Anton Haddad, 1901

"Leave what you have! Then fly with the minions of Separation beyond Innovation."

Elder-Miller, 1961

"Cast away that which ye possess, and, on the wings of detachment, soar beyond all created things."

Official Baha'i, 1992

No more minions. 

This verse, one of my favorites, capsulizes Baha'u'llah's vision for the Baha'is: That they be a unique and world-renouncing people separate from the other peoples.

They were certainly to be a mystically-oriented people. The whole Aqdas displays a strong ascetical, world-renouncing attitude and the Sufic language breathes with mysteries. Baha'u'llah wanted his community to stand apart from others. Incidentally, based on the actual Baha'i writings the common bromide that the Baha'i Faith "doesn't teach asceticism" is an absurdity. The founder held out a highly spiritual ideal for the Baha'is in which they would be "detached from all save God" and detached from the world, which Baha'ullah referred to contemptuously as "the world of dust." His book called the "Seven Valleys" speaks of an ideal for the devotee in which he is "cool in the fire, dry in the sea." This is a state only gained through asceticism and a profound detachment from the world, matter, the body itself. It is attained by getting in touch with the divinity with in and locking onto it, making one impervious to outer conditions and established in the blissful state with God. This impervious and detached state was apparently attained by Babi martyrs who died astounding, heroic, joyful deaths under horrific tortures. "Separation," seen in Haddad and Elder-Miller but dumped by in the official version, most definitely referred to Baha'u'llah's  ideal of a profound, emotionally ascetic people separated from world. Review the pink-and-orange verse above about the traveling family saying special prayers upon merely resting at a place along the road. It is the image of an austere, detached,  God-oriented people. 

Only Elder-Miller got "minions" out of the verse. (I do invite verification from Arabic translators.) One definition of minion is "a favored or highly regarded person." Another is "a servile follower or subordinate of a person in power." That is obviously what Baha'u'llah, a kingly sort with a king's attitude through the Aqdas, was visualizing for the Baha'is. Or a combination of the two (both an esteemed people and a loyal, devoted citizenry). In any case, the Baha'i administration decided they didn't want the Baha'is to be God's minions. 

In the official version, instead of flying with his fellows in Baha'i skies, "wings" disappears into a metaphor for personal  detachment. From a distinct group of rarefied people taking to the skies of Baha, the line now addresses a solitary person. Nobody to fly with anymore. 

Both "minions" and "separation" -- some of the richest and most spiritually-resonant words in the Miller-Elder verse -- have been excised from the Wilmette translation. And maybe it's not cool to be too humble or subordinate to God in this New Day. 

Finally he urges Baha'is to soar "beyond all created things." Now think about how utterly focused on the world Baha'is are! They shun the inner search characteristic of Hinduism, yoga, and Buddhism that would even give them a concept of what such language means. (There's nothing out there. It's all "in there.") This is a profound mystical statement students of the Upanishads would appreciate. It again refers to God as Nirguna Brahman, Pure Consciousness, where all is in an uncreated state. We each merge in  this Brahman nightly in deep, dreamless sleep according to the Vedas and Upanishads. The purpose of chanting the Baha'i mantra is to contact That; to get in touch with that uncreated God-bliss, which is yet God's pure creativity itself,  increasingly during waking. 

In truth, the chanting of the Baha'i mantra ("Allah'u'abha") was and is the true heart of the Baha'i Faith, the center of everything. All the secrets of religion are in that. And there is one line in the Kitab-i-Aqdas that clearly betrays this fact. But 139 years went by and, lacking their own central scripture and Most Holy Book because of the agendas of world plotters -- Baha'i leaders whose concept of religion encompasses merely outward, material goals -- Baha'is could never know this.

The Baha'i Faith was originally highly mystical, inward oriented, and world-disdaining along with a bit of advice about the Baha'is mixing with other religionists in a friendly attitude. That 'friendly consorting with the followers of all religions' -- typical of most religious visionaries, had special urgency for Baha'u'llah because of a history in which Babis, Baha'is, and Muslims were at each others throats, killing each other and getting killed. He  articulated a "get along with other religions" view to keep Baha'is from being killed and persecuted any further. The general sense of Baha'u'llah's vision for the Baha'is, both in the Kitab-i-Aqdas and his "Hidden Words," is that of a rectified and rectifying, God-focused people completely oriented to God who stood apart from the rest -- the People of Baha.

The essence of their founders intent for them is found in these two verses of Baha'u'llah's "Hidden Words":

"Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, Powerful, Mighty, and Supreme."

"O Son of Perception! Look thou to My Face and turn from all save Me"

There is no question that the Baha'i Faith is a mystical religion. An honest man cannot read those two lines and deny it. The technique of mantra repetition, enjoined on Baha'is in their Kitab-i-Aqdas, is the prime technique for uncovering the meaning of the above verses. But it is regarded by Baha'is as a triviality, even an embarrassment. By insulating themselves from the content of other religions and having near-phobias about that content, Baha'is suffer two tragedies: 1) They fail to see the opportunities in their very own scriptures to relate themselves to the best things in the religions they hope to replace, and 2) They fail to get the hints and clues that would cause them to value -- and actually discover -- the profound gold in their own traditions. Meanwhile, their shallow, world-oriented leadership deletes that content from their texts and gives them a dumbed-down religion.

The guru-devotion element so painfully present through out Baha'i writings, in which "Baha" refers to himself in a continuous stream of superlative terms like"Blessed Beauty," has been supplanted in Baha'is by love of buildings. It's their inert buildings (The Shrine of the Bab) that get the royal appellations like "queen" rather than their tucked-away guru. The buildings, like their oversized $25 million-dollar "Universal House of Justice" burdening a hill in Israel, symbolize for them the worldly affirmation, power and prestige they crave. These, and an unpleasant race-fetishism for "diversely" formed human bodies combined with disloyalty to their own natural heritage -- are what they have come to love under their Haifa-Wilmette leadership more than their guru or the inner God. The Baha'is instead, under the tutelage of the Haifa/Wilmette corporations, became world-focused and world-centered. People for whom the mystical statements of the Aqdas and Hidden Words are an embarrassment. The most poignant piece of the Hidden Aqdas, after discovering myself the spiritual potency of chanting and mantra meditation, was these words:

"Rejoice in the joy of My Greatest Name

with which hearts are entranced

and the minds of those brought near (to God)

are attracted."

This a mystical statement and bears on the divine experience of religious chanting and mantra repetition. It pairs up with Baha'u'llah's command that Baha'is repeat, out loud, their "Allah'u'abha" mantra in one sitting each day and it is highly significant.

The Hindu yogis say "the mantra becomes nectar." Chanting and repetition is a powerful device for both concentrating the mind and directing all of your feelings to God. The kind of joy one gets through religious repetition, or "repetition of the name of God" -- is a causeless bliss (ananda) that comes from contacting God Himself, within. It opens out onto the spiritual worlds within.  It is most likely that Baha'u'llah, being part of the Sufi-like mystical traditions of the Bab, did a lot of chanting and had himself found that joy in chanting. When I saw this verse I knew that this one sentence was, in truth, the real heart of the Kitab-i-Aqdas and was meant to be the true heart of the Baha'i Faith.

It was during the chanting of the Baha'i "greatest name," in fact, that I had  my first experiences with the eternal inner power the Hindus call "kundalini." Yet when I had asked the Baha'is about chanting it, they only said "We don't have to do that."

A Religion of "the World," Indeed

Through the original suppression of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, which spanned 120 years, the Baha'i Faith collapsed into a religion obsessed on the world, and one with a phobia, even rejection, of their own mystical "God-communion" roots -- their own "Baha'i yoga." Baha'u'llah told them to turn away from the world and consider its transient nature, calling it "dust." Now because Baha'is daily carry a painful burden of "fixing the world," which they believe to be real, they are more world-focused, world-obsessed, and world-burdened -- than even average, irreligious people. I think it's one reason why Baha'is are basically unhappy people rife with neurosis. Though they have "prayers for contentment,' they never did grasp religion's purpose of "removing all difficulties" and showing them the inner solace and fulfillment of God within that requires no external conditions.

It is perhaps completely understandable that official Baha'i translators wanted to keep the word "innovation" out of their Aqdas. The official Baha'i translators were loading their Kitab-i-Aqdas with too much innovation and invention. And maybe they'd rather just not think about it.

What really made me leave the Baha'i Faith was pondering this verse from Baha'u'llah's Hidden Words:

"Forget all save Me and commune with My spirit. This is of the essence of My command."

That seemed so simple and clear. I thought I should take it seriously. Yet I knew I didn't really know what it meant. "Forgetting all" -- all worldly thoughts, all worldly memories, all outwardness -- even for a moment is very difficult. Directing the mind to God with everything else excluded, is very difficult. The sages and rishis of India say it is the hardest thing of all. When I discovered the Yoga-Sutras, the Bhagavad-Gita, and Yogananda I saw that the entire purpose of those scriptures was to teach a man how to do that one thing -- that very thing Baha'u'llah says to do above. And I could see the Baha'is were not interested at all in the meaning of this verse, much less pursuing it. But I wanted to know. It was only by leaving the Baha'i Faith that I was able to learn what this Hidden Word meant and follow that command.

Julian Curtis Lee Mickunas

March 2012, The Saint Francis

http://kitab-i-aqdas.info/