The Science of the Love of God

In this century of the latter times Bahá'u'lláh has appeared and so resuscitated spirits that they have manifested powers more than human. Thousands of His followers have given their lives; and while under the sword, shedding their blood, they have proclaimed, "Ya Baha'u'l-Abha!" Such resuscitation is impossible except through a heavenly potency, a supernatural power, the divine power of the Holy Spirit. Through a natural and mere human power this is impossible. Therefore, the question arises: How is this resuscitation to be accomplished?

There are certain means for its accomplishment by which mankind is regenerated and quickened with a new birth. This is the second birth mentioned in the heavenly Books. Its accomplishment is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The resuscitation or rebirth of the spirit of man is through the science of the love of God. It is through the efficacy of the water of life. This life and quickening is the regeneration of the phenomenal world.

(Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 277)

There has been an increase of research into non material phenomena, such as auras, Extrasensory Perceptions (ESP), and other immaterial entities, along with a revival of traditional mostly eastern knowledges of human energy such as chakras and acupuncture meridians.  All are increasingly a subject of scientific inquiry.  The brain and the heart put off the largest amounts of electrical impulses, so they are normally the focus of the studies.

Still, such inquiries and studies are often either ignored or met harshly with derisive criticism by a majority of mainstream scientists. But the concept of “spiritual sciences” is part of the Bahá’i Writings.  In the above quote ‘Abdu’l-Baha discusses the need for both material and spiritual sciences, without naming a spiritual sience or determining what a spiritual science may look like.  That will be the job of those engaged in science to determine.  Quantum mechanics certainly seems like a prototype, at least, of what spiritual sciences could look like; what they could explain and predict, and what new concepts are required to grasp and apply them.  I believe that developing spiritual sciences is largely about bringing forth, as a new level of human consciousness, the intelligence of the heart.

There is one spiritual science named in the Bahá’i Writings.  It is, perhaps, the master spiritual science and its effect on the whole world will be to transform it, to renovate the conditions of existence, to resuscitate the phenomenal world.  It is named, by both Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha, “the science of the love of God.”

Baha’u’llah speaks of it and its psychological benefits in the second valley of the Four Valleys: “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; for it is as the wise Sana'i hath written:

How can feeble reason encompass the Qur'án,

Or the spider snare a phoenix in his web?

Wouldst thou that the mind should not entrap thee?

Teach it the science of the love of God!” (Baha'u'llah, The Four Valleys: 52)

‘Abdu’l-Baha spoke of it in the extract quoted to open this post.  He said: “The resuscitation or rebirth of the spirit of man is through the science of the love of God.”  It is perhaps to that same science that the following statement attributed to Him refers: “The glorious maturity of this world depends upon the realization of two things: the establishment of Universal Peace, and the discovery, or appearance of that hidden science which shall renovate all the conditions of existence.” (I Heard Him Say: Words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as recorded by his Secretary Mirza Ahmad Sohrab: 38) 

Apropos this hidden science, and also in reference to the heart’s special spiritual intelligence, in the Tablets of the Divine Plan, He wrote: “When the most great bestowal reveals itself in the hearts of the believers, the world of nature will be transformed, the darkness of the contingent being will vanish, and heavenly illumination will be obtained.” (Tablets of the Divine Plan: 52)

That the most great bestowal of God which reveals itself first in the human heart has tremendous repercussions on even the natural world may seem surprising. But that world is, for Baha’is and many others, also a creation of God and would be, therefore, under the transforming influence of the Word of God. It is in that light that we can read Baha’u’llah’s assertion that: “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.” (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 47)

Indeed it may be that what we name spiritual transformation, the renewal and change of the heart that is the spiritual rebirth of the soul, is the foundation and origin of many positive changes and growth in the outer human world.  Shoghi Effendi, for example, speaking of the building-up of the Administrative Order of the Cause stated: “Ours, dearly-beloved co-workers, is the paramount duty to continue, with undimmed vision and unabated zeal, to assist in the final erection of that Edifice the foundations of which Bahá'u'lláh has laid in our hearts.” (Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha'u'llah: 47)

The House of Justice laid out the process of change through reciprocal action of humanity and nature when they wrote: “The conservation and protection of the environment must be addressed on the individual and societal levels. Shoghi Effendi, in a letter written on his behalf, states: We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved. Man is organic with the world. His inner life moulds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.” (Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I: 84)

Yet, though the heart and the environment cannot be segregated, and though every abiding change is the result of these mutual reactions, there is a priority.  The heart is first, but it alone is not sufficient.  ‘Abdu’l-Baha remarks on this, again in our opening quote, when He stated of the quickening to life of the human spirit: “This life and quickening is the regeneration of the phenomenal world.”

These ideas and statements are, for me, only tantalizing, preliminary probes into a vast and mostly uncharted field of study.  But I hope they have whetted some appetites for more.