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)
No comments:
Post a Comment