Cosmos

Look at the world and ponder a while upon it. It unveileth the book of its own self before thine eyes and revealeth that which the Pen of thy Lord, the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein. It will acquaint thee with that which is within it and upon it and will give thee such clear explanations as to make thee independent of every eloquent expounder.

(Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 141-142)

If the metaphor for the universe is things and their organic relations of composition to create physical life, the metaphor for the cosmos is words and their relations of composition to create mental life.  As the universe has atoms, elements, planets, on up to stars and galaxies, all within one universe pulsing with life, so the cosmos, the intellectual dimension of creation, has, figuratively, letters, words, pages on up to books and libraries until they are contained in one Book, even one Word, named Logos, pulsing its meanings and principles of thought.  These intellectual signs are proof of Thought and Reason, which creates the cosmos, which emanates into the universe, all of which is held within the knowledge of God. 

Cosmos is founded upon the spoken or written intellectual Revelation that is the Word (traditionally, the verbum scriptum). The universe is the sensible Revelation that is Nature (verbum factum). These are in complete correspondence and perfect accord. ‘Abdu’l-Baha says, for example, “…the outward is the expression of the inward; the earth is the mirror of the Kingdom; the material world corresponds to the spiritual world.” (Some Answered Questions: 283) 

The Knowledge of God is “deposited” within the creation.  It is infinitely deep, the least of His signs cannot be fathomed.  Consider these statements from Baha’u’llah apropos this theme: “Every created being however revealeth His signs which are but emanations from Him and not His Own Self. All these signs are reflected and can be seen in the book of existence, and the scrolls that depict the shape and pattern of the universe are indeed a most great book.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 60)  And: “How all-encompassing are the wonders of His boundless grace! Behold how they have pervaded the whole of creation. Such is their virtue that not a single atom in the entire universe can be found which doth not declare the evidences of His might, which doth not glorify His holy Name, or is not expressive of the effulgent light of His unity.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 62)

The lower reality is contained in the higher reality.  The human reality—remember, “the reality of man is his thought”—being the crown of creation and essentially a spiritual creation possessing in potential all the qualities of God, is described by ‘Abdu’l-Baha: “Man is said to be the greatest representative of God, and he is the Book of Creation because all the mysteries of beings exist in him.” (Some Answered Questions: 236)  But above the human reality, i.e. the Book of Creation, is the Manifestation of God, the Word made flesh.  Of Them Baha’u’llah writes: “GOD testifieth that there is none other God but Him and that He Who hath appeared is the Hidden Mystery, the Treasured Symbol, the Most Great Book for all peoples, and the Heaven of bounty for the whole world. He is the Most Mighty Sign amongst men and the Dayspring of the most august attributes in the realm of creation.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 47)

The intellectual Reality of the Word and all Its meanings is often named, I believe, the Kingdom of Names.  The Bab wrote to one of His inquirers: "If thou art sailing upon the sea of God’s Names, which are reflected in all things, know thou that He is exalted and sanctified from being known through His creatures, or being described by His servants. Everything thou beholdest hath been called into being through the operation of His Will. How can such a created thing, therefore, be indicative of His essential oneness? God’s existence in itself testifieth to His Own oneness, while every created thing, by its very nature, beareth evidence that it hath been fashioned by God." Selections From the Writings of the Báb:  125

Of the influence on the universe of Revelation, Baha’u’llah asserts: “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.” (Kitab-i-Iqan: 47)  It does so, because, as our opening quote from Baha’u’llah states, the world “revealeth that which the Pen of thy Lord, the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein.”  These are the new configurations of the universe of things as the Master describes in the opening page of The Secret of Divine Civilization. 

Following the metaphor of words, which are articulate sound, the Holy Books of the Judeo-Christian tradition speak of God calling creation into being.  The cosmos is the level of continual transformation, the middle earth, so to speak, existing between Nature and Spirit and is their conjunction.  This is brought out in Genesis which opens with the phrase: “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.”  Man appears later in the week, created, first, spiritually, after the image and likeness of God. (Genesis 1:26), only later in Genesis 2: 7 is he given material being: “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”  The two halves are united when “the breath of life”, i.e. the spirit or power of thought, is breathed into the nostrils of the first man, the form of red clay (Adamah) which is the physical form of the human being.  “It is this spirit to which the verse in the Old Testament refers when it states that man has been created "after the image and likeness of God". (Abdu'l-Baha, Foundations of World Unity: 91)  One might also use the metaphor of light and say that this image was imprinted on the human reality as light upon a mirror.

Given this conjunction, whatever the metaphor employed, it should be no surprise that, as the Master says: “It is evident that human personality appears in two aspects: the image or likeness of God, and the aspect of Satan. The human reality stands between these two: the divine and the satanic.”  On the natural level each of us is given a body. What about the level of Spirit?  ‘Abdu’l-Baha goes on: “It is manifest that beyond this material body, man is endowed with another reality, which is the world of exemplars constituting the heavenly body of man.” (The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 465)

Living squarely in the level of change and transformation, the work of  humanity is to bring forth its own and nature’s potentials through learning and education.  Spirit educes human potential by providing certain mental forms called spiritual principles that resonate with existing inner potentials of the human reality, bringing them forth to expression.

The Universal House of Justice writes: “There are spiritual principles, or what some call human values, by which solutions can be found for every social problem….The essential merit of spiritual principle is that it not only presents a perspective which harmonizes with that which is immanent in human nature, it also induces an attitude, a dynamic, a will, an aspiration, which facilitate the discovery and implementation of practical measures.” (The Universal House of Justice, The Promise of World Peace: 3)

It is no different in principle from school education which, for example, presents certain mathematical or language forms to the existing but not yet expressed potentials for math and language resident within every human being. One does not TEACH math or language, one draws these capacities forth through math and language structures and forms. These are mental forms and shapes in harmony with potentials.  Potential is not an unformed lump, but rather an unexpressed, unmanifest power.  Potential can take on any form or shape that brings it forth into the plane of reality, as a painter translates a three-dimensional object onto the two-dimensional plane of the canvas.