Paragraph 154

Consider, how can he that faileth in the day of God’s Revelation to attain unto the grace of the “Divine Presence” and to recognize His Manifestation, be justly called learned, though he may have spent aeons in the pursuit of knowledge, and acquired all the limited and material learning of men? It is surely evident that he can in no wise be regarded as possessed of true knowledge. Whereas, the most unlettered of all men, if he be honored with this supreme distinction, he verily is accounted as one of those divinely learned men whose knowledge is of God; for such a man hath attained the acme of knowledge, and hath reached the furthermost summit of learning.

"Consider". How often has Baha'u'llah asked us to consider, reflect, ponder, or meditate? It always seems to be, as we noted numerous times earlier in our study, just after He has given us a difficult piece of information to grasp.

Here, He has just talked for a number of paragraphs about the concept of "attaining the presence of God", and how people have understood or misunderstood it. He has said that understanding it as a universal revelation misses the point that this has happened in every Revelation. But if we understand it as attaining the very essence of divinity, this is obviously impossible. Instead, He says that what it really means is attaining the presence of the Manifestation of God. This is as close as we can get to attaining the presence of God. This is a new concept of how to understand that phrase, and He is asking us to really think about it.

In the previous paragraph, Baha'u'llah referred to the Manifestation as the "essence of all learning" and the "one Object of their quest". In a sense, this begs the question, what is the purpose of learning? What is the ultimate goal of education? And how does the Manifestation fit into this?

It also gets us to ask ourselves what is the difference between knowledge and learning? We tend to think of knowledge as the accumulation of facts, whereas learning is more about their application.

The purpose of having a pen is to be able to write with it. The purpose of studying music is to be able to play a beautiful piece. The purpose of studying religion is to recognize God's messenger and live a good life. If we fail in this, then we have not truly understood, or learned, what we needed to in our studies of religion. We may be able to quote all sorts of verses and traditions, but are we able to apply them? That is the real test.

In another sense, the purpose of education is the attainment of truth. Truth, of course, is that which conforms to reality. But what good is it if we cannot apply it?

In addition to this, truth is objective. It has nothing to do with us. Being honest is saying what we believe. But truth is that which is real, whether or not we accept it.

Again, He reminds us that the message of the Manifestation, not to mention the Manifestation Himself, is as close we can get to God, the ultimate truth of all. Therefore, if our education does not lead us to the Manifestation, if it becomes a barrier between us and God, then we have failed in the ultimate objective of all learning.

The very phrases "acme of knowledge" and "furthermost summit of learning" speak to this purpose.

But going back to the application of knowledge, we are reminded of the famous formula e=mc2. Knowing this formula is nothing more than trivia. Knowing how to apply it, though, has given us such technological wonders like nuclear power plants and the GPS system. Without the application, it would be nothing more than a mathematical curiosity.