Talk given in 2003 - lightly edited.
- From: "Kent Johnson" <kent@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 29 Mar 2006 08:51:43 CST
THE POWER OF GOD:
There are five kinds of spirit. Some Baha'is count six if we include
"mineral" as a spirit. The essential reality of the mineral is existence, so
quite often existence itself is not counted as a spirit. Existence might be
considered essential to the discussion itself, so, without the existence of
existence there would be no discussion.
So for this discussion I count five kinds of spirit and they are
progressive, each carrying the capabilities of the lesser spirits. The first
spirit is the vegetable, of which the essence is growth. The animal spirit
contains and utilizes the essence of the vegetable spirit, growth, but adds
the powers and capabilities of the senses (of which there are also five).
The fourth kind of spirit is the human spirit, and that is exemplified with
the mind.
There are five intellectual powers that I will be glad to explain and
discuss in detail at another time, but I'll just list them for you now. They
are imagination, thought, comprehension, memory, and the intermediary power
or common faculty that allows us to take the other faculties, the senses or
intellect, and translate or transform and communicate among and between all
our intellectual powers.
The fifth kind of spirit is the Holy Spirit or the Divine. Baha'is believe
we can only know this power through the Manifestation of God on earth. As
such, the Divine Will defines our existence. And it is through this Divine
Power that prayer works.
The Divine Power or Holy Spirit works through the human intellect and the
human spirit. We cannot know the power of prayer without our intellect,
without understanding, without seeing what that "power" is and how it
affects our lives.
The Power of Prayer is not a natural power like gravity or inertia, but an
intellectual power, a spiritual, or non-physical thing, like a new
understanding, a new joy or happiness, a token of grace, a coincidence or
perfectly understandable but unexpected and appropriate event.
THEOLOGY OF PRAYER:
Much of our theology comes to me through the Baha'i prayers themselves. The
Table of Ahmad seems to me to be defining a spiritual realm in which all
prayers are answered " ... the Nightingale of Paradise singeth upon the
twigs of the Tree of Eternity .... proclaiming to the sincere ones the glad
tidings of the nearness of God, calling the believers in the Divine Unity to
the court of the Presence of the Generous One, informing the severed ones of
the message which hath been revealed by God ... guiding the lovers to the
seat of sanctity and to this resplendent Beauty. Verily THIS is that Most
Great Beauty... (Compilations, Baha'i Prayers, p. 206, ellipsis and
emphasis mine)
Also, "Through Whom the letters B and E have been joined and knit
together..."
And " Through Thy command BE and it is..."
I believe that which the Voice of God is referring to, the "this" and the
command to "be" is a reference to the human understanding of existence, of
spirituality, a conceptual existence God draws us to with His Creative Word.
The very existence of the universe is an understanding, an intellectual
occurrence. Without our words and thoughts the existence of everything is
irrelevant.
Through my understanding of the "pre-existent" in the writings of
Abdu'l-Baha, most notably in His "Some Answered Questions" I have come to an
understanding of this esoteric and unconventional understanding of the
physical universe The rules, principles and laws which guide existence,
which define existence do not exist materially. Although we can predict the
behavior of matter we cannot base that prediction on any material thing,
only on our thoughts, our intellect. The order which exists in the universe
is, therefore, not material.
I don't debate whether or not the laws came into existence before, during,
or after the existence of matter, but for the religious usage of the
expression, I call these laws :"pre-existent".
Every letter of every word represents and idea, not a thing itself. Our
words represent ideas. Names can represent things themselves, but still with
a name there are some "ideal" (as in coming from an idea) implications.
There are very few human experiences which do not involve our words, names,
and ideas. So, we already live in a non-physical world.
The trick is, therefore, to live in a spiritual world. As Baha'is, it is our
contention, or Faith, that when we turn our intellectual faculties, our
Spirit, toward the higher things, toward the divine, and not toward the
lower things, the animal comforts, we are progressing toward God, toward His
Will. We are living our ideal, we are answering our prayers.
There is a very strong Baha'i notion that we fulfill each other's prayers,
or the prayers of everyone. We believe it is our place to answer Christ's
prayer to "make earth as it is in heaven. We say "many are called, but YOU
are chosen". And through the power of God's Will we believe we will succeed
much more quickly than even I suspect.
A very prominent early Baha'i wrote: ". prayer seems too feeble a force to
produce the great results often claimed to it. Analogy may serve to clear up
this difficulty also. A small force, when applied to the sluice gate of a
reservoir, may release and regulate an enormous flow of water-power, or,
when applied to the steering gear of an ocean liner, may control the course
of the huge vessel. In the Bahá'í view, the power that brings about answers
to prayer is the inexhaustible Power of God. The part of the suppliant is
only to exert the feeble force necessary to release the flow or determine
the course of the Divine Bounty, which is ever ready to serve those who have
learned how to draw upon it." - Esslemont, Baha'u'llah and the New Era
I see prayer as the clarification or framing of the event, the essence of an
event. It's addition to an experience clarifies that experience, brings it
into a higher perspective, makes the event or experience a wholly new thing,
most often with new outcomes.
As God is at least as far removed from us as we are removed from existence
alone (at least as different from us as we are from rocks) our intellect is
just barely capable of understanding and viewing a situation from an
unbiased viewpoint. In fact we are only theoretically capable of being
unbiased. But sincere and devotional and active prayer is the only human act
which might make us more unbiased, more open, more willing and able to
understand God's universe and His Will.
--Kent Johnson
.
- Prev by Date: joyous singing of prayers in Haifa
- Next by Date: joyous singing of prayers in Haifa
- Previous by thread: Tests
- Next by thread: Peace through Tourism
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
