O Son of Love Thou Art but One Step Away

Have you ever fallen in love—and so, a while later on, fallen right out once again? If so, you may take started to question your initial feelings, or fifty-fifty the idea of love itself.

Our civilisation still accepts and endorses the concept of love every bit an event, an accident, a thing quite beyond our willful control. Abdu'fifty-Baha—the son and successor of Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Religion—said that none of the first three paradigms we described tin exist defined every bit love, at to the lowest degree not as far every bit they go, which is about six to ten months, co-ordinate to my newly calibrated Hollywood adjustable sliding scale of relationship longevity.

RELATED: The Origins of the Myth of Romantic Love

In a talk on love he gave in Paris, Abdu'l-Baha described this kind of temporary infatuation we often recollect of every bit love:

Simply the dearest which sometimes exists between friends is non (truthful) love, because it is subject to transmutation; this is merely fascination. As the breeze blows, the slender trees yield. If the air current is in the E the tree leans to the West, and if the wind turns to the W the tree leans to the East. This kind of love is originated by the accidental weather of life. This is not dear, it is merely acquaintanceship; information technology is discipline to modify.

Today y'all will meet two souls apparently in shut friendship; tomorrow all this may be changed. Yesterday they were ready to die for one another, today they shun i another'south society! This is not love; it is the yielding of the hearts to the accidents of life. When that which has caused this 'love' to exist passes, the love passes too; this is not in reality love.

So what, then, is the distinction between the feelings nosotros unremarkably accept as honey and the accurate dearest alluded to in The Subconscious Words of Baha'u'llah, in which he describes what God feels for us and what He desires that we experience for Him in return?

O Son of Beloved! Thou art only one footstep away from the glorious heights above and from the celestial tree of love. Take one thousand one pace and with the next advance into the immortal realm and enter the pavilion of eternity.

Or, stated in terms of Baha'u'llah'due south The Vii Valleys, if this powerful attraction which follows on the heels of intensive and defended search is a valid part of an organic procedure, what can and should follow this initial stage that we seem and so set to mistake for the entire feel?

Socrates portrays this procedure in The Symposium in terms of the metaphor of a ladder of love. For while the concept of "Platonic love" has come up to connote a non-concrete relationship, the process often begins with physical attraction or infatuation and proceeds by degrees through graduated stages—rungs on the symbolic ladder of the refinement or ascent of beloved. Thus, Platonic love portrays this blinding magnetic allure not equally an invalid part of love; rather he describes this as one of the first stages in a sequence of what can become an e'er more than refined relationship. His point is that this initial stage should non be accepted as the end phase or equally the objective of the dearest relationship.

This graduated sequence, which became the basis for virtually mystical treatises in both Christianity and Islam, is similar to the procedure portrayed past Baha'u'llah in The Seven Valleys. Here, likewise, honey as ardent allure is not disdained, nor perceived every bit inappropriate. This intense ardor and longing and passion may be the initial stage of authentic love, but only if it leads the lover to other succeeding stages of progress and development. Otherwise, the intensity and blind attraction has no significant in and of itself and may ultimately become subversive if no progression results.

RELATED: A Modern Disease: The Neurotic Concept of Love

Thus, the succeeding stage of this process consists of extricating oneself from this bullheaded infatuation in order to examine the nature or grapheme of that to which nosotros are attracted.

Since it is non uncommon for us to be attracted to that which is unhealthy for us, even equally i who is a condition of poor health may notice appealing foods that are unhealthy, this phase or rung or valley requires that we withhold acceding to passion until we determine if what attracts the states is worthy of proceeding further in this process.

But understanding whether what attracts u.s. is healthy for united states or non requires that nosotros empathize how we are constructed—that is, what is conducive to our health and what is detrimental. For example, the Baha'i writings affirm that God fashioned united states of america with an inherent dearest of reality because reality as a whole, as well as all of its constituent parts embody or manifest some divine aspect.

Stated some other style, we know we honey stuff, and nosotros can't seem to become enough of stuff because the commencement emanation from God to humankind is our want to discover out well-nigh stuff.

In a talk he gave in Washington, DC in 1912, Abdu'50-Baha explains this desire equally follows:

Science is the first emanation from God toward man. All created beings embody the potentiality of material perfection, simply the power of intellectual investigation and scientific acquisition is a college virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and organisms are deprived of this potentiality and attainment. God has created or deposited this beloved of reality in human being.

But why are nosotros created with this dear of reality, whether it be a tree, a flower, a pet, or some other person? Baha'u'llah indicated that the huri—the deep mystery, behind this inherent or "God-given" affection—involves everything in cosmos manifesting some attribute of the nature of the aforementioned Creator, from whom we emanated as a jiff of spirit:

… all things, in their inmost reality, evidence to the revelation of the names and attributes of God within them. Each co-ordinate to its capacity, indicateth, and is expressive of, the knowledge of God. So potent and universal is this revelation, that it hath encompassed all things visible and invisible.

And so that's why nosotros honey stuff—because in some way, everything, including ourselves, reminds us of our sacred origin and that to which we long to return, fifty-fifty though we may spend our lives oblivious to the source of that insatiable desire.

This series of essays is adjusted from John Hatcher's accost to the 2005 Clan for Baha'i Studies Briefing titled The Huri of Honey, which comprised the 23rd Hasan M. Balyuzi Memorial Lecture.

smithhartur.blogspot.com

Source: https://bahaiteachings.org/authentic-love-versus-social-norms/

Share this post