Paragraph 134

Know, therefore, O questioning seeker, that earthly sovereignty is of no worth, nor will it ever be, in the eyes of God and His chosen Ones. Moreover, if ascendency and dominion be interpreted to mean earthly supremacy and temporal power, how impossible will it be for thee to explain these verses: “And verily Our host shall conquer.” “Fain would they put out God’s light with their mouths: But God hath willed to perfect His light, albeit the infidels abhor it.” “He is the Dominant, above all things.” Similarly, most of the Qur’án testifieth to this truth.

Here, it would be so easy to continue to talk about how the earthly sovereignty is worthless, but this is what Baha'u'llah is already doing. We could continue to talk about how these quotes are obviously not referring to "earthly supremacy and temporal power", but again, this is so obvious from the context here.

Instead, we would like to look at the three quotes He has chosen to use here: "Our host shall conquer"; "God hath willed to perfect His light"; and "He is the Dominant".

The first is in the future perfect tense, giving us a promise of something that will happen, without question. The second quote seems to explain how, showing that it is through this perfecting of His light. The last one is a reminder that this is what we have always seen in the other religions, their dominance.

So while we can rest assured in the promise, and the example from the past, our primary concern is the how. How will God perfect His light? What does it mean for God to "perfect His light"? And how would the people be able to put it out "with their mouths"?

To get a better idea of this, we decided to look at a few other quotes.

The first one that came to mind was "A kindly tongue is the lodestone of the hearts of men. It is the bread of the spirit, it clotheth the words with meaning, it is the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding..."

You see, for God to perfect His light, He uses the tools at hand, namely the followers of the new religion. This is how it was done in the past, and we can presume, given what we have been reading in this book, that this will be His method in the present day.

In fact, there is a marvelous passage from 'Abdu'l-Baha in which He says, "The purpose of the appearance of the Manifestations of God is the training of the people. That is the only result of Their mission, the real outcome. The outcome of the whole life of Jesus was the training of eleven disciples and two women. Why did He suffer troubles, ordeals and calamities? For the training of these few followers. That was the result of His life. The product of the life of Christ was not the churches but the illumined souls of those who believed in Him. Afterward, they spread His teachings."

Given that we seem to be the ones who have the responsibility for passing on these teachings, it seems that we are also instrumental in passing on this light. How do we do it?

Looking at the quote, the one about the lodestone, it seems we are given a bit of a clue. A lodestone, as you know, is a magnet, and so speaking with kindness, quite simply, is attractive. Well, given our experience, that just makes sense. We react far more positively to those that speak kindly than to those that speak harshly. It's the old "attracting flies with honey, as opposed to vinegar" motif, but with more spiritual importance.

In fact, looking at the quote, we realize that when someone speaks harshly, we are less likely to even bother listening to them. And so a kindly tongue really does clothe the words with meaning. After all, if we do not listen to the other person, then their actual words are truly meaningless.

But "the fountain of the light of wisdom and understanding"? Again if we talk about the teaching of Baha'u'llah with a kindly tongue, ensuring that we do all we can to be as gracious and gentle as possible, then the person is far more willing to listen, and to listen closely. We can easily imagine our words as a fountain, to which others can approach and from which they can drink. If we fill our words with Baha'u'llah's teachings, then they end up drinking that divine draught.

It is through this teaching that the light of God's message penetrates more and more hearts.

In the Hidden Words, revealed around the same time as this book, Baha'u'llah writes, "Thou art My lamp and My light is in thee. Get thou from it thy radiance and seek none other than Me. For I have created thee rich and have bountifully shed My favor upon thee." And so we get a better understanding of the nature of this light, and its relation to us.

Honestly, though we can find hundreds more quotes on this theme, if not more, we don't want to bury you, dear Reader, in too many. Instead, let us look at the best example of this process in action that we can think of: Baha'u'llah's revelation of this very book.

When we consider how this book came to be revealed, can we imagine a better example of a kindly tongue perfecting the light of God in another's heart?

And honestly, it is only through the changing of the heart that God's light becomes dominant.

Paragraph 133

And now, ponder this in thine heart: Were sovereignty to mean earthly sovereignty and worldly dominion, were it to imply the subjection and external allegiance of all the peoples and kindreds of the earth—whereby His loved ones should be exalted and be made to live in peace, and His enemies be abased and tormented—such form of sovereignty would not be true of God Himself, the Source of all dominion, Whose majesty and power all things testify. For, dost thou not witness how the generality of mankind is under the sway of His enemies? Have they not all turned away from the path of His good-pleasure? Have they not done that which He hath forbidden, and left undone, nay repudiated and opposed, those things which He hath commanded? Have not His friends ever been the victims of the tyranny of His foes? All these things are more obvious than even the splendour of the noon-tide sun.

"And now..." Here He is implying that He is moving onto a new section, a new thought. And at the very beginning He is asking us to "ponder". Whenever we see this word, or any of its synonyms, such as "meditate" or "consider", we take it very seriously. We have seen, as you will no doubt recall, in Part 1 of this book that every time He tells us to do this, it is so that we can begin to get a deeper understanding of some difficult truth that will become the foundation of what is to come.

So what is happening here? What is it that we are to ponder? And why?

Before we go onto those questions, we want to take a look back at paragraph 102, that first paragraph of Part 2.

You will recall that He talks about "He Who is the Day-star of Truth and Revealer of the Supreme Being" and His "undisputed sovereignty over all that is in heaven and on earth, though no man be found on earth to obey Him." Over the past 30 paragraphs, He has helped us redefine our understanding of this "sovereignty". He has carefully moved us away from an earthly understanding, which naturally would lead to God's loved ones being exalted and living in peace, and towards this more accurate understanding of this spiritual sovereignty that He does wield.

When we look at the past, we can see that no Manifestation has had this life of ease that the people imagine, nor have the early followers found lives of peace. The early Christians did not expect to get a warm reception when they delivered the Message. They expected to be crucified.

In the latter part of paragraph 102, Baha'u'llah talks about how we may be able to "soar on the wings of renunciation to those heights that are veiled from the eyes of men." This, we feel, is the key to understanding the rest of Part 2, this renunciation. From here on out, He is going to direct our attention to the tests and trials that the early believers have faced in other religious traditions, namely Islam, since He is addressing the uncle of the Bab. And then, from there, He will direct our gaze towards the early Babi heroes, whom we will be encouraged to emulate.

But, if we have a poor understanding of this sovereignty, it all stops here. For if we expect a life of ease and comfort, we will never make the necessary sacrifices needed to transform the planet and all the peoples on it. It is like the Buddha said to His disciples when He sent them out to teach. "What if they ignore you?" "Then we will be glad that they have not harmed us." "Well, what if they harm you?" "Then we will be glad that they do not imprison us." "What if they throw you in prison?" "We will be glad they do not kill us." "And what if they kill you?" "Then we will be glad to die as martyrs, for what is greater than to die for the glory of God?"

And so, Baha'u'llah gives us these questions to ponder.

He points out, very logically, that if we actually believe that God is the earthly sovereign of this planet, then that would mean that we would all be following and obeying His laws. Clearly, this is not the case. When we look at God's laws, no matter which religion we examine, we will find that the majority of the people on earth are clearly not following this guidance. Wherever we turn, we can easily see that the people are not obeying His laws. In fact, in most areas, the majority are acting contrary to the guidance in the sacred Books of the world.

Doesn't this get us to sit up and think? Pay attention? Do we not, when pondering this, ask ourselves if we are acting according to God's teachings? Or are we acting like most people, being greedy and self-centred?

He ties all this to the stories of the heroes of both Islam and the Babi religion, encouraging the friends to arise, in His day, to the same degree of self-sacrifice. Similarly, today, we are encouraged to use these very same stories of those heroes of the Faith, those Dawn-Breakers, to encourage those around us to their own great feats of service. The stories are wonderful, but if they do not motivate us to serve today, then they are nothing more than mere history. And if they do not encourage us to arise in our own turn, then they are, also, no more than mere stories. It is our reaction to them, our own willingness to strive to emulate their greatness, that give the stories of the heroes the meaning that will last through the ages.