Lunitik

Baha'u'llah has said that he cannot advance on this subject, and any that understand this phrase from experience should probably not share too explicitly for this very reason. I think this is somewhat intended to increase curiosity, however, so I figure there has to be many considerations towards this line.

I am wondering, however, what people might see in this sentence with respect to the word "apocalypse" - of course, this word means "lifting of a veil".
Do they relate, do you think? If not, what does this sentence mean to you?

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"Love is a veil between lover and Beloved" - can't change thread title... oops

LordOfGoblins

You have to ask a question that noone can likely answer...
I am just going to say that love is a veil in the high levels of the mystical path because as you approach the beloved love can cloud judgement perhaps. And if judgement is clouded then you are not seeking a truer union. That is just a complete guess from a short amount of contemplating. Baha'u'llah also says love is a form of madness...
What answers did your meditations bring you?

Lunitik

If Baha'u'llah cannot expand, why would I have the right? I do not think it is something which can be explained at all, you have to experience it. I will only say that my pyramid contemplation is related and that this details the nature of the trinity in Christianity:

father is beloved, son is lover, holy spirit is love.

Lari

Lunitik, I have once already spoken about delusions, and won't say about it again, then you're free to live them as you like.

"Love is a veil betwixt the lover and the beloved". Just as in lower planes, we have to love ourselves, and when we grow spiritually, we have to let go of this love, as it has served its purpose. In the same manner, in these higher planes of which it is ridiculous to speak here, we finally have to let go of the love towards God and enter Him instead.

The meaning of love is union, but there cannot be love where there is only one.

Lunitik

Please explain Lord of Oneness, the various other statements regarding oneness, and the examples of seeming opposites being seen as the same in Seven Valleys if Baha'u'llah teaches duality is unavoidable. The very meaning of Enlightenment, of Samadhi, of various other attainments is exactly the experience of oneness.

You call my experience delusion, but in doing so you also call Baha'u'llah delusional and every other mystic that ever lived.

Lunitik

When you enter God, how many exist now?

LordOfGoblins

You cannot enter God. It is impossible. The union spoken of in the seven valleys is surely a mystical one. The high states being that of closeness with God.
Even 'death in God' I doubt this really means a union with God at all. Rather it is the death of self and recieving the full bounty of the spirit. It is a sortof losing of oneself. THere is sometrhing in Gems of divine mysteries that parallels this. Once a high station of mystical awareness is reached the traveller loses themself to the extant that "no trace is found on the earth" I think the words Baha'u'llah uses approximately. They become like a lucid spirit in the realm of being. Their effect on others is to open peoples spiritual awareness with every word that comes from their mouth, every action that comes from them. This is the state of a lucid soul. We lose the human condition and gain a divine one. That is why the prophets are considered sacred and holy beings. Perfect channels as such. Now as soon as we take things too seriously we are in danger of bringing God down to our poor little levels. I am human, you are human we are all just humans....
Dont let ego make you think you are a God. It is a truely foolish mistake.

Lunitik

Also, why do you say the meaning of love is union?

Wikipedia writes of love:

If it is affection and attachment to another, how can it be a literal union or merging? There are indeed still two.

The dictionary also says similar:

Again, we see that love is a duality response, it is a high regard for other. When two things merge, neither regards the other as separate, for they are one.

Lari

Let us quote ourselves again. Note: The citing that you are speaking of is not from Baha'u'llah, though it is on the Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys.

Now, if we closely examine my post, I speak of this plane as being one with God instead of two, because love always presupposes two.

If you have further questions about my reply, please do ask.

LordOfGoblins

God loves himself...

Lunitik

Yet you do not agree that love being a veil between lover and Beloved could mean as I stated? That if you remove the veil and enter into Oneness, you have merged and thus there ceases to be two?

I am not sure we are in disagreement at all, which is making this more confusing, especially in light of your inference that this is a delusion.

Lari

We agree in this irrelevant point, what I mean is that I have derived well enough to know that you have not in any way tasted of any mystical experience, because you are thinking about these things very much with your logical mind.

The structures of higher planes are very lucidly explained in many traditions and in the same way, I don't think it was in any way necessary to be elaborated by Baha'u'llah, because those things are irrelevant. It is like giving a map: it doesn't matter how lucid the map is, for as long as we get to the destination, and in fact it is alot better that the map is more simplistic than very exact, because otherwise we will not understand it.

Lunitik

I have certainly returned to the plane of duality, and thus am looking at my experience from this perspective. I have not reached the Seventh Valley by any stretch, but this does not negate what has been experienced by myself.

Yeshua

Yes, this is one of the many accurate descriptions of the Holy Trinity in Christianity

As for your opening question...

Since I am not Baha'i, I cannot give you an authoritative answer but I can give you my own interpretation of why Baha'u'llah said this...

"Love is a veil between lover and Beloved" was not coined by Baha'u'llah, its a well-known Sufi saying which stems from a poem by the Sufi mystic Iraqi....

I agree that the lifting of the veil, represents something that cannot be explained in words, for it is essentially the passing by of the last barrier that separates God and man.

How could love possibly be the last barrier?

Hasn't love been the driving force for one's entire spiritual journey? Yes, and that's precisely why its the last and hardest barrier to overcome.

The concept of "love" creates an ontological separation between the Lover (yourself) and the object of love, God (the Beloved), as if there is an independent "I" who is loving an independent "you"...with Divine Love this is not so, the seeker passes beyond the veil of love and realizes that he and God are bound together in so close a union...

Allow me to refer to the experiences of some prominent Catholic mystics...

"I am in you and you are in me. We cannot be closer. We two are united, poured into a single form through eternal fusion" - Mechthild of Madgeburg

"Separate yourself from all twoness. Be one in one, one with one, one from one"
-Meister Eckhart

"Between God and the soul there is no between"
-Julian of Norwich

"My self is God, nor is any other self known to me except God"
-Saint Catherine of Genoa

Catholic mysticism explains that, "the soul herself must become united without distinction in and with the Divine"...

This is the difference between divine and human love. This is quite hard to chew though, so I hope I've explained it as best as possible...

Its not about "removing love", its about realizing that divine love demands an experience of utter loss of self which is so far above the human word "love" that it cannot even be explained fully by "love" since this still creates a duality...Divine Love, is the only phrase we can use for this experience of utter loss of distinction between the Lover and Beloved...Any notion of love which makes us feel that we are loving something "else", something other than the God who said in the Bible: "I am in you and you are in me" (Gospel of John) is a love which must be removed, it is a veil holding us back from the realization of true God-conciousness, when the veil is torn from top to bottom.

The Gospel of Philip explains this as follows:

"We are reborn by the Christ two by two. In his Breath, we experience a new embrace; we are no longer in duality, but in unity.

All will be clothed in light when they enter into the mystery of the sacred embrace.

What is the bridal chamber, if not the place of trust and consciousness in the embrace? It is an icon of Union, beyond all forms of possession; here is where the veil is torn from top to bottom; here is where some arise and awaken.... Christ comes again to heal this wound, to rediscover the lost unity, to enliven those who kill themselves in separation, reviving them in union"

The goal of the Christian mystic is an "immaculate conception" of the soul and not the body as with the Holy Virgin Mary, resulting from a "pure embrace" with God the Beloved in the Bridal Chamber of the Soul, the "holy of holies". This conception leads to the coveted second birth, that of the Christ within, and represents the return to humankind's non-dual wholeness...the awakened state in which God created us.

Eckhart explained this as follows:

"What good is it that Christ was born 2,000 years ago if he is not born now in your heart? God dwells in the innermost dimension of the soul and in the highest aspect of the soul. And when I say 'the innermost' I mean the highest. When I say 'the highest' I mean the innermost region of the soul. The innermost and the highest realms of the soul - these two are one. If I am to know God directly I must become completey He and He I: so that this he and this I become and are One...When is a man in mere understanding? When a man sees one thing separated from another. And when is a man above mere understanding? When a man sees All in all, then a man stands beyond mere understanding. To gauge the soul we must gauge God, for the Ground of God and the Ground of the Soul are one and the same. ".

The Catholic mystic Marguerite Porete explained that, "the annihilated soul is freed from the virtues".

In Christian theology charity, or love (agape), is the greatest of the three theological virtues. But according to Catholic mystics a soul that has completely lost itself in love must free itself even from "love" as a mere intellectual, human comprehension, so as too move completely beyond dualism and tear down the veil.

Love, in its purest and most divine meaning, refers to something so far beyond our comprehension that it is, well, incomprehensible. Christian theology says that “God is love,” but most of us can grasp that concept only intellectually - and it is because of this attempt to "intelletualize" and comprehend what can only be experienced directly in the heart, which makes the love a "veil". Many Catholic mystics through the ages, however, have had an immediate experiential encounter with this divine love, and they all end up saying essentially the same thing: I thought my heart would burst and that I would die right there.

"But by reason of this secret and intimate union with God, there remains in the Soul a sweet impression, so firm and assured a satisfaction, that no torture, however cruel, could overpower it, and a zeal so ardent that a man, had he a thousand lives, would risk them all for that hidden consciousness which is so strong that hell itself could not destroy it. For when God sees the Soul pure as it was in its origins, He tugs at it with a glance, draws it and binds it to Himself with a fiery love that by itself could annihilate the immortal soul. In so acting, God so transforms the soul in Him that it knows nothing other than God; and He continues to draw it up into His fiery love until He restores it to that pure state from which it first issued. As it is being drawn upwards, the soul feels itself melting in the fire of that love of its sweet God, for He will not cease until He has brought the soul to its perfection. Just As a covered object left out in the sun cannot be penetrated by the sun's rays, in the same way, once the covering of the soul is removed, the soul opens itself fully to the rays of the sun. The more the rust of ego is consumed by fire, the more the soul responds to that love, and its joy increases. Truly the soul's being united with and transformed into Him is like fire consuming the dampness in logs. Once the logs are heated through and through, the fire burns and changes them into itself, giving them its own color and warmth and power. I have no longer either soul or heart; but my soul and my heart are those of my Beloved. I live no longer, but Christ lives in me. My self is God, nor is any other self known to me except God. Oh Love! can it be that you have called me with so much love, and revealed to me at one view, what no tongue can describe? So long as any one can speak of divine things, enjoy and understand them, remember and desire them, he has not yet arrived in port; yet there are ways and means to guide him thither. Words are wholly inadequate to express my meaning, and I reproach myself for using them. I would that every one could understand me, and I am sure that if I could breathe on creatures, the fire of love burning within me would inflame them all with divine desire. I cannot desire any created love, that is, love which can be felt, enjoyed, or understood. I do not wish love that can pass through the intellect, memory, or will; because pure love passes all these things and transcends them. I shall never rest until I am hidden and enclosed in that divine heart wherein all created forms are lost, and, so lost, remain thereafter all divine; nothing else can satisfy true, pure, and simple love. Oh if you knew what I feel within!"

—Saint Catherine of Genoa
Spiritual Dialogue, Part Third, Chapter X

This is Saint Catherine's experience of the Divine Love that is beyond the veil of intellectual love...we all have to aim to have our own, unique experience of it. Words and concepts and virtues are indequate to describe it, even love.


She also said: "When I speak of being, I say: all things which have being, have it from the essence of God by his participation: but pure love cannot stop to contemplate this general participation coming from God, nor to consider whether in itself, considered as a creature, it receives it in the same way as do the other creatures which more or less participate with God. Pure love cannot endure such comparison; on the contrary, it exclaims with a great impetus of love; my being is God, not by participation only but by a true transformation and annihilation of my proper being. God is my being, my me. I say mine at present because it is not possible to speak otherwise; but I do not mean by it any such thing as me or mine, or delight or good, or strength or stability, or beatitude; nor could I possibly turn my eyes to behold such things in heaven or in earth; and if, notwithstanding, I sometimes use words which may have the likeness of humility and of spirituality, in my interior I do not understand them, I do not feel them. In truth it astonishes me that I speak at all, or use words so far removed from the truth and from that which I feel. I see clearly that man in this world deceives himself by admiring and esteeming things which are not, and neither sees nor esteems the things which are"



Eckhart got it in one:

"Quit flapping your gums about God. The most beautiful thing which a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent from the wisdom of an inner wealth"
-Meister Eckhart

Lari

Lunitik, thank you for the answer.

Lunitik

Thank you for this, quite beautiful! I completely agree.

I found it strange you have called beloved the person and lover God, at first I viewed this as erroneous but surely it must be true. Except, does this mean God himself does not experience perpetual singularity? For me, this limits God to human understanding. I experienced oneness, there was not lover or Beloved, it was only love... surely this is the perception of the Absolute also?

It is really pointless to dispute as I was going to, however, I certainly see both sides. I merely see that calling either the object or subject beloved or lover is a statement of duality - as it must be.

Lunitik

You are welcome

Yeshua

I actually changed this ha because I thought you would say this when I read it back lol I think that their both true only that to the one experiencing it Lover and Beloved falls apart, since there is no distinction in this divine love. I cannot say what God would experience. I only know what human beings experience and that's loss of distinction and dualism. God is God. He does not become US, we become him and lose ourselves. But he remains as he always IS and will BE, "I AM", pure conciousness above all forms and conceptions He desires union with us though as much as we desire union with him.

Please read the post again - sorry but I expanded parts of it quite considerably from the one you commented on, I have an annoying habit of doing that!

So please read all the other stuff I've written and get back to me when you have the time

Lunitik

Well, my feelings towards it have not changed much, although certainly it is much more to read... heh. Truly, the experience cannot be consolidated to a single faith though, for these Catholics are expressing the same as the Buddha's and Sufi's and Yogi's and indeed Baha'is although few Baha'is seem to talk about it as openly - I simply see it in Baha'i texts and know it to be true here as well.

You have defended your allegiance to a particular Manifestation - Christ - before, though. You say you have experienced what Eckhart and the others have, yet the veil appears to still be present? I designate myself Baha'i because I see how Baha'u'llah is trying to Manifest Oneness in human society and believe it is time. I have no particular veneration for any single Manifestation though, for any that shed light on the truth are of equal benefit. Even here, however, I distance myself often because Baha'is try to fit you in a box rather than realize liberation.

I think you have voiced this as your own stumbling block also, so I certainly commiserate, but it is also true within every other religious school - those that have ventured into the depths of mysticism are rarely understood by those that are satisfied with surface faith. My primary reason for aligning thus, however, is that it openly expresses to people that none is more correct than another. Mystics - of which I consider perhaps you as one, although I am not sure sometimes - understand there can only be one Ultimate and Absolute, yet those that have never seen the light continue to build duality between each other. At least if people accept Baha'u'llah, all can find common ground and recognize they are united in their quest for God.

Yeshua

I agree 100% The only reason I speak more from my own tradition is because I know more about it lol I don't want to spread inacuracies about other peoples' faiths!

Lunitik

I think I would prefer neither noting our traditions and merely speaking plainly. Referencing another's experience - even if merely trying to hint towards your own - is rather tedious... no offense.

Yeshua

Hey Lunitik

I would consider myself a 'mystic' but then I believe that everybody is inherently a mystic. As Karl Rahner said, "In the coming age, we must all become mystics — or be nothing at all. I must confess to you in all honesty that for me God is and has always been absolute mystery. I do not understand what God is; no one can. We have intimations, inklings; we make faltering attempts to put mystery into words. But there is no word for it, no sentence for it"...he was a Catholic theologian who died in the 1980s. He also said that we are all inherently mystics, that human beings by nature are "mystical" or "spiritual", its as innate to us breathing but some choose to ignore it or bury it deep within, this urging after the divine. I believe this.

I don't think that Christ was "more correct" than Buddha or Krishna. They were all correct but in different ways, times and using differing languages and concepts available at their time. No religion is superior to the other, which is why Pope John Paul II was so adamant that Catholics seek to learn from Indian religions:

"A great spiritual impulse leads Indian thought to seek an experience which would liberate the spirit from the shackles of time and space and therefore would acquire great value…In India particularly; it is the duty of Christians now to draw from this rich heritage the elements compatible with their faith, in order to enrich Christian Thought"

You, yourself, have deeply profited from the insights of Buddhist and Hindu mystical paths. John Paul II tried to make these ideas more open to Westerners. Of course he was the Pope, so Catholics listened to him more than other Christians. Muslims and I daresay all other faiths could also benefit.

Its also why Bede Griffiths, yes another Catholic mystic lol said:

"God has graced every tradition with insight into the divine mystery, from the most primitive to the most sophisticated-each has a gift to bring to the world. It is no longer a question of a Christian going about to convert others to the faith, but of each one being ready to listen to the other and so to grow together in mutual understanding"

This is also the official view of the Catholic Church.

So why am I still a Christian? Well that's out with the topic of this thread, so I won't go there but I will another time

Yeshua

Duly noted Its a habit though and habits are hard to break, so you might just have to bear with me sometimes Sometimes I feel however that someone has explained what I have experienced in a better way than I can, in a clearer way. But I admit that it can be tedious and make my postings unnecessarily long and winded. I'll take your advice and try and apply it from now on lol No offence taken!

Lunitik

Well, it is said that even those who have never heard of Baha'u'llah will assist in his Cause, from these eyes, this is what these people are doing. They are giving people permission to see that all faiths are exactly the same, that there is Unity in them all. In one way, it is inevitable since new technologies are allowing us to venture into areas that otherwise would have been impossible. In another, it cannot be coincidence that these communications based technologies began on the day after the revelation was begun. Could it be the plan that we become aware and interested in every path, that we better accept that He is true?

I think you are a Baha'i, along with all others working towards finding truth in all faiths, all the mystics of the world. I just think you have a certain allegiance to family tradition, and also perhaps enjoy mass which Baha'is are not permitted to attend. Very few of your statements and perspectives counter Baha'i stances, you even uphold that there can still be prophecy from God with new revelations, you just deny that bringing the Kingdom of God into Manifestation for society rather than merely the individual is intended by Jesus. Of course, your own path is between yourself and God, since there is no separation in reality it must be his plan for you.

Then, he has also caused you to read this post, so who knows?

Lunitik

With many, quotes and citations will be necessary for your points to be accepted. I trust you though, and doubt I will not understand where you are going with something even if your explanation is lacking.

I only feel like that I could look up these quotes myself, I am on a forum because I wish to maintain dialog with others on the same path.

Lunitik

This is false, Baha'is can attend others congregations, they just can't have Baha'i masses. Abdu'l Baha has made statements recommending Baha'is avoid such things, for he says Baha'is should create their own identity, but certainly it isn't a rule which is what I inferred.

Yeshua

Indeed A very spirit-filled and wise post if you don't mind me saying!

And please forgive me but Mother Theresa does express precisely how I feel in this moment, so will you let me have one more quote? lol Its a good'un....

I'm afraid I couldn't put it better myself! This always reminds me of Gleanings 24.

So yes, I would say I am a Baha'i, and I'm also a Muslim, and I'm also a Buddhist, and a Hindu and a Zoroastrian and a Sikh and a Jain and everything else wherein abides truth, revelation and inspiration from God

Lunitik

Here here