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.