What topic will I be discussing?

Today I would like to share with you all a personal theory which I have developed in large part through the aid of Baha’u’llah’s teachings, but most importantly through His most holy writing of the Tabernacle of Unity. This sublime piece is a compilation of tablets as well as Baha’u’llah’s revealed personal responses to questions posed to him by a Zoroastrian Parsi by the name of Manikchi Sahib. As a student of comparative religion, or at least someone who studies religion in such ways this masterpiece had a profound impact on my understanding of religion.

For anyone familiar with the criticisms against the Baha’i Faith, of which I am not a follower, they will readily recognize the claim that the Faith cannot be true, that it has not one drop of validity simply because it affirms numerous other dispensations to be not only true, but also from the same source. Of course, for anyone familiar with the Baha’i Faith, this concept is readily done away with once one understands the idea of progressive revelation which is spoken of so many times in Baha’i literature. While this discussion no doubt continues in the Tabernacle of Unity, the collection of tablets and questions and responses goes much deeper, to a much more fundamental level of belief. What is this supreme truth? Monism.

Traditional Monism

Here it would serve well to point out the two most common interpretations of the word “monism” and why it is important to distinguish them from my interpretation which was launched when I first read the Tabernacle of Unity. Furthermore it would be wise to note that hereafter anything I say with regards to the Baha’i Faith is non-authoritative but is a result of my personal investigation of the truth.

Monism most common refers to, in the philosophical domain, to the origination of mind and body. The idea is that either mind and body arise separately and individually in what is known as dualism or in monism it is that mind derives from body, vice versa or that they both derive from some third source. In all cases however, it is called monism because both mind and body are derived from a single thing, that is to say the Monad.

A Monism Derived from the Words of Baha’u’llah

Monism, to me personally is not purely philosophical or religious in nature, rather it is a mechanism by which we can observe the world and discover its truths. The reason why I do not subscribe to any religious or philosophical definition of monism is that these disciplines discuss the object, subject and abject such as the relationship between mind and body, or body and spirit in such a way that they believe they are answerable. It seems to me, however, that these questions are unanswerable by their very nature. They presuppose that there exists one true answer, and this I agree with; there can only be one fundamental truth to any problem, but it can be made manifest in a variety of ways which approach perfection. However, these disciplines such as individual religions, sects, or philosophical schools propose their solution to be the solution, the final verdict on an unanswerable, infinity complex topic. As such, it became clear to me, through the aid of reading the Tabernacle of Unity that a necessity exists to bring to the fore a solution which follows the nature of the question. That is to say, to answer the question by being unanswering to its unanswerable nature.

Let us simplify the problem greatly by reducing the complexity of the question of man’s metaphysical nature down to two possibilities. For the purposes of the following discussion we will use the idea of theism or atheism as the two possible truths. Let us now make this problem manifest in the form of a physical, tangible structure, able to be experienced by all of the sense faculties. As such the structure must exist in three dimensions, and to any human being, the most readily recognizable three dimensional structure across the globe is a wall. A wall, most simple in nature, has three qualities, that is height, length, and depth, on the y, x, and z axes respectively.

If this wall has a height (y) of 100m, a length (x) of 10 000m and a depth (z) of 1nm, you would see a very different object depending upon the location from which you observe the wall. It is then perspective which informs your faculty of thinking as to the veracity of the form you see. Thus if you are standing such that you see its enormous height and length but not its depth—say from standing right in front of the wall looking up at its great size—you would see something very different from someone who could only see its height and depth. Indeed you would see a wall which towered above you and trailed off into the distance as far as you could see, but you would not know it to be only a fraction of a paper-width thin. Similarly the other individual would see their own perspective which, due to the depth being unobservable to the human eye, would see nothing at all!

The two previous examples represent, as I’ve said, theism and atheism respectively, but can likewise be applied to traditional dualistic thought. Some people might for example see the mind and body as separate but another see them as codependent. Both perspectives are true insofar as they are the result of the reservoir of reasoning garnered from one, single viewpoint. In both cases the individuals see a truth, but take it to be the truth. This is of course false, and is likely, as demonstrated by the individual locality of observance in the previous example, a fabrication of the ego. Yes, both truths are true, but the ultimate, supreme truth is not that an impregnable wall exists, nor that nothing exists at all. Rather the Monad, that is the ultimate truth from which all other truths are derived, is that a wall exists that is 100m tall, 10 000m long, and 1nm thin!

In reality, when discussing such complicated issues of which there is no fundamentally agreed upon answer—most commonly metaphysical in nature—the wall is actually a much more complex shape. For example, a very simple, agreed upon question such as “Is water a necessity to life?” will be undoubtedly answered by a resounding “Yes!”. The shape of this question then is so simple it is one dimensional in nature. Something more ethical will be more complex in nature, such that a question such as the ethics of not hiring someone to your establishment because of a handicap would be much more difficult to judge. So while the shifting ethos of ethics today might say one thing, and history might say another, even in the face of what might seem like a common sense answer, the structure is nonetheless far more complex. As such, all things are not equal and in such scenarios, propositions, or ethical and metaphysical questions the wall can become almost infinitely complex. The axes become so numerous as the question becomes more and more intricate that the ultimate truth becomes forever unreachable by our current minds, notwithstanding the obvious claims of religions to have this supreme truth answered through revelation of enlightenment.

The wall of metaphysical existence then is not a wall, but rather a spinning, winding, waving form which shuffles to and fro, in and out of existence and across time and space all before the observer’s eyes. It changes colour, has shifting scents, and at one moment it plays beautiful bird song and the next mechanical grinding. All of the sense faculties are recruited in such complicated questions and relayed to the mind to be interpreted therein based off of location—culture for example—around the structure. Thus, somebody observing the structure from where they stand will see an ever so slightly different truth from someone observing it only a foot in front of them.

All is not lost however, because the breeze of reality is shifting, forever moving, and as individuals we are not hearkened to stand still in the sands of time. Rather we are urged by our very telos to change perspective and to move around the structure. While the truth may be forever unreachable, we might at least approach it through the collection and understanding of a variety of experiences. It is, at the very least, comprehensible, and in comprehension there exists no fear.

-G.L.

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