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The Kingdom of Names

shadi December 1st, 2008

For the past few years, I have occasionally confided to my husband that I hope people see me as a kind person. “You know… I just wish when my name was brought up in conversation, people would say ‘Oh, I know Shadi, she’s really kind!’ with an exclamation mark.” I would tell him that of all the qualities in the world, kindness was the most important for me and the one I actively worried others would not see in me. And in response, my husband would reassure me that I was in fact a kind person and should not stress about being seen as kind.

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.