Planet Bahá'í

It is said in the New Testament that God is like a potter who makes "one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour." (1 Rom. 9:21) Now the dishonored vessel has no right to find fault with the potter saying, "Why did you not make me a precious cup, which is passed from hand to hand?" The meaning of this verse is that the states of beings are different. That which is in the lowest state of existence, like the mineral, has no right to complain, saying, "O God, why have You not given me the vegetable perfections?" In the same way, the plant has no right to complain that it has been deprived of the perfections of the animal world. Also it is not befitting for the animal to complain of the want of the human perfections. No, all these things are perfect in their own degree, and they must strive after the perfections of their own degree. The inferior beings, as we have said, have neither the right to, nor the fitness for, the states of the superior perfections. No, their progress must be in their own state.

('Abdu'l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions, p. 248)

We have variously and repeatedly set forth the meaning of every theme, that perchance every soul, whether high or low, may obtain, according to his measure and capacity, his share and portion thereof. Should he be unable to comprehend a certain argument, he may, thus, by referring unto another, attain his purpose. "That all sorts of men may know where to quench their thirst."

(Bahá'u'lláh, Kitab-i-Iqán, p. 175)

As our regular readers know, for the past few years I've been studying bonsai. The word bonsai is descriptive, meaning tray (bon) tree (sai). The tray, or pot, is an integral part of the composition, so the skilled bonsai artist takes great care in selecting a pot for a particular tree to ensure that size, shape, color, and design features harmonize well with the style and coloration of the tree as well as giving it an appropriate space in which to live. Too little pot and the root system will end up choked. Too much pot and excess water could accumulate, leading to root rot.

Potters who understand the needs of bonsai artists can do a pretty good business in bonsai pots. Bonsai pots may be circular, oval, square, rectangular, with a smattering of unusual shapes for special purposes. They come in a variety of colors, and their sizes range from the very small, only an inch or two across for the tiny bonsai known as mame, to very large pots several feet across and requiring two or three people to move when fully loaded with tree and soil.

We can think of the capacity of a bonsai pot in two ways: how much soil it can hold, or how much tree can successfully grow in it. The former is the conventional way of thinking about it, but let's consider the latter for a moment. If I my aim was to create a large bonsai (dai, something maybe four feet in height with a trunk six to eight inches in diameter, I would be a fool to plant it in a pot that was only two inches deep and eight inches long. Not only would the tree look ridiculous in a pot that small, it simply would not be able to stay healthy in such a restricted environment. The pot doesn't have the capacity to support that much tree.

On the other hand, a mame bonsai, a tree only one or two inches tall with a trunk a fraction of an inch wide, would look lost in a pot two inches deep and eight inches long. The pot would be wasted on the tree, but more than that the tree could succumb to root rot owing to excessive moisture (the roots can't drink what a pot of that size can hold), Even if it lived it would prove impossible to maintain the tree at its small size. It would grow much larger over time because the pot has the capacity to allow it to grow much larger.

You see where this is going, of course. God is the potter and His creatures are the pots. Each created thing has been endowed with a particular capacity by its Creator. It is not up to the creature to determine its capacity. It only has to use its capacity to best advantage.

In the first passage above, 'Abdu'l-Bahá speaks of the differing capacities of different broad classifications of creatures: the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, the human being. But even within these classifications there are variations. We might well note the differing capacities of, say, earthworms and gorillas, both animals but both very different in their capabilities. Likewise, there are differences in capacity between individuals of the same species. Bahá'u'lláh alludes to this in the second passage above.

So how do we know what our capacity is? There is no easy answer to that. Indeed, it seems that each individual must discover for themselves what their capacity is, and that doing so takes a lot of work. Again, Bahá'u'lláh says:

Know thou that whoso seeketh to scale the summits of the divine mysteries must needs strive to the utmost of his power and capacity for his Faith, that the pathway of guidance may be made clear unto him.

(Bahá'u'lláh, Gems of Divine Mysteries, p. 23)

Striving "to the utmost of his power and capacity" is no easy thing, but in the end it will perhaps give us a clue as to what our capacity actually is.

It's also important to remember that unlike the capacity of a pot, the capacity of a human being (and indeed of many other sorts of creatures) changes over time. Our capacity at any given moment is not necessarily what it was in the past or what it will be in the future. The capacity of an infant is not the capacity of a child, which is not the capacity of a young adult, and so forth and so on. Physical capacity rises to a peak and then falls as age progresses. Mental capacity tends to follow the same pattern, although on a somewhat different timeframe. On average, spiritual capacity probably continues to increase throughout life, although it may undergo a lot of fluctuations up and down. So we should be careful not to confuse our capacity at any given moment with our overall capacity as human beings.

And finally, God has the power to change the capacity of His creatures as He wills. Consider the implications of this statement:

Know thou that when the Son of Man yielded up His breath to God, the whole creation wept with a great weeping. By sacrificing Himself, however, a fresh capacity was infused into all created things. Its evidences, as witnessed in all the peoples of the earth, are now manifest before thee. The deepest wisdom which the sages have uttered, the profoundest learning which any mind hath unfolded, the arts which the ablest hands have produced, the influence exerted by the most potent of rulers, are but manifestations of the quickening power released by His transcendent, His all-pervasive, and resplendent Spirit.

(Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, XXXVI, p. 85-86)

Through the Manifestations of God the capacities of all created things are increased. Just as we live in a physically expanding universe, through the process of progressive revelation we also live in a spiritually expanding universe.

This takes us beyond the bonsai metaphor with which I started, since once made a bonsai pot will always have the same capacity. Still, it's easy to see that if we "strive to the utmost" of our "power and capacity" we can become like the pot that gives a home to a tree of the appropriate size, rather than the pot holding either too much or too little tree. But we also get a bonus, since it may be that through God's grace our capacity will increase.