MasterKey

Transformation of the Will

2011-02-21T12:09:00.000-08:00

In one of the Persian Hidden Words (number 19), Baha'u'llah gives the following admonition:

"O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings."

This Hidden Word is particularly challenging in the nature of its wording, its mystical and timeless qualities, and its intensity of directness. It is not oblique or vague but still it is mysterious. Let's look at the entire text for a larger sense:

O MY FRIENDS!
Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awe-struck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you."

This particular Hidden Word really catches me to stillness. Here I just want to offer a comment briefly on the central admonition and its structure, and what it means to me.

Elsewhere in this blog I have noted that a typology or pattern of three appears in many sacred texts as a repetitive motif. For example, the three days of the resurrection, the three lands of the Exodus journey, the three lands occupied by the sons of Noah after the flood, the three days of Jonah in the belly of the whale, the three days' journey alluded to in the Exodus and by Jesus in the Gospel of Luke, the three stages of healing the blind man in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8), the three children of Adam and Eve (Cain, Abel, and Seth), and so on. There are many more examples of this repetitive motif. Baha'u'llah Himself utilizes it in some ways, such as when he refers to wayfarers moving on three differing planes in the Seven Valleys. If we were to try and organize these various repetitions of the motif into a meaningful array, it would be as symbolic of a hierarchy of spiritual development and progression from a relatively undeveloped state of attachment to worldliness, through an intermediate state or condition of struggles to become unattached, to a state of purity or detachment from worldliness. Thus:

Egypt > Wilderness > Promised Land
Cain > Abel > Seth
Day 1 > Day 2 > Day 3 (of the resurrection)
Blind > Unfocused vision > Clear Vision (healing of the blind man)
and so on.

In the Persian Hidden Word number 19 we find that the central admonition has this same, three-tiered structure. But the symbolism of it is stripped away and it becomes a very direct, imperative statement. Further, it is "top down" in that it starts with the third condition and descends to the lower second and first. So we will number them in this way:

3. Prefer not your will to mine.
2. Desire not that which I have not desired for you.
1. Approach me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings.

The structure is compelling owing to its heuristic quality. First, we recognize the imperative need to eliminate desire, which defiles. Desire appears twice, in the first or lowest level of the hierarchy and then again in the second level. We cannot begin to approach God when we have ephemeral, worldly desires, lusts, cravings, compulsions, obsessions, proclivities, and aims. These desires occupy the human heart and crowd God out of it.

Desire appears in the second level or statement, and most appropriately now within the realm of choice in this second tier. We can indeed choose to "desire not" should we wish to do so. It becomes a matter of generating the will power to accomplish this more favorable desire: to choose to desire not. The will becomes a means either to continually seek those ephemeral satisfactions or find the means to disengage from them. Transforming the will into the latter tool -- the means -- requires spiritual assistance and power, that comes from God and is accessible through prayer, meditation, and following God's law through actions. In this way the Holy Spirit engages with our own spirit, and our motivations and intentions change. Even if we are deeply engaged in a difficult desire such as an addiction, we can find freedom from it through this process of disengagement, otherwise called detachment. But we are hopeless to achieve it without admitting to our own powerlessness and accepting the divine assistance.

The last or third component of the admonition focuses on the will itself, quite separately from the use of the will to chase and obtain ephemeral desires. Here, we perhaps can discern God's desire that we give ourselves entirely. Our will in effect ceases to exist. Elsewhere Baha'u'llah notes that reunion with God means uniting our own will with God's will. Thus the third stage is complete.

The focus on the will, and transforming our own will and ultimately leaving that will behind, is a powerful message. It reminds me in some ways of the 12 step program for treatment and recovery from addiction, where very early on one has to capitulate to one's powerlessness and accept a higher power, if there is any chance of success in overcoming the addiction's power. The role of "will" in this process is evident.

A gate at Bahji

2010-09-14T12:57:00.001-07:00

Too high art Thou for the praise of those who are
nigh unto Thee to ascend unto the heaven of Thy
nearness, or for the birds of the hearts of them who are
devoted to Thee to attain to the door of Thy gate.
~Baha'u'llah

Noah and the Flood: Perspectives from a Baha'i

2010-08-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

Recently, Brent Poirier posted at his website and published at Huffington Post an analysis and interpretation of the story of Joseph and his brothers and father Jacob as related in the book of Genesis in the Bible, and in the Qur’an. Here is a link to his posting: http://bahai-insights.blogspot.com/2010/07/story-of-joseph-further-reflections.html. His analysis was cogent and stimulating and, from my point of view, a welcome exercise and one we Bahá’ís should be willing to engage in. Some time ago, and after a discussion with some people about the story of Noah and the flood in the book of Genesis, I cobbled together the following ideas about an interpretation of it. It has certain similar elements to it that parallel the Joseph account. Overall, I believe it can be taken as an extended allegory with what is essentially the same intention as the Joseph story, that is, to portray with both broad brush strokes and in detail the process of the coming of the Manifestation of God to mankind, and how mankind responds, and what the various events and processes are that encompass and surround these processes and resultant interactions. Like the Joseph story, the story of Noah and the flood must be taken as entirely symbolic.

Brent hasn’t (yet) written an interpretative posting of the Noah and flood account per se, although he has alluded to it at this posting: http://bahai-insights.blogspot.com/2010/08/lover-dry-in-sea.html and as follows:

In the days of Noah, those who entered the Ark of His faith were protected from the flood that “drowned” everyone else on the earth. (Genesis 7:19-23) The Bahá'í Teachings state that the Ark and the flood were not actual physical events. Rather, the Ark is a symbol of the divine Covenant in every Age, and “drowning” means being occupied with the things of this world instead of the things of God.

“The Ark and the Flood we believe are symbolical." (From a letter written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, October 28, 1949: Bahá’í News, No. 228, February 1950, p. 4; Lights of Guidance, 2nd edition, p. 508, #1716)

Brent goes on to make reference to the spiritual meaning of being “dry” and to the significance of the Ark in sacred scripture, and provides a very useful sample of Bahá’í Writings which help in forming a synthesis of these matters. In particular, he identifies the Ark as a symbol of the Covenant between God and man, as reinforced by the Teachings and Laws of the Manifestation of God. Reading his posting inspired me to put my ideas about the Noah and flood narrative into a better form and post it here. Thanks to Brent for the inspiration on this matter and for his nicely phrased and structured postings.

Bahá'u'lláh provides an interpretive framework and rubric in His Kitáb-i-Íqán or Book of Certitude which allows an approach to such stories at the level of symbolism. It requires a lifetime of study and reflection on this book, and His many others, in order to develop and appreciate the interpretive framework He provides; and I do not lay claim to having absorbed it in any fullest measure. It seems to be dimensionless ultimately in its scope, and requires a concerted effort on the part of the seeker including preparing one’s heart and working on matters of detachment. One of my favorite texts from Him on this matter of interpretation leading to understanding and knowledge, actually comes from His epistle entitled The Seven Valleys, which He wrote in response to some queries from a friend He had made in Kurdistan. This friend He had met while He was in retreat and seclusion for two years in Kurdistan in the mid-1850s, having left Baghdad and His family and the small Bábí community behind for a time. The friend, a man named Shaykh Muhyi'd-Din, was a judge by profession and a Sufí within the Qadíríyyih Order. He had written to Bahá’u’lláh with queries about mystical poetry and related matters. In the section of the treatise in response to these queries, called The Valley of Unity, Bahá’u’lláh wrote:

"Thus, for that they move on these three differing planes, the understanding and the words of the wayfarers have differed; and hence the sign of conflict doth continually appear on earth. For some there are who dwell upon the plane of oneness and speak of that world, and some inhabit the realms of limitation, and some the grades of self, while others are completely veiled. Thus do the ignorant people of the day, who have no portion of the radiance of Divine Beauty, make certain claims, and in every age and cycle inflict on the people of the sea of oneness what they themselves deserve."

Here we can see that Bahá’u’lláh indicates that different people may have three different levels of understanding spiritual matters (what He refers to as "planes") and that differences in understanding lead to conflict. We might imagine that those who He refers to as in the "grades of self" and "completely veiled" have but a superficial and literal understanding (let's call it Plane 1); those who inhabit the "realms of limitation" have a somewhat better but still limited understanding, perhaps mostly intellectualized or rationalized (Plane 2); and finally there are those who dwell upon the plane of oneness (let's designate it, for purposes of illustration only, as Plane 3) and have a higher understanding that we might think of as spiritual or decidedly nonliteral nor rationalized (that is, they understand with the discerning capacity of the pure heart). This notion of a symbolic intention of the Plane 3 connotation relates well to the direct statement cited above and made on behalf of Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, that “The Ark and the Flood we believe are symbolical.”

Bahá’u’lláh notes that the "sign of conflict" appears on the earth because of these different levels of understanding, which we might see to be the conflict which emerges within and amongst religions when people literalize and concretize symbolically portrayed teachings, thus creating exclusivity and self-righteousness, leading to superstition, bigotry, and religious wars. This is actually an historical pattern, as Bahá’u’lláh clearly recognized by noting that it happens in “every age and cycle.” But the main thing here is that there are indeed different levels of understanding, and that they can be classified generally into a hierarchy of three's, as He indicates by the “planes” symbolism.

Given this very brief mention of the way that Bahá’u’lláh describes how any one might approach a story with latent symbolism, and the clear statement from the Guardian Shoghi Effendi, let’s consider the story of Noah and the flood. From a literal or scientific point of view (fitting these two interpretative stances to Planes 1 and 2 as above, respectively) we can see that the account from Genesis is nonsensical. A literal interpretation requires that everything happened historically as described, but there is no evidence for it and it defies reason. It is not possible for all living things to be paired up and fitted onto a small wooden ship, for example. Yet people still look for evidence of an ark on Mount Ararat. There are other elements of the account that cannot be accepted reasonably. Of course, this particularly story is one which is used commonly in arguments between people with a Plane 1 approach to it and to religion in general, and those who discard it as irrational and instead argue for either dismissing it as nonsense or interpreting it in some more mundane, mythological, or rational way. The second way or Plane 2 to approach the text is to rationalize it in some way, usually by reducing it to a reasonable account. For example, a scientific study might reveal that indeed at one time a flood occurred in the region of the middle east, or some other event might be postulated that could fit the scenario, and that the remainder of the story is simply embellishment and mythology. This satisfies many scientists as well as some believers, but typically engenders a negative response from those in search of the ark on Mount Ararat and who believe the account must be taken as literally true. Finally, there is the third way (Plane 3) in which the account is considered as an extended allegory, with layers of symbolism. Let’s have a look at how it might be understood in this “Plane 3” way from my personal perspective, as a Bahá’í.

We can discern that Noah is an archetypal representation of the Universal Manifestation of God, the Word, Who visits mankind from age to age in differing garb (human temple) but is the return as Bahá’ís understand it. That is, from age to age the Manifestation of God appears in the form of the human temple to mankind to reinvigorate the spiritualization process through teachings and laws, as a process of renewal and as a form of new creation. It is like a molt of an insect, to borrow from biology. The old stage was useful but is now discarded as the new stage emerges, but the insect remains the same although it is also different. The name of the person who receives the theophany and arises to proclaim this new message, at the close of each age and the beginning of each age, is different and new each time. So one of the most important messages of the story of Noah is that He receives this theophanic call from God, announces it, proclaims that mankind is in spiritual peril, and that He is role is to rescue mankind from that peril. There are many other archetypal representations of the Manifestation of God with stories like this, including Joseph, Moses, and Jesus. They are presented as models or “types” for us to understand symbolically. So, broadly speaking, we can approach the account of Noah, the ark, the flood, and His family as symbolic of the appearance of the Manifestation of God on earth in a given age or time frame. A careful study of it will reveal the account’s dimensions along these lines.

In sacred scripture, seas and oceans are often used to describe spiritual uncertainty, fear, and spiritual difficulty, i.e., ignorance of spiritual verities of life and the vital necessity of their application. Thus we read of the flood waters in the Noah account, the story of Jonah swallowed by a sea monster, Moses dividing the Red Sea and allowing the Israelites to cross it (but the Egyptians drowning in it), Jesus walking on top of water and rescuing his sinking disciples, and so on. The Qur’an has a wonderful similitude to guide us in our understanding of how “sea” or “ocean” should be understood in this manner (Surih 24, translation from Yusuf Ali):

“Or (the Unbelievers' state) is like the depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean, overwhelmed with billow topped by billow, topped by (dark) clouds: depths of darkness, one above another: if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! for any to whom Allah giveth not light, there is no light!”

Spiritual ignorance (lack of light) seems to the referent to the symbol of “vast deep ocean” in this text. The meaning is clear: it is the depraved spiritual condition of the individual, symbolized by immersion in the ocean (or sea), that should be the focus of attention.

We can now discern that the story of the flood is not about physical water, but rather about a spiritual flood of darkness (ignorance; turning away from the laws and teachings of God as revealed by the Manifestation of God; humanity becoming immersed in selfish and materialistic pursuits). Noah comes as the “return” to “renew” and to “resurrect” the spiritually-darkened humanity, and to rescue humanity and provide security from the dangers of the materialistic flood. His ark is a representation of His teachings and of the security they provide from the sea of ignorance and materialism. It is also a symbol of the teachings and laws that any Manifestation of God provides, in any age. The duration of rains of “40 days and 40 nights” is also quite symbolic and aligns with the 40 years in the wilderness in the Exodus account, the 40 days of Jesus’ in the wilderness, and to several other accounts where the number 40 with a time measure are joined. The flood story has nothing to do with a literal time period of 40 days of continuous rainfall, which from a scientific point of view is highly unlikely.

We note that a key element of the story is that mankind scoffs at Noah as He builds his ark, the means of security, and disbelieves in His warning signs. They laugh about it. Few take him up on the offer to join Him and his family (representing His small gathering of believers early in His ministry) in the spiritual safety of His teachings and laws, which are enshrined in the eternal Covenant. Instead, they remain engaged in their earthly and mundane pursuits. This feature of the story – rejection – occurs each time the Manifestation of God appears. It is tragic and unfortunate but a central feature of the archetypal presentation.

The animals that pair up as male and female and enter the ark are particularly problematic to a literal or rational interpretation. How might they be understood in this Plane 3 level of understanding, a spiritual way? Here is one possibility and I do not claim to have certain knowledge of it, by any means. Each pair of animals represents, in a sense, a single human being. We learn in the Bahá’í Writings, as well as from other sacred and mystical texts, that “male” and “female” are terms that refer to different elements of the human condition such as “spirit” and “soul” or “higher” and “lower.” The Adam and Eve story can be understood in this way. Some ancient so-called Gnostic texts refer to a woman becoming a man, which is nonsensical unless understood as a spiritual change from a lower state to a higher state. The Apostle Paul used the categories of women and men in this way as well, although he is often mistaken literally in this regard. Abdu’l-Baha in some of His Writings noted that the female gender is sometimes used in ancient scripture to represent symbolically the “soul” of man and also as the participant in a marriage as a bride to the Holy Spirit in a kind of spiritual marriage. One illustration of this is in the New Testament story of the marriage at Cana (yet another symbolic narrative that often is taken as historical). This somewhat sexual imagery is not retained in the Bahá’í Dispensation, and it is rather misogynistic when viewed from the standpoint of feminism or in the historical subjugation of women generally by men, but it does occur in the sacred texts of religions in previous ages and cycles symbolically and we cannot ignore it. In some ways it betrays a certain prejudice against women, reflecting the relative inequality of women with men. But in other ways, we can understand it as a form of symbolism in which all people -- men and women -- are symbolized as females in the receptive mode for the spirit delivered by the new teachings, which are in this coupled model the male symbol. In the flood story, the pairs come together on the ark, as if uniting spiritually. This process is in mystical terminology called the “syzygy” or blending of the lower and higher elements of human spirituality into a union or whole, making a new person entirely; like a rebirth or resurrection. So, the Manifestation of God makes a safe haven (His Teachings and Laws) which function like an ark in protecting mankind from drowning in a sea of a-spirituality; and it provides a context for their spiritual fulfillment by enabling the process of syzygy or spiritual completion.

Then there is the matter of Noah’s wife and sons. His wife is not named, supporting the symbolism of the story in that Noah and his wife are really representative of a single person, or of mankind in general, and not meant to represent a married couple in the literal sense. There were three sons named: Japheth, Ham, and Shem. Their descendents are said to populate the earth after the flood, but in different regions of the earth. These three are really a direct reflection of the three sons of Adam and Eve, namely, Cain, Abel, and Seth. The reader will discern a pattern of three here just as in a pattern of the three planes of understanding that Bahá’u’lláh described in the text from The Seven Valleys cited above. These three sons are best thought of as “spiritual children” or spiritual offspring of the archetypical Noah and His wife who together represent symbolically all of mankind in its integrated response to God’s Word. The three sons, in one sense, represent the three planes Bahá’u’lláh refers to: (1) the materialist or animal/sensory self (Cain); (2) the wayfaring and searching human soul (Abel); and (3) the higher spiritual self (Seth). This tri-partition of human reality is a ubiquitous theme in mystical and sacred scripture and practice, and aligns with the 3 days of the resurrection and the 3 regions of the Exodus account (Egypt > Wilderness > Promised Land). The notion of spiritual offspring also aligns with the idea of the syzygy of lower and higher spiritual natures described above. In other words, the fruits of our own individual lives may take the course of a Cain, an Abel, or a Seth, all depending upon whether and how we activate our willpower to respond to God’s call. Bahá’ís might discern that these “offspring” or “sons” align with Abdu’l-Bahá’s description of the tri-fold nature of “man:” animal, human, divine. We can even find it symbolized in the three horizontal lines of the Bahá’í ring symbol. All of these descriptions are attempts to bound the human condition and describe it in its various states; they edify by showing that we can be “raised up” on the “third day” to the spiritual reality latent in us as a trust from God.

Of interest is that the Qur’an records a fourth son of Noah, in the Surih of Hud, Noah had a fourth son who is not named. He refused to board the ark, and consequently drowned. We may find some interesting symbolism in this description, with further investigation and contemplation. For example, there seems to be a basement of debased spiritual existence, below that of the “first day” or the status of Cain, as reflected by the text from The Seven Valleys cited above: “while others are completely veiled.” Further, the narrative description of the raising of Lazarus from the dead indicates that he was dead for four days, and not three. A fourth and unnamed son of Noah, and one who perished in the flood, would be consistent with this interpretation as a symbol of a truly spiritually dead state.

Noah’s three sons are said to populate the earth after the flood waters recede. Some authorities of the Bible have constructed maps to suggest which regions of the world were populated by them, consistent with a literal interpretation of this part of the narrative (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_of_Noah). However, as with the rest of the flood account, we can easily realize that such an understanding is inconsistent with a scientific point of view and cannot be considered to be historically accurate given what is known about anthropology and geography; nor is there any reason to consider the account to be historical once the process of peeling away the symbolic layers of the story has begun. Rather, each region of the earth becomes symbolic of the three natures of “man” as we have just discussed above.

The final element of the Noah story which is important to discuss has to do with the final resting site of the ark on a mountain. In the Genesis account, it is Mount Ararat. But just as we have seen with the symbolic use of sea, ocean, and flood waters, so too is use of the term mountain symbolic in sacred context. A mountain is a symbol of a high spiritual place (not geographic, but rather spiritual condition). Mount Zion, Mount Sinai, Mount of Olives, and Mount Carmel are used in this way. It is therefore highly significant that Bahá’u’lláh visited Mount Carmel with a few of his followers and family after His release from imprisonment in Akka, and while there He stood up and addressed the mountain, telling it that soon He would sail His ark upon it. He also instructed His eldest son, Abdu’l-Bahá, to inter the remains of the Báb on the mountain side. Now, some 120 years later, we can visit Mount Carmel and physically see Bahá’u’lláh 's ark. In this sense, He aligns His appearance and His effect on mankind like a new Noah, with His ark (=arc) taking shape as the Bahá’í spiritual centre with its buildings and gardens is established on the side of the mountain. The Shrine of the Báb sits in the midst of a terrace of indescribably beautiful gardens. Many Bahá’ís I have known become quite emotional when considering Bahá’u’lláh ’s visit to the holy mountain; and His Tablet of Carmel and Tablet of the Holy Mariner, where these expressions can be found. The spot where Bahá’u’lláh made His pronouncement of the Tablet of Carmel is currently marked by an obelisk on that mountain; it is situated near the upper cave of Elijah, by an elementary school just off of Tchernikovsy Street. The Bahá’í friends refer to it as the Temple Land.

The final resting place of Noah’s ark and the rainbow that appeared near the end of the account are symbolic expressions of the eternal covenant of God with man, the teachings and laws that provide the spiritual security than mankind needs; and these are things that the Manifestation of God provides and renews each time He appears. In this sense, we can also interpret the story of Noah and the resting place of His ark as a prophecy of the Bahá’í Dispensation and the appearance of the Ark of Bahá’u’lláh on God’s Holy Mountain. The correspondence is striking.

The arc of gardens and adminstrative buildings representing the "ark" of Bahá’u’lláh's dispensation is shown at the right, on the north facing slope of Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.

Portico of the Center for the Study of the Texts, Haifa

2010-07-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

This building, designed by Hossein Amanat as the third building in the arc splayed across Mount Carmel as part of the Baha'i administrative and instructional facilities and garden terraces, was particularly striking to me for its form, beauty, admittance and acceptance of natural light, and its siting. Both indoors and outside, the building inspired because of a sense of openness and also because of the psychological effect of the light (see the posting "skylight" for an example of this effect). Of course, light is a sacred symbol of knowledge in the Baha'i as well as all other religions of which I am aware; darkness being its opposite (ignorance). Thus, the open light and the theme of the building, a place to study and open oneself to the sacred texts for the purposes of acquiring knowledge, combine well.

Mount Carmel: Stairways Old and New

2010-07-21T10:50:00.000-07:00

The contrast between the old stairway up Mount Carmel, and the new one consisting of the Baha'i terraces with associated gardens, struck me deeply. Here are photos of both, looking up.

Three Ascending Gates at Bahji

2010-07-20T11:34:00.001-07:00

The Most Great Prison: Akka

2010-07-20T11:01:00.001-07:00

These images are of the prison city, Akka, where Baha'u'llah and His family and a small group of followers were imprisoned and confined beginning in 1868. The top image shows the outside of the prison barracks and the window from which Baha'u'llah would wave to pilgrims who would come to see Him but who would be prevented from meeting Him and so would have to stand outside to catch a glimpse. The next image was taken inside the prison cell and shows the view looking out of the window towards the exterior moat, where pilgrims would stand. The third image is of the caravanserai where visitors would often stay, sometimes for extended periods, during the time of Baha'u'llah. It is undergoing renovation.

Skylight at the Center for the Study of the Texts, Baha'i World Center, Haifa

2010-07-20T10:56:00.000-07:00

Pilgrimage Recollections

2010-07-20T10:45:00.001-07:00

My pilgrimage impressions and recollections are starting to coalesce. Originally I intended to write a daily diary or log but it turned out not to be possible, mostly because my emotional state was such that I didn’t want to take the time to do it. Or rather, the act of doing it felt inconsistent with being a pilgrim. But now I can start to sketch out some things and may as well post them. I’ve always appreciated when others who returned from pilgrimage posted their thoughts and feelings, so will do so here as well.
Several stories or vignettes come to mind. That’s a good start. The dates were June 21-29, 2010.

Getting there …

My flights took me through New York City. I arrived in LaGuardia and had to transfer to Kennedy by ground shuttle, so had to collect my checked bag in LaGuardia. To my amazement, my bag was the very first one onto the baggage carrousel, the first bag off of the plane! I took it as a sign.

In Tel Aviv, after passing through customs and immigration and hitting an ATM for some shekels, I walked out into the main airport reception lobby where there was a huge mass of people. However, I immediately spotted the Baha’is, individuals and groups. Or rather, we all spotted each other. There was eye contact, recognition, greetings, and … “how are we all going to get to Haifa together?” The sense of unity, closeness, affection, and common purpose was immediate. We had arrived early in the afternoon from several different flights and knew that we had been given the restriction of not arriving into Haifa until the evening (after 8:30 PM), so we had a consultation amongst us. The group had grown to about 35 people. One of the friends had a cell phone and a contact for sherut service, so he made the call and arranged for pickup at 7:30. That gave us several hours in the airport, so we sat together, bought plates of fruit and watermelon slices from a concession, and chatted and became acquainted. It was so peaceful. Already time had stopped, and space didn’t matter. It was just … being. Then the sheruts arrive and it was time to go. Our particular sherut had writing on the outside of it … “Haifa Symphony Orchestra!” Ha.

Israeli anecdotes …

Friendly Taxi Driver. One of the mornings, not the very first because I walked down the terraces at 7 AM on that day, I took a taxi from the Markaz area down the mountain to Hazionut 14, where the pilgrim reception center is located. The taxi driver, a burly Israeli with two days’ of beard growth and white shirt sleeves rolled up over his hairy forearms, was delighted to take me, asking if I was a Baha’i once he heard me say the address of my destination. “I love the Baha’is! You bring beauty to Haifa! Allah’u’Abha!” he said to me, as he dropped me. He was kind enough to drive down Puah Street and behind the center, past the Shifrah gate, and back up Hazionut Avenue so that I could get off on the side of the street directly in front of the center and not have to cross the avenue, which can be very busy in the mornings.

Guard at the Gate. One of the last days of the pilgrimage I walked down the entire terrace with Bjornar and Ralph, two of the friends in our group. Bjornar is from Trondheim, Norway (my ancestor’s home town on my mother’s side). Ralph is from Hastings, Nebraska. A picture of them is posted here. At the bottom gate, where the terraces meet Ben Gurion Avenue, stood an Israeli guard along with two of the young Baha’i volunteers, all in uniform and the Israeli man carrying a side arm. We three pilgrims were inside the gate and making ready to walk to the small grove of cedars where Baha’u’llah had once pitched his tent. Just then a group of four young Indian people walked up, possibly students or maybe tourists. They inquired about entry into the gate, in English, to tour the grounds. The Israeli guard replied to them in Hindi! The Indian visitors laughed at that! Then he switched to English, and explained as he checked their backpacks that “one of these young Baha’is is teaching me Hindi.”

12th Day of Ridvan II

2010-05-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

O ESSENCE OF DESIRE!

At many a dawn have I turned from the realms of the Placeless unto thine abode, and found thee on the bed of ease busied with others than Myself. Thereupon, even as the flash of the spirit, I returned to the realms of celestial glory and breathed it not in My retreats above unto the hosts of holiness.

O BOND SLAVE OF THE WORLD!

Many a dawn hath the breeze of My loving-kindness wafted over thee and found thee upon the bed of heedlessness fast asleep. Bewailing then thy plight it returned whence it came.

********************

Why do we busy ourselves with the ephemeral, vain, and useless? Why do we turn our backs and go back to sleep when the Dawn Light breaks?

12th Day of Ridvan

2010-05-02T08:50:00.000-07:00

Bahá’u'lláh in the Garden of Ridvan
by Robert Hayden

Agonies confirm His hour,
and swords like compass-needles turn
toward His heart.

The midnight air is forested
with presences that shelter Him
and sheltering praise

The auroral darkness which is God
and sing the word made flesh again
in Him,

Eternal exile whose return
epiphanies repeatedly
foretell.

He watches in a borrowed garden,
prays. And sleepers toss upon
their armored beds,

Half-roused by golden knocking at
the doors of consciousness. Energies
like angels dance

Glorias of recognition
Within the rock the undiscovered suns
release their light.

Significance of Six: A Baha'i Perspective

2010-04-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Numbers weave through sacred scripture and spiritual language in a vague formulary. Large and small, they appear in odd places and in strange presentations, repetitively, like the painted lines on roads, or road signs along thoroughfares, appearing and disappearing whilst one is on a long drive. Modern philosophers and mathematicians may think of mystical numerology as medieval and passé, something that ought to be confined to the past along with alchemy and magic. However, if we consider the matter carefully and comparatively, set aside for a moment our technologic-materialistic construct of the world and the limited framework it provides for a perception of reality, we may come to a different understanding of the meaning of numbers. We might come to realize that numbers are quite similar to words … ARE words … in that they symbolize or portray a meaning, with variable relational contexts. Numbers then become, like words, images or reflections of an essential meaning.

A number may not merely suggest a quantity appreciable in the modern vernacular. Even today, numbers are used in ways that extend outside of simple mathematics of known and identifiable quantities, equations, and proofs. They represent the unknown, qualitative, or superlative. For example, when sports fans call their favorite team “Number One,” they mean that their favorite team is the best. It is a qualitative assessment. Even if the team is not ranked in the particular sport as the best, or doesn’t have the best record of wins, the fans may think of their team as “Number One” out of their heartfelt feelings of loyalty and pride. Being Number One is relative; a team that is Number One in its particular league and sport may be far inferior to another team in a different league where the training and experience are deeper. In US military parlance (coming out of the experiences of Southeast Asia and the Vietnam War), calling someone or something “Number 10” is referring to that person or thing as the worst. If a boss calls an employee “My Number 2” it signifies that she considers that person as next in authority to her at the work place. Numbers are not only nouns, but modifiers. A number standing alone is just that, a bare number with no referent, whereas six eggs is half of one dozen individual food items, each of significant value. A hungry person would much rather have 6 eggs than just the number 6. A poultry farmer would much rather have 6 fertile eggs than 6 infertile ones. There are both qualitative and quantitative connotations to the modifier six in this illustration. So it is with the use of numbers in mystical and spiritual contexts, with emphasis particularly on the qualitative meaning.

What’s that? The qualitative meaning of numbers? The paradoxes have started already.

Explorations of the use of numbers as qualitative modifiers of spiritual referents reveal much. Such use is ancient, not arbitrary, and well considered as to method and intent. It most definitely is not mumbo jumbo made up by crazed, sun-baked mystics. Some examples come from the Semitic languages. For example, the abjad system associates numbers and letters in the Arabic language and in Islam, where letter-word-number combinations conjure mystical connotations and symbolic motivations. The disconnected letters of the Qur’an provide an example and have invoked much thought and speculation as to their meaning, ranging from the nonsensical to the sublime. The gematria system in Hebrew and Judaism, related closely to the abjad system linguistically, similarly establishes word-number relationships that have either mundane, sacred, or mystical connotations depending upon the particular point of view (secular, rabbinical, or Kabala). The exact origin of this system is unclear, but may have roots and influences in Mesopotamia, Ancient Greece, and Phoenicia, places where philosophy, mathematics, spirituality, and contemplation were highly developed. It most likely emerged as language emerged within advancing degrees of cultural sophistication, including written language and formulation of alphabets and numbering systems. Further, gematria manipulates numbers in ways unfamiliar to the modern usage, such as through triangulation, summation, and reduction. One needs to read carefully to sift through returns from internet searches for information on this topic, to differentiate the more carefully thought-out material from the trivial. Of course, there is a good scholarship to consult as well.

Numbers weave into language and sacred writings commonly, making one curious as to why, how, and by whom? It suggests that numbers can be a gateway to sacred meaning, and a door to knowledge and understanding. For example, mathematicians refer to the number 1 as “unity.” It means that all other numbers can return to 1; that is their foundation. When we speak of oneness, or “at-one-ment,” we expand the mathematical meaning to some spiritual or mystical meaning. Oneness becomes a matter of consciousness, that is, an understanding or perception of reality. Just as a diverse set of numbers can be reduced to one through mathematical manipulations, so can the diverse and often contending races, religions, ethnic groups, and nations of human beings be contracted to one. In this present age, no longer can anyone hold to the notion that one race, nationality, or religion is superior to another, or has a hold on truth or the path to salvation exclusively. In fact, such a notion was never true, but historical circumstances and prejudices allowed it to become fixed in peoples’ minds; its falsity is becoming clearer now, in the present age of universality. The Babel of many numbers becomes the clarity of one number. How could different people possibly view the number one differently? It is a unifying concept. Using this kind of thinking, and by conceptual transference, we can begin to understand how the various Prophets – or as Bahá’ís call them Manifestations of God – are one in essence despite their different names and places of origin, just as the repetitive risings of the sun, although given different names of the day and different dates of the months of the year, are still names of the same sun. There is only one, universal, Manifestation of God just as there is only one sun. Yet, there are many sunrises and so that one sun has been assigned many names.

Another way to look at numerical diversification and its ultimate unification is at the individual level. Although this idea is explored more below, it is important to consider in a preliminary way. An individual human consists of physical (sensual), psychological (intellectual and emotional), and spiritual dimensions which can be highly divided and fragmented into a “mixed multitude” (a term from the Exodus story) of contending urges, compulsions, obsessions, desires, thoughts, motivations, intentions, and actions. One person is thus many things. The popular public figure and former basketball star Earvin “Magic” Johnson is a case in point. He describes himself as sometimes Earvin (a relatively quiet and thoughtful and even somewhat withdrawn man) or Magic (an outgoing, more aggressive personality). He can be both, and is very aware of the dichotomy in his being and social presentation. The affective range of an individual human across these dimensions is very wide and flexible, allowing for the willful expression of what seems to be an infinite variety of perceptible and imperceptible qualities and traits. Layered into this expression are innate capacities such as intelligence and genetics; and acquired or cultivated ones derived through application of the common faculties of knowing, imagination, and understanding. Yet it seems that people find happiness when this great diversity settles into a singleness or integrated wholeness. The classic description of the process of exorcism, ridding a person of their demons, seems to be related to this idea; where the fragmented, destructive, interfering, and untamed elements of one’s personality are shed so that the torment and inner conflict resulting from them is thereby eliminated. Anyone who has had to “defrag” the hard drive on their computer, and purge their computer system of unwanted viruses and worms, will appreciate the importance of this process to the efficient functioning of the computer’s software-hardware operation, at least symbolically and also perhaps directly. It is here that we can firmly reject the implications of the saying “the devil made me do it” as there is no outside, evil force compelling negative behaviors and attitudes. They emerge from that Mixed Multitude and from the ego-dominated and self-insistent personality that might come to dominate one's psyche, if we allow it.

According to the Bahá’í Writings, the entire universe is folded within (i.e., potentially revealed in) each human being:

Likewise, reflect upon the perfection of man's creation, and that all these planes and states are folded up and hidden away within him. “Dost thou reckon thyself only a puny form when within thee the universe is folded?” (The Seven Valleys, p. 33, with a statement attributed to the Imam Alí in quotation marks).

However, that “universe” can only be realized and made apparent when the lower, limiting, demonic elements of one’s psyche are effectively eliminated (or subtracted out), as the very next lines of text in The Seven Valleys indicate:

Then we must labor to destroy the animal condition, till the meaning of humanity shall come to light. (The Seven Valleys, p. 34)

*********************

In his analysis of the way the Báb utilized the number 1, the Bahá’í author and scholar Nader Saiedi in his book Gate of the Heart: Understanding the Writings of the Báb noted as follows [brackets inserted for emphasis]:

According to various writings of the Báb, all numbers proceed from 1, and 1 proceeds from the absolute One that transcends the limits of numbers. That absolute One is the Point; thus all proceed from the Point. Likewise, all words are expressions of the first letter of the alphabet, Alif (a vertical line [ا]) [written in Arabic: ألف], which proceeds from the written point. The most important implication of this idea is the principle of the unity of all things. All things proceed from the Primal Unity, which in turn proceeds from the Point. All things should be regarded as manifestations, reflections, and mirrors of the Point. We enter the realm of truth when we see in all things nothing but the Point.

For the non-Bahá’í reader, there is obviously some difficult terminology in this passage and it reflects the complex and detailed structure of the Báb’s Writings, which have not been readily available in authoritative English translations except for some compilations. Casual, uninformed, or biased readers can easily miss, or might choose to dismiss, the intention of the Báb’s Writings. A careful reader of Dr. Saiedi’s book will be rewarded with clarity on such matters, as he has attempted to remedy the heretofore lack of access to the Báb’s Writings through his own reading and analysis of them, presented reverently and scholarly and through consultations with staff at the Center for the Study of the Texts at the International Bahá’í Centre in Haifa. Briefly, the Point and Primal Unity both refer to the source of true knowledge, wisdom, and revelation, which becomes apparent and perceptible through the Universal Manifestation of God, a spiritual entity and source of spirit, also known by such designations and names as the Word, the Logos, the Lord, the Ancient of Days, Melchizedek, the King of Kings, and Wisdom. However, as the passage above shows, the Point as a word condenses these diverse descriptions to a single source, a “Point,” to which the Primal Will or creative impetus of all things can be attributed. The Point is the source of the creative Will of God (and not, in any sense, the means of access to knowledge of God directly). Because all things (Kullu Shay’) comprising the infinite diversity that represents divine creation owe their existence to this single creative Will, all things can indeed be said to be united and one. To demonstrate that Dr. Saiedi’s statement “which proceeds from the written point” is correct, one simply needs to put pen to paper and write the vertical line that represents the first stroke of the letter Alif. In doing so, the very first mark on the paper is a point as the pen touches down. The mark of the letter “Alif” in Arabic, a single vertical stroke, is therefore a number 1 whose origin is a single point.

Dividing a number by itself -- symbolically representing detachment from material things -- yields one. A number divests itself of all that it has before it can return to oneness and unity. If the camel wishes to pass through the eye of the needle, it must first divest itself of its burdensome pack load, rid itself of all attachments, and become solely itself, one thing, and not more than that. Dividing a number by one, symbolically representing differentiation in creation, returns that same number. Similarly, it is possible to add a set of one’s together to arrive at any other positive number. It is not possible to do that solely with any other number. One multiplied by itself once, or many times, is still one. One is unique in this regard. All things come from one source, become highly and infinitely differentiated in the realm of creation, and return to one.

“We all come from God, and unto Him do we return.”

The number one as framed in the conceptualization stemming from the Báb’s statements has important implications for the inherent process of spiritual growth, and its limitations and parameters. One subtracted from itself, removing the self entirely, becomes zero, which is no-thing or nothingness. The great medieval mystic Meister Eckhart observed succinctly that "God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction." In the Bahá’í vernacular, the candle gives its light by dripping away its wax, drop by drop. Eliminating zero completely is emptiness, a step beyond nothingness. In mathematics, it is the empty set. In mystical experience, it is beyond nothingness. The goal of the spiritual seeker is to find that place, to subtract and subtract and subtract, until even zero falls away. What is there, in that empty place, so it is said, is beyond description; but it is ultimate and truly real. The human will gives way and the Divine Will takes over; the two wills thus are united in reunion. With great effort and divine assistance, so we are assured, reunion can be attained. Subtraction and detachment are equated here. So did the Báb write: “I have sought reunion with Thee, O my Master, yet have I failed to attain thereto save through the knowledge of detachment from aught save Thee.” (Selections from the Writings of the Báb, p. 201). And elsewhere, in a deeply intimate prayer, the Báb writes of scaling “the noble heights of detachment.” (Selections from the Writings of the Báb, p. 206). Detachment (subtraction) becomes a divine imperative, worth our every constant effort, as Bahá’u’lláh Himself concluded: “Let it now be seen what your endeavors in the path of detachment will reveal.” (The Hidden Words). Detachment is not an abstraction; it is a delimiting process in spiritual growth, and belongs in the realm of action.

Bahá’u’lláh has elucidated the complex relationship between differentiation and unification when the spiritual seeker is attempting to know and understand God, as follows:

Regard thou the one true God as One Who is apart from, and immeasurably exalted above, all created things. The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures. This is the true meaning of Divine unity. He Who is the Eternal Truth is the one Power Who exerciseth undisputed sovereignty over the world of being, Whose image is reflected in the mirror of the entire creation. All existence is dependent upon Him, and from Him is derived the source of the sustenance of all things. This is what is meant by Divine unity; this is its fundamental principle.

Some, deluded by their idle fancies, have conceived all created things as associates and partners of God, and imagined themselves to be the exponents of His unity. By Him Who is the one true God! Such men have been, and will continue to remain, the victims of blind imitation, and are to be numbered with them that have restricted and limited the conception of God.

He is a true believer in Divine unity who, far from confusing duality with oneness, refuseth to allow any notion of multiplicity to becloud his conception of the singleness of God, who will regard the Divine Being as One Who, by His very nature, transcendeth the limitations of numbers. (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 165)

Finally, with regard to creation, the emergence of physical existence from nothingness, and the origin and subsequent diversification of all things, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá remarked as follows in the compilation called Some Answered Questions (p. 180, bold for emphasis):

It is necessary, therefore, that we should know what each of the important existences was in the beginning -- for there is no doubt that in the beginning the origin was one: the origin of all numbers is one and not two. Then it is evident that in the beginning matter was one, and that one matter appeared in different aspects in each element. Thus various forms were produced, and these various aspects as they were produced became permanent, and each element was specialized. But this permanence was not definite, and did not attain realization and perfect existence until after a very long time. Then these elements became composed, and organized and combined in infinite forms; or rather from the composition and combination of these elements innumerable beings appeared.

Later, and apparently to complete this thought but in a response to a different question, He observed that: “The organization of God is one; the evolution of existence is one; the divine system is one. Whether they be small or great beings, all are subject to one law and system.” (Some Answered Questions, p. 198).

Given these comments above, “oneness” and the notion of “one” as a sacred number as well as a mathematical formulation are established.

*********************

Keven Brown reviewed the term Primal Will (Brown, K. 1990. A Brief Discussion of the Primal Will in the Bahá’í Writings. Bahá’í Studies Bulletin 4:2, pages 22-27) and identified aliases (that is, synonyms) of it from Bahá’í sources, namely: Universal Mind, Command [of God], First Remembrance, and the Word of God. Brown associates the Primal Will with the “metaphysical reality of the Manifestations of God” and emphasizes this association with a text from the Báb: "It is the Primal Will which appeareth respondent in every Prophet and speaketh forth in every revealed Book.” [Selections from the Writings of the Báb, page 126]. The conclusion is that a single motivating reality emanates from God, establishes the creative process of God’s Will, and motivates the earthly actions of the Manifestations of God as they are perceived by men, making them united and one from age to age.

In Islamic mystical thought, this single motivating reality is symbolized by the point under the letter “B” in the opening verse of the Qur’an. The first verse - "In the Name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful!" - is composed of 19 letters in Arabic. The letter "B" begins the verse, and that letter "B" incorporates a dot or point beneath the letter (Arabic, ب). The mystical significance is that the initial "B", the "19 letters of the first verse", the first chapter, and the entire Qur'an were generated from this tiny, first point; its “oneness.” This alphabetical reduction has its origins in a well-known tradition from Islam attributed to the Imam Ali. The Báb associates this alphabetical point symbolically with the Primal Point, i.e., the metaphysical reality of the Universal Manifestation of God. Dr. Saiedi amplifies on the complex symbolism that the Báb utilizes, as follows:

[T]he Báb creates these symbols to represent a metaphysical world view of unity – a consciousness of the universal solidarity of all beings, of the presence of the sign of God within all reality, and of the need to see in nature and in society nothing but the manifestations of the same divine creative Action.

The Báb Himself confirms that “all things” (Kullu Shay’; the totality of all existence) can be found in a single dimension of that existence known as the human reality or the human heart, a dimension that has immense capacity in comprehension and manifestation:

Verily hath God created within thyself all that He hath fashioned in creation in His likeness, that thou mayest not be veiled from any effulgence. Verily God hath generated within thy being the entirety of His manifestations. He hath ordained that his home be the heart of His servant …

In this sense, the human heart becomes anchored to the Point, as a home and receptacle of the knowledge of all things. The main theme to consider, then, from the standpoint of the Point as a creative entity (the creative Word of God) is that One Thing becomes All Things which return to One Thing. The detached human heart comprehends these relationships. The theme as the Báb has expounded concerns the nature of existence and structure of reality, ontological being, epistemology, truth, the intimate connection between man and God, and the Gate or pathway establishing and facilitating that connection. It also validates the conceptualization of unity as expressed numerologically by the Báb. How so? The word for “one” and “unity” in Arabic is Váḥid ( واحد ). The Arabic letters composing this word sum to 19 in the abjad system. This number is extraordinarily sacred, powerful, and symbolic in the Bábi and Bahá’í dispensations, a topic which extends beyond the scope of this brief reflection, but is well worth detailed exploration, through long moments of quiet contemplation. It seems to be a qualitative and quantitative signification of a new creation. It seems in a certain way to replace the number 40 and its significance in the past dispensations but this is speculative and we will not elaborate more on this idea here (except see below).

*************************

Mystics assign significance to different numbers in various ways, but there is some common ground about meaning. The number 7 denotes completion. It appears in the 7 days of creation; on the seventh day, God rested, and the creation was complete. Others emphasize the 7 stages of God’s creative process, or the seven conditions (cities, valleys, castles) of the human soul as it passes on a spiritual journey, as outlined in The Seven Valleys. The number 7 appears to be one containing or representing great transformational power, but we have not discussed the number-power relationship in detail. In part, that power comes from the way numbers illuminate meaning and enable comprehension of symbolism.

The number 9 is the last number in series before the cycle of 10’s starts over. The number 9 reflects perfection. Thus, 9 is the last number, or the perfect number, and in that sense is a powerfully creative and rejuvenating number. Some traditions recognize the number 9 as signifying revelation. It is the number of Bahá in the Arabic abjad system. Thus, the number 9 and the appearance of Bahá signify a great “starting over” of divine revelation and a new grand cycle of God’s covenant with man, one that all previous appearances of the Manifestion of God anticipated under a seal of the last revelation of the Prophetic cycle, that of Muhammad. All the previous appearances of the Manifestation of God become subsumed under it, and consumed by the intensity of the brief, hot flame of the Báb.

The number 40 appears in several traditions: According to Rumi, the “formation of Adam” required 40 days, when he asked rhetorically: “Because God's method is to work by slow degrees, Why did the formation of Adam (i.e., Man) take forty days?” (The Mathnávi, volume 6). Here, it is important to recognize that use of numbers in these symbolic ways may overlap. The number 40 and the number 6 (leading to 7) overlap in this particular instance. We will see another example of this kind of numerical overlap, or correspondence, below with regard to the number 3 and the number 6. Noah’s ark floated for 40 days. The Israelites wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. The temptation of Jesus lasted 40 days. The trials of Buddha lasted 40 days. Bahá’u’lláh’s exile and imprisonment lasted 40 years, from 1852 to 1892. The Qur’an indicates that a man reaches spiritual maturity at the age (i.e, upon attainment) of 40 years and indeed this text may have influenced Rumi’s perspective cited above:

[W]hen he attaineth full strength and reacheth forty years, he saith: ‘My Lord! Arouse me that I may give thanks for the favour wherewith Thou hast favoured me and my parents, and that I may do right acceptable unto Thee. And be gracious unto me in the matter of my seed. Lo! I have turned unto Thee repentant, and lo! I am of those who surrender (unto Thee).’ (The Qur'an, Sura 46, translation by Pickthall).

It is highly unlikely that the active expression of the symbol-number 40 in these ways is a coincidence, although some might argue the point that they are not connected. By connecting them here, I do not intent to introduce a syncretism, but rather to show a spiritual synthesis across these various traditions. Indeed, it would be up to those crying “syncretic” to demonstrate their case. Perhaps more importantly, the number 40 as it appears in the fast of the Lenten period, and in the passover observance, and in the fast of Ramadan; and in the way it is used variously as described above; becomes a symbol of the process of annualized renewal of the human spirit as it progresses away from materialistic existence towards spiritualized existence.

The number 3 also appears commonly, such as in the three days of the resurrection, the 3 day journey of the Israelites into the desert, the 3 days of Jonah in the belly of the leviathan, the three sons of Adam and Eve, the three sons of Noah and the three lands they re-populated on earth, the three men in the fiery furnace, etc. The postings Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places and Dying to Live review the recurrence of the number 3 as spiritual geography and spiritual time, reflecting motifs and typologies that relate to the spiritual journey of the soul.

In conclusion, it would appear that numbers, like words, powerfully carry “spirit” which is the appearance of knowledge and meaning into the world of creation from the unseen realm. A person who has accrued new knowledge and understanding in furtherance of their spiritual growth has certainly been empowered. Thus, one function of the qualitative, mystical use of numbers is in empowerment.

*************************

The number six comes up quite a bit. It is intriguing. It is typologically repetitive in the Bible, embedded in various narratives in various ways: six jars of water (turned to wine) in the wedding story of Cana (interestingly, said to occur on the third day); six husbands of the woman at the well; six days to the creation of man; 600,000 Israelite men left Egypt on the Exodus; the sign of triplicated sixes on the forehead of the beast. Why the repetition, why six, why in these texts? It also appears in the Writings of the Báb and those of Bahá’u’lláh, particularly in the Prayer for the Departed, where the verses at the end of the prayer, the only one said in congregational style at funerals or commemorations of the recently dead, sum to six.

A close examination of the diverse ways in which the number 6 is used, as above, may allow the development of an understanding of the number 6 as a symbol for transition. By transition is meant “nearly there,” or at amid-point between “not there” and “arriving there.” In this context, “there” refers to the supreme moment of spiritual achievement extending past material existence and material attachments, when a good bit of the subtraction has already taken place. It is like being mid-way to your destination when on a journey, but in a position to continue on to your destination, or to turn back. It is, in this sense, a representation of “man” (that is, any soul, or all of humanity individually and collectively) in the spiritually transitioning state, facing those challenges (suffering through trials and difficulties) where detachment operates favorably to further the subtraction of those unwanted qualities and attributes. It reduces the problem of the contending mental Mixed Multitude towards a unified and tranquil spiritual state.

If we consider “man” from the perspective of the Bahá’í writings (or, for that matter, of any spiritual perspective), we can see that “man” is always in the process of becoming, of transitioning. This is my understanding of the soul, which is a dynamic, developing entity, at the interface of earth and heaven, creation and revelation. The human soul is “barzakh” (Arabic: برزخ‎ meaning both a barrier and an isthmus) or transitional crossing point between the existential realms of earth and heaven, the salty and the sweet seas, and the imaginal realm of similitude (alam-al-mithal) and the realm of the spiritual and angelic (alam-al-malakut; and the higher realms it precedes). Interestingly, when pronounced, the word barzakh contains six sounded letters: b, a, r, z, a, kh. It is a representation of 6. Let us for the moment conclude that a foundational use of numbers spiritually is through their expression of similitude (likeness or image) and through their stimulation of imaginative thought, in the realm or world called by mystics of the Sufi tradition, and within the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith, the alam-al-mithal.
Let’s now examine some of the sacred texts mentioned above in which the number 6 appears, and reflect on their meaning given the idea expressed above. First, we will examine the Biblical texts in English, using Young’s literal translation from New Testament and Hebrew Bible sources for sake of consistency. Interpretations follow as to the meaning and context of the use of the number six in each.

“And there were there six water-jugs of stone, placed according to the purifying of the Jews, holding each two or three measures.” John 2:6 (Young’s Literal Translation)

Jesus saith to her, `Go, call thy husband, and come hither;'the woman answered and said, `I have not a husband.' Jesus saith to her, `Well didst thou say -- A husband I have not; for five husbands thou hast had, and, now, he whom thou hast is not thy husband; this hast thou said truly.' John 4:16-18 (Young’s Literal Translation)

And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.' And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them (Genesis 1:26-27) … And God seeth all that He hath done, and lo, very good; and there is an evening, and there is a morning -- day the sixth. (Genesis 1: 31).

And the sons of Israel journey from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, apart from infants; (Exodus 12:37)

Here is the wisdom! He who is having the understanding, let him count the number of the beast, for the number of a man it is, and its number [is] 666. (Revelation 13:18)

Let’s briefly consider each text and offer an interpretation of them, using the unifying notion that the number 6 references a spiritual condition whose context is that of transition. We will also consider that each use is typological and therefore that the use of the number 6 has a common basis, in a synthetic and not syncretic sense. Finally, we will conclude with a brief discussion of the Bahá’í Prayer for the Departed and its use of a repetition of 6 verses each repeated 19 times.

The six water jugs reference in the wedding of Cana story in the Gospel of John is obviously part of a larger context, but we must be forced to conclude that this is not an historical story; that is, there was no marriage ceremony at Cana that Jesus attended as a guest, nor where He physically converted water to wine. In fact the bride and groom are not even named, which is a common element of a parable (an ahistorical and symbolic story meant to portray a teaching with inner meaning). When names are lacking, the story must be a parable rather than an historical account. The Evangelist relates the arrival of the Bridegroom – the Universal Manifestation of God – to mankind, at a time when mankind is "wedded" to something else. It is mankind, collectively and individually, who is (or are) the bride. By tradition, the soul is often referred to in the female gender. The bridegroom that the bride was marrying at Cana was not her true husband; he, rather, was her lower spiritual self, her materialistic spirit, and also representative of the past religious dispensation whose wine (life-giving spirit) has turned to stale water. When a religion becomes ineffective, and its belief system has become concretized, dogmatic, and literalized, it fails to draw the mass of believers away from their base desires and sensual selves towards their higher natures, which is pure spirit. Each religion tends to this condition, which is well symbolized by the number 6, an indictment of spiritual incompletion. Jesus arrives as the true Bridegroom to replace the false husband, and in the story symbolically turns the water into wine, revealing that His word is like a fine, delicious wine that spiritually inebriates the soul. This reference of wine has a intertextual cross reference to the story of the wine and the wineskins which is a well known and accepted statement on the replacement of the old dispensation with the new one ... a new creation. Jesus brought new wine to replace the old; with the new wine must come new wineskins (a new religion) to replace the old, because the old religion with its dogmas, forms, rules, outmoded concepts, and institutionalized power structures (i.e., divines and ecclesiastical authority) cannot hold the new Teachings. This does not mean that the old religion did not have its day nor that it was once a fine vintage nor that it is still deserving of respect; it simply means that the time for renewal requires that it pass away, just as last year's spring time has gone to fall and winter. A new spring time must come to renew, and to revive what has died, to bring it back to life. Several writers have commented on this particular story in like manner, for example, Reverend Jeffrey John in his book The Meaning of the Miracles. Because it is written from the perspective of a Christian and priest in the Anglican tradition, it lends support to the interpretation offered here. Reverend John rejects the physical miracle connotation of the story.

A few chapters later, John introduces the number 6 again and also in the context of marriage but the scene is not a wedding ceremony; rather, Jesus is shown to approach a woman at a well as she draws water. Reportedly the meeting takes place at the "sixth hour" (John 4:6). Some translations reduce the presence of the number 6 here by indicating it took place at "noon." Jesus asks where her husband is, and she replies that she has no husband (although she is "with" a man). Jesus rhetorically agrees with her; that is, that the man with whom she currently has a relationship is not her true husband, nor were the five before him. These “husbands” sum to 6. It is important to point out here that many analyses of this story conclude that the woman has 5 husbands, which is an important misinterpretation as it fails to lead to the key number 6. Like the wedding story of Cana, here the 6 husbands parallel the 6 water jars; and the use of the number 6 as a symbol of materialism and in particular the lower human quality of lust is quite apparent. Like in the story of the wedding at Cana, here the woman represents the human soul, and the 6 “husbands” symbolize those lower spiritual qualities which tend to degrade and impede the soul’s spiritual progress. It is much less clear that they represent the previous dispensation as they more clearly do in the Cana story. Finally, Jesus represents the soul’s true Husband, that is, He brings those uplifting spiritual qualities and attributes and the means to achieve them, as well as the means to become free (or die to) the lower, base qualities.

In both stories, the intense subtlety of the Gospel of John becomes apparent. The interpretations above tend to take us away from the more common and mundane interpretations of them. In the first, a common understanding is that Jesus blessed the wedding union by converting the water into wine, thus demonstrating by a physical miracle His power to do so. In this way, all physical human unions through marriage are blessed and marriage between man and woman becomes a sacrament in the traditional church’s view. Although certainly marriage is a wonderful and blessed event, the story is clearly using marriage as a symbolic device. Such an interpretation is completely unnecessary and detracts from the more subtle but determinative message that John provides through his creative use of symbolic story telling. Similarly, the story of the woman at the well is often interpreted merely as an indictment of adulterous behavior and so could be considered rather misogynistic. However, again, the story is symbolic and the “adultery” in the story has to do with the way a soul becomes wedded to negative qualities and attributes more than to sexual behavior per se.

Lastly, we need to comment on an ancient mystical understanding of the various elements of man expressed as soul and spirit. The animalistic spirit of man can be described variously, such as by Cain or Ishmael. These are personifications of the lower and negative human qualities. When the soul is wedded to this lower spiritual element, it is in peril and needs help. The higher spiritual element is represented by Moses, Jesus, or any one of the Manifestations of God who bring life giving spirit through the vehicle of Their Words. In fact, each embodies the sacred Word. When the soul unites with this higher element, and dies to its former self, it forms a syzygy with the higher spiritual self. This syzygy is like a marriage or wedding, and has often been described as a female/male union. For example, Adam and Eve portray it symbolically, as do the relationships between Abraham and Sarah, and the male and female pairs boarding Noah's ark. They are symbolic portrayals where the female element represents the human soul. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá comments on the use of gender in this way:

The spiritual qualities acquired by the soul in the course of a lifetime -- qualities such as knowledge, wisdom, humility, love and other virtues -- are acquired gradually. The individual grows in maturity with the passage of time. The spiritual growth of the soul is similar to the organic growth of living creatures. To return to the metaphor of the tree, whose life begins with the planting of a seed: it grows gradually, bringing forth branches, leaves, shoots and offshoots one after another, until the time comes when it produces its fruit. The stage of fruition may be said to constitute the crowning achievement of the tree; it is that stage in which the tree has fulfilled the purpose for which it was created. But the tree cannot produce its fruit by itself. It acts as a female and has to be pollinated by a male element which fertilizes its ovules. Other living creatures which produce their young also go through the same process of intercourse with their male counterparts.

The same is true of the soul. It comes into being at the time of conception, it gradually acquires divine qualities, but there comes a time when it has to produce its fruit. Not until the soul reaches this point can it be said to have fulfilled its destiny. This can happen when, following the above principle of male and female interaction, the soul assumes the function of the female and establishes a spiritual intercourse with another agency. If it chooses the material world as a partner, then the child born of that union will be a materialistic way of life which deprives the soul of its spiritual heritage. A great many people in the world allow themselves to fall in love with material things; consequently the soul is impoverished and although it is a spiritual entity, it becomes sullied with worldly affections and gives birth to materialism, an offspring unworthy of its high station. But the Covenant of God enjoins upon man to recognize His Manifestation and turn to Him. These are the words of Bahá'u'lláh as revealed in a prayer stating the purpose of creation:

"I bear witness, O my God, that Thou has created me to know Thee and to worship Thee..."

By turning with devotion to Bahá'u'lláh, the Manifestation of God in this day, by submitting to His Will and becoming enamoured of Him, the soul becomes a fertile instrument and a worthy recipient for the outpouring of His Revelation. Through the establishment of a spiritual intercourse with the energizing forces of this Revelation, the soul becomes fertilized and will give birth to a noble offspring -- the spirit of faith. This is the ultimate and most glorious destiny for the soul, the purpose for which it is created. (Adib Taherzadeh, The Covenant of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 17)

In the third citation above, from Genesis, we find that “man” is created on day six in the symbolic scheme of creation. Here, we may wish to reject the notion of a week’s worth of creation activity, where each day is like a 24 hour period. Rather, the story is symbolic in describing the emergence of “man” into the realm of spirit and consciousness. The sixth day assigns the number six as the number of man in this process, nearly perfect and transitioning to spiritual perfection.

In the fourth citation above, from Exodus, 600,000 men are counted as having taken leave of Egypt and crossed into the wilderness at the outset of the journey to the Promised Land. The posting Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places proposes an ahistorical and symbolic meaning to the otherwise historically interpreted account of the resurrection. The reader can consult that posting for more detail. The number 600,000 can be reduced to 6 and can refer to many individuals or a mass or individuals, or nation, consisting of men whose spiritual status is that of “6.” As we saw from the Gospel of John above, a soul with a spiritual status of 6 is dubious, underdeveloped, and spiritually immature. It has not reached its spiritual potential owing to its tendency to cling to its base qualities such as desire, passion, self-promotion, disdain, pride, and the like. Thus, the number 600,000 here refers to the people of Israel at the outset of their transition from spiritual deprivation (symbolized by dwelling in the land of Egypt), through spiritual cleansing in the wilderness, prior to their arrival in the Promised Land, where through the process of tests and trials they reach spiritual attainment. There is very little room for accepting a literal account of this number, that there were actually 600,000 thousand men (not counting infants nor for that matter women) who made the Exodus.

The fifth text is from the Book of Revelation (sometimes known as the Apocalpyse of John). Here, surrounded by apocalyptic language, the number of man in his beastliest form is said to be 6. It is triplicated to intensify the meaning: three sixes means very beastly. That is to say, man or mankind when ruled by those base desires which result in wrath and destruction spiritually to individuals and to society in general can be correctly described by the number 6. As the text clearly indicates, the number of “man” is the number 6: γὰρ ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν καὶ ὁ ἀριθμὸς ("for it is the number of man"). (This Koine Greek phrase is often translated as "for it is the number of a man" but the article "a" is presumptive in the translation.). When man persists in such a society, he is likened to a Beast and is enslaved to his lower nature, lacking spiritual qualities of justice, love, mercy, kindness, forgiveness, forbearance, and moderation. This text has been commonly interpreted to refer to some individual person in modern apocalyptic literature of the millennial type, evening portending that such a man will emerge and come to dominate society until the return of Jesus Christ. We can see that such an interpretation misunderstands the use of the number 6 here as a qualifier of humanity, in need indeed of the return to bring mankind back to the true path.

In Some Answered Questions, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá interprets the Book of Revelation in sections, including parts of the 12th chapter which immediately precedes the 13th chapter where the sign of the beast is identified as the number of man. Because ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke of the rise of a beast-like society (the Umayyads) within Islam that came to dominate society materially, and He specifically references a multi-headed beast in Revelation 12: 3-4 as symbolizing that society, we might be tempted to conclude that the beast in Revelation 13 refers to the same society and domineering people. However, we cannot be certain. Robert Riggs interprets the symbolism in this manner in great detail in his work Apocalypse: An Exegesis of the Book of Revelation. Following on the detailed themes established by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, he outlines an argument, based upon a gematrical formulation, to show that the beast likely refers to the Caliphate under the domination of the Umayyad clan. This clan, soon after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, usurped the Caliphate in the year 662 by murder and treachery, and came to dominate much of early Islamic civilization and expansion, largely through a process of self-promotion and self-interest. They were like a wolf in sheep's clothing. Thus, the Umayyads can be likened to a Beast whose number is the number 6, because their dehumanizing qualities were beastly and reinforced animal-like rather than spiritual life.

The Bahá’í Prayer for the Departed is the only prayer recited in a congregational format, where the entire group assembled for the prayer stand whilst one person recites the prayer for all to listen. The prayer in its entirety (Bahá’í Prayers, p. 35-36) is as follows:

O my God! This is Thy servant and the son of Thy servant who hath believed in Thee and in Thy signs, and set his face towards Thee, wholly detached from all except Thee. Thou art, verily, of those who show mercy the most merciful.

Deal with him, O Thou Who forgivest the sins of men and concealest their faults, as beseemeth the heaven of Thy bounty and the ocean of Thy grace. Grant him admission within the precincts of Thy transcendent mercy that was before the foundation of earth and heaven. There is no God but Thee, the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Generous.

Let him, then, repeat six times the greeting "Alláh-u-Abhá," and then repeat nineteen times each of the following verses:

We all, verily, worship God

We all, verily, bow down before God.

We all, verily, are devoted unto God.

We all, verily, give praise unto God.

We all, verily, yield thanks unto God.

We all, verily, are patient in God.

The origin of this prayer has been discussed by others. Our interest is in the distinct use of 6 verses in the summation of the prayer, each initiated with a pronouncement of the Greatest Name, and each then repeated 19 times. This formulation originated from the Báb and was adopted by Bahá’u’lláh.

The number 7 identifies a process of spiritual growth, reflected in the creation story, the seven valleys (cities, castles) etc. It begins with the lowly state of material attachments, proceeds through the difficult period of testing and trials, cause-and-effect outcomes, leading with the help of the grace of God to detachment and subjugation of the self, and reunion of one’s will with the Will of God. The Báb identified the number 5 with “man” and further indicated that it signified “birth.” He also identified the number 6 as signifying “death.” (The reader should consult The Gate of the Heart by Dr. Nader Saiedi for more information on the Bab’s use of these numbers in this way).

We know from tradition, as reviewed above, that the number seven signifies completion, as the day that God rested in Genesis, and as in the notion of seventh heaven. In a section from the Mathnavi, in a poem some have entitled Become More by Dying, Rumi describes a process of dying 6 times to various lower states to arrive at the (seventh) state of complete union and “nonexistence.” Thus, the changes through 6 changes mirrors the recital of the 6 succeeding verses in the Prayer for the Departed. The medieval saint and mystic St. Teresa of Avila, borrowing heavily from the mystical traditions of Islam and from illuminationist thinking, developed her work Interior Castles around a set of 7 castles, one inside the other, where the inner most one is the state of spiritual existence described as Rumi did. Obviously, the sixth castle in her conceptualization would be the one from which a seeker or spiritual wayfarer would transition to the seventh, leaving at last all of the worldly attachments behind (akin to dying to them).

The fact that the number of verses recited at the end of the Bahá’í prayer for the departed is 6 supports the Bab’s use of the number 6 as the number of death of man. It can be taken as a way to appreciate symbolically the nature of the physical death, and its significance to the spiritual transition of the soul at that moment. Thus, 6 signifies incompletion, and near completion. Six precedes the number 7 which represents fulfillment of one’s spiritual journey, a state which some seekers manage to attain. But even then, as Bahá’u’lláh tells us in The Seven Valleys, these journeys have no real end, and all of them can be traversed in a single step.

Further, the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh appear to fold this pattern of 7 into a broader pattern of 3, which more generally represents stages of spiritual growth from animal > materialistic human > spiritualized human. For example, Bahá’u’lláh emphasizes that man exists on three planes in The Seven Valleys (see the Valley of Unity). By identifying the Valley of Knowledge as the last plane of limitation, He shows that the earlier, middle, and final valleys can be distributed into three conditions. Also, the Báb by using the numbers 5 and 6 as he does implies that the number 7 leads to completion, so we see three numbers or stages in series 5 > 6 > 7. The birth and death to which He refers, I think, should not be considered as physical events, however, but spiritual ones. One is “born” to existence, then has to “die” to materialism in order to “live” to the life of the spirit. This is the meaning of the crucifixion, in essence. The three days of the resurrection correspond to these 3 more general stages, as do such processes as Egypt > Wilderness > Promised Land; Cain > Abel > Seth; and some other representations such as the three days of Jonah in the belly of the sea monster. Finally, we can see how the number 40 incorporates into this scheme, where it becomes assigned to the 2nd stage in this three part scheme.

The Fast: Day 18

2010-03-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

A thing cannot be grasped by the intelligence except when it is clothed in an intelligible form; otherwise, it is but an effort of the imagination. ~Abdu'l-Baha

************

If you seek the kernel, then you must break the shell. And likewise, if you would know the reality of Nature, you must destroy the appearance, and the farther you go beyond the appearance, the nearer you will be to the essence. ~ Attributed to Meister Eckhart

************

No idea represents or signifies itself. It always points to something else, of which it is a symbol. And since man has no ideas, except those abstracted from external things through the sense, he cannot be blessed by an idea. ~ Attributed to Meister Eckhart

The Fast: Day 17

2010-03-19T12:03:00.001-07:00

Que se haga semejante
El Amante a quien queria

~ San Juan de la Cruz

The Fast: Day 16

2010-03-19T11:46:00.000-07:00

Look at Me and be as I am; ye must die to yourselves and to the world, so shall ye be born again and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Behold a candle how it gives its light. It weeps its life away drop by drop in order to give forth its flame of light. ~ Abdu'l-Baha

The Fast: Day 15

2010-03-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Until man is born again from the world of nature, that is to say, becomes detached from the world of nature, he is essentially an animal, and it is the teachings of God which converts this animal into a human soul. ~Abdu'l-Baha

The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go of your life: your memories, your attachments. The angels burn them all away, but they're not punishing you, they're freeing your soul. ~ Attributed to Meister Eckhart

The Fast: Day 14

2010-03-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

Our Ruhi Study Circle finished book 7 yesterday. It was a wonderful experience, especially because 3 of the collaborators in the study circle have already organized "book one's" of their own. Our tutor, Karen Martin, gave us each a prayer book as a gift, and an exhortation (with a grin) to "gird up your loins" and "mount your steeds!" We then shared some un-coffee and un-coffee cake after the study circle ended (with a prayer from Eric Stanton).

The last sessions of this study circle concerned the incorporation of arts into the study circles generally, thus as budding tutors, Karen (who is especially good at this) encouraged us to develop an art project around a section of Book 1. I chose section thirteen ("Man is the Supreme Talisman" and is "in need of an Educator."). Given that it is the Fast and nearly spring time for us northern hemisphereans, I considered that the Fast is like spring cleaning. So my art project was to develop a simple collage of sayings, pictures, ideas, etc., cut out from popular magazines to use as an illustration of the process of spring cleaning, towards being a true Talisman (exhibitor of the attributes, qualities, and virtues of God, like a mirror cleaned of the dust of the material world). Here it is.

The Fast: Days 10-13

2010-03-15T06:52:00.000-07:00

Have gotten lax in my postings. Busy life!

On Friday night I rode with my daughter's school choir to a choir festival some 2 hours ride from our town. Whoa! And we parent-chaperones thought those 7th graders would calm down after 30 minutes in the bus. There was no volume control on their chatter going there, or even coming back late. But oh my gosh did they sound wonderful, singing and focusing.

This posting by a Baha'i who has entered her first Fast was beautiful to read.

http://athomewithmommaskyla.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-first-bahai-fast.html

The Fast: Day 9

2010-03-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

Guide Me.

Protect Me.

Illumine Me.

"Proclaiming ... Calling ... Informing ... Guiding ... "

The Fast: Day 8 (Wisdom)

2010-03-10T07:09:00.000-08:00

From whence comes Wisdom?

Is it sourced in that great Arc of Descent from on high? Why is Wisdom a She? She is Sophia. She is the Mystic Bride. Is She ... the metaphysical reality of the Manifestation of God? An emanation from the Mind of God?

Sometimes when I read Baha'u'llah's Tablets, I encounter abrupt and highly significant themes and thought streams that hit me like a sudden, very bright light that comes and goes before I can hardly respond.

One example recently is from the Kalimat-i-Firdawsiyyih (Words of Paradise). It was ironic because I have been exploring Wisdom lately in some different contexts, such as the Old Testament presentation of Wisdom from Solomon's three successive books (Proverbs, Song of Solomon, and the Book of Wisdom) but also elsewhere. Thus I came across this text below while devoting time one morning to a reading from the Writings. I don't know why I hadn't really noticed it before. But even when I re-read the Tablet of Maqsud, so profound, I encounter new things that affect me deeply.

The word of God which the Supreme Pen hath recorded on the fifth leaf of the Most Exalted Paradise is this: Above all else, the greatest gift and the most wondrous blessing hath ever been and will continue to be Wisdom. It is man's unfailing Protector. It aideth him and strengtheneth him. Wisdom is God's Emissary and the Revealer of His Name the Omniscient. Through it the loftiness of man's station is made manifest and evident. It is all-knowing and the foremost Teacher in the school of existence. It is the Guide and is invested with high distinction. Thanks to its educating influence earthly beings have become imbued with a gem-like spirit which outshineth the heavens. In the city of justice it is the unrivalled Speaker Who, in the year nine, illumined the world with the joyful tidings of this Revelation. And it was this peerless Source of wisdom that at the beginning of the foundation of the world ascended the stair of inner meaning and when enthroned upon the pulpit of utterance, through the operation of the divine Will, proclaimed two words. The first heralded the promise of reward, while the second voiced the ominous warning of punishment. The promise gave rise to hope and the warning begat fear. Thus the basis of world order hath been firmly established upon these twin principles. Exalted is the Lord of Wisdom, the Possessor of Great Bounty. ~ Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 65

The Fast: Day 7

2010-03-08T09:54:00.000-08:00

Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled. . . . Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger. ~ Gospel of Luke, chapter 6, verses 21 and 25

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. ~ Gospel of John, chapter 6, verse 35

The Fast: Day 6

2010-03-08T09:48:00.000-08:00

The Spirit breathing through the Holy Scriptures is food for all who hunger. God Who has given the revelation to His Prophets will surely give of His abundance daily bread to all those who ask Him faithfully. ~ Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 57

The Fast: Day 5

2010-03-07T03:18:00.000-08:00

My God, My Adored One, My King, My Desire ...

I was as one dead, Thou didst quicken me with the Water of Life ...

I beseech Thee to aid and assist me at all times and under all conditions ...

The Fast: Day 4 (Wings)

2010-03-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

The Fast provides lift for our wings.

Discursive meditation for day 4 of the Fast regards wings.

Baha'u'llah says: "We fain would hope that through thine exertions the wings of men may be sanctified from the mire of self and desire, and be made worthy to soar in the atmosphere of God's love." ~ Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 130.

What are these wings?

Again Baha'u'llah says: "Blessed are they that have soared on the wings of detachment and attained the station which, as ordained by God, overshadoweth the entire creation, whom neither the vain imaginations of the learned, nor the multitude of the hosts of the earth have succeeded in deflecting from His Cause." ~ Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 34

and

"Blessed are they who, on the wings of certitude, have flown in the heavens which the Pen of thy Lord, the All-Merciful, hath spread." ~ Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 242

Certitude and detachment are our wings. Undoubtedly there are other wings too so that our angelic selves may take flight from the mire of material existence, as the Qur'an indicates in the Surih of the Creator (#35):

"In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.

Praise be to Allah, Who created (out of nothing) the heavens and the earth, Who made the angels messengers with wings -- two, or three, or four (Pairs): He adds to Creation as He pleases: for Allah has power over all things."

We -- each of us -- is an Angel should we so regard ourselves, after having died to self and risen to new life. Risen, that is, on our wings of certitude, detachment, knowledge, grace, mercy ... . These drooping wings can revive their strength and lift our souls -- likened to birds -- into new heights, through the grace of God, which is found in the guidance of His Manifestation:

"I am the Sun of Wisdom and the Ocean of Knowledge. I cheer the faint and revive the dead. I am the guiding Light that illumineth the way. I am the royal Falcon on the arm of the Almighty. I unfold the drooping wings of every broken bird and start it on its flight." ~ The Tablet of Maqsud, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 169.

Rumi explores wings and flight, drawing from the words of Jesus Christ and his own, mixing metaphors most elegantly:

"The prophets have many claims to our gratitude,
Because they forewarn us of our ultimate lot,
Saying, "What ye sow will yield only thorns;
If ye fly that way, ye will fly astray.
Take seed of us to yield you a good harvest,
Fly with our wings to hit the mark with your arrow."
~ The Masnavi, volume 6.

And further, Rumi examines the interaction of wings and desire:

Wings of Desire

People are distracted by objects
of desire,
and afterwards repent of the lust they've
indulged,
because they have indulged with a
phantom
and are left even farther from Reality
than before.
Your desire for the illusory is a wing,
by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality.
When you have indulged a lust, your
wing drops off;
you become lame and that fantasy flees.
Preserve the wing and don't indulge such lust,
so that the wing of desire may bear you
to Paradise.
People fancy they are enjoying
themselves,
but they are really tearing out their wings
for the sake of an illusion.

~ The Mathnavi, volume 3, 2133-2188,
translation by Kabir and Camille Helminski
in The Pocket Rumi, copyright 2008

The Fast: Day 3

2010-03-04T13:03:00.001-08:00

"Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue, inscrutable to all except Thee, Whose knowledge embraceth all things... . This is the hour when Thou hast unlocked the doors of Thy bounty before the faces of Thy creatures ... . This is the hour, O my Lord, which Thou has caused to excel every other hour ... ."

The Fast: Day 2

2010-03-03T12:10:00.000-08:00

It is day 2 of the Baha'i Fast. Late afternoon when the going gets tough ... . Someone made popcorn in their office down the hall from me. Oh, the smell of fresh popcorn.

Desire and the death of it remain as lingering thoughts, from yesterday. Related thoughts are how fasting forces one to think of the now moment, to live right now. Hunger and thirst are very much "now" things. Like the popcorn smell. It is totally now. If you were hungry yesterday and hungry today, it is today's hunger that matters, the hunger you feel right now that makes you aware of right now.

So, what about the "now?" Abdu'l-Baha seemed to be someone who lived very much in the now moment. Was there ever a person with more emotional intelligence? More cognizance of what was happening around him? Someone most able to dissipate vain imaginings and idle fancies, remove unwanted thoughts and desires and still the mind? Yet He fasted, prayed, meditated, suffered, truly lived. And taught:

The wisdom of prayer is this: That it causeth a connection between the servant and the True One, because in that state (i.e., prayer) man with all heart and soul turneth his face towards His Highness the Almighty, seeking His association and desiring His love and compassion... . Prayer and fasting is the cause of awakening and mindfulness and conducive to protection and preservation from tests. (Tablets of Abdu'l-Baha v3, p. 683)

Today I am thinking of awakening and mindfulness. How ironic! Thinking of not thinking. The Fast forces one to consider that which is unwanted in one's mind, to remove it, to awaken from it, like rousing from sleep. Unwanted thoughts are undesired desires, mental hunger pangs, interferences with wakefulness and mindfulness. The 17th century Christian mystic Thomas Bromley wrote:

[T]here is no better Way than from the Annihilation of all thoughts, and the Retiring from the Phantasie into the silent Mind, which more fits the Soul for divine Irradiation and spiritual Imbraces ... Imagination being now overcome, and the animal man mortified, the Soul cannot but clearly discover its Growth into the Image of God, and the Resurrection of the Angel Man (Quoted in Wisdom's Book: The Sophia Anthology by Arthur Versluis, copyright 2000).

This thought reminds me so much of Baha'u'llah's imperative statements regarding vain imaginings and idle fancies, and protection from them through prayer. "Protect us, we beseech Thee, O my Lord, from the hosts of idle fancies and vain imaginations." We must couple fasting and prayer to gain this protection, to annihilate that which is idle and vain, the unwanted thoughts, desires, cravings, appetites, obsessions, compulsions.

***********************************************************************************

Rumi comments on thoughts and fasting:

Fast from thoughts, fast:
thoughts are like the lion and the
wild ass;
men's hearts are the thickets they haunt.
Fasting is the first principle of health;
restraint is superior to medication;
scratching only aggravates the itch.
Fast, and behold the strength of
the spirit.
(Mathnavi I, 2909-2911,
translation by Kabir and Camille Kaminski,
The Pocket Rumi, copyright 2008)

...

Think of nothing but the source
of thought.
Feed the soul; let the body fast.

Avoid knotted ideas;
untie yourself in a higher world.
(Translation by Kabir and Camille Kaminski,
The Pocket Rumi, copyright 2008)

The Fast: Day 1

2010-03-02T10:29:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of the Baha'i Fast, and with it comes thoughts about what the Fast means, and why we fast. Shoghi Effendi tells us that fasting is symbolic. Are my hunger pangs symbolic? My dry throat, my thirst? Perhaps so. Well, yes, they are symbolic. In fact, my life is symbolic. It signifies something. The significance of "Man" is in signification. Each of us is a sign.

A post on each day of the Fast may be useful. Although we might think of the Fast as being about steadfastness, or obedience, yet ultimately it seems to be about the death of desire. It is about detachment, and coming to it, and letting it come to you. Baha'u'llah sums up His Hidden Words with a poignant note about detachment:

"Let it now be seen what your endeavors in the path of detachment will reveal."

What could be more revealing? My Fast is my endeavor. Elsewhere, He observed:

"Glory be to Thee, O Lord my God! These are the days whereon Thou hast bidden all men to observe the fast, that through it they may purify their souls and rid themselves of all attachment to anyone but Thee."

Detachment is about death ... purification ... dying to the values of the world and one's attachments to them ... death to desire. Desire. It isn't the thing we desire that we must detach from; it is desire itself that we must become detached from. Desire, and pride. I have wondered if the ancient commandment not to covet is really a commandment not to desire; for exploration another time.

Here is a brief rumination from Rumi's Mathnavi (translation by Kabir and Camille Helminski, from The Pocket Rumi, Shambhala Pocket Classics, copyright 2008) on the matter of desire:

To follow one's own desires is to flee
from God
and to spill the blood of spirituality
in the presence of His justice.

This world is a trap, and desire is its bait:
escape the traps, and quickly
turn your face towards God.

When you have followed this Way,
you have enjoyed a hundred blessings.
When you have gone the opposite way,
you have fared ill.

So the Prophet said, "Consult your
own hearts,
even though the religious judge
advises you about worldly affairs."

Abandon desire, and so reveal
His Mercy:
you've learned by experience
the sacrifice He requires.

Dying to Live

2008-08-24T20:18:00.000-07:00

The Three Day Journey

A Baha’i Reflection on the Resurrection

Part 2: Dying to Live

The Earth Yields Up A Treasure

In a recent front page story published in the New York Times Sunday edition (“Ancient Tablet Ignites Debate On Messiah and Resurrection,” 6 July 2008; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/world/middleeast/06stone.html?pagewanted=all), journalist Ethan Bronner reported that a 1 meter long stone tablet had been discovered in the vicinity of the Dead Sea in Jordan. It had been dated to the century before the time of Jesus Christ, and contained 87 lines of Hebrew text inscribed on it. Scholars and antiquities collectors have analyzed the text, found it to be apocalyptic in nature, and discovered that it contains a dialogue between the angel Gabriel and someone the angel addresses as the sar hasarin or “prince of princes.” Lines 19-21 of the text were reported to read: “In three days you will know that evil will be defeated by justice.” The text at line 80 and following is somewhat hard to read, but one scholar has interpreted it as the angel Gabriel saying to this prince of princes: “In three days you shall live, I, Gabriel, command you.”

The story goes on to indicate the controversy such language must necessarily arouse, suggesting as it does that a Messiah-like figure and a three day motif hinting at resurrection were part of Jewish tradition in the Palestine region before the time of Jesus. Thus, the resurrection tradition and the resultant doctrine in Christianity must be derived and not unique. [1]

What the scholars quoted in the article and what Mr. Bronner himself seemed not to recognize, however, is that the “three day” theme mentioned in the tablet can be found widely (overtly or covertly) in the Hebrew scriptures and related texts, as well as in the Christian New Testament. It is ancient and ubiquitous. The Reverend John Shelby Spong [2] noted that the “three day” theme appeared at least 14 times in the Hebrew Old Testament, perhaps as a repetitive midrash:

There was a sense in Jewish life and folklore that after three days the crucial moment arrives, particularly when one is dealing either with God or with a turning point in national history. Whenever the people of Israel thought of God or tried to make sense out of the way they perceived God to be relating to them or their history, they appear to use the symbol of three days … . The third day was in many instances either the critical day of judgment or the day when the new reality dawned … . The third day came to be identified as the prelude to the day of the Lord. [3]

It re-appeared as a reflection of these Hebrew themes numerous times and in numerous ways in the Christian New Testament, both in the various Gospels and in the letters from the Apostle Paul. Table 1 (at the bottom of the posting) tabulates the data from Reverend Spong’s investigation from the Hebrew scriptures (using Young’s literal translation when the text is quoted directly).

The appearance of the three days’ motif in the Exodus account three times is particularly significant and corresponds textually to the three stage journey it relates (Egypt > wilderness > Promised Land). At times, this typology is buried and needs to be dug up; for example, by ciphering the text in Exodus 19:1 we can determine that the traverse across the desert of Sin brought the Israelites to Mount Sinai on the third day of the third month, again reflecting the significance of the three motif: “In the third month, when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same [i.e., third] day came they [into] the wilderness of Sinai.”

The three day motif re-appears in numerous places and in several contexts in the New Testament, sometimes reflecting directly a Hebrew text and at other times establishing a new meaning or understanding to the typological configuration it represents. Importantly, the first trace of it (as a mention of the resurrection) is not from the Gospels, all of which were recorded decades after the crucifixion of Christ, but rather in a letter from Paul to the Christians at Corinth (estimated at ca. 56 CE): “and that he was buried, and that he hath risen on the third day, according to the Writings” (1 Corinthians 15:4, Young’s Literal Translation). Because Paul was not a physical eye witness to the crucifixion nor resurrection, yet he himself claimed to have “seen” the Lord (1 Corinthians 9:1), we are faced with the options of concluding that he was merely reporting the three day resurrection event as second hand information, having heard it from Stephen or some other early believers; or that Paul understood it as a typological repetition of the Old Testament themes of which he was thoroughly aware (“according to the Writings” as the Corinthians text says, which are tabulated in Table 1 from Reverend Spong’s analysis). Indeed, Paul routinely recapitulated Hebrew texts in various ways, sometimes identifying new themes, developing new meanings, or pointing out meanings that he obviously intends to be original but believes to have been misunderstood. An example is given in the Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places posting, in which Paul interpreted the Exodus account typologically and not literally (1 Corinthians 10:1-15). Thus, Paul’s statement “according to the Writings” taken from 1 Corinthians 9 provides an hermeneutical guide for us in understanding his very first reference to the three days time motif in the New Testament. If we take Paul at his word that the Writings are typological in nature, then we should be on guard to the possibility that his views of the events associated with Jesus’ life are to be understood typologically as well.

Let’s have a look at the New Testament references to the three days leitmotif. Table 2 tabulates it as both three days and third day, indicating the text, context, and general theme. The search was conducted in the databases and search engines BlueLetter Bible and Ocean. An examination of each of these texts would require a special investigation which would go beyond the scope of this posting; however, certain of them deserve comment (brackets after each quote in Table 2), and some will be studied in more detail as we go along, such as here or in a later posting to be entitled Spiritual Anthropology: The Three Fold Path. The main point to make here is that, like in the Old Testament scriptures, the three day motif is widespread in the New Testament as well, but as in the Old Testament, it is symbolic. Historical events, place names, time processes, even human names are all used in ways to represent spiritual processes and events. In contrast to the conclusion in Bronner’s New York Times article, we can recognize the three day leitmotif in the New Testament texts as a continuation and revisioning of the Hebrew themes; therefore, we should strive to understand its inner meaning and why the texts depend on it in its temporal form and its related forms (e.g., geography, children) so intensively and across several contexts.

That the New York Times article did not elaborate on the three day theme as a broader, symbolic motif is as remarkable as the actual discovery, showing that the author of the article kept his mind narrowly focused on the controversy (somewhat contrived) rather than broadening his thinking to the heuristic value of the discovery. In addition, the article did not more fully elaborate on the conversation between God’s angelic spokesman Gabriel and the highly significant figure, a prince of princes, who somehow will be involved in the defeat of evil by means of justice. The article simply suggested that the text may have referred to someone other than Jesus at the time, such as an anti-Roman rebel. The article did not broach the possibility that the “prince of princes” was some larger, archetypical figure, perhaps a transhistoric figure, one responsive to theophanic influences represented by the communications from Gabriel. [4] Rather than being some historical document whose content refutes the solely Christian origins of the resurrection tradition, the tablet by authors unknown may recapitulate a universal model or pattern symbolized by a three day leitmotif, and placed into a context of a revelation from God to man through an intermediary, a great prince of princes, such as we can also see in Hosea’s chapter 6 and in many other places. The Baha’is may recognize the text from Hosea, where the “Lord” is envisioned to return each spring or at each dawn and in doing so to stimulate the resurrection of three days, and from this newly discovered stone tablet, as a reference to the eternal Manifestation of God and His purpose.

The Theme of This Posting

In this posting to MasterKey, we begin exploring the meaning of the three day theme identified in this recently discovered tablet, with specific reference to a symbolic (that is, non-literal and non-physical) understanding of the resurrection. We will travel towards the conclusion that it represents a model or pattern of human spiritual development that can be structured into a successive process of three stages. We will also see how such a conceptualization of the resurrection can further a meaningful dialogue between contemporary Christians and Baha’is. To provide some focus, we will explore the notion of dying to self as a key element of the resurrection, woven into the process of rising to new life.

Type Three: The Three Days as a Typological Leitmotif

An earlier posting on MasterKey (“Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places” at http://watchman-masterkey.blogspot.com/2008/01/spiritual-geography-paces-and-places.html) elaborated on a pattern of 3’s found to permeate the Judeo-Christian scriptures through symbolic, narrative language, forming a typology. [5] Its spatial representation as human movement through a spiritual geography (using the Exodus account as the primary example, but alluding to other examples) formed the theme of that initial posting, showing that it could be understood as a progression of positive, spiritual change. In it, the human soul -- or collectively, mankind -- is likened to a wayfarer or exile who traverses successively three lands: Egypt, the wilderness, and the Promised Land. It first dwells in and then exits an abased, animal-like, de-spiritualized state centered in sensory perception and self-gratification (symbolized by Egypt). The decision to leave this condition, symbolized by the act of crossing the Red Sea, can be understood as a mobilization of the willpower. In motivation and intent like repentance (i.e., acknowledgement of the soul’s low estate, and willingness to change), it is a response to the call of God announced by a “prince among men,” in the Exodus account, Moses (a typological representation of the “prince of princes” mentioned in the tablet above). It then moves to an intermediate land of spiritual adolescence in which the soul is conflicted between the lure of its lower nature and the glimpses it achieves of its higher spiritual calling. Moses leads and the soul follows, but often very reluctantly, in the Exodus model. Unfortunately, the soul strays widely in the wilderness. It commonly seeks to gratify the promptings of its ego in a self deceptive manner that denies and subdues its spiritual calling. The psychological condition of denial is a strong ruler in the wilderness, as is pride, and many false gods prevail (symbolized by the golden calf). The journey of the soul through this condition is caricatured as wandering in the wilderness, whose telling time signature is forty days or years, emblematic of a long, lifetime struggle with spiritual tests.

With effort and in a continuing response to God’s call, the soul escapes the trials of the wilderness, and ascends to a third, higher plane, symbolized by the Promised Land, in which it matures through activation of its innate capacities of willpower and of knowledge, volition, and action. [6] It has released itself from the two lower planes, has generated its will power, responded to God’s call and to God’s grace, and has begun “converting satanic strength” into “heavenly power.” [7] Disencumbered from material longings and desires and from promptings of its self-insistent ego, the soul discovers within itself the image of God reflecting purely and without blemishes in the mirror of the soul. [8] Awakened to its capacity and higher calling, astonished and full of wonder and awe, it comes into knowledge of the reason for its existence, the nature of its existential reality, and its relationship to the created realm. Being born again is one of the many representations of the transition of the soul from the plane of the wilderness to the Promised Land. It has passed through a difficult and trying process of spiritual growth from lower to higher states, during which its will became progressively developed and refined, and has opened to what Abdu’l-Baha called the “divine bestowal.” [9] The Seventh Persian Hidden Word from Baha’u’llah similarly frames the pattern in its call for the spiritual seeker to “take thou one pace, and with the next advance into the immortal realm and enter the “pavilion of eternity.” [10] Taking two paces results in 3 changes in position. The thesis of this posting is that this progression of spiritual growth similarly defines the resurrection as a process of three stages or “days.”

The Resurrection as a Model for Spiritual Transformation

In the teachings of the Baha’i Faith, the lower planes of material existence discussed above are likened to death or hell, and the higher plane of spiritual awakening to life or heaven. They are spiritual conditions and not states of physical existence, not 3 twenty-four hour days in a row, nor geographic locations. The three days are three stages of human spiritual position and perspective, and can be viewed in sequence as a progression through which each human being can ascend, from relatively lower to relatively higher. We will see in the posting Spiritual Anthropology that such an ascent defined a spiritual view of human nature early in Christian mystical practice that reflects even today in modern psychology. Satan is the insistent self, the ego, the Evil One who attempts to hold back any progress toward spiritual rebirth; and as such, represents the lower dimension of human nature (equivalent to Pharaoh, Herod, Laban, or several other representations of the self-centered, dominating, materialistically oriented person). Living one’s life in this state of being is likened to being dead. In fact, these are core Christian teachings too. One of the earliest known Christian documents, the Didache, refers to two life styles: the way of death, and the way of life. It shows that early Christians were taught to understand “life” and “death” in a spiritual, rather than merely physical, way. [11]

Such a teaching is reinforced by the words of Christ Himself, Who responded to a man who would not agree to follow Him until after he had gone to “bury his dead father” to “let the dead bury their dead,” signifying that people who were physically alive could be spiritually dead. [12] These two examples, amongst many that could be recounted here, have important implications for a discussion of the resurrection, which is understood to be a transformation from a condition of spiritual death to spiritual life. From a perspective obtained from the Baha’i Teachings, the resurrection has never been about physical resuscitation or reconstitution of physical human bodies, nor will it ever be. This perspective also emerges from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, if one chooses to understand them in a particularly typological and symbolic way, and if one is willing to disregard the literal crust of doctrine and the formalized tradition that have formed around the interpretation of them. The teachings from the Apostle Paul are particularly aligned to this point of view, as we shall see below. From this perspective, one can realize that it is not revisionist at all to interpret the resurrection accounts and the witness stories as symbolic, if one is willing to accept their original intent to be other than a re-telling of a literal set of circumstances and actual events. The arrival of the Manifestation of God, the return, coincides with the resurrection and with renewal of the religion of the previous dispensations, and revival of the spirit they originally propounded but in new attire. “I am the Resurrection and the Life” ties living and resurrection together, not in a physical sense, but in the sense of spiritual renewal and re-birth, related to the appearance of the Promised One, the great I AM.

The Exodus account demarcates spiritual transformation into 3 planes or lands, as outlined above and presented in detail in Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places. In a review of the resurrection tradition, we will see here that this geographical motif is replaced with a time motif, but the typological pattern of 3’s is retained.

A proof that the Exodus account reconciles with the resurrection account can be found in Exodus 3:16-18, where the three days is mentioned in parallel to the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land:

Go, and gather the elders of Israel together, and say unto them, The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared unto me, saying, I have surely visited you, and seen that which is done to you in Egypt: And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.

And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.

Because the Exodus account indicates not a journey of three days but rather of 40 years in the wilderness, we are faced with either a set of factual errors (is it 3 days or 40 years?) or with the possibility that the “three days’ journey” represents the transitions from Egypt to wilderness to Promised Land, as the text above indicates rather clearly. Certain writers have posited that the “three days’ journey” cited above was a reference to physical translocation along a trade route or ancient road with stops at the end of each day as night fell and travelers stopped for the night to rest. This kind of explanation is a rationalization by reduction of the text, a relatively common practice that reflects “second day” thinking and is discussed elsewhere in MasterKey (see Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places, and The Meaning of the Miracles book review). We do not need to resort to this practice to uncover a fuller (“third day thinking”) meaning to the text, an oblique reference to the resurrection process initiated by Moses.

This transference of the typology from geography to days is very important to appreciate because one motif reflects or re-visions the other, yet both describe the same process of spiritual transformation or spiritual recovery, initiated by the coming or return of the Manifestation of God and the effect His Teachings have on the people who are receptive to Him (in our example here, the first case, Moses; in the second, Christ, both designated as “princes” in the sacred texts). Indeed, the Manifestation of God by whatever earthly name (or “new name” as in Revelations 3) He is known takes on the burden of the transformation process with the receptive people, joining (“descending”) with them into their low estate, and becoming both their advocate and the personification or embodiment of the transformation as a human archetype, providing a model and pattern to emulate. This is the meaning of the phrase “he descended into hell” with reference to Christ and the well known Apostle’s creed: Christ takes on the burden of humanly lower existence, and with humanity rises out it into the third day of rebirth (“raised up on the last day”).

Dr. Christopher Buck, a Baha’i, distinguished orientalist, prolific author, educator, and attorney, has observed that “This transformation is spiritual alchemy, taking the base appetites that most of us are born with and transmuting these into the pure gold of a refined moral and spiritual character.” [13] His statement summarizes well in symbolic fashion the Baha’i understanding of spiritual growth, as a transformation from lower to higher spiritual states; it is the essence of the resurrection, bounding the soul’s release from spiritual exile, prison, tomb of self, or condition of spiritual death, into new life.

In the spirit of the discussion above, a key text synthesizing the time-motif of three days and spatial-motif of geographic movement of three days from the Gospel of Luke 13:32-33 is highly appealing and relevant to the argument developed here (lest the reader should feel doubtful that the Exodus account and the resurrection account have a common basis conceptually). It should be emphasized that such a synthesis might be expected to come from Paul, and indeed it is thought that Luke was a fellow-traveler with Paul and was familiar with Paul’s teachings, thus Luke is perhaps expressing a Pauline sentiment:

Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.

Briefly to offer an exegesis of the passage from Luke consistent with the theme being developed here, it should be clear to the reader that Christ is not referring to an actual period of three days’ time during which He would take a long walk. Rather, the walk refers to the collective spiritual journey He invites all of His followers to take, and the devils that He casts out along the way are indeed the base appetites that emerge from one’s self-centered thoughts into morally degrading intentions and actions. [14] They are the cause and source of spiritual illnesses, symbolized in the Gospel accounts by leprosy, blindness, deafness, madness, demonic possession, and in the Apostle Paul’s words by drunkenness and sleep, all leading to “death.” Their personal and social implications are enormous, because they result in the accumulation of negative spiritual forces (“archons” or “rulers”) in the world, e.g., greed, selfishness, disdain, narrow-mindedness, prejudice, bigotry, and so on. They hinder spiritual development of the individual, and of mankind. The teachings of the Manifestation of God provide the pathway for release (i.e., healing) from the vicious cause-and-effect cycle that results from being caught up in these spiritual illnesses, both individually and collectively. One has to die to these passions in order to live to compassion. These spiritual afflictions operate in days 1 and 2, but not so particularly in day 3, when the soul passes the lower stages of limitation, rules over its material existence and has subsumed the promptings of its ego, replacing selfishness with selflessness and servitude. The passage from Luke cited above intensifies the three stages (“days”) by repeating the leitmotif twice for emphasis. It uses the word “I” to emphasize that Christ as the universal Manifestation of God became an archetypal human walking this pathway for and with each of us, and that we should follow His way and adopt His model. Indeed, early Christians identified themselves as the Body of Christ, with the Spirit of Christ infused into their communities; thus the “I” actually refers to them or to the entire set of believers. The implication is that we all need to take the three day walk, just as we all need to make the Exodus according to rabbinic tradition. But they are spiritual journeys, and not physical events or processes.

Dying To Live

Baha’u’llah, the Manifestation of God for our present age Who has ushered in the era of global consciousness, unity, and justice into which humanity is now (reluctantly and painfully) entering, has made imperative the spiritual transformation of each individual human being, and of humanity collectively. In a succinct passage from His treatise entitled The Seven Valleys He wrote: “Then we must labor to destroy the animal condition, till the meaning of humanity shall come to light.” Elsewhere, in His treatise known as The Gems of Divine Mysteries, He wrote of the ascent of the soul (termed “servant”) during its spiritual journey as follows:

And should the servant ascend to even loftier heights, quit this mortal world of dust, and seek to ascend unto the celestial abode, he will then pass from this city into the City of Absolute Nothingness, that is, of dying to self and living in God.

Baha’u’llah’s use of place designations to represent spiritual states (“city,” “mortal world of dust,” “celestial abode”) demonstrates the importance the Manifestation of God places on symbolism as a heuristic and edifying device. For example, “city” references a spiritual dwelling place, not a physical location, and as such it serves as a guide when a city (Babylon, Jerusalem, Capernaum, Jericho …) is mentioned overtly in such a symbolic manner in other texts, such as the Bible. The idea of destroying one’s animal condition, or dying to one’s animal self, in order to live to one’s true spiritual self, is a key theme of an inner understanding of the process that the Manifestation of God instills into humanity when He returns, in whichever dispensation He appears. The Apostle Paul illuminated our understanding of this dual process of dying and living in many passages in his various letters. Perhaps one of the most telling is his text from Galatians 5:19-24 (bold text for emphasis):

Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.

Here, we can discern that the Apostle Paul teaches in his letter that each person has to undergo a crucifixion of sorts, but obviously as the text indicates not of the kind where one is literally nailed to a wooden cross. Rather, Paul sees the cross and the action of crucifixion as metaphors for the spiritual process of dying to the “works of the flesh” as he calls them, in order to engender the “fruit of the Spirit.” Those who truly follow Christ’s teachings have died to the ways of the flesh, with its “affections and lusts.” That Paul interprets the crucifixion in this spiritual (vs. literal) way provides an hermeneutic guide for the remainder of his writings, many of which are commonly interpreted more literally rather than figuratively. We will see below that this understanding of the crurcifixion as a model or pattern is quite different than the understanding of the crucifixion as a ransom payment, a theological derivation which arose from centuries of debate and discord in the Christian community. The late mythologist and philosopher Joseph Campbell, in his well known series of interviews with the journalist Bill Moyers published in the compilation The Power of Myth, noted that (p. 141):

The New Testament teaches dying to one’s self, literally suffering the pain of death to the world and its values. This is the vocabulary of the mystics ... . You die to your current life in order to come to another of some kind. But, as Jung says, you’d better not get caught in a symbolic situation. You don’t have to die, really, physically. All you have to do is die spiritually and be reborn to a larger way of living.

In Corinthians 3:5-10, the Apostle Paul continues to develop this theme, using the word “mortify” in reference to dying to one’s attachments to the world (in his terminology, “members which are upon the earth”):

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: For which things' sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience: In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them. But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth. Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him … .

This passage from the Apostle Paul has many important elements, notably his reference to changing the “old man” for the “new man.” As in the Galatians text above it, we can see how Paul identifies negative behaviors and attitudes in series and that a person can hold to these attributes as part of one’s personality and way of being, and can even elevate them as gods (“idolatry”) in one’s life. For example, Paul says we (i.e., all humans) “walked some time” with these attributes in an echo of the passage from Luke cited above, using the metaphor of “walking” to refer to a life journey in which these ephemeral and undesirable qualities dominate for some phase of it. He then, by contrast, provides a shorter list of positive spiritual qualities or attributes, and then emphasizes the imperative need to die (“mortify”) to the former attributes in order to live to the latter ones. Clearly again, Paul does not mean a literal death nor a literal resurrection to live the spiritual life, but rather a change of spiritual orientation; a true change of heart. In this text, we can also begin to understand Paul’s use of the Greek term “soma” (literally, body), a term that continues to puzzle theologians and make understanding of Paul’s words difficult for translation. Briefly, Paul identifies the spiritual body as one’s spiritual nature in potentiality, and the attributes one holds or exhibits (either materialistic base attributes; or lofty attributes) as like “members” of that body (arms, legs, etc.). Paul is clearly using symbolic terminology in a subtle way. Some Christians have interpreted Paul’s use of these words to refer to an actual “body” that will be the resurrected one at the time of the end and so on, such as a phantasmal body. Our understanding developed here shows that such an interpretation is misguided and unnecessary, given Paul’s typological emphasis and highly symbolic teaching method. We will re-visit this issue in the Spiritual Anthropology posting, where hopefully it will become clearer.

Of interest is Paul’s use of the term “wrath of God” in this text. The ordinary interpretation is that if one does wrong or if one sins, then God will punish that person. However, we can understand this process in a different and deeper way. Indeed, living one’s life as if God is lingering about ready to punish us for every wrong deed is equivalent to erecting a false image of God in our minds and hearts; it is not how God interacts with each of us intimately and it creates intensive feelings of guilt (feelings that are like demons) which actually interfere with our capacity to let shame place in check any base tendencies we might occasionally feel. Rather, referring to the interaction of cause and effect, or reward and punishment, that occurs in the wandering in the wilderness phase of spiritual development (the “day of wrath”), we can understand that such “wrath” is the consequence of our own negative actions. In Romans 2:3, Paul writes:

“Do you not know that the kindness of God is meant to lead you into repentance? But by your hard and unrepentant heart you store up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and of the revelation of God’s ordinances, Who will requite each one according to his works … .”

Paul tells us that God is kind. To fear God is to understand well the relationships between cause and effect relative to our own thoughts, intentions and actions; and to know that right thoughts and behavior will lead to positive effects that build up and reinforce one’s spiritual life (“fruits of the spirit”), whilst wrong behavior, thoughts, and intentions tear down and destroy one’s spiritual life (resulting in “wrath”). Both ways of being reverberate to society as well, one positively and the other negatively. The Apostle Paul said it well: "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap" (Paul’s Letter to the Galatians 6:7). The teaching that Paul presents here is profound in this regard. His emphasis on the recognition of God’s ordinances as framed in revelation, his identification of the process of putting on the new man as a symbol of resurrection and renewal, and his correlation of the acquisition of knowledge of the latent image of God within oneself, parallel closely Baha’u’llah’s words from The Seven Valleys, in the section called The Valley of Unity:

O My Brother! A pure heart is as a mirror; cleanse it with the burnish of love and severance from all save God, that the true sun may shine within it and the eternal morning dawn. Then wilt thou clearly see the meaning of "Neither doth My earth nor My heaven contain Me, but the heart of My faithful servant containeth Me." And thou wilt take up thy life in thine hand, and with infinite longing cast it before the new Beloved One.

Whensoever the light of Manifestation of the King of Oneness settleth upon the throne of the heart and soul, His shining becometh visible in every limb and member. At that time the mystery of the famed tradition gleameth out of the darkness: "A servant is drawn unto Me in prayer until I answer him; and when I have answered him, I become the ear wherewith he heareth...." For thus the Master of the house hath appeared within His home, and all the pillars of the dwelling are ashine with His light. And the action and effect of the light are from the Light-Giver; so it is that all move through Him and arise by His will.

In a statement echoing the above text, Joseph Campbell commented that “The mind of man, cleansed of secondary and merely temporal concerns, beholds with the radiance of a cleansed mirror a reflection of the rational mind of God.” (The Power of Myth, p 31). The understanding of the heart or soul as a mirror capable of being cleansed and reflecting purely the image of God is a central tenet of the Baha’i spiritual experience. We read how Baha’u’llah beautifully predicates the experience of cleansing the heart and reflecting the image on recognizing and accepting “the new Beloved One,” “the Master of the House,” (i.e., the returned Manifestation of God) in His human form, into one’s life.

The famous text from the Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 13) is relevant to this discussion and has perhaps been misunderstood in this regard:

For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly (literally, “for at this moment we discern obscurely by the means of a mirror”); but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

The “glass” to which Paul refers is not a pane of glass as in a window, the common assumption, but rather a mirror (Greek, esoptron), which in those times was polished metal in which one could see a reflected image, if of course it was sufficiently polished and had no tarnish or obscuring dust on it. “Darkly” is much better translated as “obscurely” as Young has done in his literal translation. What is Paul saying here, then? Like the texts above, he is referring to the spiritual phenomenon of self-knowledge described metaphorically as an image in a mirror. He denotes the spiritual progress “I” (that is, any believer) makes from a child-like state of immature understanding to a mature understanding of one’s own nature (“then I shall know even as also I am known.”) The transition through adolescence must be assumed here, as the transitional or “second day” condition between childhood (day 1) and adulthood or maturity (day 3). In this sense, the “I” has died to the childlike condition in order to live to the mature adult spiritual condition, just as a seed dies to allow the tree to germinate and grow. Once this occurs, then the “image of God” appears in the mirror of one’s heart as a clear reflection of the qualities and attributes of God, the way that we come to know God and the way God then knows us.

Reverend Bruce Chilton, Bible scholar, insightful writer, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College in New York State, and pastor (rector) of the (Episcopal) Church of St. John the Evangelist in Barrytown, New York, provided several insights into the teachings of the Apostle Paul regarding the meaning of the crucifixion and the type of death which it symbolically conveys to human spiritual life, which are relevant here. Notably, Rev. Chilton indicates in his book Rabbi Paul: An Intellectual Biography (Doubleday, 2004) that

For Paul and Christianity after Paul, the cross of Christ is the intersection where the Torah stops and the Spirit begins for all humanity … . The cross becomes the pattern of human suffering transmuted into fulfillment … . The fulfillment of promise – realized by identification with Christ – is the destiny of belief. The meaning of human existence is not static, but progressive, and that progress takes people beyond the Law.

Reverend Chilton’s concept of “pattern” here reflects our development of the notion of “model” and “type” with regard to the 3 day leitmotif. His observation that human spiritual development is dynamic and “progressive” is consistent with our theme here that the resurrection in a three day leitmotif is a pattern of that dynamism, and not a fixed historical event. His identification of the Law as deficient is not elaborated well, but suggests that Paul understood the Law as the elevation of the letter of the law above the intent of the law, as Jesus often said (see below).

To expand further on the theme of dying to live from Paul, Baha’u’llah, and others, we can turn to Paul’s elaboration of the term “circumcision” which occurs in his various letters. In the common way of understanding history of early Christianity, it was considered a matter of great argument during the time of Paul and the other Apostles as to whether new believers (men, obviously) should be circumcised. The argument affected their tendency to expand Christianity outside of Judaism and to the “gentiles” or non-Jewish populations living in the eastern Mediterranean, a mission Paul was understood to undertake. For Jews, circumcision was Law. However, there is an entirely different way of viewing this issue. A short passage from Romans 2:29 is particularly poignant:

“[C]ircumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

Elsewhere in Galatians 6:15, Paul wrote:

“For neither circumcision is anything, nor foreskin, but a new creation. And as many as hold to this standard, peace upon them and mercy … .”

The heterodox Gospel of Thomas emphasizes a similar point in its 53^rd reported saying of Christ:

His disciples said to Him, "Is circumcision beneficial or not?" He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget them already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become completely profitable."

We can discern that Paul and the compiler of the Gospel of Thomas sayings refer to circumcision not as the physical act of separation of foreskin from penis, but rather as a separation of the soul from physical desire, from passion. To understand circumcision as a physical law that must be obeyed therefore deflects its intended meaning. It could perhaps be understood as an outward sign of a commitment to make the spiritual leap of detachment from physical desire, much in the same way that baptism is a sign of a commitment to wash oneself clean of error, but neither act actually confers these spiritual commitments (despite the attitudes of the ecclesiastical authority towards these acts).

That Paul does not speak literally here is expressed in his words “not in the letter” and “as many as hold to this standard [of understanding].” His sense conveys that the act and significance of circumcision has been misunderstood all along, and that it is not physical circumcision that makes one a true believer nor part of a religious community, but rather the spiritual one. This perspective makes the entire argument about whether or not to circumcise physically new believers moot, and a literalization or concretization of a spiritual matter [15] Again, we have a hermeneutical guide to Paul’s teachings, which steers us clear of concretistic interpretations that otherwise lead us into a misunderstanding of Paul’s intention. It also helps us to understand further what Paul meant by “Law” which was in his view a concretization of those spiritual principles originally laid down by Moses, such as the example of circumcision here. A key lesson is that the sacred scriptures (“Writings” in Young’s Literal Translation) should not be concretized if they are to be understood and applied effectively. Once the believers concretize their spiritual teachings, their originally intended effect wears off and the laws (spiritual principles) become less effective. Unfortunately, the ecclesiastical authorities (i.e., clergy and divines) are often the very motivators of this concretization process, mainly because it solidifies their power position in society.

Lest the reader be developing a concern that the our text is drifting from our main theme of the three days leitmotif as a temporal representation of a spiritual process, let us consider that the “crucifixion” (or “circumcision”) and the “resurrection” interact in that the former represents the dying to self, and the latter the rising to new life after that very necessary death. It forms a core of the tripartite resurrection process. Baha’u’llah’s use of the words “destroy” and “dying to self” converges on the Christian notions of dying to the old self in order to live newly, of changing the old garment for a new garment, of circumcising away the fleshly nature of the heart’s affections and desires, of replacing the old man with the new man, and of maturing from child to man. These convergences with the teachings found in the letters of the Apostle Paul require a spiritual understanding of the resurrection. Such an understanding requires development of a capacity for discernment, which is seeing past the symbol to the referent it means to expose. This capacity is always under test. In the Baha’i Teachings, one must purify one’s heart from preconceptions and passed down traditions to achieve it.

Any doubt in the reader’s mind that Paul should be interpreted literally on these accounts should be fading by now. Later, we will provide strong evidence from Paul’s own words that he viewed the resurrection itself not as a physical resuscitation of a dead body, but rather a spiritual process. Indeed, Paul is the key to understanding the resurrection in this way, and was the first to mention it in the written word as has already been mentioned. But Paul has always been difficult to understand, thus, it has been relatively easy to concretize his subtle teachings. 2 Peter indicates that Paul’s words should not be taken at surface meaning:

“… Paul wrote to you with the wisdom God gave him--Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters around to mean something quite different from what he meant, just as they do the other parts of Scripture--and the result is disaster for them.” 2 Peter 3: 15-16 , New Living Translation

Similarly, the writer of Paul’s Epistle to the Hebrews, an unknown author of this Pauline-style text of a homiletic nature, noted as follows:

“Concerning this we have much teaching which is hard to interpret, since you have become deaf in your hearing.” Paul’s Letter to the Hebrews 5:11-14

Discursive Meditation on Three

Succeeding postings under the rubric of The Three Day Journey will help lead us towards a non-concretistic view of the resurrection, through reference to the writings of the Apostle Paul as well as from others. We will examine hermeneutic principles required to discern these matters as “heavenly things,” as well as see specific examples of the three leitmotif from Christian texts and traditions. Then, we will proceed to an examination of the resurrection from the point of view of the Baha’is.

For now, let us close for a discursive meditation with some words from The Tablet of Maqsud from Baha’u’llah, which focus on the three stages of human spiritual development He outlines, where word replaces day:

“Man is the supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of what he doth inherently possess. Through a word proceeding out of the mouth of God he was called into being; by one word more he was guided to recognize the Source of his education; by yet another word his station and destiny were safeguarded.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Table 1. A tabulation of the three day and third day leitmotif from the Hebrew scriptures (i.e., Christian Old Testament) from Reverend John Shelby Spong.

Hebrew scriptural citation Context/Quotation

1. Genesis 30:36 “and setteth a journey of three days between himself and Jacob; and Jacob is feeding the rest of the flock of Laban.”

2. Exodus 3:16-18 “And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.”

3. Genesis 42:17-18 “Send one of you, and let him fetch your brother, and ye shall be kept in prison, that your words may be proved, whether [there be any] truth in you: or else by the life of Pharaoh surely ye [are] spies. And he put them all together into ward three days. And Joseph said unto them the third day, This do, and live; [for] I fear God:”

4. Exodus 10:22 “And Moses stretcheth out his hand towards the heavens, and there is darkness -- thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days;”

5. 2 Samuel 1:1-16 “And it cometh to pass, after the death of Saul, that David hath returned from smiting the Amalekite, and David dwelleth in Ziklag two days,

and it cometh to pass, on the third day, that lo, a man hath come in out of the camp from Saul, and his garments [are] rent, and earth on his head; and it cometh to pass, in his coming in unto David, that he falleth to the earth, and doth obeisance.”

6. 1 Kings 12:5 “And he saith unto them, `Go -- yet three days, and come back unto me;' and the people go.”

7. Ezra 8:15 “And I gather them unto the river that is going unto Ahava, and we encamp there three days; and I consider about the people, and about the priests, and of the sons of Levi I have found none there;”

8. Ezra 10:8-9 “When Ezra arrived, all the returning exiles had to assemble within three days or else be banned from the house of Israel, which would be established after three days.”

9. Jonah 1:17 “And Jehovah appointeth a great fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah is in the bowels of the fish three days and three nights.”

10. Esther 4:16 `Go, gather all the Jews who are found in Shushan, and fast for me, and do not eat nor drink three days, by night and by day; also I and my young women do fast likewise, and so I go in unto the king, that [is] not according to law, and when I have perished -- I have perished.'

11. Genesis 40:12-19 [Summary: In a highly symbolic narrative, Joseph interprets the dreams of Pharaoh’s butler and baker, the former of whom was spared after 3 days whilst the latter was executed after three days. In both dreams, symbols are used for the 3 days time motif in Joseph’s interpretation, the first being three branches of grape vine, the second three white baskets.] Genesis 40:12 “And Joseph saith to him, `This [is] its interpretation: the three branches are three days;” [and] Genesis 40:18 “And Joseph answereth and saith, `This [is] its interpretation: the three baskets are three days;”

12. Exodus 19:10-11 “And Jehovah saith unto Moses, `Go unto the people; and thou hast sanctified them to-day and to-morrow, and they have washed their garments, and have been prepared for the third day; for on the third day doth Jehovah come down before the eyes of all the people, on mount Sinai.” [Note: The text continues into Exodus 19:15-16 with reference to the third day]

13. 2 Kings 20:5,8 “ `Turn back, and thou hast said unto Hezekiah, leader of My people: Thus said Jehovah, God of David thy father, I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tear, lo, I give healing to thee, on the third day thou dost go up to the house of Jehovah;” [and] “And Hezekiah saith unto Isaiah, `What [is] the sign that Jehovah doth give healing to me, that I have gone up on the third day to the house of Jehovah?' “

14. Hosea 6:2 “He doth revive us after two days, In the third day He doth raise us up, And we live before Him.”

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Table 2. A tabulation of the three day and third day leitmotif in the New Testament. Young’s Literal Translation is used. Comments in brackets.

New Testament scriptural citation Context/Quotation

Acts 9:8-9 “and Saul arose from the earth, and his eyes having been opened, he beheld no one, and leading him by the hand they brought him to Damascus, and he was three days without seeing, and he did neither eat nor drink.” [An account of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus]

Acts 10:39-41 “and we -- we are witnesses of all things that he did, both in the country of the Jews, and in Jerusalem, -- whom they did slay, having hanged upon a tree. This one God did raise up the third day, and gave him to become manifest, not of all the people, but of witnesses who were chosen before of God, us who have eaten and drunk with him after he arose from among [the] dead.” [Account of a testimony of Peter to an assemblage of Romans at Caesarea, headed by Cornelius]

Acts 25:1 “Festus, therefore, having come into the province, after three days went up to Jerusalem from Caesarea” [King James Bible says “ascended from Caesarea to Jerusalem.” City names are used as spiritual symbols here.]

1 Corinthians 15:3-8 “for I delivered to you first, what also I did receive, that Christ died for our sins, according to the Writings, and that he was buried, and that he hath risen on the third day, according to the Writings, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve, afterwards he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain till now, and certain also did fall asleep; afterwards he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. And last of all -- as to the untimely birth -- he appeared also to me …” [Several important elements appear in this text which we will examine elsewhere]

Mark 8:1-2 In those days the multitude being very great, and not having what they may eat, Jesus having called near his disciples, saith to them, `I have compassion upon the multitude, because now three days they do continue with me, and they have not what they may eat; [A reference to the passing of the multitude through the process of 3 days or planes of spiritual growth, as the listened to and assimilated Jesus’ teachings; note that on the third day – the day of resurrection -- the miracle took place]

Mark 8:31 and began to teach them, that it behoveth the Son of Man to suffer many things, and to be rejected by the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and to be killed, and after three days to rise again; [resurrection reference]

Mark 9:11 for he was teaching his disciples, and he said to them, `The Son of Man is being delivered to the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and having been killed the third day he shall rise,' [resurrection reference]

Mark 10:32 and they shall mock him, and scourge him, and spit on him, and kill him, and the third day he shall rise again.' [resurrection reference]

Mark 14:58 We heard him saying -- I will throw down this sanctuary made with hands, and by three days, another made without hands I will build;' [Jesus abrogates the prior dispensation of Moses, and reconstructs the Cause of God through the three day process of resurrecting the believers to new spiritual life, assembling them as the living “temple” or embodiment of Jesus’ teachings]

Mark 15:29 And those passing by were speaking evil of him, shaking their heads, and saying, `Ah, the thrower down of the sanctuary, and in three days the builder! [Literalists disdainfully dismissing the words of Jesus from Mark 14:58, and clearly misunderstanding their inner meaning]

Matthew 12:28-29 Then answered certain of the scribes and Pharisees, saying, `Teacher, we will to see a sign from thee.' And he answering said to them, `A generation, evil and adulterous, doth seek a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, except the sign of Jonah the prophet; for, as Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. [Jesus rejects the call for a physical miracle as demonstration of His truth and power, indicating that such a sign comes only from those who cannot understand him and who expect literal rather than spiritual teaching; he gives them the sign of Jonah as a reminder, emphasizing the 3 day leitmotif which they would understand as spiritual resurrection, if only they could see past their limited (i.e., literal) understanding of their own sacred texts. The next few verses enlighten the reader as to Jesus’ station as the true Manifestation of God, greater than a mere Jonah or a Solomon who were minor prophets]

Matthew 15:32 And Jesus having called near his disciples, said, `I have compassion upon the multitude, because now three days they continue with me, and they have not what they may eat; and to let them away fasting I will not, lest they faint in the way.' [cf. Mark 8:1-2, and comments above]

Matthew 16:21 From that time began Jesus to shew to his disciples that it is necessary for him to go away to Jerusalem, and to suffer many things from the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and to be put to death, and the third day to rise. [portends resurrection]

Matthew 17:23 and they shall kill him, and the third day he shall rise,' and they were exceeding sorry. [portends resurrection]

Matthew 20:19 and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the nations to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify, and the third day he will rise again.' [portends resurrection]

Matthew 26:60-61 At the last came two false witnesses, And said, This [fellow] said, I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it in three days. [“false witnesses” misinterpret Jesus’ words and in doing so use them against Him in a trial, suggesting that he means to literally destroy the temple as if He were a secular revolutionary, rather than rejuvenate the Cause of God by resurrecting the Jewish people through the 3 day model]

Matthew 27:40 `Thou that art throwing down the sanctuary, and in three days building [it], save thyself; if Son thou art of God, come down from the cross.' [another reference to the “three days” process of rebuilding the temple, here again placed to show the misunderstood teaching]

Matthew 27:62 saying, `Sir, we have remembered that that deceiver said while yet living, After three days I do rise; [verse reveals the misunderstanding of the chief priests and Pharisees, who literalized Jesus’ teaching regarding the “three days” resurrection and so urged guarding the tomb, itself a symbol]

Luke 2:46 And it came to pass, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them and questioning them, [the journey to the temple, a symbol for spiritual attainment, requires 3 days]

Luke 9:22 `It behoveth the Son of Man to suffer many things, and to be rejected by the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and to be killed, and the third day to be raised.' [In this passage and the following verses, Luke portrays in the gospel the model of dying and rising in a three day pattern, which must be emulated by the believers, who are told in 9:23 to take up their own crosses “daily” and repeat Jesus’ pattern of dying as in 9:24. Refer to the Dying to Live section of this posting]

Luke 13:32 `Having gone, say to this fox [Herod], Lo, I cast forth demons, and perfect cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third [day] I am being perfected; [Spiritual perfection requires spiritual healing in a 3 day process; see the succeeding verse and details in this posting]

Luke 18:32-33 and having scourged they shall put him to death, and on the third day he shall rise again. And they none of these things understood, and this saying was hid from them, and they were not knowing the things said.[A highly significant text, indicating that the disciples did not understand the hidden meaning (“this saying was hid from them”) in the third day/rise again model of spiritual resurrection that Jesus gave to them. That understanding ultimately came to them is shown by the remaining verses in this chapter, in which a blind man is healed, signifying spiritual insight into this issue. That the healing took place near Jericho means that the “walls” i.e., barriers to understanding, came down. Jericho takes a representational geographic position (a “city”) of underdeveloped spirituality, as does Capernaum and Jerusalem elsewhere in the NT. See Mark 10:46 for the name of the man and elaborated version of the healing, where significantly the man is said to cast away his garment (reflecting Paul’s teaching); and Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places for conceptualization of named places as symbols for spiritual conditions. Please also see Baha’u’llah’s use of the word “city” in the posting above, in a quotation from The Gems of Divine Mysteries]

Luke 24:4-7ff It behoveth the Son of Man to be delivered up to the hands of sinful men, and to be crucified, and the third day to rise again.' [the meaning of the third day becomes apparent to the disheartened women who visited the “tomb,” a symbolic reference; see succeeding verse “they remembered his sayings” referring to their renewed capacity in their grief to understand the symbolism. The remainder of this chapter shows how understanding came to the others. This section of Luke is commonly taken to shore up the notion of a physical resurrection because of the appearances described in it, but they are symbolic as one can see by the continual references to “seeing” (understanding) and “Then opened he up their understanding to understand the Writings”]

John 2:1 And the third day a marriage happened in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, [the marriage at Cana is a highly symbolic representation of the searching soul … a woman as the bride… forming the syzygy with her beloved, her true self, in spiritual reunion; the groom also represents the Lord. Note that the spiritual reunion occurs on the third day, corresponding to the day of spiritual resurrection. The notion of spiritual reunion represented symbolically by marriage is ancient and may have been a sacrament in some of the early churches, and may be codified in the sacramental marriage ceremony today]

John 2:19-21 Jesus answered and said to them, `Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.'The Jews, therefore, said, `Forty and six years was this sanctuary building, and wilt thou in three days raise it up? but he spake concerning the sanctuary of his body; [John gives the explanation in spiritual terms here; “sanctuary of his body” refers to Jesus’ teachings and His renewed followers in their newly organized form, the Christian religion as the new dispensation]

[1] Reactions to the story predictably fall on both sides of the issue; for example one from the strident Christian apologist blogger Mariano was swift and dismissive (http://lifeanddoctrine.blogspot.com/2008/07/jesus-tablet-lshloshet-yaminin-three.html), as was a comment by a Lutheran poster (http://www.getreligion.org/?s=shoddy). By contrast, the anti-religion polemicist Richard Dawkins received the story as an affirmation of his decidedly strident point of view: http://richarddawkins.net/article,2822,Tablet-Ignites-Debate-on-Messiah-and-Resurrection,New-York-Times#comments.

[2] Reverend Spong is a retired Episcopalian bishop and prolific writer on themes such as new directions he believes Christianity must take in the postmodern era; or alternative interpretations of traditional doctrines, such as the development of the resurrection concept historically. Some books of note include The Resurrection: Myth or Reality? A Bishop’s Search for the Origins of Christianity; Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism: A Bishop Rethinks the Meaning of Scripture; A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born; and Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile.

[3] Spong, John Shelby. 1994. The Resurrection: Myth or Reality? HarperCollins Publishers, New York. Pages 214-216.

[4] Notably, Gabriel was the angel reported to have communicated the revelations to the Prophet Muhammad. Bronner’s article does not mention this rather obvious connection, which would have thrown the article even further askew. Otherwise, Gabriel appears only in the Book of Daniel, and the Gospel of Luke (in an appearance to Mary the mother of Jesus.

[5] The traditional, theological understanding of typology in interpreting scripture is as a theory of the systematic analogy between historical events, or as when texts correspond through allegory in conformity with a doctrine (see the wiki at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typology_(theology)). I would amend this understanding to connote “the systematic analogy between historical events where those events are presented scripturally as symbolic narratives of a homiletic intention.” The former definition makes certain literal assumptions about the narratives under consideration, such as the Exodus account or the resurrection accounts, necessarily received as historically accurate to the true believer. My amendment eliminates this requirement but demands an inner or intended meaning, requiring a hermeneutic guide for the exegesis. For a discussion of typology in a theological context, see Knight, Janice. 1991. Learning the Language of God: Jonathan Edwards and the Typology of Nature. The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, 48(4): 531-551. For an example of the application of the typological concept to one’s individual life (“typological self-interpretation”) using St. Teresa of Avila as a prototype, see Slade, Carole. 1995. St. Teresa of Avila: Author of a Heroic Life. University of California Press, Berkeley; especially pages 4 and 17. Interestingly, Dr. Slade noted: “Typological self-interpretation necessarily rests on scriptural exegesis.”

[6] “The attainment of any object is conditioned upon knowledge, volition and action.” Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 100.

[7] Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 200.

[8] The 13^th century mystic and Dominican monk Meister Eckhart commented that "God is not found in the soul by adding anything but by a process of subtraction." See the article by James McFadden at http://www.catholicireland.net/pages/index.php?nd=3&art=544 for comments on Meister Eckhart’s words relative to spiritual detachment.

[9] Abdu’l-Baha observed that “[B]y simple development along material lines man is not perfected. At most, the physical aspect of man, his natural or material conditions may become stabilized and improved but he will remain deprived of the spiritual or divine bestowal … . Man has two powers, and his development two aspects. One power is connected with the material world and by it he is capable of material advancement. The other power is spiritual and through its development his inner, potential nature is awakened. These powers are like two wings. Both must be developed, for flight is impossible with one wing. Praise be to God! Material advancement has been evident in the world but there is need of spiritual advancement in like proportion. We must strive unceasingly and without rest to accomplish the development of the spiritual nature in man, and endeavor with tireless energy to advance humanity toward the nobility of its true and intended station. For the body of man is accidental; it is of no importance. The time of its disintegration will inevitably come. But the spirit of man is essential and therefore eternal. It is a divine bounty. It is the effulgence of the Sun of Reality and therefore of greater importance than the physical body . . . . The bestowal and grace of God have quickened the realm of existence with life and being.” (From Baha'i World Faith, p. 262-264.) This text has several important elements, including the notions of spiritual advancement as development towards a state of perfection; the necessary and inevitable disintegration of the physical body (thereby eliminating the possibility of physical resurrection); and the essentially eternal nature of the spirit of man (i.e., the soul).

[10] The Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah, From the Persian, Number 7. “O Son of Love! Thou art but one step away from the glorious heights above and from the celestial tree of love. Take thou one pace, and with the next advance into the immortal realm, and enter the pavilion of eternity. Give ear then to that which hath been revealed by the Pen of Glory.”

[11] Baha’is may wish to explore the Didache and the scholarship surrounding it in detail. Two useful links are http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/didache.html and http://www.didache-garrow.info/. It appears to represent a very early Christianity (possibly 50-70 CE) instruction manual or “study circle” style guide, composed before the bread and wine were literalized into the actual body and blood of Christ, and before the resurrection and the life teaching was literalized into a physical resurrection (see the so-called Two Ways portion of the Didache text). The Didache glosses these doctrinalized themes as symbolic. The Baha’i author Daniel Grolin in his book “Jesus and Early Christianity in the Gospels” (George Ronald, publisher) discusses it in some detail. Christian scholars and theologians have taken various positions on the Didache according to their particular points of view and biases. For example, some have emphasized the section on how to receive and treat itinerant teachers, rejecting those who obviously have materialist motives and thus are referred to as “false prophets,” yet this section is only a small part of a much larger and more comprehensive document. It appears to be mainly an edifying and instructional document for new believers. Regarding the bread and wine in the Didache, Burton Mack wrote (bold for emphasis; note repetition of “knowledge” and “known”):

But here in the Didache a very formalistic set of prayers is assigned to the cup and the breaking of bread without the slightest association with the death and resurrection of Jesus. The prayers of thanksgiving are for the food and drink God created for all people and the special, "spiritual" food and drink that Christians have because of Jesus. Drinking the cup symbolizes the knowledge these people have that they and Jesus are the "Holy Vine of David," which means that they "belong to Israel." Eating the bread symbolizes the knowledge these people have of the life and immortality they enjoy by belonging to the kingdom of God made known to them by Jesus, God's child.

Regarding the Two Ways, the following text from the Didache directly is illustrative of the lack of a direct reference to the physical resurrection. Instead, the context is a way of living one’s life as “life” and living one’s life as “death:”

There are two ways, one of life and one of death, but a great difference between the two ways. The way of life, then, is this: First, you shall love God who made you; second, love your neighbor as yourself, and do not do to another what you would not want done to you. And of these sayings the teaching is this: Bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies, and fast for those who persecute you. For what reward is there for loving those who love you? Do not the Gentiles do the same? But love those who hate you, and you shall not have an enemy. Abstain from fleshly and worldly lusts …

And the way of death is this: First of all it is evil and accursed: murders, adultery, lust, fornication, thefts, idolatries, magic arts, witchcrafts, rape, false witness, hypocrisy, double-heartedness, deceit, haughtiness, depravity, self-will, greediness, filthy talking, jealousy, over-confidence, loftiness, boastfulness; persecutors of the good, hating truth, loving a lie, not knowing a reward for righteousness, not cleaving to good nor to righteous judgment, watching not for that which is good, but for that which is evil; from whom meekness and endurance are far, loving vanities, pursuing revenge, not pitying a poor man, not laboring for the afflicted, not knowing Him Who made them, murderers of children, destroyers of the handiwork of God, turning away from him who is in want, afflicting him who is distressed, advocates of the rich, lawless judges of the poor, utter sinners. Be delivered, children, from all these.

[12] This passage from the Gospel of Luke 9:59-62 is perhaps far more subtle than it has been understood, if we are willing to accept the notion that such passages are both didactic and parenetic in intent to the reading audience, that is, the passage presents a point of view for the sake of emphasizing a particularly subtle but profound teaching. For example, the “dead father” could represent the prior Judaic dispensation of Moses, now passing away; and the hesitating and excuse making “son” could represent the people called to accept the succeeding dispensation ushered in by Jesus Christ, but showing hesitancy and uncertainty. My reason of incorporating it here is to show how the text illustrates the symbolic use of the word “dead,” as others have done. The parenetic sense is perhaps: “don’t allow yourself to be among the dead now that the Promised One has come!”

[13] Buck, Christopher. Discovering. In: Binyamin Abrahamov, Christopher Buck, Michael Carter, Vincent Cornell, Frederick Denny, Francois Deroche, Salwa El-Awa, Reuven Firestone, Anna Gade, Andrew Rippin (contributors and editors). The Blackwell Companion to the Qur’an, Chapter 2, pp. 18-35. Oxford University Press.

[14] With reference to demons and exorcism, the author Bruce Chilton in his book Rabbi Paul emphasized the spiritual effect of Christ’s coming: “[T]he Spirit of God’s Son transformed every believer into God’s child with the personal awareness of God as Father. That chased out the unintegrated, demonic fragments of personality that can undermine a person’s being … . Spirit’s power in Paul’s mind and practice was worked out by means of exorcism: the inrushing force of the divine kingdom destroyed the demons’ fortresses on the earth … His campaign was part of the underlying, spiritual warfare that was more fateful than any war the world could wage (2 Corinthians 10:4): ‘For the weapons of our warfare are not of flesh, but powerful in God for the demolition of strongholds.’ The struggle for humanity was an intellectual and emotional combat that centered on the conquest of evil in the human heart.”

[15] Concretistic thinking has been defined by Carl Jung in his Compiled Works: “CONCRETISM. By this I mean a peculiarity of thinking and feeling which is the opposite of abstraction. The actual meaning of concrete is ‘grown together’. A concretely thought concept is one that has growth together or coalesced with other concepts. Such a concept is not abstract, not segregated, not thought ‘in itself’, but always alloyed and related to something else. It is not a differentiated concept, but is still embedded in material transmitted by sense-perception. Concretistic thinking operates exclusively with concrete concepts and percepts, and is constantly related to sensation. Similarly, concretistic feeling is never segregated from its sensuous content.” Please see Cope, Theo A. 2001. Re-Thinking, Re-Visioning, Re-Placing. From Neoplatonism to Baha’i in a Jung Way. George Ronald, London, p. 236ff.

[16] Tablets of Baha’u’llah, p. 161-162.

What Crime Won You a Prison Cell?

2008-05-19T11:04:00.000-07:00

Arrested in the morning

Picture yourself in this scenario:

You are at home, asleep in your bed with your spouse, in the early hours of the morning. Suddenly armed men burst into your house, roughly rouse you, and with harsh and menacing words order you to prepare to come with them. While you change into street clothes, your spouse frantically gathers up some personal things for you to take … your medicines, your reading glasses, a tooth brush, a spare change of clothing … when one of the men barks “You won’t have any use for that stuff, where you are going!”

Other men begin a systematic and destructive search of your house, staying for hours to do so. They ransack, pull down bookshelves, rip open your family PC to remove the hard drive, harangue your spouse for the location of hidden files and books. Meanwhile, you are riding in the backseat of a car with two grim men sitting on either side of you, helpless, your hands cuffed together. You are on your way to prison. Your crime? You are a Baha’i.

The late Roger White, the Canadian poet, artist, and Baha’i, wrote a poem in memory of a young Baha’i man from Portuguese Guinea (present day Guinea Bissau), Mr. Eduardo Duarte Vieira, who in 1966 was arrested and beaten to death by police because of his religious beliefs. The opening line of the poem asks the penetrating question: What crime won you a prison cell?

Let us hear the answer to this same question from the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran with regard to the seven Baha’i leaders whom they have just arrested and imprisoned (see http://iran.bahai.us/bahai-leaders-arrested-in-iran).

The Seven Friends

The prisoners of conscience are Behrouz Tavakkoli, Saeid Rezaie (seated, left to right), and Fariba Kamalabadi, Vahid Tizfahm, Jamaloddin Khanjani, Afif Naeimi, and Mahvash Sabet (standing, left to right). Mrs. Sabet was arrested in Mashhad on March 4, 2008, while the other six were arrested in Tehran on May 14. All seven comprise a group known as The Friends. They hold informal leadership responsibility for the affairs of the beleaguered community of some 300,000 Baha’is in Iran, a religious community that has been the target of intense persecution by the ruling Iranian regime. The formal administrative structure of the Baha’i Faith in Iran, consisting of a National Spiritual Assembly and Local Spiritual Assemblies, was outlawed and disbanded in 1983 after the elected Baha'i leaders were rounded up and executed during the Iranian regime’s consolidation of political power, after the 1979 revolution. Since that time, the Baha’is have been systematically marginalized and deprived of basic rights such as employment, access to university education, and freedom to gather and worship. A recent series of government-sponsored purges, targeting such innocent groups as school children from Baha'i families, is reminiscent of the pogroms against the Jewish people of Germany in the 1930s. Sacred sites such as buildings and cemeteries have been destroyed, businesses closed, students dismissed from their classes, people arrested and detained without charge.

What crime?

What crime have these Baha'is committed, and why are they imprisoned? Who has really perpetrated a crime, against their rights as human beings and world citizens?

Let us pray for The Seven Friends, and hope that the international community takes notice; and action.

****************************************************************************
Master Criminal : A poem, copyright Roger White
From: Another Song, Another Season by Roger White

Tell, Duarte Vieira, kindly tell.

What crime won you a prison cell?

Your testament, a biscuit tin-

What, Duarte Vieira, was your sin?

What was the error of your ways

That heaven's Concourse sings your praise?

What offence did you commit?

Tell, that we may follow it.

Reveal your secret so that we

May, too, gain immortality.

Our skulking fears by you allayed

We seek a crime so richly paid.

All Africa now vastly blessed:

Baha's felon laid to rest.

Tell, Duarte Vieira, kindly tell.

What crime won you a prison cell?

*************************************************************************************************************************************

A quotation from the Writings of the Baha'i Faith:

From every land Thou hearest the lamentations of them that love Thee, and from every direction Thou hearkenest unto the cries of such as have recognized Thy sovereignty . . . Thou knowest full well, O my God, that their only crime is to have loved Thee. ~Baha'u'llah~

***************************************************************************

What's in a name?

2008-01-29T14:07:00.000-08:00

Despite what Shakespeare had to say about names and roses, we all know how important a name is. When we use a name, we indicate that we know about the person or object we are naming. When we use nicknames for our close friends, it shows that we value them in a special way. When we use names in a derogatory fashion, it shows how names can be turned to ill. A friend of mine, a black man, once told me about a time when he was called “nigger” by a passerby, as follows: “He called me out of my name.” He meant that the racist person had called him by the wrong name, not his true name. This story is a reminder of Baha’u’llah’s advice to beautify our tongues, and not to curse and revile.

It is the Kingdom of Names in which humanity is destined to dwell. Abdu’l-Baha teaches us that we know things not by their essence, but rather by their qualities and attributes, that is, their “names.” And, we come to know God and our own true selves by acquiring positive attributes and shedding negative ones, a process that requires our earnest efforts and God’s grace. If each of us does this, Baha’u’llah tells us, God will “name thy name, and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.”

The notion of names and attributes of God may seem strange to our Christian friends and relatives; it is not the way they ordinarily think about God. When they hear a Baha’i prayer that ends with a recitation of some names of God, it may be nonsensical to them. As the dialog with our Christian neighbors intensifies, how might we help explain this important facet of the Baha’i Teachings as a way to further discussion? I would like to suggest one possible way here.

“The Help in Peril” is a Name of God that appears frequently in our prayers. At the end of the unity prayer, God is simply called Helper. At the end of the short obligatory prayer, God is identified as the Help in Peril. It is a name that strikes one as curious, because its meaning is not obvious. What help, for what peril? It is therefore wonderful to discover that God is described explicitly as “helper” at least 17 times in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Here are just two examples that provide useful illustrations. The Hebrew “ezer” (זרע) means “helper,” or “one who helps.” In Exodus 18:4 we read in reference to Moses’ second son: “The name of his second son was Eliezer, for Moses had said at his birth, ‘The God of my fathers was my helper; he delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.’” (New Living Translation). Here, Moses’ son is given a name of God, the Helper. In Psalm 33:20 we read: “Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.” (King James Version). In both of these sacred verses one gets the sense that God alleviates an imminent and constant danger (that is, a peril), and that God is a protector and a deliverer from it.

The stories of Lazarus in the New Testament bring this same sense in an expanded form in two different parables. Significantly, Lazarus means “God is my Help.”

The first parable is the famous one of the rich man and the beggar named Lazarus from the Gospel of Luke chapter 16; it follows closely in series upon three successive parables presented in the Gospel of Luke chapter 15, and the context is an intense discussion with Pharisees, that is, representatives of the Mosaic dispensation who disputed Jesus and His teachings. The parable itself is controversial within Christian thought even today, with interpretations ranging from literal to symbolic. Briefly for our purposes, we can understand the parable to be a description of the old dispensation passing and giving way to the new one, and the resistance to the new one put out by those who are insufficiently detached to recognize the return of the Manifestation of God. The rich man exemplifies those who cling to the old dispensation, and those who (owing to their attachments to the world) have rejected the newly arrived Manifestation of God, Jesus Christ. His message of detachment is meaningless to them. Importantly, in the text itself, the rich man has no name, which can be interpreted to mean that he is deprived of the help provided by God through the rejuvenating teachings of the new Manifestation. Indeed, there is a literature developed by Christian theologians about why the rich man is un-named, because it is confusing. Some have given him the name Dives, because they feel that he really must have a name to complete the story. It simply means "rich man" and describes his attributes accordingly. Others (in particular, the literalist church father Tertullian) claim that the story cannot be a parable but rather must be an historical account, because in none of the other parables from Jesus are characters given formal names! When we understand that the name Lazarus refers typologically to anyone openly receptive of God's help, while the un-named rich man represents typologically those who deny that help or more importantly fail to recognize that they need it, then this problem is resolved and we can accept the story as a parable with an inner meaning. Still others interpret the parable simply to be about selfish materialism, which diminishes greatly the context and intensity of the parable. We Baha’is might understand the story to see that Jesus has specifically not given the rich man a name to show that God has not “named his name” and to set up a contrast with Lazarus. Lazarus, the one who is given a name in the original parable story, exemplifies those spiritually poor people thirsting for righteousness, open to the new teaching, receptive to the help.

At the conclusion of the parable, the rich man upon death finds himself in hell (separation from God) while Lazarus is united with Father Abraham (i.e., with God), who here represents the comfort and spiritual security provided by the universal manifestation. This parable is subtle and likely has many inner meanings, even to the extent that we may wish to pay close attention to the way some words in it have been translated. However, it is clear that it applies to whenever the Manifestation of God appears, because He brings help when He comes; some (those recognizing their need for divine help) accept it, while others -- the self-righteous, happy in their comfort zones -- don’t.

The second parable is the equally famous one of the raising of Lazarus from the dead. It appears in the Gospel of John, and here we find that the family of Lazarus has given up on him. Yet, Jesus tells them that there is still hope and raises him up after 4 days, adding an extra day to the traditional three days of the resurrection to emphasize that Lazarus was beyond the pale of recovery from spiritual death, truly intransigent, but help is coming. How many people have we known personally who we would categorize in this way? But the teachings of Jesus, for example from the parable of the Prodigal Son, show that anyone can turn their life around. The figure of Lazarus here seems to represent each and every human entombed in the prison of self, that deadly peril we all constantly face. The Manifestation of God is able to raise Lazarus from his spiritual death, to help him in the most ultimate way that any help could ever be provided.

The inner meaning of Jesus' miracles

2008-01-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

Book Review: The Meaning in the Miracles by Jeffrey John. 2004 (American Edition), Wm. B. Eerdmans & Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan. 248 pp. ISBN 0-8028-2794-2

Recent books, literature, and documentaries in the popular media on early Christianity and the "search for the historical Jesus" signal a fresh look on the part of believing Christians about the origins of their Faith and the meaning of the words and acts of Jesus. This short book, The Meaning in the Miracles by the Reverend Jeffrey John, an Anglican priest and Dean of St. Alban's Cathedral in Hertfordshire, England, represents well this kind of investigation. Reverend John shows how the traditional (i.e., literal) understanding of the miracles of Jesus (some 30 or so in number) and the modern (rational or reductionist) explanation for them both miss the point. He uses as the example the well known stories of the feeding of the multitudes by a few loaves and fishes; the traditional understanding is that the gathered throng were physically hungry and Jesus physically and miraculously increased the amount of bread and fish to satisfy them; the reductionist interpretation is that Jesus' teachings convinced the gathered to share unselfishly the food they had brought but hoarded. Reverend John offers a third interpretation, which he calls the inner meaning and which he suggests is the mold by which all the miracles of Jesus should be viewed; that is, that they are theological constructs meant to convey a teaching or portray a truth, often as extended metaphors or allegories. In this sense, his point of view and the majority of the book aligns well with the Baha'i understanding of miracles in general. As Abdu'l-Baha said: "[M]ost of the miracles of the Prophets which are mentioned have an inner significance." (Some Answered Questions, p. 37).

Reverend John notes that the feeding of the multitudes miracles are structured to illustrate the elevation of Jesus in the eyes of the Jews to the status of Moses, who gave manna in the desert; and that the food represents the Word of God. We can see a hint of the unity of these two Manifestations of God in this interpretation. Generally, the author observes that his book "investigates [the miracles'] scriptural roots and literary origins, their theological purpose, their religious and social context, and the various levels of meaning they convey." The author cites St. Augustine as a supporter of the need to discard the outer miracle and focus on the inner meaning and its effects:

"As Augustine says, it is all too possible for us to remain 'on the outside' of these stories, possibly marvelling at their element of wonder, or more likely dismissing them as obviously unbelievable. In either case we fail to be spiritually helped or nourished by them because we miss their inner meaning, and it is only their inner meaning, not the external wonder, that relates to our own real life and experience."

Reverend John also observed that St. Augustine himself complained about believers who became stuck on the wonder element of miracles and that they were missing "the kernel for the shell." Here is the text from St. Augustine that is quoted in the book:

"Let us ask the miracles themselves what they tell us about Christ, for they have a tongue of their own, if it can only be understood. Because Christ is the Word of God, all the acts of the Word become words to us. The miracle which we admire on the outside also had something inside which must be understood. If we see a piece of beautiful handwriting, we are not satisfied simply to note that the letters are formed evenly, equally and elegantly; we also want to know the meaning the letters convey. In the same way a miracle is not like a picture, something merely to look at and admire, and to be left at that. It is much more like a piece of writing which we must learn to read and understand."

St. Augustine's emphasis on understanding the meaning of the miracle is a refreshing reminder from the past for those who wish to prove Jesus' power and authority on the basis of the miracle stories. Reverend John goes on to note that the Gospels send a paradoxical message about the miracles (or "signs"):

"At first sight, the miracles seem to be intended as straightforward demonstrations of Jesus' divine power ... . On the other hand, all the Gospels contain strong warnings about the dangers of being impressed by signs and miracles ... . The only sign to be given [the Pharisees] is the sign of Jonah's submersion and rescue in the Old Testament, which is clearly meant to be understood as a symbolic prefiguring of his own death and resurrection."

Here, Reverend John captures a central problem in Christian doctrine, which is whether to allow lay believers to cleave to their faith on basis of the outer meanings of the miracles, or to lead them to an understanding of the inner meaning, thereby effecting inner transformation. One gets the sense that Reverend John wishes to convey in his book an understanding Jesus as a spiritual physician, rather than as a healer of physical ailments. This understanding corresponds with the Baha'i teaching that the Manifestation of God, when He appears, makes a diagnosis of the spiritual afflictions of humanity and then prescribes the remedy. In Christ's time, it would seem that human relationships were dominated by hate, fear, mistrust, self-righteousness, societal stratification into have's and have not's as well as on the basis of status; and that these entrenched factors imposed substantial limits on human spiritual development. Christ's prescriptions of the laws of love, forgiveness, forbearance, humility, example, and so on were the spiritual solutions to them.

Reverend John also attempts an exegesis of the meaning of numbers used at different times and places in some of miracle stories, and Baha'is will likely appreciate this type of numerological analysis. For example, in his chapter on the wedding feast of Cana, Reverend John notes how the water and the jars containing it signify the old, Mosaic dispensation and, by inference, the water-turned-to-wine the new dispensation brought by Jesus, a tacit acknowledgment of progressive revelation. In Reverend John's words "It is also a story about Jesus superseding the old covenant with a new dispensation of the Spirit." The numerologic analysis comes in when Reverend John notes that the 6 water jars are a rabbinical numerological symbol, in the gematria tradition, of deficiency (7 being a number of completion, and 9 a number of perfection). What Reverend John doesn't do in his book is suggest that there would ever come a time when the dispensation of Jesus would one day come to the same "6 jars" fate and have to be succeeded by another, at the time of the return and close of the age. Like many Christians today, he faces the problem of whether Christianity can change itself from within, or whether the body of believers and the ecclesiastical authority can accept something new to come in its place as the form of renewal. The Reverend John Shelby Spong, a retired Episcopalian Bishop, prolific writer, and correspondent of Reverend John's, has suggested just that in many of his recent books (such as A New Christianity for a New World: Why Traditional Faith Is Dying and How a New Faith Is Being Born and Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers In Exile). Such matters would make for a lively Baha'i-Christian dialog.

The book is well structured. It reviews a series of miracle stories in the Gospels, including healings by contact and remotely, resurrections, huge catches of fish, the feeding stories, and the elimination of demons from people's lives. It is well-referenced but not overly so, and contains a bibliography for further investigations. For each miracle, Reverend John typically offers the outer (literal) meaning and then suggests how an inner (symbolic, metaphorical, or allegorical) meaning should take precedence. Towards the end of each chapter, Reverend John offers a short meditation to amplify on his points, and each chapter ends with a set of quotations from various individuals or sources the context of which stimulates reflection on the perceived "inner" meaning of the miracle under consideration and its application to today. One of the most important points Reverend John makes in the book is how most of the miracle stories, in particular the healing stories, deal with the disenfranchised and lowly in society, and how Jesus "heals" their status and readjusts their relationships to the rest of humanity, to Himself, and to God. Thus, when a healed leper is ordered to go show himself to the priests to confirm the healing, it is not to confirm physical healing but rather to say "You see! I am not the spiritual outcast you thought I was!"

John's interpretation of the healing of the Roman centurion's ill man-servant is perhaps the most controversial. The author suggests that the centurion and the servant have a homosexual relationship, and interprets the remote healing on the part of Jesus as an affirmation of that relationship; rather than as a change in the spiritual condition of the servant and the centurion, and the healing of the power-based context of their relationship and their co-dependency on its sexual nature (the latter interpretation being more consistent with the rest of the book). It seems that by bringing up this interpretation of affirmation, the author himself is struggling with the emergence of homosexuality within his own church community and the fractiousness that has resulted.

Reverend John's interpretation of the healing of the lame woman, whose back is severely bent, into an upright position (Luke 13:10-17) is a beautiful exposition of the raising of the status of women in society, a statement with broad overlap with Baha'i teachings. It is similar to his understanding of the healing of the chronically hemorrhaging woman, which at that time and place when menstruation was considered unclean and a sign that woman brought sin into the world, would have placed her in an outcast social position:

"If Jesus once healed a hemorrhaging woman, so what? It is a wonderful thought and a moving story, but with no possible bearing on me when taken at face value. But if I understand by this story that Jesus intended to overturn the taboos that labeled all women as unclean and helped keep them in subjugation, that may be of enormous significance for my own attitude, as a Christian man, towards women."

The Meaning in the Miracles is likely a book many Baha'is will want to read and keep on their bookshelves. However, Baha'is are unlikely to agree with everything the author presents, as he is inconsistent in his application of universal inner meanings. He hews to the notion that the Eucharist is the miraculous incorporation of the body of Jesus into literal bread, but he does not reconcile this point of view with the inner meaning he ascribes to the loaves and fishes as outward symbols for the Word. Apparently when the miracle forms the basis for a Church doctrine, then Reverend John cannot cross the line into an inner meaning, or perhaps he is willing to accept a different understanding than the interpretation of miracles he offers here as a general model. Additionally, he does not uphold an inner meaning of the resurrection miracles (the raising of the widow's son, and the raising of Lazarus), emphasizing that these stories (both possibly modeled after the raising of the widow's son by Elijah, in the 17th chapter of 1 Kings) portrayed true physical resurrections, were premonitions of the physical resurrection of Jesus, and ultimately portend the physical resurrection of all true believers. Apparently unlike Bishop Spong, Reverend Jeffrey John is unwilling or unable to part with a literal interpretation of the resurrection process, a set of supernatural events that underlie essential doctrine. On the other hand, he does recognize the healing of blindness as a spiritual healing, where the veils are removed and spiritual insight comes to those that are healed: "But it is important to see, as Mark's miracle at Bethsaida and John's story of the man born blind both remind us, that enlightenment and conversion are always partial and gradual."

An Irish Poem

2008-01-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

I Am Stretched On Your Grave

Irish traditional, translated by Frank O’Connor

One of the reasons I started this blog is because I am fascinated by words and language. Words as symbols, conveyers of meaning, place them into a mysterious and mystical category. The chasm between the capacity of the other primates to communicate, and to utilize language, compared to humans shows to me that humans have a uniquely highly developed capacity to utilize symbolism; but to what end? Why bother? Other forms of life get along just fine without it. Its adaptive significance biologically, in such a highly elaborated form, isn’t terribly clear to me.

One use of words is in poetry. I really love good poetry and even weird poetry (Ezra Pound, for example), and I love to read it aloud and hear it when it is set to good music. This blog posting is about one of my favorite poems.

“I am stretched on your grave” is beautiful, mystical, tragic. It was composed in Irish by an unknown author and was translated into English by the Irish writer and academic Frank O’Connor (1903-1966). It is apparently very old, and so I wonder who first wrote it and what were the circumstances that stimulated the writer to feel the things he felt, and to compose it? I need to get more information about its origins.

Frank O’Connor and Sinead O’Connor are not related. Frank O’Connor is the pen name of Michael O’Donovan, a Corksman who wrote short stories and various works and is considered by some to be amongst the best of the Irish literary figures. Perhaps his best known story is Guests of the Nation, which was staged and produced for television. I highly recommend it as a good read or to view as a film. I met Frank O’Connor’s daughter at university many years ago. She was fair and fun, as I am sure she still is, and she had an easy, infectious laugh. She taught me about her father’s written works, including the poem under consideration here. She also exposed me to some fine Irish folk music, including The Bothy Band and Scullion.

The poem has been set to music and recorded. Sinead O’Connor, the Irish pop singer and post-modernist, popularized it in concert and on a recording, but I think it was much better presented far earlier in a chanted form by the Dublin-based band from the 1970s known as Scullion, on their first record of the same name. In fact, if you listen to both recordings you will see that Sinead O’Connor basically lifted the tune from Scullion without sufficient attribution, and really shamelessly to the point of commercializing a poem that is best left not commercialized. Plus, it is a poem that needs a male voice. Try if you can to find ‘Scullion’ in a used record shop; it is a very fine folk-rock recording in the Irish tradition.

Before we get to the poem, I have a few comments. First, like all poetry, it is at its most penetrating when read aloud. Secondly, like the poem I posted separately from the WW I era (Marian Allen’s “The Wind on the Downs”), it is about death and the living left behind. Death of close ones has been around me lately, so poems like this one and that of Marian Allen have drawn me to them. Thirdly, it is about life continuing after death, as it seems that the dead girl is still very much alive in the mind and heart of the narrator of the poem, the grieving boy.

There is an extraordinarily tender moment in the poem, which in the present day of post-modern, anything-goes behaviour perhaps seems trite or sappy, but I don’t think so. The couple apparently had a moment of intimacy when they were lost alone in the woods, but despite their longing for each other did not consummate their relationship physically. Their restraint only deepened their love.

This poem may be of interest to Baha’is because of the intense longing the lover has for his beloved; the weariness he expresses about the constraints the physical earth places on his ability to reach her; the expression that she is alive yet (for now) out of reach; and the sense that they can ultimately be rejoined. All of these emotions are symbolic of the longing of the lover for the Beloved.

I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever,

If your hands were in mine, I'd be sure they'd not sever.

My apple tree, my brightness 'tis time we were together,

For I smell of the earth and am stain-ed by the weather.

When my family thinks that I'm safe in my bed,

From night until morning I am stretched at your head.

Calling out to the air with tears hot and wild,

My grief for the girl that I loved as a child.

Do you remember the night we were lost

In the shade of the blackthorn and the chill of the frost.

Thanks be to Jesus we did what was right

And your maidenhead still is your Pillar of Light.

The priests and the friars approach me in dread,

Because I still love you, my love, and you’re dead.

And still would be your shelter through rain and through storm

For with you in the cold grave I cannot sleep warm.

Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places

2008-01-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

The Three Day Journey

A Baha'i Reflection on the Resurrection:

Part 1: Spiritual Geography: Paces and Places

A Pattern of Three

One of the striking recurrences in the Judeo-Christian tradition is a permeating pattern of three’s as a means of expressing spiritual processes and events. In a separate posting on this blog MasterKey, I will expand on the significance of this pattern, and will attempt a synthesis with particular attention to the meaning of the resurrection. Here, however, I want to discuss it in the context of the Exodus account in the Hebrew Bible or Christian Old Testament, where a pattern of directional movements across three regions can be discerned. I will suggest here that the meaning of it is not so much in its physiographic or geographic sense, but rather in the way it conveys an eternal spiritual truth, through representational language framed as a spiritual geography.

First, let us consider the Persian 7^th Hidden Word from Baha’u’llah, the Founder of the Baha’i Faith:

“O Son of Love!

Thou art but one step away from the glorious heights above, and from the celestial tree of love. Take thou one pace and with the next advance into the immortal realm and enter the pavilion of eternity. Give ear to that which hath been revealed by the pen of glory.”

I invite the reader now to take out a chess piece, or other small object, and place it on a table in front of you. As you recite the above sentence aloud, beginning with “Take thou one pace and with the next …,” move the chess piece as directed, from left to right. Are you done? You have moved it twice, and in so doing the piece has changed three positions: the first position was before the first “pace” or move, the second position was after the first pace but before the second, and the third position was after the second pace. Now imagine that the chess piece is you, that the Hidden Word above represents your spiritual journey conveyed spatially or geographically, and that each position represents a spiritual condition or state of being. This is what I mean by spiritual geography. Baha’u’llah invites us to “give ear” to His meaning, i.e., to understand and heed His words.

Evidence for the Exodus

An item that comes through the popular media from time to time, and one that has resurfaced recently (e.g., an article written by Michael Slackman in the New York Times newspaper on April 3, 2007: “Did the Red Sea Part? No Evidence, Archaeologists Say”), is the lack of clear, unequivocal archaeological evidence supporting the Biblical account of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. I don’t know if workers in the media choose to put out information like this for any particular reason or just because it is a slow news day, but the idea is provocative. It certainly caught my eye. Since reading Mr. Slackman’s article in April 2007, I researched it and read reactions to it. Perhaps needless to say, the idea causes quite a stir, because the Exodus account forms the basis for the establishment of the ancient nation of Israel and the unity of its tribes and peoples within the land of Canaan. It represents the salvation event of the Israelites. It also forms the basis for many popular Bible stories, and was the subject of Cecile B. DeMille’s Hollywood blockbuster film The Ten Commandments (1956). [1]

As part of my investigation, and since reading Mr. Slackman’s article, I have returned to the Bible and re-read the story of the Exodus in English translation (both King James and New Revised Standard versions); the accompanying books entitled Genesis, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy; and have visited and read many web sites and comments posted about it as well as articles in various books and in the media. I won’t summarize my results of that investigation here, because it would take a lot of space. My purpose here is to offer some reflections on the original account, to discuss the implications of the scientific findings, and to offer a perspective as a Baha’i (my own perspective, that is; and not any that should be taken as representative of an official perspective from the Baha’i international community in general). My interest stems in part from the scientific versus religious tension that must necessarily occur when considering the evidence; the important perspective that the Apostle Paul brings to the discussion but heretofore has been ignored as far as I know; and the intimations that the Baha’i Writings provide as to the meaning of the Exodus story (ones that seem to me to have broad implications for salvation history).

Overall, my conclusion is that the Exodus account’s significance is not in its historical accuracy, whether it is or is not supported by archaeological evidences, but rather that it portrays a spiritual geography that reflects the salvation or redemption process in three stages, a conclusion supported with a sample from the Baha’i Writings given above and below. This conclusion is strongly supported by rabbinical tradition and exegesis, going back at least to Philo of Alexandria and to Paul.

The problem is that the Exodus account contains such a large array of miraculous events, disasters, and mass movements in series that it is astounding that a clear record of their occurrence is not found in hieroglyphic records or from digs or other types of investigations for objective evidence. Many people argue vehemently that it all did occur, and one can find detailed maps of movements and crossings of ‘the sea of reeds’ and so on, to the point where (like the fictional Hollywood movie mentioned above) one can become readily convinced that the entire account is historically accurate. The account indicates that some 600,000 adult males, along with an uncounted but presumably larger number of women and children, ultimately took part in the Exodus and were in exile in the Sinai desert for 40 years, all having occurred sometime between the 12^th and 15^th century BCE. Some evidence of such a large body of people on the move should be forthcoming. How would such a large group sustain itself? Itinerant communities are, owing to resource limitations, typically small groups. Perhaps manna from heaven and water from rocks would provide the answer, and indeed this explanation is acceptable for many believers, but such an explanation is neither scientific nor rational; nor is there any indication of over 1,000,000 people having lived in the Sinai peninsula at that time. [2]

One commentator has suggested that the reason no record exists is that the Egyptians were defeated, and so they would not leave a record of shameful defeat but would only record military victories and other positive elements of their history. Another reason given, from tradition, is that one of the wandering tribes was assigned the task of hiding evidence of the movements of the entire group as a security measure, explaining why there are no traces left. Another commentator has suggested that the numbers used were symbols for much smaller groups of people, more in the line of multitudes or military units than millions. Two further pieces of evidence are lacking; one is archaeological, the other scriptural. The event occurred in an area of the Middle East which is well known and studied intensively for archaeological relics. Yet, there is no evidence of a large group of people arriving in the land of Canaan at that time, such as changes in pottery usage or other typical markers of a large demographic shift. Secondly, the Book of Chronicles (actually, two books as the reader likely knows) leaves the story of the Exodus almost completely out of the chronicled history of Israel (it is mentioned once in passing, that I could find). A possible explanation is that the stories of David and Solomon, and the later exile to and return from Babylon contained therein, overshadowed the account of the Exodus from Egypt, and that the Book of Exodus chronicled them in such great detail that it was not necessary to repeat them. I am not enough of a biblical scholar to know how important this omission might be in gauging its relevance to the argument. The reader is invited to research these matters in more detail, as I have, and to form a judgment on the matter. Overall reviews can be found in two useful wiki’s at Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus) and (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exodus). Both wiki’s mention the historical accuracy problem but with different perspectives on it.

My research also revealed a wide range of reactions to the idea that the Exodus account may not actually have happened either exactly as the original text reads, or even remotely similarly to the original account, or at all. There seem to be two schools of thought about it; one is that the literal account is the true, historical account and that we readers of it ought to take it as such. A corollary of this school of thought is that those who don’t take the account literally are errant, and those who doubt its historical accuracy are revisionists. The adage “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” is often cited in this case. This point of view seems to come from what one might call traditionalists as well as literalists in the various religious communities, both Jewish and Christian. It requires that the believer suspend belief in the natural world and its laws and accept the supernatural events (unique plagues, children killed by an angel, the dividing of the Red Sea, water coming from dry rock, food falling from the sky, and so on) as historical fact. The concern from the traditionalists seems to be that if the account is not historically accurate, then the only other option is to consign it to fiction. The second point of view is more accepting of the possibility that the Exodus account is in some way mythical and/or perhaps happened at a much smaller scale and was later embellished by the original writers of it to make particular points of emphasis. My purpose here is not to denigrate the significance of the Exodus account to the Jewish people past or present, nor should anyone reading my blog posting here form that impression of my intention. It is rather to explore its meaning in a third way that seems to be underdeveloped or not considered, and one that explores the meaning of salvation itself, and that obviates the concerns of a fictionalized account or one reduced to some material explanation by rationalization.

Rabbi David Wolpe (of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles), a regular contributor at the Belief Net website, provides a useful summary and perspective (http://www.beliefnet.com/story/157/story_15723_1.html). He reviews the evidence, the political implications of the scientific conclusions, and the theological consequences of the findings. Briefly, he has resorted to a reductionistic-rationalistic notion that the true Exodus was smaller scale and therefore not visible enough in the larger Egyptian and nearby communities to merit recording in any way that would persist and be recognizable in the present day:

“The probability is, given the traditions, that there were some enslaved Israelites who left Egypt and joined up with their brethren in Canaan. This seems the likeliest scenario, a beautiful one that accords with the deeper currents of biblical tradition. The Exodus was a very small-scale event with a large, world-changing trail of consequences.”

Rabbi Wolpe seems willing to concede that it may not have happened as literally described and that the words may not be historically accurate. Nonetheless, he finds spiritual meaning in the original account and that the present day Jewish community can continue to draw upon the history meaningfully as a redemptive account:

“I feel an enormous gratitude to God. For although we cannot know exactly how God has saved our people, we have been saved. Despite unimaginable odds and opposition, the Jewish people have seen nation after nation buried under the debris of history while our nation lives. Here is where archeology, history, scholarship and scripture meet: Am Yisrael Chai, the nation of Israel remains alive.”

A Third Level of Understanding

What I have been trying to find in my research is a third level of understanding, different from the literal or rationalistic-reductionistic, and one that may allow an interpretation of the account as a set of metaphors or an extended allegory. It addresses Rabbi Wolpe’s highly important query (“we cannot know exactly how God has saved our people …”). I would like to propose that it is in this third level of understanding that we can resolve the difficulties presented by the archaeological findings or the diminishing of the account rationally, and arrive at an understanding of the salvation process described in the account’s narrative. This third level of understanding also supports my original point, made above at the beginning of this blog posting, about the ubiquitous pattern of three’s.

To support this idea, I will draw the reader’s attention to a wonderful book called The Meaning of the Miracles by the Reverend Jeffrey John, an Anglican priest and Dean of St. Alban's Cathedral in Hertfordshire, England. [3] In his book, Reverend John shows how the miracles of Jesus as related in the Gospels, some 30 or so in number, can be interpreted literally, rationally-reductionistically, or symbolically as metaphors or allegories. He largely prefers the latter as the most meaningful approach to the miracle stories, preferring to disregard the first two as less meaningful or frankly as missing the point. As an example of what he means, let us take the stories of the conversion of the few loaves and fishes into a sufficient amount to feed multitudes of people gathered to listen to Jesus teach. The literal understanding of the miracles is that the stories occurred as stated, that is, there were just a few fish and loaves of bread at the events in question, and that Jesus miraculously increased the number so that all of the people there could have something to eat. One rationalistic-reductionistic understanding is that Jesus’ teachings on sharing, love, and kindness caused people who had brought food but selfishly hoarded it to bring it out and share it (the miracle story is about a change of heart, but the food was still physical material). This interpretation reduces the story to a true physical event but not a supernatural event, and thereby rationalizes it to a meaning that does not defy natural laws and processes. A third explanation, offered by Reverend John, is that the fishes and loaves were used by the chroniclers of Jesus’ teachings as symbols of the Word of God as spoken by Jesus, and that the (spiritually) hungry people were (spiritually) filled. It is the latter explanation that I find most satisfying, because it shows that such miracle stories are theological constructs intentionally designed by the original writer to guide the believer in uncovering hidden meanings (i.e., that Jesus’ teachings are spiritual food for the hungry soul). The implication is that the words of Jesus carry a transforming spirit that assimilates into the soul of the listener, just as solid food when imbibed becomes part of the physical body of the eater and so is nourishing physically. Another implication is that the prevailing religious leaders of the time (the ecclesiastical authorities) were unable to provide this spiritual food.

Abdu’l-Baha, from Some Answered Questions, supports this point of view: “[M]ost of the miracles of the prophets have an inner significance.” Elsewhere, in response to a question regarding why religious teachings are expressed in parables and metaphors and not in plain language, Abdu’l-Baha replied: "Divine things are too deep to be expressed by common words. The heavenly teachings are expressed in parable in order to be understood and preserved for ages to come. When the spiritually minded dive deeply into the ocean of their meaning they bring to the surface the pearls of their inner significance. There is no greater pleasure than to study God's Word with a spiritual mind" (from Abdu'l-Baha in London, page 79). Accordingly, we can have confidence as Baha’is that Reverend John’s point of view converges on a Baha’i understanding of miracle stories as a form of symbolic representation whose intention is to provide a significant inner meaning, leading to spiritual transformation.

We can also find support for an inner (or higher) level of understanding from the words of Baha’u’llah. From His work known as The Seven Valleys, in the section called The Valley of Unity, He discusses how people (“wayfarers”) owing to their differing levels of spiritual development have different ways of understanding spiritual matters, in a pattern of three planes reflective again of a spiritual geography and movement:

“Thus, for that they move on these three differing planes, the understanding and the words of the wayfarers have differed; and hence the sign of conflict doth continually appear on earth. For some there are who dwell upon the plane of oneness and speak of that world, and some inhabit the realms of limitation, and some the grades of self, while others are completely veiled.” [4]

Why is this topic interesting to Baha’is, and how might it further a Baha’i/Christian or Baha’i/Jewish dialogue? For Baha’is like me who were raised in Christian families and were taught as children to believe the literal account (and who as children came to believe that handsome, dashing Charlton Heston accurately portrayed Moses), this idea is provocative, not because it would suggest that the Exodus account is merely an embellished story or legend, as rationalist-reductionists might say; but rather that it has some inner meaning of great value which, when understood, will lead to knowledge of oneself and humanity in relation to God, such as the means of salvation, but a knowledge which must be sought out to be understood.[5]

I would like to suggest some ways to understand the Exodus that unveil inner meanings that help to resolve the problem of its questioned historical occurrence, and that support its sacred value. Interestingly, we will find strong support for this kind of unveiling from the Apostle Paul. Let us consider the account as Paul did, which is typologically. This approach is really aligned with the third level of understanding as Reverend John has suggested for miracles in general, and as Baha’u’llah has revealed in The Seven Valleys. The cross reference is 1 Corinthians 10: 1-15.

Summary of the Exodus Account

A brief review and some background are necessary to set the stage for further discussion. The Exodus account can be found in the second book of the Bible or Old Testament, called Exodus. Elements of it occur in the succeeding books as well. The Israelites found themselves exiled in the land of Egypt owing to the movements of Joseph and his brothers many generations before, but the social status of the Israelites has changed from exalted to down low, and they had become enslaved as forced laborers by the ruler of Egypt, a proud and ruthless Pharaoh. Moses appears in the story first as a baby taken up by the family of Pharaoh and raised as an Egyptian prince; but He discovers his Israelite heritage and takes up the cause of freeing the Israelites from bondage. Moses has received a call from God, becomes accepted by the Israelites as their leader and a prophet, and eventually is recognized as the Law Giver and Redeemer. A series of confrontational interactions take place between Moses with His deputy, Aaron; and Pharaoh with his magicians. The interactions involve challenges, wonders, and miracles. Pharaoh refuses to free the Israelites, and God unleashes a series of plagues upon Egypt. Pharaoh orders the slaying of the first born sons of each Israelite family, but God saves the sons of those families who paint the blood of a sacrificed lamb over the doorways to their homes, and the angel of death passes them over. Instead, the first born sons of the Egyptians die. This part of the story is the celebrated Passover event, one highly important to Jews, and symbolic to Christians as a prefigurement of the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Finally, Pharaoh permits the Israelites to leave, but then pursues the exiles to the shores of the Red Sea, where Moses extends his staff and the seas part, allowing the Israelites to pass securely to the far shores. When the army of Egypt arrives, the seas close in and drown them.

The Israelites are now free of the rule of Pharaoh, but have entered the wilderness of the Sinai, sometimes called the Wilderness of Sin or Zin, where they wander for 40 years. Here, many important events are recorded, including the provision of food as manna from heaven to feed the exiles; the production of water from rock; the appearance of a column of fire to guide the exiles; Moses’ acceptance and delivery of the stone tablets containing the ten commandments; the construction of the arc of the covenant to contain them; the formation of the golden calf by the Israelites in spite of Moses’ warnings about idolatry; the rebellion of many Israelites against Moses’ leadership; and so on. Eventually, the Israelites arrive at the promised land of Canaan, where they cross the River Jordan and settle.

Re-examining Exodus

If we examine the story carefully, with an open mind, or let us say with spiritual eyes towards an understanding of the internal meaning as Reverend John might suggest, we can see that it portrays a spiritual geography in three stages or planes. The first stage is Egypt, the land of materiality. It corresponds to the grades of self and condition of being completely veiled, using the terminology of Baha’u’llah from The Seven Valleys text quoted above. It represents a low state of spiritual existence, man’s lowest nature which is pure, highly intelligent animal. Pharaoh represents the ruling forces of that realm: lust, selfishness, greed, desire; the slavery of the Israelites is their attachment to these things, whether considered individually or as a collective people. One can take the point of view that the Egyptians and the Israelites are really two expressions of humanity, at this beginning point, where ethnicity appears as a symbol of relative development of their spirituality. It could also symbolize a period of childhood or immaturity, pre-adolescence, which in one sense is a condition of innocence, ignorance, and dependency, or lack of autonomy and inability to make mature decisions. People’s motivations and intentions are dominated by their sense-perceptions and coarse sensuality in this land. Another way to think about it is that people inform their understanding of reality on the basis of their sense-perceptions in this spiritual condition.

What evidence can we bring to support the idea that Egypt should be thought of as a spiritual condition more so than as a physical place? The Jewish scholar Professor Eliezer Segal of the University of Calgary sheds light for us by referring to Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher in the Greek tradition, and an exegete of the Jewish Bible. Dr. Segal refers to the Exodus account as “The Exodus of the Spirit,” and he notes in his book Holidays, History, and Halakhah (2000):

“A pioneer of this symbolic approach to reading the Bible was the first-century philosopher and exegete Philo Judaeus of Alexandria. For Philo the whole of Scripture was a complex mesh of symbols which illustrate the abstract truths and mysteries of philosophy and moral virtue. His treatment of the Exodus account is consistent with this approach. In formulas that echo the assertion of the Haggadah, that ‘each individual must regard himself as if he himself had escaped from Egypt,’ Philo portrays ‘leaving Egypt’ as an internal struggle that must be waged continually in every person's life. It is the fight to liberate one's mind from the temptations of the body, symbolized by Egypt, which is always trying to hold us back from the road leading to the freedom of virtuous living. According to the Biblical account, even after leaving Egypt the zeal of the Israelites was constantly being impeded by the ‘mixed multitude’ among them, who would bewail their fate and longingly recall the fleshpots of Egypt. For Philo there is a ‘mixed multitude’ in each of us, a part of the soul that remains under the dominion of the passions and irrational thinking. In the wicked this element exercises control. The mind of the wicked man is indeed a ‘mixed multitude’ of conflicting opinions, forever being pulled in opposing directions by the many false ideas that strive to lead him away from the single path of truth and goodness.”

That Moses would lead the Israelites out of this condition of slavery to materiality is a gift from God, the beginning of salvation. Moses is the intermediary between the people and God, and He brought God’s salvation to the Israelites; that is, liberation from spiritual slavery to the bonds of the earth. However, it is not an automatic salvation, and the people are not mere automatons in response. The people themselves must exert effort and rise above the condition through their own will power and volition, because the way of God is call and response. Thus, they cross the Red Sea with Moses to take this first pace. It is an act of conscious will to begin the spiritual journey, as well as an act of faith. [6]

Now, the sea commonly represents spiritual difficulty (doubt, fear, uncertainty, lack of detachment, an undeepened spiritual state, relying on self and not on God, etc.) in sacred scripture. The parting of the sea is the story’s way of portraying the capacity of Moses to remove this spiritual barrier for the people, but of course they still have to cross it themselves. Note that it closes back in on the pursuing Egyptians; they drown in their own sea of materiality. Elsewhere, the sea represents the same thing (examples include the great flood and Noah’s ark; Jesus walking on the water; Jesus calming the water; Jesus rescuing a sinking Peter; Jonah swallowed and spit out by a sea monster). The sea may symbolize spiritual difficulty, and these events and stories portray conquering it. The Qur’an (Surah 24, translation from Yusuf Ali), aids our understanding here, with a similitude:

“Or (the Unbelievers' state) is like the depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean, overwhelmed with billow topped by billow, topped by (dark) clouds: depths of darkness, one above another: if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! for any to whom Allah giveth not light, there is no light!”

The descriptors of ignorance as darkness and knowledge as light are profound in this text.

As an aside, I note that one rationalist-reductionist interpretation of the parting of the Red Sea is that it really refers to a “sea of reeds” and that it was sufficiently shallow for the Israelites to cross, more like a marsh. Perhaps a flooding event or tide occurred, drowning the pursuing Egyptians. As we can see, there is no need to resort to this kind of reductionism via rationalization, when one realizes that the word “sea” is a symbolic representation as described above. [7]

If Egypt is the first stage of this three part spiritual journey, the second stage is wandering the wilderness. It corresponds to the “plane of limitation” from Baha’u’llah’s text in The Seven Valleys. It is a kind of intermediate stage between the lower and higher natures of man. [8]

We must read the Exodus account carefully and keep our eyes open for symbols and processes in this second plane, which is one of long duration and great struggle. It is a highly complex story with many elements and subplots. The wilderness is a “land” of pride, conceit, injustice in relationships with oneself and with others, self-centeredness, rebellion against spirituality, a land of power-based human interactions, and a land of constant search after self-satisfaction. It can result in the things we know as addictions and compulsions, and to the spiritual condition where the human heart is filled with desires other than the desire to know and love God. Most humans live their lives out in this “land.” It is the land where we erect our own gods that we think are important to us, whether it be wealth and generous bank accounts, sexual proclivities, good physical looks, college degrees, fine cars, big egos, authoritative positions in society, community stature, and so on. We falsely assume these things portray refinement. Inequitable power relationships dominate human affairs in this plane, and injustice prevails. These are all false gods and they are symbolized by the golden calf in the story of the Exodus. In this wilderness, a false image of God emerges in peoples’ minds and becomes institutionally entrenched in doctrine, dogma and ecclesiastical authority. We can see in the Exodus text that the people constantly battle with Moses over these matters and often fail to follow Him or only reluctantly do so. Thus, it is possible that being an outwardly religious person can put one squarely into this category of spiritual wilderness, especially if it involves self-righteousness, superiority, intolerance, an exclusive claim to truth and salvation, or adherence to traditions when it is past time for them to be abandoned.

One key difference between people occupying the plane of Egypt and the plane of the wilderness, then, is in how the will operates. In "Egypt" the will is primarily oriented towards hedonism and pleasure seeking, and is largely not understood as to its potential use. In the plane of wandering in the wilderness, or the plane of limitation, the will becomes highly active and the individual is aware of its potential use for good, but in the realm of choices it is primarily used for the wrong purpose: the pursuit of self-gratification. In "Egypt" human endeavor is dominated by sense-perception, but in the wilderness it is dominated by self-deception.

The late Dr. William S. Hatcher, a Baha’i scholar, philosopher, mathematician, and prolific writer, elaborated on the human condition in the wilderness as described above, in his book Love, Power, and Justice: The Dynamics of Authentic Morality, in the chapter entitled Three Paradises. He observed that the wilderness or plane of limitation is analogous to the 2^nd paradise or garden described in Genesis, a condition in which people become aware of “good and evil,” that is, the relationships of cause and effect, are exposed to suffering owing to these cause and effect relationships, yet do not activate life-changing lessons from these outcomes. Owing to the way they utilize their willpower, they become engaged in a kind of positive feedback loop of continual search for self-gratification which culminates in a spiritual death spiral, all the while feeling guilty about doing so. [9]

The wandering for 40 years in the wilderness seems to be an important time-motif, recurring often (e.g., the 40 days and nights of rain in the Noah story; 40 days in the wilderness of Jesus; the 40 days of tests of the Buddha; 40 nights of Moses on the mount). This use of a specific time frame as an expression appears to be highly symbolic but there is not room here to expand on it. Perhaps even the 40 years of Baha’u’llah’s exile and imprisonment from 1852 to 1892 conform to this pattern in a living sense. Reflection and detached study will help us understand these convergences.

The Baha’i Writings contain an array of specific references to this stage of wilderness-wandering. For example, Baha’u’llah describes people “roaming through the wilderness of oblivion and error” (The Book of Certitude, page 192), and elsewhere describes the spiritually nutritious value of the Words of God as revealed by the Prophets and Messengers as follows:

“The food they bestow is the bread of heaven, and the Spirit they impart is God's imperishable blessing. Upon detached souls they bestow the gift of Unity, enrich the destitute, and offer the cup of knowledge unto them who wander in the wilderness of ignorance.” (The Book of Certitude, page 199)

The words above converge on provision of heavenly manna in desert to the wandering Israelites. Other uses by Baha’u’llah of the term “wilderness” in this way include “wilderness of heedlessness and superstition” (Proclamation of Baha'u'llah, page 95), “wilderness of error” (The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, page 59), “wilderness of self and passion” (The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, page 101), and "wilderness of error and negligence” (The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, page 134). [10]

During a visit with Abdu’l-Baha in Haifa in 1900, early American Baha’is recorded notes, prayers, and conversations; the information is compiled in a roughly translated booklet which is not widely available but can be searched in the literature database Ocean. In it, Abdu’l-Baha is reported to have said as follows: “The Israelites wandered in the wilderness -- that is the outer story. The meaning of the wilderness is pride, which its name ‘Teen’ [Zin or Sin?] also signifies. That is why it is said that the Israelites could not advance on their way to the Promised Land, because it is impossible for those who are in the wilderness of pride to make any spiritual progress.” (Compilations, Baha'i Prayers 9, page 49). His words clarify well the meaning of the use of the word wilderness and the spiritual state of the Israelites in the Exodus account. His interpretation of ‘Teen’ is novel and consistent with the way Baha’u’llah used the term wilderness as well.

Eventually, Moses is able to lead the exiles out of their wilderness and to the Promised Land. It corresponds to the “plane of oneness” mentioned by Baha’u’llah in The Seven Valleys text quoted above. Interestingly, Moses himself does not cross with the exiles, but passes the authority on to Joshua, his successor; and thus His mission is complete. Unfortunately, many wayfarers fail to make the journey to this point. This is the “land” where passion is replaced with compassion, injustice with justice, hate/power with love, self-righteousness with righteousness, selfishness with selflesness. Self-serving attitudes are replaced by service to others. The gods of self and ego are driven out of the temple of the human heart and the image of the One True God appears in their place. This is the third stage of the spiritual journey and it is the highest stage of spiritual development of human nature, freed from material trappings and from the “insistent self,” i.e. the self-centered ego, which is the true satan.

In his book Logos and Civilization, the Baha'i scholar and writer Nader Saiedi described how the human will operates and reorients itself in the three stages, showing what is meant by becoming freed from material trappings and the insistent self (my brackets):

"In the beginning [the plane of self], the will is predominantly hedonistic and aggressive. The next stage [plane of limitation], some form of moral values is accepted but without serious transformation of the will. The result is inner conflict, guilt, and struggle against lower impulses. In the stages that follow [the plane of oneness], moral values become increasingly universalized and spiritualized, and the will becomes transformed, progressively reflecting the divine will."

The above three stages are typological and appear in many places in the Holy Bible not only as geography, but also as time (e.g., the three days of Jonah in the belly of the whale, a sign upon which Jesus urged His followers to reflect; the three days of the resurrection of Jesus; three days in Hosea chapter 6), and as spiritual children (e.g., the three sons of Adam and Eve, namely Cain, Abel, and Seth, each of whom could be seen to represent one of the spiritual conditions of man from lowest to highest). These ideas will be more fully developed in a separate posting to this blog, as I have already mentioned. However, I want to mention here one direct reference to these three conditions from an early Christian text of the Valentinian tradition, from The Gospel of Philip. They are referred to respectively as “this world," the "middle place," and the" resurrection;” they correspond to the three stages as outlined above. Note the author's desire to avoid the traps of wandering in the wilderness:

"Either someone will be found in this world or in the resurrection or in the middle place. God forbid that I be found in the middle! In this world there is a good and evil. Its good is not good and evil not evil. But there is evil after this world that is truly evil – which is called the middle. The middle is death. While we are in this world it is best to acquire resurrection for ourselves so when we strip off the flesh we may rest and not walk in the middle. Many go astray on the way."11]

New Testament Spiritual Geography: Down by Capernaum

When considering spiritual geography again, it is of interest that the early Christian exegete Heracleon (Commentary on the Gospel of John ca. 170 CE) alluded to an analogy between the movements of the Israelites through these three regions above, and the movements of Jesus Christ as described in the Gospel of John. Christ went down to Capernaum (Egypt), then up to Jerusalem (the wilderness), and then into the temple and its sacred place and cleansed it (the promised land). Indeed, just as Moses' arrival into Egypt from his sojourn in the Sinai signaled the beginning of a new dispensation of revelation, so did Jesus' appearance (or descent) into Capernaum. John gives us a spiritual geography anew, using different symbols but emphasizing the same process. Capernaum, like Egypt, is indicated in the Gospels as once exalted, and now brought low. [12] Interestingly, Capernaum was a sea side town and so was situated low altitudinally, compared to Jerusalem or to the Temple Mount. It is as if Heracleon is trying to show that the Gospel of John intentionally meant to show that the movements of Jesus geographically recapitulated those of Moses, thus aligning the two Manifestations of God in intent and purpose, and showing that spiritual geography can be a universal pattern or typology. For Baha'is, this alignment is a clear and ancient confirmation of progressive revelation, and it shows that the early Christians (as indicated by Heracleon's summary, and the words from Paul below) understood that the prevailing order can at one time be exalted but eventually falls, and must be renewed by the coming of the Manifestation. We can see that "Egypt" was exalted under Joseph, brought low when Moses arrived but then exalted again when Jesus returned to Egypt as a place of sanctuary as a child, just as Joseph did. We can understand well, then, why the Qur'an contains an entire Surah of Joseph, why the very first book revealed by the Bab was a commentary on it, and why Baha'u'llah refers to Egypt in mystical terms on several occasions. The story of Joseph and Egypt seems archetypal:

1. "O My Brother! Until thou enter the Egypt of love, thou shalt never come to the Joseph of the Beauty of the Friend; and until, like Jacob, thous forsake thine outward eyes, thous shalt never open the eye of thine inward being; and until thou burn with the fire of love, thous shalt never commune with the Lover of Longing." (The Seven Valleys, section called The Valley of Love, page 9)."

2. "Cleanse thy heart ... that thou mayest inhale the sweet savours of eternity from the Joseph of faithfulness, gain admittance into the celestial Egypt, and perceive the fragrances of enlightenment from this resplendent and luminous Tablet ... ." (Gems of Divine Mysteries, page 23).

3. "Methinks at this moment, I catch the fragrance of His garment blowing from the Egypt of Baha; verily He seemeth near at hand, though men may thank Him far away." (The Four Valleys, Page 59).

A fasincating early Christian text discovered amongst the Nag Hammadi findings in Egypt, (cataloged as Codex II,5, pp.97,24 to 127,17 and entitled by its English translators as "On the Origin of the World"), makes a statement that associates the coming and going of the Manifestation of God (symbolized as the phoenix) with Egypt, calling Egypt "the paradise of god." (One can appreciate the irony that this document was dug up in Egypt in the mid 1940's, after having been eclipsed after nearly two millenia. ) This assignation indicates that the writer of this document understood the classification of Egypt archetypically as a representation (similitude) of a land in which the actions of God's eternal manifestation are apparent, including the closing of the age:

"The phoenix first appears alive, and dies, and rises again, as a sign of what appears at the consummation of the age. These great signs appeared only in Egypt, not in other lands, signifying that is is like the paradise of god."

The problem is that the material from Heracleon is in fragments and is not well received by many academics and present-day orthodox Christians, as he has been derogatorily assigned (and therefore dismissed as irrelevant) to an heretical Gnostic category. It seems to be an example of name-calling or labeling in order to reduce the acceptability of what Heracleon (or other early Christians of the Valentinian heritage) had to say. It is the first known commentary on any of the Gospels, and in my opinion ought to be given due respect (which it does receive in Elaine Pagels’ analysis of it: The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon’s Commentary on John [1973]). Further, Origen and Clement of Alexandria, both early church fathers, recognized the value of Heracleon’s commentary, supporting my contention that we can accept Heracleon’s exegesis of the spiritual geography perspective in The Gospel of John as a type or pattern generally. [13]

The Typological Perspective from Paul

We can now return to St. Paul and 1 Corinthians chapter 10:1-15. Let us use Young's literal translation (my bold for emphasis, and words in brackets from other translations for effect):

“And I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all to Moses were baptized in the cloud, and in the sea; and all the same spiritual food did eat, and all the same spiritual drink did drink, for they were drinking of a spiritual rock following them, and the rock was the Christ; but in the most of them God was not well pleased, for they were strewn [overthrown] in the wilderness,”

“and those things became types of us, for our not passionately desiring evil things, as also these did desire. Neither become ye idolaters, as certain of them, as it hath been written, `The people sat down to eat and to drink, and stood up to play;' neither may we commit whoredom, as certain of them did commit whoredom, and there fell in one day twenty-three thousand; neither may we tempt the Christ, as also certain of them did tempt, and by the serpents did perish; neither murmur ye, as also some of them did murmur, and did perish by the destroyer.”
And all these things as types did happen to those persons, and they were written for our admonition, to whom the end of the ages did come, so that he who is thinking to stand -- let him observe, lest he fall. No temptation hath taken you -- except human; and God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above what ye are able, but He will make, with the temptation, also the outlet, for your being able to bear [it].
Wherefore, my beloved, flee from the idolatry; as to wise men I speak -- judge ye what I say ... ."

- 1Cr 10:15 -

This is an extraordinary text, and one Baha’is may wish to pay close attention to. I have chosen Young's translation because of its use of the Greek work typos as “type” and “typologically” rather than in the more common translation of “example.” The reason is that the word type does translate directly, has full meaning, and corresponds better than “example” (diminishing the sense of "type") in what Paul is saying; that is, that the movements of the Israelites in the wilderness as part of the Exodus account were intentionally written as a pattern or typological process from which we, the readers and believers, should derive meaning and understanding no matter what age we live in. The word example fails here because it does not convey a sense of universal standard. When we say "an example of something" we focus on the example, but here we need to see that we need to focus on the "something" that is the referent for the example. Paul seems to disregard the historical event entirely. It is the inner meaning, one that “wise men” of good judgement and understanding can grasp. I interpret this to mean those in the Corinthian community, and those reading his letter anytime anywhere, who have a sense of the third way of understanding, as I have outlined above. The literal or rationalistic-reductionistic sense is not what Paul has in mind at all, as this text roundly indicates.

The fact that the Apostle Paul would bring such an allegorical exegesis to the wandering in the wilderness phase of the Exodus has direct bearing on the present day issue of its historical accuracy. Paul, a Pharisaic Jew-turned-Christian writing nearly 2,000 years ago, paid no attention to its historicity at all; rather, Like Philo, he elevates its allegorical sense to be paramount and indeed pressing. Otherwise, why bother to bring it up in his letter to the Corinthians?

The poet and mystic Jalal'ud'Din-Rumi saw that "Pharaoh" and "Moses" can be understood as two aspects of the human condition, that is to say, two types; and that understanding this duality can lead to defeat of the lower and ascendancy of the higher element of human nature. This quotation is from his extended work The Mathnavi, Book 3. Rumi notes in the first sentence of the quotation that a literal understanding is misplaced, and that “the mention of Moses” is a “mask” or shell hiding a kernel of meaning inside of it:

"This mention of Moses has become a shackle on men's minds -- they think these stories happened long ago. The mention of Moses serves as a mask: Moses' light is your own coin, oh good man! Moses and Pharaoh are your own existence -- you must seek these two adversaries in yourself."

It is clear from the above text that Rumi recognized the typological nature of the Pharaoh/Moses dichotomy, and by inference the larger Exodus context. By “coin,” we can see that Rumi refers to two sides of the same coin, thereby emphasizing the lower and higher nature of man. Further, it shows that a mystic in the Islamic tradition would also recognize the symbolic content of the Exodus account and would feel moved to expound on it. It informs and supports our understanding of the typological and symbolic interpretation from the early Christian Paul, from Philo, from Heracleon, from the contemporary Jewish scholar Dr. Eliezer Segal who relates to the rabbinical tradition, and from the sacred Writings of the Baha’i Faith. All converge on a common, higher understanding.

Paul clearly indicates that the Exodus story is to be understood typologically, and by implication and context, not literally. [14] By typos or typologically is meant as a universal model to follow, or an eternal pattern to recognize. [15] The word “pneumatic” here specifically references spirituality and by implication not sarkic (of the flesh) nor psychic (of the soul), two ranked, lower human conditions Paul referred to in his letters. Note that Paul even tells us why the text was written in the typological way; to “admonish” us, that is, to force us to think of the pattern as a lesson to follow, that if we are not careful, we too can fail (be "overthrown") in our own wilderness wanderings to overcome the very things that most of the wandering Israelites in the Wilderness of Zin failed to overcome, and for which reason God was not pleased: idolatries of the heart. The Israelites themselves then become a type or model for all of mankind in showing us these processes in their history and sacred literature: what is meant by the chosen people. By working to detach ourselves from these limitations, and assisted with the grace of God and the guidance and laws God provides in this wonderful new era, we can overcome them and take the second pace into the plane of oneness, the promised land, advance into the immortal realm, and enter the pavilion of eternity. [16]

Footnotes

[1] The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards (but not best actor for Charlton Heston, who portrayed Moses) and was awarded one Oscar for the special effects. Interestingly, it did not fare well with reviewers, some of whom called it vulgar.

[2] I recall as a boy learning in church that the manna from heaven may have been bird droppings, leaving me with an ill stomach. Others think it may have been some kind of sticky-sweet sap from trees.

[3] See my review of Reverend John’s book on Masterkey (“The inner meaning of Jesus’ miracles”).

[4] That differences in understanding lead to conflict on earth is a remarkably portentous statement and highly explanatory in terms of human history and interactions. It is certainly evident in the present day.

[5] I have used the phrase rationalistic-reductionistic or some form of it above several times. I do not mean to imply that this third level of understanding to which I am referring is not rational; on the contrary. The Mind of God is rationality itself, and the image of God in man must therefore be rational; thus we can define human nature as a rational soul with inherent potentialities to be god-like in word and deed. This is what is meant by becoming sons of God, i.e., to align one's will with the Will of God. However, this rationality does not confine itself solely to materiality. Spiritual matters do not have to descend to reductionistic (i.e., material or phenomenal) explanations to be meaningful. Indeed, they necessarily transcend such explanations, which is the entire point.

[6] "Crossing the Red Sea" is an act similar in boldness to the one the Apostle Paul describes, which is to be crucified with Christ (that is, to die to one’s materiality in order to live to one’s spirituality: “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires;” Galatians 5:24, Revised Standard Version). As a reflection, I sometimes ask myself what nails are holding me to my own cross? Is this nail 'pride,' is this other nail 'arrogance,' is this third nail 'impatience?' What steps do I have to take to rid myself of these tendencies? What seas do I need to cross? This seems to be the way Paul is thinking when he writes something like the Galatians text quoted here.

[7] In Christian theology and according to a certain interpretation of a text from the Apostle Paul, the crossing of the Red Sea prefigures Christian baptism. It is a point of view consistent with a narrow understanding of the ways "types" are presented in the scriptures generally (see note [14] below). I disagree with this notion, because it is predetermined and forced thinking by Christian theologians, that is, predetermining the ancient text to agree with the later premises of the orthodox Christian ritual of baptism, narrowly as a foreshadowing of it rather than as a broadly cast type or image. Nor does that particular text (in 1 Corinthians 10) from Paul have to be interpreted in that confined way. If anything, it symbolizes a form of baptism into materialism, because after all it was the Egyptians and not the Israelites who got wet. Or, it reveals that Paul's understanding of baptism is not aligned with the current view as a sacrament, but rather as an entree into a new way of being ("baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea ...").

[8] Abdu'l-Baha has commented extensively on the lower and higher natures of man, arriving at a theory of three natures --animal, human, divine -- that corresponds to the three planes traversed by wayfarers as described by Baha'u'llah, the three geographic regions outlined in the Exodus, and the three days of the resurrection. See, for example, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, 2nd edition, (1982), Baha'i Publishing Trust, p. 465.

[9] This chapter from Dr. Hatcher’s book informs an understanding of the Baha’i position on theodicy, i.e., the significance of suffering. In reflecting on this matter, one is reminded of Baha’u’llah’s constant warnings about the dangers of “vain imaginings” and “idle fancies,” i.e., mental forces of self-deception that operate strongly in this second stage of spiritual development.

[10] Interestingly, Baha’u’llah also at times reverses use of the term “wilderness” and many other terms (such as sea, ocean, and Egypt), making positive connotations from negative ones. Perhaps in doing so He shows how the Manifestation of God has the power and authority to reverse the human condition to which the terms refer, for example, referring to the "ocean of My Words." Philo Judaeus of Alexandria confirms this point of view about contradictions in use of terms as a normal state of affairs that leads to insight and understanding (from Questions Arising in Exodus):

“Those men who apply themselves to the study of the holy scriptures ought not to cavil and quibble at syllables, but ought first to look at the spirit and meaning of the nouns and verbs used, and at the occasions on which and the manners in which each expression is used; for it often happens that the same expressions are applied to different things at different times; and, on the contrary, opposite expressions are at different times applied to the same thing with perfect consistency.”

[11] This gospel, like The Gospel of Thomas, takes the form of wisdom sayings rather than a gospel recording the life and times of Jesus. Also like the Gospel of Thomas, it was amongst the Nag Hammadi findings of 1945 in upper Egypt, comes out of the Alexandrian Christian tradition, and dates to the 3^rd century CE or before. Various translations are available, for example, The Gnostic Bible, Willis Barnstone & Marvin Meyer (eds.); and The Nag Hammadi Library in English, James M. Robinson (ed.).

[12] A test of the hypothesis that "Capernaum" is used in this typological manner can be found in the story of the healing of the nobleman's son in John 4:46: "So Jesus came again into Cana of Galilee, where he made the water wine. And there was a certain nobleman, whose son was sick at Capernaum." Here, the writer of the Gospel of John equates spiritual illness with dwelling in Capernaum. Heracleon confirms this point of view in his analysis of this passage: "The child’s proper person was sick, that is, in a condition not in accordance with the child’s proper nature, in ignorance and sins." Examples of how Capernaum is used, like Egypt, in both an exalted and abased status can be found in Luke 10:15 and Matthew 11:23 (both texts from the common Q source).

This text from Matthew chapter 4 is highly confirmatory of this notion, as it equates Capernaum with a "region and shadow of death" where people "sat in darkness" (my bold for emphasis):

4:12 Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee; 4:13 And leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim: 4:14 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, 4:15 The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles; 4:16 The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.

A test of the hypothesis that "Jerusalem" is used as a typological symbol for the "plane of limitation" or "wilderness" comes from Luke 13:34-35: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." (King James Bible).

Jesus assigns the spiritual status of "Jerusalem" (i.e., plane of limitation) to those who reject the Prophets (the Manifestations of God) and aim to kill Them (i.e., reject Their teachings) when They appear, just as the wandering Israelites rebelled against Moses and the ecclesiastical authority of Jesus' time rejected Him. Jesus' words end with an eschatologic prophecy.

Importantly, this text from Luke is immediately preceded by a recitation of the "three days" time motif, reflective of the three stages discussed in this blog posting, from words of Jesus Himself, emphasizing that Jesus' was fully aware of, and taught, that people must pass through these three stages to attain spiritual enlightenment. From Luke 13:32-33 [my brackets]:

"And he said unto them, Go ye, and tell that fox [i.e., Herod], Behold, I cast out devils, and I do cures to day and to morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected. Nevertheless I must walk to day, and to morrow, and the day following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem."

Here, “that fox” Herod is a pharaonic symbol for the materialistic ruler (archon) of the age; recall that Herod attempted to kill the first born sons just as did Pharaoh, demonstrating the intertextual weaving and typological convergence. Additionally, the writer of the Gospel of Luke repeats the three days time motif twice for emphasis; a literal three day resurrection is clearly not implied here, but rather a spiritual journey. Note the use of the word "walk" to indicate that a three day journey is implied in the spiritual transformation process, just as Baha'u'llah refers to spiritual seekers as "wayfarers” moving across three planes. When Jesus indicates that "I shall be perfected" on the third day, He refers to the perfection of the body of his believers through their assimilation of His teachings, such that they defeat their own material and spiritual limitations. The final statement, "it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem," substantiates my point about the use of the term "Jerusalem" to refer to the 2nd day of wilderness wandering, and that Jesus' teachings provides the means for His followers to overcome the plane of limitation and ascend to the third day, the promised land. This text in Luke is profound in its typological congruency with the Exodus account.

[13] The Baha'i artist and writer Michael Sours elaborated in his book The Tablet of the Holy Mariner: An Illustrated Guide to Baha'u'llah's Mystical Writing in the Sufi Tradition on the theme of spiritual geography with reference to the geographic movements that Baha'u'llah anticipated He would be subjected to during His series of exiles. Mr. Sours' discussion is extensive. It specifically references the Exodus as an analogous process that Baha'u'llah utilizes symbolically in The Tablet of the Holy Mariner, and suggests that epic journeys in legend and myth may represent spiritual quests and struggles. The reader is referred to that book for detail, especially pages 67-69.

[14] There are several books that address the use of "types" and "images" in the Hebrew Bible and Christian New Testament in a way that reflects a narrow point of view that such types and images are mere foreshadowings of particular events in the life of Christ, such as a physical resurrection as understood by orthodox Christianity. An example is Interpreting the Symbols and Types, 2007, City Bible Publishing, by Kevin J. Conner. This understanding of types is not supported by my discussion here because it narrows the types to a Christological focus rather than expands them to a universal set of patterns that encompasses revealed religion in general. For a Christian treatment of the idea that the Exodus is a typological representation in baptism, see Lars Hartman. 1992. Baptism. Pages 583–594 Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1. D.N. Freedman et al. (eds), Doubleday.

[15] Another text from The Gospel of Philip is helpful here in confirming the orientation of early Christian thinking on typological thinking: “Truth didn’t come into the world naked but in types and images. There is rebirth and its image. They must be reborn through image. What is the resurrection? Image must rise again through image.” And elsewhere: “The mysteries of truth are revealed in type and image.”

[16] This concluding sentence addresses Rabbi David Wolpe's question regarding how God provides the means of salvation. As Baha'u'llah has written: "Number me not with them who read Thy words and fail to find Thy hidden gift which, as decreed by Thee, is contained therein, and which quickeneth the souls of Thy creatures and the hearts of Thy servants." (from a prayer to be used during the Fast; Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah, p. 83).

A word about MasterKey

2007-12-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

"Every word is endowed with a spirit" say the Baha'i Writings, in the Tablet of Maqsud. Words convey meaning, in that they are symbols of our thoughts, motivations, and intentions. There is an ultimate Word too, where all knowledge resides. The Tablet of Maqsud is full, overflowing with meaning.

One linguistic hypothesis says that meaning doesn't exist until a word exists to express it. It is a modernistic or rationalistic notion, and although popular is hard to accept. I don't know how one could make a scientific test of it. The alternative hypothesis is much more appealing: the meaning comes before the words, and the words are the clothes for them. It implies that meaning, somehow, has to be preexistent. I like that.

This is also from the same Tablet:

"The Word is the master key for the whole world, inasmuch as through its potency the doors of the hearts of men, which in reality are the doors of heaven, are unlocked."

Poetry from World War I

2007-12-12T07:08:00.000-08:00

The first world war was the first great clash of civilizations of the 20th century and a herald of things to come. The teachings of the Baha'i Faith anticipated it in several ways. It signaled the end of the great European and Ottoman empires and the rise in their place of the totalitarian and authoritarian-utopian universal movements, i.e., communism, extreme nationalism/fascism. It also provided a glimmer of world unity in The League of Nations.

A retrospective analysis of World War I reveals how morally degrading and barbarous it was; how it was the first venue of modern weapons of mass destruction; how the wave of messages notifying those at home of the deaths of their loved ones, by the thousands and thousands, jolted the hearts of the survivors; and how the barbarity of the war itself stimulated the common person to write poetry.

I collect WWI poetry, in first editions if I can find them, and I am especially interested in bound books whose inside covers are signed by recipients of the books during the WWI era. I don't collect editions with authors' signatures, but rather those who gave and received the books as gifts. Much of the poetry is not very good by academic standards, but the voice of expression in the poems is often beautiful.

It is fascinating that common people swept up in that conflagration would find an outlet through poetry. Again, retrospectively, we remind ourselves that there was no internet, television, radio, or other systems of mass media (other than newspapers). The patiently written word was still an important and apparently vital medium and a mechanism of catharsis for a confused and grieving people. Words, after all, carry spirit in their intention and meaning. Many of the authors were in combat, and many died. People like Rubert Brooke, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, and Richard Aldington come to mind. For a good anthology and review, I suggest Minds at War: The Poetry and Experience of the First World War, edited by David Roberts.

Here is a very beautiful poem by Marian Allen, entitled The Wind on the Downs. It is one of my favorites. It is special because the author was a woman, and because of the depth of its lament. The author invites us to take a walk with her, in the poem. Note her inner thoughts, e.g.: "And now I walk alone and think of you, and wonder what new kingdoms you explore."

I like to think of you as brown and tall,
As strong and living as you used to be,
In khaki tunic, Sam Brown belt and all,
And standing there and laughing down at me.
Because they tell me, dear, that you are dead,
Because I can no longer see your face,
You have not died, it is not true, instead
You seek adventure in some other place.
That you are round about me, I believe;
I hear you laughing as you used to do,
Yet loving all the things I think of you;
And knowing you are happy, should I grieve?
You follow and are watchful where I go;
How should you leave me, having loved me so?

We walked along the tow-path, you and I,
Beside the sluggish-moving, still canal;
It seemed impossible that you should die;
I think of you the same and always shall.
We thought of many things and spoke of few,
And life lay all uncertainly before,
And now I walk alone and think of you,
And wonder what new kingdoms you explore.
Over the railway line, across the grass,
While up above the golden wings are spread,
Flying, ever flying overhead,
Here still I see your khaki figure pass,
And when I leave the meadow, almost wait
That you should open first the wooden gate.