Esotericism
Those who claim such knowledge condemned[edit]
"Condemnation of those who lay false claim to esoteric knowledge"
- (Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Synopsis and Codification of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, item VI.23, under "MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS")
"And among the people is he who layeth claim to inner knowledge, and still deeper knowledge concealed within this knowledge. Say: Thou speakest false! By God! What thou dost possess is naught but husks which We have left to thee as bones are left to dogs. By the righteousness of the one true God! Were anyone to wash the feet of all mankind, and were he to worship God in the forests, valleys, and mountains, upon high hills and lofty peaks, to leave no rock or tree, no clod of earth, but was a witness to his worship--yet, should the fragrance of My good pleasure not be inhaled from him, his works would never be acceptable unto God. Thus hath it been decreed by Him Who is the Lord of all. How many a man hath secluded himself in the climes of India, denied himself the things that God hath decreed as lawful, imposed upon himself austerities and mortifications, and hath not been remembered by God, the Revealer of Verses. Make not your deeds as snares wherewith to entrap the object of your aspiration, and deprive not yourselves of this Ultimate Objective for which have ever yearned all such as have drawn nigh unto God. Say: The very life of all deeds is My good pleasure, and all things depend upon Mine acceptance. Read ye the Tablets that ye may know what hath been purposed in the Books of God, the All-Glorious, the Ever-Bounteous. He who attaineth to My love hath title to a throne of gold, to sit thereon in honour over all the world; he who is deprived thereof, though he sit upon the dust, that dust would seek refuge with God, the Lord of all Religions."
- (Bahá'u'lláh, Kitáb-i-Aqdas, par. 36)
"This is a reference to people who claim access to esoteric knowledge and whose attachment to such knowledge veils them from the Revelation of the Manifestation of God. Elsewhere Bahá'u'lláh affirms: "They that are the worshippers of the idol which their imaginations have carved, and who call it Inner Reality, such men are in truth accounted among the heathen.""
- (Notes to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, no. 60)
People who only enjoy the mystical, abstractions and complications, are unlikely to be argued with successfully or converted, as they are not able to accept Bahá'u'lláh's revelation which involves application of the teachings for here and now[edit]
"It is very unlikely that you will be able either to successfully argue with, or to convert, any of the people who study these topics you have mentioned in your letter. They are more interested in mystical things, and in mystery itself, than in this present world in which we live, and how to solve its problems. They enjoy abstractions and complications. Minds such as these are not going to be able to accept the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh, which is for here and now, and which involves the purification of the mind, and as application of His teachings to daily life...."
- (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, April 22, 1954 (in a letter of the Universal House of Justice to the National Spiritual Assembly of Monaco, August 5, 1969?), in Lights of Guidance, no. 1824)
See also[edit]
Belief that one can imagine God (beyond the Manifestation of God) is just imagination[edit]
"Accordingly all these attributes, names, praises and eulogies apply to the Places of Manifestation; and all that we imagine and suppose beside them is mere imagination, for we have no means of comprehending that which is invisible and inaccessible. This is why it is said: "All that you have distinguished through the illusion of your imagination in your subtle mental images is but a creation like unto yourself, and returns to you." [From a hadith.] It is clear that if we wish to imagine the Reality of Divinity, this imagination is the surrounded, and we are the surrounding one; and it is sure that the one who surrounds is greater than the surrounded. From this it is certain and evident that if we imagine a Divine Reality outside of the Holy Manifestations, it is pure imagination, for there is no way to approach the Reality of Divinity which is not cut off to us, and all that we imagine is mere supposition."
- ('Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, Chapter 37, p. 149)
The Difference Between the Gnostics and the Religionists[edit]
"‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that the main difference between the gnostics and the religionists is that the gnostics maintain the existence of only two worlds, the world of God and the world of the creature. The prophets, however, maintained the existence of three worlds: the world of God, the world of the Will or the Word, and the world of created things. The prophets, therefore, maintained that a knowledge of God is impossible. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, man can never know God or even imagine Him. If he does, that object is not God but an imaginary idol."
- (Ibid., in Lights of Guidance, no. 1724)
See also[edit]
- Portrait of Bahá'u'lláh (re: without seeing it, His likeness will only be imagination)
Ignorance in belief that a boy can be taught in schools to become the promised one (God must instead choose)[edit]
"The Theosophists are educating a boy in the schools of Europe and say that he will become the promised one of all nations. How ignorant this is! God must select the Promised One, not men. The lamp that men ignite will be put out; but the Lamp of God is ever bright. He who is educated by men is always dependent on men. How can he give eternal prosperity? It is as if a person wishes to make a sun out of oil and wick."
Suggesting that we can become like the Prophets suggests religion is only for those who have experiences[edit]
"The tendency of these writers, however, is rather to diminish rather than to enhance the position of the prophet in civilization. These bid us come into communion with God by looking within us. They tell us that the prophets were humans and that we can become like them if we only strive. This renders religion, the religion of the few, the religion of only those who have experiences."
- (From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, November 29, 1929, in Lights of Guidance, no. 1723)
Must adhere to literal meaning (refuting a false and evasive claim that God is always manifest in human form)[edit]
"Come here and consider this important question. A person from Tihrán has written that the Universal Will is always manifest; that is to say, God is always manifest in human form. I have sent him an emphatic reply and urge you also to remember that between two Manifestations there are days of concealment. There is no doubt that for the Sun of Reality there is no rising or setting in its own sanctified center but, owing to the exigencies of the contingent world, it rises and sets. Those persons who say in the days of concealment and interval that God is manifest in human form and that `He always shows Himself in different forms like an artful beloved'[10 - From Jalálu'd-Dín Rúmí, eminent Sufi mystic and poet (1207-73).] are the sources of difference in the Cause and create discord among the people. All these evasive statements of theirs are mere pretensions. Their only object is to get themselves known as persons in whom divine signs are centered. We must, therefore, adhere to the explicit text, to the literal meaning of what is written in the Tablets, and must not deviate from this even to a hair's breadth."
