In the Vortex: The Crossing at the B and E

Not in any other of the species in the world of existence is there such a difference, contrast, contradiction and opposition as in the species of man.

(Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions:235)

 As everyone knows, we live in a time of unprecedented upheaval and change.  The “winds of despair” are blowing with hurricane force, while the hopes of humanity are uplifted to bring into being an unimaginably glorious future.  The “world’s equilibrium hath been upset” because a new creation “hath been called into being”. The “lamentably defective” existing order is crumbling with terrifying acceleration, while simultaneously a new “most glorious” order is being laboriously erected.  Always, divine spiritual impulses generate opposing and contradictory reactions among all created things.  We have discussed this as “paradise brought nigh” and “hell made to blaze.”  But it is also a product of any dialectical world-view, a view which in modern times is especially characteristic of Marxian materialist philosophy derived from Hegel’s idealistic logic.  Yet, contradiction in life and thought may lead through the violence of the antagonists interplay to a condensation in which opposites are blended together.

Creationally, everything “created in pairs” means, I believe, not only as two expressions of one reality, as male and female in humanity, but also, as the positive and negative, the antithetical, possibilities of every created thing.   This is one meaning of the B and the E joining and knitting together, which we will explore in this post, for it is an intrinsic law of creation.

“Shoghi Effendi, in letters written on his behalf, has explained the significance of the "letters B and E". They constitute the word "Be", which, he states, "means the creative Power of God Who through His command causes all things to come into being" and "the power of the Manifestation of God, His great spiritual creative force".  The imperative "Be" in the original Arabic is the word "kun", consisting of the two letters "kaf" and "nun". They have been translated by Shoghi Effendi in the above manner. This word has been used in the Qur'án as God's bidding calling creation into being.” (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas: 247)

The “B” and the “E” are “joined and knit together” in the resonant interval, where opposites flow into each other.  The resonant interval is the metaphorical gap where vibrations, pulsations of energies, waves and currents from the two worlds, “B” and “E”, meet, like the synaptic gap between nerve endings over which jumps the electrical impulse, carried as a wave by the invisible medium of the soul.  This union is one where B and E come together creating a turbulent flow, as a vortex, that spans, fills and spills over the interval for it cannot be bridged by the realities themselves. Yet it is really the gap that dissolves. The opposites reciprocally influence one another through the joining and knitting of infinite frequencies and vibrations into wave interference patterns that cancel some actual existences, but amplify other potentials into existence.  They are connected directly, but cross oppositely, (i.e. chiastically) bringing together from opposite sides two parts of one process.  This movement is that each process, simultaneously and reciprocally, transforms at the midmost point of the heart into its opposite by bringing forth its opposite and the opposites are manifestly integrated to reveal the full process that is the conditions of renewal, progress and renovation.  It is opposite ends joined and knit together, like blood circulation and respiration.  These are the contradictory/complementary transformative engines of change. 

Knowledge is, too, a point of intersection and interplay.  It is the manifestation of Reality.  The Manifestation appears at the mid-most point of creation, which is where, in His own Being, symbolically, the organic and the spiritual connect, which is outwardly on the plane of manifestation, Carmel, the mountain of God.  Their connection, while direct, for they are a symbol (symballein or thrown together), is one of resonance.  That is, the connection is not like fitting together the two pieces of a broken amulet, but a harmonious blending of frequencies, of light upon a mirror and reflected back.  He raises His voice “betwixt earth and heaven”.  He is “He Who hath been manifested is the Hidden Mystery, the Treasured Symbol, through Whom the letters B and E (Be) have been joined and knit together.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 320)

Again, He is the Alpha and Omega inhabiting both poles of the circle of life, the arc of descent and the arc of ascent.  The vortex is where these arcs meet and energies cross and stimulate their opposites.  The unity of His two stations, “the station of distinction” that “pertaineth to the world of creation and to the limitations thereof” (Baha'u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan: 176)  and the station of “pure abstraction and essential unity” (Kitab-i-Iqan: 152) which is the unchanging eternity of essence, come together as and at the Primal Point of connection between heaven and earth.  That connection is the originating union of the two realms, though they never “touch” but is, rather, manifest through the collision of opposing energies that both sunders the existing “B” and “E” and rejoins them in new configuration of being and knowledge.  This weaving metaphor is important, joined and knit together being, perhaps, fibers or filaments intertwining in creation that parallels and embodies the sounds of divine Language, the Word of God as Revelation and Divine Being, knitting together a new reality of knowledge of the new creation.  The interpenetrating dimensions of existence make the relation vibratory and the resounding verbs and phrases are educative, bringing forth created things by calling them forth, evoking an inner communion between Spirit and Matter that is reflected in the interlocking dimensions of community life that are manifest both as an embracing unity the binds and knits together the reality of all the “difference, contrast, contradiction and opposition” that is the human reality and world of humanity.

That is, the reflexivity of knowledge, of A is A, mirrors the structure of reality, of B and E manifestly joined and knit together to reflect the “essential unity” of  “these two are the same yet they are different.”  As He asserts of the unity of opposites in His own Being, each bringing forth its opposite in creation: “I bear witness that in His person solidity and fluidity have been joined and combined. Through His immovable constancy in Thy Cause, and His unwavering adherence to whatsoever Thou, in the plentitude of the light of Thy glory, didst unveil to His eyes, throughout the domains of Thy Revelation and creation, the souls of Thy servants were stirred up in their longing for Thy Kingdom, and the dwellers of Thy realms rushed forth to enter into Thy heavenly dominion. Through the restlessness He evinced in Thy path, the feet of all them that are devoted to Thee were steeled and confirmed to manifest Thy Cause amidst Thy creatures, and to demonstrate Thy sovereignty throughout Thy realm.”(Baha'u'llah, Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 49)

But His great purpose in coming He says is “to draw thee from the realms of contradiction unto the retreats of oneness, and to lead thee to the sacred streams of His Law.”(Baha'u'llah, Gems of Divine Mysteries: 8)

 Again, He says regarding the reflexive unity of the “BE” of creation over the circle of time: “Know thou that the end is like unto the beginning. Even as thou dost consider the beginning, similarly shouldst thou consider the end, and be of them that truly perceive. Nay, rather consider the beginning as the end itself, and so conversely, that thou mayest acquire a clear perception. Know thou moreover that every created thing is continually brought forth and returned at the bidding of thy Lord, the God of power and might.” (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 183)

Shoghi Effendi points out where these principles of oneness and the duality of simultaneity and reciprocal action, which is the crossing of energies and processes, help define the overall workings of the two Plans of God: “Such simultaneous processes of rise and of fall, of integration and of disintegration, of order and chaos, with their continuous and reciprocal reactions on each other, are but aspects of a greater Plan, one and indivisible, whose Source is God, whose author is Bahá'u'lláh, the theater of whose operations is the entire planet, and whose ultimate objectives are the unity of the human race and the peace of all mankind.” (Shoghi Effendi, The Advent of Divine Justice: 72-73)  The House of Justice further illustrates how this turbulence of simultaneous processes working in opposition creates a new vortex of possibilities of social life for those who are alert and can follow the flow: “It is against such "simultaneous processes of rise and fall, of integration and of disintegration, of order and chaos, with their continuous and reciprocal reactions on each other," that a myriad new opportunities for the next stage in the unfoldment of the beloved Master's Divine Plan present themselves.” (The Universal House of Justice, A Wider Horizon, Selected Letters 1983-1992: 103)

The principles of reciprocal transformation even operate within every individual and structure his/her efforts to transform society: “At the very core of the aims of the Faith are the establishment of justice and unity in the world, the removal of prejudice and enmity from among all people, the awakening of compassion and understanding in the hearts of all men and women, and the raising of all souls to a new level of spirituality and behavior through the vitalizing influence of divine Revelation. The course set forth by Bahá'u'lláh for the attainment of these aims is the double task of simultaneously building an ideal society and perfecting the behavior of individuals. For this dual and reciprocal transformation He has not only revealed laws, principles and truths attuned to the needs of this age, but has established the very nucleus and pattern of those institutions which are to evolve into the structure of the divinely purposed world society.” (The Universal House of Justice, 1992 Dec 10, Issues Related to Study Compilation)
      Finally, the principles reveal the antagonistic/unifying relations between humanity’s two great knowledge systems: “To every fair-minded observer, you are the living proof that faith in God and confidence in social progress are in every sense reconcilable; that science and religion are the two inseparable, reciprocal systems of knowledge impelling the advancement of civilization.” (The Universal House of Justice, 2003 Nov 26, To the Followers of Bahá'u'lláh in the Cradle of the Faith:4)

The Revealed Word and the Akashic Field

From the heaven of God's Will, and for the purpose of ennobling the world of being and of elevating the minds and souls of men, hath been sent down that which is the most effective instrument for the education of the whole human race. The highest essence and most perfect expression of whatsoever the peoples of old have either said or written hath, through this most potent Revelation, been sent down from the heaven of the Will of the All-Possessing, the Ever-Abiding God.

(Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 87)

A universal message is not one that is true for everyone at this time, but one that “hath been” true for humanity at all times.  It must have been true in the past, is true now, and will be true in the future.  This does not mean that it will not change, but its change is only that of unfolding in more manifest form its truth.  But, too, it must bring together old ideals and notions with contemporary ideas of the same, yet more manifestly complex, reality so that humanity’s current of intellectual energy runs true.  Thus old concepts such as the ether and metamorphosis, and sciences such as alchemy, are returning in new form to help us grasp the new reality that is also the old reality renewed.

The best example of this progressive unfoldment of the same Reality is the interconnected Revelations advancing the same divine Message through time and history.  It comes in two parts, a material law that is abrogated and replaced with every new Revelation, and a spiritual part that unfolds into greater complexity and clarity.  Of the spiritual aspect ‘Abdu’l-Baha says: “The spiritual part never changes. All the Manifestations of God and His Prophets have taught the same truths and given the same spiritual law. They all teach the one code of morality. There is no division in the truth. The Sun has sent forth many rays to illumine human intelligence, the light is always the same.” (Paris Talks: 142) 

Now one of the most fascinating aspects of the renewal of the spiritual law in new and greater form, and what makes it truly universal, is that each Revelation not only lays the groundwork for the next and future Revelations, a clear idea, but also it seems to affect the past, perhaps in the sense of renewal in some manner.  Baha’u’llah remarks about Himself and His Revelation: “Thou art He, by Whose name the Hidden Secret was divulged, and the Well-Guarded Name was revealed, and the seals of the sealed-up Goblet were opened, shedding thereby its fragrance over all creation, whether of the past or of the future.” (Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah: 240-241)

This brings us to a discussion of another ancient idea receiving new attention, this one from the Hindu tradition, perhaps Indian would be better.  I refer to the doctrine of the Akashic Field and Akashic Record.  According to this belief, the Akashic Field is a universal field of patterned energy underlying creation from which all the universe is formed. Being the background to the subatomic worlds, it also flows through the other realms of stars, galaxies and human life, and is an activating force in all those realms.

But it also seems a storehouse of information, for the Akashic Record is the record of everything that ever occurred or will occur in time and space.  It also holds the potential for all future actual events and thoughts.  Thus the “Akasha” is in two parts, pre-creation formative structure and all-inclusive record, what in the human intelligence we might call imagination and memory.

Modern philosophers, such as Ervin Laszlo in his book, Science and the Akashic Field, accepts the Hindu idea, calling it the “A-field”.  He believes that it may not only be a super dense sea of frictionless energy but also a sea of information conveying the historical experience of matter.  For him, and those who believe as he does, the discovery in physics of the zero point energy field (ZPF), is also the discovery of this universal information field.

In the preface to his book he writes: “Akasha (a-ka 'ska) is a Sanskrit word meaning "ether": all-pervasive space. Originally signifying "radiation" or "brilliance," in Indian philosophy akasha was considered the first and most fundamental of the five elements - the others being vata (air), agni (fire), ap (water), and prithivi (earth). Akasha embraces the properties of all five elements: it is the womb from which everything we perceive with our senses has emerged and into which everything will ultimately re-descend. The Akashic Record (also called The Akashic Chronicle,) is the enduring record of all that happens, and has ever happened, in space and time.”

Now my model of the three levels of divine creation can incorporate all this.  How?

First, is there any support in the Bahá’i Writings for the concept of an Akashic Field and Record?  I don’t know of any specific reference, but the following are some suggestive statements from the Master and Baha’u’llah. (I have bold-faced the relevant phrases)

Regarding an all-pervasive field of energy (an ether) underlying the physical, ‘Abdu’l-Baha speaks of etheric matter.  For example: “Reflect that light is the expression of the vibrations of the etheric matter: the nerves of the eye are affected by these vibrations, and sight is produced. The light of the lamp exists through the vibration of the etheric matter; so also does that of the sun, but what a difference between the light of the sun and that of the stars or the lamp!” (Some Answered Questions: 149)

What about an Akashic Record? Baha’u’llah asserts: "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. And He bade Me lift up My voice between earth and heaven, and for this there befell Me what hath caused the tears of every man of understanding to flow.” (Baha'u'llah, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf: 11)  And…

“Thou knowest full well that We perused not the books which men possess and We acquired not the learning current amongst them, and yet whenever We desire to quote the sayings of the learned and of the wise, presently there will appear before the face of thy Lord in the form of a tablet all that which hath appeared in the world and is revealed in the Holy Books and Scriptures. Thus do We set down in writing that which the eye perceiveth. Verily His knowledge encompasseth the earth and the heavens.” (Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 149)

(It may be worth noting that Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, uses the word akasha, characterizing it as a sort of life force.  She also referred to "indestructible tablets of the astral light" recording both the past and future of human thought and action.  I am not claiming that the Bahá’i Writings and ancient and contemporary science and philosophy are speaking of exactly the same thing, only pointing to the similarity of imagery.)

One part of the divine creation that I have proposed is the level, pre-existent to all creation, of the attributes of God.  But this pre-existence is not a temporal priority, but a causal or conceptual one.  Creation changes when these Attributes and Qualities undergo reconfiguration and development, a change indicated by the change with every Revelation of the leading Name of God.  Baha’u’llah, for example, speaks of the change from the Bab’s Revelation to His own as “when He replaced His Name 'the Most Exalted' by 'the Most Glorious'…”(Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 185)

 This divine change is effected by the Will of God flowing through the archetypal and universal categories of the divine Intellect whch forms the cosmological dimension.  The full cosmological dimension is that of all consciousness and intelligence, of the sun of the divine Intellect and its reflection in human minds. The Divine Intellect also pre-exists and “informs” (Laszlo’s word) the Akashic Field.  That is, the divine Will is Spirit as originating, universal metaphysical impulse, the Spirit of God moving across the face of the waters in Biblical imagery. Primal Will is embodied and formed by the universal, divine Intellect, the Spirit as archetypal form and pattern.  In this context, these two, Will and Intellect, are the same, yet they are different.  The union of Will and Intellect is the imprinting active force.  Upon what does this energy pattern imprint itself?  Akashic Field proponents would say the Akashic Field, which I agree with in one sense.  But the first imprint, I would say, is upon the archetypal, metaphysical and receptive substance of divine Love.  Now this metaphysical love has its mental/physical image and counterpart in the cosmos/universe union.  Remember ‘Abdu’l-Baha stated that love is “the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe.” (Selections from the Writings of Abdu'l-Baha: 27)  The physical universe itself, the world of being, is the manifestation of the heat generated by the interaction of Will and Intellect upon this prima materia.

This divine love—what Laszlo calls a sea of “frictionless energy”—is an inherent part of the universe.”  ‘It is undisputed, however, that the influence of Thine attraction hath everlastingly been inherent in the realities of Thy handiwork,…”(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab:175)

For today’s cosmologists, like Laszlo, who leave God and His Manifestations out of creation, the original substance would be the Akashic Field-information-cosmos and the Zero Point Field energy universe that together make up what physicists call the quantum vacuum.  Creation itself is, in modern terminology, made up of countless wave interference combinations, both physical and mental and physical with mental, that join and knit together in a kind of conjugation to create the infinite manifest things.  There are sub-fields, not only electro-magnetic and gravitational in the physical realm, but mental fields, like Sheldrake’s “morphic fields”, that also operate through time and space.  Together these physical and mental interactions bring about a species-life and learning, each species recognizing its signature in the field of fields, and each tradition of thought in the human realm manifesting what is known as a history of ideas.  I don’t quarrel with the logic of any of this, but I accept the creation as a divine handiwork, not just the interplay of forces.

Now Revelation would also change the Akashic Field and Record.  I mean that the Akashic Field would carry the imprint of previous Revelations, being the Master Imprint, and these would be linked together in a kind of morphic resonance, a species of divine Utterance unlike any other pattern of informed energy, recognizable only as Itself, and progressing toward a state of “highest essence and most perfect expression”. This is what the Bahá’i Writings call progressive Revelation.  Indeed, recall Baha’u’llah claims to see “in the form of a tablet all that which hath appeared in the world and is revealed in the Holy Books and Scriptures.”  

Now the Bahá’i Writings also claim that with every Revelation, creation is made new.  In one celebrated passage—Prayers and Meditations: 295-96—Baha’u’llah speaks of “every several atom” acquiring a new and distinct character.  Are atoms—not the billiard balls of classical physics but the energy quanta of quantum mechanics—where the cosmological Mind resonantly intersects with universal Matter, when and where the divine imprints its mental image upon the prima materia?  In short, in my model, natural law is a physical image of the divine law flowing from self-generating Will through Intellect imprinting upon Love.  

But, if Revelation recreates all creation how is there continuity?  Though the forms of creation are recreated the essential elements and simple substances would not change, just be reorganized and transformed into new things.  Through progressive Revelation, information—the rules, laws and principles of Nature’s organization—is passed from one cycle of Revelation to the next, again through a kind of morphic resonance, because it would imprint the same image, though each time in fuller form, upon the Akashic field, or divine love, reorganizing its patterns and thus reorganizing into new forms “every several atom”.  Because the structure of the spiritual and natural law remains, but ever new things may come from these laws and principles of structure and organization, even precise ratios of numbers for gravity, electromagnetism etc. so exact that there has not been enough time for these to have formed randomly, would be the same. Those numbers are transferred from previous stages of the universe, they are unchangeable or change so slowly that they are nearly so.

Said another way, the first intellectual form, the abstract universal of Revelation, becomes the concrete universal, the formal cause of  the universe, when it imprints upon mental/physical prima materia, the Akashic Field, which is the intellectual essence of Nature since “nature, also, in its essence is an intellectual reality”, (Abdu'l-Baha, Some Answered Questions: 83), “the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator.” (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah:141)

Thus: “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.” (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah: 142)  Now all this imprinting of Revelation on the Akashic Field would be recorded on the Akashic Record.

The foundation of spiritual science is to know, without necessarily fully comprehending, those great spiritual structures from which come forth all created things.  These are the mansions of eternity, eternal principles that are revealed with every Manifestation of God but in ever more complex intellectual and social and material form.   They open and are propagated by light, both intellectual and physical, depending upon which is being emphasized, for both are always part of every act.