Scripture Archives - Bahai World

By Bahíyyih Nakhjavání

Strive, O people, to gain admittance into this vast Immensity for which God ordained neither beginning nor end, in which His voice hath been raised, and over which have been wafted the sweet savors of holiness and glory.¹

It is impossible for the reader of such words to remain detached, for he is a seeker as soon as he begins to read. Faced with the vast immensity of the written Revelation of Bahá’u’llah, he responds like a lover to its imagery, like a servant to its exhortations, and like a passionate believer to its message of Divine Unity. Indeed, the Writings of Bahá’u’llah are some of the mightiest gates through which the seeker can strive to gain admittance into the courts of God, for here one can clearly catch the accents of that voice and can sense the sweet savours of understanding from its melodies; here one can discover, through the mysterious affinity shared by Books and Gates in this Dispensation, the symbolic archetype of the many metaphorical and literal gates that stand wide open in this Day, summoning mankind unto them.

From its inception this Cause has taught man the ways of worship through the medium of language which is alike the channel of his praise and the expression of his service: the Báb, through His Name “The Primal Point,” is both the Gate and the Initiator of language, in its most profound sense of divine revelation, and from the Bayán, “the Mother Book,” proceeds the inspiration that forms the Letters of the Living, those motions of spirit and sacrifice in the world of creation. The mystical harmony between the language of pen and spirit found in the Writings reflects the link between word and deed in the lives of men:

I render Thee thanks … that Thou hast taught Thy servants how to make mention of Thee and revealed unto them the ways whereby they can supplicate Thee through Thy most holy and exalted tongue and Thy most august and precious speech.²

The reconciliation of word and deed is likewise reflected in the mingling of justice and mercy in relation to the Writings, for while a single letter from the mouth of God is the “mother of all utterances”³ and the “begetter of all creation,”⁴ it can also decide “between all created things, causing them who are devoted to Thee to ascend unto the summit of glory and the infidels to fall into the lowest abyss.”⁵ At the same time words are the repositories of God’s infinite grace; the sheer abundance and poetry of Bahá’u’lláh’s language is an affirmation of the statement that “from eternity the door of Thy grace hath remained wide open.”⁶ Such words are tokens of His immeasurable bounty:

Through the power released by these exalted words He hath lent afresh impulse and set a new direction to the birds of men ‘s hearts and hath obliterated every trace of restriction and limitation from God’s Holy Book.⁷

“O Comrades,” He cries to those who whether reading or seeking stand before the vast immensity of His Cause, “the gates that open on the Placeless stand wide”⁸ … “This,” He attests, “is verily an evidence of His tender mercy unto men.”⁹

To enter such gates requires both strength and submission: the strength of dichotomies and the submission to the widening wonder of paradox. The angels are of fire and snow; the food of them who haste to meet Him is the fragments of their broken hearts; the true believer is both a river of life eternal and a flame of fire. He must at one moment be consumed and also rise phoenix-like from the flame to become the source of another’s attraction. The reader struggles against the limitations of antithesis in his mind in order to resolve them through action, and yearns like the angels, the lovers, and the believers, to translate these words into acts of praise and dedication, to sing aloud of His glory, to circle with deeds of love around Him and stand in servitude before His throne. The traditional dichotomy between words and deeds is strangely transformed so that words become deeds, for the reader cannot remain static in this vast immensity but must be characterized by the forward striving of a life as well as a mind. The understanding and insight he receives from the language of Bahá’u’lláh demands expression in his acts. Anything less would belittle the nature of the initial invitation to strive; anything else would indeed be blasphemy

O miserable me! Were I to attempt merely to describe Thee, such an attempt would itself be an evidence of my impiety, and would attest my heedlessness in the face of the clear and resplendent tokens of Thy oneness.¹⁰

Since limitation is the hallmark of any human endeavor, it might be in keeping with the nature of this article to begin with a necessarily limited consideration of dust as a symbol of that state in the Writings. Again and again the circumference of the human heart, like the surface of earth, is stressed as a fixed condition, one that may not be transcended. Bahá’u’lláh writes unequivocally that men “can never hope to pass beyond the bounds which by Thy behest and decree have been fixed within their own hearts.”¹¹ We are children of dust, weeds that spring out of that dust, moving forms of dust, and sons of earth. Easily overwhelmed by “shades of utter loss,”¹² man keeps turning and returning to “water and clay.”¹³ Content “with transient dust”¹⁴ he sinks into “the slough of heedlessness”¹⁵; the meadows of his heart too readily become a “pastures of desire and passion.”¹⁶ Within him and about him threatens the abyss of his limitations as he moves with stumbling slowness across the “dust-heap of a mortal world.”17

The possibilities within these limits, however, are boundless. Once the reader recognizes his kinship with it, the metaphor invites him further. He realizes that both in the language itself and in the reality of his own being there lies a path across his earth-nature that beckons him beyond those gates he has already seen shimmering before him, a path upon which the particles of dust appear to gleam like gems. His dusty limitations become the expression of his most perfected virtues along these paths of service and ways of sanctity; his humility is his diadem on this highway of love and this pathway of “Thy loved ones.” The essence of his being is molded and sustained by the clay of love and grace, and words—the written expression of man both as mystery and limitation—like atoms of dust hold within them “a door that leadeth … to the station[s] of absolute certitude.”¹⁸ Through such words “the rivers of Divine utterance”¹⁹ have flowed and caused the “tender herbs of wisdom and understanding”²⁰ to spring from the soil of his heart, and from such soil the hyacinths of a greater knowledge may also grow. Indeed, such a heart is not merely “a garden of eternal delight”²¹ but a throne sanctified for His descent, a Sinai upon which His mysteries are vouchsafed, a place whose loftiness and dignity should never be defiled.

At the heart of this lofty station, however, lies the paradox of humility, for the earth can only be of such a transcendent nature when “ennobled by the footsteps of Thy chosen ones in Thy Path.” To be “a martyr in My path and shed thy life-blood on the dust” are fragments of the ideal evinced by the earth itself: “witness with what absolute submissiveness I allow myself to be trodden beneath the feet of men.” The actions of men must be of such humility that “every atom dust beneath their feet attest the depth of their devotion” and their words be of such quality “that these same atoms of dust will be thrilled by its influence.” Humility, therefore, is the station towards which one strives in approaching the immensity of service.

Having stepped forward onto this path and recognized the paradox inherent within the very dust upon which one treads, the motion forward both for the reader and the seeker is most simply conveyed by the imagery of courts and thresholds, steps and portals, canopies and shelters. The progress (if one can convey so multitudinous an approach by so flat a word) guides the reader through courts of ever increasing beauty and gardens of intoxicating nearness, like the worshipper in his approach towards the Shrines. Shoghi Effendi, in his creation of these literal gardens was not only providing a protection and establishing a respect around the holy places, but was also interpreting exquisitely the Words of Bahá’u’lláh; for these gardens reflect with haunting accuracy the shimmering presence of inner and outer courts, of marble steps that ever rise, and gates that ever open to the seeking spirit of the reader in his parallel progress through the language of Bahá’u’lláh. It is a language that is replete with the concept of kingship. This is the underlying theme that reverberates within the splendid architecture of courts and finds its nearest resolution in its references to the awe, the beauty and the fragrance of the King Who occupies them. Both His Person and His courtly surroundings are metaphors of approach, degree and perspective by which the reader can comprehend the nature of attainment in this Cause.

To begin with he finds himself among those who “stand(s) at the gate of the city of Thy nearness”²² and is granted the inestimable bounty of approaching the courts of His presence, the canopy of His majesty and the precincts of His mercy. By the light of God “concealed in the well-hidden pavilions” he is able to see the path clearly enough before him and watch as it ascends “into the loftiest chambers of paradise.” With his whole being poised to follow in the direction of this insight, he sets himself towards “the adored sanctuary of Thy Revelation and of Thy Beauty”²³ and is able to draw nearer “the habitation of Thy throne.”²⁴ Finally, in his blessedness, he finds that he has “entered Thy presence and caught the accents of Thy voice.”²⁵

It is here, in this dazzling proximity where he can cling to the hem of His Robe, smell the musk-scented perfume of His hair and hear the Words that flow from His “sugar-shedding lips,”²⁶ that the reader confronts another paradox. He realizes that his considered proximity is nothing but remoteness in relation to the magnitude beyond the metaphor:

Now that Thou hast made them to abide under the shade of the canopy of Thy mercy, do Thou assist them to attain what must befit so august a station. Suffer them not, O my Lord, to be numbered with them who, though enjoying near access to Thee, have been kept back from recognizing Thy face, and who, though meeting with Thee, are deprived of Thy presence …²⁷

It is by now a familiar paradox and has been met before, but the relative simplicity of its presence in a single word such as “dust” is further enhanced and its orbit of association and implication widened as the complexity of the language forces the reader to reconsider his original discovery through the application of a whole metaphor. Then again, within the image itself, are a number of layers of comprehension which the reader might approach. The topical allusions alone, with their disturbing reference to the treachery and egoism which constantly surrounded the Blessed Beauty both from within and without His household, are a disconcerting enough interpretation of this paradox. But there is also an uneasy immediacy in these words which applies to the present instant in which they are being read, and implicates the reader as he stands preoccupied by his reading and is equally threatened by his preoccupation “from having near access to Thee and from attaining the court of Thy glory.”²⁸

An abrupt return to a reconsideration of one’s abject limitations seems a necessary prerequisite to the motion of “circling” that must accompany any step towards proximity along this path. The gulf of separation that yawns between the servant and his King, the lover and his Beloved, the reader and the Goal of his desire, is a measure of this process:

Others were able to approach Thee but were kept back from beholding Thy face. Still others were permitted in their eagerness to look upon Thee, to enter the precincts of Thy court, but they allowed the veils of the imaginations of Thy creatures and the wrongs inflicted by the oppressors among Thy people to come in between them and Thee.²⁹

Separation also has its own perverse architecture, for below the ascending tiers of court and pavilion that provide the pedestrian mind of the reader with a measure of the proximity of his Goal, there is a converse motion possible, down into “this darksome well which the vain imaginations of Thine adversaries have built, down farther into this blind pit which the idle fancies of the wicked among Thy creatures have digged.”³⁰ Suffocated by remoteness in the stale and cavernous dungeons of his separation from God the reader might also be dwelling “in a place within whose walls no voice can be heard except the sound of the echo, a place of thick darkness”³¹ in which “the croaking of the raven”³² obliterates the melodies of the very Words he reads. The Most Great Prison and the Síyáh-Chál become symbols of the contingent world bearing down upon the soul aspiring towards God. Just as gates were the means of literal and metaphorical approach and were always open, always beckoning, so prisons and the constraint of chains and veils are also always present, threatening and denying the seeker access to his Beloved. This separation, whether imposed from within or from without, is significantly felt at the instant when proximity seems imminent. “This is the Day,” Bahá’u’llah states, “whereon every atom of the earth hath been made to vibrate and cry out: ‘O Thou Who art the Revealer of signs and the King of creation! I, verily, perceive the fragrance of Thy presence. …’”³³ But within the same passage this very atom declares:

I know not, however, O Thou the Beloved of the world and the Desire of the nations, the place wherein the throne of Thy majesty hath been established, nor the seat which hath been made Thy footstool, and been illumined with the splendors of the light of Thy face.³⁴

The “unknowing” that must always impose itself between the reader and the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh is an ancient formless tradition in mystical poetry and finds its most tangible expression in the imagery of this Revelation. What was a cloud in an earlier dispensation is transformed by Bahá’u’lláh’s pen, and through the metaphors of separation, becomes an intensely felt, almost physical anguish. At the instant that the reader grasps the significance of the Words he reads, he becomes overwhelmed by his devastating unworthiness to approach such meaning. He realizes, moreover, that the meaning he has grasped is necessarily puny and pathetic, a play of shadows, a feeble echo of “the Kingdom of Thy Names” which is far above his comprehension and is itself “created through the movement of Thy fingers and trembleth for fear of Thee.”³⁵ The burst of praise that rises to his lips is a mere reflection of those same limitations against which he has striven with such zeal:

Whatsoever hath been adorned with the robe of words is but Thy creation which hath been generated in Thy realm and begotten through the operation of Thy will and is wholly unworthy of Thy highness and falleth short of Thine excellence.³⁶

And finally this anguish is stretched to its limits through the added dimension afforded to the reader of the presence, within the Words, of the Author Himself. He is not only, through His bounty and grace, speaking on behalf of man as his advocate with words of tender compassion that can be echoed; He is also speaking in His Own capacity, with His Own personal anguish, so that the separation experienced is that of the Manifestation from the source of His light:

And at whatever time my pen ascribeth glory to any one of Thy names, methinks I can hear the voice of its lamentation in its remoteness from Thee, and can recognize its cry because of its separation from Thy Self.³⁷

To the frail reader standing on the furthest shores of this vast immensity, dazzled by orb within orb of light, it might seem that his initial presumption to strive can only set him adrift without direction on this luminous ocean, for failures are his sole means of measuring any attempt to progress. Even when he thinks he has finally grasped, on the most superficial level, the rise and fall of the metaphors and can at least stay afloat upon the waves of language, he discovers that:

It should be remembered in this connection that the one true God is in Himself exalted above proximity and remoteness. His reality transcends such limitations. His relationship to His creatures knoweth no degrees. That some are near and others are far is to be ascribed to the manifestations themselves.³⁸

And with this new paradox, this new return to a contemplation of limitation as a means of reaching towards his Goal, the reader draws nearer than he ever has before to an understanding of the nature of Bahá’u’lláh’s language.

Since God must remain unknowable and above all degree, and since the language of limitation is the only means whereby man can either know or express his unknowing, it becomes clear that the Manifestation becomes the spiritual reality of words, of metaphors and of language. He is the Word, the Primal Point, the song of the Nightingale; He holds within Him both extremes of proximity and remoteness in their most perfect balance; He is the vivid and acute stillness at the heart of all the polarities experienced by the reader, the seeker, the lover and believer. The palpable remoteness that lay couched in the imagery of dust all the way from the path through the gates to the Placeless, the play of attraction that resonated in the language of the lover, the tangible space that existed throughout the vast architecture of courts and kingship, all compel the reader to recognize his reliance on language as his only means of understanding, and recognize at the same time that any language other than that of the Manifestation, any word other than that most mighty Word, and any name that is not the King of Names, cannot hope to transcend the limitations of dust. This recognition or confession of the reader’s powerlessness to strive beyond the limits of his understanding, or travel further than the Words themselves will go, constitutes “the utmost limit to which they who lift their hearts to Thee can rise”³⁹; it is the highest station afforded both reader and seeker, for in this condition they come closest to discovering the “hidden gift” in the written storehouse of the Manifestation of God, and admit to “their impotence to attain the retreats of Thy Sublime Knowledge.”

It is so intrinsic to the original desire of the reader to strive towards the unknown that he finds the intimate voice of the Manifestation uttering his most poignant thoughts:

Where can separation from Thee be found, O my God, so that reunion with Thee may be clearly recognized at the appearance of the light of Thy unity and the revelation of the splendors of the Sun of Thy oneness?⁴⁰

Now at this stage, something wholly mysterious transpires. Even as the reader glimpses his longed-for reunion shimmering before him in the Words of the Manifestation, even as he recognizes, simultaneously, how far he is, how remote he is from grasping the full beauty of those Words, he experiences a miracle. Depending on his sincerity, of course, about which an entire other chapter could be written, he is transfigured by the very pull and push of the hyperbole into something comparable to an angel. He may, by the grace of God, approach the condition of one of those embodiments of integration and disintegration, of harmony and conflict, of snow and of fire that hang suspended above their own extremes of sorrow and joy. In this condition of helplessness and dependency upon the Words, the reader finds himself, like those same angels, protected again from both extremities of reunion and separation by the merciful structure of Bahá’u’lláh ‘s language. Instead of extinguishing his precarious being by the expression of a climax, by an arrival as it were at the furthermost reaches of his understanding, Bahá’u’lláh controls the reader’s inward state by presenting this climactic discovery not as an end in itself but rather as a means towards an end which, for his own protection, must still remain out of sight. In other words, instead of the powerlessness of man, his limitation, his weakness, his dependence upon grace being the focal point of the prayer, it becomes the grounds for his beseeching:

I, therefore, beseech Thee, by this very powerlessness which is beloved of Thee, and which Thou hast decreed as the goal of them that have reached and attained Thy court … not to deprive them that have set their hopes on Thee of the wonders of Thy mercy, nor to withhold from such as have sought Thee the treasures of Thy grace.⁴¹

Part of the mysterious subtlety and power of Bahá’u’lláh’s language lies in the contrapuntal relationship between the grounds of His beseeching and its appeal. Often, as in the beautiful Dawn Prayer for the Fast, one cannot comprehend the object for which one is beseeching without listening more closely to the grounds on which one’s appeal is raised. In this case the reader calls for grace to support and protect his limitations “by this very powerlessness which is beloved of Thee.”⁴²

He seems to have come full circle. The limitations against which he struggled earlier now become the means of his attainment. Here in the vulnerability of his essence is couched the ageless Covenant of God; here in the midmost heart of his humility reposes the eternal promise of the Beloved, assuring him that he will be graced, he will be visited again and again, in spite of his weakness and because of his unworthiness. Here as he stands, small and insignificant on the edge of the vast immensity of his relationship with the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the reader finds himself protected from utter loss by the promise that within this immensity may be found His footsteps also, and may be seen the lineaments of His blessed Face. And here again the cherished sweetness of this Covenant becomes the grounds of his beseeching and resolves the original exhortation that had challenged the reader to set out on this endless discovery:

I entreat Thee, by Thy footsteps in this wilderness, and by the words “Here am I. Here am I.” which Thy chosen Ones have uttered in this immensity, and by the breaths of Thy Revelation and the gentle winds of the Dawn of Thy Manifestation, to ordain that I may gaze on Thy Beauty and observe whatsoever is in Thy Book.⁴³

By Albert Phillip Entzminger

From the beginning of time man has ever been conscious of the existence of God. The most primitive of men worshipped the Deity, in a primitive manner, perhaps, but nevertheless in conformity with their intelligence and such understanding as they believed they had of their Creator. It is not at all surprising that primitive man should have entertained such strange, and to us, such ridiculous ideas of Divinity because to them God was a mystery, even as today in this enlightened 20th century, God to us is still a mystery. But science with her many instruments has greatly enlarged modern man’s vision. With astronomy and the telescope, physics and the microscope, chemistry and its analyses, science has brought to man a better understanding of the vastness of the universe, but in regard to our Creator, it has caused Him to become only more incomprehensible to us than ever (if such a thing is possible).

Primitive man in attempting to describe his Creator naturally limited God to his own comprehension, and man today, in attempting to understand God, in like manner, can limit God only to that which his finite mind can conceive. The created thing can never hope to comprehend its Creator, any more than a table can hope to understand the carpenter who built it. For as we attempt to conceive this universe with infinite space extending out from us in every direction beyond limit; infinite time without beginning or end; infinite worlds and infinite suns, the mysteries of which man can never hope to fathom; and then right on this earth, in the very air we breathe and the water we drink, the mystery of infinite living creatures, invisible to our eye, and of unbelievable minuteness; these serve to indicate to us that a Creator which surrounds all of creation certainly is incomprehensible to man who represents such a small part of His Creation.

Bahá’u’lláh tells us that “God, singly and alone, abideth in His own Place, which is holy above space and time, mention and utterance, sign, description, and definition, height and depth,”¹ and in the Gospel of St. John we are told, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared Him.”²

Now as for man—in Genesis we read that man is the creation of God. Bahá’u’lláh writes that “The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His Presence. To this most excellent aim, this supreme objective, all the heavenly Books and the divinely revealed and weighty Scriptures unequivocally bear witness.”³ And again He says, “From among all created things He hath singled out for His special favor the pure, the gem-like reality of man, and invested it with a unique capacity of knowing Him and reflecting the greatness of His glory.”⁴

To know God, and to reflect His glory, should therefore be the aim of Man, and that this task is not beyond our possibilities is evident because God has created us for this very purpose. Because there is a way of knowing Him, we are not to consider that man can directly contact the Incomprehensible, or that the created thing can know its Creator. The finite can never comprehend the infinite, nor can a lower plane comprehend a higher one—for instance a stone representing the mineral kingdom, or a tree representing the vegetable kingdom, can never understand man representing the human kingdom.

The manner in which man acquires knowledge of God, the Unknowable Essence, is through an Intermediary, or Mediator, for God from the beginning of time has provided mankind with His Manifestations to serve as “vehicles for the transmission of the Grace of Divinity itself”—in other words to serve as a channel through which man may be enabled to know Him. The theory of an intermediary between man and his Creator exists in all great religions today. Each points to a mediator as receiving from God the “light of divine splendor” and thence distributing it over the human world. The Jews look to Moses and the Christians to Christ. For others it is Buddha, or Muhammad, or Zoroaster. In this day the Bahá’ís recognize in Bahá’u’lláh this same station as Intermediary between God and man.

Now the very nature of an intermediary immediately suggests to us a dual relationship, because it brings to us two extremes in relation to each other. Anything that might have but a single relationship could not be an intermediary, and so a Manifestation of God, serving as mediator between God, the Unknowable Essence, and Man, His Creation, must needs have a relationship with both the finite and the infinite. In other words he must have a divine relationship, and also a human relationship.

Considering first the divine relationship, or the relation of the Manifestation to God Himself, we have the following words of Bahá’u’lláh, “The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence. These sanctified Mirrors, these Daysprings of ancient glory are one and all the Exponents on earth of Him Who is the central Orb of the universe, its Essence and ultimate Purpose.”⁵ Bahá’u’lláh further tells us “These Tabernacles of holiness, these primal Mirrors which reflect the light of unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible of the Invisibles. By the revelation of these gems of divine virtue all the names and attributes of God, such as knowledge and power, sovereignty and dominion, mercy and wisdom, glory, bounty and grace, are made manifest.”⁶

Thus the Intermediary, or the Manifestation, as we shall call Him, in the words of Bahá’u’lláh, “appears out of the realm of the spirit in the noble form of the human temple” and is thus “made manifest unto all men.”⁷ They impart unto the world the mysteries of God, by expressing to man the attributes of God. That God should reveal His attributes through His Manifestation rather than His Essence can be understood because it is not possible for God to reveal to man that which man cannot understand. Man cannot understand the nature of fire, but he does understand its attributes, such as heat and light, and in this manner he obtains a knowledge of fire. Likewise God’s attributes, expressed by His Manifestations, become our only means of knowing God, the Unknowable. The attributes of God, which Bahá’u’lláh has enumerated as knowledge, power, sovereignty and dominion, mercy, wisdom, glory, bounty and grace, are not realities in themselves and we can in no way consider them as independent existences. Detached from substance these attributes do not exist, because they are not substance, merely adjectives. So knowledge, power, sovereignty, dominion, mercy, etc., are not God, but only His attributes. They are not the Supreme Essence, and in recognizing them we have no cognizance of the Essence itself, only of Its attributes. And so God in His mercy has created for man an Intermediary or Manifestation, reflecting His attributes to man, and so perfectly do they fulfill this mission that Bahá’u’lláh states, “From Him proceed their knowledge and power; from Him is derived their sovereignty. The beauty of their countenance is but a reflection of His image, and their revelation a sign of His deathless glory. They are the Treasuries of divine knowledge, and the Repositories of celestial wisdom. Through them is transmitted a grace that is infinite, and by them is revealed the light that can never fade.”⁸

So as we assume the Manifestation perfectly reflects God’s attributes we naturally consider that He is God. We speak of Him as God, in similar manner as we speak of light in reference to either the light or the lamp. The lamp, which is really the vehicle which transmits the light, is often called a light, and the Manifestation which is the “vehicle which transmits the grace of divinity” likewise is considered God. This conclusion is therefore legitimate, and while the followers of Moses, of Jesus, and Muhammad, do not all consider their prophet in this light, it is interesting to note that here in the western world, the largest single division of Christianity does regard Christ as God.

When ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in London in 1911, He was asked, “Is the Divine Manifestation God?” and His answer was, “Yes, but not in Essence.”⁹

In the passages quoted from The Kitáb-i-Íqán,” Bahá’u’lláh speaks of the Manifestations as “Mirrors of Sanctity, expressing the central Orb of the Universe.” ‘Abdu’l-Bahá again and again when speaking of the Manifestations of God described them in similar fashion, as Mirrors reflecting the light of the Divine Sun, and this picture so thoroughly covers the subject that every one should attempt to visualize His illustration.

Let us imagine a mirror placed in a room in such a position as to reflect the light of the sun. The mirror is to represent the Manifestation of God and the sun is to represent God, or the Divine Essence. A person might then say that he saw two suns; one in the sky and one in the mirror, a statement that could not be disproved. And yet we know that the sun in the sky and the sun in the mirror are one, and the appearance of the two suns can in no way refute the singleness of the heavenly sun. The sun of the heavens is considered the Divine Essence, but we cannot say this of the sun in the mirror. So then, we can say, the Divine Manifestation is God, but not in His Essence. The light is the same, but the Mirror is not the Sun.

The Sun we see in the mirror is a perfect reflection of the attributes of the Heavenly Sun. If we had a giant mirror so placed as to reflect the sunlight directly into a room, we could flood it with sunshine so perfectly that those inside would experience every sensation or attribute of the sun, as perfectly as though they might be outside. The light would be just as blinding, and the radiation just as definite. However those in the room would be receiving those sensations through an intermediary, the mirror, and not directly from the Sun.

This illustration might be carried even farther, by giving the mirror a name. Suppose it were named Moses, to demonstrate the relationship between God and the Jews. And then suppose other mirrors were brought forth which might be named Christ, Muhammad, and Bahá’u’lláh. Now each of these four mirrors would reflect the same light, yet none of them would be the sun. In this manner all of the Manifestations of God have the same relationship to God, and in this sense they are one, yet each has His own individual identity.

It would be interesting at this point to study each of the Manifestations of God in order to demonstrate how marvelously each is endowed with God’s attributes. However, this is a large subject which could not be covered properly in a few moments. Nevertheless, regardless of how well we know the life and teachings of Moses, of Jesus, of Muhammad, of the Báb or of Bahá’u’lláh, we are at least familiar enough with them to realize that when we think of God’s attributes, such as knowledge, power, dominion, we can visualize them practically all reflected in Their lives. Should some certain quality not visibly appear in any one of these Divine Beings, it would not necessarily mean that He did not possess that quality; for Bahá’u’lláh states that all of these brilliant Beings are endowed with all the attributes of God though all may not appear outwardly.¹⁰ We can readily realize how reasonable this statement is, for in our daily lives we continually discover in even our most intimate friends qualities that they possess which outwardly are not apparent. For instance, a man may have amazing strength, but due to his occupation or mode of living, he is never called upon to display it, and the world may not recognize that such a quality existed in him. And so we could not truthfully say that a Prophet of God did not possess a certain attribute of God just because that attribute was not outwardly visible to the world.

The thought might come to us at this point, as to whether or not the teachings of Christ, or of Muhammad, show evidences of the relationship which Bahá’u’lláh states exists between God and His Manifestations, such as we have already discussed.

First turning to the Bible, we find in the Gospel of St. John countless references to the relationship of Jesus to God, some of which we will quote. We have the following words of John, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.”¹¹ This verse was quoted before to show the relation of God to His creatures, but it also indicates that the knowledge of God is possible only through His Manifestations.

Then, where we find the Jews desiring to kill Jesus because He not only had broken the Sabbath but had said that God was His Father, apparently making Himself equal with God, we have the reply of Jesus, as follows, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.” “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” “That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him.”¹² In the light of the explanations which Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá have given us, these words of Jesus become easier for us to understand. If the Jews had understood His explanation they would have known that Jesus only claimed equality with God in the sense that He reflected His attributes. He made no mention of His Essence, but did state that He could do nothing of Himself; only that which He saw His Father do.

After Jesus foretold that Judas would betray Him and it became necessary for Him to comfort His disciples, we remember Philip coming to Him, saying, “Lord, shew us the Father and it sufficeth us,” and then we have Jesus’ reply, “Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself; but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”¹³ The relationship of “the Father in Me” is one which Jesus mentioned many times, and is one that many have attempted to explain. In fact Jesus used it so often that a person could not honestly feel that he understood the true relationship of Christ to God, unless he also understood the relationship signified in “the Father in Me.” We could hardly be expected to understand this from a literal standpoint, because such an interpretation would be contrary to science and reason. We are therefore warranted in understanding this from a symbolic and allegorical standpoint. Christ often spoke in parables and it is an interesting fact that when He told His disciples a parable He never advised them that what He was telling them was a parable, but He always spoke as if it were an actual occurrence. Since we do interpret His parables as allegories it stands that we can also consider the “Father in Me” as allegorical and symbolical, particularly so because a literal interpretation of this statement is beyond reason. And so ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá in explaining this statement of “the Father in Me” in Paris in 1913, spoke as follows, “The fatherhood and sonship are allegorical and symbolical. The Messianic reality is like unto a mirror through which the sun of divinity has become resplendent. If this mirror expresses, “The light is in me”—it is sincere in its claim; therefore Jesus was truthful when he said, ‘The Father is in Me.’ The sun in the sky and the sun in the mirror are one, are they not,—and yet we see there are apparently two suns.”¹⁴

And then as we leave the Bible and take up Muhammad and the Qur’án, we have first—”It is not for man that God should speak with him but by vision or behind a veil or he sendeth a Messenger to reveal by His permission what He will.”¹⁵ This confirms the truth, that the knowledge of God is possible only through His Manifestations, or Messengers, as was stated in this verse. Bahá’u’lláh quotes the following verse from the Qur’án: “There is no distinction whatsoever between Thee and Them; except that they are Thy servants, and are created of Thee.”¹⁶ Again Bahá’u’lláh quotes from the Qur’án as follows: “Manifold and mysterious is My relationship with God. I am He, Himself, and He is I Myself, except that I am that I am, and He is that He is.”¹⁷ These holy words of Muhammad require no explanation. They merely indicate to us, that the teachings of Muhammad are identical with those of Christ and Bahá’u’lláh, with regard to the relationship of the Manifestation to God.

And now let us consider the second relationship of the Manifestation: that of His relationship to man.

It was pointed out that since man cannot comprehend the Infinite, it must necessarily follow that the Manifestation of God must have human aspects. Were this not so, man could no more comprehend Him than he could the Supreme Essence, and those that have considered the Manifestation exclusively as God, and denied His human aspects, have perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless in fact, denied the Infinity of God Himself. We have quoted Bahá’u’lláh where He states that God “caused luminous Gems of Holiness to appear from the worlds of spirit in noble human temples, among His creatures.”¹⁸ From this we understand that God created His Manifestations in human form; that they each took on a physical body and a rational soul, and to each of them was assigned a different Name.

It should not be necessary to attempt to prove this point, for history tells us how the people of the time of a Manifestation have invariably recognized Him merely as one of their own fellowmen, and dealt with Him as such. They certainly could not have mistaken His knowledge, His mercy, His wisdom, His generosity, or His beneficence; as a matter of fact His enemies have even acknowledged that these qualities existed in Him whom they were so mercilessly persecuting. The persecutions the Manifestations endured were due entirely to the materialism of the people among whom They lived, who were thus permitted to see only the Manifestations’ physical condition, and were blinded from recognizing the significance of Their more important Spiritual aspects, which elevated Them to the true station of a Manifestation of God.

Entering this world as an infant, the Manifestation is administered to as any other child. His body develops gradually and is built up of elements just as man’s body has been developed. Composed of elements it is therefore also subject to decomposition. The Manifestation has human limitations similar to man in that He is subject to illness, endures pain, is dependent on food and drink, needs sleep and rest, and has either material means or is without them. And yet while the Manifestations have the same physical conditions as mankind, it is evident that these physical powers are often higher developed. For instance, man has ever been amazed at the suffering these Holy Beings were obliged to endure. Men have marveled at their remarkable endurance, their phenomenal recuperative powers. In the specific case of Bahá’u’lláh an account tells of the extraordinary condition of Bahá’u’lláh during the last three years of His life, a period during whch He ate practically nothing. Once when He was not feeling well a Greek physician examined His pulse and expressed his astonishment, stating that he had never seen a constitution so sensitive as that of Bahá’u’lláh.¹⁹

The Manifestation also has a rational soul, or individual reality such as man; however, they are not exactly alike; the difference is explained by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá being as follows:—“But the individual reality of the Manifestations of God is a holy reality, and for that reason it is sanctified, and in that which concerns its nature and quality, is distinguished from all other things. It is like the sun, which by its essential nature produces light, and cannot be compared to the moon, just as the particles that compose the globe of the sun cannot be compared with those which compose the moon. The particles and organization of the former produce rays, but the particles of which the moon is composed do not produce rays, but need to borrow light. So other human realities are those souls who, like the moon, take light from the sun; but that holy reality is luminous in himself.”²⁰

So then the Manifestation is similar to man in that He has a similar physical body, but more highly developed, and then like man, He has a rational soul, with the exception that His reality being holy is luminous, whereas man is dependent on his light from the Manifestation.

Where the Manifestation differs essentially from man is in His Divine Identity, which is known as the Divine Bounty. Obviously this is a station which cannot be shared by man, because it is of an environment beyond the realm of man. This station is described as the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, or the Reality of Prophethood.²¹ Being of the Divine World, it has neither beginning nor end. This station represents the radiance of the light of the Supreme Essence or the radiance of the light of the Sun from a perfect mirror, and is the station which Christ referred to when He spoke of “the Father in Me.” It is through this station that the Manifestation displays His Divine attributes; whereby He becomes a Creator of Spiritual Life. By His innate knowledge, He becomes both a Divine Educator and a Divine Physician; an Establisher of a New Social Order.

This Reality of Prophethood wherein the Manifestation differs so essentially from man, as was stated, is of the Divine World, and has neither beginning nor end, hence it does not come into being with the declaration of prophethood by the Manifestation, nor does it cease with the death of His physical body. We have the words of St. John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. The same was in the beginning with God,” from which we deduce that the station of Messiahship was always with Christ and existed prior to His baptism, or even to His physical birth. Likewise the Divine Identity of Bahá’u’lláh did not suddenly appear in His physical body while he was sleeping upon His couch, as a literal interpretation of His Tablet to the Sháh of Írán would have us believe. This is explained [by ‘‘Abdu’l-Bahá] in the following words: “Briefly, the Holy Manifestations have ever been, and ever will be, Luminous Realities; no change or variation takes place in their essence. Before declaring their manifestation, they are silent and quiet like a sleeper, and after their manifestation, they speak and are illuminated, like one who is awake.”²²

As we study the utterance of the Manifestations, we learn that just as they have a dual relationship, They likewise have a dual form of utterance. There are times when They speak as a man, usually in a spirit of humility, such as the words of Jesus: “Nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done” or the words of Muhammad: “Say praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man an apostle,” or “I am but a man like you.” In this connection there is also Bahá’u’lláh’s epistle to the Sháh or Írán, previously referred to. This Tablet is too lengthy to quote, however it clearly indicates Bahá’u’lláh speaking as man, and in addition indicates that the station of Manifestation He had assumed was not of His own will. In His Tablet of Ishráqát He expressed a similar thought by saying, “Had another exponent or speaker been found we would not have made ourself an object of censure, derision and calumnies on the part of the people.” Jesus spoke in like manner when He said, “Father, if it be possible, let this Cup pass from Me.”²³

There are other times when the Manifestation speaks directly from the standpoint of the Deity. In this class of utterance His human personality is completely subservient, and we then have the Voice of God speaking direct to man, through Him. Dr. J. E. Esslemont, in Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, states that through the Manifestation “God addresses His creatures, proclaiming His love for them, teaching them His attributes, making known His will, announcing His laws for their guidance and pleading for their love, their allegiance and service.” And continuing, Dr. Esslemont writes as follows: “In the writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the utterance frequently changes from one of these forms to another. Sometimes it is evidently the Man who is discoursing, then without a break the writing continues as if God were speaking in the first person. Even when speaking as a man, however, Bahá’u’lláh speaks as God’s messenger, as a living example of entire devotion to God’s will. His whole life is actuated by the Holy Spirit. Hence no hard and fast line can be drawn between the human and divine elements in His life or teachings.“ “Say: ‘Naught is seen in my temple but the Temple of God, and in my beauty, but His Beauty, and in my being, but His Being, and in myself but Himself, and in my movement but His Movement, and in my acquiescence but His Acquiescence and in my Pen but His Pen, the Precious, the Extolled’!” “Say: ‘Naught hath not been in my soul but the Truth, and in myself naught could be seen but God’.”²⁴