They are the Future of Humanity

Wednesday, July 4, 2018

An Educational Model of Spiritual Education; Knowledge, Faculty, Dimension


Through spiritual education He (Baha’u’llah) led the people out of darkness and ignorance into the clear light of truth, illuminated their hearts with the splendor of knowledge, laid a true and universal basis for religious teachings, cultivated the virtues of humanity, conferred spiritual susceptibilities, awakened inner perceptions and changed the dishonor of prejudiced souls to the highest degree of honor and capacity.
(Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 341)

To become aware of, build, and disseminate the science of the love of God, which I call the foundational science of a swiftly emerging category of knowledge named by ‘Abdu’l-Baha, spiritual or divine science, a theory of knowledge that is inclusive of the spiritual, and a new model of education, are needed.
I say emerging category of knowledge, because spiritual sciences must already exist in order for them to emerge into the human world and consciousness.  Where do they exist?  Baha’u’llah wrote: “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) clearly indicating that these new sciences, arts, knowledge, and all the rest, for which His Revelation provides the key are already in existence, treasured up in the storehouses of God’s knowledge, and that they can be unlocked.  In a similar manner He spoke of Socrates: “He had a profound knowledge of such sciences as were current amongst men as well as of those which were veiled from their minds.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 146) Here again He indicates that knowledge itself is part of any state of being, but “knowable” knowledge is a state of understanding and awareness.  “Knowledge”, He stated, “is all that is knowable…” (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 185)  What is knowable at any time is, I believe, circumscribed by human assumptions about its limits, assumptions which Socrates did not share with the people of his time.  With spiritual knowledge those limits are pushed back to infinity.  Thus humanity must have a new model of education.
By education I mean the bringing forth of potentiality into actuality, which is the actual meaning of the word.  All education is the bringing forth of some innate human ability through learning a knowledge structure: verbal ability through a language structure; mathematical ability through understanding the structure of rules and principles governing the manipulation of quantity.  In short, education happens when there is forged a unity of faculty and dimension through a knowledge structure.  Spiritual education is no different.  But spiritual education does not primarily bring forth our intellectual gifts of mind, but, rather, those spiritual ones connected with the heart and these turn the mind toward spiritual reality.
The Holy Books state that there are two natures to the human being, the eternal and the organic, spiritual and material, divine and human, and three contexts of reality, physical, intellectual, and spiritual.  Education to date has mostly focused upon bringing forth the physical and intellectual potentials of the human reality.  But the human reality has innate gifts and powers that puts it in touch with all three major dimensions of reality.  Today, I believe, the eternal, spiritual, divine aspect is emerging as the leading aspect of the human reality.  Thus, knowing the science of the love of God, and spiritual science in general, is needed.  It is accomplished through awakening those faculties in the soul that connect with the pre-existing spiritual dimension through a model or knowledge structure of that spiritual dimension. That knowledge structure is composed principally of spiritual principles.  These are enshrined in Revelation. The spiritual dimension is composed of the qualities of God whose reflections, so to speak, are both diffused throughout creation and within the human reality and connect it with the reality of His Manifestation.  That is, these qualities are emanations or signs of God and as Baha’u’llah says: “We will surely show them Our signs in the world and within themselves.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 177)
Down through human history, progressive Revelation is the unfolding Primal Will of God.  It is an unfolding propelled by the Manifestations of God in a logically connected, expanding tradition of Messages transforming spiritual essence into material manifestation, eternity into historicity, spiritual principle into human action.  Each of these revealed Messages has spiritually, intellectually, and socially transformed some fraction of humanity, through Its principles of life, thought, and behavior that awaken and train various faculties of the human being through models of, for example, justice, morality, loving compassion, knowledge and worship.  Hence we understand something of the material, social and intellectual transformations of humanity, and individual spiritual transformation is well-documented under names like religious or mystical experience and the changes that flow from that.  The next great domain to understand is humankind’s collective spiritual and social transformation.  The phenomenon of spiritual transformation is never a single process or event, because the spiritual dimension is, as pointed out, not a monochromatic landscape, but, like the natural, intellectual, and social worlds, is an infinitely rich and varied interaction of distinct powers and processes called the qualities and attributes of God.  It has dimensions within it, fields of force and changes of relations between these dimensions and forces that bring forth by their new configurations in Revelations new spiritual entities that are given intellectual form by the Revelators, and these intellectual forms over time find their material expression.  Human knowledge of this chain of causation in philosophy, science, and art is an analogy of the divine creation and the supreme educational model of Revelation.
I mean that through progressively unfolding spiritual principles, Revelation unveils to human awareness and intelligence an ever-widening Divine vision and pattern of the dimensions of different virtues named above (i.e. love, justice, morality, intellect and volition, and others) creating an environment of new possibility for human experience.  Our innate faculties of the heart and mind, also named love, justice, morality, intellect, faith and vision, are the inner instruments and powers of an overarching human rational faculty, whose first purpose is the discovery of the revealed Word and the resulting recognition of God, as the senses are its outer functions.  These all connect with their corresponding dimensions through the universal and essential knowledge structure provided by the Revelators. That knowledge structure, which is, again, expanding spiritual principles, or human values, when authentically encountered, then awakens and gives life to what the House of Justice calls “that which is immanent in human nature”, (The Promise of World Peace: 3) educing the higher nature of the human reality—i.e. bringing it forth into action.  This is individual spiritual transformation.
It becomes collective when these new beings unfold their knowledge and experience into the world, providing shared human intellectual models, named science and art, which reveal the new creation they have discovered, in imitation of the creative divine one. Too, modeling the principles in behavior does the same thing, as mirror neurons kick in and provide a behavioral and emotional blueprint of the act within the mind of the observer.  That is, for spiritual education spiritual principles and moral behavior stimulate the bringing forth of spiritual being, i.e. bringing forth the higher nature from oneself is a bringing forth into the world to transform it.
Today, every member of the human family is called to this endeavor, in concert with new institutions of society within the Bahá’i Community that are designed to assist and guide this global advance into an ever-advancing civilization.  This is called the establishment of a new World Order. Yet, in truth, it is really the ages-old drive to erect the eternal Kingdom of God on earth, that “kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (King James Bible, The Book of Matthew 25:34)
  

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