# Call into Being, The: Introduction to a Bahá'í Existentialism

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>       
> 
> Table of Contents
> 1) Introduction 3
> 2) The Nature of Existentialism4
> 3) The Unique Status of Human Existence6
> 4) The Meaning of "To Exist" 6
> 5) The Concept of Potentials 7
> 6) Being "In Process" and "Being Toward"7
> 7) Being "Not-Yet" 8
> 8) Self-Transcendence 8
> 9) Self-Dissatisfaction 9
> 10) Detachment 10
> 11) Dialectical Self-Conflict 10
> 12) Progressive Revelation 10
> 13) Fallen Existence 11
> 14) Anxiety 12
> 15) Not-belonging 13
> 16) Resoluteness and the Call Into Being 14
> 17) a Problem With Conscience 15 
> 18) The Role of the Manifestation 15
> 19) "Being-Toward-Death" 16
> 20) "Being-Toward-Death" and Freedom 17
> 21) Evolutionary Humility 17
> 22) Being an "Inexhaustible Mystery" 18
> 23) Creativity and Freedom 19
> 24) Man and Super-man 19
> 25) Traveler Ethics 20
> 26) The Principle of Hope 22
> 27) Authenticity 22
> 28) The Primacy of Bahá'u'lláh in Our Age 22
> 29) The Volitional Personality 23
>  30) The Mystery of Self 23
> 31) Self-Alienation25
> 32) The Mystery of Essence26
> 33) Being-Between 26
> 34) The Necessity of Faith27
> 35) Kinds of Truth 28
> 36) Conclusion 29
> Abbreviations31
> Bibliography 31
> 
> 
> 
> 
> "Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed unto Thy servants of
> extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a token of Thy grace unto
> them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto the station conferred upon their
> own inmost being, the station of the knowledge of their own selves."
> (Gleanings, I, 4-5)
> 
> 
> 
> 1) Introduction
> 
> 
> Having demonstrated the Aristotelian substratum or soil of the Bahá'í Writings
> in "The Aristotelian Substratum of the Bahá'í Writings", it remains to be shown
> how an existential tree grow from this ground. However, before pursuing that
> issue, let us clarify for ourselves why such an undertaking is important and
> worthwhile. What, we might fairly ask, is an existential approach to the
> conceptual substratum of the Writings, and what unique contribution can it make
> to our understanding of them? 
> 
> To see how a Bahá'í existentialism can grow from the Aristotelian substratum,
> we must ask how we would actually experience the ideas we gain by abstract
> analysis. How would they affect our understanding of ourselves, and with that,
> our self-image? At this point it becomes evident that anything that affects our
> self-image inevitably touches our emotions, our will, our intellect and,
> perhaps, above all, our individual and collective actions. It affects the whole
> person. Put in other terms, we might say that the existentialist approach
> focuses on the individual and collective human self-image found in the Bahá'í
> Writings and on how we might respond to this self-image. It examines how, in
> the light of the Writings, we understand ourselves as individuals who are
> members of a species and how we respond to this understanding in affect, in
> intellect, in volition and in action. In other words, an existential approach
> to the Writings, and, in this case to their Aristotelian substratum, provides a
> bridge between an abstract understanding and the actual exigencies of daily
> life: it serves the purpose of helping us live the Writings more consciously
> than we otherwise could and does so by exploring the concrete, 'real-life'
> implications of these concepts. Such an analysis can do no more than provoke
> further thought and self-exploration in others since no existential analysis
> can ever be exhaustive. 
> 
> This emphasis on real experience is the historical spring of the entire
> existential movement which begins with a demand for philosophy to break out of
> its confinement to Descartes' isolated, thinking subject and include the whole
> subject actually living in the world. All varieties of existentialism reject
> Descartes' subject-object analysis of our relationship to the world because it
> is only an abstraction from our actual "being-in-the-world" (Being and
> Time, 78; see also BT, 246-250) and does not, therefore, accurately
> present our real situation. This distorts our understanding of humankind. "In
> abstracting myself from given circumstances, from the empirical self, from the
> situation in which I find myself, I run the risk of escaping into a real
> never-never or no-man's-land - into what strictly must be called a nowhere . .
> . " (The Mystery of Being, Vol. 1, 164). As Sartre puts it: " Our being
> is immediately 'in situation'; that is, it arises in enterprises and knows
> itself first in so far as it is reflected in those enterprises. We discover
> ourselves then in a world people with demands, in the heart of projects. . . "
> (BN, 47). For philosophy, the result is disastrous: " from the moment we
> seek to transcend abstract thought's proper limits and to arrive at global
> abstraction [e.g., idealist philosophy], we topple over into the gulf of
> non-sense - of non-sense in the strict philosophical sense, that is, of words
> without reasonable meaning" (MB, Vol. 1, 164.). In other words,
> Descartes' radical subject-object division is wholly artificial and leads to
> such pseudo-problems as trying to prove the existence of the external world, a
> "scandal" (Kant) which has dogged western philosophy since his time. The Bahá'í
> Writings do not waste time with such non-issues. This is even evident in their
> form which shows them to be directly related to real people in real situations:
> Bahá'u'lláh's and Abdu'l-Bahá's tablets and epistles to particular individuals,
> verbal answers to specific questions posed by believers, letters of guidance to
> personal problems and the like. This is the kind of writing that demonstrates a
> firm understanding that we are always "being-in-the-world" (BT, 78) and
> never an isolated subject who cannot be logically sure that the external world
> exists.  
> 
>         At this point, a question obtrudes itself: why explore the existential
> dimension of the Bahá'í Writings after a study of their highly abstract
> Aristotelian substratum? Why all the previous rigmarole about Aristotle instead
> of a direct plunge into the Writings? After all, in life, do we not abstract
> after we have had the real experience? Why reverse the order and begin
> with the abstractions found in the Writings? There are two answers to this
> question. First: if we want to deepen our understanding of the Writings, we
> must first make clear to ourselves and understand the philosophical concepts
> embedded in them. This requires us to abstract and study these concepts. Simply
> plunging into the Writings may be satisfactory and sufficient for some, but it
> cannot provide the specific and precise knowledge and understandings that
> others may desire and need and which may be necessary to reveal new depths in
> the Writings. There is no reason to believe that an existential exploration of
> the Writings is somehow exempt from the necessity for such a clear conceptual
> understanding. 
> 
> Second: in exploring the existential dimension of the Writings, there is a
> special reason to begin with the conceptual content or substratum, namely the
> historical fact that existential thinking has a certain prone-ness to slip into
> pure and arbitrary subjectivism (Existentialism, 46). This is already
> noticeable in Kierkegaard, the father of modern existentialism, who asserts in
> his Concluding Unscientific Postscript that "truth is subjectivity"
> (p.169). This tendency to excessive arbitrary subjectivity - currently so
> evident in some of existentialism's philosophical descendents such as Derrida -
> has allowed many of its valuable philosophical insights to be ignored. Thus, by
> sticking close to the conceptual framework of the Writings, we shall be less
> likely to slip into the subjectivist extremes by putting rational limits on any
> efforts to indulge in excessively arbitrary and outlandishly subjective
> readings that do violence to the essential nature of the text. Of course, this
> is not to deny that the Writings can be read in various ways but it must be
> remembered that the permissibility of many readings does not assure the
> permissibility of any and all readings. Abdu'l-Bahá makes this clear
> when, for example, he explicitly rejects any pantheistic (SAQ, 290-296)
> and re-incarnationist (SAQ, 282-289) interpretations of the Sacred
> Texts. 
> 
> 
> 2) The Nature of Existentialism
> 
> 
> At this point is necessary to provide a brief description of what
> existentialism is and is not. In a nutshell, existentialism is an analysis of
> the human situation from the point of view and experience of the human subject
> who lives and acts in the world. In the language of Husserl, who exerted a
> profound influence on existentialist thinkers, consciousness is intentional; it
> is always about something. Consequently, the existential subject is an agent,
> and is certainly not the thinking Cartesian subject who is so intellectually
> isolated from the world that s/he cannot even be certain that an external world
> exists! We might also say that the existential self is participational - it
> actively participates in the world and thus prevents clear-cut and absolute
> distinctions between subjects and objects. From the existentialist viewpoint,
> Descartes' pure and simple subject-object distinction is merely an abstraction
> from our original human situation and, while highly useful in the physical
> sciences which deal with relatively simple objects, is considerably less useful
> in dealing with more complex entities such as living creatures, human beings,
> groups, and communities. The social sciences, for example, not only gather much
> of their data in discussions, surveys or other 'participations' with subjects
> but also require a great deal of personal interpretation of even impersonal
> data such as crime statistics. Descartes' highly idealized subject-object
> distinction rapidly breaks down at this point because knowledge itself has
> become 'participational': our participation or inter-action with the knowledge
> affects both the gathering of knowledge as well as our understanding of it. In
> this situation, simple subject-object distinctions are no longer useful in
> studying phenomena because they no longer reflect the actual conditions in
> which the research is being done. Marcel speaks for all existentialists when he
> writes that existentialism asserts "the primacy of the existential over the
> ideal, with the added proviso that the existential must inevitably be related
> to incarnate being, i.e. to the fact of being in the world" (Creative
> Fidelity, 21)                                       
> 
> Existentialists also tend to agree with Sartre that existence precedes essence
> - although there can be much variation in how we are to understand this. If we
> understand it to say that by means of decisions in the actual process of
> existence we create our own personalities, or selves or identities, then there
> is agreement among existentialist all thinkers. However, this agreement would
> vanish if we asserted that there is no such thing as a general human nature,
> or, that there is no common structure in what Heidegger calls Dasein, that is,
> human be-ing. Being and Time, probaly the central work of modern
> existentialism, dedicates itself to nothing less than outlining the structure
> inherent in and, in that sense, essential to, all Dasein. Vital as it is, this
> difference must not be allowed to obscure the fact that existentialist tend to
> concentrate and agree on a number of issues: the essential role of freedom,
> choice, risk and action; the importance of authentic existence and living in
> good faith; the role of anxiety in illuminating the human situation; concern
> and engagement with others and the world; the confrontation with human finitude
> and death; the subject of God; the inherent limitations of abstract, rational
> analysis, and the role of paradox in human existence. This mix of themes is
> present whether the existentialist is an atheist such as Sartre or Camus, a
> theist such as Kierkegaard and Marcel, or a non-theist such as the Heidegger of
> Being and Time. 
> 
> One of the most important things to understand is that existentialism is not
> simply free-style opinionating (no matter how passionate) but rather a
> philosophy that grows out of a careful analysis of the human situation. In
> other words, regardless of their individual stances on particular issues, all
> existential philosophies have a definable vision of how humans are situated vis
> a vis the nature of reality, the social world we have constructed, our nature
> as human beings ("Dasein" as Heidegger calls us, "pour-soi" according to
> Sartre), the constraints under which we live and the challenges and
> opportunities we face. To put the matter succinctly: human existence has a
> particular structure that distinguishes it from the existence of things and
> animals. Different forms of existentialism explore different aspects of this
> structure, or explore it from various points of view, but all maintain that
> human existence has its own essential characteristics. However, the resulting
> differences notwithstanding, there is a family resemblance among their
> analyses, conclusions and concerns (See Macquarrie's Existentialism and
> Collins' The Existentialists for example). 
> 
> 3) The Unique Status of Human Existence
> 
> One of the principles that a Bahá'í existentialism shares with other
> existentialisms is the notion that human existence is fundamentally different
> from other forms of being. Whereas all other beings are 'in-themselves',
> "en-soi" (BN, Ixxiv; 95) and simply exist as they are without being
> consciously present to themselves or feeling any inner conflicts about
> themselves, humans alone are 'for-themselves', "pour-soi" (BN, 89), that
> is, consciously present to themselves and required to take a stance in regards
> to themselves. They can choose - or refuse - to live for themselves. Thus,
> human be-ing is fundamentally distinct from other kinds of be-ing. Heidegger
> reserves the term "Dasein" for human be-ing to indicate that Dasein is
> distinguished from other kinds of be-ings by that fact that we only ex-ist,
> that is, consciously stand out from our environment and thus have certain
> unique capabilities as well as liabilities. It is always concerned with "its
> ownmost possibilities of Being in the world" (BT, 137); elsewhere he
> says, "Dasein exists as an entity for which, in its being, that being is itself
> an issue".(BT, 458). Similarly, Gabriel Marcel asserts that the human "
> 'I' cannot in any case whatsoever be treated as a 'that' because the 'I' is the
> very negation of the 'that', of any 'that' whatsoever . . . " (MB, Vol.
> 1, 110). The human " 'I' " (ibid.) cannot simply be assimilated into the world
> of things. The Bahá'í Writings are in fundamental agreement with this analysis
> of the human situation. Humankind is not simply a part of nature, but is
> defined by its potential for rationality or "rational soul" (SAQ, 151;
> 208) which not only distinguishes us from inanimate nature, plants and animals
> (SAQ, 208) but also has power over nature (PUP, 30) but as well
> as "no end" (SAQ, 153). Furthermore, the exhortations to evolve, improve
> and free ourselves (Gleanings, CLI, 319; TB, 95) indicate that
> the Bahá'í Writings, like the existentialist philosophers view humans as being
> present to themselves and being objects of action "for-themselves" (BN,
> 89) and deeply concerned with their "ownmost possibilities" (BT, 137).
> In other words, they all agree that humankind is self-conscious in a way unlike
> any other beings. For this reasons, unlike other creatures, we are able to make
> ourselves into projects.  
> 
> 
> 4) The Meaning of "To Exist" 
> 
> 
> The Bahá'í Writings and existential philosophy also share similar viewpoints of
> what it means to "exist". The Writings refer to the 'call into being'
> (TB, 116; Prayers and Meditations, 49; Epistle to the Son of
> the Wolf, 4) with its unmistakable suggestion that coming into existence
> means to stand out from a background, "to emerge, to arise" (MB, Vol. 2,
> 35). Elsewhere he writes that to exist means not just to be "present to my own
> awareness" (MB, Vol. 1,111) but also to be a "manifest being" (ibid.):
> "I exist - that is as much to say: I have something to make myself known and
> recognized both by others and by myself . . . "(ibid., 112). This is exactly
> what the etymology of the word draws to our attention: ex - sistere. When
> things come into existence, they appear, they show or reveal or manifest
> themselves and are thus differentiated from their background of environment
> (See BT, 53-4) and, consequently, no longer hidden. This 'standing out'
> is doubly true of humankind because we not only arise from or are called from
> the cosmic background into appearance, but, as shown previously, we also exist
> in another sense, insofar as we are "for-ourselves", are consciously concerned
> for our "ownmost possibilities" (BT, 137) and can shape ourselves. We stand out
> from other beings because we have freedom and choice. In this second sense,
> humankind alone exists, although all other entities certainly have being: they
> are, but not as conscious projects for themselves. From this point of view,
> existentialism is a philosophy which seeks to reveal and clarify those aspects
> that make human existence unique. This, of course, accords with the fact that
> the very notion of a divine revelation to humankind presupposes that we are
> different from other beings and have different "exigencies and requirements"
> (Gleanings, CVI, 213). 
> 
> 
> 5) The Concept of Potentials 
> 
> 
>         This paper will illustrate more specifically how a Bahá'í existentialism can
> be grown from its Aristotelian conceptual substratum, by concentrating on an
> examination of the concept of potentials, bearing in mind, of course, that a
> mere paper can provide no more than an outline sketch of what needs to be said
> in a full treatment. As already shown in the first part of this work, both the
> Writings and Aristotle agree that human beings, like all other entities, are
> essentially defined by their potentials (PUP,38; BWF, 262),
> "possibilities" (PUP, 113), "capacities" (ibid., 23; BWF, 249),
> "susceptibilities" (PUP,23.) or "powers" (ibid.,17; 49). Bahá'u'lláh
> tells us, "Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value"
> (Gleanings, CXXII, 260). Thus, humankind differs from animals in regards
> to the capacity for rational and abstract thought, (SAQ, 187;
> BWF, 305) while human beings differ from one another in terms of innate
> intellectual capacity (SWAB, 131). Moreover, unlike animals, for us our
> "ownmost-potentiality-for-Being is an issue (BT, 225); humans are the
> be-ings who wonder about themselves The Writings also tell us that human
> potentials are inexhaustible since all of God's attributes are reflected in us
> (BWF, 311; SAQ, 236). These facts raise several questions. How
> are we to understand ourselves in light of them? What do they tell us about the
> nature and structure of human existence and how we experience it?' What does it
> mean to understand ourselves "in terms of [our] possibilities"? (BT,
> 331; also 185). 
> 
> 
> 6) Being "In Process" and "Being Toward"
> 
> 
>         If our species and individual essences (henceforth 'haecceitas') is defined by
> our potentials then it follows that both as species and as individuals we are
> always, in process and, therefore, incomplete. Marcel, for example, says that
> the self is not a self-sufficient monad, but rather is, and is part of and
> "uncompleted structure extending beyond the self" (MB, Vol. 1, 82). We
> are always, as Heidegger says, "Being toward a possibility" (BT, 305).
> On the individual level this is emphasized by the Bahá'í teaching on
> immortality according to which we develop our potentials without end through
> the "many worlds" (The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys, 32) of
> God (SAQ, 237). At the collective level, this is emphasized by the
> Bahá'í view of human evolution as the gradual actualization and manifestation
> of previously hidden potentials rather than the transformation of one species
> into another (SAQ, 198). It is, however, important to note that these
> possibilities provide for a moderate freedom: while they allow, indeed, demand,
> growth into particular directions they forbid it in others. We must not make
> the mistake of thinking that 'being-toward-possibility' allows anything and
> anything to be actualized since this would be license and not rational or "true
> liberty" (Gleanings, XLIII, 92). We must always remember that the
> possibilities that define our humanity and our haecceitas are created by God
> and are thus equivalent to divine commandments we are obligated to follow
> (Gleanings, CLIX, 335-336). Heidegger says that "The meaning of Dasein's
> [human] Being is not something free-floating . . . but is the
> self-understanding of Dasein itself" (BT, 372). In short, we are to
> understand - and actualize - ourselves according to how were to created and not
> according to our "vain imaginings" (TB, 41) 
> 
> 
> 7) Being "Not-Yet" 
> 
> 
> Because we are 'being-toward-possibility', human beings (Heidegger's "Dasein")
> are inevitably "not yet" (BT, 286), that is, we are never completely
> ourselves because we are works in progress rather than finished products. It
> also means that "Dasein [a human being] is constantly 'more' than it factically
> is" (BT, 185) because of the unactualized potentials that make up our
> essence. Both as a species and as individuals, we are "permeated with
> possibility" (BT, 186) that must always be taken into account if we are
> to understand ourselves correctly and develop an accurate, authentic
> self-image. These possibilities represent our more complete, future selves and
> their mere presence - even as mere potentials - cannot help but influence us in
> the present time: we can either accept them, reject them or ignore them but in
> each case a decision of some kind is required. The influence of these
> potentials in opening us up to further, more complete and development may be
> understood as one way in which we experience the 'call into being' because we
> are being called to actualize more complete versions of ourselves that are not
> yet in existence. 
> 
> This means that to some extent, we are always in the position of waiting for
> ourselves and living in anticipation (BT, 373; see also BN, 43)
> of a final identity. In the words of Heidegger, "Anticipation makes Dasein
> [human beings] authentically futural and in such a way that Dasein,
> as being, is always coming towards itself. . . " (ibid.). Elsewhere he
> says we are a "Being towards one's ownmost, distinctive
> potentiality-for-being" (BT, 372; italics added). We are always
> approaching, but never fully reaching, ourselves. As Sartre puts it, "man is
> always separated from what he is by all the breadth of the being which he is
> not . . . Man is a being of distances" (BN, 21). Final identity recedes
> like the horizon while forever drawing us onward. For some, such an
> unrealizable project is an unpalatable vision that promises endless
> frustration; Sartre, for example referred to humankind as a "useless passion"
> (Sartre, quoted in The Existentialists, 78).  While that response is
> certainly an option we can choose, it is not necessarily imposed on us. In the
> Bahá'í vision of life and the after-life, the endless quest for ever more
> adequate self-actualization is a positive vision reflecting the infinite glory
> God has bestowed on humankind. We are all engaged on an endless voyage of
> discovery in which every moment is both a sheltering harbor and a point of
> departure. A Bahá'í existentialism would certainly have a more positive tone
> and mood than the traditional forms of existentialism. Given the importance of
> mood in existentialism, a positive mood would certainly be a radical departure
> in the development of this philosophy. 
> 
>          The fact that we are a "being-toward" (BT, 197), that, whether we are
> conscious of it or not, our lives are innately vectored, have a direction and
> live towards a particular future, namely, the actualization of our personal
> potentials. Our lives are not simply intended to be a random and shapeless
> succession of events no matter how pleasurable this might be because each of
> human life is innately and inherently structured as a particular
> "for-the-sake-of-which" (BT,119). They exist for something. In
> other words, having a purpose is an inherent part of our being, and if we do
> not consciously choose to have a purpose, some purpose, one of our own
> potentials will, for better or worse, choose us. Then we do not live actively
> but are lived by a part of ourselves that may not always be our most worthy
> part. This passivity is one of the ways in which our lives can become
> inauthentic, that is, we can lose our best potential while yet seeming to live
> normal lives. 
> 
> 8) Self-Transcendence 
> 
>         Another way of portraying the fact that we are a "being-toward" (BT,
> 197) and a "not-yet" (BT, 286) is to say that humankind is
> self-transcendent: we are always trying to overcome ourselves as we are in
> favour of what we might be (MB, Vol. 2, 101-2). Indeed, Marcel links
> this "urgent inner need for transcendence" (MB, Vol. 1, 68) to "an
> aspiration towards purer and purer modes of experience" (ibid.). For his part,
> Sartre links our urge for self-transcendence to the inherently doomed project
> of becoming God. In short, almost all existentialist agree that if we live
> authentically, that is, according to our human nature, we are inherently and
> structurally unsatisfied with ourselves and seek to be better than we are which
> suggests that we are inevitably plagued by varying degrees of
> self-dissatisfaction. (This is not to say that existentialism or the Bahá'í
> Writings endorse a self-crippling or self-destructive perfectionism that is a
> pathological perversion of our innate dissatisfaction with ourselves.) This
> self-transcendent function draws attention to the heroic potential within
> ourselves. In other words, we can actively embrace our urge to
> self-transcendence instead of merely enduring it passively, and thus make it a
> conscious heroic self-conquest, self-overcoming; we have the option of choosing
> self-overcoming as a way of life. Such a struggle is certainly inherent in
> living as a Bahá'í. We must continuously purify ourselves, that is, live more
> and more according to our natures as self-transcendent beings seeking higher
> levels of spiritual attainment. We might call this an 'evolutionary heroism'
> that seeks self-conquest as its major goal. To use Abdu'l-Bahá's enlightening
> metaphor, this is the heroism of the lump of coal that struggles to become a
> diamond (SAQ, 234), a heroism that requires us to "cleanse [the] heart
> from the world and all its vanities" (Gleanings, CXIV, 237). The point
> of this heroism is to transcend the current limits of the human condition, "to
> draw nigh unto such stations as none can comprehend save those whom God hath
> willed" (Kitab-i-Aqdas, 56). 
> 
> 9) Self-Dissatisfaction 
> 
> As already noted, it cannot be denied that given our nature as "not-yet"
> (BT, 286), we are bound to suffer a certain amount of eternal
> dissatisfaction with or alienation from ourselves because it is impossible for
> us to be 'all there'. In Marcel's words, "the need for transcendence presents
> itself, above all, [as a] deeply experienced . . . kind of dissatisfaction"
> (MB, Vol. 1, 52). 
> 
>         Humans by their nature are bound to be restless and unsettled. While
> Heidegger's Christian background leads him to interpret this dissatisfaction as
> guilt, and to claim that "being-guilty belongs to Dasein's [human] being",
> BT, 353) Bahá'ís can adopt a very different interpretation, one that is,
> in fact, more logically in keeping with the belief that humans are always
> becoming and "not-yet" (BT, 286). The understanding that we are
> "not-yet" (ibid.) does not logically necessitate despair or feelings of guilt.
> Indeed, Bahá'ís can not merely accept but even embrace this innate
> dissatisfaction as 'divine', as one of God's signs that we reflect the infinity
> of His names (BWF, 311), that we always face an open future, that we are
> always free to remake and renew ourselves, that we face an infinite number of
> new possibilities for actualization and, therefore, ought never to despair.
> Literally, at every moment we can appropriate to ourselves personally
> Bahá'u'lláh's words, "In every age and cycle He hath, through the splendorous
> light shed by the Manifestations of His wondrous Essence, recreated all things,
> so that whatsoever reflecteth in the heavens and on the earth the signs of His
> glory may not be deprived of the outpourings of His mercy, nor despair of the
> showers of His favors" (Gleanings, XXVI, 62). 
> 
> 10) Detachment 
> 
> Out of all this grows an ethic of detachment, starting at the most personal
> level. Given our situation as perpetually incomplete, we should not be too
> 'stuck' on any current version of ourselves, but should, rather, practice the
> art of detachment from our present personalities since they are all 'just
> temporary'. "Cast away that which ye possess, and, on the wings of detachment,
> soar beyond all created things." (Gleanings, LXXII, 139). From this it
> follows that feeling fully at one with themselves is not an authentic option
> for Bahá'ís since any such feeling must, at best, be a temporary respite; if
> such feelings persist, they will inevitably blind the possessors to their real
> ontological circumstances as a perpetually unfinished work needing improvement.
> Feelings of profound self-satisfaction with one's current condition and a
> desire to prolong it are to be understood as signs of an inauthentic existence
> at variance with our true ontological natures. Such a seriously flawed
> self-image or self-understanding cannot help but lead to an inauthentic
> existence with negative intellectual, emotional, spiritual and behavioral
> consequences. 
> 
> 11) Dialectical Self-Conflict 
> 
> We must remember that our current condition and identity are being constantly
> undermined by the potentials of our future; in other words, our future selves
> waiting for actualization are involved in an inherent and on-going dialectical
> struggle with our present selves as we continuously re-create ourselves in new
> and more adequate forms. It is our nature to be locked in this dialectical
> self-conflict, and were it to stop, we would immediately fall into inauthentic
> existence. Therefore, this condition is not to be regarded negatively, but
> rather as part of our ontological identity as human beings. There is no doubt
> that this internal self-conflict causes suffering, but we must learn to
> understand this suffering as 'growing pains', as positive signs of our
> advancement. Once again, we must appropriate to ourselves personally what
> Bahá'u'lláh says about the conflicts in the world: "The fears and agitation
> which the revelation of this law provokes in men's hearts should indeed be
> likened to the cries of the suckling babe weaned from his mother's milk, if ye
> be of them that perceive. Were men to discover the motivating purpose of God's
> Revelation, they would assuredly cast away their fears, and, with hearts filled
> with gratitude, rejoice with exceeding gladness" (Gleanings, LXXXVIII,
> 175). There is no denial to the pains and agitations here - for that too would
> be inauthentic - but rather they are re-interpreted by a higher level of
> understanding. A Bahá'í existentialism does not dishonestly deny the painful
> and negative aspects inherent to human existence - for all existences other
> than God's are bound to suffer as a result of their ontological limitations - ;
> instead, it re-interprets these negative aspects from the point of view of our
> dynamic evolutionary development. 
> 
> 12) Progressive Revelation 
> 
> At this point it becomes evident that the innate ontological structure and
> dynamic of our personal lives reflects the Bahá'í Teaching of "progressive
> revelation" (Kitab-i-Aqdas, #126, p.280) in which certain essential
> religious truths are recapitulated in new forms, and new divine potentials
> released from them to match the intellectual, material and spiritual conditions
> of new times. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny. To live authentically in
> accordance with our essential natures - or in Sartre's terms, the innate
> structure of the "pour-soi" - both the human species and individuals are
> required to grow, to overcome their own collective and personal "ancestral
> forms" (PUP, 127) and advance into higher, that is, more subtle, more
> inclusive and more adequate versions of ourselves. They must do so despite the
> fact that the process inevitably involves overcoming pain, cherished
> preconceptions and deeply rooted preferences. However, the alternative is to
> suffer even more difficulties as a result of adopting an inauthentic existence
> that violates our inherent ontological natures. Continuing to walk in shoes
> that are self-flattering and attractive but too small is simply not a viable
> solution to foot-growth. 
> 
> The fact that we are continuously actualizing our potentials also means that we
> are capable of failure; indeed, we risk - and, for the sake of growth, must
> risk - failure on an on-going basis if we are to develop. Being a Bahá'í
> provides no exemption from risk as an inherent part of human existence. Thus,
> the refusal to undertake risks for self-actualization is, in effect, a refusal
> to be oneself which is itself a refusal to be, or, even worse, an outright
> rejection of oneself. In flight from our possibilities, we fall away from
> ourselves and. consequently, never become authentically real in our proper
> identities. Lacking what Paul Tillich calls "the courage to be" (The Courage
> to Be) one can easily attain succumb to the feeling "of being condemned -
> not to an external punishment but to the despair of having lost our destiny"
> (ibid., 59). If we are not ourselves, who are we? 
> 
> 13) Fallen Existence 
> 
> In Heidegger's terms, we develop a 'fugitive way of saying 'I' " (BT,
> 368) which is "motivated by Dasein's [human] falling; for as falling, it flees
> in the face of itself into the 'they'." (ibid.). Even though this 'I' seems
> normal enough to outsiders and even ourselves, "[w]hen the 'I' talks in the
> 'natural' manner, this is performed by the they-self" (ibid.), that is, the
> mass ('Das Man') or crowd identity we inevitably take on when our lives are not
> filled with genuine content. The crowd speaks and acts through us; we have been
> appropriated by the crowd. As Heidegger puts it, "It itself is not; Being has
> been taken away by the Others" (BT, 164) although this "inconspicuous
> domination" (ibid.) may not always be obvious. As a result, "[o]ne belongs to
> the Others oneself and enhances their power" (ibid.) by becoming
> "dispersed into the 'they' " (BT, 167). We have "fallen away"
> (BT, 220) from our true possibilities and suffer from "alienation
> [Entfremdung] in which [our] ownmost potentiality-for-Being is hidden from
> [us]" (BT, 222). Heidegger, like all existentialists philosophers,
> rejects this kind of inauthentic existence. So do the Bahá'í Writings which
> make each of us responsible for our own actions and do not allow us to slough
> off responsibility for our lives on others. "If, in the Day when all the
> peoples of the earth will be gathered together, any man should, whilst standing
> in the presence of God, be asked: "Wherefore hast thou disbelieved in My Beauty
> and turned away from My Self," and if such a man should reply and say:
> "Inasmuch as all men have erred, and none hath been found willing to turn his
> face to the Truth, I, too, following their example, have grievously failed to
> recognize the Beauty of the Eternal," such a plea will, assuredly, be rejected.
> For the faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself"
> (Gleanings, LXXV, 143; italics added). In other words, there is no
> refuge and no flight from personal responsibility in the mass or what Heidegger
> calls the "they-self" (BT, 368). Each is expected to be an authentic
> 'thyself' and not someone else; this challenges us all with the duty to
> actualize our unique combination of potentials. Furthermore, the Writings
> exhort each of us to "see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of
> others" (TB, 37) and to "know of thine own knowledge and not through the
> knowledge of thy neighbour" (ibid.). We cannot see with our own eyes and know
> through our own knowledge if we are not first authentically ourselves. That is
> why we need to be what Heidegger calls "resolute" (BT, 443):
> "Resoluteness constitutes the loyalty of existence to its own Self"
> (ibid.). 
> 
> Lest any misunderstandings arise, it is necessary to point out that neither
> existentialism nor the Bahá'í Writings envision humans as totally detached from
> the world and their fellow beings. The issue is not so much attachment as the
> quality of attachment, that is, whether or not attachment is authentic. Indeed,
> the Writings instruct us to "Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age
> ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements"
> (Gleanings, CVI, 213). A clearer injunction for positive involvement
> with the world cannot be imagined. However, it is obvious that we cannot be
> genuinely concerned for the needs of our time if we fail to self-actualize and
> become part of the mass, or 'They' whose needs require our care. Nor can our
> anxious concern "for the needs of the age" (ibid.) be genuine if we are merely
> working out personal problems in the public arena. Thus, seeking appropriate
> self-actualization of our possibilities is not a selfish act but is the
> necessary first step in meeting the "needs of the age [we] live in" (ibid.) and
> one that is often forgotten. To genuinely help the age we must think for
> ourselves (TB, 37) because if we don't, we simply become part of the
> problem and obscure the issues. Heidegger makes a similar point: "If Dasein
> discovers the world in its own way [eigens] and brings it close, if it
> discloses itself to itself its authentic Being, then this discovery of the
> 'world' and this disclosure of Dasein are always accomplished as a
> clearing-away of concealments and obscurities . . . " (BT, 167). Gabriel
> Marcel for his part describes this social existence of humankind as our
> "intersubjectivity" (MB, Vol. 2, 39). 
> 
> Furthermore, being resolute, or avoiding "fallen-ness" (BT, 220) is also
> a socially beneficial act since a genuine community in which genuine
> consultation occurs, can only be found among people who are authentically
> themselves, and see with their own eyes and speak their own thoughts. The best
> way for us to help create such a community is to be such a person ourselves
> which is precisely what the Bahá'í Writings demand. As Heidegger writes,
> "Dasein's resoluteness towards itself is what first makes it possible to let
> Others who are with it be in their ownmost potentiality-for-being, and to
> co-disclose this potentiality in the solicitude which leaps forth and liberates
> . . . Only by authentically Being-their--Selves in resoluteness can people
> authentically be with one another - not by ambiguous and jealous stipulations"
> and talkative fraternizing in the "they" . . . " (BT, 344-5). By
> self-actualizing, each of us attains the authentic being that lets us serve as
> an example for others. 
> 
> 14) Anxiety 
> 
> The fact that we are always susceptible "falling" (BT, 399) into
> inauthentic being makes a certain amount of anxiety structurally inherent in
> human existence. For Heidegger, the anxiety provoked by this prone-ness to
> falling is the origin of the conscience, since the experience of anxiety is the
> sign of having or developing a conscience. Thus we should welcome anxiety
> because it is proof of "wanting-to-have-a-conscience" (BT, 342) which
> ultimately helps us to gain, preserve and regain our authenticity as we go
> through life. It is precisely this anxiety which eventually helps us attain
> that "resoluteness . . . [which is] that truth of Dasein which is most
> primordial because it is authentic" (BT, 343). Such anxiety is a natural
> part of being ourselves and we would, in fact, not be well off if this natural
> anxiety were absent since that would lower our level of concern about our
> existential condition. The resulting carelessness would not serve us well
> neither as individuals nor as a community. Clearly, this anxiety is not to be
> understood as a kind of panic but rather as what Abdu'l-Bahá calls "due
> concern" (SDC, 11). In the same way, Bahá'u'lláh tells us that we should
> feel "concern" (Gleanings, CXX, 254; also CXLIVII, 316 ) "only for that
> which profiteth mankind, and bettereth the condition thereof (ibid.). As we
> have already seen, concern for improving the human condition includes
> self-actualization of one's potentialities and the attainment of authentic
> identity. From this we can see that the Bahá'í Writings accept a certain amount
> of anxiety and concern as an inevitable part of the human condition This idea
> is also inherent in the notion that eventually "Ye shall, most certainly,
> return to God, and shall be called to account for your doings in the presence
> of Him Who shall gather together the entire creation..." (Gleanings,
> CXVI, 247; see also LXV, 124). This idea is further emphasized by the
> injunction to "weigh in that Balance thine actions every day, every moment
> of thy life. Bring thyself to account ere thou art summoned to a reckoning,
> (Gleanings, CXIV, 236; italics added). In other words, there is a kind
> of salutary and growth-promoting anxiety that we must not only learn to live
> with but accept as a positive part of the human condition. Because this kind of
> existential anxiety serves a positive life-enhancing function for individuals
> and communities, it must not be confused with the debilitating fears and
> phobias that prevent personal and social life from being lived to their full
> potential. 
> 
> Anxiety not only reveals the continuing possibility of inauthentic existence,
> it also discloses our situation in the world. According to Heidegger, in
> anxiety we face our "ownmost-Being-thrown" (BT, 393), that is, confront
> the fact that we simply exist and that there is no humanly discernible or
> rational reason why this should be so. We simply are, and find ourselves
> be-ing: "Dasein has been thrown into existence" (BT, 321; italics
> added). Sartre also uses this term (BN, 53). It is precisely on this
> point that the Bahá'í Writings offer an alternative direction in the
> development of existentialism. Rather than seeing humankind as "thrown" (ibid.)
> into existence, a view that in the case of Sartre and Camus, leads to the
> judgment that existence is somehow absurd and inherently meaningless, the
> Bahá'í Writings view man and indeed, the entire universe as called into
> being (Prayers and Meditations, 177; 208; 251; Gleanings, XIV,
> 29; XCIV, 193; CXXII, 260). The view that we are "thrown" into existence is a
> consequence of failing to take into account the fact that the universe and all
> its inhabitants are the creations of a supreme Being who called everything into
> being for a particular purpose in the evolutionary world process. We only feel
> "thrown" when foreshorten our vision and ignore the existence of God. Whereas
> "thrown" connotes a disorderly, haphazard, undignified and even violent arrival
> which might easily lead to sense of worthlessness, carelessness and despair,
> being called suggests that each thing is wanted, has a place and a task, is
> invested with the natural dignity and possesses inherent value. Contrary to
> superficial expectations this does not ease the challenges that we face.
> Indeed, it intensifies them because being inauthentic is not just being untrue
> to ourselves but is also a rebellion against God's will. God's call is to a
> particular person who must not squander this call by trying to be someone else;
> it is issued to our authentic potentials. We must not "flee[] to the relief
> which comes with the supposed freedom of the they-self" (BT, 321). Nor
> can we dismiss this call as absurd since God has His reasons in each case. This
> fact is emphasized by the Bab's prayer which states that "All are His servants
> and all abide by His bidding" (Bahá'í Prayers).In other words, human
> existence is inherently meaningful even though we do not always actualize this
> meaning successfully. This is one issue on which a Bahá'í existentialism
> differs radically from the atheistic existentialism of Sartre and Camus.  
> 
> 15) Not-belonging 
> 
> Anxiety also reveals our human condition as " 'not-at-home' - the bare
> 'that-it-is' in the 'nothing' of the world" (BT, 321). Unlike other
> entities and creatures, humans are not fully at home in the world insofar as we
> possess conscious capabilities other creatures lack. We cannot live with the
> sensual contentedness of a cow, nor, as Abdu'l-Bahá noted, should we because to
> do so means not actualizing our true potentials (PUP, 262). Through
> their emphasis on detachment from the world, the Bahá'í Writings also emphasize
> that humankind neither is nor should ever be as at home in the world as
> animals. "[T]he contingent world is the source of imperfections" (SAQ,
> 5) and humans should be focussed on divine perfections. Indeed, relative to the
> divine perfections we are intended to actualize, the world is as 'nothing' and
> we must neither over-value nor undervalue it. In one sense, the world is
> certainly an illusion, a mirage, a nothing (SAQ, 278), and, if we
> foreshorten our vision to exclude God, we will indeed find ourselves "thrown"
> into nothingness or into a meaningless, seething mass of being (see Sartre's
> Nausea). This feeling of not-being-at-home or not-belonging (often
> unsatisfactorily translated as "uncanniness" [BT, 321] ) is something
> that all Bahá'ís can recognize and which the Writings, to a certain extent,
> approve (Paris Talks, 85; SAQ, 278). Our recognition of the
> situation in which we are in but not fully of nature, readily
> leads to anxiety about our true place, our 'home' and our belonging. One of the
> reasons for the arrival of Manifestations is to alleviate this structurally
> inherent anxiety and to help us direct this emotional energy to the divine
> world where we really belong. That, after all, is why we have a soul which
> survives our physical being and undergoes an eternity of spiritual evolution.
> However, the feeling of not-being-at-home is something that is structurally
> inherent in our existence and is something we continuously have to learn to
> live with. After all, it plays a positive role in reminding us that in the long
> run, we do not really belong here. 
> 
> 16) Resoluteness and the Call Into Being 
> 
> The issues of resoluteness, anxiety and "the call into being"
> (Gleanings, XIV, 29) lead naturally to what we might refer to as the
> 'call of being', namely the fact that through anxiety, we hear "the call
> of conscience [that] summons us to our potentiality-for-Being" (BT,
> 347). This has two consequences. First, anxiety reveals our freedom to choose
> for or against the actualization of our possibilities (BT, 237); it
> discloses the fact that human be-ing is "characterized by freedom" (ibid.), a
> view that underlies the foundation of all Bahá'í ethics. This freedom which
> can, of course, be frightening because it marks the beginning of
> responsibilities for the conduct of one's life. Second, through anxiety,
> conscience summons us to an authentic existence by calling on us to
> self-actualization. "When the call of conscience is understood, lostness in the
> 'they' is revealed. Resoluteness brings Dasein back to its ownmost
> potentiality-for-Being-itself" (BT, 354). The call of conscience "calls
> Dasein forth (and forward) to its ownmost possibilities, as a summons to its
> ownmost potentiality-for-Being-its-Self" (BT, 318). However, where does
> this call come from, especially since it is often "against our expectations and
> even against our will" (BT, 320)? According to Heidegger, "[t]he call
> comes from me and yet from beyond me and over me" (ibid.). In
> other words, "the call of conscience" (BT, 347) originates as a call
> from our unactualized potentials, projecting the influence of their presence
> into our lives; these unactualized potentials are our own future possible
> selves and their presence makes us uneasy about what we are doing with
> ourselves. Thus, "[i]n conscience Dasein calls itself" (BT, 320).
> However, the calls also comes from outside, a fact that Heidegger recognizes
> but is hard to explain since in Being and Time, he lacks recourse to God
> even though the existence of such a "Great Being" (TB, 162) is mandated
> by his analysis of the structure of human be-ing. The Bahá'í Writings suffer no
> such disadvantage, and can frankly assert that the call of being and the call
> of conscience are one and same and are signs of God's action in the world
> through the anxious state of mind or "mood" (BT, 296). This fact does
> not lessen the call or make it somehow less pressing; rather, the opposite is
> true. By neglecting the call to authentic being, we are not merely choosing to
> live inauthentically, but are choosing to ignore the will of the Creator.
> However, while living in bad faith with oneself, that is, violating one's own
> essential nature can be written off as a private affair in a godless world, it
> is a more serious matter to compound it by rebellion against God's will. 
> 
> At this point, a clarification is required. We must not make the mistake of
> taking Heidegger's call of conscience as something negative because it
> "discloses Dasein's most primordial potentiality-for-Being" as Being-guilty"
> (BT, 334).This call is "positive" (ibid.) insofar as the capacity
> to be guilty first requires a capacity, a freedom, a potential to choose
> authentic self-actualization. We cannot be guilty of failing to self-actualize
> without first having the potential to do so. Thus, anxiety and guilt are
> positive insofar as they attest to the possibility of self-actualization:
> conscience is "intelligible as an attestation of Dasein's ownmost
> potentiality-for-Being" (BT, 324). Indeed, these feelings of guilt allow
> us to be "summoned out of one's lostness in the 'they' "(BT, 445). 
> 
> 17) A Problem With Conscience 
> 
>         However, even this positive view of the call of conscience still leaves
> us - and Heidegger's philosophy - with a problem: is conscience by itself
> actually capable of empowering us to return from our fallen state back into
> authenticity? As John Macquarrie says, conscience "can at best awaken in
> fallen man the awareness of lost possibility of being. It can disclose to him
> his ontological possibility of authenticity. But it cannot by any means
> empower him to choose that possibility" ((An Existentialist
> Theology, 139; italics added). He adds, "And now it appears that only some
> Power outside man, some Power not fallen as man is fallen, can bring man to
> this concrete possibility of regaining his authentic being" (ibid.). The mere
> awareness of our fallen state is not in itself enough to enable us to lift
> ourselves out of it; the inability to help ourselves despite our knowledge is
> an integral part of our inauthentic existence. This means that we require
> external aid to empower us to take the steps needed to recover authentic being.
> Although other human beings can fulfill that function to a certain extent,
> ultimately we require God, and God's "existentiell" (ibid.), that is, concrete
> appearance in history as the Manifestation to return to us in our fallen
> condition, the power to make choice for an authentic existence. As Bahá'u'lláh
> says, "Neither the candle nor the lamp can be lighted through their own unaided
> efforts, nor can it ever be possible for the mirror to free itself from its
> dross (Gleanings, XXVII, 66). God and the Manifestations restore our
> potential for authenticity to us. Of course, neither God nor the Manifestation
> actually make that choice for us but rather, they enable us to make the choice
> for authentic being. That is why the physician metaphor plays such a prominent
> role in the Bahá'í Writings: what does a physician do except enable our body to
> recover its ability to function independently as it was originally intended to?
> 
> 
> 18) The Role of the Manifestation 
> 
>         One might, of course, also ask how the Manifestation fulfills His or Her role
> as an empowering physician. Undoubtedly the first step is to reorient
> ourselves, to become like the mirrors that turn to the sun and are thus
> empowered to its light (PUP, 4); there is, as Macquarrie says, "a
> complete re-orientation of the self" (ET, 187) which reverses the
> direction of the will so that we begin to polish the mirrors of our souls and,
> thereby, regain authenticity. The question remains as to how this
> re-orientation takes place; how does the fallen, inauthentic individual gain
> the power to re-orient himself to the Manifestation so as to empower himself to
> change. The Bahá'í Writings contain various exhortations to do so: Bahá'u'lláh
> says, "The whole duty of man in this Day is to attain that share of the flood
> of grace which God poureth forth for him" (Gleanings, V, 8) and
> Abdu'l-Bahá says, "The most important thing is to polish the mirrors of hearts
> in order that they may become illumined and receptive of the divine light
> (PUP, 14). These quotes suggest that we are able to achieve this by
> ourselves, as does the following: "There can be no doubt whatever that, in
> consequence of the efforts which every man may consciously exert and as a
> result of the exertion of his own spiritual faculties, this mirror can be so
> cleansed from the dross of earthly defilements . . . " (Gleanings,
> CXXIV, 261). It should be noted in passing that this latter quote does not
> contradict Bahá'u'lláh's previous statement about the impossibility of "unaided
> efforts" (Gleanings, XXVII,66) to cleanse the mirror or light the lamp,
> that is, re-orient us, because the effort we make, while not sufficient in
> itself, is the pre-condition for receiving the divine aid that allows us to
> achieve success. 
> 
> However, we must still ask, how are individuals enabled to turn towards the sun
> or to even begin cleansing the mirror of their souls. The answer lies in the
> following quotations from Bahá'u'lláh: "This is the Day in which God's most
> excellent favors have been poured out upon men, the Day in which His most
> mighty grace hath been infused into all created things (Gleanings, V,
> 6); "Its [The Name of God] grace is being poured out upon men"
> (Gleanings, IX, 12); and finally, "Whatever duty Thou hast prescribed
> unto Thy servants of extolling to the utmost Thy majesty and glory is but a
> token of Thy grace unto them, that they may be enabled to ascend unto
> the station conferred upon their own inmost being, the station of the knowledge
> of their own selves (Gleanings, I, 4-5; italics added). These quotations
> make it clear that all human beings have been divinely endowed with the power
> and freedom to re-orient themselves to God. This power and freedom is an
> inherent part of the structure of human existence and can, therefore, not be
> removed or lost: it is always available, which is why Bahá'u'lláh tells us that
> "he faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself"
> (Gleanings, LXXV, 143). In other words, power and the resulting freedom
> are innately bestowed on human nature and cannot be avoided or lost. Part of
> the anxiety of inauthentic existence is that even the most self-alienated
> person retains a vestigal awareness of his or her power and freedom to choose
> authenticity. On this score, a Bahá'í existentialism is as radical an exponent
> of human freedom as Sartre according to whom we are always able to choose
> between living in good or "bad faith" (BN, 59). If we ask, about what
> can make people want to re-orient towards God, even if they know, as the
> Writings assure us, God's grace or empowerment is shed on all beings alike
> (Gleanings, X, 12), we have no answer but the mystery of human freedom.
> Like Berdyaev's "Ungrund" (The Destiny of Man, 25), the human spirit is,
> at bottom, a radical freedom that is unfathomable to anyone else save God.  
> 
> 19) "Being-Toward-Death" 
> 
>         Because we are continuously changing (SAQ, 233), it follows that our
> identities are continuously dying as we cast aside outmoded, no longer adequate
> selves in order actualize new possibilities. This is one way in which human
> beings are what Heidegger calls "Being-towards-death" (BT, 310) since we
> are, in fact, constantly striving to re-invent ourselves. We die daily, indeed,
> during periods of challenging, rapid growth or, at times of crisis, hourly or
> even from moment to moment. It is one of the great paradoxes of human existence
> that dying is our most authentic way of life. In the words of Abdu'l-Bahá,
> "Until a being setteth his foot in the plane of sacrifice, he is bereft of
> every favour and grace; and this plane of sacrifice is the realm of dying to
> the self, that the radiance of the living God may then shine forth. The
> martyr's field is the place of detachment from self, that the anthems of
> eternity may be upraised" (SWAB, 76). We thus live in perpetual
> anticipation of death, of which the death of the physical body is only one.
> Indeed, the Bahá'í Writings encourage the daily practice of
> "Being-towards-death" (BT, 310) when they tell us to "weigh in that
> Balance thine actions every day, every moment of thy life. Bring thyself to
> account ere thou art summoned to a reckoning " (Gleanings, CXIV, 236).
> 
> 
> However, we must not let fear, based on a false understanding, drive us into
> despair. This is a challenge because death reveals itself to us through anxiety
> (BT, 310) which emphasizes for us that death is always personal; death
> "individualizes Dasein" (ibid.) as Heidegger says. "In this state-of-mind,
> Dasein finds itself face to face with the "nothing . . . " (ibid.). As
> Heidegger points out, this anxiety has a positive function insofar as it means
> that we have consciously understood and personally appropriated our ontological
> situation. Anxiety is the sign that we 'get it'. Though this "nothing" (ibid.)
> is quite real and, to the self, can be quite frightening, the fact remains that
> in a universe in which we constantly actualize new potentials, this "nothing"
> exists from the point of view of the self that is about to be replaced by its
> successor. The anxiety is real and should not be denied, but rather must be put
> into its proper ontological perspective. Paradoxically, the anxiety announces
> both the death pangs of one self and the birth pangs of another. There is cause
> for some sorrow - as when, for example, we leave childhood behind - while at
> the same time, there is cause for joyous as well as apprehensive anticipation.
> Once again, we can see how the Bahá'í Writings lead us to a more accurate and
> more positive understanding of our existential situation. 
> 
> 20) "Being-Toward-Death" and Freedom 
> 
> Once understood and appropriated for oneself, "Being-towards-death" (ibid.) is
> also a source of ontological freedom because it frees us from any undue
> attachment to former versions of ourselves. There is no point in holding on to
> a version of oneself that, if things go well and real growth occurs, is doomed
> to pass out of existence. At this point, we cannot help but remember
> Bahá'u'lláh's statement, "I have made death a messenger of joy to thee.
> Wherefore dost thou grieve? I made the light to shed on thee its splendor. Why
> dost thou veil thyself therefrom?" (The Hidden Words, #32). Death
> is "a messenger of joy" because the dying of one identity is a pre-requisite
> for a more adequate identity, just as our physical dying is a pre-requisite for
> entrance into the Abha Kingdom. It is the death that precedes a birth and a
> life of encountering opportunities.  
> 
> 21) Evolutionary Humility 
> 
> These facts provide an ontological basis for encouraging what we might call
> 'evolutionary humility', the realization that we are, at best, partial,
> certainly not our best, nor, given an eternity of development ahead of us, even
> 'very good'. If we view ourselves from the viewpoint of eternity, we are bound
> to feel very inadequate. In other words, the Bahá'í teachings about the
> importance of humility are not simply matters of sentiment or social philosophy
> but have deep ontological roots. We may respond either hide this feeling and
> its causes from ourselves and thus live inauthentically or, we may face the
> fact and feel a deep inner necessity for renewing our efforts to evolve by
> working harder to actualize our potentials. 
> 
> This rather sober view must be balanced with the understanding that we human
> beings are, collectively and individually, on a voyage without end, an eternal
> voyage of discovery in which ever new aspects of ourselves are disclosed to
> ourselves and in which we disclose ever-new aspects of creation (SAQ,
> ch.62). The fact that we are perpetually incomplete beings with an eternity of
> potentials yet to be realized not only humbles us, but should also inspire hope
> because no act is ever the final judgment on us. What others see in this world,
> and perhaps even our own feelings notwithstanding, we are never just what we
> seem. This means that our transgressions are not final in the sense that they
> sum up what we are since there is always more to us, if not in this world, then
> in the next. We are not simply the sum total of our deeds and thoughts but also
> the more that lies ahead of us. In regard to this 'more', human being is
> always, as Heidegger says, "ahead-of-itself" (BT, 279); he adds, that
> "in Dasein [human beings] there is always something still outstanding"
> (ibid.). Also noteworthy here is the future orientation which shows itself to
> be an integral part of the ontological structure of our existence. We are, as
> Heidegger says, a "Being towards" (BT, 197). 
> 
> 22) Being an "Inexhaustible Mystery" 
> 
> Another way of viewing our inherent incompleteness is to say that we are an
> "inexhaustible mystery" (Existentialism, 29). As the Writings say,
> "Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value" (Gleanings,
> CXXII, 260; see also SAQ, chp. 64). Consequently, human beings are
> always mysterious to themselves, and experience themselves as a mystery, as
> something that by its very nature can never be fully understood. No amount of
> factual information can ever provide exhaustive knowledge of even a single
> person, for, as the Bahá'í Writings say, "Man is My mystery, and I am his
> mystery" (Gleanings, XC, 177). This is also what the theistic
> existentialist Gabriel Marcel is getting at in the title of his two volume
> The Mystery of Being and this is precisely the main point of
> Kierkegaard's entire oeuvre and his objection to Hegel: human beings are
> inherently mysterious and cannot be adequately summed up by any abstract,
> intellectualized system (MB, Vol. 1, 164). How we personally experience
> our mysteriousness can vary greatly. Some, like the Russian theistic
> existentialist Nicolas Berdyaev, experience it as an utterly inexplicable
> irrationality that proves our absolute freedom and creativity beyond any
> rational, logical limitations (Truth and Revelation, 77); others, such
> as the French atheist existentialists Sartre and Camus experience it as further
> evidence of our inherent absurdity. Negatively, it might even be experienced as
> something frightful or even terrifying since whatever is inexhaustible might
> also be felt as an abyss. Others might experience this mysteriousness with a
> sense of awe and humility or even gratitude that we have been so richly
> endowed. Perhaps most interestingly, this inner "inexhaustible mystery"
> (Existentialism, 29) might be experienced as an profound inner emptiness
> - an emptiness that is, paradoxically, also profoundly full of endless
> potentials. This line of thought draws an existential understanding of the
> Bahá'í Writings closer to Buddhism and Taoism.  
> 
> Our incompleteness is also the source of our inherent creativity as we struggle
> to find new and more adequate ways to actualize our potentials in the midst of
> an ever-changing world. This means that we are inherently creative beings who
> are continuously bringing novelty into this world by manifesting potentials
> that have previously been hidden. Indeed, humankind also creatively serves
> cosmic evolution and reveals novelties by bringing out the hidden potentials of
> matter in our various inventions (SAQ, 186). Consequently, in an
> authentic existence we are first of all self-creators, beings who fashion their
> personal identities from their own combination of potentials and circumstances.
> In that sense we may consider ourselves as the authors of the 'novels' of our
> lives wherein each day is a new page that we write. Out of our individual
> struggles to 'be more', the arts and sciences develop as we work to actualize
> our expressive and intellectual potentials to an ever greater degree. 
> 
> 23) Creativity and Freedom 
> 
> Because creativity requires the choices about how to use (or not use or
> mis-use) these potentials, our incomplete nature is, therefor, another source
> of our freedom. It is an axiom of all forms of existentialism that humankind
> possesses freedom, that is, individuals have the freedom to create themselves
> by means of their own choices. Indeed, some existentialists such as Sartre go
> so far as to deny the very existence of a human nature because that would
> restrict our freedom to be true self-creators who can take full responsibility
> for their choices. This, according to Sartre, is the meaning of saying that
> existence precedes essence. Sartre, of course, has never come satisfactorily to
> terms with the fact that his entire magnum opus, Being and Nothingness,
> is a study of the underlying and inherent structure of all "pour-soi", that is,
> human existence, and that this structure, in effect, functions as an essence
> imposed upon all human beings. Be that as it may, a Bahá'í existentialism does
> not go to Sartre's extreme. As already demonstrated, the Bahá'í Writings
> maintain that there is a human nature and that we freely make our moral,
> self-constituting choices within the framework it provides. For example, simply
> by being born human, we are endowed with an immortal rational soul in addition
> to our animal natures. This endowment makes certain choices appropriate and
> inappropriate for us - although it is clear that we are able to choose unwisely
> and inappropriately (SAQ, 248). Each of these choices make up what we
> might call our 'volitional selves', that is, the identities built up on the
> basis of choosing to actualize particular human and/or animal potentials. In
> the Bahá'í view, we are not free to determine our human nature but, more
> importantly, we are free to personally create our volitional selves by means of
> choices. Paradoxically, we are not merely free to do so but are morally
> required to do so, thus adding Bahá'í assent to Sartre's proposition that we
> are "condemned to be free" (SARTRE .....). Those who wish to escape this fate
> and live "inauthentically" or in "bad faith" (BN, 56) can only do so by
> escaping into excessive attachment to the world, and allowing the dictates of
> the crowd, or mass to determine their lives for them. Marcel's rather striking
> way of pointing this out is to say that "we are all tending to become
> bureaucrats, and not only of our outward behavior, but in our relations with
> ourselves" (MB, Vol. 1, 112).  
> 
> 24) Man and Super-man 
> 
> The fact that we - both collectively and individually - are essentially
> incomplete beings, provides a logical basis for the Bahá'í Faith's evolutionary
> view of humankind for if it were possible for us to reach completion, then our
> evolution would stop. But such is not our nature as the Bahá'í Writings make
> clear (SAQ, 233). A human being in the words of Marcel is "a wanderer,
> an itinerant being, who cannot come to absolute rest except by a fiction, a
> fiction which it is the duty of philosophic reflection to oppose with all its
> strength" (MB, Vol., 164). The end of change and development would, in
> effect mean that we had a new essence. However, as the Writings tell us
> (SWAB, 132; SAQ, 184) the human essence cannot change even though
> it may change its outward, phenomenal form just as coal may become a diamond
> (SAQ, 234) without changing its nature as carbon. Thus, we are innately
> incomplete beings, a fact also emphasized by the teaching of an eternity of
> personal evolution that wait us in the life after death. When we understand
> ourselves as essentially incomplete beings at the species level, it becomes
> obvious that each point in our species development is only a transition, a
> temporary phase to a still higher level of development. In other words, we
> today are only a bridge to something better and more advanced than ourselves, a
> fact that should inspire a sense of evolutionary humility. Indeed, our task is
> to reach the next stage of development as rapidly as we can, which means, in
> effect, to actualize our next highest potential and, thereby, make our current
> selves obsolete. We must, in short, understand ourselves as just a phase we're
> going through! This understanding of our species as well as our individual
> existences bears obvious affinities to Nietzsche's theory of the super-man or
> Uebermensch since in both views, humans regard themselves as a transition to
> something better (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Bk. Four). Of course, whereas
> Bahá'ís and Nietzsche agree that the new 'super-man' has a superior intellect
> (SWAB,141) and moral system (SWAB, 136), they will not
> necessarily agree on the content of this new moral system. However, it cannot
> be denied that the evolutionary outlook inherent in the Bahá'í Writings leads
> to a vision of becoming a type of human superior to what we are today although
> we can never exceed our ontological human status. It should also be noted in
> passing that this evolutionary view also follows logically from the Bahá'í
> Teaching that all things are perpetually in motion (SAQ, 233). If we are
> part of a line of development, any particular place in the line, is a
> transitional phase to the next point. This, too, gives rise to a view of
> current humankind as a transitional being. 
> 
> It bears pointing out that even an atheist existentialist such as Sartre
> recognizes this self-transcendent function in human beings, that is, the notion
> that ultimately human beings want to be more than what they currently are. In
> Sartre's rather extreme view, human beings want to be God, even though this
> project is, by definition bound to fail. We are, in Sartre's memorable phrase
> "a useless passion" (BN quoted in The Existentialists, 78). Thus
> God - although according to Sartre, no such entity actually exists - returns to
> philosophy as the "object of desire" as Aristotle calls the First Mover. Not
> only does this, a la Schleiermacher, reverse the usual theological categories
> and make God our creation but also dooms humankind to frustration in the
> face of its own creation. 
> 
> Understanding and accepting our "itinerant condition" (MB, Vol. 1, 164)
> as transitional figures provides a logical and scientific basis for the Bahá'í
> Faith's profound metaphysical optimism. If we are only transient beings, then,
> for starters, we must not take ourselves too seriously, because at any given
> stage, we are only something to be overcome for something better. There is no
> reason to despair at this - we are, after all, on the way to an improvement -
> but at the same time, there is no reason for self-satisfaction let alone
> smugness. Indeed, hope is an inherent part of the structure of human be-ing
> since there are an infinity of new possibilities to actualize. 
> 
> 25) Traveler Ethics 
> 
> Not taking ourselves too seriously, that is, not taking ourselves as the final
> endpoint for evolution, is also the rational basis for tolerance of others.
> This allows the Bahá'í Faith to present tolerance not 'merely' as a matter of
> sentiment and good feeling but to present it as a rational, indeed, scientific
> response to human diversity. No individual is ever at their last stage of
> development; everyone is a "mental traveler" (Blake) on the way to something
> else and if we can see a person is stuck in a negative mode, we seek to find
> ways of helping him to move on from it. (A mundane observation: if a car with a
> flat tire is blocking the road, helping the driver fix it is the best way to
> continue your own travels.) The fact that we all inherently incomplete also
> provides a rational basis for an evolutionary modesty. Modesty is not simply a
> nice that smoothes social relations, but is also a rational response to our
> actual position in the species and our personal evolutionary process. Finally,
> it bears pointing out that understanding ourselves as beings in transit and in
> perpetual change leads inevitably to varying degrees of good humor, a good
> humor based not so much on temperament as on a metaphysical awareness that we
> are inherently designed to improve. This cannot help but remind us of the
> on-going laughter of Nietzsche's super-man Zarathustra and, indeed, of the
> figure of the laughing Buddha in the East. 
> 
> Understanding ourselves as transitional figures has profound implications for
> living. It provides a logical and scientific basis for the Bahá'í teaching
> about the usefulness of tests and challenges. They are, indeed, necessary in
> order for us to actualize our higher moral potentials for which reason for
> which reason one of our prayers reads, "O Thou Whose tests are a healing
> medicine to such as are nigh unto Thee ..." (Prayers and Meditations,
> CXXXIII, 220). Those who understand our transitional nature will immediately
> see why this not only is but must be so since without challenges there can be
> no growth (Paris Talks, 51). In fact, we will find that it is
> often through difficult challenges that we make the most progress in
> actualizing our various possibilities. This not only affects our attitude but
> also trains our minds to become aware of and actively seek out the
> opportunities that arrive with many problems. 
> 
> However, there is also a serious challenge to any and all ethical systems if we
> are essentially transitional figures or travelers: what is the point of 'being
> true' to someone or a principle in a world of perpetual flux? Indeed, can there
> even be such a thing as 'being true' in a Heraclitean world? The great American
> philosophical poet, Conrad Aiken, one of the themes with which he grappled for
> over sixty years. After a long search, he finally decided that the answer lay
> in repeatability: we are able to choose what we wish to repeat in our lives
> and, thereby, preserve them. This provides constancy amid the Heraclitean flux.
> Both Heidegger and Marcel grappled with the issue and came to similar
> conclusions. Heidegger's solution lies in "resoluteness" (BT, 443), in
> "revering the repeatable possibilities of existence" (ibid.). What he means is
> that we are able to choose for ourselves, or appropriate at least some of the
> things that we wish to see repeated. Our choices, each "fateful repetition"
> (BT, 447) helps form constants in the lives we shape for ourselves. In a
> similar vein, Marcel writes of "creative fidelity" (The Philosophy of
> Existentialism, 34) as "the active recognition of something permanent, not
> formally, after the manner of a law, but ontologically; in this sense, it
> refers invariably to a presence or to something which can be maintained within
> us and before us as a presence, but which, ipso facto can just as well be
> ignored, forgotten and obliterated . . ." (ibid.). The Bahá'í Writings espouse
> a similar view. Instead of using "resoluteness" (Heidegger) and "creative
> fidelity" (Marcel) they refer to "steadfastness" which is extolled throughout
> the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh and Abdu'l-Bahá. This virtue is given such a high
> place and so much attention because being steadfast, the choice of a repeatable
> possibility, or "the active perpetuation of presence" (PE, 36) is the
> only way of set a foundation on morals in a flux. We cannot simply always
> follow "the next new thing" (BT, 443). 
> 
> According to Marcel, when we practice "creative fidelity" (PE, 38), that
> is, we make ourselves "available" for the other or the presence of the other
> which allows the other to be with me (see Heidegger's "Mitsein",
> being-with, BT, 514) and thus allow him or her direct participation in
> our lives. As Marcel explains, the subjects of 'presence' and 'availability'
> are related because we cannot make ourselves available to someone or something
> not genuinely present in our lives. This 'other' is not as a thing or a "case"
> (PE, 41) but rather a being that, to some extent at least, displaced our
> concern with ourselves. "To be incapable of presence is to be in some manner
> not only preoccupied but encumbered with one's own self" (ibid.). Being
> available or "at the disposal of others" (PE, 43) is also an
> indispensable part of Bahá'í ethics. We are not only to be "anxiously concerned
> for the needs of the age [we] live in" (Gleanings, CVI, 213) but also to
> be available to others in their various needs (SWAB, 24) and act as
> physicians to individuals and humankind in general. 
>  
> 26) The Principle of Hope 
> 
> Because each of us is a "for-the-sake-of-which" (BT, 119) we can see
> that human being is future-oriented, and naturally looks forward into that
> which is not yet, and, indeed, looks forward to events that have not yet
> happened and may never happen. In working to actualize our potentials, we are
> working towards ourselves as we do not yet exist but so far exist only in hope.
> Thus, hope is also an integral part of the structure of human being or human
> nature (See Marcel, "A Metaphysic of Hope" in Homo Viator ; also Ernst
> Bloch's 3 volume, The Principle of Hope). Without actualizing our
> capacity for hope, we not only remain incomplete beings because we lack the
> future orientation, the "for-the-sake-of-which" (BT, 119) that is an
> inherent part of our being. Closely related to hope is 'faith', which is also
> an integral and unavoidable part of our being. That is why even the most
> stringent attempts to root faith out of our lives inevitably drag it in through
> the back door. Indeed, it is not too much to say that no one actually lives
> without faith; the differences among people arise because they choose to
> actualize their capacity for faith differently. Realizing this can not only
> help us understand ourselves (Where do I really actualize my capacity
> for faith?) but also the way we teach, for example, an apparent atheist. 
> 
> 27) Authenticity 
> 
> Because we are a "Being-in-the-world" (BT, 236), we can only exist in
> full authenticity if we have an intimate and authentic relationship to the
> world in which we live. As Bahá'u'lláh says, "Be anxiously concerned with the
> needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies
> and requirements." (Gleanings, CVI, 213). Concern for the needs - as
> distinct from the wants and preferences - of the age is the most intimate and
> authentic way to engaging with our world-as-a-whole, and must not to be
> confused with relating intimately and authentically to the needs of individuals
> we encounter. Both and not one or the other are necessary to a full,
> engaged and authentic existence that actualizes the complete range of our
> social potentialities. Heidegger recognizes the possibilities for authentic
> engagement with the world under the rubric of 'care' which he characterizes not
> only as authentic being-toward-one's-own-possibilities but also as
> "Being-in-the-world" (BT, 236) and "being-with" (BT, 163). He
> says that "Being-in-the-world is essentially care" (BT, 237) and
> describes "care as the Being of Dasein" (BT, 241). Thus care in its
> social dimension, that is, our "concern and solicitude" (BT, 238) for
> our co-inhabitants on the earth is an integral part of our being and cannot be
> avoided if we wish to develop authentically. However, unlike Bahá'u'lláh,
> Heidegger does not specifically explain what characterizes authentic
> "Being-in-the-world". 
> 
> 28) The Primacy of Bahá'u'lláh in Our Age 
> 
>         At this point we begin to see the shape of an 'existential proof' for the
> primacy of Bahá'u'lláh for our age. The greatest single need of our age of
> potential global mass destruction is peace; and the way to peace is through
> unity and the way to unity can only lie through inclusivity. The most
> comprehensive teachings on inclusivity on the planet today are those of
> Bahá'u'lláh and for that and that reason alone, His path represents the most
> authentic mode-of-being available in the world today. Indeed, from this point
> of view, it is even conceivable that atheists, motivated by good will towards
> humanity and recognizing the need for unity and inclusion, can join the Bahá'í
> Faith while mentally setting aside, or 'bracketing' (Husserl) the religious
> aspects as temporary accommodations they are prepared to accept in order to
> facilitate those not yet ready to abandon religious beliefs. For such persons
> to become Bahá'ís is an existential gamble - not entirely unlike Pascal's
> famous wager on the existence of God - necessitated by their recognition of the
> deepest need of the age. If they are wrong, no harm, and probably much great
> good is done; if they are right, they have not only helped this age but also
> helped themselves to a more authentic and self-actualizing existence in the
> Abha Kingdom.  
> 
> 29) The Volitional Personality 
>  
> Although we have advanced some way in our analysis of a Bahá'í existentialism,
> the fact is we can go much deeper. To illustrate this possibility, let us
> examine the issue of free will more closely. According to the Bahá'í Writings,
> humankind is endowed with free will (SAQ, 248) which, in practical terms
> means, we define, that is, create ourselves by the choices we make. This has
> immediate consequences for a Bahá'í existentialism because it means we must
> carefully qualify Sartre's dictum that existence precedes essence. From the
> perspective of the Writings this is true only so far as our volitional, that
> is, chosen personality is concerned, since our choices did not exist before we
> made them. Nonetheless, those choices are made in the context of having a
> specifically human nature that is capable of making such choices in the first
> place. Thus, generically speaking, we do have a human nature that is given to
> us but we do not have a personal identity made by our choices. The personality
> based on our choices - and, according to the Writings, the personality we shall
> judge in the Abha Kingdom - does not exist until we have chosen which of our
> generically human potentials to actualize. 
> 
> It must be emphasized that this secondary volitional essence or personality is
> formed entirely of our free choices, and is not given to us at the outset
> either by God or other human beings. And indeed, from this point of view we
> are, in Sartre's memorable phrase "condemned to be free" (The
> Existentialists, 80) because, paradoxically, we have no choice but to make
> the choices that form ourselves. Even refusing to choose is a choice in this
> situation. As we make these choices, we gradually come into existence by
> forming ourselves, building up a pattern, a self or personality, or a
> volitional essence, which does not exist until it is actually built. Thus, from
> the point of view of the volitional self, we are self-created and truly sui
> generis, our own makers and, therewith, the architects of our own destiny. Even
> more radically, each one of us is our own god, in the sense that not even God
> can make our self-forming choices for us since to do so would be to deny our
> unique human freedom and with it, our responsibility. The denial of
> responsibility would, of course, destroy the foundation of the Bahá'í ethical
> system which makes people responsible for their own actions. In regard to
> humankind's self-creating choices; God voluntarily limits His actions and
> allows a clearing in which human freedom can work. All this follows from the
> fact that our sheer existence - our ability to make choices - precedes our
> volitional essence. This far, at least, a Bahá'í existentialism can agree with
> Sartre. 
> 
> 30) The Mystery of Self 
> 
>         Furthermore, this volitional self or essence is inherently mysterious insofar
> as it does not exist before any choices are made, yet something is required to
> make the first choice. What is that something? We could speculate in any number
> of ways but the final result will always be that we cannot know, at least not
> intellectually in the manner of logical necessity or physical causality. This
> is because, in Marcel's terms, the self is a "mystery" (PE, 21-23) and a
> "problem" (ibid.). The difference between the two is clear cut: a problem is a
> difficulty that can be solved with the proper procedure or technique whereas a
> mystery cannot be solved at all. A "mystery [is} a problem which encroaches on
> its own data" (PE, 22), that is, a problem that does not allow us to
> study it objectively but irrevocably requires us to be involved: "I cannot
> place myself outside it or before it; I am engaged . . . " (ibid.). Our
> personal identity, the self is destined to remain a mystery in Marcel's sense
> because we cannot reflect on ourselves without involving ourselves. We become
> both subject and object simultaneously (see also MB, Vol. I, 106) and
> thus lose the prerequisites for an 'objective' view. Marcel also emphasizes
> this point when he writes that "my life is essentially ungraspable . . . it
> eludes me . . . " (MB, Vol. 1, 210; see also 168, 169). 
> 
> Nothing in the Bahá'í Writings takes exception to Marcel's view. However,
> according to them we are mysteries to ourselves and others because we are
> "called into being" (Gleanings, XIV, 29) by the inscrutable will of God
> (see Gleanings, CXXIV, 262) who, through Bahá'u'lláh has told us that
> "Man is My mystery, and I am his mystery " (Kitab-i-Iqan, 101; see also
> Gleanings, LXXXII, 160). In other words, we do not know why God has
> called us or others into being because "He shall not be asked of His doings.
> He, verily, is the All-Glorious, the Almighty" (Gleanings, CXIV, 239).
> At this point we have arrived at an inherent limit to rational inquiry; we
> cannot inquire about the reason's for God's will because all rational inquiry
> is based on either the law of non-contradiction or cause and effect and God
> transcends both of these laws. We can only say that God must have had
> His reasons which we are incapable of comprehending and then proceed to
> accept God's will: "Praise be to God, the loving believers also accept and
> remain submissive to God's Will, content with it, radiantly acquiescent,
> offering thanks" (SWAB, 18-19). 
> 
> Of course, it is at precisely this point that atheist and non-theist and theist
> existentialists distinguish themselves from one another. Atheists such as
> Sartre and Camus are inclined to see our mysteriousness to others and ourselves
> as further proof that human existence is fundamentally 'absurd' and inherently
> senseless. On the other hand, a non-theist such as the Heidegger of Being
> and Time sees it as evidence that we find ourselves simply "thrown" into
> the world and must learn to accept our 'thrown-ness'. In Being and Time
> at least, he remains mute about the issue of a superior being. Some theist
> existentialists such as Marcel understand this mystery as a sign of there being
> aspects of human existence not susceptible to purely rational treatment; we do
> not need to deny reason, but we must learn where its natural limitations are.
> This is fundamentally the same position as the one adopted by the Bahá'í
> Writings, which espouse a form of moderate rationalism (See "The Aristotelian
> Substratum of the Bahá'í Writings"). 
> 
>         The mystery of the self is reinforced by the Bahá'í Teaching that the inner
> essence of things is unknown and unknowable (SAQ, 220); things are known
> by their attributes but their essences are beyond the reach of human knowledge.
> This is especially true of the human soul: "Verily I say, the human soul is, in
> its essence, one of the signs of God, a mystery among His mysteries. It is one
> of the mighty signs of the Almighty, the harbinger that proclaimeth the reality
> of all the worlds of God. Within it lieth concealed that which the world is
> now utterly incapable of apprehending" (Gleanings, LXXXII, 160;
> italics added; see also Gleanings, LXXXIII, 165; XCV, 195 ). For this
> reason, 'mysteriousness to ourselves' is inherently structured into human
> existence and the only choice we really have is in deciding how to respond to
> it. This mystery is also a part of our essential nature because we are
> inherently 'works in progress', incomplete beings with an eternity of
> development ahead of them. It is, of course, up to us to choose whether we
> shall understand and experience this mystery as one of the signs of God's
> existence or as a sense of alienation and not belonging to oneself. 
> 
> 31) Self-Alienation
> 
>         This sense of not belonging to oneself suggests that a certain sense of
> alienation is structurally inherent in human being. As Marcel writes, " from
> the moment when I start to reflect, I am bound to appear to myself as a, as it
> were, non-somebody . . . (MB, Vol. 1, 106). However, it can often
> intensify into a pathological state of alienation insofar as one is alienated
> from acting in one's own best interests. This idea underlies such injunctions
> as the following: "Suffer not yourselves to be wrapt in the dense veils of your
> selfish desires, inasmuch as I have perfected in every one of you My creation
> (Gleanings, LXXV, 143), "Every good thing is of God, and every evil
> thing is from yourselves" (Gleanings, LXXVII, 149) and "deprive not
> yourselves of the liberal effusions of His grace" (Gleanings, CI, 206).
> Each of these quotations suggests that human beings can be so alienated from
> themselves that they act to inflict harm on themselves. From this point of
> view, the "call into being" (SWAB, 250) takes on a new dimension: in
> addition to being the call by which the original volitional self begins, it is
> also the call back into authenticity, the call to return to our true selves.
> Indeed, insofar as we do not really exist when we do not live authentically - a
> kind of 'substitute' lives in our place - the "call into being" (ibid.) is also
> a call to return to existence. If responded to, this call can be considered a
> kind of "second birth" (PUP, 332) in which we attain our true spiritual
> selves or what Abdu'l-Bahá calls "the world of the Kingdom" (ibid.). According
> to Heidegger, this "call says nothing which might be talked about, gives no
> information about events. The call, which can be identified with the call of
> conscience (BT, 335) points forward to Dasein's
> potentiality-for-Being and it does this as a call which comes from
> "uncanniness" (BT, 325). Thus, it is possible to experience one's
> alienation itself positively as a call to return to one's true self. Ignoring
> this call is a failure to hear oneself or, even worse, an outright refusal to
> do so and a rejection of oneself (BT, 223; 315).. This, of course, leads
> to inauthentic existence because one is leading a life that reflects the 'they'
> or the mass instead of one that reflects one's "ownmost" (BT, 224; 307)
> potentials. 
> 
> Furthermore, from this point of view, it is evident that our lives are a
> 'departure and return' from and back to our true, spiritual selves because it
> is virtually inevitable that we fall away from ourselves at some time or
> another. Interestingly enough, it also becomes clear that we have an
> existential explanation or interpretation for the concept of re-incarnation:
> each fall from our true selves is, in effect, a death, and each return is a
> 're-birth'. Our ultimate goal, of course, is to achieve 'moksha', a freedom
> from this cycle of birth and death by not falling from our true selves at all.
> Our 're-birth' is simply a return into another round of inauthentic existence
> as an expression or extension of the crowd rather than as our true selves. As
> we struggle to free ourselves from our condition of being inauthentic and
> fallen into the world, we detach ourselves ('die') from the world until we are
> 're-born' to deal with the next set of challenges. Occasionally, a special
> individual such as Abdu'l-Bahá is able to live permanently in this detached
> condition and thus avoids being 're-born'. When, like Abdu'l-Bahá, they
> nonetheless choose to return to the world to help others to enlightenment, we
> call them 'bodhisattvas'.  
> 
> 32) The Mystery of Essence 
> 
>         Because things are known by their attributes and unknowable in their essence
> (SAQ, 220), it follows that to some extent we will always find ourselves
> situated in a world of things that are essentially mysterious to us. We cannot
> know them completely. Indeed, vis a vis essence, we are destined to remain
> mysterious even to ourselves despite the fact that we have direct interior
> experience of ourselves (SAQ, 220). Consequently, we are always
> remote-from-ourselves (Heidegger, quoted in BN, 25); we live in
> perpetual anticipation for an ever fuller disclosure of ourselves. Given that
> we know only attributes and not essences, it is not surprising to find that we
> may feel a certain alienation from all things and thus not feel fully 'at home'
> in the world. We can choose to lament or resent this situation, or we can ask
> ourselves if, in fact, we were ever intended to feel fully at home in the
> world, and to live without a certain yearning for something more. In other
> words, is a certain feeling of not-belonging an inherent, structural component
> of human existence? The answer from the Bahá'í Writings and Heidegger seems to
> be positive. The Bahá'í Writings certainly suggest that such is the case. Their
> exhortations to become detached from the world (Gleanings, CXL, 306;
> XVII, 40; XXIX, 71; XLVI, 100; LXXVI, 149; Paris Talks, 74; SWAB,
> 86, 177, 186). Since Heidegger believes that a kind of inauthenticity results
> from being too attached to daily existence and becoming "absorbed" (BT,
> 163) in our "Being as everyday Being-with-one-another" (ibid.), we may conclude
> that he, too, advocates a certain degree of feeling unheimlich,
> not-at-home in the world as a requisite for authenticity. This feeling
> keeps a necessary distance between ourselves and the world. However, we must
> bear in mind that detachment does not mean a disinterest or lack of concern for
> the world; Bahá'u'lláh, after all, tells us to be "anxiously concerned for the
> needs of the age [we] live in" (Gleanings, CVI, 213) and Heidegger sees
> solicitude (BT, 237), an important aspect of the care in which Dasein
> reveals itself (BT, 227), as an integral part of our Being-in-the-world.
> Rather, it means that we must not see the world as the ultimate and final value
> in our lives; we must recognize that our relationship to "the things of this
> world" (Paris Talks, 18), meaning both concrete things and
> worldly affairs, must not be allowed to stand in the way of achieving personal
> authenticity or an authentic relationship to God. To paraphrase Christ, what
> does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul (The New
> Testament, Mark, 8: 36-38).
> 
> 33) Being-Between 
> 
>         Further reflection reveals that human existence is characterized by
> being-between. We are in the paradoxical position of waiting at the door of
> ourselves caught between eternal anxiety and hope as we ponder both hopefully
> and anxiously what we shall disclose about our essence. As individuals and as a
> species, we are in eternal evolutionary development and, therefore, always
> 'between' a point of departure and a port of arrival. Indeed, every arrival is
> simultaneously a leave-taking; human beings have always just left and never
> quite arrived. This being-between is reflected even in our situation in
> creation; according to the Bahá'í Writings, humankind is the mid-point between
> matter and spirit: "For the inner reality of man is a demarcation line between
> the shadow and the light, a place where the two seas meet; it is the lowest
> point on the arc of descent, and therefore is it capable of gaining all the
> grades above" (SWAB, 130).We exist between animality and the divine
> (PUP, 67) and while our nature or essence can be refined, it can never
> change (SWAB, 132; SAQ, 177). 
> 
> The tension that inevitably arises because of our being-between is one of the
> structural hallmarks of specifically human existence; other forms of being such
> as the mineral, vegetable and animal do not experience it. Consequently, there
> is no way for us to escape this tension without betraying our nature as human
> beings and living inauthentically, that is, not living our human lives but
> living an animal existence. The result will be that we will become lower than
> the animal (PUP, 309). However, to compensate for the additional
> challenges we face, God sends Manifestations Who offer guidance and choices in
> the conduct of our lives: "As to the human world: It is more in need of
> guidance and education than the lower creatures" (PUP, 77). In other
> words, if we choose, we can make our being-between into a privileged position,
> because, with correct guidance, we can enjoy the benefits and pleasures of
> material existence and, at the same time, carry on our spiritual development.
> By making the material serve the spiritual we, so to speak, have the best of
> both worlds. 
> 
>         Once we have recognized and accepted this feeling of not completely belonging
> in the world, we are in a position to choose how to interpret it and its role
> in our lives. We can, for example, choose to understand the distance implied by
> this feeling according to Sartre and see it as a vast nothingness between the
> volitional self we are, our essence and the world (BN, 29). Such a view
> understands this feeling as a negation that negates the value and certainty of
> the volitional self and all things in the world because every positive
> achievement is negated by the haunting presence of its unknowable essence.
> Nothing is ever good enough. However, we can choose to understand it as a sign
> as the sign of our freedom from the world, as the distance necessary to provide
> us with the freedom to act and choose. 
> 
> 34) The Necessity of Faith 
> 
>         The fact that the world is inherently mysterious to us because we know things
> only by their attributes and not directly by their inner essence (SAQ,
> 220) means that there are some kinds of things we are not able to know. Our
> knowledge, our science and our action are limited to the phenomenal level of
> reality and debarred from the noumenal realm which is the exclusive domain of
> God. This shows that the Bahá'í Writings espouse a moderate rationalism, that
> is, they recognize that while reasoned investigation and logic can tell us many
> things, they cannot tell us everything and certainly not everything we need to
> know to live appropriately as human beings. The key for a accurate epistemology
> is to know where to draw the line between the two because this distinction is
> the basis for asserting the existence of other, supra-rational ways of knowing.
> As the Writings tell us, we know by "faith and knowledge" (BWF, 382)
> which are the " 'two wings' of the soul" (ibid.). 
> 
> In Marcel's language, the difference between faith and knowledge is the
> difference between "believing that" (MB, Vol. 2, 86) and "believing in"
> (ibid.). The first is like a "conviction" (ibid.) of which we have complete
> intellectual certainty and which - here we are going beyond Marcel - is hedged
> round with all kinds of careful provisos and qualifications to preserve it from
> attack. "Believing in" (ibid.) however is something quite different. According
> to Marcel, it means "that I place myself at the disposal of something"
> (MB, Vol. 2, 87), that is, I make myself available to something or
> someone. In short, faith is the kind of knowledge we get when we willingly open
> ourselves to the other and give our assent (Marcel calls it a "pledge") to the
> knowledge gained in that way. Indeed, such knowledge "absorbs most fully all
> the powers of [our] being" (ibid.). It also affects our own being, that is,
> what we actually are as persons. We are, as the saying goes, 'touched'. 
> 
>         Now it is obvious that faith has both down-to-earth practical as well as
> religious applications. Marcel uses the homely example of granting someone
> credit; we believe in that person - perhaps even in contradiction to a
> past financial mistake. Faith in God, of course, exacts a higher standard, but
> the principle is the same: we make ourselves available to whatever evidence or
> knowledge God chooses to bestow. To acquire faith we must prepare ourselves
> spiritually. As Abdu'l-Bahá says, "If thou wishest the divine knowledge and
> recognition, purify thy heart from all beside God, be wholly attracted to the
> ideal, beloved One search for and choose Him . . ." (BWF, 383) and
> Bahá'u'lláh's "first counsel" (The Hidden Words, from the Arabic, 3) is
> to "possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart" (ibid.). However, in the
> Writings, faith and knowledge are not opposed; after telling us to "search for
> and choose Him" (BWF, 383), Abdu'l-Bahá says, apply thyself to rational
> and authoritative arguments. For arguments are a guide to the path and by this
> the heart will be turned unto the Sun of Truth" (ibid.). This next step leads
> to a higher level of faith:  And when the heart is turned
> unto the Sun, then the eye will be opened and will recognize the Sun through
> the Sun itself. Then man will be in no need of arguments (or proofs), for the
> Sun is altogether independent, and absolute independence is in need of nothing,
> and proofs are one of the things of which absolute independence has no need.
> ^t^t^t(BWF, 383)
>  
> The opening eye is an apt symbol of making oneself available to what the sun,
> or, God has to bestow. A similar idea animates the following statement by
> Abdu'l-Bahá: "Once a soul becometh holy in all things, purified, sanctified,
> the gates of the knowledge of God will open wide before his eyes" (SWAB,
> 191). 
> 
>         It is, of course, clear that making oneself available is something we must
> choose to do. It is an existential act and those who refuse it, cut themselves
> off from whatever knowledge and understanding is attainable in that way.
> Moreover, we should not think that only religious knowledge is dependent on
> faith, that is, an existential commitment to be open to what the data reveals.
> Even physics, the hardest of the 'hard sciences' requires such an open-ness and
> commitment. Indeed, at least some of the arguments among physicists themselves
> centre on what researchers are willing to accept even from the data themselves.
> At bottom, these arguments are about what procedures, devices, interpretations
> and theories can be trusted to reveal the true state of affairs. The various
> competing interpretations and theories of quantum mechanics are a case in
> point: because all of them explain the discovered phenomena, it is simply
> impossible to decide which of them represents the true state of affairs in the
> cosmos. 
> 
> 35) Kinds of Truth 
> 
>         If knowledge can be acquired by rational inquiry as well as by faith,
> it follows that the concept of truth in the Bahá'í Writings has at least two
> levels. The first, as we have already seen in our exploration of the
> Aristotelian substratum of the Writings, is the rational and empirical level.
> Here the Writings espouse a form of the correspondence theory of truth. (See
> "The Aristotelian Substratum of the Bahá'í Writings"). The second, existential
> level concerns the issue of living 'in truth' insofar as we are what we appear
> to be and appear to be what we are both to others and ourselves. Sartre calls
> this living in good or "bad faith" (BN, 57), that is, in not lying, not
> to others or to oneself. Thus, to the extent that we lie neither to others nor
> ourselves, we live 'in truth'. We exhibit what Heidegger calls "authentic
> disclosedness" (BT, 264) to others and ourselves. In terms of the
> correspondence theory of truth, we are consciously and fully self-congruent.
> 
> 
>         However, the Writings suggest that there is yet a second level of existential
> truth illustrated for example in Bahá'u'lláh's statement that ""He, Who is the
> Eternal Truth, beareth Me witness!" (Gleanings, V, 9; also XXV, 60;
> XXXV, 82; LXIV, 122). Naturally, the question arises how God can be the
> truth. There are at least three possible answers. In the first place, we might
> say that God and the Manifestation are the truth because they are ultimately
> the standard by which all humanly discovered truths are to be assessed. Their
> very existence and their attributes are the standards by which truth is to be
> determined. Another, metaphysical answer follows logically from the unity of
> God, that is, the belief that God is absolutely one and "admits of no division"
> (SAQ, 113). As Abdu'l-Bahá writes, "the essential names and attributes
> of God are identical with His Essence . ." (SAQ, 148). Similarly,
> Bahá'u'lláh says that "He, verily, is one and indivisible; one in His essence,
> one in His attributes" (Gleanings, XCIII, 187; see also XCIV, 193).
> Since truth is one of God's attributes (Paris Talks, 60), we cannot
> escape the conclusion that God is truth. It is virtually self-evident that God
> could not possess absolute unity if essence and attribute were distinct and
> divided. Such a division would reduce God to the level of His creations in
> which the essence made up of potentials and the attributes made up of
> actualized attributes are different. For reasons of logic alone, God must
> be truth. 
> 
>         A third way in which God is the truth may be developed on the basis of
> Heidegger's philosophy. According to Heidegger, "[a]ssertion is not the primary
> 'locus' of truth" (BT, 269). In other words, truth is not simply a
> matter of statements that correspond to reality; such statements possess a
> strictly secondary or "derivative character" (BT, 266). Rather, "in the
> most primordial sense" (ibid.), truth is the "disclosedness" (ibid.) that
> allows us to proceed to make judgments about correctness or falsity: "The most
> primordial 'truth' . . . is the ontological condition for the possibility that
> assertions can either be true or false - that they may uncover or cover things
> up" (ibid.). Thus, "primordial truth" is the pre-condition for all subsequent
> judgments. As the Prime Mover, the ground of being, the "object of desire" of
> the entire universe, God is that ontological pre-condition necessary for things
> to be true or false and indeed, in that sense, S/he is the Truth of truth.
> Without this pre-condition of truth, there could be no perception or
> understanding of the secondary truths. As such a pre-condition for all
> judgments about truth, God may be compared to light which is not seen in itself
> but is the necessary pre-condition for seeing. Another way of saying all this
> is to point out that God is the "disclosedness" (BT, 269) of things,
> that is, the condition of "uncoveredness" (BT, 267) or being uncovered
> by which the secondary or derivative truths can be known. 
> 
>         If God is truth in the Heideggerian sense, then it follows that God is always
> available in our quest for knowledge. He is, as Bahá'u'lláh writes, "closer to
> man than his life vein (Gleanings, XCIII, 185). God is, quite literally,
> the universal pre-condition for all knowledge and discrimination and, in that
> sense, revelation is occurring at all times and places. As Bahá'u'lláh writes,
> "Likewise hath the eternal King spoken: "No thing have I perceived, except that
> I perceived God within it, God before it, or God after it" (Gleanings,
> XC, 178). God is simply unavoidable for those who have "eyes to see"
> (Deuteronomy, 29:4). 
> 
> 36) Conclusion
> 
>         By exploring the concept of potentials, we have seen how a recognizably
> existential philosophy is embedded in the Bahá'í Writings, and how this
> existentialism bears close affinities to the work of Martin Heidegger in
> Being and Time and to the work of Gabriel Marcel. Although there are
> some similarities with Sartre's Being and Nothingness, these
> similarities are relatively few and must remain superficial due to Sartre's
> insistent atheism and the fact that his central philosophy of negation and
> consciousness simply has no counterparts in the Bahá'í Writings. In other
> words, a Bahá'í existentialism may have 'Sartrean elements' but these will
> never be more than occasional overlaps. Sartre's late efforts to combine
> existentialism with Marxist materialism puts an even greater rift between his
> philosophy and the Bahá'í Writings. Furthermore, while a Bahá'í existentialism
> may have several areas of agreement with Kierkegaard, the fact remains that the
> Danish philosopher's tone, his anti-rationalism as well as vehement opposition
> to grand narratives keeps the two philosophies widely apart. This is especially
> obvious once we realize just how closely tied a Bahá'í existentialism is to the
> philosophy of Aristotle. Given this Aristotelian aspect of the Bahá'í Writings
> and the existential philosophy embedded in them, the affinities to Heidegger
> and Marcel are no surprise insofar as both of these philosophers were heavily
> influenced by their in-depth study of classical Greek philosophy. Like a Bahá'í
> existentialism, their philosophies are not limited by Aristotle's world-view,
> but rather build on it as a foundation on which to erect a wholly new kind of
> building. 
> 
>         We shall end this introduction to a Bahá'í existentialism not with an abstract
> summary but rather with an image that summarizes much of what we have
> discovered: we Bahá'ís are not pilgrims headed for a final destination be it
> Paradise, or Nirvana or Valhalla, but rather, we are all mariners and our lives
> are a journey that never ends. Days and nights, in different weathers, on
> different seas and through changing climates we sail ever onward discovering
> new lands and our prows are aimed at the horizon and the Great Attractor whose
> brightness draws us forever onward. Each moment is an arrival and departure; a
> "Land-ho!" and "Anchors aweigh!"; a parting sigh and a welcoming smile, a
> discovery and a recognition, a being-toward-death and a being-toward-birth, a
> self-transcendence and a self-disappointment, a "Ready-aye-ready" and a
> "Not-yet", a moment of knowledge and a moment of mystery, a falling into the
> troughs and a rising onto the crests. Like all mariners, we are 'in-between'.
> We live between waves and winds, between sea and sky, between being ourselves
> and never being ourselves, between anticipation and anxiety, between here and
> not-here, between peace with ourselves and internal conflict, between being
> true and being untruth. Yet, through this all, we try as best we can to see the
> light of the Great Attractor and to guide our ships by that light. 
> 
>                         Abbreviations
> 
> 
> 
> BN
> Being
> and Nothingness
> 
> BT
> Being
> and Time
> 
> BWF
> Bahá'í
> World Faith 
> 
> FWU
> 
> Foundations
> of World Unity 
> 
> MB
> The
> Mystery of Being 
> 
> PE
> 
> The
> Philosophy of Existentialism
> 
> PB
> Proclamation
> of Bahá'u'lláh 
> 
> PUP
> 
> Promulgation
> of Universal Peace
> 
> SAQ
> Some
> Answered Questions
> 
> SDC
> 
> Secret
> of Divine Civilization 
> 
> SWAB
> 
> Selected
> Writings of Abdu'l-Bahá
> 
> TB
> Tablets
> of Bahá'u'lláh 
>         
> 
> 
> BIBLIOGRAPHY
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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> 
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> 
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> 
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>
> — *Call into Being, The: Introduction to a Bahá'í Existentialism (Used by permission of the curator)*