The Ontological Circle
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Original Message -----
From: Farzin Aghdasi Sent: Friday, October 04, 2002 10:41 PM Dear Munirih, Saiedi explains the 7 stages of creation in this way:
The Will as the active force, acts upon Determination as the recipient. This is
like "existance" acting upon the "essence" of something.
(Similar to when the form is imposed on a formless substance). Destiny
designates this interaction and unity. Decree confirms the interaction.
Permission for actualization is then issued. The duration of this created
thing is determined (Term) and the details of the particular being is
registered (Book). So the active force that affirms all the different stages of
creation is the Word of God. There are many statements in the Writings on this
subject, and they contain an inexhaustible source for inspiration and
contemplation. Warmest Bahai Love Farzin
You had asked about the Ontological Circle. The subject is inexhaustible and frankly
there is so much in it that I can not understand, but here is what I have
gathered so far from the Writings on this subject:
Ontology is the study of "being", Epistemology is the study of
"knowing". In Ontology the
question is what actually exists, meaning that it has an independent external
existence and is not imaginary or merely a construct of our minds. So for
example among the philosophers there are those who are materialists (they
believe that only physical matter exists and everything else is a figment of
our imagination), idealists (who believe that ideas exist in a more concrete
sense than do material objects which are viewed as only existing apparently,
having no substance), dualists (who say that both matter and spirit exist
independently) and monists (who say that both matter and spirit are aspects of
the same underlying reality). Most people from Abrahamic traditions
subscribe to dualism, while those from Eastern religions lean more towards
monism. As far as I know no one has done any serious analysis of the
Writings to produce a definite Baha'i position. My understanding is that the
Baha'i writings are unique and do not fit nicely into any of these old philosophical
categories. So it is best to describe the Baha'i view in its own term rather
than by comparison with the old world categories. This was a digression as I
only wanted to illustrate what ontology means.
Now, consider a circle. On the top put God, and at the bottom put the creation.
Divide the creation into 4 groups: Mineral kingdom, vegetable kingdom, animal
kingdom, and human kingdom. Consider the half circle on the right, lets call
this the arc of descent (coming down). And the half circle on the left is called
the arc of ascent (going up). As you go round the circle in a clock wise
fashion we can say that we come from God, and unto Him we return. The journey
from God to man on the right of the circle depicts the stages of creation, and
the journey from man back to God on the left side of the circle are the stages
of our spiritual maturation, our journey back to God, the 7 valleys.
This concept existed in many previous mystical and philosophical works. For instance
Plotinus, the Roman philosopher who lived 250 CE (Christian Era) and who is
considered the father of Neoplatonism in his book Enneads describes four stages
of emanation or creation: Absolute One, Intellect, Soul, and Matter. Humans are
said to be at the end of the fourth stage (Matter) but potentially contain all
the other stages. This scheme was a fairly simple one. Islamic thinkers
elaborated on this theme and distinguished 10 different types of intellect. So
the first thing to emanate from God is called the First Intellect (Aql-i-Awal)
and this is also called "The Light of Muhammad". Abd'ul-Baha
implicitly speaks of this concept of Plotinus in Some Answered Questions when
he says "Man is in the highest degree of materiality, and at the beginning
of spirituality--that is to say, he is the end of imperfection and the
beginning of perfection. He is at the last degree of darkness, and at the
beginning of light; that is why it has been said that the condition of man is
the end of the night and the beginning of day, meaning that he is the sum of
all the degrees of imperfection, and that he possesses the degrees of
perfection."
In Baha'i writings these concepts have been stated in several different ways.
For instance the arc of assent is sometimes 7 valleys, at other times it is 4
valleys, etc. So we must understand these terms to be relative in nature. In
one form of this explanation these are the seven stages of creation: Will
(Mashiyyat), Determination (Iradih), Destiny (Qadar), Decree (Qada), Permission
(Idhn), Term (Ajal), and Book (Kitab). There is an Islamic tradition attributed
to the sixth Imam that first mentions these seven stages.
The Writings of the Bab and Baha'u'llah throw a fresh light on these concepts.
In popular conception many Sufis have said that through purification man can
annihilate his self and effectively "become God". The most important
feature that separates Baha'i conception from typical Sufi or Neoplatonic ideas
is that the start of the arc of decent is the Will of God, and the ultimate
stage of the arc of ascent is unification with the Will of God. Because there
can not be any direct link between the Essence of God and His creation the
Primal Will of God becomes both the source and the ultimate goal of the
ontological circle. In the Iqan this Primal Will is the Manifestation of God.
The Primal Will is also referred to as the Command (amr) or the Word of God.
In the Sahifiy-i-Adliyyih (Book of Justice) the Bab explains that God
created the Will from nothing, and everything else is created through the
causation of this Will. The Will (the Manifestation) is therefore the
cause of all creation.