Learning about detachment

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Category: Alison Marshall's Column
Created: Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:10
Published: Wednesday, 29 March 2006 15:10
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If you have been reading my blog entries over the past year, or go back and look at them, you will see that there is one subject that I have gone on and on about and that is the subject of detachment from the world. I go on about it because I believe it is one of the fundamental concepts we need to get our heads around to understand what religion is all about.

This was something I came to understand through experience. The subject is discussed repeatedly in the scriptures, but I never saw it there. When I passed through the difficult years after my disenrollment from the Baha'i community, I worked it out for myself. At the same time, I gradually came to see the subject discussed in the scriptures and to understand how important it is. This new understanding lead me to write my commentary The Kawthar of Divine Knowledge. In there I discuss detachment a lot.

I found that once I grasped the idea of detachment from the world, the whole of the revelation seemed to fall into place. I came to understand what Baha'u'llah means by terms like 'life', 'death', 'attachment', 'sin', 'freedom', 'resurrection' and 'eternal life'. This process also lead me to understand what Abdu'l-Baha meant by 'freedom from error'. I realised that the process of being freed from error is also the process of being freed from the world and attaining everlasting life.

But none of these truths can be understood intellectually. As Baha'u'llah points out in the Iqan, divine knowledge can only be understood by those with a pure heart. No amount of book learning will lead you to it. And, if my experience is anything to go by, understanding these things also requires a great deal of suffering. Initially, suffering is the process where the trappings of the world are stripped away, despite yourself. Then you eventually find yourself in a new world that has nothing to do with the physical world. I've heard Baha'is complain that if they begin to pray in earnest, their lives fall apart. Well, there's a reason for that.

Recently, I read the chapter on Adam and Eve in Some Answered Questions, and in there I found that the conclusions I came to in my commentary on divine knowledge were right. I am going to talk a bit about that.

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