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.
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