For those who may have missed it, here's a passage from Counsellor Murphy's talk at the 2007 US Convention:
"We don't want to be those people who want to see God with their own eyes, or hear His melody with their own ears, because we have been given the gift of being able to see through the eyes of the House of Justice and listen through the ears of the House of Justice."
I'm not going to dwell on the fact that Baha'u'llah says we should see God with our own eyes and ears. No doubt readers will know those passages already. However, here's one passage, which I'll cite for the sake of argument, that isn't often quoted and contains the ideas I do want to discuss:
O son of the throne! Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith. Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith, that in thine inmost soul thou mayest testify unto My exalted sanctity, and I within Myself may bear witness unto an exalted station for thee." Arabic Hidden Words, no 44
I want to look at how Baha'u'llah says our interactions with God should take place. This is really basic stuff - basic to religion and our relationship with God. If we don't understand how this interaction works, we're not going to get anywhere. And it isn't difficult. Baha'u'llah maps out the mechanics of it in the Hidden Words, which is the nuts and bolts of religion.
One clear statement about what we should do is here:
"Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting." Arabic Hidden Words, no 13
Step one, then, is to turn in the direction of our inner self. Baha'u'llah tells us a lot of important information about what God's created in there. He tells us, for example, that our inner self is:
-- God's stronghold, the place where God's love is found and the place where we can get 'near' to God (AHW 10),
-- God's lamp and the place where God's light is found (AHW 11 and 12)
-- rich and noble (AHW 13)
-- God's dominion, light, glory and robe (AHW 14)
-- a breath of God's spirit (AHW 19).
I ask you, what could be clearer? Turn your sight towards your inner self and you'll find out that you exist because God loves you, that God has placed the essence of his light in you and that God has created you rich, with the most noble attributes. It's simple; it's the purpose of our existence, so why would God make it difficult?
Now, why does it go wrong? We turn our sight towards ourselves, all right, but instead of finding the divine self God has placed in there, we access the false self created out of self and passion and allow that to rule us. I don't want to dwell on that here. Following on from Counsellor Murphy's quote above, I want to mention the other thing that can go wrong: we listen to our religious leaders instead of ourselves. (This is related to self and passion as well, but I'll treat it as separate here.)
To be fair, it makes sense that we should listen to our religious leaders. We have to work with them for the day-to-day functioning of the community. It's natural for us to think they might have better ideas than us. I don't have any problems with that. But Counsellor Murphy's statement goes well beyond that. She is not telling us that we should give the House a fair hearing, she's telling us that the only way we can know God is through the House of Justice!
"We don't want to be those people who want to see God with their own eyes, or hear His melody with their own ears, because we have been given the gift of being able to see through the eyes of the House of Justice and listen through the ears of the House of Justice."
I've always maintained, and I know this might sound silly, but if God had intended to give the House of Justice such an exalted station, he'd have mentioned it in the Hidden Words.
On the contrary, what Baha'u'llah does discuss in the Hidden Words in glorious detail is the importance of the divine self of every human being in creation. Each person's inner self is the link that person has with the Creator. It's the umbilical cord by which we are nurtured throughout eternity. When we die, we travel in the 'vehicle' of that link to the next world and we leave the House of Justice behind. That link is vital to our existence. Without it, we die.
If the House of Justice was so important in the process, how would we get on in the next world when we no longer had the House to rely on? Here's a possible scenario:
Baha'u'llah: "Now, tell me, Peter, what made you feel justified in doing that?
Peter: "I'm sorry, Baha'u'llah, I can't understand what you're saying because I don't have the House of Justice to interpret it for me!"
And so, you wonder on what basis Counsellor Murphy says we have been given the "gift" of being able to see God through the eyes and ears of the House. What gift is that exactly? It's not in the Hidden Words. It's true that we've been given a gift, but it's a darn sight better than being able to see God through the House. We can do it ourselves. That's our gift. We have been created noble, why do we bring ourselves down to poverty by relying on the House?
