Manifestation of God in Feminine Imagery
The writings of the Baha’i Faith are rich in universally recognizable imagery and beautiful Divine metaphors.
(C) Copyright Cary Enoch Reinstein
The “Celestial Maiden” is a symbol that represents an abstract concept that language cannot fully describe to beings in their physical state. Future writers will compose entire volumes about the concept. Thus, my images above in no way suggest a portrayal of a specific celestial maiden or even a concept of a “real” one. I did not intend them to represent or portray a physical messenger of God. They are simply evocative, respectful, and prayerful visual meditations.
Is it hard to imagine that the next or future Manifestation might be a woman? Never before in known religious history has a Manifestation of God referred to himself in feminine symbolism. The abstract concept of Holy Spirit and even divine revelation itself has been characterized from time to time in feminine imagery in Islamic poetry and occasionally in Medieval Christian mysticism. (See footnote 2)
I don’t doubt for an instant that there were women Manifestations in the past. We know that some of the great very ancient civilizations were matriarchal. Aside from powerful Pharaohs like Hatshepsut who we still remember, the wise goddesses like Athena and mother goddesses like Isis, Demeter, and Ceres (possible origins of “Mother Nature”?) are probably archetypal memories of very ancient Manifestations. That also applies to Hindu goddesses whose names I can’t recall at the moment.
Although most languages use mostly male pronouns for Manifestations of God and even for the Creator, gender is only a characteristic of the physical matrix of being. We have no actual idea what comes next except in symbolic terms and in our imaginations. Notably the Persian and Arabic languages do not use specific male or female pronouns nor do they assign gender to nouns as some European languages do. In Persian and Arabic God does not have a gender. Both languages have only lowercase characters. Translators assign uppercase to certain words to fit common conventions in other languages and cultures.
Geological and climate changes have erased the most ancient records but the great feminine symbols endure in our DNA and thus deep in our minds.
“Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman, not the image of this or that particular woman, but a definite feminine image. This image is fundamentally unconscious; a hereditary factor of primordial origin engraved in the living organic system of the man, an imprint or “archetype” of all the ancestral experiences of the female, a deposit, as it were, of all the impressions ever made by woman-in short, an inherited system of psychic adaptation. Even if no women existed, it would still be possible, at any given time, to deduce from this unconscious image exactly how a woman would have to be constituted psychically. The same is true of the woman: she too has her inborn image of man.”
(Carl Jung: Marriage as a Psychological Relationship)
Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest Paradise. The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds. If any man be told that which hath been ordained for such a soul in the worlds of God, the Lord of the throne on high and of earth below, his whole being will instantly blaze out in his great longing to attain that most exalted, that sanctified and resplendent station…. The nature of the soul after death can never be described, nor is it meet and permissible to reveal its whole character to the eyes of men.
(Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 156)
Cry out before the gaze of the dwellers of heaven and of earth: I am the Maid of Heaven, the Offspring begotten by the Spirit of Baha. My habitation is the Mansion of His Name, the All-Glorious. Before the Concourse on high I was adorned with the ornament of His names. I was wrapt within the veil of an inviolable security, and lay hidden from the eyes of men. Methinks that I heard a Voice of divine and incomparable sweetness, proceeding from the right hand of the God of Mercy, and lo, the whole Paradise stirred and trembled before Me, in its longing to hear its accents, and gaze on the beauty of Him that uttered them.
(Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 284)
Glorified be my Lord, the All-Glorious! Thereupon the maids of heaven hastened forth from their chambers, upon whose countenances the eye of no dweller in the highest paradise had ever gazed. Glorified be our Lord, the Most High! They all gathered around her, and lo! they found her body fallen upon the dust; Glorified be our Lord, the Most High! And as they beheld her state and comprehended a word of the tale told by the Youth, they bared their heads, rent their garments asunder, beat upon their faces, forgot their joy, shed tears and smote with their hands upon their cheeks, and this is verily one of the mysterious grievous afflictions – Glorified be our Lord, the Most High!
(Bahá’u'lláh, Tablet of the Holy Mariner)
O My servants! Through the might of God and His power, and out of the treasury of His knowledge and wisdom, I have brought forth and revealed unto you the pearls that lay concealed in the depths of His everlasting ocean. I have summoned the Maids of Heaven to emerge from behind the veil of concealment, and have clothed them with these words of Mine — words of consummate power and wisdom. I have, moreover, with the hand of divine power, unsealed the choice wine of My Revelation, and have wafted its holy, its hidden, and musk-laden fragrance upon all created things. Who else but yourselves is to be blamed if ye choose to remain unendowed with so great an outpouring of God’s transcendent and all-encompassing grace, with so bright a revelation of His resplendent mercy?
(Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 327)
O PEOPLE of the earth! By the righteousness of the One true God, I am the Maid of Heaven begotten by the Spirit of Baha, abiding within the Mansion hewn out of a mass of ruby, tender and vibrant; and in this mighty Paradise naught have I ever witnessed save that which proclaimeth the Remembrance of God by extolling the virtues of this Arabian Youth. Verily there is none other God but your Lord, the All-Merciful. Magnify ye, then, His station, for behold, He is poised in the midmost heart of the All-Highest Paradise as the embodiment of the praise of God in the Tabernacle wherein His glorification is intoned.
(The Báb, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 54)
O Temple of Divine Revelation! Sound the trumpet in My Name! O Temple of Divine mysteries! Raise the clarion call of Thy Lord, the Unconditioned, the Unconstrained! O Maid of Heaven! Step forth from the chambers of paradise and announce unto the people of the world: By the righteousness of God! He Who is the Best-Beloved of the worlds — He Who hath ever been the Desire of every perceiving heart, the Object of the adoration of all that are in heaven and on earth, and the Cynosure of the former and the latter generations — is now come!
(Bahá’u'lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, p. 53)
On her be My blessings, and My mercy, and My praise, and My glory. I Myself shall atone for the loss of her son — a son who now dwelleth within the tabernacle of My majesty and glory, and whose face beameth with a light that envelopeth with its radiance the Maids of Heaven in their celestial chambers, and beyond them the inmates of My Paradise, and the denizens of the Cities of Holiness. Were any eye to gaze on his face, he would exclaim: “Lo, this is no other than a noble angel!”
(Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 135)
Say: Step out of Thy holy chamber, O Maid of Heaven, inmate of the Exalted Paradise! Drape thyself in whatever manner pleaseth Thee in the silken Vesture of Immortality, and put on, in the name of the All-Glorious, the broidered Robe of Light. Hear, then, the sweet, the wondrous accent of the Voice that cometh from the Throne of Thy Lord, the Inaccessible, the Most High. Unveil Thy face, and manifest the beauty of the black-eyed Damsel, and suffer not the servants of God to be deprived of the light of Thy shining countenance. Grieve not if Thou hearest the sighs of the dwellers of the earth, or the voice of the lamentation of the denizens of heaven. Leave them to perish on the dust of extinction. Let them be reduced to nothingness, inasmuch as the flame of hatred hath been kindled within their breasts. Intone, then, before the face of the peoples of earth and heaven, and in a most melodious voice, the anthem of praise, for a remembrance of Him Who is the King of the names and attributes of God. Thus have We decreed Thy destiny. Well able are We to achieve Our purpose.
(Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 282)
The mystic and wondrous Bride, hidden ere this beneath the veiling of utterance, hath now, by the grace of God and His divine favor, been made manifest even as the resplendent light shed by the beauty of the Beloved. I bear witness, O friends! that the favor is complete, the argument fulfilled, the proof manifest and the evidence established. Let it now be seen what your endeavors in the path of detachment will reveal. In this wise hath the divine favor been fully vouchsafed unto you and unto them that are in heaven and on earth. All praise to God, the Lord of all Worlds.
(Bahá’u'lláh, The Persian Hidden Words)
Verily, verily the new heaven and the new earth are come. The holy City, new Jerusalem, hath come down from on high in the form of a maid of heaven, veiled, beauteous, and unique, and prepared for reunion with her lovers on earth. The angelic company of the celestial Concourse have joined in a call that hath rung throughout the universe, all loudly and mightily acclaiming: “Hail, O City of God! Abide Thou, and make Thy habitation with the pure, virtuous and holy servants of Thine; for they are Thy people, and Thou art their Lord.”
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Baha’i World Faith – ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Section, p. 350)
Within this Paradise, and from the heights of its loftiest chambers, the Maids of Heaven have cried out and shouted: “Rejoice, ye dwellers of the realms above, for the fingers of Him Who is the Ancient of Days are ringing, in the name of the All-Glorious, the Most Great Bell, in the midmost heart of the heavens. The hands of bounty have borne round the cup of everlasting life. Approach, and quaff your fill. Drink with healthy relish, O ye that are the very incarnations of longing, ye who are the embodiments of vehement desire!”
(Bahá’u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 31)
1) If you are a user of either the Ocean or Interfaith Explorer applications you can search for “Maid of Heaven;” “maidens of beauty;” “Maid of Eternity;” “Divine Maiden;” “Deathless Maid;” “Maid of Glory;” and “Maid of Paradise.” All are references to the Prophets symbolized as feminine.
2) Excerpt:
Upon that misty night
In secrecy, beyond such mortal sight
Without a guide or light
Than that which burned so deeply in my heart
That fire ’twas what led me on
And shone more bright than of the midday sun
To where she waited still
– St. John of the Cross, a Medieval Christian cleric and mystic who was writing about his love for Christ in symbolic terms.
3) Further Study
Refer to “A Study Compilation on the Tablet of the Holy Mariner”
“References on the “Maid of Heaven” — the prophet(s).”
Also see:
“Voice of Tablet: Bahá’u'lláh, the Maid of Heaven, and God speaking through Bahá’u'lláh” and Tablet of The Holy Mariner Study Outline.
Related posts
Evanescent Images
the wind speaks to me:
sit on the rock beside the lake
it’s early in the morning
the fog hasn’t lifted yet
your work of making pictures of birds
is finished for today
you were up there with them
flying as one of them
you felt it
you were part of it
transcendent
you lived in my embrace
outside of yourself
you can’t think of any reason
to go back to the earth
the birds were my hopes
my visions of beauty, my ideals
I captured images of evanescent angels
whose flight trails were rainbows
then as suddenly as the sound of their wings
I lost them
I can’t find them any more
I don’t try any more
the wind knows
the wind commands me
how you long to keep the rapture!
there is only one way
you must do this:
touch the very still water
early in the morning
when the lake is misty and wondrous
when the air is cool and sweet
touch the water
leave your body here
fall back thousands of years to simplicity
leave it and fall back
touch the water so gently
stir it slowly
fall into simplicity
fall, and as you do
watch a woman’s face take form in the ripples
her face is luminous, it is real
she calls to you
she wants you to come back to her
thousands of years ago
when you were both innocent
when the air was clean and sweet smelling
listen to her
she wants you to return to her time
go to her now
touch the water
touch her image
move closer to it
don’t be afraid
fall back
touch it
enter it
BECOME
“The world is continually proclaiming these words: Beware, I am evanescent, and so are all my outward appearances and colours. Take ye heed of the changes and chances contrived within me and be ye roused from your slumber. Nevertheless there is no discerning eye to see, nor is there a hearing ear to hearken.” — Bahá’u’lláh
This poem is important to me because it explains my image making process which is essentially a transcendental feeling. Read more at my website.
Tags: Artist, Baha'i, Baha'i Faith, Birds, Enoch, Light, Poetry, ReligionRelated posts
‘Abdu’l-Bahá With Flowers
Abdu'l-Baha With Flowers
In 1972 I took a close-up Kodachrome photo of a painting hanging in the home of Margaret Gallagher, an Auxiliary Board Member in Hayward, California. Then I went out to her garden and saw the bright back lighted red flowers and double-exposed them onto the same frame. I made two slides, but one didn’t work because it was overexposed. Cameras of that era did not offer simple ways to make multiple exposures. You had to rewind a little and make your best guess about where the previous frame was located.
Many years later I scanned the original 35mm slide at 5,400 dpi (16-bit, 250 MB) and restored it because the original was damaged in a flood. I electronically and meticulously removed the canvas and oil paint texture on the left side of the photo. I was told that the painter’s name was Samimi and he lived in Monaco. The right half of the image is my photographic addition to it.
When I was on pilgrimage in 1973 I brought a few hundred copies of the photo with me at the request of Hand of the Cause A. Q. Faizi. He gave them away during his many teaching trips around the world. Though he asked me to sign the backs of the photos I never got around to it and was satisfied to remain anonymous. Among my treasures are hand-illuminated letters that Mr. Faizi wrote me in the 1970’s that include a reference to this image and to three other images on my website. You can find them online at the Bahai-Library in an unpublished book of his letters by Shirley Macias.
Because of Mr. Faizi’s travels this photograph has gone all around the world. It’s mostly found in second or third generation copies. I’ve heard fanciful stories about its origin, none of which were true.
I give these away for free on a very limited basis. I do not accept payment for copies of this image. It may be freely distributed by Bahá’ís as long as it’s not modified and the source of the image is included (the website address and author). It is a copyrighted image and not in the public domain. Accompanying text documents must not be edited or modified. If you wish to make a payment then please consider the Chilean Temple Fund.
Sometimes I make archival quality pigment ink prints as special gifts for friends and family. However, recently I’ve been using Shutterfly’s website at http://www.shutterfly.com to make prints. The high-quality JPG image on this website is contained in a ZIP file along with a copy of this document. You can download it and make your own prints using any service you wish including your own inkjet printer. You will probably want a print between 8×10 and 11×14 inches. Always specify “No Cropping” or “Custom Cropping” when ordering prints larger than 4×6 inches. There are several other quality printing sites and all are easy to use.
Download location for this image
The file contains three images which are optimized for three different standard paper sizes and a PDF document which gives more information about it.
Web page where the image is located.
If you don’t want to do the large 8 MB download you can just get the PDF file from my web page about the image. The document tells how to access the high resolution files and how to print them.
“Ministry of Flowers”
‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s personal wants were few. He worked late and early. Two simple meals a day sufficed Him. His wardrobe consisted of a very few garments of inexpensive material. He could not bear to live in luxury while others were in want. He had a great love for children, for flowers, and for the beauties of nature. Every morning about six or seven, the family party used to gather to partake of the morning tea together, and while the Master sipped His tea, the little children of the household chanted prayers. Mr. Thornton Chase writes of these children: — “Such children I have never seen, so courteous, unselfish, thoughtful for others, unobtrusive, intelligent, and swiftly self-denying in the little things that children love. …”
– In Galilee, p. 51.
The “ministry of flowers” was a feature of the life at ‘Akká, of which every pilgrim brought away fragrant memories. Mrs. Lucas writes: — “When the Master inhales the odor of flowers, it is wonderful to see him. It seems as though the perfume of the hyacinths were telling him something as he buries his face in the flowers. It is like the effort of the ear to hear a beautiful harmony, a concentrated attention!”
– A Brief Account of My Visit to ‘Akká, pp. 25-26.
He loved to present beautiful and sweet-smelling flowers to His numerous visitors.
– Dr. J.E. Esslemont, Bahá’u’lláh and the New Era, p. 57
Related posts
Flowers on the Sun
Illuminations
This is a continuance of My Perception of Color.
This image was made on high speed Ektachrome, push-processed, and developed as a negative.
I copied the image optically and again processed it as a negative. I intentionally fogged it with a brief flash from a yellow lightbulb halfway through development (solarization).
After scanning the image and countless hours of work I was more satisfied with it.
(C) Copyright Cary Enoch Reinstein
Finally, with more of the warmth I wanted to convey:
(C) Copyright Cary Enoch Reinstein
This is what the image means to me:
There are two kinds of light. There is the visible light of the sun, by whose aid we can discern the beauties of the world around us — without this we could see nothing. Nevertheless, though it is the function of this light to make things visible to us, it cannot give us the power to see them or to understand what their various charms may be, for this light has no intelligence, no consciousness. It is the light of the intellect which gives us knowledge and understanding, and without this light the physical eyes would be useless. This light of the intellect is the highest light that exists, for it is born of the Light Divine. The light of the intellect enables us to understand and realize all that exists, but it is only the Divine Light that can give us sight for the invisible things, and which enables us to see truths that will only be visible to the world thousands of years hence.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks, p. 68
and
When the Sun of Truth shone forth with His infinite bounties from the dawning-place of hopes, and the horizon of existence was illuminated through the radiance of sanctity — then He cast forth such splendor whereby the gloomy darkness disappeared! Therefore, the earth became the envy of the celestial world, and the realm of dust was made a scene of the exalted kingdom. Then the fragrances of holiness exhaled, and the sweet odors were diffused. The breeze of the divine spring blew, and the fruitful winds of infinite generosity passed by from the point of favor. The brilliant morning dawned and the glad-tidings of the greatest gift were announced. The divine spring appeared throughout the contingent world. The earth of existence moved and the material world was put in motion. The barren and dried up soil turned into an eternal garden, and the inanimate earth was endowed with eternal life. The flowers and myrtles of knowledge grew, and the fresh herbage of the knowledge of God flourished. The material world showed forth the bounties of the Merciful, and the visible world displayed the scene of the invisible world. The call of God was raised, the divine banquet celebrated, the cup of the Testament was circulated and the universal acclamation was uttered!
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v2, p. 370
If a person is illumined with the light of the love of God, he is like unto the morning star, even though his name be dark; and if he is a captive in the darkness of error, he is gloomy even though his name be that of a shining star. Consequently, be thou intent thou that thou makest thy face illumined with the light of the love of God, through the divine assistance and favor. This attribute will make thee independent of every name!
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v2, p. 460
Do ye not look upon the creature, advance ye toward the Creator. Behold ye not the rebellious people, turn your faces toward the Lord of Hosts. Look ye not upon the ground, raise your eyes to the world-illuminating Sun, which hath transformed every atom of the gloomy soil into bright and luminous substance.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v1, p. 45
O thou shining ray! Verily, the ray, being transmitted from the etheric sphere, rends the space and reaches the surface of the earth and dispels the gloomy darkness. Verily, be thou one of the rays of the Sun of Truth and then thou wilt cause the darkness of error to disappear and wilt change its intense obscurity into a discovering light which will guide the people unto the Kingdom of God.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v2, p. 249
O Thou kind Lord! I am a little child, exalt me by admitting me to the kingdom. I am earthly, make me heavenly; I am of the world below, let me belong to the realm above; gloomy, suffer me to become radiant; material, make me spiritual, and grant that I may manifest Thine infinite bounties. Thou art the Powerful, the All-Loving.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Compilations, Bahá’í Prayers, p. 35
Likewise in the spiritual realm of intelligence and idealism there must be a center of illumination, and that center is the everlasting, ever-shining Sun, the Word of God. Its lights are the lights of reality which have shone upon humanity, illumining the realm of thought and morals, conferring the bounties of the divine world upon man. These lights are the cause of the education of souls and the source of the enlightenment of hearts, sending forth in effulgent radiance the message of the glad-tidings of the kingdom of God. In brief, the moral and ethical world and the world of spiritual regeneration are dependent for their progressive being upon that heavenly center of illumination. It gives forth the light of religion and bestows the life of the spirit, imbues humanity with archetypal virtues and confers eternal splendors. This Sun of Reality, this center of effulgences is the prophet or Manifestation of God. Just as the phenomenal sun shines upon the material world producing life and growth, likewise the spiritual or prophetic Sun confers illumination upon the human world of thought and intelligence, and unless it rose upon the horizon of human existence the kingdom of man would become dark and extinguished. The Sun of Reality is one Sun but it has different dawning-places, just as the phenomenal sun is one although it appears at various points of the horizon.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Baha’i World Faith – ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Section, p. 254
Thou art He, O my God, through Whose names the sick are healed and the ailing are restored, and the thirsty are given drink, and the sore-vexed are tranquillized, and the wayward are guided, and the abased are exalted, and the poor are enriched, and the ignorant are enlightened, and the gloomy are illumined, and the sorrowful are cheered, and the chilled are warmed, and the downtrodden are raised up. Through Thy name, O my God, all created things were stirred up, and the heavens were spread, and the earth was established, and the clouds were raised and made to rain upon the earth. This, verily, is a token of Thy grace unto all Thy creatures.
Bahá’u'lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u'lláh, p. 235
