Recognition: The Unitary Form of Perception

Glorified art Thou, O Lord my God! I yield Thee thanks for having enabled me to recognize the Manifestation of Thyself…

(Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh: 110)

Bahá’u’lláh says of the rational faculty: “Consider the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man. Examine thine own self, and behold how thy motion and stillness, thy will and purpose, thy sight and hearing, thy sense of smell and power of speech, and whatever else is related to, or transcendeth, thy physical senses or spiritual perceptions, all proceed from, and owe their existence to, this same faculty.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 163)

The rational faculty is a manifestation of the power of the soul, perhaps the greatest manifestation of it.  It is a multi-dimensional field of perceptual possibility.  Both the inner faculties and outer senses manifest it.  It is  power of understanding where what is perceived and what perceives it are, in some manner, the same yet different, in a kind of resonant harmony.  Because the universe is enfolded within the soul, perhaps the rational faculty can share the same vibrational existence in space/time reality with everything in the universe.  It is a matter of “tuning in.”

The rational faculty transcends both the “physical senses” and the “spiritual perceptions”.  It is the ground of the human intelligence.  To connect with and understand the world of things and thoughts we are given the senses and reason.  For perception of spiritual realities, which vibrate at much higher frequencies than physical or even intellectual phenomena do, another power of the rational faculty is required, one that itself can operate vibrationally faster than intellect or sense, that is able to perceive whole patterns and gestalts, that uses analogy and figuration to convey what it perceives via direct perception, which I am calling recognition. 

This other and larger framework of intelligence necessary to perceive spiritual realities must incorporate the knowledge received from the senses and intellect.  This framework has at its center a chief organ or faculty of intelligence, which has its own locus.   That faculty would enable its possessor to, for example, “see with the eye of God.”  In The Seven Valleys, Bahá’u’lláh says about a soul in the Valley of Unity: “With the ear of God he heareth, with the eye of God he beholdeth the mysteries of divine creation.”  (The Seven Valleys: 17)  And, in the Kitab-i-Iqan, (The Book of Certitude) He asserts at the end of what is known as the Tablet of the True Seeker: “Gazing with the eye of God, he will perceive within every atom a door that leadeth him to the stations of absolute certitude. He will discover in all things the mysteries of divine Revelation and the evidences of an everlasting manifestation.” (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 196)  That the heart is that faculty which enables spiritual perception (i.e. see with the eye of God)  is, I believe, shown by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá when He wrote: “Verily, minds are limited, and the splendor of lights is so great as not to be comprehended by (man’s) reflective faculties. Ye ought to have the sight of the heart so that ye may apprehend the reality of the mysteries of God which are deposited behind coverings.” (Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v1, p. 165)

In another place He wrote to one who was blind: “Although, materially speaking, thou are destitute of physical sight, yet, praise be to God, spiritual insight is thy possession. Thy heart seeth and thy spirit heareth. Bodily sight is subject to a thousand maladies and ultimately and assuredly will be obscured. Thus no importance may be attached to it. But the sight of the heart is illumined, it discerns and discovers the Divine Kingdom and is everlasting and eternal. Praise be to God, therefore, that the sight of thy heart is illumined, and the hearing of thy thought responsive.” (Japan Will Turn Ablaze, p. 31)

The perceptual faculty of the heart lies at the very center of our being, which is, spiritually, the highest part of us.  The heart is the perfection of imperfect intellect, which is perfect in its own station. The intellect, in turn, was the perfection of the imperfect senses, which, too, are perfect in their own station.

Perceiving with the heart is via recognition (i.e. direct perception) not mental cognition.  Recognition is a kind of unmediated cognition. As direct perception, it is grounded in the understanding of a deep bond connecting all things; that all things are in all things.  It is a state and faculty of perception intrinsic to that highest state, one that transcends within a higher unity of intellect and heart the subject/object opposition.  But transcend does not mean dissolve, for every state of being and knowing is an eternal part of creation and knowledge. It means, rather, to keep that dialectical relation intact yet subordinate it to the unity perception.

Recognition is a form of perception that sees the deepest truth of things, not just form an idea of them, or perceive their manifest appearance.  Ideas and sensory appearances are, compared to direct perception or recognition, semblances of truth, only impressions and discoveries.  The world presents itself to us in sensory form, and we re-present (represent) it to ourselves in thought and imagination, for the mind perceives only the impression of the senses, not the object itself.  The world in itself is mere presentation, intellectual consciousness makes re-presentation in thought to a subject.  It is in this sense that, as quantum mechanics has discovered, one cannot separate the perceiver from the perception.

The unitary form of perception that I name recognition is the mind and heart functioning as one, as equals, as units of a unity. The heart and mind, both powers of the rational faculty, here form a great matrix of intelligence, but the heart leads in spiritual matters.  The perception of unity, not separation, sees more of the universe of spirit, mind and matter than either the mind or heart do alone.  In the natural human state mind and heart, thought and emotion, are thought to be separate, and often one is elevated above the other.  But they can manifestly recombine into one perceiving intelligence, formed and informed by knowledge and love in equal parts.

Lastly, because the universe is a unity of many levels, all things can be read as expressions of Truth they come forth from. But, recognition also understands that all things without are also and first within.

Recall that the universe is enfolded within every soul.  The universe is enfolded within us in the way described by the Bab: “Verily God hath created within thyself the similitude of all that He hath fashioned in creation, that thou mayest not be veiled from any effulgence.  Verily God hath generated within thy being the entirety of His manifestations.  He hath ordained that His home be the heart of His servant; by it the reality of existence shall be recognized, and the Fashioner of men be praised, and the bounty of existence pour forth through His ever-flowing Pen.” (Quoted in Saiedi Gate of the Heart: 43)

The Common Sense: Linking Mind and Body

An intermediary is needed to bring two extremes into relation with each other. Riches and poverty, plenty and need: without an intermediary power there could be no relation between these pairs of opposites.

(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Paris Talks: 58)

The mind and the body as different loci of intelligence are in such a relation of opposites in need of an intermediary to bring them into relation.

Reason was given to us to consciously investigate reality, especially through natural processes and structures, and we can symbolize these to gain some measure of understanding of spiritual things.  But reason and intelligence have many levels and stations different from the natural.  The highest, or deepest, depending upon whether one wants to emphasize sublimity or profundity, is the heart’s intelligence.  It is different from that of the mind or intellect.

I have briefly discussed this theme in two books, Renewing the Sacred and Terra in Cognita, presenting the difference in forms of knowing as essentially a switch from cognition to recognition.  Cognition perceives an object outside itself and attempts to cognize it, i.e. grasp and internalize it in thought, and to express that thought in language or pictures, i.e. art, in order to build a relation between the subject and the object.  This is the reasoning intellect at work.

But recognition is a form of understanding which starts with the essential relation of union, not separation, so that all knowledge is already present.  Knowing as recognition is a process of awakening our perceptual faculties to perceive what is already there within us, but from which we are veiled.  All knowledge is, then, a form of self-knowledge.  The knowledge of all things is, then, immanent to the human reality.  The whole (i.e. the human soul) is immanent in every part (anything in nature) because the universe is enfolded in every soul.  The linking together within the human reality of our powers of apprehension and understanding of phenomenal reality is accomplished by what is traditionally named the sensus communis (the common sense).  Again, it has different stages or stations of life.

In the usual view, common sense is a basic ability to perceive, understand, and judge phenomenal things, which is shared by ("common to") nearly all people, and can be reasonably expected of nearly all people without any need for debate. There are, naturally, differences of nuances and shades of meaning of the term.  But they all imply a notion of good sense.  If the human sensorium is the same everywhere, most people everywhere should see blue as blue.

A more social and more restricted meaning is used to describe the natural human sensitivity for other humans in one’s community, a kind of learned cultural expectation characteristic of a group that enables them to perceive more or less the same way intellectually, ethically and aesthetically. These are encoded into language.  It is the kind of thing that is “just common sense” to one group, which may not be to another.  Just like the everyday meaning, it, too, refers to a type of basic awareness and ability to judge which most people within the community are expected to share naturally, even if they cannot explain why because it has been internalized from childhood.

In a more philosophical sense, stemming from Aristotle, common sense is a real faculty inherent to the human reality, an inner capability of the animal soul which enables different individual senses to collectively perceive the characteristics of physical things such as movement and size, which all physical things have in different combinations, allowing people and other animals to distinguish and identify physical things. It is the faculty that translates one sense into another, and which, in people, also enables the person to perceive that he perceives.

This meaning of common sense is distinct from basic sensory perception and from human communal thinking, but cooperates with both. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá discusses this meaning, using traditional philosophical designations, in His discussion of the sensory and intellectual powers of human beings. He stated: “The intermediary between the five outward powers and the inward powers is the sense which they possess in common—that is to say, the sense which acts between the outer and inner powers, conveys to the inward powers whatever the outer powers discern. It is termed the common faculty, because it communicates between the outward and inward powers and thus is common to the outward and inward powers.

For instance, sight is one of the outer powers; it sees and perceives this flower, and conveys this perception to the inner power—the common faculty—which transmits this perception to the power of imagination, which in its turn conceives and forms this image and transmits it to the power of thought; the power of thought reflects and, having grasped the reality, conveys it to the power of comprehension; the comprehension, when it has comprehended it, delivers the image of the object perceived to the memory, and the memory keeps it in its repository.” (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions: 210-211)

But if the common faculty, the sensus communis, as described by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, is the “intermediary between the five outward powers and the inward powers”, “the sense they possess in common”, it is not so much a separate and distinct sense or faculty among other senses as the sense or faculty, what all other powers and faculties come forth from.  But while it is the sense they possess in common it is also, the Master states, “an inner power.”  It is what “makes sense” of the flux of thoughts and experiences that we call human life.

The common sense, being common to the inner and outer powers and acting as their intermediary, has its own place of manifestation and moves along certain nerve pathways, it seems. For example, the following statement is attributed to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “The powers of the sympathetic nerve are neither entirely physical nor entirely spiritual, but are between the two (systems). The nerve is connected with both. Its phenomena shall be perfect when its spiritual and physical relations are become normal.

When the material world and the divine world are well correlated, when the hearts become heavenly and the aspirations grow pure and divine, perfect connection shall take place. Then shall  this power produce a perfect manifestation. Physical and spiritual diseases will then receive absolute healing.” (Compilations, Baha'i Scriptures: 455)

This statement is in accord with the philosophy of acupuncture, whose meridians, practitioners believe, are both physical and spiritual, and with the Indian chakras.  Consider the following from Richard Gerber, M.D.: “The meridian system is not just a physical system of tubules transporting hormones and nucleotides to cell nuclei, but it is also a specialized type of electrolytic fluid system that conducts certain types of subtle energies (ch’i) from the external environment to deeper organ structures.” (Vibrational Medicine:126)  Also: “The chakras are somehow involved in taking in higher energies and transmuting them to utilizable form within the human structure.” (Vibrational Medicine: 128)

The common sense, the intermediary between the inner and outer powers of the human reality, must also be a power of the human soul, or rational faculty, being one of its inherent instruments.  But the rational faculty or human soul is itself an instrument of a still higher power and intelligence also within the human reality. 

‘Abdu’l-Bahá told one audience: “There are in the world of humanity three degrees; those of the body, the soul, and spirit.

The body is the physical or animal degree of man. From the bodily point of view man is a sharer of the animal kingdom. The bodies alike of men and animals are composed of elements held together by the law of attraction.

Like the animal, man possesses the faculties of the senses, is subject to heat, cold, hunger, thirst, etc.; unlike the animal, man has a rational soul, the human intelligence.

This intelligence of man is the intermediary between his body and his spirit.

When man allows the spirit, through his soul, to enlighten his understanding, then does he contain all Creation; because man, being the culmination of all that went before and thus superior to all previous evolutions, contains all the lower world within himself.  Illumined by the spirit through the instrumentality of the soul, man's radiant intelligence makes him the crowning-point of Creation.” (Paris Talks: 96-97)

Self-Knowledge(s)

He hath known God who hath known himself.

(Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitab-i-Iqan: 101)

Without proper knowledge of ourselves we lack any clear understanding of the Divine or even our own divinity, believing God to be, at worst, non-existent, and, at best, but humanity’s best image of itself.  Knowledge of the human reality and knowledge of God is the same thing, and forgetfulness of God is the same as forgetting our true self.  Baha’u’llah writes: “And be ye not like those who forget God, and whom He hath therefore caused to forget their own selves. In this connection, He Who is the eternal King…hath spoken: "He hath known God who hath known himself.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh:178)

We can know God and ourselves because, God has “infused into me Thy love and Thy knowledge.” (Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh: 177)  The discovery of God and Self, which is not the same thing as God as Self, is not an one time happening, but, rather, is simultaneously the psychological rediscovery and re-recognition of both at every stage of spiritual development.  It acknowledges both a fundamental truth and a state of being already present but unknown and unknowable until one arrives there, like birth into a world awaiting the baby’s arrival.  The knowledge is somehow present, latent, in the searching itself.  This seeming circularity has a way out, which we will get to.

Now, of course, this is not to say that the whole of God is within the soul, so that to know the soul fully is to know all there is to know about God.  But it is to assert that if we are to know the spiritual aspect of ourselves directly, we must achieve some conscious use of more God-like spiritual faculties.  Otherwise, the best that can be done is to infer something about them through the use of the senses or human reason.

Further, if the spiritual faculties are a higher means of knowing than intellect, another rung up the ladder of self-knowledge, then they become, when manifest, the criteria of true consciousness, not the mind and its intellectual self-consciousness.  Spiritual self-consciousness becomes something other than what we ordinarily mean by that phrase.

I mean that, intellectually, self-consciousness is to see oneself as an independent psychological entity separated from everything else, yet attempting to be related to them by knowing them objectively.  This psychological distance results, in large part, from being shut up in our own subjectivity and peering out at the world through whatever chinks one finds in the wall.  But it seems to me that a spiritual self-consciousness is what mystics and idealistic philosophers have said it is, a great union—which does not mean a complete identification—of this distinct personal essence with all things.  Many in the sciences don’t believe this is really possible, except in some diseased states; neither is it for them a good thing.

In some anthropological and psychological quarters, mostly in the last century, such a union was pejoratively called a participation mystique; a term denoting a “mystical” connection between subject and object.  It consists in the fact that “rational” observers—like anthropologists and psychologists—believe that a subject in such an experience cannot clearly distinguish himself from the object, but is bound to it by a direct relationship which amounts to partial identity.  He “loses himself” or is in some manner wholly absorbed by what should remain distinct and separate and “out there”.  This supposed loss of identity is explained as either a regression to infantile perception or a flight of wild fancy that is the result of temporarily losing one’s mind.  But this kind of definition says more about the limits of the field of understanding of the observer than it does about the truth of the state of mind being observed.  Such intellectualistic thought is locked into a dualistic world and cannot differentiate higher and lower states of mind from that. Rather it lumps them all into one heap labelled something like unconscious, preconscious, or madness, because it thinks that only the subject/object duality is actual consciousness or reason.  It cannot discern the difference between the reason of the mind and the unitary vision of the heart.

Now it is always true that consciousness is consciousness of difference.  It requires two “things”, either subject and object or subject and subject, a perceiver and a perceived. Consciousness presupposes a resonant connection between these, meaning there is a gap, a “space”, between them like that between the reality and its reflection reflected in a mirror.  But, psychologically, the gap is, of course, not spacial, but metaphorical—a word which means “to carry over”.  That is, there is a sameness of form and image between the reality and its reflection, whether the actual object and its mirror reflection, or between the object being perceived and its image in the mind of the perceiver, but always with a reverse polarity.  What is of the left in the object, is on the right in its mirror-image.  Even self-consciousness is an objectifying by reversing of some part of oneself to “see” it and interact with it.  In a sense, self-consciousness is always a result of seeing oneself as other than oneself.  ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said: “Things are known by their opposites.” (Promulgation of Universal Peace: 83)  But there are different relations of conscious interaction.  The highest that we know of so far takes place in the heart.

Bahá’u’lláh wrote of Revelation:” It is clear and evident, therefore, that the first bestowal of God is the Word, and its discoverer and recipient is the power of understanding. This Word is the foremost instructor in the school of existence and the revealer of Him Who is the Almighty.” (The Tabernacle of Unity:3)  The relationship presented here between the Word and the power of understanding is the same relationship as that between the cosmological active force and that which is its recipient, namely, these two are the same yet they are different. 

If we ask, “How does the power of understanding discover “the Word”?  the answer seems to be connected with the heart, since Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “That the heart is the throne, in which the Revelation of God the All-Merciful is centered, is attested by the holy utterances which We have formerly revealed.  Among them is this saying: "Earth and heaven cannot contain Me; what can alone contain Me is the heart of him that believeth in Me, and is faithful to My Cause." How often hath the human heart, which is the recipient of the light of God and the seat of the revelation of the All-Merciful, erred from Him Who is the Source of that light and the Well Spring of that revelation.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 186)

The heart discovers the Word within itself, because it is the “recipient of the light of God”.  That is, the heart perceives the light of God as Revelation, and this perceived light of God enables the self-discovery of the light already within the heart. For, as Bahá’u’lláh, speaking as the Voice of God, wrote of human creation: “within thee have I placed the essence of My light.” (Arabic Hidden Words #12)

From a developmental view, the power of understanding, i.e. “the rational faculty with which God hath endowed the essence of man”…and which…”should be regarded as a sign of the revelation of Him Who is the sovereign Lord of all.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 163) has many grades and stations.  While intellect and thought is the essence of the human reality, the heart’s receptive capabilities to Spirit and Revelation make us divine in a special sense.  'Abdu'l-Bahá said: “The power of the intellect is one of God's greatest gifts to men, it is the power that makes him a higher creature than the animal….As for the spiritual perfections they are man's birthright and belong to him alone of all creation. Man is, in reality, a spiritual being, and only when he lives in the spirit is he truly happy.” (Paris Talks: 68)

The heart and mind, both powers of the rational faculty, form a matrix of intelligence.  The union with God and the supposed obliteration of identity feared by the intellect in this connection does not annihilate consciousness, but elevates it.  It is not a union with God, but a reunion with God that preserves personal identity.  Once the intellect awakens spiritually it is never lost.  But it makes the identity gained by intellect subordinate to the greater connection achieved by the heart—i.e. the identity is redefined in relation with God rather than defining that relation.  The heart has a higher relation: that of love and connection with its Creator and the discovery of the divine self within.  For being the “recipient of the light of God” and “the seat of His revelation” the heart’s knowledge of the self and God is of a different nature than that apprehended by the intellect