So who is invoked in Baha'i prayer?

Is prayer addressed to God? Is it addressed to Baha'u'llah? Is it directed to both inasmuch as they are the same person? This is no easy question, and there are no easy answers, or difficult ones for that matter. This analysis takes up Baha'u'llah's doctrine of the Manifestation of God, and what it means for prayer. But what is more interesting is what it specifically doesn't mean. For what becomes apparent is that there appears to be no being to speak of that hears prayers. All the while, no doubt is ever entertained that such prayers are in fact heard.

In the Kitab-i-Iqan Baha'u'llah addresses the status of the Manifestations of God, the founders of the major world religions. His explication of the doctrine on the Manifestation of God begins with the assertion that God is transcendent above all creation and thus cannot appear as Creator within His creation. They are like two sides of a coin. At every moment they are necessarily united, but they can never meet face to face. For this reason, God empowers particular people at particular times to manifest his attributes, such as love, wisdom, and sovereignty. These are the Manifestations of God, the founders of the world's major religions.

Rather than taking an either/or position on the divinity of God's messengers Baha'u'llah takes a middle road of sorts by arguing that there are two aspects to the Manifestations of God. Whether or not they are divine depends on the perspective one takes.

One of these is the station of unity. This is the perspective that they are all one inasmuch as the same God speaks and manifests His attributes through each one of them. Because of this it is possible to speak of the one Manifestation that encompasses all of them. The other station is the one of diversity. This is the perspective of history, that each Manifestation is assigned a specific mission in a different time and place from every other. One way of looking at these two different stations is to think of the station of unity as divine and the station of diversity as human.

On this subject Baha'u'llah writes in the Kitab-i-Iqan,

sections 194,196
Viewed in the light of their second station—the station of distinction, differentiation, temporal limitations, characteristics and standards,—they manifest absolute servitude, utter destitution and complete self-effacement. Even as He saith: “I am the servant of God. I am but a man like you".......[and with regard to the station of unity] Were any of the all-embracing Manifestations of God to declare: “I am God!” He verily speaketh the truth, and no doubt attacheth thereto. For it hath been repeatedly demonstrated that through their Revelation, their attributes and names, the Revelation of God, His name and His attributes, are made manifest in the world.

In section 109 of the Kitab-i-Iqan he writes,
Nay, all else besides these Manifestations, live by the operation of their Will, and move and have their being through the outpourings of their grace.

This means that the Manifestation of God doesn't just play a role as messenger. The Manifestation also participates in the emergence of the cosmos. God as the Absolute gives way in almost every sense to God as the Manifestation, the delegate, the vicegerent. This is why it is so hard to pin down to whom one invokes in Baha'i prayer. You have to know who is dispensing grace. Though God as the Absolute would be the ultimate source, this passage locates this role in the Manifestation. In short, it could be said that the Manifestation always defers to the Absolute. But the Absolute always defers back to the Manifestation.

To get back to the twofold station of the Manifestations, one noteworthy aspect of the doctrine is that the truth of both stations seems to be both/not. Rather than trying to produce a logical and syntactically coherent account, Baha'u'llah revels in the perplexity this doctrine produces. Pay attention to the usage of first and third person pronouns in this passage from the Suriy-i-Haykal, a work from just a few years later.

Sections 44-45
Say: Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God, and in My beauty but His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self, and in My movement but His Movement, and in My acquiescence but His Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised. There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God.

Beware lest ye speak of duality in regard to My Self, for all the atoms of the earth proclaim that there is none other God but Him, the One, the Single, the Mighty, the Loving. From the beginning that hath no beginning I have proclaimed, from the realm of eternity, that I am God, none other God is there save Me, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting; and unto the end that hath no end I shall proclaim, amidst the kingdom of names, that I am God, none other God is there beside Me, the All-Glorious, the Best-Beloved. Say: Lordship is My Name, whereof I have created manifestations in the world of being, while We Ourself remain sanctified above them, would ye but ponder this truth. And Godhead is My Name, whereof We have created exponents whose power shall encompass the people of the earth and make them true worshippers of God, could ye but recognize it. Thus should ye regard all Our Names, if ye be endued with insight.

The flow of the prose suggests that this is monologue but the back and forth movement of God from the first to the third person upsets the unity and clarity of the speaker. What is known is that there is speech, but whether it comes from one or from two is not determined. My understanding of this is that the Manifestation of God stands between the one and the two, Creator and Creation, unity and diversity. It is both, and simultaneously it is neither. The mighty figures depicted in this passage seem to be little more than figures of speech, and speech without speaker at that.

The doctrine of the Manifestation of God is an insult to the self-certain authority of language and a mockery of logical inference.

So who is invoked in Baha'i prayer?

I don't know, which is not to say that there is necessarily an answer to be known. My estimation is that the one invoked is not in the order of the knowable, nor a one for that matter.