Does the wind also  
whisper to you  
its word of welcome?  
Or do you only hear  
the rustling of leaves...  
Leave behind the world you see  
and enter the one now standing  
just before your eyes.  
I say: it is not a tree,  
not bark and branch and bough,  
but let my heart name it  
and I call it majesty.

Every day of your life  
the noble mysteries have been  
your confidant.  
They have heard every sigh  
watched every joy and sorrow  
come and go.  
So peek out, before the chance  
escapes you.  
See what wonder hides  
even upon this page.  
For age will someday  
make honest men of all  
and some rise to glory's heights  
and some to mourning fall.

How can I speak without using Your voice?  
What power of mine can move my tongue?

Which of these words did I bring into being?  
How much of their meaning was authored by me?

Did I create the phenomenon of sound?

In fact, what of "me" exists in the world?  
How can I abstract myself from Creation?

Then there is only Him: "There is no God but He."  
What I call "soul" is a function of His singleness.

I cannot even say "I am"; only that "He is".  
Everything I thought was "I" is "He" --

In this, one of His many forms,  
reflected from this humble point of being.

See how the wild daisy  
bows in the wind?  
But what does it make  
obeisance to?

To you, looking on,  
it pays homage  
to nothing at all.

So come closer --  
still closer --  
until you too  
feel the breath of Wind  
on your face.

Only then can you know  
whether that flower  
is a wise one  
or a fool.

What a fierce sun stares at me today.

The roads shimmer in the air;  
the lizards alone enjoy it.

Through my tinted lenses  
I watch the girls go by...

Everyone talks of Fall  
as if Spring had never been.

The cup of water in my hand  
is already warm!

Summer, in Tempe, Ariona.

Writing these lines is foolish.  
Does a beautiful woman ask for a kiss?

Do the thirsty need prompting to drink  
or the lonely a reason to open their arms?

As the ink dries, it chastises me:  
  Those who can understand me need no words  
  and those who need my words cannot understand me.

The goal is within your reach: *take it!*  
Why keep pushing it away?

Every complaint  
every harsh word  
every sigh of despair  
is a hand, repulsing the arms of God.

His gift is the very Creation  
some wish to leave.

Who leaves a party in search of the party?  
Madness!

And if they ask:  
  How can you be so happy all the time?

I would say:  
  As long as that question makes sense to you  
  my answer never will.

The sun is warm today;  
the breezes are cool.  
Soft clouds embrace the light  
and acquire a radiant glow...

The afternoon passes slowly.  
Children are playing on the grass.  
It's been hours since I last wondered  
  what time it was --  
hours since I thought, instead of lived...

I wonder: Will You come join me  
here on the green grasses?  
Then I recall the sun,  
the breeze, the clouds, the day...

When have You ever not been with me?

O fire, beautiful fire!  
Your pain so intense  
it tickles my soul.

I am burnt today,  
my skin is black and  
puffed and ruined.

Little by little  
you turn me into  
a delicate smoke;

Up, up, into the vast sky I go  
floating on the finest breezes.

Tenderly, with your arms around me  
  your lips close to my ear  
  your head against my shoulder  
  your hair on my cheek  
  your warmth, surrounding me  
  your still, calming air  
  your eyes, mostly closed  
  your form next to mine  
  your breathing, soft and deep  
  your quiet silence  
  your gentle, stirring touch...

You are everything I dream of  
and nothing I can know --  
without you here, beside me,  
holding me just so...

If poetry is devastating,  
let me be destroyed.

If love is painful,  
let me hurt.

Just so,  
as the flames burn  
please care for my ashes.

I may not know what I ask for --  
but I do know this:  
  The life that I've lived so far  
  is not how I want to die.

There came a day  
when the blood in my veins  
  turned to wine:  
now I am always drunk;

When my eyes filled  
  with a special light:  
now I cannot see darkness;

When my waking life  
  became as a dream:  
now I am always soaring...

These things happened slowly  
  and then quickly  
the way a flower grows  
for weeks and weeks  
and one day suddenly blooms.

There is no one who is not growing  
toward their heart's fulfillment.

Turn to the Sun,  
drink the bountiful rains,  
strive to push through that  
  weighing soil...

The rest will happen of itself.

I kissed your lips and my death began.  
I am a little less each day.

I cannot eat or drink;  
  I am fasting.  
I cannot rest;  
  I hold vigils.  
I beg you for a single glance;  
  I am praying.  
I give you everything I have;  
  I pay alms.  
I cross the world to see you;  
  they call me pilgrim.  
I sing your praises always;  
  I am a teacher.  
I hang on your every word;  
  I am a disciple.

The wiles of your beauty have taught me well:  
Love is the secret of religion.

I remember being planted  
in the soft Earth.  
It was warm there,  
comfortably dark.  
I slept for ages --  
though an aching tension  
grew within me.

Soon the changes came  
that would change me forever.  
I grew, and sprouted,  
yielding what I had  
to offer life.

These grains were taken  
and ground into fine dust  
as if having no value at all.  
I was astonished the Miller  
would treat me so.  
Did he not perceive my beauty?

Then this dust,  
the fruits of my time on Earth,  
were placed in a fire and burnt;  
mixed with water and kneaded.  
I was twice baptized  
then pounded and shaped  
and pounded again.

I asked the Baker:  
"Why heap your indignites upon me?  
First the Miller and now you,  
what ever happened to my dear friend,  
the Farmer?  
Why did he release me  
to such misery?"

As if not enough, the Baker  
took me to the oven  
and showed me the awful beauties of flame.  
I was scorched and hardened;  
my doughy crust became like stone.

At the same time I puffed up.  
My skin was tanned.  
I became like a proud soldier --  
though burning in a fire  
and begging for escape.  
Will no one treat me well?

At last I emerged,  
and was whisked away  
to the table of Bounty.  
I saw many fruits there,  
many delicate wines,  
but they all compared themselves to me,  
each asserting its superiority.

Then the Host plunged his sword  
into my back  
and cleaved me in twain.  
I was cut and cut,  
not bleeding, but sighing out steam.  
Even this One did not cherish me!

At the instant of my final despair  
when I thought I could bear no more  
this Host led me to His lips  
and bestowed on me  
His fatal kiss.

I passed into His mouth  
and was ground up -- again --  
between His mighty teeth.  
I traveled down the throat  
and landed  
in a lake of searing acid.

My life has been pain after pain!  
an unending torment --  
every moment of peace  
concluded by a new anguish.

In that dark and foul place,  
as the liquids ate my bowels,  
I contemplated the injustices of life.  
I thought long and hard,  
even though my mind was fading...

When there was almost nothing left  
I bade the world goodbye  
and plunged into my death.

This has been the tale of my death;  
but of the life that came after  
I can say nothing.

Look to the face of my Beloved:  
In the health of His ruddy glow  
perhaps you can discern me.

Once, in another world,  
I was sitting with the Shaykh of my spirit,  
a great Master.

Next to us  
a huge fire was roaring,  
consuming all my books,  
my belongings, even my clothes.

Then my Master said,  
"Now cast yourself into the flames."  
And so I jumped,  
without a moment's hesitation.

To my great surprise, I was unburnt.  
The flames were cold to the touch  
although everything around me  
was being destroyed.

I turned to my Master.  
He was shaking his head.  
"Alas, in the end you have failed me, my pupil."

"How did I not obey?" I asked.

He said, "Your failure was this:  
Despite your claims of complete faith in me,  
you expected to be burned."

Sometimes, only poems will do.

The words as they meet the paper  
sing with a subtle voice,  
a quiet, ringing tone  
that resounds in the heart:  
this is poetry.

So I lift my pen, my wand  
and conjure fair spells  
to entrance the heart  
and grant the power to fly...

Poetry is a doorway to impossible lands.

He called,  
and my soul responded: as a hawk  
crying death from an azure sky;  
or a mouse in agonized commotion;  
or the wind, rushing past wing and beak;  
or the swoop, the call, the grasping claw,  
the drops of crimson blood  
upon a thirsty earth.

I crept my way  
to the ninth circle of hell,  
where all was frozen cold  
and the wind stripped hot life  
from my bones.

Seated on his throne of tears  
was Satan, the Soul-Destroyer;  
his sceptre gleaming as a jewel  
although there was no sun.

"Why are you here?" I asked  
"What is the meaning of rebellion?"

He said, "I am that part of you  
which turns away from God,  
so that in defiance, it may be humbled;  
in betrayal, it may be forgiven;  
in despair, it may hope for mercy;  
in sorrow, it may want for succor.

"Without me, and my kingdom of the lost,  
what would be the place of a Savior?  
They say I was cast down from Heaven  
to these infernal depths; but I say:  
It is I who placed Them on Their throne!

"For though I dwell in the lowest place, consider fairly:  
Am I not the first among His servants?

"Was I not the first night, on which the Sun arose?  
the first silence, when the Word was spoken?  
the first chill His love was made to warm?  
the first tempest, that His mercy calmed?

"Perhaps this hell is other than how you see it;  
perhaps it is only as terrible as you,  
in your ignorance, have made it seem to be."

At that moment!  
I saw no devil before me  
but a thing of my own vision,  
the creature of my very sight:

It was I who cast him down  
to this lowest place;  
and I, the savior,  
whom he awaits to take him back.

On the idea of forms existing only through our perception of time, I came across the following in the Qur’án (27:90):

Thou seest the mountains and thinkest them firmly fixed: but they shall pass away as the clouds pass away…

In picturing this, I realized that if time were accelerated quickly enough, the formation, change, and disappearance of mountains would seem very similar to the way clouds behave. They too drift, grow and shrink, appear from nowhere and fade away again. Mountains are only durable and permanent because we see things on a relatively slow time-scale – one in which mountains are mountains. Yet if our perception of time were much slower, clouds would be like mountains in the sky, equally as constant. The world as we know it exists in our perception of it, even if the raw materials do not.

A theme in mystical philosophy is the recognition of one’s inability to know reality, and how this recognition is perhaps the only real knowledge man can attain to. However, we seem to know many things; we seem to be free to explore our universe and accumulate vast stores of knowledge about how it works. How does this connect to the esoteric pursuit of recognizing our poverty of understanding and powerlessness before God? If outwardly we have both freedom and knowledge, what does it mean inwardly to have neither?

I think we have two forms of freedom of will: lesser and greater. The lesser relates to our freedom to act and the greater to our freedom to know. More specifically, the lesser degree of freedom is our ability to affect the physical world. I call it lesser because the effects exist only within the perception of time: whatever changes we make to our environment, after sufficient time those changes will disappear. If the universe ever collapses back to its original state, nothing that was accomplished will have any consequence beyond that point. Thus “actions” are an artifact of our consciousness of them and have no lasting meaning to the physical world they were acted in.

The greater freedom is our ability to choose between multiple perceptions of an event – to manipulate the perception of time. Not only do we have consciousness of something that transpires, but two people may give plural accounts of the same occurrence: we can choose to ignore the obvious, invent causes for what is not fully understood, or delude ourselves about what happened. In essence, we have freedom to affect our perceptions, although no freedom to alter the energistic universe that is the medium of those perceptions. Physics calls this the “law of conservation of energy”, saying that we cannot materially affect the substrate of reality, only its temporary forms and thereby the effect of those forms on consciousness. Our lesser freedom is not any freedom at all but the perception of a freedom. We call it “free will” according to the greater freedom because the latter allows us to perceive it as real rather than as a figment of consciousness; yet the lesser freedom is subsumed in the greater, and does not exist apart.

However, I am not saying that the effects of the lesser freedom are not real with respect to humanity, simply that they are not real with respect to the universe since the results exist only within the perception of time. A murder is a terrible thing for a community, but no trace of the event will remain at the end of the universe. Its meaning is relative to our experience of the act, making the “act” per se an aspect of our consciousness of the event.

The greater freedom is where humanity really shows itself, because this freedom decides how we interpret the events of the world, both those occurring naturally and the actions of the lesser will. If the lesser will makes a transient impact on the medium of reality – like a hand splashing in a pool – the greater will decides how to interpret the ripples. After enough time the ripples will cease, and the pool return to its original state, but the effect of the interpretation may potentially endure forever (if one believes in the soul and in memory as a spiritual faculty).

Even the greater freedom is contingent, however. The freedom to choose between interpretations depends on a belief in the existence of alternatives. We have no freedom to decide the outcome of two plus two, since mathematics defines the outcome in advance of the question. If our knowledge of reality were similar we could have no choice but to accept what knowledge indicates. Our greater freedom of will is thus only the active form of our ignorance. If we were not ignorant there would be only one explanation for events and only one best response to those events. Our life would be determined by our environment just as appears to be the case in the animal kingdom, where instinct takes the form of an absolute knowledge of how to react to events.

Although animals have a lesser will – the ability to momentarily affect nature – we do not call it a “free will” because of the determined nature of their choices. They do not appear to believe in the existence of alternatives because their instinct denies them such a belief. A human being, however, can take time to reflect on what he sees and change his interpretation of the scene resulting in a different reaction. This is the greater freedom at work, although it too is really no freedom at all; it is a contingent freedom that exists because man has the ability to go from one state of ignorance to another.

If the foregoing has any truth to it, then what I know of as myself – in the sense of a free individual who chooses how he reacts – is in fact a shifting pattern of unknowingness, moving from instant to instant between various interpretations of a single, underlying truth. If I knew true reality my vision would not be in flux and I would not experience any such freedom. I would be a determined entity unable to lastingly alter physical reality and unable to decide my perception of its fluctuations, whether initiated by me or by an outside agent.

Yet there is another form of identity which is determined by the act of its function and not by our interpretation of it: the identity of awareness. Our ignorant identity is how we perceive this awareness in selecting the interpretation of what it means – that a scene implies a viewer, for example. The function of awareness, on the other hand, is the pure experience of life which cannot simultaneously be an awareness of experience and an awareness of the awareness of it. That is, we only perceive “self” in believing that such an interpretation is meaningful; during the actual function of awareness there is only experience, which does not need a perception of its use to function.

By all this my point is that our lesser freedom is an illusion with respect to physical reality, and our greater freedom is an illusion with respect to the truth. If the veil is ever lifted from our eyes we will lose both forms of freedom, since we would no longer have the option to choose how we interpret events (such as the illusion that we can substantially affect reality). We are ultimately both powerless and poor because the substance of our identity is crafted from the stuff of shadow, our ignorance. We are a people who has received the results of physical reality without the principles, and so we continually put forth various schemes to explain the results. In those schemes we move and act, even creating works of art to describe our understanding; but once the truth shines and the actual principles are revealed the sand-castles of our thought will be washed away and we will realize how everything we “knew” was ultimately founded on fantasy.

Perhaps our true value, then, is not founded on knowledge or power or the existence of self but something else entirely: because the fact remains that our awareness continues to function despite our lack of understanding it. If our knowledge serves no one in the end but itself, it begs the question of the real purpose of awareness. Is mystical philosophy trying to tell us that recognizing our inability to know is a way of clearing the path so awareness can be put to a finer use? Is the belief in self and freedom, knowledge and power, a distraction from the true intent of consciousness? For if I don’t really know what I see, what is the intention of sight? Perhaps there is something else to be seen, which cannot be so long as we continue to believe we already know what it is.

This random thought came into my head a while back, and I wanted to jot it down:

The Bible says we should not judge others, “lest ye be judged”. It then goes on to say, “For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.”

I was thinking on this idea of reflective judgment, and how God will turn the tables on us, so to speak, during the Day of Judgment (when our souls are called to the next life and summoned to give account for our deeds). What I came up with was this:

What if, when we die, our memories are completely blanked for a time save for our abstract understandings and judgments. God then plays our entire life out before us, as if a movie, and asks us: What do you think of this person? How would you reward or punish them for their actions? We make our decision, and n poof, he gives us all of our memories back – and we find we’ve just passed judgment on ourselves.

How would you judge your own life, if you saw it being lived by another? It may sound like a harsh question, but consider the corollary in light of the above verse: If one can learn to view everything in a favorable light, there will be nothing to fear if summoned to judge one’s own life.

I wish I could talk about what I’m going to talk about. You can tell someone about the sun, how it’s a million times the size of the Earth, but it means very little. No one can experience what it’s like to approach a blinding sphere of light so large that it would seem like a flat plane reaching out for hundreds of thousands of miles in all directions (it’s almost three million miles around!). We can never know the size of it in our bones the way we know terrestrial things; it exceeds the scope of possible experience.

From our point of view the sun appears about the size of bright pea hanging in the sky, yet even this tiny image is too brilliant to look at. When scientist want to examine the sun they reflect its image through a filtered mirror and project it onto paper or film. In this way humans bring the radiance of the sun down to a level the eye can relate to.

Even then we only see a tiny fragment of the full spectrum of energy released by the sun. Not only are we limited to a miniscule version of an object one million times the size of the Earth, but we see only a sliver of what it actually projects! At that point, although what we see does relate to the sun, it is hardly the sun. It requires a constant self-reminder as we look at pictures to avoid mistaking those paltry images for the blazing glory they hope to represent.

Although we can relate to the figure of the sun only by means of a filtered intermediary, everyone and everything still receives its light. It is just not visible to us without that projected image. It’s deeply ironic that the most visible thing in the sky becomes invisible due to its luminosity. “Yea, the intensity of His revelation hath covered Him, and the fullness of His shining forth hath hidden Him.”

I would love to say what the Beloved is, but I cannot any more than I can understand the extent of the sun. I can, however, mention its effect on us. To continue the analogy of sunlight, our souls would be the plants. Whereas real plants automatically turn toward the sun (heliotropism), human beings have complete freedom to choose and must elect to orient themselves toward the light. When they do so they receive more of its brilliance than those who are turned away or obscured. Since our spiritual life and health derive from this sustenance, it relates to our happiness to learn of the sun and how to turn toward it.

Since the sun shines everywhere, we all know its touch. Even if the light does not reach us directly, it reflects from things around us and reaches us that way, altered in character according to the nature of what it touches. The “brightness” of everything we see comes from this sun. It is what makes good things good, what gives fine art its soul-thrilling capacity, what causes a beautiful scene capture us in awe. This is heavenly illumination revealed in the form of attributes and qualities that we can perceive and that we call beauty, grandeur, perfection.

The Beloved is the source of what we love about life. He animates the world and makes it come alive. The things we like, aren’t they just compositions of atoms? Can’t physics reduce everything to mere quantities of energy? The difference between paper and pigment, and a masterpiece, occurs in our perception of a special Quality that cannot be captured – because it does not exist within us or any object. What our soul responds to shines from another place, reflects on the object, and is perceived through our eyes and experience. This is how the soul connects to the Beloved in this life through the medium of the world.

So if the Beloved is the heart that gives life to everything, the closer we are to that heart the more will be our joy. This is the real intent of religion: to guide people back to that perfect center. Where things go wrong is if people look to the intermediary, hear him talking about “the sun”, and mistake His explanations for the sun itself. The projected image scientists use has almost nothing to do with the true reality, although they rightly call it the sun. The symbol cannot take the place of what it describes, not at all. Show an image of the sun to a room full of plants and they will die because it cannot sustain them.

The Messengers of God are the human form of our Beloved, so that when They speak we can hear His words. They are called “the Treasured Symbol” because they serve as a way for us to relate to something much too great for us to perceive. These human forms refer us to the Beloved and teach us to train our sight to better perceive His manifestations in the world. They are the Divine Educators who can lead humankind toward their destiny.

The Beloved Himself, however, is beyond representation or expression on any human scale. You know He is near because He causes the heart to beat faster. We may not know why it happens, or might mistake the event for the cause, but nothing takes place which does not reveal some measure of His light. Time and space might render it invisible, or its brightness render it imperceivable, but it’s always there, sustaining our perception of the world just as the sun’s light makes all objects visible.

To find the Beloved, then, is not so much a matter of changing things – our existence would be impossible without some form of connection to Him – but one of becoming educated to appreciate His true beauty. A child might grow up in a library filled with books, but he won’t automatically appreciate the knowledge they contain. The Intermediaries, the Manifestations of God Who represent the Divine in human terms, are the Master Keys Who unlock these subtle mysteries and guide us toward comprehending what has been with us all along, always surrounding us.

Meditate on what the poet hath written: “Wonder not, if my Best-Beloved be closer to me than mine own self; wonder at this, that I, despite such nearness, should still be so far from Him.”… Considering what God hath revealed, that “We are closer to man than his life-vein,” the poet hath, in allusion to this verse, stated that, though the revelation of my Best-Beloved hath so permeated my being that He is closer to me than my life-vein, yet, notwithstanding my certitude of its reality and my recognition of my station, I am still so far removed from Him.2

Whatever we seek, we seek because of Him. Not the “God” whose conceptual nature has torn people apart, but the nameless Reality which is the life of all things. There is no way to describe it further. I think everyone knows perfectly what it is in their being, it is only the mind and heart that need education. I’ll simply end with a poem that I wrote this past July, which expresses some of this truth to myself:

i.wished.to.be.known

I attempted to write an essay on “The Beloved”, but was deflected in my course and came up instead with a religious piece on the destiny of the soul. I will try tomorrow to write something on the Beloved, but am finding it very hard to put concrete thoughts to paper…

The soul’s origin

At the moment the soul was created, it knew of its Creator. Some Muslims refer to this pre-existent relationship with God as “rúz-i-alast”, or the day when God asked us, “Am I not your Lord?” The Bahá’í Writings likewise mention an earlier time when we knew of God:

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?12

Our soul is said to be “the first among all created things to declare the excellence of its Creator, the first to recognize His glory, to cleave to His truth, and to bow down in adoration before Him.”13 In essence, the soul of man is a lover, created in a state of primal adoration. We became thus because the Loved One deserves a lover. There is an Islamic tradition that says, “I was a Hidden Treasure. I wished to be made known, and thus I called creation into being in order that I might be known.” In this sense, we are part of a divine cycle of going and returning, in which the Beloved casts out His lovers, and then summons them to return according to their own desire. This “expulsion from paradise”, from our original state, is so that each lover may demonstrate himself by proving his devotion through trial and long-suffering.

His purpose, however, is to enable the pure in spirit and the detached in heart to ascend, by virtue of their own innate powers, unto the shores of the Most Great Ocean, that thereby they who seek the Beauty of the All-Glorious may be distinguished and separated from the wayward and perverse.14

That we began in the divine world, and subsequently “fell” into a condition of material existence – with all its potential for distraction and error – is not only referenced many times in Scripture, but also by some philosophies. Plato describes our original state in quite poetic terms:

… Beauty it was ours to see in all its brightness in those days when, amidst that happy company, we beheld with our eyes that blessed vision, ourselves in the train of Zeus, others following some other god; then were we all initiated into that mystery which is rightly accounted blessed beyond all others; whole and unblemished were we that did celebrate it, untouched by the evils that awaited us in days to come; whole and unblemished likewise, free from all alloy, steadfast and blissful were the spectacles on which we gazed in the moment of final revelation; pure was the light that shone around us, and pure were we, without taint of that prison house which now we are encompassed withal, and call a body, fast bound therein as an oyster in its shell. (Plato)

Since our parentage is divine, being that we were “created in His image”, we long for the divine; since we are lovers, we pine for reunion with our long-lost Love. This is our constant state of being, and all our fundamental motivations stem from it. What differs between individuals is the understanding of how to find what we seek, and whether our vision is clear enough when we do come across it.

The medium of the world

From my own meditations, the soul would seem to be a creature of pure awareness, not having a separate reality to call its own and focus its attention upon. It is aware only of what is real, and this determines the measure of its experience. That is, if our attention is directed toward things that are vain and imaginary, the soul will starve; whereas whenever it comes into contact with reality, it breathes deeply. What it breathes in is brought to it through the medium of perceived existence, just as the sun’s light is brought to the eye reflected from physical objects. The Source is too bright to be seen – beholding it would blind the soul, figuratively speaking – but it remains possible to perceive it in the form of its many reflections, or manifestations.

Each created thing alters the character of those manifestations according to its own quality, just as a red flower makes the light appear red, or a yellow flower, yellow. What both reveal to the soul, however, are differing attributes of a single Light, one Reality. This reality is the soul’s Beloved, and as such causes us joy whenever we see it.

Now the reason wherefore the souls are fain and eager to behold the plain of Truth, and discover it, lies herein – to wit, that the pasturage that is proper to their noblest part comes from that meadow, and the plumage by which they are borne aloft is nourished thereby. (Plato)

If our eyes are closed or confused, even the clearest manifestations of the divine cannot reach the soul. In that state it reaches spiritual death, because it receives no nourishment; for if the soul is to flourish, it must derive sustenance from its Creator. To do this means learning how to commune with the Divine through the medium of life’s experience.

Take beauty, for example. Beauty is an attribute of the One we love, and for this reason beauty seizes us, causes us to pause and wonder. This is a sign that the soul is recognizing its Love, and longing for reunion.

Now, it is quite possible not to see “through” this experience: to think that an object is beautiful by its own power and not because it reflects from another Source. In this case, the individual will attempt to satisfy his desire from the object alone, and will find it worthless and empty. Bahá’u’lláh expresses this phenomenon in these terms:

Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and strayed from His ways. Verily I say, the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere illusion. It may, moreover, be likened unto the lifeless image of the beloved whom the lover hath sought and found, in the end, after long search and to his utmost regret, to be such as cannot “fatten nor appease his hunger.”15

The world itself, then, is not the Beloved – but the image of the Beloved is seen in it, as if reflected from a mirror: “The whole universe reflecteth His glory, while He is Himself independent of, and transcendeth His creatures.” This image allows us to connect, as if sunlight reflected from a mirror were to nourish plants sitting in an otherwise dark room.

The bond of communion

This light that reaches us – the living quality beauty has when we experience it – establishes a link between the lover and his Love, a form of communion. Plato describes this dynamic using the metaphor of growing wings when he talks about how we experience beauty. Note his description of our “vision of the mystery”, which for him relates to the time of our pre-creation, when there was no impediment between ourselves and God:

Now he whose vision of the mystery is long past, or whose purity has been sullied, cannot pass swiftly hence to see beauty’s self yonder, when he beholds that which is called beautiful here; wherefore he looks upon it with no reverence, and surrendering to pleasure he essays to go after the fashion of a four-footed beast, and to beget offspring of the flesh, or consorting with wantonness he has no fear nor shame in running after unnatural pleasure. But when one who is fresh from the mystery, and saw much of the vision, beholds a godlike face or bodily form that truly expresses beauty, first there comes upon him a shuddering and a measure of that awe which the vision inspired, and then reverence as at the sight of a god, and but for fear of being deemed a very madman he would offer sacrifice to his beloved, as to a holy image of deity. Next, with the passing of the sudder, a strange sweating and fever seizes him. For by reason of the stream of beauty entering in through his eyes there comes a warth, whereby the soul’s plumage is fostered, and with that warmth the roots of the wings are melted, which for long had been so hardened and closed up that nothing could grow; then as the nourishment is poured in the stump of the wing swells and hastens to grow from the root over the whole substance of the soul, for aforetime the whole soul was furnished with wings. (Plato)

Bahá’u’lláh also uses a bird metaphor to describe our earliest condition, and how our capacity to fly requires purity in order to recall that proper state:

Ye are even as the bird which soareth, with the full force of its mighty wings and with complete and joyous confidence, through the immensity of the heavens, until, impelled to satisfy its hunger, it turneth longingly to the water and clay of the earth below it, and, having been entrapped in the mesh of its desire, findeth itself impotent to resume its flight to the realms whence it came. Powerless to shake off the burden weighing on its sullied wings, that bird, hitherto an inmate of the heavens, is now forced to seek a dwelling-place upon the dust.16

The fatal error occurs because the mind mistakes symbol for reality, thinking that raw gold, for example, holds the true meaning of value. From this ignorance it will pile up great stores of wealth, never realizes that it cultivates a long and vitiating poverty.

If the individual recognizes, however, that the signs and tokens of earthly life are like the lines of a love-letter waiting to be read, it completely changes the character of living. If we “read from the attributes the riddle of the Essence”17, as if a communication received by a lover, then there can be an experience of connection. It does not matter, for example, that the sun can never descend to Earth – or it would consume it – the medium of its rays still allows for plants to be nourished by its light. And even if these rays must reflect from various objects to reach the inhabitants of a dark cave, it would still be light and still be nourishing.

What lies beyond

I think this initial life is a place of confinement, like a cave; not because we are not meant for greater places, but because our souls are so tender that a direct revelation would blind them. This blinding would occur because we would have no option but to love Him, to be awed by His glory, and we would never have the chance to prove our devotion by overcoming great doubt in the course of our search.

… were the glory of this station to be revealed unto men to an extent smaller than a needle’s eye, thou wouldst witness them gathering before the threshold of divine mercy and hastening from all sides to the court of nearness in the realms of divine glory. We have concealed it, however, as mentioned before, that those who believe may be distinguished from them that deny, and that those who turn unto God may be discerned from them that turn aside.18

So we start out in this darker place, slowly becoming accustomed to the light, before we step out. We can only have a self during this initial stage of the journey, and so it is only here that we have the chance to sacrifice it for His sake. Once the Beloved becomes clear to our consciousness, there will be no consciousness of anything but:

How can a true lover continue to exist when once the effulgent glories of the Beloved are revealed? How can the shadow endure when once the sun hath shone forth? How can a devoted heart have any being before the existence of the Object of its devotion? Nay, by the One in Whose hand is my soul! In this station, the seeker’s complete surrender and utter effacement before his Creator will be such that, were he to search the East and the West, and traverse land, sea, mountain and plain, he would find no trace of his own self or of any other soul.19

I am not even sure if by “this initial life” I mean our physical life, or the life of unbelief which precedes faith. We might pass through several lives similar to this one before being ready to enter into the full sunlight. But when we do reach that place, the whole scheme will become clear, and the purpose for God’s concealment will be revealed:

And when the sanctified souls rend asunder the veils of all earthly attachments and worldly conditions, and hasten to the stage of gazing on the beauty of the Divine Presence and are honoured by recognizing the Manifestation and are able to witness the splendour of God’s Most Great Sign in their hearts, then will the purpose of creation, which is the knowledge of Him Who is the Eternal Truth, become manifest.20