A Mine Rich in Gems

            

Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.

            Last post I shared a few thoughts on some possible meanings and implications of Baha’u’llah’s statement that the human reality is a supreme talisman with the universe enfolded within it, but that an improper education deprives the individual of “that which he doth inherently possess.”  One implication is that we exit such an “education” less than we were when we entered, regardless of whether we have landed a good job, are learned in all the branches of science, or are in a position of social influence.  In his book, The End of Education, Neil Postman puts the point this way: “All children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.”   I believe that without true self-knowledge we are not fully human, for we alone of all creatures have the capacity for self-knowledge.  Such knowledge includes perceiving oneself as a spiritual talisman.  Another metaphor Bahá’u’lláh uses for the human reality is that of a “mine rich in gems of inestimable value.”  Here He puts the relationship between human nature and education in a positive way.  That is, education can alone cause it to reveal its treasures and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.  I will freely and gladly acknowledge that in many places education does an adequate job of bringing forth our physical and mental treasures and that mankind benefits from these.  But...

            Let us take a step backward in order to leap forward.

            Among those inner gems of inherent powers and faculties which an improper education deprives us of mining, and so mankind cannot benefit therefrom, is the faculty of accurately recognizing divinity.  I wrote about this faculty in a previous post, calling it the Spiritual Intelligence.  That divinity exists in some form is not in question.  For example, psychologist and self-styled “Jewish atheist” Jonathan Haidt, writes in The Happiness Hypothesis: “My claim is that the human mind perceives a third dimension, a specifically moral dimension that I will call ‘divinity’….  In choosing the label ‘divinity’, I am not assuming that God exists and is there to be perceived.  Rather my research on the moral emotions has lead me to conclude that the human mind simply does perceive divinity and sacredness, whether or not God exists.”

            Without proper knowledge of ourselves we lack any clear understanding of the Divine or even our own divinity, believing God to be, at worst, non-existent, and, at best, but humanity’s best image of itself.  Knowledge of the human reality and knowledge of God is the same thing, and forgetfulness of God is the same as forgetting our true self.  Baha’u’llah writes: “And be ye not like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget their own selves. In this connection, He Who is the eternal King…hath spoken: "He hath known God who hath known himself.”  To say that knowledge is the same is not also to say that beings are the same.  For example, we can know a lot about someone by looking at their photograph, by reading their letters, by talking to their friends, even to him.  In this way you build up a picture of him as a being.  But all your information and insight about him are not the whole reality of the person, even though all you heard, saw, and read was true.  So, his true being and his "being in your mind" share some truth, but his true being is far vaster than what you know of him.

            To say that divinity exists as a dimension of human experience, but that a Divine Being does not need to exist to perfectly embody that dimension, is, for me, half of a complete thought.  In this context, education is an improper education not because it fails to perceive a dimension of divinity, for even atheists will freely witness that, but because it balks, for lack of a certain kind of evidence, at moving to the logical conclusion of the objective existence of the Divine.  To say divinity exists whether God exists or not is like saying that the painting exists whether the painter does or not.  We can see the illogic in that.  In truth, the painting is proof of the existence of a painter.  But without proper training of our inner faculties half-truths are taken to be the whole truth.  This failure of thought has been spiritually catastrophic.  Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “It was intended that at the time of the manifestation of the One true God the faculty of recognizing Him would have been developed and matured and would have reached its culmination. However, it is now clearly demonstrated that…this faculty hath remained undeveloped and hath, indeed, degenerated.”  

            A proper education will teach students to bring forth (i.e. educe) the wealth of rubies, sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds of the earth.  But it will enable mankind to benefit therefrom because proper education will also bring forth humanity's true wealth, the inner gems, such as love, knowledge, justice and unity, deposited within the “ideal mine” of the human reality.  If we do both, we will no longer be deprived of what we inherently possess, but will bring those inherent riches forth so that mankind may benefit therefrom.  The effort of balancing in dynamic equilibrium the outer and inner aspects of human life is joyful education.  How do we mine those inner gems?  That subject will be the content of the next few posts.