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)