Nature in its essence is the
embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator. Its manifestations are
diversified by varying causes, and in this diversity there are signs for men of
discernment. Nature is God's Will and is its expression in and through the contingent
world. It is a dispensation of Providence ordained by the Ordainer, the
All-Wise. Were anyone to affirm that it is the Will of God as manifested in the
world of being, no one should question this assertion. It is endowed with
a power whose reality men of learning fail to grasp. Indeed a man of insight
can perceive naught therein save the effulgent splendour of Our Name, the
Creator. Say: This is an existence which knoweth no decay, and Nature itself is
lost in bewilderment before its revelations, its compelling evidences and its
effulgent glory which have encompassed the universe.
(Tablets
of Baha'u'llah:142)
I have
proposed that creation appears as three main contexts of reality. The primary and wholly spiritual level is the
interacting, all-pervasive attributes of God; secondly, is the divinely revealed
thought-forms of creation called cosmos; finally, there is the manifest
appearance of these attributes and thought forms in material form, (i.e. the
physical universe) which on our planet, at least, is called Nature. Nature is the sensible revelation. Baha’u’llah refers to all three contexts in
the above quote, and this leads, with the help of some explanatory quotes from
‘Abdu’l-Baha, to some insights about the infinitely deep reality of Nature.
Of
this intricately interconnected universe, ‘Abdu’l-Baha says: “For every part of
the universe is connected with every other part by ties that are very powerful
and admit of no imbalance, nor any slackening whatever.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 157) But the physical universe
is also intimately connected with the mental cosmos and the divine qualities,
so that “the parts of this infinite universe have
their members and elements connected with one another, and influence one
another spiritually and materially.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions: 245)
Expatiating
further on the powerful and balanced ties binding all things in the universe
together, the Master says “Now concerning nature, it is but the essential
properties and the necessary relations inherent in the realities of things. And
though these infinite realities are diverse in their character yet they are in
the utmost harmony and closely connected together. As one's vision is broadened
and the matter observed carefully, it will be made certain that every reality
is but an essential requisite of other realities. Thus to connect and harmonize
these diverse and infinite realities an all-unifying Power is necessary, that
every part of existent being may in perfect order discharge its own function.”
(Abdu'l-Baha, Tablet to August Forel:
20-21)
What
is the connecting and all-unifying power? “Will is that active force which
controlleth these relationships and these incidents.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 198)
It
is His innate knowledge of these essential properties and necessary relations
that enables the Manifestation of God, the embodiment of the vibrating Primal
Will, to reveal religion, which, in this context, is both the natural law and
laws for humanity to complete Nature by bringing humanity into proper relation
with it. “The
supreme Manifestations of God,” says ‘Abdu’l-Baha, “are aware of the reality of
the mysteries of beings. Therefore, They establish laws which are suitable and
adapted to the state of the world of man, for religion is the essential
connection which proceeds from the realities of things. The Manifestation—that is, the Holy Lawgiver—unless He is aware of
the realities of beings, will not comprehend the essential connection which proceeds
from the realities of things, and He will certainly not be able to establish a
religion conformable to the facts and suited to the conditions.” (Some Answered Questions: 158) Here is stated the evolving, progressive connection
between nature and revealed religion. It
is an evolving connection, because, as the Master stated: “Briefly, the world
of existence is progressive. It is subject to development and growth.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions: 3) Baha’u’llah states that: “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.” (The Kitab-i-Iqan: 47)
That
essential relationship between the divine religion and nature is: while nature
is the foundational “essential
properties and the necessary relations inherent in the realities of things”,
religion is the architectural “essential connection which
proceeds from the realities of things.”
Religion as the unfolding law of God is the means of the evolution of
the physical world, and it is both the necessary and inherent relations, and
the essential properties and connections which proceed from the realities of
things, (i.e. the knowledge of God or religia), which science, i.e. Scientia,
discovers through the power of understanding, “for science is the discoverer of
realities.” (Abdu'l-Baha, The
Promulgation of Universal Peace: 138) Through reason and scientific
advances humanity is able to “educate” nature into bringing forth what it cannot
bring forth by itself. “In brief, man
through the possession of this ideal endowment of scientific investigation is
the most noble product of creation, the governor of nature.” (Abdu'l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace: 30)
The essential connections that proceed from the
realities of things are, then, developed into physical forms of greater
complexity and beauty by divine Will, by progressive revelation. But all comes forth from divine Love. That is, the evolving manifestations and
configurations of the universe brought forth by Revelation are embodiments of qualities latent in the divine
love of God.
Divine love is the archetypal substance, the metaphysical prima materia: “Love is the cause of
God's revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the
divine creation, in the realities of things.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha:
27)
Regarding
the mental level of creation that I have called cosmos, ‘Abdu’l-Baha concisely
states that “nature,
also, in its essence is an intellectual reality and is not sensible.” (Some Answered Questions: 83) What does He mean by the terms “sensible reality”
and “intellectual reality”? “Things
which are sensible are those which are perceived by the five exterior senses;
thus those outward existences which the eyes see are called sensible.
Intellectual things are those which have no outward existence but are
conceptions of the mind.” (Some Answered
Questions: 263) Nature, then, in its
material appearances is a sensible reality, but in its intellectual essence it is
a conception of the mind. And it is
first a conception in the universal Mind of the Manifestation of God. It is a divine thought-form periodically
reconfigured by divine Revelation. Its
mental reality lies in the cosmos of thought.
Its spiritual reality is the embodiment of the name or quality of God,
the Creator. Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the
Creator. (Remember that for the world of being “essence” is not some nebulous
thing or vaporous quality, but the formal cause of something, the divine
imprint which gives a thing its form i.e. its thought-form, and that form is
reflected on the mirror of Nature where: Its
manifestations are diversified by varying causes. It is a metaphysical mirror, an intellectual
reality.)
What
more can we say about intellectual realities?
The
Master, in an explanation of a statement from Baha’u’llah, says: “We come to
the explanation of the words of Bahá'u'lláh when He says: "O king! I was
but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo, the breezes of the
All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the knowledge of all that hath
been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is Almighty and
All-Knowing." This is the state of manifestation: it is not sensible; it
is an intellectual reality, exempt and freed from time, from past, present and
future; it is an explanation, a simile, a metaphor and is not to be accepted
literally; it is not a state that can be comprehended by man.” (Some
Answered Questions: 85) The
intellectual not material reality of Nature is an
existence which knoweth no decay, and is lost
in bewilderment before its revelations—i.e.
the revelations of God’s name the Creator flowing from the divine Will.
Intellectual
realities are exempt from time and, of course, space. Language figurations—metaphors, similes,
analogies—built up from sensible realities within time and space are necessary to
communicate intellectual realities. Intellectual states can only be expressed
through analogous sensible figures, their outer signs.
But
being able to express a thing, capture it in a metaphor, does not mean that we
comprehend the full reality of anything.
In one of His prayers written for us Baha’u’llah avers: “I am bewildered
when I contemplate the tokens of Thy handiwork, and the evidences of Thy might,
and find myself completely unable to unravel the mystery of the least of Thy
signs, how much more to apprehend Thine own Self.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 303)
Nature
in its infinitely deep fullness is all three realities. It, simultaneously, appears as an infinite number
of manifest physical realities that compose and disintegrate; it is, too, an
intellectual essence or form, exempt from time and space, of cosmos; and,
finally, it is the embodiment of God’s Name and attribute, the Creator,
creating new configurations from the love of God that is the “vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine
creation, in the realities of things.”. All
three conditions and their relations are controlled and developed by divine
Will.
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