I recently re-watched a little video from the BBC about Hamlet's soliloquy which begins "To be, or not to be..." What was amusing was the way all these wonderful actors came on-stage to try and get the actor to place the emphasis on a different word. What was wonderful was how the changing emphasis really changed the way we understand what was written.
Well, that got me thinking.
As you know, dear Reader, I love to look at the Writings from many different perspectives. After all, that's one of the amazing things about Sacred Text. You can read so much into it, as long as you don't ignore to basic meaning.
Anyways, I decided to look at the beginning of the Kitab-i-Iqan, the Book of Certitude, and see what would happen if I emphasized different words.
As you probably know, it begins:
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 Bayán.
If we begin at the beginning, then we can easily see that "NO man" shall be able to attain those shores without this detachment. That's pretty basic. In fact, it's pretty much the way all of us read this.
If we emphasize the second word, "no MAN" will attain this station, then we might inadvertently begin to read it in a sexist way, perhaps thinking that He's only addressing the males of the species, while totally ignoring the other areas in the Writings where He talks of gender equality. But when we take into account the statements about translation as offered by the Guardian, then we more appropriately read it as "no HUMAN BEING" will attain this station and begin to get a slightly better understanding of our station as a human. (Of course, if we are fans of Lord of the Rings, then we can read it as admitting a woman can attain this station...)
Ok, ok. We can do this all day. We can make similar statements about all the other words, too. For example, without this detachment, the emphasis on "shall" implies that it is not a given, even though being detached doesn't imply that we are guaranteed success. Emphasizing "attain" implies that no matter our striving, we will fail without this detachment. Emphasizing "shores" implies that there are other parts to this ocean. Emphasizing "of" or "the" implies that we are taking this exercise to a silly extreme.
But when we place the emphasis on "true", then we begin to glimpse that there are some understandings that are not true. You see, "understanding" just means that we interpret something in a particular way. It doesn't mean we're right. But "TRUE understanding" means that we have grasped the intended meaning, or at least one of the intended meanings. It means that our understanding is in accord with reality.
Of course, one of the things we need to be detached from is "heaven", which, when emphasized, gives us a slightly different take on the whole phrase. In this case, it is a good reminder that our love of heaven, or even our love of the Holy Writings we follow, can prevent us from recognition. Later in this very book, paragraph 27, Baha'u'llah hopes that "the overpowering majesty of the Word of God may not prevent them from attaining unto the ocean of His names and attributes, nor deprive them of recognizing the Lamp of God".
Of course, if we emphasize "earth", then it is a powerful reminder not to let the material world get in our way.
In the second sentence, when we emphasize the word "your", the implication is, again, a bit different. It is our own soul we are responsible for, not anyone else's.
And if we, instead, emphasize "that station which God hath destined for YOU", this is suddenly much more personal. Baha'u'llah is not speaking to some faceless entity. He is talking to me. He is talking to you. He is talking to each and every one of us.
Like I said, we can do this all day. Every word, when emphasized, gives a slightly different meaning to the whole text. As He says so powerfully, "Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame, if ye be of them that comprehend this truth."
But why is this important? To me, it is a reminder that we all approach the Writings from a different perspective. Even when we re-read a piece of them, we can find something new to emphasize because we are in different state of mind. We have grown since we last read it. We have changed, and therefore our perspective of the Writings has changed, too.
And that, dear Reader, is yet another reason to dive deep into this ocean. We never know what we may find.
