Check it Out, ESW 167-194

We begin this section with a series of traditions that I am not familiar with. I mean, I can see what they are saying, but I am not sure why Baha'u'llah has placed them here. They use some fairly extraordinary language about the Imams and other individuals, referring to them in ways that, taken literally, could sound very much like claims to Divinity.

And then I began to wonder if that was the point.

Muhammad-Taqi knows these traditions. He presumably knows how they are understood. He knows that language such as this doesn't mean that the unknowable Essence of God has somehow been contained within a person. And yet similar language used by Baha'u'llah has been one of the objections raised against Him.

It seems almost as though Baha'u'llah is saying, "You understand how to interpret these traditions, so now apply the same level of interpretation to what I say."

In other words, use the same standard.

We've seen this sort of argument before, especially in the Iqan. It isn't enough to have one way of understanding scripture when it supports what you already believe, and another when you're examining something you don't. If the same sort of language appears in both, then surely the same principles of interpretation should apply.

From there Baha'u'llah moves into the fulfilment of prophecy, and once again we find ourselves on familiar ground from the Iqan. The Divine Presence is a real thing. Muhammad-Taqi presumably believes that. But if you believe in the Divine Presence, then what happens when it actually occurs? You have to be willing to check it out.

This is one of the problems Baha'u'llah spends so much time addressing in the Iqan. People believe in the prophecies. They believe in the promised Day. They believe in the return. The difficulty comes when those promises are fulfilled in a way that doesn't match what they expected. Their belief in the prophecy itself can become the very thing that prevents them from recognizing its fulfilment.

And Baha'u'llah seems to be confronting Muhammad-Taqi with much the same problem here. The time of fulfilment is now. The Divine Presence isn't merely something to believe will happen someday. The implication is that it is happening now. Check it out.

Then He turns back towards Muhammad-Taqi himself. This is a man reputed to be learned, and Baha'u'llah reminds him of what a learned person should be doing. He should be encouraging people towards that which is praiseworthy. I could be wrong, but I suspect calling for bloodshed doesn't qualify.

And then the argument becomes even stronger. Baha'u'llah seems to tell him that he has a choice: recognize this Revelation or, if he applies the same standard consistently, deny the Prophets he already accepts.

That's quite a challenge.

But again, Baha'u'llah doesn't merely tell him what conclusion to reach. He keeps giving him things to investigate.

Look at what the Shi'ih leaders have done. None of them recognized the Bab. Instead, they put Him to death. Meditate on that and be fair. Look at the Shaykhis and see how they responded.

Then comes something I find particularly curious. Baha'u'llah tells Muhammad-Taqi to appoint someone to go and speak with Mirza Yahya.

Why?

I don't know.

It does make me wonder, though. My impression is that many of those who actually dealt with Mirza Yahya found him rather pathetic, and his arguments insubstantial and inconclusive. So perhaps there is something in the comparison itself. Go speak with him. Find out what he has to say. Then come and investigate Baha'u'llah.

I mean, this is just my own thinking. Nothing official, of course. But it does fit the pattern of, “Don't take My word for it. Check it out for yourself.”

And Baha'u'llah doesn't end the argument there. Instead, He gives Muhammad-Taqi more material to investigate.

He has just heard about Baha'is being arrested in Tihran. Yet the Baha'is have been commanded to support the government and refrain from sedition. At the same time, officials connected with the Persian Embassy in Constantinople have been trying to stir up opposition against them and spreading accusations about their behaviour.

And then Baha'u'llah does something that we've seen Him do before. He is fair.

He points out that the Ambassador himself wasn't present when some of these accusations were made. It would have been very easy to throw everyone together into the same group and condemn them all. After all, these are people actively working against Him. But Baha'u'llah doesn't seem willing to accuse someone of something for which He doesn't have the evidence.

Given how often He has told Muhammad-Taqi to judge fairly, that little detail stood out to me.

Then comes another accusation. Some Baha'is have been accused of stealing money. So Baha'u'llah gives Muhammad-Taqi passages showing how His followers are actually taught to regard gold and material wealth. Again, check it out.

Don't accept the accusation. Don't merely accept Baha'u'llah's denial, either. Look at what He actually teaches.

He talks again about the tribulations He has endured and says something that, by now, shouldn't surprise us. He wouldn't trade them away. In the path of God, these trials are "manifest glory and a supreme attainment". Then He returns to the Shah and once again asks that the matter be investigated. But Baha’u’llah asks if there is anyone who will actually be just.

Which raises another question. If all this evidence is available, why have the Shi'ih divines turned away?

Baha'u'llah has admonished them before. He has called upon them to reconsider. He has given them standards against which they can measure themselves. He even cites what He told them in the Aqdas. And once again He invites Muhammad-Taqi to come and see for himself, which seems to happen over and over throughout this Epistle.

Don't accept what people say about Mirza Yahya. Ask him.

Don't accept what people say about Baha'u'llah. Ask Him.

Don't accept the accusations against the Baha'is. Investigate them.

Don't reject Baha'u'llah's language because it sounds blasphemous. Compare it with the traditions you already accept.

Don't merely profess belief in the Divine Presence. Consider whether it might actually be before you.

And don't let being reputed to be learned substitute for learning.

That last one may be especially difficult.

The uncle of the Bab came to Baha'u'llah with questions. He knew there were things he didn't understand, and the Iqan was revealed in response to those questions. Muhammad-Taqi is in a very different position. He is reputed to be learned. People look to him for answers. And he has already decided what he thinks about Baha'u'llah and His followers.

Perhaps part of what Baha'u'llah is doing throughout this book is trying to get him back to the point where he is willing to ask a question.

Towards the end of this section we encounter those "perspicuous verses". This paragraph is so rich that a book has literally been written about it.

Baha'u'llah has repeatedly referred Muhammad-Taqi to what He has actually written, and now He gives him some of it. These are the teachings that people have cast aside. These are the standards His followers have been given. Once again, instead of asking Muhammad-Taqi to rely upon what other people say the Baha'is believe, He puts the words before him to read for himself.

And I think this may be what has struck me most about these paragraphs. Baha'u'llah doesn't seem afraid of investigation.

He doesn't say, "Don't read that." He doesn't say, "Don't talk to him." He doesn't ask Muhammad-Taqi to avoid evidence that might challenge His claims. He sends him towards it. Speak to Mirza Yahya. Look at the traditions. Examine the accusations. Read the teachings. Look at the history. Come to the Most Great Prison. See for yourself. What is it you are actually judging? Are you judging Baha'u'llah, or what other people have told you about Him? Are you judging the teachings, or the accusations made against those who follow them? Are you judging the evidence according to the same standards you apply to what you already believe, or changing those standards depending upon the conclusion you want to reach?

I don't think these are questions only for Muhammad-Taqi.

How much of what I'm certain about have I actually investigated for myself? How often have I accepted somebody else's description of an idea I oppose without bothering to see whether that description is fair? How often do I carefully interpret evidence that supports what I already believe, while taking the least charitable interpretation possible of evidence that challenges it?

I don't know.

But I suspect those are questions worth asking.

Maybe that's one of the problems with being certain that we already know. Once we have the answer, we stop checking.

And Baha'u'llah just keeps saying, in one way after another, check it out.

 

A Coda, ESW 161-166

Whoops.

In the last article I thought paragraph 160 was the end of a section. It certainly felt like one. After everything Baha'u'llah had said to Muhammad-Taqi, after repeatedly asking him to reconsider his actions, judge fairly and choose another path, He gave him a prayer. It felt like a natural place to stop.

And maybe it was, at least for the article. But after reading the next few paragraphs, I think 161 through 166 are really a sort of coda to what came before. They take some of those ideas and show us what they look like when put into practice. That's one of the things I enjoy about reading this book this way. I don't know where it's going. I make a guess, keep reading, and sometimes discover I was wrong. That's ok. Sometimes the mistake leads somewhere interesting.

Paragraph 161 begins with another accusation. This time it concerns one of Baha'u'llah's friends, who has been accused of taking some money. Baha'u'llah says the accusation is false, and then tells us what happened. But what struck me wasn't so much the accusation itself as His reaction to it.

We've just spent a lot of time looking at justice, especially at the repeated call for Muhammad-Taqi to judge fairly. Now we get a very practical example. Here is someone being falsely accused. What do you do?

Baha'u'llah doesn't lash out. He doesn't respond with another accusation. In the next paragraph He says that what is hidden in the hearts of people will eventually be disclosed, and ends with the observation that people don't discern between the trustworthy and the treacherous. Then He expresses the hope that the Shah will investigate the matter for himself rather than merely believing those making the accusations.

That last part feels familiar by now. Check it out, He seems to say.

Don't just believe what people are telling you. Investigate. Look at the evidence. Find out what actually happened. We've seen Baha'u'llah repeatedly ask Muhammad-Taqi to do exactly this with His own claims, and now He asks the Shah to do the same thing with an accusation against one of His friends.

And while all this is going on, Baha'u'llah describes Himself as calm and silent, detached from all save God.

This doesn't mean the injustice doesn't matter. He still wants the truth to be known. He still wants the Shah to investigate. The trustworthy and the treacherous still need to be distinguished from each other. Forgiveness doesn't somehow make justice unnecessary.

That was something we were talking about in the last article. Refusing to condemn a person doesn't mean ignoring what they have done. If a crime has been committed, justice still needs to prevail. If someone has been falsely accused, the truth still needs to be discovered. But the injustice done to us doesn't have to determine how we respond to it.

And then Baha'u'llah gives us an example of a very different response.

He tells the story of Haji Shaykh Muhammad-Ali, a believer who had been so deeply affected by the calumnies and trials surrounding Baha'u'llah that he reached a terrible point. Baha'u'llah had forbidden His followers from engaging in sedition, conflict and contention. For this man, disobedience to that command simply wasn't an option. But neither, apparently, could he continue to endure what was happening.

So he killed himself.

I don't think Baha'u'llah is holding up his suicide as an example to follow. Quite the opposite. After all, He prays for the man's forgiveness. The act itself was wrong.

But look at the contrast.

Baha'u'llah has shown us His own response to calumny. He remains calm. He trusts in God. He asks that the matter be investigated and the truth discovered. Then He shows us someone else pushed so far by these same sorts of attacks that he can no longer see a way forward. He will not retaliate. He will not disobey. And tragically, he seems to believe that the only remaining direction for the violence is towards himself.

That is a very different response from Baha'u'llah's.

And yet Baha'u'llah asks Muhammad-Taqi to ponder the influence of the Word of God.

I think that's the key to why this story is here. The suicide isn't the evidence. The degree to which this man had been transformed by the Word is. Even when pushed beyond what he could bear, turning against the people tormenting him was not an option he was willing to consider.

There is something else here, too. Baha'u'llah can recognize the man's devotion while still recognizing that what he did was wrong. He doesn't have to turn Haji Shaykh Muhammad-Ali into either a hero whose every action must therefore be praised, or a sinner whose terrible choice somehow wipes away everything else about him.

Funny. We were just talking about that.

In the last article I wandered off into thinking about our own divided society and the ease with which we reduce people to the worst thing we believe about them. Someone does something unjust, and before long the action becomes the person. We stop saying, "You did something unjust," and begin saying, "You are an unjust person."

Here is a man who made a terrible choice. Baha'u'llah doesn't pretend otherwise. But He still prays for him.

Maybe that's part of the coda, too.

The more I look at these six paragraphs, though, the more I think the larger question may be about what opposition produces in us.

The calumniators reveal something about themselves through their actions. They lie. They make accusations. They fail to distinguish between the trustworthy and the treacherous. Baha'u'llah reveals something through His response. He remains calm, asks that the truth be investigated, and leaves the matter in the hands of God. Haji Shaykh Muhammad-Ali reveals something else. The Word of God has affected him so profoundly that retaliation and disobedience are no longer choices he is willing to make, although tragically he still makes another choice that Baha'u'llah does not approve.

What does opposition produce in us?

That's not such an easy question.

It's easy enough to talk about our principles when nobody is challenging them. It's easy to talk about justice when we're not the ones being falsely accused. It's easy to talk about kindness and forbearance when the person standing opposite us isn't doing something we find truly horrible.

But what happens when they are?

Do their lies make us liars? Does their hatred make us hateful? Does their injustice make us unjust? Or can we insist upon the truth, insist upon justice, and still refuse to allow their actions to determine our own?

Perhaps that's another way of looking at the fruit of the Word of God.

We've seen that image again and again throughout this book. What does belief produce? What does knowledge produce? What does hatred produce? What does the Word of God produce in the life of someone who actually allows it to change them?

And perhaps these six paragraphs really do belong with the section we just finished. We simply stopped a little too soon.

That's ok.

We kept reading. We changed our minds. And somehow that seems rather appropriate after the last article.

You Can Still Choose, ESW 134-160

Whew. This has been quite the journey so far.

Before going any further, though, I probably need to remind you of something. If you're following along with these articles, I really hope you're reading the passages from the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf before reading my comments on them. What I'm writing here is only half of a conversation. Most of these observations are responses to what Baha'u'llah has just said, and without His half of the conversation I'm not sure mine will make much sense.

It might also be a good time for a quick recap, because I'm beginning to see something about this book that reminds me very much of the Iqan.

In the Iqan, Baha'u'llah was responding to the uncle’s questions. He had not recognized the station of his Nephew, but he wasn't actively persecuting Him, either. He was just uncertain. Baha'u'llah showed him the patterns of the past, helped him look at the evidence, and gradually brought him to the point where he had to make a choice.

Here the situation is very different. Muhammad-Taqi has already made his choice. He has actively opposed Baha'u'llah and persecuted His followers. And yet, strangely enough, Baha'u'llah seems to be using much the same basic argument.

Look at the past. See the pattern. Look at what happened to Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. Look at what people said about Them, and how They reacted. Now look at what is happening today. Look at the evidence before you. Judge fairly. And then choose.

The tone is quite different, as you would expect. The man receiving the Iqan was an undecided seeker. The man receiving this Epistle was an active enemy. But Baha'u'llah still seems to leave the door open. Muhammad-Taqi has made his choice, but he is being given the opportunity to make a different one.

Which brings us back to paragraph 134.

Baha'u'llah begins by telling him what it means to be truly learned. This is quite a thing to say to a man who is already regarded as one of the learned. He tells him to look at the signs before him and see what has happened to the Messengers of the past. There are all sorts of references here, some of which I recognized and some of which sent me looking things up. The hamstrung she-camel rang a bell, but I couldn't have told you much more than that. And then, amidst all these images, there is the tree again. If Muhammad-Taqi looks at the Divine Lote-Tree with fairness, Baha'u'llah says, he will see the marks of his own sword upon it. Whew. What a statement. What a thing to consider.

But that's not where He leaves him. Muhammad-Taqi was created to recognize and serve that very Tree.

That's quite a contrast. Here is what you have done, and here is what you could be doing instead.

From there we get more references to Moses and Sinai, more stories of the martyrs, and then the contrast with those who turned away out of fear. Baha'u'llah tells Muhammad-Taqi to investigate for himself. And then, remarkably, He calls upon this man who has been actively opposing the Faith to arise and serve it.

Baha'u'llah then turns to the Shah and speaks about stopping the persecutions. He talks about the role of the sovereign, the obligations of the people towards their rulers and the obligations of those rulers towards the people. Rulers and ministers should work together for the welfare and security of everyone. Muhammad-Taqi is told once again to look at the past, recognize the pattern and act accordingly. He is told how to behave. He is asked to judge Baha'u'llah fairly. Then He prays that God might help him open the door of justice, and then tells Muhammad-Taqi that he, too, should pray for God to help the people and remove the malice from their hearts.

He is even told to go read the Iqan.

After everything Muhammad-Taqi has done, Baha'u'llah is still giving him a way forward.

Towards the end of this section He reminds him that his fame will pass away. Look at the religious leaders of the past who opposed the Messengers of God. What became of them? And then Baha'u'llah gives him a prayer.

After all that, a prayer.

And somewhere in the middle of reading all this, my mind wandered to the world around me.

We live in a time that feels increasingly divided. As our society struggles towards greater equity and inclusiveness, changes that seem like long-overdue justice to one person can feel like genuine loss to another. If I have grown accustomed to an advantage, I may not even recognize it as an advantage. It may simply feel like the way things are supposed to be. When that begins to change, equality itself can feel like something is being taken away from me.

I think there is a real danger here, though, especially for those of us who believe we're working towards greater unity.

The easy contemporary analogy would be to divide society into two camps, identify the enlightened one and the backward one, and announce that Muhammad-Taqi represents the latter. But if we did that, I think we'd miss one of the most important things Baha'u'llah is doing.

Worse, we would be using division as a means of trying to create unity.

Our present divisions often seem to work in precisely the opposite direction from what Baha'u'llah is doing here. Once someone has been classified as belonging to the other camp, we stop imagining movement. We explain to them rather than speak with them. We say they're ignorant, hateful, woke, racist, fascist, communist, privileged, brainwashed, whatever word happens to belong to our particular vocabulary. Once the label has done its work, we don't have to wonder how that person might change. We certainly don't have to imagine what capacities they might contribute if they did.

But Baha'u'llah doesn't seem to do that with Muhammad-Taqi.

And let's remember who we're talking about here. This isn't someone who has merely expressed opinions with which Baha'u'llah disagrees. Muhammad-Taqi has actively persecuted the Baha'is. He has encouraged others to curse Baha'u'llah. He has called for bloodshed. Real people have suffered and died.

Baha'u'llah does not pretend otherwise. And yet He writes him a book.

He reasons with him. He shows him evidence. He challenges him. He tells him to look at history. He asks him to judge fairly. He condemns what needs condemning. But He also invites him to investigate. He calls upon him to serve. He prays for him and gives him prayers to say. He even seems to imagine a future in which this man who has helped persecute the Baha'is might use his influence to help them instead.

That last part is particularly important.

Baha'u'llah doesn't seem to be saying, You have learning and influence, therefore you need to be brought down. Quite the contrary. He keeps calling Muhammad-Taqi towards a higher expression of the very capacities he already possesses. Be truly learned. Use your influence to serve. Help end persecution. Open the door of justice. Become someone who helps rather than harms.

I've noticed elsewhere in the Writings that Baha’u’llah never seems to diminish our choices. He never brings down anyone or anything. For example, Baha'u'llah doesn't lower our understanding of Christ in order to make room for the other Manifestations. If someone says that Christ is God, the answer isn't necessarily to lower the station of Christ. Instead, our understanding of God can be raised beyond the idea that the unknowable Essence of God could somehow be contained within a physical person, while at the same time our understanding of the other Manifestations can be raised to that same station as Christ.

The movement is always upwards.

And perhaps there is something there for our present social divisions.

Someone who fears greater equity may hear, “You have too much and we're coming to take it from you.” But perhaps the better vision we should strive to convey is: “What you have is good. Why shouldn't everyone have it?” The problem isn't that you have dignity, security, opportunity or a voice. The problem is that these things have not been equally available to others.

The goal isn't to lower one group so that everyone suffers equally. It is to raise everyone.

Of course, this doesn't mean ignoring injustice. Refusing to condemn a person is not the same as refusing to condemn their actions. Nor does it mean shielding them from the consequences of those actions. If someone commits a crime, justice still applies. If someone abuses their power, society still needs to protect those being harmed. Seeing someone as capable of change doesn't require pretending that nothing happened.

Perhaps the distinction is between saying, “You have done something unjust”, and saying, “You are an unjust person and that is all you can ever be.”

The first leaves open the possibility of justice. The second doesn't leave much room for anything.

And this is where I find some hope in what Baha'u'llah is doing with Muhammad-Taqi. Not a lot, mind you. History tells us that Muhammad-Taqi didn't change. After all this, after the arguments and the evidence and the invitations and the prayers, he still made his choice. That's reality.

But he had the choice.

And I think that's important. Healing others doesn't mean that everyone will eventually agree with us if only we find the perfect argument. Some people won't change. Some injustices will still require intervention. Some crimes will still require consequences. Unity cannot depend upon pretending those realities don't exist.

But neither does unity require us to decide that another person is beyond hope.

In fact, perhaps deciding that they are beyond hope is one of the things that prevents unity in the first place.

I changed my mind back in paragraph 3 of this very book. Not about anything remotely comparable to what Muhammad-Taqi was being asked to reconsider, obviously, but I had formed an opinion about what Baha'u'llah was doing there, kept reading, and realized I was wrong. Even more recently I thought the stories of the martyrs were a change of subject, kept reading, and changed my mind.

People do that.

We see something we hadn't noticed. We learn something we didn't know. Someone asks a question we hadn't considered. We suddenly see an old problem from another angle. And sometimes we realize that something we were quite certain about was wrong.

If we want people to change, perhaps we need to leave them the space to change.

That doesn't mean softening the truth. Baha'u'llah certainly doesn't do that with Muhammad-Taqi. It doesn't mean overlooking injustice or abandoning its victims. It means continuing, somehow, to address the person who has acted unjustly as someone who is still capable of justice.

Muhammad-Taqi didn't choose that path. But Baha'u'llah left it open. And for now, maybe that's enough hope to begin with.

Consider These Days, ESW 106-133

“Consider the days in which He Who is the Ancient Beauty hath come in the Most Great Name...”

That immediately reminds me of the Iqan. Again and again in that book Baha'u'llah asks us to consider the past. Look at what happened to the Manifestations of God. Look at what people said about Them, how They were treated, who recognized Them and who didn't. And, of course, the point isn't merely to learn history. We look at the past so that perhaps we can recognize the same patterns when they occur again. Now, in the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Baha'u'llah asks Muhammad-Taqi to consider the present.

He begins with a very clear statement of His purpose. He has come so that “the world might be quickened, and all its peoples be united”. And what has been the response? People have risen against Him and accused Him of causing trouble. Baha'u'llah doesn't respond by trying to protect Himself. Instead He summarizes some of the trials He has endured and then has Muhammad-Taqi look to the past at Moses.

Why Moses? I wondered about that at first. Of all the Manifestations He could have chosen, why begin there? In the Iqan, it made sense to me that He focused the attention of the uncle of the Bab on Jesus, given the questions he had asked, but why Moses for Muhammad-Taqi? No idea. Baha'u'llah reminds him, though, of the accusation made against Moses and Aaron. Pharaoh and his people accused Them of trying to turn people away from the religion of their fathers and gain power for Themselves.

Just as with the uncle in the Iqan, Baha'u'llah doesn't ask Muhammad-Taqi to take His word for it. He tells him to read what was revealed in the Qur'an. Go back to a Book you already accept, He seems to say. Look at the accusations made against a Manifestation you already recognize, and then compare them with what is being said today. Baha'u'llah then makes the point explicit. Whenever a Manifestation appeared, many denied Him. Others turned away. Still others spread calumnies against Him. And what was the result? People were prevented from reaching “the river of the loving providence of Him Who is the King of all creation”. That was what was done in the past, and people who have never even met Baha'u'llah are now doing the same thing.

Then He returns to Moses, and points out something that has bothered people for a long time. Moses killed a man. Baha'u'llah doesn't try to hide that fact or explain it away. Moses Himself acknowledged what He had done, asked God for forgiveness, and was forgiven. I find that an extraordinary example to place before Muhammad-Taqi. Baha'u'llah has been asking him almost from the beginning of this Epistle to reconsider what he has done. He has reminded him that he told people to curse Baha'u'llah and decreed that the blood of the servants of God should be shed. And now He shows him Moses, a Manifestation of God whom Muhammad-Taqi already accepts, acknowledging an act, turning to God and asking for that same forgiveness. If Moses can do that, perhaps Muhammad-Taqi can, too. That may be one of the reasons why Moses was chosen for this example.

Then Baha'u'llah says something we've seen before: “He doeth what He willeth.” This may be one of the greatest challenges when it comes to recognizing a Manifestation of God. We want Them to behave according to our expectations. We want Them to fit within what we already understand. But if God truly does what He wills, then perhaps our expectations aren't a particularly reliable standard. But then Baha'u'llah does something interesting. He has just described how He never tried to protect Himself from all the trials that came upon Him. He speaks of those who were trying to sully His reputation and says that they “busied themselves about their own protection”. Baha'u'llah entrusted Himself to God. His opponents were busy protecting themselves. And they didn't merely spread stories about Him. They spread them about anyone who tried to visit Him.

So Baha'u'llah begins giving Muhammad-Taqi examples. When He went to the Sublime Porte, He says, the government treated Him well. Officials visited Him, yet He never asked them for anything. This was apparently unusual enough to be noticed, especially when compared with other Persians who went around trying to obtain whatever gifts and favours they could. And then comes another example of something we've been seeing throughout this book: fairness.

Baha'u'llah speaks of Husayn Khan. His actions caused Baha'u'llah great suffering and contributed to His eventual banishment to Akka. It would be very easy simply to cast him as an enemy, but Baha'u'llah doesn't. He acknowledges his sincerity and even commends his faithfulness “in the discharge of his duty”. That really stands out after what we just saw with the kings. Napoleon was rebuked. The Czar was encouraged. Victoria was praised. Baha'u'llah didn't judge them according to their titles or according to some simple division between friend and enemy. He looked at what they did. And here He does something similar with a man whose actions brought suffering upon Him. He can still acknowledge what is worthy of acknowledgement.

Then He turns to Mirza Yahya and Siyyid Muhammad, people whose actions brought Him tremendous trials, and once again His response surprises me. He prays for them. He asks God to guide them “to be just and fair-minded”. Justice, equity, fair-mindedness. Baha'u'llah has been asking Muhammad-Taqi for these qualities throughout the Epistle, and now He keeps demonstrating them in His own response to the people who have harmed Him. He says that His purpose has always been to “edify the souls of men” and help knowledge prevail over ignorance. He speaks of what He has done for the Shah, and of how those in authority have responded. Then He begins telling Muhammad-Taqi about the believers who suffered and died.

This initially felt to me like a new topic, but the current one hadn't been finished yet. So I kept reading. And as I went on I began to realize that these stories continued the theme of considering the present day. They are not just there to tell us about these great heroes, but to help Muhammad-Taqi understand what has been happening. In the Iqan, the stories of the past were there to help show the pattern that has always been there throughout history, and encourage the uncle to see that the same story was happening once again. Here, these stories feel different. I think they are there not only to contrast the behaviour of the martyrs, but to remind this religious man of the two sides that have always been there in history. And he can clearly see which side he has chosen, if he only looks with the eyes of justice.

As to these stories of the present day, there are a lot of them. The King of Martyrs and the Beloved of Martyrs. Other believers whose names and stories follow one after another. Some were imprisoned. Some were tortured. Some were killed. As I read through them, I truly wondered why they were all there. Hadn't He made His point with the first few? But then Baha'u'llah describes some of these people as having “quaffed their fill of the ocean of renunciation”. Near the beginning of the Epistle, Muhammad-Taqi was told to wash himself with the “waters of renunciation”. At the time it felt like an instruction, something he was being asked to do. Now Baha'u'llah shows him people who actually did it. Perhaps this is what renunciation looks like when it becomes a life rather than just a word.

These people were willing to surrender everything, and their deaths weren't merely examples of courage. Baha'u'llah asks Muhammad-Taqi to ponder what could possibly produce such a response: “Ponder thou upon the influence of the Word of God.” That seems particularly pointed when addressed to a religious scholar. Muhammad-Taqi knows words. He has studied scripture. He teaches religion. People listen to what he says. But here Baha'u'llah asks him to look at what the Word of God has actually done to people. What could cause someone to surrender wealth, security, reputation and even life itself? Once again we're back to fruit. What does knowledge produce? What does religion produce? What does leadership produce? And now, what does the Word of God produce?

Baha'u'llah tells Muhammad-Taqi to compare what happened in the past with what is happening now. In former times one person might have been slain for the sake of God. Now, He says, look at how many have offered their lives. “Judge fairly.”

He points to Balal, whose acts are remembered and honoured. But I have to be honest. Although I knew he was the first Muezzin, the first to be chosen to raise the call to prayer, I had no idea what else he had done. I didn't know about his sufferings for having converted to Islam, or the fact that he had been a slave. I didn't know that Abu-Bakr purchased him and freed him from slavery, which prompted me to wonder if Baha'u'llah was hinting that Muhammad-Taqi was a slave in his own way. And if so, who would purchase his freedom? I won't pretend to have an answer to that stray thought. Nor did I know that Balal was a stutterer, just as Moses was. Yet another connection to Moses. All of this from one who knew next to nothing about him. I can only wonder at what connections Muhammad-Taqi would have made.

Baha'u'llah then asks him to look at the people suffering in his own day. It is easy to honour courage centuries later. It is a lot more difficult to recognize it when the people displaying that courage are those very people you yourself have been persecuting.

Baha'u'llah then returns to His own sufferings. “That which hath touched this Wronged One is beyond compare or equal.” Yet He says He has been willing and resigned to bear it all for the sake of God. He recalls the Siyah-Chal and gives further examples of those who were killed. Then, in addressing the Shah, He asks him to judge what has happened with equity and justice. Even the victims themselves become part of the argument. Baha'u'llah describes people who, while suffering at the hands of their oppressors, interceded on behalf of those very people. Again the question: What produces that?

Then comes Akka, the place associated with so much of Baha'u'llah's own suffering, and another Tablet, this one revealed after the martyrdoms. Again and again He lays the evidence before Muhammad-Taqi and asks him to look at it. Eventually He returns to the comparison with the Manifestations of the past. What evidence, He asks, could people have produced against Jesus or Muhammad? Whatever evidence they might have offered against these Manifestations, comparable evidence is being offered now.

And this brings us back to where we began: “Consider these days.” It is easy for Muhammad-Taqi to look backwards and recognize Moses. He already knows Pharaoh was wrong. He can read the Qur'an and see that the accusations against Moses were false. He can honour Balal. He can recognize Muhammad. He can accept Jesus. But Baha'u'llah isn't asking him merely to judge the past correctly. He's asking him to recognize the same pattern while he is living through it.

Then the tone sharpens. “O thou who hast gone astray!” Muhammad-Taqi has never met Baha'u'llah. He hasn't associated with Him. He hasn't investigated His character personally. Yet he has condemned Him and encouraged others to do the same. How can that be fair or just? After all these pages about justice and equity, after the examples of Moses, the martyrs, government officials, enemies and friends, Baha'u'llah turns the standard directly towards the man reading the Epistle. If you have evidence for rejecting Me, produce it.

Perhaps that's why “Consider these days” is such an appropriate beginning for this section. Considering the past is relatively safe. We already know how the story ends. We know who Pharaoh was. We know who Moses was. We know who rejected Jesus and who persecuted Muhammad. The difficult part is considering the days in which we ourselves are living, because then we have to ask which side of the story we're on.

In Relation to Kings, ESW 68-105

We ended the last section with the kings. Baha'u'llah had been talking about people who possessed an almost unimaginable amount of earthly power at the time, and yet He described their sovereignty as something they should be willing to abandon. If they did continue to rule, it should be because they were willing to bear “the burden of dominion” in the service of God.

Now, immediately after this, we move from kings to God.

“Either thou or someone else hath said... the Babis believe in his (Baha'u'llah's) Divinity and Godhood.”

That's quite a jump. Baha'u'llah is being accused of being compared to God Himself. But His response is not at all what we might expect.

“Divinity, whenever I mention it,” He writes, “indicateth My complete and absolute self-effacement.”

That's an interesting answer to a charge of claiming Godhood. Muhammad-Taqi and others appear to be reading these statements as the greatest imaginable claim of self, while Baha'u'llah describes them in terms of the complete absence of self. He even says that in this station He has no control over His own welfare, His life or His resurrection.

Baha'u'llah has just taken kingship, something we generally associate with privilege and power, and turned it into a burden carried in service to God. Now He does something similar with the accusation of Divinity. What looks like the greatest possible claim to personal authority is described as “complete and absolute self-effacement”.

In the Iqan, Baha'u'llah explains the two stations of the Manifestations of God. In one station They speak with the voice of servitude, while in the other They speak with the Voice of God. Statements that can appear contradictory begin to make sense when we understand the station from which They are speaking. And here Baha'u'llah doesn't merely explain this to Muhammad-Taqi. He points him back towards his own religious tradition.

He begins with Moses and the Burning Bush. Moses heard the Word spoken from the Bush and accepted it. Then Baha'u'llah points to statements attributed to Muhammad and the Imams, all containing language that would be very difficult to understand if taken in a simple literal sense. These kinds of statements didn't suddenly appear with Baha'u'llah. They are already there in the tradition Muhammad-Taqi accepts.

And then there is a little passage that I'm not entirely sure what to do with. Baha'u'llah speaks of the person who has purified himself from “idle fancies and vain imaginings”, torn away the veils of doubt and turned towards the Most Great Prison. He describes the Word of God as shining like the sun among the books of men and says, “Happy the man that hath discovered it, and recognized it”. Perhaps this is simply the wonder that comes when those old statements suddenly begin to make sense. I don't know. But there does seem to be something joyful here, almost a sense of discovery after the difficulty of the preceding passages.

Then Baha'u'llah returns directly to the accusation. People, He says, “have failed to perceive Our purpose in the references We have made to Divinity and Godhood”. Once again He points to Muhammad, who spoke of the different relationships between the Messenger and God. And then Baha'u'llah asks a rather obvious question: if people are going to quote His statements about Divinity, why don't they quote the other things He has said?

“Aside from this,” He asks, “why is it that thou didst not mention those other stations which the Abha Pen hath disclosed?”

Ah. Cherry picking.

If you're going to quote Baha'u'llah saying something that sounds like a claim to Divinity, then surely you also have to deal with His statements affirming the unity and oneness of God. You have to deal with His prayers asking God to draw Him near and detach Him from everything else. You have to deal with Him saying that He is “abashed to claim for Himself any existence whatever, how much more those exalted grades of being!” It isn't enough to pull out one statement and build an accusation around it. You have to look at the rest of what He says and try to understand how the statements fit together.

Then Baha'u'llah gives us an image that brings the whole question of power back down to earth. Literally.

Everything that is the source of our “prosperity”, “wealth”, “might”, “exaltation”, “advancement and power” comes from the earth beneath our feet. The person who truly understands this, He says, is cleansed from “pride, arrogance, and vainglory”.

That's quite an image after all this talk about kings. However high you rise, however wealthy or powerful you become, you are still standing on the very thing from which your wealth and power ultimately come. And you're standing on it with your feet.

Then He looks at the body again. Baha'u'llah asks God to grant people “hearing ears, and sharp sight, and dilated breasts, and receptive hearts”. We've seen all of these before, and now they appear just as Baha'u'llah says that He never hesitated to proclaim His Cause.

This seems important in light of the accusation He has just answered. Baha'u'llah isn't saying that people misunderstood Him because He was coy about His station. He didn't hide it. He proclaimed it openly. The problem wasn't that He failed to speak clearly. The problem was that people didn't have the ears to hear what He was actually saying.

And one of the groups to whom He proclaimed it was to the rulers of the world.

The first example Baha'u'llah gives Muhammad-Taqi is Napoleon III. Apparently Napoleon had made some statement about Baha'u'llah, and a Tablet had been sent to him while Baha'u'llah was in Adrianople. Napoleon didn't reply. Later his minister wrote to Baha'u'llah offering assistance, but even that reveals a misunderstanding. The minister seems to have assumed that Baha'u'llah wanted material help.

After everything we've just read, that almost seems funny. Baha'u'llah has been explaining that He has no desire for leadership, that His references to Divinity indicate self-effacement, and that worldly sovereignty itself is something a king should be willing to abandon. And the minister thinks He wants something from Napoleon.

So Baha'u'llah shows Muhammad-Taqi what He actually said to him.

He certainly doesn't hide His station. “The Most Mighty Bell hath appeared.” Napoleon is told that “He Who is the Unconditioned is come”, and that if he were to incline his inner ear he would hear all created things proclaiming, “The Ancient of Days is come in His great glory!” There are the ears again, too. “Give ear, O King, unto the Voice that calleth from the Fire which burneth in this verdant Tree”.

Oh, and there is the Burning Bush again.

Only a few paragraphs earlier Baha'u'llah used the Burning Bush to help explain how language about Divinity can be understood. Now He uses precisely that language in addressing Napoleon. This isn't something He explains privately to Muhammad-Taqi while carefully avoiding it when speaking publicly to a king. He says it openly.

But look at what He asks Napoleon to do with his power. He tells him to arise and serve God. He tells him to help the Cause. He speaks of benefiting mankind. He reminds him that what he possesses will perish. Again and again, the power of the king is turned away from the king himself and towards service.

Then the tone changes.

Baha'u'llah recalls something Napoleon had said about the Crimean War, claiming that the cries of the oppressed had awakened him. Baha'u'llah tells him plainly that this wasn't true. “We tested thee, and found thee wanting.” Had Napoleon been sincere, Baha'u'llah says, he would not have ignored the Tablet sent to him.

Remember, this is a prisoner speaking to an emperor.

He doesn't merely criticise him. He warns him. “For what thou hast done, thy kingdom shall be thrown into confusion, and thine empire shall pass from thine hands”. His pomp will not endure. His possessions will pass away. The man who possesses enormous earthly power is being told by a prisoner that he is about to lose it.

But even here Baha'u'llah tells him to “arise, and make amends”. The rebuke isn't condemnation for the sake of condemnation. Napoleon is still being told what he can do to avoid this fate.

Eventually Baha'u'llah tells him that his subjects “are God's trust amongst you”. There's the purpose of kingship again. The people aren't possessions of the king. They're a trust. He is to watch over them, prevent wolves from becoming shepherds, turn towards the poor and desolate, and use his position in service.

Napoleon had power. Baha'u'llah looked at what he did with it and rebuked him.

Then He turns to the Czar of Russia, and the tone is noticeably different.

Baha'u'llah remembers that while He was “chained and fettered” in the prison of Tihran, one of the Czar's ministers offered Him assistance. He doesn't forget that. Instead He tells the Czar that because of this act God has ordained for him a station, and warns him not to “barter away this sublime station”.

That is quite different from the way He addresses Napoleon. There is still a warning, but it begins with acknowledgement. Something good was done under the Czar's authority, and Baha'u'llah recognises it.

Then He encourages him to go further. “Arise thou amongst men in the name of this all-compelling Cause, and summon, then, the nations unto God.” He asks him to listen, to recognise, and to act.

And once again Baha'u'llah speaks of His own condition. His body may be “beneath the swords” of His enemies, but His spirit is filled with a joy beyond anything the earth can offer. Even here, in an address to another of the most powerful rulers in the world, He isn't asking to be rescued from His suffering. He is asking the ruler to recognise what has appeared and use his own power accordingly.

Napoleon is rebuked. The Czar is encouraged.

And then we come to Queen Victoria.

Here Baha'u'llah does something else. He praises her.

He begins, as with the others, by proclaiming His station and calling upon her to listen. “O Queen in London! Incline thine ear unto the voice of thy Lord”. But then He mentions something she herself has actually done. He has heard that she has forbidden the trading of slaves, and says, “This, verily, is what God hath enjoined in this wondrous Revelation.” He even says that God has destined a reward for her because of it.

Then He praises another aspect of her rule. “We have also heard that thou hast entrusted the reins of counsel into the hands of the representatives of the people. Thou, indeed, hast done well”.

That phrase is wonderfully simple. “Thou, indeed, hast done well.”

Napoleon is an emperor. Alexander II is a Czar. Victoria is a Queen. Baha'u'llah isn't moved by the titles. He looks at what each ruler has done, and reacts to that.

Napoleon claimed concern for the oppressed, but Baha'u'llah tested that claim and “found thee wanting”. The Czar's minister helped Baha'u'llah when He was imprisoned, and Baha'u'llah remembers the act and encourages the Czar to build upon it. Victoria has acted against the slave trade and allowed representatives of the people a role in government, and Baha'u'llah praises her for it.

Rebuked. Encouraged. Praised.

I think that's the heart of these paragraphs for me, and why I find it useful to see them all as part of one section, one movement.

Baha'u'llah has spent a great deal of this Epistle telling Muhammad-Taqi about justice and equity. He has repeatedly asked him to be fair-minded. He has told him to look at the fruit produced by religion, knowledge and leadership. And now He shows him what that fairness looks like when He Himself considers the rulers of the world.

He doesn't condemn kings because they're kings. But He doesn't praise them, either, just because of their titles. He looks at what they do with the power they've been given.

And that makes me wonder again about Muhammad-Taqi, and why Baha’u’llah is addressing these passages to him.

He isn't a king, but he has power. People listen to him. His words influence what they think and what they do. Baha'u'llah has already reminded him of one way he has used that power: he told people to curse Baha'u'llah and decreed that the blood of the servants of God should be shed.

Now Muhammad-Taqi has been shown three rulers.

One used his power in a way that earned Baha'u'llah's rebuke. One was reminded of good that had been done and was encouraged to do more. And one was praised for her actions that benefited the people.

Perhaps the question Baha'u'llah has been asking the kings is also the question He has been asking Muhammad-Taqi all along. What are you doing with the power you've been given?

The Power of Kings, ESW 55-67

Muhammad-Taqi is a man respected for his knowledge, and Baha'u'llah tells him that it is incumbent upon him to summon people towards “spiritual characteristics and goodly deeds”. We have seen what religion is supposed to produce, what knowledge is supposed to produce, and what the influence of a religious leader is supposed to produce. Now Baha'u'llah turns towards another group of people with influence, although on a somewhat larger scale.

“We pray God... that He may graciously assist the kings of the earth... to establish the Lesser Peace.”

I have to remind myself what it meant to be a king when Baha'u'llah was writing this. The American and French Revolutions had already challenged the old ideas of monarchy, and the revolutions of 1848 had shaken Europe. The Russian Revolution was only a few decades away. The whole question of political power was up in the air, and yet many of these rulers still exercised a degree of personal authority that is difficult for me to imagine today. Within their own realms, their word could quite literally determine whether someone prospered, suffered imprisonment, or even lived or died.

And Baha'u'llah asks them to limit themselves.

He tells them to convene a gathering, reduce their armaments and agree together upon measures that will ensure peace. In other words, these nearly all-powerful rulers are being asked to surrender some measure of their ability to act entirely as they please and begin acting as members of a larger community. And then there is a little detail I hadn't noticed before. Baha'u'llah says that the kings can send representatives to this gathering, but that it would be “preferable and more fitting” for them to attend themselves. Why?

I have to imagine what it would have been like if they actually did that. Imagine being one of these kings, accustomed to people waiting upon you, your word law, the highest unquestioned authority wherever you went. And now you travel to a gathering where everyone else is a king, too. Nobody there is your subject. You have to sit with them, listen, negotiate, and eventually agree to limits on what you yourself can do. You even have to think about the welfare of people who don't belong to your kingdom. I don't know if this is why Baha'u'llah says it would be “preferable and more fitting” for the kings themselves to attend, but I can imagine what such an experience would do to their understanding of their own power. It feels like an education in the true use of that power.

And if they don't do this, if they don't convene that gathering, the consequences fall upon their people. Baha'u'llah points to the enormous expenditures required for armies and says that they have placed an intolerable burden upon the population. The very military power that demonstrates the strength of the king can impoverish the people he is supposed to protect. His solution, though, is not simply to replace one military power with another, but to limit those armies to what is necessary for internal security. Then He points to the power of justice.

“Justice is a powerful force. It is, above all else, the conqueror of the citadels of the hearts and souls of men, and the revealer of the secrets of the world of being...”

And there are those citadels again. We've already seen Baha'u'llah tell His followers to “Unsheathe the sword of your tongue from the scabbard of utterance, for therewith ye can conquer the citadels of men's hearts.” We've seen weapons converted into instruments of peace, armies composed of wisdom and utterance, and the sword of virtuous character and upright conduct described as sharper than blades of steel. Now, while speaking to kings about reducing their armaments, Baha'u'llah tells us that justice is a “powerful force” capable of conquering those same citadels. Military power looks enormous until Baha'u'llah places another kind of power beside it.

But He doesn't stop there. He moves on to the power of knowledge, and in this case, a specific knowledge which, if applied, would largely, though not entirely, eliminate fear. “Whatever decreaseth fear increaseth courage.” And there is that question of useful knowledge again. Baha'u'llah doesn't merely speak of possessing this knowledge. He talks about what happens when it is applied. It produces something. It changes people. He goes on to say that, should God assist Him, He could explain this knowledge at length and reveal things in the arts and sciences that would “renew the world and the nations”. He even speaks of a word in the Crimson Book which is “capable of fully disclosing that force which is hid in men, nay of redoubling its potency”.

This is an interesting thing to say immediately after talking about the power of kings and armies. The kings possess military power that can impose their will upon nations. Justice possesses the power to conquer hearts. And now Baha'u'llah speaks of knowledge that can reduce fear, increase courage and reveal powers hidden within us. The further we go, the less obvious it becomes what we mean when we call someone powerful.

And that makes the next paragraph even more interesting. Baha'u'llah has just spoken of these extraordinary possibilities, but then says, “This Wronged One hath never had, nor hath He now any desire for leadership.” He isn't offering all of this as a means of gaining a throne. His aim, He says, is to extinguish the fire of hatred and enmity so that “the whole earth may come to be regarded as one country”.

Then He starts talking about miracles.

At first this can feel like another diversion, but I'm sure it isn't. Baha'u'llah certainly doesn't seem to be saying that miracles are impossible. Elsewhere He recounts how the clergy asked Him to perform one, and He agreed. He told them to choose the miracle themselves, but asked that they first agree in writing that, if He performed it, they would recognise His Cause. They never took Him up on the offer.

Perhaps that helps explain why miracles aren't the point here. A miracle may be an extraordinary demonstration of power, but what does it actually produce? Generally, a miracle can be a distraction. Instead of looking at the teachings, people ooh and aah over what can be seen as a magic trick. How often do people talk about the miracle of the loaves and fishes, while ignoring the incredible teachings in the sermon that preceded it? And so Baha'u'llah keeps directing Muhammad-Taqi back towards the teachings themselves, telling him to consider what has been revealed and to seek the counsel being offered.

But instead of doing this, people are spreading stories about Him. One of them claims that fifty thousand tumans are being sent to Him every year from Persia. Baha'u'llah's response is actually kind of funny. If this were true, He says, then perhaps people should be impressed. Here He is, a prisoner in Akka, with no worldly assistance, and somehow He has managed to establish such power over Persia that an enormous annual revenue is being sent to Him. That would be quite an achievement.

But it isn't true.

The reality is almost the opposite. Baha'u'llah describes the prisoners sometimes being without even the bare necessities, with some reduced to breaking stones for a living. The rumour gives Him wealth and influence. The reality gives Him imprisonment and deprivation. Once again, what power looks like from the outside and where it actually lies seem to be two very different things.

And still He doesn't retaliate. Enemies surround Him. Hatred has been kindled against Him. Accusations are spread about Him. Yet He continues to call people towards what is good, and repeatedly explains that His purpose is not to seize authority but to bring about unity. He has already told Muhammad-Taqi what His followers are to do: show good character, avoid contention, cleanse hearts of hatred, benefit mankind. If we're trying to understand the power Baha'u'llah is exercising, perhaps we need to look at what His influence causes people to do.

Even here, though, He doesn't present these teachings as merely His own programme. He points beyond Himself. What He has proclaimed, He says, comes from God. Once again the question isn't simply whether Muhammad-Taqi believes what other people are saying about Baha'u'llah. He is being asked to look for himself. Look at what Baha'u'llah has actually done. Look at what He has taught. Look at what those teachings produce.

And then the whole question of kingship seems to flip over.

Baha'u'llah began this section by telling the kings what they should do. They should gather together, reduce their armaments, protect their people from the burdens of war and establish peace. But by the time we reach paragraph 67, He tells the king that if he truly understood what was before him, he would regard his sovereignty as “the most contemptible of thy possessions”, abandon it to whoever desired it, and turn towards God.

But He doesn't quite leave it there.

“Neither wouldst thou ever be willing to bear the burden of dominion save for the purpose of helping thy Lord, the Exalted, the Most High.”

The burden of dominion. That's quite a change from where we began. These kings possess a degree of authority that is almost unimaginable to me. They sit at the top of their realms, surrounded by subjects who obey them, commanding armies capable of conquering other nations. Yet Baha'u'llah asks them to limit that power, to sit among their peers, to listen and negotiate, and to use their authority for peace. Along the way He shows us the power of justice, the power of knowledge, the power hidden within people, and the curious limitations of miraculous power. He tells us that He has no desire for leadership, and then finally tells a king that sovereignty itself is among the most contemptible of possessions.

Unless he is willing to carry its burden in service to something greater.

Perhaps that is the final change in how power appears in these paragraphs. Kingship begins as something a person possesses. It ends as a burden he carries.

The Leaves of Paradise, ESW 49-54

We just spent eighteen paragraphs looking at knowledge, and particularly at the difference between knowledge that merely “begins with words and ends with words” and knowledge that actually produces something. Baha'u'llah praises the arts and sciences that “bring forth their fruit”, and after showing us the transformation of the Babis and the teachings that helped bring it about, He concludes by saying that “knowledge is a veritable treasure for man”.

Now He turns back to Muhammad-Taqi, a man respected for his knowledge, and tells him what is incumbent upon him: “to summon the people, under all conditions, to whatever will cause them to show forth spiritual characteristics and goodly deeds”. Given that only a short while ago Baha'u'llah reminded him that he had “bidden the people to curse Me, and decreed that the blood of the servants of God be shed”, I have to ask, does asking them to spill blood count?

Then Baha'u'llah quotes “the first leaf of Paradise”. A leaf? Didn't we just read something about leaves? Only a few paragraphs ago He described us as saplings planted by the hand of Loving-kindness in the soil of mercy, watered by the showers of bounty. He then said, “Now is the time for you to put forth your leaves, and yield your fruit.” We already know what the fruit is, because He told us explicitly: “The fruits of the tree of man have ever been and are goodly deeds and a praiseworthy character.” But He never told us what the leaves were. And now, almost immediately afterwards, He begins quoting from the Leaves of Paradise.

The first Leaf begins with the fear of God. I wrote about this many years ago (here is but one example), because the phrase “fear of God” used to bother me. It sounded too much like being afraid of God, which never made much sense to me. Eventually I began thinking of it more as reverential awe. When I'm sitting in a room thinking about myself and the things I have to do, I can seem pretty significant. But expand the view a little. Think about the size of the earth, then the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, and suddenly my place in all of that becomes very different. I can imagine myself in five minutes time, or envision what I might be doing next year. I can even think that someone may stumble across some of my writings five or ten years after I die. But what am I doing today that will make a difference in a hundred years? Or a thousand? Or a hundred billion years? And that is still only a drop compared to God’s eternity. As I wrote back then, “I am so inconsequential, it is not even funny.” And the conclusion I came to was simple: “And so when God sends down a Messenger, I pay attention.”

That seems particularly appropriate here, because Baha'u'llah has been asking Muhammad-Taqi to pay attention almost from the beginning of this Epistle. Give ear. Listen. Ponder. Meditate. Turn towards God. Now He tells him that “the fear of God hath ever been the prime factor in the education of His creatures”, and describes it as “a sure defence and a safe stronghold”. But then He adds something else: shame. “Indeed, there existeth in man a faculty which deterreth him from, and guardeth him against, whatever is unworthy and unseemly, and which is known as his sense of shame.” I've written about this before, too (again, here is a single example), and the simplest way I could think of putting it back then was that guilt is past tense, while shame is future tense. Guilt responds to something I've already done. Shame, in the sense Baha'u'llah seems to be using it here, can stop me before I do it. It “deterreth” and “guardeth”. Then He makes the curious observation that this faculty “is confined to but a few; all have not possessed, and do not possess, it.” Given what Muhammad-Taqi has already done, and what Baha'u'llah has just reminded him of, I can only imagine how those words might sound to him.

Then comes the second Leaf of Paradise, and it continues something we've seen repeatedly throughout these passages. Religion is judged, at least in part, by what it produces. “Religion is, verily, the chief instrument for the establishment of order in the world, and of tranquillity amongst its peoples.” A few paragraphs ago the arts and sciences were praised when they were conducive to “the well-being and tranquility of men”. Earlier still, religion was described as a means for establishing unity and fellowship. Again and again, Baha'u'llah seems to direct us towards the results. If religion is supposed to produce order and tranquillity, what happens when a religious leader uses it to stir up hatred? If religion should help protect people, what happens when it is used as a justification for spilling their blood?

Then Baha'u'llah says, “It is Our hope that thou wilt hear with attentive ears the things We have mentioned unto thee, that perchance thou mayest turn men away from the things they possess to the things that God possesseth.” There are the ears again, but I find myself wondering about that last phrase. What does God possess? Everything, surely. He is, after all, the All-Possessing. So what exactly is Baha'u'llah asking Muhammad-Taqi to turn people towards? I don't know that I want to answer that too quickly, but look at what surrounds the statement: fear of God, shame, religion, justice, equity, mercy, wisdom, loving-kindness, good character and upright conduct. These are very different possessions from reputation, rank, authority, wealth or even learning. Muhammad-Taqi possesses knowledge, or at least is regarded as someone who does. He possesses authority and influence. Yet Baha'u'llah began this Epistle by describing God as the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing and the All-Wise. Whatever Muhammad-Taqi thinks he possesses, how does it compare with what God possesses? His knowledge against the All-Knowing? His power against the All-Powerful? His wisdom against the All-Wise?

This leads straight back to justice and equity, and then to an image we've already seen: shepherds and wolves. Earlier we saw the false shepherd who was really a wolf preying upon the flock. Here the followers of Baha'u'llah are told, “Ye are the shepherds of mankind; liberate ye your flocks from the wolves of evil passions and desires”. This time the wolves aren't people. They're our own evil passions and desires. It would be very easy for a religious community to imagine itself as the flock and everyone opposing it as the wolves, but that's not what Baha'u'llah says. The danger is something that can arise within us, and once again He points to the fear of God as a protection against it.

And then another weapon appears: “The sword of a virtuous character and upright conduct is sharper than blades of steel.” By this point there is quite a collection of transformed weapons in the Epistle. We've seen weapons converted into instruments of peace, the sword of the tongue drawn from the scabbard of utterance, and armies composed of wisdom, utterance, good character and praiseworthy deeds. Now the sword sharper than steel is virtuous character and upright conduct. This follows beautifully from what Baha'u'llah has just said about knowledge. Knowledge that begins with words and ends with words isn't enough. The knowledge He praises bears fruit, and here it becomes character and conduct powerful enough to be compared to a sword. And, as if we haven't heard enough about the voice already, the passage continues with “The voice of the true Faith calleth aloud...”

Then we come to the third Leaf of Paradise: “O son of man! If thine eyes be turned towards mercy, forsake the things that profit thee, and cleave unto that which will profit mankind. And if thine eyes be turned towards justice, choose thou for thy neighbor that which thou choosest for thyself.” There seems to be an expanding field of vision here. The first Leaf begins within the person, with the fear of God and the sense of shame. The second moves outward to religion, order, tranquillity and the responsibilities of leadership. Now the third asks us to move beyond what profits ourselves towards what profits mankind, and to choose for our neighbour what we would choose for ourselves. Religious authority can so easily be used to protect our own status, our own community, our own understanding of the truth. But Baha'u'llah keeps widening the horizon. The purpose of religion isn't the triumph of one faction. It is unity and fellowship. Justice isn't merely for people we approve of. It is necessary for the tranquillity of nations. Mercy asks us to turn away from what profits ourselves and towards what profits mankind.

And then all this language about listening reaches an extraordinary conclusion. “Were the world of the spirit to be wholly converted into the sense of hearing, it could then claim to be worthy to hearken unto the Voice that calleth from the Supreme Horizon...” The entire world of spirit transformed into the sense of hearing. At the beginning of the Epistle, Muhammad-Taqi was told, “Give ear.” Since then Baha'u'llah has returned again and again to listening. Give ear to His voice. Hear with attentive ears. Listen to the loved ones of God. And now even the whole world of spirit, if transformed into the faculty of hearing, would only then be worthy to listen to this Voice.

Which brings me back to the first Leaf and the fear of God. When I tried to understand that phrase years ago, I ended up thinking about scale. The universe is so vast, time is so immense, and I am so tiny within it all. And so when God sends down a Messenger, I pay attention. Muhammad-Taqi is a learned man, a respected man and a powerful man. People listen to him. Perhaps Baha'u'llah is suggesting that one of the first responsibilities of a religious leader is to learn how to listen.