Why Praise?

Moving onward to passage 11. I last posted just a few hours ago, so if you're interested in reading things in order, check to see if you read it. It was a doozy in length. Consider yourself warned. So anyhoo, here's the new passage. It said bending down with one's hands resting on the knees, which I just discovered is news to me. I've always been saying it sitting down. It pays to go back and read the directions every once in awhile.

Praise be to Thee, O my God, that Thou hast aided me to remember Thee and to praise Thee, and hast made known unto me Him Who is the Dayspring of Thy signs, and hast caused me to bow down before Thy Lordship, and humble myself before Thy Godhead, and to acknowledge that which hath been uttered by the Tongue of Thy grandeur.

Very simple!

This passage is an expression of praise. If I had to divide it up I would say that this praise is for four things, all of which are closely related if not synonymous: that Thou hast 1) aided me to remember Thee and to praise Thee, 2) made known unto me Him Who is the Dayspring of Thy signs, 3) caused me to bow down before Thy Lordship, and humble myself before Thy Godhead, and 4) caused me...to acknowledge that which hath been uttered by the Tongue of Thy grandeur.

Wow that was redundant!
We need to report this entry to the Redundancy Department of Redundancy.

The common thread running through all of these praises is that the performer does not come to faith by his or her own merits. Another way of saying this is that the performer is not the origin of faith. He or she is only a manifestation of such qualities. This is because the self participates in an extensive complex of interactions far larger than itself. Contribution to the performer's merit is infinitely dispersed through creation, inasmuch as no created thing can be the sole origin of some effect in the world. This means that a creature can only be wealthy-in-possession of divine attributes. Wealth-in-origination is necessarily reserved for Him who is the ground of being-as-we-know-it.

For example, I could list off various meritorious things that I have done in my life. But that I have done them is due to a whole host of circumstances over which I have no control. I did not choose what nation, class, religion, time period, etc, into which I was born. Instead, these conditions had a profound impact on the direction of my life before I even knew my own name. I am in no way fated towards one ultimate outcome. But nonetheless, my power to freely choose is circumscribed by the conditions that give it to me in the first place. This is the common sensical notion that humans are not capable of controlling every aspect of their lives. This is just as much the case with things a person likes about oneself as much as is it is with those things that are not to like. This is why arrogance isn't just annoying. It's probably incorrect inasmuch as it would be based on the fallacious assumption that the self is the absolute origin of its own merit.

For this reason, the performer praises God, because he or she cannot take account or control of all the factors that have contributed to his or her faith. It is a humble recognition that if certain conditions beyond one's control were changed the performer may not be as grounded in faith as is the actual case. One can take pride in one's faith, but only in possession, not in origination. In this light, condescension is just as misplaced as arrogance, for they are both only possible once a person has disregarded the complex conditions that bring freely choosing people into being.

One of Baha'u'llah's most oft used images is that of the mirror. For one, it is used to explain the Manifestation's relationship to God. And in the same way is used to explain an ordinary person's relationship to the Manifestation. In one sense, the mirror contains an image. But it is only a reflection. By itself, the mirror has no image. It relies on some outside light source to produce it. The mirror is by its nature poor-in-origination. And when it is granted a reflection from an outside light source it becomes wealty-in-possession, even though it is incapable of producing any rays by its own power.

I don't want to just limit this metaphor to the manifestation of the divine attributes. Rather I think it highlights an important aspect of what it means to be a created being. If everything is produced by means of prior conditions, then there is no mirror of which to speak. For even if one is a mirror, one can take pride in one's capacity to reflect light. But the origin of that capacity does not come from oneself. It too is a reflection of the conditions that brought it into being. This would mean that the mirror's very capacity to reflect is only possible as a reflection of some reflectivity. The mirror is just as unstable as the images it reflects. In this way, there is only the play of light, its reflection and counter-reflection, all the while changing and bringing about new forms and configurations. In this sense the self would not be a mirror, a stable concrete entity, prior to the waxing and waning of particular images. It would be the play of light itself: rising, dimming, reflecting, evolving.

So of whose light is the performer a reflection?
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That's all for this passage.

Originally, I was going to introduce much of this post using the below quote. But I managed to get through the argument with out it. It's really good, so I thought I'd post it anyway. It's Baha'u'llah saying most of the stuff I've argued above. It is an address from God to Baha'u'llah.

Surih-i-Haykal passages 81-82

O Living Temple! We, verily, have made Thee a mirror unto the kingdom of names, that Thou mayest be, amidst all mankind, a sign of My sovereignty, a herald unto My presence, a summoner unto My beauty, and a guide unto My straight and perspicuous Path......
We have caused the oceans of inner meaning and explanation to surge from Thy heart in remembrance of Thy Lord, the God of mercy, that Thou mayest render thanks and praise unto Him and be of those who are truly thankful. We have singled Thee out from amongst all Our creatures, and have appointed Thee as the Manifestation of Our own Self unto all who are in the heavens and on the earth.

Bring then into being, by Our leave, resplendent mirrors and exalted letters that shall testify to Thy sovereignty and dominion, bear witness to Thy might and glory, and be the manifestations of Thy Names amidst mankind. We have caused Thee again to be the Origin and the Creator of all mirrors, even as We brought them forth from Thee aforetime. And We shall cause Thee to return unto Mine own Self, even as We called Thee forth in the beginning. Thy Lord, verily, is the Unconstrained, the All-Powerful, the All-Compelling. Warn, then, these mirrors, once they have been made manifest, lest they swell with pride before their Creator and Fashioner when He appeareth amongst them, or let the trappings of leadership delude and debar them from bowing in submission before God, the Almighty, the All-Beauteous.