I was invited
to the theatre with a group of friends recently
to see a play about a young boy who gives up his
life for his beliefs.
But I was shocked and disappointed
when I arrived at the theatre to learn that it
was a puppet show. I was sure I wouldn’t
enjoy it and was even less hopeful when I saw
that the puppets were simple sticks with heads
on top. Worse still, what life they had was only
because a man backstage was vigorously shaking
them around with his hand.
But I was amazed at how gripping
the drama proved to be. By the end of the night
these wooden characters had come alive and made
me think deeply about the meaning of life.
A few years later I was introduced
to another very powerful image involving puppets.
In this, Bahá'u'lláh, Founder of
the Bahá'í Faith, recalls a story
from His childhood, when He attended his brother's
wedding.
A puppet show was performed as part of the festivities,
depicting life in a Persian court. Everyone from
the servants through to the ministers of the Shah
was portrayed, and even soldiers being sent out
to quell a rebel uprising in the land. It was
a dramatic and exciting presentation.
After the show, Bahá'u'lláh
saw the puppeteer emerge from behind the theatre
with a large box, and asked him what the box contained.
"All these lavish trappings," the puppeteer
replied, "the king, the princes, and the
ministers, and their pomp and glory, their might
and power, everything you saw, are all now contained
within this box."
This had a profound effect on the
young Baha'u'llah and some years later, when He
was banished from His homeland and persecuted
and imprisoned by two governments of the time,
He recalled the puppet show and wrote:
"… Ever since that day,
all the trappings of the world have seemed in
the eyes of this Youth akin to that same spectacle.
They have never been, nor will ever be, possessed
of any weight, though it be to the extent of a
mustard seed.
" … these heaped-up treasures, these
amassed battalions, these proud and overweening
souls - all shall pass into the confines of the
grave, as though into that box."
Ultimately this story is about
detachment from material possessions, though material
things will always have a place in our lives.
After all, one of the most profound
insights I had into the meaning of life was caused
by no more than a few sticks of wood with heads
on them.