# Creation

*Exported from [Holy-Writings.com](https://www.holy-writings.com/) on 2026-06-18 — 1 clipping.*

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Lasse Thoresen, Creation, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Creation
> Lasse Thoresen
> 
> Abstract
> Divine creation moves from implicit and transcendent oneness to explicit and
> manifest multiplicity. To contribute to the creation of a new civilization as a
> researcher or as an artist means to make oneself available for participation in
> this process o f neverending unfolding. The divine Names are the eternal
> archetypes organizing the material world. Divine Names are not concepts; they
> are tools for invoking the animated presence o f a particular aspect of the
> creative force, thus enabling dialogue between thinking processes and reality.
> Such a dialogue favors a presuppositionless, susceptive attitude to reality as
> more adequate than the im position o f preconceived m ethodological
> assumptions.
> 
> Résumé
> La création divine se meut continuellem ent de l ’unicité im plicite et
> transcendante à la multiplicité explicite et manifeste. Participer à la création
> d ’une nouvelle civilisation en tant que chercheur ou en tant qu’artiste implique
> une ouverture totale à ce processus sans fin. Les Noms de Dieu sont les
> archétypes éternels par lesquels s ’organise l ’univers matériel. Les Noms de
> Dieu ne sont pas des concepts, mais plutôt des moyens d ’évoquer la présence
> vivante d ’un aspect particulier de la force créatrice, permettant ainsi que
> s ’établisse un échange entre le processus de la pensée et la réalité. Un tel
> échange préfère une attitude sans à priori, une perception spontanée de la
> réalité comme plus adéquate que l ’imposition d ’hypothèses méthodologiques
> préétablies.
> 
> Resumen
> La creación divina pasa de la unidad implicita y transcendente a la
> m ultiplicidad explicita y manifiesta. Contribuir a la creación de una
> civilización nueva en carâcter de investigador o artista significa hacerse
> disponible para la participación en este proceso de desenvolvimiento
> inacabable. Los Nombres divinos son los arquetipos eternos que organizan el
> mundo material. Lejos de ser conceptos, son herramientas que sirven para
> invocar la presencia animada de un aspecto especifico de la fuerza creadora,
> entablando asi diâlogo entre los procesos de reflexion y de la realidad. Tal
> didlogo favorece una actitud susceptible a la realidad y carecente de
> 
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> presuposiciones como mds adecuada que la imposición de lax suposiciones
> preconcebidas metodológicas.
> 
> I
> It is a fundamental belief of the Bahà’is that creation as we witness it through
> our senses is a reality rooted in a still deeper reality, hidden to our senses but
> accessible to our souls, spirits, and hearts. The Bahà’i view of the world beyond
> emphasizes becoming over being. Eternality and historicity are mutually
> interactive.1 The world was not created once and for all; it is under continual
> creation as the energies of the transcendent world flow into the world of matter
> and the world of human minds, manifesting themselves in the creation of living
> beings, in the revelation of God through His manifestations, and in the rise and
> flourishing of human civilizations throughout history. The same creative force
> that produced the dinosaurs and caused their extinction so that the era of the
> mammals could begin is still at work through human history. Humanity is
> presently in a stage of transition in which crises after crises challenge human
> creativity to find solutions to man’s craving for spiritual and physical
> sustenance. The mammals of the new era may still be small in size and number,
> but they are here and are gradually accumulating strength.
> The creative energy of the universe works itself from the point of unity into
> diversified forms and beings that exist on different levels of the cosmos. While
> creation diversifies itself, at the same time it gathers together again its
> diversified elements and species so as to bring itself into harmony with the
> original oneness from which it is always emerging. All the planets of our solar
> system supposedly came into individual existence through a centrifugal
> explosion that was counterbalanced by forces of gravity. Thus the initial
> centrifugal diversification was held in check by the centripetal force of gravity.
> We could see this as the “love” of the sun for its planets, as gravity is the
> expression of love on the lower level of material reality. “The power of
> cohesion expressed in the mineral kingdom is in reality love or affinity
> manifested in a low degree according to the exigencies of the mineral world”
> (‘Abdu’l-Baha, Promulgation 257).
> In the animal kingdom we find groups of species that collaborate to survive
> or perform complementary, mutually beneficent tasks one for the other, without
> the self-awareness that they are doing so. In the organic world, symbiosis and
> interdependency are now gradually being recognized as constituting a more
> fundamental feature in the evolution of species than competition and the
> survival of the fittest.2 In the world of humanity, religion is the force which
> most powerfully can reunite a diversified humanity conscious of its own
> existence and capable of making individual choices. All the great religions have
> contributed in this regard by giving man the means of reuniting with the
> primordial Unity from which all creation is constantly emanating, and in
> C r e a tio n                                73
> 
> addition, in this particular day and age, the Bahà’i Revelation has been sent
> down to promote the unification of the entire planet in the form of a global
> civilization.
> The Bahà’i Faith teaches that the ultim ate source of all being, the
> unknowable God, created the universe out of love. “I loved thy creation, hence I
> created thee” (Bahà’u’ilàh, Hidden Words Arabic no. 4). From this we learn
> that divine, cosmic love is the one and ultimate origin of all existence. Being
> with a capital B is thus essentially nothing but love. To exist is to arise out of
> love. To be conscious that we simply exist, and to testify to this naked fact,
> brings to us the awareness of this universal, all-pervasive love. Meditation and
> the arts can change man’s frame of mind to reach this awareness of Universal
> Being. Daily, BahâT's testify before God that we are created to know Him and
> worship Him through obedience to His Will.
> In another passage, Baha’u’llah, God’s supreme Manifestation for our time,
> tells us: “Thou didst wish to make thyself known unto men; therefore, Thou
> didst, through a word of Thy mouth, bring creation into being and fashion the
> universe (Prayers and Meditations 6). Thus we learn that the diversified
> creation is created with the purpose that the Supreme Creator be known through
> the revelation of His attributes. Creation ec-sists, which literally means stands
> out, that is, stands out from primordial, undifferentiated oneness, in order to be
> known. This gives us an important perspective on the nature of the relationship
> between the material world and human consciousness: In the final analysis it is
> impossible to divorce the very existence of concrete things from the existence
> of a consciousness capable of observing and knowing these things, since one is
> created for the other, the other for the one.
> If creation were not to be known, not to be observed and acknowledged, if it
> were not to be investigated, described, depicted, then the very purpose of God
> to make Himself known would indeed be frustrated. Thus the development of
> science and arts, both interactive agents in the civilization process, has a
> meaning beyond providing us means for physical survival and sensual pleasure:
> through these complementary disciplines we testify before God, before man,
> and to ourselves about our consciousness—or even our amazement—that we
> exist, that the created world contains innumerable wonders and mysteries, that
> we are all connected with our Creator, that we are the recipients of His riches
> and bountiful gifts, and that we are participants in the creative unfoldment of
> His Will through human history, engaged in spiritualizing our lives and those of
> our fellow citizens, eagerly contributing to the creation of a spiritual world
> civilization.
> 
> II
> Let us now take one step further behind the curtain of physical reality, to delve
> deeper into the operation of the spiritual forces that create existence as we know
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> 
> it, using the Sacred Scriptures of the Bahà’i Faith as our guide. My reason for
> doing so is not only to present a doctrine of the metaphysical nature of the
> universe, but also to derive models of the creative powers at work that could
> enhance our own limited creative endeavors.
> The Bahà’i Sacred Scripture teaches us that God in His absolute transcendent
> essence did not create the world directly but through the mediation o f the
> creative Word; the original creative act of God did not imply causation. Let me
> quote from the writings of His Holiness the Báb:3 “God created all things by
> His Primal Will, and this Primal Will by itself’ (Bayán 3:6);“ He has created
> Will from nothingness, It is a cause unto itself. This Will cannot be explained or
> qualified. Subsequently, He created all things as an effect of this Will” (qtd. in
> Mázandarání 1:99); “The Cause of the Will, in truth, is not the eternal Essence.
> . . . He created the Unity (the Primal Will) from itself, by itself and made it to
> be the cause of the existence of all existences” (Súriy-i-Tawhíd).
> The world is not directly caused by God, as far as I can understand the
> Writings. The Primal Will was called forth from nothingness by the creative
> Word to establish Its own existence, and to generate the particular essences of
> beings from Itself, and to bring them to appear in the perceptible realm so as to
> be known in their full, concrete, and complex creation. This primal, generating
> Will (Mashiyyat) is identified with the essential nature of the Manifestation of
> God. Thus Moses, Buddha, Jesus, Moses, and Bahà’u'Uah, in terms of physical,
> historical beings, were the concrete expressions of this Primal Will, created so
> that ordinary man through establishing a relationship with these figures could
> be connected to their inner, essential reality, the Primal Will, and thus become
> reunited with the origin of creation. Each of these has in turn initiated an entire
> civilization; and for each new one, God has signified a change of His Will,
> pointed out a new direction and cancelled (badá’) features of the previous
> Dispensation.
> Now, the idea of creation without direct causation challenges us to
> thoroughly reexamine our conceptions of causation with regard to the creative
> process. The modern conceptions of the nature of causation in the creation of an
> object were generally shaped by Aristotle. He taught that there are four types of
> causation: taking the example of the production of a silver goblet to be used for
> giving sacrifice to the gods, he describes the material cause, that is, the material
> out of which it is produced; the formal cause, that is, the form the material
> should be given; the, final cause, which is all the necessary constraints and
> principles defined by the purpose for which the object is produced, in this case
> the production of a goblet to be used for sacrificial rites; and then the efficient
> cause, that is, the work of the craftsman who actually makes the goblet,
> combining all the previous elements. God is traditionally described as the
> efficient cause of the universe. However, the Bahà’i writings challenge this
> idea, emphasizing that pristine creation is something different from causation,
> C r e a tio n                                75
> 
> and so they definitely prevent us from degrading God to a demiurge who puts
> together disjointed entities from a static, ideal world in order to construct our
> physical reality.
> In his analysis of the pre-Socratic conceptual world of the ancient Greeks, the
> philosopher Martin Heidegger brings our attention to a concept of creation that
> comes much closer to the one suggested by the Báb.4
> First, Heidegger contends that the modern understanding of cause is implicit
> in the very etymology of the Latin word causa, being derived from cadere,
> meaning “to fall.” Thus a cause is a something that brings about the effect that a
> certain something falls out, or turns out in such and such a specific way, it
> becomes a case, so to speak. Heidegger then proceeds to analyze the etymology
> of Aristotle’s word for cause, aitia, a word coined by a consciousness that was
> not yet affected by rationalist categories of thought. It turns out that this word
> .also has meanings like occasion and accusation. The related verb aiteo means
> to demand, to ask, to beg.
> Going beyond Heidegger’s deliberately areligious philosophy, and using his
> ideas about creation as a tool to explore the possible signification of the Bâb’s
> statement, I would suggest the following: To create something without
> causation might imply to demand (pray, ask for) the appearance of a
> transcendental reality in a particular context and to prepare conditions for this to
> happen. This transcendental reality is not itself intrinsic in what is actually
> made; it just appears in the context created. The appearing reality is not at all
> something made up, invented, or put together; rather it is un-covered, dis­
> closed. What is made up owes its existence, its raison d'être, to the higher
> reality without actually being made by it; the production as such takes place on
> a lower level. The hidden meaning calls for its own appearance, and it
> eventually appears when a mirroring condition is present, that is, when a
> susceptible state (a “locus”) on a lower level has been brought into existence.
> Accordingly, the created world owes its existence to its being an occasion for
> divine attributes to appear in it; this does not mean God Himself made it, but He
> evidently created conditions in which it could constitute itself and thus become
> the locus of the appearance of God’s attributes within it. It was brought forth
> through the challenge of God’s creative word, through His evocation. Creation,
> after being evoked by God’s decree (amr), or by his mention (dhikr). then is
> self-generating in developing its intrinsic formal and material distinctions,
> which eventually fulfill the original demand: to mirror, to make God’s hidden
> nature appear; to uncover His hidden nature. This appearance of the
> transcendent in the manifest remains the purpose of all existence, of human life,
> therefore also the aspiration of all true science, of all worthy art.
> The creation of a work of art can be seen in a similar perspective. Returning
> to Heidegger, a true masterwork of art is “the Truth of existing things setting
> itself into [the] work” ( “Das sich-ins-Werk-setzen der Wahrheit des Seienden”)
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> 
> (Der Ursprung des Kunstwerk.es 33). Heidegger goes on to point out that the
> Greek word for truth, aletheia, has the etymological meaning of un-hiddenness.
> Thus truth becomes the appearance of the transcendent, deeper aspect of reality
> (Being) appearing in a finite context (the work of art), among other existing
> things, but the work of art has the function of heightening this awareness and
> realization connected to the unveiling of transcendental reality. Its effect upon
> us becomes to marvel, to experience intensively that we are present, to find
> ourselves alive and existing and to rejoice in this realization.
> The Bahà’i Shrine, Terraces, monumental buildings, and gardens on the slope
> of Mount Carmel that recently were officially opened, fulfill all these properties
> of the work of art in a most exceptional and exquisite way. Their existence is
> due to a few words of the Báb and BaháVlláh—by their decree (qadd), but
> they had to be physically conceived and built by material and practical means,
> after the House of Justice found the time was right and gave permission.
> Despite all the Terraces’ beauty, their ultimate fascination is of course the
> transcendent spirit that is found in them. Bahà’u’ilàh’s Tablet of Carmel
> abounds with allusions to the appearance of the hidden in the manifest: “God
> hath . . . made thee [Carmel] the dawning-place of His signs. . .        ‘“ He that
> was hidden from mortal eyes is come!’” (Tablets of Bahd’u ’lldh 4). The Tablet
> contains a recurrent metaphor describing the movement from the transcendent
> realm into manifestation in the earthly dimension: The Name of God, or
> Heavenly element is first invoked, the Earth shakes in response, and a new
> creation, until now hidden in the unseen world, is made to appear. “Sanctified
> be the Lord . . . , at the mention of Whose name all the atoms of the earth have
> been made to vibrate, and the Tongue of Grandeur hath been moved to disclose
> that which had been wrapt in His knowledge and lay concealed within the
> treasury of His might” (Tablets of Bahd'u’lldh 5). In the oratorio Terraces of
> Light I wrote for the opening of the Terraces on Mount Carmel, I extracted from
> the above quotation a formula for introducing changes or new elements in the
> piece: first a signal, like a fanfare, symbolizes the mention of the Name of God,
> then a tremulating sound, sometimes a kettledrum roll, in the orchestra, before
> the new musical element appears.
> 
> Ill
> Having now discussed the relationship between God’s absolutely Transcendent
> Essence and the Primal Will, and deduced from this the principle of creation
> through emanation, let us now consider the self-generation of the Primal Will,
> through the Primal Point. In the Lawh-i-Hikmat BaháVlláh states: “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 Bahd’u ’lldh 140). This statement about the
> creation of the spiritual universe may seem nebulous, but it becomes quite clear
> C r e a tio n                                      77
> 
> when seen in the light of the Bâb’s discourse on the creative word, “Be!,” the
> Arabic word kun. The word is first of all used in the Qur’àn; “His command
> when He willeth aught, is but to say to it, BE [kun], and IT IS” (36:80). We
> know the reference to this word from the long obligatory prayer in the passage
> in.which we testify that “Thou art God, that there is no God but Thee, and that
> 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 321).
> The Arabic word consists of an initial burst of energy: “k,” which
> immediately has its resonance in the softer vowel, n: “A 'a/lthe letter k]
> represents the station of Mashiyyat (Primal Will) and Nún [the letter n ]
> represents the station of Irádih (Purpose); Mashiyyat is the Father of things and
> Irádih the Mother. . . . Through Kqf God created the substance [Máddíyyih] of
> •all things and through Nún God created the form [Surat] of all things” (The
> Báb, Tafsír-i-Bismi’lláh; provisional translation). We understand that within
> this unitary sound kun there is an inherent polarity between an active
> component and a passive one: the active one ordains being; the passive one is
> the matrix containing all possibilities of form. Being has been endowed with the
> endless potentiality to form essences of particular beings. Perhaps creation so
> far is timeless, perpetual; all possible creations for all times are there, yet
> nothing is materialized, selected for actual existence.
> If we are to understand further the implications of the active and passive
> forces with regard to the emergence of the physical world from the Will of God,
> the following quotation from ‘AbduT-Bahá is interesting:
> 
> [T]he substance and primary matter of contingent beings is the ethereal power, which
> is invisible and only known through its effects, such as electricity, heat, and light—
> these are vibrations of that power, and this is established and proven in natural
> philosophy and is known as the ethereal substance [mdddiy-i-athiriyyih]. This ethereal
> substance is itself both the active force and the recipient; in other words, it is the sign
> of the Primal Will in the phenomenal world. . . . ” (Qtd. in Brown 28)
> 
> The next step in the divine creative process now casts a dynamic element into
> creation; the first active point determines to activate a latent possibility of form,
> so that a certain thing will appear in the world of creation. This third step of
> creation, the actualization of a particular preexisting potential, is called Qadar
> in the Writings. The following quotation by the Báb may serve to elucidate the
> meaning of this concept:
> 
> Subsequently, He created all things as an effect of this Will. This is impossible save
> through seven degrees of contingency. Without these seven degrees nothing is
> possible in the contingent world. These seven are Will [Mashiyyat], Purpose [Irádih],
> Predestination/decreed fate [Qadar]; Decreed Fate/Predestination [Qada], Permission
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> 
> [IdhnQ, Fixed Time [Ajal\, and the Book [Kitáb], (Qtd. in Mázandárání 1:99;
> provisional translation)
> 
> With Qadar, a process of diversification begins, which means an initial,
> although perhaps not yet manifest, entry into the categories of time and space.
> Now Qadar would probably correspond to the element of heat referred to in the
> above quotation from the Lawh-i-Hikmat, the element of heat being certainly
> the Fire element, which is more or less the same as Light. Thus Qadar would
> probably correspond to that moment in Genesis when God says: “Let there be
> light.” Before that, the heaven and the earth, probably symbolic of the active
> and the recipient agents (or Mashiyyat and Irádih), had already been created:
> “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without
> form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of
> God was moving over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be
> light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God
> separated the light from the darkness” (Gen. 1:1-4).
> According to Genesis, God proceeds to create all things. It seems, however,
> that the first chapter of Genesis does not deal with physical creation. It is the
> creation of eternal archetypes in what is called the Kingdom (Malakút) in the
> Bahá’1 writings. In this realm man as a species always preexisted ideally,
> regardless of the historic processes of this world. Only in Genesis 2 does the
> reality ideally created begin to manifest itself in the historic dimension, a
> dimension where the right time (or Term, Ajal) will have to be there before that
> reality can become manifest:
> 
> These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created. In
> the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens when no plant of the field
> was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the LORD God
> had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no man to till the ground; but a
> mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground—then the
> LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
> breath of life; and man became a living being. (Gen. 2:4-7)
> 
> IV
> Let me now present some musical thoughts that the contact with these ideas
> released in my mind. When I began writing the piece for the opening of the
> Terraces on Mount Carmel, I was allowed by the Universal House of Justice to
> stay at the World Centre for three weeks. Daily visits in the gardens, in the
> Shrine of the Báb, and search in the Bâb’s Texts released a strange ecstasy
> within me, and while conceiving the main piece for the Terraces, I also had the
> idea of another piece. I accepted a request from my school, the Norwegian State
> Academy of Music, to write a piece to celebrate the change of the millennium,
> and I found a way to include 230 performers from the school, and ended up
> C r e a tio n                                79
> 
> with a work of one hour’s duration. I called it “As the Waves of One Sea.” In
> my mind, and in its interior construction, the piece was actually a contemplation
> of a number of the Bâb’s metaphysical and numerological categories. The piece
> begins with a forceful stroke on a tam-tam (a huge, flat gong), placed on an
> elevated spot above the orchestra. This sound symbolizes the kun. It is a stroke
> that provides the active force, the existence of the sound, and then there is an
> enormously complex, rich resonance, a sound so rich that one could imagine
> that all other sounds could come from this one, if it were to be filtered in
> different ways. Now, the whole piece is organized into eighteen sections by the
> nineteen strokes of this huge, elevated tam-tam.
> The Báb divides nineteen, the number of wáhid, meaning unity, into
> .3+4+Ó+6. From these numbers, a number of musical rhythms are generated.
> The pitches used are generated using the first nineteen partials of nineteen
> subharmonically transposed fundamentals. These, of course, are things you
> cannot hear as such; they are parts of the internal construction of the pieces. The
> first stroke on the huge tam-tam placed on an elevated spot in the hall is an
> equivalent to kun, and it is echoed (mirrored) by nineteen strokes on minor tam­
> tams spaced around the audience. Each of these is placed in front of a door in
> the concert house. The next stroke of the big tam-tam gets a resonance in the
> big choir: a hundred voices sounding with no internal order, as if heaven and
> earth had not yet been separated. The third stroke, and the orchestra enters in
> the same way, playing simultaneously all the twenty-one pitch classes used in
> the piece. Now the ocean is starting to have waves, and the waves uncover
> vaguely some of its own interior, so we start to discern different groups of
> instruments. A new stroke, and now the doors behind the smaller tam-tams are
> opened halfway; in the distance one can hear, but not see, different kinds of
> music, as if preexisting in the ideal world, but not yet manifest. Now back to the
> beginning; eventually the human voice in harmony is heard, and with a tam-tam
> stroke, you hear a harp solo that represents the dawning of the first light,
> followed by a rejoicing flute quartet. The musical material of the flute quartet
> and harp solo is constructed by forms I deduced from Subhàna’llàh, the
> particular invocation (tasbih) that the Báb in the Persian Bayán assigns to the
> first element, that of light/fire. The tonality of the section combines
> subharmonic layers 1 and 19, and the section ends with a ritornello playing with
> rhythmical groupings based on the numbers 3, 4, 6, and 6.
> Successively the piece descends through the air element, the water element,
> and the earth element, each section using its proper invocation as its hidden
> constructive element. It eventually arrives at a consummation in the ninth
> section, whose fundamental is the nineteenth subharmonic and which again
> presents the human voice. The remaining section forms some kind of a
> reascension to the beginning point. The forces of diversification attain their
> consummation during the fourteenth section, where the music played by various
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> 
> mobile ensembles emerges and takes the floor of the concert hall while the
> choir is transformed into a cheering crowd; there is a jazz ensemble, a
> Norwegian folk music ensemble, a Renaissance ensemble, a military band, and
> also a fantasy ensemble playing on hoses and tubes. In the next section four
> fanfare ensembles, each placed in a different corner of the concert house, are
> accompanying an invisible fireworks while the choir is jubilating and pointing
> to invisible rockets; the fireworks and climactic sounds bring the entire world
> back again to the first point, from which the world again is ready to reemerge at
> the nineteenth stroke of the big tam-tam.
> 
> V
> We will now proceed one step more into the creative processes that determine
> physical existence. The Bahà’i Faith teaches us that all the Names and
> Attributes of the one God form the basis of the creation of all existing
> phenomena. This is evident from passages such as this one;
> 
> Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one
> of His names, and made it a recipient of the glory of one of His attributes. Upon the
> reality of man, however. He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and
> attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created things man hath
> been singled out for so great a favour, so enduring a bounty. (BaháVlláh, Gleanings
> 65)
> 
> The acceptance of this statement will naturally form the basis of a Bahà’i
> epistemology. Evidently, this is how we, mankind, are created so that we would
> have the “capacity to know Him [God] and to love Him—a capacity that must
> needs be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose
> underlying the whole of creation. . . .” (Bahà’uTlàh, Gleanings 65).
> It is of paramount importance, if we are to grasp the distinctive nature of the
> creative relationship between transcendence and physical reality, to understand
> the difference between a concept and a name. A concept (from Latin, con
> capere) means to seize hold of a certain something by the aid of something. The
> etymology of the Germanic word begreifen reveals a similar meaning. To grasp
> is of course a very useful act, because you can appropriate what you grasp and
> handle that which you have seized. A word that is a concept gives us a mental
> tool with which we can grasp or seize something. To form or define a concept is
> mostly the end result of a process of research, of observation, and of
> contemplation of a certain aspect of reality. The forming of a concept will
> crystallize or freeze a number of more fluid or vaguer phenomena, define—that
> is, literally put a border around—that phenomenon and delimit it from other
> phenomena. By itself, a concept is, however, merely an arbitrary tagging or
> labeling of a mental construct, useful among other things to retrieve the
> associations to which it is fixed, from our own memory or that of others. By
> C r e a tio n                                    81
> 
> themselves, concepts are empty if not filled with the experiences that define
> their meaning. Heidegger puts it very clearly when he says: “Philosophische
> Begriffe bleiben leer, wenn wir nicht zuvor ergriffen sind von dem, was sie
> begreifen sollen” (“Philosophical concepts remain empty as long as we are not
> captured by that which they are supposed to conceive”) (Gesamtausgabe 29/30:
> 9; my translation; italics added to indicate etymologically related roots
> equivalent to the German original’s greifen, “to seize”).
> The Names of God are intrinsically something entirely different from
> concepts. They are agents o f creation in the world beyond, with their
> representations in this world. Perhaps they can be conceived as different rivers,
> each containing an amount of onrushing energy—that is, a fluid quality—and a
> static, resistant quality, that provokes or filters the formal potential of this
> energy. This would be more or less like boulders in a river bed that cause the
> rise of whirls and vortices, which would be the equivalent of the appearance of
> wonderful forms in the contingent world. The static elements that cause the
> onrushing energies or generate phenomena in this world are the archetypes
> (a ‘yan thábita) that provide us with the organizing structure of the world, and
> of our minds: ’Abdu’l Bahá exemplifies them as directions like North and
> South, that is, immaterial but relational matrices.
> 
> As to the “fixed archetypes” [a ‘yan thábita] spoken of by the mystics, the argument
> is this: Numbers, although fixed, have no definite existence and are a mere
> convention. As they say: “East and west, north and south, possess a fixed character,
> yet they have no objective existence. Likewise, the fixed archetypes are the forms of
> God’s knowledge: they have a fixed character, but have not inhaled even a breath of
> real existence.” (‘“ Abdu’l-Bahà’s Tablet” 27)
> 
> The Names are not just agents in the process of creation that proceed from
> God to the physical world. A Name is a tool for us as well, but another kind of a
> tool than a concept whose function it merely is to designate. It lies in the nature
> of a Name that it is designed for invocation. Through a Name one calls upon the
> bearer of the Name, in order to bring that other reality into the presence of the
> one who is calling. Once the spirit of faith is activated in man, through man’s
> belief in the Manifestation of God, Who represents the unifying and mediating
> central agency of the created world, we are potentially connected to all of
> reality. To the extent that it is God’s will, and we are receptive in the right way,
> the reality of any existing thing is spiritually present with us. The evocation of
> the inner reality of things brings us into a com m unication or— more
> appropriately expressed—communion with the world around us so that by
> resonating with it we may come to understand it more deeply.
> Calling upon someone is only meaningful if that one upon whom we call is
> another sentient being. The Bahà’i Scripture states explicitly that reality is not
> dead, mechanical, inherently devoid of signification and intelligence. There is
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> 
> no such thing as an entirely inanimate object; the world around us is alive. In
> His letter to Dr. Forel, ‘Abdu’l Bahá explains this fact clearly and without any
> shadow of a doubt to this sympathetic but materialistically oriented scientist:
> “As to the existence of spirit in the mineral: it is indubitable that minerals are
> endowed with a spirit and life according to the requirements of that stage. This
> unknown secret, too, hath become known unto the materialists who now
> maintain that all beings are endowed with life, even as He saith in the Qur’àn,
> ‘All things are living’” (“Tablet to Dr. Forel” 9). Accordingly, the evocation of
> the inner reality of things should be possible. It provides the practicing natural
> scientist with the idea that a merely objective approach (in which man, so to
> speak, challenges nature through his devices, his m easurem ents, his
> apparatuses, his mental fixations or preform ed concepts) could be
> complemented by a sensitive approach to observation, one more like someone
> who enjoys the company of nature in a dialogue, than someone who wants to
> conquer it and appropriate it for his own purposes.
> Although ordinary people can never match the Manifestations of God, we
> know we should also emulate Their example. And we know that Bahà’u’ilàh on
> several occasions addressed or held conversations with a number of objects,
> such as water drops, grasshoppers, mountains (Carmel), with limbs and parts of
> the human body, and even with cultural objects (cities, houses) and ideal
> objects (trustworthiness, the Maid of Heaven).
> If we wish to contribute to the unending process of creating a new
> civilization, be it as artists or scientists or in whatever capacity, I suggest we
> should exploit to the full the belief that the Names of God are being coequally
> revealed in material reality and in the human soul. The implication is that
> research is not simply concerned with “something that is going on out there.”
> Research is also going on through our contemplation of reality as it appears to
> us in our own mind and spirit. Reality has a resonance in our soul. An echo of
> The creative Word that created the reality of the world can, we may suppose, be
> heard in the thinking that streams from our own higher Self.
> 
> VI
> This approach to the investigation of the world around us depends, however, on
> a certain culture of the mind. It may briefly be summed up as the principle of an
> unprejudiced approach to the search for truth. We may also call it the principle
> of the pure heart f This culture of the mind, or mindset, has another interesting
> relationship to God’s Names through the use we make of them by the activity of
> remembrance (dhikr). “True remembrance is to make mention of the Lord, the
> All-Praised, and forget aught else beside Him” (Tablets of Bahá’u’ilâh 155).
> The term remembrance both denotes a human, individual process of forgetting
> everything but God through the repetition of one of His Names, and is at the
> same time used as a name of that reality which is the intended goal of such an
> C r e a tio n                                 83
> 
> exercise, namely the Primal Point, the Primal Will, the Manifestation of God in
> His transcendent aspect. “Unlock, O people, the gates of the hearts of men with
> the keys of the remembrance of Him Who is the Remembrance of God. . . .”
> (Gleanings 296), BaháVlláh says, thus ingeniously connecting both usages of
> the term into a compact, memorable statement. 6
> The term heart, so frequently used in Bahà’i Scriptures, seems often to
> indicate a state of human consciousness that lies beyond feelings, beyond
> thought. The meaning of the Bahà’f term heart, as the term is described in some
> passages, is not adequately explained by using the meaning of the word in
> everyday language, where one generally aims at a sincere and courageous
> expression of human feelings. As I understand, by the heart is meant, in a
> number of cases anyway, that faculty of God, that, when purified, is capable of
> reflecting the Primal Will. The Primal Will is completely free, has no describable
> quality, but is the originator of all qualities. The heart is that faculty in man that
> can reflect this reality from which all thinking, all imagining, all feeling radiate.
> But of itself, it has no particular quality, it is no object, it has no form.
> Now how does this relate to the question of the quest for truth, a quest in
> common both for the scientist, the artist, and the spiritual seeker? The exercise
> of remembrance, such as we daily practice it through the repetitions of the
> Greatest Name, rehearses in us the ability to direct ourselves towards a point of
> truth, while letting go of every image we might have of it, any feeling. We are
> approaching the very beginning of the universe in our own mind. Before the
> appearance of mental images of forms and qualities in our minds, we find
> intentions to perceive or create forms. In a state of communion with the Spirit
> of the Manifestations of God, that can occur as a result of remembrance of His
> Greatest Name, new intentions can be born in our minds from the Primal Will,
> through the mediation of the Holy Spirit. These may mean new perceptions of
> the world—we see things anew—or they release the impulse to create new
> entities or relationships in the world, if we carry out our intentions in action.
> Thus we can become co-creators of a new civilization.
> From the intentions born out of the communion with His transcendent Spirit
> creative thinking can issue. Creative thinking is something going in our minds;
> it is self-propelling, self-generating. Thought, on the contrary, is the finished,
> fixed result of these relatively fluid processes; the result shows itself in words,
> in concepts, or becomes solidified in the definite shapes of an accomplished
> work of art, or may be translated into the building of well-defined institutions,
> resulting in actions that benefit civilization. However, unless we master the
> process before the finished result, we will not develop our creative potential to
> the fullest.
> 
> VII
> I would like to be more specific about the relationship between the pure heart
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> 
> and the scientific approach to reality. Certainly, useful scientific work that is in
> full correspondence with a given code of scientific methodology can be done
> without using the heart. However, I think that discoveries that lead to
> fundamentally new, basic insights concerning the world presuppose purity of
> heart and a sincerely truth-seeking attitude, at least with regard to the specific
> matter under investigation. In saying so, I do not say that the total person needs
> to have a pure heart with regard to all fields of human existence (which would
> mean sainthood), be it the quest for religious truth or personal moral integrity.
> Now the corollary of the above statement is that scientific method never is self-
> sufficient. It presupposes the mindset of the researcher in terms of a pure and
> truth-seeking heart.
> My experience, and I think that of many others, has proven that the
> indiscriminate application of scientific method to any phenomenon will not
> automatically reveal the truth—the inner essence—of the phenomenon being
> investigated, but rather will confirm a number of assumptions already implicit
> in the method itself. I am speaking out of my own experience with academic
> musicological research. Scientific method may become like a prejudice,
> hindering the open, susceptible mind—which is more or less how we would
> define a pure heart—from reflecting the truth of the matter which is the inherent
> essence of the phenomenon studied. I am not suggesting we should discard the
> use of objective methods, but we must not put implicit faith in any scientific
> method as leading to the uncovering of the truth of the matter we are
> investigating. It must be applied judiciously, and with a truth-seeking attitude.
> The truth we seek is the truth of that which is under investigation, and this truth
> is its divinely created endowment of inherent purpose and essential attributes,
> as well as its network of interactions with other created entities.
> Already seventy or eighty years ago Edmund Husserl, the founder of
> phenomenology, coined the famous slogan: “Zu den Sachen selbst!"—“To the
> things themselves!” Through phenomenological contemplation of the object
> under investigation, Husserl described a rational, stringent approach to reality,
> based on a sensitive attitude that seeks to incorporate the subjective
> consciousness and conscience of the researcher while on the other hand
> emphasizing a methodical approach that aims at preventing subjectivism from
> detracting from an other-oriented, matter-of-fact attitude. In a phenomenological
> context, truth unravels its essential nature in the light of evidence in man’s
> transcendental self, and is of a progressive nature, according to Husserl. Thus,
> the acquisition of such a mindset through a methodic exercise of the mental
> faculties will help maintain contact with commonsensical reality and help
> eliminate the absurdities that sometimes result from a naive belief in objective
> scientific methods as such.
> Now Husserl, in his critique of the implicit crisis caused in Western
> civilization by the objectivist approach to reality, defines a few basic states of
> C r e a tio n                                       85
> 
> mind that the researcher has to be able master in order to be a truthful
> researcher. One of these he terms the transcendental self, and he describes
> meticulously how man momentarily attains to this by rehearsing the intention
> by which man suspends all judgments about the world, lets go of all efforts at
> explanation, and explores the phenomena appearing to him from the point zero
> of an open, unassuming mind. In his own words:
> 
> This ubiquitous detachment from any point of view regarding the objective world we
> term the phenomenological epoché. It is the methodology through which I come to
> understand myself as that ego and life of consciousness in which and through which
> the entire objective world exists for me, and is for me precisely as it is. Everything in
> the world, all spatio-temporal being, exists for me because I experience it, because I
> .   perceive it, remember it, think of it in any way, judge it, value it, desire it, etc. It is
> well known that Descartes designates all this by the term cogito. For me the world is
> nothing other than what I am aware of and what appears valid in such cogitationes.
> The whole meaning and reality o f the world rests exclusively on such cogitationes.
> My entire worldly life takes its course within these. I cannot live, experience, think,
> value, and act in any world which is not in some sense in me, and derives its meaning
> and truth from me. If I place myself above that entire life and if I abstain from any
> commitment about reality, specifically one which accepts the world as existing, and if
> I view that life exclusively as consciousness of the world, then I reveal myself as the
> pure ego with its pure stream of cogitationes.
> I certainly do not discover myself as one item among others in the world, since I
> have altogether suspended judgement about the world. I am not the ego of an
> individual man. I am the ego in whose stream of consciousness the world itself—
> including myself as an object in it, a man who exists in the world—first acquires
> meaning and reality. (Husserl, The Paris Lectures 8)
> 
> This particular state of mind has been a theme recurring through the history
> of both science and religion: Buddha dealt with similar mental exercises in
> detail in his Mahasatipatthana Sutta in which He defined the conditions of
> mindfulness in meditation and life; and Descartes, to whom Husserl refers
> above, described a similar principle through his famous dictum “Cogito ergo
> sum”; and we all know Bahà’u’ilàh’s instruction to the true seeker that he
> should “cleanse his heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger
> therein, lest that love blindly incline him to error, or that hate repel him away
> from the truth ” (Kitáb-i-íqán 192).
> I would moreover suggest that Bahà’u’ilàh encourages us to attain this state
> of mind daily through the short obligatory prayer in which the act of testifying
> or witnessing has a central position, this being the only repeated word. I am
> proposing, therefore, that the intention to “testify” or “bear witness” is a
> complex but integrated state of mind in which we, either having observed a
> particular reality or simultaneously while observing it, state that observation or
> experience in the presence o f another, attesting to the truth o f what we say
> 86      THE JO U R N A L OF B A H Á ’ I STU D IES               1 2 .1 /4 .2 0 0 2
> 
> through the evidence o f our own being. The mastery of this state of mind has a
> number of implications for a spiritual civilization beyond this context, be it in
> the arts, the sciences, or for the sanity of the human mind.
> I consider that the developments that took place in Husserl’s philosophy,
> including his critique of objective science, are of particular importance to the
> question of the use and usefulness of scientific method in a Bahà’i context. He
> in no way intended to do away with science or get away from a rational or
> scientific discourse; he was not in favor of relativizing truth entirely by
> reducing it merely to a projection of psychological mechanisms, or even further,
> by degrading the question of truth to merely individual points of view, such as
> is often done in the postmodern world. He actually developed a constructive
> critique of a number of ideas central to objective science, such as the dichotomy
> between inner and outer reality, thus allowing a point of view that incorporated
> the unity of existence into systematic thought. I would think that for Bahà’i
> researchers, a reconsideration of Husserl’s ideas in the light of Bahà’uTlàh’s
> Revelation might be fruitful as a means of creating a fresh approach to scientific
> methodology altogether, one that would accommodate a spiritual aspect in the
> process of rational research and investigation.
> Consistently with the phenomenological approach, the question of truth will
> have to be assessed through self-evidence. Constant effort to cleanse one’s heart
> by forgetting all presuppositions and assumptions, and letting go of one’s pet
> ideas and favorite opinions will help to avoid clogging up mental clarity. “Self-
> evident” truths may turn out to be insufficient as new aspects of the
> phenomenon under investigation emerge, and will have to be reconsidered and
> revised accordingly. Thus truth for the unselfish researcher will be progressive.
> For art, self-evidence might be a sufficient criterion for assessing the
> appropriateness and wellformedness of an expression. For “hard” science one
> would have to supplement the self-evident thesis with logical proofs and
> experimental testing, and possibly adjust it in the light of new experience.
> 
> VIII
> We have studied the ongoing process of creation in nature as well as in human
> beings and human civilization. First we contemplated the idea of creation
> without causation, then we probed the philosophy of the Primal Will and the
> Primal Point. We discussed purity of heart as a prerequisite for communion
> with this reality, as being fundamental for human life in general and
> indispensable for truth in science and art. One aspect of the pure heart is its
> openness, its having no form. Creative intentions spring from this point of
> origin. Intentions still have no specific form, but they represent an essential will
> to manifest a relationship to something positively existing in the manifest
> world. Intentions pass through the world of images and archetypes—the former
> more like vision, the latter more like cognitive patterns—before or while
> C r e a tio n                                      87
> 
> materializing in this world of differences. This brief summary of some salient
> points presented above is at the same a restatement aimed at orienting our
> intention away from a cosmic ontology in order to rediscover the relevance and
> applicability of these ideas for understanding and releasing human creativity.
> This restatement is based on the assumption that the world we experience and
> the human consciousness created to know about it spring from the same point of
> unity.
> I would now like to close by presenting two testimonies from excellent
> creators in the field of human civilization, one a scientist and one an artist. The
> first testimony is a letter written by Albert Einstein formulated in response to an
> inquiry initiated by the journal L 'Enseignement Mathémathique1 about a
> hundred years ago:
> 
> (A) The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play
> any role in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as
> elements in thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be
> “voluntarily” reproduced and combined.
> There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant
> logical concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive finally at logically connected
> concepts is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above mentioned
> elements. But taken from a psychological viewpoint, this combinatory play seems to
> be the essential feature in productive thought—before there is any connection with
> logical construction in words or other kinds of signs which can be communicated to
> others.
> (B) The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some of muscular
> type. Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a
> secondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is sufficiently established and
> can be reproduced at will.
> (C) According to what has been said, the play with the mentioned elements is
> aimed to be analogous to certain logical connections one is searching for.
> . . . . It seems to me that what you call full consciousness is a limit case which can
> never be fully accomplished. This seems to me connected with the fact called the
> narrowness of consciousness... . (Qtd. in Hadamard 142-43)
> 
> I would like to draw your attention specifically to a few points mentioned
> here. Professor Einstein’s creative thinking only reaches a conceptual,
> communicable formulation quite at the very end. Evidently, he must be
> superbly in control of the mathematical language and its conventions to master
> this final stage. However, the reasoning process itself is preconceptual,
> preverbal, closer to an artist’s work than to exact science, since he works with
> mental images. In his last remark concerning the narrowness of consciousness.
> Professor Einstein seems to suggest that the creative moments do not happen in
> a state of full consciousness, since a fully conscious, concentrated mind, is too
> narrowed in its attention span, is too controlled, is not sufficiently free flowing
> 88        THE J O U R N A L OF B A H À ’Î S TUDI ES                    12. 1/ 4. 2002
> 
> to conceive new and unexpected ideas. It is now generally accepted that the
> creative process often passes through different phases: one characterized by
> concentrated effort to penetrate a field; the second characterized by a more
> turbulent grappling with problems that can find no solution through well-known
> techniques of problem solving; the third phase being that of the “Aha!”
> experience, a creative illumination that comes as a surprise when the mind is
> not working in a concentrated manner; and the final one being the practical
> application and testing of the ideas conceived.8
> The second example is another introspective account from one of European
> music history’s greatest creative geniuses, namely Johannes Brahms. In an
> interview with a young American journalist in Vienna in 1896 attended by
> Maestro Joachim (a famous violinist and lifelong friend of Brahms) as well as a
> stenographer and translator from the American Embassy in Vienna.
> 
> “Dr. Brahms, “I queried, “how do you contact Omnipotence? Most people find Him
> very aloof.”
> “That is the great question,” Brahms replied. “It cannot be done merely by will
> power working through the conscious mind, which is an evolutionary product of the
> physical realm and perishes with the body. It can only be accomplished by the soul-
> powers within—the real ego that survives bodily death. Those powers are quiescent
> to the conscious mind unless illumined by Spirit.. ..
> To realize that we are one with the Creator, as Beethoven did, is a wonderful and
> awe inspiring experience. Very few human beings ever come into that realization and
> that is why there are so few great composers or creative geniuses in any line of
> human endeavor. I always contemplate all this before commencing to compose. This
> is the first step. When I feel the urge I begin by appealing directly to my Maker and I
> first ask Him the three most important questions pertaining to our life here in this
> world—whence, wherefore, whither [woher, warum, wohin]?
> “I immediately feel vibrations that thrill my whole being,” Brahms continued.
> “These are the Spirit illuminating the soul power within, and in this exalted state, I
> see clearly what is obscure in my ordinary moods; then I feel capable of drawing
> inspiration from above, as Beethoven did. Above all, I realize at such moments the
> tremendous significance of Jesus’ supreme revelation, T and my Father are one.’
> Those vibrations assume the forms of distinct mental images, after I have formulated
> my desire and resolve in regard to what I want—namely, to be inspired so that I can
> compose something that will uplift and benefit humanity—something of permanent
> value.
> “Straightaway the ideas flow in upon me, directly from God, and not only do I see
> distinct themes in my mind’s eye, but they are clothed in the right forms, harmonies
> and orchestration. Measure by measure, the finished product is revealed to me when I
> am in those rare, inspired moods, as they were to Tartini when he composed his
> greatest work—the Devil’s Trill Sonata. I have to be in a semi-trance condition to get
> such results—a condition when the conscious mind is in temporary abeyance and the
> subconscious is in control, for it is through the subconscious mind, which is a part of
> C r e a tio n                                     89
> 
> Omnipotence, that the inspiration comes. I have to be careful, however, not to lose
> consciousness, otherwise the ideas fade away.. . . ” (Abell 4-6)
> 
> “But don’t make the mistake, my young friend, of thinking that because I attach
> such importance to inspiration from above, that that is all there is to it, by no means.
> Structure is just as consequential, for without craftsmanship, inspiration is a ‘mere
> reed shaken in the wind’ or ‘sounding brass or tinkling cymbals.’
> “Here again I took my cue from Beethoven who had both inspiration and
> workmanship in a superlative degree. I have worked very hard on all my major
> compositions. I began my First Symphony in 1855 and I did not put the finishing
> touches to it until 1876. What do you think of that? I know of no other composer who
> labored twenty-one years over one work.”
> “But Johannes,” protested Joachim, “you wrote also during those two decades
> many other works in big form as well as dozens of smaller pieces.. . .
> Brahms: “I see that you were afraid that I was giving Mr Abell the idea that I toiled
> unremittingly and incessantly on my first symphony, and I am glad to you have
> corrected that impression. I wish, however, to impress upon him the great truth that
> my compositions are not the fruits of inspiration alone, but also of severe, laborious
> and painstaking toil; I want the readers of this book, in the years to come, to realize
> that a composer who hopes to write anything of lasting value, must have both
> inspiration and craftsmanship.” (Abell 58-59)
> 
> Summarizing this extraordinary account of the creative process, one can see
> that the contemplation of the Word of God is the first stage, and that this
> releases creative ideas. The focus on the purpose and meaning of man’s earthly
> life is important. Moreover, the intention to serve and benefit humanity is an
> integral part of the composer’s attitude. To be receptive to inspired ideas, one
> must be in a state between the waking and dreaming state. The channel for
> inspired ideas is the artist’s mastery of his craft, and this demands lifelong
> discipline and constant critical reassessment. Thus the existence of inspiration
> depends entirely on a receptacle that is only formed through rehearsing, study,
> and practical experience, and critical revisioning to improve one’s performance.
> 
> IX
> Let me try to synthesize some of the points made above concerning noncausal
> creation by emanation, the world as an emergent phenomenon to be witnessed
> by the human spirit and as object of scientific research, by taking a quotation
> from the Báb as my point of departure: “Verily, the sun is but a token from My
> presence so that the true believers among My servants may discern in its rising
> the dawning of every Dispensation” (Selections 159).
> The idea of the rising sun, the dawning of the light, the appearance of the Sun
> of Truth, is an archetypal one in our religion. Yet, if one views the sunrise from
> the point of view of objective science, it does not really exist; the scientific
> 90      THE J O U R N A L OF B A H À ’Î S TUDI ES                 12. 1/ 4. 2002
> 
> explanation is that the planet turns towards the sun, making it gradually visible.
> Thus from the point of view of objective natural science we are dealing with an
> illusion of perception. And nevertheless, the Sacred Scripture suggests that this
> “illusion” is the very reason for the creation of the sun! Certainly, we would say
> that God in creating a phenomenon that seems to be something else than it turns
> out to be after scientific scrutiny, is a trickster. But I would say, rather. He
> shows us the very essence of art: Art is solely made because of its emergent,
> symbolic reality. Its construction, its explanation from the point of view of
> producing it, is a different story—probably a scientific one. Its symbolic reality,
> however, is its essence, not the aspect of it that concerns how it is put together,
> analyzed, or explained scientifically. Its immediate appearance in our “life
> world” (Lebenswelt as Husserl would call it) carries a significance so profound
> that it provides the very reason for its existence. The metaphorical nature of the
> sunrise, which is only accessible to the human mind, and about which man can
> bear witness before God and his fellow man—was the essential reason for its
> creation!
> 
> Notes
> 
> Presented at the Twenty-fifth Annual Conference of the Association for BaháT
> Studies-North America, 31 August 2001.
> 1. See Saiedi, Logos and Civilization.
> 2. See Margulis and Sagan.
> 3. Provisional translations.
> 4. See Heidegger, “The Question of Technology,” a lecture under the title “Technik
> und die Kehre” given in 1953.1 have used the Norwegian translation in Oikos og Techne
> 75-111).
> 5. See Saiedi, chap. 5.
> 6. For more details on remembrance, refer to the chapter about the meditation on the
> Greatest Name in Thoresen, Unlocking the Gate o f the Heart.
> 7. Vol. 4 (1902) and vol. 6 (1904).
> 8. These phases have been more carefully explained and applied to the process of
> meditation in a BaháT context in Thoresen, Unlocking the Gate o f the Heart.
> 
> Works Cited
> ‘AbduT-Bahá. “‘AbduT-Bahà’s Tablet on the Unity of Existence.” Journal of
> Baha’i Studies 11.3/4 (2001): 25-29.
> --------- . “Abdu’l-Bahà’s Tablet to Dr. Forel.” August Forel and the Bahd’i
> Faith. Oxford: George Ronald, 1978. 6-28.
> ---------. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu 7-
> C r e a tio n                               91
> 
> Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. Comp.
> Howard MacNutt. Wilmette, 111.: Bahà’i Publishing Trust, 1982.
> Abell, Arthur M. Talks with Great Composers. Secaucus, N.J: Carol Publishing
> Group. 1994.
> The Báb. Selections from the Writings of the Báb. Comp. Research Dept, of the
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> — *Creation (Used by permission of the curator)*