cire perdue

God hath enjoined upon you to observe the utmost
cleanliness, to the extent of washing what is soiled
with dust, let alone with hardened dirt and similar
defilement. Fear Him, and be of those who are pure.
Should the garb of anyone be visibly sullied, his prayers
shall not ascend to God, and the celestial Concourse
will turn away from him. Make use of rose-water, and
of pure perfume; this, indeed, is that which God hath
loved from the beginning that hath no beginning, in
order that there may be diffused from you what your
Lord, the Incomparable, the All-Wise, desireth

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 47)

To what extent is it though that this applies as firmly as it sounds? I admire the dedication of a relatively new Baha'i who said she would keep a prayer robe and remove all other clothing in order to pray. That is faith and willingness which I heartily admire. Must one offer all prayer only after bathing and/or putting on clean clothes? Another question was are we yet bound by this? I think that these exhortations by the Manifestations have contributed to the well being of mankind who otherwise neglected hygiene and in history resulted in plague and high death rates. Simple hygiene is more responsible for public health than one imagines. I would like feedback from the wise participants of this Forum!

aidan

Dear brother CP.I speak from the heart rather than empirical knowledge.As a nurse working a 12 hour shift it is not always possible for me to pray in spotlessly clean clothes.Surely it is good and proper to pray to God in a respectful state of cleanliness when practicable to do so.Perhaps it is even more inportant to pray with an unsullied heart,mind and soul?

Fadl

CP,

I would commend every one to take this verse at face value. If at the moment the wisdom of it is difficult to grasp, implementing it will make the wisdom of it apparent almost automatically. If, as you suggested, the purport of the verse is to improve hygeine, the verses about bathing, using pefume, etc. would already suffice, so I don't agree with this hypothesis. Also, this kind of reasoning tends to cause certain individuals to imagine they are exempt from it, say, one living in one of those 'more hygenic' societies. However, whether you live in a society where showering twice a day or once a week is the norm, if you've got a ketchup stain on your shirt, you'd do well to clean it off first, if you are able, before coming to God in prayer.

The verse on sullied clothes applies to prayer in the broadest sense, and not to the specific category of obligatory prayers (salat), a fact that is easily verifiable by consulting the original Arabic. In my opinion, this means that having tea with cookie crumbs on one's face and lap with a prayer book in hand, is not a very good effort.

In my experience, most people first react to this verse with surprise or disbelief. In fact, if you were to take a poll of Baha'is to find out if they believed prayers won't be heard from a person with dirty trousers, most would probably say that isn't true before seeing this verse for themself.

In my opinion, the reason why people recoil against this concept is that they lack a proper understanding of what prayer really is. Following this verse, however, will lead to better prayer and a greater understanding of the reality of prayer, which, consequently, will lead to a closer communion with God.

armin

As we are all His creatures and nothing in comparison to His majesty, if one thinks about it for a moment we will realize that literally there is nothing we can do to show our respect to Him or to thank Him. The point in my opinion is that God desires cleanliness in all senses and as a result we should show our respect by taking the time to do so. What can one offer him other than his/her time?!

Fadl

Indeed.

Also, how many of us would actually come before an important person, perhaps a king or a president, to petition for something without at least putting on a clean shirt, if not a tie. Then how much more so, should our clothes and faces be clean before petioning he who is the king of kings, and sovereign of sovereigns.

cire perdue

Thank you, thank you. I did recoil from this. I guess it is one of those things one puts into the process of living the life!! The most important thing said to me is that we fail to understand prayer.

Yeshua

In modern Roman Catholic churches, there are a number of fonts around the Church building for the laity to use as a ritual symbolism of cleansing themselves spiritually, usually by dipping the fingertips in the holy water, which has been blessed by a priest, and then making the sign of the cross with the holy water on your hands - thereby annointing yourself with it. These "fonts" are not for means of cleanliness, like the ancient Jewish purification rituals, rather the holy water is symbolic for cleansing of soul. Before we Catholics walk into a Church, we bless ourselves from the water in these fonts.

This use of holy water and making a sign of the cross when entering a church reflects a renewal of baptism, a cleansing of venial sin, as well as providing protection against evil. It is sometimes accompanied by the following prayer:


"By this Holy water and by your Precious Blood, wash away all my sins O Lord".

So as you can see its not about making the "Body clean". Its actually a dropful of water which you annoint your head, chest and shoulders with as you say, "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit amen".

This is the only way I could possibly understand this verse - about spiritual symbolism of cleansing your soul from evil - otherwise it makes no sense to me Christians do not have ritual purity laws, and we tend to shun them because Jesus did so emphatically and with great passion.

I became aware of this verse when I read the Aqdas for the first time, last year. I personally don't believe that God would judge someone's prayer life by how clean they are. Christ spoke out much against Jewish ritual purity laws, so this teaching sounds "Old Testament" like to a lot of us Christians - therefore I doubt that this is what Baha'u'llah actually means. If God had to choose between the prayers of a good-natured and compassionate tramp dressed in rags and those of a self-righteous Priest dressed in fine robes, I believe firmly that God would exalt the lowly bedraggled tramp over the priest - just as he did in Jesus' Parable of the Tax-collector and the Pharisee.

God judges us by the purity of our hearts, not by the cleanliness of our bodies as this extra-canonical narrative by Jesus explains:

"...And taking the disciples along, Jesus led them into the inner sanctuary itself, and began walking about in the temple precinct. And a particular Pharisee, a leading priest, Levi by name, also entered and ran into them, saying to the Saviour, "Who gave you permission to wander around in this inner sanctuary and lay your eyes on these sacred vessels, when you have not performed your ritual bath, and your disciples have not even washed their feet? Yet in a defiled state you have invaded this sacred place, which is ritually clean. No one walks about in here, or dares lay eyes on these sacred vessels, unless they have bathed themselves and changed clothes." And the Saviour stood up immediately, with his disciples, and replied, "Since you are here in the temple, I take it you are clean." He replied to the Savior, "I am clean. I bathed in the pool of David, you know, by descending into it by one set of steps and coming out of it by another. I also changed to white and ritually clean clothes. Only then did I come here and lay eyes on these sacred vessels." In response the Saviour said to him: "Woe to you blind people, who do not see. You bathe in the running waters where dogs and pigs wallow day and night. And you wash and scrub the outer layer of skin which the whores and flute-girls annoint and wash and scrub and beautify for the lusts of men, while inwardly they are crawling with scorpions and filled with all sorts of corruption. But my disciples and I -- who you say have not bathed -- have been washed in the living, life-giving water that comes down from heaven." (POxy 840 2:1-9)

This type of story is synoptic-like in subject matter, reminiscent of Mark 7 and Matthew 15. Baha'is familiar with the canonical Gospels will be aware of Jesus's repeated insistence that in the religious sphere it is inward purification, not external washing, that is important (cf. Mark 7.1-23); and that is the point of this extract.

It is also similar to Matthew 23:25-27:

"Damn you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who clean the outside of a cup and leave the inside full of extortion and intemperance. Blind Pharisee! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may be clean as well. Damn you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of corruption." (Matthew 23:25-27)

In both cases, Jesus is criticizing the outer apperance (e.g. "wash and scrub the outer layer of skin" = "whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside") and describing the inside as corrupted (e.g. "inwardly crawling with scorpions and filled with all sorts of corruption" = "inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of corruption").

Jesus was very much a breaker of ritual cleanliness, stressing instead the greater centraility of moral cleanliness. How does this teaching of Baha'u'llah match up with that of Jesus? Do you think that Jesus would have agreed with Baha'u'llah?

Most of Jesus' followers were rough, dirty and working class Galileans who because of their coarseness and lack of adherence to ritual purity laws and cleanliness, where looked down upon by the upper class Judeans. Jesus sympathised with and actually supported these lowly people over the Temple hierarchy.

Thoughts on what Baha'u'llah could actually mean then...?

aidan

Yeshua brother,hygiene and social status dpnt go hand in hand.Why do we need to guess what the Ancient Wisdom 'actually meant' when we have his exact words?

Yeshua

Dear brother Aiden

That wasn't my point, I assure you. Of course people of working class background can be extremely clean, or not and the same with upper class people. My father's grandparents families were the poorest of the poor but they often had a saying, "But we've aye got soap and water!" - in other words, they did the best they could in the circumstances and always made their children look as clean as possible.

Nevertheless, it is a fact that in the first century, most Galilean Jews were poorly fed, poorly clothed and often dirty - and therefore were considered "inferior" by many upper class Judeans who adhered to laws of ritual purity scrupulously.

That was all I was saying - I was not making class-based generalizations of cleanliness! lol

Don't forget that Baha'u'llah was called, "The Father of the Poor" and his wife, "The Mother of the Poor".

My point then is that Baha'u'llah could not possibly be saying that God judges one's prayers by their physical cleanliness. if that were the case then such rules would probably favour the wealthy over the poor, who have a greater ability to make themselves look "clean". Think Paris Hilton compared to a starving mother in Zambia living in a hut. God judges people by the purity of their soul. I am pretty sure Baha'u'llah would prefer a kind and loving beggar dressed in rags to a spiritually starved priest ore monk dressed in fine, clean attire.

Perhaps Baha'u'llah is simply saying that prayer is a holy act, and that one must approach it - to the best of one's needs - in a respectful and worthy manner - kind of similar to when God told Moses to remove his shoes from his feet before the burning bush because he was "standing on holy ground"?

Much love

aidan

Thanks for clarification bro

Yeshua

It should be noted that Baha'u'llah also, I believe, abolished the Shi'ite laws of ritual purity - did he not? So Baha'u'llah clearly considered moral cleanliness to be far greater in God's eyes than physical cleanliness. These regulations were much more severe than even in Sunni Islam. A Shi'ite could not even touch a non-Muslim without becoming "ritually unclean". Baha'u'llah abolished such restricting and xenophobic and dare I say it, "pointless" regulations in much the same way as Jesus did.

However, when we offer ourselves up to God, we are standing - spiritually speaking - on "holy ground" within our own hearts, where God communes with our spirit. Since God has gifted us with this body, it is important that we offer it up to him in a worthy manner since after all the body is the "Temple of God" according to Saint Paul.

If understood in this way, I think this verse can become rational. However I'm still not perfectly at "ease" with it. So I look forward to hearing other peoples' thoughts!

Fadl

Dear Yeshua,

I will share my thoughts on this as I have come to understand it in my own life, and see if you might come to a different understanding about this verse, and the deep significance that I feel it contains.

First, you are most correct, God does judge us by the purity of our hearts and not by the cleanliness of our bodies. However, it is also true that the purity (or lack thereof) of our bodies has influence upon our souls. We have all experienced this in some degree, one way or an other. For example, it is much easier to concentrate and focus in a clean room than a cluttered one. When our bodies become dirtied, we can feel not only physically dirty, but more fatigued, and psycologically/emotionally affected. Think of how a good shower after a hard days work or play not only cleanses the body but revivifies the spirit. This is evidence of how cleanliness can affect us in our ordinary lives.

If anyone were to visit a place of worship, and should find that place to be filthy, it would be difficult to pray and worship there. Most likely one would leave such a place to worship elsewhere, or better, clean it up first so that it was in a state suitable for worship. That being true for a place of worship, consider how much more so for the human body which is the real worship place and temple. The human body is the true temple, because it is the place of the heart and the seat of the soul. "Thy heart, Baha'u'llah tells us "is My home; sanctify it for My descent. Thy spirit is My place of revelation; cleanse it for My manifestation" (The Arabic Hidden Words).

When we consider it this way, we realize the reason why our clothes and bodies must be clean, we see that it is not so much that God is being fickle. (God made dirt, so dirt won't heart, right? ) Rather, it is this: When our bodies and clothes are dirty, these will affect our emotions and spirit and distract us from entering into God's holy presence, which is the abode of purity and sanctity. We need to understand that prayer is communion with God, and is an action that is and must be initiated by us, and requires effort and disciplince on our part. Obviously, we cannot take it literally that any prayer could possibly not ascend to God, for God is the All-Knowing, the All-hearing. I must, therefore, take into account that, when I enter into communion with God, it is a change in my state, since God is always mindful of me, and is aware of the prayer in my heart before I speak it and before I am even aware of what that prayer is.

Since "At all times I am near unto thee, but thou art ever far from Me" (Baha'u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words) we need to take actions to remove the things which veil us from God and cause us to be far from Him. When we consider that prayers don't literally ascend, then we understand that the verse of the Aqdas is to help suceed in achieving true communion since we are feeble and weak, and far, in our perception, from his presence.

Communion with God happens within our hearts, and requires us to become open chanels to his ever prescence, even as it is revealed in the Seven Valleys: "A servant is drawn unto Me in prayer until I answer him; and when I have answered him, I become the ear wherewith he heareth...." ( p. 22).

On a personal note, Yeshua, I can tell you that I take this verse from the Aqdas literally and very seriously in my personal prayer life, and have experienced its effect. I have no qualms whatever about going and changing my shirt, and sprucing up a bit before I pick up my prayer book! I have found that these small acts translate into big dividends in the greater spiritual connection I feel when praying in this clean state. To what to I attribute it? Basically two things: First, being physically clean affects my inner being significantly, and I can feel it. Secondly, obeying Baha'u'llah, because I love him and trust him that he knows what is conducive to my spiritual well-being, is an important step in communing with God and being the recipient of His love, which I base on these sacred verses:

This way I realize that all of this is only for my good, and my benefit, and not because God is demanding of me: "...be content with what We have ordained for thy sake, for this is that which profiteth thee..." (Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

These are just a few of the ways I have come to understand these things, but if you want to know the true wisdom of having clean clothes and body in prayer, my friend, try both ways, and see if you experience a difference. I'm sure you will.

Cheers

Yeshua

Wow! That was quite a post Fadl

I enjoyed reading it, as I always do with anything you write, since I know that it will provide me with spiritual wisdom and much food for thought. I particularly agree with you when you say that the body is the true Temple of God. Those quotes from Baha'u'llah are amazing! I agree 100% and really benefitted from you writing this. Thank you.

I agree that most people, including myself, would not enjoy worshipping in a Temple or House of God that was filthy. Just look at Catholic or Orthodox Cathedrals/Temples, they are the picture of cleanliness, order and beauty with perfectly polished icons, statues, paintings, wall designs, banners, crucifixes, altars, baptismal fonts, candelebra's etc. I can agree that it is thus certainly easier and more conductive to spiritual life to play in a place that is pleasantly maintained and clean.

However I once attained an open-air mass in a park when Pope Benedict XVI came to Britain for his official state visit last year. It had been raining heavily the night before, such that the grass in the park was very muddy and squealchy. The place was packed with hundreds of thousands of people, other Catholics, some who had camped out for hours in the rain so that they could celebrate mass with the Pope. To this end we were all covered in mud and very dirty. We were all cramped together. Some had deck chairs. Some were playing radios. Some were taking photographs with their mobile phones and cameras of the Pope Mobile as it drove by.

There was nothing overtly "holy" about this event. In fact it had a holiday-fair atmosphere too it - as if I were at a pop concert waiting for a superstar to come on stage! (well Susan Boyle actually sung at this event to entertain us in the intervals before and after the Pope left as well as during the hymns of the mass).

Usually a "mass" for me will be a peaceful, reserved affair - the one I attend is fairly peaceful which is often nice.

This was anything but.

My shoes were even filled with water and were sinking into the ground. There were no beautiful paintings, no statues, no icons, no elaborate cross or crucifix, no candles etc. Just grass, trees and a drizzly but blue sky.

All that we had there were tens of thousands of people cramped into a park before a simply made stage with a simple altar and the Pope and his aides standing there and performing mass under a big wooden cross.

And I can tell you that this mass, with the mud and the dirt and the rain and the open air and the trees and the children with their hands sticky with chocolate and with all of us hectically waving Vatican flags in the air and shouting, "Holy Father We Love You!" - was the best mass I have ever been too and the most spiritually fulfilling experience of my life so far.

We all had a splendid day and rembered that the Church was not a building, but the people of God gathered in a specific place to worship God.

Truly I feel that if that crowd of Catholics had been gathered together in a trash-heap with the Holy Father, we would still have left there singing the praises of the Lord and convinced that it was the most spiritually-vivifying experience of our lives.

It was muddy, hectic, noisy, crowded, rainy, dirty, wild and yet...I had a ball!

I preferred it a hundred times over to a Church or a well-ordered Temple building. As St Stephen tells us in the Book of Acts in the Bible, "the Most High doesn't live in temples made by human hands".

Jesus tells us that the "Church" is not a building but wherever "two or three gather in my name I am there among them". This could be in a Temple, a garden, an orchard, at the bottom of a lake, in a parking lot, in an underground quarry, in a trash-heap or in a park...it doesn't matter. Its the hearts, intentions, desires and love of the people present that constitutes the "Church" and for me the spiritual experience.

I can see what yoiur saying though, and I understand and agree to a certain extent but...well there is a but...

In the midst of all the mud, chaos, noise, rain, flag-waving, shouts and laughing and screaming from the crowd and general hilarity - we all worshipped God in absolute joy and gladly received the Eucharist. It was wonderful. Somehow it just didn't bother me that I and everybody else around me were absolutely filthy. It was spiritually enriching I think, almost, because we were not in a Church building.

Remember also that the early Christian martyrs often worshipped and celebrated the liturgy underground, for fear of Roman persecution, often in their own Houses. Established Church buildings of a communal, community nature didn't emerge in Christianity unntil the time of Constantine the Great.

Rani

While I would also understand this verse to be taken literally, I would think and hope that there would be at least some leeway given, in the sense that we should be able to be in a prayerful state all day. Yes we should bathe as regularly as is needful to be clean and wash our clothes on a regular basis, but what if we need to pray while we are out on an errand, or at work, and unbeknownst to us, some minor soiling has occurred on our garment. It may be on the back of our trousers, or small and visible but we have no way to clean it then and there. !

Surely we can still offer prayers to God and have them be accepted. I think it is our intent that is important.

Sometimes also, we clean clothes, but there is a stubborn mark, that has been difficult to get out, and we can't spend our lives washing!
I am concerned that it could lead to obsessiveness in some cases.

Cleanliness is pleasing, however, from my own stance a separate robe does not appeal. It is another thing to buy and have. I would prefer simplicity and to endeavour to be acceptably clean.

Here is another relevant quote:

Cleave ye unto the cord of refinement with such
tenacity as to allow no trace of dirt to be seen upon your
garments. Such is the injunction of One Who is
sanctified above all refinement. Whoso falleth short of
this standard with good reason shall incur no blame.
God, verily, is the Forgiving, the Merciful. Wash ye
every soiled thing with water that hath undergone no
alteration in any one of the three respects; take heed not
to use water that hath been altered through exposure to
the air or to some other agent. Be ye the very essence of
cleanliness amongst mankind. This, truly, is what your
Lord, the Incomparable, the All-Wise, desireth for
you.

(Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 46)

Rani

A separate robe for prayer, is what I meant above.

Fadl

Yeshua,

That sounds like quite a spiritual experience! There are some finer points that I would have mentioned, had I anticipated your joyous and muddy jubillee, when I wrote my post!

The Baha'i faith is a faith of moderate ( I wanted to say extreme, but it seemed too paradoxical ) moderation. While I'm not sure if your experience would fit into the category of "praying" it may not be a problem that your clothes were sullied for such an occassion. If you were praying in such a setting, however, it seems likely that there was very little anyone could do about being muddy and sullied. That's where this verse from the Aqdas kicks in:

I think this holy verse was confirmed by your very dirty, very spiritual experience.

Yeshua

Ah! I hadn't noticed before the qualification "without good reason".

The Catholic Church believes that the Mass is the highest and most supreme form of prayer available to human beings TBH Catholic Mass is a bit like a Prayer Marathon, where everybody recites the same prayers at the exact same time, responding to the priest and to each other.

So it should not be much of a surprise that we were all praying at this muddy event, both publically and privately. There comes to a bit in Catholic mass where we all have to bow down, close our eyes and pray privately to God in the "silence of our hearts" (thats the phrase used by the Priest during the mass). During mass we have about 5 or more different types of prayer, all of which are recited by the entire congregation publically:

Adoration - In prayers of adoration or worship, we praise the greatness of God, and we acknowledge our dependence on him in all things. The Mass and the other liturgies of the Church are full of prayers of this sort, such as the Gloria (or Glory to God). It’s sung when the Mass is held on Sunday or a holy day of obligation and recalls the singing angels who sang at Christ’s birth, and it goes:

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will. We praise you, we bless you, we worship you, we glorify you, we give thanks to you for your great glory...have mercy on us...receive our prayer...For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High...Each day we bless you, and we praise your name forever and to the ages of ages."


Expiation - In a prayer of expiation or contrition, we acknowledge our sinfulness and ask God for His forgiveness and mercy. The Confiteor or Penitential Rite at the beginning of Mass, and the Agnus Dei (or Lamb of God) before Communion, are prayers of expiation, as is the Act of Contrition. It goes like this:

"I confess to almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do; and I ask blessed Mary, ever virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God."

Love - Prayers of love or charity are just that—expressions of our love for God, the source and object of all love. The Act of Charity is perhaps the best example of a prayer of love. It goes like this:

"O my God, I love Thee above all things, with my whole heart and soul, because Thou art all good and worthy of all love. I love my neighbor as myself for the love of Thee. I forgive all who have injured me, and ask pardon of all whom I have injured. Amen."

Petition - Prayers of petition are the type of prayer we are most familiar with. In them, we ask God for things we need—primarily spiritual needs, but physical ones as well. Our prayers of petition should always include a statement of our willingness to accept God's will, whether He directly answers our prayer or not. The Our Father is a good example of a prayer of petition, and the line "Thy will be done" shows that, in the end, we acknowledge that God's plans for us are more important than what we desire. The Prayer of the Faithful, also known as the General Intercessions, is a prayer of petition. Here, the congregation asks for care for the Church’s people, leaders, and the larger community, is a prayer of petition.

Hope - Acts of Hope are prayers that express our trust in God's mercy and in His promises to us. They acknowledge that our salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone, and they are important prayers to say when we find ourselves discouraged. An Act of Hope can be as simple as "Jesus, I hope in you," or it can be longer, like this traditional version.

An Act of Hope is traditionally preceded by an Act of Faith and followed by an Act of Charity.

Act of Hope reads:

"O my God, relying on Thy almighty power and infinite mercy and promises, I hope to obtain pardon of my sins, the help of Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Redeemer. Amen."

Faith - Acts of Faith are common in morning prayers, and they should be said at any time in which we feel our faith is being tested or we are enduring temptation.

"Thanksgiving" - A prayer of thanksgiving comes after Holy Communion. Gratitude is shown for all the graces given at Mass

There are many more but I think that this suffices to show that Mass would fall under the Baha'i understanding of "prayer" presupposed in this pasage of scripture!

Catholics can recite most of the Mass off-by-heart. Its drummed into us from a young age because we go to it so often (at least once a week, every sunday or saturday).

One of the most common prayers at Mass is the "Glory Be"

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be. Amen.

Another is called the "Sanctus":

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.

It was a very spiritual event. The Pope stood up on a hill, so it reminded all of us of the "Sermon on the Mount" in the Gospel of Matthew. In fact the Pope, like his predecessor Pope John Paul II who had celebrated mass in that same park in 1982, read the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount as the Gospel reading for that occassion. The motto we had and said to each other at that event, decided by the Pope, was: "Heart speaks unto heart" - from a saying spoken by Blessed John Henry Newman.

And the Pope read from one of this great English saint's poems (which was quoted in the pamphlets and in the "packs" that we had been posted to our home):

"God has created me to do him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission; I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling"

A memorial shrine, with a circular stone centre with steps leading up too it and surrounded by a small, lush grove and with a bench put on top of it inscribed with the words "Heart speaks unto heart" has now been built, just this year, over the spot where the Pope stood. Its quite beautiful.

cire perdue

I have been facing adversity, but the thought and wisdom here is very uplifting. I get from this discussion that I must not anthropomorphize God when I approach Him in prayer. I must be mindful of my outward state and even my surroundings. Perhaps in my ignorance which can amount to arrogance it is I who reject the prayer and not God by approaching it with expectation for my will being done. When events despite quantities of prayer recently did not turn out as expected I have had to rethink myself. I know that prayer is not meant to be a plaything and I don't think a wrong way of praying caused adversity. I think the prayers were answered. I am still contemplating this experience. Thank you all.

arthra

Well I have very little to say I'm afraid and haven't really thought much about this myself.. I have used rose water for ablutions on occasion. When performing ablutions I've also had the feeling that aside from cleanliness is the function of wakefulness that pure water can provide on washing the hands and face.

Here are few additional citations that may be on interest...

Perform ye, likewise,
ablutions for the Obligatory Prayer; this is the
command of God, the Incomparable, the Unrestrained.

~ Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 26

18. QUESTION: With reference to the ablutions: if, for
example, a person hath just bathed his entire body, must
he still perform his ablutions?

ANSWER: The commandment regarding ablutions
must, in any case, be observed.

From The Kitab-i-Aqdas p. 112


GOD loveth those who are pure. Naught in the Bayan and in the sight of God is more loved than purity and immaculate cleanliness....

~ The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 79

1839. Cleanliness Contributes to Spirituality

"... in every aspect of life, purity and holiness, cleanliness and refinement, exalt the human condition and further the development of man's inner reality. Even in the physical realm, cleanliness will conduce to spirituality, as the Holy Writings clearly state. And though bodily cleanliness is a physical thing, it hath nevertheless, a powerful influence on the life of the spirit."

('Abdu'l-Bahá: Selections from the Writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá, p. 146)

(Compilations, Lights of Guidance, p. 541)


455.3 The concept of uncleanness as understood and practised in the religious communities of the past has been abolished by Bahá'u'lláh. As you are aware, He says that through His revelation "all created things were immersed in the sea of purification" (God Passes By, page 154). This should, of course, be understood in the context of His clear instructions about the necessity for all to exemplify immaculate cleanliness, especially when engaged in acts of worship.

(The Universal House of Justice, Messages 1963 to 1986, p. 724)

From the Tablet of Purity:

Cleanliness and sanctity in all conditions are characteristics of pure beings and necessities of free souls. The first perfection consists in cleanliness and sanctity and in purity from every defect. When man in all conditions is pure and immaculate, he will become the center of the reflection of the manifest Light. In all his actions and conduct there must first be purity, then beauty and independence. The channel must be cleansed before it is filled with sweet water. The pure eye comprehendeth the sight and the meeting of God; the pure nostril inhaleth the perfumes of the rose-garden of bounty; the pure heart becometh the mirror of the beauty of truth.

(Compilations, Baha'i World Faith, p. 333)



"The channel must be cleansed before it is filled with sweet water" has always intrigued me.

LordOfGoblins

Yes it is very important to be clean when we pray. However can we really say what God wont and will accept when we pray. Baha'u'llah says things as they are but he also says what he knows will give the desired result in mankind. Obviously there is nowhere near enough emphasis on cleanliness when we pray and he is creating emphasis here.
I feel that the point of his verse is that the most 'desirable' prayer is one done with a clean body, as well as from a pure motive or selfless motive.

Yeshua, although I did not read your entire post I wanted to comment on this.
"Damn you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who clean the outside of a cup and leave the inside full of extortion and intemperance. Blind Pharisee! Clean the inside of cup and dish first so that the outside may be clean as well. Damn you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of corruption." (Matthew 23:25-27)

Jesus is saying they are hypocrites because they are trying to look outwardly clean when on the inside they are dirty. That is hypocritical. Better than that they look outwardly dirty if on the inside they are dirty, at least then they are not being hypocrites- in the sense that Jesus is saying..

LordOfGoblins

"And taking the disciples along, Jesus led them into the inner sanctuary itself, and began walking about in the temple precinct. And a particular Pharisee, a leading priest, Levi by name, also entered and ran into them, saying to the Saviour, "Who gave you permission to wander around in this inner sanctuary and lay your eyes on these sacred vessels, when you have not performed your ritual bath, and your disciples have not even washed their feet? Yet in a defiled state you have invaded this sacred place, which is ritually clean. No one walks about in here, or dares lay eyes on these sacred vessels, unless they have bathed themselves and changed clothes." And the Saviour stood up immediately, with his disciples, and replied, "Since you are here in the temple, I take it you are clean." He replied to the Savior, "I am clean. I bathed in the pool of David, you know, by descending into it by one set of steps and coming out of it by another. I also changed to white and ritually clean clothes. Only then did I come here and lay eyes on these sacred vessels." In response the Saviour said to him: "Woe to you blind people, who do not see. You bathe in the running waters where dogs and pigs wallow day and night. And you wash and scrub the outer layer of skin which the whores and flute-girls annoint and wash and scrub and beautify for the lusts of men, while inwardly they are crawling with scorpions and filled with all sorts of corruption. But my disciples and I -- who you say have not bathed -- have been washed in the living, life-giving water that comes down from heaven." (POxy 840 2:1-9)"


You have to consider how this is given and its context. Consider perhaps a Rome like situation where you have people beautifying themselves and cleaning themselves just to go off and have a roman orgy!
These people obviously equated outward cleanliness with spiritual cleanliness and Jesus was showing them it is not so.
So you see Jesus is trying to teach them a lesson. First fix the inside and then worry about the outisde.
Baha'u'llah is prescribing for a different time where water should be more readily available to people.

Yeshua

Bless you Goblin!

Thank you for your interpretation of these two narratives - I really enjoyed and learned from what you had to say!

The only thing I would like to add though, is that Jesus apparently had not washed before entering the Jewish Temple nor changed his clothes to fresh ones. One could presume that he was taking his disciples in there to pray, I mean what else? It would appear that he thus saw no issue with being outwardly dirty and praying. However he was teaching them a lesson, so perhaps this was a "means to an end" rather than an end in itself.

Nevertheless I love your interpretations and agree with!

Yeshua

BTW I like the idea of using rose-water. I might do that when praying!

Yeshua

I see what your saying also with the orgy thing lol!

Interestingly the part which says, "beautify for the lusts" of men has also been translated by some scholars a little bit more bluntly as this:

"...And when you washed yourself, you scrubbed the outer layer of skin, the layer of skin that prostitutes and flute-girls anoint and wash and scrub when they put on make up to become the desire of the men..."

Can you imagine if someone said that today in a Church or Mosque? Jesus was really controversial lol!