According
to an intrinsic law all phenomena of being attain to a summit and degree of
consummation, after which a new order and condition is established. As the
instruments and science of war have reached the degree of thoroughness and
proficiency, it is hoped that the transformation of the human world is at hand
and that in the coming centuries all the energies and inventions of man will be
utilized in promoting the interests of peace and brotherhood.
(Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace:
124)
In the mid-nineteenth century,
Baha’u’llah wrote: “The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every
direction, and the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily
increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned,
inasmuch as the prevailing order appeareth to be lamentably defective.” (Tablets
of Baha'u'llah: 171)
One reason He wrote this was that
He perceived that humanity had broken from its essential power of unity, making
its order defective. He wrote: “The
greater the decline of religion, the more grievous the waywardness of the
ungodly. This cannot but lead in the end to chaos and confusion.” (Tablets
of Baha'u'llah: 63) And: “Should the
lamp of religion be obscured, chaos and confusion will ensue, and the lights of
fairness and justice, of tranquillity and peace cease to shine.” (Tablets of
Baha'u'llah: 125)
Whenever the unifying power of
religion is broken, humanity separates and disunifies as far as
possible. This is both the end of time and the
time of the end. But this lack of
spirituality calls forth a new Revelation, and the great distance is eclipsed,
for the opposites unite. Or, better, as
‘Abdu’l-Baha says above, one process is joined and knit to its opposite and, the two become one, the process itself completes and transforms into a new order. It is, at once, the end, or consummation, of
transformations and the beginning of a new order. The end of transformation signifies the two
meanings of consummation, the final state of something, and burning up as by a devouring flame. When opposites join a great force is released which is both integrative and disintegrative. It is similar, in my mind, to a nuclear fusion reaction in which nuclei
combine, through force and heat, to form more massive nuclei with the
simultaneous release of energy.
Direct connection has two states or conditions. These states are identity and
transformation, essential and existential.
The existential spring from and are built upon the essential: the
various configurations of these laws as cosmological creations. But the essential reappear in a new
configuration when transformations that characterize a cycle of growth are
completed, and transformations are completed when the uniting of opposites, the
union of polarities, the reconciling of contradictions, occurs.
The
state of identity is pre-existent and unchanging, the eternal “B” and “E”
joined and knit together as the primal creation. This is the unchanging structure of the
universe, the archetypal, pre-harmony of relations joining the spiritual and
the material. Other names for this
condition are, I believe, terms that ‘Abdu’l-Baha uses, such as, “inherent
relations” “essential connection”, “necessary connection”, “essential
properties” and “necessary relations”.
These
inherent relations and essential connections are, in their primal unity, the revealed names and qualities of God. Baha’u’llah
wrote: “Whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on the earth is a direct
evidence of the revelation within it of the attributes and names of God,
inasmuch as within every atom are enshrined the signs that bear eloquent
testimony to the revelation of that Most Great Light. Methinks, but for the
potency of that revelation, no being could ever exist. How resplendent the
luminaries of knowledge that shine in an atom, and how vast the oceans of
wisdom that surge within a drop!....From that which hath been said it becometh
evident that all things, in their inmost reality, testify to the revelation of
the names and attributes of God within them. Each according to its capacity,
indicateth, and is expressive of, the knowledge of God. So potent and universal
is this revelation, that it hath encompassed all things visible and invisible.
(Gleanings from the Writings of
Baha'u'llah: 177-178) “Know thou,”
He says in another place, “that every created thing is a sign of the revelation
of God. Each, according to its capacity, is, and will ever remain, a token of
the Almighty. Inasmuch as He, the sovereign Lord of all, hath willed to reveal
His sovereignty in the kingdom of names and attributes, each and every created
thing hath, through the act of the Divine Will, been made a sign of His glory.
So pervasive and general is this revelation that nothing whatsoever in the
whole universe can be discovered that doth not reflect His splendor. Under such
conditions every consideration of proximity and remoteness is obliterated.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah:
184)
But
the second state, the relations of transformation, which are the relations
perceptible by human beings, are the progressive unfoldment in the material
universe of the potentialities inherent in these pre-existing relations by the
configuring power of progressive Revelation, the revealed thought of God.
‘Abdu’l-Baha referred to this when He wrote: “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.” (The
Secret of Divine Civilization: 1)
Again,
these divine intellectual forms are, in the Platonic sense, eternal and
unchanging, but their variations of connections are progressive and possibly
infinite.
Transformations
in the forms of Reality are the consequences on every level of being of a new
joining and knitting together of the eternal “B” and the “E” to create BE, the
commingling of, in some sense, the eternal and the temporal, the beginning
and the ending. In this light let us
recall that the Bab is the One “Whom Thou hast appointed as the Announcer of
the One through Whose name the letter B and the letter E have been joined and
united,…”(Prayers and Meditations by
Baha'u'llah: 84)
While
the substance of all things is the same in essence, (i.e. all physical things
come forth from the primal matter, creation is the imprint of formal cause (the new Revelation) upon
material cause (primal matter), knowledge upon love) the first creation itself is of pairs of
opposites on every level, and the progressive union of these opposites is so that the
underlying oneness may become manifest. ‘Abdu’l-Baha,
wrote: “From separation doth every kind of hurt and harm proceed, but the union
of created things doth ever yield most laudable results. From the pairing of
even the smallest particles in the world of being are the grace and bounty of
God made manifest; and the higher the degree, the more momentous is the union.
'Glory be to Him Who hath created all the pairs, of such things as earth
produceth, and out of men themselves, and of things beyond their ken.' And above all other unions is that between
human beings, especially when it cometh to pass in the love of God. Thus is the
primal oneness made to appear; thus is laid the foundation of love in the
spirit.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 119)
This pairing
of things, He says, is even shown forth in the Qur'án 36:35: "Glory be to
Him Who has created all the pairs: of such things as the earth produceth, and
of themselves; and of things which they know not"—that is to say, men,
animals and plants are all in pairs—"and of everything have We created two
kinds"—that is to say, We have created all the beings through pairing.” (Some Answered Questions: 87)
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