MANKIND THE PRODIGAL
BY ALFRED E. LUNT
THE haunting memories of the story of the prodigal son, so beautifully related by the Christ, have imprinted an indelible portrait in countless hearts, of a divine masterpiece. Its lights and shadows project and mirror forth the imperishable colors of the supreme artist. Its shadow is that wandering son, in his reckless plunge into the miry depths of the world of unsatisfying experience, his desertion of his father’s loving protection and provision, his utter surrender to the fiery impelling urge of the natural world. And, then, satiated but still hungry, miserable and forlorn, despoiled and reduced to the husks into which cruel Nature ever finally flings her devotees, this shadow, which was this Everyman, is blasted and now irradiated with the light of repentance, with longing for the loving presence of his father, the fruit of his suffering. He has found his soul.
Swiftly, though with infinite pain, he returns from his exile to that real home. Now the shadow is wholly swept away. In the bosom of his father, his entire being is exhilarated by the elixir of a pure love he has never known; to his newly awakened soul it is light upon light. Yet, the supreme light of this immortal portrait shines in the rejoicing of the father, himself. Great is the celebration of the return of the soul to reality. The most precious possessions of the father are poured out upon him. "This, my son, was lost and is found.”
This sweet story is, of course, a living symbol of the return of man to the True One from remoteness and ignorance; through the illumination of his soul by the Light of Reality, to the communion and presence of the Supreme Friend, in the kingdom of the heart.
Witness, however, the astonishing prototype, one might say, the flowering of this process in this, our age, uncovered in the supreme Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh. Here is revealed to our still dim vision, the astounding fact of the return of God to His creation, in manifest form. The very Revelation, Itself, is the arising of the “Self of God,” the first and mightiest Resurrection. While the prodigal son returned to his father, which is a necessary and inescapable journey for all who would attain their divine destiny, today the Father Himself has sought out the prodigal, entered the world of man, dwelt in the very midst of the confusion and corruption of the husks of human wreckage, and even suffered His Holy Manifestation to submit to the chains and cruelties of a prison worthy only of the dregs of the most abandoned among men. "Whereas,” He says,—"in days past every lover besought and searched after his Beloved, it is the Beloved Himself Who now is calling His lover and is inviting them to attain His presence. Take heed lest ye forfeit so precious a favor; beware lest ye belittle so remarkable a token of His grace.”1
Human consciousness, even that of the true believer, is all too unchastencd, too unrefined as yet to comprehend but a trace of the unmeasured, ineffable Love of God. This Love, fulfilling His desire to be known by human hearts, those divine receptacles which among all the riches of His Creation He has reserved for Himself,—did not rest, nor will ever rest, till in the mystery of Its Manifestation It shone forth in the murky gloom of human habitations, wherein lay buried the latent gems of the supreme talisman, man. This Love accepted every humiliation, shackles and incarceration, and above all, the bitter malice and injury of furious opponents over the long years, that the truth of the saying,—"He is the Most Victorious” might be fulfilled. No words can fittingly describe the Divine patience, submission (to the cruel behests of the misguided), and lowliness, that emanated from Him, as from
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1 Gleanings, p. 320.
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a lotus flower blossoming
in the dark, opaque
waters of a noisome pool. To this degree,
which only Divinity can manifest, has the
Father, the heavenly Shepherd of the
wandering human flock, attested the greatness of
His love for the prodigal.
Small wonder it is that Bahá’u’lláh, the visible embodiment of that Love, following implicitly the Command of the Hidden Tablet regardless of human consequences to Himself, should have uttered the words,—"I have patiently endured until the fame of the Cause of God was spread abroad on the earth.”2 And,—"Our wish is to seize and possess the hearts of men. Upon them the eyes of Bahá are fastened.”3 And, finally, —“If it be your wish, O people, to know God and to discover the greatness of His Might, look, then, upon Me with Mine own eyes, and not with the eyes of anyone beside Me. Ye will otherwise be never capable of recognizing Me, though ye ponder My Cause as long as My Kingdom endureth.”4
In these words He identifies Himself with the unchanging Divine purpose, and, as the Most Pure Mirror of the Divine Essence, demonstrates completely that ineffable Love that has marked this age as a day of mutual return,—the resurrection of Divinity Itself in Its search for the hearts of men, and, this time, the universal quest of the prodigal (all men) for the Father. Thus, the story of the Christ is illumined today with the holy, mutual seeking of both the Divine and the human. God has drawn near unto man, while man’s tortuous journey, through repentance, to his Father, has been mercifully shortened by the Divine outreaching. Divinity has chosen to suffer with man, in that mutual pathway, and this is the Divine Balance, or equilibrium, which has overflowed from the fountain of His exceeding Love.
This demonstration of the Divine Will, however, is as yet unknown to the vast masses of humanity. Quite unaware of the cyclic processes and periods of Manifestation which the Divine Wisdom has decreed, the people have, in general, despaired of heavenly assistance for the solution of their perplexing problems. More and more, with the disquieting effects of the modern age, coincident with the gradual shattering of the old, dogmatic faith of the centuries preceding 1844, have the masses of the people and many of their religious leaders as well, lost faith in the power, even the existence, of divine intervention in human affairs.
They could not, or did not know that the multiplication of hard problems in the individual life and in the collective, economic and social fields of human activity, was attributable, almost solely, to their own long failure to obey the laws of God which the Manifestation of Christ had made obligatory. Because of differing forms of interpretation of the hundreds of denominations and sects, because of the weakening of the dogmatic foundation, the doubts cast by science, and that coldness and blindness that manifest themselves in the winter-time of a spiritual cycle, the ebbing tide of faith and guidance found the people unable to provide a suitable substitute for what they had relinquished.
The successive, unified Revelations of the Báb and of Bahá’u’lláh and the pure Reality revealed by Them, were strong medicine, indeed, for a people who knew not reality. Millions have, as yet, to hear that divine message. Its powerful call to humanity to detach itself from the things in which it has delighted, is, as is recorded in the Holy Books, a "woe” to mankind. Men shrink from new and higher standards of life. The ears that are still “stopped” and the eyes that remain “unseeing” continue to encase in the sepulchers of spiritual impotence the vast majority of the human race. Notwithstanding the truth of this sweeping statement, we must, nevertheless, recognize the existence throughout the nations, of unnumbered men and women whose lives bear witness to the inner spiritual fire, whose hearts are tender, and whose deeds are often in accord with the true foundation of the Prophet in whose service they are enlisted. Such are lovers of humanity. That these souls are still unaware of the Great Event is far less significant than is the case with the countless host of those who doubt the very existence of God.
To the degree that men are enslaved in the toils of the natural law, the vision of God flees away. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá has declared that this enslavement is comparable to the life of
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2p. 203. 3p. 212. 4p. 272.
The Bahá’ís of Poona, India, at the Naw-Rúz Feast, March 21, 1938.
the embryo in the pre-natal stage, and that such souls cannot even imagine God, much less believe in Him; any more than the embryonic, potential infant can imagine or believe in the world without. While even belief is only the first step in the knowledge of God.
Therefore, it is with these unnumbered millions who, in making common cause with the world of nature have set up false idols in the place of the True One, that the theme of the great parable of prodigality is mainly concerned.
With what deep penetration Bahá’u’lláh signifies His complete awareness of the magnitude of this redemptive work among this great multitude is strikingly illustrated by these words,—"Is it within human power, O Ḥakím, to effect in the constituent elements of any of the minute and indivisible particles of matter so complete a transformation as to transmute it into purest gold? Perplexing and difficult as this may appear, the still greater task of converting satanic strength into heavenly power is one that We have been empowered to accomplish.”4A
This deeply mysterious passage of the Word of God has to do with the innermost depths of the human soul. Not only does it definitely locate the present status of this unnumbered throng of humanity within the recesses and dark caverns of nature, that place of unawareness of God where the soul is both deaf and blind, but it, also, defines this state of remoteness as identical with the satanic quality. This passage, one feels, is one of the most vitally significant to be found in the whole, vast sweep of the Bahá’í Scriptures. In these few compelling words, He unfolds the solemn, really appalling circumstances of the unregenerate elements of human society and, notwithstanding this seemingly insuperable fact, confidently declares His possession of a power amply sufficient to transform these embodiments of unregeneracy into vessels of faith and divine enlightenment. For this task, inconceivable from the merely human standpoint, His instrumentality, He avers, is the irresistible Word of God. No greater efficacy could be attributed to the peerless Word than the achievement of so supreme a triumph in the arena of the human mind and soul. Modern science has advanced far toward conferring immunity upon our physical bodies from the ravages of unsanitary conditions. Sadly contrasted is the feeble progress thus far made
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4AGleanings, p. 200. Italics the author's.
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in that spiritual
hygiene which concerns the
vital domain of human consciousness itself.
The graphic delineations of Dante and
Swedenborg, bringing into acute correspondence
the reality of the states of the spiritually
and physically corrupt, were assuredly more
than mere idle dreams. The “satanic
strength” defined by Bahá’u’lláh is clearly
analogous to the infestations and infections,
the contagions and plagues, of mental
confusions, superstitions, prejudices, cruelties
and egotistic madnesses that characterize the,
as yet, uncleansed citadel of human consciousness.
The condition of the world, today, attests only too strongly the truth of this divine analysis. Its helpless drifting toward a new war of unexampled destruction, its contempt for the loving appeal of reality, its submergence in economic loss and despair, its increasing strangulation of human liberty, its pronounced trend toward the self-contained or totalitarian national government, the complete opposite of the Bahá’í teachings of interdependence and unity among nations,—are unerring signs of its spiritual impotence. We have to accept the fact that those who thus lead and those who follow, are of the embryonic human consciousness, as yet unborn from the narrow confines of the natural matrix.
Only quite recently, a distinguished figure in the field of religion ventured the positive statement that we may as well abandon any thought that God would intervene in human affairs, that it was evident He had chosen for Himself the role of an "absentee Divinity,” and that humanity may as well realize, once for all, that it is left to itself to find solutions for its crushing problems. This statement, if correctly reported, represents, we fear, an ever-growing consciousness of futility and despair, by no means confined to the layman.
Thus, the problem of regeneration, of salvation, is put squarely in the keeping of the Manifestation of God, Who has, with dauntless courage and certainty, declared His Power to achieve it. Upon His followers, likewise, this holy service to the race rests as a sublime gift. No mere fancy is intended by His assurance to those who arise to attack the battlements of human hearts with the weapons of Reality. This very Power which He has claimed for Himself is poured out upon and through every sincere, detached Teacher of His Faith. Certainly not for aeons to come will so glorious a destiny be opened to the early followers of a Manifestation of God as is today presented to those pioneer believers who have recognized and obeyed. Not only this, but the Divine Arm is not weakened by this sharing of power with His loved ones; rather does It contain unrevealed and unsuspected reinforcements which, from time to time, will be unloosed upon the nations. That "mysterious power,” we are assured, has in store a perfect galaxy of Divine deeds which will permeate the fabric of humanity as the rain into the parched soil, or the lightning into the dark abyss,—until the souls come forth from their sepulchers.
The appearance of Bahá’u’lláh acquaints
mankind, in this age of doubt, with
irrefutable proof that the King of Kings
has intervened, according to His Ancient Promise, in
the life of this planet. Never before has
His all encompassing Power been revealed to
men to this supreme degree. His upright,
waving Standard rests securely on the
highest battlement. His trumpet blast calls all
mankind to turn their faces to His Face, to
overthrow the idols of natural attachment
that have stolen the altar of true worship
from the hearts, and to love Him who alone
is worthy of the heart’s deepest devotion.
To love Him “above all that is,”—without
which these idols that are imaginary
"partners” with God are thick veils before His
Face,—is an assertion of divine sovereignty.
To ascribe "partners” to God is only another
way of saying that His Sovereignty is a
divided one. If a man permits himself to love
gold, fame, the superiority of his rank, house,
or physical enjoyment as a ruling passion, he
has exalted a mere earthly prize to a superior
position over the Lord of Lords, and, in that
sense, ignorantly attempted to divide the
Heavenly Sovereignty. In this way, his
heart’s desire has wrongfully fashioned a god
or gods whom he enthrones as peers with
God, consequently “partners” in the Divine
Court. This is a type of pantheism that is
infinitely worse than the mere abstract
conceptions of pantheistic philosophy commonly
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met with. Only absolute
ignorance of the
Reality underlying the creation can account
for this self-oppression of man by himself.
Yet because of it, and it alone, the human
race has, as a whole, languished in the
embryonic condition. Thirsty, and an exile,
our race has continued to drink of this bitter
water, flouting the cup of truth and reality
that has always been within its grasp.
The establishment of a world order that has its origin and its end in the Divine Sovereignty marks the fading of that day of infantile humanity. No adequate estimate can be made of the real significance of this fact to human destiny. Without this divine intervention, this assertion of compelling sovereignty over the doings of men, the world has careened madly, like a skidding automobile, on the very brink of destruction. As mankind has failed to believe in God or to recognize His signs, and is, to this extent, idolatrous, it has tended to rely wholly upon its leaders, religious and secular, for guidance. It has leaned upon the fallible, doubting the existence of the infallible. Its handiwork stands out, today, as a glittering, brittle structure which we call civilization; in reality a crumbling mass of vain inconsistency, dominated, in the main, by fear-ridden, unstable guides, schooled in opportunism. Of one of such countries, Bahá’u’lláh made mention in these words,—“Allow not the abject to rule over and dominate them who are noble and worthy of honor, and suffer not the high-minded to be at the mercy of the contemptible and worthless, for this is what We observed upon Our arrival in the city, and to it We bear witness.”5
To those comparatively few in the world today who are concentrating on the Word of God with utter earnestness, the import of this revolutionary change effected through the appearance of Bahá’u’lláh, by which true civilization is to be substituted for one that is essentially false and unbalanced on the material side,—is a living reality. Great suffering and astonishment evidently await the world as the sole means of this regeneration. Its birth-pangs are to be severe, perhaps beyond the realms of imagination. But the crashing of the idols was ever attended with great noise and dust,— while stupefaction marked their worshippers.
The superstition of an "absentee Divinity” describes in the briefest terms the spiritual disease of the world. Because men have fancied Him to be unmindful of His creation, even regressing to a point where they had grave doubts of His existence, or to open denial of it, we have dwelt in an unbelieving world. Certain scientists attribute the cause of the submergence and Cataclysms that accompanied the destruction of the mythical Atlantis to a sudden, cosmic slipping or readjustment of the earth’s axis. With this came about an abrupt change in the physical structure of the earth. Today, the spiritual axis of humanity is being violently rocked. And the profound changes in our civilization that impend can be summarized in a few brief sentences: The reassertion and establishment of the Divine Sovereignty over the children of men; the fixing of the eyes upon Him Who, alone, is worthy of adoration; the assimilation of that Reality of universal knowledge He has revealed. This is the divine, forcing process that is powerfully accelerating the evolutionary process of spiritual maturity, compelled by the existing human inertia.
Is not this consummate result, the emergence of the King and the Kingdom into the consciousness of humanity, clearly set forth in the Holy Books of all nations? We quote from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures: “And the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”6
“And I saw heaven opened, and beheld a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called the Word of God. . . . And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron. . . . And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written,—King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”7
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5 p. 235.
6Isaiah, 9:6.
7Revelation, 19:11-16.
