You said: “But the soul that is real is not the soul we so often imagine.” From my reading of Baha’u'llah, it’s more that we have a choice about which way to direct the energy of our soul, rather than a matter of what soul is real.

For example, Baha’u'llah says in the Suriy-i-Ra’is (Summons, p 154, paras 33-34) that the life of man proceeds from the spirit. However, the spirit operates within us in the way that the soul tells it to. The soul has two wings; it can fly towards goodness or evil. Therefore, the soul can direct the energy of the spirit towards good activities or bad ones.

Therefore, it is not so much a question of whether the soul is real, but more a question of what we’re doing with it. This is true for all the powers God has given us, such sight, speech, mind and heart. We can use them for good or bad purposes.

Unlike Will Buckingham, I don’t believe that our cultural conditioning is inherently bad. It is neutral. What is bad is that our cultural conditioning might act as a veil between us and God – and in this Day of God, that means Baha’u'llah. Then we are into the arguments in the Iqan. For example, does our English cultural background stop us from recognising who Baha’u'llah is? For example, someone might believe that they can only reach God through Christ, because they read the Gospels literally. That would be an example of how our cultural background acts as a veil.

Therefore, to be defined by our cultural background isn’t necessarily bad, only if it stops us recognising the latest manifestation. This physical world functions by using ‘names’; for example, male, female, English, Kiwi, writer, administrator, loving, merciful and so on. We can’t live in this world without them, and I think Will is on a hiding to nothing trying to extract his self from them. For he needs them to exist in this world, as is God’s purpose. We also need to them to exist in the next world, for we exist within God’s Kingdom of Names and Attributes. I think it is illusion to imagine that we can ever move beyond that reality.

While it is true that, in relation to God, we don’t exist, nevertheless, in order to fulfill our purpose of knowing and loving God, we have to exist in some form. Baha’u'llah is asking us to use our self to act positively in worship of God, not to eliminate ourselves entirely. For example, in the Persian section of the Tablet of the Holy Mariner: “We have traversed the stage of expending the self for others. Arise to expend justice and fairness upon the souls that pertain to you.” http://www.h-net.org/~bahai/trans/vol3/mallahp.htm

I could go on, but that’ll do.

Alison Marshall

–Barney

When I studied the issue, I found that the best writings to work from were from Baha’u'llah; principally, this statement from the Summons: ““Say: Spirit, mind, soul, and the powers of sight and hearing are but one single reality which hath manifold expressions owing to the diversity of its instruments.” pp 154-55, para 35 I have written a series of blog entries on this topic, in which I examine what Baha’u'llah says on this issue in what I consider to be the three principal sources:
- Suriy-i-Ra’is, in Summons of the Lord of Hosts, pp 152-55
- Commentary on the verse ‘He who knows his self knows his lord’ (which is also in Gleanings at LXXXIII)
- Tablet of the Disconnected Letters, which is not officially translated.

The discussion on my blog begins at http://whoisbahaullah.com/blog/?p=134 . The messages that comprise the discussion are located one after the other in the Study category.

Alison Marshall