What Am I Doing?

The glorious maturity of this world depends upon the realization of two things: the establishment of Universal Peace, and the discovery, or appearance of that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence.

(I Heard Him Say: Words of ‘Abdu’l-Baha as recorded by his Secretary Mirza Ahmad Sohrab: 38)

Scientific knowledge is the highest attainment upon the human plane, for science is the discoverer of realities. It is of two kinds: material and spiritual. Material science is the investigation of natural phenomena; divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities. The world of humanity must acquire both. A bird has two wings; it cannot fly with one. Material and spiritual science are the two wings of human uplift and attainment. Both are necessary—one the natural, the other supernatural; one material, the other divine. By the divine we mean the discovery of the mysteries of God, the comprehension of spiritual realities, the wisdom of God, inner significances of the heavenly religions and foundation of the law.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 138)

Recently, I was asked by a friend: “Why do you write what you write?”  It is a fair question and I have often found it difficult to answer quickly, because the prime areas of my interest are, well, pretty obscure to most.  So, after answering to the best of my ability the first question, a second equally legitimate question comes: “Why should anybody read that?”; or, “OK.  But how does that help anybody?”  Neither question is asked with any malice or attempt to dismiss what I am doing.  They are genuine efforts to understand me and my work.  I appreciate that.  But it is puzzling to many why anyone would pursue something that does not have the immediate and practical benefits of, say, fixing a broken faucet or motor, especially since there is little hope of making a living remuneration for the hours that I put in.  So why do it?  The short answer is: I feel called to do it. More quizzical looks.  It is not a fashionable reason or motivation.  So I am going to devote this long post to answering the question: What Am I doing?

In a nutshell, I am making an inquiry into some possible conditions for spiritual sciences.  I am following up ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s statement in the second quote above that science is of two kinds, material and spiritual.  Both, He says, are necessary.  The past four hundred years has been primarily devoted to bringing forth marvelous material sciences.  The past few decades have seen some scientists undertake a similar effort to discover spiritual realities and generate sciences of the spirit that explain and explicate them, albeit slowly because of, first, great resistance or crushing indifference from those committed to a materialist paradigm, but also from their looking in the wrong place for a true beginning.

I take a somewhat unorthodox view on sciences of the spirit, to say the least. My view hinges on the difference between “sciences of the spirit” and “spiritual sciences”.  The distinction is, for me, more than mere nuance, and certainly not semantic word-games.  It is the difference that makes all the difference.  While generating spiritual sciences does not require that the mind jettison everything about the structure of material science, it also does not mean that we can simply transfer wholesale the methods and approaches of material science to spirit and believe these will bring us all we can ever know of spirit.  Why?

Because the conditions for understanding spiritual realities and, therefore, for establishing spiritual sciences, are more than simply new theories, better experimental apparatus, and the verification of new facts gained from modifying the established paradigm of understanding.  Rather, a new set of assumptions about Reality and human nature, wider contexts and domains of knowledge that include the spiritual, newly awakened faculties of perception, a new language of communication, new practices of attaining knowledge, such as faith and vision, are needed.  In short, a new paradigm of human knowledge and understanding is required.  To establish spiritual sciences requires a revolution in humanity’s total world view.

Thus, for me, while sciences of the spirit can be conceived as new sciences within the existing paradigm of science, extensions, if you will, into the spiritual of the procedures of material science, spiritual sciences are new kinds of sciences.  (The phrase “spiritual science” was also used by Rudolf Steiner, founder of Anthroposophy and Waldorf Schools. Though there is some commonality between his conception of spiritual science and mine, there is an important difference.  I will not go into that here.  Perhaps a later post.)

If we read closely the quote from ‘Abdu’l-Baha about the two kinds of science He calls one the natural, the other supernatural; one material, the other divine.  That is, spiritual science itself is supernatural and not just what it is investigating.

What is a supernatural science?  It could be merely mental, for the mind is, strictly speaking, a supernatural phenomenon.  But I believe it is more than mental, for He further defines supernatural science as divine.  What is a divine science?  He goes on: divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities…By the divine we mean the discovery of the mysteries of God, the comprehension of spiritual realities, the wisdom of God, inner significances of the heavenly religions and foundation of the law.

Are any spiritual sciences mentioned in the Bahá’i Writings?  I believe so.  In the second Valley of His Four Valleys, a valley devoted to “primal reason”, Baha’u’llah quotes these lines from a celebrated Persian poet: 

Wouldst thou that the mind should not entrap thee?

Teach it the science of the love of God!”

(Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 52)

It seems this science is the means to mental health and progress, else the mind stops growing and gets entrapped in its own imaginings.  It is like alchemy, perhaps the first proto-science, which started out fine but got lost in its imaginings, as will any science which does not lead to God.  A bit more on alchemy below.

But the science of the love of God is more than a good psychology.  The science of the love of God may be the foundational science for all spiritual sciences.  I say this because of a phrase in the first opening quote—I know it is a pilgrim’s note and is not scripture so it must be taken as not necessarily His actual words.  That phrase is the discovery, or appearance of that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence.  Look at it again: a single science “will renovate all the conditions of existence.” That’s the kind of foundational DNA-like code of knowledge out from which can emerge different sciences, as the oak tree emerges, from trunk to twig to leaf, from the acorn because the entire code sequence to make an oak is in it.

A statement from the Master that qualifies as more scriptural than pilgrim’s notes gives support to this idea.  He is reported to have said: “In this century of the latter times Bahá'u'lláh has appeared and so resuscitated spirits that they have manifested powers more than human….Therefore, the question arises: How is this resuscitation to be accomplished?

“There are certain means for its accomplishment by which mankind is regenerated and quickened with a new birth. This is the second birth mentioned in the heavenly Books. Its accomplishment is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The resuscitation or rebirth of the spirit of man is through the science of the love of God. It is through the efficacy of the water of life. This life and quickening is the regeneration of the phenomenal world.” (Promulgation of Universal Peace: 277)  The bold-faced emphasis is, of course, mine.

I believe that some keys to the science of the love of God may be concealed within Baha’u’llah’s Tablet of Wisdom—Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 137-152—awaiting discovery.  It is in this tablet that He refers to the teachings of Hermes, or Idris, as that Manifestation of God is known in the Qur’an.  There He also praises Balinus (Apollonius of Tyana) as a “man of wisdom who became informed of the mysteries of creation and discerned the subtleties which lie enshrined in the Hermetic writings.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:148)  The scope of Hermes teachings is brought out in the footnote to that statement: “In one of His Tablets Bahá'u'lláh wrote: 'The first person who devoted himself to philosophy was Idris. Thus was he named. Some called him also Hermes. In every tongue he hath a special name. He it is who hath set forth in every branch of philosophy thorough and convincing statements. After him Balinus derived his knowledge and sciences from the Hermetic Tablets and most of the philosophers who followed him made their philosophical and scientific discoveries from his words and statements...' In the Qur'án, Sura 19, verses 57 and 58, is written: 'And commemorate Idris in the Book; for he was a man of truth, a Prophet; And we uplifted him to a place on high.' (Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 148)

Earlier in that same tablet Baha’u’llah wrote: “I will also mention for thee the invocation voiced by Balinus who was familiar with the theories put forward by the Father of Philosophy (Hermes) regarding the mysteries of creation as given in his chrysolite tablets, that everyone may be fully assured of the things We have elucidated for thee in this manifest Tablet, which, if pressed with the hand of fairness and knowledge, will yield the spirit of life for the quickening of all created things.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:147)  All this sounds to me very much like the kind of language revolving around the great science of the love of God.  The science of the love of God may be that fundamental scientific knowledge that “will yield the spirit of life for the quickening of all created things.”

Be that as it may, one of the effects of the appearance or discovery of this “hidden science” that “renovates all the conditions of existence”, that regenerates the phenomenal world because it resuscitates a human spirit entrapped in materialism, will be to cause the kind of rupture in human existence that occurred millennia ago when humanity burst out of its chrysalis of sensory knowledge into the world of intellectual knowledge.  This rupture was the conception—in the biological sense of conception—of science.  The story is told in the Judeo-Christian tradition through the Genesis story surrounding the figure of Adam, though secular thinkers like to ascribe the leap to the pre-Socratic Greeks, or the Egyptians, and so forth.  But such great ruptures can, for me, only occur through the creative Word of God, not intuitive leaps of human beings.

The first rational intellectual form that emerged from the “Adamic” mental revolution was philosophy to replace mythology.  It is from logical inquiry into the regularities of nature and humanity that all sciences have come.  We are passing through an even greater revolution today with the birth of spiritual man.  As intellectual philosophy was the birth of all rational inquiry—an endeavor extending over vast millennia that has culminated in the mansions of thought we now call modern experimental science—so the science of the love of God, a spiritual philosophy, will be the womb out from which will be born, in the coming centuries, powerful spiritually-driven inquiries into creation.

Now when the “mind” was born in that eponymous Garden with the naming of things it was not just a new knowledge, but also a new kind of knowledge, a kind of knowledge that could only be understood by “a new race of men” using newly awakened faculties.  The new knowledge was not just objective, but also subjective, even, we can make the argument, subjective for the first time in the sense of an individual “I” narrating its experiences to itself in an inner “space”.  It was not just conscious, but self-conscious.  Nothing like it had ever appeared before, but everything came from it.

Similarly today a new philosophy leads. In His Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha’u’llah appointed two signs that indicate the maturity of humanity.  The note elucidating this statement says: “The first sign of the coming of age of humanity referred to in the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh is the emergence of a science which is described as that ‘divine philosophy’ which will include the discovery of a radical approach to the transmutation of elements.  This is an indication of the splendours of the future stupendous expansion of knowledge.” (The Kitab-i-Aqdas: 250)  This can be  alchemy.  But first is the divine alchemy of soul making I discussed last post.

We live in an entirely new day.  What does it require from us to live in the new reality?  ‘Abdu’l-Baha says that people “must be set completely free from their old patterns of thought…until the old ways, the old concepts, are gone and forgotten, this world of being will find no peace, nor will it reflect the perfections of the Heavenly Kingdom.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 252)

Spiritual sciences will be built upon that foundation laid down by the new Revelation, and no other foundation.  Does not Baha’u’llah state: “Unveiled and unconcealed, this Wronged One hath, at all times, proclaimed before the face of all the peoples of the world that which will serve as the key for unlocking the doors of sciences, of arts, of knowledge, of well-being, of prosperity and wealth.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 96)

As I see it, part of the revolution in humanity’s world-view, and an essential aspect of any inquiry into the science of the love of God, will be a new, deeper and broader perspective on causality, for all science must explain the coming into being of things.  While material science has got along quite nicely relying almost exclusively upon efficient causality—the linear, sequential, logico-empirical, left-brained thought so characteristic of the post-Renaissance—spiritual science emphasizes, I believe, the two causes that material science leaves out, formal cause and final cause, structure and purpose, ontos and telos.

The book I am currently piecing together is actually the first volume of a two volume study of the science of the love of God to provide a new cosmology.  Volume two is tentatively titled The Causes of Things.  It examines the Word of God as spiritual cause, the causer of causes—a phrase of Baha’u’llah’s which I have used in my previous books but will hope to define more precisely and use more comprehensively in that coming volume.

At this juncture I will only say that for me spiritual cause is beyond, before, and behind the four traditional causes—formal, final, efficient and material—that Aristotle laid out to explain the creation of phenomena.  Many others, including ‘Abdu’l-Baha, have employed Aristotle’s terminology to explain the creation of phenomena.  If one looks deeply into Aristotle’s discussion of the four causes, however, one can see implied a “causer of causes”.

Spiritual cause is the hidden field out from which the four causes of phenomena come forth, with which they remain connected, and through which they work.  Baha’u’llah says “the Word of God is the cause which hath preceded the contingent world.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:141)  Spiritual cause generates, supports, and makes the four causes work, much as the zero-point field does for all subatomic interactions of the physical world.  But spiritual cause, this field of interpenetrating spiritual energies, is prior in importance, though not in time, even to the zero-point field.  Quantum mechanics is turning the thought of physics toward the reality of a mental foundation to the physical universe, but even more refined than the domain of thought, which ‘Abdu’l-Baha called a “boundless sea”, is the kingdom of spirit.  It is to the spiritual level that we will try to penetrate, to become conscious of that which supports and gives life to everything.

These two volumes are the first of an envisioned five volumes titled collectively, Restoring the Transcendent.  Each volume is, even now, at some level of completion.  Besides the current book and the volume on causality, a third volume on history, titled Revelation and History: Axial Ages of Humanity’s Spiritual Evolution, is being written.  The last two volumes are The Loom of Civilization, a study of the construction of divine civilization, and The Coordinated Vision—a treatise of educational philosophy centered on religion, science and art as the three most powerful ways that humans acquire knowledge.  That final volume will complete the circle back to education that started with my first book, Renewing the Sacred: A New Vision of Education.  The purpose of all these works is the same as that stated by Francis Bacon in the preface of his Novum Organon, (New  Science): “I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty.”

‘Abdu’l-Baha said: “The sciences of today are bridges to reality; if then they lead not to reality, naught remains but fruitless illusion. By the one true God! If learning be not a means of access to Him, the Most Manifest, it is nothing but evident loss.

He went on to the same inquirer: “It is incumbent upon thee to acquire the various branches of knowledge, and to turn thy face toward the beauty of the Manifest Beauty, that thou mayest be a sign of saving guidance amongst the peoples of the world, and a focal centre of understanding in this sphere from which the wise and their wisdom are shut out, except for those who set foot in the Kingdom of lights and become informed of the veiled and hidden mystery, the well-guarded secret.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 108)

When we discover that hidden science that will renovate all the conditions of existence, if we can penetrate to that “sphere from which the wise and their wisdom are shut out”, then we will have crossed what Nietzsche called “the rainbow bridge of concepts” that compose “the sciences of today”, that bridge leading from the land of shadows to the domain of light which is Reality.  There we will “become informed of the veiled and hidden mystery, the well-guarded secret.”

The continued evolution of humanity calls for a new state of heart and mind and a new way of looking at things.  I am attempting to show only some of the features of what that may look like.  By definition, whatever I may discover in this work must, I freely admit, be only partial and incomplete, often imprecise in thought and clumsy in expression. That is in the nature of first attempts, and there are few precedents. I take no credit for results, only the effort.  Only a fool would believe he has done anything in this arena by his own making.  If one wishes to help discover that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence, it is necessary to be led by greater Intelligence, by light up ahead not behind, by illumination from above and beyond.

That is what I am doing now, and, God willing, shall be doing till the inner lights fade and finally go out.  I ask for your prayers and support.

Divine Alchemy: The Most Potent Elixir

Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee…

(Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words #3)

Baha'u'llah says that acquiring knowledge of proper alchemy is one of the signs of maturity of the human race.  (Kitab-i-Aqdas: 250)  However He discouraged the Baha'is of His time from investigating further into alchemy, saying the world was not ready for it, and if it were to be discovered too early a great calamity would occur. (Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Baha’u’llah, vol. 2: 268) 

Nonetheless, He did indicate it was, or could be, an authentic science. In dismissing one arrogant person’s claim to “know” alchemy, He stated: “Among the sciences which this pretender hath professed is that of alchemy. We cherish the hope that either a king or a man of preeminent power may call upon him to translate this science from the realm of fancy to the domain of fact and from the plane of mere pretension to that of actual achievement. Would that this unlearned and humble Servant, who never laid any pretension to such things, nor even regarded them as the criterion of true knowledge, might undertake the same task, that thereby the truth might be known and distinguished from falsehood.” (Kitab-i-Iqan: 189-190)

Thus the base pretensions of some foolish ones did not prevent Him from using some of alchemy’s central terminology. One of the alchemical terms He uses is “Elixir”. He affirms that the alchemist’s dream of distilling an elixir, also called the Philosopher’s Stone, that could instantly transmute metals into gold is a reality, albeit an undiscovered one.  He wrote: “For instance, consider the substance of copper. Were it to be protected in its own mine from becoming solidified, it would, within the space of seventy years, attain to the state of gold. There are some, however, who maintain that copper itself is gold, which by becoming solidified is in a diseased condition, and hath not therefore reached its own state.

“Be that as it may, the real elixir will, in one instant, cause the substance of copper to attain the state of gold, and will traverse the seventy-year stages in a single moment." (Kitab-i-Iqan: 156)

Evidently, He got some resistance to this statement, for He wrote later: “Consider the doubts which they who have joined partners with God have instilled into the hearts of the people of this land. "Is it ever possible," they ask, "for copper to be transmuted into gold?" Say, Yes, by my Lord, it is possible. Its secret, however, lieth hidden in Our Knowledge. We will reveal it unto whom We will. Whoso doubteth Our power, let him ask the Lord his God, that He may disclose unto him the secret, and assure him of its truth. That copper can be turned into gold is in itself sufficient proof that gold can, in like manner, be transmuted into copper, if they be of them that can apprehend this truth. Every mineral can be made to acquire the density, form, and substance of each and every other mineral. The knowledge thereof is with Us in the Hidden Book.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 197-198)

Disclosing the science of alchemy was not His mission.  It remains a hidden science.  But chemical alchemy provided for Him metaphors to unveil a greater, spiritual alchemy, that of the transmutation of souls, to which He called His followers.  There are, then, two elixirs, a spiritual and a material, the spiritual more powerful than the other. 

This is brought out by Baha’u’llah in the following passage: “The vitality of men's belief in God is dying out in every land; nothing short of His wholesome medicine can ever restore it. The corrosion of ungodliness is eating into the vitals of human society; what else but the Elixir of His potent Revelation can cleanse and revive it? Is it within human power, O Hakim, to effect in the constituent elements of any of the minute and indivisible particles of matter so complete a transformation as to transmute it into purest gold? Perplexing and difficult as this may appear, the still greater task of converting satanic strength into heavenly power is one that We have been empowered to accomplish. The Force capable of such a transformation transcendeth the potency of the Elixir itself. The Word of God, alone, can claim the distinction of being endowed with the capacity required for so great and far-reaching a change.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah: 201)

It is of great importance that the greater spiritual Elixir be known and understood and take effect before the material elixir is known and applied, for knowing this greater Elixir protects us from the dangers of the second.  The “Elixir of His potent Revelation” is greater and more powerful than the elixir which transmutes matter in any form into purest gold. 

In another passage on the Elixir that can transform and transmute souls Baha’u’llah writes: “I beg of Thee, O my God, by Thy most exalted Word which Thou hast ordained as the Divine Elixir unto all who are in Thy realm, the Elixir through whose potency the crude metal of human life hath been transmuted into purest gold, O Thou in Whose hands are both the visible and invisible kingdoms….” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 53)

In speaking of the Divine Elixir’s power to transmute human beings, Baha’u’llah pointed to the changes wrought in those who accepted His Revelation: “It is evident that nothing short of this mystic transformation could cause such spirit and behaviour, so utterly unlike their previous habits and manners, to be made manifest in the world of being. For their agitation was turned into peace, their doubt into certitude, their timidity into courage. Such is the potency of the Divine Elixir, which, swift as the twinkling of an eye, transmuteth the souls of men!” (Kitab-i-Iqan:155)

One of the powers attributed to the alchemical elixir is the healing of illness.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha also employs the notion of the elixir as metaphor for spiritual healing.  “Every divine Manifestation is the very life of the world, and the skilled physician of each ailing soul. The world of man is sick, and that competent Physician knoweth the cure, arising as He doth with teachings, counsels and admonishments that are the remedy for every pain, the healing balm to every wound. It is certain that the wise physician can diagnose his patient's needs at any season, and apply the cure. Wherefore, relate thou the Teachings of the Abha Beauty to the urgent needs of this present day, and thou wilt see that they provide an instant remedy for the ailing body of the world. Indeed, they are the elixir that bringeth eternal health.”(Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 59)

As indicated, this most potent Elixir is to be used by His followers to change and uplift the souls of others, so their divine aspect may come forth.  How to do this?  He advises: “From the texts of the wondrous, heavenly Scriptures they should memorize phrases and passages bearing on various instances, so that in the course of their speech they may recite divine verses whenever the occasion demandeth it, inasmuch as these holy verses are the most potent elixir, the greatest and mightiest talisman. So potent is their influence that the hearer will have no cause for vacillation.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 200)

Baha’u’llah speaks of those who truly follow Him in these terms: “The Book of God is wide open, and His Word is summoning mankind unto Him. No more than a mere handful, however, hath been found willing to cleave to His Cause, or to become the instruments for its promotion. These few have been endued with the Divine Elixir that can, alone, transmute into purest gold the dross of the world, and have been empowered to administer the infallible remedy for all the ills that afflict the children of men.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 183)

Though empowered to administer the divine elixir the proper expression of that power was perfectly stated in a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi: “Love is, indeed, a most potent elixir that can transform vilest and meanest of people into heavenly souls.”  (From a letter written of behalf of Shoghi Effendi to an individual believer, December 6, 1935)  (Lights of Guidance: 222)

As I said in previous posts, the alchemist’s prima materia from which is distilled the elixir of life points to something like the concept in modern physics of zero-point energy and ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s “etheric matter.”  Humanity will discover this original matter and how to scientifically transmute it into any desired material.   But the Divine Elixir that has been given to us is the greater elixir and we can learn to use it to transmute all things, starting with our own souls, through the science of the love of God, which is, in my opinion, a combination of both sciences, i.e. using the knowledge of God to transmute the primal love of God into any desired form, as stated in the opening quote.

The Conditions of Recognition

As to those that have tasted of the fruit of man’s earthly existence, which is the recognition of the one true God, exalted be His glory, their life hereafter is such as We are unable to describe. The knowledge thereof is with God, alone, the Lord of all worlds.

(Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 345-346)

Previous posts discussed the concept of direct connection and presented three kinds of direct connection, physical, mental and spiritual, ontological connections all formed by the unity of Spirit and Matter created by Revelation..  These three kinds of connection correspond to and are keys to the three kinds of knowledge human beings can attain, sensory from the senses, intellectual from the mental faculties, and divine within the heart, each having a kind of direct perception of the “things” in its domain. The senses perceive physical things, the intellect perceives through cognition intellectual realities, and the divine is perceived (i.e. reflected) by the higher faculties of faith and vision in the heart.  These three knowledges form together an epistemological unity, also formed by Revelation, when the intelligence awakens to knowledge of the divine.

The outer and inner conditions of direct perception of the divine by the heart, which is the state of recognition, is what I want to examine here more deeply.

Moving from physical to spiritual connection, each level or context is a more interior one, for the attracted human intelligence moves toward the mid-most heart or center, each context of knowing a more direct union both of creation with the human reality and of God with the human reality.  For the desiring intelligence, moving from the spiritual to the material, each connection is also a more manifest complex unity of attributes and powers.

Direct perception of the divine is the epistemological stage (knowledge state) of perceiving the unity of the inherent relations structuring creation and their union as the universe as the manifestation of Divine Knowledge.  At the center and pivot of this perception for the human reality is the image of God within it.  The Manifestation of God is the Divine center of these human centers, and the mid-most heart of all creation.  When the unity of direct connection is consciously attained, what Baha’u’llah calls “piercing the veils of plurality”, then recognition, which I have claimed is the heart’s mode of understanding, is the primary mode of apprehension, and not the senses or cognition. 

Further, though He and His Revelation is always “closer to you than your life vein” (Baha’u’llah quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come: 15) whenever the intelligence moves into a higher mode of awareness and understanding, especially of the divine, it is felt, psychologically and emotionally, as an eclipse of distance, as meeting the Presence of God.  The soul moves closer to Reality and God, because God comes closer to us. The mind no longer only thinks about God but, rather, the heart recognizes God in everything.  This is a new state of mind.  What is the difference between the human and divine Intellect, and how does the mind change its state?

‘Abdu’l-Baha explains the difference between the universal divine Mind and the general human mind as: “But the universal divine mind, which is beyond nature, is the bounty of the Preexistent Power. This universal mind is divine; it embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God. It is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research. The intellectual power of the world of nature is a power of investigation, and by its researches it discovers the realities of beings and the properties of existences; but the heavenly intellectual power, which is beyond nature, embraces things and is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom.” (Some Answered Questions: 217)

He goes on to explain how the human mind attains a divine state: “This divine intellectual power is the special attribute of the Holy Manifestations and the Dawning-places of prophethood; a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous, and a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations.” (Some Answered Questions: 217)  This reflective capacity is an inherent quality of the heart.  The Bab wrote in this regard: "He hath moreover deposited within the realities of all created things the emblem of His recognition..." (Selections from the Writings of the Bab: 111-112)

But when does this ray of divine Light shine upon the heart and awaken the "emblem of His recognition" deposited there?  ‘Abdu’l-Baha advises: “If thou wishest the divine knowledge and recognition, purify thy heart from all beside God, be wholly attracted to the ideal, beloved One; search for and choose Him and apply thyself to rational and authoritative arguments. For arguments are a guide to the path and by this the heart will be turned unto the Sun of Truth. And when the heart is turned unto the Sun, then the eye will be opened and will recognize the Sun through the Sun itself.” (Baha'i World Faith: 383-384)

While the human mind is a product of natural causes and developments, the essential power and perfection of the human spirit, the ground and apex of creation, an intelligence that “…embraces all beings, and as far as human ability permits discovers the realities of things and becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the qualities and properties of beings” (Some Answered Questions: 208), this “natural” mind is not the highest state the mind may attain.  But it cannot go higher unaided. It cannot advance further without assistance from higher Powers.   “But the human spirit, unless assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted with the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a mirror which, although clear, polished and brilliant, is still in need of light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover the heavenly secrets.” (Some Answered Questions: 208)

Now we come to the crux.  What is the essential difference in perception and quality of knowledge between these two states of mind? The Master explains that: “The phenomenal knowledge has need of things known; the Preexistent Knowledge is independent of their existence.” (Some Answered Questions: 293)  Recall, He said that the universal divine Mind is “beyond nature.”  It “is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research.”  It “embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God.”  It “is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom.”

Therefore, when “a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous…a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations.”  In this awakened divine state of the human mind (which is not the same divine state as the Manifestation.  He does not attain this state.  It is an inherent quality of His being which He manifests when He is called to His Mission.  He is the sun, we are recipients of His light.) we, too, may to some small extent be truly cognizant of things, know them, understand them, be aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and discover the concealed verities of the Kingdom which He reveals.  In short, we see Him as He sees Himself, and we see the world like He does: attaining the condition of “Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith. Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith.” (Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words #44)

This is the state of recognition.  It is not attainable to the natural mind through investigation and research.  It is a state of understanding Reality attainable only by the burnished heart, via either the inner hearing recognizing His Voice, which is faith, or through inner vision, which is the recognition, figuratively, of the light of His Being.  Baha’u’llah claims: “If it be your wish, O people, to know God and to discover the greatness of His might, look, then, upon Me with Mine own eyes, and not with the eyes of any one besides Me. Ye will, otherwise, be never capable of recognizing Me, though ye ponder My Cause as long as My Kingdom endureth, and meditate upon all created things throughout the eternity of God, the Sovereign Lord of all, the Omnipotent, the Ever-Abiding, the All-Wise.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 272)

Evolution and Involution: Creation and Attraction

So we should view the evolutionary force in man, and in all life, as the promise of self-transcendence.  It is not a compulsive force like gravity, if indeed it is a force at all, but it induces internal transformation.

(Arthur Young, The Reflexive Universe: 245)

Evolution is the push outward into the highest complexity, involution is the attraction inward toward the deepest center, a centrifugal movement and a centripetal movement.  Evolution and Involution go on simultaneously, as the tree heightens and spreads its canopy, it also drives its roots both inwardly and outwardly into the earth. These dual-processes are twin effects of a single all-encompassing power.

As I have been exploring, one part of the switch from human to divine knowledge, from intellectual to spiritual intelligence, is to pass from cognition to recognition as the primary means of knowing. Recognition is wholistic not reductionist.  Its knowledge is, first, reflexive not objective, though it has an objective dimension.  It sees the “other” as oneself in other form, for it grounds all perception in the principle that there is a “primal oneness deposited at the heart of all created things.”  (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 263)

Yet, though forms are the same or, at least, equivalent, between levels of reality, there are, simultaneously, differences in value and station.  It is again the “B” and the “E” joined and knit together in the original unity of “these two are the same, yet they are different.”  The archetype of this relation is that between God and His Manifestations, as explained by Baha’u’llah: “Men have failed to perceive Our purpose in the references We have made to Divinity and Godhood. Were they to apprehend it, they would arise from their places, and cry out: "We, verily, ask pardon of God!" The Seal of the Prophets—may the souls of all else but Him be offered up for His sake—saith: "Manifold are Our relationships with God. At one time, We are He Himself, and He is We Ourself. At another He is that He is, and We are that We are." (Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 41)

For the growing individual, consciousness moves, by and large, from the sensory through the intellectual into the spiritual, or divine. A similar process is seen in the evolutionary record of humanity’s growth in consciousness, as the collective has moved from the sensory of archaic culture, through the intellectual birthed with Adam, and is now passing from the intellectual into the divine, all previous cycles assimilated into the higher that replaces it.

This movement in knowledge goes from outer physical appearance to inner spiritual reality.  The inward movement is attraction to a manifestation of God and the recognition of It, or Him, as so.  The physical universe and the mental cosmos are both Revelations of God, the first the secondary the second the primary, and these forms are from the creative power of the divine Mind.  Each is also immediately connected to their Creator, so God may be seen anywhere—“Even as He hath revealed: "We will surely show them Our signs in the world and within themselves." (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan: 101)

But the greatest Manifestation of God is the Figure called the Great Prophet.  He is the mid-most heart of all and movement toward Him is the involutionary movement that manifests as the outer evolutionary one.

I mean that, besides the evolutionary thrust, another movement, a counterbalancing and complementary movement to the evolutionary also goes on. This movement is not primarily of knowledge and recognition, but of love and attraction.  This is the involutionary movement of attraction to the center.  The dictionary defines involution as the act or an instance of enfolding or entangling in greater involvement, complexity and intricacy. In language it is a grammatical construction usually characterized by the insertion of clauses between the subject and predicate—think Shoghi Effendi.  In mathematics, involution is a function, or transformation, or operation, that is equal to its inverse, i.e., which gives the identity when applied to itself an inward curvature or penetration, a sort of fractal.  In humanity it is the levels of intensity of attraction to Him, the spiraling inward of the moth to the flame.

In the universe this attraction is called gravity, in the cosmos of mind it is the growth of identity toward the integrated self, in divine creation it is love for the Manifestation of God.  All the powers and capacities are within the center, the locus and focus of the circle of life and its highest Point, and are released from there, as the mighty oak is brought forth from the tiny acorn.  Let us recall that “the universe is enfolded” within the seed which is every soul.  The release and organization of these powers, attributes and capacities is evolution.

From the perspective of this metaphor, the divine spiritual creation unfolds into the intellectual cosmos which manifests as the physical universe.  The universe is unlocked and released by the cosmos, and cosmos by creation.  Progress in love and attraction is levels of intensity.  It moves from “the periphery” of this world to the mid-most spiritual heart of creation through the opening of progressively inner doors of love and perception, moving from separation to union, not inward from light to dark, but, rather, inward from dark to light.  The Master says: “Be self-sacrificing in the path of God, and wing thy flight unto the heavens of the love of the Abha Beauty, for any movement animated by love moveth from the periphery to the centre, from space to the Day-Star of the universe. Perchance thou deemest this to be difficult, but I tell thee that such cannot be the case, for when the motivating and guiding power is the divine force of magnetism it is possible, by its aid, to traverse time and space easily and swiftly.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 197-198)    

Evolution or development in this world starts when the form of a material thing begins to resonate in response to new spiritual energies and frequencies set vibrating within it, creating increasingly complex geometries of harmonic structure that push the form toward disequilibrium.  The form eventually loses its established internal coherency, breaks down, and then is rebuilt in new form on a new frequency.  Material evolution is marked by an increasing outer physical complexity of form.  Mental evolution is the blossoming of higher mental capacities. Spiritual evolution is the advances made in consciousness and love by progressive Revelation.

Humanity exists in the middle earth of the creation, in the cosmos built of thought, since “the reality of man is his thought.”  Its involution moves inward which is spiritually upward, while its evolution moves outward; that is, spiritually downward, though materially and socially upward.  The complements that are evolution and involution are mirror images and the basis of chiasmus which is the engine of transformation, the Word and its echoes or vibrating effects both in the world and in the human soul.  But transformations within any organic system, whether natural or social, reach an upper limit, or asymptote, after which a new order must be established.

The word asymptote is derived from the Greek (asumptōtos) which means “not falling together”.  That is, there is no actual, literal connection between things.  In analytic geometry, an asymptote of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as they tend to infinity, but never actually touch.  Thus there always exists a gap where resonance, or vibratory effect, can take place to harmonize the one with the other, or, if in time, the old with the new, so there is some sort of continuity, even when there is a discontinuity—“these two are the same, yet they are different.” In knowledge this resonance, this harmony, is effected by the symbol, a word which means “to throw together”.  Indeed, figurative language of any kind does this.

Metaphor is one of several kinds of analogical devices.  But whether the analogical device is metaphor, simile, allegory, or some other type of figure, it will contain three basic parts: the tenor, that which is being described; the vehicle, that which is compared to the tenor; and the meaning, that area of similarity between the tenor and vehicle which is the field which generates both.

That is, both inner sign and outer sign when thrown together in a symbol refer to each other.  But each individually also and simultaneously and together refer to a more general ground or field of divine thought that they came forth from and return to in meaning.

Transformations occur within every organic system. They are the means of development, (i.e. bringing out more of the “primal oneness” deposited at the core of things). At the end of development transformations of the whole system must occur for life to continue.  To transcend the whole system means to transcend the limitations of the system’s form.  Thus, in transcendence the whole form of the system must collapse before the new form can fully appear. The breakdown is a result of the evolutionary impulse of the new form pushing its way into creation through a vibrating influence.  Evolution is not just accompanied by the involution.  Both flow out from the original creation of the universe enfolded into every soul when vibrated to a new harmony by a progressive Revelation to which it returns via the twin spiraling paths of evolution and involution.

Word and Matter: Words Matter

Look at the world and ponder a while upon it. It unveileth the book of its own self before thine eyes and revealeth that which the Pen of thy Lord, the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein. It will acquaint thee with that which is within it and upon it and will give thee such clear explanations as to make thee independent of every eloquent expounder.

(Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 141-142)

This quote from Baha’u’llah, which also appeared last post,  refers to God “the Fashioner” inscribing His Revelation on the pages of the world—as Adam named things in the garden and gave them perceptible intellectual existence, which is the birth of human intellectual consciousness as we know that term.  Creation was, in traditional Christian theology, the verbum factum, the secondary revelation of God.  Scripture, the verbum scriptum, was the primary revelation.

But it also points out to me that writers are conjurors, words are powerful talismen.  God “calls” creation into being; His Manifestation is the “Word made flesh” and His Words are creative.  But it also points to the original meaning of the word “poet” as “the maker.”  Every poet makes ideas and things intellectual perceptible to the mind through figurative language. The Word as the primary creation acting upon Nature means that “Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 141)  Too, let us remember that: “…nature, also, in its essence is an intellectual reality and is not sensible.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions: 83)

As the spiritual Word acts upon the intellectual reality of Nature Its vibrational effects call forth responses called material reality, i.e. that which the Pen of thy Lord, the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein..  The sonorous imprint of the Word of God is the proof of the Voice of God sounding throughout creation.  The secondary creation is the physical universe, the crafts of God.  Humanity imitates His actions in our speech, art and crafts.

But even more fundamentally, the Manifestation of God infuses His own Being into creation in some manner.  With every Revelation of this returning archetypal Being a new creation is “called into being.”  Baha’u’llah writes of the Bab: “When He purposed to call the new creation into being, He sent forth the Manifest and Luminous Point from the horizon of His Will; it passed through every sign and manifested itself in every form until it reached the zenith, as bidden by God, the Lord of all men." (Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 101)

‘Abdu’l-Baha, in one of His tablets, frames the bringing forth of the universe in terms of fashioner and fashioned, using Aristotelian arguments of causality, specifically the union of formal cause (the essential form of something) and material cause, the primal substance that essential form imprints upon.  He wrote: “For example it has been stated that all things are composed of two elements: the "Fashioner" and the "Fashioned". By "Fashioned" is meant substance and primary matter and by "Fashioner" is meant the form and shape which confines and limits the primary matter from its state of indefiniteness and freedom to the courtyard of limitation and definite form. For example, letters and words are composed of two things: The first is the substance which is ink and pencil-lead and is the "Fashioned" while the second is the forms and features of the letters and words which are the "Fashioner". Now this specific substance and this specific form were created simultaneously although the general substance was created before the specific form. It is clear that, before the existence of this specific form and shape, the ink had an external existence which had no specific form or shape and had the ability and potential to assume the shape of any letter or word and was not restricted or specified to a particular shape or form. Similarly, the general shape and form had an existence before substance specified them since before being specified by substance (which is ink or pencil-lead) the general shape and form of letters and words had a mental existence in the mind of the writer. Moreover, general form and general substance were also created simultaneously. For it is not possible for a thing to have an external existence and not to be formed into a shape because substance and primal matter in order to exist need shape and form; while shape and form in order to appear need substance. Thus has it been said: Substance needs form to endure.  In attaining shape it has imprisoned form.

"This is not a false circular argument. It is usually known as an interdependent or connected argument. For a false circular argument is one where one thing is dependent on another which is in turn dependent on the first in one or two stages. Since it has been shown that specific substance and specific form were created simultaneously as also were general substance and general form, therefore potentialities and their recipients come into being at one and the same time and neither precedes the other except in essence.”(Provisional Translations, I was a Hidden Treasure)
        Through this discussion we return to Baha’u’llah’s statement in His Tablet of Wisdom—wisdom literature being, again, Hermetic literature: “That which hath been in existence had existed before, but not in the form thou seest today. The world of existence came into being through the heat generated from the interaction between the active force and that which is its recipient. These two are the same, yet they are different.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 140)

Other metaphors for this relation of fashioner and fashioned, of formal and material cause, are the creative interplay between God’s knowledge and love for His creation.  In one of The Hidden Words, Baha’u’llah wrote: “Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone beside Me? Out of the clay of love I molded thee, how dost thou busy thyself with another? Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.  (The Arabic Hidden Words #13)

Looking closely at this statement we realize that the phrase, “Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being”, is formal cause, because both the Being of the Manifestation of God and His Word are the essence of knowledge.  Baha’u’llah states: “Notwithstanding all these evident and significant traditions, all these unmistakable and undisputed allusions, the people have rejected the immaculate Essence of knowledge and of holy utterance, and have turned unto the exponents of rebellion and error.” (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 241)

On the other hand, “Out of the clay of love” is the primal material cause or substance, the archetypal substance that is the “recipient” of the active force of the Will and Knowledge of God through His Manifestation.  Thus, at the heart of all creation, meaning the One Who is the Source and Center and lasts from beginning to end, the Alpha and Omega, in Jesus words, of this relationship between fashioner and fashioned, of formal and material causes, is the Being of the Manifestation “standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.” 

By inner heart, i.e. the center and locus of human understanding, is meant the will and its volitions.  As I quoted last post, the Master is recorded as having said: “Will is the centre or focus of human understanding. We must will to know God, just as we must will in order to possess the life He has given us. The human will must be subdued and trained into the will of God. It is a great power to have a strong will, but a greater power to give that will to God. The will is what we do, the understanding is what we know. Will and understanding must be one in the cause of God. Intention brings attainment.” ('Abdu'l-Bahá: Ten Days in the Light of Acca: 30)  More on this in my next post.

THE OMNISCIENT FASHIONER

O SON OF BOUNTY! Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command I made thee to appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things.

(Baha'u'llah, The Persian Hidden Words #29)

To start again by recapping:  One way to view creation is to see it as comprising three levels: a material universe; an intellectual cosmos; the divine qualities or attributes.  The first two are creation, properly speaking. The third level, what I am calling the level of divinity, composed of the archetypal qualities of God, is, strictly speaking, not really part of creation, but is, rather, the foundation of its creative power.  I call it a level to distinguish it from the Essence of God which is unknowable.

These three levels correspond to the three levels of the human reality: body, mind and spirit or soul.  The divine level is latent within the rational, thinking human soul.  The Master says “…man has a soul in which dwells the divine spirit…(Paris Talks: 24)  Our diivinity is activated and brought into moral expression through contact with the Word of God.  Again, ‘Abdu’l-Baha states: “By mere intellectual development and power of reason, man cannot attain to his fullest degree—that is to say, by means of intellect alone he cannot accomplish the progress effected by religion….Therefore, the world of humanity must be confirmed by the breath of the Holy Spirit in order to receive universal education. Through the infusion of divine power all nations and peoples become quickened, and universal happiness is possible.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 170)

Let us take a closer look at this foundational level through examining what Baha’u’llah says about two qualities of God, “the Fashioner and “the Omniscient”.  However, we must also and always context any discussion of the origin of creation with this caution from Baha’u’llah: “None can grasp the reality of the origin of creation save God, exalted be His glory, Whose knowledge embraceth all things both before and after they come into being. Creation hath neither beginning nor end, and none hath ever unravelled its mystery. Its knowledge hath ever been, and shall remain, hidden and preserved with those Who are the Repositories of divine knowledge.” (Tabernacle of Unity: 47)  I am not about to unravel the mystery of the origin of creation.  I will simply put forth some insights, gleaned from the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, “the repository of divine knowledge” and attempt to make some sense of them

Since the dawn of language and scripture, the metaphor of the Word has been the primary vehicle to explain the creation, its Creator, and knowledge.  Baha’u’llah says: “The entire creation hath been called into being through the Will of God, magnified be His glory, and peerless Adam hath been fashioned through the agency of His all-compelling Word, a Word which is the source, the wellspring, the repository, and the dawning-place of the intellect. From it all creation hath proceeded, and it is the channel of God's primal grace.” (Tabernacle of Unity: 47)

The same relation between will, or volition, creativity, and knowledge holds for the human reality.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha is reported to have said: “Will is the centre or focus of human understanding. We must will to know God, just as we must will in order to possess the life He has given us. The human will must be subdued and trained into the will of God. It is a great power to have a strong will, but a greater power to give that will to God. The will is what we do, the understanding is what we know. Will and understanding must be one in the cause of God. Intention brings attainment.” ('Abdu'l-Bahá: Ten Days in the Light of Acca: 30)

The two attributes of God, “the Fashioner”, i.e. His Will expressed through His Word and “the Omniscient”, i.e. the All-knowing One, pervade the world and history, eternity and temporality, folded in and unfolding out.  It is knowing, Omniscient, and doing, Fashioner.

About God’s Name “the Fashioner” Baha’u’llah wrote: “Every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God is endowed with such potency as can instill new life into every human frame, if ye be of them that comprehend this truth. All the wondrous works ye behold in this world have been manifested through the operation of His supreme and most exalted Will, His wondrous and inflexible Purpose. Through the mere revelation of the word "Fashioner," issuing forth from His lips and proclaiming His attribute to mankind, such power is released as can generate, through successive ages, all the manifold arts which the hands of man can produce. This, verily, is a certain truth. No sooner is this resplendent word uttered, than its animating energies, stirring within all created things, give birth to the means and instruments whereby such arts can be produced and perfected. All the wondrous achievements ye now witness are the direct consequences of the Revelation of this Name. In the days to come, ye will, verily, behold things of which ye have never heard before. Thus hath it been decreed in the Tablets of God, and none can comprehend it except them whose sight is sharp.”

He goes on to say his about the divine quality of Omniscience: “In like manner, the moment the word expressing My attribute "The Omniscient" issueth forth from My mouth, every created thing will, according to its capacity and limitations, be invested with the power to unfold the knowledge of the most marvelous sciences, and will be empowered to manifest them in the course of time at the bidding of Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Knowing. Know thou of a certainty that the Revelation of every other Name is accompanied by a similar manifestation of Divine power. Every single letter proceeding out of the mouth of God is indeed a mother letter, and every word uttered by Him Who is the Well Spring of Divine Revelation is a mother word, and His Tablet a Mother Tablet. Well is it with them that apprehend this truth.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 141)

Again, He starts with the primacy of the union of the Will and the Word, power and knowledge.  These generate human arts (Fashioner) and sciences (Omniscient) which reflect Them. It is interesting to me that in this statement, in regards to knowledge itself, humans are not mentioned as necessary to its appearance.  God and His creation alone are mentioned, with humans of course being part of the creation.  Created things themselves are “invested with the power to unfold the knowledge of the most marvelous sciences”, and they, that is the created things, “will be empowered to manifest them in the course of time…”  The scientific knowledge to be unfolded is, in essence, the knowledge that God has of His creation. Divine knowledge, Baha’u’llah stated above, “embraceth all things both before and after they come into being” There is a double dose of power put into the universe.  First, once “The Omniscient” is mentioned, every created thing is invested with power to unfold marvelous sciences.  But being invested with power to do something is not the same as being able to do it.  Will is also necessary, along with an instrument to effect the purpose of the Will.  Hence, secondly, these same created things holding this knowledge “will be empowered to manifest” their knowledge in the course of time.  How?: through human arts and sciences.  And knowledge manifests “at the bidding of Him Who is the Almighty, the All-Knowing.” i.e. the Fashioner through uttering the Word.

We humans don’t “get” or “acquire” real knowledge through some sort of appropriation. It is not ours!  Rather, we discover knowledge (Scientia) when it manifests!!!  But to say that it can manifest is to say that it is already there awaiting the conditions of its manifestation.  We reflect this knowledge in our mind or heart.  How? We tune in to its vibration, attain to that state.  The Master states: “For example, knowledge, which is a state attained to by the intelligence, is an intellectual condition; and entering and coming out of the mind are imaginary conditions; but the mind is connected with the acquisition of knowledge, like images reflected in a mirror.”  (Some Answered Questions: 108)  We learn knowledge when we become open to its manifestation.   Not appropriation, but cooperation.  Baha’u’llah says: “Look at the world and ponder a while upon it. It unveileth the book of its own self before thine eyes and revealeth that which the Pen of thy Lord, the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein. It will acquaint thee with that which is within it and upon it and will give thee such clear explanations as to make thee independent of every eloquent expounder.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 141-142)
This tells me that, since "every atom in the universe" provides training in how to understand the creation,  we should listen to the voice with which every created thing is invested, and it will tell us of the sciences locked within it.  More in next post.