Maturity: The Great Divide

The first Taraz and the first effulgence which hath dawned from the horizon of the Mother Book is that man should know his own self and recognize that which leadeth unto loftiness or lowliness, glory or abasement, wealth or poverty. Having attained the stage of fulfillment and reached his maturity, man standeth in need of wealth, and such wealth as he acquireth through crafts or professions is commendable and praiseworthy in the estimation of men of wisdom, and especially in the eyes of servants who dedicate themselves to the education of the world and to the edification of its peoples.

(Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh Revealed After the Kitab-i-Aqdas: 34)

Should we ask: what does all this discussion of human nature in the last posts have to do with prosperity?, the answer lies in the above statement.

The key phrase of the quote for me is “having attained the stage of fulfillment and reached his maturity, man standeth in need of wealth.”  Why after maturity is wealth needed?  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá answers: “Provided they behave moderately, the more people advance in the material realm, the more their capacity for spirituality is augmented.  The sounder the body, the greater the resplendency and manifestation of the spirit.” (Mahmud’s Diary:122)  Again, the inner spiritual quality needs some material and social support to be properly manifest and to augment its power.  This support, like the body is to the spirit, is not a passive receptacle of energies, but the means of extending the influence of the inner quality, of giving it force and power to transform, and to call forth ever greater pulsations of those inner powers from the inexhaustible Source.  It is the condition of light reflected in the mirror, of “light upon light.”  But at maturity one kind of growth is left off so another may really commence.  That is, developing the bodily support is finished at physical maturity, so that manifesting inherent spiritual power can take precedence.

            At maturity there should occur a great but almost indefinable transformation in one’s purpose.  There should be a turn of life from self-centered to self-sacrificing, and a change from seeing wealth as the means to enrich “me first” to a means for the development and security of “you-before-me”.  Good parents know this.  This change itself is perhaps the true definition of the state of maturity.  It is no less true for individuals possessing wealth, than it is for the whole class of the wealthy, and great are the heavenly rewards for those who achieve this kind of maturity.  Baha’u’llah admonished: "They who are possessed of riches, however, must have the utmost regard for the poor, for great is the honor destined by God for those poor who are steadfast in patience. By My life! There is no honor, except what God may please to bestow, that can compare to this honor. Great is the blessedness awaiting the poor that endure patiently and conceal their sufferings, and well is it with the rich who bestow their riches on the needy and prefer them before themselves." (Gleanings:202)

How we use our material wealth is one indicator of how spiritually mature we really are.  If we wish to decide our actions from our lower or ego nature, our activities we will be given over almost exclusively to pursuing privilege, money, personal influence or other means of private gain and advantage.  Many never outgrow these pursuits.  It can even be said that materialistic civilization in general is stuck at this level.  Though there is nothing inherently wrong with most ego desires at their proper level of development, the danger is that there can be no end to them, and so one never gets to the business of spiritual growth and never really matures.  Ego desires cannot harmonize the conflicts raging in the human soul, but only increase them, for they come out of the multiple identities of the lower self squabbling among themselves.  On the ego level, too, one will encounter others with their own self-interested goals and these might counteract, overcome, or neutralize your own.  In other words, they might get there first, leaving you alone in a “me-first” world with nothing but shattered dreams and empty hopes, and thoughts of revenge or despair.  It is at those times that ‘Abdu’l-Baha's gentle warning can have effect: “It is indeed a good and praiseworthy thing to progress materially, but in so doing, let us not neglect the more important spiritual progress, and close our eyes to the Divine light shining in our midst.” (Paris Talks:63)

Maturity in a spiritual sense is neither reaching one’s full physical stature, nor achieving intellectual brilliance.  It is a hard-won experiential understanding and expression of our spiritual nature.  Maturity is, for many, the great divide of human consciousness.  It is when the spiritual essence is supposed to come forth and be expressed in noble moral deeds.  It is when narrow self-interest turns to wide selfless interest.  Maturity is that state when one knows not only who one is but what he or she should be doing and how to accomplish it.  Further, in relation to wealth, at maturity one knows that real wealth is whatever one contributes to the common good, whether in the form of philanthropy, opportunity, knowledge, experience, service or a shoulder to cry on.  “For, it is by contributing to the common good that an individual acquires true spiritual maturity.” (Valuing Spirituality in Development: 13)

The spiritual influence of the materially wealthy can be immense, for he or she can do far more good with his or her wealth than those not so blessed.  The altruistic person can, through philanthropic and charitable acts, found schools and hospitals, aid in the relief of the poor and needy, or finance small businesses.   Baha’u’llah wrote: “Charity is pleasing and praiseworthy in the sight of God and is regarded as a prince among goodly deeds….Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself. Verily, such a man is reckoned, by virtue of the Will of God, the All-Knowing, the All-Wise, with the people of Baha who dwell in the Crimson Ark.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:71)

Enough has been said of human nature in the last posts.  While there is much, much more to know of this topic, we will understand more of human nature as we answer the other questions we need to focus upon.  For these questions can not be fully answered independently of each other.  I mean that we can no more really know ourselves independently of knowing our purpose, or even prior to knowing something of how to act towards others, than we can know our purpose and decide our actions independently of knowing who or what we really are.  Nevertheless, there is a certain priority.  That is, we are something before we can do anything, and we can act more effectively if we know who we are.  Knowing this, then what we should do and why is better determined.  The careful reader will not have missed the only half-submerged views about purpose and action that appeared in the just completed discussion about human nature.  Next post will start a discussion of human purpose, the second question that the House of justice said that people desperately needed to know. 

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