Anyone who has tried to put love into a letter knows the double experience of needing words and finding them too small. Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá honour that experience without resolving it. Meaning, they teach, must take outward form in speech, and every language, Kurdish or Arabic, Persian or Pahlavi, is welcome so long as it carries meaning; yet words remain indications and allusions, signs pointing beyond themselves, while the realities of the spirit are inscribed on hearts rather than on paper. Words also change with time, so that what is plain today may need a gloss in a thousand years, and some truths wait for a season when they can be heard. The opening chapter of the Dao De Jing circles the same paradox, naming the Way while insisting that the enduring name cannot be spoken [1]. From here the path leads toward the Word of God and the limitations of those who receive it, toward the limits of the intellect, and finally toward the unknowability of God, where speech becomes, like a parent babbling to a child, an act of love.
O self-sacrificing servant of the Lord! Although writing and speaking can express what is in the heart, the realm of words falls short in fully conveying divine meanings. It is but an indication, an allusion, a sign. Therefore, the pages of hearts are open scrolls, and in them are inscribed the realities of spiritual feelings.
… Despite these spiritual pages, it is strange that soul and heart still yearn for the tracings on paper, so that the essence of love may become evident and manifest in all degrees of existence.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to Muhammad Khan Mirpanj -- AB02516)
02
However, since the manifestation of meaning depends upon the world of words, and the emergence of spirits is conditioned and bound to the appearance of bodies - for every inner reality requires an outward form and every beginning demands an end - so that the form of the clot of blood, after ascending the heights of annihilation, might be honored with the robe of everlasting life - "Blessed be God, the best of creators" - and the essence of beginning, after returning from the realm of the divine identity, might appear in the garment of finality - "but he is the Apostle of God and the Seal of the Prophets" - so that the all-embracing word "He is the First and the Last, and the Manifest and the Hidden" might appear in the arena of existence.
Thus souls who have entered beneath the shade of the Word of Unity are people of meaning, not of words; seekers of truth, not metaphor. All languages are acceptable and desirable to them if beloved meanings are present - whether Luri or Kurdish or Arabic or Persian or Pahlavi. And if meanings are absent from words, they are rejected whether Persian or Arabic or Iraqi or Hijazi.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, 1900 or <, to Mirza Nabi Khan Khurramabadi (Tihran) -- AB01726)
04
O brother-in-law of Dhabih and eloquent translator! Languages are diverse and tongues are various, but the purpose of all is to convey meanings and communicate heartfelt intentions. Thus meanings are primary and verbal expression secondary.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, to Nur Muhammad Khan (Kirman) -- AB06816)
05
Languages change, the meaning of words is lost; for these are but the expressions of periods.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Myron Phelps and Madame Canavarro in Dec. 1902 -- ABU1462)
06
Perhaps after a thousand years much of what is every-day language to us will need explanation and the simple truths we teach will be glossed.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to pilgrims, Haifa, 1914-04 -- ABU3078)
07
The former parties were deprived of the realm of inner meanings through names and words. They clung to vain imaginings and held fast to conflict and contention - one party Usuli, another Shaykhi, another Sunni, another Shi'i, another Ni'matullahi, and Jalali and Kharabati and Qadiri and Mawlavi. Were you to enumerate the paths of idle fancy, you could not count them. Blessed are the powerful ones who have rolled up these carpets and considered all save Truth as non-existent and null.
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1304-06-20 [1887-Mar-16], to Mulla Rajab-'Ali -- BH00387)
08
Likewise, due to the impossibility of expressing any aspect of the Truth in the world of creation except through metaphor and similitude, so that people might comprehend the hidden mysteries concealed from sight, therefore He said "What is that in thy right hand, O Moses?"
How many meanings are there that words cannot contain! How many of them have no expression and have been given neither statement nor allusion! And how many of them cannot be uttered because their time hath not come, as it hath been said: "Not all that is known can be disclosed, nor is the time ripe for all that can be disclosed, nor are the people capable of hearing all for which the time is ripe." And there are those whose mention dependeth upon knowledge of the Dawning-Places wherein We have expounded the sciences and revealed what was hidden.
(Bahá’u’lláh, Tafsir-i-Va'sh-Shams (Commentary on the Surih of the Sun) -- BH00271)
10
Whoever contemplates the indications of that unique and eloquent sermon, speaking from the Tree of Praise, will testify that the description of the possible is itself possible, and the attribute of the dependent is dependent, and the kingdom endures in the kingdom. And concerning this matter, Al-Rida (peace be upon him) said: "Indeed, tools only define themselves, and instruments only point to their like, and in things their effects are found."
(The Báb, Tawqi'i-i-Dhahabiyyih (Risaliy-i-Dhahabiyya II), 1262 (Isfahan) [1845-1846], to Mulla Jawad Vilyani ? -- BB00036)
11
Allusion cannot convey what Reality teaches.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words to Julia Grundy spoken around Jan. 1905 -- ABU3202)
12
Understanding the world of souls is impossible in this world of bodies. That world is unlike anything you can conceive in your imagination. In these perishable bodies one cannot perceive the immortal worlds, save through that which ye sometimes behold in a dream.
Yet withal, I beseech Thee by the fire of Thy Being which hath ever been concealed in the mystery of Thine Essence, and by the ocean of Thy greatness which hath ever flowed in the reality of Thy Being, to teach me from Thy holy tongue which Thou hast sanctified from the hearing of Thy creation and hallowed from the understanding of Thy servants, and to honor me with the melodies of Thy rapture which none can hear, perceive, or know, for were but a single note thereof to appear, all who are in the heavens and on earth would be thunderstruck by the strange nature of its tune and the wondrous character of its pattern.
No matter how eloquent and oratorical the outward tongue it cannot adequately express the riches of the spirit.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Words following address to theosophists, spoken on 1913-Apr-10 -- ABU2778)
15
In this hour when the hosts of holy fragrances and the waves of attraction are surging from all directions, and the might of the piercing meteor is driving away and casting out all people of vain imaginings, when the lights of the Kingdom are shining forth and the mysteries of the Realm of Power are manifesting and appearing, when the sea of favors is surging and the lamp of the gathering is brightly lit - this servant has made the pen a means to express the degrees of love for the Ancient Beauty, and has made words the interpreter of meanings, that perchance a verse from the scripture of attraction which is folded within the essence of the heart might be inscribed upon page and paper.
Alas! Alas! How could this be, even if all the seas were ink, and all the trees pens, and all the pages of the horizons were tablets.
This evanescent servant knoweth not what to say, having fallen into a world wherein he beholdeth the attributes of that Beloved One in such wise that no word is capable of describing them, nor qualified to define them. I swear by the Sun of utterance which hath shone forth from the most exalted station in all the world that no word can clothe the meaning of love for that Beloved One, nor can it reveal, indicate, describe or guide. Rather, in this station words remain silent, nay, prostrate, uttering only "I am the weakest of the weak."
(Bahá’u’lláh, 1305-03-08 [1887-Nov-24], to Haji Muhammad Ismayn Yazdi -- BH00611)
17
Adorn our bodies with the Robe of Thy Bounty and remove from our eyes the veil of sinfulness and give us the Chalice of Thy Grace, that the essence of all beings may sing Thy praise before the vision of Thy Grandeur. Reveal then Thyself, O Lord! by Thy merciful Utterance and the mystery of Thy Divine Being, that the holy ecstasy of prayer may fill our souls -- a prayer that shall rise above words and letters and transcend the murmur of syllables and sounds -- that all things may be merged into nothingness before the revelation of Thy Splendour.
Further quotations · supplied wording and references
18
The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.
(Chuang Tzu, Basic Writings, p. 140)
Supplied quotation · catalogue passage not verified
19
All language has taken an oath to fail to describe Him; any attempt to do so is the height of arrogance. (Meister Eckhardt)
Source reference not supplied
Supplied quotation · catalogue passage not verified
20
It behooveth the wayfarer to guard this knowledge deposited in the receptacles of enlightened hearts by God the creator of mankind, to protect it as his eyes, and to conceal it in his breast. Were he to reveal one letter of these secrets other than to those who are worthy, he shall have perpetuated three serious crimes. The first is betrayal inasmuch as he hath betrayed God by exposing His mysteries to those unsuited to hear them. The second is injustice inasmuch as he conferred this station upon one who doth not deserve it, and weighed him down with an unbearable load he cannot carry. … The third is murder because he misled this wretched one and killed him by killing his faith, inasmuch as he was unable to comprehend this divine knowledge, his feet slipped from whence he had progressed in the Cause of his Origin and Return.
(provis. trans. from a Tablet of Baha'u'llah, in Safiniy-i-'Irfan, vol. 12, pp. 16-17)
For a newborn child the father makes babbling sounds, though his intellect may make a survey of the (whole) world.... For the sake of teaching that tongue-tied (child), one must go outside of one's own language (customary manner of speech). You must come into (adopt) his language, in order that he may learn knowledge and science from you. All the people, then, are as his [the spiritual masters] children: this (fact) is necessary for the Pir [the master] (to bear in mind) when he gives (them) instruction.
(Rumi, Mathnavi, II, 3312 ff., in Chittick, Sufi Doctrine of Rumi, p. 38)
Supplied quotation · catalogue passage not verified
Sentence boundary needs source review; the supplied wording is retained.