Transcript:William Hatcher/The Causality Principle in the World of Being

Transcript of: The Causality Principle in the World of Being by William S. Hatcher

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With much pleasure that I introduce you. Professor William Hatcher. [applause]

I have here the materials that I promised you yesterday. I've given copies to several people yesterday. I would ask that you not take a copy if you already have one. If there are extras at the end, those could be made available. It would be helpful if you could bring this to the course each day because I'll be referring to quotations from the Writings that are contained in here. It will make it easier if you do that. But of course, as in all things, especially in the Faith, this is between the individual and his conscience. So does everybody have a copy? Is there anyone who does not have a copy?

The human race inherits a history of injustice. This is the reality of where we are. We can say that the Baháʼí Faith and in particular, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, contains an analysis and an understanding of our history and appreciation for the current condition of the human race, a vision of the ultimate future of the human race, and finally, a program for effecting the transition from the present configuration to that future vision. So let me repeat that. It contains an analysis of the past, an analysis of the present condition, a vision of the future, and a program or a process for the transition for attaining that future vision, beginning with the current configuration as analyzed by Bahá’u’lláh. Now the Kitáb-i-Aqdas and all of the Baháʼí Writings view religion as the fundamental relationship of human existence. Religion, true religion, is a relationship between God, the highest thing in existence, and the human being, which is the highest thing in creation. In other words, in the passage which Dr. Danesh read last night from page 65 of the Gleanings, which is quoted in part in this material that I've given you, Bahá’u’lláh says that everything in creation reflects some attributes of God. But only the human being reflects to some extent all of the attributes of God. So this amounts to a logical definition of the human being.

You know, history of philosophy shows a succession of attempts, some of them rather comical, to define the human being. In the beginning, the Greeks defined the human being as a featherless biped. And of course, then some wag observed that a plucked chicken satisfies this definition, and therefore there's no difference between a human being and a plucked chicken. If we take this definition, well this is obviously a very superficial definition of the human being; an attempt to define the human being in a physical term. Aristotle did somewhat better than that. He said that the human being was a rational animal. But of course, we know from the Baháʼí Faith that the human being is not an animal in the first place. And in the second place, rationality is only one of the defining attributes of the human being, not the only one. It was certainly a very major one. That's why I say that Aristotle did much better than others, but still it's inadequate as the definition of a human being. But here, Bahá’u’lláh gives us in this passage, in the Gleanings which Dr. Danesh has read last night, He gives us a logical spiritual definition of the human being. The human being is that creature, that created being of God, which has the capacity to reflect to some extent, because it's not perfectly, but to reflect to some extent every attribute of God. And He says in this passage, Bahá’u’lláh goes on to say, “Alone among all created things hath man been singled out for so great a favor, so enduring a bounty.” And so this is then a definition of the human being.

A definition of something is what? A defining attribute of something is an attribute of the thing which singles out that thing from all other things in existence. This is something we can discuss in more detail later on. For example, we could define, say, the city of London, England. We could say the city of London, England is the capital city of England. Now that attribute of London singles out London, among all of the cities in the world. There's only one capital city of London – of England, excuse me. Now, that doesn't define London in all of its totality. That doesn't tell you where it is situated, how many people are in it, what the class structure is - and so forth and so on, what is the culture like there. There's an infinity of attributes of London that you cannot deduce in any way from just the fact that it is the capital city of England, but that one attribute, being the capital city of England, is a defining attribute of London. Another defining attribute would be to say, London is that city which is situated at such and such a latitude and such and such a longitude. In other words, geographically, you fix it. You determine where it is. That would also define London unequivocally. So we must distinguish between defining attributes and comprehensive attributes.

Now Bahá’u’lláh tells us that we can never give a comprehensive definition of God. But God has many defining attributes. God is the unique Creator, right? There's only one Creator and God is that Creator. God is the only Uncaused Cause, as Aristotle demonstrates and as Avicenna demonstrated. God is the only Creator of human life on this planet. God is the only absolute being, the only perfect being, the only All-Knowing being and so forth and so on. So in other words, there are many defining attributes of God. And that's why I start with the example of something as banal as the city of London just to show you that this fact of having a defining attribute does not limit the thing. It simply determines the thing from among all other things.

As a matter of fact, not only can we not give a comprehensive definition of God, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Some Answered Questions explains to us that we cannot give a comprehensive definition even of limited physical reality. In other words, the complexity of even a simple physical reality like this, like that table, we, the human being, cannot give a comprehensive definition of that thing. No matter how many attributes we say of it, we will never exhaust its attributes because even this table has an infinite complexity when viewed in all of its dimensions, as modern physics tells us, for example. So, as it turns out, comprehensive definitions are possible only of abstract logical entities of the sort that exist in mathematics.

So, I'm not saying that this is a comprehensive definition of the human being, but it is a logical definition of the human being which Bahá’u’lláh gives. Namely, the human being is that unique entity created by God and which has the capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God. Nothing else in creation has this capacity. Nothing else in creation, neither in the spiritual world, neither in the physical world, has that capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God. Now let's examine this notion of reflection a little bit.

So, just before I go on, let me say this. So this then answers this age-old question of "what is the human being?" This gives a definition of the human being which can never be refuted or challenged. And notice that this definition of the human being defines the human being in his essence because it is obviously conceivable that human life on other planets or on other systems could have, in some ways, a very different physical form. We can imagine, for example, that life could be based on something other than carbon. It could be based on silicon or something like that. So one could imagine that the physical human being could exist in another form, but the human beings, these would be still be human beings in the very precise sense that they would have souls which have the capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God. I don't mean to suggest that I necessarily think that there are human beings in other bizarre forms. I'm simply pointing out that this definition of the human being as a spiritual reality defines the human being in his essence. It's a once and for all definition. It will always be true. It’s true under all physical conditions that one could conceive. and so forth.

Now let's think about what this means to reflect all of the attributes of God. Let's think what this means. Bahá’u’lláh teaches us to think of God as the sun, the source of life, and the attributes of God as the rays of the sun, the Holy Spirit. Now we know that the rays of the sun, which appear in their pure form as white light, actually have an infinity of colors involved in them, the whole spectrum of colors. But this spectrum of colors, this infinity of different attributes, does not appear in the light in its pure form. In other words, when the light comes from the sun, when it's generated by the sun, it appears as a pure white light. There is no differentiation of attributes in the essence of God Himself. This ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes very clear, beginning with the first Tablet that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is known to have written, which He wrote at the age of 15, which is the commentary on the Hadith, “I was a Hidden Treasure”. And this Tablet is the most philosophical of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s work and very interestingly, the conditions under which this was written – I'll just mentioned this - historically, was in the Baghdad period, and one of the learned, he was not a mullah but he was a learned man, came to Bahá’u’lláh and he asked Bahá’u’lláh to elucidate this tradition, a Hadith of Muhammad, in which Muhammad said, speaking in the voice of God, “I was a Hidden Treasure, and desired to be known, hence, I created thee.” And Bahá’u’lláh said, “The Master will answer this.” He immediately turned and said, “The Master will answer this.”

The Master was 15 years old, whereupon ‘Abdu’l-Bahá immediately sat down and composed this treatise. This treatise is in the most mature philosophical form. It is in every respect comparable to the most mature writings of Plato, of Aristotle, of Avicenna. And it, in fact, begins where the philosophical tradition of humanity ends at that point. In other words, it begins exactly at the summit of everything that came before the Baháʼí Faith. And so, those of us in the West who don't have access to all of the writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, we tend to judge ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s style from the general style of His talks such as in “Promulgation of Universal Peace”. And we tend to think of His style as being somewhat general, and sort of not very philosophical or scientific, in the way He talks about things in this very general, easy way. Though when you begin to examine, you realize the rigorous logic that underlies these things. But this was the more mature style of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The original style of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá represented a slightly more mature style than everything that had come before it. In other words, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá started at the summit; the original style of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the summit of everything that had gone before it, from beginning up until that point. And so the later works of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá actually reflect a style which goes beyond everything that had come previously. So that's just an interesting sort of aside about this.

And in this tablet ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explained that there is no differentiation of attributes within the essence of God. In other words, we cannot apply any attribute to God Himself because to apply an attribute to God would be to say, in effect, that something pre-exists God. It is God who defines attributes, not attributes to define God. In other words, if we say that God is good, what does this mean? This sounds as if it means there is a category of existence called "goodness" and that God has to fit into this. You see? If you say that God is All-Knowing, well, this sounds like, well, there’s a category of existence called the knowing beings and the non-knowing beings and God has to fit into the knowing one. He is the Most Knowing, but still He is in this category. Whereas, God in fact, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains very clearly in this Tablet, precedes all categories. He generates the categories. So what is good? Good is what God decrees. That is good which God has decreed to be good. That is intelligent which God decrees or makes to be intelligent, etcetera, etcetera. In other words, all categories of existence, all attributes are generated by God and there is no differentiation of attributes within the essence of God.

So these, of course, are some very metaphysical statements, but if we think of this analogy of the sun and the rays, I think it's very clear. In other words, you can see that in the sun itself, the sun generates this pure white light. You don't see the different colors blue and red and green in the light itself, within the sun. These attributes that are inherent in the light- they’re there, it's that they're not differentiated, you understand. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s not saying that these attributes are not in God. He says that they're not differentiated in the level of the essence of God. We have to be very careful not to, you know, there’s a very precise terminology that’s involved here. Now, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains in the Tablet of the Universe, among other places, that differentiation occurs only when the attributes of God become incident in created reality. So, let's look around us at the physical world. We see different colors. We see green grass, green trees, my blue jacket and so on. We see differentiation of color. Now, what is the basis of this differentiation of color? The basis is the limitation of the created world. That is, why does this jacket look blue? Why does it look blue? Physically it looks blue for exactly the following reason. The nature of this cloth, and this jacket as such, that when white light is incident on the cloth, the cloth absorbs all of the light except the blue. In other words, there's a whole spectrum of light - the red, the green, the yellow - all of that other spectrum is absorbed by this. Only the blue is reflected, and therefore you see this as blue. The same is true for green or whatever. So things appear to be differentiated - that is blue, green, yellow - because of their limitations, because of their incapacity to reflect everything that is incident upon them. They can only reflect something of what is incident upon them.

Now, let's compare with a mirror. What is the logical definition of a mirror? The logical definition of a mirror is "a mirror is that physical substance which reflects all of the light that is incident upon it and absorbs none of the light". Okay? That's a logical definition of a mirror. I mean, we could define a mirror physically as a flat thing that's covered with mercury or whatever you want to say, but there again, that would be like the featherless biped because I could have a mirror made out of water or a mirror made out of all sorts of things. So a mirror is logically speaking, a physical substance which has the capacity to reflect all of the light that is incident upon it, which absorbs none of it. So, if I shine white light into a mirror, what I see reflected from the mirror is white light. In other words, the property of the mirror is to reflect everything that is incident upon it. Now this is the human soul. This is the human soul. This is this reality of the human being, which has the capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God; that is, to reflect in some degree, all of the light of God that is incident upon it. Now, I say in some degree, of course, a perfect mirror would reflect perfectly all of the light, but we could imagine also an imperfect mirror that is not completely smooth, and so therefore it is going to refract the light in various ways. Or another analogy which ‘Abdu’l-Bahá uses, which is very powerful, is a prism. You know that a prism, if you shine white light onto a prism, it splits the light up into the spectrum of colors. You see all the colors reflected in the prism, but each prism is an individual physical object. No two prisms will refract the light in exactly the same way. In other words, one prism would give more weight to the red part of the spectrum, and another prism more to the green part of the spectrum. So this is the individuality of our soul. In other words, every human soul reflects in some degree all of the attributes of God, but not in the same proportion. There's individuality in the way this is done. And this is like so many different prisms.

So to sum up the human reality, we can say that there are two ways in which we are the same and one way in which we're different from each other. This is very clear from the Writings. The first way in which we’re the same, is that all human souls are created of the same substance. Well, we know the Hidden Word which says this. Know thee, why we have created you all from the same substance, that no man shall exalt himself above his neighbors. So, my soul is not made of better stuff than your soul. In other words, all our souls are made of the same substance. There's no inherent superiority in what my soul is made out of with respect to what your soul is made out of. This is the first point of unity. The second point of unity is this defining attribute of the human being that I've been talking about. Namely, that the human being has the capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God. And this is clear over and over again in the Writings. Every human soul has the capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God. It's not just the statement that Dr. Danesh read last night. There’s literally hundreds of places in the Writings where He repeats in different ways exactly the same thing. The human soul, alone of all human realities, reflect all of the attributes of God.

So this again, you see it could've logically, it could have been different, right? It could be that God created it so that your soul could reflect certain attributes and mine certain others, and we could say, “Well, generally speaking, all of the attributes are reflected in some human beings, but not necessarily in a given human being.” But no, that's not the case. Every individual human soul has the capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God. However, there is a third respect in which human souls differ. And that is, that the degree or proportion in which we reflect, our souls reflect, these attributes is different. This is the individual difference that is innate. And you can re-read the chapter in "Some Answered Questions" about the causes in the difference in the character of men, where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes it absolutely clear that there are innate differences in spiritual capacity. Okay? There's no doubt about this. So ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is not a Lockean. He is not a Humean. He's not a Skinnerean. Okay, He in fact, in another passage (I think it's from the Tablet to Dr. Auguste Forel, but in any case it’s in the "Baháʼí World Faith"), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá specifically contrasts the teachings of the prophet with that scientific, that notion which was then current in science: namely, that all human beings have the same capacity at the beginning and it's only experience that makes them different. This idea goes back to Locke, into the late Renaissance psychologists Rousseau, Locke, and so on, who held a super egalitarian notion that there were no individual differences - the notion of the tabula rasa - that everybody starts out like a blank sheet on which experience writes. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá specifically cites this and He says, “This is the teaching of some philosophers and some psychologists, but the prophets of God teach: know that there are innate individual differences.” So this is quite clear. And in the same passage in "Some Answered Questions", ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (and the one I referred to in the chapter on the causes of the difference in the character of being), ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes it very clear. He says, if you take two children from the same family - in other words, of the same parents, eating the same food, living in the same environment, going to the same school with the same teachers; in other words, He mentioned all the genetic variables, all the social variables that you can think of - He says, if all of these are the same, He said, still you will find some who are very right in the sciences and others who are not so well, you know, able in the sciences, and so on, and so on. So He makes it very clear that there are innate differences.

But then He goes on to make the point, which is obvious, that these differences do not imply superiority or inferiority. In other words, this is another notion which I don't want to get into now; well, maybe I will in a few minutes, but I don't want to get directly into it. You see, we immediately react to this notion of the human being as in some sense unfair. We say that that means that God made you smart and me stupid. But you see, intelligence in science (which is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s example in that particular case) is just one example of a difference. In other words, suppose you were smarter than me, but I'm a better ballet dancer than you are. I mean, you could just as well feel it's not fair that God made me a better ballet dancer and you, an uncoordinated oaf, you know? In other words, it is we who make these comparisons; and it is society, this competitive society we live in, which arranges these judgments into a hierarchy of values and says that those who possess certain capacities are better than others. That's not God that's doing that, you see. But we'll talk more about this later. This is very relevant to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, as a matter of fact.

But just let me suggest for the moment (and we can get into this later on) that the perception that there's some injustice in God having created individual differences proceeds not from the reality of the human being, but it proceeds from an extremely limited, materialistic, distorted conception of the human being that derives from an extreme competitiveness that, for certain reasons which I'll talk about later, has been generated by modern society. Okay? Extreme individualism and extreme competitiveness. But, we can refute this notion in a simply logical way in the following: that there are an infinity of attributes of God, and what Bahá’u’lláh says is that the proportion in which we reflect these attributes is different from each, between each individual - like, again, the prism. Two prisms, which each reflect the whole spectrum of light, but one prism will show more of the red, the other will show more of the blue. Now you come to the question: "Which is better, blue or red?" And you see, maybe that has no sense. It's exactly like ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s example of the garden of flowers - and "Which flower is better, the red or the yellow?" , or "The one that smells one way or the one that smells the other way?" Difference does not imply superiority or inferiority.

This is the basic notion which the Baháʼí Faith teaches and which only the Baháʼís have the capacity to understand at this stage in history. Nobody else understands this fact. It is so ingrained in the culture that exists, that difference immediately implies inferiority or superiority. The minute difference is perceived, the next question people ask is: "Which is better?" Right? As soon as there's a recognition of difference, the next question people ask, without even thinking whether this is an appropriate question, is, “Okay, well, if that person is white and that person is black, well which is better, white or black?” The fact that things can simply be different without being arranged in some hierarchy is simply foreign to the modern cultural notion.

So I’m suggesting that this is a cultural bias, which leads us to perceive these innate differences in a negative way. And this is one of the things which will be important in coming to grips with the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, because the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is based on the reality of the human being, not on some cultural perception of the human being. It's based on the reality, as Hossein [Danesh] was saying last night. It is based on the reality, the full spectrum of the human reality. It is not based on some pattycake image of the human being that has been invented by some limited group of psychologists or philosophers or anything else. And because it is based on the human reality, it is true. It is true in the quite literal scientific sense. In fact, if you'll notice, the title of my article that I’ve given you, the subtitle is "The Causality Principle in the World of Being". And this is what we will be seeing this week - - it’s that the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the counterpart for the spiritual world to science in the material world. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas gives us the scientific understanding of the operation of the law of cause and effect in the spiritual world. That's exactly what the Kitáb-i-Aqdas does. The Kitáb-i-Aqdas is not a book of rules. It is not a book of conventions. It is not a book of exhortations about, "you should be a good boy and act in such and such a way". It is telling you this is the law of cause and effect in spiritual reality. If you want to live in harmony with your reality, then this is the way to do it. If you don't want to, don't do it. God is sufficiently, is independent of His creatures. He has no need of their worship. If you don't want to obey the law, then don’t. You don't want to be faithful to your wife? Okay, don't be faithful to your wife. You'll suffer. I mean, you'll louse up your marriage and so on and so on. You will suffer a humiliating torment in the next world, but if you want to do it, go ahead and do it, you know? It's not going to hurt anybody else. And so on and so on.

So, there it is. There it is. It is the choice sealed wine. It is the law of cause and effect in spiritual reality, which has been given to us. It has been given to us: the understanding of the law of cause and effect in spiritual reality based on the God-created reality of the human being. That's what the Kitáb-i-Aqdas does. And that's why it is, as Shoghi Effendi says of it, the consummation of all the holy books of the past. I quoted that passage, you know that it's from God Passes By and it’s quoted in the introduction. Right, it’s on page 204 of this. . .

“The principal repository of that Law which the Prophet Isaiah had anticipated, and which the writer of the Apocalypse had described as the “new heaven” and the “new earth,” as “the Tabernacle of God,” as the “Holy City,” as the “Bride,” the “New Jerusalem coming down from God,” [this] “Most Holy Book,” whose provisions must remain inviolate for no less than a thousand years, and whose system will embrace the entire planet, [may well be regarded] as the brightest emanation of the mind of Bahá’u’lláh, as the Mother Book of His Dispensation, and the Charter of His New World Order.” So, this is why the Kitáb-i-Aqdas has this exalted status. Because it is the key to understanding the law of cause and effect in the spiritual world.

Now, I began by talking about history. Now, in the same passage on page 65 of the Gleanings that Hossein [Danesh] read last night, Bahá’u’lláh goes on to say the following thing. He says first: alone of all created things the human being hath been singled out for this favor . . . Then He says the following thing: the purpose of God in endowing the human being with this capacity is so that the human being can know and love God. So in other words, not only did God create us this way, but there's a reason why He created us this way. And He created us this way so that we can know and love God. You have the Gleanings there? Why don't you read that, page 65? [Unintelligible] It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. What He says is, first He talked about, the passage starts out about how it is that God has created, that God has brought from utter nothingness. . . [to audience] you found it? Okay, it’s worth it. . .

“All praise to the unity of God, and all honor to Him, the sovereign Lord, the incomparable and all-glorious Ruler of the universe, Who, out of utter nothingness, hath created the reality of all things. . ." So, He goes on about the greatness of God in creating. “Nothing short of His all-encompassing grace, His all-pervading mercy, could have possibly achieved it.” Then, He says, “Having created the world and all that liveth and moveth therein, He, through the direct operation of His unconstrained and sovereign Will, chose to confer upon man the unique distinction and capacity to know Him and to love Him — a capacity that must needs be regarded as the generating impulse and the primary purpose underlying the whole of creation.” So, in other words, the only reason God created anything at all was so that He could create the human being which has this capacity to know Him and love Him, and this capacity to know and love God is of course the same as this capacity to reflect all of the attributes of God.

“Upon the inmost reality of each and every created thing He hath shed the light of one of His names. . ." but "Upon the reality of man, however, He hath focused the radiance of all of His names and attributes, and made it a mirror of His own Self. Alone of all created things man hath been singled out for so great a favor. . ." So, the purpose then in creating man was to make man a mirror of the image of God. In other words, we are created to be worthy partners in dialogue with God.

[to audience] Yes, do you have a question? [inaudible] We will talk about this when I get, on Sunday night, when I give the lecture on the structure of reality, I'll talk about that. It doesn't mean absolute nothingness, because as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says (as Aristotle already said before ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá reiterates), you couldn't have anything that comes from absolute nothingness. If there was absolute nothingness, there never would be anything. And anything that exists cannot be annihilated, because you can't transform existence into absolute nonexistence either. So obviously He doesn't mean – but in the first place, God always existed, right? So nothing that God made came from nothing. It came from God. It doesn't mean it's made out of God, but it means it came from God. But Bahá’u’lláh explained how God created [?]. He started with a point. The point moved, He generated a line. He splits the line lengthwise, and then He caused the two lines to revolve around each other. Which is simple harmonic motion, in other words, which generate the DNA, which generates essentially fractals. In other words, this represents an infinite loop, repetition of certain patterns which produces differentiated reality. But this is explained in the Writings. So in a certain sense, the point is nothing because it has no dimension, but it's still an existent reality. So we have to understand what that means. But it doesn't mean absolute nothingness, okay? It does not mean absolute nothingness. So at least on Sunday night, those of you who are interested, we can discuss these things in much more detail.

So here we see then that the purpose of God in creating man was to create a worthy partner in dialogue with Himself. This is the human [?], Therefore, history, both collective history and individual history, is a history of the dialogue between us and God. That's what history is. You want to know what history is? Mark said history was a class struggle. Other historians say that history is a chaos of events. Others say that history is– even the history of religion. History is the history of the dialogue between God and humanity. That's what the history of every individual is the history of the dialogue between that individual and God, and the history of every culture is the history of the dialogue between that people or that culture and God. Now, in this tablet that I mentioned that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote the commentary on, “I was a hidden treasure.” [to audience] You need your book back. I lost my train of thought. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. He says that not only that there is differentiation of attributes in the level of creation, but He says that every human soul has a dominant attribute, that God has called one attribute to be dominant in each human being. Now, this is simply a philosophical way of saying what we already know from a common [audio cuts off]

–strong points and our weak points. We all have our natural strong points and natural weak ones. You can see here is a person who, from a very early age, was very verbal, was very articulate, was very logical. Here’s another person was very creative, imaginative, artistic. Here's another person who is very active and dynamic and inventive and manipulating the physical world and all sorts of ways and so on. So we know that. We can see from a very early age that children show very marked tendencies. They have strong points and weak points. And so every individual has a dominant attribute and we can say in the same way, every culture has a dominant attribute. And again you can see why nationalism is such a pernicious thing because nationalism is in effect, the following thing. Nationalism is where a cultural group takes their cultural strong point, forgets its obvious weak points and says that these strong points are a model for the whole rest of humanity, and then proceeds to impose what they perceive their strong points to be on everybody else. So, you know, the Germans were very smart people. They are very smart people, but Hitler took this fact and he flattered the ego of the Germans, and he produced Nazism. He produced the illusion, the collective illusion that the Germans were a master race and so on and so on.

Well, this is just one very easy example, But, you know, look, it's what's going on in fundamentalist Islam today. It’s exactly the same thing. And so every individual does this. Every culture does this. This is the fact of taking one's dominant attributes, of one’s strong points, and making this a reason for a pride and for exalting oneself over other people, over other culture because of the collected phenomenon. Whereas from the point of view of the Baháʼí Faith, there is no universal person today. There is no universal personality in existence today. There is no universal culture. In other words, our history has totally differentiated these attributes of God in such a way that each of the attributes is manifested to a very high degree in certain very specific ways, but no culture or no individual or no philosophy manifest all of these attributes in a complete way. Of course, there was a perfect person, and that's ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. I mean, this is the importance of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as the Perfect Exemplar. It’s that Bahá’u’lláh has given us not only the teaching, but He has, in fact, brought into being a prototype of universality. And that is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. And so this is why ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the center of the Covenant that is the example for all time of true universality. So we have, at least, the fact that universality has been achieved, but this represents the ideal towards which we are [?].

So again, history is the history of a dialogue between God and man, between God and the whole human race. Local histories are histories between those peoples or cultures and God; individual histories are the history of the dialogue between that individual and God. This history has taken place in such a way that it has brought to the fore in each case certain attributes and it has suppressed or neglected - would not be better - certain other attributes. In other words, it is an imbalanced history. And this is what I mean when I say that we inherit a history of injustice. Justice means balance. Justice means giving the proper value the inherent value to each thing, recognizing the proportion between these values and giving the value to it. Another definition of justice, which is logically equivalent but which perhaps is more emotionally interesting is that justice, if simply those conditions which allow love to be born and flourish. Now, when we have a history of injustice, this means that our history, our dialogue with God up until now is shot through, is pervaded by these terrible imbalances, these injustices which we inherit.

Let's take the most obvious case. I don't say it's the most important, but it's the most obvious, namely slavery. Slavery can be defined as a social pattern in which one social group systematically exploits another identifiable social group by, on the one hand, limiting the social prerogative of the oppressed group but at the same time forcing the oppressed group to produce more than it consumes.So, that's a logical definition of slavery. So slavery could be on any basis - I mean, religious, racial, social, economic, whatever. Now I say systematic exploitation, because human relationships always involve a certain amount of exportation. I mean, even our casual relationships with each other, as long as we need something from each other, there's a certain amount of manipulation involved in any human relationship. I say a certain amount. I don't want to say– I'm not trying to say the old cynical thing that humans can't love and humans aren't capable of genuine self-sacrifice. I'm saying that as long as the human ego exists, there will always be some degree, even if it's only 1% or there's always some degree of self-interest in any human transaction because we're not God. I mean, that what it means to be imperfect rather than perfect. But again, in the past, these manipulative elements, these exploitative elements have been greater than they will be in the future as we spiritualize ourselves. So slavery is not just the existence of some exploitation. It is systematic. It is systematic, and it's where one identifiable social group systematically restricts the freedom of another group and forces that group to produce more than it consumes.

Now slavery in this precise sense has been the basis of every society up until the 19th century. There are no exceptions. Name one society that has not been founded on slavery. You can't because there isn't one. None of the prophets of the past abolished slavery. Moses didn't abolish slavery. Read the Old Testament, it's a veritable slave owner's manual. Okay, in other words, if this guy’s slave hits this guy's slave and this is what you do. Nowhere does Moses say it's immoral to have slaves, you shouldn't have played. He doesn't say you should have them, either. He just does not pronounce himself on the thing, but Moses did a very clever thing, however. He said, “Every seven days you will stop work.” Every seven days, you will stop work. Everybody. And he made this a moral principle on an equal with the most fundamental moral principles, one of the Ten Commandments. In other words, you should love your God with all your mind, your heart, and your soul. You should not covet your neighbor's wife or his possessions. You shouldn't commit adultery. You shouldn't steal. You shouldn't kill. I mean, everybody would agree that these are very fundamental moral principles. And then right in the middle, he has: in every seven days, you stop work. Well, why didn’t Moses just say, you know, it would be a good idea if every seven days and so you stop work? Well, the point is that those who are at the top of the heap, the aristocrats in the society, don't have to stop work every seven days because they're not working anymore, all right? And since these are the decision makers in the society, if he had said “well, it's a good idea that you stop work every seven days” then “Okay, well, okay. We won't. We won't. We'll do even less on Saturday than we do during the week.” But he says, “No, it's a command of God, just us ‘you shall not kill’ and ‘you shall not steal’, you shall stop work every seven days.” So this assured at least that the slaves were one-seventh free. In other words, every seven days, they could not be forced to work for an entire 24 hours.

And in 1966, the first time I went to Russia, it was to a mathematics conference in Moscow. I had a guide who was obviously a KGB agent who spoke very good English, and I spoke no Russian at the time and speak very little Russian now so I'm struggling along with [?]. But one Sunday, my guide and I were walking in the center of Moscow and I said, “Why are all the shops closed?” So she said, “Well, it's Sunday.” I said, “Yeah well, so what? So it's Sunday. I mean, what's that to you?” Well, they've always been closed on Sunday, and I said, “Look.” I said, “Don't kid me. You know as well as I do that this practice started 3500 years ago when a stutterer in a desert named Moses said that you should stop work every seven days.” And she said, “Yeah.” And I said, so. I said, “Here in an atheist country, you know, 3500 years later, a country was largely proclaimed it has no need of God and that religion is a superstition, that this Moses has given, you know, the communist worker, you know, a rest every seven days. That's a pretty remarkable thing.” And so then she said, “Well, actually Lenin tried to institute a ten-day week, but it didn't work.” I said, well, I said, “The Russians may be communists, but,” I said, “they're not stupid.” [‘’laughter’’] I can tell you, every 10 days is not as much as every seven days, you know. So Lenin couldn't change the law of Moses, okay, even in the Soviet Union when he had absolute power. He couldn't do it. I mean, he tried to start a ten-day week and he couldn't do it. I mean, Stalin shot people who got to work five minutes late, but they never could change the law of Moses. I mean, this is true. This is exactly what happened. Still, they closed the shop. I mean, they always did, even in the whole Communist period.

So you can see that even though Moses did not forbid slavery, Moses nonetheless instituted a law which relieved the condition of slavery in a very clever way, and to make it absolutely clear, I mean, you can read this. It's in the Bible. After Moses had given the Ten Commandments, two people were brought to Moses and said, “Moses, these two people were working on the Sabbath. They've broken the law of the Sabbath. What should we do?” And so these guys were sort of standing there, you know, sort of saying, “Yeah, well we were doing a little work. Whatever. You know, it's not such a big deal.” And so Moses said they should be stoned to death, and they were taken out and immediately stoned to death. I imagine that not too many people broke the Sabbath from then on, you know? Now, you know, this is brutal, you know, a prophet stoning people to death for working on the Sabbath. Well, the point again is that Moses was doing this to protect generations, to alleviate generations, the conditions of generations of workers for thousands of years, making this an absolute law. So this is what the prophets did. They did not forbid directly these injustices because they recognized that the condition of mankind at that time was such that man was not capable of manifesting in a balanced way perfect justice. So we inherit a history of injustice.

Another example of injustice is the oppression of women by men. This, in my personal opinion, is the greatest injustice that we inherit because I think it's much greater than racial prejudice and all of these other prejudices. I'm not diminishing the negative effects of such prejudice, of racial prejudice and class prejudice and so on and they’re horrible. I mean, look at the war in Yugoslavia and so on and see, you know, how terrible, how pernicious these prejudices are. Nonetheless, I feel that the suppression of women by men is by far the most pernicious of all because this takes place in the intimacy of the most fundamental relationship. As we will see in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the most fundamental relationship which exists is between man and God. In other words, the fundamental dialogue between us and God as I said, history of the history of the dialogue between us and God. But the second most fundamental relationship that humans can have is between husband and wife because the whole human race comes forth from this relationship. In other words, the couple is the basis of the family. The family is the mold that stamps out the future generations. Now, if this relationship is skewed, if this relationship between the husband and wife is asymmetric, then it's going to stamp out an asymmetric, in other words, unjust– again lack of symmetry is the injustice, the imbalance - if this relationship is imbalanced, if it is asymmetric, then it's going to stamp out every generation in this mold, and that’s the whole history of the human race. I mean, this relationship has never been balanced.. It has always been asymmetric. It has always been skewed. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, He says it very explicitly.

So we inherit a history of injustice. We inherit a history of injustice. Now, the next question is what is the dynamics of injustice from whence comes the injustice? I mean, we've talked about the fact of the injustice, but what is the mainspring of this injustice? Well, Bahá’u’lláh tells us explicitly. It is the seeking of power. All injustice comes from the seeking of power. Now, here again, we have to be very explicit in our terms. I am not saying that injustice comes from the exercise of power. Power is one of the attributes of God. We speak of the power of faith, the power of love. I'm not saying that power is immoral; power is from God. I'm saying it is the seeking of power that produces injustice, not the exercise of power. In itself, the power can be exercised for good or for evil. Power is morally neutral. It can be used either for good or evil, but I'm saying the seeking of power is evil. Well, let's read one passage where Bahá’u’lláh says this. It's quoted in this, and I have to find it. It's on page 228, on page 228.

“And amongst the realms of unity is the unity of rank and station. It redoundeth to the exaltation of the Cause, glorifying it among all peoples. Ever since the seeking of preference and distinction came into play, the world hath been laid waste. It hath become desolate.” But what is the seeking of preference and distinction? Notice, He doesn't say ever since preference and distinction came into play. “The seeking of preference and distinction”, the seeking of power. “Those who have quaffed from the ocean of divine utterance and fixed their gaze upon the Realm of Glory should regard themselves as being on the same level as the others and in the same station. Were this matter to be definitely established and conclusively demonstrated through the power and might of God, the world would become as the Abhá Paradise.” This is the vision of the future. In other words, when we defeat the seeking of power, this is the essential condition for bringing about this vision of the unity of mankind, the kingdom of God on Earth.

“Indeed, man is noble, inasmuch as each one is a repository of the sign of God.” There we go back to the creation of man again. In other words, in this created condition, man is noble because he reflects all of the attributes of God. Nevertheless, to regard oneself as superior in knowledge, learning or virtue, or to exalt oneself or seek preference, is a grievous transgression.” It's not just a little bit bad. It is a grievous transgression. Great is the blessedness of those who are adorned with the ornament of this unity and have been graciously confirmed by God.”

Well, I could go on. There are literally hundreds of statements from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Bahá’u’lláh that confirmed this sentiment. The source of injustice is the seeking of power. Now, to seek power means to make power an end. The proper use of power is to make power a means to the true end. What is the true end? The true end is love because love is the highest value and love is in fact the only universal value. What do I mean by universal value? I mean a value which is applicable in all times and all circumstances. There is no conceivable existential situation in which an increase in love will not be beneficial. In other words, it is good to eat nourishing food, but if you were sick or weak or you’ve already eaten a full meal or whatever? There are certain circumstances in which it is not good to eat, in which it’s in fact harmful to eat. There are certain circumstances in which an increase in power, an increase in authority, or a decrease in power or authority are not good things, but there is no circumstance in which an increase in love is not beneficial. Love is in fact, the only universal value. Then well, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us this. This is on page 212 of the book. You know this. This is ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s statement about love. I haven't quoted it fully. I've left out some things.

“Love is the mystery of divine revelations! … Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit! Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world! Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!”

Well, there it is. It's the fundamental universal law because it is the “necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation”. In other words, it is the fundamental connection between each and every created thing.

“Love is the means of the most great happiness in both the material and spiritual worlds!... Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!” Well, there I don't even have to make a deduction. He says it. “Love is the one law which causeth and controleth order among the existing atoms!... Love is the cause of the civilization of nations in this mortal world!”

So love is, as He says, the cause of happiness. Why is that? Well, on one level, you could say it’s that way because God made it that way, and of course, that's true. But God has given us minds so that we can understand why He did create it that way. Love is the one human interaction or the one human transaction, which is experienced positively by both giver and receiver. Both the lover and the beloved derive happiness from the exchange of love. It is, to use the common terminology which I don't really like but which I use sometimes, it is a win-win transaction. Okay? In other words, justice, a transaction based on justice can under certain circumstances, be a win-lose transaction or it certainly could be perceived that way because at some point you may have to give up something by justice that you're attached to. Now, of course, we know ultimately that is for your benefit if it's true justice and so on, but you may perceive it as a loss at the time that you did it, but never will you perceive love as a loss. Never, if you are the object of love or if you have the giver of love, will you perceive this as a loss. So love is the one transaction between human beings that creates happiness, if you will, on part both of giver and receiver.

Now, what has created this perception that is so widespread that there are no really win-win transactions? That there are always winners and losers? Well, culturally, this comes again from this competitive view of society, which I will talk about and which I alluded to earlier, but more fundamentally it comes from the following. It comes from an unthinking generalization of materialistic reasoning to spiritual reality, and that again brings us back to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas as the causality principle and the spiritual world. Let me explain. It's very simple. A material reality is diminished if it is shared. That's a fact of physical existence. If I have an apple and I share it with you, we each have half apple. We each have half of an apple. I mean, that's the fact. You know, if I share it with everybody, we each have a little piece of apple, and this is the first principle of economics. I mean right, if you go into any economics course anywhere in the world, the first day, what do they tell you? Economics is competition for a limited resources. That’s the whole basis of economics, right? Resources are limited. The more limited they are, the greater the competition, the more expensive it is. That which is rare is dear. This is the fundamental principle of economics. The more unique a thing is, the more rare it is, the less general it is, the more valuable it is. Value is specialness. The more particular a thing is, the more valuable it is. This is the principle that governs material transactions. In any case, it has so far governed material transactions. I will have something to say about that also later on, but only after we've seen [?].

But my main point here is that this law does not apply to spiritual things. The spiritual law is exactly the opposite. Spiritual realities are multiplied when they’re shared, not diminished. If I have a good idea and I share it with you, then we both have a good idea. Is the good idea diminished by being shared, or is it multiplied? If I have love and I share it with you, then we both have love. We all know. Is it not the most fundamental fact of life that love calls forth love? In other words, the natural response, even if you detest somebody, if you, for certain reasons, have a dislike of somebody, if that person is truly loving towards you, your spontaneous reaction is going to be to respond by being loving towards them because love begets love. That’s the law of love. Your spiritual realities are multiplied by being sharing. Sharing multiplies spiritual reality, whereas sharing diminishes material reality. Therefore the perception that in any transaction there must be gain and loss, which is true in the material sense because if I want to buy something, I have to give money for it so there is gain and loss. I gain the thing, but I have to give up the money to get it. So in the material transaction, there's always gain and loss, but in spiritual transactions, this does not apply. This law does not apply to the spirit world. This whole notion of gain and loss is a materialistic motion. It is not a spiritual notion because any transaction that is based on love, there is no loss; there is only gain on the part both of giver and receiver. As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, love creates happiness. As He says elsewhere, the spiritual world, which means love again, only gives happiness. The spiritual world cannot give unhappiness. All unhappiness comes from some form of attachment to the material world or to materialistic thinking about the spiritual world. This is in Paris Talks that He says this.

So love, then, is the ultimate goal. If love is the greatest value, then love is the only true end. The only thing that we should seek is love. Why should we seek anything else? If love will make us happy, why should I seek something that's going to make me unhappy if I can seek something that will make me happy? Love will make me happy, will make all of us happy. Now, by seeking power instead of love, then we have made the means to attaining love, the end. In other words, power which can be used to establish justice, and as I say, what is justice? Justice is simply the conditions under which law flourishes. Notice one important thing here. This is crucial. This is absolutely crucial. If you want to understand the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, you have to understand this. Love is the only thing that power cannot obtain. Think of that. Power can do a lot. You know, there's a story about one of the Russian czars. I forgot which one it was but he told one of his ministers, he said, “Go out and make the people love me.” In other words, here is a man who had absolute power, but he couldn't have the one thing he wanted, namely that people love him. Why? Because you can't command love. If you don't believe it, think of the person you dislike the most and will yourself to love them. You can't do it, right? An application of the force of will cannot create love. Love can only be invited. And what invites love? Justice. When the proper balance is established, when the proper values are implemented, then the conditions under which love is born and flourish are created. So justice is the conditions under which love is born and flourish, we can use power to establish justice.

So if we expend the power to establish justice, then this serves the goal of establishing love. But what we have done in our history is reverse this process. We have made power, the end. We seek power and therefore we sacrifice justice and love to power. What do we sacrifice in order to get power? We sacrifice the quality of our human relationships. The successful businessman, what does he sacrifice? He sacrifices his wife, his kids, his family, the love of everybody. Everybody hates his guts because all he does is manipulate and control them all day long and so sure, he successfully gets his power but he's gotten this at the expense, at the sacrifice of justice and love. So the proper relationship, the God-intended relationship between love, justice and power is that power is to be expended to serve justice, and justice is to serve love. And what we have done in our history, in our dialogue with God, is turn this around and justice has been enslaved by power, and love has been enslaved by injustice. And that’s why the human race inherits a history of injustice.

Now, let me just say one final word. I still have five minutes. Five minutes, according to my watch. How does Bahá’u’lláh do this? How does Bahá’u’lláh defeat the seeking of power? Well, this takes place on two levels. On the one level, he gives us the law of prayer. He gives us this individual relationship with God, which allows us to experience a pure love relationship. In other words, we know what pure love is because God is the source of pure love. So, in daily prayer and meditation, which is the heart of individual discipline, we experience love and therefore, as individuals, we can learn to renounce the seeking of power and to implement love in our own relationships. So that’s the individual level, but what about the collective level? What do we do? Well, Bahá’u’lláh has done a very clever thing. He has devised an entirely unique system called the Covenant. The Covenant is a system which utterly defeats the seeking of power because the Covenant is a system of social order in which it is impossible to be successful in seeking power. You can try. This doesn't mean you can't try, but you cannot succeed. So the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh which is given is the rock on which this future will be built because it is a system which is now available to mankind which utterly defeat the seeking power. It is impossible to be successful in seeking power in the Covenant of Bahá’u’lláh. If you do, you will destroy yourself. You will destroy yourself. You may be able to live for a certain time under the illusion that you have been successful. You may say, “I would really like to be elected to the National Assembly.” Maybe you will get elected to the National Assembly, but of course, what you will discover is that you have a lot of work and not very much glory. And so at that point you will either readjust your appraisal of this whole thing. You will either meet the challenge and put aside the seeking of power, but if you persist, you will simply destroy yourself. You will simply destroy yourself.

So this is the general framework in which I will treat specific provisions of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas: the dialogue between God and man, the history of injustice, the establishment of a system in which power is the servant of justice and justice is the servant of love. And the ultimate result of that is simply that we will be happy. That’s all! It's just that simple. Okay? It's just that simple. If you want to be happy, you know, here's the way. Do it, you'll be happy. You’ll enjoy, that’s all. That's why He says, “Think not [that] we have revealed a [mere] code of laws… We have [unsealed] the choice Wine.” What is wine? It's an image of euphoria, of that which makes us supremely happy. I'll talk about that tomorrow. [‘’applause’’]

Well, yesterday we saw that from the Baháʼí point of view, the human life is a dialogue between God and man, between the highest thing in creation and the highest thing in existence. And we saw that history is a history of the dialogue between God and man. And cultural histories are the history of the dialogue between given people and God, and individual histories are the history of the story of the dialogue between a given individual and God. Now, we can say something else - that history is also a growth process. Life is a growth process. And we saw yesterday that Bahá’u’lláh says that the whole of creation has been created for man, that man is the apogee of creation, that he has the highest thing in creation because alone in creation, the human reality can reflect all of the attributes of God. And furthermore, in the same passage in the Gleanings, Bahá’u’lláh says that the whole purpose of creation was to bring forth man. And we know that elsewhere in the Tablet to the Truth Seeker, which is in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, Bahá’u’lláh says that every atom in existence has been ordained for the training of the human being. In other words, it is not man to find his purpose in creation, but creation finds its purpose in man. The human being is the reason for creation. It is the goal of creation. It is the object of creation. Everything in creation takes its meaning with respect to God's purpose for the human being. And so human history is a growth process.

Now the Baháʼí writings tells us, as we know, the Guardian has explained this very clearly that the history of the last 6000 years has been the history of the childhood of the human being, the infancy and childhood and early youth of the human being. Now this, of course, is interesting as an analogy, as far as it goes, but in fact, it has far deeper implications than a simple analogy. Let's think of the nature of childhood with respect to the individual human life. The essence of childhood in human life is that nothing is complete in itself. Everything that pertains to childhood looks forward to a future completion. Everything that relates to childhood is with respect to the adult potential of the child. For example, if a young child produces a drawing, he draws something - well, we all know what the drawings of young children look like, but when a young child produces a drawing, we will praise it. We will say “what a wonderful tree you have designed” or “what a wonderful” - and it looks like a tree, well, maybe say that it’s a tree - or “what is this beautiful thing that you have designed” if we want to play it safe. And I remember I got caught once by my eldest daughter who is quite precocious, actually, and so I was so used to her expressions of childhood creativity that once I went down to her room and she has been playing with blocks, you know? And so there was this configuration there and I said, “Oh, that's wonderful what you've made. What is it?” She says, “Can't you see Daddy? It's just a pile of blocks.” [‘’laughter’’] So, but in any case, if the child produces, say, a drawing, we will praise it. We would say, “That's wonderful, what you did.” Now, according to any objective standards of art, it's not wonderful. I mean, it's very crude, but what were praising is not the objective quality of this work; we are praising the creativity in the child that has brought it forth, and we should praise it. We are right to praise it, because if we do not praise and encourage the creativity in its childhood expression, it will never develop in its mature adult expression. So, in other words, the praise, the way we interact with the child is always with respect to the adult potential. It's always in the perspective of the adulthood, which is in the future.

And notice that the Adamic cycle in human history is also called the prophetic cycle. And what is the prophetic cycle? It is the cycle which looks forward to a future completion. So everything in the history of humanity up until now is characteristic of the age of childhood. But this is not a deduction on my part. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says this explicitly. It's quoted by the Guardian, for example in the Call to the Nations. I'm sorry that, you know, if I brought in these quotes explicitly and read from them, you know, it would just take up all the time. But there is this quote where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that all of human history, that everything that pertains to the past history of the human race, is representative of the childhood and the youth of the human race. And now, of course, we know that we're in the transition toward the adulthood of the human race. Now, if we look at this relationship then between childhood and adulthood, we can see two things. The first is the following: the child acts like a child most of the time. The child acts like a child most of the time. And for the child, the normal functioning of the adult appears as godlike. In other words, childhood is the purity of growth. And how do we grow? We grow by accomplishing certain tasks and then moving on to other tasks. But this is a cumulative process in such wise that at the end of this process, we have a number of abilities that we have developed. So we learned to walk. So at the very moment, if you've ever seen a child taking its first step, it's as if the whole forces of the universe converge on this effort that this child is taking to take this one step. If at that moment you asked the child to do anything else, he couldn't. All of his energies are devoted to taking that one step. But once he's taken that step and another step and he learns to walk, then eventually, of course, walking becomes so spontaneous that you don't have to think about it. You can walk and chew gum at the same time as the saying goes.

And of course, there's a certain intrinsic logic to the development. You can't run before you can walk. You can't go from not walking at all to running. It is a staged development, and there's an intrinsic logic, an inherent logic in this development. It is not chaotic. In other words, it’s not that you just get this ability here and that ability there and you have a grab bag of abilities which eventually come together. It is a staged process which has an intrinsic, inherent logic to it. Now, so the result of this process of development and when one reaches adulthood is that one has accumulated, one has accumulated all of these abilities. One knows how to walk, to run, to read, to do arithmetic. One has intellectual and physical abilities. And so this gives the characteristic of the adult human being, which is his flexibility, his polyvalence as we say in French, which is a more powerful word than flexibility but there's not really any translation for polyvalence in English. So it means, literally, it means– of course, it's a Latin word. It means polyvalence. It means many valued, being able to do many faceted, being able to do many different things.

And so, from a sociological or psychological point of view, the definition– I mean, yesterday we saw the spiritual, logical definition of the human being. The sociological, psychological definition of the human being is that the human being is indefinable. In other words, we don't know what the limits of the adult human potential are. So every other creature, an animal, could be defined. You can say just what a cow can do, and we can presume that we can pretty much circumscribe what a cow can do. And of course, there are some cows that are more intelligent than other cows and there are cows that are more lazy than other cows, but we can put absolute limits on what cows can do, so we can define the nature of cowness. We can define the nature of horseness. But we can't define, circumscribe the potential of the human being because we don't know what this potential is. So the best definition, the best, if you will, empirical definition of the adult human being is that the human being is the only being in existence that is indefinable, that cannot be a priori circumscribed.

Now, as I say then, for the child growing up, the normal everyday functioning of the adult, the adult who has accumulated all of these abilities, who has this flexibility, this polyvalence, the normal everyday functioning of the adult appears godlike for the child. How is it possible that one human being can do all the things that an adult can do and do them so easily, you know? I mean, he can do work and he can play music, and he can, you know, talk hopefully eloquently and so on. Physical abilities, artistic abilities, intellectual abilities. He can solve problems. He can control machines, complicated machines and so on and so on. And so all every, this normal, everyday functioning of the adult human being, all of it is above the best level of functioning of the child, of the normal child because the child is still embedded in this ongoing growth process. So that's the first aspect of childhood. The child is mostly a child, and he mostly operates on a level that is below the normal functioning of the adult, such functioning which appears godlike to the child.

The second characteristic of childhood is that occasionally, nonetheless, the child will show incredibly mature on a certain circumstances, incredibly mature behavior. This is not the norm for the child. This is exceptional. But under certain circumstances, the child will show forth adult functioning and even incredibly mature adult functioning. We've all observed instances of this. I mean, maybe there's some tragedy in the family, and all of a sudden the child, a five- or six-year-old child, will behave with incredible courage, with incredible maturity, with incredible judgment. I’ve seen some cases of this, young children who will make judgment in circumstances. You know, like when somebody's maybe there's been an accident, somebody in danger of dying or something, a child will make an incredibly mature judgment of what to do and will accomplish incredible task. And so we see them in the child flashes, potence of adult functioning. But these are exceptions. These are not the norm for the child.

Well, this is the same condition of the history of the human race. Each culture’s stage of development in the history of the human race has developed certain capacities of the human potential to a very high degree, but only certain. In other words, at certain stages, we've learned to walk. In other stages, to run. In other stages, to read and so on. Professor [?] talked yesterday about, for example, Arabic culture developing this language of Arabic to a very high degree, and this was virtually the only identifiable cultural product of that civilization, at least until Muhammad came. Of course, afterwards, it showed forth what eventually became the highest expression of culture in history to that time. That was after the revelation of the Koran because– incidentally, I'm particularly aware of this recently because [?] I was asked by the Encyclopedia Britannica to write the article on Foundations of Mathematics for the forthcoming edition of Botanica. So I did this last year in St Petersburg. I hired a young Russian as my research assistant, so this was occasion for me to go back over material that I had been, you know, teaching for 30 years. And the contribution to science of the Arabs after Muhammad is incredible. It's absolutely incredible.

And in fact, we can really see the beginning of modern civilization– there’s sort of a parenthesis. I mean, take this as the indulgence of an ex-math professor, so if it's not interesting, just forget it. But in effect, it's quite interesting that the Greeks developed geometry and they saw everything in geometrical terms. But the study of pure quantities, as far as I can tell from history– I mean I'm not a historian, but everything that I've read, this came from the Arabs. I mean, the Arabs were the first ones to develop the study of pure quantity in abstraction from any context such as geometrical context. In other words, for the Greeks, numbers represented geometrical entities like links or volumes or whatever. They were never considered as pure entities and I don't see any exception to this anywhere in the Greek writings. I mean, Plato, all of his examples of mathematics are geometrical examples, whereas the Arabs developed Algebra, which is the title of a book by al-Khwārizmī, in the eighth century, in which the science of pure quantity is developed and this lead to what's known as the algebraic field of numbers. Whereas the Greeks studied what's known as the Construct Herbal Field of Numbers. But this came together in the mind of Rene Descartes. In other words, analytic geometry of Rene Descartes, we can date the beginning of the modern era from the moment in which these two currents of intellectual history, the geometry developed by the Greeks and the algebra developed by the Arab, fused in the mind of Rene Descartes. And this is the precise moment in which the modern era was born. Okay? And so if I give this example, it's simply to show you how history reflects this childhood nature of development where different cultures concentrated on certain very specific cultural products, you see? Very specific.

In other words, it's absolutely incredible, for example, even now, that the Greeks developed geometry to such an incredibly high extent without developing algebra. I mean, in other words, that seems almost impossible. It seems like it’d be almost more difficult to develop geometry without algebra than to develop it without it, but yet the Greeks did. And of course, this gave a certain insight into the thing. And the Arabs, the Hindu Arabic culture did exactly the opposite. They developed arithmetic and algebra to a very great extent, virtually without geometry. And so we can see then that history shows this development of different cultures concentrating on different cultural products - certain aspects of mathematics, certain aspects of philosophy, certain aspects of language, poetry, literature. And so, but none of these are comprehensive. They're all partial, but all develop a certain aspect of the human potential to a very high degree. So obviously, when we say that the Baháʼí era, the era inaugurated by Bahá’u’lláh, inaugurates the maturity of the human being. This means the convergence of all these cultural products. This means that now we're entering the period in which all of these different aspects or facets of the human potential will all be developed in harmony together so it will be not just the juxtaposition, not just the convergence of these, but it will be the convergence of these plus the future development that results from the convergence of this. So it won't be just a juxtaposition of all these things. You put geometry with algebra, with Arabic language, with English poetry and so on, and that’s universal culture. It's that this convergence will bring about the basis, the beginning on which this future as [?] Martin said yesterday, this shared future history, which will be the beginning, as she very rightly says, a universal history. I mean, she’s right on with this notion. Exactly. This is the beginning of universal history. Up until now, we haven't had universal history in the sense of the universally-shared history. History has been local, cultural, specific. So this is the beginning of universal history.

Now, so this is the nature of development. It is that it is specific. It looks forward to a future completion, but there's also the second aspect. There are these exceptions. There are these places in history where we call them geniuses, saints, have under certain circumstances shown forth adult human potential. And these are the people we call the great geniuses of history - Beethoven and Einstein, Plato and Aristotle, where in the midst of a cultural desert, suddenly a great genius produces a cultural product which is transcendental, which is far beyond anything that exists in the culture around him. And so this gives us an idea of what the adult human potential is. So this leads us to the following principle then. In adulthood, what was the exceptional, becomes the norm. The characteristic of maturity is that what, in the era of childhood, was the exception, now becomes the norm. And this is characteristic of the age that we are moving into. What was exceptional in the past will become the normal in the future. So we looked at the Beethoven's and Einstein's and Newton’s and Descartes’s as exceptions, which they were, I mean, with respect to what was going on. And they were! But already you know, you can see this process. I mean, things that were considered for thousands of years to be the highest expression of human intellectual endeavor can now be taught to five-year-old grade school, grade school children. Okay, I mean, arithmetic, which for thousands of years, was possessed by only a handful of aristocrats or exceptions in the culture. In most cultures, you know, it’s now routinely taught and understood by our young children and so on. And ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us that in the future, the child of the future will be more learned, more erudite than the great scholars of the past.

So there are these statements in the writings which, over and over again, also in the Gleanings, Bahá’u’lláh says, for example, that all of the potential which is latent within the human reality, will be made manifest in this dispensation. So you can look that up in the Concordance in the Gleanings. It's towards the end of the Gleanings on page 300 or something where He says this, makes this statement that all of the potential which is latent in the human reality, it will all be made fully manifest in this day of God and in this dispensation. So there again, I say we have no idea of what the ultimate limits of this human potential are. In a certain sense, there are no limits to it, but we have no idea of what it will be. But again, the basic principle is that what was exceptional in the past will become the norm in the future. That's certain. Now again, how is this relevant to the Kitáb-i-Aqdas? The Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the book that tells us how to accomplish this transition. In other words, the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the book that gives us the laws that govern the mature condition of the human being.

For example, Bahá’u’lláh says that God has always loved monogamy. He says, in effect, that monogamy has always been the real law of marriage. Now, we know that, you know, polygamy was has been practised in all religions. It was practiced in Judaism. It was practiced in Christianity. It was practiced in Islam. Polygamy has been a feature of all societies at some time or another. And so, polygamy should not be confused with infidelity and marriage. In other words, if you have a social institution of polygamy, then still there can be faithfulness in marriage, except that having multiple partners is permitted in terms of the law. So some people have said, for example, “Well, if Bahá’u’lláh really meant monogamy, why didn't He say it? Why did He prescribe it in this curious way of saying that a man should have no more wives than two. And then He appoints ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as interpreter, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá comes along and says, ‘Well, what He really meant here was monogamy.’ Why did Bahá’u’lláh do it in this sort of indirect way?” Well, I think there's many reasons, but I think one reason is to show that monogamy was always the law because He takes up again the language of the Koran. Okay, He takes up again the language of the Koran except where Mohammed says that you shall have no more wives than four. Bahá’u’lláh says you shall have no more wives than two. And then he says, “But you must treat them with absolute justice.” And then ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says this means, since absolute justice is impossible, only one wife. So what Bahá’u’lláh is saying, He's looking over the shoulders of the Muslims and saying, “You see, this is what Mohammed really meant, okay? But we allowed you to practice polygamy by indulgence for your lack of maturity. But the fact that this was still the age of childhood.”

So we must be careful that it is not only what is said in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, but the way it is said. Every word, every letter of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas has a significance. The way Bahá’u’lláh says these things has a significance as well as the content of what it says. I mean, it has a spiritual significance as well as the content. The form, to use Professor [?]’s terminology, the form is also part of the Revelation. In other words, the Revelation is not just a logical content which cannot be distilled anyway because there are an infinite number of meanings. But any given logical content, any given articulation of logical content to say, for example, that Bahá’u’lláh prescribes monogamy, I mean this is true. I mean the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is codified, so it is possible to codify it. So it is correct to say that the Kitáb-i-Aqdas prescribe monogamy. It is a law, but that’s not all that is meant by the verse in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas in which Bahá’u’lláh says you shall have no more wives than two. He's also saying a host of other things, such as that this has always been the law of God and that God has allowed or tolerated polygamy in the past because this was the age of immaturity of the human being, and He's undoubtedly saying a host of other things which will be discovered in the future.

So I only mentioned this to say that when we have this typically Western reaction of saying “Well, you know, we would like things to be cut and dry and clear. And why did Bahá’u’lláh say these things in this somewhat veiled manner in some cases?” Well, there are reasons for that, and it's up to us to find the reasons. And that's why we study the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, then. So the Kitáb-i-Aqdas then, to express it in contemporary Western pragmatic terms, is a how-to book. It is the manual for the adulthood of the human race. That’s what it is. It's telling you, “Okay, now you're adult. And since you are adult, here's what it means to be an adult.” You want to know what it means to be an adult? That's what it is right there. Okay? And so we're no longer being measured by childhood criteria because we're no longer in the childhood. But we have this promise, this hope, this vision that what was the exception in the past will become the norm in the future. Now the question becomes, how does it do this? In other words, it's one thing to say that the Kitáb-i-Aqdas tells us how to do this, but how does it do this? Well, to understand this, one has to look a little bit at, if you will, Baháʼí metaphysics. You have to look a little bit at what the Baháʼí Faith teaches about the structure of reality, so I want to say a few words about that. And again, this is a synthesis of quite a number of passages from the writings, and so I will not try to justify this passage by passage. But I will, as I go along, indicate some of the places where these things can be found.

So the Baháʼí Faith teaches first, and this is very important that there is a fundamental unity to reality. In other words, one could ask the following question. Ultimately, is reality one or is it multiple? And this is a very old philosophical question. I mean, the ancient Greeks wrestled with it. It's known as the philosophical problem of the one and the many. In other words, ultimately, is the ultimate reality a plurality or a oneness? And so the Baháʼí teaches us that ultimately it is oneness because it all comes from God. So here is from the Tablet of the Universe, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says:

“Know then that the [all-embracing] framework that governs existence includes within its compass every existent being — particular or universal — [whether] outwardly or inwardly, secretly or openly. Just as particulars are infinite in number, so also universals, [on the material plane], and the great realities of the universe are without number and beyond computation.

The Dawning Places of Unity, the Daysprings of Singleness and the Suns of Holiness are also sanctified beyond the bounds of number, and the luminous spiritual worlds are exalted above limits and restrictions.”

So, there's an infinity of Manifestations. There’s an infinity of spiritual worlds. Just sort it out by saying that the all-encompassing framework that governs includes everything. In other words, reality is first of all, a whole, a unified integrated whole. This is the fundamental characteristic of reality. It is unity. So in other words, there is nothing that is sort of extra that is left out of this all-encompassing framework. However, within this integrated whole, within this all-encompassing whole, there are divisions. There are levels of being. And the more technical word, philosophical word, the ontological level. The ontological level. The ontological level, if you will, are differences of kind, as opposed to differences of degrees. Now, as I've just read here and as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains - I'll be talking more about that Sunday night when I talk about destructive existence - there are, in fact, an infinity of levels or an infinity of differences if you want to say, but most of these differences are differences of degree rather than differences of kind. So when I'm talking about a level of being on the ontological level, I'm talking about differences of kind. Or if you will, intrinsic differences, differences that are inherent in the nature of the thing itself. Intrinsic differences, as opposed to differences of degree.

Now, so, there are only four levels of existence according to the Baháʼí writings, and these are God, Manifestations, human reality (the soul), and the material world. Now, within these levels, there are differences as well. For example, as you know, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, as He said, the material world, talks about the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom and so on - thank you - but these are differences of degrees, not differences in kind. So, the whole of the material world is on one level of reality, is on the same ontological level. Now, there are the fundamental differences, [‘’inaudible’’] on each of these levels, but the most fundamental difference is between the material world and the other three levels. And so, it is most useful to– I'm sorry, but I'm getting very hot. So it is most useful to sometimes just talk about the two levels, the material word and the spiritual world, and this is what I will do for the next few minutes. But we must remember that the spiritual world itself has levels of existence, okay? But in a certain sense, the most fundamental difference, the most fundamental difference in kind is the difference between the material world and the spiritual world.

Now, what is the difference? How can we characterize this difference? Well, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá tells us. The principle of existence in the material world is different than the principle of existence in the spiritual world. So in the material world, the principle of existence is that every material entity is a composite, whereas in the spiritual world, the principle of existence is unified substances. Spiritual existence is that of unified substances. Let's read where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says this. This is in the booklet that you all have, starting on page 190. This is from Some Answered Questions. Is there anyone who does not have a booklet? On page 190.

“Nature is that condition, that reality, which in appearance consists in life and death, or, in other words, in the composition and decomposition of all things. This Nature is subjected to an absolute organization, to determined laws, to a complete order and a finished design, from which it will never depart…”

Well, I'll let you read the rest of that. So this again, just as Bahá’u’lláh gives a logical definition of the human reality by saying the human reality is that reality which can reflect all of the attributes of God, here ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gives a logical definition of the material world. The material world consists of those realities which are composite. You want a test to know if something is spiritual or material? If it's a composite, then it's material. Okay, now you can see on the next page, He elaborates this. He says:

“The whole physical creation is perishable.” This is 191. These material bodies are composed of atoms; when these atoms begin to separate decomposition sets in, then comes what we call death. This composition of atoms, which constitutes the body or mortal element of any created being, is temporary. When the power of attraction, which holds these atoms together, is withdrawn, the body, as such, ceases to exist.” So, a material [‘’laughing’’]. So any material entity has a birth when its element, the two things that make a material entity, or the components which make it up and the relationship which exist among the components which make of this a macro-entity which make of it a unified whole. In other words, your body is not just the collection of cells that make it up; it's the cells that make it up, several billion cells, plus the relationship that exists between the cells which bind these cells into a unified organism, which make it a whole. So, the life of any material entity is temporary. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says it has a discreet beginning and a discreet end. It is born from the particular figuration that constitutes that entity is established. It has an evolution. It has a system that can grow and develop like [?] organism. And then, when decomposition sets in, it dies, it ceases to exist. So this is just sort of generalized parabola, if you will. It’s the curve of existence of everything in the material world. It begins, it evolves up unto a certain point, and then it declines. Well, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says this in the next statement on 191:

Absolute repose does not exist in nature. All things either make progress or lose ground. Everything moves forward or backward, nothing is without motion. From his birth, a man progresses physically until he reaches maturity, then, having arrived at the prime of his life, he begins to decline, the strength and powers of his body decrease, and he gradually arrives at the hour of death.” There’s your parabola. “All material things progress to a certain point, then begin to decline” and ultimately die. So this parabola, downward open parabola is more or less the life term of every material entity.

Now, a result of this is the following: there is no progress in the material world. The material world totally lacks the capacity to progress. The curve of the material world is a periodic motion. As things come into existence, cease to exist, and so on, it is continual motion within fixed limits. This is the law of periodicity. It is the universal law of the material world. Every dynamic feature of the material world obeys the law of periodicity - the beating of your heart, the motion of the planets around the sun, the seasons, everything. Everything in the material world has this periodic motion. Now, of course, we speak of material progress such as the scientific conventions and clean toilets and what have you, but in fact, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá makes it clear that what we call progress is an expression of the spirit in the world of matter. All progress is spiritual. There is no such thing as purely material progress. If I could find this real quickly, I will. Otherwise, I will simply leave you with that. Anyway, it's in Paris talks. I'll probably run across it, but I quoted here somewhere that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says by progress, we mean the “expression of spirit in the world of matter”.

Now the very definition of matter is mass. You all know that. You all learned that in high school physics, right? The basic measure of a material entity is its mass. How much matter is present in it? What is its mass is? Or what is mass? Mass is a measure of resistance to motion. The greater the mass, the greater the inertia, the greater the resistance to motion. So the very essence of the material world is its resistance to change. So if you amass riches, you are literally reducing your propensity to change. Okay, if you amass material things, you are literally decreasing your capacity to change. So the nature of the material world, the nature of material objects is their resistance to change. Change then in the material world comes from the action of the spiritual world on the material world. Now how this action takes place, that goes into much more detailed things about science. As I say again, I'll reserve that for my [?] conference tomorrow night, which is not part of the course. It's optional, but there I will talk more about this mechanism about how the action of the spiritual world affects change in material world. But for the moment, we'll just take this on the face value of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s various statements as a fact. So He says that, on page 192 quoted in text up on the top of the page, “The world of mortality is a world of contradictions, of opposites; motion being compulsory everything must either go forward or retreat.” So this going forward and retreating is this back and forth motion that is characteristic of the material world. So in effect, in other words, matter is the resistance, spirit is the dynamic force which operates on the resistance of matter, and this then generates movement. This generates movement. This, in fact, is Newton's first law of motion, that the body will remain in its existing state of motion until it is acted upon by some force. So, in other words, this is almost a direct quote from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, in other words, He's saying, Newton is saying, nothing material, no material object will do anything on its own accord. Unless some force acts upon it and makes it do something, it will just stay in its existing state. This is the law of inertia.

Now, this whole system of material entity is bound together in a reality. In other words, the structure is a modular structure. I mean, we have elementary particles, which are little packets of energy, and these elementary particles combine to make protons and neutrons and so on, which combine to make atoms, which combine to make molecules, which combine to make macro-objects, which combine to make systems, and the systems combined to make the material universe. So this is a modular system, a modular system. In other words, it is useless to look at the material universe as just an aggregate of elementary particles, just same example of the body a minute ago. It's totally useless to look at your body as an aggregate of cells. And this is why, this is the famous principle of indeterminism such as Heisenberg indeterminism. Whenever you jump a level of organization, then you have a new unit. In other words, the basic unit of life is the cell. It is virtually useless to study an organism on the atomic level. In other words, you can study an organism on the atomic level, such as molecular biology, but you do that in order to know what the properties of the cell are. But when you want to understand the organism, you don't go down to the subcellular level. You take the properties of the cell. You take the cell as the basic unit, and you study the organism as a function of the cell. So it's the same thing in the physical world in general; it's rather useless to think of the physical universe as all these trees and grass, and everything we see as just a big aggregate of elementary particles. You study these modular systems on different levels. So this whole system that is the material universe is bound together, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says in the first quote I read, in a universal system of law. So let's continue that first quote that I stopped.

“This Nature is subjected to an absolute organization, to determined laws, to a complete order and a finished design, from which it will never depart—to such a degree, indeed, that if you look carefully and with keen sight, from the smallest invisible atom up to such large bodies of the world of existence as the globe of the sun or the other great stars and luminous spheres, whether you regard their arrangement, their composition, their form or their movement, you will find that all are in the highest degree of organization and are under one law from which they will never depart.”

So this system of reality is bound together by this universal law, which is the law of cause and effect, the law of causality. So the one universal law is the law of causality. This is, if you will, the logical law that is universal. Every law, particularly law like the Law of Gravity, is a particular instance of the law of causality. Now, the law of causality has certain features which are independent of particular laws. In other words, there are certain laws, like the law of gravity. They have certain principles, such as the inverse square principle. The two bodies are attracted to each other by a force that is proportional to the inverse of the square of the distance between their centers. It's Newton's law of gravity. So those are particular features of that law, but there are general features of the law of causality. The law of causality then is a binary relation which links to systems in such a way that we say that the system A is the cause of the system B. Now, what this means in practical terms is simply the following: that whenever A occurs, B will necessarily occur. We say that A is the sufficient reason for B, or that A produces B. This is the law of causality. So the law of causality is such that if I let go of this pen, it will fall to the ground. So as long as this pen, as this object is supported, like laying on the table, it will not move, but if it is not supported, then it will fall down. So, this is an expression of the law of causality under certain conditions. When certain conditions A are produced, certain results B will always follow from these conditions A. That's the law of causality. It's the basic law of rationality. In other words, human deduction logic is simply the abstract expression of the law of causality. When we say that a proposition B implies a proposition Q, this is simply a reflection of the law of causality, mirrored in the human intellect. Then we can say more about that.

Well, this capacity for understanding is the basic capacity of the human being. The capacity of human subjectivity to mirror or model the intrinsic law of causality is the essential property of the human soul. Bahá’u’lláh says, this is in the Gleanings, that the greatest gift that God has given to man is the gift of understanding or intellect. And He goes on to mention the other gifts - the heart and the will and so on - but He says the greatest gift is the gift of intellect. And He says, the reason that we have the gift of intellect is so that we can know God, but this same gift of understanding also enables us to know that which is right and wrong and to discover the secrets of creation. So, now, as we will see ultimately, to know God and to understand the law of causality is the same thing. There is no difference, really. In other words, the law of causality, the properties of the law of causality are in everything is an expression of the nature of God. So ultimately, to understand the law of causality or to understand God or know God is really the same thing. So I just mentioned that in the beginning, but if you don't see why that's the case, don't worry about it, because one can only see that after one has made certain deductions, but you can take my word for it that it works out that way. Okay, we'll see.

So ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says very clearly that the greatest gift that God has given man is the capacity to understand this law of causality that is embedded in the very structure of existence. So if we look on Page 193, He says:

“The outcome of this intellectual endowment is science which is especially characteristic of man. This scientific power investigates and apprehends created objects and the laws surrounding them. It is the discoverer of the hidden and mysterious secrets of the material universe and is peculiar to man alone. The most noble and praiseworthy accomplishment of man therefore is scientific knowledge and attainment.” And then He says:

“All blessings are divine in origin, but none can be compared with this power of intellectual investigation and research, which is an eternal gift producing fruits of unending delight. Man is ever partaking of these fruits. All other blessings are temporary; -” thus material “ - this is an everlasting possession… it is an eternal blessing and divine bestowal, the supreme gift of God to man.”

Science or the attributes of scientific penetration is supernatural. So, human ability to understand the law of causality, to apprehend the law of causality is the greatest gift that God has given to man. Now, what does this give us? What does this knowledge give us? It gives us two things. It gives us autonomy, and it gives us the power to increase our happiness or our well-being. It gives us autonomy and well-being. So, the result of knowledge, knowledge of the law of causality, it gives us two things: autonomy and well-being. So, let’s illustrate this. Let’s illustrate what it means, Yes? [‘’audience question’’] Well, I don't want to add those right now. So, let's give some examples. Without knowledge of the material world, human beings still live in the material world in this stage of existence and is therefore subject to these laws of causality. In other words, we can never break these laws of causality. I can never contravene the law of gravity. I mean, if I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, then I have the free will to step over the cliff or to draw back from the cliff and either way, the law of gravity is going to operate. My only choice is to put myself in a favorable condition or an unfavorable condition with respect to the law of gravity, but the law of gravity operates independently of my will. So we are subject to the laws of reality, of the material world in particular. But insofar as we understand these laws, then we can begin to produce configurations by, if you will, the manipulation of these laws, configurations which are conformable to our desires and goals.

So let me give a very simple example. Primitive societies, as sociologists never tire of telling us, were hunting and gathering societies, right? So in other words, man lived in a natural condition in which nature simply provided him with food. I mean, there it was. It was on the trees. It was on the bushes. It was running around the forest, and all he had to do was go get it. And so this produced tribal societies, nomadic societies, because societies were mobile insofar the ecosystem in which they lived provided the food and so on. In other words, they couldn't go to a desert if they lived in a forest, but they were not tied to any one local place. And so the social structures of these tribal societies were built around these activities, the fact you have a very sharp division of labor between the man and the woman. The man goes out and gathers and hunts, which takes a certain aggressiveness, a certain kind of ability, and the woman has the children, bears the children, nurtures the children so she more or less stays home, if you will, raises the children, prepares the food that the husband brings home and so on.

Now, at some point in this process, the human being acquired the knowledge of agriculture. Now, why is agriculture more sophisticated than hunting and gathering? Because agriculture involves a fairly sophisticated knowledge of laws. In particular, I have to know what to plant in the spring so that five or six months later I will have a certain product in the fall. In other words, the ultimate consequences of my planting the seed are not immediately obvious. You see, if I'm going to hunt or gather, I need very little knowledge of the laws. I mean, all I need is a very superficial knowledge of where to look for certain things. So in other words, if I'm hungry for apples, then I go to the apple tree and I pick an apple off the tree. And if I'm particularly hungry for rabbits, then I go shoot a rabbit and whatever. So the consequences of my actions are more or less immediate. I want the apple, I picked the apple, and I have an apple. I want the rabbit, I shoot the rabbit with a bow and arrow, a slingshot or something, and I have the rabbit. I go home and I took the rabbit. So there's very little delay between my actions and the consequences or results of my action. But with agriculture, it's different. Now, I have to know quite a bit about more longer term processes in the world, you see? I have to know that I have to prepare the soil in a certain way. I have to do certain things to it. I have to plant certain seeds. I have to plant them in a certain way. In other words, if I want wheat instead of apples, then I have to plant wheat. I can't get wheat if I plant apples and I can't get corn if I plant potatoes. So I have to know what to plant, when to plant it, under what conditions to plant it, how to cultivate it, how to provide for it and so on and so on. And I have to know enough to know that if I do this, then six months later I will have a certain result. And the acquisition of agriculture is considered - you can look at any textbook on anthropology - as one of the major turning points in the social history of the human race because this was the beginning of localized community because you can no longer be a nomadic community if you are tending your field because your field, you can't move them around. Okay? So agriculture was the first basis of fixed communities, and fixed communities means that you have a more stable environment, social environment. Therefore, you have more refined laws and so on and so on and so on.

So, we can see then that this is an example of how the knowledge of the law of cause and effect in this case in the realm of ecology, of agriculture enables us to increase our autonomy and our well-being. In other words, it increases our autonomy because I now no longer have to maybe go out and hunt every day. You know, I'm not living from moment to moment. I can plant my fields. I can work and plant my field, and then I can go play games and tell stories and make music, you know, and let the earth do the rest. You know? I mean, I have to do something, but, you know, basically I am free. I no longer have to endure the processes of the physical world. I can, in some sense, master these processes. Well, if we want to put it in more scientific terms, we can say that the law of cause and effect, suppose I want to produce a certain effect. Well, there may be any number of conditions which can produce that effect. I mean, a given effect can have more than one cause. There are more than one ways to produce a given effect. So in other words, if I had knowledge of the law of causality, if B is a desired outcome - in other words, if B makes me happy, if it makes me happy to have food, if it makes me happy to have a good harvest, then the more I know about the different way that I can produce this outcome, the more autonomy I have. Now, this is an increase in freedom or autonomy, and it is also an increase in well-being. It's an increase in well-being because I can produce the outcomes that make me happy. Okay? That make me happy.

So this is the knowledge that science gives us. It is a knowledge of the law of causality. In the material world, knowledge of the law enables me to bring about initial conditions of systems, initial conditions of dynamical systems which will produce the outcome which are favorable to me and my goals. And this makes me happy. So in other words, insofar as I understand the law of cause and effect in, say, the human physiology, the human body, this gives me knowledge of medicine. And therefore, if I get a certain disease, if I know how to cure this disease, so the desired outcome in this case is to be cured of the disease, to be free of the disease.. So if I have this disease, if I discover that I have this disease, that this is the present reality, well, if I have no knowledge of the laws of medicine, then I'm simply subject to whatever nature is going to do to me. If I have this disease and I don't have the resistance to fight it off, then I'm gonna die. I'm going to die. I’ll simply be subject to the laws of causality. But if I have knowledge of these laws, then I can take a substance. I can take a drug or on medicine, or I can engage in some activity that will change this condition, that will change the condition of my body and therefore lead to the desired outcome, which is to be free of the disease. So this point should be clear. It’s anyone for whom this point is not clear that the understanding of the law of causality, it increases our autonomy and our well-being because it gives us the knowledge by which we can bring about certain initial conditions, causes, which will produce certain desired effects, such as to eat good food, to be free of disease, to have healthy children, whatever.

Now, you can say that, well, all of this, this is just science. That’s true, it is just science, but science is from God. But what the Baháʼí writings tell us then is that spiritual reality– [‘’inaudible’’]. The distinction between material reality and spiritual reality. The Baháʼí writings tell us that spiritual reality is likewise governed by a law of causality that is objective, exactly like in the material world. And because this law of causality is objective. It is potentially discoverable by science. However, because the spiritual world is not accessible to direct observation, it would take an incredibly long time to discover with our unaided intellect, these spiritual laws. So God has ordained a second source of valid knowledge of reality, which is religion. In other words, two sources of knowledge of reality have been ordained by God. One is called science, and one is called religion. We have just read from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, His statement, that science is from God, science is supernatural. It is from God. Well, religion, of course, even more obviously is from God. Religion, by religion, I mean, of course, Revelation, the Manifestations, the sending of the Manifestations.

Now, let's see this very clearly. On page 199, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says– it's on the top of the page in text, “...religion is the essential connection which proceeds from the realities of things.” The necessary connection which emanates from the realities of things. Well, that sounds like exactly what he said about the material world. Well, it is exactly what He said about the material world, except it applies to the spiritual world as well. So religion is to the spiritual what science is to the material world. I mean there’s no difference. Religion, in other words, is a knowledge of the law of causality in the spiritual world. That's what religion is. Religion is not an ideology. It is not a credo. It is not rituals. It is knowledge of the laws of the world of being. Now, here ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says explicitly on page 199 at the bottom, He says, “...the supreme Manifestations of God are aware of the reality of the mysteries of beings.” Now I'll explain this in a minute. When we talk about the world of being, we're talking about the spiritual world, not the material world. The material world is the world of appearance, and the spiritual world is the world of being. So the first philosopher to make this distinction completely clear, as far as I know, was Plato, or Socrates, if you want. It's hard to know what’s Socrates and what’s Plato. But in any case, one could argue that it was made before, but in any case, it was certainly made very explicitly, very consciously in Plato. So He says:

“...the supreme Manifestations of God are aware of the reality” - that is the structure, if you will - “of the mysteries of beings” - of the unobservable spiritual world. “Therefore, They establish laws which are suitable and adapted to the state of the world of man… The supreme manifestations of God are aware of the mysteries of beings, therefore, They understand this essential connection” - this connection that we've talked about earlier, emanating from the reality of things - “, and by this knowledge establish the Law of God.”

Now, notice that this answers one question which I've heard a lot of debate about in the Baháʼí community and elsewhere. Is the Manifestation like a sort of like a hollow reed that the Revelation simply comes through him? He is a vehicle of the Revelation, but He Himself does not possess this knowledge. In other words, is God like the source and the Manifestations like a sort of a tube and God puts the Revelation in the tube one end of the tube and it comes out the other to us? This, in fact, is the conception that the Muslims have of Muhammad. This is exactly the conception that they have, that Muhammad is an ordinary man who was a vehicle of Revelation. The Revelation is perfect. The Koran is perfect, but the vehicle is a human being. And Muhammad, in his lifetime, obviously made no effort to create any other impression. He presented himself to his followers as an ordinary human being who is just a vehicle for the Revelation so that the Arabs focused on the book and not so much on the personality of Muhammad. However, we can see that quite clearly, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says here, and it's clear elsewhere in the Baháʼí writings, that this is not the Baháʼí view of Revelation. The Manifestation has the knowledge. In other words, He is, as Bahá’u’lláh says, identical with God. He has all knowledge. He says the essence of the belief in the unity of God is to regard, is to see no difference between God and His Manifestation.

Now, of course, ontologically, there is a difference and we will talk about that. But from the point of view of knowledge, there is no difference. That is, the Manifestation has all knowledge. He’s given that all knowledge by God, of course, but the Manifestation himself is not the source of the knowledge. He himself is like a mirror who reflects God to us, just us we are mirrors that reflect the light that comes from the Manifestation. Nevertheless, the Manifestation really has this knowledge. He really understands this. It's not just that he is an automaton who is simply recording words that come to Him. He has active, complete knowledge of these realities, as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says here. So we have two sources of valid knowledge of reality: science and religion. Both are God-ordained. This is another point which I will take the last couple of minutes I have to explain. There’s a tendency even in the Baháʼí Faith, but certainly outside the Baháʼí Faith to consider that religion is from God and science is from man. This is false. This is not the Baháʼí point of view. Well, look, we just read from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá where He says that science is from God, and that the capacity of scientific penetration is supernatural. It's from God. It’s an eternal bound and we have it. And if you read Promulgation of Universal Peace, He says this a hundred times. There's no doubt. He repeats this over and over again. So science is from God.

And in fact, the split between science and religion is really arbitrary. In other words, there's no absolute line where science leads off in religion. This is another false conception which is an attempt to say that only science gives propositional truth and religion gives only normative truth. In other words, religion gives you the truth that tells you to be a good guy. In other words, it gives you normative truth, that is value statements - it is good to do this, it is bad to do this. It gives moral imperative which philosophers call normative statements, but not propositional truth, whereas science gives propositional truth, but not normative statements. This is the materialistic way of seeing the relationship between science and religion. This is not the Baháʼí way. There are many scientific propositional truths contained in the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh and in all the other Revelations, as far as that goes, and there are many normative statements that can be derived from scientific knowledge. So there is no absolute line between science and religion. So, in other words, ultimately, if you want to look at it from the God point of view, from the objective point of view, there is just reality. That is, there is the truth about reality. And there is the knowledge about the truth of reality. And we have, God has given us a mind, and the purpose of this mind is to enable us to gain knowledge of reality, to understand the truth about reality. And the truth about reality is the law of causality and reality. This law of causality is universal. That's the first thing I read this morning. It is universal. All of reality is in one coordinated system under one law, but there are levels. In the particular there is the material world and the spiritual world. And the laws of the material world, God has said, “You have enough. You can discover these on your own.” Okay, so the Manifestation takes some of His time to tell us the laws of the material world, but mostly He leaves this to science. But the laws that govern the spiritual world are very difficult to discover on our own, and so these are given to us through Revelation. But the nature of the laws is the same. It is always the law of causality.

So let me end just with this story, because I have two minutes according to my watch. Two years ago, I had the opportunity to represent the Baháʼí Faith at a meeting at the Vatican. This was a meeting on science and theology, and I was the only Baháʼí there. And so this was a– all representatives of all the major religions were there and materialistic scientists as well. This was science and theology. And the whole idea was to try to sort of establish some kind of a dialogue, as we call it, between, you know, professional theologians and professional scientists in science and religion and so on. And so I participate in this, I presented a paper, and so on. And so I represented the Faith as best I could and so on and I had some opportunity to teach the Faith to people and establish some friendships and some connections. But towards the end of the thing, as I was observing, this went on for weeks, all of a sudden, I realized something. It was something that had been, you know, burgeoning within, that the discourse about science was invariably negative, and the discourse about religion was positive. In other words, everybody's idea was sort of well, you know, science has been so successful that it sent people to the moon. It has got them back. It has cured diseases, and so on. We have to deal with science because people are impressed with science, but, you know, really, it's a bother. I mean, it's just too bad that this science came along and destroyed, you know, the foundation of religion and religious belief and undermined, you know, the kind of faith that people had in the Middle Ages and so on and so on. So there was this.

So I took the floor and this is about the last meeting. I said, “I'm a Baháʼí, as you all know.” And I said, “One of the beliefs of the Baháʼí Faith is that science is from God, just as much as religion. And not only is science from God, but science is just as necessary for the spiritual development of the human being as his religion.” I said we all know that science contributes to the material development of the human being, but science is just as necessary for the spiritual development of the human being. as religion. We cannot develop spiritually without science. And I said I wonder if any other religious group has this point of view. Nobody did. The Muslims, the Jews, the Catholics, the Protestants, they were all there. Nobody did. Nobody but the Baháʼí Faith has this point of view. So we'll say some more about this tomorrow. [‘’applause’’]

–Basis of our relationship with reality is the law of causality, the law of cause and effect, and we saw that the understanding of the law of cause and effect will [?] in the first instance, material reality. We saw that the understanding of the law of cause and effect enables us to relate effectively to the processes of the world rather than just endure them because when we understand the law of cause and effect, then we know how to bring about certain initial conditions (causes) which can then produce certain future conditions (effects) which are favorable to our goals and our needs. Now, let me say I'm worried more about this. As we said, life is a dialogue between man and God. Now, the essentials of this dialogue are the fact that God has no needs. God is totally independent of His creatures. This was explicitly said many times in the writings, and of course, in the prayers themselves. Bahá’u’lláh has say over and over again, God is the All-Sufficing, the self-sufficient. And this, of course, is confirmed by the whole history of philosophy. The very first, truly rational proof of the existence of God was Aristotle's first cause proof, in which Aristotle proves what effectively the existence of an Uncaused Cause, which means that God, the uncaused is self-sufficient, so self-sufficiency, all-sufficiency is in a certain sense, if you want to put it this way metaphorically, the most fundamental attribute of God. He is, before anything else, that unique thing, which does not depend on anything else but Himself, because everything else that exists depends on something else and ultimately on God. But only God depends only on Himself. So God is the All-Sufficing.

Now, what this means in our relationship with God is extremely important, because the human being is a needful creature. He's not only a finite creature as Dr. [?] has said yesterday so compellingly, uh and so I won't bother. I was gonna have a certain, take a little time to talk about the finiteness of the human being, but since he's done that, I will simply let that be sufficient, which it clearly is. And say, so, not only is the human being finite and limited in every way, but the human being is also needful creature. He is a needful creature. He has needs. Now the result of our having needs is that all human interactions involve a certain amount of self-interest. There is no human transaction that is free from some degree of self-interest because our needs have to be satisfied, and we seek the satisfaction of our needs in all transactions that we undertake. Now, this means in particular, that no human love, no purely human love is free from some degree of self-interest. So let's take the example of the most spontaneously unselfish human love, which is the love of a mother for her child. Now I know that there are bad mothers, but if you look at the way most mothers raise their children, the vast majority of mothers you will observe that from the moment the child is born until the moment that the child is independent at the age of 15 or 20 or 21, whenever the child becomes autonomous - if ever the child does become autonomous, which, of course, depends on the quality of his education - but nonetheless, during the whole period of dependency of the child, the mother at every moment of her existence, will give priority to the needs of the child over her own needs. Is this not a remarkable thing? I mean, what incredible degree of self-sacrifice! And the mother will do this spontaneously. I mean, just look around you, any mother, just observe the interaction between any mother and any child.

[‘’to audience’’] Are you raising your hand? Oh, okay. No, I thought you wanted to say something. Okay. No, I thought you wanted to say something, and I didn't– [‘’laughing’’]. Okay, well, there you go.

God has created an infinite abundance. So all things. So this is a remarkable thing, this constant self sacrifice. You see, it's not just one heroic act of self-sacrifice, like the martyr who in the moment of truth gives his life for Bahá’u’lláh or the warrior who at the ultimate moment of battle, risks his life in one romantic gesture of courage. This is daily, momentary, moment to moment, sacrifice of oneself. Now this, of course, is exactly what love is. Love is, of course, we much prefer poetic and romantic definitions of love than logical ones, but the logical definition of love, which is nonetheless useful is simply love is any transaction between, say, two human beings, if we’re talking about human beings, in which each give preference to the needs of the other over his own needs. In other words, let's put it the other way. Every principle incidentally can be stated both positively and negatively. Every principle that exists has both a positive and a negative articulation, and both are useful. Both are useful. So egotism and the symbol of egotism– of course, in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá’u’lláh says the symbol of liberty, but in this sense of the word liberty, He means egotism. The symbol of egotism, in other words, of license, is the animal. Now, the animal, the basis of functioning of any animal is that the animal functions strictly on the basis of the animal's own needs. The animal isn't even aware of anything else but his own needs in the first place. The animal doesn't have consciousness. He doesn't have self-awareness because the animal doesn't have a self. The self comes from the soul.

As Husayn [ph] said so brilliantly in his talk last night, that the self of modern psychology is really a materialistic attempt to reconstruct the soul. Okay, so if you take, if you substitute soul every time you read in a modern psychological tech the word self, then you will have a better approximation to the truth. So the animal then does not have a self. It does not have a soul. It doesn't have a self-concept. It doesn't have self-awareness, but it has awareness in the sense that it feels sensations and so on. And the only thing of which the animal is aware is these sensations and these sensations arise when the animal has needs. When it's hungry, it feels hungry and it’s motivated to eat. So an animal then, as Bahá’u’lláh says, is the symbol of egotism. Egotism is acting on the basis of your needs or one’s needs without any regard for the needs of others. So when the animal is hungry, it eats. When the tiger is hungry, it eats. And if you happen to be in the wrong place, when the tiger wants to eat, the tiger is going to eat you. And is the tiger going to feel guilty about this? Is the tiger going to worry about what you feel about being eaten? Absolutely not. So this is egotism. The animal is the embodiment of egotism, and there was a spiritual purpose in this. In other words, why did God not just create the human being and the beautiful physical world of nature that we see? Why did He create all of these creatures, like snakes and frogs and so on? Well, there are undoubtedly an infinite number of spiritual reasons for this, but one of them is so that we can learn, so that we can observe what kind of behavior is characteristic of a creature that does not have a soul. Okay? This is one of the spiritual meaning in the multiplicity of creation. There are others. So, that is egotism.

On the other extreme, then, love, or altruism as it is sometimes called, altruism is the opposite of egoism, and altruism is any act or any motivation or any transaction in which I give preference to the needs of others over my own needs. This doesn't mean that I don't have needs. It does not mean that my needs are not legitimate. It doesn't mean that I don't seek to satisfy my needs legitimately, but it means that, it means in the first place that I am aware that others have needs like myself. That's Christianity. That's loving your neighbor as yourself. In other words, that’s the first step towards moral sensitivity, towards a decrease in egotism. I become aware of the fact that not only I have needs - that’s the animal state of existence - I have needs, but the next stage is there are other people who exist and they also have needs and their needs are just as important to them as my needs are to me. So that is Christianity. That is loving other people in the same way that you love yourself. You are sensitive to their needs, just as sensitive as you are to your needs. But as we know, Bahá’u’lláh now says that we should prefer others to ourselves. And so we can see now that the real implication of love is that we can get to the point where we actually give priority to the needs of other people over our own needs in an interaction, and this is true altruism. This is true love.

And this is based on knowledge. This is why every time we hear, we see, Bahá’u’lláh talk about the love of God or love in general, He always starts with knowledge. You have to know, and if you look in, for example, in Promulgation of the Universal Peace, the talk that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá gives at Greenacre, and this is where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá talks about the four methods of acquiring knowledge, where he talks about reason, about inspiration, about sense experience and about tradition, authority. And this talk is a talk about love. He says, “Tonight we're going to talk about love, and so if we're talking about love, we have to know what love is.” And then He proceeds to give this discourse about science and the methods of acquiring scientific knowledge, and then He says, “Now let’s apply this to our understanding of love.” So why is love always linked to knowledge? Because how can I give priority to your needs over mine if I don't know what your needs are? I have to know and understand the nature of the human being and therefore your nature, I have to really understand what that nature is to know what your needs are. So true love is always conscious. It is always based on knowledge. It is not simply a spontaneous emotional reaction.

Now, love involves, of course, a feeling, an emotional reaction, and that's what makes love so wonderful. It feels so great, and that's a gift from God. I mean, that's why we talk about the wine, which is something which is inebriating, which is euphoric. Love is a euphoria. It is, as I read the first day, it is the greatest universal value. It is that transaction which is experienced as a positive by both giver and receiver, but this love is based on knowledge. It is based on justice, and justice means what? Well, if we take the language of the talk last night, justice involves the notion of legitimacy, legitimacy. So I have to understand what are the legitimate needs. What does legitimate means? It means that which comes from God, that which is given by God. Well, let me say a word more about legitimacy. If you read the chapter in Some Answered Questions about the differences in the characters of men, you will see that ‘Abdu’l-Bahá addresses and solves the classic problem of the origin of evil in which He confronts the following contradiction: How is it that God is good, that the creation of God is good, and yet that evil exists? How is this possible? Because how can we say that a good God would create evil? So if evil exists, then God must have created it, since He's all powerful. So how can we explain this?

And He goes on to explain that– in the first place, He reaffirms that God is good, that creation is good and that all God-given naturally given instincts, physical or spiritual are good. And He gives the example of, He says, for example, you can see in a nursing child signs of anger and greed. And He said, therefore, in seeing this, you would say, “Well, look, anger and greed are evil, and therefore God has created evil.” Evil is in the nature of men because a nursing child has not had enough life experience that we can attribute his anger or his greed to learned experience. We can’t say he's learned how to be evil. This is obviously natural. This is from God. And then, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says, the answer is: that anger, which is the emotional reaction to the perception of injustice, is good. This is a God-given instinct, provided that it is used correctly. So He said, He says in effect, we should be angry at injustice. We should be angry at tyranny. We should be angry at oppressors. In other words, the person who can confront injustice and not feel anger is the morally insensitive person; he's the immoral person, not the angry person. Not the passive person, excuse me. In other words, the passive person, the one who can confront injustice and cruelty and sort of smile and say “well, it's the will of God” and “that's the way life is” and so on, that's not the moral person. That's an insensitive dolt, all right? The moral person is the one who, when confronted with genuine injustice and genuine cruelty, will become angry and indignant, and this anger is the proper emotional response to the perception of injustice. And it motivates us like any emotion. An emotion is a motivator. An emotion moves us to act in a certain way. It gives us the energy to act. It is the spark from God which incites us, which gives us the energy to act in a certain direction. And so the emotion of anger incites us to correct the injustice. And this is a God-given impulse. It is not evil.

Now this goes back– I don't have time to get into this. Perhaps Husayn [ph] will get in this in his talk. You see, this is exactly one of the fallacies of materialistic psychology, the thing we're talking about last night. Namely, that aggression and aggressive behavior has been identified with anger. In other words, people say aggression is bad, right? In other words, if I aggress you, if I oppress you violently or physically, this is bad. We all agree. I mean, Bahá’u’lláh says it’s bad. And so we say, what makes people aggressive? It’s anger. Therefore, anger is bad. But aggression is a behavior. It is not an emotion, and aggressive behavior is learned behavior. It is the misuse of anger. So the resolution of the paradox simply lies in the fact that man has free will, that God has given man free will. All of the natural instincts that God has given us are good, but we can misuse these. We can misuse these. We can misuse them because our will really is free.

Now, there is a Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh where Bahá’u’lláh says that there are three things that we can never understand in this life, which the way He says this, it leaves open the possibility that we will be able to understand these things in the next life. This was not said explicitly in the Tablet, but my own feeling from reading the tablet is that this is the implication, that we will understand them in the next life. But the three things that He says we cannot understand in this life are: the nature of the next world; the reason for innocent suffering, that is unmerited suffering such as children who are subject to all sorts of horrible abuses in all of this, which obviously they do not deserve; and the third thing is where the Divine Will leaves off and human will takes up. In other words, the exact boundary between the predestination, if you will of God and human will. But what we can say, so we do not know this, and we cannot know this in this life. And there's even one passage of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá where, if you reflect, if you attempt to define this line between the will of God and your will, you will become confused and it can even lead to a loss of faith if you attempt to unravel this. Well, what He means by this, we can talk about maybe some other time. But so this is just a warning. In other words, it is saying, you know, Bahá’u’lláh has told us that we can't understand it. So if we really believe and understand that Bahá’u’lláh is the Manifestation, then we'll take His word for it and we won’t butt our heads against a brick wall in trying to understand what God has ordained that we can't understand.

Now, so we don't know exactly in our lives exactly what comes from us and exactly what comes from God. I mean, we can see, certainly some things come from God. I mean, who were our parents, where we were born, the conditions of our early life, all of these are totally beyond our will. That's obvious that that's the will of God. That's not our will. Our will didn't even exist when our parents got married and when we were conceived, so our will could hardly have determined these things. And we can see other things that are clearly in the scope of our will. I mean, whether or not I pick up this book or put it down. It's not God that determines that. I'm perfectly free to do it or not to do it. But when we sort of go to the middle, in other words, when we go away from these obvious extremes, then it is impossible to know. What we can know and what is the only thing that is necessary to know is that everything that pertains to the human beings is a product of God's action and our response to that action. So that's what I mean again when I say that life is a dialogue with God. Everything that pertains to the human being is the result of this intercourse, this continual dialogue between us and God. So everything that happens to us depends in part on the quality of our response to it. Now, it may be that in certain circumstances, 99% of it is predestination, and then maybe in other circumstances, that 99% of it is our will and only 1% is predestination. But this dynamic, constantly changing interaction between us and God is such that these are continually interwoven in such a way that you can't even separate it out and say what percentage is in each case because there's this constant interaction. But what we can know for certain is that everything that happens to us is the result of a combination of God's will and our response, the quality of our response to God's will.

So in human interactions, in human interactions, there's always a certain degree of self-interest because we seek the satisfaction of our needs. However, in our relationship with God, God has no needs. Therefore, since God has no needs, this is the guarantee that God's love for us is absolutely pure. There is no self-interest on the part of God. There can be no self-interest on the part of God. This means that everything that God has decreed for us is for our benefit alone. Nothing that God decrees for us is for self-interest on the part of God. Now, this is very fundamental. It also answers a question which is often debated Most theologies hold that God created out of some kind of need. Most theologies - if you talked with Christians, most Christians hold this - that God created, sometimes they say, well, that God was lonely and God needed a companion or whatever, that God had a need to create. But here we can see that from the Baháʼí point of view, this is not the case, that God did not create out of any need to create. God is the All-Sufficing. He is the self-sufficient. So God created not out of any need, but out of His pure love for us. And so our interaction with God is so fundamental as we will see in a few minutes that the fundamental law of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas is the law of prayer. That is the most basic law in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, is the law of prayer, and that law is the most fundamental because it establishes the relationship between us and God. And this relationship is the central relationship of our existence because it is the only relationship in which there is no self-interest on the part of one of the partners. Of course, we always have our self-interests involved, but God doesn't. And so it is the only experience of pure love, of undefiled love, and therefore, it becomes the basis for our transactions with others. So we will see this in a few minutes. In other words, this is the whole conception of human life that is in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, namely that the fundamental relationship is between the individual soul and God. This establishes the necessary basis for altruistic relationships with other human beings. Take away that central relationship, and it is impossible to establish authentic relationships with any other human being. Authentic relationships cannot be established in the absence of a relationship with God.

Now, let me just open a parenthesis here about this notion of authenticity because it's very important. And having now spent several years in Russia and gotten to know something of Slavic culture, I have been able to see certain juxtapositions, certain interactions that I previously did not see because my experience has been mainly in the West, in North America and Europe. Now, if you go back, we can say that the period just before the coming of Bahá’u’lláh in history was the apogee of secular humanism. Okay? You can see that in every field of endeavor, in every field of endeavor, the period just before the coming of Bahá’u’lláh, there is an ultimate expression of secular humanism. We know that liberal humanism began essentially with the Renaissance in Europe. In other words, this creative offspring, this child of the fusion of the Greek and Arabic traditions in the mind of Rene Descartes gave rise eventually to such power that the human being, at least in Central Europe and eventually North America, succumbed to the illusion that he was immortal, that he was - [‘’to audience member’’] what did you say? The other thing that you said last night. He was immortal and that the material world was substantial and [‘’copying after audience reminder’’] not permanent, not transient. life not trying to write. In other words, and of course, Descartes himself was a believer, I mean, was a very strong believer in God, but of course, Descartes– I don't know if [?]. I don't know how much I should go into, but it's just a little bit of the pre-history of the Baháʼí Faith. It's relevant to the context of the Kitáb-i-Aqdas. So let me say it and if it's not useful then just wipe it out, okay?

You see, Descartes, I mean, Descartes, in a way, was almost a prophet. I mean his vision of the world was incredible because he, as I say, his genius was that he fused, I mean, he really saw, he really married in his philosophy these two, this Greek and the Arabic tradition. I mean, even though he may, I don't know to what extent he was aware historically that he was doing this, but he did it. He did it. But in effect, Descartes’s philosophy has only one fundamental error. I mean, but this was a crucial era, and that is that I mean, he believed in the existence of the soul. He believed that the physical world were composites and the spiritual world were unified substances. I mean, he had it all right. He had it all absolutely right, except that Descartes claimed that the material world was a sufficient explanation for itself. In other words, that the explanation for material phenomena was material. And this is this famous Cartesian duality in which the spiritual world, which reality is separated into two halves that don't interact. There's the spiritual world and the material world. So even though Descartes believed in the spiritual world, in the reality and the primacy of the spiritual world and everything else, in other words, Descartes, if he was consistent with himself, would’ve been the first Baháʼí. I mean, he would have immediately accepted the Baháʼí Faith. I mean, he would have had no quarrel with anything except that Descartes was convinced that the material world, everything material had a material explanation and that everything spiritual had a spiritual explanation, and rather than as we saw yesterday, the Baháʼí point of view, which is that nothing material has a material explanation, that the ultimate explanation for everything is spiritual. In other words, there's a dynamic interaction between the material and the spiritual.

Well, we can see this very easily. If I let this thing go, it falls down. Now, you don't see any reason why that falls down. Look, there's nothing that's keeping this from going in any direction. So why does it keep going down? Well, you say it's the force of gravity. Do you see any force of gravity? Did you see anything pushing or pulling this thing? Do you see any reason that constrains this to go down? No. So we cannot explain the observable behavior of this book by anything that we can observe. The force of gravity is a spiritual force. It is an invisible force. Even now, nobody understands how it works. The hypothesis is that there's a graviton, that there is a particle which is exchanged between this and the Earth, which causes this to take place. Even Newton, who discovered the operation of the law of gravity, he wrote a paper that he never published, he says, “I don't really believe this.” You know, he says how is it possible that two bodies that, you know, have no apparent connection with each other can attract each other? Where is this force of attraction? He said, “All I can say is that the hypothesis that this invisible force exists explains the way bodies actually behave.” You can predict, you know, the movement of the planets and everything else. But this theory of gravity, which is called action at a distance.” He says, “I really don't believe it.” And Einstein didn't believe it, either. This is why he developed the theory of relativity in which he tried to explain gravity as a curvature in space and so on. He thought that well, if this curvature is local, then I can understand why it is that this moves. It’s because the mass of the earth bends space-time in such a way that this force acts on this, but this is local. In other words, if we look at it globally, there is no action at a distance.

But this has been destroyed in 1985 by an experiment in Paris by Alan Este who showed definitively that there is action at a distance. There are these global connections. He took two complimentary elementary particles and he separated them by several meters, which would be like separating the earth and the sun at an infinite distance. He took two complementary particles that had complementary spin. He separates them by several meters, and then he affects the spin of one. And the minute he changes the spin of one, at the identical instant, the spin of the complimentary particle changes in a complimentary fashion instantly. According to Einstein's theory, the speed of light is the fastest speed. Nothing can be quicker than the speed of light, but this is an instant global connection between two elementary particles. So this experiment definitively refutes the theory of local action, and it definitively establishes the existence of action at a distance and therefore of global connections. Well, we could have told him that, right? We could have told him that, but because before all these experiments take place, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says that:

“Know then that the [all-embracing] framework that governs existence includes within its compass every existent being — particular or universal — [whether] outwardly or inwardly…” And so on. And He says, “Divine and all-encompassing Wisdom hath ordained that motion be an inseparable concomitant of existence, whether inherently or accidentally, spiritually or materially. This movement must be governed by some check or rein, some regulator or director, otherwise order will be disrupted and the spheres and bodies will fall from the heavens. For this reason God brought into being a universal attractive force between these bodies to hold sway over them and govern them, a force deriving from the firm ties, the [mighty correspondence and affinity] that exist” - now, get this - “between the realities of these limitless worlds.”

So, that's action at a distance. That's exactly what it is, infinite action. So already, before Einstein, before [?], ‘Abdu’l-Bahá said that action of the distance was a reality and that these global forces existed. This is from the Tablet of the Universe of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. It is not presently published in English, but I'm willing to make it available to anybody who wants to have a copy of it. It's going to be the basis of my presentation tonight. Okay, so the centrality, then, of the relationship between the individual of God is that it is a unique experience, and it is a unique experience because it is the only experience we have of totally disinterested love. Every other relationship between humans is based on, as I say, a certain amount of self-interest. Now, before I go further in this, let me point out one thing. Yesterday, I only talked about half of the difference between the spiritual world and the material world. I said that the material world, in the material world, the principle of existence was the principle of composition. Okay? Everything is a composite, and we read statements of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá about that. The principle of existence in the spiritual world is that of unified substances. That is, these are not composites. These are not composites. Spiritual entities are not composites. The essence of God is not a composite. It is a unified substance. The soul of man is a unified substance. Ideas which reside in the mind of God, in the universal intellect, not in the essence of God– there is no differentiation in the essence of God Again, we'll talk about this tonight.

But ideas, for example, which are abstract entities but which have objective existence, as Plato already understood 2000 years ago, are also exist as unified substances. In other words, there's no such thing as a half of an idea or a part of an idea. So spiritual entities exist as unified substances. Spiritual entities are unified substances. In philosophy, we call these simple entities but because simple sometimes have the connotation of simplistic or devoid of richness, I prefer the word noncomposite, that spiritual entities or non compliant. Now, let's read where ‘Abdu’l-Bahá says this, and you'll see why I'm stressing this. So this is starting on page 195 in the booklet on the spiritual reality. So we have seen yesterday the result of the fact that material reality, material entities are composites and that the result of the composite nature of material entities is the universal law of material reality, which is periodic motion, periodic motion. The fact that there is no progression without retrogression. Well, let's start by reading that again. It only takes two seconds. It's on page 191. Let's just read this because we're going to juxtapose it.

“Absolute repose does not exist in nature. All things either make progress or lose ground. Everything moves forward or backward, nothing is without motion. From his birth, a man progresses physically until he reaches maturity, then, having arrived at the prime of his life, he begins to decline, the strength and powers of his body decrease, and he gradually arrives at the hour of death… All material things progress to a certain point, then begin to decline.”

This is on page 192. All material things. So this is the universal law of material reality. There is no progress that is not followed by regress. Now, this regression may be very far. In other words, if you take the big bang theory, for example, the universe is expanding. Well, the universe will expand to a point in which it is maximally expanding.When it has expended the energy from the Big Bang that is making it expand, then it will begin to collapse in on itself and eventually it will fold into a big black hole and compress back to this primal egg. And then a new Planck array cycle will begin. Okay, well, I mean, I don't know. I don't want to get into arguments about what was the big bang theory is correct or not. My only point is that even if we accept this theory, according to this theory, we are now in - the universe is expanding. We are now in a period of progress, but even according to this most general cosmological theory, this progress that we are currently experiencing that we've been experiencing for the last 15 billion years will eventually be followed by a regress and ultimately, the destruction of the universe, the compression of the universe in on itself. So science has validated this law over and over again, but of course, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá could have told them. But that’s okay. We can discover that for ourselves. And so then the scientist will come and say, “Oh, yeah, well, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, He knew that, you know, a hundred years ago.” So that will be another confirmation for scientists when they finally come around to say, “My God, you know, all that we've discovered was actually already taught by Bahá’u’lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá before it was discovered by science.”

So this is the law of the material world. Now, let's immediately contrast this with spiritual reality. On page 195.

“The soul is not a combination of elements,” - this is in the middle of page 195, in text quote - “iit is not composed of many atoms, it is of one indivisible substance and therefore eternal. It is entirely out of the order of the physical creation; it is immortal!” Notice, he says. The soul is entirely out of the order of the physical is not partly physical or a little bit spirits or more refined physical. Because tonight, in the talk, I will explore where Abdu'l-Baha explains that there is infinite degrees of refinement in the material world, so there is no limit to refinement in the material world. It fell, but spiritually, reality is not just a very refined material reality. I mean, that would already be very good if spirits reality were just a hyper refined material reality. But as he says, the soul is entirely out of the order of the physical creation is immortal and as we can see, it is non composite and then below, he says. In the world of spirit, there is no retrogressive. The world of mortality is a world of contradictions, of opposites, motion being compulsory. Everything must either go forward or retreat and the realm of spirit. There is no retreat possible. All movement is bound to be towards a perfect state. There it is. Progress is the expression off spirit. In the world of matter, there is no progress that is purely material. Okay, so they're the answer about evolution. Progress is the expression of spirit in the world of matter. So everything, any degree of complexity, anything in the material world that is above the order of a pure chaos of random motion such as the brownie in motion, uh is the result of the action of a spiritual force on the material world, the intelligence of man. His reasoning powers, his knowledge, his scientific achievements, all of these being manifestations of the spirit partake of the inevitable law of spiritual progress and are therefore of necessity, immortal. And then in the next page or 1 96 Now let us consider the soul we have seen. That movement is essential to exist. Um, nothing that has life is without motion. All creation. Whether the mineral, vegetable or animal kingdom is compelled to obey the law of motion, it must either ascend or decent there again, you have, you have. But with the human soul, there is no decline. It's on Lee movement. It is towards perfection. Growth and progress alone constitute the motion of the soul. Divine perfection is infinite. Therefore, the progress of the soul is also so you can see that the distinction between the material world, spiritual world it's fundamental to understanding the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Because, as I said in the discussion yesterday, you can only understand the laws of the Kitab-i-Aqdas. From the point of view of the properties of the spiritual world and the fundamental property, the spiritual world, the spiritual entities exist as undivided whole. They do not have part now. Why is this important? Okay, here's what the property of a composite system is that parts of the system can be alienated from the system without destroying. This is okay. My body is a system. My body is an integrated whole, but it is possible for me to lose my arm without dying, right? Another. As Abdu'l-Baha says, the destruction of the system is the decomposition of the system. That is death, right? So the destruction off my body as an organism will be my death. I mean, that's what death is. It's the destruction of the organism as an organism. As we know, the parts continue to exist in other ways and so on. But is the destruction off the organism as an organist? Again? Let's remind ourselves of this the curve of existence off any physical object, the beginning, the evolution, the lifetime in the debt. But I could lose both my legs, for example, and still survive as an organist. Now, what will happen if I lose an arm if I lose both my legs? Well, how I will have lost the capacity that that part of my organism gave me. So if I lose my legs, I will lose the capacity of spontaneous ambulance, right? In other words, I will no longer be able to walk unaided because I don't have any more leg. So the characteristic of a composite system is that parts of the system can be alienated from the system without destroying the city. The system can lose some of its capacity without being destroyed. Now, in contrast, a non composite a unified substance. I cannot lose any of its part. Why? Because it doesn't have any part you can't alienate apart from something that doesn't have a part. So the capacities of the souls such as knowledge, love and will are inherent in the soul. They are in the language of the Islamic philosophers, essential attributes of the soul. You know, the Islamic philosophy make this very useful distinction between essential attributes and active attribute. They apply this to God, but this also applies to the human being and applies to anything. In other words, the essential attributes of the soul or of God are those attributes which are inherent in the very nature of the soul or the essence of God. Um, so these attributes can be alienated from the soul because they are the soul. So the capacity of understanding, which is the greatest gift of God, man. Yeah, as Abdu'l-Baha says in the tablet August Terrell, on inherent property of the soul it in Here's in the soul. It cannot be alienated from the soul. And as we see because the soul is a non composite entity, it cannot be destroyed. It is immortal full, the curve of no cereal world. We have that curb virtual world Oh, which have a beginning, but which have no end. And then, of course, if I said great cereal world but that I warned you yesterday, there are levels in the spiritual world. Well, there are three levels. Well, there are distinctions in quality of existence between these legs. Doesn't need the beginning north. All right, God is eternally existing. He is, as Abdu'l-Baha says, absolutely pre exist. So and of course we know the man Well. Oh, rich is not absolutely free existence. It is created. However, we we also know from the riding that the soul of the manifestation pre exists his spirit, his physical laws. So whereas ourselves, the souls of ordinary human beings are, as it's clearly said in the writing, created or come into existence at the moment of conception. Not so for the souls of the manifestation. The souls of the manifestation pre exist in the spiritual world. So well, then, the four levels of can be the thing between with respect to the qualities of pigs material, I have no pre existent whoever they are temporary. They have a fun night, the human soul. But it has a beginning horn with you off Iraq. The soul of the manifestation. Yeah, human soul. But it is created in a state of perfection. On it pre exists the physical life. The manifestation comes to this earth. One, not twice. There's no reincarnation of the soul of the manifestation. Guardian has said that explicitly, but it pre exists. This one on. We will say something. I won't have time today. But tomorrow or the next day we will say something about the implications for the suffering of the man. Why does the manifestation suffer on this point? I different perhaps slightly, but ever so slightly from Professor Tamaki. I believe that this wrong one into the manifestation do not come from his human station. They come from his divine states. Why? Because this world is the womb for the next world. Now the baby does not suffer from being in the womb of his mother because he doesn't know anything else. But imagine what suffering would be for you as a mature adult knowing the conditions of this world, to go back and have to live a lifetime in the womb of your mother, you say, Well, physically it's not possible, but suppose it was. Suppose you could compress yourself down in there. You know, I suppose you could do it. But I mean, it would be incredible suffering, because every instant that you were in that womb, you would know that outside that was this world with all of its diversity and everything else. With Mrs the consciousness of the manifestation, he descends from the spiritual world in which he is pre existent, in full knowledge of hiss perfection into the material world. So there's a passage. Baha'i says at every instant that the manifestation is alive. You have intensely aware off the spiritual world that, in effect, his consciousness is in the spirit world. And yet he has to live at every moment in the material world. What greater suffering than one imagines. So you see, the manifestation suffers at every instant off. He suffers from the very condition of being in the material world and having the knowledge off the spirit world. So then to elaborate has God is eternal changeless because God is in a state of absolute perfection. Therefore, to what should God change him fell already? Plato gave this argument, and nobody has ever been able to refute it. Uh, God must be perfect, because any change in the nature and God would imply that he was changing to something that is other than what he is. And this would imply then that either God was in perfect to begin with and is evolving towards perfection. But how is something that is in perfect can become perfection? It can't if it is ever in perfect, and it is always in perfect on. Therefore, if God is perfect to begin with and he can't change but called, that would imply a change from a state of perfection to some other state, which would be imperfections. So, God, if he is perfect, cannot change. Um, uh, he is there for the change list, the eternal perfect. And then it also changed. Um, in a certain sense, the manifestation is God accept in a certain thin once in the only difference between God and the manifestation is that the manifestation is preceded by a call and God isn't preceded by a call in one sense. But of course the manifestation did not always exist either. So there is another distinct God. Colonel Station has a street beginning, but the manifestation is created in a state off perfect. So, roughly speaking, we've said the reality of man is that he can reflect to some degree all of the attributes of God. But as Hussein expressed yesterday, it is quite clear from the writings, and it's quite clear from my experience of our own reality that this capacity to reflect the attributes of God is a potential and it has to be developed, whereas in the manifestation, this is not a potential. It is kinetic, it is active, it is totally actualized, so the manifestation can be pulled off in a certain way as a fully actualized human beings. But of course, the point is, the manifestation doesn't achieve this state of a fully actualized being created in the state of a fully actualized human being. That is is a truly actualized reflection of all the attributes of God, as Yogi Effendi says in the world, or the letters in the dispensation of the whole lot. The manifestation is the perfect incarnation off every attributes of God. This is beautiful, the way show give Cindy in the first place. He is the only two places I know where uses the word incarnation. In the first instance, he refutes the Christian notion of incarnation, stigmatizing it as a crude and fantastic theory. He speaks of the crude and fantastic theory of divine incarnation. Go going to say any God who could incarnate his essence and revealing the men would cease by that very act to be gone. Any God who could limit his essence to the finite, limited frame of immortal being would cease by the very act of doing that to God. And he calls it a Zeiss, a crude in fantastic theory and then a couple of paragraphs later, after he has refuted that, he's also refuted. Panty is, um, he said, equally. Equally unacceptable to the behind conception is the pantheistic notion that something, everything is gone. And then, he says. The manifestation, however, is the perfect incarnation off every attribute of God. So he deliberately uses the word incarnation in the wrong sense and in the right thing. He shows you the wrong use of it with the Christians have made for 2000 years. And then he juxtaposes it with the correct use, saying that the man carnation of every attribute them you're with most but continual movement within fixed limit. No, As Hussein said yesterday, the human reality is at the juncture of these two worlds. As Abdu'l-Baha explains, it's at the intersection of ascending and descending art. So heart, which is the physical human reality, is the most perfect combination Shin of elements. That is possible. We said that every entity in the material world is a combination of elements. It is a composite. Well, these composites have greater or lesser complexity. Abdu'l-Baha talks about this is the lowest level of complexity, which is the mineral. And then there's the plant or the vegetable. And then there's the animal. And then he says that the human being represents the most perfect combination that is possible off physical. And there was the human body, as is logically as is logical, that the temple of the foal would be the most perfect physical reality. No science has proved it. Scientists proved it. That is, in very quantitative, totally objective on spiritual or a spiritual term, we can prove absolutely that the physical human being is the most complex, the most sophisticated set of behaving entities in the known physical universe. Okay, and a precise quantitative thin. It is the most sophisticated, dynamic system in existence, and any fines will admit it. In fact, uh, there's a Siri's off arctic eyesight. This actually, in this one point, a footnote, the neurosciences, the four volumes about this thick, each one. I don't know how many several 1000 pages of ah interdisciplinary work, uh, called the neurosciences Uh, conferences, uh, which exhaustively documented the fact that the human being, in particular the human nervous system, is the most sophisticated set of behaving entities in the known universe. But Abdu'l-Baha gives us one more bit of information which couldn't come from fine science can only talk about what is science. Can't talk about what could be. Because science starts with observation, you can only observe something that is right. You can't observe a possibility. You can imagine the possibility you can talk about it. You can make what's known as Duncan experiment thought experiment. But you can't observe a possibility you can only observe in actuality. So Abdu'l-Baha tells us not only is the human reality the most sophisticated reality exists, it is the most sophisticated reality that is possible to make. It is not play affable to make aim or refined physical reality than the human being. So the human being is literally, quite literally, scientifically the bullet. Oh, order off! The bull is an emanation from God comes into existence the moment I'm then. Yeah, yeah, For but so the soul, huh? So right at the point off apples a oven After ending art on the not veer off a decent this is the human reality apples, a oven ascending arc in the material world which is the lowest level and the not dear of a descending arc in the spiritual world which is the hi rim of a good and notice that Abdu'l-Baha says that the law of the soul is the law of progress. So this fluctuation that applies to the material world does not apply from this. However, however, what is very clear is that the rape off progress off the soul if different for different people. So even though there is no retrogression, there is no automatic progression, either. You see there is a retrogression in the material world because the material world is a world of opposites, since there are no opposing forces in the material. In the spiritual world, there is no retrogression. But that does not mean that progression is possible. Is ah is automatic. Well, this is not a deduction on my part, Abdu'l-Baha says it. Let's read it on page 1 97 My hope for you is that you will progress in the world of spirit as well as in the world of matter that your intelligence will develop. Your knowledge will augment and your understanding be wider. You must ever press forward, never standing still. Avoid stagnation elsewhere. Abdu'l-Baha says explicitly that it is possible for the soul to be stationary in the next lot, that if it is possible for the soul, not to progress at all. And he says, relative to those souls which are progressing, this will be experienced is retrogression? In other words, let's make this clear. There's two kinds off progress. There's two kinds of regret. Absolute progress and regress and relative progress in regret. Absolute retrogression exists in this life. Things can absolutely retrograde they could be absolutely on the level lower than they were. There is no absolute retrogression in the next lot, however, in this life there is both relative progression and absolute for good. But calls I can progress quicker or slower than you so relative to somebody else we can progress at different rates. That's relative progression. And in the next life, relative progression exists and therefore relative retrogression, because relative progress and relative retrogression are really the same thing, right? In other words, to say that there's a differential rate of progress is to say that there's a differential rate of retrogression because if one thing is progressing Maur than another than relative to the view from the point of view of the thing that's progressing, this is progress. Viewed from the point of view of the thing that is progressing slower, it is retrogression because relatives of the other thing it is getting further Baha'i. So I have the Baha'i warns us. Okay. In the next world, there is no absolute retrogression. Okay? The test of God are confined to this world. This is the nature of this world and we will say more about that tomorrow. The tests of God. What we call the test the suffering are confined only to this world. And this, as we will see, is really a bounty in this world. But on the other hand, on the other hand, the next world there is no retrogression. We have no test. But if we have not learned to progress if I sold, do not progress steadily in the next life. We will experience this as retrogressive compared to other souls which are for good. So, in other words, the unpleasant experience that we have in this life of being inferior to others. When we compare ourselves with them and say I wish I could do what he could do or she could do I wish I could play the violin like good or whatever this feeling of unpleasant comparison week. Even though there is no absolute retrogression in the next life, we will still have this experience. If we are not progressive, If we are progressing, then we will be happy without progression. What calls this progression is in relation to God, not in relation to other people. Okay, Now, um, well, I'm sorry, but I have one or two more things that I have to get in my time that then because we have time for discussion. Okay? No, The thing that I have to get into the phone McCall the soul is a non composite entity. No part can be alienated from the soul. The capacities of the solo therefore eternally fixed again. Baha'i assistant. It's in the gleanings, You know, the statement says every human being has been created in the nature made by God, and his capacities have been fixed in the book of God. I can't quote it exactly. And then he goes on to say all that you potentially possessed. However, it can be made manifest on Leah's result off your volition. So he says, On the one hand, befo is not threatened either by death or by a mutilation of its capacity. Another, the two threats to the integrity of a system are either the destruction of the system, death, all the mutilation of the system Night. In other words, you're afraid of getting sick. Are having an action of losing your arm, loosing your mental faculties a za result off injury to the brain or whatever, but the soul is threatened by neither of these that derives from the in the principle of existence in the material world. In the spiritual world, the soul is a non composite entity. Therefore it is not threatened by the composition. It is not threatened by death. It is a unified substance. Therefore its capacities are inherent in it. Therefore, it is not threatened by a mutilation. Orloff. However, the soul is subject to another, more subtle threat. And that is the threat off undeveloped month. If we do not give the appropriate response in our dialogue with God, our full will not develop. In other words, the development of the soul is not automatic. The capacity of the soul are given by God. They are eternally fixed. They can neither be added to north subtracted prom. No physical condition can in any way affect the inherent capacity of the soul. Baha'i says explicitly know that that the soul of man is exalted above an independent off all of infirmities, of body or mind. He goes on to compare to the soul to the sun, the body to the earth. And just as the earth depends on the sun, not the sun on the earth sold the body depends on the soul not sold on the body. No wise is the sole dependent on any physical condition, so the capacities of the soul cannot be altered, but they can remain undeveloped. This is the threat of a soul, and this un development of the soul is spiritually death, so physical death and physical mutilation or metaphors for spiritual underdevelopment. On Page 10 off Mama promulgation of Universal Peace, Abdu'l-Baha says, Not only is the physical world a mirror or saddle off the spiritual world, everything in the material world has an exact counterpart in the spiritual world. The material world is a total metaphor for spiritual reality. We have understood a material reality only when we have understood what that material reality teaches us about. Spiritual reality. That's what truth science is true. Science is not just a manipulation of the material world. True science is understanding what material reality teaches us about spirituality. That's why I said yesterday, but I will elaborate this even further that in the last analysis, the search for scientific truth and the search for knowledge of God are identical. There is no difference between it is an illusion again, as Hussein would say a materialistic illusion. Okay, that there is some difference between science and religion. Science and religion are each the search for God and the third for God. And the material world proceeds by on understanding of the law of cause and effect in the material world, and thereby ultimately and understanding off what that material law of cause and effect teaches us about. Spiritual reality. Now the writings tell us that the fundamental capacities of the soul or the understanding, capacity, the heart capacity, which is the capacity to feel emotion and in particular, the emotion of altruism. Remember I said, emotion is a motivator and a motivator for love, if you will is in so far as it is a feeling Love manifests itself in love, manifest itself as truth in the knowing capacity as the good in action. And it manifests itself in a feeling of attraction towards beauty in the, uh, heart. So the three fundamental attributes of God are the true, the good and the beautiful Again, there is no differentiation in the essence of God again. Plato already said this that ultimate made the good, the true and the beautiful are the same time if you find the truly beautiful is what corresponds with reality. In other words, no truth is ultimately ugly. So the good, the true and the beautiful are really the same thing. But these are differentiated in the realm of creation and created the thieves differentiated and the differentiation ISS and these three fundamental capacities of the human being, which is the mind, which is the capacity to know the truth. The heart, which is the capacity to love or be attracted to the beautiful and the will, which is the capacity to implement the good or the right. Now one more point. You remember that Abdu'l-Baha uses this analogy of the prism. The soul of the reality of man is like a prism which refracts the white light into the spectrum of color. Now how many colors are there? There's an infinity of color. I mean, we say blue or purple, but we know that there's an infinity of shades of blue. Well, we know that there are three primary colors. What are they? Red, yellow and blue. So every one of the infinity of colors of the spectrum results from some combination of the three primary colors. Well, again. It's the same thing. The three primary capacities off the human soul or of God. If you want to say the level of differentiation are the knowing capacity, the loving capacity in the willing capacity. And these are the primary capacities, every other attributes of God is some appropriate combination of these 300. It'll pass for the infinity of attributes of the human being of God that the human reality reflect are simply the infinite degree off, refined, subtle combinations of these three fundamental capacities of knowledge loving will. And therefore the purpose of the Kitab-i-Aqdas is to give us the knowledge of the cause ality principle in spirit to reality, which enabled us to develop these three fundamental capacities of knowledge, love and will and therefore acquire or manifest this potential to reflect the attributes of God well before entering into the heart of today's lecture, I just had a couple of comments to make, um, following the discussion yesterday in which the question off, proof of the existence of God and proof of the existence of spirituals reality I was raised. I believe you were the one who raised it in the discussion yesterday, and, um uh, So again, we have this team that there is the spiritual world in the material world. Now this, as I say, is a difference in kind. It is an essential difference because the principle of existence in the material world is different from the principle of existence in the spiritual world. But there's another way of dividing up reality, which, we might say is from the point of view of human experience. And that is the distinction between the visible world and the invisible world. In other words, the observable world and the non observable world. Well, as we know from science and from what we saw last night in our discussion in the first place, all of the spiritually world is invisible. We have no direct observation of the spiritual world, but also, as we saw very clearly last night, part of the material world is also un observable. We can't observe either, for example, which is the medium in which light from which light is generated. We can't directly observe electrons or photons either Individual electrons, photons. Uh, so another useful division of reality is between visible and invisible reality. So in other words, invisible reality encompasses all of future and part off material reality. Well, now, for purposes, off science and philosophy, the division between the visible and the invisible is Maur useful, more practically useful than the division between the material in the spirituals, I say, more practically useful because the higher levels of material reality that is the invisible level of material reality, approximate spiritual realities we saw last night. So in our dialogue with materialists, we discover that the skepticism of most materialists is not just about the existence of the spiritual reality but the existence of an invisible reality. In other words, positivism, which is the philosophical doctrine that underlies modern materialism. Positivism, which emerged in the latter part of the 19th century as the dominant philosophy generated by materialistic paradigm of science, and which the expression in psychology of behaviorism and behaviorism is just positivism in psychology. Okay, and it says that the only thing that exists is what we can observe, and we can't observe what goes on inside people's heads. We can only observe their behavior, and since behavior is the only thing we can see that the only thing that exists for a strict behaviorist doesn't even believe in existence of the felt. He only believes that there is a biological machine there that produces from behavior. And the one, um and, um, positivism in, um say the realm off, um, philosophy, uh, is essentially existentialism, which says in so many words that the only thing that exists it's what is our subjective feelings and experience of what exists and so on and so on. So radical materialism is the denial of the existence of invisible reality, another that goes back to this Cartesian notion that I mentioned yesterday that the material world, the visible world contains its own explanation. Now, remember when they caught formulated this doctrine? This was even before Newton had described the law of gravity. And as I mentioned to you yesterday, Newton even wrote in the latter part of his life that he did not really believe in action at a distance that is in the existence of this invisible force. But he said, I have to say that this is the only explanation that I can find for the behavior. The observed behavior off bodies is that there is this attractive for us. But I can't really believe that this force is there that I can't and that is acting on any two bodies. Um, and of course, Newton himself was not the only one who had doubts about this. The continent. It'll scientists even live in it. Um, also had doubts about this. Um, so, um so there has always been a skepticism about the objective existence of invisible reality. In other words, everybody is willing to admit that invisible reality exists in our heads, in other words, in our imagination, but that there is an objective, invisible reality. If something which people have been reluctant to admit now the reason why I'm going into this is because the demonstration that there exists on invisible reality if we forget the distinction between spiritual and material, just the demonstration that there is an invisible reality is very simple and very easy to do. And that's just, for example, example of gravity that I took just, um, again, I take an object. Take this. Nothing we can see prevents this object from moving in any direction. Nothing blocked it from moving in any direction, Nor does anything that we can see constrain it to move in one direction or another. Yet, when I let go of it. It goes down and again and again and again. So, do we observe the force of gravity? No, we don't observe the force of gravity. We don't see any force pushing and pulling on this thing. What we observed, strictly speaking, is a persistent deviation from randomness. Okay, In other words, behavior is random. If all logical possibilities occur with equal relative frequency and other words to put it in common sense terms, If the behavior of this thing was really random, then we would expect that sometime it would go this way sometime it would go this way. Sometimes it would go this way. Sometimes it would go this way, right? That would be random behavior. Any off. The logically possible direction would be accomplished if we repeat this over and over. No, but what we observe is a deviation from random. That is, we observe that one direction is privileged, namely the downward direct. And there is no observable reason for that. What? We don't observe any reason why and noticed that if we were suddenly transported into space, then that behavior would not occur. But we wouldn't have any. There would be no observable chain. In other words, if suddenly the gravitational field of the force were neutralized, but another body could come into the to the gravitational field that had an equal and opposite attraction to the earth that would neutralize the gravitational field of the earth. So if that happens that I let go of this, then it wouldn't fall. But we would not observe any reason why it didn't happen. So we do not observe the force of gravity. The force of gravity is what physicists, modern day physicists, hard scientists called non observable. In fact, all of the four basic forces of physics are non observable, and this is a term that is now very, very frequently used in science is the non observable. So when I use the term invisible reality, I'm using the term essentially in exactly the same way that business is used. The term non observable reality none observable in and is Abdu'l-Baha. The existence of non observable is deduced from the behavior of observable. In other words, to put it then, uh, directly what the example of gravity shows. What the example of the downward movement of objects shows is that the observable world does not contained the explanation for its own behavior. In other words, we cannot explain observable reality. Observe a ble for the explanations are the causes the call for visible reality. All lie an invisible reality. It is invisible reality that produces visible reality. Okay, now this much is totally incontestable. And this will be admitted by any scientist. This is absolutely incontestable across. They don't usually put it in those terms because there is still this materialistic bias. They're still in the heart of the materialists. The hope, the face, if you will the blind save the irrational faith that somehow there will eventually emerge a materialistic explanations for this that will avoid appeal to non observable. So this is the blind, irrational, fanatic, fundamentalist face of the materialistic five. Okay, it is irrational. It is on time. Uh, it is on the hardest, logical, skeptical terms you want to put it totally funny. Represents a total lack off intellectual integrity. Yeah, I'm not sure that I understand your question, but I prefer not to interrupt what I'm saying. Um, so we have the objective forces. So far, physics has discovered four of these forces gravity. The strong nuclear force the weak nuclear force, an electromagnetic force. Now, let me just say a word about this because this is very interesting. These forces are ranged in a hierarchy off strength and associated with each fourth is a radius of action. And as you would expect, the stronger the force, the shorter it's ray of radius of Akka, the weakest of the four forces. Gravity and gravity, as we said yesterday, has an infinite radius of action because gravity is a force of attraction between any two entities and exists. Okay, Another is This is the universal force as we read in the tablet of the universe, where Abdu'l-Baha says that in order to have order in the universe, God has ordained this universal, attractive force. At the other end of the spectrum, the strongest forces, the strong nuclear force and the strong nuclear force has an extremely short radius of action, virtually an infinite testable radius of Akka. Here's what because the strong nuclear force bye proton together in the nucleus of an atom. Now you know that protons are positively charged particles, um, the laws of electromagnetic force or such that positively charged particles repel each other full Proton experience of fourth, which repels them from each other. So it's on Lee Electromagnetic force exists then the nucleus of an atom couldn't exist because the protons are right next to each other in the nucleus of an atom. Therefore, there must be 1\/4 which is stronger than electromagnetic for on with bind these protons together and that is the strong nuclear force. However, if you separate the proton just slightly, then the protons go beyond the radius of Akka action of the strong nuclear force. Now there is the radius of action of this strong force is extremely short, virtually infinite and said that if you separate the protons just a little, then the electromagnetic force of repulsion will dominate the strong nuclear force and they will fly apart. That's what you do when you split the atom. If you separate the proton to the point that the electromagnetic force of repulsion takes over and that does the rest of the job. So in other words, this is the current paradigm of micro physical reality. Namely, that reality is controlled by 44 food. No businesses are not dogmatic about this. They're quite open to the fact that there may be any number of other as yet undiscovered, but we can say that there are at least four identifiable for which have increasing strength on an increasingly short radius of acts. In other words, it's inversely related the strength of the fourth and the radius of action. The stronger the fourth, the shorter its radius of Akka, the weakest of the forces of gravity. Um, the, um the, um and gravity has an infinite radius of action. It is universal force now, Um so so according to science, I mean, this is not philosophy. I mean, it is philosophy, but it is not. It is not just philosophy. It is the paradigm of modern science that the visible world does not contain its own explanation. That is, we cannot explain observable reality, observable, deservedly or, to put it in terms, terms exactly. The visits to use that the essential forces or causes off observable phenomena are not observable. In other words, the non observable world is the realm off causes off observable phenomena. The invisible world produces the visible world. The visible world emerges out off the invisible world. And of course, it returns to the invisible world. That is, when these macro indices are dispersed. Uh, the particles can be transformed in to pure energy by the Einstein equation. E equals M C squared others a conversion, a factor of conversion between matter and pure and across. We can't observe a pure. Your energy is a non observable, and therefore we can say that all off observable reality of bladder beer, Nabokov said. And one of his novels. Ah, of course he was had this typical Russian, uh, pessimism. But nonetheless, it's very poetically said that reality. Our life is a band of light between two band of darkness, and this is material reality. This is material reality, namely, that material really observable reality. I'm sorry, Sorry. Observable reality is like a band of light between two bands of darkness. It emerges from invisible reality, and it returns towards visible reality. So, in a certain sense, observable reality is a transition from one state off non observable reality to another state of non observable reality. Okay, Metal, by huge, was telling us yesterday was showing us how to reason about analogies such as the ocean. Now let's use this analogy of the ocean. Let's suppose that We're standing on the edge of the ocean. We're standing on the shore, We're standing on the shore and let's say that what is above the ocean, what is visible, observable reality? Okay, we could also call observable reality Concrete reality. In other words, it's something to which we have access without the intermediary of any salt process. Another is we have immediate access to observable reality. So that's another way of characterizing visible reality. It is that reality, which we have on mediated. You don't depend on anybody else tell you that this table exists. You know that by your own perception. So let's say then that we're standing on the edge of a notion and this is an analogy. In the analogy. Observable reality is what lives above the ocean. Because, as I said yesterday, we can't see in the depths of the Earth. So the ocean and its death Yeah, invisible reality, non observable reality. Now, occasionally, a fish jump out of the water into the air and return to the water. Now, when a fish jumps out of the ocean into the water, what does that describe? Well, no, but what does that describe? But what geometrically the arrival. Abbas. It is the trajectory off the material. Everything in the material world is born, reaches the point of culmination and then decline right on it. Known as a quadratic. What Lord? Okay, Okay. So let's read this again. Okay, let's read this again on page 1 91 1 92 Absolute repose does not exist in nature. All things either make progress or lose ground. Everything moves forward or backward. Nothing is without motion from his birth, A man progresses physically until he reaches maturity. Then, having arrived at the prime of his life, he begins to decline. The strength and powers of his body decreased and he gradually arrived at the hour of death. All material things progressed to a certain point, then begin to decline. All material things progressed to a point, then begin to decline. Progress more him to the clock. All right. So the fish jumped out of the ocean and describes this trajectory off all observable reality off going to ah, highest point and then declining and then returning to invisible reality. Now the home with respect to invisible reality the whole of visible reality is like that fish in other words. What I'm saying is that what modern fired has now shown is that the greater part of material reality is none observable, non observable reality immensely greater than observable reality. So, in other words, the radical materialist is not only denying the existence of God in the soul and all of these spiritual entities, he is actually denying the this of the greater part of material reality itself. Okay, because the vastness of the ocean and its depth, if is not non observable reality and observable reality is like that fish that occasionally jumped out of the water. So all the Galaxies of stars, you can see everything you can observe is like that fish that has jumped out of the ocean and is going back to the old. That is the vastness off the created world. So this can be easily demonstrated. This can be irrefutably demonstrated. I have given this lecture and a somewhat more elaborated form, uh, two academies of science all over the world all over Russia, Uh, and, uh, in Kiev and the Academy of Sciences in Kiev, in the university in Kiev and universities in St Petersburg, in Kazan and every place else, Uh, and Belgium, uh, Love and University. I have never had anybody refute or even challenge any of this because it's obvious to anybody who knows anything about five now. So this, I think, is the most fruitful way to engage the dialogue with materialise. That is, none of this they can refute, because this is the product off materialistic fives. In other words, in a certain sense, in spite of held, the scientists have validated this thing. In other words, it is with reluctance that they have appealed to these non observable to explain observable reality. It is not that they have set out to prove that there are these non observable forces, because there's a principle of science which is known as a comms razor, which is a very good principle. It's a logical principle. It says. You do not posit the existence of an entity unless that hypothesis is absolutely necessary, unavoidable to explain what you observe. What is, as we can see, the hypothesis that the force of gravity exists is unavoidable to explain the behavior of this thing. I mean, there's no other way to explain it, but they say that there's an invisible force acting right. There is no other expert. And so it is with reluctant. It is not gratuitously, it is with reluctance. It is with infinite resistance that materialistic science has grudgingly gradually accepted the existence of these non observable realities. And as I said earlier, the materialist in his heart still clings to the hope that somehow there will emerge out of all this a materialistic explanation that will avoid appeal to these non observable forth. Uh, and they're people who tried to do this. It was the guy at Oxford who tried to rewrite physics without mathematics because he correctly observed that once you accept mathematics, you've already accepted the existence of a non observable rim because you can observe mathematical entities. You can't observe numbers so long. Uh, and, um, the abstract functions of mathematics are already non observable. Uh, and so he tried to reconstruct just Newtonian physics, the law of gravity without the use of mathematics. And he succeeded in proving that it's impossible to do you know, um, so, um, so this, I think, is the most constructive way to engage the dollar. Now, when we come to the question which he'd raise yesterday off proving the existence of spiritual entity that is a non composite entity. This is more difficult. This is more difficulty, because now we're dealing with a part off non observable reality. In other words, now we have to proved that was in the vastness of non observer of reality. There are entities which are not composite. However, this can be done. And this in fact has been done. And, um, this is going to be published. Well, it's already published in the Logic and Logos book. The first version of it. Some of you have seen this book logic and logos in the chapter from metaphysics. The logic, a modern version of Abbas Enos cosmological Proof of the existence of God. Uh, this proof is given. Uh, however, I have been formalized this proof, uh, and, uh, a paper called cause ality composition in the origin of existence. And so this is going to be published? I just thought some of you might be interested in a book jointly with my brother John. Call the law of Love in front, The Law of love. Enshrined. Um, this will come out with George Ronald in the spring. Uh, we're supposed to get the final manuscript, uh, to George Ronald by by the first of October. And I think we will be able to do it. And this will contain a number of essays, both by myself and my brother and an introduction that is jointly written on dhe. It will begin with a polo on proving the existence of God. It will contain this more recent version off Abbas Anna's proof, which proves the existence off non composite entities, in other words, of spiritual entities. And it will contain the proof of the existence off 1\/5 4th That is the fourth of evolution, which is the action off God in the material world in bringing about the human reality. This is contained in an article called A Scientific Proof of the Existence of God, which has already published in the Journal of the High Studies. Um, four, 1994. Some of you may have seen that. So its volume five number 4 1994 It was about two issues ago. You call Ah, scientific proof of the existence of God. So all of these things that I've said so far this morning are contained in this article and, uh, I presume most of you from Russian speaking countries. You know that this already exists in Russian. In fact, I published it in Russia before I published it in in England. In fact, I devised the proof on my first teaching trip to Russia when the first question that the Russians asked Waas will prove to us that God exists. So I proved to them that God exists. And so then I published it. But of course I didn't do it. I mean, Abdu'l-Baha did it because the proof is based on on Abdu'l-Baha Tabriz, August for l. And that's all explained in here as well. But, uh, but now which of you does Akka those belts cover? Um, true. Zestful Vanya. Bogo. What? Okay, so so. That I thought was worth maybe taking a few minutes. Now, one other thing I want to point out from the tablet of the universe. Uh, just to show you that my assertion that I made the first day off the course remember I said that what was exceptional in the past will become the norm in the future. Remember that statement? Well, here on page four of the Tablet of the universe. Uh, Abdu'l-Baha says this explicitly. So let's just look at this over how Who witnessed by flight in the spacious rooms of the love of God? No thou that the knowledge is and discipline the arts and sciences Fine, which appeared in previous distance when compared to the divine questions, the eternal verity and the universal mysteries which become veiled, unveiled, manifesting brilliant in their meridian glory in this resplendent revelation are nothing more than illusions and metaphors. Nay, they are hardly better than superstitious fan. So, in other words, you think that Beth of everything, Plato and Aristotle Day cart Lightning Newton all of this the best, uh, pre behi culture is nothing but a superstitious fancy compared with the knowledge that is contained in this. For the all embracing, universal reality is, in the Eyes of my Lord, analogous to the all embracing human reality which passes in the course of its early development to infancy, childhood and youth growth metaphor again, even though these various stages may manifest certain of the characteristic than virtues of man. Remember, I said that occasionally the child will show forth adult behavior, but this is except so even though certain of the characteristics of man maybe showed. Yet when What are these early manifestations in comparison to the perfections of the mind, The truth of the kingdom and the mysteries of God with with the reality of man becomes plentifully endowed after reaching maturity, the period of it's full of express. Okay, so I didn't make this up. Okay, there it is. What was exceptional in the past will become the norm. Okay, I cannot resist also taking two minutes to point out another thing. Uh, which, for obvious reasons, was particularly pleasing to me. Uh, if you notice on page four of the tablet of the universe in the bottom Abdu'l-Baha No. Then with regard to the mathematical sciences, that it was only in this distinguished age this great century that their scope was widen their unresolved difficulty solve their rules, systematize and their diversity realized the discoveries made by earlier philosophers in the views they held. We're not established upon a firm basis, our sound foundation for they wish to confine the world of God within the smallest accomplice and narrow limits. And we're quite unable to conceive what lay beyond. Well, I can tell you as a professional mathematician that when after Baha'i wrote this, this hadn't happened yet. In other words, he was speaking of a spirit to reality which has only become manifest in the last few years. Another 20 ropes is, he said, this century the mathematical scientists have been systematized in salt. Every mathematician will tell you that I mean, um oh, yeah, well, it's only in this century that we have discovered we have perfected the act a Matic method, and we systematize the rules and alone and form. But it hadn't been done when I do behind it, but it has been done. So it had been done on the spiritual plane when I did buy said it, but it is only become manifest and grief for you. Um, and I would like to point out one other thing Ah, on page seven. And this is for those of you who may feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, with some of the methods that I appear to be using, um Abdu'l-Baha paid seven know then that the those mathematical crap which has stood the test of scrutiny and about the found nous off which there is no doubt, although that is supported by incontrovertible and logically binding proof but and by the rules of geometry, has applied to astronomy. Go as I said today, science is from God, just as surely as religion from Doc Logic of the pool, one of the cool that God has given us to establish clear and incontrovertible conclusion hold. I just thought I would point that out. And for the rest, I will leave you two. Enjoy, as they say, habit of the universe with can be properly be read more than one. So let's turn now to off the Kitab-i-Aqdas. We had gotten to the point where we had seen that the human being have three fundamental capacity knowledge. Love will. The thief capacities are the primary capacity of the human being, like the three colors blue, yellow and red, or the primary colors and all other colors of the spectrum are generated by appropriate shuttle combinations of these three colors, right? In other words, purple or green. I mean, green is red and yellow as we know, but it could be different shades of green, depending on the proportion of yellow and red that you have been going on for full in the same way. This is another truth, incidentally, a fundamental truth which is reproduced it all levels, namely, that you can generate an infinite reality from a finite number of elements. Now again, I could spend the whole lecture on just this printable alone. This, incidentally, is the fundamental principle of genetic. There are only a finite number of genes, but there's an infinite number, a potentially infinite number off general war, because there's an infinite number of possible arrangement of these. The easiest way to see this is simply with the alphabet. Let's take the English alphabet. How many letters are there in the English alphabet? 25th. Now let's ask the following question. How many word can we possibly make with these 26 letters on infinite number? Because there's no bound on the length of the word. Every word is a finite instant entities, but there's an infinite number of words. Are If you want to say the vocabulary is limited, there's an infinite number of sentences that you can make this an infinite number of expressions that you can make with this finite number of work. In fact, just have to leather. So anything more than one sufficient suffices to generate Oh, Infinity, any more than one off a finite entities can generate infinity and this is the same principle of genetic gene are like the letters off the alphabet, and the genetic code is like a finite sequences of the gene incense. There's been an infinite number of possible general time go, and this is a general rule. I mean, I say, I don't want to go into this, but this is the point. One can generate an infinite number off attributes from a finite number off. Essential that, and this is exactly what God has done with, um, well, what is the case with his own attributes? There's an infinity of attributes of God. But all of these attributes are generated by thumb combination, fundamental attributes of knowledge, love and will all the spiritual due course, not physical foe. These are the fundamental capacities, the human being. And, as we said, because the soul is immortal because the capacities of the souls are eternally fixed, they can neither be destroyed nor changed. The soul is not threatened either by death nor mutilation. The foal is absolutely above any threat off either death that is destruction nonexistence or mutilation. But the the soul is threatened, if you will, by another thing. And that is undeveloped mint. Because these capacities are latent within the human reality because, as Hussein explained so beautifully and talked the other day, because these capacities are in a state of potential of creation and bolus is that this potential can only be made manifest a result of our effort. Then there is the possibility that we do not respond appropriately, do we not? We do not make sufficient effort and therefore these remain undeveloped for the essential threat to the soul is UN development or what amounts to the same thing fault, development or improper developed? No, this dialogue with God, the parameters of which are established in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The parameters of the mature dialogue between God man is the context and with the development takes place and what are the signs of development? Well, we've already said in making analyses, Material world. This is an increase in autonomy and an increase in well being. And as I said yesterday, every principle has both a positive articulation and a negative articulate. So we can say what are the signs off undeveloped we could turn it around. And what does it mean not to be developed? And that you the opposite of autonomy and well being? What is the opposite of autonomy? It is dependencies, unnaturally restricted, dependent off with drug abuse and alcohol abuse, or only the grossest and most obvious example. But we know that one can be dependent, unnaturally dependent on anything, support of other people or whatever. In fact, this is the fault of the main steam off modern psychology. Would you agree with this saying that the main preoccupation of modern psychology is how do we get rid of all of these unnatural dependency? How do we own our life? How do we acquire autonomy? People have suddenly realised that they're not autonomous and they don't know how. How did we get in this condition of these unnatural dependency on How do we get out of? Would you agree with that? Well, the California brand seems to be pretty much okay. Good, Good. So this is it. You see, the main preoccupation off materialistic psychology is to somehow defeat the unnatural dependencies. And this is what gives rise to do your own thing and so on and so on. Hey, and this is the whole basis of political correctness. In other words, yeah, you feel unhappy with the fact that you are obviously limited because you have some kind of fiction in your personality and your functioning. You can't function without a home effectual relationship or without being sexually promiscuous or without having drugs and alcohol. Well, what you do then is changed the rules so that nobody the values you because of that. In other words, uh, you go out and change society so that it's acceptable to be an alcoholic or a drug addict or a homosexual sexually, okay. And so it then becomes politically incorrect. It becomes unacceptable socially to even point out that this is unnatural hope. Recently, a a real estate salesman was successfully food in the United States because he put an ad in the newspaper advertising that he had a house for sale that had a beautiful view. And the Association for the Blind said that this was discrimination against the blind because the blind couldn't see the view, and he was successfully food. We're doing that. Okay, so in other words, this is not gonna make blind people see anymore. But in other words, it is unacceptable to remind blind people that they're blind or to acknowledge in public discourse that blind people are blind. And another thing which is even more appalling but left but left surprising recently. This is just a few days. I don't know if you've heard about this one. This is really this is really great. You can probably tell horror stories of the work, but in Vancouver, you know about this. A gynecologist was successfully food. He was judged guilty by human right panel and forth to pay a fine to a lesbian couple because he refused artificial insemination to the couple and others, it was judge that he did not. As a practicing position, he did not have the right to refuse artificial insemination toe a lesbian couple. This was discrimination against. That's pretty far from the concept of the family. Is it in the Kitab-i-Aqdas? All right, who? One form of UN development is these unnatural dependency. The other is the opposite of well being, a lack of well being, which is simply a fancy way of saying that you're unhappy. Okay, another, The result of a new spirituality is this me that you're in the same way. That physical pain. Yeah. The sign that something is wrong with your physical body. Unhappiness is psychological pain or spiritual pain is the sign that something is wrong. Okay, so the product off spiritual development is increasing autonomy, um, increasing happiness and well being. It's just that simple. No. How do we achieve autonomy? We are chief. We achieve autonomy by recognizing our total dependency on God. In other words, I said that lack of autonomy was an unnatural the tendency. I didn't say that it was just dependent because there are dependencies that are natural and healthy. We depend on food 50 quid, but that's a natural dependent. And that's the healthy dependency. We should eat nutritious food. Dependency on alcohol is unnatural dependency. It is a creative dependency Now. Ultimately everything comes from God. So we are totally dependent on God. So toe have faith in God doesn't mean to become dependent on God. This again is the materialistic view of faith. And this is why materialists often say that believers in God or weak people they say you need the crunch of belief in God. Right? Well, belief in God is a crime. It's a defense mechanism against reality. Or it's an opiate is linen? Well, of course, some forms off religion are crutches, and some forms of religion are defense. Mechanisms in some form of religion are opiate, but true religion. True belief in God means becoming aware of a reality that is already there. And that reality is our total dependency on God. Let me explain a little bit more what I mean now, in talking about visible and invisible reality, I took this example of gravity. Fine. I took this example of gravel. No, Maybe your reaction invisible that simple, You know, I mean that every day. Surely that isn't a convincing argument for invisible reality, because what could be more commonplace than gravity? Surely, scientists would have realised by now that the gravity, the effect of which everybody observes, is on immediate proof of invisible reality. Why don't they observed? I'll tell you why. Because they pick it for Grandpa. In other words, gravity is so commonplace. We depend on it so unconsciously, we assume it so thoroughly that we are unaware of its implications. Were unaware that it is on immediate experience of invisible really it is the same thing with God. God is hidden from us, not by his remoteness but by his very nearness. What hi God from us is that we depend on him so thoroughly that we take it for granted. And this is why in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha'i has this language. Such is the passage that we studied yesterday where he says, Where's the glory of those who have gone before you? What that you possess can be can you claim to be lasting and permanent? And so on this reflection about the fact that whatever degree of stability or permanent we have in our life is do not to the inherent properties of these things, but to God. It is God who allows us to own these things temporarily. If we have prosperity that comes from God, if we don't have prosperity from God. In other words, we depend so thoroughly on God. We depend so completely on God that we are unaware of. God is hidden drama, not by foreigners, but by nearness. There's an example that Abdu'l-Baha gave, which I like very much in this regard, someone want f Abdu'l-Baha how it is that one could become mirth in God have the Baha'i. How can a straw basket contained water? Person, I mean a straw. Beth. Well, you put water in a straw basket. It just goes right through for a stroll back to attempt in pain. Abdu'l-Baha. Suppose you're immersed. Stroll back who? We can't contain God. But we could be contained in God. In fact, we are immersed in. But because we are constantly immersed in the ocean, we don't know what it would be like not to be immersed. And therefore, we come to the illusion that we are not emerge. So acquiring faith means acquiring knowledge of our dependency on God. This the Bill Hatcher condition of faith in you. Abdu'l-Baha definition is status conscious knowledge and then good. So I like to say, I mean, probably after behind said that somewhere, but But I you know, uh so I expand This notion of knowledge is simply saying they is conscious awareness of our dependency on God. The dependency is an objective fact. Nothing changes in reality when we become believers. The only thing that changes is our consciousness of really our awareness of the dependency that is already there. Therefore, the first specific law of the Kitab-i-Aqdas is the law of prayer. The fundamental relationship off all existence is the relationship between the individual and God. That is the awareness that we are immersed in the ocean of God at all times. Well, let's see what sure defender says about this. Okay, it's on page 2 13 Under the affection, the individual dialogue with God. Well, let's just read the preamble because it comes up with having established in the opening passages the fundamental premise of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the collective and individual dialogue, or covenant between God and humanity. Baha'i Holland now turns in paragraph 6 to 15 to the first specific and most basic law of the Kitab-i-Aqdas law. Prayer prayer is the foundation of the individual dialogue between God and man. Through it, the individual established is a direct, unmediated interconnection between his soul and God. Moreover, this relationship is the most fundamental of all relationships accessible to the individual. Unless this relationship be correctly and firmly established, all other relationships, whether with other individuals with society or with nature, will be essentially long. The following statement, written on behalf of showed you Cindy illustrates the importance Baha'i give to prayer. Well, I tried to get out all the unnecessary that I see. I didn't get that. Okay, How to attain spirituality is indeed a question to which every young man and woman must sooner or later try to find a satisfactory. Indeed, the chief reason for the evils now rampant in society is the lack of spirituality. The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interested mankind that people in general do no longer feel. The necessity of raising them fell above the forces in conditions of their daily material. There is not sufficient demand for things we call spiritual to differentiate him from the needs and requirements of our physical exists. The universal crisis affecting mankind is therefore essentially spiritually and it's called Well, that's what we've been talking about. The call off every observable condition is a beautiful thing. Okay, whether positive or negative, the call the negative material condition is also a spiritually Now get this next one. The core off religious faith is that mystic feeling with you nine. Man with God, this state of spiritual communion can be brought about and maintained by means of meditation and prayer and This is the reason why Baha'i Ola has so much stress the important worship get the next grade. The behind faith, like all other divine religion, is the fund on Men pally Myth interrogator. His chief goal is the development of the individual and society through the acquisition off spiritually virtues and powers. The powers give us increased autonomy. The virtues give us increase happen. It is the soul of man which has to be fed and this spiritual nourishment prayer can provide. So Baha'i Allah-u-Abha ain obligatory prayer. But he makes clear that obligatory prayer is a minimum, not a maximum. It is the minimal off the game because I assure you, Cindy, here we must moved to a point where we live in a constant state of spiritual communion with God. So look on Page 2 15 just above the middle of the page. There's a short, intact quotation from Cindy, where he describes the state off continual spirit of communion with God, he says, quote, we must become entirely selfless and devoted to God so that every day and every moment we think to do only what God would have a do, and in the way he would have us do it. So we must become so thoroughly aware off our dependence on God that at every second of our existence we are consciously aware of the presence of God and that everything we do, we do no the way one does. There's a certain creative latitude involved in this, and this is something which could be the object of complete court. What you might call pick me we're doing. I don't like the word I would rather beautiful, but we could maybe talk about this in the discussion this afternoon or whatever. But it is a dialectical process or a dialogue which involved all of the three capacities of knowledge off love on a will. In other words, it is not just a question of the oh, now I understand I am totally dependent on God. The fact that you understand intellectually that you are totally dependent on God does not make you aware of the ways and with your depends. Therefore, you must act. You must go pioneering. You must teach the face. Abdu'l-Baha says that if we don't teach the faith, then we cannot experience the confirmation show. Defending goes even further. He makes the frightening statement The sustaining power of Baha'i Allah him felt will be totally withdrawn from any behi who does not. In the long run arrived. Let me. The sustaining power of the Holland will be totally with drone from any behind who does not in the long run Iraq reality. Now you know that, right? No. Here is a here. Yeah, unawareness of a threat. What is the threat? It is the threat off undeveloped, So physical death and physical mutilation or metaphor for spiritual death which is not non existent but undeveloped from we are threatened by spiritual death with you, the sleep that the sleep of unawareness with in its most extreme form, is equivalent sleep of death. So this process is a dialectical process of involved intellectual understanding, implementation to action of that understanding. And it involves them a pursuit off the love of God which is experience as an attraction for that which is valuable. Put another way, we can say that all of morality, if summed up in one single slogan, never sacrifice the higher. The higher should never be used as a means to attain the Lord. Now this presumes, of course you already know what is higher in what is lower. So it depends begins with knowledge. But once we have a knowledge of spiritual reality, once we understand this hierarchy of higher and lower that we were talking about last night, once we have this knowledge of the law of cause, ality of the hierarchy of cause and effect, then we implement this knowledge on the basis of the following norm, which is the one universal moral norm. Namely, you always use the lore as a means to attain the higher and this is at every level of existence. In other words, you the lower levels of material reality, you attain the higher levels of material reality. You're a pain in the lower level. No obtained the higher levels. And so remember last night. Abdu'l-Baha said that everything is universal with Inspector, what is blowin in particular with respective when his mother specifically this is incidental and relatives and in semantics questions, he says, what the good deeds of the faithful are the sins of the near one. So what is a good action? Yeah, unordinary believer. That same action with the same motivation would be a thin for a person who is more advanced and there's no limit. This is an eternal process of growth and develop. So what is the fundamental principle by which Ridvan Ugo at every moment is so? Cindy says at every every day, at every moment we are intensely aware of the presence of God in our life, and we therefore relate reality on the basis off it. And the essence of that relationship is that we always use the lore is a means to a pain. And this is the ladder by which we grow or developed your mouth. As Abdu'l-Baha himself said, that prayer is the ladder by no isn't this base? Isn't this amazing here? For 6000 years, humanity has awaited the revelation of the most holy book. Um, we're all trembling in our boots, you know? What is this book of long going to be and what is it? It is a love from God. I love you. You're valuable. I want every moment. Yeah, yeah, of the Colonel long. More so. I think I'll stop there and we have a few minutes for questions. You may have a specific No. Um Well, okay. I'll tell you a few things but I'm afraid off, too cursory treatment. But it's the basis of it. Of course, I'm speaking partly from my own personal experience and what I've observed necessarily tinged with all the human limitations involved. But both fundamentally it involved a route will know the truth and, most fundamentally, a ruthless will tow the truth about one one has to I want to know the truth. At some 0.1 has to make a fundamental decision that it is better to know the truth, however unpleasant it may be initially because ultimately it is knowledge of the truth that will produce my autonomy in my well being. In other words, once having become a believer once having satisfied ourselves that God exists, the God loved the God does everything for our benefit, we should then lose our fear of the truth. Another was the truth. Cannot ever really heard it. So what hurt when we say the truth, when we find out that somebody we thought loved us didn't love us when somebody betrays us, when we find out that some ability we thought we had, we didn't really have or whatever. Okay, when we discover a truth which is initially unpleasant. We have tohave such faith. In truth, it felt which is nothing more than God. I mean, God is truth. We have to have such faith in the power of two that we know that true and knowledge of the truth will increase our autonomy in our world. And this will give us the courage to face the initially unpleasant proves. I mean, not all will be unfolding. I mean, some of the truth will be marvelous and exalting in your forest. Um, no. Just like last night. I mean, we have a lot of fun. Tried. I mean, you know, it opened up. I mean, not all, too are are unpleasant, So I don't want to give the idea that, you know, this is necessarily experienced as a primarily negative, But let me put it this Maybe this is more relevant to North American than it is to Europeans and especially Eastern European. But you know, we behinds. We say that society is sick, right? We say society is sick. We say that the world is suffering from materialism from ungodly nous. This straight from God disobeyed God. It does not have knowledge is pure to reality. it is full of hatred instead of love. We have hatred, and we have false loves, in other words, attractions to lower things instead of higher things such as homosexuality and sexual promise, goodness and all these things. And drugs and alcohol, which creates temporary happiness or euphoria but is followed by greater unhappiness and increased dependency. Insulin. So we see all of these things. And when we teach the faith, that's what we tell people, right? Well, you know, look, you know you want a solution to the problem. Here it is. But then, once we're in the faith when it comes to changing our lifestyle, were reluctant to do that. You know, I mean, one of the big issues in the North American behind community, and I just gave the same course at Lou Helen, which is a high school in the United States. And I was I don't know if I was surprised, but I was certainly dismayed to find out that still, at this stage of the development of the faith in North America, one of the major issue I mean, this is a hot issue in the American Baha'i community. It's what to tell your kids about Santa Claus. Fanatical. This is a burning issue. I am not kidding. I am not exaggerating. This is not I spent a whole hour discussing this with the class. What? Well, I'll tell you what. My wife told my daughter when she was five years old and fall, eh? Hey, Sandy. Sandy claws on the street, you know? Ah ah! Salvation Army. Santa Claus ringing a bell. You know, she said, What's that, Mommy? And she says it's ah, old man in a red suit begging for money. And there was a woman standing next to her that said, I've never heard anything like that in so long. And, uh, but this is what you do about Christmas. I mean, this is really a big issue. This is really a big issue. So I just simply say this to say that, you know, as soon as the behind faith I mean, you know, equivalents of this here in Europe. Okay. I mean, I remember. I mean, I was six years I lived in Switzerland. I was even a member of the Swift, and it's a in my previous incarnation, and and I lived it. I mean, so you Europeans now. I mean, one of the big things is wine is alcohol, you know? I mean, how can you know? You really do this without offending people, you know, and, you know, behind expend immense amount of time, You know, how could you get around this without shocking people and so on and so on? Well, I mean, ah, you know what people resent is self righteousness. If you tell people anything with an air presumed superior already, they're not gonna like it. But if you tell them anything, that's true. In a spirit of true humility and love, they will respect you. They might not agree with you, but they'll respect so both of some parts. There are other calls. That's but all right with that sort of upbeat ity. He's my brother in law. Yeah, the cause ality principle in the world of being, because I will. Unfortunately, i'll have to leave early tomorrow morning. I will not be able to participate in the final panel discussion, but of course, I will be at the discussion this afternoon. There, of course. Ah, many things that I haven't talked about. But since I have given you this, uh booklet, which you can read. Ah, at your leisure. Um, you can see that I do treat, um, more detail laws like UCLA and Zach Kat and the inheritance laws and so on within the framework of this fundamental notion of cause ality. Um, so I won't take our time together to go into these details balls, So I intend to leave more time than previously for discussion. But I do have, ah, do things that I want to say to lay the groundwork for our left exchange. Yesterday we saw that according to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the fundamental relationship that we humans have is between us and God. Two recall again, the statement of show you fnd, um, to that effect. He says, this is on page 2 13 The core of religious face is that mystic feeling which unites man with God and then on page 2 14 the behind faith, like all other divine religion, is thus fundamentally mystic in character. Now what does he mean by fundamentally mystic? Well, he means what he just said that the core of religious faith is that mystic feeling which unites man with God. In other words, religion is the relationship between God, the highest thing in existence on the human being, the highest thing in creation and the connection. I said it is a relationship. So Oh, what? Whenever you have a relationship, you have three things involved. You have the two things that are related, and you have the link, our relationship between them. So our relationship involves three things, not two things. And so religion is the relationship between God and man. So you have God, you have man, and you have the connection between them. And the connection is the manifestation. That is exactly the ring stone symbol, right? That's exactly what the ring stone symbol had. The world of God, the world of man and the connection between them, which is the manifestation. And this connection is both horizontal and vertical. That is, it is horizontal. Okay, the we know that the symbol for the manifestation is the same as the symbol for the Holy Spirit in the ring stone symbol. So I will make not even a, uh, false attempt to, uh, do Arabic calligraphy. Uh, so, uh, but if you notice the ring stone symbol, uh, that the symbol of the manifestation is the same as the symbol for the Holy Spirit. Well, it's like that right is the same as a symbol for the holy. So you have God, you have man, and then you have the connection between God and then, which is the manifestation. The manifestation is both on intermediate level of being between God and man. And it is at the same time, the vertical connection between God and man. So this this ring stone symbol, uh, sums up the, um, essential metaphysical relationship that are the foundation of reality? No, I've spoken quite a bit about the law calls ality. We tend to think of the law of cause ality as, uh, impersonal thing, but caused the example that one most often uses. And it's not just me. It's the example that's most frequent in hand, is gravity and gravity operates independently of our will. And therefore, when we are thinking about cause ality, we tend to think or I call the wall. We tend to think of it as being something that is impersonal, right? Where have what Baha'i is saying when he gives us the law of prayer is that our wills are a causal agent in other words To say that we have a free will is to say that our will is an entity on objectively existing entity which is a causal agent. So in other words, are will the exercise we make of our will determines the way reality function. In other words again, to take the simple example I took yesterday, I pick up this glass. What here? Because of my Haver freewill. Okay, if I didn't have a free will, that glass would still be there right now. Okay, Because it's on Lee the exercise of my free will. But put that glass there. So the exercise of our will deterrent is one of the determinants of reality. So our will, your will. What's the use you make of your God given capacities is part of the low of Cove ality. Now, this is both a wonderful and a frightening thing. It is wonderful because it means that God allows us to participate in creation if you will. In reality, it is also frightening because it means that we have an incredible responsibility in the way that we use our faculties. And I will now. So this relationship between God and man is the fundamental relationship that we humans have. It is the foundation of all other relationships. If this relationship is wrong, nothing else will be Reid. And if this relationship is right, everything will eventually be right. Maybe not tomorrow. But everything flows from this relationship now, just as we've seen that their hierarchies, in reality there are hierarchies and, um, in the physical world that hierarchies in the spiritual world. There's a hierarchy in the human world of the hierarchy of human relationships. And the second most important human relationship is the relationship between husband and wife. And this is Dr Dannon, points out. And, as I pointed out, point out in this booklet, If you take the order in the Kitab-i-Aqdas and I agree completely with Hussein that there is an extremely fine, logical order in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, uh, far from being haphazard and far from being just a unique literary style, which it already is, I mean, that's fine. But there is from the purely logical point of view. Hussein talked from the psychological point of view. Ah, but from the purely logical point of view, there is a fine and exact order in every word and letter in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Ah, and so, um essentially, let me just say what the order is Is that Baha'i Allah-u-Abha Steve the family as the prototype for the whole of the human reality. In other words, the Kitab-i-Aqdas recreates human society in the image off the healthy family. So when we speak, as we sometimes do of the family of nations or the family of man off the human family, this is according to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the most appropriate metaphor for the collectivity of human beings. Baha'i, Allah views human society. Ah, an extension of the family. Now let's try to look at this with the eye of a hollow. We've talked about this body. Heat has talked about this. Hussein has talked about this about looking at the Kitab-i-Aqdas according to the through the eyes of God and not to our own. So I'm going to say a few things about married. But let me be very frank in the beginning. Look, marriage is going through a very rough time and I decided right and we all suffer from this. We all suffer from this. So I have no doubt that every person in this room is either unmarried or divorce are married with various degrees of satisfaction. Okay, and there's no one in this modern world who has not experienced terrible tests in relationship to his marriage. I mean, I have been fortunate to be happily married for 35 years to a wonderful woman. But we have had our tests, and we have had to struggle extremely hard at times in our marriage. And so, uh, so this is the reality. We know this is the reality. And so, uh, let's for a few moment. Let's suspend the reaction that we have of seeing what Baha'i says about marriage from the point of view of our own limited and perhaps unhappy or painful experience. And let's try to see the image that Baha'i Allah, What happened now, as we know, the goal of the behind phase is unity. Yeah, so this notion of unity and diversity is a much more fuckable notion than we behind. Give it credit. Okay? I mean, we this phrase unity in diversity rolls off of our tongues just like water. But we do not realize how profound this concept is. It means, of course, as we teach people that the unity in the behind. Faith is not a uniformity. The uniformity is not making everybody the same. It is not a hyper egalitarian form of unity. It is a unity which I have differences. Appropriate differences? Well, no. Where is it more clear than in the relationship between the sectors between husband and wife? I mean, here you have in marriage a unity. You have a unity. But obviously you have different when you have the most fundamental difference that exists in created reality. The difference between the sexes between man and woman. So marriage itself is a unity and diversity. Another do you have, uh, you know, the word in Russian is very good here. Protective Poland polarity. And this is really what? Sexual differences that the polarity let me say a word about polarity. Maybe I shouldn't get into this. I don't know polarity. I see well, the whole discourse about the faith if shot through with profound philosophical confusion in which we unconsciously friend for the principles that are true of one area to another area in which they do not apply. I've given you one example of that. Ah, when I talked about the difference between, um applying materialistic reasoning to spiritual things. The other day, when I remember, I said that a material thing is diminished when it's shared, but a spiritual thing is multiplied when it's shared. Um, well, one of the confusion that is endemic in our discourse is the confusion between duality and polarity. These are not the same thing. Duality refers to an essential difference. So good and evil are dual. You can't have good and evil together if it is good. It is by definition, not evil. So it's like light in darkness. You can't have light and darkness at the same time. If you have light, you don't have doc. If you have dark, which is the absence of light, you don't have life. Just take the definition of dark. Darkness is the absence of light, so you can't have light and the absence of light at the same time. That's a formal, logical contradiction. I cannot have a thing and not that thing at the same time. So duality if opposition it is exclusion. Duality is a mutual exclusion, good and evil, light and dark heat and cold. These air duality polarity well, and of course, ultimately we know that on the highest level, there is no duality because God is one. This is one of the meanings the philosophical, our metaphysical meaning of the oneness of God That I mean, because this is a fundamental question. Um, full offer food. It's called the question of one in the mini and, uh, preoccupied the best minds of ancient Greece. And it is continues to be a controversy today, Mon ism versus pluralism. And so the first question is, is the ultimate reality. We have both oneness and morality on the level of creation. That's obvious. Everybody knows that the question of the one in the mini is whether the ultimate reality is one our duel. And of course, the Baha'i faith gives us the answer to this. The ultimate reality, which is God is absolutely one. There is no duality on the highest level of existence. Uh, there is, as Abdu'l-Baha says, no differentiation within the essence of God. However, on lower levels of reality, we do have duality because, well, I'm sorry, let me back up The fact that the ultimate reality is one means that there is only one source of energy in the universe. In other words do not two sources of energy. So this is the behind ocean of the non existence of evil. They are not. So the notion of a devil or a Satan if a dualistic notion of is the fact that you have a God and an anti god of some sort, okay, as a positively existing force like a devil, this is a dualistic notion. Um, ultimate reality. So when Abdu'l-Baha says that evil does not exist as an objective force, this is simply a re articulation off the notion of oneness of God. There cannot be a single forth of reality, namely God, who is all good and at the same time that there be evil, metaphysical evil that Liza logically incompatible. So there is only one energy. It all comes from God. However, on the laurel levels of existence, this energy can be either manifest or not manifest in a certain situation. So to take again the simple analogy physical, a knowledge understanding is the sun. If we were to go to the sun, of course it would physically destroy us if we did. But I mean just in imagination. If we were to go to the sun there is only light in the sun and others you would find no shadow in the sun, right? There's no duality in the sun, it felt. But the sun generates its rays. And when these rays are incident on a lower reality, which is the earth, then it creates patterns off darkness, enlightenment of saddle and the shadow is the absence of the line. So duality is a relative notion. But duality means opposites. Duality means this opposition that is created by the relative incidents of primal energy in the lower levels off. Okay, so that's duality. Duality is opposition. It is mutual exclusion. Polarity means the manifestation of the same energy in complementary form. So plus and minus and electricity, for example, is an example of polarity, not duality. All right. In other words, positive charge or negative charge is the same energy, but manifested in two different forms. Okay, that's polarity not do elope now, the most potent example off polarity not duality but polarity in existence. If sexual polarity in the human being, because we know that the human being is the highest form, uh, existence of the highest created thing. We've gone over this again and again and again. And therefore, the polarity that exists in the human race is the highest, most refined, ultimate expression off polarity in creation. Again, there is no polarity and God. And of course, this this, uh, you know, destroys completely all of this sort of pseudo feminist stuff about whether God is masculine, the feminine, so on on the level of the essence of God, there is no differentiation. Therefore, there is no manifestation off polarity whatsoever. In the essence of God polarity, sexual polarity is the manifestation off the same energy, but in complementary form. Now what does this mean in complementary form? This means well, as we've already said, every individual individual ation particular ization means what particular ization means. That on individual has certain dominant attributes. In other words, certain strong points and certain weak point. Okay, Justus, we said every individual person and every individual culture has certain strong points in certain weak point. Certain natural strongpoint certain that for a weak point, so that is individual ation universality, which is the manifestation of God is to have all the attributes to the maximum degree. So the manifestation is universal. He is not particular. He is universal. Remember the other night we talked about this pirated universal too particular. So the characteristic of particularity is that particular Arat e select some attributes to a greater degree than others. Okay, No, what sexual polarity does if it created a complimentary selection of attributes and what does this complementarity means? It means that the strong points of one are the weak points of the other. In other words, each one has what the other leg. In other words, the strongest point of the masculine pole correspond exactly to the weak points of the feminine pole. And the strong points of the feminine pole correspond to the weak point of the masculine. So each has what the other leg. Now if we have a duality, what happened when there's a confrontation between duality? When there's a confrontation between dualities, there is a sharp border. There is a absolute frontier that is created. So in other words, there is no there is no ambiguity between light and dark. Okay, Another word if you shine a bright light. The point at which the light stops and the dark begin is a clear frontier. The stronger the life, the clear of the frontier. I mean, of course you can have a fuzzy line. If you have great Asian, you have less and less and less light. But if you have the confrontation off light with absolute absence of light, then you have absolutely sharply defined frontier. Right? But what happens when you have the confrontation between polar opposites? What you have is creative. What you have it. In other words, the joining are the confrontation or the linking of opposite polarity create, you know, it creates low. No. Well, this is the unity and diverse look, Look for definition of units. I noticed that the unity of the material world is a result of two things. The justice, which is the laws governing and the law. Which of these four fundamental forces I talked about the other day that is the dynamic forces of attraction between these industries. So you cannot have unity without both justice and love. If you have justice without love, what you have is a framework for unit. You have a formal juxtaposition, but you have no dynamism. It is dead. And this is what we call in religion. Legalism, formalism, a body without life, love without justice. If the line, um is, um it is the force of attraction. But if it is not regulated or channeled by justice, then of course. Ah, even though the fourth of love itself is positive, it can be dissipated. Are miss you if it is not regulated by just so, Unity is the result. Uh, the marriage, if you will. The creative marriage between the polarities of love and justice, of course. Again ultimately, huh? On the level of the essence of God, these are the same thing. There is no difference between the mercy of God and the justice of God. The justice of God is the mercy of God. The mercy of God is the justice of God ultimately. But we experience these as differentiated realities. In fact, as polarity in a certain thin because just think again of the law Gravity. I think of the Earth going around the sun. The force of gravity, which is like love. Okay, attract these two together. This is the fourth of love. But the law of gravity. That is what regulates the force which says that this fourth takes place within certain limits, which is the inverse square law of Newton means that the centrist ical fourth of the Earth going around the sun, uh, holds the earth in an orbit. Another is the balance our justice adjustment between these two forces the centrifugal force off the earth going around the sun, balancing the ah, the gravitational force that makes the expression off this force of this love this attraction to be ordered and productive. Yeah, are are dissipated. Yeah, or difficult. Unwisely, you love is always positive in itself. But love can be inappropriately expressed or you perfect example. If two people truly love each other and are not married and have sexual relationships, then that's unjust According to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, well, that is an unjust expression of love. That doesn't mean that the love is not a true love. This is a very subtle point. Okay, people, when this happens, as it sometimes that people fall in love with each other and love each other very much and they say, Well, we really love each other. We know that we love each other. So, uh, there are momentary reasons that we can't get married. But there's no reason why we shouldn't express our love physically because we know this is a true love. And, um so, um, their lead maybe to violate the law of God on this point on. And then afterwards, when there are consequences to this, then people go through the contortions of saying, Well, it wasn't really true love. It wasn't really love. It was just infatuation. It was just fascination. Well, maybe it was to love. I mean, we don't have to go through those portions, you know, we know in the first place that all human love has a degree of self interest. So there's no doubt that ego is involved in the thing, but we don't have to destroy this. We don't have to say that this was not a true love. All love comes from God. There is no love that doesn't come from God. But God not only gives us the love, he gives us the love manual that tells us how you love that he gives us and that just so what happened? If one is lead to express love in a way that is contrary to justice, it destroys the love. That's what happened. So can love exists in the absence of justice? Yes. Can love endure in the absence of justice? No, if injustice Pa's if love will be destroyed. But let me give you Let me give a very practical example. A couple meets, they fall in love. They get married. No. You know how it is when you're in love with somebody. The only thought you have is to please the other person, right? I mean, when you love, this is the only thought you have is how can I make this person happy Now a cynic would say, Well, this is simply a disguised form of egotism. All you want is the approval of this other person and so on and so on. But I don't believe that's true. Love is the recognition of the value of the other. So when we recognize this value, we want to enhance that. You know, if I love a woman, I want to say how beautiful she is. I want others to see how beautiful she is. I feel proud when we go out and other people look and see what a beautiful wife you have, what you want. When we recognize the value, we want to enhance the value that is the natural expression of love. So people fall in love, they get married, Each seeks to please the other. That's your greatest desire is to please the beloved. Well, if things go on in the relationship, there are challenges and it may happen. For example, I just take one possible example. Love is a transaction. Love is expressed as a series of transactions of giving and receiving. Now, this relationship may evolve to the point where one partner is doing all the giving and the other is doing all the receiving. Now, what will happen at this point? Well, the person who's doing all the giving will begin to feel certain resentment. The person will begin to say, You know, I'm doing all this stuff. I'm making all these meals. I'm, uh, you know, doing all these things and showing all this affection. And, uh, you know, I don't get very much expression in return, you know, that seems to be taken for granted. But of course, I shouldn't feel this because I love this person. So you sit on this for a while. You suppressed it. You know, you say I shouldn't be feeling this. You begin to feel guilty that you feel that, but the feeling Brazil the feeling possessed. And finally, it can't be campaigned. And so the partner is confronted with this. Look, you know this relationship is unsatisfactory because, in effect, I'm doing all the giving and you're doing all the receiving until typically the other partner will say, Well, I thought he was a perfectly fine relationship. Like what? Everything was great. Of course, everything was great for that partner. Everything was great. So at this point, the original love has gradually been replaced by feelings of resentment by negative feelings by black of love. What has destroyed the love, the injustice in the relations? This lack of symmetry in the relationship have destroyed the law. Now how can we restore the love to the relationship? There's only one way you can pray till you're blue in the face. You can make profession of love till you're blue in the face. There is on Lee one way to restore love to that relationship, and that is by reestablishing or establishing. In other words, the couple has to confront the symmetry that is in the relationship. They have to recognize it. They have to deal with it and they have to change their attitudes and their behavior and such wise that justice is established. And when justice is re established, then love will flow from it. Because, as I said the other day, the definition one definition of justice, if simply to say that justice if the conditions under which love Flores, that's all justice. You know, we can talk about justice in terms of laws and rules, and that's correct as far as it goes. Justice does express itself as rules, another off states, statements of limitations. But on the deeper spiritual level, justice is simply the conditions under which Love Flores is. Yeah, well, that one expression of justice. It is not the only expression of justice, but it is one very fundamental expression of just surely the golden rule is one of the central expressions of just run a reciprocity of images. Tried? Sure. Okay, now, as I say, when these polarity off, male and female come together, this is a complimentary different. And so there is creativity. There is the greatest creativity that exists that is possible in human relationships. And of course, the physical metaphor for that creativity is the fact that a another human being is actually created by that union. What could be a more powerful symbol of the creativity off the meeting of effective than that that creativity produces another human being? Could there be a more powerful creativity than that? Obviously not cool. Sexual polarity is complimentary creative dynamic. It is capable of producing the greatest unity that can exist between human beings. As after, Baha'i says and Star of the West, no mind can conceive of the unity that God has destined for a man and why no man can conceive of the unity and harmony this is quoted in the book. In paraphrase, no man can conceive of the unity and harmony that is death and her husband and what So this is the potential off the marriage relationship? Well, look, one fundamental rule off existence is the following. Whatever has a great potential for good has an equally great potential for evil when it is misused. In other words, if you are, if something is has very little potential for good, that means that has very little energy. It has very little power, so it has very little potential for being misused either. But the greater the potential for good when properly used, the greater the potential for evil when miss you so Ah, what is the greatest good that there is? Well, Baha'i tells us the greatest gift of God to man is revelation is the manifestation, he says. First, the greatest gift of God to man that is inherent in man is the gift of understanding. And he says the gifts of the heart and the site and the hearing and the like are also among the gift which God has given man. Then he says, all of these gifts are inherent in man himself. But that gift, which is greater than all of these in its supreme over all other gifts, is the gift of revelation. So religion, true religion, this connection between God and man, which is true religion. The manifestation, if you will, is the greatest of all gifts that God has given, man. Well, if we follow this principle, then which is really the duality principle? If you negate the greatest good, you get the greatest evil. Okay, that's the duality. Print the greatest evil is a pain by negating the greatest. Good. Okay, good, good. Evil is the negation of good. Okay, that's duality, not polarity. And the greater the good, the greater the evil Akka. Okay, so what? The Baha'i tell us to the greatest evil? What does he tell it? Listed in the writing. Newman. What? But no. What does he say is the greatest of all evil? What religious fanatics? The greatest of all evils, He says his religious fanaticism, religious fanaticism is the flame which will devour everything. Religious fanaticism is the misuse of religion. It is the negation off the greatest gift, which is revelation. That's why if we look in the history of mankind, the greatest contributions to the progress of mankind have been inspired by religion. Okay, all the sciences of the art and the good work as Baha'i seven. That one passage, you know, for 2000 years after the sacrifice of Jesus, all of the art, the power exercised by the greatest monarchs and so on and so on. In other words, all of the truth, the beauty and the goodness, all of the legitimate expressions of knowledge, love and will We're due to the influence off the manifestation of Jesus in this case speaking about. And if you look into history. As any agnostic or atheist will tell you, the greatest cruelty than evil in history have been done in the name of religion. Well, the psychologic off it is simple. Why does one do evil? One does evil because one wants to a pain something. I mean, you do evil from some motivation. I mean, you can do evil out of ignorance support, but that's not deliberate evil. Okay, so conscious evil. The perpetration of conscious cruelty is in order to get something. As we say in modern fight, what is the pale right way? Have to find out what is the payoff. So, I mean, a thief steals because he wants the material things. And a person murders another person because that other person is somehow interfering with that person's desire to get something he wants. Maybe fame or the other guy's wife or whatever. Okay, so we perpetrate acts of evil for a reason. But the religious fanatic perpetrates active evil for the reason that he is convinced that God wants him to do this, and therefore nothing will stop a religious fanatic. Another word. If which would you rather deal with the godfather of the Mafia. Yeah, a radical Muslim fanatic. Okay. I mean, the Godfather, the Mafia, all he wants is your money. As soon as he gets out of you what he wants, he doesn't care about you. You know, the fact that he doesn't care anything about you is a blessing, right? Because he's purely selfish. I mean, we can say he's purely egotistical. He's purely South, is so that means that he's not concerned with your needs. All he's concerned with his need. But once he satisfies his needs, then he doesn't care. You can go on your way a soon as he's gotten your your money or whatever you want to get out of you. But the religious fanatic, Thanks. You're an infidel and a black femur, and he's not going to just let you alone. He thinks it's his job to go. Either convert. You are killed you and nothing is going to stop it. So religious fanaticism, as Baha'i says explicitly, is the greatest evil because it is the negation of the greatest good. So this, incidentally, is the logical explanation for the argument that skeptic give us when they say, How can religion be the source of good as you say. Look at history. Look at all that you done in the name of religion that has even been called by religion and usually result of mumbles something and say, Well, that's not the will have gotten So it's on. Which is true, of course, but the point is that these great evils have been done in the name of religion precisely because religion is such a source of good and you have to see the whole thing. You have to see the fact that all progress has come from religion as well. So yes, cruelties have been done in the name of religion because religion has been misused by man, but only because religion is such a source of good. The same principle then applies to marriage. So let me quote Hatcher, something I can't throw. But how long? This There's nothing better than a good marriage. And there's nothing worse than a bed. Okay, there's nothing worked better than a good marriage. There's nothing worse than a bit, Okay, but Baha'i recognizes this right because he allows the law door. If that wasn't true, Then Bala said, any marriage is better than no marriage, right the law that would deny divorce right? They would say, Under no circumstances can you divorce. That would express the principal what that would express the principal, that any marriage it's better than no marriage with Baha'i didn't say that we allow the law divorce and what is the conditions of divorce when there is hatred, when there is antipathy between departments? In other words, when love is absent, this unity cannot be maintained and therefore just the justice that is the formality of the relationship. Without the component of genuine love become a negative thing and therefore it is morally better, too. Divorce under those circumstances. Now, we should make every legitimate effort every effort to reestablish love, which we do by reestablishing justice in the relationship. So it's really not possible, of course, that a relationship could have justice without having love. If love goes out of the relationship, it is because Justin has gone out of religion. So all of the love of the home, all of the principals in the ghetto hobby Aqdas are based on this polarity off love and justice, love and justice are Polaris. Unity is the creative marriage of loving now in the marriage relationship. According to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the marriage relationship is founded on two pole to support, and this is equality or reciprocity. Justin and absolute Fidelity. What is fidelity? It is an expression of love. Full. These are the two fundament off the marriage relationship. Fidelity, um, equality, love and justice. If these two things exist in the marriage relationship, then the relationship will grow and be healthy and produce ever greater unity. To a degree, that injustice creeps into the relationship. Love will be vitiated and antipathies will be generated. But if this is recognized too soon enough, this process can be reversed. It can even be reversed at very advanced stages. But there can be stages beyond which it is simply impossible to reverse the process. And more especially, this is the case when one of the parties is left willing than the other two put the effort into doing. In other words, you can only take responsibility for yourself. You may be willing to put the necessary effort to restore the justice in the relationship, but if your partner isn't well, that's between him or her and God, right? In other words, you're not responsible that you can't take that on. It's not up to you to take that on so Abdu'l-Baha that to be the calls of a divorce will bring great depression and unhappiness to a person. But we must be careful. We must be clear and our own conscience between us and God, that we are not the cause of the divorce. But there may be a case where we have to divorce that were involved in the divorce. But it's between us and God to determine that we are not the cause of the divorce. And as I say in particular, if we are sincerely willing to put the necessary effort into reestablishing justice in the relationship and our partner isn't and ultimately that's the situation, Then there is divorce, and it's not our fault. I mean, it's unhappy still, but we should not feel guilty for that because divorce is along that Baha'i, given if he had given the law divorce. That means that in some instances, divorce is morally superior. It is better than to maintain the formalities off a destructive marriage. So I hope you understand me. Don't quote me and think that I'm encouraging divorce and so on. and so on. But I'm simply saying that this is the logic of the law of marriage and divorced. It is in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Okay, Yes. You have a question, Tubby. Magyar. That's my okay. No, let me say I just wanted to things. And then I am going to stop to give us time to discuss another way of saying we could say Why this polarity? Why this extreme polarity between male and female? Another is one could, as we say, every individual has its strong and weak weak point. Why not have a sexual society another? Why have these extremes? Why have a polarity such a sexual polarity? Well, let's observe that human relationships generally are off to kind. One are the universal Liza ble. Relationships with the general Liable relationship and the other are the non repeatable are singular relationship. Let me explain what I mean. A universal or generalize herbal relationship is a relationship which can exist between any two human beings. The prototypical example is friendship, right? It is possible for any two human beings on the face of the earth to be friends. Now they may not be friends. They may even be enemies and but it is possible, it is conceivable that any two people on earth could be friends, right? So friendship is a universal relationship, potentially universal, if you will. That's why I say generalize herbal relationship. I don't mean universal in the sense that everybody is friends, but it is generalize, herbal. And of course, that's the very purpose of the Baha'i. Faith is to create those conditions. That is the conditions of unity, justice and love, which means that ultimate being in the ideal configuration, any two people in the world who meet will be genuine friends. This is why the behind there called the friend off God. We speak of the behind that the friends. In other words, let's look at another way. What is the impediment to you and I being friends? Okay, what is the impediment to you and I being? Well, the first impediment is cultural different, right, that we simply were so different culturally, that we just can't understand each other. In other words, you act in a certain way and I interpret your behavior in terms of my culture. You interpret my baby in terms of your culture, and these cultures were so different. Okay, these are so different that you're constantly misinterpreting me. I'm constantly misinterpreting you. This interferes so much in the communication that we simply can't establish a relationship of mutual trust. So that's essentially ignorance, if you will. Ignorant is a barrier. Another barrier is conflict of interest, right? We both want the same thing and we both can't have the same thing. And so we have conflicting interests. So each of us is egotistical to a degree. That means that we put our self interest in wanting this thing above the interests of the other person. And therefore we don't establish relationship or friendship. So you can see I don't have to spell it out, that the laws and principles of the faith and love that come to us through Baha'i Allah, if precisely designed to defeat these impediments to true friendship. So when we implement these universal values, these trans cultural values, then it doesn't matter how many cultural differences there are. We will relate to each other on the basis of the universal values. And even if there are misunderstandings, even if there are cultural differences, we will be able to transcend those because we will know that the other person is sincere and that we relating on the universal that. So I have no doubt. I have absolutely no doubt that I have offended culturally many of my Russian friend without knowing it. Now I try as best as I can, to learn about Russian culture to be sensitive to things, uh, that are rushing. But I have no doubt that I've offended my Russian friend. But I feel genuine love from my Russian friend, and I know that they forgive me for whatever way I have offended them because they know I'm sincere. I know they're so we relate on the basis off the universal values that Baha'i Allah has given us, and not on the basis of either my cultural values of their culture. They show respect for my cultural values, even though they may not necessarily share them. I shall respect for their cultural values, though I don't necessarily share them, and I don't adopt all of their cultural ways, but that's not an impediment to the law. Hey, so this is the miracle of Baha'i. It's not that he faces cultural difference. It's that he give us the tools to time sin cultural differences so that even when they exist, they no longer become barriers to true love and friendship. So friendship is a universal relationship. But there are non repeatable, singular relationship, the prototypical example of motherhood. Throughout all eternity, you will have only had one mother, right? So whatever mother you had that the mother you will always have had, You will never have another mother for good or bad that the mother you have So your relationship with your mother or your non relationship with your mother. If that's the case, happily the case. Okay, whatever it is, that is a unique relationship that is non repeatable. You can't have that relationship with anybody else because nobody else carried you in their womb. Nobody else nursed you when you were a helpless infant. Nobody else did. And so on and so on. You see, So the history of that relationship between the child and the mother is a unique history. Your feet friendship is the history off is the product of universal history of the history of the human race, the unity of man kind of the products of the history of mankind. But the unity of husband and wife is the product of a particular history. It is not the product of universal history. So the relationships within the family, parent to child, husband to a wife or unique non repeating of our relationship. Now you will say, Well, of course, you could have several marriage partners in your lifetime and so on. That's true, but the point is, you see, is that this is not a general liable relationship. You may, in fact, have several singular relationships with several different marriage partners. Okay, if they die or you have a divorce and remarry. But that doesn't change the fact that marriage, in its essence, is a non repeatable relationship. It is an intimate relationship now. Why has God ordained these two types of relationships the universal or generalize herbal and the particular or intimate relations? Because these two types of relationships are necessary for certain kinds of growth and others, if we remember that the purpose of our existence is growth, it is autonomy and well being, which is just to say that we grow in happiness, we grow and well being. This is the purpose of our existence and all of the law's the law of cause. Ality itself is designed to enable us to achieve our autonomy. Um, our well being. And remember, Baha'i says that every atom in existence has been ordained for our training. So these two types of relationships, the universal in the particular have been ordained four, enabling us to develop certain times off capacity, developing certain. So the marriage relationship is like a mirror of our most intimate self. In other words, certain aspect of our character are revealed in the Mary, the infamous a few of the marriage relationship that simply aren't revealed in any other context. In other words, it's quite conceivable that I could be a very loving person in a friend, everybody, a genuine friend to everybody, um, be a disastrous marriage partner and other. This is the kind of person that you see who has a good public personality, Okay, and you know, then you find out that this guy who's a successful businessman and who's everybody's friend and his generous and everybody loves him, and it turned out he'd been abusing his kids or beating his wife. And you say, How could this man, I've been with this man for 30 years? I worked with him every day talking this man, be this monster will. He's this monster because he's developed a public personality, but he has not developed these other capacities for intimate. So in a word, the marriage relationship is ordained to develop our capacity for intimacy. And remember that our relationship with God is the most intimate relationship. Because it is this prayer, this inter feeling the mystic feeling with you nine man with God. So our relationship with God is the most intimate relationship we have, and the next most intimate relationship is the marriage relationship. So general relationship develop our capacity for certain kinds of social spirituals, psychological skills and the marriage relationships and our other intimate relationships such his parent child brother, sister, uh, and so on develop our capacities in other ways in certain intimate way. For if a marriage is embarked upon with the following attitude, this marriage, if on opportunity for growth, from my growth and for my becoming an instrument for the growth of my partner, it is a creative relationship in which, as Abdu'l-Baha, each strives to improve the character of the other. Well, if we embarked on marriage with that commitment, then we have the proper expectations, namely that they're going to be things that we have to correct. The marriage relationship is going to reveal intimate aspects of ourselves. It's going to be a mirror of our most intimate bone, and when those faults are revealed to us, then we have to be prepared to recognize them in to deal with now if instead we embark on the marriage relationship were thing. The purpose of marriage is to satisfy my needs. There was this marriage is satisfactory. This relationship is so satisfactory but calls I satisfy her needs. And she cited five mining. It's mutual satisfaction of me. Well, that is part of it, that the complementarity of thing each has what the other last. So that is certainly part of it is this mutual satisfaction of need. And it is the justice in the relationship which guarantees that, in other words, the giving and leaving the back and forth, the reciprocity, the quality in the marriage relationship, the quality of man and woman in the relationship. I mean that it's gives priority to the needs of the other and therefore each seeks to satisfy the needs of the other But no matter how fat is factored, the relationship is in the beginning The very fact that life means growth. What does that mean? That life means growth. Growth means change. And what does it mean to change? It means that what your needs were at one time or not gonna be your needs five or 10 years from now or maybe even tomorrow. Development? Sure, development. So the very fact, what does it mean to grow? It means to satisfy legitimately certain of your need so that you can forget about that and move on to higher need, right? In other words, I eat a meal. I'm hungry at you. The meal. I'm satisfied. But then a few hours later, I'm going to be hungry again. So I eat in order to satisfy that need. But I satisfy that need so that I can then for the time being, forget about eating and satisfying physical needs and go do something else. Satisfied spiritually means by doing some useful work or whatever. So I satisfy a lower need in order to free me too developed higher development, right, but very good work. For certain reasons, I put it in terms of need, but development is just as good and in some ways better. So we developed. We grow, but we change. That's the point. We change well, that mean that if our expectations remain what they were in the beginning, then when these changes begin to occur, then we will perceive this change as threatening to a marriage. Really, it's not the same as it once was. Well, sure who, Ray, it's not the same is that one word is growing. But again, if people do not have expectations of this growth, then they're setting themselves up for unhappy. But when we intermarriage with the expectation of growth, not only the expectation but with the joyous anticipation, I mean, why not? It's fun. Okay, Another If I say okay, you know, isn't that wonderful that my wife 10 show me these faults that I had that I didn't even know and nobody else was willing to tell me about them, you know? And if I forget that I have them, she's going to remind you that I have and she's going to remind me every day that I had the phone. Well, you know, I can say, Well, this is nagging my wife doesn't make. Of course, I'm just using this human illustration. She doesn't at all. Uh, but in other words, I can take this behavior as a new irritation or I can take it as an opportunity for my growth. And so if we enter marriage with not only the expectation that growth is inevitable but with actually the positive, joyous anticipation that it is an arena off road, then we will experience these changes not as a threat and his irritation, but as a positive part. So, um, I think that's all I want to say until we have about 10 or 15 minutes who are 12 minutes. Whatever. Yeah, one are there many of the things I could say? But I say most of this is in the book, but onto it felt like, and the relationship between the child and father and modern. So it should be he cool, Or how does that work? I mean, do not equal this. I explain this in the booklet. Clearly, unity is justice in love. But what is justice depends on the nature of the relationship. The marriage relationship is a relationship between two mature adult, so it is a relationship between equal and therefore equality. Yeah, the expression of justice or reciprocity. I prefer more than equality. What equality is good as long as we don't understand it is identity, equality or reciprocity or complete mutuality if the expression of justice in the marriage relationship. But the relationship between parent and child is the relationship between unequal and therefore justice end. The relationship between the parent and child is not a relationship of mutuality. Now. What is the mutual relationship the mutual relationship has already said, is that there's an equal amount of giving and receiving on both parts. Okay. In other words, justice from the marriage relationship is that I give to you and you give to me in roughly equal measure. Now, it doesn't mean that we calculate the measures. Okay, that would be an absence of love. It means that I give to you as much as I can. I give constant priority to your needs. But you do the same to me, you know, so I cannot give priority to your need for you. Okay. So justice in the marriage relationship is this reciprocity in which there is an equal measure of giving and receiving, but not because it's calculated, not manipulation. Not that I give in order to receive okay, but that I spontaneously give to you and you spontaneously give to me. And because we love each other, this dynamic goes back and forth because love calls forth love. The more I give prior to your need, the more you're going to feel like giving priority to mining. But the relationship between parent child is not a relationship between. Therefore, the Kitab-i-Aqdas prescribed the parameters off the relationship between parent and child. What is the relationship? There is also a relationship of giving and receiving, but it is not an equal measure. The relationship between parent and child is an asymmetric relationship, but called the child is weak and vulnerable, and the parent is strong in Compton. Therefore, it is the parent who must give to the child and the child. The parent does most of the giving and the child of most of the receiving. And what is it that the parent gives to the child spiritual education? This is what's in the book that we read that yesterday, so I won't even go over it again. Everything's on its ready And my head is also the purpose of marriage. The funder involve Adam also body when he did right that the purpose of marriage is that they will come forth. He who will remember me, in other words, the spiritual education of the children. And we know the strong statements in the Kitab-i-Aqdas that our father, who does not educate his children, can lose his right of fatherhood. Okay, it could be divested of his rights of fatherhood. So this is a sacred obligation. So the parents and the mother is the first educator. So of course, if the mother were to be their elected her duty This is even spiritually Maur grave because the damage will be even worse if the mother rejects the child or whatever. But Marley, the responsibility is equally on both parents. Another. The roles are different, but the moral responsibility is the same. So justice in the relationship between the parents and the child is that the parents give spiritual education, which means love through the child. And the child received this education. But the child does have an obligation in return. What is it? Obedient and gratitude? No. The nature of the parent child relationship that is preferable for the child to be sufficiently grateful to his parents. Why? Because the child it is not reasonable for the child to understand the degree of sacrifice that is involved in what his parents, he can't. I mean, he is. He is a child. He is limited in his understanding, he can't possibly know. I remember my eldest daughter when C when she grew up in had children. She now has two of her own. Uh, she said, You know, said, I'm astonished that always I realize now how I took for granted All these things you did said I thought, she said, I felt that you didn't have anything else to worry about me. He said, You know, I knew that Dad worked at the university. I knew that Mom was a translator and so on. I knew this but said, I never thought that you have thought about anything else, but with I never It never occurred to me that you had any other concern, but I will. I'm astonished to realize that while you were doing, you were doing all these other things, you know? So a child panel, I mean it's the nature of childhood cannot be sufficiently grateful for the fact you can't, and it is unreasonable that we should expect that. And if we expect that the child is sufficiently grateful, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment. This is attachment. This is attachment. If we do that, we have to do it for God, not for the approval of the child. If we do the sacrifices and our reward is the approval of the tile, if we give the approval fine. I mean, that's wonderful. It's a bounty. But we have to do it for Baha'i because on Lee Baha'i, Allah knows the sacrifices we go. We can't expect the child is going, however, Baha'i Allah has ordained nonetheless, that the child must give forth gracious behavior. He must at least act as if he is grateful, because this action, as if he is grateful, will create in the child the true gratitude when he is an adult. And this acting as if you're grateful, is obedient the tom of obey their parents. Because so this is justice in the relationship between parent and child. So know the relationship between parents is not a relationship between equals. The family is not a democracy. All right. Um um So you have to look in every area of life you have to say The following thing. The purpose of the behind faith is unity, unity, the implementation of justice in love. And then you have to see in any given context what is justice and what does justice tell you? What is the most appropriate expression of love? Okay, another love between husband and why is expressed by this complete reciprocity. But love between the parent and child is not expressed by complete reciprocity. It is expressed by the parents giving the child a spiritual education which includes love. Okay, this doesn't mean authoritarian parenting. Okay, Um, the child has the obligation to be Oh Vidia. That's an expression of love. Off gratitude of the child toward the parents. So justice we looked at the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The Kitab-i-Aqdas describes what is justice in the given contact and justice guides us to the appropriate expression of love. So the parent who indulges his child, who treats his child is an equal. This is not inappropriate expression of love and it is destructive. And it leads to the destruction off the spiritual integrity of the child. Permissive child raising is the most destructive form of child raising. It is even more instructor destructive than authoritarianism. Not that that's an argument for authoritarianism. Fault. Let me leave you with the last Hatcher aphorism with Ah, the only way to do it right is to do it right. In other words, you can't do it right by doing it wrong. Another way, you don't correct authoritarian parenting, which is wrong by over permissive parenting, which is equally wrong. You're simply fall from one form of destruction to another form of so you can't do it right by doing it wrong. Another way, you can only do it right by doing it right Motive.

ring into the heart of today's lecture, I just had a couple of comments to make, um, following the discussion yesterday in which the question off, proof of the existence of God and proof of the existence of spirituals reality I was raised. I believe you were the one who raised it in the discussion yesterday, and, um uh, So again, we have this team that there is the spiritual world in the material world. Now this, as I say, is a difference in kind. It is an essential difference because the principle of existence in the material world is different from the principle of existence in the spiritual world. But there's another way of dividing up reality, which, we might say is from the point of view of human experience. And that is the distinction between the visible world and the invisible world. In other words, the observable world and the non observable world. Well, as we know from science and from what we saw last night in our discussion in the first place, all of the spiritually world is invisible. We have no direct observation of the spiritual world, but also, as we saw very clearly last night, part of the material world is also un observable. We can't observe either, for example, which is the medium in which light from which light is generated. We can't directly observe electrons or photons either Individual electrons, photons. Uh, so another useful division of reality is between visible and invisible reality. So in other words, invisible reality encompasses all of future and part off material reality. Well, now, for purposes, off science and philosophy, the division between the visible and the invisible is Maur useful, more practically useful than the division between the material in the spirituals, I say, more practically useful because the higher levels of material reality that is the invisible level of material reality, approximate spiritual realities we saw last night. So in our dialogue with materialists, we discover that the skepticism of most materialists is not just about the existence of the spiritual reality but the existence of an invisible reality. In other words, positivism, which is the philosophical doctrine that underlies modern materialism. Positivism, which emerged in the latter part of the 19th century as the dominant philosophy generated by materialistic paradigm of science, and which the expression in psychology of behaviorism and behaviorism is just positivism in psychology. Okay, and it says that the only thing that exists is what we can observe, and we can't observe what goes on inside people's heads. We can only observe their behavior, and since behavior is the only thing we can see that the only thing that exists for a strict behaviorist doesn't even believe in existence of the felt. He only believes that there is a biological machine there that produces from behavior. And the one, um and, um, positivism in, um say the realm off, um, philosophy, uh, is essentially existentialism, which says in so many words that the only thing that exists it's what is our subjective feelings and experience of what exists and so on and so on. So radical materialism is the denial of the existence of invisible reality, another that goes back to this Cartesian notion that I mentioned yesterday that the material world, the visible world contains its own explanation. Now, remember when they caught formulated this doctrine? This was even before Newton had described the law of gravity. And as I mentioned to you yesterday, Newton even wrote in the latter part of his life that he did not really believe in action at a distance that is in the existence of this invisible force. But he said, I have to say that this is the only explanation that I can find for the behavior. The observed behavior off bodies is that there is this attractive for us. But I can't really believe that this force is there that I can't and that is acting on any two bodies. Um, and of course, Newton himself was not the only one who had doubts about this. The continent. It'll scientists even live in it. Um, also had doubts about this. Um, so, um so there has always been a skepticism about the objective existence of invisible reality. In other words, everybody is willing to admit that invisible reality exists in our heads, in other words, in our imagination, but that there is an objective, invisible reality. If something which people have been reluctant to admit now the reason why I'm going into this is because the demonstration that there exists on invisible reality if we forget the distinction between spiritual and material, just the demonstration that there is an invisible reality is very simple and very easy to do. And that's just, for example, example of gravity that I took just, um, again, I take an object. Take this. Nothing we can see prevents this object from moving in any direction. Nothing blocked it from moving in any direction, Nor does anything that we can see constrain it to move in one direction or another. Yet, when I let go of it. It goes down and again and again and again. So, do we observe the force of gravity? No, we don't observe the force of gravity. We don't see any force pushing and pulling on this thing. What we observed, strictly speaking, is a persistent deviation from randomness. Okay, In other words, behavior is random. If all logical possibilities occur with equal relative frequency and other words to put it in common sense terms, If the behavior of this thing was really random, then we would expect that sometime it would go this way sometime it would go this way. Sometimes it would go this way. Sometimes it would go this way, right? That would be random behavior. Any off. The logically possible direction would be accomplished if we repeat this over and over. No, but what we observe is a deviation from random. That is, we observe that one direction is privileged, namely the downward direct. And there is no observable reason for that. What? We don't observe any reason why and noticed that if we were suddenly transported into space, then that behavior would not occur. But we wouldn't have any. There would be no observable chain. In other words, if suddenly the gravitational field of the force were neutralized, but another body could come into the to the gravitational field that had an equal and opposite attraction to the earth that would neutralize the gravitational field of the earth. So if that happens that I let go of this, then it wouldn't fall. But we would not observe any reason why it didn't happen. So we do not observe the force of gravity. The force of gravity is what physicists, modern day physicists, hard scientists called non observable. In fact, all of the four basic forces of physics are non observable, and this is a term that is now very, very frequently used in science is the non observable. So when I use the term invisible reality, I'm using the term essentially in exactly the same way that business is used. The term non observable reality none observable in and is Abdu'l-Baha. The existence of non observable is deduced from the behavior of observable. In other words, to put it then, uh, directly what the example of gravity shows. What the example of the downward movement of objects shows is that the observable world does not contained the explanation for its own behavior. In other words, we cannot explain observable reality. Observe a ble for the explanations are the causes the call for visible reality. All lie an invisible reality. It is invisible reality that produces visible reality. Okay, now this much is totally incontestable. And this will be admitted by any scientist. This is absolutely incontestable across. They don't usually put it in those terms because there is still this materialistic bias. They're still in the heart of the materialists. The hope, the face, if you will the blind save the irrational faith that somehow there will eventually emerge a materialistic explanations for this that will avoid appeal to non observable. So this is the blind, irrational, fanatic, fundamentalist face of the materialistic five. Okay, it is irrational. It is on time. Uh, it is on the hardest, logical, skeptical terms you want to put it totally funny. Represents a total lack off intellectual integrity. Yeah, I'm not sure that I understand your question, but I prefer not to interrupt what I'm saying. Um, so we have the objective forces. So far, physics has discovered four of these forces gravity. The strong nuclear force the weak nuclear force, an electromagnetic force. Now, let me just say a word about this because this is very interesting. These forces are ranged in a hierarchy off strength and associated with each fourth is a radius of action. And as you would expect, the stronger the force, the shorter it's ray of radius of Akka, the weakest of the four forces. Gravity and gravity, as we said yesterday, has an infinite radius of action because gravity is a force of attraction between any two entities and exists. Okay, Another is This is the universal force as we read in the tablet of the universe, where Abdu'l-Baha says that in order to have order in the universe, God has ordained this universal, attractive force. At the other end of the spectrum, the strongest forces, the strong nuclear force and the strong nuclear force has an extremely short radius of action, virtually an infinite testable radius of Akka. Here's what because the strong nuclear force bye proton together in the nucleus of an atom. Now you know that protons are positively charged particles, um, the laws of electromagnetic force or such that positively charged particles repel each other full Proton experience of fourth, which repels them from each other. So it's on Lee Electromagnetic force exists then the nucleus of an atom couldn't exist because the protons are right next to each other in the nucleus of an atom. Therefore, there must be 1\/4 which is stronger than electromagnetic for on with bind these protons together and that is the strong nuclear force. However, if you separate the proton just slightly, then the protons go beyond the radius of Akka action of the strong nuclear force. Now there is the radius of action of this strong force is extremely short, virtually infinite and said that if you separate the protons just a little, then the electromagnetic force of repulsion will dominate the strong nuclear force and they will fly apart. That's what you do when you split the atom. If you separate the proton to the point that the electromagnetic force of repulsion takes over and that does the rest of the job. So in other words, this is the current paradigm of micro physical reality. Namely, that reality is controlled by 44 food. No businesses are not dogmatic about this. They're quite open to the fact that there may be any number of other as yet undiscovered, but we can say that there are at least four identifiable for which have increasing strength on an increasingly short radius of acts. In other words, it's inversely related the strength of the fourth and the radius of action. The stronger the fourth, the shorter its radius of Akka, the weakest of the forces of gravity. Um, the, um the, um and gravity has an infinite radius of action. It is universal force now, Um so so according to science, I mean, this is not philosophy. I mean, it is philosophy, but it is not. It is not just philosophy. It is the paradigm of modern science that the visible world does not contain its own explanation. That is, we cannot explain observable reality, observable, deservedly or, to put it in terms, terms exactly. The visits to use that the essential forces or causes off observable phenomena are not observable. In other words, the non observable world is the realm off causes off observable phenomena. The invisible world produces the visible world. The visible world emerges out off the invisible world. And of course, it returns to the invisible world. That is, when these macro indices are dispersed. Uh, the particles can be transformed in to pure energy by the Einstein equation. E equals M C squared others a conversion, a factor of conversion between matter and pure and across. We can't observe a pure. Your energy is a non observable, and therefore we can say that all off observable reality of bladder beer, Nabokov said. And one of his novels. Ah, of course he was had this typical Russian, uh, pessimism. But nonetheless, it's very poetically said that reality. Our life is a band of light between two band of darkness, and this is material reality. This is material reality, namely, that material really observable reality. I'm sorry, Sorry. Observable reality is like a band of light between two bands of darkness. It emerges from invisible reality, and it returns towards visible reality. So, in a certain sense, observable reality is a transition from one state off non observable reality to another state of non observable reality. Okay, Metal, by huge, was telling us yesterday was showing us how to reason about analogies such as the ocean. Now let's use this analogy of the ocean. Let's suppose that We're standing on the edge of the ocean. We're standing on the shore, We're standing on the shore and let's say that what is above the ocean, what is visible, observable reality? Okay, we could also call observable reality Concrete reality. In other words, it's something to which we have access without the intermediary of any salt process. Another is we have immediate access to observable reality. So that's another way of characterizing visible reality. It is that reality, which we have on mediated. You don't depend on anybody else tell you that this table exists. You know that by your own perception. So let's say then that we're standing on the edge of a notion and this is an analogy. In the analogy. Observable reality is what lives above the ocean. Because, as I said yesterday, we can't see in the depths of the Earth. So the ocean and its death Yeah, invisible reality, non observable reality. Now, occasionally, a fish jump out of the water into the air and return to the water. Now, when a fish jumps out of the ocean into the water, what does that describe? Well, no, but what does that describe? But what geometrically the arrival. Abbas. It is the trajectory off the material. Everything in the material world is born, reaches the point of culmination and then decline right on it. Known as a quadratic. What Lord? Okay, Okay. So let's read this again. Okay, let's read this again on page 1 91 1 92 Absolute repose does not exist in nature. All things either make progress or lose ground. Everything moves forward or backward. Nothing is without motion from his birth, A man progresses physically until he reaches maturity. Then, having arrived at the prime of his life, he begins to decline. The strength and powers of his body decreased and he gradually arrived at the hour of death. All material things progressed to a certain point, then begin to decline. All material things progressed to a point, then begin to decline. Progress more him to the clock. All right. So the fish jumped out of the ocean and describes this trajectory off all observable reality off going to ah, highest point and then declining and then returning to invisible reality. Now the home with respect to invisible reality the whole of visible reality is like that fish in other words. What I'm saying is that what modern fired has now shown is that the greater part of material reality is none observable, non observable reality immensely greater than observable reality. So, in other words, the radical materialist is not only denying the existence of God in the soul and all of these spiritual entities, he is actually denying the this of the greater part of material reality itself. Okay, because the vastness of the ocean and its depth, if is not non observable reality and observable reality is like that fish that occasionally jumped out of the water. So all the Galaxies of stars, you can see everything you can observe is like that fish that has jumped out of the ocean and is going back to the old. That is the vastness off the created world. So this can be easily demonstrated. This can be irrefutably demonstrated. I have given this lecture and a somewhat more elaborated form, uh, two academies of science all over the world all over Russia, Uh, and, uh, in Kiev and the Academy of Sciences in Kiev, in the university in Kiev and universities in St Petersburg, in Kazan and every place else, Uh, and Belgium, uh, Love and University. I have never had anybody refute or even challenge any of this because it's obvious to anybody who knows anything about five now. So this, I think, is the most fruitful way to engage the dialogue with materialise. That is, none of this they can refute, because this is the product off materialistic fives. In other words, in a certain sense, in spite of held, the scientists have validated this thing. In other words, it is with reluctance that they have appealed to these non observable to explain observable reality. It is not that they have set out to prove that there are these non observable forces, because there's a principle of science which is known as a comms razor, which is a very good principle. It's a logical principle. It says. You do not posit the existence of an entity unless that hypothesis is absolutely necessary, unavoidable to explain what you observe. What is, as we can see, the hypothesis that the force of gravity exists is unavoidable to explain the behavior of this thing. I mean, there's no other way to explain it, but they say that there's an invisible force acting right. There is no other expert. And so it is with reluctant. It is not gratuitously, it is with reluctance. It is with infinite resistance that materialistic science has grudgingly gradually accepted the existence of these non observable realities. And as I said earlier, the materialist in his heart still clings to the hope that somehow there will emerge out of all this a materialistic explanation that will avoid appeal to these non observable forth. Uh, and they're people who tried to do this. It was the guy at Oxford who tried to rewrite physics without mathematics because he correctly observed that once you accept mathematics, you've already accepted the existence of a non observable rim because you can observe mathematical entities. You can't observe numbers so long. Uh, and, um, the abstract functions of mathematics are already non observable. Uh, and so he tried to reconstruct just Newtonian physics, the law of gravity without the use of mathematics. And he succeeded in proving that it's impossible to do you know, um, so, um, so this, I think, is the most constructive way to engage the dollar. Now, when we come to the question which he'd raise yesterday off proving the existence of spiritual entity that is a non composite entity. This is more difficult. This is more difficulty, because now we're dealing with a part off non observable reality. In other words, now we have to proved that was in the vastness of non observer of reality. There are entities which are not composite. However, this can be done. And this in fact has been done. And, um, this is going to be published. Well, it's already published in the Logic and Logos book. The first version of it. Some of you have seen this book logic and logos in the chapter from metaphysics. The logic, a modern version of Abbas Enos cosmological Proof of the existence of God. Uh, this proof is given. Uh, however, I have been formalized this proof, uh, and, uh, a paper called cause ality composition in the origin of existence. And so this is going to be published? I just thought some of you might be interested in a book jointly with my brother John. Call the law of Love in front, The Law of love. Enshrined. Um, this will come out with George Ronald in the spring. Uh, we're supposed to get the final manuscript, uh, to George Ronald by by the first of October. And I think we will be able to do it. And this will contain a number of essays, both by myself and my brother and an introduction that is jointly written on dhe. It will begin with a polo on proving the existence of God. It will contain this more recent version off Abbas Anna's proof, which proves the existence off non composite entities, in other words, of spiritual entities. And it will contain the proof of the existence off 1\/5 4th That is the fourth of evolution, which is the action off God in the material world in bringing about the human reality. This is contained in an article called A Scientific Proof of the Existence of God, which has already published in the Journal of the High Studies. Um, four, 1994. Some of you may have seen that. So its volume five number 4 1994 It was about two issues ago. You call Ah, scientific proof of the existence of God. So all of these things that I've said so far this morning are contained in this article and, uh, I presume most of you from Russian speaking countries. You know that this already exists in Russian. In fact, I published it in Russia before I published it in in England. In fact, I devised the proof on my first teaching trip to Russia when the first question that the Russians asked Waas will prove to us that God exists. So I proved to them that God exists. And so then I published it. But of course I didn't do it. I mean, Abdu'l-Baha did it because the proof is based on on Abdu'l-Baha Tabriz, August for l. And that's all explained in here as well. But, uh, but now which of you does Akka those belts cover? Um, true. Zestful Vanya. Bogo. What? Okay, so so. That I thought was worth maybe taking a few minutes. Now, one other thing I want to point out from the tablet of the universe. Uh, just to show you that my assertion that I made the first day off the course remember I said that what was exceptional in the past will become the norm in the future. Remember that statement? Well, here on page four of the Tablet of the universe. Uh, Abdu'l-Baha says this explicitly. So let's just look at this over how Who witnessed by flight in the spacious rooms of the love of God? No thou that the knowledge is and discipline the arts and sciences Fine, which appeared in previous distance when compared to the divine questions, the eternal verity and the universal mysteries which become veiled, unveiled, manifesting brilliant in their meridian glory in this resplendent revelation are nothing more than illusions and metaphors. Nay, they are hardly better than superstitious fan. So, in other words, you think that Beth of everything, Plato and Aristotle Day cart Lightning Newton all of this the best, uh, pre behi culture is nothing but a superstitious fancy compared with the knowledge that is contained in this. For the all embracing, universal reality is, in the Eyes of my Lord, analogous to the all embracing human reality which passes in the course of its early development to infancy, childhood and youth growth metaphor again, even though these various stages may manifest certain of the characteristic than virtues of man. Remember, I said that occasionally the child will show forth adult behavior, but this is except so even though certain of the characteristics of man maybe showed. Yet when What are these early manifestations in comparison to the perfections of the mind, The truth of the kingdom and the mysteries of God with with the reality of man becomes plentifully endowed after reaching maturity, the period of it's full of express. Okay, so I didn't make this up. Okay, there it is. What was exceptional in the past will become the norm. Okay, I cannot resist also taking two minutes to point out another thing. Uh, which, for obvious reasons, was particularly pleasing to me. Uh, if you notice on page four of the tablet of the universe in the bottom Abdu'l-Baha No. Then with regard to the mathematical sciences, that it was only in this distinguished age this great century that their scope was widen their unresolved difficulty solve their rules, systematize and their diversity realized the discoveries made by earlier philosophers in the views they held. We're not established upon a firm basis, our sound foundation for they wish to confine the world of God within the smallest accomplice and narrow limits. And we're quite unable to conceive what lay beyond. Well, I can tell you as a professional mathematician that when after Baha'i wrote this, this hadn't happened yet. In other words, he was speaking of a spirit to reality which has only become manifest in the last few years. Another 20 ropes is, he said, this century the mathematical scientists have been systematized in salt. Every mathematician will tell you that I mean, um oh, yeah, well, it's only in this century that we have discovered we have perfected the act a Matic method, and we systematize the rules and alone and form. But it hadn't been done when I do behind it, but it has been done. So it had been done on the spiritual plane when I did buy said it, but it is only become manifest and grief for you. Um, and I would like to point out one other thing Ah, on page seven. And this is for those of you who may feel uncomfortable for whatever reason, with some of the methods that I appear to be using, um Abdu'l-Baha paid seven know then that the those mathematical crap which has stood the test of scrutiny and about the found nous off which there is no doubt, although that is supported by incontrovertible and logically binding proof but and by the rules of geometry, has applied to astronomy. Go as I said today, science is from God, just as surely as religion from Doc Logic of the pool, one of the cool that God has given us to establish clear and incontrovertible conclusion hold. I just thought I would point that out. And for the rest, I will leave you two. Enjoy, as they say, habit of the universe with can be properly be read more than one. So let's turn now to off the Kitab-i-Aqdas. We had gotten to the point where we had seen that the human being have three fundamental capacity knowledge. Love will. The thief capacities are the primary capacity of the human being, like the three colors blue, yellow and red, or the primary colors and all other colors of the spectrum are generated by appropriate shuttle combinations of these three colors, right? In other words, purple or green. I mean, green is red and yellow as we know, but it could be different shades of green, depending on the proportion of yellow and red that you have been going on for full in the same way. This is another truth, incidentally, a fundamental truth which is reproduced it all levels, namely, that you can generate an infinite reality from a finite number of elements. Now again, I could spend the whole lecture on just this printable alone. This, incidentally, is the fundamental principle of genetic. There are only a finite number of genes, but there's an infinite number, a potentially infinite number off general war, because there's an infinite number of possible arrangement of these. The easiest way to see this is simply with the alphabet. Let's take the English alphabet. How many letters are there in the English alphabet? 25th. Now let's ask the following question. How many word can we possibly make with these 26 letters on infinite number? Because there's no bound on the length of the word. Every word is a finite instant entities, but there's an infinite number of words. Are If you want to say the vocabulary is limited, there's an infinite number of sentences that you can make this an infinite number of expressions that you can make with this finite number of work. In fact, just have to leather. So anything more than one sufficient suffices to generate Oh, Infinity, any more than one off a finite entities can generate infinity and this is the same principle of genetic gene are like the letters off the alphabet, and the genetic code is like a finite sequences of the gene incense. There's been an infinite number of possible general time go, and this is a general rule. I mean, I say, I don't want to go into this, but this is the point. One can generate an infinite number off attributes from a finite number off. Essential that, and this is exactly what God has done with, um, well, what is the case with his own attributes? There's an infinity of attributes of God. But all of these attributes are generated by thumb combination, fundamental attributes of knowledge, love and will all the spiritual due course, not physical foe. These are the fundamental capacities, the human being. And, as we said, because the soul is immortal because the capacities of the souls are eternally fixed, they can neither be destroyed nor changed. The soul is not threatened either by death nor mutilation. The foal is absolutely above any threat off either death that is destruction nonexistence or mutilation. But the the soul is threatened, if you will, by another thing. And that is undeveloped mint. Because these capacities are latent within the human reality because, as Hussein explained so beautifully and talked the other day, because these capacities are in a state of potential of creation and bolus is that this potential can only be made manifest a result of our effort. Then there is the possibility that we do not respond appropriately, do we not? We do not make sufficient effort and therefore these remain undeveloped for the essential threat to the soul is UN development or what amounts to the same thing fault, development or improper developed? No, this dialogue with God, the parameters of which are established in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The parameters of the mature dialogue between God man is the context and with the development takes place and what are the signs of development? Well, we've already said in making analyses, Material world. This is an increase in autonomy and an increase in well being. And as I said yesterday, every principle has both a positive articulation and a negative articulate. So we can say what are the signs off undeveloped we could turn it around. And what does it mean not to be developed? And that you the opposite of autonomy and well being? What is the opposite of autonomy? It is dependencies, unnaturally restricted, dependent off with drug abuse and alcohol abuse, or only the grossest and most obvious example. But we know that one can be dependent, unnaturally dependent on anything, support of other people or whatever. In fact, this is the fault of the main steam off modern psychology. Would you agree with this saying that the main preoccupation of modern psychology is how do we get rid of all of these unnatural dependency? How do we own our life? How do we acquire autonomy? People have suddenly realised that they're not autonomous and they don't know how. How did we get in this condition of these unnatural dependency on How do we get out of? Would you agree with that? Well, the California brand seems to be pretty much okay. Good, Good. So this is it. You see, the main preoccupation off materialistic psychology is to somehow defeat the unnatural dependencies. And this is what gives rise to do your own thing and so on and so on. Hey, and this is the whole basis of political correctness. In other words, yeah, you feel unhappy with the fact that you are obviously limited because you have some kind of fiction in your personality and your functioning. You can't function without a home effectual relationship or without being sexually promiscuous or without having drugs and alcohol. Well, what you do then is changed the rules so that nobody the values you because of that. In other words, uh, you go out and change society so that it's acceptable to be an alcoholic or a drug addict or a homosexual sexually, okay. And so it then becomes politically incorrect. It becomes unacceptable socially to even point out that this is unnatural hope. Recently, a a real estate salesman was successfully food in the United States because he put an ad in the newspaper advertising that he had a house for sale that had a beautiful view. And the Association for the Blind said that this was discrimination against the blind because the blind couldn't see the view, and he was successfully food. We're doing that. Okay, so in other words, this is not gonna make blind people see anymore. But in other words, it is unacceptable to remind blind people that they're blind or to acknowledge in public discourse that blind people are blind. And another thing which is even more appalling but left but left surprising recently. This is just a few days. I don't know if you've heard about this one. This is really this is really great. You can probably tell horror stories of the work, but in Vancouver, you know about this. A gynecologist was successfully food. He was judged guilty by human right panel and forth to pay a fine to a lesbian couple because he refused artificial insemination to the couple and others, it was judge that he did not. As a practicing position, he did not have the right to refuse artificial insemination toe a lesbian couple. This was discrimination against. That's pretty far from the concept of the family. Is it in the Kitab-i-Aqdas? All right, who? One form of UN development is these unnatural dependency. The other is the opposite of well being, a lack of well being, which is simply a fancy way of saying that you're unhappy. Okay, another, The result of a new spirituality is this me that you're in the same way. That physical pain. Yeah. The sign that something is wrong with your physical body. Unhappiness is psychological pain or spiritual pain is the sign that something is wrong. Okay, so the product off spiritual development is increasing autonomy, um, increasing happiness and well being. It's just that simple. No. How do we achieve autonomy? We are chief. We achieve autonomy by recognizing our total dependency on God. In other words, I said that lack of autonomy was an unnatural the tendency. I didn't say that it was just dependent because there are dependencies that are natural and healthy. We depend on food 50 quid, but that's a natural dependent. And that's the healthy dependency. We should eat nutritious food. Dependency on alcohol is unnatural dependency. It is a creative dependency Now. Ultimately everything comes from God. So we are totally dependent on God. So toe have faith in God doesn't mean to become dependent on God. This again is the materialistic view of faith. And this is why materialists often say that believers in God or weak people they say you need the crunch of belief in God. Right? Well, belief in God is a crime. It's a defense mechanism against reality. Or it's an opiate is linen? Well, of course, some forms off religion are crutches, and some forms of religion are defense. Mechanisms in some form of religion are opiate, but true religion. True belief in God means becoming aware of a reality that is already there. And that reality is our total dependency on God. Let me explain a little bit more what I mean now, in talking about visible and invisible reality, I took this example of gravity. Fine. I took this example of gravel. No, Maybe your reaction invisible that simple, You know, I mean that every day. Surely that isn't a convincing argument for invisible reality, because what could be more commonplace than gravity? Surely, scientists would have realised by now that the gravity, the effect of which everybody observes, is on immediate proof of invisible reality. Why don't they observed? I'll tell you why. Because they pick it for Grandpa. In other words, gravity is so commonplace. We depend on it so unconsciously, we assume it so thoroughly that we are unaware of its implications. Were unaware that it is on immediate experience of invisible really it is the same thing with God. God is hidden from us, not by his remoteness but by his very nearness. What hi God from us is that we depend on him so thoroughly that we take it for granted. And this is why in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha'i has this language. Such is the passage that we studied yesterday where he says, Where's the glory of those who have gone before you? What that you possess can be can you claim to be lasting and permanent? And so on this reflection about the fact that whatever degree of stability or permanent we have in our life is do not to the inherent properties of these things, but to God. It is God who allows us to own these things temporarily. If we have prosperity that comes from God, if we don't have prosperity from God. In other words, we depend so thoroughly on God. We depend so completely on God that we are unaware of. God is hidden drama, not by foreigners, but by nearness. There's an example that Abdu'l-Baha gave, which I like very much in this regard, someone want f Abdu'l-Baha how it is that one could become mirth in God have the Baha'i. How can a straw basket contained water? Person, I mean a straw. Beth. Well, you put water in a straw basket. It just goes right through for a stroll back to attempt in pain. Abdu'l-Baha. Suppose you're immersed. Stroll back who? We can't contain God. But we could be contained in God. In fact, we are immersed in. But because we are constantly immersed in the ocean, we don't know what it would be like not to be immersed. And therefore, we come to the illusion that we are not emerge. So acquiring faith means acquiring knowledge of our dependency on God. This the Bill Hatcher condition of faith in you. Abdu'l-Baha definition is status conscious knowledge and then good. So I like to say, I mean, probably after behind said that somewhere, but But I you know, uh so I expand This notion of knowledge is simply saying they is conscious awareness of our dependency on God. The dependency is an objective fact. Nothing changes in reality when we become believers. The only thing that changes is our consciousness of really our awareness of the dependency that is already there. Therefore, the first specific law of the Kitab-i-Aqdas is the law of prayer. The fundamental relationship off all existence is the relationship between the individual and God. That is the awareness that we are immersed in the ocean of God at all times. Well, let's see what sure defender says about this. Okay, it's on page 2 13 Under the affection, the individual dialogue with God. Well, let's just read the preamble because it comes up with having established in the opening passages the fundamental premise of the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the collective and individual dialogue, or covenant between God and humanity. Baha'i Holland now turns in paragraph 6 to 15 to the first specific and most basic law of the Kitab-i-Aqdas law. Prayer prayer is the foundation of the individual dialogue between God and man. Through it, the individual established is a direct, unmediated interconnection between his soul and God. Moreover, this relationship is the most fundamental of all relationships accessible to the individual. Unless this relationship be correctly and firmly established, all other relationships, whether with other individuals with society or with nature, will be essentially long. The following statement, written on behalf of showed you Cindy illustrates the importance Baha'i give to prayer. Well, I tried to get out all the unnecessary that I see. I didn't get that. Okay, How to attain spirituality is indeed a question to which every young man and woman must sooner or later try to find a satisfactory. Indeed, the chief reason for the evils now rampant in society is the lack of spirituality. The materialistic civilization of our age has so much absorbed the energy and interested mankind that people in general do no longer feel. The necessity of raising them fell above the forces in conditions of their daily material. There is not sufficient demand for things we call spiritual to differentiate him from the needs and requirements of our physical exists. The universal crisis affecting mankind is therefore essentially spiritually and it's called Well, that's what we've been talking about. The call off every observable condition is a beautiful thing. Okay, whether positive or negative, the call the negative material condition is also a spiritually Now get this next one. The core off religious faith is that mystic feeling with you nine. Man with God, this state of spiritual communion can be brought about and maintained by means of meditation and prayer and This is the reason why Baha'i Ola has so much stress the important worship get the next grade. The behind faith, like all other divine religion, is the fund on Men pally Myth interrogator. His chief goal is the development of the individual and society through the acquisition off spiritually virtues and powers. The powers give us increased autonomy. The virtues give us increase happen. It is the soul of man which has to be fed and this spiritual nourishment prayer can provide. So Baha'i Allah-u-Abha ain obligatory prayer. But he makes clear that obligatory prayer is a minimum, not a maximum. It is the minimal off the game because I assure you, Cindy, here we must moved to a point where we live in a constant state of spiritual communion with God. So look on Page 2 15 just above the middle of the page. There's a short, intact quotation from Cindy, where he describes the state off continual spirit of communion with God, he says, quote, we must become entirely selfless and devoted to God so that every day and every moment we think to do only what God would have a do, and in the way he would have us do it. So we must become so thoroughly aware off our dependence on God that at every second of our existence we are consciously aware of the presence of God and that everything we do, we do no the way one does. There's a certain creative latitude involved in this, and this is something which could be the object of complete court. What you might call pick me we're doing. I don't like the word I would rather beautiful, but we could maybe talk about this in the discussion this afternoon or whatever. But it is a dialectical process or a dialogue which involved all of the three capacities of knowledge off love on a will. In other words, it is not just a question of the oh, now I understand I am totally dependent on God. The fact that you understand intellectually that you are totally dependent on God does not make you aware of the ways and with your depends. Therefore, you must act. You must go pioneering. You must teach the face. Abdu'l-Baha says that if we don't teach the faith, then we cannot experience the confirmation show. Defending goes even further. He makes the frightening statement The sustaining power of Baha'i Allah him felt will be totally withdrawn from any behi who does not. In the long run arrived. Let me. The sustaining power of the Holland will be totally with drone from any behind who does not in the long run Iraq reality. Now you know that, right? No. Here is a here. Yeah, unawareness of a threat. What is the threat? It is the threat off undeveloped, So physical death and physical mutilation or metaphor for spiritual death which is not non existent but undeveloped from we are threatened by spiritual death with you, the sleep that the sleep of unawareness with in its most extreme form, is equivalent sleep of death. So this process is a dialectical process of involved intellectual understanding, implementation to action of that understanding. And it involves them a pursuit off the love of God which is experience as an attraction for that which is valuable. Put another way, we can say that all of morality, if summed up in one single slogan, never sacrifice the higher. The higher should never be used as a means to attain the Lord. Now this presumes, of course you already know what is higher in what is lower. So it depends begins with knowledge. But once we have a knowledge of spiritual reality, once we understand this hierarchy of higher and lower that we were talking about last night, once we have this knowledge of the law of cause, ality of the hierarchy of cause and effect, then we implement this knowledge on the basis of the following norm, which is the one universal moral norm. Namely, you always use the lore as a means to attain the higher and this is at every level of existence. In other words, you the lower levels of material reality, you attain the higher levels of material reality. You're a pain in the lower level. No obtained the higher levels. And so remember last night. Abdu'l-Baha said that everything is universal with Inspector, what is blowin in particular with respective when his mother specifically this is incidental and relatives and in semantics questions, he says, what the good deeds of the faithful are the sins of the near one. So what is a good action? Yeah, unordinary believer. That same action with the same motivation would be a thin for a person who is more advanced and there's no limit. This is an eternal process of growth and develop. So what is the fundamental principle by which Ridvan Ugo at every moment is so? Cindy says at every every day, at every moment we are intensely aware of the presence of God in our life, and we therefore relate reality on the basis off it. And the essence of that relationship is that we always use the lore is a means to a pain. And this is the ladder by which we grow or developed your mouth. As Abdu'l-Baha himself said, that prayer is the ladder by no isn't this base? Isn't this amazing here? For 6000 years, humanity has awaited the revelation of the most holy book. Um, we're all trembling in our boots, you know? What is this book of long going to be and what is it? It is a love from God. I love you. You're valuable. I want every moment. Yeah, yeah, of the Colonel long. More so. I think I'll stop there and we have a few minutes for questions. You may have a specific No. Um Well, okay. I'll tell you a few things but I'm afraid off, too cursory treatment. But it's the basis of it. Of course, I'm speaking partly from my own personal experience and what I've observed necessarily tinged with all the human limitations involved. But both fundamentally it involved a route will know the truth and, most fundamentally, a ruthless will tow the truth about one one has to I want to know the truth. At some 0.1 has to make a fundamental decision that it is better to know the truth, however unpleasant it may be initially because ultimately it is knowledge of the truth that will produce my autonomy in my well being. In other words, once having become a believer once having satisfied ourselves that God exists, the God loved the God does everything for our benefit, we should then lose our fear of the truth. Another was the truth. Cannot ever really heard it. So what hurt when we say the truth, when we find out that somebody we thought loved us didn't love us when somebody betrays us, when we find out that some ability we thought we had, we didn't really have or whatever. Okay, when we discover a truth which is initially unpleasant. We have tohave such faith. In truth, it felt which is nothing more than God. I mean, God is truth. We have to have such faith in the power of two that we know that true and knowledge of the truth will increase our autonomy in our world. And this will give us the courage to face the initially unpleasant proves. I mean, not all will be unfolding. I mean, some of the truth will be marvelous and exalting in your forest. Um, no. Just like last night. I mean, we have a lot of fun. Tried. I mean, you know, it opened up. I mean, not all, too are are unpleasant, So I don't want to give the idea that, you know, this is necessarily experienced as a primarily negative, But let me put it this Maybe this is more relevant to North American than it is to Europeans and especially Eastern European. But you know, we behinds. We say that society is sick, right? We say society is sick. We say that the world is suffering from materialism from ungodly nous. This straight from God disobeyed God. It does not have knowledge is pure to reality. it is full of hatred instead of love. We have hatred, and we have false loves, in other words, attractions to lower things instead of higher things such as homosexuality and sexual promise, goodness and all these things. And drugs and alcohol, which creates temporary happiness or euphoria but is followed by greater unhappiness and increased dependency. Insulin. So we see all of these things. And when we teach the faith, that's what we tell people, right? Well, you know, look, you know you want a solution to the problem. Here it is. But then, once we're in the faith when it comes to changing our lifestyle, were reluctant to do that. You know, I mean, one of the big issues in the North American behind community, and I just gave the same course at Lou Helen, which is a high school in the United States. And I was I don't know if I was surprised, but I was certainly dismayed to find out that still, at this stage of the development of the faith in North America, one of the major issue I mean, this is a hot issue in the American Baha'i community. It's what to tell your kids about Santa Claus. Fanatical. This is a burning issue. I am not kidding. I am not exaggerating. This is not I spent a whole hour discussing this with the class. What? Well, I'll tell you what. My wife told my daughter when she was five years old and fall, eh? Hey, Sandy. Sandy claws on the street, you know? Ah ah! Salvation Army. Santa Claus ringing a bell. You know, she said, What's that, Mommy? And she says it's ah, old man in a red suit begging for money. And there was a woman standing next to her that said, I've never heard anything like that in so long. And, uh, but this is what you do about Christmas. I mean, this is really a big issue. This is really a big issue. So I just simply say this to say that, you know, as soon as the behind faith I mean, you know, equivalents of this here in Europe. Okay. I mean, I remember. I mean, I was six years I lived in Switzerland. I was even a member of the Swift, and it's a in my previous incarnation, and and I lived it. I mean, so you Europeans now. I mean, one of the big things is wine is alcohol, you know? I mean, how can you know? You really do this without offending people, you know, and, you know, behind expend immense amount of time, You know, how could you get around this without shocking people and so on and so on? Well, I mean, ah, you know what people resent is self righteousness. If you tell people anything with an air presumed superior already, they're not gonna like it. But if you tell them anything, that's true. In a spirit of true humility and love, they will respect you. They might not agree with you, but they'll respect so both of some parts. There are other calls. That's but all right with that sort of upbeat ity. He's my brother in law. Yeah, the cause ality principle in the world of being, because I will. Unfortunately, i'll have to leave early tomorrow morning. I will not be able to participate in the final panel discussion, but of course, I will be at the discussion this afternoon. There, of course. Ah, many things that I haven't talked about. But since I have given you this, uh booklet, which you can read. Ah, at your leisure. Um, you can see that I do treat, um, more detail laws like UCLA and Zach Kat and the inheritance laws and so on within the framework of this fundamental notion of cause ality. Um, so I won't take our time together to go into these details balls, So I intend to leave more time than previously for discussion. But I do have, ah, do things that I want to say to lay the groundwork for our left exchange. Yesterday we saw that according to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the fundamental relationship that we humans have is between us and God. Two recall again, the statement of show you fnd, um, to that effect. He says, this is on page 2 13 The core of religious face is that mystic feeling which unites man with God and then on page 2 14 the behind faith, like all other divine religion, is thus fundamentally mystic in character. Now what does he mean by fundamentally mystic? Well, he means what he just said that the core of religious faith is that mystic feeling which unites man with God. In other words, religion is the relationship between God, the highest thing in existence on the human being, the highest thing in creation and the connection. I said it is a relationship. So Oh, what? Whenever you have a relationship, you have three things involved. You have the two things that are related, and you have the link, our relationship between them. So our relationship involves three things, not two things. And so religion is the relationship between God and man. So you have God, you have man, and you have the connection between them. And the connection is the manifestation. That is exactly the ring stone symbol, right? That's exactly what the ring stone symbol had. The world of God, the world of man and the connection between them, which is the manifestation. And this connection is both horizontal and vertical. That is, it is horizontal. Okay, the we know that the symbol for the manifestation is the same as the symbol for the Holy Spirit in the ring stone symbol. So I will make not even a, uh, false attempt to, uh, do Arabic calligraphy. Uh, so, uh, but if you notice the ring stone symbol, uh, that the symbol of the manifestation is the same as the symbol for the Holy Spirit. Well, it's like that right is the same as a symbol for the holy. So you have God, you have man, and then you have the connection between God and then, which is the manifestation. The manifestation is both on intermediate level of being between God and man. And it is at the same time, the vertical connection between God and man. So this this ring stone symbol, uh, sums up the, um, essential metaphysical relationship that are the foundation of reality? No, I've spoken quite a bit about the law calls ality. We tend to think of the law of cause ality as, uh, impersonal thing, but caused the example that one most often uses. And it's not just me. It's the example that's most frequent in hand, is gravity and gravity operates independently of our will. And therefore, when we are thinking about cause ality, we tend to think or I call the wall. We tend to think of it as being something that is impersonal, right? Where have what Baha'i is saying when he gives us the law of prayer is that our wills are a causal agent in other words To say that we have a free will is to say that our will is an entity on objectively existing entity which is a causal agent. So in other words, are will the exercise we make of our will determines the way reality function. In other words again, to take the simple example I took yesterday, I pick up this glass. What here? Because of my Haver freewill. Okay, if I didn't have a free will, that glass would still be there right now. Okay, Because it's on Lee the exercise of my free will. But put that glass there. So the exercise of our will deterrent is one of the determinants of reality. So our will, your will. What's the use you make of your God given capacities is part of the low of Cove ality. Now, this is both a wonderful and a frightening thing. It is wonderful because it means that God allows us to participate in creation if you will. In reality, it is also frightening because it means that we have an incredible responsibility in the way that we use our faculties. And I will now. So this relationship between God and man is the fundamental relationship that we humans have. It is the foundation of all other relationships. If this relationship is wrong, nothing else will be Reid. And if this relationship is right, everything will eventually be right. Maybe not tomorrow. But everything flows from this relationship now, just as we've seen that their hierarchies, in reality there are hierarchies and, um, in the physical world that hierarchies in the spiritual world. There's a hierarchy in the human world of the hierarchy of human relationships. And the second most important human relationship is the relationship between husband and wife. And this is Dr Dannon, points out. And, as I pointed out, point out in this booklet, If you take the order in the Kitab-i-Aqdas and I agree completely with Hussein that there is an extremely fine, logical order in the Kitab-i-Aqdas, uh, far from being haphazard and far from being just a unique literary style, which it already is, I mean, that's fine. But there is from the purely logical point of view. Hussein talked from the psychological point of view. Ah, but from the purely logical point of view, there is a fine and exact order in every word and letter in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Ah, and so, um essentially, let me just say what the order is Is that Baha'i Allah-u-Abha Steve the family as the prototype for the whole of the human reality. In other words, the Kitab-i-Aqdas recreates human society in the image off the healthy family. So when we speak, as we sometimes do of the family of nations or the family of man off the human family, this is according to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the most appropriate metaphor for the collectivity of human beings. Baha'i, Allah views human society. Ah, an extension of the family. Now let's try to look at this with the eye of a hollow. We've talked about this body. Heat has talked about this. Hussein has talked about this about looking at the Kitab-i-Aqdas according to the through the eyes of God and not to our own. So I'm going to say a few things about married. But let me be very frank in the beginning. Look, marriage is going through a very rough time and I decided right and we all suffer from this. We all suffer from this. So I have no doubt that every person in this room is either unmarried or divorce are married with various degrees of satisfaction. Okay, and there's no one in this modern world who has not experienced terrible tests in relationship to his marriage. I mean, I have been fortunate to be happily married for 35 years to a wonderful woman. But we have had our tests, and we have had to struggle extremely hard at times in our marriage. And so, uh, so this is the reality. We know this is the reality. And so, uh, let's for a few moment. Let's suspend the reaction that we have of seeing what Baha'i says about marriage from the point of view of our own limited and perhaps unhappy or painful experience. And let's try to see the image that Baha'i Allah, What happened now, as we know, the goal of the behind phase is unity. Yeah, so this notion of unity and diversity is a much more fuckable notion than we behind. Give it credit. Okay? I mean, we this phrase unity in diversity rolls off of our tongues just like water. But we do not realize how profound this concept is. It means, of course, as we teach people that the unity in the behind. Faith is not a uniformity. The uniformity is not making everybody the same. It is not a hyper egalitarian form of unity. It is a unity which I have differences. Appropriate differences? Well, no. Where is it more clear than in the relationship between the sectors between husband and wife? I mean, here you have in marriage a unity. You have a unity. But obviously you have different when you have the most fundamental difference that exists in created reality. The difference between the sexes between man and woman. So marriage itself is a unity and diversity. Another do you have, uh, you know, the word in Russian is very good here. Protective Poland polarity. And this is really what? Sexual differences that the polarity let me say a word about polarity. Maybe I shouldn't get into this. I don't know polarity. I see well, the whole discourse about the faith if shot through with profound philosophical confusion in which we unconsciously friend for the principles that are true of one area to another area in which they do not apply. I've given you one example of that. Ah, when I talked about the difference between, um applying materialistic reasoning to spiritual things. The other day, when I remember, I said that a material thing is diminished when it's shared, but a spiritual thing is multiplied when it's shared. Um, well, one of the confusion that is endemic in our discourse is the confusion between duality and polarity. These are not the same thing. Duality refers to an essential difference. So good and evil are dual. You can't have good and evil together if it is good. It is by definition, not evil. So it's like light in darkness. You can't have light and darkness at the same time. If you have light, you don't have doc. If you have dark, which is the absence of light, you don't have life. Just take the definition of dark. Darkness is the absence of light, so you can't have light and the absence of light at the same time. That's a formal, logical contradiction. I cannot have a thing and not that thing at the same time. So duality if opposition it is exclusion. Duality is a mutual exclusion, good and evil, light and dark heat and cold. These air duality polarity well, and of course, ultimately we know that on the highest level, there is no duality because God is one. This is one of the meanings the philosophical, our metaphysical meaning of the oneness of God That I mean, because this is a fundamental question. Um, full offer food. It's called the question of one in the mini and, uh, preoccupied the best minds of ancient Greece. And it is continues to be a controversy today, Mon ism versus pluralism. And so the first question is, is the ultimate reality. We have both oneness and morality on the level of creation. That's obvious. Everybody knows that the question of the one in the mini is whether the ultimate reality is one our duel. And of course, the Baha'i faith gives us the answer to this. The ultimate reality, which is God is absolutely one. There is no duality on the highest level of existence. Uh, there is, as Abdu'l-Baha says, no differentiation within the essence of God. However, on lower levels of reality, we do have duality because, well, I'm sorry, let me back up The fact that the ultimate reality is one means that there is only one source of energy in the universe. In other words do not two sources of energy. So this is the behind ocean of the non existence of evil. They are not. So the notion of a devil or a Satan if a dualistic notion of is the fact that you have a God and an anti god of some sort, okay, as a positively existing force like a devil, this is a dualistic notion. Um, ultimate reality. So when Abdu'l-Baha says that evil does not exist as an objective force, this is simply a re articulation off the notion of oneness of God. There cannot be a single forth of reality, namely God, who is all good and at the same time that there be evil, metaphysical evil that Liza logically incompatible. So there is only one energy. It all comes from God. However, on the laurel levels of existence, this energy can be either manifest or not manifest in a certain situation. So to take again the simple analogy physical, a knowledge understanding is the sun. If we were to go to the sun, of course it would physically destroy us if we did. But I mean just in imagination. If we were to go to the sun there is only light in the sun and others you would find no shadow in the sun, right? There's no duality in the sun, it felt. But the sun generates its rays. And when these rays are incident on a lower reality, which is the earth, then it creates patterns off darkness, enlightenment of saddle and the shadow is the absence of the line. So duality is a relative notion. But duality means opposites. Duality means this opposition that is created by the relative incidents of primal energy in the lower levels off. Okay, so that's duality. Duality is opposition. It is mutual exclusion. Polarity means the manifestation of the same energy in complementary form. So plus and minus and electricity, for example, is an example of polarity, not duality. All right. In other words, positive charge or negative charge is the same energy, but manifested in two different forms. Okay, that's polarity not do elope now, the most potent example off polarity not duality but polarity in existence. If sexual polarity in the human being, because we know that the human being is the highest form, uh, existence of the highest created thing. We've gone over this again and again and again. And therefore, the polarity that exists in the human race is the highest, most refined, ultimate expression off polarity in creation. Again, there is no polarity and God. And of course, this this, uh, you know, destroys completely all of this sort of pseudo feminist stuff about whether God is masculine, the feminine, so on on the level of the essence of God, there is no differentiation. Therefore, there is no manifestation off polarity whatsoever. In the essence of God polarity, sexual polarity is the manifestation off the same energy, but in complementary form. Now what does this mean in complementary form? This means well, as we've already said, every individual individual ation particular ization means what particular ization means. That on individual has certain dominant attributes. In other words, certain strong points and certain weak point. Okay, Justus, we said every individual person and every individual culture has certain strong points in certain weak point. Certain natural strongpoint certain that for a weak point, so that is individual ation universality, which is the manifestation of God is to have all the attributes to the maximum degree. So the manifestation is universal. He is not particular. He is universal. Remember the other night we talked about this pirated universal too particular. So the characteristic of particularity is that particular Arat e select some attributes to a greater degree than others. Okay, No, what sexual polarity does if it created a complimentary selection of attributes and what does this complementarity means? It means that the strong points of one are the weak points of the other. In other words, each one has what the other leg. In other words, the strongest point of the masculine pole correspond exactly to the weak points of the feminine pole. And the strong points of the feminine pole correspond to the weak point of the masculine. So each has what the other leg. Now if we have a duality, what happened when there's a confrontation between duality? When there's a confrontation between dualities, there is a sharp border. There is a absolute frontier that is created. So in other words, there is no there is no ambiguity between light and dark. Okay, Another word if you shine a bright light. The point at which the light stops and the dark begin is a clear frontier. The stronger the life, the clear of the frontier. I mean, of course you can have a fuzzy line. If you have great Asian, you have less and less and less light. But if you have the confrontation off light with absolute absence of light, then you have absolutely sharply defined frontier. Right? But what happens when you have the confrontation between polar opposites? What you have is creative. What you have it. In other words, the joining are the confrontation or the linking of opposite polarity create, you know, it creates low. No. Well, this is the unity and diverse look, Look for definition of units. I noticed that the unity of the material world is a result of two things. The justice, which is the laws governing and the law. Which of these four fundamental forces I talked about the other day that is the dynamic forces of attraction between these industries. So you cannot have unity without both justice and love. If you have justice without love, what you have is a framework for unit. You have a formal juxtaposition, but you have no dynamism. It is dead. And this is what we call in religion. Legalism, formalism, a body without life, love without justice. If the line, um is, um it is the force of attraction. But if it is not regulated or channeled by justice, then of course. Ah, even though the fourth of love itself is positive, it can be dissipated. Are miss you if it is not regulated by just so, Unity is the result. Uh, the marriage, if you will. The creative marriage between the polarities of love and justice, of course. Again ultimately, huh? On the level of the essence of God, these are the same thing. There is no difference between the mercy of God and the justice of God. The justice of God is the mercy of God. The mercy of God is the justice of God ultimately. But we experience these as differentiated realities. In fact, as polarity in a certain thin because just think again of the law Gravity. I think of the Earth going around the sun. The force of gravity, which is like love. Okay, attract these two together. This is the fourth of love. But the law of gravity. That is what regulates the force which says that this fourth takes place within certain limits, which is the inverse square law of Newton means that the centrist ical fourth of the Earth going around the sun, uh, holds the earth in an orbit. Another is the balance our justice adjustment between these two forces the centrifugal force off the earth going around the sun, balancing the ah, the gravitational force that makes the expression off this force of this love this attraction to be ordered and productive. Yeah, are are dissipated. Yeah, or difficult. Unwisely, you love is always positive in itself. But love can be inappropriately expressed or you perfect example. If two people truly love each other and are not married and have sexual relationships, then that's unjust According to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, well, that is an unjust expression of love. That doesn't mean that the love is not a true love. This is a very subtle point. Okay, people, when this happens, as it sometimes that people fall in love with each other and love each other very much and they say, Well, we really love each other. We know that we love each other. So, uh, there are momentary reasons that we can't get married. But there's no reason why we shouldn't express our love physically because we know this is a true love. And, um so, um, their lead maybe to violate the law of God on this point on. And then afterwards, when there are consequences to this, then people go through the contortions of saying, Well, it wasn't really true love. It wasn't really love. It was just infatuation. It was just fascination. Well, maybe it was to love. I mean, we don't have to go through those portions, you know, we know in the first place that all human love has a degree of self interest. So there's no doubt that ego is involved in the thing, but we don't have to destroy this. We don't have to say that this was not a true love. All love comes from God. There is no love that doesn't come from God. But God not only gives us the love, he gives us the love manual that tells us how you love that he gives us and that just so what happened? If one is lead to express love in a way that is contrary to justice, it destroys the love. That's what happened. So can love exists in the absence of justice? Yes. Can love endure in the absence of justice? No, if injustice Pa's if love will be destroyed. But let me give you Let me give a very practical example. A couple meets, they fall in love. They get married. No. You know how it is when you're in love with somebody. The only thought you have is to please the other person, right? I mean, when you love, this is the only thought you have is how can I make this person happy Now a cynic would say, Well, this is simply a disguised form of egotism. All you want is the approval of this other person and so on and so on. But I don't believe that's true. Love is the recognition of the value of the other. So when we recognize this value, we want to enhance that. You know, if I love a woman, I want to say how beautiful she is. I want others to see how beautiful she is. I feel proud when we go out and other people look and see what a beautiful wife you have, what you want. When we recognize the value, we want to enhance the value that is the natural expression of love. So people fall in love, they get married, Each seeks to please the other. That's your greatest desire is to please the beloved. Well, if things go on in the relationship, there are challenges and it may happen. For example, I just take one possible example. Love is a transaction. Love is expressed as a series of transactions of giving and receiving. Now, this relationship may evolve to the point where one partner is doing all the giving and the other is doing all the receiving. Now, what will happen at this point? Well, the person who's doing all the giving will begin to feel certain resentment. The person will begin to say, You know, I'm doing all this stuff. I'm making all these meals. I'm, uh, you know, doing all these things and showing all this affection. And, uh, you know, I don't get very much expression in return, you know, that seems to be taken for granted. But of course, I shouldn't feel this because I love this person. So you sit on this for a while. You suppressed it. You know, you say I shouldn't be feeling this. You begin to feel guilty that you feel that, but the feeling Brazil the feeling possessed. And finally, it can't be campaigned. And so the partner is confronted with this. Look, you know this relationship is unsatisfactory because, in effect, I'm doing all the giving and you're doing all the receiving until typically the other partner will say, Well, I thought he was a perfectly fine relationship. Like what? Everything was great. Of course, everything was great for that partner. Everything was great. So at this point, the original love has gradually been replaced by feelings of resentment by negative feelings by black of love. What has destroyed the love, the injustice in the relations? This lack of symmetry in the relationship have destroyed the law. Now how can we restore the love to the relationship? There's only one way you can pray till you're blue in the face. You can make profession of love till you're blue in the face. There is on Lee one way to restore love to that relationship, and that is by reestablishing or establishing. In other words, the couple has to confront the symmetry that is in the relationship. They have to recognize it. They have to deal with it and they have to change their attitudes and their behavior and such wise that justice is established. And when justice is re established, then love will flow from it. Because, as I said the other day, the definition one definition of justice, if simply to say that justice if the conditions under which love Flores, that's all justice. You know, we can talk about justice in terms of laws and rules, and that's correct as far as it goes. Justice does express itself as rules, another off states, statements of limitations. But on the deeper spiritual level, justice is simply the conditions under which Love Flores is. Yeah, well, that one expression of justice. It is not the only expression of justice, but it is one very fundamental expression of just surely the golden rule is one of the central expressions of just run a reciprocity of images. Tried? Sure. Okay, now, as I say, when these polarity off, male and female come together, this is a complimentary different. And so there is creativity. There is the greatest creativity that exists that is possible in human relationships. And of course, the physical metaphor for that creativity is the fact that a another human being is actually created by that union. What could be a more powerful symbol of the creativity off the meeting of effective than that that creativity produces another human being? Could there be a more powerful creativity than that? Obviously not cool. Sexual polarity is complimentary creative dynamic. It is capable of producing the greatest unity that can exist between human beings. As after, Baha'i says and Star of the West, no mind can conceive of the unity that God has destined for a man and why no man can conceive of the unity and harmony this is quoted in the book. In paraphrase, no man can conceive of the unity and harmony that is death and her husband and what So this is the potential off the marriage relationship? Well, look, one fundamental rule off existence is the following. Whatever has a great potential for good has an equally great potential for evil when it is misused. In other words, if you are, if something is has very little potential for good, that means that has very little energy. It has very little power, so it has very little potential for being misused either. But the greater the potential for good when properly used, the greater the potential for evil when miss you so Ah, what is the greatest good that there is? Well, Baha'i tells us the greatest gift of God to man is revelation is the manifestation, he says. First, the greatest gift of God to man that is inherent in man is the gift of understanding. And he says the gifts of the heart and the site and the hearing and the like are also among the gift which God has given man. Then he says, all of these gifts are inherent in man himself. But that gift, which is greater than all of these in its supreme over all other gifts, is the gift of revelation. So religion, true religion, this connection between God and man, which is true religion. The manifestation, if you will, is the greatest of all gifts that God has given, man. Well, if we follow this principle, then which is really the duality principle? If you negate the greatest good, you get the greatest evil. Okay, that's the duality. Print the greatest evil is a pain by negating the greatest. Good. Okay, good, good. Evil is the negation of good. Okay, that's duality, not polarity. And the greater the good, the greater the evil Akka. Okay, so what? The Baha'i tell us to the greatest evil? What does he tell it? Listed in the writing. Newman. What? But no. What does he say is the greatest of all evil? What religious fanatics? The greatest of all evils, He says his religious fanaticism, religious fanaticism is the flame which will devour everything. Religious fanaticism is the misuse of religion. It is the negation off the greatest gift, which is revelation. That's why if we look in the history of mankind, the greatest contributions to the progress of mankind have been inspired by religion. Okay, all the sciences of the art and the good work as Baha'i seven. That one passage, you know, for 2000 years after the sacrifice of Jesus, all of the art, the power exercised by the greatest monarchs and so on and so on. In other words, all of the truth, the beauty and the goodness, all of the legitimate expressions of knowledge, love and will We're due to the influence off the manifestation of Jesus in this case speaking about. And if you look into history. As any agnostic or atheist will tell you, the greatest cruelty than evil in history have been done in the name of religion. Well, the psychologic off it is simple. Why does one do evil? One does evil because one wants to a pain something. I mean, you do evil from some motivation. I mean, you can do evil out of ignorance support, but that's not deliberate evil. Okay, so conscious evil. The perpetration of conscious cruelty is in order to get something. As we say in modern fight, what is the pale right way? Have to find out what is the payoff. So, I mean, a thief steals because he wants the material things. And a person murders another person because that other person is somehow interfering with that person's desire to get something he wants. Maybe fame or the other guy's wife or whatever. Okay, so we perpetrate acts of evil for a reason. But the religious fanatic perpetrates active evil for the reason that he is convinced that God wants him to do this, and therefore nothing will stop a religious fanatic. Another word. If which would you rather deal with the godfather of the Mafia. Yeah, a radical Muslim fanatic. Okay. I mean, the Godfather, the Mafia, all he wants is your money. As soon as he gets out of you what he wants, he doesn't care about you. You know, the fact that he doesn't care anything about you is a blessing, right? Because he's purely selfish. I mean, we can say he's purely egotistical. He's purely South, is so that means that he's not concerned with your needs. All he's concerned with his need. But once he satisfies his needs, then he doesn't care. You can go on your way a soon as he's gotten your your money or whatever you want to get out of you. But the religious fanatic, Thanks. You're an infidel and a black femur, and he's not going to just let you alone. He thinks it's his job to go. Either convert. You are killed you and nothing is going to stop it. So religious fanaticism, as Baha'i says explicitly, is the greatest evil because it is the negation of the greatest good. So this, incidentally, is the logical explanation for the argument that skeptic give us when they say, How can religion be the source of good as you say. Look at history. Look at all that you done in the name of religion that has even been called by religion and usually result of mumbles something and say, Well, that's not the will have gotten So it's on. Which is true, of course, but the point is that these great evils have been done in the name of religion precisely because religion is such a source of good and you have to see the whole thing. You have to see the fact that all progress has come from religion as well. So yes, cruelties have been done in the name of religion because religion has been misused by man, but only because religion is such a source of good. The same principle then applies to marriage. So let me quote Hatcher, something I can't throw. But how long? This There's nothing better than a good marriage. And there's nothing worse than a bed. Okay, there's nothing worked better than a good marriage. There's nothing worse than a bit, Okay, but Baha'i recognizes this right because he allows the law door. If that wasn't true, Then Bala said, any marriage is better than no marriage, right the law that would deny divorce right? They would say, Under no circumstances can you divorce. That would express the principal what that would express the principal, that any marriage it's better than no marriage with Baha'i didn't say that we allow the law divorce and what is the conditions of divorce when there is hatred, when there is antipathy between departments? In other words, when love is absent, this unity cannot be maintained and therefore just the justice that is the formality of the relationship. Without the component of genuine love become a negative thing and therefore it is morally better, too. Divorce under those circumstances. Now, we should make every legitimate effort every effort to reestablish love, which we do by reestablishing justice in the relationship. So it's really not possible, of course, that a relationship could have justice without having love. If love goes out of the relationship, it is because Justin has gone out of religion. So all of the love of the home, all of the principals in the ghetto hobby Aqdas are based on this polarity off love and justice, love and justice are Polaris. Unity is the creative marriage of loving now in the marriage relationship. According to the Kitab-i-Aqdas, the marriage relationship is founded on two pole to support, and this is equality or reciprocity. Justin and absolute Fidelity. What is fidelity? It is an expression of love. Full. These are the two fundament off the marriage relationship. Fidelity, um, equality, love and justice. If these two things exist in the marriage relationship, then the relationship will grow and be healthy and produce ever greater unity. To a degree, that injustice creeps into the relationship. Love will be vitiated and antipathies will be generated. But if this is recognized too soon enough, this process can be reversed. It can even be reversed at very advanced stages. But there can be stages beyond which it is simply impossible to reverse the process. And more especially, this is the case when one of the parties is left willing than the other two put the effort into doing. In other words, you can only take responsibility for yourself. You may be willing to put the necessary effort to restore the justice in the relationship, but if your partner isn't well, that's between him or her and God, right? In other words, you're not responsible that you can't take that on. It's not up to you to take that on so Abdu'l-Baha that to be the calls of a divorce will bring great depression and unhappiness to a person. But we must be careful. We must be clear and our own conscience between us and God, that we are not the cause of the divorce. But there may be a case where we have to divorce that were involved in the divorce. But it's between us and God to determine that we are not the cause of the divorce. And as I say in particular, if we are sincerely willing to put the necessary effort into reestablishing justice in the relationship and our partner isn't and ultimately that's the situation, Then there is divorce, and it's not our fault. I mean, it's unhappy still, but we should not feel guilty for that because divorce is along that Baha'i, given if he had given the law divorce. That means that in some instances, divorce is morally superior. It is better than to maintain the formalities off a destructive marriage. So I hope you understand me. Don't quote me and think that I'm encouraging divorce and so on. and so on. But I'm simply saying that this is the logic of the law of marriage and divorced. It is in the Kitab-i-Aqdas. Okay, Yes. You have a question, Tubby. Magyar. That's my okay. No, let me say I just wanted to things. And then I am going to stop to give us time to discuss another way of saying we could say Why this polarity? Why this extreme polarity between male and female? Another is one could, as we say, every individual has its strong and weak weak point. Why not have a sexual society another? Why have these extremes? Why have a polarity such a sexual polarity? Well, let's observe that human relationships generally are off to kind. One are the universal Liza ble. Relationships with the general Liable relationship and the other are the non repeatable are singular relationship. Let me explain what I mean. A universal or generalize herbal relationship is a relationship which can exist between any two human beings. The prototypical example is friendship, right? It is possible for any two human beings on the face of the earth to be friends. Now they may not be friends. They may even be enemies and but it is possible, it is conceivable that any two people on earth could be friends, right? So friendship is a universal relationship, potentially universal, if you will. That's why I say generalize herbal relationship. I don't mean universal in the sense that everybody is friends, but it is generalize, herbal. And of course, that's the very purpose of the Baha'i. Faith is to create those conditions. That is the conditions of unity, justice and love, which means that ultimate being in the ideal configuration, any two people in the world who meet will be genuine friends. This is why the behind there called the friend off God. We speak of the behind that the friends. In other words, let's look at another way. What is the impediment to you and I being friends? Okay, what is the impediment to you and I being? Well, the first impediment is cultural different, right, that we simply were so different culturally, that we just can't understand each other. In other words, you act in a certain way and I interpret your behavior in terms of my culture. You interpret my baby in terms of your culture, and these cultures were so different. Okay, these are so different that you're constantly misinterpreting me. I'm constantly misinterpreting you. This interferes so much in the communication that we simply can't establish a relationship of mutual trust. So that's essentially ignorance, if you will. Ignorant is a barrier. Another barrier is conflict of interest, right? We both want the same thing and we both can't have the same thing. And so we have conflicting interests. So each of us is egotistical to a degree. That means that we put our self interest in wanting this thing above the interests of the other person. And therefore we don't establish relationship or friendship. So you can see I don't have to spell it out, that the laws and principles of the faith and love that come to us through Baha'i Allah, if precisely designed to defeat these impediments to true friendship. So when we implement these universal values, these trans cultural values, then it doesn't matter how many cultural differences there are. We will relate to each other on the basis of the universal values. And even if there are misunderstandings, even if there are cultural differences, we will be able to transcend those because we will know that the other person is sincere and that we relating on the universal that. So I have no doubt. I have absolutely no doubt that I have offended culturally many of my Russian friend without knowing it. Now I try as best as I can, to learn about Russian culture to be sensitive to things, uh, that are rushing. But I have no doubt that I've offended my Russian friend. But I feel genuine love from my Russian friend, and I know that they forgive me for whatever way I have offended them because they know I'm sincere. I know they're so we relate on the basis off the universal values that Baha'i Allah has given us, and not on the basis of either my cultural values of their culture. They show respect for my cultural values, even though they may not necessarily share them. I shall respect for their cultural values, though I don't necessarily share them, and I don't adopt all of their cultural ways, but that's not an impediment to the law. Hey, so this is the miracle of Baha'i. It's not that he faces cultural difference. It's that he give us the tools to time sin cultural differences so that even when they exist, they no longer become barriers to true love and friendship. So friendship is a universal relationship. But there are non repeatable, singular relationship, the prototypical example of motherhood. Throughout all eternity, you will have only had one mother, right? So whatever mother you had that the mother you will always have had, You will never have another mother for good or bad that the mother you have So your relationship with your mother or your non relationship with your mother. If that's the case, happily the case. Okay, whatever it is, that is a unique relationship that is non repeatable. You can't have that relationship with anybody else because nobody else carried you in their womb. Nobody else nursed you when you were a helpless infant. Nobody else did. And so on and so on. You see, So the history of that relationship between the child and the mother is a unique history. Your feet friendship is the history off is the product of universal history of the history of the human race, the unity of man kind of the products of the history of mankind. But the unity of husband and wife is the product of a particular history. It is not the product of universal history. So the relationships within the family, parent to child, husband to a wife or unique non repeating of our relationship. Now you will say, Well, of course, you could have several marriage partners in your lifetime and so on. That's true, but the point is, you see, is that this is not a general liable relationship. You may, in fact, have several singular relationships with several different marriage partners. Okay, if they die or you have a divorce and remarry. But that doesn't change the fact that marriage, in its essence, is a non repeatable relationship. It is an intimate relationship now. Why has God ordained these two types of relationships the universal or generalize herbal and the particular or intimate relations? Because these two types of relationships are necessary for certain kinds of growth and others, if we remember that the purpose of our existence is growth, it is autonomy and well being, which is just to say that we grow in happiness, we grow and well being. This is the purpose of our existence and all of the law's the law of cause. Ality itself is designed to enable us to achieve our autonomy. Um, our well being. And remember, Baha'i says that every atom in existence has been ordained for our training. So these two types of relationships, the universal in the particular have been ordained four, enabling us to develop certain times off capacity, developing certain. So the marriage relationship is like a mirror of our most intimate self. In other words, certain aspect of our character are revealed in the Mary, the infamous a few of the marriage relationship that simply aren't revealed in any other context. In other words, it's quite conceivable that I could be a very loving person in a friend, everybody, a genuine friend to everybody, um, be a disastrous marriage partner and other. This is the kind of person that you see who has a good public personality, Okay, and you know, then you find out that this guy who's a successful businessman and who's everybody's friend and his generous and everybody loves him, and it turned out he'd been abusing his kids or beating his wife. And you say, How could this man, I've been with this man for 30 years? I worked with him every day talking this man, be this monster will. He's this monster because he's developed a public personality, but he has not developed these other capacities for intimate. So in a word, the marriage relationship is ordained to develop our capacity for intimacy. And remember that our relationship with God is the most intimate relationship. Because it is this prayer, this inter feeling the mystic feeling with you nine man with God. So our relationship with God is the most intimate relationship we have, and the next most intimate relationship is the marriage relationship. So general relationship develop our capacity for certain kinds of social spirituals, psychological skills and the marriage relationships and our other intimate relationships such his parent child brother, sister, uh, and so on develop our capacities in other ways in certain intimate way. For if a marriage is embarked upon with the following attitude, this marriage, if on opportunity for growth, from my growth and for my becoming an instrument for the growth of my partner, it is a creative relationship in which, as Abdu'l-Baha, each strives to improve the character of the other. Well, if we embarked on marriage with that commitment, then we have the proper expectations, namely that they're going to be things that we have to correct. The marriage relationship is going to reveal intimate aspects of ourselves. It's going to be a mirror of our most intimate bone, and when those faults are revealed to us, then we have to be prepared to recognize them in to deal with now if instead we embark on the marriage relationship were thing. The purpose of marriage is to satisfy my needs. There was this marriage is satisfactory. This relationship is so satisfactory but calls I satisfy her needs. And she cited five mining. It's mutual satisfaction of me. Well, that is part of it, that the complementarity of thing each has what the other last. So that is certainly part of it is this mutual satisfaction of need. And it is the justice in the relationship which guarantees that, in other words, the giving and leaving the back and forth, the reciprocity, the quality in the marriage relationship, the quality of man and woman in the relationship. I mean that it's gives priority to the needs of the other and therefore each seeks to satisfy the needs of the other But no matter how fat is factored, the relationship is in the beginning The very fact that life means growth. What does that mean? That life means growth. Growth means change. And what does it mean to change? It means that what your needs were at one time or not gonna be your needs five or 10 years from now or maybe even tomorrow. Development? Sure, development. So the very fact, what does it mean to grow? It means to satisfy legitimately certain of your need so that you can forget about that and move on to higher need, right? In other words, I eat a meal. I'm hungry at you. The meal. I'm satisfied. But then a few hours later, I'm going to be hungry again. So I eat in order to satisfy that need. But I satisfy that need so that I can then for the time being, forget about eating and satisfying physical needs and go do something else. Satisfied spiritually means by doing some useful work or whatever. So I satisfy a lower need in order to free me too developed higher development, right, but very good work. For certain reasons, I put it in terms of need, but development is just as good and in some ways better. So we developed. We grow, but we change. That's the point. We change well, that mean that if our expectations remain what they were in the beginning, then when these changes begin to occur, then we will perceive this change as threatening to a marriage. Really, it's not the same as it once was. Well, sure who, Ray, it's not the same is that one word is growing. But again, if people do not have expectations of this growth, then they're setting themselves up for unhappy. But when we intermarriage with the expectation of growth, not only the expectation but with the joyous anticipation, I mean, why not? It's fun. Okay, Another If I say okay, you know, isn't that wonderful that my wife 10 show me these faults that I had that I didn't even know and nobody else was willing to tell me about them, you know? And if I forget that I have them, she's going to remind you that I have and she's going to remind me every day that I had the phone. Well, you know, I can say, Well, this is nagging my wife doesn't make. Of course, I'm just using this human illustration. She doesn't at all. Uh, but in other words, I can take this behavior as a new irritation or I can take it as an opportunity for my growth. And so if we enter marriage with not only the expectation that growth is inevitable but with actually the positive, joyous anticipation that it is an arena off road, then we will experience these changes not as a threat and his irritation, but as a positive part. So, um, I think that's all I want to say until we have about 10 or 15 minutes who are 12 minutes. Whatever. Yeah, one are there many of the things I could say? But I say most of this is in the book, but onto it felt like, and the relationship between the child and father and modern. So it should be he cool, Or how does that work? I mean, do not equal this. I explain this in the booklet. Clearly, unity is justice in love. But what is justice depends on the nature of the relationship. The marriage relationship is a relationship between two mature adult, so it is a relationship between equal and therefore equality. Yeah, the expression of justice or reciprocity. I prefer more than equality. What equality is good as long as we don't understand it is identity, equality or reciprocity or complete mutuality if the expression of justice in the marriage relationship. But the relationship between parent and child is the relationship between unequal and therefore justice end. The relationship between the parent and child is not a relationship of mutuality. Now. What is the mutual relationship the mutual relationship has already said, is that there's an equal amount of giving and receiving on both parts. Okay. In other words, justice from the marriage relationship is that I give to you and you give to me in roughly equal measure. Now, it doesn't mean that we calculate the measures. Okay, that would be an absence of love. It means that I give to you as much as I can. I give constant priority to your needs. But you do the same to me, you know, so I cannot give priority to your need for you. Okay. So justice in the marriage relationship is this reciprocity in which there is an equal measure of giving and receiving, but not because it's calculated, not manipulation. Not that I give in order to receive okay, but that I spontaneously give to you and you spontaneously give to me. And because we love each other, this dynamic goes back and forth because love calls forth love. The more I give prior to your need, the more you're going to feel like giving priority to mining. But the relationship between parent child is not a relationship between. Therefore, the Kitab-i-Aqdas prescribed the parameters off the relationship between parent and child. What is the relationship? There is also a relationship of giving and receiving, but it is not an equal measure. The relationship between parent and child is an asymmetric relationship, but called the child is weak and vulnerable, and the parent is strong in Compton. Therefore, it is the parent who must give to the child and the child. The parent does most of the giving and the child of most of the receiving. And what is it that the parent gives to the child spiritual education? This is what's in the book that we read that yesterday, so I won't even go over it again. Everything's on its ready And my head is also the purpose of marriage. The funder involve Adam also body when he did right that the purpose of marriage is that they will come forth. He who will remember me, in other words, the spiritual education of the children. And we know the strong statements in the Kitab-i-Aqdas that our father, who does not educate his children, can lose his right of fatherhood. Okay, it could be divested of his rights of fatherhood. So this is a sacred obligation. So the parents and the mother is the first educator. So of course, if the mother were to be their elected her duty This is even spiritually Maur grave because the damage will be even worse if the mother rejects the child or whatever. But Marley, the responsibility is equally on both parents. Another. The roles are different, but the moral responsibility is the same. So justice in the relationship between the parents and the child is that the parents give spiritual education, which means love through the child. And the child received this education. But the child does have an obligation in return. What is it? Obedient and gratitude? No. The nature of the parent child relationship that is preferable for the child to be sufficiently grateful to his parents. Why? Because the child it is not reasonable for the child to understand the degree of sacrifice that is involved in what his parents, he can't. I mean, he is. He is a child. He is limited in his understanding, he can't possibly know. I remember my eldest daughter when C when she grew up in had children. She now has two of her own. Uh, she said, You know, said, I'm astonished that always I realize now how I took for granted All these things you did said I thought, she said, I felt that you didn't have anything else to worry about me. He said, You know, I knew that Dad worked at the university. I knew that Mom was a translator and so on. I knew this but said, I never thought that you have thought about anything else, but with I never It never occurred to me that you had any other concern, but I will. I'm astonished to realize that while you were doing, you were doing all these other things, you know? So a child panel, I mean it's the nature of childhood cannot be sufficiently grateful for the fact you can't, and it is unreasonable that we should expect that. And if we expect that the child is sufficiently grateful, we're setting ourselves up for disappointment. This is attachment. This is attachment. If we do that, we have to do it for God, not for the approval of the child. If we do the sacrifices and our reward is the approval of the tile, if we give the approval fine. I mean, that's wonderful. It's a bounty. But we have to do it for Baha'i because on Lee Baha'i, Allah knows the sacrifices we go. We can't expect the child is going, however, Baha'i Allah has ordained nonetheless, that the child must give forth gracious behavior. He must at least act as if he is grateful, because this action, as if he is grateful, will create in the child the true gratitude when he is an adult. And this acting as if you're grateful, is obedient the tom of obey their parents. Because so this is justice in the relationship between parent and child. So know the relationship between parents is not a relationship between equals. The family is not a democracy. All right. Um um So you have to look in every area of life you have to say The following thing. The purpose of the behind faith is unity, unity, the implementation of justice in love. And then you have to see in any given context what is justice and what does justice tell you? What is the most appropriate expression of love? Okay, another love between husband and why is expressed by this complete reciprocity. But love between the parent and child is not expressed by complete reciprocity. It is expressed by the parents giving the child a spiritual education which includes love. Okay, this doesn't mean authoritarian parenting. Okay, Um, the child has the obligation to be Oh Vidia. That's an expression of love. Off gratitude of the child toward the parents. So justice we looked at the Kitab-i-Aqdas. The Kitab-i-Aqdas describes what is justice in the given contact and justice guides us to the appropriate expression of love. So the parent who indulges his child, who treats his child is an equal. This is not inappropriate expression of love and it is destructive. And it leads to the destruction off the spiritual integrity of the child. Permissive child raising is the most destructive form of child raising. It is even more instructor destructive than authoritarianism. Not that that's an argument for authoritarianism. Fault. Let me leave you with the last Hatcher aphorism with Ah, the only way to do it right is to do it right. In other words, you can't do it right by doing it wrong. Another way, you don't correct authoritarian parenting, which is wrong by over permissive parenting, which is equally wrong. You're simply fall from one form of destruction to another form of so you can't do it right by doing it wrong. Another way, you can only do it right by doing it right Motive.