Photo credit: Tom Dyson.

The older one gets, the more one’s own mortality becomes painfully evident.  I had a dream the other night that I was on a jet.  My sister was in the lavatory, and I was outside telling her a joke, wanting to make her laugh.

Suddenly, the plane began to plummet.  We both grew silent, on opposite sides of the door, and in my head, all I could think about was how much had been left undone.

Maybe I had that dream because recently, I’ve witnessed people around me, young and old, be afflicted with terminal illnesses.  I spent the weekend in Northern Virginia, at my pseudo-relatives’ home.  My father and another childhood friend of theirs were visiting D.C., and what was meant to be a jovial reunion weekend was tinged with a sense of how quickly life can change.

Mahin Khanum, my pseudo-uncle’s mother, had last week been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She had been a feisty woman with a sparkle in her eye who lost her husband at a young age and, at a not-so-young age, picked up and moved from Iran to Brazil when her two sons moved there. Whereas only weeks ago she was meddling in the kitchen, piling endless tea glasses into the dishwasher and effortlessly whipping up steaming pots of Basmati rice, Mahin Khanum could now hardly speak or react, let alone bathe herself.

In a rare moment of calm at the kitchen table, which was littered with crumbs and crammed with plates of fruit and half-empty glasses of tea, Mahsheed joon, my pseudo-aunt, leaned her elbow on the table and placed her head in her hand.  “Zendegi chegadr zood migzareh,” she sighed.  “How quickly life passes by.”  Switching to English, sweetly accented with Persian and Brazilian Portuguese tones, she waved her fork in the air and said, “You are young! Enjoy your youth and don’t take so heavily what might come in the future.”

A few weeks ago, I might have dismissed that advice as frivolous.  But in the midst of another hectic workday, her words rung through my mind, and I wondered whether I was wrongly associating living a purposeful life with gravity and heaviness.  I remembered a quotation from The Secret of Divine Civilization:

It is clear that life in this fast-fading world is as fleeting and inconstant as the morning wind, and this being so, how fortunate are the great who leave a good name behind them, and the memory of a lifetime spent in the pathway of the good pleasure of God.
‘Abdu’l-Baha, Secret of Divine Civilization, page 70.

I can home tonight, and throwing myself on the couch, I picked up my weathered copy of The Secret of Divine Civilization, searching in vain for the passage.  And as I did, I flipped to the last page and stumbled upon this:

“Happy the soul that shall forget his own good, and like the chosen ones of God, vie with his fellows in service to the good of all…”
‘Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, page 116

It seems that in the end, what everyone is seeks is a kind of happiness.  The way they go about obtaining that happiness, however, runs the spectrum of being of benefit to being harmful to others.  Some find happiness in shopping (harmless); some, in volunteer work (beneficial); and some, in vandalism (harmful).  When I think about it, I can’t help but think that some of the pursuit of happiness is linked with that nagging feeling we’re going to get old and die.

Well, we are going to get old and die.  And like that moment in my dream, many of us are terrified– not so much that it may be painful, but that we might die and regret that we didn’t live a full life.

In this ever-fragmented, ever-frantic city, these thoughts sometimes elude us.  Or sometimes, we may mistake a “full life” as being those things that, while wonderful, bring us elusive happiness.  I love Washington, with all its quirks, but sometimes it seems as if someone hit a fast-forward button and forgot to hit “pause.”  Those of us in this city sometimes live as if we’re invincible– and that when we do die, all that really matters is how many times our name appeared in print.

But I have to wonder that, when this life ends– and if you don’t believe in an afterlife, when you lie down at night and honestly assess what you’ve done and who you are– what can we say about a life in service for the good of all?  In this ever-fragmented city, it’s easy to be worn out, run ragged, pulled in many directions, and anxious about career prospects.

It was dusk on Saturday evening, the setting sun peeking through the drawn curtains.  Mahin Khanum’s granddaughter, weary-eyed from a sleepless week, grasped her grandmother’s hands in her own, swinging them and singing old Brazilian carnaval songs to her.  There, amidst the pain and exhaustion, was a token of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s words– forgetting her own self, for the good of a loved one in the sunset of her life in this fast-fading world.

It made me cry because she describes so well the devastation of death.  I recognized it because I lost my father eight years ago, only a few months after the death of my aunt.  One of the most poignant descriptions O’Rourke gives is that bereavement feels “like you’re pacing in the chilly dark outside a house with lit-up windows, wishing you could go inside. You feel clueless about the rules of shelter and solace in this new environment you’ve been exiled to“.

In the third instalment of the blog, O’Rourke touches on several theories of grief, including the one they taught us in Psych 101, Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.   I tried to figure out if I had gone through the five stages, and in what order and how quickly.  And then I realized that perhaps a belief in an afterlife would affect how you cope with death.  If you see this life as an end to itself, then death has a finality and cruelty which would be hard to accept.

But if you believe that the soul is immortal, and that this life is just a period of its existence and not its whole, then death is not so much a “goodbye” as a “see you later”.  Even in the darkest days after my father’s death (from a car accident caused by a drunk driver), and the surreal wrongness of it all, I knew with all my heart that he was still with me, and in a better place.  And the Baha’i Writings on the nature of the human soul, and its journey towards God, were my constant solace. 

Bahá’u'lláh, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, gives the following explanation of the journey of the soul after death.

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. …

The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth. The purpose underlying Their revelation hath been to educate all men, that they may, at the hour of death, ascend, in the utmost purity and sanctity and with absolute detachment, to the throne of the Most High. The light which these souls radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples.They are like unto leaven which leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. …

The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother.When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation.

O’Rourke talks about the great metaphor for picturing her mother’s existence after her death.  I picture my dad reading over my shoulder as I write this, because he always bugged me to become a writer.  And I imagine him playing backgammon and drinking coffee. But my favourite images of him are from the following Baha’i prayer (which is also inscribed on his tombstone):

O Lord, glorify his station, shelter him under the pavilion of Thy supreme mercy, cause him to enter Thy glorious paradise, and perpetuate his existence in Thine exalted rose garden, that he may plunge into the sea of light in the world of mysteries.

What would it look like if we lived our lives at every moment aware of the fact that this world and everything in it was merely a prelude to a world much greater than this.  Rather than allowing that knowledge to dull us into nonchalance or trick us into thinking the prelude was inconsequential, we would live knowing that the prelude was absolutely crucial in dictating what was to come.

The prelude would define the rest of the play- the body and the characters, the scene titles, and even the very last period on the very last page of the final act.

How might we live if we understood that the prelude was not more important than the rest of the play, but was absolutely essential to its unfolding.

And what if we knew that this play would tell the greatest love story of all time.  Greater than Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Bella and Edward, Leili and Majnun…greater than the love felt by the most adoring, devoted, sacrificial father for his favorite daughter…and that the prelude’s purpose was to set forces in motion which would allow for the lover and the beloved to meet in the chamber of eternity.

The meeting of the two was inevitable.  But the prelude would determine how quickly it would happen.  The prelude would determine how long the lover would sigh in longing for her beloved.  How long she would feel consumed by the flame of separation from the one for whom every cell in her body existed, every beat of her heart resounded, nay, the reason why every atom in the universe was. For these two to meet, to love, to be near.

What if you knew that you were the lover in the prelude.  And that every decision you made, every thought, every action or inaction, bore direct influence on how near you would be to the greatest, most radiant, most resplendent, kind, loving, wonderful, unimaginably glorious being.

That every kind act, every selfless thought, every step taken to help ease someone else’s burden, to help improve the quality of another’s life, to help those other lovers living the prelude with you would draw you nearer to this object of adoration — and what if you knew that your time in the prelude was very, very fleeting, especially as compared with the dominant note of eternity, which the rest of the play would unfold — would you waste a single moment on anger? On jealousy?  On lethargy or inactivity?

How much time would you devote to leisure?  To pleasure pursuits that distracted you, perhaps even moved your further away from, the path that led to this all-glorious one?

If we lived every moment of our lives consciously aware that we were created to know and to love God, to worship and adore Him in our actions towards His other creatures, that in serving our fellow man, we drew nearer unto Him, that whether or not we felt it now, when we exited the ante room and entered the chamber of eternity, we would be totally aware of and consumed by our love for Him and that if we were remote from Him we would feel sorrow and regret more intense than any hellish brimstone or scalding fire could impose on us …and that our nearness or remoteness from Him would be in direct proportion to how we had spent our time in the ante room, or how we had penned our story in the prelude — I wonder how differently we would behave.  How different our entire atmosphere would be.  One directly affects the other, after all, and both help shape the kind of eternity that awaits us.  An eternity which we are already a part of, which is always as near to us as the air we inhale and exhale at every moment.

It is the duty of every seeker to bestir himself and strive to attain the shores of this ocean, so that he may, in proportion to the eagerness of his search and the efforts he hath exerted, partake of such benefits as have been pre-ordained in God’s irrevocable and hidden Tablets. If no one be willing to direct his steps towards its shores, if every one should fail to arise and find Him, can such a failure be said to have robbed this ocean of its power or to have lessened, to any degree, its treasures? …This most great, this fathomless and surging Ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life-vein! Swift as the twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but wish it, reach and partake of this imperishable favor, this God-given grace, this incorruptible gift, this most potent and unspeakably glorious bounty.

~ Baha’u'llah

A few days ago I was reading The Covenant of Baha’u'llah (by Adib Taherzadeh) and learned that Baha’u'llah explains “there are three barriers between man and God…The first barrier is attachment to the things of this world, the second is attachment to the rewards of the next world, and the third is attachment to the Kingdom of Names.” (pg.20)

The Kingdom of Names is described as essentially God’s attributes that are revealed in this world to man.

Every created thing manifests the names and attributes of God. In the spiritual world, these attributes are manifest with such intensity that man will never be able to comprehend them in this life. In the human world, however, these attributes appear within the ‘Kingdom of Names’ and man often becomes attached to these names.

Wait a minute! I’m pretty attached to kindness I must admit AND really try my best to be kind AND really want people to see my kindness… is that essentially the wrong way to go about it? And the passage very eloquently went on to reply:

Human society at present exerts a pernicious influence upon the soul of man. Instead of allowing him to live a life of service and sacrifice, it is highly competitive and teaches him to pride himself on his ego and to seek to exalt himself above others, in the ultimate aim of achieving self-importance, success and power… The Revelation of Baha’u'llah aims to reverse the process. The soul of man needs to be adorned with virtues of humility and self-effacement so that it may become detached from the Kingdom of Names.

This new way of looking at my attachment to kindness has definitely spurred some critical self reflection and consequently opened the door to other attributes I realize also need to be thrown into the kindness pot. I found a very encouraging sentence from the Covenant of Baha’u'llah that I keep rereading to myself in order to guide this transition in thinking and acting around attributes:

If a man can realize that his virtues are not intrinsically his own, but rather are manifestations of the attributes of God, then he is freed from the Kingdom of Names and becomes truly humble.

So now what?

In the film ‘The Matrix,’ after making that choice, Neo embarks on a process that is the acquiring of Knowledge…..in this case, one of the first things he learns is ‘Kung Fu.’ Or at least he thinks he learns it. Watch scene here

He then practices this new found skill before using it out in the material world, where he almost dies in the process.

Soon after this, he really learns it.

This is part of the journey of the soul.

Baha’u'llah, founder of the Baha’i Faith, talks about the journey of the soul through seven stages.

He uses poetry to describe the stages of the soul’s journey, in the style of 12th Century Sufi poet Farid al-Din Attar, as used in the Conference of the Birds.

The seven stages of the journey of the soul are called Valleys, and thus the imagery is that of a seeker making a journey through a series of valleys. Thus the book is called ‘The Seven Valleys.’

The first Valley is called the Valley of Search, the Second Valley, the Valley of Love…..

The third Valley is the Valley of Knowledge.

In the Matrix, Neo begins his journeying with the Valley of Search by choosing the red pill.

I guess the film skipped out the Valley of Love because it wasn’t commercially viable (or more likely because it’s just a film and not a comprehensive religious text).

The Knowledge sought in the third Valley is the Knowledge of God and not one based on conventional learning. The seeker begins to understand and find wisdom when faced with pain, suffering, tests and trials. About the Valley of Knowledge, Baha’u'llah says:

With inward and outward eyes he witnesseth the mysteries of resurrection in the realms of creation and the souls of men, and with a pure heart apprehendeth the divine wisdom in the endless Manifestations of God. In the ocean he findeth a drop, in a drop he beholdeth the secrets of the sea.

(Baha’u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 11)

He also uses his newly acquired skills, constantly learning new ones and improving the ones he has.

These ‘skills,’ from a Baha’i point of view are universal religious truths known as ‘virtues’ and are used to battle the forces of darkness, which in reality is the human ego, symbolically represented as Satan or Agent Smith in this case.

Armed with the power of Thy name nothing can ever hurt me, and with Thy love in my heart all the world’s afflictions can in no wise alarm me.

(Baha’u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha’u'llah, p. 208)

We may read about virtues all day long and Neo may download as much as he wants about Kung Fu, however, until we apply it, through service to others, we will not really understand and learn.

The ‘Kung Fu’ we need is Patience, Justice, Humility, Truthfulness, Love, Generosity, and the list goes on (for a more comprehensive list click here)

When confronted with Agent Hate, we destroy him with Love. Agent War is stopped with Peace. Agent Greed is neutralised with Generosity.

I’m sure you get the idea. Sounds easy, but we know it’s not.

If ignorance is bliss, what is knowledge, pain?

I know what you’re thinking, ’cause right now I’m thinking the same thing. Actually, I’ve been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn’t I take the BLUE pill?

(Cypher, the ‘Judas’ of the Matrix.)

Like Judas, he too was tempted by the inner promptings of the human ego (Agent Smith), betraying Neo and the life of hardship for an apparently easier life of material happiness. (watch scene here)

Baha’u'llah, in The Hidden Words, says:

….Busy not thyself with this world, for with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.

So we have to bring ourselves to account and ask, what’s our gold? What’s our kryptonite? Since we’re conveniently on the subject of kryptonite, we can talk about other superheroes briefly. Continue reading >

This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

…Morpheus says to Neo, Keanu Reeves character in Warner Brothers’ movie; ‘The Matrix.’ (here is the scene on YouTube)

Before I hear you sigh; ‘oh dear, sci-fi geek alert!,’ I’m kindly requesting a few minutes of your precious time, even if you found Mamma Mia! far more riveting than the Matrix.

Now, what if I told you that this piece of science fiction is far closer to reality than might first appear? And we’re not talking about Keanu Reeves’ acting skills either.

“The Matrix describes a future in which the reality the perceived by humans is actually the Matrix, a simulated reality created by sentient machines.” says Wikipedia.

In the aforementioned movie quote, Morpheus a prophet of sorts is giving the film’s protagonist, Neo, a computer programmer, the option to see the world for what it really is.

If he takes the blue pill, he stays ‘asleep,’ carrying on with his daily routine but if he takes the red pill he awakens to his inner reality, another world:

In the beginning of his human life man was embryonic in the world of the matrix. There he received capacity and endowment for the reality of human existence. The forces and powers necessary for this world were bestowed upon him in that limited condition. In this world he needed eyes; he received them potentially in the other. He needed ears; he obtained them there in readiness and preparation for his new existence. The powers requisite in this world were conferred upon him in the world of the matrix, so that when he entered this realm of real existence he not only possessed all necessary functions and powers but found provision for his material sustenance awaiting him.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 63)

This quote from Abdu’l-Baha, pre-dates the movie by about 80 years. Abdu’l-Baha is talking about the world inside a mother’s womb being the ‘world of the matrix.’ This world, the only world we know as an embryo, is preparing us for the world we know now, the ‘post-birth’ world.

Both worlds are connected of course, and this starts at conception. You just don’t realise this until you actually arrive here, whether it’s by c-section or naturally.

You can discern hints of it, however, like the muffled voices of our louder relatives.

Conversely you can also make impressions in it, by kicking your chubby baby legs to the glee of your mother’s co-workers.

Now how does this relate to the Matrix film? Well, from my limited understanding of the Baha’i Faith, THIS world, the world of Poverty, Climate Change, Racism, Consumerism, War, Climate change and Sex in The City (okay, it’s not that bad!) is OUR world of the Matrix.

Here we develop our capacity and endowment for the next world, through tests:

Therefore, in this world he must prepare himself for the life beyond. That which he needs in the world of the Kingdom must be obtained here. Just as he prepared himself in the world of the matrix by acquiring forces necessary in this sphere of existence, so, likewise, the indispensable forces of the divine existence must be potentially attained in this world…

(Abdu’l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity, p. 63)

In the womb, we had no choice.

In this world, it’s like the red pill or the blue pill.

Every Manifestation from God, whether Moses, Buddha, Krishna, Muhammad, Jesus or Baha’u'llah, has offered us a choice like this; the choice of true liberty or to go back to sleep wearing shackles of ignorance and blinded by our ego.

Baha’u'llah tells us when He was ‘awakened’:

O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath been.

(Baha’u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, p. 11)

He also gives us a choice, rather than a red pill or blue pill, to look with the inner eye rather than the outer one:

O MAN OF TWO VISIONS!

Close one eye and open the other. Close one to the world and all that is therein, and open the other to the hallowed beauty of the Beloved

(Baha’u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words)

The quote above must not be taken out of context. It is not suggesting that we become aloof from human affairs in this material world. In fact, Baha’u'llah teaches the contrary and I’ll expand on this topic in greater detail in part 2.

The quote above, according to my understanding, is saying that we look at things in this world with a ‘spiritually attuned’ eye, rather than looking at things viscerally. The spiritual world is not another location, or to be experienced solely after we die. It is intricately interwoven into the very fabric of our existence. Like lines of code which make up the physical world in the Matrix movie, in this world we have to read in-between these lines:

The one true God is My witness! This most great, this fathomless and surging Ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life-vein! Swift as the twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but wish it, reach and partake of this imperishable favor, this God-given grace, this incorruptible gift, this most potent and unspeakably glorious bounty.

(Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 326)

Now the main difference between the film’s premise and the Baha’i Faith is that in the film, the ‘real’ world, the world that Neo will see if he chooses to know reality, is actually quite dark, and not a nice place at all.

The Baha’i view point is quite the opposite. Should we choose to know the Truth, that reality, that world is paradise.

Thus to conclude, if I were sitting in the dusty old chair that Neo was, and given a choice between ignorance and paradise, I don’t think I’d hesitate to take that leap of Faith to investigate further.

I mean what do you have to lose? Only something to gain.

Other than a few calories from a red jelly bean.

Part 2-Coming Soon

“So, you’ve chosen the pill (presumably). What do you do next? What does this mean? Will it mean you have to take part in two poorer sequels? These questions (except the 3^rd) plus more will be answered in Part 2.”

A year has passed since her fatal car accident, and I find myself sometimes still brooding, still wondering why someone so young and lovely would exit this plane of existence that suddenly. At these times of sorrow, I turn to the Baha’i writings for guidance. Abdu’l-Baha eloquently describes death with the following analogy:

To consider that after the death of the body the spirit perishes, is like imagining that a bird in a cage will be destroyed if the cage is broken, though the bird has nothing to fear from the destruction of the cage. Our body is like the cage, and the spirit is like the bird. We see that without the cage this bird flies in the world of sleep; therefore if the cage becomes broken, the bird will continue and exist: its feelings will be even more powerful, its perceptions greater, and its happiness increased. In truth, from hell it reaches a paradise of delights, because for the thankful birds there is no paradise greater than freedom from the cage.

I, along with the many people who were touched by Nai, miss her physical presence incredibly. Knowing and believing that Nai is even happier now than she was in this physical world helps turn my brooding into joy. In another beautiful passage by Abdu’l-Baha, He reveals to a mother the thoughts of her child in the next world:

That beloved child addresseth thee from the hidden world: ‘O thou kind Mother, thank divine Providence that I have been freed from a small and gloomy cage and, like the birds of the meadows, have soared to the divine world — a world which is spacious, illumined, and ever gay and jubilant. Therefore, lament not, O Mother, and be not grieved; I am not of the lost, nor have I been obliterated and destroyed. I have shaken off the mortal form and have raised my banner in this spiritual world. Following this separation is everlasting companionship. Thou shalt find me in the heaven of the Lord, immersed in an ocean of light.

Nai lived her 27 earthly years with passion, and left this world remembered and missed by so many of us because of the enthusiasm with which she served others, the sincerity of her speech and deeds, and her consistent humility. Her memory compels me to live the rest of my life in this world with intention and meaning. And so, on this day, as on so many others, I remember her with gratitude.