"O First Letter of this Temple, betokening the Essence of Divinity! We have made thee the treasury of My Will and the repository of My Purpose unto all who are in the kingdoms of revelation and creation. This is but a token of the grace of Him Who is the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting."
Comments:
• In the Endnotes section of the Summons of the Lord of Hosts book we read an explanation concerning the first line of this paragraph:
"The word Haykal (Temple) is composed in Arabic of the four letters Ha', Ya', Kaf and Lam (HYKL). Its first letter is taken to symbolize the word Huviyyah (Essence of Divinity); its second letter the word Qadir (Almighty), of which Ya' is the third letter; its third letter the word Karim (All-Bountiful); and its fourth letter the word Fadl (Grace), of which Lam is the third letter."
• Scholars of the Faith have indicated that the word "Haykal" (Temple) is generally used in both Arabic and Persian languages. Its root is traced back to the Sumerian language where it referred to a physical temple, a place of worship or a castle -- a concept used in the Judo-Christian religions to mainly refer to the Jerusalem temple. In Arabic and Persian it has many meanings and connotations among them is the body or temple of a human being.
• In the Baha’i context, we will see later in Paragraph 1.44 that Baha’u’llah addresses His human temple as the Haykal (Temple):
“Say: Naught is seen in My temple but the Temple of God and in My beauty but His Beauty, and in My being but His Being, and in My self but His Self, and in My movement but His Movement and in My acquiescence but His Acquiescence, and in My pen but His Pen, the Mighty, the All-Praised. There hath not been in My soul but the Truth, and in Myself naught could be seen but God.” (Baha’u’llah, Summons of the Lord of Host, p. 23)
• The concept of the Haykal (Temple), in the form of the human temple and representing the Person of Bahá'u'lláh, in itself invokes many thoughts and opens many doors to a deeper understanding of His Revelation. Whereas the human temple is made of flesh and bone, the Haykal is constituted of the Word of God. It is portrayed vividly by Bahá'u'lláh in this celebrated Surih, and He adds more mystery and realism to it when He addresses some limbs and organs of that Temple as well as the letters (H, Y, K, and L) which constitute the word. Every word and letter uttered by the Manifestation of God assumes meaning and significance beyond the understanding of man. For example, there are lengthy Tablets revealed by the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh explaining the meaning of only one letter mentioned in the Holy Books of older religions. … In the Suriy-i-Haykal, Bahá'u'lláh reveals the significance of the letters which form the word 'Haykal', and the potentialities with which each one has been invested by God. (Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha'u'llah v 3, p. 134)
• With this background, let’s explore the contents of Paragraph 1. 37. First we read: “O First Letter of this Temple, betokening the Essence of Divinity! We have made thee the treasury of My Will and the repository of My Purpose unto all who are in the kingdoms of revelation and creation.” This is the letter Ha, which Baha’u’llah explains it represents the “the Essence of Divinity”, in other words, God – but keeping in mind that, in lieu of Baha’u’llah’s other explanations, this is mainly with respect to the kingdoms of revelation and creation, which, we understand, the latter also includes life beyond.
• Another thing to keep in mind is that although the Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is immeasurably great and His station infinitely glorious, we should keep in mind that He is a “Manifestation” of God and the “Perfect Mirror” reflecting all the attributes of God and not God, the Invisible and the Inaccessible. The following explanation by Shoghi Effendi is very helpful in this regard:
"The divinity attributed to so great a Being [Bahá'u'lláh] and the complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God in so exalted a Person should, under no circumstances, be misconceived or misinterpreted. The human temple that has been made the vehicle of so overpowering a Revelation must, if we be faithful to the tenets of our Faith, ever remain entirely distinguished from that 'innermost Spirit of Spirits' and 'eternal Essence of Essences' -- that invisible yet rational God Who, however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on earth, can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His incorruptible and all-embracing Reality in the concrete and limited frame of a mortal being. Indeed, the God Who could so incarnate His own reality would, in the light of the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh, cease immediately to be God. So crude and fantastic a theory of Divine incarnation is as removed from, and incompatible with, the essentials of Bahá'í belief as are the no less inadmissible pantheistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of God -- both of which the utterances of Bahá'u'lláh emphatically repudiate and the fallacy of which they expose."
"He Who in unnumbered passages claimed His utterance to be the 'Voice of Divinity, the Call of God Himself' thus solemnly affirms in the Kitáb-i-Íqán: 'To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immeasurably exalted beyond every human attribute such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress... He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men... He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness... 'God was alone; there was none else beside Him' is a sure testimony of this truth.'"
"'From time immemorial,' Bahá'u'lláh, speaking of God, explains, 'He, the Divine Being, hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity of His exalted Self, and will everlastingly continue to be wrapt in the impenetrable mystery of His unknowable Essence... Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses, are thunderstruck upon the Sinai of their search at God's forbidding voice, "Thou shalt never behold Me!"; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as great as Jesus, stand dismayed upon their heavenly thrones by the interdiction "Mine Essence thou shalt never apprehend!"' 'How bewildering to me, insignificant as I am,' Bahá'u'lláh in His communion with God affirms, 'is the attempt to fathom the sacred depths of Thy knowledge! How futile my efforts to visualize the magnitude of the power inherent in Thine handiwork -- the revelation of Thy creative power!' 'When I contemplate, O My God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee,' He, in yet another prayer revealed in His own handwriting, testifies, 'I am moved to proclaim to all created things "verily I am God!"; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!'" (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah, p. 112)
• Furthermore, we learn from Paragraph 1.37 that as far as the “the kingdoms of revelation and creation” are concerned, the letter Ha is “the treasury” [a place where treasure is kept] of the “Will” and “Purpose” of the Entity that manifests Itself through all the Manifestations of God, namely the Primal Will of God. Again, an awesome reminder of the incredibly high and exalted station of the Manifestations of God!
• Maybe the insights that we are gaining by studying this magnificent Tablet will help us appreciate further those 4 or 5 days in the Baha’i calendar that are called the Ayyam-i-Ha, Days of “Ha”!
