> In spiritual life, two contrasting moments hold great potential for
> significant transformation - the existential moment and the epiphanic
> moment. Although these moments, as I define them, are found at the
> antipodes of pain and pleasure, of humiliation and exaltation, they
> converge at a point of renewal and resurrection. The first comes
> clothed in the garments of agony, fear and dread. The second ascends
> on wings of joy in a breathless moment of divine delight. Both are
> harbingers of spiritual birth. One is the birth of trial by fire; the other,
> the birth of a glorious awakening from a long, dreamless sleep.
> The existential moment is apocalyptic. It comes as a surprise,
> unexpected and unpredictable. We are crushed at its onset. It is a
> sudden meeting with the shadow self, the elemental self, the worldly
> self, the unruly self that lives for the moment and has momentarily
> rejected divine law in the interests of its own imperious demands. The
> existential moment is a meeting with the alter ego that can no longer
> be delayed. The true believer is forced painfully to peel away the
> outworn mask of the old self and persistent habits. The image of the
> hidden higher self is seeking definition and desires to come clear.
> 116                    UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> The existential moment is defined by another meaning in the
> search for truth: of the confrontation with self, of standing face to
> face with the lower self that attempts to assert its supremacy within
> the human soul. Unless we are vigilant, this lower self can easily
> become 'a monster of selfishness',6 In the existential moment, we
> face ourselves as the 'quintessence of passion', as 'rebellious ones',
> as 'children of fancy', as a 'weed that springeth out ofthe dust'.' The
> existential moment is a moment of high realism, stark and real, that
> momentarily outweighs any other consideration. Through our
> struggle with that angel of darkness do we release the dayspring of
> pure light that would shine from within our soul.
> 
> The Epiphanic Moment
> The reverse side of the existential moment is the epiphanic moment.
> Also sudden in its manifestation, by contrast the epiphanic moment
> is a moment of exaltation, of illumination or triumph when we are in
> Wordsworth's phrase 'surprised by joy'.' This epiphanic moment is
> 'a numinous disclosure of glory, an experience of awe or reverence,
> triumph or celebration, a hierophany that looms up large with
> promise and exaltation. It is Bah"u'll.h in the Garden of Rislvan,' and
> all the lesser reflections of that spiritual event. It is the believer
> winning the desires of the heart. It may be a divine healing, a mystical
> encounter, or the certitude that our lesser will has become one with
> the greater Will of God.'10
> 
> Wherefore Anger and Pain?
> Any complaining I do in the present is the residue of life's past
> frustration and pain, the imagined unfulfilled hopes and dreams.
> Any anger I now manifest derives from my failure to accept
> graciously and to reconcile myself to the hurts that are inevitably
> bound up with my unfolding destiny. Any whining, any note of
> self-pity, is due to an inability to understand at the deepest levels,
> to have greater faith and trust, to detach myself from the things
> that I fancy I love most deeply and would not bear to live
> without.
> IN EXTREMIS                           117
> 
> The Plummet into Sorrow
> 
> The natural human tendency in the face of psychological pain is recoil.
> But the brave fight against sorrow sometimes only intensifies the
> suffering. As we resist, the trouble persists. If we struggle too hard
> to climb the 'arc of ascent' while we are on the 'arc of descent'," the
> spiritual energies consumed in the battle may prove to be futile and
> lead to the reverse effect of a surcharge of grief. In this case, it may
> be better to go along with the plummet into sorrow and honestly
> embrace the test that has visited us.
> This consent to a free-fall into distress is not to be confused with
> futile self-punishment. It is a willingness to drain the cup we have
> been asked to drink. It is really a search to rediscover an equipoise
> by a relaxation of the will, by a giving in and a giving over. By letting
> ourselves sink deeper into the dark waters of what may seem like
> endless night, we shall come to plant our feet again on solid ground
> and rediscover equilibrium.
> For certain souls, the walk into the long night of sorrow proves
> too much; overwhelmed, they do not return. For such as these,
> sorrow has pronounced its sentence with a weighty finality. But
> once willing to give in and to let ourselves be pulled deeper into
> what seems at the time like a swirling vortex, we find release from
> the wasted energies of spiritual combat and the overpowering,
> depressive forces that momentarily had taken hold.
> In this life, we are all captains of our little ship. The plummet into
> sorrow is like navigating the waters of a raging river. If we are skilful
> enough to adjust to the current without being overpowered and if
> our craft is strong enough to stay afloat while we are being jetted
> along, we shall soon find ourselves in calmer waters. By the willing
> consent to plummet into sorrow and to work with its energies, we
> shall soon find ourselves released.
> ON REAL GROUND
> The Call of Truth
> Many have heard the call. Either it is beautiful, insistent and clear,
> bright with the promise of a new day, or it fills us with fear and
> trembling, making us anxious with the hope in which love and dread
> dwell together as partners. But only time and ardent prayer will make
> it clear whether or not the call is a reflection of the Will of God or the
> subtle promptings of self.
> 
> Truth and Discipleship
> Those who imagine truth to be merely an intellectual construct, or a
> series of interwoven constructs, circumscribe the magnitude of truth
> itself. Truth is not just a net with which to entrap little fish. Truth is a
> reality greater than intellect, greater than the multitude of rational
> configurations contained within it. Truth is not an idea or conglom-
> erate of ideas, or even a Meta-Idea. Truth is an immense metaphysical
> force field, a terra firma on which one may build - for self-realization,
> for peace, for historical evolution and societal progress, for the noble
> strength and beauty of knowledge. Truth is not merely a matter of
> intellectual curiosity seeking to be satisfied, of propositions waiting
> to be discovered, connected, synthesized, juxtaposed and presented,
> new facts uncovered. It exerts a far profounder influence on spirits,
> souls, and lives.
> To fully understand truth's import, we must consider the teaching
> of Jesus that the truth will make us free: 'And ye shall know the truth,
> and the truth shall make you free." Let us see, however, the whole
> context of Christ's saying: 'Jesus then said to the Jews who had
> 
> 122                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my
> disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.""
> Christ is indicating a clear relationship between belief in Him,
> between His word and discipleship, on the one hand, and knowing
> the truth on the other. In other words, recognition of the True
> Prophet and obedience to Him will lead us into truth. And this
> truth will be better known by taking on the yoke of discipleship.
> This one saying alone forever shatters the narrower definitions of
> truth as being confined to mere philosophical concepts and
> identifies it clearly as a living dynamic, capable of profoundly
> altering and influencing lives and leading us to clearer vision. The
> truth will make us free if we become disciples. Disciples' are
> committed, know how and why to obey.
> 
> Simple Truths
> 
> TRUTH is the one great manifold. There are many types of truths,
> as there are truths both great and small. The greatest truths are the
> simplest and these essential truths are the ones most capable of
> effecting spiritual transformation and moulding conduct. We need
> not be deceived nor frustrated in our attempt to understand the
> truth by seeking out subtle and obscure formulations. That God
> loves every soul more than it loves itself is a simple but most
> profound truth, one that few souls fully grasp. Were the full
> significance of just this one truth to be fully realized, the face of the
> whole earth would change dramatically. That God has a Cosmic Will
> that is already revealed to the world and to every individual who
> believes in a Divine Plan, is another truth which makes for world-
> shaping, world-shaking consequences, were it only to be realized by
> every conscientious soul. Many of the great truths are not only
> simple and self-evident, but remain as yet unrealized and ineffective
> because they are neither entertained, cherished nor lived by with the
> greater mass of humanity. It is also true that truth, when it shall be
> fully realized, will liberate humanity from the chains of sorrow. One
> of the greatest truths is that for those who love God and do His will,
> there is really never any need to fear and never any need to sorrow.
> With them all will be well.
> ON REAL GROUND                            123
> 
> The Biggest Lie of All
> 
> The biggest lie we will ever tell is the one we tell ourselves. Sometimes
> we lie to ourselves because we cannot bear to hear what the truth is
> whispering in our ears. So we write our own script and it sounds
> believable for a time. Sometimes lying to ourselves i. a temporary
> palliative measure. We think it' is care and it supports the dying patient
> for a while. The fictitious ego clings to the lie because it falsely
> believes that it needs this delusion to survive. Sooner or later we learn
> that when we lie to ourselves, we belittle who we are and minimize
> the potentialities for freedom and strength contained within our own
> being. But the truth is strong, very strong. Truth will out.
> Gradually, the rising, midmorning sun of truth begins to dispel the
> mists of deception and circumstance. We become peaceful and
> thankful for the clearer vision of reality. We let go of illusion. Soon
> we are grateful to be liberated. Like the snake that sloughs off its dead
> skin, we move into a freer, more spacious atmosphere. We understand
> then that the lies we tell ourselves are not huge, deceptive monsters
> but only spectres in the mind -little, white fairies we create ourselves
> because we cannot bear to walk alone in the dark.
> 
> What the Martyr Knows
> The martyr knows that only in dying can she be made whole. She
> knows that only in returning to God the most precious gift of all,
> the gift of life itself, can she be fulfilled. By divine decree she was
> created free. Whatever she chooses now must be made in that field
> of clarity where compulsion no longer reigns. She knows that there
> can be no deep, no true satisfaction for her, no lasting fulfilment,
> until she has done her all, given her all, let her life's blood /low, let
> the pith and heart of her devotion be crushed by the millstone of
> suffering, that it might yield up the precious oil to light the wick in
> the lamp of the love of God.
> The name she loves most, the name she loves above all, is
> Baha'u'll.h's name, and it is written on her heart. Whatever other
> name she may have carried there for a while is now but a faded
> memory. She lives, she breathes for Him alone.
> 124                      UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> She wonders if she did not secretly will this agony for herself in
> some hidden part of her soul, for she was not whole without it, not
> quite happy before. Perhaps, childlike, she was too content to bask
> in that innocent joy that never knew sorrow's name. Perhaps she
> was too content to gambol in the green, pleasant spaces of Eden,
> free just to roam and to feel secure in the paradise of His love, happy
> just to mention His name, to teach His truth.
> But now she knows that the paradise she once knew had to be
> snatched away in order that love's gift might be yielded up, in order
> that others might live, feel, know, rejoice in what she knows now. This
> most awful of secrets, most terrible of mysteries exacts payment with
> the heaviest of prices. Only in dying to self may she truly live. Only
> in dying to self may others live because of her.
> She knows that this martyrdom is not selfishness, knows that it is a
> true desire for communion with the Blessed Beauty, a desire to be in His
> presence. But does she know, does she really know, she wonders, what
> it is to desire to be in that presence? Can such a desire which has so freely
> entered her heart, and which seemingly costs nothing, be won so easily?
> No, this dying to self is not selfishness. Her desire for communion is a
> longing to share with all who may care to drink from the same heady
> cup, a communion she proffers to all those who seek to know and to
> understand. She prays that all may feel, all may know what she feels and
> knows. She prays that all may taste the precious love she has found.
> 
> The Martyr and the Lie
> (remembering the faithful in Iran)
> '0 perverse hater! Didst thou imagine that martyrdom could abase this Cause?'4
> 
> The martyr cannot lie about the truth he has embraced, for he knows
> that the lie is both the master and monster of self-betrayal and
> deception. When one fools oneself, one cheats oneself out of the
> possibility of being faithful to the truth which alone, as Christ has
> said, will set us free.' If a believer denies his faith, he puts the densest
> of veils over his soul and clouds over his mind. In so doing, he darkens
> the truth which is the brightest of all the bright things in the world
> since its primary source lies in the shining Word of God.
> ON REAL GROUND                             125
> 
> Some individuals lie in order to avoid embarrassment, depriva-
> tion, pain, or in more serious circumstances, imprisonment or
> death. This is a natural thing to do. It is natural for all living
> organisms to seek self-preservation and protection from bodily
> injury. So in that sense, fountain of all vices though it is, lying is
> natural, since by it men hope to protect and preserve their lives. But
> when one denies one's faith, this avoidance of pain is bought at a
> terrible cost. The cost is self-deception to both oneself and the
> oppressor. It is double-deception. The final cost is betrayal of oneself
> and the community of the faithful. More important, it is a breaking
> of one's covenant with the Almighty.
> For the believer, denial takes on dramatic dimensions and the
> profoundest of meanings. If a believer denies the truth to avoid
> imprisonment, torture or death, he knows that in so doing he must
> deny the One whom he has loved, been faithful to and believed in.
> But if he denies, he proves, alas, that he is not grateful for such
> bounties. Thus does he prove that he has not really loved, been
> faithful to, and believed in his sale salvation.
> Denial is the antithesis not only of faith but also of life, for faith is
> life-affirming. Faith is saying Yes to God. I think it is true to say that
> the true believer always says Yes to God. This saying Yes to God, how-
> ever, sometimes means saying No to other people and to situations.
> If the believer is placed in life-threatening circumstances because of
> his faith, the whole outcome of the meaning of the situation hinges
> precisely on his affirmation or denial. of his saying Yes to God and
> No to man or No to God and Yes to man. The case of the martyr or
> the apostate is a crystal clear illustration of the eitherlor in which all
> is won or lost purely in the meaning of the situation.
> Some have wondered why the believer does not just dissimulate
> his faith in order to save his life, following the practice of taqfya
> (leatman) (dissimulation) which is condoned, for example, in hlli'ah
> Islam but which, according to twelver theologian 1;Iasan ibn Yusuf
> (died 1326 eEl, could not be legitimately practised after the coming
> of the Q:\'im, who did in fact appear in 1844 in the person of the
> Bab." After all, according to this strategy, the believer does not really
> deny. He just pretends to deny but really goes on believing in his
> heart. But this cannot be, for the true believer is always and forever
> 126                   UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> a true witness. The true witness will lift up his voice to proclaim the
> truth, even, and especially, in the face of indifference or opposition.
> If a believer denies the Truth and the One whom he has loved and
> been faithful to, he commits the worst kind of treachery. For that One
> whom he has loved and been faithful to has given him spiritual life and
> has granted him eternal salvation. To deny the truth of one's faith is
> analogous to that son or daughter who sinks to cursing or execrating
> the parents who have loved him and given him life. His parents brought
> him into the world, raised him up and educated him to discriminate
> between the truth and falsehood, upon which the progress of his soul
> and the en tire world depends. The apostate commits such ingratitude
> just by breathing the word No. The believer, then, cannot just pretend
> to deny the truth in order to save his life, any more than a loving son
> or daughter can curse or deny his parents. In so doing, he would in
> effect be denying the genesis of his own spiritual life. By so doing, he
> would bring shame not on them, but on himself.
> But there is another important point here, one that concerns the
> other parties involved in this double deception - the oppressors. In
> such dire circumstances, the denial or the affirmation of the believer
> will profoundly affect the oppressor, be he guard, judge or executioner.
> For it has to be considered that the fate of the oppressor's soul hangs
> in the balance as well. If the believer denies his faith, he will also
> deceive the oppressor into believing that he has won the day by his
> insatiable lust for power and control.
> Martyrdom is not a pathetic kind of powerlessness, a sheep going
> to the slaughter. Martyrdom is both a silent and a vocal protest against
> oppression. It is the most telling of all silent protests and the most
> eloquent of all declarations. The martyr's silent protest is made in his
> refusal to breathe the word No. But his voice echoes from the
> mountain tops as he cries out: 'Yes, I believe!' This silent protest
> against oppression and this eloquent affirmation of faith rise up in the
> martyr's heart as an anthem to the loftiest freedom of conscience, as
> an emancipation of being that cannot be bound by chains and fetters
> orthreatened with extinction. It is complete triumph over the fear of
> a cowardly death.
> Perchance, in the midst of such heart-wrenching circumstances the
> oppressor may be changed too. And if the oppressor's heart cannot
> ON REAL GROUND                          127
> 
> be changed by the love and devotion, the sincerity, the strength of
> spirit, the remarkable courage, the kindness and tender-heartedness
> of the one whom he oppresses, then he will never be changed. The
> oppressor must also see, as much as the martyr, that the threat of
> death, and death itself, will not force the true believer to recant. And
> perhaps it may so happen that through the sacrifice of such a pure life,
> the oppressor will also be changed and by some great miracle and by
> some sorrowful repentance become a believer.
> LOGOS AND MYTHOS
> The Convergence of Theology and Poetry
> I ask here whether one may find parallels between the work of
> poetry and theology, whether they can in some fashion co-exist or
> complement one another. How can two such different metiers
> converge or co-inhabit the same intellectual space?
> I maintain that poetry and theology are not to be found at the
> antipodes but rather share connex spheres. At first view, this does
> not appear to be so. On the one hand, the theologian bends his or
> her mind to the discipline of rational thought as it relates to the
> unveiling of truth in the field of philosophical theology. The .
> theologian aims for a kind of 'fixity' or permanence in the thinking.
> Without this element of permanence the theology will not be
> considered durable. The poet, on the other hand, is not bound by'
> the framework of established beliefs or by rational argument, and is
> thus able to give free reign to the powers of the imagination. The
> poet remains unbound by any discrete language of systems and
> doctrines.
> Poetry is above all an intensification of experience. It is first of all
> that moment of mundane life which has become hyper-intensive in.
> the experience and imagination of the poet. The poetic act comes to
> life in that moment when, through the lens of the living eye, mind and
> heart, the poet takes 'the stuff of life' and transforms it into a more
> elevated, articulated form of discourse. Poetry is essentially a creation
> of vision, a vision that transports the poet beyond the context of
> everyday waking-consciousness, that transcends the ordinary
> mentaVemotional state in an experience akin to the mystical. In this
> view, poetry is primarily transformation.
> 
> 132                   UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> Here, then, is the first meeting-place of the two domains. Both
> poet and theologian dwell in the land of the mystical vision. By
> 'mystical', however, I do not mean any rarefied state such as being
> absorbed into the Godhead, nor do I intend the classical types or
> forms of religious consciousness that phenomenologists such as
> Rudolf Otto and others have defined.' By 'mystical' I intend for the
> theologian a quest for a vision of God in the objective structures of
> human thought. For the poet, it means a highly sharpened and
> sensitized focus, an intense awareness, a keen joy, a transformation
> of the quotidian. Both poet and theologian may experience cosmic
> consciousness, illumination, intimations of divine love and the like.
> Poetry is a dancing, theology a conversation with angels. Poets
> experience verse as entering into a symphony of joy. The intensified
> experience of the poet is akin to the grace of which the theologian
> speaks. For there is a kind of grace in the poetic act. One cannot
> create the poetic experience through effon alone, in the same way
> that one cannot attain salvation by effort alone. Some poets may
> well complete a poem, to echo Thomas Alva Edison's remark on
> genius, by dint of perspiration,' but the initial impulse is most
> often one of inspiration. The task of the theologian, however, is
> to wrestle and to plod, to finally articulate to full satisfaction the
> clean, noble structures of human thought as they pertain to the
> Divine. In this he too finds joy and when he comes to the end of
> his labours, he knows that they have been greatly assisted by the
> grace of God.
> Inspiration, whether poetical or theological, is a type of grace.
> The poetic experience is a flight into rarer space, a moment when
> the wind of song fills your sails or the picture gallery of the
> imagination seizes your eye or profounder insights capture the
> mind. You are delightfully plunged into a mystery, not at all sure
> how this process has come about. It is a given. Thus, 'the purpose
> of poetry" is not didactical, although there is to be sure a didactical
> element in some poetry, and particularly in the verse of the
> 'metaphysicals'.' The purpose of poetry is rather to represent a
> transformational vision of reality. That it is practically impossible
> to avoid the abstract, metaphysical element in poetry' is another
> common ground. The two fields converge in the metaphysical.
> lOGOS AND MYTHOS                            133
> 
> The poet, as Northrop Frye's metaphor with respect to all of
> literature has it, 'swallows' life, or at least as much as he or she is able
> at one sitting: 'Literature does not reflect life, but it doesn't escape
> or withdraw from life either: it swallows it. And the imagination
> won't stop until it's swallowed everything.'" But the poet not only
> swallows life whole: the poet also prepares the meal in a particular way.
> To use another commonplace suggested by Frye's analogy, the poet
> and poetic art are akin to the activity of the skilled chef and the dishes
> concocted in fine cuisine.
> The master chef takes the raw materials of the vegetable and herb
> garden and marketplace and transforms them into something that is
> both palatable and satisfying; something that not only attracts the eye,
> but delights the taste buds and ultimately rewards, not just the stom-
> ach, but the whole organism. The poet uses a roughly equivalent process,
> selecting the same commonplace experiences available to almost every-
> one within a given culture- a journey, alove experience, a life event, some
> insight or realization, a daily occurrence, a glimpse of nature or a dip into
> the future - in short, anything that captures the attention. The poet, like
> the chef, arranges the material according to his or her skills and undoubt-
> edly hopes to satisfy, or at least to impress, the reader's literary palate.
> Some poets use mundane experience to erect a highly complex
> metaphysical world view as did T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens, a meta-
> physical scheme that takes great acumen to decode and interpret as a
> coherent whole. The work of criticism is an art and a skill all unto itself,
> a complement to the poetic act. Other poets, like Yeats, have delved
> into the storehouse of myth, dream, symbol, folklore and nature
> religion. For Blake, the poem revealed both heaven and hell. But what-
> ever poetry is, it starts in some sense on earth, within the purview of
> the poefs immediate experience.
> Poetry is consequently not the non-substantial, ethereal art that
> those who devalue, ignore or do not understand it so often claim. This
> is so simply because poetry does not and cannot escape the sense
> world. The five senses furnish in the first place the raw material for
> the poetic imagination, not the other way around. This means that
> poetry is not essentially a flight into fancy or a series of woven
> vagaries; it is rooted in the real world. This rootedness in the sense
> world means that poetry has as a constant referent the concrete as
> 134                    UNDER THE D,V,NE lOTE TREE
> 
> much as the abstract. It is rather the arrangement or juxtaposition of
> those concrete elements that renders some poetry resistant to facile
> interpretation. Poetry transforms the concrete world through the
> imagination and the intuitive sense, injecting into the process an
> intellectual element of interpretation, an extended vision which
> characterizes the poet's Weltdnschauung.
> Now theology is not just a dogmatic piece of writing that promotes
> the protective doctrines of a religious institution. The work of theol-
> ogy is to uncover a spiritual truth where it was not apparent before.
> The theologian's work is to make explicit that which was formerly
> obscure in the storehouse of God's wisdom. Theology takes months
> and years, often with great effort or labour, to elaborate what is given
> in poetry in minutes or hours. What requires a six-day cycle of
> creation in theology is crelted in verse in a few intense atomic moments.
> Poets work with the pcn, the creative powers of the mind, the
> ambient world and the world of experience. Their chief source of
> material lies both within the human psyche and the relationship of
> self to the world. The poet has only to call on these powers through
> the faculty of imagination.
> Theologians, however, as a convention of the discipline. must show
> proof of book-learning. They must be familiar with the thoughts of
> the masters before professing a view. Thus the theologian must become
> a seeker of truth, a scholar engaged in research and discovery, fre-
> quenting the university library and classroom, un shelving tomes,
> wading into them, taking notes, reflecting and concluding. Although
> wordcrait requires an equally disciplined attention to detail, poets need
> no credentials other than themselves, their own experience and vision.
> Theologians, as much as they may explore the knowledge of
> bygone days, remain in constant search of the living truth, truth for
> our time, truth for now, truth that will speak to the requirements of
> our age in a language that seekers will understand. Theology, like
> poetry, is a minute-by-minute unveiling of the mysterious. It is that
> impenetrable sense of the mysterious that both poet and theologian
> are called upon to reveal. Both are called upon to reveal and explain
> the inexplicable, the hidden things of God.
> The process in which the theologian participates, as stated above,
> is the way of intellectual labour and the revelation sought is not in
> LOGOS AND MYIHOS                            135
> 
> the beginning a way made plain. Like the Amerindian on a vision
> quest, the theologian must wait for his own vision in the wilderness,
> pray for coherence and meaning to descend, or like Peter, the
> Apostle of Christ, wait for the Angel of the Lord to liberate him
> from the prison of his own ignorance. 7 Theology, then, is labour, a
> labour in which the theologian seeks to engage in a finer definition
> of the truth, a cogent construct of the intellect from which others
> may profit in their efforts to understand the knowledge of God
> which according to Baha'u'llah is 'the most exalted station to which
> any man can aspire'. 8
> The theologian, like the poet, seeks to bring the things which
> have captured his vision into sharper focus, so that a greater number
> of seeking souls may participate in the understanding he offers. In
> so doing, the theologian works in a way analogous to a photog-
> rapher developing a negative in the dark room, in the acid bath of
> truth in which he attempts to dissolve all that is spurious in what he
> has thought and written. The theologian must 'work patience' for
> this time-consuming process. The result of one's efforts does not
> literally descend from heaven in a sanctified moment. It is born of
> the fruit of effort and labour.
> In this day of unity, theology can no longer mean dogmatism: the
> dead weight of sclerotised thought that vainly attempts to fix forever
> what must inevitably yield to history and to the fresh insights of an
> ever-expanding consciousness. Poetry, for its pan, must continue to
> be viewed as one of the most consequential forms of art. For poetry
> is the unveiling of all life, all human experience. Theology, like the
> larger literature of which it forms a part, must increasingly seek the
> universal and seek it in the human condition. The theologian's subject,
> like the poet's, should be life itself and be related to all of life. Rilke's
> broad definition that 'poetry is existence'" applies also to theology.
> Theology is existence and requires the participation of the existential.
> Theology today can no longer be meted out through the
> 'violence of logic' or dry morsels of sterile information incapable of
> feeding the human soul. Theology must be somehow connected to
> the whole person, to the intellectual, moral and spiritual dimensions
> of human experience. Theology should be a comprehensive science,
> collaborating not only with the poetic arts, but with all learning.
> 136                   UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> Both poetry and theology cause ' ... the tender light of faith to
> shine/By which alone the mortal heart is led/Unto the thinking of
> the thought divine."o
> 
> The Power of Poetry and Holy Writ
> Some view poetry as a purely decorative thing, fitting only for
> circumstance, or as an activity having a certain aesthetic value but
> lacking the cogency of propositional thought. We can readily admit
> that the power of poetry does not lie in its propositional value. But
> this is not an impediment. Rather, the power of poetry resides in its
> ability to move and sensitize the soul, to challenge the mind and to
> heighten the imagination. These abilities take on increased
> importance when we consider the poetic features possessed by
> Holy Writ to empower the soul.
> That Holy Writ has strong poetic features is evident even from
> a cursory reading of scripture, regardless of its tradition of origin.
> Within the Abrahamic faiths, the poetry of scripture was released
> millennia ago through the repetitive, commanding power of the
> prophetic announcement and the prophetic song. The power and
> pathos of the warnings, invocations and lamentations of the Hebrew
> prophets strike us as being marked by strong poetic features. At the
> end of the Hebrew prophetic cycle, Christ taught Gospel truth
> through a great variety of poetic allusions and forms, allusions and
> forms that were not used as mere didactic tools or artifice but were
> unveiled to the listener as an intrinsic part of the message of
> wisdom itself. The relentless enemies of the prophet of l;Iijaz tried
> to belittle both Muhammad and His mission by referring to Him
> as merely a mad poet. We read in the Sura called 'The Ranks' that
> when Muhammad exhorted the Meccans to worship no God but
> Allah, they replied: 'Shall we then abandon our gods for a crazed
> poet?'" If the barbaric tribes of Saudi Arabia had fallen under the
> spell of poetry in the Arabic tongue, they clung to idol worship no
> less, at least for a time.
> Both prophet and poet make their appeal in the same way. The
> urgency of the prophetic announcement is made chiefly through a
> harmony of voice, by captivating attention through the auditory
> LOGOS AND MYTHOS                          137
> 
> sense. As St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) has so incisively pointed
> out in his Introduction to the Devout Life, the way to the heart is
> through the ear." Faith grows, as St. Paul said, by hearing: 'So then
> faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.'''
> Thoughtful listening to sacred scripture can be likened to reaping
> the harvest of one's understanding.
> Sacred scripture comes to the awakened spirit as a great, celestial
> river whose purifying waters baptise both the mind and soul of the
> consecrated listener. These waters educate, purify, inspire, reprove
> and guide aright. In a process of cross-fertilization with scripture,
> poetry helps to prepare the soul for that greater poem which is divine
> revelation. Sacred scripture in turn cultivates an appreciation of all
> that is fine in poetry.
> The sacred word, like the great traditions of poetry, is clothed in
> the garments of lyricism and beauty. Divine revelation rarely
> expresses itself without the poetic elements of lyricism, beauty,
> weight, feeling, proportion, form and balance. Even that individual
> who might otherwise remain unmoved to the precepts of religion
> can be moved all the same by the lyricism and power of divine
> verses. He would be a dead soul indeed who claims to love poetry
> and who is not moved by the poetry of heavenly verse.
> Very little divine discourse, when one surveys it broadly, is strictly
> cognitive in nature. One should not reduce the value of sacred
> scripture by making it out to be a mere receptacle for ideas or
> concepts about God and creation. For when God speaks to
> humanity; He does not speak primarily as the God of the philosopher
> but as the God who awakens the mind and heart of the humble soul
> and as the God who demands spiritual transformation. In this
> transformation, poetry has no small part to play.
> In Plato's Republic we find that Socrates experienced a crisis of
> confidence vis-ii-vis the poets as guardians of the lamp of wisdom"
> because he feared that the volatile nature of poetry might lead the soul
> into excess and thereby dethrone reason. For the ancient Greeks,
> passion led to excess, and for a people who valued above all balance
> and moderation, excess was an offence against the gods. While today
> we may not view poetry as being antithetical to either reason or
> wisdom, we still have to be wary of dismissing it as inconsequential.
> 138                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> 'Fain Would They Put Out His light With Their Mouths'
> 
> Baha'u'ILih in the Kitdb-i-Iqan (Book of Certitude) quotes from the
> Qur'.n: 'Fain would they put out God's light with their mouths: But
> God hath willed to perfect His light, albeit the infidels abhor it.'15 The
> fuller context of this passage" develops the contrast between spiritual
> sovereignty and earthly sovereignty; between the passing temporal
> authority of kings on the one hand, and the eternal sovereignty of
> God and His Manifestations on the other.
> Baha'u'll.h tells us in this passage that a cyclically recurring event
> in the lives of the Divine Manifestations is the fiercest opposition to
> their Cause by the clergy and the people. Chief among their arsenal
> of weapons is the vitriolic tongue. These opponents of the Divine
> Messenger wage an unholy war of words against the sayings and
> doings of the Promised One and His followers whom they have so
> wrongly judged to be imposters. Their campaign of defamation is
> waged through denial and ridicule, distortion and slander, falsification
> and hate. These thoughtless gainsayers are more preoccupied by the
> preservation of their vested interests than they are by the search for
> truth and the recognition of the True Prophet.
> This emphatic rejection of the Manifestation of God is a salient
> leitmotiv in the historical pattern of comparative religions. Albert
> Schweitzer wrote that 'it is the fate of every truth to be a subject
> of laughter until it is generally recognized.''' His statement applies
> in preeminent fashion to the initial reception accorded the
> Manifestations of God and Their teachings. Although the naysayers
> cause incalculable harm to the Prophet, His followers and loved ones,
> in the end they arc defeated. Ultimately, their calculated machinations
> prove to be a blessing for the promotion of the Word of God, since
> this very opposition provides an opportunity for the irresistible
> power of the Divine Word to assert itself.
> But the Quranic maxim's meaning is not restricted only to the
> concrete once-and-once-only historical Sitz im Leben 18 of the Divine
> Manifestation while He walks upon the earth. It has meaning for us
> now. Those of us who live in contemporary western society may
> witness other ways of putting out God's light with the mouth. These
> ways are more subtle, unconscious and passive and although they may
> lOGOS AND MYTHOS                           139
> 
> be less motivated by vindictiveness and ill-will than by neglect they
> can be just as fatal.
> It is the hollow 'white noise' of secular speech with its incessant,
> meaningless chatter that never utters the words God, faith and
> spirituality that is today dimming the light of God. Such endless talk,
> with no divine referent, with no spiritual framework as ground, gives
> off nothing but static. It sounds as the merest passing wind, giving
> vent to the vaguest and vainest of fancies. Its incessant discussion and
> analysis, even if trenchant, are mere sophistty. Its idle speculation
> brings no peace. For secular speech at the end of the day does not tell
> what is really happening - the good news that the Promised One has
> come and that a new world is being born. Yet, thankfully, history does
> repeat itself. Just as opposition to the True Prophet and His message
> created opportunities in the past to proclaim the teachings, so does
> hollow secular speech create opportunities today for God-talk.
> Then there are the silent tongues, the ones who put out the light
> of God by default because they do not speak, because they dare not
> be heard. These silent ones let pass without contest each new advance
> of the forces of irreligion: a compromise in principle here, a giving in
> to expediency there, turning a blind eye to wrong-doing, 'going with
> the flow', taking the path ofleast resistance, following the fashionable
> but fleeting present moods and trends, failing to take a stand or falling
> in unthinkingly with the mounting tide of the current political will,
> whether it be right or wrong. These silent ones put out God's light
> with the mouth because they do not speak. They too create victims
> -the victims of silence: those who become victims because those who
> are silent dare not speak out against the power-hungry, the misguided
> and the perverse.
> 
> Caught in the Web of Words
> 'Abdu'I-Karim and l:Iasan were talking about their Lord.
> 'God', said 'Abdu'l-Karim, 'is truly incomparable in His gifts to
> humanity.'
> 'How truly you speak; replied l:Iasan.
> 'Abdu'l-Karim continued, 'He has blessed us with a mind divine,
> the rarest of blessings.'
> 140                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> 'You speak truly: .ssened I;Iasan.
> 'Abdu'I-Karim resumed, 'It has been the one great joy of my life
> to use this divine mind to the fullest of my capacity. 1 have spent
> many pleasure-filled hours in my study reading, composing and
> investigating, in contemplation of the abstruse realities of the
> metaphysical world.'
> 'Blessed be the Blessed One: rejoined I;Iasan.
> 'But I have one great fear: ventured 'Abdu'I-Karim.
> 'May the Banisher of all fears banish this one too,' I;Iasan
> responded sympathetically.
> 'Abdu'l-Karim continued, 'I fear that I may forget that I am dust
> and my ego may overwhelm me. I fear lest 1 forget that all my gifts
> come from the Blessed One. At that moment 1 shall lose my several
> powers and abilities, for I know that without Him I am nothing. 1
> could do nothing, teach nothing, compose nothing. Should that day
> come, and should 1 fall into the trap of my own ego and forget my
> Lord, then all will be lost. 1 shall even lose my own soul.'
> I;Iasan remained silent, thought for a moment and then replied.
> 'Dear 'Abdu'I-Karim, should that day come, and you forget that
> the Blessed One - on Him be glory - is the source of all of your
> gifts, will that make you any less His son? Even if you should
> renounce the Source of all gifts to rely upon your own powers, will
> you be any less of a man? Will your soul be less eternal because you
> will have forgotten its divine origin?'
> Just then an angel of light, one of the company on high, appeared
> in a vision before I;Iasan and spoke to his hean. '0 my servant I;Iasan,'
> intoned the messenger, 'fall silent and speak no more, for you are
> weaving a tangled web of words in which you will entrap both
> yourself and 'Abdu'I-Karim. Speak one more word, both his soul and
> yours will fall into the abyss of hell!'
> Thus did 'Abdu'I-Karfm test himself. Thus did 'Abdu'I-Karim
> test I;Iasan. Thus did I;Iasan test 'Abdu'I-Karim. Thus did I;Iasan test
> himself. Thus did the angel of the Lord test I;Iasan.
> For. moment, their very souls hung in the balance. The outcome
> is with God.
> Blessed be the silent ones who do not entangle themselves and
> others in the web of their own fearful words, who do not entrap
> LOGOS AND MYTHOS                        141
> 
> themselves in the veil of their own doubts. Words are perilous
> things, the cause of our salvation or damnation. The tests of the
> tongue shake our very foundations with fear and trembling.
> 
> The Four Books
> There are four books I am fond of reading: (1) the book of
> revelation (2) the book of nature (3) the book of the philosophers
> (4) the book of humanity. When I read the book of revelation, I am
> conscious that the Omniscient One is pouring out the spirit of life
> from on high upon my soul. When I read the book of nature, my
> eyes are filled with the beauty of the colours, the sounds and the
> forms of this great mysterious work of God. When I read the book
> of the philosophers, my mind is challenged and strengthened by the
> precise discipline, the keen perception and high resolve of the
> geometers of thought. But when I read the book of humanity, I read
> the three other books at once.
> 
> The Sound and the Fury
> Words are like shifting sands in a Sahara of meaninglessness.
> They are as fluid as water. Never to be nailed down, they invent a
> dance of point and counterpoint. No sooner are they spoken than
> they can be called back, renounced, recanted. These curious black
> markings on a page give the impression of permanence but vanish
> like the wind into the stores of memory. Words are maddeningly
> imprecise, though we sometimes fancy that writers possess the art
> and precision of jeweller's tools.
> In conversatlon, we are astonished howaften we stumble about our
> meaning, leaving the company of our friends less than content with
> the thought we have striven to convey. How often have we regretted
> words we may have spoken in anger or thoughtlessness, words which
> cut to the quick and carry their wounds for days, months, even years.
> Yet how often, too, have words come as a heavenásent blessing, as a
> welcome balm of healing and relief to both body and soul.
> Words are volatile and chaotic. They can be as unpredictable and
> ruinous as a roaring tornado that devastates a countryside, or as
> 142                  UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> measured and stately as the noble utterances of a speech from the
> throne. Watch out for words, the concealed weapons that can be
> foisted upon you with lightning speed by the cunning or the cruel.
> Watch out for words that beguile the unsuspecting victim. Yet know
> and appreciate the awesome power of these fond friends to heal, to
> transform and to create, the floating jewels at their brilliant best
> when they speak the words of love.
> BEING-IN-THE-WORLD
> Self-Revelation and Community
> Some of the religious prefer concealment behind the veil of discretion,
> behind the quiet and moderate tones of tact, caution and diplomacy.
> For these believers, self does not figure into the discussion. One's
> hopes, feelings, disappointments, life experiences have no relevance.
> Instead, one stays on the safer ground of the mollifying effect of
> objectivity and detachment.
> r wonder if this veiling of self, this mood of caution, is always
> desirable. Discretion and the spirit of diplomacy may quiet souls and
> pacify spirits. That may be a lesser good. Such an approach, however,
> tells nothing about the soul, nothing about the real life experiences
> or the wisdom gained by the spiritual pilgrim. That is the greater
> good. This concealment of self does not reach out to the one who is
> striving to understand or to endure the heat of the day. The guarded
> voice says in effect: 'Only this question exists. Let us look at it
> objectively. We do not matter in all of this. I do not exist. You do not
> exist.' Such are the drawbacks of objectivity. Objectivity, so highly
> prized by the scholar, does a disservice in personal interaction and
> community life. For objectivity in these circumstances means treating
> persons and life situations as if they were objects. This approach is
> artificial and dehumanizing.
> It is important to distinguish self-revelation from confession. The
> person who reveals self is sharing wisdom or counsel, not offering
> cold comfort by admitting to the lowest common denominator.
> There is, to be sure, something discreet, a certain modesty in the
> concealment of self. But there is also something lacking in this
> reticent voice, something properly amiss. It is precisely the vety thing
> 
> 146                    UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> that it is wont to pass over in silence- the life of self. By 'self' I mean
> especially that sense of compassion and sympathy that does not draw
> back from sharing learned experiences, honest perceptions, the
> treasures found at the deepest levels of the mine of life's most
> strenuous ordeals. It is only by daring to share this intimate sense of
> self that the bonds of friendship and community will be forged.
> Although self-revelation runs the risk of vulnerability, true
> community cannot emerge without the sense of intimacy in which we
> become guides and physicians to one another.
> 
> The Revealing Self
> The revealing self is the affirmative voice of the man or the woman
> who speaks as the honourable creation of God. But let all of us who
> reveal ourselves and who wish to utter this imperious word 'I' also
> shrink before its many dangers. Let us take care that we grow not sick
> with promoting self rather than truth. For self-revelation means that
> he who dares to speak must know that, at the same time as he lifts up
> his voice, he will err. She who dares to reveal herself must know that
> when she does speak, the same divine light that has illumined her
> lantern will also reveal at the same time her shabby clothes.
> All the same, we the 'generation of the half-light'! must in the
> here and now, and for the swiftly passing days that are still ours,
> dare to utter the word T. This is the I of the divine subjectivity, the
> I of the self that 'is not rejected but beloved', the self that 'is well-
> pleasing and not to be shunned',' the I of the divine actor who
> shares his soul and makes himself present to all those who long to
> change the world.
> 
> The Abolition of Priesthood:
> Self-Knowledge and Ministering to Society
> There is much wisdom in Baha'u'lIah's edict abolishing the
> priesthood and the cloistered life, in enjoining His followers to live
> in the world.) Closed societies, we have long since come to discover,
> are inhabited by demons of their own. The 'knight of faith" or the
> spiritual pilgrim naturally welcomes a moment of retreat from the
> BEING-IN-THE-WORLO                             147
> 
> world. But if we hope to flee permanently from the inevitable
> oppression that marks human society today, we shall be furthering
> a process that is only self-defeating.
> By withdrawing our spiritual resources from an increasingly
> dysfunctional society, we become unable to minister to its pressing
> needs. While the world clearly does expose the individual to grave
> dangers for spiritual well-being, it also creates at the same time
> opportunities for healing, transformation and social welfare. We
> have all been thrown into the gaping jaws of society and we must
> learn to live in the world with nothing but our own wits and
> resources to enable us to survive.
> The Baha', writings voice strong warnings of the corrosive
> influence that would be let loose on spiritual souls living in
> contemporary society. Yet facing the tests of the world through
> spiritual discipline is the chief means of acquiring virtue in this
> promised day. Virtue, to be virtuous, must be virtue tested. John
> Milton (1608-1674) made the point in his Areopagitica, a pamphlet
> written on the model of classical rhetoric in which he argued for the
> repeal of the censorship laws passed by Parliament on 14 June 1643:
> 
> As therefore the state of man now is, what wisdom can there be to choose,
> what continence to forbear, without the knowledge of evil? He that can appre-
> hend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain,
> and yet distinguish. and yet prefer that which is truly bener, he is the true way-
> faring Christian. I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered vinuc, unexercised
> and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out
> of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and
> heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the world? we bring impurity
> much rather: that which purifies us is trial. and trial is by what is contrary. S
> 
> Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote in his great dramatic monologue
> Ulysses these words that well express the fortitude that believers must
> develop living in today's society: 'One equal temper of heroic hearts/
> Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will(fo strive, to seek, to
> find, and not to yield:" Tennyson also wrote about his poem Ulysses
> that it gave 'the feeling about the need of going forward and braving
> the struggle of life ..:7 This is a good description of those souls who
> 148                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> choose to live in the world. I emphasize the word choose, for one can
> live out a meaningless existence by default, blindly and passively
> submitting to what one views to be either a cruel fate or a deadening,
> humdrum existence.
> Shoghi Effendi also alerted us to another reality bearing on this
> question. He wrote that the pernicious influences to which we are
> all exposed would originate not just from without, but from within
> ourselves. The Guardian of the Baha'i Faith tells us that when
> trouble comes to believers, it originates not only in the contrary
> behaviour of the thoughtless or the malicious. Spiritual souls, he
> wrote, often bring their troubles upon themselves: 'Generally
> speaking nine-tenths of the friends' troubles are because they don't
> do the Baha'i thing, in relation to each other, to the administrative
> bodies or in their personallives:s
> The frank realism with which Shoghi Effendi conveys this point
> remedies an all too common tendency to blame society or others for
> one's troubles. This self-inflicted harm of which the Qur'an also
> speaks' is, however, the rite of passage, the necessary training, the
> price one pays for acquiring the gift of self-knowledge and for becom-
> ing fit to advance the cause of an 'ever-advancing civilization',IO of
> becoming a source of social good. But believers know that they have
> a shelter, a refuge and a guide as they navigate through stormy seas.
> If they are shipwrecked, it does not matter. If they be faithful to Him,
> in time they shall be rescued.
> Yet for all the hard lessons we may be destined to learn as we
> fathom her mysterious ways, Lady Wisdom is a wonderful teacher.
> For jf we allow her, she teaches us to become wiser than our own
> unwisdom. Sophia teaches us that even when we become ensnared
> by our own folly or fall into the trap of the malicious, Baha'u'llah
> will graciously assist those who are willing to profit by their
> mistakes and who implore His help in their peril.
> 
> We Can Still Celebrate the World
> We can still celebrate the world today in spite of its dire threat to
> human happiness. The Baha'i Faith, as is true of the other great
> religions, calls for a rejection of the world. But in doing so, it defines
> BEING-IN-THE-WORLD                         149
> 
> the 'world' only as anything which prevents us from loving God. 1I
> Following this definition, the world actually enables us to love God
> more completely through a deeper appreciation of His many beautiful
> names and attributes revealed in all of creation.
> We can still celebrate the world today by celebrating ourselves. We
> can rejoice in the realization that there is still much left in the soul to
> be loved and because wherever we are in our spiritual journey, we have
> been able to endure our lives up to this moment and because we are
> still here learning to live and to love, to understand, to suffer and to
> forgive, to work and to praise - with this end in mind: that we might
> make a difference in the world and become a cause of healing.
> We can still celebrate the world today by admiring the soul
> beauty in others. A myriad faces of joy are still to be seen, faces of
> bliss mirroring mystery, individual waves that have emerged from
> that vast unknown Sea of Reality. For that greatest of all mysteries,
> the endless, unfathomable Sea of Being, in its profound mystery, in
> its heights and depths, contains us one and alL In that Great Sea, we
> may all learn to swim secure and be confident in the realization that
> its salutary waters will carry us safely to the farthest shore.
> 
> The Call of the Wild
> This morning at dawn, I heard the birds crying. I say crying because
> dominating all the rest was the seagull, a waterfowl that is becoming
> less of a marine creature. Gulls are becoming skilful adapters to urban
> living and are quite content to fly in from nearby rivers and scavenge
> what they can at the local fast food outlets.
> These pesky birds cbme diving boldly into parking lots and
> amble ungainly along the pavement in search of scraps. Resented as
> intruders in the sprawling shopping malls of towns and cities, I like
> to think of them in their natural environment, white feathered,
> airborne creatures, soaring silently above the blue water. There they
> are a welcome image of beauty.
> Other songsters I heard at daybreak, both the delicate and the
> rakish: peepers, twitterers, rollers, squawkers, whistlers, sparrows,
> jays, canaries, thrushes and other unidentifiables in the motley avian
> crew. There were melodies of all shades on the tonal scale, songs to
> 150                   UNDER THE D,V,NE LorE TREE
> 
> please every ear. But strangely, all the various tunes did not make for
> cacophony, even though one could not have found the noise
> harmonious. It was more like the prattle of a large family starting off
> a busy day at home. Even the birds of the air seemed to be enjoying
> the sense of community.
> Yet as I listened intently, I heard something else in the dawntime
> singing of these birds. It was the cry of the wild, or in Jack London's
> phrase, 'the call of the wild'." The call that I heard that morning was
> the call of 'let it be'. It was a call that invoked the memory of some-
> thing both ancient and primitive, wild and free, a mystery that is at
> once sacred and unknowable, a natural phenomenon to be revered
> because of its sheer duration since the dawn of time. The call of the
> wild has endured for eons. For eons yet let it remain, the voice said,
> as long as the rivers flow, as long as the grasses grow, as long as the
> oceans roll.
> In the pensive mood that lingered within me this morning, I sent
> out a quiet prayer that this ancient call might yet fall on kinder cars,
> on more sensitive and determined hearts. But with that prayer came
> also the stark and frightful realization that all things wild and free
> could just as well not be. that all this could be irretrievably lost
> because of our own stupidity, lethargy and negligence. Finally, as
> this state of consciousness waned, I recalled the ever meaningful.
> passionate prayer of the poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins in
> lnversnaid: '0 let them be left, wildness and wet;/ Long live the
> weeds and the wilderness yet.'''
> THE LONG JOURNEY HOME
> Death as a Going Away to a Far Land
> Sometimes death comes with gentleness or kindness, merely as a
> going away to a far land. When the death of a friend does not occasion
> profound grief, we apprehend the transition into second birth as a
> long but safe journey to an unknown place. This is not the wrenching
> death that shocks and dislocates but that passing away that comes
> with acquiescence.
> This experience of death comes as a welcome visitation by a
> distant relative who one day appears at our door to carry us off to a
> mysterious destination. The angel of mercy comes and carries off
> the earth child to an unseen realm. The departure is a merciful
> ending that contains, as all endings do, the seeds of new beginnings.
> We may wonder that we are not more affected by this departure,
> why we do not mourn or weep or see the black of night in the light
> of day. It is because our friends and loved ones who have travelled
> to that far-off realm are simply 'away'. This is the kindly death, the
> death serene, the going away to a far land.
> 
> The Dead and Gone, and Divine Motion
> Written after hearing ofthe sudden death ofDr. Jacques Breton
> from his bereaved wife, 17 August 1995
> 
> Certain ones in the land of the living consider the dead as poor
> unfortunates who have been decisively deprived of enjoying the
> benefits of life in this world. Yet in the perspective of faith, it is the
> dead who are fortunate. For the faithful lovers of God among the
> 
> 154                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> departed have moved on and are continuing their journey. They
> have been launched into the next orbit of that great spiritual
> adventure which for now, at least, eludes us by its mystery and its
> unfathomable greatness.
> It is both an insight and a consolation to realize that the whole
> movement of creation in this world of Nasllt' and beyond - and this
> is one of the great laws of creation - flows from death to life, from
> nonexistence to existence, from the material to the spiritual, from
> sorrow into joy. The telos (Gk. =end, goal) of the cosmic order always
> drives toward a larger life of immortality, detachment, freedom and
> joy. In the design of God, that larger life can be fully realized only in
> the Great Beyond. This lesser world, as 'Abdu'l-Baha has said, is a
> world of inestimable value for our spiritual development, but it is one
> in which the gains are slowly and sometimes painfully achieved
> through hard knocks, reversals and set backs: 'The world of mortality
> is a world of contradictions, of opposites; motion being compulsory
> everything must either go forward or retreat.'2 Also: 'It is easy to
> approach the Kingdom of Heaven, but hard to stand firm and staunch
> within it, for the tests are rigorous and heavy to bear.'3
> Death is a great enigma, perhaps the greatest, but it cannot be
> reduced only to the word mystery, a mystery that forbids us to
> break silence and to make any conscious breakthrough this side of
> the veil into that light beyond. Death has many faces and many
> meanings. In death one may discover the drama of sacrifice or
> heroism, the welcome end, or the broken heart. For death is all of
> these things. For those unable to bear up under the weight of the
> world any longer, we find in death both solace and pathos. As we
> contemplate death, we come face to face with the realization of the
> awesome overlordship of God, that He holds in His mighty hand
> not only the fate of our own poor soul, but the final destinies of all
> the inhabitants of the earth, past, present and future.
> That a countless multitude of souls have passed on, some 'old
> and full of days',' others in tragic and untimely fashion, while still
> others in their tenderest days and years - and all being thronged in
> the unseen realms above - must arouse the greatest wonderment in
> every believer. These realizations should cause us to pause and to
> reflect on our own mortality and the brevity of life itself and to
> THE LONG JOURNEY HOME                         155
> 
> impel us to find in the brief days that are still ours, a way to God,
> the path to peace and reconciliation both with ourselves and others.
> And, if we are not still too numb with grief, if only recently touched
> by death's icy hand, this final departure should cause us to meditate
> profoundly on the hope-giving promises of eternal life recorded in
> holy scripture, the new beginning destined in the worlds of God
> above. This inevitability of ever-approaching death may then enable
> us to see that for those who truly love and trust Him, the motion
> of our little lives is nothing but a journey to the throne of God.
> 
> Death Breaks Nature's Endless Cycle
> The flow of life that we call nature moves along a circular and
> cyclical path (Gk. kyklos=circle) from death to life and from life to
> death. All creatures are locked into this eternal cycle that transits
> continuously between the phenomena of life and death. ~bdu'l­
> Bah. has expounded grandly on this theme. Within the cycle of this
> eternal return, He teaches, nature moves from death to life and life
> to death as matter undergoes a never-ending eventual reintegration
> in the physical world in higher forms.' At the moment of death,
> these higher forms which reach their summit in the human being are
> gradually broken down and recommence the slow journey back to
> the various elements of nature, culminating finally again in man.
> The pattern recommences ad infinitum.
> Although the nonbeliever considers death to be the final curtain in
> the drama of human existence, by God's grace it is but the means of
> attaining the fullness of life. The endless movement of this eternal cycle
> is broken each time the soul leaves the body to take on the celestial
> form that befits it best. With the departure of the soul from the body,
> an extraordinary event takes place that both transcends and defeats the
> blind, cyclical pattern that imprisons all of nature's elements in blind
> obedience. The final link in the great chain of nature is broken by the
> spirit when it pierces the shell of the body and casts off its corporeal
> existence to assume a higher, spiritual life form. Death reveals that
> 'coincidence of opposites' in which the final defeat of the body signi-
> fies at the same time the victory and crown of an earthly life and the
> ushering in of a larger existence as yet unimagined.
> 156                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> The Best Legacy
> Most people, whether they find themselves handicapped by old age or still
> robust enough to live out their dreams, desire to bequeath a legacy. That
> legacy, whether one's descendants, a material endowment, a complex of
> values, a significant body of work, or simply the hope of being lovingly
> remembered, are all indirect ways of ensuring immortality. We all yearn
> for something essential to remain once we have departed, something
> associated with what we once were or stood for, what we once loved.
> I ask, what is the greatest, the most lasting legacy? What is the
> most valuable treasure that we may leave behind, the means by
> which we may continue to best benefit the living? What is that
> legacy to which one may truly aspire without fear of futility? Good
> questions all, for their answer will reveal nothing less than one of
> life's great secrets and the purpose of existence itself.
> I estimate that the greatest legacy bequeathed by any soul is a life
> of service to humanity performed for the sake of the love of God.'
> For sincere service to humanity, however a believer conceives God and
> such service to be, will prove to be a triple benefit: to the cause for
> which it is perfortned, to the recipient of the deed and to the doer. It
> is relatively unimportant what kind of service one performs. It is self-
> less service that counts. For Bah.'u'll.h has written that 'the reward
> of no good deed is or ever will be 10st'.'One should consider conse-
> quently the larger horizon, the one that begins with dedication and the
> zeal of effort and ends in a spirit of detachment and humility. Whether
> the service be found in the professions or works of philanthropy,
> charity or social action, the field of development, scholarship,
> teaching, counsel, healing, bestowing the gift of love or the spirit of
> compassion - all these deeds are the best legacy. 'Greater than the
> prayer is the spirit in which it is uttered:'And greater than the deed is
> the spirit in which it is performed.
> It is the entire devotion of the soul that determines the value of
> the legacy in the end. Each and evety devoted act has the power to
> send its lasting effects vibrating down the succeeding generations.
> The heart offered up in the spirit of sacrifice is the best legacy of all,
> the meagerest thanks for the life He has bestowed upon us, for all
> He has taught us and wrought in our lives.
> THE lONG JOURNEY HOME                        157
> 
> What this legacy really is can never be fully described and is known
> in toto to God alone, for it is an expression of that mystery of
> mysteries, that divine gem, the human soul. If the cause be unknown
> (the soul), the effect likewise can never be fully known (the deed). In
> bequeathing this legacy, there is and must remain an unknown,
> a vast horizon which we simply cannot see. We can never fully
> appreciate, never fully estimate, what a life devoted to the love of God
> has been, all that it has meant. So much more is this true of great souls
> and their mission. In future times and in other realms, so 'Abdu'l-BaM
> tell us, it will become clearer what that legacy has meant." For now, we
> may find joy in securing a legacy that we may pass down to honour
> those who came before us and to be a cause of celebration to those who
> may one day rejoice in our memory.
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> 160                   UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
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> 162                   UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
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> Notes and References
> Introcluction
> IThe expression is from an unnamed source in Reck, Speculative
> Philosophy, p. 2.
> 2'Abdu'I-Bah" Promulgation, p.336.
> JBah"u'lI.h, Seven Valleys, p.26.
> 'See, for example, the following essays: Love Divine, The Silence of
> the Sacred, The Dream ofKnowledge, Happiness for its Own Sake, The Void
> ofForgetting, Positive Detachment, What Can J Refuse to the Universe?
> 5Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 94. Notes on Quranic
> references have been provided by Stephen Lambden.
> 'Bahd'( Prayers, p. 99.
> 'See, for example, 'The Tablet of Visitation' in Bah"u'lhih,
> Prayers and Meditations, p. 313.
> 'See Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, XXIX, p.70: XLII, p.91: XCVIII,
> p.198. See also Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 94.
> 'The summary points that follow I have greatly compressed and
> simplified from Stephen Lambden's article The Lote-Tree Beyond
> Which There Is No Passing (Sidratu'l-Muntaha,' (forthcoming
> Shorter Encyclopedia ofthe Bahd'( Faith). I have combined Lambden's
> findings with some of my own readings.
> IOGaudefroy-Demombynes, Mahomet, p. 94 (my translation).
> "See, for example, Eliade's Patterns in Comparative Relzgion, pp.
> 270 ff.
> "Eliade, 'Methodological Remarks on the Study of Religious
> Symbolism' in History of Religions, p. 93.
> "Bah"u'lI.h, Gleanings, CXII, p. 218.
> "Eliade, as in note II.
> 
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                         165
> 
> The Book of Knowleclge
> 'From William Blake's four quatrains, ~d did those feet ...' in the
> Preface to his prophetic poem Milton. The last one reads: 'I will not cease
> from Mental Fight/Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand/lill we have
> built JerusalemlIn England's green & pleasant land.' Blake, Selection,
> p.162. See also Abrams (ed.), Norton Anthology, vol. 2, p. 78.
> 21 love the clouds ... the passing clouds... over there ... over there...
> the marvellous clouds!' From Baudelaire's short essay Eetranger in
> Le spleen de Paris, p. 15 (my trans.).
> 'The story of Icarus and his father Daedalus was told by both
> Ovid and Apollodorus. Daedalus and Icarus were imprisoned by
> King Minos in the Labyrinth on the island of Crete. To escape from
> the island, Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings that were affixed
> to the body by wax. Before escaping, Daedalus warned his son to
> keep to a middle course because if Icarus flew too high, the heat of
> the sun would melt the wax and disaster would result. Icarus
> disregarded the counsel of his father, and delighted by the new and
> wonderful power of flight soared blissfully higher until, as his father
> had predicted, the sun melted the wax and he fell into the sea. This
> myth is an object lesson in the Greek ethical preoccupation with the
> Golden Mean.
> 4The phrase 'unfolding destiny' is from the title of Shoghi
> Effendi's messages to the Baha'is of the British Isles, The Unfolding
> Destiny of the British Baha'i Community (1981).
> 'The 'spiritually learned' is a key phrase of 'Abdu'I-Baha's in The
> Secret ofDivine Civilization. See, for example, pp. 33, 36, 39, 58.
> "Regarding the first Baha'i principle of the independent
> investigation of the truth, 'Abdu'I-Baha has written: 'The first
> [principle1 is the independent investigation of the truth; for blind
> imitation of the past will stunt the mind. But once every soul
> inquireth into truth, society will be freed from the darkness of
> continually repeating the past.' Selections, p. 248.
> 'The concept of Dasein (being there: Ger. da=there, sein =to be)
> is basic to Heidegger's philosophy. In the introductory key sentence
> of his seminal work Being and Time, Heidegger explains Dasein with
> this somewhat obscure statement: 'Das Wesen des Daseins liegt in
> seiner Existenz.'('The essence of being there (Dasein) lies in its
> existence.') Dasein refers to typically human existence and is the
> prelude to the greater discussion of Sein (Being). It connotes an
> openness or an availability to reality and a willingness to participate
> in being.
> 166                    UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> 'hom Blake's Notebook, this poem is variously titled Several
> Answ£'Ted Questions or Liberty. See U ntermeyer (ed.), Living Verse, p.184.
> "Know that, although the human soul has existed on the earth
> for prolonged times and ages, yet it is phenomenal. As it is a divine
> sign, when it has come into existence, it is eternal. The spirit of man
> has a beginning, but it has no end; it continues eternally... The
> meaning of this is that, although human souls are phenomenal, they
> are nevertheless immortal, everlasting and perpetual...' 'Abdu'l-
> Baba, Some Answered Questions, pp. 151-152.
> "One of the translations of the title of Marcel Proust's
> monumental novel Ii la recherche du temps perdu.
> liThe expression is from the title of psychologist Abraham
> Maslow's Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences (1978). Basically,
> Maslow's peak experience refers to an altered state of consciousness,
> fleeting but rotally spontaneous 'moments of highest happiness and
> fulfilment' and 'harmonious oneness' with the universe in which the
> individual loses self-consciousness and ceases to be concerned by the
> events of the past or the future. It is a vital experience of focusing on
> and living in the now when all things flow with ease.
> I2Baha'u'ILih, Tablets, p. 247.
> "Pascal in De l'esprit geometrique (,On the geometrical spirit') refers
> to 'definitions of names' as arbitrary definitions which are commonly
> understood and accepted. Thoughts and Minor Works, p. 429.
> "The complete quotation reads: 'My name is 'Abdu'I-Baha. My
> qualification is 'Abdu'I-Baha. My reality is 'Abdu'l-Baha. My praise
> is 'Abdu'I-Baha. Thralldom to the Blessed Perfection is my glorious
> and refulgent diadem, and servitude to all the human race my
> perpetual religion . . . No name, no title, no mention, no
> commendation haw J, nor will ever have, except ~bdu'I-Baha. This
> is my longing. This is my greatest yearning. This is my eternal life.
> This is my everlasting glory.' Quoted by Shoghi Effendi in 'The
> Dispensation of Bah"u'ILih' in World Order, p. 139.
> "Exodus 3:14.
> 16The Bab, Qayyiimu'l-Asma', in Selections, p. 54.
> "Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p. 176.
> "Quoted by Bah.'u'llah in The Seven Valleys, p. 34.
> '"This is the phrase used by Baha'fs to refer to a universal
> prophetic cycle beginning with Adam and whose 'supreme
> Manifestation' is Baha'u'll.h. 'Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered
> Questions, p. 161.
> "Genesis 2: 19.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                       167
> "ibid.
> 221 Corinthians13:l2.
> 23See Part IV of Spinoza's Ethics, 'Of Human Bondage or of the
> Strength of the Emotions'.
> 2'See Carnap's essay 'The Elimination of Metaphysics Through
> Logical Analysis of Language' in Logical Positivism, pp. 60-81.
> "Quoted from Wittgenstein's Tractatus by Passmore, Hundred
> Years, p. 382.
> 26From Bell's poem Epistle on the Subject of the Ethical and
> Aesthetic Beliefs of Herr Ludwig Wittgenstein, partially quoted by
> Passmore, ibid. p. 381.
> 27See above, note 7.
> 2'Kenny, Aquinas, p. 26.
> 29ibid.
> 30ibid.
> 31'Abdu'I-Bah" Some Answered Questions, pp. 297-98: ' ... Plato at
> first logically proved the immobility of the earth and the movement
> of the sun; later by logical arguments he proved that the sun was the
> stationary centre, and that the earth was moving.'
> 32See 'Abdu'I-Baha's discourse on 'The Four Methods of
> Acquiring Knowledge', Some Answered Questions, pp. 297-299.
> "See Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781).
> 34'Abdu'I-Bah., 'The Four Methods of Acquiring Knowledge',
> Some Answered Questions, p. 299.
> 35 An antinomy is a contradiction between two conclusions
> drawn from equally credible premises .
> .36Einstein later applied Riemann's geometry to the physical
> umverse.
> "Proverbs 29: 18 reads: 'Where there is no vision, the people
> perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.'
> "Buber writes: 'In every sphere in its own way, through each
> process of becoming that is present to us, we look out toward the
> fringe of the eternal Thou; in each we are aware of the breath from
> the eternal Thou; in each Thou we address the eternal Thou' (/ and
> Thou, p. 6). This 'Thou' is nothing other than the holy, the
> numinous or the sacred encountered in the process of becoming.
> 3"The expression is from St. Paul: 'And the peace of God, which
> passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds
> through Christ Jesus' (Philippians 4:7).
> ,oSee J.A. McLean, Dimensions, p.139, commenting on Holley's
> article 'The Writings of Bah"u'IIah', in Star ofthe West (1922), p.lOS.
> 168                   UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> 41S ee, for example, Kant's Critique of Practical Reason,
> Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, and his essay on Perpetual
> Peace.
> "Cited by Gabriel Marcel in his talk 'Being and Nothingness' in
> Homo Viator, p. 169.
> "Holley, 'The Writings of Bahi'u'll"h', p. 105.
> H'Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, p. 296.
> ';Luke 22:44.
> "ibid. v.42.
> "Sec, for example, Matthew 17:23, Luke 22:20, Mark 14:24.
> "Bah,,'u'llih says in the Gleanings: 'Know thou, 0 fruit of My
> Tree, that the decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate
> and predestination, arc of two kinds. Both are to be obeyed and
> accepted. The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men,
> impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch
> as it is fixed and settled. God, however, is able to alter or repeal it.
> As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than
> if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly
> acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the
> same. The decree that is impending, however, is such that prayer and
> entreaty can succeed in averting it' (Gleanings, LXVIII, p.D3).
> 'Abdu'l-Baha says in Some Answered Questions: 'Fate is of two
> kinds: one is decreed, and the other is conditional or impending'
> (p.244).
> "Matthew 26:25.
> SQ'Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, p. 163.
> "Jesus said: 'The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but
> woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been
> good for that man ifhe had not been born' (Matthew 26:24). Christ
> here indicates the inexorable nature of his predestined death: 'The
> Son of man goeth as it is written of him.' This underscores the
> principle of fate or predestination. Yet it is clear from His saying
> that predestination (it must be) docs not absolve one of moral
> responsibility. Judas in betraying Christ fulfils the will of God, yet
> is held to account for the betrayal.
> "Mark 14:3l.
> "Matthew 26: 71-72.
> "ibid. v.73.
> 55In his discourse on the relationship of the will to the intellect
> in the Fourth Article of Question 82, 'The Will' in Summa
> Theologica, Aquinas engages in circular arguments as to which is a
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                       169
> 
> greater power, the intellect or the will. He seems to lean strongly in
> favour of the superiority of the will. He says that the intellect,
> unlike the will, is capable of apprehending 'universal being and
> truth' (Reply, Obj. 1). Yet he also states in the same Reply that 'will
> is higher than intellect' since it can move the intellect to perform the
> good. Finally, Aquinas recognizes the futility of such circular
> argument and settles for the synthesis that 'these powers include
> one another in their acts' (Reply, Obj. 1).
> "Luke 22: 31-31. Christ's phrase 'when thou art converted' is
> remarkable, for it is likely that Peter had already considered himself
> to be converted but he had not yet been really tested by the searing
> flames of self. There is an object lesson here for all religious. Some
> may consider themselves to be already believers and converted,
> whereas in reality they are still not yet ripe.
> "I remember visiting the church of St. Francis de Sales while 1
> was a student in Paris during the 1960s. The church lies not far from
> the Jardin du Luxembourg and from where I once lived at Place de
> l'Estrapade in the vicinity of the Pantheon and the Sorbonne. In
> that church stood a life-sized bronze statue of St. Peter on a high
> pedestal. The feet of St. Peter stood approximately at shoulder
> height. When I looked at the bronze feet, I marvelled at how the
> individual toes had been worn completely smooth over the
> centuries from the number of times pious hands had touched the
> fisherman's foot in order to invoke his blessing.
> "Toben, Space-time and Beyond, p. 11.
> "John Archibald Wheeler coined the term 'black hole' in the late
> 1960s. Wheeler, 'the archetypal physics-far-poets physicist',
> published with his mentor Niles Bohr the first paper that
> successfully explained nuclear fission in terms of quantum physics.
> Wheeler was involved in the construction of the first fission bomb
> during World War II and the first hydrogen bomb in the early years
> of the Cold War. After the war he became one of the leading
> authorities on general relativity. Both Wheeler and Bohr held that
> the behaviour of quanta was indeterminate and depended on the act
> of observation itself. See John Horgan, The End oiScience, p. 80.
> 6°As an alternative to Bohr's subjectivistic and indeterminate
> particle theory, David Bohm proposed the 'pilot wave' by which
> particles are particles at all times and not just when they are being
> observed. Thus his theory was less dependent on metaphysical
> interpretation. Bohm is also known for his philosophy of
> 'implicate order' which drew analogies between quantum
> 170                   UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> mechanics and eastern religion. Implicate order holds that
> underlying the world of appearances there is always a deeper,
> hidden layer of reality. For Bohm the pilot wave was the implicate
> order of the particle. Bohm was influenced by Krishnamurti and
> the Tibetan Book of the Dead and coauthored Science, Order, and
> Creativity with F. David Peat. Reality for Bohm was ultimately
> unknowable. New discoveries also create new mysteries. Sec
> Horgan, The End of Science, pp. 86, 87, 89.
> 61Theoretical physicist Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics (1975)
> became the breakthrough book on the parallels between modern
> physics and Hindu, Buddhist and Chinese thought.
> "Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World, pp. 332 and 333.
> "Quoted by David Foster in The Philosophical Scientists, p. II.
> "See note 38 above for a description of Buber's 'Thou'.
> 65'Abdu'I-Baha, from a Bahn prayer for assemblies. Bahd'i
> Prayers, p. 110.
> ""Quoted by Wilber, Quantum Questions, p. 97.
> "In his Introduction to the Bhagavad-Gita, Huxley as a
> proponent of the Perennial philosophy outlined 'four fundamental
> doctrines' which constituted a 'Highest Common Factor' or 'its
> chemically pure state'. Summarized, these four doctrines of the great
> religions are: (1) all forms of life, both organic and inorganic,
> conscious and unconscious, are manifestations of the 'Divine
> Ground' without which they would be non-existent; (2) human
> beings have 'direct intuition' of the Divine Ground, a form of
> knowing superior to 'discursive rcason'; (3) the human being
> possesses a dual nature: a 'phenomenal ego' and 'an eternal Self', 'the
> spark of divinity within the soul'; (4) the human being's purpose in
> life is to identify with the eternal Self and thus come to know directly
> the Divine Ground. Bhagavad-Gita, p.13.
> "Joachim Wach, 'Universals in Religion' in Types of Religious
> Experience, pp. 30-47.
> "Heiler's scholarly article The History of Religions as a
> Preparation for the Co-operation of Religions', is rich in scriptural
> detail and makes a convincing case for the unity of the world's great
> religions. Heiler argues for 'seven principal areas of unity which the
> high religions of the earth manifest'. I greatly compress the main
> points here: (1) the transcendent Reality underlying all being; (2) the
> immanence of the transcendent reality in human hearts; (3) the
> supreme Reality is the highest goodness and truth to which the soul
> of humanity may aspire; (4) the Reality of the Divine reveals itself
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                     171
> 
> to all as boundless, outpouring love; (5) the way to God is the
> way of renunciation, sacrifice and prayer; (6) service to humanity,
> love and compassion for all creatures; (7) love is the superior way
> to God. In Eliade and Kitigawa (eds.), The History of Religions,
> pp.132-160.
> '"Smith's best presentation on this theme is perhaps Forgotten
> Truth (1976).
> "Wilfred Cantwell Smith writes in Toward a World Theology, p.4:
> 'those who believe in the unity of mankind, and those who believe
> in the unity of God, should be prepared therefore to discover. a
> unity of mankind's religious histoty.'
> "See Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions (1975).
> 73Santayana, Winds ofDoctrine, p. 97.
> "'The eanh is but one country, and mankind its citizens' is one
> of Baha'u'llah's most frequently cited quotations. Gleanings, CXVI,
> p.250.
> "Addressing the seeker, Bah:\'u'llah says: 'Let thy soul glow with
> the flame of this undying Fire that bumeth in the midmost hean of
> the world, in such wise that the waters of the universe shall be
> powerless to cool down its ardour. Make, then, mention of thy
> Lord, that haply the heedless among Our servants may be
> admonished through thy words, and the hearts of the righteous be
> gladdened.' Gleanings, xv, p. 38.
> 
> The Fragrance of Spirituality
> 'Milton's celebrated line is from his sonnet On His Blindness
> (1655?). Complete Poetical Works, p.190.
> 'The phrase 'spirituality of imperfection' is taken from the title
> of Junz and Ketcham's excellent volume The Spirituality of
> Imperfection. Modern Wisdom From Classic Stories. The underlying
> theme of the book is that failure and acceptance are the precursors
> to spiritual growth.
> 'Baha'u'llah, The Seven Valleys, pp. 39-40.
> 'This is the title of Daniel C. jordan's publication Becoming Your
> True Self. First issued as a pamphlet, Becoming Your True Self has
> been revised in booklet form. Jordan points to certain
> psychospiritual aspects of faith and self-understanding as being
> necessary for spiritual transformation.
> 'Baha'u'llah, Kitdb-i-Aqdas, para. 4, pp. 20-21.
> "ibid. para. 116, p. 61.
> 172                    UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> "Beauty is truth, truth beauty, - that is allIYe know on earth, and
> all ye need to know.' John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, in The
> Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 2, p. 823.
> 'Mrs. Brown kindly gave permission for the use of her story.
> "Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, pp. 186-187 (emphasis mine).
> lO'Abdu'I-Baha states the Baha'i position on miracles as follows:
> 'For if we consider miracles a great proof, they arc still only proofs
> and arguments for those who are present when they are performed,
> and not for those who are absent.' 'Abdu'l-Baha looks to the
> pragmatic and universal proofs of prophethood as more solid proofs
> of revealed religion. His example is that of Christ's being empowered
> to establish a world religion through the power of his own person,
> even though he faced crucifixion alone. 'Now this is a veritable
> miracle which can never be denied. There is no need of any other
> proof of the truth of Christ.' Some Answered Questions, pp. 100-101.
> "From a prayer for spiritual qualities. Baha'i Prayers, p. 147.
> "Meaning here capable of physical sensation.
> "This is an echo of 'Abdu'l-Bahi's statement that Thoughts may
> be divided into two classes: (1st) Thought that belongs to the world
> of thought alone. (2nd) Thought that expresses itself in action.' Paris
> Talks, p. 4. It is the italicised phrase that has been transposed above
> into another context.
> \4<Abdu'I-Baha teaches that the development of 'spiritual suscepti-
> bilities' forms an integral part of the essential and timeless aspect of
> religion. In 'Abdu'l-Bahi's talks there are many such references to sus-
> ceptibility to things spiritual. I include here just one quotation: 'Each
> of the divine religions embodies two kinds of ordinances. The first is
> those which concern spiritual susceptibilities, the development of moral
> principles and the quickening of the conscience of man. These are essen-
> tial or fundamental, one and the same in all religions, changeless and
> eternal- reality not subject to transformation.' Promulgation, p. 106.
> I'The animal lives this kind of life blissfully and untroubled,
> whereas the material philosophers labour and study for ten or twenty
> years in schools and colleges, denying God, the Holy Spirit and divine
> inspirations. The animal is even a greater philosopher, for it attains the
> ability to do this without labour and study. For instance, the cow denies
> God and the Holy Spirit, knows nothing of divine inspirations, heav-
> enly bounties or spiritual emotions and is a stranger to the world of
> hearts. Like the philosophers, the cow is a captive of nature and knows
> nothing beyond the range of the senses.' Promulgation, pp.311-312.
> This is a sublime example of the maxim that 'ignorance is bliss'.
> "ibid.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                          173
> 
> "Tablets of J4bdu'l-Baba, p. 263. Partially retranslated at the
> Baha'i World Centre.
> '''Translation from The Jerusalem Bible. The King James' version
> reads •... eat the fat of the land'.
> '''This statement of Baha'u'llah is recorded in Gleanings, p.212:
> 'It is not Our wish to lay hands on your kingdoms. Our mission is
> to seize and possess the hearts of men.'
> 2°1 know a dedicated, very exemplary Baha'i who said to me that
> she declined to go on pilgrimage when Shoghi Effendi was the
> Guardian of the Baha'i Faith because: '1 did not want him to look
> into my face and know everything about me.'
> 2IThis essay does not intend to suggest that a Baha'i should not
> be conscious of his or her strengths as the quotation from Shoghi
> Effendi has indicated in note 23 below. My reflection here
> consciously exaggerates one perspective in order to make a point.
> 22Shoghi Effendi so qualified MirzaAbu'I-Fa!'ll in God Passes By, p. 19S.
> 23Letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi in The Light of
> Divine Guidance, vol. 1, p. 70.
> 
> Fire and Light
> 'Blaise Pascal, Thoughts, p. 99. Pascal's famous saying is found in
> Section Four, no. 277 of Les pensees: 'On the Means of Belief'. The
> complete thought reads: 'The heart has its reasons, which reason
> does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. I say the heart
> naturally loves the Universal Being, and also itself naturally,
> according as it gives itself to them; and it hardens itself against one
> or the other as it will. You have rejected the one, and kept the other.
> Is it by reason that you love yourself?'
> 2'Abdu'I-Baha, 4 January 1912: 'The Four Kinds of Love', in Paris
> Talks, pp.I92-4. This statement would seem to be both an
> interpretation and a clear textual parallel of Baha'u'llah's statement
> in The Seven Valleys, p.2S: 'The journeys in the pathway of love are
> reckoned as four: From the creatures to the True One; from the
> True One to the creatures; from the creatures to the creatures; from
> the True One to the True One.'
> "Abdu'I-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 193.
> 'ibid.
> SSt. Paul in Philippians 4:7. The complete sentence reads: 'And
> the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your
> hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.'
> 174                   UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> 6The SOurce of all good is trust in God, submission unto His
> command, and contentment with His holy will and pleasure:
> 'Words of Wisdom', in Tablets of Bahd'u'lldh, p. 155.
> 'The phrase 'all our affairs' is from a line in 'Abdu'l-Baha's
> beautiful prayer that begins: '0 God, refresh and gladden my spirit:
> The fourth line of the prayer reads: 'I lay all my affairs in Thy hand:
> Bahd'i Prayers, no. 61.
> 8Matt. 5:48.
> 'ibid. 21 :22.
> 'OBaha'u'll.h, Seven Valleys, p. 15.
> "Prayers and Meditations by Bahd'u'lldh, p. 254 (italics added by
> the present author).
> 12Marzieh Gail, 'Commemoration of the Twenty-fifth
> Anniversary of 'Abdu'l-Baha's Visit to America', The Baha'i World,
> vol. VII, p. 219. Gail does not identify the source of her reported
> statement. The statement 'The temple is already built' is not
> recorded in 'Abdu'l-Baha's address on 1 May 1912 at 'high noon' at
> the dedication of the first stone on the temple ground at Wilmette,
> Illinois. See 'Address of Abdul-Baha at the Dedication of the
> Mashrak-el-Azkar Grounds, Chicago, High Noon, May 1, 1912' in
> Star of the West, vol. 3, no. 4,17 May 1912.
> "The Bab, Selections, p. 68.
> 14The phrasing is patterned after 1 Corinthians 13.
> I5The Pharisee who was 'tempting him' had asked Jesus: 'Master,
> which is the great commandment in the law?' (Mark 12:30).
> 16'Abdu'I-Baha teaches that 'The first thing which emanated from
> God is that universal reality, which the ancient philosophers termed
> the "First Mind", and which the people of Baha call the "First Will".
> This emanation, in that which concerns its action in the world of
> God, is not limited by time or place; it is without beginning or end
> - beginning and end in relation to God are one: In this same talk,
> 'Abdu'l-Baha explains that the relationship of dependence of the
> creatures upon God is a relationship of 'emanation', Creatures do
> not manifest (God in another form) but rather emanate from Him.
> 'The Relation Between God and the Creature', in Some Answered
> Questions, pp. 202-203.
> 17In the Fourth Valley of The Four Valleys, Baha'u'lI.h cites the
> tradition/verse: '0 My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee
> like unto Myself. I say "Be", and it is, and thou shalt say "Be", and
> it shall be: The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys, p. 63.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                       175
> 
> ISBaha'u'lI.h has revealed that the full expression of all the names
> and attributes of God are found within the human being: 'All these
> names and attributes are applicable to himá ... 'In this connection.
> He Who is the eternal King - may the souls of all that dwell within
> the mystic Tabernacle be a sacrifice unto Him - hath spoken: "He
> hath known God who hath known himself" ... From that which
> hath been said it becometh evident that all things. in their inmost
> reality. testify to the revelation of the names and attributes of God
> within them. Each according to its capacity. indicateth. and is
> expressive of. the knowledge of God.' Gleanings. pp. 177-178.
> 
> In Search of Nothing
> "The secret of self-mastery is self-forgetfulness.' Despite
> searching. I have not been able to locate the source of this line.
> 2'fhe expression, sometimes misquoted as 'thorn in the side', is
> St. Paul's from 2 Corinthians 12:7. Paul says that he was given a
> 'thorn in the flesh' and was buffeted by 'the messenger of Satan'
> lest he should feel himself too exalted with the abundance of
> revelations he had received.
> 'Babaáuállah. The Seven Valleys. p. 36.
> 4Merton. The True Solitude. p. 16.
> 5BabaáuálJ.ih. Gleanings. p. 326.
> "From Blake's Notebook. see note 6to 'The Book of Knowledge'
> above.
> 'See also below. 'The Epiphanic Moment'. p. 116.
> SIn Islam.Jihad refers not only to 'holy war'. those who 'fight
> for the Cause of God' (2:186). but it also has an ethical meaning
> (~isba) by which the believer is exhorted to strive/struggle/
> reform/contend with oneself and to 'bid to good and reject the
> reprehensible'. according to the ~ad(th of the Prophet: 'Whoever
> sees something reprehensible. let him change it with his own hand.
> and if he is unable. with his tongue. and if he is unable to do that.
> in his heart.' Quoted in Williams. Islam. p. 195. In the context
> above. I am of course referring to its symbolic meaning.
> 91 have used the word 'mechanism' here but it does not convey
> exactly what I mean. The word is somewhat too fixed and stilted. but
> since machines are usually characterized by mobility. I have settled for
> mechanism. The world I saw on that afternoon was not mechanical in
> the strictest sense. but it was organized and definitely moving.
> 176                    UNDER THE D,V,NE lOlE TREE
> 
> lO"fhis expression I have taken from another context but it seems
> suitable here. The original context is Shoghi Effendi's reference in
> The World Order of Bahd'u'lldh to the Faith of Baha'u'lhih. He
> stipulates that Baha'fs. if they are to maintain their own organic
> unity, must strictly refrain from partisan politics and formal
> affiliation - as distinguished from association - with other religious
> organizations (p. 199).
> liThe phrase 'wondrous system' is borrowed from Baha'u'lIah's
> description of His new World Order: 'The world's equilibrium hath
> been upset through the vibrating influence of this most great, this
> new World Order. Mankind's ordered life hath been revolutionized
> through the agency of this unique, this wondrous System - the like
> of which mortal eyes have never witnessed.' Kitdb-i-Aqdas, v. 181,
> quoted by Shoghi Effendi in The World Orderof Bahd'u'lldh, p. 109.
> 1![ n Chinese philosophy and religion, the Tao is the 'way' which
> Lao Tzu, the sage of the sixth century BCE, taught all forms of life
> should follow. The word Tao means literally 'teachings of the Way'
> but has come to have a wide variety of meanings in the perspective
> of a western world-view. According to context, the word Tao has been
> translated variously as: road, nature, path, course, even being, reason
> and speech. The Tao comes closest in western thought to the ground
> of being, or natural order of the universe or cosmic spirit, a monistic
> principle reflected in the harmony and balance of yin and yang. It is
> the individual's duty to submit to and to put oneself in harmony with
> Tao. D.C. Lau contends, however, that 'no term can be applied to the
> tao because all terms are specific, and the specific, if applied to the tao
> will impose a limitation on the range of its function.' Lao Tzu, p. 19.
> "For the story of Icarus, see above, p. 165, note 3.
> 14'Abdu'I-Baha, Selections, p. 76. The full sentence reads: 'Let all be
> set free from the multiple identities that were born of passion and
> desire, and in the oneness of their love for God find a new way of life.'
> 15Baha'u'lIah, in a passage reminiscent of the words of Jesus (Matt.
> 7: 26-27), writes: 'Build ye for yourselves such houses as the rain and
> floods can never destroy, which shall protect you from the changes
> and chances of this life. This is the instruction of Him Whom the
> world hath wronged and forsaken.' Gleanings, CXXIII, p. 261.
> lflThe context is 'Abdu'l-Baha's arguments against reincarnation.
> He wrote: 'What peace, what ease and comfort did the Holy Ones of
> God ever discover during Their sojourn in this nether world, that
> They should continually seek to come back and live this life again?
> Doth not a single turn at this anguish, these afflictions, these
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                       177
> 
> calamities, these body blows, these dire straits, suffice, that They
> should wish for repeated visits to the life of this world? This cup was
> not so sweet that one would care to drink of it a second time.'
> Selections, p. 184.
> I7Psalm 51:17 (Revised Standard Version).
> "Shakespeare, from Hamlet's famous soliloquy 'To be or not to
> be: that is the question:lWhether 'tis nobler in the mind to
> suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortunelOr to take arms
> against a sea of troubleslAnd by opposing end them.' Hamlet, Act.
> III, sc. i.
> '''Mark 10: 27. The full verse reads: 'With men it is impossible, but
> not with God: for with God all things are possible.' This was Christ's
> response to the assembly who had asked who might be saved after
> Jesus uttered the famous words: 'It is easier for a camel to go through
> the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God'
> (Mark 10:25). The 'needle's eye' was the common Hebrew name for
> a small door or gate in the city wall. To spare the trouble of opening
> the main gate, a smaller one was built in the side of the wall through
> which the camel might pass. But in order to do so, the camel had to
> be lowered to its knees and struggle through.
> 
> The Supreme Talisman
> 'BaM'u'llah, Gleanings, CXXII, p.259. 'Man is the supreme
> Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of
> that which he doth inherently possess. Through a word proceeding
> out of the mouth of God he was called into being; by one word more
> he was guided to recognize the Source of his education; by yet
> another word his station and destiny were safeguarded. The Great
> Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value.'
> 2Taken from George Sale's 1734 translation of the Quranic phrase
> Sidratu'l-Muntaha, 'the lote-tree beyond which there is no passing'.
> The translation was subsequently adopted by Shoghi Effendi.
> lSelections, no. 88, p. 120.
> 'Genesis 2:19.
> 'Gleanings, XC, p. 177.
> áShoghi Effendi writes in 'The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah': 'He
> is ... the "Mystery of God" - an expression by which Baha'u'IJah
> Himself has chosen to designate Him, and which, while it does not
> by any means justify us to assign to Him the station of
> Prophethood, indicates how in the person of 'Abdu'I-BaM the
> 178                   UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> incompatible characteristics of a human nature and superhuman
> knowledge and perfection have been blended and arc completely
> harmonized.' The World Order of Baha'u 'Ilah, p.134.
> 'This satirical piece is meant to underscore the soporific futility
> of those discussions, following Baha'u'lIah's dictum, that 'begin and
> end in words alone'. 'Such academic pursuits as begin and end in
> words alone have never been and will never be of any worth. The
> majority of Persia's learned doctors devote all their lives to the
> study of a philosophy the ultimate yield of which is nothing but
> words.' From the Tablet of Maqsud, in Tablets, p. 169.
> 8A quodlibet was an academic exercise held in the medieval uni-
> versity in which the master and a student or slUdents voluntarily agreed
> to a disputation. The answers were afterward set down and published.
> 'The expression 'still small voice' is from 1 Kings 19:12. It refers
> to the voice of God heard by the prophet Elijah in a cave on Mount
> Horeb (Sinai) after he had fled there following Queen] ezebel's threat
> to kill him in the aftermath of the slaying of the 450 prophets of Baal
> in the famous contest on Mount Carmel (1 Kings 18:1-40). Among
> other things in this encounter with Yahweh, God gave to Elijah the
> mission of appointing as his successor the farmer Elisha. This Elijah
> did by casting his prophetic mantle on him (1 Kings 19:19).
> lOAn expression once used in personal conversation by a scholar
> of B:ibf-Islamic slUdies, Todd Lawson of McGill University. He was
> referring to another scholar.
> II Bah:i'u'lhih, Kitab-i-lqan, p. 69.
> 
> "From the poem by Robert W. Service, The Cremation of Sam
> McGee. The fuller reading is: 'There are strange things done in the mid-
> night sun/By the men who moil for gold;/The arctic trails have their
> secret tales/ That would make your blood run cold.' Collected Poems.
> "The complete quotation reads: 'For self-love is kneaded into
> the very clay of man and it is not possible that, without any hope of
> a substantial reward, he should neglect his own present material
> good. That individual, however, who puts his faith in God and
> believes in the words of God - because he is promised and certain
> of a plentiful reward in the next life, and because worldly benefits
> as compared to the abiding joy and glory of future planes of
> existence are nothing to him - will for the sake of God abandon his
> own peace and profit and will freely consecrate his heart and soul to
> the common good. "A man, too, there is who selleth his very self
> out of desire to please God"(Qur'an 2:203).' 'Abdu'l-Baha, The
> Secret of Divine Civilization, pp. %-97.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                     179
> 
> "Baha'u'llah wrote: 'All men have been created to carry forward
> an ever-advancing civilization: Gleanings. CIX, p. 215.
> "From Shoghi Effendi, Messages to the Baha'i World, April 1956,
> p.102.
> '"This is one line of a two-line Zenrin Kushu poem quoted by
> Allan Watts in The Way of Zen, p. 134. The couplet reads: 'Sitting
> quietly, doing nothing/Spring comes, and the grass grows by itself:
> The Zenrin Kushu was compiled by Toyo Eicho (1429-1504 CE)
> and is an vast anthology of some five thousand two-line poems
> drawn from a great variety of Chinese religious and popular sources.
> Zen students were required to quote from the Zenrin Kushu once
> they had solved the koan (puzzle) the Zen Master had put before
> them. The poem gave the answer to the koan.
> "From a Tablet translated from the Persian, quoted from
> 'Trustworthiness' in The Compilation ofCompilations, vol. II, p. 333.
> "See the essay 'Mirza Abu'I-Fat;lI's Humility and One's Gifts and
> Accomplishments', p.47 above.
> I'Baha'u'llah, irom the 'eleventh leaf' of Kalimat-i-Firdawsiyyih
> (Words of Paradise), Tablets, p. 72.
> 2°God Loves Laughter is the title of Sears' book (London: George
> Ronald, 1960). The Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, Shoghi Effendi,
> appointed William Sears a 'Hand of the Cause of God' in October
> 1957, among the final contingent of Hands of the Cause appointed
> by him. 'Hand of the Cause' was a title given by Baha'u'llah to
> exemplary Baha'i teachers to assist in the work of teaching and
> protecting the Baha'i Faith.
> 21See BahaiNews [sic],vol. l,no. 14,23 November 1910, in Star
> of the West, vol. I, 1910.
> 22ibid.
> 
> The Body Beautiful
> l'Abdu'I-Baha, Selections, p. 110.
> 'Plato, Symposium, p. 94.
> 3ibid. p. 95.
> 'ibid.
> 'As far as I know, a word of my own making.
> "This is the theme of my essay 'Science, Consciousness and the
> Personal Category' on page 29 above.
> 7Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, LXXXV, p. 168.
> 'ibid. LXXXII, pp. 161-162.
> 180                   UNDER THE DIVINE lOTE TREE
> 
> 'Gk.=end. Teleology is that branch of cosmology that treats of
> end causes. By the telos of history I refer to it being driven by a
> Master Plan that reflects the Wtll of God toward some ultimate end
> which for Baha'fs is the inevitable establishment of the kingdom of
> God on earth.
> "'He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life
> for my sake shall find it' (Matthew 10:39). 'For what shall it profit
> a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or
> what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?' (Mark 8:36-37).
> 
> Nothing Gold Can Stay
> 'From a prayer by 'Abdu'l-Baha for meetings: 'May each one
> become beautiful in colour and redolent of fragrance in the
> kingdom of God.' Baha'i Prayers, p.ll O.
> "Les vrais paradis sont les paradis qu'on a perdus.' Literally 'The
> true paradises are the paradises we have lost.' I have retained the
> singular in my translation above for euphonic reasons. Marcel
> Proust, Le temps retrouve (Time Regained), 1926, Chapter 3, p. 215.
> 'From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem Tears, Idle Tears. The first
> verse reads: 'Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean/Tears
> from the depth of some divine despair/Rise in the heart, and gather
> to the eyes/In looking on the happy Autumn-fields/And thinking
> of the days that are no more.' Norton Anthology, vol. 2, p. 1123.
> 'We read in the Book of Genesis that once the Lord God
> banished Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden' ... he placed at the
> east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which
> turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life' (3:24).
> SAlsa from Tennyson's poem quoted in note 3 above. The last
> verse reads: 'Dear as remembered kisses after death/And sweet as
> those by hopeless fancy feigned/On lips that are for others; deep as
> love/Deep as first love, and wild with all regret/O Death in life, the
> days that are no more.'
> 'Nothing Gold Can Stay, from Selected Poems of Robert Frost,
> p.138.
> 7'Lament not in your hours of trial, neither rejoice therein; seek
> ye the Middle Way which is the remembrance of Me in your
> afflictions and reflection over that which may befall you in future.
> Thus informeth you He Who is the Omniscient, He Who is aware.'
> Kitdb-i-Aqdas, para. 43, p. 35.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                       181
> 
> 'Ecclesiastes I: 18.
> 'The phrase is taken from Baha'u'llah, Hidden Words, Persian no.
> 39: '0 offspring of dust! Be not content with the ease of a passing
> day, and deprive not thyself of everlasting rest. Barter not the garden
> of eternal delight for the dust-heap of a mortal world. Up from thy
> prison ascend unto the glorious meads above, and from thy mortal
> cage wing thy flight unto the paradise of the Placeless.'
> IO'The hearts of all children are of the utmost purity. They are
> mirrors upon which no dust has fallen. But this purity is on account
> of weakness and innocence, not on account of any strength and
> testing, for as this is the early period of their childhood, their hearts
> and minds are unsullied by the world. They cannot display any great
> intelligence. They have neither hypocrisy nor deceit. This is on
> account of the child's weakness, whereas the man becomes pure
> through his strength ...This is the difference between the perfect man
> and the child. Both have the underlying qualities of simplicity and
> sincerity - the child through the power of weakness and the man
> through the power of strength.' 'Abdu'l-Baha, Promulgation, p. 53.
> "This is an allusion to Genesis 3:7 in which Adam and Eve after
> having eaten of the fruit of the tree of good and evil in the midst of
> the garden and having had their eyes opened' ... knew that they were
> naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves
> aprons'. This consciousness of their own nakedness, I take as a
> symbol of the pain that is inherent in self-consciousness or the rude
> awakening from the bliss of innocence which must inevitably
> accompany true self-knowledge.
> "Luke 18:17.
> I3The derived meaning is: the appropriate result of deeds.
> l'The complete verse reads: 'Be not deceived; God is not
> mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.'
> ISAccording to science writer John Horgan who interviewed
> Thomas Kuhn and a number of other leading scientists in The
> End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of
> the Scientific Age, the phrase 'paradigm shift' was not invented by
> Kuhn (p. 43). In cryptic fashion, Horgan does not tell us who did
> first use the term. In Kuhn's book The Structure of Scientific
> Revolutions (1962), the paradigm was the 'keystone of his model'
> (of science) (p. 42): 'a collection of procedures or ideas that
> instruct scientists, implicitly, what to believe and how to work'
> (p. 43). The 'shift' occurs with anomalies, phenomena that the
> paradigm cannot account for. By following through on anomalies,
> 182                  UNDER THE DIVINE LOTE TREE
> 
> new paradigms are created in revolutionary fashion and the old
> ones sometimes abandoned. Kuhn stated in the interview that the
> term 'paradigm shift' had become 'hopelessly overused' and 'out
> of control' (p. 45). Kuhn assumed partial responsibility himself
> for not defining the term closely enough. It could refer in one
> contcxt simply to an experiment; in another to a scientific world-
> view or collection of beliefs.
> "In 1879 Edison spent $40,000 developing the forerunner of
> the electric light bulb. This was the incandescent lamp which made
> light by means of a carbonized cotton thread that glowed in a
> vacuum for more than 40 hours. Edison had tried many filaments
> before he found a durable one.
> 
> In Extremis
> 
> "Abdu'I-Bahi in Contentment, je'wels From The Words Of
> 'Abdu'I-Bahd, p. 13. The complete quotation reads: 'Be thou not
> unhappy; the tempest of sorrow shall pass; regret will not last;
> disappointment will vanish; the fire of the love of God will become
> enkindled, and the thorns and briars of sadness and despondency
> will be consumed!'
> "Abdu'I-Bahi, Paris Talks, p. 109.
> "Abdu'I-Bahi, Contentment. jewels From The Words Of'Abdu'l-
> áBahd, p. It.
> 'Job 3:25.
> 'From Browning's metaphysical poem Rabbi Ben Ezra, in
> Norton Anthology, vol. 2, p. 1302. Abraham Ibn Ezra's (1092-1157)
> reputation was made principally as a commentator of the Hebrew
> Bible. The later period of his life was reportedly happier than the
> earlier part.
> áShoghi Effendi makes a binary distinction in the Baha',
> understanding of self. One is the divine self, the identity of the
> individual created by God; the other is the ego ' .. the dark,
> animalistic heritage each onc of us has, the lower nature that can
> develop into a monster of selfishness, brutality, lust and so on'.
> From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual,
> 10 December 1947, in Lights afGuidance, p. 113, no. 386.
> 'The foregoing forms of address are taken from Baha'u'llih's
> Hidden Words, nos. 50,65,67,68 respectively (Persian).
> 8 From the title of Wordsworth's poem Surprised by joy.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                    183
> 
> "For a moving poetic envisioning of this unparalleled spiritual
> event, see Robert Hayden's poem Baha'u'llah in the Garden of
> Ridwan in Selected Poems.                        .
> 'OFrom my essay 'The Possibilities of Existential Theism for
> Baha'i Theology', in Revisioning the Sacred, pp. 200-20 I.
> "Here I am using the two expressions 'arc of ascent' and 'arc of
> descent' as metaphors for higher and lower spiritual states or
> simply for joy and sorrow - differently from their original context
> in the Baha'i writings. 'Abdu'I-Baha used them in a more technical
> way in his refutation of reincarnation in Some Answered Questions.
> In His talk, the expressions would seem to refer to: (1) higher or
> lower incarnations respectively (p.284) (2) the various degrees of
> the material and spiritual worlds which find themselves joined in
> the human being (p.286) (3) 'beginning' (descent) and 'progress'
> (ascent) (p.286).
> 
> On Real Ground
> 'John 8:32.
> 'ibid.
> )There is an evident but sometimes unnoticed connection
> between the words 'disciple' and 'discipline'. The Latin words
> discipulus (disciple) and disciplina (discipline) are cognates.
> 'Baha'u'lhih, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 101.
> 'John 8:32.
> "The Bab invalidated the doctrine. Bah:i'u'llah confirmed the
> Bab's abolition of taqfya. The Twelvers were the largest of the
> Shfah sects and practised taqfya (katman) which condoned the
> propriety, even the necessity, of concealing one's beliefs among
> non-Shfah. The doctrine dated from the times when the Shi'ah
> were a persecuted minority. Williams, Islam, p. 216.
> 
> Logos and Mythos
> 'See Otto's classic study of the phenomena of religious
> consciousness in The Idea of the Holy (1958).
> 2Edison said in a newspaper interview: 'Genhls is one per cent
> inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration: Life (1932),
> ch.24.
> 184                   UNDER THE D,V,NE LorE TREE
> 
> 'This is the title of an article by Shirin Sabri in The Journal of
> Baha'i Studies (vol. 1, no. 1, 1988-1989, pp. 39-58). Both David L.
> Erickson and I took issue with some of Sabri's points in the same
> journal, vol. 2, no. 1, 1989-1990, pp. 73-82. Sabri's response to these
> comments is found in vol. 2, no. 2,1989-1990, pp. 77-82.
> 'John Donne (1572?-1631) is usually designated as the founder
> of the 'metaphysical school' that predominated in England
> especially in the first half of the seventeenth century. Other poets
> of this spiritual tendency include George Herbert, Richard
> Crashaw, Henry Vaughan, Thomas Traherne and Francis Quarles,
> while in secular poetry Cleveland, Marvell and Cowley employ a
> similar poetic style. Metaphysical poetry generally treats of love,
> both human and divine, the soul's relationship to God, and personal
> relationships. It is prone to making arguments and often strikes one
> as a kind of search for truth in the making, with the poet speaking
> out loud to himself in poetic dialectic. Some critics find that the
> metaphysicals employ the terminology and even the arguments of
> the medieval school men. Donne rejected the elevated language of
> Elizabethan poetry and made good use of startling similes and
> metaphors ('metaphysical conceits') that had a certain vivid shock
> value. For an excellent introduction, see Gardner (ed.), The
> Metaphysical Poets.
> SIn my commentary to The Journal of Baha'i Studies referred to
> above in note 3, I wrote that it is practically impossible to avoid the
> metaphysical element in poetry: 'Spiritual and metaphysical
> thematics are a basic substratum of a great deal of poetry, modern
> or otherwise' (p. 79).
> 6Frye, The Educated Imagination, p. 33.
> 'There are two accounts in the Acts of the Apostles which speak
> of Peter's miraculous release from prison by an angel. Acts 5: 19
> speaks of the release of Peter and the apostles from the 'common
> prison' in Jerusalem by an angel of the Lord who opened the prison
> doors by night. Acts 12:1-12 recounts Peter's deliverance while he
> was chained to two Roman guards and his escape to the house of
> Mary, the mother of John Mark, where the believers had been
> praying.
> 'Baha'u'lIah, Gleanings, XXXv, p. 85. The complete quotation
> reads: 'Whatever, therefore, He saith unto you is wholly for the sake
> of God, that haply the peoples of the earth may cleanse their hearts
> from the stain of evil desire, may rend its veil asunder, and attain
> unto the knowledge of the one true God - the most exalted station
> to which any man can aspire.'
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                      185
> 
> 'Quoted from an uncited source by Patrick Bridgewater in the
> Introduction to Twentieth Century German Verse, p. xii.
> a
> IOFrom poet-philosopher George Santayana's poem World, in
> Poems (1923).
> l1Qur'an 37:36.
> 12The context is 'Remedies for False Friendships', St. Francis'
> advice to Philothea (Madame de Charmoisy) who had placed herself
> under his spiritual direction in 1607. St. Francis writes: 'In God's
> name, Philothea, be ruthless in this matter; your hean and your ears
> are so closely associated that is as impossible to prevent love from
> flowing down from your ears into your heart as to stay a torrent
> once it begins to flow from the mountain tops.' Introduction to the
> Devout Life, p. 145.
> t3Romans 10:17.
> "Plato attacked the point of view that poets such as Homer were
> valid sources of ethical knowledge. According to Socrates, only
> those who had studied at the Academy and were masters of
> Dialectic had any knowledge of the 'real' world of Forms. A verbal
> presentation, no matter how skilful, of the heroes who adorned
> Greek epic poetry did not signify for Socrates that the poets
> possessed the sure knowledge that guided right conduct. Moreover,
> such verbal presentations were only representational, not the real
> thing. For Socrates dramatic poetry appealed to the emotions, not
> to reason, and had deleterious effects on the character since it led to
> the expression of emotions that one normally suppressed in real life.
> See the discussion in The Republic of Plato, Book X, Sections 25, 26
> and 27.
> ISQur':In 9:33.
> I"See Baha'u'llah, Kitdb-i-Iqan, pp. 124--126.
> "Schweitzer's statement was made in the context of racial
> equality. He wrote: 'Once it was considered folly to assume that men
> of colour were really men and ought to be treated as such, but the
> folly has become an accepted truth.' Such thinking forms part of
> Schweitzer's guiding philosophy of 'reverence for life' (veneratio
> vitae). Civilization and Ethics, Pan 11: 'The Philosophy of
> Civilization', p. 215.
> "German for 'seat in life' or 'setting in life'. This expression
> originates from the German school of form criticism early in the
> twentieth century which had a tremendous impact on Biblical
> studies. Form criticism broke Biblical texts down into smaller
> literary units and raised questions relating to the setting in which
> such texts arose prior to oral tradition or circulation, the intention
> 186                  UNDER THE DIVINE LorE TREE
> 
> of the author, the target audience, etc. I use it above to refer only
> to the historical and cultural setting in which the Manifestation of
> God lived.
> 
> Being-in-the- World
> I Quoted by Shoghi Effendi in   The World Order of Bahd'u'l!dh,
> p.168
> 2 Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys, in The Seven Valleys and the Four
> Valleys. Both the previous quotations are from p. 50.
> JNote 61 of the Kitdb-i-Aqdas (The Most Holy Book), p. 195,
> states that the following verses of paragraph 36 of the same book
> constitute 'the prohibition of monasticism and asceticism': 'How
> many a man hath secluded himself in the climes of India, denied
> himself the things God hath decreed as lawful, imposed upon
> himself austerities and mortifications.' Baha'u'll.h also forbade
> monasticism to his followers in a Tablet to Napoleon III: '0
> concourse of monks! Seclude not yourselves in churches and
> cloisters. Come forth by My leave, and occupy yourselves with
> that which will profit your souls and the souls of men. Thus
> biddeth you the King of the Day of Reckoning ... Enter ye into
> wedlock, that after you someone may fill your place.' Proclamation
> of Bahd'u 'l!dh, p. 95.
> 'The expression 'knight of faith' is Kierkegaard's and refers to
> Abraham. In his Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard elaborates upon
> Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac: 'The knight of
> faith is obliged to rely upon himself alone, he feels the pain of not
> being able to make himself intelligible to others, but he feels no
> vain desire to guide others' (p. 90). 'The true knight of faith is
> always absolute isolation, the false knight is sectarian.' Fear and
> Trembling, p. 89.
> 'John Milton, Areopagitica, in Abrams, Norton Anthology, 6th
> ed. 1993, vol. 1, p. 1462.
> áIn many poetry anthologies, e.g. Abrams, Norton Anthology,
> 5th cd. 1979, vol. 2, p. 1111.
> 7Unidentified source in editor's introductory note to the poem,
> The College Survey of English Literature (1945), p. 903.
> 'From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an
> individual believer, 8 January 1949. Lights of Guidance, no. 388,
> p.114.
> "Say: 0 my servants, who have transgressed to your own hurt,
> despair not of God's mercy, for all sins doth God forgive.
> NOTES AND REFERENCES                      187
> 
> Gracious, Merciful is He!' 39:54: 'The Troops' (Rodwell's
> translation).
> 1°'All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing
> civilization.' Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, CIX, p. 215.
> "'Whatsoever deterreth you, in this Day, from loving God is
> nothing but the world. Flee it, that ye may be numbered with th.
> blest.' Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, CXXVIII, p. 276.
> I2The Call of the Wild is the title of the book by Jack London
> (1903). It is the delightful, skilfully written story of the adventures
> of the dog, Buck, 'dognapped' by an unscrupulous gardener from
> Judge Miller's home in the Santa Clara Valley of California and
> forced to perform dog sled service during the Klondike gold rush
> in the Yukon.
> I3Inversnaid is a Scottish town by Loch Lomond. Hopkins,
> Poems; also in various anthologies, e.g. The Norton Anthology of
> Modem Poetry, p.l06; The Faber Book of Modem. Verse, p.49.
> 
> The Long Journey Home
> lIn Baha'i theology God is manifest on various planes both in
> this world and the realms beyond. Baha'u'llah delineates these
> realms in his mystical, cosmological Tablet, Law~-i-kullu't-ta'am
> (The Tablet of All Food). The realm of NasHt is the lowest of these
> realms, God's manifestation in the physical world. All things,
> whether animal, vegetable, mineral or human, emanate from God
> at the phenomenological level. For a provisional translation of the
> Tablet that gives the historical background and a very detailed
> commentary, see Lambden, 'A Tablet of Mirza !:Iusayn-'Ali'.
> 2'Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p.SS.
> ''Abdu'l-Baha, Selections, no.219, p. 274.
> "The Hebrew Bible refers to the death of Isaac in the following
> manner: 'And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered
> unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and
> Jacob buried him'(Gen: 35:29).
> 'The theme of 'Abdu'l-Baha's address to the students of Leland
> Stanford Junior University at Palo Alto, California on S October
> 1912 was the 'intrinsic oneness of all phenomena', the idea that 'all
> things are involved in all things' (Promulgation, p. 349). In this
> address, 'Abdu'l-Baha expounds on the predetermined and cyclical
> coursings of the 'cellular clements' as they are transferred from the
> lower to the higher kingdoms during their evolutionary journey.
> 188                   UNDER THE D,V,NE LOTE TREE
> 
> He explains that the human being has the power of intellect which
> is able (0 transcend the limitations of nature and to produce
> wonderful scientific discoveries.
> 6A theological clarification is required by the phrase 'for the sake
> of the love of God'. God does not need our services. It is we who
> need to perform such services for His sake, that is, at His behest for
> our own benefit as well as the benefit of others. 'I:'or His sake'
> means to please Him, for in pleasing Him we please and benefit
> ourselves and others at the same time. In sum, 'for the sake of God'
> means to do His will.
> 'From a Tablet translated from the Persian and Arabic, quoted from
> the compilation Women in TheCompilatioll o/Compilations, vol. 2, no.
> 2144, p. 379. The fuller context reads: 'By the Day-Starof ancient mys-
> tenes! The sweet-scented fragrance of every breath breathed in the love
> of God is wafted in the court of the presence of the Lord of Revelation.
> The reward of no good deed is or ever will be lost. Blessed art thou,
> doubly blessed art thou! Thou art reckoned amongst those hand-
> maidens whose love for their kin hath not prevented them from
> attaining the shores of the Sea of Grace and Mercy.'
> 'Source uncited, in Ruth]. Moffett, Do'a: The Call to Prayer, p. 32.
> 9Thc idea expressed in the above sentence is transposed from
> another context referring to the greatness of the twentieth century
> and the future rapid growth of the Baha'i Cause. I include it here as
> a parallel expression of the idea that the true understanding of the
> greatness of present things is garnered in future times: 'In the ages
> to come, though the Cause of God may rise and grow a hundredfold
> and the shade of the Sadratu'l-Muntaha shelter all mankind, yet this
> present century shall stand unrivalled, for it hath witnessed the
> breaking of that Morn and the rising of that Sun. This century is,
> verily, the source of His Light and the dayspring of His Revelation.
> Future ages and generations shall behold the diffusion of its
> radiance and the manifestations of its signs. Wherefore, exert your-
> selves, haply ye may obtain your full share and portion of His
> bestowals.' 'Abdu'I-Bahi, Selections, p. 67.
>
> — *Under the Divine Lote Tree: Essays and Reflections (Used by permission of the curator)*