Dynamics of Prayer

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

Intentionality by faith claims, along with other spiritual traditions and forms of Intentionality, that we are co-creators of our reality.  Jesus said to a man “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” (The Gospel According to Mark 2:23-24)  In the Dhammapada we read where the Buddha is reported to have said: “We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts.  With our thoughts we make the world.”  Baha’u’llah points out: “All that which ye potentially possess can, however, be manifested only as a result of your own volition. Your own acts testify to this truth.” (Gleanings: 149)  But, again the difference between intentionality by reason and imagination and intentionality by faith, lies mostly in an emphasis upon who is doing what.  

Reason and imagination state that humans are the intenders, cooperating with the universe, the unconscious, or some nebulous Universal Mind, in the sense of giving it work to do, namely, to realize a clearly visualized desire.  Intentionality by faith, however, lays the emphasis upon the work of divine power.  We ask the divine to confirm or realize our desire. What is the difference, one might ask?  It seems the same process, cooperation with greater powers.  But here is the difference that makes the difference.

If we conceive and name the greater power the unconscious, or Universal Mind, or simply the universe, we are actually "cooperating" with a product of our own thought and imagination, not with a power completely independent of us.  In this case, we are the creators, and we put our faith in something that we created, or do not really know in itself, but name it.  This is, for me, the wrong way around; for whatever we may say about it, we have "unconsciously" put ourselves in the place of God, but a god who can not realize his own desire.  It is contradictory--at least to me.  Because we are powerful beings--remember the universe is folded within each of us--many intentions can be realized this way.  But Intentionality by faith, as I think of it, has a definite and independent Power in mind to put one's intention.  It is not a power that we conceive and name, but a power that conceives us!

The Universal Mind for Baha’is is the Mind of the Manifestation of God.  Baha’u’llah wrote: “If the wayfarer's goal be the dwelling of the Praiseworthy One (Mahmud), this is the station of primal reason which is known as the Prophet and the Most Great Pillar.  Here reason signifieth the divine, universal mind, whose sovereignty enlighteneth all created things—nor doth it refer to every feeble brain.” (The Four Valleys:52)  ‘Abdu’l-Baha explains: “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….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: 218)

The power of real faith was stated by Jesus: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” (The Gospel According to Matthew 17:19-20)  But it is not us that is moving the mountain, but our faith that God may do it.  On the relation between faith and human reason, George Townshend wrote: “'Abdu'l-Bahá once said that Reason was the throne of faith; in another place he likened Reason to a great mirror looking into the heavens but reflecting no image because it was in darkness. Faith, he said, was like sunlight which enabled the mirror to see and to reflect all the heavenly truths that lie before it. These symbols express exactly the Christian and the Bahá'í view of Reason and Faith, but not the view of traditional orthodoxy which is a purely human concept.” (Christ and Baha'u'llah: 53)

            There is no doubt that, regardless of which form of Intentionality that we prefer or use, we are far more powerful than many believe that we are.  I believe that our greatest power comes from cooperation, using reason, imagination, and faith, with the divine intent.  If we are in harmony with the Will of God as expressed in His Revelation, we can be assured of untold power coming to our assistance.  How powerful can we become?  The promise of Baha’u’llah on the increased creative power that accrues to any individual engaged in spiritual transformation has been the leading quote for most of the posts on Intentionality.  O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be. (The Four Valleys: 63)

            That is a powerful promise, and its realization is via the key word “obey.”  This does not mean a blind and slavish conformity to whatever is in scripture or to what self-appointed interpreters of such scripture say that It says.  It means, I think, to obey—a word meaning “to hear facing forward”—His way of looking at and relating to the world and the Divine.  No better primer of intentionality by faith, of how cooperating with divine intention works, can be found than Shoghi Effendi’s The Dynamics of Prayer.  His instructions on how to solve problems and meet challenges were recorded in Ruth Moffatt’s pilgrim’s notes:

First Step. - Pray and meditate about it. Use the prayers of the Manifestations as they have the greatest power. Then remain in the silence of contemplation for a few minutes.

Second Step. - Arrive at a decision and hold this. This decision is usually born during the contemplation. It may seem almost impossible of accomplishment but if it seems to be as answer to a prayer or a way of solving the problem, then immediately take the next step.

Third Step. - Have determination to carry the decision through.  Many fail here. The decision, budding into determination, is blighted and instead becomes a wish or a vague longing. When determination is born, immediately take the next step.  

Fourth Step. - Have faith and confidence that the power will flow through you, the right way will appear, the door will open, the right thought, the right message, the right principle or the right book will be given you. Have confidence, and the right thing will come to your need. Then, as you rise from prayer, take at once the fifth step.

Fifth Step. - Then, he said, lastly, ACT; Act as though it had all been answered. Then act with tireless, ceaseless energy. And as you act, you, yourself, will become a magnet, which will attract more power to your being, until you become an unobstructed channel for the Divine power to flow through you. Many pray but do not remain for the last half of the first step. Some who meditate arrive at a decision, but fail to hold it. Few have the determination to carry the decision through, still fewer have the confidence that the right thing will come to their need. But how many remember to act as though it had all been answered? How true are those words -"Greater than the prayer is the spirit in which it is uttered" and greater than the way it is uttered is the spirit in which it is carried out. (Principles of Baha’i Administration: A Compilation: 90-91)

            Next post will sum up this long exploration of Intentionality.

The Need of Neediness

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

To understand what is meant by the need of neediness we need to navigate through the Scylla and Charybdis of two seemingly contradictory statements: “I created thee rich, why hast thou brought thyself down to poverty” (Arabic Hidden Words #11, 13), and “All are but poor and needy.” (Bahá’í Prayers: 99)  How can immensely rich souls be, nonetheless, poor and needy? 

All Intentionality works through choice—i.e. we intend something.  It assumes taking one direction over another at that moment.  It presupposes a goal.  In terms of life-choices and moral direction, the choice is between materiality and spirituality.  This choice is often made on the basis of where we believe we can find wealth and security, without or within. 

Spiritually, we are created rich in potentials; a talisman with a whole universe of riches enfolded within.  When Baha’u’llah says that human souls are poor and needy, He does not refer to any inherent lack of spiritual riches, but that we are poor and in need of spiritual knowledge and understanding to bring these forth. A diamond buried in the earth is only potential wealth.  It must be mined, cut and polished for that potential to be made actual.  To provide humanity with that knowledge and the drive to acquire it is why the Manifestations come.  The soul is a mine rich in gems: rich, that is, in all save God.  This is the need of neediness. 

We are a supreme talisman that can attract all things in creation.  We can do this because, as the Bab wrote: “Verily hath God created within thyself the similitude of all that He hath fashioned in creation, that thou mayest not be veiled from any effulgence.”  (Gate of the Heart: 43) This is the basis, I believe, behind the proponents of Intentionality saying that whatever we wish to have manifest can be so.  They also warn, do not wish FOR anything, because that is a condition of emptiness and separation, and this will actually negate the Intention.  If you already possess it, why do you believe that you don’t?  We must be the thing we desire.  If we want it to rain, we do not pray for rain, but pray rain.  To pray for something is to acknowledge that one does not already have it.  But if the universe is folded within thee, then everything in creation is already part of you.  It is a matter of manifesting it.  The Universe, or the Universal Mind, or the unconscious is supposed to carry out the commands of the Intention. (We’ll look at these terms in the next post)  The intender believes that this will happen.  Saint Augustine wrote: “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.”

We are a talisman that attracts God only when we are empty, even temporarily, of attachment to that first condition.  When we are detached from all save God we may say: “I testify at this moment to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.” 

Though “the universe is folded within thee”, we are in need of the divine Spirit.  Remember Jesus statement in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (King James Bible, Matthew 5:3)  Spiritual transformation starts when we become aware that we are created poor only in God.  Perhaps this is the valley of True Poverty and Absolute Nothingness.  But through this realization we are transformed into the rich, for we inherit all things!  In this light, ‘Abdu’l-Baha remarks: “Do all ye can to become wholly weary of self, and bind yourselves to that Countenance of Splendours; and once ye have reached such heights of servitude, ye will find, gathered within your shadow, all created things.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 76)

Baha’u’llah stated this paradoxical relation in The Hidden Words; “Yet to be poor in all save God is a wondrous gift, belittle not the value thereof, for in the end it will make thee rich in God, and thus thou shalt know the meaning of the utterance, "In truth ye are the poor," and the holy words, "God is the all-possessing," shall even as the true morn break forth gloriously resplendent upon the horizon of the lover's heart, and abide secure on the throne of wealth.” (The Persian Hidden Words #51) 

Too, though we are a supreme talisman we are that only as the likeness of the true Supreme Talisman.  To be spiritually magnetized so that the inner virtues lying in potentia may be activated, the soul must enter the charged field of the Word of God “inasmuch as these holy verses are the most potent elixir, the greatest and mightiest talisman,” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 200) and enter into relation with one of God’s Messengers, for the Prophet of God “is in truth the Supreme Talisman and is endowed with supernatural powers.” (Selections from the Writings of the Bab:45)  

Thus 'Abdu'l-Baha issues this quiet instruction: “These virtues do not appear from the reality of man except through the power of God and the divine teachings, for they need supernatural power for their manifestation. It may be that in the world of nature a trace of these perfections may appear, but they are unstable and ephemeral; they are like the rays of the sun upon the wall.” (Some Answered Questions, p. 79-80)

I said that we should not wish for anything, because that is a condition of emptiness and separation from the world, and this will actually negate the Intention.  We must, rather, be the thing we desire.  Now what could that mean?  Well, actually, we have all experienced that condition. It is the condition of children.  Thus, to work, Intentionality must also have a strong element of play.  We often miss this part, because we live in a culture obsessed with wringing an external result from everything we do.  But Intentionality is not simply about pulling the rabbit of realization out of the hat of desire.  A fixation on making everything productive and rational cuts us off from the world of the spontaneous that is home to other knowledge.  In fact, regardless of such seemingly positively reinforcing statements that speak to holding and focusing intention, such as “being intent upon something”, “fixing one’s purpose”, and “one must be persistent”, we should also manifest what psychologists call “flow.”  When Intentionality becomes over-conscious and over-serious it becomes WORK.  Intentionality is the creative process, and play is its foundation.

Play is not external or extrinsic. It's not about the end but the experience. It is highly imaginative and thus obeys the imagination’s creative principle, namely, “Let this be.”  Healing prayers, it has been suggested, work best when the one praying asks the “universe” to allow a sick person to heal.  The prayer that anxiously demands healing, that tries to force the “universe” to obey one’s prayer is childish, not child-like, and is likely to get some pushback from that beneficent universe.  We want to cooperate, not command.  What we don't realize, though, is that it's precisely its intrinsic aspect that allows play to tap a more meaningful place that satisfies core needs and reveals the authentic person.  Play is often who we really are.  

Intention by Faith

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

Intentionality by faith is cooperating with divine intention and purpose.  In the Taoist teachings we find statements like: “He who conforms to the course of the Tao, following the natural process of Heaven and earth, finds it easy to manage the world.” (from Huai Nan Tzu an early Taoist philosopher).  From the Hindu tradition: “The chariot of the gods is yoked for the world of heaven, the chariot of man for wherever his intention is fixed; the fire is the chariot of the gods.” (The Hindu Vedas, Yajar Veda—Kanda V)

            The same kinds of statements are found in the scriptures of the religions of the western world.  However, here there is a definite reliance on and cooperation with greater than human power, a calling upon It for assistance.  That is, the western religious philosophy of creative intention cooperates with what reason, which works with whatever creative possibilities are left to this realm of being, would call the unknowable to accomplish the seeming impossible.  Intentionality through faith works more in the realm of divine not human possibility.  Belief in higher spiritual powers enters more into the picture, because to its Revealers all things are possible with God.  There is less doubt and more faith.

For example, as far back as the Book of Job we can see this principle at work: “Thou shalt make thy prayer unto him, and he shall hear thee, and thou shalt pay thy vows.  Thou shalt also decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways.” (The Book of Job 22:27-28)

           In the New Testament, the creative power of faith by connection with the Divine is more explicitly stated.  Jesus said: “All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall receive them” (The Book of Mark 11:24)  And: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” (The Book of Matthew 17:19-20)  And: “And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.” (The Gospel According to Luke 17:5-6)

         In this same light, an Islamic tradition (Hadith) states: “Allah’s Apostle said, ‘The reward of deeds depends upon the intention and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended.” 

Thus both traditions speak of the power of cooperative intention, provided that the intention is pure (which, for me, does not mean without ethical blemish, but unadulterated by a mix of intentions, or for some secret purpose), and one believes that it will come to pass if one holds it and arranges one’s life to receive it.  The eastern tradition emphasizes the human element in the cooperation.  The western tradition more explicitly points out the divine side.

‘Abdu’l-Baha made this promise which brings the two traditions together: “I say unto you that any one who will rise up in the Cause of God at this time shall be filled with the spirit of God, and that He will send His hosts from heaven to help you, and that nothing shall be impossible to you if you have faith…As ye have faith so shall your powers and blessings be. This is the standard; this is the standard; this is the standard.” (Baha’i Scriptures: 503)  In the same vein Christ said to two blind men who came to Him for healing: “According to your faith be it unto you.” (The Book of Matthew 9:29)

True faith is never blind belief in things that authority says, or to accept something without investigation.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá defines faith as, “first, conscious knowledge, and second, the practice of good deeds.” (Baha’i World Faith: 383)  Faith is one of humanity’s most powerful ways of obtaining knowledge.  As I argue in my book, Renewing the Sacred, seeing the world in faith is to construct an epistemology of spiritual discovery.  Intentionality described as the exercise of human imaginative power uses the power of visualization, a metaphor of vision.  Intentionality by faith uses the metaphor of hearing, because the full divine intention can never be visualized. It is too complex, perhaps infinitely so.  But we can “hear” its effects, so to speak.  Just because things are not seen or visualizable, does not mean they are not knowable, that they don’t present themselves via their effects, as the breeze does the approaching storm.  The whole Judeo-Christian religious tradition, founded on what Matthew Arnold called the Hebraic consciousness, is based on faith as a certain kind of hearing.  One knows by faith that something invisible exists.  This knowing induces the search for a vision of it, or, more appropriately, that the thing known by faith will reveal itself so it may be seen by vision.  But it is a grave mistake to confuse one’s blindness to something with the nonexistence of that thing.

So, Saint Paul calls faith “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (The Book of Hebrews 11:1)   He also says that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (The Book of Romans 10:17)  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá echoes St. Paul when He says that “the voice of God hath made thine ears to hear.” (Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. V.1:132)  If faith comes by hearing, the person of faith is first a receptive listener.  We often think of mental activity as the production of ideas and images, but this is true in its active phase.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us: “Bahá’u’lláh says there is a sign (from God) in every phenomenon: the sign of the intellect is contemplation and the sign of contemplation is silence, because it is impossible for a man to do two things at the same time–he cannot both speak and meditate.” (Paris Talks: 174)  Bahá’u’lláh reinforces this when He says: “Know thou that the ear of man hath been created that it may hearken unto the Divine Voice on this Day that hath been mentioned in all the Books, Scriptures, and Tablets.” (Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 2)

But we don’t hear that Voice and thus have little or no faith.  We don’t hear the Voice because: “The accumulations of vain fancy have obstructed men’s ears and stopped them from hearing the Voice of God.” (The Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh: 240-241)  The “proper education” that gives faith is grounded in hearing the Word of God.  But how do we know that what we hear is the voice of God and not some subjective prompting?

Ponder the following extraordinary statements from Bahá’u’lláh: “A servant is drawn unto Me in prayer until I answer him, and when I have answered him, I become the ear wherewith he heareth.” (The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys: 22)  And: “Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith.  Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith, that in thine inmost soul thou mayest testify unto My exalted sanctity, and I within Myself may bear witness unto an exalted station for thee.” (The Hidden Words: 44 Arabic)

Thus God enables us to hear and understand His Word, for He is “standing within us” in some manner as the very agent of perception, addressing Himself, as it were: the Divine addressing the divinity that is our higher self.  Strange as this may sound, it helps in understanding this point if we remember that: “he hath known God who hath known himself.”

Most discussion of Intentionality advise do not think negative thoughts or feel that one is empty or in need, because that is what the universe, or the unconscious, or Universal Mind will give back to you, these “powers” being more reflectors than guides.  But Intentionality by faith requires the intender to feel needy, or, rather both full and needy at the same time.  We will explore that next.

INTENTIONALITY VII: Intention by Imagination

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

I have said that there are two main kinds or methods of intentionality, by reason and by faith.  Till now I have mostly concentrated upon intentionality by reason, collectively through science and art, and individually via the use of the powers of human invention.  Individual intentionality may, perhaps, be considered a kind of third sort of intentionality, one between reason and faith.  There is a strong element of imagination or the power of visualization in the individual kind of intentionality, a creative process closely akin to what I have called formal causality.  Formal causality is a direct mode of creation by imprint of character.  The greatest wielders of this power are the Manifestations Who say, “Be and it is”.  Other causes are the interplay of efficient causes as mediate modes, one of which is human persistent intention.  This is the power to change captured in the phrase, “Be and it shall be."

All intentionality is to effect some change that is the realization or manifestation of desire.  This is possible because indeterminism is inherent in systems at all levels of complexity.  Nonetheless, it is also true to say that as one moves from the purely spiritual toward the physical, which is the realm of being, indeterminacy crystallizes into greater determinacy, so there is less possibility of change because things are already completely formed.  Intentionality works at the levels or interstices of indeterminacy, i.e unmanifested possibility.  So before we swing over to the other pole and look more deeply at intentionality by faith, let us examine this power of visualization.    

            Revelation, according to the Bahá’í Teachings, is the supreme creative power in the cosmos.  It holds within it all possibilities of creation.  Revelation is also progressive.  Hence it not only continually creates new phenomena, but also unveils new laws for this.  That means, if revelation is progressive, and not fixed, and if it effects even the natural world, (Baha’u’llah, for example, wrote: “The breeze of the bounty of the King of creation hath caused even the physical earth to be changed, were ye to ponder in your hearts the mysteries of divine Revelation.” Kitab-i-Iqan: 47), then the laws of nature are, too, not eternally fixed.  They may be evolving along with Nature.

Some scientists are coming to this same conclusion.  Such study comes under the heading “evolutionary cosmology”—the universe itself as an emergent reality.  Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, for example, writes: “…in the context of evolutionary cosmology, the Spirit underlies the onward flow of energy and the expansive impulse of the universe; the Word is in the patterns of activity and meaning expressed through fields….Thus the energy and fields of the evolutionary cosmos have a common source, a unity.  And not just a unity but a conscious unity.” (Rupert Sheldrake, The Rebirth of Nature: 198)  That phrase “not just a unity but a conscious unity” is a pretty good description of Revelation.

Many who have studied and practiced intentionality say that the best way to obtain what one wants is through reflection, visualization and fixity of purpose within a tranquil but highly energized and focused state of mind.  This particular strand of intentionality usually has strong ties with eastern thought.  There is no better summary of the steps of this process from the human side than this passage from The Great Learning of Confucian thought: “The way of the Great Learning consists in the clarification of originally clear perceptions, in the love of mankind, and in resting in the highest excellence.  If one understands this resting, then only does one have fixity of purpose.  If one has fixity of purpose, then only can one succeed in being tranquil.  If one is tranquil, then only can one succeed in finding peace.  If one has peace, then only is one able to reflect.  Only after reflection can one succeed in obtaining what one wishes.” (Richard Wilhelm, Confucius and Confucianism. 162.)

Also in eastern thought we get the idea of there being One Mind creating and coordinating the universe through universal relationships and laws.  Hence in Buddhist thought we can read: “All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but One Mind, besides which nothing exists.  This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible…for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces, and comparisons.  Only awake to the One Mind.” (Zen master Huang Po, quoted in The Tao of Physics)  Human beings can tap into the creative power of this One Mind, and so the Buddha is reported to have said: ‘We are what we think.  All that we are arises with our thoughts.  With our thoughts we make the world.” (Dhammapada)

Much of the modern literature on Intentionality through visualization also uses the idea of Universal Mind, a thought also returning to mainstream science.  For example, Deepak Chopra writes: “The universal Mind choreographs everything that is happening in billions of galaxies with elegant precision and unfaltering intelligence.  Its intelligence is ultimate and supreme, and it permeastes every fiber of existence; from the smallest to the largest, from the atom to the cosmos.  Everything that is alive is an expression of this intelligence.” (The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: 105)

The other line of development of this tradition of thought also goes back to ancient wisdom, usually to foundations in the Hermetic tradition, which is the foundation of all the alchemical traditions over the world.  The Hermetic tradition emphasizes the interaction between the One Mind and the One Thing, universal thought and primal matter.  Often in modern Intentionality there is a confluence of the two streams of thought, as researchers and others look to find support for their powerful intuitions.  Of course, the two most prominent and popular examples of this fusion are What the Bleep do we Know? and The Secret.  In this light we can also read, for example: Charles Haanel, The Master Key System; Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing; Robert Collier, The Secret of the Ages; James Allen, As a Man Thinketh; Gregg Braden, Secrets of Lost Mode of Prayer; Wallace Wattles, The Science of Success; Lynne McTaggart, The Field and The Intention Experiment; Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich.  Others team up with quantum physicists or at least use their ideas and experiments.

These writers say that by cooperating with “the universe” or the universal Mind one can realize intention, for the primal matter still has infinite possibilities of manifestation.  Too, they often will conflate the unconscious mind of the individual with the universal mind, or at least say that the human unconscious has access to, or is in some way connected with, this Universal Mind.  One cooperates by visualizing a desired outcome and then giving the universal Mind, or one’s own unconscious, this image to bring about in the manifest world. 

Their message is that thoughts are causes, material effects are outcomes.  You can change effects by changing causes.  Robert Collier, for example, says: “The keynote of successful visualization is this: See things as you would have them be instead of as they are.” (The Secret of the Ages: 87)   Wallace Wattles, one of the founders of this movement, stated: “Man can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the things he thinks about to be created.” (The Science of Success: 30)  And Napoleon Hill: “From the great storehouse of the ether, the human mind is constantly attracting vibrations that harmonize with that which dominates the mind.” (Think and Grow Rich: 51)

The quotes themselves could fill several posts, but I think the idea is clear.  Humans possess powerful creative energies that can influence, through directed thought and imagination (i.e. Intentionality) the material world, especially if people use or cooperate with the unconscious mind, the universe, or the Universal Mind.  But there exists, I believe, and even more powerful means of Intentionality.  That is the subject of the next post. 

Intentionality VI: How Much Can We Create?

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

           Intentionality is the power to advance toward some conscious goal or object.  I have said that we can advance either through the power of reason, or through the power of faith, but when these powers work together they reinforce each other.  To make a simple, somewhat arbitrary and inaccurate, comparison, we reason with known things, but we use faith with the unknown.  As Saint Paul put it: “Now, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (The Book of Hebrews 11:1)  When we reason, as in science, art and craftsmanship, we use primarily human power.  But when we move into intention by faith we need divine power.

Intentionality of any kind is bringing something to an intended state, which is the state of realization.  It is guiding the process of transforming potentiality into actuality.  It starts with a formal cause, or image finding material form.  But the potential to reach the final form or manifest goal must be there.  So material cause is a given.  The steps needed to reach intention must be possible, so there is efficient cause.  Finally, purpose must play its part; i.e. one must intend for a reason.  Thus, there is also final cause.

For me, in order for humans to best actualize intentionality, which is a likeness to the intentionality of the Manifestations, individuals need the Prophets and Their Words, for these Words are the divine vibrations of consciousness that organize the creation.  All created things are “intended” from the Creative Word of God, the divine intent.  Of the power of His own Revelation to realize its “intent” Baha’u’llah claims: “All that hath been sent down hath and will come to pass, word for word, upon earth.” (Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 150)  We cannot do as well, of course.  Nonetheless, we intend in the same way.  But while “He doeth as He willeth”, we do the best we can.  Our intention is contingent upon His confirmation.  By identifying Revelation as divine intent that is infused throughout the creation, and knowing that we are made in His image, after His likeness in all respects, we properly place human creative power in that middle slot between believing that we are but poor, helpless, dependent creatures, and believing that intentionality makes us completely independent and god-like.  In the middle ground, we are powerful yet humble. Human intentionality is like divine power, but our intentionality only imitates the Divine and should connect to It.

Some recent philosophers of intentionality recognize the pervasiveness of some universal organizing Will.  Dr. Wayne Dyer, author of the popular book The Power of Intention, calls intention “a force that exists in the universe as an invisible field of energy.” (The Power of Intention:4)  It is a universal field “because everything in the universe has intention built into it.” (Ibid. 6)   A team of neuroscientists remarks: “After centuries of inquiry, philosophers have come to suggest that true reality possesses an unmistakable quality….phenomenologists describe it as intentionality.”  (Newberg et al. Why God Won’t Go Away)

Revelation is the divine intentional power that brings or calls all things into being, a master field of thought that surrounds all living things and which is composed of potentialities that human intention can build into material and intellectual forms.  We live and move in this field.  How does our thought cooperate with the divine power?

There are many approaches, using similar techniques, to do this.  But central to every approach is the idea that intentionality as the process of creating or reconfiguring reality, starts with a mental image of the reality one intends to achieve.  This image creates a prototype that physical potential can conform to.  Think of a computer analogy: intentionality is being able through the use of directed thought to write a certain program to actualize some of the potentials of the universe---much like word processing software carries out pre-programmed command functions so that words appear on the screen.

True enough, but just any old thought will not do.  “We know the frequencies of thoughts are neither consistent nor constant; they exist, cease to exist, and exist again, in a continuous on-and-off pattern.” (Valerie Hunt, Infinite Mind :142)  The average thought lasts at most a few seconds before it ceases to exist, or is replaced by a new thought in that on-going internal chatter we call everyday consciousness.  One must hold a thought for it to have effect.  A few seconds is hardly time enough for an image to be imprinted upon the flux of moving matter, let alone long enough for that image to be received and the universe decide to respond to it.  Physicist William Tiller says: “It is terribly important to sustain the thought and the intention if you want to make a transformation occur…when one wants to focus intent, you want to be a singleness of mind.”  He further states: "a persistent and consistent intention, maintained with patient but focused power, usually achieves correlated events in our 4-D frame of experience." (Tiller, Science and Human Transformation:90)

‘Abdu’l-Baha concurs: “So long as the thoughts of an individual are scattered he will achieve no results, but if his thinking be concentrated on a single point wonderful will be the fruits thereof.  One cannot obtain the full force of the sunlight when it is cast on a flat mirror, but once the sun shineth upon a concave mirror, or on a lens that is convex, all its heat will be concentrated on a single point, and that one point will burn the hottest. Thus is it necessary to focus one’s thinking on a single point so that it will become an effective force.”(Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha:110)

The power of the mental image to materialize depends in large measure upon the vitality of the original image itself and the willingness to hold that image in mind for a period long enough for it have effect.  This may be more difficult than it sounds.  Holding a thought is difficult itself.  But one must also overcome one’s own internal and the world’s external resistance to change.  Thought attracts its physical equivalent, acting as a kind of gravitational power.  But because of the principal of resonance, intention attracts other thoughts and feelings that will work to either reinforce or to sabotage one’s efforts; that is to say, thought will attract energies both positive and malignant to it.  Hence in regards to the realization of intent, the intentional thought attracts help at the same time that it attracts obstacles to its own realization.  Hence perseverance—what Tiller called “patient but focused power”—is essential to the realization of intention.

Thus moderation is necessary.  We cannot by force of will hold a thought, but we can be persistent in returning to it.  Too, intentionality is not deadly serious.  In fact, regardless of statements such as “being intent upon something”, and “fixing one’s purpose”, there should also be the element of “play”: what psychologists call “flow.”  If intentionality becomes over-conscious and over-serious then it becomes WORK.  Intentionality is the creative process, and play is the foundation of creativity.  We often miss this part, because we live in a culture obsessed with wringing an external result from everything we do.  Play is not external or extrinsic. It's not about the end, but the experience. It is highly imaginative and thus obeys the imagination’s creative principle, namely, “Let this be.”  Healing prayers, it has been suggested, work best when the prayer simply asks the “universe” to allow a sick person to heal.  The prayer that demands healing is actually a kind of anxiety attack.  To force the “universe” to obey one’s prayer is childish, not child-like, and is likely to get some pushback from that universe.

          

Intentionality V

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

            We continue making our way toward a possible understanding of the Baha’u’llah’s statement above.  I have been examining the relations between the physical and intellectual realms, in an attempt to elucidate how much human intention can create within this context.  Last post talked about seeing the universe as either primarily a physical mechanism or an intellectual idea.  Neither view needs God or what I called the Supreme Thinker as a Creator.  But to connect human intentionality with the prophetic utterance is to hearken back to the medieval understanding of intentionality as discovering structure to the universe: that visible structure being a reflection of deeper hidden structure.    

Thus the third way to view creation is as the product of divine thought, or mind force, that surrounds and pervades everything.  In this context we understand 'Abdu’l-Baha’s statement on healing: “All that we see around us is the work of mind.  It is mind in the herb and the mineral that acts on the human body and changes its condition.” (Abdu'l-Baha in London: 95)  It is also from this perspective that statements like the following make sense: “Human belief that a plant might grow faster was apparently acting as a nutrient to actually produced faster growth.  Thought was a food!” (Peter Thompkins and Christopher Bird, The Secret Life of Plants 359)       

            The three views come from the three components that is the structure of two things in relation.  The third view grasps the whole situation from the point of view of the relation itself.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha says the relation between the physical and intellectual forms of things is like that between the sun and its image in the mirror.  The medium between sun and mirror is the real connection between these discrete levels of reality.  A similar kind of relation binds the material place of manifestation with its immaterial power.  He says: …if you examine the human body, you will not find a special spot or locality for the spirit, for it has never had a place; it is immaterial. It has a connection with the body like that of the sun with this mirror. The sun is not within the mirror, but it has a connection with the mirror.”  He goes further: “The mind which is in man, the existence of which is recognized—where is it in him? If you examine the body with the eye, the ear or the other senses, you will not find it; nevertheless, it exists. Therefore, the mind has no place, but it is connected with the brain. The Kingdom is also like this. In the same way love has no place, but it is connected with the heart; so the Kingdom has no place, but is connected with man.” (Some Answered Questions: 242)

          Objects become more transparent as their relations become more apparent. Bringing relations to awareness and percept reveals the previously hidden causes which are the environment of creation.  Environment is the hidden unity, the secret synthesis.  For the environment as process is an active agent, not a passive container within which activity takes place.

            This relation between the mental form and the physical form of something, between mind and matter, gives a double-formed nature to every created thing.  This mirror-imaging is what physicists call symmetry.  F. David Peat, in his book Synchronicity, says: “Matter, in this sense, would be a reflection or the representation of these fundamental patterns; or rather, symmetry and material structure form two sides of a deeper order.” Peat goes on to suggest that: “…these processes are themselves based on even deeper orders whose origin is a particularly subtle movement that is neither matter nor mind.  The fundamental symmetries and their structures have their origin in something that is close to a pure intelligence which springs from an unknown creative source.” (Synchronicity:196)  This more subtle order of pure intelligence postulated by Peat would be, from my point of view, divine Revelation, that creative Source we call the Word of God.  (It is worth noting that Peat’s book is subtitled The Bridge between Mind and Matter which is what others have called Intentionality.  Synchronicity is a term he borrowed from Jung: synchronicity being the name Jung gave to what he saw as an acausal connecting principle manifesting meaningful coincidences.  But for Jung all causality was efficient causality, not the formal causality we have discussed.  Hence the only way for him to explain those events for which we do not understand the cause, but which cluster together in meaningful ways, was designate them acausal. They were caused, of course, not efficiently but formally. However, there is meaning and volition (i.e. intention) involved if we postulate a higher will.  

            From a Baha’i point of view, the Manifestations and other holy souls have complete command of both the physical and the intellectual dimensions of reality.   Every Manifestation recreates this subtle intellectual level of creation with His Words, making new thought forms which become new sciences and arts and other rational forms.  Other holy souls understand this new creation and the fertilizing effect of the Word gradually brings other minds into an understanding of it.

         Every Revelation recreates both the physical universe and the intellectual one, the relation of these two being one of symmetry or direct connection as the sun in the mirror.  This evolving twofold aspect of mental and physical existence of the creation manifests in increasingly complex form and relations the pre-existent formal “glorious structure” of “these two are the same yet they are different” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah:140) i.e. the relation that is an intellectual reality reflected in a physical mirror, making a unity or symmetry of forms but not an identity of essence. 

            This last is an important point, for it means that the universe is not an undivided continuum of degrees of consciousness, but a series of discrete levels in connection—i.e. kingdoms.  One of the most significant of these divisions is that between Nature and Humanity.  In the Tablet of Wisdom Baha’u’llah praises Socrates for the: “penetrating vision into philosophy this eminent man had!  He it is who perceived a unique, a tempered, and a pervasive nature in things, bearing the closest likeness to the human spirit, and he discovered this nature to be distinct from the substance of things in their refined form.” (Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 152)  

The concept of "likeness" is one we are familiar with, though we discussed it under the word symmetry before.  Likeness is the theological equivalent to the scientific symmetry, but it highlights the essential aspect of discreteness yet connection.  Likeness is how the kingdoms are connected.  The Bible states “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” An image is the outer form of something; that is, a form that “embodies” a greater reality in a smaller number of “dimensions.”  For example, a photograph is a likeness of a person, but it is two-dimensional, not three.

The outer form of God is His attributes and the Manifestation is a perfect likeness to God, being the perfect embodiment of God’s attributes, but not His Essence.  Human beings are made not after God, but after the likeness of God, which is the Manifestation of God, since all the qualities of God are within every human reality, but not perfectly.  The animal world, in turn, is made in the likeness of the human spirit. ‘Abdu’l-Baha states all three relations in the following quote: “God has created man after His own image and likeness. He has endowed him with a mighty power which is capable of discovering the mysteries of phenomena...This is the foundation of the world of humanity; this is the image and likeness of God; this is the reality of man; otherwise, he is an animal. Verily, God has created the animal in the image and likeness of man, for though man outwardly is human, yet in nature he possesses animal tendencies.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 262)

Intentionality IV

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

(Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

Let us turn our attention to the question: How much can human intentionality create?  For me, that depends upon what one means by intentionality.  While much of the most recent Intentionality literature concerns itself with what can be almost magically manifested through personal thought in one’s daily life, we should not overlook the obvious.  Intentionality, the manifesting of thought, is not really new and unknown till now, if we remember the well-known collective expressions of human thought, namely, Science and Art.  

For me there are two modes of Intentionality.  The first mode is through Reason.  Intentionality occurs here through science, art and the application of our regular human faculties. These are perhaps the best known examples of human intentionality, and there is no denying that they change the physical realm and manifest human thought and desire.  But their breakthroughs and advances are made through unified thinking working together on some problem or challenge.

But there is also Intentionality through faith.  This kind of Intentionality is what most current discussions of Intentionality mean. Those of us reared in our secular, rational culture have lost the idea that faith is the other great means of obtaining knowledge, so we think it is new and almost magical. This post will discuss the first form of human intention.

Science and art are, according to the Bahá’í teachings, connected to and dependent upon divine Thought.  Baha’u’llah writes: “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, p. 96)  And: “Such arts and material means as are now manifest have been achieved by virtue of His knowledge and wisdom which have been revealed in Epistles and Tablets through His Most Exalted Pen—a Pen out of whose treasury pearls of wisdom and utterance and the arts and crafts of the world are brought to light.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah:39) 

This treasury of new knowledge brought forth from the spiritual realm into the human one by Revelation is then brought forth (educed) into manifest form by a certain use of the power of thought possessed by human beings.  Baha’u’llah writes: “The source of crafts, sciences and arts is the power of reflection. Make ye every effort that out of this ideal mine there may gleam forth such pearls of wisdom and utterance as will promote the well-being and harmony of all the kindreds of the earth.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 72)  And ‘Abdu’l-Baha explains: “This faculty (of meditation) brings forth from the invisible plane the sciences and arts. Through the meditative faculty inventions are made possible, colossal undertakings are carried out; through it governments can run smoothly.” (Paris Talks: 174) 

The objects of this world are the outer pictures of the inner spiritual world.(Promulgation of Universal Peace: 10)  As I see it, the inmost spiritual realities get reflected in the inner mirror of human consciousness and from consciousness are brought into this world where they can be manifested in physical form.  One might say that, the mind in meditation gradually tunes in to the complementary vibration, resonates with this vibration until the commensurate spiritual "object" appears, and this image is reflected in consciousness so that inspiration occurs.  But all is in potentia already in consciousness.

‘Abdu’l-Baha writes: “Thou didst write as to the question of spiritual discoveries. The spirit of man is a circumambient power that encompasseth the realities of all things. Whatsoever thou dost see about thee—wondrous products of human workmanship, inventions, discoveries and like evidences—each one of these was once a secret hidden away in the realm of the unknown. The human spirit laid that secret bare, and drew it forth from the unseen into the visible world. There is, for example, the power of steam, and photography and the phonograph, and wireless telegraphy, and advances in mathematics: each and every one of these was once a mystery, a closely guarded secret, yet the human spirit unravelled these secrets and brought them out of the invisible into the light of day. Thus is it clear that the human spirit is an all-encompassing power that exerteth its dominion over the inner essences of all created things, uncovering the well kept mysteries of the phenomenal world.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 169-170)

Now back to Intentionality, the manifesting of intellectual realities in physical reality.  Intellectual realities are “spiritual” in that they occupy no place or space and are non-local—they lack form, volume and position as material entities, though they possess intellectual form.  They explain natural and human phenomena because they can penetrate to interior relationships.  Immanuel Kant reasoned that ideas were concepts of reason which transcend all experience and which complete the concrete as a totality.  But physicists are careful to say that subatomic particles and waves really only “exist” as mathematical symbols (i.e. intellectual forms) of natural processes.  The mathematical symbols and the logic of these symbols are metaphors for something which cannot be perceived by the senses, but whose effects are known to happen in the physical world.  Everything advanced physics is learning about Nature is in accord with the idea that the fundamental processes of Nature lie outside space-time, but generate events that can be located within space-time.  Mathematics explains and comprehends these insofar as they are mathematical.  It does not comprehend them in themselves, for this would require their true spiritual reality to be understood and Baha’u’llah has said that “no mind nor heart, however keen or pure, can ever grasp the nature of the most insignificant of His creatures…” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah:62) 

            Depending upon one’s view, one can say either, that there are two categories of created things, physical and intellectual, or that there are two forms for every created thing, a physical form and a spiritual or intellectual form, dual aspects of one reality, with the physical form being the seat, or locus of spiritual power in the physical world.  “Each power is localized. Reason has its seat in the brain, sight in the eye, hearing in the ears, speech in the tongue. The force of gravity is localized in the center of the earth. Everything on the surface of the earth is attracted toward the center. Our light is localized in the sun.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Divine Philosophy: 96)

           In the language of modern sub-atomic physics, we can think of a “thing’s” physical form, localized in space/time, as, metaphorically speaking, its “particle” form.  Its spiritual form is an intellectual reality: that is, nonlocal and occupying no physical space, being everywhere at once, existing in a field of active information.  This form is, metaphorically, its wave form.  In this perspective, the human body is the physical seat of power for the human soul, while the mental power is the rays of influence emanating from that locality—i.e. the body—but originating from the soul’s rational faculty.  One could also call the wave form of a thing the vibration of its name or attribute of God, because: “Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one of His names, and made it a recipient of the glory of one of His attributes.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 65)  And this inner reality is a vibrational template of information for its manifestation in the world, for all the attributes and names of God are within the world and in human soul—the universe is enfolded within each of us.

           More on human reason's intentionality in next post.

Intentionality III: Divine Thought and Intellectual Realities

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

We have read where some people are coming to the conclusion that the universe is really a gigantic thought-form.  If that is so, there must be a Supreme Thinker.  But further, if the universe is a thought, then everything in it is suffused with this thought, is built by it and sustained by it.  For me the Supreme Being is the Thinker Who creates by His own intention which is communicated by the Revealed Word.  It is to this that we must turn first, before we examine how human beings best use their own intentionality to create.

‘Abdu’l-Baha writes: “Praise and thanksgiving be unto Providence that out of all the realities in existence He has chosen the reality of man and has honored it with intellect and wisdom, the two most luminous lights in either world. Through the agency of this great endowment, He has in every epoch cast on the mirror of creation new and wonderful configurations. If we look objectively upon the world of being, it will become apparent that from age to age, the temple of existence has continually been embellished with a fresh grace, and distinguished with an ever-varying splendor, deriving from wisdom and the power of thought.

This supreme emblem of God stands first in the order of creation and first in rank, taking precedence over all created things. Witness to it is the Holy Tradition, "Before all else, God created the mind." From the dawn of creation, it was made to be revealed in the temple of man.” (The Secret of Divine Civilization:1)

This mind that ‘Abdu’l-Baha refers to as created before all else is the universal mind of the Manifestation of God.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha explains the relations between His mind and other minds: “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. 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)

The universal, divine mind of the Manifestation of God casts “on the mirror of creation new and wonderful configurations” making both sensible and intellectual realities.  Sensible realities are objects perceptible by the physical senses.  Intellectual realities are the forms of thought for the sensible realities, a mental dimension of intellectual objects which science discovers and art reveals.  The material and mental levels of reality are connected, with physical objects being a kind of concretion or materialization of the various interactions of the laws and principles governing mental forms of energy.  Using the sun as an example, ‘Abdu’l-Baha gives an example of this point of view: “The sun is born from substance and form, which can be compared to father and mother, and it is absolute perfection; but the darkness has neither substance nor form, neither father nor mother, and it is absolute imperfection.” (Some Answered Questions:89)

Plato would call such thought forms the archetype or Ideal Form of a sensible reality.  This is called philosophical idealism, for it takes thoughts to be real things.  Philosophical realism takes physical things to be the only reality, with thoughts a reflection of these.  John Locke would be an example of this school.  But, of course, both mental and physical reality are necessary for spiritual reality to be manifest in this world.  In a more general sense, the Master states: “The spiritual world is like unto the phenomenal world. They are the exact counterpart of each other. Whatever objects appear in this world of existence are the outer pictures of the world of heaven.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 10)

That there is a mental foundation to the physical universe is part of the Baha’i Teachings. This subtle mental level of the physical universe is what many ancient philosophers called, and an increasing number of modern researchers are calling, the ether.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha says: “Even ethereal matter, the forces of which are said in physics to be heat, light, electricity and magnetism, is an intellectual reality, and is not sensible. In the same way, nature, also, in its essence is an intellectual reality, and is not sensible.” (Some Answered Questions:83) In another place, he stated: “For example, ethereal matter is not sensible, though it has an undoubted existence. The power of attraction is not sensible, though it certainly exists. From what do we affirm these existences? From their signs. Thus this light is the vibration of that ethereal matter, and from this vibration we infer the existence of ether.” (Some Answered Questions:189)

Given that “the reality of man is his thought”, then, using the terminology of quantum mechanics, every thought of each person is a participation in the interrelations of the universe of realities.  There are, then, no observers, strictly speaking, only participating interactions.  Here is the origin of the realization of human intentionality.  But this power of creation is especially true for God’s expressed thought, which is revelation.  Baha’u’llah states that His Revelation is “all-encompassing”; its “virtues have pervaded the whole of creation. Such is their virtue that not a single atom in the entire universe can be found which doth not declare the evidences of His might, which doth not glorify His holy Name, or is not expressive of the effulgent light of His unity.” (Gleanings: 62) In another place He asserts that “the revelations of My grace and bounty have permeated every atom of the universe.” (Gleanings: 325)

And, given that the universe is an emergent reality, and that revelation is progressive, then all is evolving—i.e. new configurations are cast on the mirror of creation with every revelation.  This means, too, that every atom in the universe is evolving in its capacity to express revealed reality.  The Master again: “Therefore, each atom of the innumerable elemental atoms, during its ceaseless motion through the kingdoms of existence as a constituent of organic composition, not only becomes imbued with the powers and virtues of the kingdoms it traverses but also reflects the attributes and qualities of the forms and organisms of those kingdoms. As each of these forms has its individual and particular virtue, therefore, each elemental atom of the universe has the opportunity of expressing an infinite variety of those individual virtues. No atom is bereft or deprived of this opportunity or right of expression….It is evident, then, that each elemental atom of the universe is possessed of a capacity to express all the virtues of the universe. This is a subtle and abstract realization.” (Promulgation of Universal Peace: 286)

With a strong foundation in place we are finally able to turn to human intention and see how much can be created.

Intentionality II

O My Servant! Obey Me and I shall make thee like unto Myself. I say 'Be,' and it is, and thou shalt say 'Be,' and it shall be.

            (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 63)

I am attempting in these early posts on Intentionality to lay a groundwork for perceiving Intentionality as a power of consciousness.  That is no secret, after all what else could it be?  But Intentionality has, in the modern day, only been discussed as a human power.  For me, the intentions of human beings are part of a field of possibility opened up by each Revelation. Baha’u’llah writes that: “In every age and cycle He hath, through the splendorous light shed by the Manifestations of His wondrous Essence, recreated all things, so that whatsoever reflecteth in the heavens and on the earth the signs of His glory may not be deprived of the outpourings of His mercy, nor despair of the showers of His favors. How all-encompassing are the wonders of His boundless grace! Behold how they have pervaded the whole of creation.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 61-62)

The concept of intentionality was central to the philosophy of the Middle Ages.  Medieval philosophers, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, took the concept from their studies of Islamic philosophy.  In the medieval view, intentionality was a way of discovering structure in the universe.  That is, it was a powerful way to understand both human and physical nature. 

However, after the general acceptance of Descartes complete split between body and mind and a materialistic understanding of the self and the universe was consolidated, the concept of intentionality fell out of use, replaced by a mechanical explanation of all phenomena.  Intentionality was reintroduced by Franz Brentano in the last half of the nineteenth century.  The concept was further advanced by both Sigmund Freud and the phenomenologists Edmund Husserl, and has grown to be accepted as part of human endowment. 

Quantum mechanics helps explain the effect of human intentions on the natural world.   Intention is what creates the full reality of a physical state or condition, an ordering of energy into specific attributes, a moving from becoming to being.  Last post said that in the philosophy that has grown up from quantum mechanics sub-atomic matter takes form from the intention of the observer/participator.  This is another example of human subject completing the processes of nature.  Perhaps it is the fact that “the universe is enfolded within thee” that enables us to do this.  The universe is enfolded within us in the way described by the Bab: “Verily hath God created within thyself the similitude of all that He hath fashioned in creation, that thou mayest not be veiled from any effulgence.”  (Understanding the Writings of the Bab: 43)

This also links up with our discussion of the four causes (formal, final, material and efficient) that go into the creation of anything.  I see Nature as operating on purely material and efficient causality, a two-part structure/stricture of creativity, whereas human creativity is a four-part structure and process that includes the formal and final causes.  Formal and final provide the origin and the purpose, ontos and telos, of the thing, the envisioned intention and the imagined purpose.  The structural impact of any interplay of the human observer and Nature is completed in and by the subjectivity of the human observer, who gives it form and purpose. 

The mind as the unconscious processes of creation is as the processes of nature.  Mind completes nature.  “On another occasion 'Abdu'l-Bahá said with regard to the same subject, "All that we see around us is the work of mind. It is mind in the herb and in the mineral that acts on the human body, and changes its condition." (Abdu'l-Baha in London:95)

Consciousness, then, is a general power that not only holds the universe together, but also is an emergent power that manifests in some new form when a certain level of organization is needed among interacting parts.  Taken as a whole, creation progresses upward from mineral through human, every higher level of organization of life is also a different and more complex form of consciousness.  With every greater complexity new meanings are knowable and new possibilities for thought and behaviour become manifest.  In the evolution of life, all this drives toward what de Chardin called “the noosphere,” (Pierre Teihard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man) the integrated fabric of mental process that envelops all life, and which is, according to de Chardin, the highest level of consciousness now appearing on earth.

Currently, writers such as psychoanalyst Rollo May and the philosopher John Searle, view intentionality as the process of creating one’s reality through directed consciousness and action. (Rollo May, Love and Will and John Searle, Intentionality: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind)  It is the examination of will and volition and its power to realize desire. That is, manifesting what already exists as possibility to be manifested.  But I find May’s discussion a bit deeper.

            Both May and Searle would say that intentionality is the means by which the subjective state of the individual and the objective state of the world interact and co-evolve in their relationship. Each act of intentionality tends toward something and has within it, no matter how latent, some commitment to meaningful action. According to May, however, intentionality is not mere voluntary or purposive action.  It is not just the succession of conscious intents: I choose to do this or that. Intentionality, rather, refers to a state of being, the creating of meaningful experience, and involves the person's whole orientation to the world.  “By intentionality,” writes May, “I mean the structure which gives meaning to experience.  It is not to be identified with intentions, but is a dimension which underlies them; it is man’s capacity to have intentions.” (Love and Will: 223-224)

            There are far-reaching implications in this discussion.  It makes intentionality the pivotal mental property in the transformation of the conditions within which human action takes place. Intentionality is the dimension linking mind and matter, fitting the mind to the world in a cause and effect relationship.  We are the creators of our universe in the sense that we create a particular set of relationships that organizes our perceptions in a certain way, so that the world reflects what we put into it.

            However, our discussion of intentionality does not end there.  Humanity and nature are in a co-evolutionary process.  But humanity is the more important partner in the relationship, for though nature may have consciousness, only humanity has self-consciousness and the rational intellect.  “Possessing this gift,” ‘Abdu’l-Baha states, “the human reality is the sum of earlier creations....Man alone, among created beings, has this wonderful power.” (Paris Talks: 41)

          Though unified, (i.e. nature and humanity in a state of coherence with humanity completing nature) this unity of nature and humanity is incomplete, because it is evolving, and in need of a higher order to make it complete.  Humanity completes nature, but can not complete itself.  There is a third party to the relationship that unites and completes them.  We’ll find out more about that completing power and how it does its work in the next posts.