To Those Who Long for Spiritual Heat and Light

I am grateful to St. Augustine and to the millions of inspired believers, seekers, and spiritual teachers of each Faith, everyone who has been magnetically drawn throughout time to all the religions of God. 

Each of those great Faiths has a different name. Each was progressively revealed, kindled, and re-kindled from age to age. Each Faith has unique social and cultural qualities, but each devoted itself originally to the fire of the love of God.

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St. Augustine converted to Christianity in the 4^th century AD. Consider his long-suffering attraction to that one fire, and his throbbing statement of conversion:  

Late have I loved you, beauty so old and so new; late have I loved you. … you were within and I was in the external world and sought you there, and in my unlovely state I plunged into those lovely created things which you made. You were with me and I was not with you … You called and cried out and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You touched me, and I am set on fire to attain the peace which is yours.

Notice his references to spiritual longing, thirst, and hunger before he found Jesus, now changed and re-refined, now at peace and on fire himself. So began his life as a Christian, against a pagan backdrop of declining Roman influence. 

But please consider that the fire St. Augustine found is the same fire which forever “blazeth and rageth in the world of creation,” according to Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith. That same fire burns even today, with new counsels and principles to distinguish it, including the oneness of God, the oneness of all religions, and the oneness of the human family. Baha’u’llah wrote:

That primal Fire hath in this Day appeared with a new radiance and with immeasurable heat. This divine Fire burneth of itself, with neither fuel nor fume, that it might draw away such excess moisture and cold as are the cause of torpor and weariness, of lethargy and despondency. … Whoso hath approached this Fire hath been set aflame.

In fact, Baha’is believe that Baha’u’llah’s prophetic and revelatory voice is the roaring today of that very fire itself. Listen: 

The fire of [God’s] love that burneth continually within me hath so inflamed me that whoever … approacheth me, and inclineth his inner ear towards me, cannot fail to hear its raging within each of my veins. … Earth can never cloud its splendor, nor water quench its flame. … Great is the blessedness of him that hath drawn nigh unto it, and heard its roaring.

Today’s fire is approachable and accessible by way of those same kindling materials of spiritual longing and love that led St. Augustine to it and, surely, also by means of the warmth and radiance of all such spiritual virtues and values, of humility and compassion, kindness and justice, patience and forbearance.

For deep spiritual virtues like these are essential and integral to the health of the human spirit, and when enkindled to their fullest, endow us with a new ear, eye, heart, and mind – with an awakened ability to perceive, understand, know, and imagine anew, as Baha’u’llah revealed:

Only when the lamp of search, of earnest striving, of longing desire, of passionate devotion, of fervid love, of rapture, and ecstasy, is kindled within the seeker’s heart, and the breeze of His loving-kindness is wafted upon his soul, will the darkness of error be dispelled, the mists of doubts and misgivings be dissipated, and the lights of knowledge and certitude envelop his being. … Then will the manifold favors and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting Spirit confer such new life upon the seeker that he will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind.

In this way, such virtues are unlit flames, kindling sticks of hope and resilience, vital spiritual energies integral to the human spirit. Baha’u’llah said that they lie latent within us all: 

… even as the flame is hidden within the candle and the rays of light are potentially present in the lamp. The radiance of these energies may be obscured by worldly desires even as the light of the sun can be concealed beneath the dust and dross which cover the mirror. … It is clear and evident that until a fire is kindled the lamp will never be ignited, and unless the dross is blotted out from the face of the mirror it can never represent the image of the sun nor reflect its light and glory.

When ignited and fanned into flame, those inner spiritual virtues have a transformative effect comparable to that of a refiner’s fire. As Abdu’l-Baha wrote, they have the power to melt and re-cast us:

When … iron absorbs heat from the fire, it sacrifices its attribute of solidity for the attribute of fluidity. It sacrifices its attribute of darkness for the attribute of light, which is a quality of the fire. It sacrifices its attribute of coldness to the quality of heat which the fire possesses so that in the iron there remains no solidity, darkness or cold. It becomes illumined and transformed, having sacrificed its qualities to the qualities and attributes of the fire.

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Today, hatred of one religion for another, the domination of one race over another, the patriarchy of males over females, and anything rife with prejudice, ignorance, and fear have been melted and re-cast by the heat of this blazing fire in this new Baha’i era.

I speak humbly of this fire for the sake of those for whom it is unfamiliar or, God forbid, irrelevant. I speak for those who may be curious and even in need of its light and warmth and for those who are already striving with thirst and longing for a nobler, kinder world and for an enlightened and more beautiful self.

This fire does not belong to the wealthy, to the privileged, or to any one religion or race or priestly class. It belongs to the peoples of the world regardless of education or so-called social standing. It is the gift of God, given to us with the caveat that it must be preserved and protected and shared.

Consider Maine’s ancient Indigenous peoples, who, when they traveled from place to place, carried coals of smoldering fire in clam shells strapped to their bodies, close to their hearts, prepared to share with those in need of their fire’s life-giving heat and light. 

Please know that I am sharing from out of the shell of my heart here the smoldering coals which I bring to this moment, that they might flame up and warm those who are cold, hungry, and afraid of the dark, those who long for heat and light.

Bradford Miller is an independent writer. His latest book is “Sickness, Death, and Resurrection of Holden Caulfield,” available on Amazon.