परग्रफ्स ओने एंड तवो

In the Name of Our Lord,
The Exalted, the Most High.

No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth. Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the world, that haply ye may attain that station which God hath destined for you and enter thus the tabernacle which, according to the dispensations of Providence, hath been raised in the firmament of the Bayan.

Paragraph One: “In the name of our Lord.”

The True Believer plays several roles in the Book of Iqan. First the True Believer must be the earnest seeker, one who must, like the character of the holy fool, detach himself from all current social norms in order to seek out a new path.

“In the Name of our Lord, The Exalted, the Most High.
No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth."

The first paragraph serves as both an introductory instruction and as a warning to the reader. A warning necessitated by the problems that are created by the pressures of society which invariably come to bear upon any individual who begins a personal search for truth, or indeed begins any new path in life. This warning is necessary because the individual, that is the prospective True Believer or seeker, will always be treated with disdain by those around him, by family, by old friends, and the like, when taking up this task of search in earnest.

It may be noted that the first sentence, after the invocation of God, is divided into two distinct parts. The first part, “no man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding,” states the ultimate goal that the true seeker or true believer will strive for. The term used here for true understanding is irfan (Gnosis) which indicates knowledge, but not human knowledge or learning, rather a special kind of knowledge which is derived from a non-human and non-finite source, that is what might be called knowledge of The Ultimately Real, the Unseen, or knowledge of God.

The second half of the sentence details the one essential condition which is required for the attainment spoken of in the first part, that is the required quality of detachment. This warning then, explains the nature of the trade-off or sacrifice which must occur when one starts this path. This trade-off is part of a bargain. In effect, one must give up something if one is to attain to the station of the True Believer. The trade-off is generally one between the material world and its benefits, and the spiritual world and that worlds much different benefits.

The trade-off activity, that of being detached from all things in heaven and earth, comes in the form or nature of personal sacrifice, a deliberate giving up of one’s own ego, selfishness, and pride of place in one’s current social role.

"Sanctify your souls, O ye peoples of the world, that haply ye may attain that station which God hath destined for you and enter thus the tabernacle which, according to the dispensations of Providence, hath been raised in the firmament of the Bayan."

If we undertake to make this trade-off, if we can sacrifice our egos and its attendants (sanctify your souls), then what we are promised in return is a secure place or station in the world (enter thus the tabernacle), which station is that of becoming a true servant of God, which in the context of the reality that we know as humans on earth is the station of service to all the other beings in creation.

This is the true place of man, not the station of man as ruler of creation in a position of domination over the universe, or the counter-station of man existing in a state of uncertainty or alienation with which we are typically preoccupied. For certainty must come out of flexibility and adaptability, not out of rigidity, it must come out of a willingness to embrace all change as we find it and not out of supporting the status quo.

The First instruction.

The first instruction (paragraph two) then concerns the cleansing of the heart. This may seem like an odd first command to make, but the rationale for it is interesting. A pure heart is the sure foundation for avoiding prejudice and preoccupation with the status quo, and thus a prerequisite of entering the path to True Understanding (Irfan). Only the pure in heart are truly open to change and the necessary adaptations that change entails, and it is the reaction to change which always determines the fate of the seeker. This idea then of being pure in heart is a cognate for openness, balance and willingness.

"No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth."

To be detached or severed from "from heaven and earth" means to be detached from any direction, from earth in the sense of materiality, ego and pride, and from heaven in the sense of desire for perfection in a cultural or material way, for in the Baha’i sensibility, heaven and earth are two conjoined parts of a whole which constitute man’s social norm or in the widest sense his cultural matrix. This idea is explained more fully later in the text.

"THE ESSENCE OF THESE WORDS IS THIS: they that tread the path of faith, they that thirst for the wine of certitude, must cleanse themselves of all that is earthly--their ears from idle talk, their minds from vain imaginings, their hearts from worldly affections, their eyes from that which perisheth. They should put their trust in God, and, holding fast unto Him, follow in His way. Then will they be made worthy of the effulgent glories of the sun of divine knowledge and understanding, and become the recipients of a grace that is infinite and unseen, inasmuch as man can never hope to attain unto the knowledge of the All-Glorious, can never quaff from the stream of divine knowledge and wisdom, can never enter the abode of immortality, nor partake of the cup of divine nearness and favour, unless and until he ceases to regard the words, and deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true understanding and recognition of God and His Prophets."

Paragraph Two: “The Essence of these words is this.”

“They that tread the path of faith.” The first question then is who is this “they.” It is of course the reader, the truth-seeker. The path of faith is the method of securing the station of certainty, which is that which belongs to the True Believer, if such a one who can persevere in the path can be found.

This path or method consists of all of life, in one way or another, but in order to gain from life the things we need to learn we must be attentive, we must pay attention to the suggestions made by Baha’u’llah on how to do this. Baha’u’llah tells us something very important in these first two paragraphs: first we must be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth, second, that in order to attain this state of detachment we must cleanse our hearts from all that is earthly.

Of course this may sound simple but it is not. To help us बहा'u provides us with varioउ'llahs tasks to perform, tasks designed to create the correct inner atmosphere for learning the new things which the Prophet has to teach उ's.

These first tasks are described as cleansing exercises (paragraph two), designed to purge the individual from all that is earthly:

“Their ears from idle talk, their minds from vain imaginings, their hearts from worldly affections, their eyes from that which perisheth.”

These four things, idle talk, vain imaginings or fantasies, worldly affections which generally means concerns for the material world, and things which perish, also a reference directly to the material world and specifically its rewards (the things which are perishable), are the impediments to our first goal, the cleansing of the heart. The flexible instruments of our bodies and minds are capable of doing many kinds of work, and this means they can be put directly to work in helping this cleansing of the heart process.

“They should put their trust in God, and, holding fast unto Him, follow in His way.”

Sometimes a leap of faith is needed to start one on this road. It might be a chance encounter with a friend, or the gift of an interesting book, but whatever it is the opportunity must be taken. This is the putting to work of the admonition to "trust in God" and “following in His way.” It is, in the beginning, a bit of blind faith, a test we make to see if something new can work or has merit.

“Then will they be made worthy of the effulgent glories of the sun of divine knowledge and understanding, and become the recipients of a grace that is infinite and unseen, inasmuch as man can never hope to attain unto the knowledge of the All-Glorious, can never quaff from the stream of divine knowledge and wisdom, can never enter the abode of immortality, nor partake of the cup of divine nearness and favor, unless and until he ceases to regard the words and deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true understanding and recognition of God and His Prophets."

Here, in metaphor and symbol, Baha’u’llah describes for us the nature of the state of grace which True Understanding entails. It is a state of intimate connection with that which informs all being of its own essence, this knowledge of one’s own real essence is what it is to attain true understanding for the True Believer, and for humans that real essence is the station of servitude.

For some this leap of faith may be all it takes to gain a certain measure of Certitude. But primarily we must remember that until we are willing to take this leap of faith, to, in the words of Baha'u'llah, "cease to regard the words and deeds of mortal men" as our standard for understanding our rightful and ordained place in the world, then we will not be able to make a sincere attempt to follow this path towards the certainty offered to us by Baha'u'llah.

Method then seems to take precedence over static fact. Baha'u'llah intends first to guide
us in a most practical way on a path to reach this certainty, rather than giving us only an intellectual understanding or definition of such certainty, for once we have taken up this path we find that the true understanding will come to us of its own accord in so far as we are capable of receiving it. Thus the path is as much a practice or a method as it is a body of knowledge.




Notes for Theme One: The True Believer.

Truth seeking is the essential praxis (activity) of the spiritualized human being. Praxis represents those essential activities which explain human behavior based on known attributes of the species. Man has a fundamental need to seek truth about nature, about himself, and about social relationships, thus truth-seeking is the highest form of praxis for mankind. Other forms of praxis (activity), such as power-seeking or wealth-seeking, are of lesser status, they have value at their own level but generally do not cross over from the materialistic world to the spiritual world, and thus are not the cause of self-transcending actualization.

A Précis of Paragraphs One-to-Twenty

A Précis of Paragraphs One-to-Twenty with an overview of relevant Themes.

First:

"No man shall attain the shores of the ocean of true understanding except he be detached from all that is in heaven and on earth. "

Addresses the reader, who as the potential True Believer is in many ways also the main subject of the book. Technically this reader is the uncle of the Bab, for whom this book was originally written, but it can also be seen to be the person or type of person Baha'u'llah refers to as the True Believer or True Seeker.

Second:

Gives the first instructions to the reader in the form of an admonition to "cleanse themselves of all that is earthly." The object of this effort is to attain a state of being where one "ceases to regard the words and deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true understanding and recognition of God and His Prophets."

"Man can never hope to attain unto the knowledge of the All-Glorious…unless and until he ceases to regard the words and deeds of mortal men as a standard for the true understanding and recognition of God and His Prophets."

Third:

Enjoins the seeker to study man's past. Baha'u'llah views man's history as a series of encounters with the Manifestation's of God, encounters which have generally been somewhat disappointing in two distinct ways: the rapport between the Manifestations and mankind have left much to be desire, and the actual development of the human being within his social structure has been both slow and recalcitrant.

"And whensoever the portals of grace did open, and the clouds of divine bounty did rain upon mankind, and the light of the Unseen did shine above the horizon of celestial might, they all denied Him, and turned away from His face--the face of God Himself."

Fourth:

Deepening our understanding of our own past allows us to discern patterns in our behavior which we can model, a process which leads to an enhanced study of our behavioral patterns.

"Not one single Manifestation of Holiness hath appeared but He was afflicted by the denials, the repudiation, and the vehement opposition of the people around Him."

Five:

Baha'u'llah asks us to pay special attention to the "wondrous behavior of the Prophets" and to contrast this behavior with that of their opponents among the people. He instructs us to study various of the world's scriptures to verify his claims, picking the Surih of Hud from the Quran as his own source to use in the paragraphs which follow.

"Examine the wondrous behavior of the Prophets, and recall the defamation's and denials uttered by the children of negation and falsehood, perchance you may cause the bird of the human heart to wing its flight away from the abodes of heedlessness and doubt unto the nest of faith and certainty…"

Six:

This climate of sharp contrast between the Prophets of God and those who deny them has been the chief tool in the arsenal of the Prophets for teaching their people or their followers:

"Moreover, the more closely you observe the denials of those who have opposed the Manifestations of the divine attributes, the firmer will be your faith in the Cause of God."

Paragraph seven and following contain 6 examples or case histories detailing specific illustrations of the rejection of past Prophets, which help to form a model of the overall Pattern of Rejection, one of the basic themes of Part One of the book.

Seven:

Noah was pressed to foretell the exact time of the coming flood for his disbelieving people but the prophecies timeliness failed. These failures led to further reductions in the number of his followers.

"[Noah] several times promised victory to His companions and fixed the hour thereof. But when the hour struck, the divine promise was not fulfilled."

Eight:

Baha'u'llah suggests that the passage on Noah raises three questions of great importance, which he relates to us:

[1.] "What could have been the reason for such denial and avoidance on their part?"

[2.] "What could have induced them to refuse to put off the garment of denial and to adorn themselves with the robe of acceptance?"

[3.] "Moreover, what could have caused the non-fulfillment of the divine promise which led the seekers to reject that which they had accepted?"

Any theory or model we create to help us understand the relationship of God and man must answer these questions in order for that model to have value.

Nine:

Hud is the second example or case history taken from the Surih of Hud. His attempts to teach "bore the fruit of increased rebelliousness."

"What showers of afflictions rained upon Him, until at last His adjurations bore the fruit of increased rebelliousness, and His assiduous endeavors resulted in the willful blindness of His people."

Ten:

The next example is that of Salih. Salih retired and lived in seclusion several times but to no avail in his efforts to reach his people.

"He admonished them [the people] to hold fast unto the commandments of God and eschew that which is forbidden….Several times He retired and lived in seclusion."

Eleven:

"[Abraham] He invited the people of the earth to the light of righteousness. The more passionately He exhorted them, the fiercer waxed the envy and waywardness of the people, except those who wholly detached themselves from all save God…"

In the end Abraham suffered from banishment and was expelled from the city of his birth.

Twelve:

Moses faced the opposition of the Pharaoh of Egypt and most of his people, still some few were able to follow him in spite of the fierce opposition.

"…Pharaoh and his people finally arose and exerted their utmost endeavor to extinguish with the waters of falsehood and denial the fire of that sacred Tree, oblivious of the truth that no earthly water can quench the flame of divine wisdom, nor mortal blasts extinguish the lamp of everlasting dominion."

Thirteen:

Baha'u'llah asks us to consider how these examples which he has set out might shed light on the three questions asked in paragraph 8.

"Why is it that the advent of every true Manifestation of God hath been accompanied by such strife and tumult, by such tyranny and upheaval?"

"Why then is it that despite the expectation of men in their quest of the Manifestations of Holiness, and in spite of the signs recorded in the sacred books, should such acts of violence, of oppression and cruelty, have been perpetrated in every age and cycle against all the Prophets and chosen Ones of God?"

Fourteen:

"Whatever in days gone by hath been the cause of the denial and opposition of those people hath led to the perversity of the people of this age."

Baha'u'llah's consideration of the examples he presents leads him to search for motives that might explain the behavior patterns observed. He fixes these motives to such things as the petty-mindedness of people who "tread the valley of arrogance and pride, are lost in the wilds of remoteness, walk in the ways of their idle fancy, and follow the dictates of the leaders of their faith."

Fifteen:

Here Baha'u'llah fixes the blame further upon the leaders of religion, the behavior of whose followers are their primary responsibility. "Some for the lust of leadership, others through want of knowledge and understanding."

"Leaders of religion, in every age, have hindered their people from attaining the shores of eternal salvation, inasmuch as they held the reins of authority in their mighty grasp. Some for the lust of leadership, others through want of knowledge and understanding…"

Sixteen:

Only those who are True Believers or True Seekers, as noted at the beginning of this book, can understand the true meaning of the message of the Prophets.

"The Copt of tyranny can never partake of the cup touched by the lips of the Sept of justice, and the Pharaoh of unbelief can never hope to recognize the hand of the Moses of truth. "

Seventeen:

The example of Jesus is the last in the series of case histories taken from the Surih of Hud. Jesus did not manifest the expectations of the Jews of his time and so was rejected by them.

"They clamored that He Whose advent the Bible had foretold must needs promulgate and fulfill the laws of Moses, whereas this youthful Nazarene, who laid claim to the station of the divine Messiah, had annulled the law of divorce and of the Sabbath day--the most weighty of all the laws of Moses. "

Eighteen:

We must put our trust in God if we are to find the help we need to solve these problems. This requires the ability to put aside our prejudices and preconceived notions.

"In God We put Our trust, and to Him We cry for help, that haply there may flow from this pen that which shall quicken the souls of men, that they may all arise from their beds of heedlessness and hearken unto the rustling of the leaves of Paradise, from the tree which the hand of divine power hath, by the permission of God, planted in the Ridvan of the All-Glorious."

Nineteen:

Jesus provided examples of the signs to be expected when the next Prophet would appear.

"I go away and come again unto you," and "I go and another will come Who will tell you all that I have not told you, and will fulfill all that I have said." Baha'u'llah noted in paragraph 13 that "all the Prophets of God…have invariably foretold the coming of yet another Prophet after them, and have established such signs as would herald the advent of the future Dispensation."

Twenty:

This is the culmination of the first twenty paragraphs, ending this introductory section of the book.

Here Baha'u'llah substitutes a pattern of acceptance for the usual pattern of rejection with which the leaders of religion and their minions have greeted each new Prophet. He uses the example of Muhammad and his confirmation of the "Book and the Cause of Jesus" as the premier example of acceptance.

"He recognized the truth of the signs, prophecies, and words of Jesus, and testified that they were all of God. "

Baha'u'llah tells us that Muhammad embraced both the person and the teachings of Jesus and fully identified himself with them. This, to Baha'u'llah, constitutes an example of acceptance.

Changing the current social ecology of rejection and denial into a spiritual ecology of true acceptance is a difficult task, one that cannot be undertaken until we have a fuller understanding of the social structure which has been built upon the ecology of rejection and denial. That is the task which Baha'u'llah undertakes in the rest of Part One of the Iqan.

The True Believer and His Station in the Spiritual Ecology of Baha'u'llah

The True Believer and His Station as Emissary of The Spiritual Ecology or Manifestation of God
As depicted in the Kitab-i-Iqan (The Book of Certitude).

The Station of the True Believer.

What has been called the True Believer material (theme or motif), which appears in Baha'u'llah’s book Kitab-i-Iqan, is the single most persistent theme in this work, one that underlies the whole of this primary Baha'i theological text. This theme explains in detail the real position and underlying nature of the human being as he exists in the world, a being who is not held enthralled by the world of nature as other animals are, a being who must find his or her own place in the universe, and within nature, in order to truly belong to the whole as other types of natural beings are found to belong.

The attaining of this place within the natural order, identified as the Station of the True Believer by Baha'u'llah, involves a willing acceptance on the part of the individual (or seeker) of a position that can best be described as one of complete servitude. In this sense, then, the station of the True Believer can best be described as the station of service (or stewardship), and ultimately it is the one station that Baha'u'llah suggests the individual will come to feel most comfortable and complete with. The attainment of this station is also the end result of the period of seeking which each human experiences as an integral part of the human life experience.

If we examine the first major section of this book, the Kitab-i-Iqan or Book of Certitude, specifically paragraphs 1 through 20, we find several themes of importance, all of which address or revolve around the nature of the individual or religious seeker within the wider social context or social matrix of human society. These themes involve explicit material on the True Believer, themes of pattern building and modeling, themes of Rejection (denial) and Acceptance, and the idea of divine Character Traits (or attributes), which Baha'u'llah variously refers to as the "wondrous qualities" of the Prophets and the "divine attributes."

The Spiritual Ecology.

These themes comprise the main basis or foundation of Baha'u'llah's Spiritual Ecology, an ecology which delineates a theory to explain the cause of the regular and repeatable social phenomena, occurring within the context of the normal human social order, of rapidly changing social norms and cultural transformations, along with individual adaptations to such changes.

These early themes of the Iqan, the True Believer, Modeling, Patterns, Rejection and Acceptance, and Character Traits, are all tied together. They help Baha'u'llah form his own version of a complete social anthropology, which could be referred to as a Baha'i anthropology (in contrast to the idea of a Christian anthropology), which ultimately serves as a base for his program of World Order Reform. This section, then, comprises Baha'u'llah's examination of human nature and his explanation for why we behave the way we do, form societies the way we do, and create patterns of self-destructive behavior the way we do. An understanding of this is important if we want to learn how to change our lives and our societies for the better, for Baha'u'llah tells us that we can create a society which is not self-destructive, one which uses modeling and pattern recognition to defeat the patterns of rejection and help us create self-sustaining patterns of acceptance, and one which fosters the use of the wondrous qualities of the Prophets as a source for new virtues and attributes which become attainable and normal human virtues for every person within the normal social order, and which can become in time the catalyst for improving all types of human social activities and conditions.

The True Believer (Last Section Part One Kitab-i-Iqan)

Theme One: The True Believer (concluding section of Part One).

Paragraph Ninety-Nine: Dear Friend! Now

"Dear friend! Now when the light of God's everlasting Morn is breaking; when the radiance of His holy words: 'God is the light of the heavens and of the earth' is shedding illumination upon all mankind; when the inviolability of His tabernacle is being proclaimed by His sacred utterance: 'God hath willed to perfect His light;' and the Hand of omnipotence, bearing His testimony: 'In His grasp He holdeth the kingdom of all things,' is being outstretched unto all the peoples and kindreds of the earth; it behooveh us to gird upon the loins of endeavor, that haply, by the grace and bounty of God, we may enter the celestial City: 'Verily, we are God's,' and abide within the exalted habitation: 'And unto Him we do return.'"

God is the light of the heavens and of the earth. (Qu'ran 24:35).

God hath willed to perfect His light. (Qu'ran 9:33).

This section is the conclusion of Part One of the Iqan. Baha'u'llah tells us that this is the Dawn or everlasting Morn (indicative of the new Revelation) which symbolizes the moment of man's acceptance of and dependence upon his connection with God's light. This acceptance of our place in the universe, as helpers of God and servants of others, is the moment of the dawning of God's light within us, and this dawning effect is most strong at the beginning of a new Revelation.

If we consider the Symbols being presented here, first we have God presented symbolically as the light of the heavens and the earth. This defines God's presence for us in the universe, light represents God's availability to us, the fact that we can gain an understanding of things that in effect lights our way in the world is the way that God helps us in our life.

There seems to be a series of steps in the above sequence as well:

1. "Dear friend! Now when the light of God's everlasting Morn is breaking;

This is step one, the everlasting Morn, which means that there is something within us that corresponds and responds to this Morning light. It is everlasting and by logical extension always present and available to us. It is the beginning of all things, both symbolically and physically. It signifies the covenant between God and man.

2. when the radiance of His holy words: 'God is the light of the heavens and of the earth' is shedding illumination upon all mankind;

Step two occurs when the realization that God is the light of the heavens and the earth makes itself felt among mankind, or within the individual. This is the personal feeling within that assures us of our eternal relationship with the Divine presence. It also indicates God's correct place in human culture as the sole source of illumination for understanding our encounter with the universe.

3. when the inviolability of His tabernacle is being proclaimed by His sacred utterance: 'God hath willed to perfect His light;'

Step three: God hath willed to perfect His light -- indicates that His light is perfected through the actions of His Prophets, primarily, and secondarily through those who follow His Prophets, and that nothing can stop this process of ongoing perfection because it is both a physical action in the physical universe and a spiritual action in the spiritual world of man. It is inviolable to the actions of man, in other words, it cannot be stopped by man's actions because it is a natural process like evolution or entropy and thus ultimately will prevail no matter what we may do. In other words, it will happen with us or without us.

4. and the Hand of omnipotence, bearing His testimony: 'In His grasp He holdeth the kingdom of all things,' is being outstretched unto all the peoples and kindreds of the earth;

The twin nature of steps 3 and 4 indicate the action of duality in the world which is the natural impetus to all action, movement and change. These two steps work together. Further this indicates God's transcendent nature in relation to the Universe itself, and the fact that God's transcendence is the ultimate ground and source of all change in the world. To be truly omnipotent one must also be utterly divorced from the world, for no one can pretend complete comprehension of something that they are a part of.

5. it behooveh us to gird up the loins of endeavor, that haply, by the grace and bounty of God, we may enter the celestial City: 'Verily, we are God's,' and abide within the exalted habitation: 'And unto Him we do return.'"

Step five, Verily, we are God's --indicates our true relationship to God, in theory the source of all human attributes, and symbolically compares man's gaining of renewed faith in his relationship with God with entrance into a Celestial City.

Thus step one is the Morn, step two is the radiance of the holy words which shed illumination on all mankind, step three and four is in two parts as follows: the inviolability of Gods tabernacle is proclaimed in two ways, one way is through the perfection of the light through sacred utterance and the second way is that of the Hand of Omnipotence, and step five is the entrance into the celestial City, which is the acceptance of our proper place in the world. It is an ongoing process which is being discussed here.

"It is incumbent upon thee, by the permission of God, to cleanse the eye of thine heart from the things of the world, that thou mayest realize the infinitude of divine knowledge, and mayest behold Truth so clearly that thou wilt need no proof to demonstrate His reality, nor any evidence to bear witness unto His testimony."

Baha'u'llah is using the metaphor eye of thine heart to indicate that man has the natural ability to discern truth and goodness when it is presented to him clearly and fairly, but that this natural ability is often covered over by our prejudices, personal inclinations, and the level of our own position in the world of men. For someone with a truly opened eye and mind the truth is evident from the things Baha'u'llah has written, and this same truth is also evident from the true and authentic scriptures of the past. At the same time, to the truly aware there is no need even of scriptures, because the universe itself is the ultimate testimony to the existence of God and His attributes.


Paragraph One Hundred: O Affectionate Seeker!

"O affectionate seeker! Shouldst thou soar in the holy realm of the spirit, thou would recognize God manifest and exalted above all things, in such wise that thine eyes would behold none else but Him. 'God was alone; there was none else beside Him.'"

That is to say that if the reader or seeker does become a True Believer, then this ultimate truth of God's existence will become obvious. The Saint sees God everywhere and in all things and people, this is what differentiates the Saint from the ordinary human being. The Saint sees oneness, the rest of us see multiplicity. This is called "soaring in the holy realm of the spirit" by Baha'u'llah and is the highest station for the believer.

"So lofty is this station that no testimony can bear it witness, neither evidence do justice to its truth."

This is the station of the True Believer, the Saints, those who serve the Prophets when They arise. Such a station cannot be understood through the intellect, since, to comprehend the idea of seeing God in all things and all persons, it must actually be experienced to be fully and truly understood. Oneness can never be explained by reference to the many and can never have a name or description.

"Wert thou to explore the sacred domain of truth, thou wilt find all things are known only by the light of His recognition, that He hath ever been, and will continue for ever to be, known through Himself."

This is a second station of Recognition, as detailed by Hooper Dunbar in his book A Companion to the Study of the Kitab-I-Iqan. In this station, the "sacred domain of truth," the process is one of knowing God by knowing the world that God has created. This knowing is accomplished by seeing the world by the light of His recognition. Understanding and recognition are one. This recognition creates the true understanding of all things, that is the understanding of each thing in its perfect state.

"And if thou dwellest in the land of testimony, content thyself with that which He, Himself, hath revealed: 'Is it not enough for them that We have sent down unto Thee the Book?'"

Qu’ran 29:51.

The believer who "dwells in the land of testimony" is in the third station of seekers or believers. Those of us in this station need something more to support us in our belief. This can be a type of oneness but a different type. Baha'u'llah asks us to be content with the Book or scripture. That is both the request and the admonition of the Prophets who have brought a Book from God for exactly that purpose. And yet elsewhere he has also allowed us to ask for a personal proof if we really require it. This was covered in a previous paragraph.

"This is the testimony which He, Himself, hath ordained; greater proof than this there is none, nor ever will be: 'This proof is His Word; His own Self, the testimony of His truth.'"

Of course the Book is more than just proof of God, it is proof that the Prophet comes on God's behalf as well. This single testimony is that which is ordained for humans and/or any other type of creature with our complexities. There can be no greater testimony for men than the fact that God will directly covenant with them in this way. For the Book represents the Covenant, and the Covenant is God's word, it is the symbol of God's true Self and represents that Self to us.


Paragraph One Hundred and One: And Now, We.

"And now, We beseech the people of the Bayan, all the learned, the sages, the divines, and witnesses amongst them, not to forget the wishes and admonitions revealed in their Book. Let them, at all times, fix their gaze upon the essentials of His Cause, lest when He, Who is the Quintessence of truth, the inmost Reality of all things, the Source of all light, is made manifest, they cling unto certain passages of the Book, and inflict upon Him that which was inflicted in the Dispensation of the Qu'ran."

This is the closing paragraph of Part One of the Iqan. Here Baha'u'llah repeats the concerns of this book with how the Prophets have been treated by the people when they appeared to them. This treatment has been one of the recurring themes of Part One. In this past Prophetic cycle, the treatment of the Prophet has always been the same, but one cannot help but wonder how much greater the benefit of these Teachers would be for mankind if they had been treated with respect and dignity when they appeared. That is essentially what Baha'u'llah is appealing for here.

"For, verily, powerful is He, the King of divine might, to extinguish with one letter of His wondrous words, the breath of life in the whole of the Bayan and the people thereof, and with one letter bestow upon them a new and everlasting life, and cause them to arise and speed out of the sepulchers of their vain and selfish desires."

This is the major action of the Prophet, the destruction of the past Word or Book and the creation of a new one in its place. It is this cycle of destruction and creation which we term the Day of Judgment and the Resurrection, or Renewal, as depicted in the Signs Saying from the book of Matthew.

"Take heed, and be watchful; and remember that all things have their consummation in belief in Him, in attainment unto His day, and in the realization of His divine presence."

This is the goal of all living things, their consummation (meaning complete in every detail, perfection), to find belief in God or faith, to attain unto His day (the Day of Judgment), and then to recognize (realize) His divine presence in the form of the Resurrection or Renewal. This can occur for the individual at any time, not just at the times of an actual Prophetic enactment of the Renewal.

"There is no piety in turning your faces toward the east or toward the west, but he is pious who believeth in God and the Last Day. Give ear, O people of the Bayan, unto the truth whereunto We have admonished you, that haply ye may seek shelter of the shadow extended, in the Day of God, upon all mankind."

Qu'ran 2:176

Baha'u'llah warns us that people today are no different from the people of the past. As a consequence we know that outward actions are not a sign of inward reality or faith, only those individuals who truly believe (and belief means having faith and confidence in the reality of) and who accept God and the value of the Last Day (or Day of Judgment) can hope to become True Believers. Only those willing to discover the value in having the ability to change themselves gain the true benefits of faith. While these benefits are offered to all, only a few accept them.

Review of Paragraphs 89-98: Theme Two

Review of Paragraphs 89-98: Theme Two Patterns of Rejection and Patterns of Acceptance, Part Two.

This section is a review of the nature and purpose of signs and proofs as denoted by the scriptures of the texts of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. In the sections devoted to analysis of the Signs Saying, from paragraphs 21-87, we have a detailed and elaborate presentation of the method used by the Prophets in their symbological progression thru the intellectual and social history of mankind. Their method is one of detailed explanation of divine knowledge thru the use of symbol and metaphor, a testing process that has help mankind adjust to the more abstract types of intellectual social knowledge thru some three thousand plus years of struggle.

Baha'u'llah has already outlined his case concerning proofs and signs in an earlier section of the book, so this section takes up the Islamic idea that suggests that the signs and proofs of Muhammad's mission were deliberately sabotaged or removed by the Christians and Jews.

Baha'u'llah offers a series of counter arguments to the standard Islamic line. First he restates his earlier argument that "objections and differences have persisted in every age and century," in other words the arguments used by the Jews to reject Jesus were largely the same as the arguments the Christians used to reject Muhammad, and these arguments centered largely around specious arguments about the non-fulfillment of literal signs. These arguments, which Baha'u'llah has already condemned, do double duty because of human habits that lead to blind following of leadership elites. In the context of human history we find that these elites have always been in a position to dictate beliefs and decisions to their followers.

Second, Baha'u'llah reviews the charges made of corruption of the text against the Gospels and Torah that stem from certain passages of the Koranic text itself. Baha'u'llah reviews these specific cases one by one. The first refers to a specific set of incidents involving the Jewish community near Medina, wherein that community mocked Muhammad and Muhammad ended up condemning them. That condemnation was not one which applied to the entire Jewish faith but only to that specific community. Baha'u'llah points out that the Torah, which was widely spread around the world, could not have been corrupted or changed without this being corroborated by history.

He also reviews charges made against the Christians in regards to their Gospel, but again finds the evidence lacking and the references in the Qu'ran to be referring to a different manner of corrupting, namely perverting the text thru the mental act of interpretation alone, and not thru the actual changing of the text itself.

Baha'u'llah also quotes other passages from the Qu'ran which refer to willful distortion on the part of social and religious elites, and corrupt transcriptions of texts to earn fees.

More importantly, he follows this with a comparison of these types of perversion and corruption to his present time, in the relationship of the Bab with the Islamic clergy, and finds the same types of corruption occurring.

And this is the crux of his argument, that the objections raised against the Bab were always the same as those raised in earlier times against the Prophets of previous religions. There was never a good faith attempt to engage the Prophet and discuss the claims being made.

The point that Baha'u'llah is trying to make here is just this: that it is not God's purpose, or the purpose of the Prophet, to produce signs and proofs that would absolutely prove the truth of the assertions being made to everyone's satisfaction. Such indisputable proofs would lead to the forced conversion of belief, and this forced conversion would deprive mankind of much benefit.

Primarily the loss would consist of a simple but important test of the sincerity of those among the elites who are generally left to judge such things. It is on this basis that the elites themselves are eventually judged.

Baha'u'llah brings this argument out in paragraph 98:

Here Baha'u'llah finds the arguments advanced by the elites of his time as being extremely hypocritical and self-serving, and filled with contradictions.

Here is a summation of the nature of their arguments (paragraph 98):

On the one hand we are to believe that God is all powerful and all knowing, yet when one of the Prophets gives a book of guidance to his followers, we find that that book is easily corrupted and can even disappear, and that God is unable to prevent this.

And again, we are lead to believe that God will punish the wicked among his followers for disobeying the laws of his book, yet God is unable to protect that book from being corrupted or changed, and yet again we are to believe that God is All Just and All Good. These become logically impossible arguments.

However by advancing such arguments the leaders of religion reveal that they have no fear of God, and instead act only to protect and buttress their own position of importance in society. Such people have failed to fulfill the purpose of their office or position.

The Touchstone.

Baha'u'llah tells us that the advent of the Prophet is also the appearance of the divine Touchstone. It is this Touchstone that judges mankind. It certifies the true worth of every individual or elite group that it touches. This touchstone is the offering of choice to the individual in his life on earth, both choice and opportunity. Those who manifest the virtues and attributes of sincerity and willingness to learn are those who gain the grace of salvation, those who are awakened to the compassion of God towards his creatures, those who attain the summit of True Understanding, while those who are insincere and unwilling to learn are condemned to subsist upon their own failing knowledge at a time of great upheaval and social change. This is the immutable decree of God as taught by the Prophets.