The Conditions of Recognition

As to those that have tasted of the fruit of man’s earthly existence, which is the recognition of the one true God, exalted be His glory, their life hereafter is such as We are unable to describe. The knowledge thereof is with God, alone, the Lord of all worlds.

(Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh: 345-346)

Previous posts discussed the concept of direct connection and presented three kinds of direct connection, physical, mental and spiritual, ontological connections all formed by the unity of Spirit and Matter created by Revelation..  These three kinds of connection correspond to and are keys to the three kinds of knowledge human beings can attain, sensory from the senses, intellectual from the mental faculties, and divine within the heart, each having a kind of direct perception of the “things” in its domain. The senses perceive physical things, the intellect perceives through cognition intellectual realities, and the divine is perceived (i.e. reflected) by the higher faculties of faith and vision in the heart.  These three knowledges form together an epistemological unity, also formed by Revelation, when the intelligence awakens to knowledge of the divine.

The outer and inner conditions of direct perception of the divine by the heart, which is the state of recognition, is what I want to examine here more deeply.

Moving from physical to spiritual connection, each level or context is a more interior one, for the attracted human intelligence moves toward the mid-most heart or center, each context of knowing a more direct union both of creation with the human reality and of God with the human reality.  For the desiring intelligence, moving from the spiritual to the material, each connection is also a more manifest complex unity of attributes and powers.

Direct perception of the divine is the epistemological stage (knowledge state) of perceiving the unity of the inherent relations structuring creation and their union as the universe as the manifestation of Divine Knowledge.  At the center and pivot of this perception for the human reality is the image of God within it.  The Manifestation of God is the Divine center of these human centers, and the mid-most heart of all creation.  When the unity of direct connection is consciously attained, what Baha’u’llah calls “piercing the veils of plurality”, then recognition, which I have claimed is the heart’s mode of understanding, is the primary mode of apprehension, and not the senses or cognition. 

Further, though He and His Revelation is always “closer to you than your life vein” (Baha’u’llah quoted in Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come: 15) whenever the intelligence moves into a higher mode of awareness and understanding, especially of the divine, it is felt, psychologically and emotionally, as an eclipse of distance, as meeting the Presence of God.  The soul moves closer to Reality and God, because God comes closer to us. The mind no longer only thinks about God but, rather, the heart recognizes God in everything.  This is a new state of mind.  What is the difference between the human and divine Intellect, and how does the mind change its state?

‘Abdu’l-Baha explains the difference between the universal divine Mind and the general human mind as: “But the universal divine mind, which is beyond nature, is the bounty of the Preexistent Power. This universal mind is divine; it embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God. It is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research. The intellectual power of the world of nature is a power of investigation, and by its researches it discovers the realities of beings and the properties of existences; but the heavenly intellectual power, which is beyond nature, embraces things and is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom.” (Some Answered Questions: 217)

He goes on to explain how the human mind attains a divine state: “This divine intellectual power is the special attribute of the Holy Manifestations and the Dawning-places of prophethood; a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous, and a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations.” (Some Answered Questions: 217)  This reflective capacity is an inherent quality of the heart.  The Bab wrote in this regard: "He hath moreover deposited within the realities of all created things the emblem of His recognition..." (Selections from the Writings of the Bab: 111-112)

But when does this ray of divine Light shine upon the heart and awaken the "emblem of His recognition" deposited there?  ‘Abdu’l-Baha advises: “If thou wishest the divine knowledge and recognition, purify thy heart from all beside God, be wholly attracted to the ideal, beloved One; search for and choose Him and apply thyself to rational and authoritative arguments. For arguments are a guide to the path and by this the heart will be turned unto the Sun of Truth. And when the heart is turned unto the Sun, then the eye will be opened and will recognize the Sun through the Sun itself.” (Baha'i World Faith: 383-384)

While the human mind is a product of natural causes and developments, the essential power and perfection of the human spirit, the ground and apex of creation, an intelligence that “…embraces all beings, and as far as human ability permits discovers the realities of things and becomes cognizant of their peculiarities and effects, and of the qualities and properties of beings” (Some Answered Questions: 208), this “natural” mind is not the highest state the mind may attain.  But it cannot go higher unaided. It cannot advance further without assistance from higher Powers.   “But the human spirit, unless assisted by the spirit of faith, does not become acquainted with the divine secrets and the heavenly realities. It is like a mirror which, although clear, polished and brilliant, is still in need of light. Until a ray of the sun reflects upon it, it cannot discover the heavenly secrets.” (Some Answered Questions: 208)

Now we come to the crux.  What is the essential difference in perception and quality of knowledge between these two states of mind? The Master explains that: “The phenomenal knowledge has need of things known; the Preexistent Knowledge is independent of their existence.” (Some Answered Questions: 293)  Recall, He said that the universal divine Mind is “beyond nature.”  It “is a conscious power, not a power of investigation and of research.”  It “embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God.”  It “is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom.”

Therefore, when “a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous…a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations.”  In this awakened divine state of the human mind (which is not the same divine state as the Manifestation.  He does not attain this state.  It is an inherent quality of His being which He manifests when He is called to His Mission.  He is the sun, we are recipients of His light.) we, too, may to some small extent be truly cognizant of things, know them, understand them, be aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and discover the concealed verities of the Kingdom which He reveals.  In short, we see Him as He sees Himself, and we see the world like He does: attaining the condition of “Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith. Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith.” (Baha'u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words #44)

This is the state of recognition.  It is not attainable to the natural mind through investigation and research.  It is a state of understanding Reality attainable only by the burnished heart, via either the inner hearing recognizing His Voice, which is faith, or through inner vision, which is the recognition, figuratively, of the light of His Being.  Baha’u’llah claims: “If it be your wish, O people, to know God and to discover the greatness of His might, look, then, upon Me with Mine own eyes, and not with the eyes of any one besides Me. Ye will, otherwise, be never capable of recognizing Me, though ye ponder My Cause as long as My Kingdom endureth, and meditate upon all created things throughout the eternity of God, the Sovereign Lord of all, the Omnipotent, the Ever-Abiding, the All-Wise.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 272)

Evolution and Involution: Creation and Attraction

So we should view the evolutionary force in man, and in all life, as the promise of self-transcendence.  It is not a compulsive force like gravity, if indeed it is a force at all, but it induces internal transformation.

(Arthur Young, The Reflexive Universe: 245)

Evolution is the push outward into the highest complexity, involution is the attraction inward toward the deepest center, a centrifugal movement and a centripetal movement.  Evolution and Involution go on simultaneously, as the tree heightens and spreads its canopy, it also drives its roots both inwardly and outwardly into the earth. These dual-processes are twin effects of a single all-encompassing power.

As I have been exploring, one part of the switch from human to divine knowledge, from intellectual to spiritual intelligence, is to pass from cognition to recognition as the primary means of knowing. Recognition is wholistic not reductionist.  Its knowledge is, first, reflexive not objective, though it has an objective dimension.  It sees the “other” as oneself in other form, for it grounds all perception in the principle that there is a “primal oneness deposited at the heart of all created things.”  (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 263)

Yet, though forms are the same or, at least, equivalent, between levels of reality, there are, simultaneously, differences in value and station.  It is again the “B” and the “E” joined and knit together in the original unity of “these two are the same, yet they are different.”  The archetype of this relation is that between God and His Manifestations, as explained by Baha’u’llah: “Men have failed to perceive Our purpose in the references We have made to Divinity and Godhood. Were they to apprehend it, they would arise from their places, and cry out: "We, verily, ask pardon of God!" The Seal of the Prophets—may the souls of all else but Him be offered up for His sake—saith: "Manifold are Our relationships with God. At one time, We are He Himself, and He is We Ourself. At another He is that He is, and We are that We are." (Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 41)

For the growing individual, consciousness moves, by and large, from the sensory through the intellectual into the spiritual, or divine. A similar process is seen in the evolutionary record of humanity’s growth in consciousness, as the collective has moved from the sensory of archaic culture, through the intellectual birthed with Adam, and is now passing from the intellectual into the divine, all previous cycles assimilated into the higher that replaces it.

This movement in knowledge goes from outer physical appearance to inner spiritual reality.  The inward movement is attraction to a manifestation of God and the recognition of It, or Him, as so.  The physical universe and the mental cosmos are both Revelations of God, the first the secondary the second the primary, and these forms are from the creative power of the divine Mind.  Each is also immediately connected to their Creator, so God may be seen anywhere—“Even as He hath revealed: "We will surely show them Our signs in the world and within themselves." (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan: 101)

But the greatest Manifestation of God is the Figure called the Great Prophet.  He is the mid-most heart of all and movement toward Him is the involutionary movement that manifests as the outer evolutionary one.

I mean that, besides the evolutionary thrust, another movement, a counterbalancing and complementary movement to the evolutionary also goes on. This movement is not primarily of knowledge and recognition, but of love and attraction.  This is the involutionary movement of attraction to the center.  The dictionary defines involution as the act or an instance of enfolding or entangling in greater involvement, complexity and intricacy. In language it is a grammatical construction usually characterized by the insertion of clauses between the subject and predicate—think Shoghi Effendi.  In mathematics, involution is a function, or transformation, or operation, that is equal to its inverse, i.e., which gives the identity when applied to itself an inward curvature or penetration, a sort of fractal.  In humanity it is the levels of intensity of attraction to Him, the spiraling inward of the moth to the flame.

In the universe this attraction is called gravity, in the cosmos of mind it is the growth of identity toward the integrated self, in divine creation it is love for the Manifestation of God.  All the powers and capacities are within the center, the locus and focus of the circle of life and its highest Point, and are released from there, as the mighty oak is brought forth from the tiny acorn.  Let us recall that “the universe is enfolded” within the seed which is every soul.  The release and organization of these powers, attributes and capacities is evolution.

From the perspective of this metaphor, the divine spiritual creation unfolds into the intellectual cosmos which manifests as the physical universe.  The universe is unlocked and released by the cosmos, and cosmos by creation.  Progress in love and attraction is levels of intensity.  It moves from “the periphery” of this world to the mid-most spiritual heart of creation through the opening of progressively inner doors of love and perception, moving from separation to union, not inward from light to dark, but, rather, inward from dark to light.  The Master says: “Be self-sacrificing in the path of God, and wing thy flight unto the heavens of the love of the Abha Beauty, for any movement animated by love moveth from the periphery to the centre, from space to the Day-Star of the universe. Perchance thou deemest this to be difficult, but I tell thee that such cannot be the case, for when the motivating and guiding power is the divine force of magnetism it is possible, by its aid, to traverse time and space easily and swiftly.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 197-198)    

Evolution or development in this world starts when the form of a material thing begins to resonate in response to new spiritual energies and frequencies set vibrating within it, creating increasingly complex geometries of harmonic structure that push the form toward disequilibrium.  The form eventually loses its established internal coherency, breaks down, and then is rebuilt in new form on a new frequency.  Material evolution is marked by an increasing outer physical complexity of form.  Mental evolution is the blossoming of higher mental capacities. Spiritual evolution is the advances made in consciousness and love by progressive Revelation.

Humanity exists in the middle earth of the creation, in the cosmos built of thought, since “the reality of man is his thought.”  Its involution moves inward which is spiritually upward, while its evolution moves outward; that is, spiritually downward, though materially and socially upward.  The complements that are evolution and involution are mirror images and the basis of chiasmus which is the engine of transformation, the Word and its echoes or vibrating effects both in the world and in the human soul.  But transformations within any organic system, whether natural or social, reach an upper limit, or asymptote, after which a new order must be established.

The word asymptote is derived from the Greek (asumptōtos) which means “not falling together”.  That is, there is no actual, literal connection between things.  In analytic geometry, an asymptote of a curve is a line such that the distance between the curve and the line approaches zero as they tend to infinity, but never actually touch.  Thus there always exists a gap where resonance, or vibratory effect, can take place to harmonize the one with the other, or, if in time, the old with the new, so there is some sort of continuity, even when there is a discontinuity—“these two are the same, yet they are different.” In knowledge this resonance, this harmony, is effected by the symbol, a word which means “to throw together”.  Indeed, figurative language of any kind does this.

Metaphor is one of several kinds of analogical devices.  But whether the analogical device is metaphor, simile, allegory, or some other type of figure, it will contain three basic parts: the tenor, that which is being described; the vehicle, that which is compared to the tenor; and the meaning, that area of similarity between the tenor and vehicle which is the field which generates both.

That is, both inner sign and outer sign when thrown together in a symbol refer to each other.  But each individually also and simultaneously and together refer to a more general ground or field of divine thought that they came forth from and return to in meaning.

Transformations occur within every organic system. They are the means of development, (i.e. bringing out more of the “primal oneness” deposited at the core of things). At the end of development transformations of the whole system must occur for life to continue.  To transcend the whole system means to transcend the limitations of the system’s form.  Thus, in transcendence the whole form of the system must collapse before the new form can fully appear. The breakdown is a result of the evolutionary impulse of the new form pushing its way into creation through a vibrating influence.  Evolution is not just accompanied by the involution.  Both flow out from the original creation of the universe enfolded into every soul when vibrated to a new harmony by a progressive Revelation to which it returns via the twin spiraling paths of evolution and involution.

Word and Matter: Words Matter

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.

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

This quote from Baha’u’llah, which also appeared last post,  refers to God “the Fashioner” inscribing His Revelation on the pages of the world—as Adam named things in the garden and gave them perceptible intellectual existence, which is the birth of human intellectual consciousness as we know that term.  Creation was, in traditional Christian theology, the verbum factum, the secondary revelation of God.  Scripture, the verbum scriptum, was the primary revelation.

But it also points out to me that writers are conjurors, words are powerful talismen.  God “calls” creation into being; His Manifestation is the “Word made flesh” and His Words are creative.  But it also points to the original meaning of the word “poet” as “the maker.”  Every poet makes ideas and things intellectual perceptible to the mind through figurative language. The Word as the primary creation acting upon Nature means that “Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 141)  Too, let us remember that: “…nature, also, in its essence is an intellectual reality and is not sensible.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions: 83)

As the spiritual Word acts upon the intellectual reality of Nature Its vibrational effects call forth responses called material reality, i.e. that which the Pen of thy Lord, the Fashioner, the All-Informed, hath inscribed therein..  The sonorous imprint of the Word of God is the proof of the Voice of God sounding throughout creation.  The secondary creation is the physical universe, the crafts of God.  Humanity imitates His actions in our speech, art and crafts.

But even more fundamentally, the Manifestation of God infuses His own Being into creation in some manner.  With every Revelation of this returning archetypal Being a new creation is “called into being.”  Baha’u’llah writes of the Bab: “When He purposed to call the new creation into being, He sent forth the Manifest and Luminous Point from the horizon of His Will; it passed through every sign and manifested itself in every form until it reached the zenith, as bidden by God, the Lord of all men." (Tablets of Baha’u’llah: 101)

‘Abdu’l-Baha, in one of His tablets, frames the bringing forth of the universe in terms of fashioner and fashioned, using Aristotelian arguments of causality, specifically the union of formal cause (the essential form of something) and material cause, the primal substance that essential form imprints upon.  He wrote: “For example it has been stated that all things are composed of two elements: the "Fashioner" and the "Fashioned". By "Fashioned" is meant substance and primary matter and by "Fashioner" is meant the form and shape which confines and limits the primary matter from its state of indefiniteness and freedom to the courtyard of limitation and definite form. For example, letters and words are composed of two things: The first is the substance which is ink and pencil-lead and is the "Fashioned" while the second is the forms and features of the letters and words which are the "Fashioner". Now this specific substance and this specific form were created simultaneously although the general substance was created before the specific form. It is clear that, before the existence of this specific form and shape, the ink had an external existence which had no specific form or shape and had the ability and potential to assume the shape of any letter or word and was not restricted or specified to a particular shape or form. Similarly, the general shape and form had an existence before substance specified them since before being specified by substance (which is ink or pencil-lead) the general shape and form of letters and words had a mental existence in the mind of the writer. Moreover, general form and general substance were also created simultaneously. For it is not possible for a thing to have an external existence and not to be formed into a shape because substance and primal matter in order to exist need shape and form; while shape and form in order to appear need substance. Thus has it been said: Substance needs form to endure.  In attaining shape it has imprisoned form.

"This is not a false circular argument. It is usually known as an interdependent or connected argument. For a false circular argument is one where one thing is dependent on another which is in turn dependent on the first in one or two stages. Since it has been shown that specific substance and specific form were created simultaneously as also were general substance and general form, therefore potentialities and their recipients come into being at one and the same time and neither precedes the other except in essence.”(Provisional Translations, I was a Hidden Treasure)
        Through this discussion we return to Baha’u’llah’s statement in His Tablet of Wisdom—wisdom literature being, again, Hermetic literature: “That which hath been in existence had existed before, but not in the form thou seest today. The world of existence came into being through the heat generated from the interaction between the active force and that which is its recipient. These two are the same, yet they are different.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 140)

Other metaphors for this relation of fashioner and fashioned, of formal and material cause, are the creative interplay between God’s knowledge and love for His creation.  In one of The Hidden Words, Baha’u’llah wrote: “Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone beside Me? Out of the clay of love I molded thee, how dost thou busy thyself with another? Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.  (The Arabic Hidden Words #13)

Looking closely at this statement we realize that the phrase, “Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being”, is formal cause, because both the Being of the Manifestation of God and His Word are the essence of knowledge.  Baha’u’llah states: “Notwithstanding all these evident and significant traditions, all these unmistakable and undisputed allusions, the people have rejected the immaculate Essence of knowledge and of holy utterance, and have turned unto the exponents of rebellion and error.” (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 241)

On the other hand, “Out of the clay of love” is the primal material cause or substance, the archetypal substance that is the “recipient” of the active force of the Will and Knowledge of God through His Manifestation.  Thus, at the heart of all creation, meaning the One Who is the Source and Center and lasts from beginning to end, the Alpha and Omega, in Jesus words, of this relationship between fashioner and fashioned, of formal and material causes, is the Being of the Manifestation “standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.” 

By inner heart, i.e. the center and locus of human understanding, is meant the will and its volitions.  As I quoted last post, the Master is recorded as having said: “Will is the centre or focus of human understanding. We must will to know God, just as we must will in order to possess the life He has given us. The human will must be subdued and trained into the will of God. It is a great power to have a strong will, but a greater power to give that will to God. The will is what we do, the understanding is what we know. Will and understanding must be one in the cause of God. Intention brings attainment.” ('Abdu'l-Bahá: Ten Days in the Light of Acca: 30)  More on this in my next post.