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.
No comments:
Post a Comment