Ramblings on the eve of yet more destruction?

I remember a conversation i had in Amman in December 1990, when I was waiting for my visa to go to Iraq to join the international peace camp there. It was in a coffee shop and a crowd of people had gathered around to question the idea of a peace camp. They told me about the prophecies in the Koran and the Jihad and expressed the view that the war was pre-ordained and needed to be fought. - Coming from NZ and having hung out with the Pacific Islanders a lot, i remembered what one of their Matakites (seers) used to say: "It makes no sense to look into the future if you can't change it." - So I began to develop this story and proceeded to tell them about the "Kahunas", the medicine men of the South Pacific. - When they heard the word "Kahuna" and it's explanation they became very excited and interested. As linguistics and fate would have it, they have apparently in Arabic a very similar word, describing a similar kind of person. This was fortunate, I thought, and so I continued with the quote and we dived deeply and finally discussed the issues of fate versus free will. Of course, if such a prediction exists, it says that there is a pattern that must according to cosmic, karmic or divine Law express itself, but it is up to us to what degree and on what level it will materialise. We debated for some time and after all was said, in the end, there was silence. We just sat and looked at each other with hope and a wordless prayer. Then one of the men disappeared and came back with a beautiful thick goat skin to give as a present.

This is so long ago now. Much longer than a mere 17 years. It was a different universe then, so it seems. There was still hope, not only in Amman but also in Baghdad. I don't want to start crying, for I wouldn't know how to stop. - In fact I've been crying ever since. There will be no peace unless there is peace in the Middle East, but now there is almost no more recourse.

I was watching the Russian movie version of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and even though it's poor in story telling it succeeds in transporting the eternal futility and horrors of war. When towards the end the residue of Napoleon's Grand Army dragged itself westwards through snow and ice I thought how merciful death is. We don't need to suffer endlessly.

Of course there is re-incarnation and the possibility of endless transmigration in Samsara, but it depends on us. That is a power we do have. We can change our vision, we have the choice to see unity beyond conflict and integration of opposites.

I like the concept of the Yugas

1. Satya Yuga or Krita Yuga - 1,728,000 years
2. Treta Yuga - 1,296,000 years
3. Dvapara Yuga - 864,000 years
4. Kali Yuga - 432,000 years

mainly because they are so incredibly long. There really is no shortage of time. Now we are - most likely - only about 5000 years into Kali Yuga, that is the "Iron time" the time of war, conflict and disconnection from the Source. Our karmic vision is the cause of our reality and even if we destroy the biology of our planet, our karmic vision will find another sand pit to play in, fight in, suffer in and little by little perhaps learn.

so long

Beauty in Avondale

Beauty is one of God's attributes and as such it must be a valid path leading to beholding God's work in our world. However it's also a tricky thing because we don't all see the same thing even if we look at exactly the same picture at the same time from the same angle etc. It's sad really, if someone can't see the truth in Beauty.

A few years back, in summer, on a Monday after a weekend spiritual conference in NZ's Lake Taupo, after the bustle of workshops, talks and discussions, after inspiring and stirring encounters I went for my usual walk along the Avondale inlet in Auckland. That's a slightly downbeat, semi-industrial part of town where the eye has to hop from place to place, cherry-picking the beauty from the all-too-present signs of drab human existence.

In my mind still lingered what was last distilled out from the many interactions, the question of what is it that is missing, what is it we don't see, we don't feel, know or behold that separates us from being at one with IT. - It was late morning, a beautiful day after some rain earlier and my eyes fell utterly unsuspecting and incidental as usual on the young flowering Pohutakawa tree that was standing alone in the middle of recently laid down lawn.

I was transfixed in the instant. It was as if i had never seen that tree before, as if I had never seen any tree or anything at all ever before. It was so stunningly, overwhelmingly beautiful - and I cannot do it justice, no matter how I try. It's beauty went beyond form and color, it was a vibration, a sense, an emanation that produced a sweetness within me, that made me the happiest person alive right in that moment. I stood there gazing, drinking, not moving, hardly breathing, wishing for nothing else ever.

At last my mind spoke again and told me that sooner or later I will have to tear myself away from this spot, after all I still live in this dimension of time and space, must go on sooner or later, - all the while my eyes were still holding fast to this young lady tree. I took my time.

Then came the moment when I was ready and I easily, casually let go, expecting to return into my previous existence, - well what I perceived it to be, isn't it. - My eyes swooped down and hit the ground in front of my feet, some gravel, a little dirty puddle and I gasped: It was just as beautiful as the tree. My knees buckled. What generosity, what grace, what unbelievable bounty. Tears started to stream down my face, I was shaken to the core, overflowing with praise and gratitude.

At long last I began walking again, light upon light, and never returned to my previous existence. It's true, I have never been the same as before, even though, of course the fire's not burning as bright all of the time.

happy times to all!

Reasons why I left the Faith

Starting with thoughts on the political/religious future framework:

In the ideal Baha'i context, after entry by troops and Baha'i constituting the majority of the population, the UHJ would have to one by one make binding all those laws in the Kitab-iAqdas that presently are not enforceable. As far as I understand it any UHJ would have no choice but to do that, - no matter how long or short their terms of office or election modes -, since they cannot abrogate any of Baha'u'llah's explicit writings. Therefore members of the faith will be subject to the laws of the Kitab-i-Aqdas and be under the jurisdiction of the LSA's. Essentially this will create a state within the state. Adding that Baha'i are forbidden to participate in secular politics other than vote, I see a vision of introducing theocracy through the back-door. Of course i believe it won't work, but that's what I see as a logical consequence from the way it was designed by Baha'u'llah. So why hang in there?

I don't dispute the many wonderful spiritual writings, guidelines, explanations a.s.f. There is a lot of inspiring and soul stirring material in the writings of Baha'u'llah, Abd'ul Baha and even SE and the UHJ sometimes.

Through my present health challenge the possibility of death suddenly shifted my perspective and I knew that I wouldn't want to die as a Baha'i because then my legacy and my afterlife would be under Baha'u'llah's law, not as I want to understand it, bend it so that i only see the good bits but as he intended it. That's when I decided to leave the faith.

Un-resigned Resignation

Dear friends out there with your empathetic hearts and attentive, watchful spirits,

this is an excerpt of the letter I just sent to our German NSA as a follow-up on a meeting they had invited me to on Saturday.

First there are two statements that on Saturday I had no more time or concentration to reply to, then a general feedback and further consideration. Finally I resigned from membership in the Faith.

The suggestion I might view the members of Baha'u'llah's family who were condemned as covenant breakers as victims, whereas in reality they must be seen as villains.

It might have appeared that way. If we were looking at strife between people who share a level playing field it would be unfair to leave those attacks and acts of opposition unmentioned. However it's not a level playing field. Baha'ullah was a prophet of God. That he chose to create the station of a covenant breaker and condemn his half brother as an antagonist of God - as Abd'ul Baha repeated later with his stepmothers and half brothers - shows that they were joining the self-same level of fight therefore proving to vibrate to the same human level of quest for dominance yet they employed a means that ought to be reserved for God and the next world only, condemnation of the soul. As long as a human being lives in a body it is impossible to antagonise God. They might have antagonised Baha'u'llah and later his successors but they could not have antagonised God. Humans have neither the nature nor the power to do that. We die. God can call us any minute and we will follow.

The statement that the Baha'i Faith is certainly not pursuing world domination in the sense of wanting to create a repressive and hostile regime.

I believe that all of you respected member s of the German NSA and probably the overwhelming majority - if not all - members of the Baha'i administration anywhere on the planet, personally want to create only peace and goodwill in accord with the spiritual laws of God. Therefore you, so I assume , became or stayed Baha'i.

However at the very same meeting you requested me to take down my internet petition, to stop expressing my views publicly on Talisman9 and on my Blog. You advised me of the proper procedure of consultation, where after carrying one's concerns through to the Universal House of Justice, one has to surrender one's own thinking eventually. The reason for you requests was concern about the "unity" of the Faith. A unity that is dependent on such stringent measures of curtailing free speech and free exchange of ideas is not worth protecting. It is like choosing the mud of an illusion of unified strength over the gold of genuine spiritual harmony blossomming in an atmosphere of openness and freedom.


This brings me to the next part of my letter, a feedback on and contemplation of the overall meeting:

My mind feels puzzled over how on earth is this possible: Nine distinguished people, all very articulate and definitely bright. All with softness in their eyes and loving, lovely smiling faces. But all seem held captive of an invisible iron fist, an automatic unreflected program, perhaps like a computer virus incapacitating their powers of logic, but only at a certain point. Otherwise their logic functions well and they use it well too. They use it to protect the axiomatic, dogmatic complex of Baha'u'llah's divinity in word and deed to the degree of factual interchangeability of God and Baha'u'llah and the resulting infallibility of the successive leadership. They cling to it and make it their virtue not to deviate from it and they really believe God wants them to be like that.

Fact is there is plenty of scripture to back this up: Baha'u'llah and Abd'ul Baha wrote in no uncertain terms about wanting to be uncontested leaders, expecting complete obedience, threatening truants with spiritual disaster.

When I drove away from the meeting it was already dark and I was heading out into the countryside. Partly distracted by driving down unfamiliar roads, my mind only half focussed on the Baha'i topic and slowly came up with an impression:

Resentment is not an appropriate response, nor is there reason for bitterness. I want to be careful not to project any negativity or assume anything other than completely honorable motivations albeit terrifically misguided ones, imo. You really act in the proverbial good faith.

Further down the track, I can imagine you to become a little more stern and perhaps even overbearing and domineering, doing what you think you need to, in order to protect me from myself or, failing that, protect the community from me.

The important factor is that you believe in what you do and, subjectively, you are as honest as you can be.

Just because I think of myself that my mind has been able to grasp a more profound truth about Baha'u'llah, the faith etc. doesn't give me the right to look down on you even though you acted as if you were looking down on me, at times.

IMO you are right and duly gridlocked in communal hypnosis - (can't say mass hypnosis for lack of masses). You appear brainwashed. Well cultist, and yet, - at least to my perception - there is around you the radiance of people in genuine harmony with God. - I am proving my own point here that Baha'u'llah was indeed chosen to reveal God's message. He carried the genuine article. His "flaws" cannot diminish this. His station as mouthpiece of God is not negotiable. There is a live wire and I can feel it, well, at least I had the impression of it.

However in his life Baha'u'llah acted so terribly incongruent with the revelation. He himself wasn't aware of this, I believe. Therefore he couldn't understand that people opposed him. Consequently he condemned them as enemies of God showing that on one side he identified God with himself completely and on the other side that he was mistaken for doing that.

Now we are faced with an interesting dilemma. What are the possible options here?

Did God permit such a situation or was God powerless? Did it happen with or against God's consent?

Is it possible that God - for the time an earthly manifestation exists - is almost held hostage and dependent on that personage? - No, I thought, I don't believe that. -

So it must have happened with God's consent. God must have let Baha'u'llah deliver this patchy on/off tapestry of pure revelation mingled and tarnished with shadow.

Initially I thought there are numerous bits of errors and veils floating about but now I see it all narrowed down to one issue with many tentacles: It's the vision of a worldly dominating religion, the theocratic state. Against the backdrop of this vision the obsession with unity developed as well as the over-importance given to the question of leadership and who is who. This attitude and context shared by all parties, presumably, hardened the fronts and produced the well known assaults, retributions and judgments.

Baha'u'llah, - and probably the Bab before him - were political to start with. They wanted a state that controlled people and forced them to obey. They didn't want to share power with and within a mature population. In this they failed to foresee the evils of centralisation and totalitarian structures. In fact they inadvertently provided a platform for that infamous collectively created entity, the abstraction of our human desire to play power, so it could hijack God's revelation and turn it into a threat to the cause of God. -

It needs to be said. I believe that the "shadow" trailing the light in Baha'u'llah as a person is in biblical theological terms the "Antichrist". Personally I don't like the word, because it is sensationalist and whips up emotions where clear thinking is a much better bet.

Clear thinking tells me that it is likely that the greatest depth of darkness is found right next to the greatest light. Clear thinking also tells me that the "Antichrist" is a misnomer as it suggests an equal opposition, a dark mirror image of Christ - "Christ" not as a person but as a principle and therefore pure Divinity. The "Antichrist" is, imo, a collective creation of all of us humans and vastly inferior to God, at best a pitiful attempt to thwart His power and confuse His purpose. It's the metaphor for the illusion posing as reality, the entanglement of thoughts bereft of connection with God. It's demonic, if we want to use another loaded word, and in that sense seems to have a certain independence. Perhaps I can venture a guess here. Perhaps demons relate to us in a similar way as we relate to God. They are our creations as we are His. However we have - conveniently - forgotten that we created them or - conveniently - failed to become aware of it.

In this sense Baha'u'llah's shadow is not the "Antichrist". He only channeled it, gave it a platform, the most powerful platform available and therefore, clear thinking tells me, is it plausible that this hungry demon gravitated to Baha'u'llah's earth-timely frame. But really, we are the "Antichrist". We, every one of us, are personally responsible for either co-creating this thought form by engaging in desire for everything and anything, e.g.control, domination, forceful victory, sensory experiences, purposes divorced from means etc.- or we are responsible for not having harnessed our power to burst it's bubble.

This insight I owe, with much gratitude, to Jiddu Krishnamurti. He then would say things like: "Now let us investigate the question whether we can at all go about this terrible violence in our thoughts in a non-violent way. [Can we become aware of ourselves as the enemies of God without resorting to violence against ourselves? - my paraphrasing] Can we resist the temptation to split our consciousness and externalise the problem?

Back to the more tangible dimensions: The cause of God hijacked by the combined resistance of humanity expressed and channeled by Baha'u'llah himself in stark contrast to the sweetness of the divine words? There is a deep sensibility in this. As if God had drawn our resistance as close to himself as possible thereby creating a very clearly visible and discernible picture. As if He would plead with us: Don't you get it?

How does this affect the situation as we have it today in the world? I think, we live in greatest danger, peace and tranquility of all humankind are threatened not by the Baha'i Faith directly, but through an unholy, almost incidental collusion of the Faith with the war agenda of the present US administration.

When I look at this situation in light of the spiritual shadow as described above, it becomes transparent and makes sense. It's high time that we wake up and shake off the hypnotic shackles of Orwellian proportions that tell us "war is peace", "lie is truth", "hate is love", "bondage is freedom", "subjugation is equality", "bias is justice", "totalitarianism is democracy", "torture is healing", "separation is unity", "attack is protection", "danger is safety", "idolatry is worshiping God".

If this situation emerged from Baha'u'llah's presence, God must have had a purpose with it. It cannot be a mistake.

Perhaps it is another level of enactment of God's taking upon Himself our transgressions. It leads an external God, whom we sheepishly follow ad absurdum and forces us to internalise God. We are able to do that. We have the capacity and the knowledge. We know how to teach this. The Buddhists are the experts here. And it will do us good to acknowledge them for it. It will do wonders for our humility to go and learn from them.

If Baha'u'llah indeed manifested both aspects of absolute light and relative shadow, it also protects us from identifying any other human being as an "Antichrist", therefore protecting us from devouring someone - even if it was only one single person - with rage and hate.

Well. I think it's what we in German call "Reifepruefung" - literally translated: "test of maturity". It is the equivalent of the University Entrance Exam. We've finished school and want to prove that we are ready for higher learning at University.

Will we still cling like children to external rule or will we trust the internal voice and at the same time possess enough humility, respect and co-operative skill to work things out together. No-one is always right, no-one is always wrong. Will we develop enough communication skills to negotiate successfully without a dogmatic code that we have to abide by?

Can we shed the armour and develop a spine?

Finally I want to ask for my membership in the faith to be canceled.

I do this not because I disbelieve in Baha'u'llah as a manifestation of God, but because I view the entire structure of the Baha'i Faith, the way it presently works as a religious organisation, as not belonging to the component of divine truth and pure light within Baha'u'llah's legacy.

I will continue to express my views honestly and I also have a certain urgency to inform my friends and family but also any other Baha'i or person interested in the Faith of my considerations. So, naturally I will seek ways to do that most effectively.

Therefore it would be consistent with past policies if the House of Justice would declare me in violation of the covenant. In this case I would contest that it is the not covenant of God that I violate.

If my considerations are valid, it is important for them to be expressed and thought about. If they are not valid, I trust in the collective intelligence to reject them and render them unimportant. In this case I also trust in God's mercy when He deals with my mistakes.


yours with kind regards

Inge Barthel

Meeting with our NSA

Yesterday I had a meeting with our NSA, and they are all all lovely, sincere and intelligent people. Just as I imagined they would be. They just have a one track mind.

My mind feels puzzled over how on earth is this possible: Nine distinguished people, all very articulate and definitely bright. All with softness in their eyes and loving, lovely smiling faces. But all seem held captive of an invisible iron fist, an automatic unreflected program, perhaps like a computer virus incapacitating their powers of logic, but only at a certain point. Otherwise their logic functions well and they use it well too. They use it to protect the axiomatic, dogmatic complex of Baha'u'llah's divinity in word and deed to the degree of factual interchangeability of God and Baha'u'llah and the resulting infallibility of the successive leadership. They cling to it and make it their virtue not to deviate from it and they really believe God wants them to be like that.

Fact is they have plenty of scriptures to back this up, because there is plenty of it (- not that they presented me with it ): Baha'u'llah and Abd'ul Baha wrote in no uncertain terms about wanting to be uncontested leaders, expecting complete obedience, threatening truants with spiritual disaster.

When I drove away from the meeting it was already dark and I was heading out into the countryside. Partly distracted by driving down unfamiliar roads, my mind only half focussed on the Baha'i stuff and slowly came up with an impression:

Resentment is not an appropriate response, nor is there reason for bitterness. I want to be careful not to project any negativity or assume anything other than completely honorable motivations albeit terrifically misguided ones, imo. They really act in the proverbial good faith. They are not perfect and may make mistakes, however that's their right and I must ask of myself to grant them that right even though they might not grant it to themselves.

Further down the track, I can imagine them to become even more stern and perhaps even overbearing and domineering, doing what they think they need to, in order to protect me from myself or, failing that, protect the community from me.

The important factor is that they believe in what they do and, subjectively, they are as honest as they can be.

Just because I think of myself that my mind has been able to grasp a more profound truth about Baha'u'llah, the faith etc. doesn't give me the right to look down on them even though they acted a bit as if they were looking down on me.

IMO they are right and duly gridlocked in communal hypnosis - (can't say mass hypnosis for lack of masses). They appear brainwashed. Well cultist, and yet, - at least to my perception - there is around them the radiance of people in genuine harmony with God. - I am proving my own point here (from way back) that Baha'u'llah was indeed chosen to reveal God's message. He carried the genuine article. His "flaws", as Eric called them, cannot diminish this. His station as mouthpiece of God is not negotiable. There is a live wire and you can feel it, well, at least I had all the impression of it.

However in his life Baha'u'llah acted so terribly incongruent with the revelation. He himself wasn't aware of this, I believe. Therefore he couldn't understand that people opposed him. Consequently he condemned them as enemies of God showing that on one side he identified God with himself completely and on the other side that he was mistaken for doing that.

Now we are faced with an interesting dilemma. What are the possible options here?

Did God permit such a situation or was God powerless?

Did it happen with or against God's consent?

Is it possible that God - for the time that an earthly manifestation exists - is almost held hostage and dependent on that personage? - No, I thought, I don't believe that. -

So it must have happened with God's consent. God must have let Baha'u'llah deliver this patchy on/off tapestry of pure revelation mingled and tarnished with shadow.

Initially I thought there are numerous bits of errors and veils floating about but now I see it all narrowed down to one issue with many tentacles: It's the vision of a worldly dominating religion, the theocratic state. Against the backdrop of this vision the obsession with unity developed as well as the over importance given to the question of leadership and who is who. This attitude and context shared by all parties, presumably, hardened the fronts and produced the well known assaults, retributions and judgments.

Baha'u'llah, - and probably the Bab before him - were political to start with. They wanted a state that controlled people and forced them to obey. They didn't want to share power with and in a mature population. In this they overlooked the evils of centralisation and totalitarian structures. In fact they inadvertently provided a platform for that infamous collectively created entity, the abstraction of our human desire to play power, to hijack God's revelation and turn it into a threat to the cause of God. - For a while only, I hope.

This is the the situation as we have it today in the world. One step further, I would like to go and say, peace and tranquility of all humankind is threatened not by the Baha'i Faith directly, but through an unholy, almost incidental collusion of the Faith with the war agenda of the present US administration.

If God did this then there must be a good reason for it. It cannot be a mistake.

The whole situation of a community of believers split between dogmatic aparatschiks and spiritually passionate dissidents must be within the plan of God and good for something.

Well. I think it's what we in German call "Reifepruefung" - literally translated: "test of maturity". It is the equivalent of the UE. We've finished school and want to prove that we are ready for higher learning at University.

Will we still cling like children to external rule or will we trust the internal voice and at the same time possess enough humility, respect and co-operative skill to work things out together. No-one is always right, no-one is always wrong. Will we develop enough communication skills to negotiate successfully without a dogmatic code that we have to abide by.

Can we shed the armour and develop a spine?

Abraham and The Baha'i

When I went through my deepest despair over his (Baha'u'llah's) injustice towards his second and third wife and their children, - actually also against Navvab, - I experienced a moment of emptiness that was followed abruptly by memory of a story from the Old Testament: Abraham being told by God that He should kill his son Isaac.

While one part of my mind was still wondering why this story came up, I realized that I didn't like Abraham not questioning the authenticity of the voice he heard. Yes, it may have been the same voice that he had heard before, that had identified himself as God and proved benevolent, but demanding to kill his own son seemed so contrary to goodness that I would have suspected an impostor – of which the spiritual realm isn't short of. –

As I was becoming aware of my thoughts, "my" Abraham said to God: "God, you are the Lord over life and death. If you want my son, I will gladly let you take him and I will not grieve, but killing him myself I will not." –

Then I realized that it was not "my" Abraham there in the story and I saw him helpless against his desire to please, not having any idea of God's attributes, so sorry for him that he thought such a request possible by God, who is goodness and realizing that what he projected onto God was himself and his own cruelty. - God stopped him in time.

What does this have to do with my/our problem? – We are again like Abraham insisting that we follow an external voice of God which doesn't resonate with our deep innate sense of what's right and what's wrong, but this time it's the age of maturity, whereas Abraham was an infant compared to us today.

God tested Abraham, but it wasn't a test of his obedience. I think it was a test of his consciousness, to what degree he had internalised God. Abraham proved that he hadn't. He failed the test.

Baha'u'llah's (and subsequent leaders' of the faith) inconsistencies, epitomised by the cruelties towards the second and third wife and their children are - imo - a test for all of us Baha'is . I think we must use our maturity and prove that we've finally got the message, meaning that we've INTERNALISED God. We know without being told. We know, even when we are told something contrary. - Alas, officially, we - the Baha'is - seem about to fail the test.

House of Abud

On pilgrimage in April 2006:

… Our guide recounted how Abdu’l Baha, upon Baha’u’llah’s mention of not having seen a green blade of grass for such a long time procured the mansion of Mazraeh and Baha’u’llah moved there together with his second and third wife and their children.

Navvab and her children stayed in Akka until her death. Thereafter Baha’u’llah gave her the title of his eternal companion in all the worlds of God, whereas the other two women and their children ended as covenant breakers at a later date.

I think this constitutes grave injustice.

Prior to pilgrimage I had known about the second wife and I had heard a hint about the third one. I knew of the official excuse that the second wife was the widow of a martyr and Baha’u’llah was obliged, due to family ties, to protect her according to Islamic Law.

I learned that apparently the situation with the third wife was similar. She was needed to help in the household in Baghdad and it was deemed socially impossible to have her in the house as a helper without marrying her. She had a child with Baha’u’llah, stayed behind in Baghdad at first and only later came to the Holy Land.

Many years later Shoghi Effendi (Baha’u’llah’s great-grandson) tenaciously contradicted rumors of her having been a mistress and confirmed his grandfather had had three equal and legal wives. Nevertheless, virtually nothing is known of her. I also had heard about the children from those unions and their later break with the community.

In Akka however I was struck with the reality of the facts.

The Bab had already proclaimed the equality between women and men. Baha’u’llah was a Babi. It would have to be expected that he would follow Babi Law. The conference of Badasht (when Babi law was set in force) preceded the second marriage. This is to say that the will of God with regards to the equality between men and women was known by then.

Conference of Badasht: One Islamic law was abrogated during each day of the conference
After the Báb's arrest in 1848, Bahá'u'lláh made arrangements for Táhirih to leave Tehran and attend a conference of Bábí leaders in Badasht. She is perhaps best remembered for appearing in public without her veil in the course of this conference signaling that the Islamic Sharia law was abrogated and superseded by Bábí law. It was at the Badasht conference that she was given the title Táhirih which means "the Pure One".

Furthermore it seems evident that especially polygamy is profoundly incongruent with equality between the sexes. A man can protect a woman, even in the eyes of the world integrate her as a wife into his household without consummating the marriage and making her pregnant.

Perhaps she would have had a chance to find another man at a later date and most importantly, she would not have been likely to be declared a covenant breaker.

Here the question must be raised what the woman should have been protected from. – Yes, perhaps her life would have been harder, poverty, prostitution, bondage – but what is worse than being declared an enemy of God? – Perhaps she would have preferred even the most miserable fate to this condemnation. I at least would have felt like that.

How can a living human being be an antagonist to God? This is impossible. I can't see it that a living human being with body, beating heart, hunger, thirst and need for comfort can ever fit this description, not even if she or he would exhibit the most sinful, reckless, irresponsible, malevolent etc. attributes. A human being doesn't have the stature nor the nature to do that. The simplest proof is that a human being will die, cannot and will not continue to live against the will of God. A human being is a talisman for creation and in his or her entirety a reflection of God. To judge a single human to be an antithesis to God equals calling creation evil.

What was the situation that Baha’u’llah put the second and third wife into by the consummation of their marriage? – They had to experience him from an angle different from everyone else. For everyone else he was revered prophet who taught about righteousness and how to live a good life, but for them he was the perpetrator against the very law he proclaimed.

I feel that with these consummated marriages Baha’u’llah broke the trust with all of us women. But I feel betrayed not only as a woman but as a human being, not only because he consummated those marriages but because his action led to such strife that the women and the children were later ostracized as covenant breakers.

By definition he was to be regarded as a manifestation of God, infallible in all his words and actions. I felt as if he had destroyed my trust and my love for God.

We must assume, since Tahirih had been an avid teacher, all women associated with the new teachings would have been aware of the new law of equality between women and men. They must have felt the impact, especially the ones in direct contact with the Babi movement. Their spirits would have been raised the first time for centuries. What relief for the souls trapped in women’s bodies after the long centuries of injustice and suppression.

And then Baha’u’llah humiliated them again, again pushed them back into the old dark abyss. He didn't take equality seriously. He didn't enact it, wasn't a shining example. Was there outrage? Probably not. Not for a long time. Most likely it was just a silent collapse, a shadow cast over the radiance of the face, a dimming of the brightness in the eyes. But who would have noticed? – Perhaps not even the women themselves. It was safer not to notice, what good would it have been to become aware. The centuries-old conditioning would have set in and any potential outrage was suppressed.

The result, as with all suppression, is emotional imbalance, aggression and discontent as we know it from the second and the third wife.

Or else, suppression can lead to saintly renunciation, self-denial and asceticism as is known from Navvab and the Greatest Holy Leaf .

The denial of the women’s truth is still happening today. I also succumbed to it in the beginning of my Baha’i life. Most Baha’i I know, don’t look behind the story. – Those women and children are effectively excluded from our awareness, they don’t belong to us, we think we are different, we think they are “the others” and we have no compassion for them.

The women's hurt feelings must have transferred to the children. The children originated in unlawful unions, they were not responsible for the situation they were born into. They were innocent of the family atmosphere of injustice, jealousy and hostility. But as a consequence they were burdened with the terrible weight of breaking the Covenant of God. It’s the heaviest load I can imagine for a human soul. It’s incomprehensible. A religion, proclaiming to bring unity to mankind, creates within its own central family scores of covenant breakers. And the cause for such conflict is Baha’u’llah’s own disregard for the new law and Abdu’l Baha’s subsequent judgment, which heavily condemned the victims of the injustice for their opposition and lack of co-operation.

It is like adding injury to insult. Imagine you are being attacked and hurt and when you scream in protest you are judged and sentenced for rebellion. Instead of receiving an apology you receive exclusion from the community and a label that says you are the antithesis of God.

This is madness.