# Reality Matters

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Betty Hoff Conow, Reality Matters, bahai-library.com.
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> 
> Reality Matters
> B. Hoff Conow
> 
> Abstract
> Starting from the basic premise in George Land’s article “The Evolution of Reality" (The
> Journal o f Bahà’i Studies, vol. 3, no. I) that “atoms created their own realities,” this article
> will apply the Baha i teachings to show that this assertion is only partially right. The
> question begging to be answered is how can atoms know what to do and what to be, thereby
> creating their own function and purpose? How matter affects reality, and more important,
> how reality affects matter, was answered by B ahau’IIah and ‘Abdu’l-Bahd over one-
> hundred years ago. “The new physics” of relativity and high energy describe the reality of
> matter in corresponding terms. Our universe is turning out to be not only intelligible but
> also encoded with intelligence beginning on the subatomic level. The Bahďí writings show
> that it is the power of the emanating spirit of God which is the reality animating creation,
> also beginning with the atom. It is this one Reality encompassing and underlying all other
> realities that defines and gives meaning and purpose to all created things.
> Résumé
> Partant de la prémisse de base de George Land, expliquée dans son article intitulé «The
> Evolution of Reality» («UEvolution de la réalité», La Revue des études bahà’ies, vol. 3,
> no. I), cet exposé fa it appel aux enseignements baha is pour démontrer que cette
> affirmation n’est vraie qu’en partie seulement. La question à laquelle il faudrait répondre
> est: comment les atomes peuvent-ils savoir quoi faire et quoi être, créant ainsi leur propre
> fonction et but? Comment la matière influence la réalité et, plus important encore,
> comment la réalité influence la matière sont des questions auxquelles ont répondu
> Bahà’u’ilàh et ‘Abdu’I-Bahâ il y a déjà plus de cent ans. La «physique nouvelle» de la
> relativité et de la haute énergie décrit la réalité de la matière en terms correspondants.
> Ainsi, notre univers se révélerait être, non seulement intelligible mais aussi encodé
> ď intelligence dès le niveau subatomique. Les Ecrits bahďís, ď autre part, révèlent que le
> pouvoir de l’esprit émanant de Dieu constitue la réalité qui anime la création, dès le
> niveau de l’atome également. Cette réalité, qui à la fois englobe et sous-tend toutes les
> autres réaltiés, est ce qui définit et confère un sens et un but à toute çhose créée.
> Resumen
> Comenzando ton la aserción básica según el articulo de George Land “The Evolution of
> Reality” ( “La Evolución de la Realidad”) (La Revista de Estudios Bahà’is, vol. 3, no. 1),
> de que “los âtomos crearon su propia realidad,” esta disertación se vale de las
> enseňanzas bahďís para demostrar que la declaraciôn es apenas medio correcta. Mds
> al caso es la pregunta de, £cómo saben los âtomos qué hacer y qué ser, creando asi su
> propia funciém y propôsito? La forma en que lo material afecta la realidad, y aún mâs
> importante, como la realidad afecta lo material fue aclarada hace mas de cien aňos por
> Baha u’lláh y por ‘Abdu’I-Bahá. La “nueva fisica” de la relatividad y de la mecânica
> cuântica traza la realidad de la materia en términos correspondientes. Résulta que
> nuestro universo no sólo es inteligible, sino también está codificado con inteligencia que
> 30         THE JO U R N A L OF B A H Á Í STU D IES                    4.4.1992
> 
> comienza al nivel sub-atómico. Los escritos bahà’is demuestran que lafuerza émanante
> del Espiritu de Dios es la Realidad animando a la creación, comenzando asimismo con
> el átomo. Es esta única Realidad que, abarcando y antecediendo toda otra realidad,
> define y da sentido y propôsito a todas las cosas creadas.
> 
> he Journal o f Bahâ’i Studies has published a number of thought-provoking
> 
> r    essays on the nature of reality in the recent past, all of which deserve
> individual attention, but it was George Land’s essay, “The Evolution of Reality”
> that prompted this response. Drawing upon some similarities between General
> System Theory (GST) and Chaos Theory, neither one of which was identified
> nor credited in his article, Land offers what seems to me to be an incomplete
> premise regarding reality, matter, and evolution. His assertion that “Atoms
> created their own reality” (28) follows a certain logic derived from the above two
> theories that concern themselves primarily with responses of organized living
> systems (GST) and, in the case of Chaos Theory, the effects of effects which
> determine future states and conditions of systems or events which seem to be
> random. In this latter theory, the repetition of patterns plays a dominant part.
> If I am reading Land correctly, he enlarges upon the “from chaos to order”
> idea to include the evolution of matter into a coherent universe. He proposes
> that through atom ic and m olecular repetition the system s become self-
> referential, resulting in increasingly successful learned behavior. The outcome
> is the system’s capability to create both its function and its purpose.
> However, the reality Land talks about is not the system’s essential inner
> reality, nor is it an outer all-encompassing physical reality. What he seems to be
> saying is that any organism creates not only its own personal and environmental
> reality but also its own personal function and purpose as it goes about its
> business of enhancing conditions for its survival. Land says this ability is innate
> within atoms, molecules, cells, and ever-larger systems. He accounts for its
> presence as having evolved by means of an unexplained “inner integral drive”
> (“Evolution” 21) to create order out of chaos, and purpose out of order. Put
> together, all of these conditions would result in a teleological universe with no
> causation and as many individual purposes and realities as there are organisms.
> This anarchistic and existentialist reasoning avoids having to deal with origins
> because matter has no past. It teaches itself how to be self-correcting, self-
> evolving, self-organizing, self-maintaining, and self-creating.
> We know that this is not exactly the way our universe behaves. Self-
> conscious individuation (and individualism) takes place on a very specialized,
> highly evolved plane. By avoiding a proper explanation of his premise (how
> such a miracle of life could evolve anywhere in the universe to begin with).
> Land gives us only a few vague words. His logic cannot escape the implication
> that atoms (matter) seem to be inherently intelligent, and Land admits that he is
> uncomfortable wilh the growing body of experiments which seem to
> Reality M atters                                        31
> 
> demonstrate intelligence or consciousness on sub-atomic levels because it
> creates “confusion,” that is, if it is true that particulate energy is mindful, we
> will have no choice but to redefine once more what we mean by reality and
> what we mean by matter.
> 
> The Argument
> Both religion and science have long sought to unravel the riddle of life and the
> universe. The Bahà’i teachings seem to hold the key to these mysteries, but
> solving mysteries means we must go beyond them, behind them, and read
> between the lines. Truth is both illusive and an elusive goal; reality is its beacon.
> This article will explore the matter of reality and the reality of matter and
> will describe how each affects the other based upon the author’s understanding
> of the BaháT writings on these subjects. The article also examines how the
> Writings correlate with particular philosophic thought and some current theories
> in the sciences.
> 
> The Scientific and Philosophical Background of the Argument
> Humanity’s perception of reality has changed many times throughout recorded
> history, particularly in the West. Ptolemy’s picture of a geocentric universe
> satisfactorily explained both our physical and our social universes for some
> 1800 years. When it gave way to the new picture proposed by Copernicus,
> Galileo, and Newton, both religion and philosophy found themselves having to
> redefine their traditional reality-bases. Since then it has been science, not
> religion or philosophy, that has described our physical and, by association, our
> social worlds to us. With the emergence of the “new physics”—relativity and
> quantum mechanics—early in the twentieth century, humanity’s perception of
> what was real began its most radical shift.
> For example, do we think of an object such as a chair as a solid piece of
> furniture or as mostly empty space? Most of us now know that both descriptions
> are true, but is one truer than the other? Is matter more real than the energy it is
> “composed” of, or is energy, having preceded matter, the dominating reality?
> We have also learned that the energetic atom occupies a world stranger and
> more complex than anyone had dreamed possible one hundred years ago.
> Sir Arthur Eddington, one of the giants of relativity physics with a mystical
> bent, had many thoughtful things to say about the problem of defining reality.
> He wrote:
> 
> In most subjects (perhaps not excluding philosophy), it seems sufficient to agree on
> the things that we shall call real, and afterward try to discover what we mean by the
> word. And so it comes about that religion seems to be the one field o f inquiry in
> which the question o f reality and ex isten ce is treated as o f serious and vital
> importance. (Quantum Questions 196)
> 32        TH E J O U R N A L OF B A H Á Í S T U D IE S               4.4.1992
> 
> And so it has come about that not only has the word reality itself become a
> language problem, but trying to define or describe it has also become an even
> riskier undertaking.
> With such an ambiguous picture of physical reality (what you see is what is
> real, but the reality of what you do not see is still more real), the time was ripe
> for Ludwig Wittgenstein (d. 1951), mathematician and philosopher, to inform
> both philosophy and science that what this picture really conveyed was that
> there is no real reality out there— we have invented it by means of an agreed-
> upon discourse of language and mathematical symbols that has imposed order
> and meaning upon a universe that has none.
> The problem worsens when we consider that there is only a fragile common
> inner reality we all share. There are as many versions of what an appropriate
> subjective reality might be as there are people. Like the eighteenth-century
> British empiricists, contemporary behavioral philosophers also consider reality to
> be little more than sense perception and physiological responses. To the social
> scientist, our inner and outer realities have been indoctrinated by our cultures.
> We need also to consider the picture of reality experienced by members of
> the animal kingdom; this kingdom too has both inner and outer dimensions. Is
> the human picture of physical reality any more “accurate” than the animal’s?
> And if atoms do possess intelligence, what kind of physical reality do they
> perceive? Certainly their picture of reality would be more fundamental, thus
> rendering it even more “accurate.” It would seem that the more sensitive to and
> aware of reality’s disguises organisms become, the more fragile and tenuous,
> the more ambiguous and elusive reality becomes.
> 
> The BaháT Argument
> Both Hinduism and Buddhism examine the ambiguities of what constitutes
> reality and the metaphysical traps these ambiguities set. Their literature abounds
> with descriptions and insights on almost every level of how to understand
> reality. The BaháT writings also follow in their tradition, but both B aháV lláh
> and ‘AbduT-Bahá give us several gauges for determining reality and its place in
> both the physical and spiritual realms.
> Much as Parmenides and Plato proposed almost 2,500 years ago, the BaháT
> Faith recognizes the underlying oneness of an unchanging reality that reveals
> itself in gradients in the world of creation. W hat at first seems to be a
> splintering of this one reality into fragments like a broken mirror, as the ancient
> Gnostics thought, is a m isleading metaphor. “But for this Essence of the
> essences, this Truth of truths, this Mystery of mysteries, there are reflections,
> auroras, appearances and resplendencies in the world of existence” (‘AbduT-
> Bahá, Some Answered Questions 147). The reality underlying all phenomena,
> ‘AbduT-Bahá said, was unchanging. “The material world is subject to change
> and transformation" {t'ivniulÿatioii 161). “Changes and transformations arc not
> Reality M atters                                          33
> 
> applicable to that eternal reality. Transformation from condition to condition is
> the attribute of contingent realities” (Promulgation 174).
> When discussing reality, ‘AbduT-Bahá used this word as a synonym for
> truth. He usually stated what we call the first basic B ahà’i tenet as the
> independent investigation of reality (see Promulgation 62-63). In fact, the
> index for The Promulgation o f Universal Peace does not even have a separate
> listing for “Reality”; it refers the reader to “Truth”). A BaháT definition of truth
> might be to define it as humanity’s recorded collection of accurate statements
> about reality. Bahà’is believe that it is the holy teachers of all the revealed
> religions who give us the criteria for determining what are accurate statements
> regarding spiritual and moral truths, and what are not. Those sciences which are
> self-correcting uncover the truths that relate to natural phenomena.
> 
> The Three Worlds of Reality
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá referred to both a Divine Reality1 and a relative reality, but the
> only actual definitions and descriptions of these realities are contained in his
> explanations of the “three w orlds” : the world of God, the world of the
> Manifestations of God, and the world of creation. Although he makes it clear
> that the underlying one Reality “does not admit multiplicity or division . . .”
> {Promulgation 180) yet, he says, it is this Reality that comprises the inner
> essence or reality of all created things in varying degrees throughout the worlds
> of God (see Some Answered Questions 294—96).
> Bahà’u’ilàh’s descriptions of Reality/reality are couched in layers of spiritual
> symbolism whose meanings are often veiled. To find Bahà’uTlàh’s descriptions
> of the grades of reality as they exist in these “three worlds,” the reader is directed
> to the mystical treatise The Seven Valleys, which takes the seeker of truth
> (reality) on an inner spiritual journey through the degrees of realities, or, as they
> are also called, the “grades of self' or the “stages of the soul.”
> In Some Answered Questions, ‘AbduT-Bahá provides the most accessible
> explanations about these three worlds and the realities they encompass. He tells
> us that the first world, the world of God, is beyond verbal description, “It is
> invisible, incomprehensible, inaccessible, a pure essence which cannot be
> described . . .” (146). It is a world where time, space, and m atter are
> nonexistent, where reality is one eternal Reality. He also makes it clear that this
> Reality is not a synonym for God but pertains to the Reality that describes the
> world of God. God, as pure preexistent Essence, is a unique Reality, utterly
> beyond words or any ideation. Thus, it cannot be God’s Reality or Essence that
> becomes the reality or essence in created things, otherwise we would have a
> pantheistic universe. “Though the ‘First Mind’ is without beginning, it does not
> 
> 1. Whenever Ihis article refers to Reality as it applies to God or the divine state, the
> word will be cupiluli/.ed to distinguish it front the relative or conditioned reality of
> material existence.
> 34         TH E J O U R N A L OF B A H Á Í S T U D IE S               4.4.1 992
> 
> become a sharer in the preexistence of God, for the existence of the universal
> reality in relation to the existence of God is nothingness . . (‘AbduT-Bahá,
> Some Answered Questions 203). Rather, this Reality has been willed by God as
> the underlying Reality defining the universe and all God has created (see Some
> Answered Questions 203; ‘AbduT-Bahá, Selections 46-51; and ‘AbduT-Bahá,
> Promulgation 425 for variations on this idea).
> The second world, the world of the Manifestations of God, is where the
> Reality of the divine world begins its first transformation from sheer abstraction ‘
> and essence into the world of BEING, the world where God, through his holy
> Spirit mirrors his divine qualities and attributes in the persons of the holy
> Manifestations. This world connects God’s Spirit with our spirit, and the only
> glimpse, the only knowledge we have of this world is attained through the pure
> and unadulterated words of the holy Revelators.
> The only reality we can observe first hand is that of the third world, the
> world of creation, the world where energy materializes and manifests itself as
> our more familiar physical realities. Here, both objective and subjective reality
> is filtered through perceptions relative to each other and conditioned by
> limitations of which we are seldom aware. Although this world is subject to
> change and transformation, its underlying reality is not. This “oneness” is the
> universal organization that operates under one universal law and interconnects
> all matter (atoms) (‘AbduT-Bahá, Promulgation 80, 350).
> 
> Comparing the Bahà’i and Scientific Arguments
> How does the BaháT model of phenomenal reality compare with the current
> scientific model? No previous Revelation has had available to it the scientific
> data that the BaháT Faith has been able to incorporate into its literature regarding
> a variety of subjects never previously addressed by any religion. The older
> religions had no reason to speculate about universal origins and the evolution of
> species, for example, since the vocabularies for these ideas did not yet exist.
> As for an explanation of universal genesis, science is still in the process of
> trying to validate its theoretical model of “The Big Bang.” John Boslough, in his
> book Masters o f Time, makes a convincing case that “The Big Bang” theory has
> been falling apart for some time as new evidence consistently contradicts its basic
> assumptions, including the puzzling “smoothness” discovered in the cosmic
> background radiation. Obviously, simulating the initial conditions necessary to
> validate the Big Bang can never be reconstructed or tested. The BaháT
> cosmogony is expressed best by the word ‘AbduT-Bahá most often used:
> transformational. He says, “The universe has never had a beginning. From the
> point of view of essence it transforms itself. God is eternal in essence and in time”
> (Divine Philosophy 107). This conceptualization recognizes a universe without
> beginning or ending, but one that is constantly in a process of being created.
> Both Bahà’uTlàh and ‘AbduT-Bahá repeatedly inform us that a creator must
> Reality M atters                                           35
> 
> have a creation, as the word implies, and, as God the Creator is eternal with no
> beginning and no end, so must be his creation. BaháV lláh states in Gleanings,
> “The process of His creation hath had no beginning, and can have no end” (61).
> Both also make clear in any number of passages that creation, as a whole and in
> its constituents, undergoes changes and transformations, births and deaths, so
> that trying to gauge its age with the tools we have at hand will be an endless
> Sisyphean endeavor.
> To understand how creation can exist as an eternal creation, we must
> understand first the differences and relationships among preexistence, existence,
> and nonexistence as they are best explained by ‘AbduT-Bahá in Some Answered
> Questions. When capitalized, Preexistence refers to the unknown condition of
> God or the divine state (293). Otherwise, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says there are two ways
> of talking about preexistence (lowercase): first, as essential preexistence, or
> “existence which is not preceded by a cause,” and second, as the preexistence of
> time, both of which describe two kinds of phenomena (280). We can interpret the
> “pre-existence of time” as being the same as eternity. But the phenomena of time
> (relative time) all have beginnings and endings, existences and nonexistences. To
> explain phenomenal existence and nonexistence and their relationship to that
> which is preexistent, ‘AbduT-Bahá continues:
> 
> . . . existence and non-existence are both relative. If it be said that such a thing came
> into existence from non-existence, this does not refer to absolute non-existence, but
> means that its former condition in relation to its actual condition was nothingness. For
> absolute nothingness cannot find existence, as it has not the capacity o f existence.. . .
> . . . The Creator always had a creation. . . . The names and attributes of God require
> the existence o f beings, and the Eternal Bounty does not cease. If it were to, it would
> be contrary to the perfections o f God. (281 )
> 
> If we ponder this startling and new approach to universal genesis, we must
> conclude that there was never a time when creation was not; there was no pre­
> existent void, no vacuum, no pinpoint of pure energy waiting to explode, nor a
> primordial universe of aimless, free-floating energy pervading all space waiting
> to manifest itself as matter. Existence, or creation, is from the beginning that
> has no beginning. ‘AbduT-Bahá informs us that to deny this truth is to deny
> God (Promulgation 463).
> The Reality underlying the universe is changeless, but the phenomena it
> eternally creates are diverse and everchanging, an endless display of creative
> possibilities, some of which may become manifested at any given time, or have
> had existences in the past, or which may exist in the future. Bahà’u’Mh wrote,
> “That which hath been in existence had existed before, but not in the form thou
> seest today. . . . Verily, the Word of God is the Cause which hath preceded the
> contingent world—a world which is adorned with the splendours of the Ancient
> of Days, yet is being renewed and regenerated at all times” (Tablets 140-41).
> 36           T H E J O U R N A L OF B A H À ’Î S T U D I E S                    4.4. 1992
> 
> As Land and others are beginning to suggest, neither the First nor Second
> Law of Thermodynamics is holding up too well these days as they apply to the
> cosmos at large and to subatomic phenomena. Creation as an on-going process
> does not mean that matter has learned how to create itself with its own realities.
> Without reso rtin g to an original blueprint conceived by an aw esom e
> Intelligence, there does not seem to be any other satisfactory way to explain
> how intelligence seemed to have created itself. Although many scientists accept
> the idea of some kind of Ultimate Intelligence or Reality as a First Cause, it
> remains an abstraction so remote that neither physics nor mathematics can be
> applied to validate or falsify it, even though Sir James Jeans mused that God
> must be a mathematician (Quantum Questions 128).
> In 1920, ‘AbduT-Bahá wrote to Dr. Auguste Forel, the famous Swiss
> scientist, “Similarly the wise and reflecting soul will know of a certainty that
> this infinite universe with all its grandeur and perfect order could not have come
> to exist by itself’ (Auguste Forel 19). Earlier in the first decade of this century,
> ‘AbduT-Bahá voiced this same admonition to early Bahà’i pilgrims, “. . . then
> can this great universe, which is endless, be self-created and come into
> existence from the action of matter and the elements? How self-evidently wrong
> is such a supposition!” (Some Answered Questions 6). Within this same context
> ‘AbduT-Bahá on a number of occasions offered three different explanations for
> the formation of matter: accidental, involuntary (or compulsory), and voluntary.
> Only the last explanation, he said, was tenable—the composition of elements
> effected by an unseen force. It is “the Ancient Power, [which] causeth these
> elements to come together, every formation giving rise to a distinct being”
> (quoted in Auguste Forel 17).
> ‘AbduT-Bahá also reminded us that the key to understanding our world lies
> in our ability to separate “that which is reality from that which is not” and that
> sense p er cept ion, and even reason, provide only some of the tools
> (Promulgation 21). Even scientists admit their limitations. In the book Quantum
> Questions, which contains essays and interviews with the founders of quantum
> mechanics, Max Planck is quoted as saying:
> 
> As Einstein has said, you could not be a scientist if you did not know that the external
> world existed in reality, but that know ledge is not gained by any process o f
> reasoning. It is direct perception and, therefore, in its nature akin to what we call
> Faith. It is a metaphysical belief. Now that is something which the skeptic questions
> in regard to religion, but it is the same in science. (154)
> 
> Further on. Sir Arthur Eddington, always philosophically articulate, observed:
> 
> Similarly, I assert that the nature of all reality is spiritual, not material, nor a dualism
> of matter and spirit. . . . It is probably true that the recent changes o f scientific
> thought remove some of the obstacles to a reconciliation of religion with science, but
> Reality M atters                                        37
> 
> this must be carefully distinguished from any proposal to base religion on scientific
> discovery. . . . We have learnt that the exploration o f the external world by the
> methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of
> sym bols, beneath which those methods are unadapted for penetrating. . . . To
> understand the phenomena o f the physical world, it is necessary to know the
> equations w hich the sym bols obey but not the nature o f that w hich is being
> symbolized. (180-82)
> 
> These are not statements pragmatists or empiricists would accept or perhaps
> understand; nor are they statements students will find in their physics textbooks.
> Wittgenstein, however, made this way of looking at reality the cornerstone of his
> iconoclastic philosophy—that it is only the discourse of language with its agreed-
> upon rules we all learn which gives meaning and order to the outside world.
> Many of ‘Abdu’l-Bahà’s talks in America stressed the importance and station
> of science in its quest to uncover the true nature of reality. “In fact, science may
> be likened to a mirror wherein the infinite forms and images of existing things are
> revealed and reflected” (Promulgation 50). In the same talk, he stated that science
> was another pathway to God (Promulgation 49). Reality, like divine knowledge
> or truth, exists as a unity, and “Unity is the expression of the loving power of God
> and reflects the reality of Divinity. . . . Throughout the universe the divine power
> is effulgent in endless images and pictures” (Promulgation 14).
> 
> The Journey of the Atom Explanation
> To bring together how the unity of Reality/reality and the power of the divine
> Will work in the world of relativities, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá recast Aristotle’s Great
> Chain of Being in terms of Bahà’u ’ilàh’s Revelation. This explanation was
> repeated over and over; in fact, there is no other Bahà’i philosophic teaching
> that is as ubiquitous as the Kingdoms of God. ‘Abdu'1-Bahá included it in one
> form or another in almost every talk he gave, regardless of topic. His insistent
> expounding of this very broad and inclusive conceptualization should send a
> clear signal to all B ahà’is that ‘Abdu'1-Bahá must have considered it the
> f oundati on upon which B a h à ’i phi los ophy is built and understood.
> Unfortunately, this teaching has been relegated to classes for teaching children
> simple demonstrations of the life sciences. As a result, Bahà’is grow up to
> consider this repetitious explanation one of the more elementary teachings.
> Nothing could be further from the truth.
> In ‘Abdu'1-Bahà’s hands, the Kingdoms of God express the gradations of
> real existence as they manifest the inner realities of spirit and the outer realities
> of form and structure. The agent responsible for this marvel is the lowly but
> eternal atom. Repeatedly, ‘AbduT-Bahá takes us on “the journey of the atom.”
> Through this journey we are shown the various stages of conditioned reality and
> how God’s emanating Spirit animates all the hierarchies of creation culminating
> in the human spirit or rational soul. It is one of the first conceptualizations that
> 38           T H E J O U R N A L OF B A H A ’ I S T U D I E S                 4. 4. I 992
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahà explains in his letter to Dr. Forel: “In like manner the mind
> proveth the existence of an unseen Reality that embraceth all beings, and that
> existeth and revealeth itself in all stages, the essence whereof is beyond the
> grasp of the mind” (.Auguste Forel 9-10).
> 
> God’s Divine Energy-Spirit as the Universal Template
> We now know that the universal primordial energy is the unified one reality that
> pervades all things. Whether we think of it as energy-m atter exchanges at
> extraordinary temperatures, or as waves travelling from low to ultra-high
> frequencies, or as the cellular energy that gives life to our bodies and minds, it
> is the same energy throughout, appearing in different guises. So far, physics has
> no explanation as to its origin. The BaháT writings tell us its source is divine;
> from God’s world it comes, and to God’s world it returns, an eternal force
> empowered by God’s Will. It is only one step further to suggest that this divine
> energy is the same as the divine Spirit of God revealing itself as the eternal
> creational emanation that gives life to our universe. It is both constant and in
> motion, creating the patterns for all phenomena first as the invisible essence of
> all matter (the energy within atoms) and then as the power and wisdom behind
> the formation and organization of all entities. This Spirit-Energy obviously
> cannot be mindless, since to call it so would be the same as to call God mindless.
> We occupy not only an intelligible universe but also an intelligent one:
> 
> Creation is the expression o f motion. Motion is life. A moving object is a living
> object, whereas that which is motionless and inert is as dead. All created forms are
> progressive in their planes, or kingdoms of existence, under the stimulus of the power
> or spirit of life. The universal energy is dynamic. Nothing is stationary in the material
> world o f outer phenomena or in the inner world o f intellect and consciousness.
> (‘Abdu'1-Bahá, Promulgation 140)
> The greatest power in the realm and range of human existence is spirit— the divine
> breath which animates and pervades all things. It is manifested throughout creation in
> different degrees or kingdoms. (‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Promulgation 58)
> 
> . . . and the explanation o f true pantheistic statement and principle is that the
> phenomena o f the universe find realization through the one power animating and
> dominating all things, and all things are but manifestations o f its energy and bounty.
> (‘Abdu’l-Bahà, Promulgation 286)
> 
> The Mindful Energy-Encoded Matter Argument
> For those of us who believe in an all-powerful omniscient God, it is an evident
> conclusion that God’s divine intelligence is behind and responsible for the
> intelligence we find in creation, reflections of the reality of his divine Spirit. It
> does not require any “leap of faith” to conclude that matter knows what to do
> and what to be because particulate energy has been preprogrammed with all the
> divine laws it will ever need to carry out both its function and its purpose in
> Reality Matters                                             39
> 
> infinite expressions and forms. This internal encoding is God’s universal
> tem p late for all ex isten c es. “The elem ents and low er organism s are
> synchronized in the great plan of life” (‘AbduT-Bahá, Promulgation 350).
> ‘Abdu'1-Bahá states:
> 
> It is obvious that all created things are connected one to another by a linkage
> complete and perfect, even, for example, as are the members o f the human b o d y .. . .
> Likewise, look into this endless universe: a universal power inevitably existeth,
> which encompasseth all, directing and regulating all the parts o f this infinite creation;
> and were it not for this Director, this Co-ordinator, the universe would be flawed and
> deficient. It would be even as a madman; whereas ye can see that this endless
> creation carrieth out its functions in perfect order, every separate part of it performing
> its own task with complete reliability, nor is there any flaw to be found in all its
> workings. Thus it is clear that a Universal Power existeth, directing and regulating
> this infinite universe. Every rational mind can grasp this fact. (Selections 48—   49)
> 
> The essence or reality of matter as mindful energy can be read as both a
> physical and a spiritual explanation. Universal divine laws are the same as
> science’s natural laws; science uses one terminology and religion uses another,
> but both are speaking about the same thing. For example, the physicist’s quest
> for the one law which will unify the four forces that hold together our universe
> can be seen as the equivalent of the B ahà’i assertion that the spiritual law
> underlying all other laws and holding them together is God’s Love.
> 
> Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique
> power that bindeth together the divers elements o f this material world, the supreme
> magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms.
> L ove revealeth with unfailing and lim itless pow er the m ysteries latent in the
> universe. (‘Abdu’l-Bahà, Selections 27)
> 
> In an impassioned speech delivered to the Theosophical Society in New
> York in 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahà explained that
> 
> the Divine Spirit is penetrating from eternity to eternity, for it is the bounty o f God,
> and the bounty of God is eternal. Can you conceive of limitation o f the divine power
> in atomic verities or cessation of the divine bounty in existing organisms? Could you
> conceive the power now manifest in this glass in cohesion o f its atoms becoming
> nonexistent? (Promulgation 159)
> 
> The idea of intelligence at work throughout the universe is not new. In
> W estern philosophy Plato explained human conscious intelligence as our
> “remembrance” of abstract eternal ideas or forms that represent truth or reality.
> Some two-thousand years later, Gottfried Leibniz (d. 1716), both scientist and
> philosopher, proposed that all phenomena were made up of what might be
> described as a kind of conscious wave-particle ether called “monads” that was
> 40         T H E J O U R N A L OF B A H À ’Î S T U D I E S           4.4.1992
> 
> their essence. Since their origin was from the mind of God they also accounted
> for what Leibniz called the preestablished universal harmony as they carried out
> God’s plan for all creation. In light of the above BaháT quotations, Liebniz
> appeared to be on the right track.
> In the sciences, there are a number of physicists and astronomers who are also
> intrigued by the idea of consciousness and intelligence in particulate energy. The
> Russian cosm olo^ist Andrei Linde proposes that energy-m atter carries
> “impressed messages.” Sidney Coleman, a theoretical physicist at Harvard
> famous for his work in “wormhole universes,” in musing over the fact that in the
> beginning energy and matter seemed to be “prearranged,” suggests that perhaps
> it is precognition on their part and that universes may be created by other
> intelligent universes. Similar ideas of the connection between consciousness and
> matter are held by some of the most distinguished physicists of our time, among
> them John A. Wheeler, Jack Sarfatti, David Bohm, and the Nobel prize recipient,
> Eugene Wigner. The reader is referred to Michael Talbot’s book Mysticism and
> the New Physics, where this subject is treated at length.
> But it was the original EPR experiment (Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen) and
> the “two-slit” experiments with paired photons done in the hope of actually
> seeing light in its dual nature as waves and as particles, that changed the
> traditional way scientists looked at the reality of matter. Einstein him self
> ridiculed the notion that photons were demonstrating “awareness.” He attributed
> the unusual outcome to have been skewed because the light energy observed
> was travelling only a short distance. He said he would wait until the same
> results were duplicated over a much longer distance. Unfortunately, he did not
> live to witness the results of this latter successful experiment since replicated
> any number of times (God and the New Physics 103—14).
> A crude analogy of the two-slit experiments using humans and automobiles
> instead of photons or electrons is offered. Imagine that a cosmic Colossus sees us
> on our planet much the way physicists see photons and electrons. Let us further
> imagine that there are twins who want to go to a rock concert but are driving
> separate cars to get there, along with thousands and thousands of other teenagers
> also arriving in their cars. They swarm like a wave through the gate leading to
> the auditorium, including the twins whom the Colossus is tracking. Here they
> separate—one goes to the right and the other to the left. Their routes take them
> through two opposite tunnels where the Colossus loses sight of them and all the
> other automobiles. When the twins emerge from opposite sides, they park in
> adjacent parking spaces. The other cars also arrive and park in orderly fashion.
> How does the cosmic Colossus react to his observation? He first might
> wonder if his observation of the “twin cars”— indeed, all the cars—affected
> their behavior. He saw them only as one steady continuous stream. When he
> tried to track the particular “twin cars” separately, they disappeared inside
> opposite tunnels and then reappeared to come to rest side by side. He could see
> Reality Matters                                       41
> 
> where each automobile was, but he could not determine how fast they were
> going. He would find this behavior so strange he might then consider the
> possibility that there was some kind of “knowingness” on the part of the cars, an
> uncanny awareness they shared since they all seemed to know where the others
> were going and thus avoid colliding with each other in one huge jumble-heap at
> the end of their destinations. Using humans driving automobiles in the above
> analogy to substitute for photons obviously biases the reader in favor of the
> ideas expressed above, but it is given in the hope it will aid in understanding
> this seminal experiment.
> For a clearer example of how intelligence can be encoded in life-forms in
> varying degrees without their hosts consciously controlling and directing it, we
> need only to look at how the DNA double helix works. From the lowly virus
> that shares 45% of its DNA with us to the chimpanzee which shares 99%, it has
> become more and more evident that all life on Earth arose from one parent
> genome that has related us all, as ‘A bdu’l-Bahá also suggests (see Some
> Answered Questions 181)
> The discovery of the DNA helix and its messenger RNA in the 1950s
> revealed that the human genome was contained within the nucleus of every cell.
> Some three-billion pairs of chemical bases in each double helix some eight feet
> long spell out messages inside us from birth to death and govern who and what
> we are. Even if all the DNA sequences are eventually deciphered, no one will
> really understand how this miraculous programing got programed in the first
> place. It can hardly be called a random or accidental event because accidents do
> not become “the general case.” Chance events, by their very definition, contain
> no “inner integral drives” that direct them to coherence or purposeful function.
> Nor are accidental events evolutionary because they exist as separate, isolated
> temporal states. But this genetic marvel intelligently, even conscientiously,
> governs the evolutions of each and every living organism on our planet. In each
> case, the unfolding of the genetic code is triggered over time by certain
> chemical stimuli when the right condition or the right environment exists,
> revealing its function and its purpose.
> How can it know what to do and when to do it, and more important, when to
> stop? These DNA-RNA processes cannot all be reduced to mindless chemical
> reactions that were perfected over time by countless repetitions. If this were the
> case, they would have to “know” what combinations and sequences were
> “correct” (successful) and “remember” them. In addition, each cell contains not
> only the blueprint for its own identity, function, and purpose but also the entire
> coding for the total organism . Hologram s work in the same way, as do
> com puter-generated fractals in Chaos Theory. The DNA helix exhibits
> characteristics of self-survival, self-organization, self-maintenance, self-
> replication, and self-protection, all directed towards enhancing the organism’s
> future states. In higher forms of life, all of the above attributes work as instinct.
> 42         TH E J O U R N A L OF B A H A ’ I S T UDI E S              4.4.1992
> 
> acts that the organism performs involuntarily in its own interests. Instinct is a
> good example of how complex behavior patterns can be intelligently encoded
> within us but be outside our conscious control or knowledge.
> There is also recent evidence that cells may actually communicate with each
> other in an exchange of information not previously suspected. These almost
> invisible cell components not only appear to be smart in their own right but also
> comprise the material in our brains that in turn makes us smart. I, for one, am
> amazed that without possessing any conscious knowledge whatsoever, these
> organic cell “bits” can put together whatever is necessary to create the human
> mind and all that it represents without knowing what a mind is, having none of its
> own. And we, the supreme recipients of this created mind, cannot explain it either.
> The miracle of the human genome is that it can decipher itself by means of
> an internal intelligent program far superior and more complex than any kind of
> computerized “artificial intelligence” that we with “educated intelligence” can
> devise. The biological sciences continue to tell us that nature serendipitously
> spawned this miracle, which then evolved to comprise every order and niche in
> the phyla of life, eventuating in the emergence of a self-aware reasoning species.
> Nature is a convenient catch-all word difficult to define. The implication of those
> sciences dealing with “natural” laws is that nature is an intelligent entity capable
> of conscious and creative thought and acts; that nature, as our original mother,
> has somehow endowed the human species with attributes she herself does not
> possess. “Should any one suppose that man is but a part of the world of nature,
> and he being endowed with these perfections, these being but manifestations of
> the world of nature, and thus nature is the originator of these perfections and is
> not deprived therefrom, to him we make reply and say: the part dependeth upon
> the whole; the part cannot possess perfections whereof the whole is deprived”
> (‘AbduT-Bahá, Auguste Forel 12). ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in the opening chapter of
> Some Answered Questions, explains the condition, organization, and limitations
> of nature. The obvious answer to this question is that nature is not the whole, so
> we must look elsewhere for it. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá advised us that nature is both
> imperfect and incomplete (Promulgation 309).
> 
> The Final Argument
> What I am proposing should by now be clear; particulate matter in and of itself
> is neither consciously intelligent nor self-aware, but has been consciously
> encoded with intelligence through the power and bounty of the ultim ate
> supreme Intelligence, God, in various degrees throughout the Kingdoms.
> Disorder, as Chaos Theory also cautiously suggests, seems to have within it the
> seeds of its own reordering and structure, its own unique “reality,” realized
> through a kind of converse symmetry that everything in the universe seems to
> possess, ourselves included, as a kind of yin-yang polarity. Order and disorder
> are two sides of the same process, the same reality.
> Reality Matters                                        43
> 
> God, as the Uncaused Cause, is the ultimate Intelligence and Progenitor of all
> things, imbuing every atom with a unique encoded intelligence that directs both its
> function and its purpose when it selectively combines with other atoms. Only by
> this means can matter “create its own reality.” The idea of entelechy has recently
> reemerged, if somewhat tentatively, in scholarly circles. Their next question should
> be to ask whether a “what” or a “who” is responsible for its design.
> Western philosophic logic has divided all things into Aristotelian “either-or”
> discourses. Either something is, or it is not. Either a true reality exists, or none
> exists. This word-play has divided the “new physics” practitioners into two
> camps. Either relativity or quantum physics describes our universe “correctly.”
> It seems to me that the BaháT teachings allow for both to co-exist and both to
> be ap p licab le. Just as N ew tonian or classical physics can be applied
> successfully to solar systems, relativity physics seem to be working well to
> explain our visible physical universe-at-large, while quantum physics peers into
> the hidden inner realities of things. For example, the trained psychologist uses a
> completely different set of criteria and tests for examining our “inner self’ than
> what a medical doctor uses for examining our anatomies. We would think it
> peculiar if someone suggested that only oné set of criteria could be true.
> 
> Summation
> The BaháT model offers the world both a spiritual and a physical picture of an
> interconnected and interdependent universe that seems to be communicating
> with itself on all levels. To be sure, there are still many hidden connections
> between energy and matter waiting to be found. ‘AbduT-Bahá observed that the
> universe had been created for our education and that “we must learn how to
> read the universe; it is an open book” (Bahai World 5: 667).
> The reason we cannot or will never be able to define or describe the
> underlying reality or essence of all things is that it lies hidden in God’s world
> and is known only to God. As a spiritual abstraction, it will remain an eternal
> mystery. As subject, it finds its object in the world of the Manifestations of
> God. The hidden reality mirrors itself as divine attributes in the personages of
> the holy Revelators. Our only clue to understanding anything at all about
> essential Reality is through their unadulterated teachings.
> In the world of creation, this Reality manifests itself as the intelligent essence
> of every object in the universe, even though it resists our dissection of it. Since
> there is little likelihood that we will ever be able to define or describe it, we will
> never be able to create it artificially or clone it, as ‘AbduT-Bahá also confirmed.
> What humanity defines as reality consists both of the inner subjective
> realities we create within our own heads and the outer or objective realities we
> define as our physical and social environments. These realities can be anything
> we want them to be or agree to; they belong to the “world of appearances”; a
> w orld o f “ shadow s and sy m b o ls,” “ silh o u ette s in the c a v e ,” and, in
> 44          T H E J O U R N A L OF B A H A I S T U D I E S                 4. 4 . I 9 9 2
> 
> BaháV lláfťs words, . . a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the
> semblance of reality” (G leanings 328). At the same time we hope that some of
> our descriptions of them fit the criteria for accurate truth-statements.
> As for the most undefinable Reality of all, the holy Revelators left us the key
> for unlocking truth, thereby allowing us to catch a glimpse of what essential
> Reality might be. It is attainable only by means of a lone inner spiritual quest to
> find the path to God. Taking this mystical journey is completely voluntary on
> the part of the individual. In the strangest twist of all, only by relinquishing all
> personal control and attachments to what we think are our inner and outer
> realities can we ever hope to find our way or make any real progress. True
> Reality is the one we have not invented; rather, it has created and defined us.
> This spiritual path points simultaneously to two directions; one towards the
> Reality of the divine and the other back to the reality of the inner self which
> mirrors that divine Reality.
> 
> Works Cited
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. ‘Abdu’1-Bcihá on Divine Philosophy. Comp. Isobel Fraser-Chamberlain.
> Boston, Mass: The Tudor Press, 1918.
> --------- . The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during
> His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. Comp. Howard MacNutt. 2d ed.
> Wilmette, IL: Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1982.
> ----------. Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu l-Bahá. Comp. Research Dept. BaháT
> World Centre. Trans. Marzieh Gail et al. Haifa: Bahà’i World Centre, 1978.
> ----------. Some Answered Questions. Comp, and trans. Laura Clifford Barney. 4th ed.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahà’i Publishing Trust, 1981.
> Auguste F orel and the Baha’i Faith. Translated from the German by H élène Neri.
> Oxford: George Ronald Publisher, 1978.
> Bahà’u’ilàh. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá' u lláh. Trans. Shoghi Effendi. 2d ed.
> Wilmette, IL: Bahà'i Publishing Trust, 1976.
> ---------- . Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh Revealed after the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. Comp. Research
> Department. Trans. H. Taherzadeh et al. 2d ed. Wilmette, IL: BaháT Publishing
> Trust, 1978.
> B ah ai World. Vol. 5. Wilmette, Illinois: BaháT Publishing Trust, Reprinted 1980.
> Land, George. “The Evolution of Reality.” The Journal of Bahá’i Studies 3.1 (1991): 19-30.
> Sabet, Hushmand. The Heavens Are Cleft Asunder. Oxford: George Ronald Publisher, 1975.
> Quantum Questions. Ed. Ken W ilbur. B oston & London: N ew S cien ce Library,
> Shambhala, 1985.
> 
> SUGGESTED READING
> von Bertalanffy, Ludwig. General System Theory. New York: George Braziller, 1968.
> Gleick, James. Chaos: Making a New Science. New York: Penguin Books, 1987.
> Talbot, Michael. Mysticism and the New Physics. New York: Bantam Books, 1981.
> Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. 3d ed.
> New York: Macmillan, 1968.
>
> — *Reality Matters (Used by permission of the curator)*