Contexts of Knowledge and Knowing

Glorified art Thou, O Lord my God! I yield Thee thanks for having enabled me to recognize the Manifestation of Thyself…

(Bahá’u’lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh: 110)

         I have said that for human beings Reality presents itself to us ontologically (i.e. forms of being) as three contexts: Spirit, mind, and matter.  These correspond to and each context is known primarily by one of the three modalities of knowing: heart, intellect, and senses.  Each of these modalities has its own direct connection with Reality which creates its own epistemological context of Reality, which can include or exclude the other contexts.  Complexity of context is according to its connectedness to the other contexts.  Heart, intellect and senses, in turn, correspond to the three aspects of a complete education, (divine, human and material) as described by ‘Abdu’l-Baha: (Some Answered Questions: 8)

Now the general progression in human understanding goes something like this: there is an innate “direct connection” between physical phenomena and the physical senses which apprehend them. This is the sun/mirror analogy, where the direct connection, through the medium of light, of sun and mirror is the means of appearance of the image of the sun in the mirror.  To perceive this is a direct perception, and to know what is perceived is to recognize it. 

Likewise, in the realm of thought, there is a direct connection between the mind’s power of comprehension and the thought forms of things—what the Bab calls “the similitude of all that He hath fashioned in creation,” (Quoted in Saiedi Gate of the Heart: 43)—within the human reality. Again, this direct connection is also done through a medium.  In this case, it is the medium of divine thought which is Revelation that creates and recreates all things. To see mental realities and to comprehend them is a direct perception of “reality” on that level.  Once we know these thought-realities and encounter them again we recognize them.

To a point it is the same with spiritual knowing and knowledge.  The direct connection at this level is between the spiritual realm and the human heart, specifically, the burnished mirror of the heart that reflects the image of spiritual reality with fidelity.  There are, too, spiritual faculties, such as will, faith, and vision that enable spiritual perception. There is a direct connection between the heart and these faculties and spirit, as there is between the senses and material reality and the intellect and thought reality.  But here the recognition, the knowing, is not learned, for the love of God and the knowledge of God are deposited within the human reality.  “Knowing” here is an act of recognition without previous encounter or learning.  Recognition is knowing this state of pre-established union, which is unveiled in fuller manifestation with every better cleansing of the heart.  Knowledge and knowing are radically reflexive. (See below for discussion of this)

With sensory knowledge there is an interval of physical space between the perceiver and the object of perception. Between the intellect and mental realities there are, analogously, mental spaces, different levels of understanding and comprehension—some of which naturally disappear with maturity—or as when we say that opinions are “far apart”.  But in either case knowledge remains “objective” in some manner.  It is “out there” and must be learned and acquired.  But in spiritual knowing, which is pure recognition, the knowledge is reflexive because it is within the soul ready to be known (i.e. recognized) once the heart is purified. The “space”, if one wants to continue the term, is “in here”, in the levels of interiority of the soul.  The term corresponding to learning is unveiling.  But it is this reflexive state of knowing in recognition that is the experience of what I have termed the eclipse of distance.  The eclipse of distance reflects the statement of Baha’u’llah on the nearness of the “Ocean” of His Revelation: “O My servants! The one true God is My witness! This most great, this fathomless and surging Ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you than your life-vein! Swift as the twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but wish it, reach and partake of this imperishable favor, this God-given grace, this incorruptible gift, this most potent and unspeakably glorious bounty.” (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 326)

As all evolution is of "spiritual man", no matter how embedded in Nature humanity may have been early in its history, and as all education, according to ‘Abdu’l-Baha, is toward divine education, “which is the goal of education”, so, too, the evolution of knowledge is toward the divine residing in the heart.  This is not the intuitive but the unitive level of knowledge, the one that includes all previous levels, that is both the ground and the goal of all developments in knowledge.  Knowledge of the divine means perceiving the creation as composed of “signs of God” (i.e. their essential forms) both in the world and in themselves.  Every created thing has a unique sign of God within it which animates its life and generates and guides its development and whose corresponding sign is within the human reality.

To attain to this knowledge and means of knowing, the soul must extricate itself from the drowsy dream of space/time reason, and from all attachments to ephemeral, phenomenal things.  In a previous post we called this the experience of the second birth.  It is the means of generating spiritual sciences.  The Bab states: “For verily the soul, while bound by the ephemeral and transitory things of this world, is confined, in its understanding, to limited phenomena only.  However, once the soul hath soared beyond the realm of nature and becometh submerged in the ocean of absolute unity, then can it acquire the capacity to discern the reality of all sciences and knowledge in their full plentitude.” (The Bab quoted in Gate of the Heart: 44)

        Becoming submerged in the ocean of absolute unity requires a total reversal of ways of knowing till that moment.  Here we return to the notion of radical reflexivity

Now, all thought is reflexive, i.e. refers to itself as an inherent part of thinking.  In self-consciousness the subject is self-reflective; he has some self-knowledge and can consult with himself.  But in radical reflexivity the subject is self-reflective of the object also.  It is a part of not apart from the subject. 

 What I mean by radical reflexivity is indicated in the following quote: “It is clear and evident, therefore, that the first bestowal of God is the Word, and its discoverer and recipient is the power of understanding. This Word is the foremost instructor in the school of existence and the revealer of Him Who is the Almighty. All that is seen is visible only through the light of its wisdom. All that is manifest is but a token of its knowledge. All names are but its name, and the beginning and end of all matters must needs depend upon it.” (Baha'u'llah, Tabernacle of Unity:3)

The human intelligence can recognize God in His Manifestation and in himself because the knowledge and love of God is present within the soul from conception.  In one of His prayers Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “I give Thee thanks inasmuch as Thou hast called me into being in Thy days, and infused into me Thy love and Thy knowledge.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 177)

This infusion into our souls of the knowledge and love of God, this deposit of priceless endowments, is as a trust.  If we didn’t have them and encountered the Word of God and did not love and recognize it as such, we would not be held accountable—and there is no way that we would recognize it without these gifts, as an animal, lacking the rational faculty, cannot truly recognize abstract thought for what it actually is.  But with this trust we should do so, for they are there precisely for that purpose.  They are held there in trust until that fateful moment, as funds are held in trust until maturity for an individual.  God entrusts us with these gems, but as trusted ones we are responsible to use them wisely and properly.  But, again, what is recognized in the recognition of God and His Manifestation is really, for human beings, the recognition of their own divine aspect, their reality as spiritual beings with great powers and matching responsibilities to use them for the twin purposes to individually grow spiritually and collectively advance socially.

When a soul encounters the Word and recognizes It these innate powers, these endowments, are revealed.  The trust joyfully yields its deposit.  He says: “It hath already been abundantly demonstrated that in that divinely-appointed Day the majority of them that have sought and attained His holy court have revealed such knowledge and wisdom, a drop of which none else besides these holy and sanctified souls, however long he may have taught or studied, hath grasped or will ever comprehend. It is by virtue of this power that the beloved of God have, in the days of the Manifestation of the Day Star of Truth, been exalted above, and made independent of, all human learning. Nay, from their hearts and the springs of their innate powers hath gushed out unceasingly the inmost essence of human learning and wisdom.” (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah: 261)