Strategic Bridges
Strategic
Questions
Strategic
Answers
Why Did the Creator Think
Physical Reality a Good Idea?
1977
1987
The Divine Law of
Detachment
60
Spiritual Development
50
Physical Development
40
30
20
10
0
Dandelion Effect
Borrowed Time
70
1994
2005
Unveiling
the
Houri
of
Love
What is a Houri?
How many the húrís of inner meaning that
are as yet concealed within the chambers of
divine wisdom! None hath yet approached
them; - húrís, "whom no man nor spirit hath
touched before."
Bahá'u'lláh
Hadíth of the Hidden Treasure
I was a Hidden Treasure.
I wished to be made known,
and thus I called creation into being
in order that I might be known.
O SON OF MAN! I loved thy creation, hence
I created Thee. Wherefore, do thou love
Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy
soul with the spirit of life.
Bahá’u’lláh
O SON OF MAN! Veiled in My immemorial
being and in the ancient eternity of My
essence, I knew My love for thee;
therefore I created thee, have engraved on
thee Mine image and revealed to thee My
beauty.
Bahá’u’lláh
Love is the cause of God's revelation unto
man, the vital bond inherent, in
accordance with the divine creation, in the
realities of things.
`Abdu'l-Bahá
Thesis and Challenge
Science possesses (or thinks it possesses) very exact
knowledge about very discrete portions of reality (which it
thus studies as a modular system)
Philosophy and religion possess (or think they possess)
very inexact knowledge about the entirety of reality (which
they study as a holographic system).
 Stated even more succinctly, science offers a bottom
up view of reality, while philosophy and religion offer a
top-down view.
My objective is to offer a synthesized or integrative view
to these ostensibly opposing but potentially
complementary approaches to reality.
Let’s see how
smart you are
without your
head!
Napoleon
versus
vs.
LaPlace
You silly
emperor-type
person!
I can unleash
your inner power!
Tony Robbins
versus
vs
Frank Wilczek
I can split
a Quark!
How God Can Be Known and
Loved in One Easy Step
Kun fa yakúnu!
“Be and it is!"
It Could Happen!
Within the treasury of Our Wisdom there lieth unrevealed a
knowledge, one word of which, if we chose to divulge it to
mankind, would cause every human being to recognize the
Manifestation of God and to acknowledge His omniscience,
would enable every one to discover the secrets of all the
sciences, and to attain so high a station as to find himself
wholly independent of all past and future learning.
Bahá'u'lláh
Shazam!
It’s a Dyson!
A single event that
occurred 6,000 years ago
Thanks!
I needed that!
A single event that
occurred 16,000,000000
years ago
The Not-so-big Bang
Fearing Infinity
Embracing Infinity
The
Nature of
Love
It’s the Law!
 Love is the most great law that ruleth
this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique
power that bindeth together the divers
elements of this material world, the
supreme magnetic force that directeth the
movements of the spheres in the celestial
realms.
`Abdu'l-Bahá
the contemporary
concept of love as an
affliction derived from
an acutely neurotic
social history
the Escalade of Love
We done been hit
by the Escalade of Love!
the New and Improved
Escalade of Love
The myth of falling in love operates wherever
passion is dreamed of as an ideal instead of being
feared like a malignant fever; imagined as a
magnificent and desirable disaster instead of as
simply a disaster. It lives upon the lives of people
who think that love is their fate (and as unavoidable
as the effect of the love-potion in the Romance);
that it swoops upon powerless and ravished men
and women in order to consume them in a pure
flame; or that it is stronger and more real than
happiness, society, or morality.
Denis DeRougement
Obstacle is Everything
1. Western Romantic Concept of Love
with Happy Ending Syndrome
He arrives just in time!
She is about to wed another
They are wed!
Both suffer Malady of Love
He must Prove Himself
End of Story
Love at First Sight
“It just can’t get any better than this!”
2. Cyclical Seinfeld
Syndrome
“Because it just can’t get any better than this!”
“I am going to do it again!”
“And again!”
“And again!”
“And again!”
“And again!”
“And again!”
“And I really don’t feel well. . . .”
3. Western Romantic Concept
of Love With Tragic Ending
Romeo and Juliet
Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight! For
I ne’er saw true beauty till this night”
O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?
Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day! It was
the nightingale, and not the lark!
O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick.
O happy dagger! This is thy sheath.
According to ‘Abdu’l-Bahá
none of these three paradigms
(events) is authentic love!
The love which sometimes exists between
friends is not (true) love, because it is subject to
transmutation; this is merely fascination. As the
breeze blows, the slender trees yield. If the wind
is in the East the tree leans to the West, and if the
wind turns to the West the tree leans to the East.
This kind of love is originated by the accidental
conditions of life. This is not love, it is merely
acquaintanceship; it is subject to change.
Today you will see two souls apparently in
close friendship; tomorrow all this may be
changed. Yesterday they were ready to die for
one another, today they shun one another's
society! This is not love; it is the yielding of the
hearts to the accidents of life. When that which
has caused this `love' to exist passes, the love
passes also; this is not in reality love.
Love as Process
1. Time or Gradualness
2. Organic Process (Stages)
Platonic Concept of Ladder of
Love
(from the “Symposium”
Ladder of Love
Christian and Islamic Mysticism
Love of the Beloved
(love as process of ascent)
Mystical Path of Love
Love as Process
1.
Search for Beloved
2.
Infatuation with Beloved
3.
Study the Beloved
4.
Understanding of Beloved
5.
Union with Beloved
6.
Love the characteristics of Beloved in others
7.
Love others for themselves
8.
Union with others
9.
Love of the Ultimate Source of all attributes
10. Loss of self in the Beloved (Faná)
5.9 Billion Year Annual Report On Planetary
Progress Towards Establishing Authentic
Collective Love Relationship with God
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Geo-Physical evolution 
Mineral Evolution 
Plant Evolution 
Animal Evolution 
Human Physical Evolution 
Human Intellectual Evolution 
Human Spiritual Evolution ?
• In progress 
• Awaiting fruition of Lesser peace 
• Institute process seems to be working 
Attraction
Why We Want to Know about
Reality
Science is the first emanation from God toward
man. All created beings embody the potentiality of
material perfection, but the power of intellectual
investigation and scientific acquisition is a higher
virtue specialized to man alone. Other beings and
organisms are deprived of this potentiality and
attainment. God has created or deposited this love
of reality in man.”
'Abdu'l-Bahá
What Studying Reality Teaches Us
All things, in their inmost reality, testify to the
revelation of the names and attributes of God
within them. Each according to its capacity,
indicateth, and is expressive of, the knowledge
of God. So potent and universal is this
revelation, that it hath encompassed all things
visible and invisible.
Bahá'u'lláh
Stage Two:
Understanding or Knowledge
The Necessity of Progressing to
Understanding Attraction
And if, confirmed by the Creator, the lover escapes
from the claws of the eagle of love, he will enter the
Valley of Knowledge and come out of doubt into
certitude, and turn from the darkness of illusion to the
guiding light of the fear of God. His inner eyes will
open and he will privily converse with his Beloved; he
will set ajar the gate of truth and piety, and shut the
doors of vain imaginings.
Free Will in Relation to
Understanding and Process
John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet XIV”
Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Dear God,
Thanks a lot for all the Free Will -I tried it out this morning and got the house
really clean for the first time!
But in all candor, I would really rather that
You just take care of things Yourself.
Sincerely,
John Donne
Dear John,
Love Me, that I may love thee.
If thou lovest Me not,
My love can in no wise reach thee.
Know this, O servant.
Love and Forgiveness
God
The Illusion of Free Will
by
Daniel Wegner*
*(and
anybody else with an authorship emotion)
The Wegner Profitability
Investment Strategy
by
John S. Hatcher*
*(and
anybody else who read Wegner’s book)
We are Accountable for the Recognition
of God
It follows, therefore, that every man hath
been, and will continue to be, able of himself to
appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified.
Had he not been endowed with such a
capacity, how could he be called to account for
his failure?
Guidance in Relation to
Love as a Process
The Process for Bringing about
Guidance in our Love of God
Gap
How do we bridge that Gap?
Kun fa yakúnu
("be and it is").
How the Will (Be!) is joined and knit together (bridged)
with the process of becoming (It is!)
by means of a transparent intermediary
Divine Will or Wish to be known
Translation of Wish into
command, guidance and example
Ever-advancing Civilizatrion
Top-Down View of Guidance Process
Realm of the Spirit
The Báb
Intermediary
Realm of Physical Reality
Bahá’u’lláh
Physical Creation in
Subordinate Relationship
Know thou that the Kingdom is the real world,
and this nether place is only its shadow
stretching out. A shadow hath no life of its own;
its existence is only a fantasy, and nothing more;
it is but images reflected in water, and seeming
as pictures to the eye.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá
Physical Creation in
Counterpart Relationship
The spiritual world is like unto the phenomenal
world. They are the exact counterpart of each
other. Whatever objects appear in this world of
existence are the outer pictures of the world of
heaven.
`Abdu'l-Bahá
Counterpart Relationship in Terms of
How Souls are Temporarily Veiled
from Reality *
*(unless you get hit really hard on the head by a blunt object,
like Wegner’s book)
Physical Reality as
Spiritual
Reality
Counterpart or Visible
Aspect
Spiritual
(Realm
of of
Vision)
Reality
Spiritual Reality
(Realm of Vision)
Three Stages of Assistance
•Before incarnation
•Appearance in human form
•After Ascent
Stage One:
Before incarnation
Pre-Existent
The Prophets, unlike us, are pre-existent. The
soul of Christ existed in the spiritual world
before His birth in this world. We cannot
imagine what that world is like, so words are
inadequate to picture His state of being.
Shoghi Effendi
Pre-Existent Knowledge
By the one true God! We read the Tablet ere it was
revealed, while ye were unaware, and We had
perfect knowledge of the Book when ye were yet
unborn. These words are to your measure, not to
God's. To this testifieth that which is enshrined
within His knowledge, if ye be of them that
comprehend; and to this the tongue of the
Almighty doth bear witness, if ye be of those who
understand. I swear by God, were We to lift the
veil, ye would be dumbfounded.
Bahá'u'lláh
Choosing Where to Become
Manifest
The primary reason why the Báb and Bahá'u'lláh
chose to appear in Persia, and to make it the first
repository of their Revelation, was because, of all
the peoples and nations of the civilized world, that
race and nation had, as so often depicted by
Abdu'l-Bahá, sunk to such ignominious depths,
and manifested so great a perversity, as to find no
parallel among its contemporaries.
Shoghi Effendi
Choosing the Persona through
Which to Become Manifest
The dissolution of the tabernacle wherein the soul
of the Manifestation of God had chosen
temporarily to abide signalized its release from
the restrictions which an earthly life had, of
necessity, imposed upon it.
Shoghi Effendi
Stage Two:
During Incarnation
Manifestations Become Incarnate
When Humans Mature Physically
Though we cannot imagine exactly what the
Manifestations of the remote past were like, we
can be sure of two things: They must have been
able to reach their fellow-men in a normal
manner - as Bahá'u'lláh reached His generation,
and They were sent from God and thus Divine
Beings.
Shoghi Effendi
Aware of Station From Beginning
Verily, from the beginning that Holy Reality is
conscious of the secret of existence, and from
the age of childhood signs of greatness appear
and are visible in Him. Therefore, how can it be
that with all these bounties and perfections He
should have no consciousness?
`Abdu'l-Bahá
They are Exemplars of Their Own
Teaching
He Who is everlastingly hidden from the eyes of
men can never be known except through His
Manifestation, and His Manifestation can adduce
no greater proof of the truth of His Mission than
the proof of His own Person.
Bahá'u'lláh
One Explanation of Their
Omniscience
Since the Sanctified Realities, the supreme
Manifestations of God, surround the essence
and qualities of the creatures, transcend and
contain existing realities and understand all
things, therefore, Their knowledge is divine
knowledge, and not acquired - that is to say, it is
a holy bounty; it is a divine revelation.
`Abdu'l-Bahá
They are Omnipotent at Will
He Who is the Dawning-place of God's
Cause hath no partner in the Most Great
Infallibility. He it is Who, in the kingdom of
creation, is the Manifestation of "He doeth
whatsoever He willeth".
Baha’u’llah
Creativity of the Prophet
Not ours, the living witnesses of the all-subduing
potency of His Faith, to question, for a moment, and
however dark the misery that enshrouds the world,
the ability of Bahá'u'lláh to forge, with the hammer of
His Will, and through the fire of tribulation, upon the
anvil of this travailing age, and in the particular
shape His mind has envisioned, these scattered and
mutually destructive fragments into which a perverse
world has fallen, into one single unit, solid and
indivisible, able to execute His design for the
children of men.
Shoghi Effendi
They are not Transformed into
Manifestations
Briefly, the Holy Manifestations have ever been,
and ever will be, Luminous Realities; no change
or variation takes place in Their essence.
Before declaring Their manifestation, They are
silent and quiet like a sleeper, and after Their
manifestation, They speak and are illuminated,
like one who is awake.
Abdu’l-Bahá
Spiritual Realm
Manifestation
as Mirror
Physical Realm
Transparency
Holy Spirit
Manifestation
Easily
Recognizable
Attributes
Prism Metaphor
Stage Three:
After Incarnation
Wisdom of the Third Condition
In My presence amongst you there is a wisdom,
and in My absence there is yet another, inscrutable
to all but God, the Incomparable, the All-Knowing.
Verily, We behold you from Our realm of glory, and
shall aid whosoever will arise for the triumph of Our
Cause with the hosts of the Concourse on high and
a company of Our favored angels.
Bahá'u'lláh
One Aspect of that Wisdom
The dissolution of the tabernacle wherein the soul of
the Manifestation of God had chosen temporarily to
abide signalized its release from the restrictions
which an earthly life had, of necessity, imposed upon
it. Its influence no longer circumscribed by any
physical limitations, its radiance no longer
beclouded by its human temple, that soul could
henceforth energize the whole world to a degree
unapproached at any stage in the course of its
existence on this planet.
Shoghi Effendi
Attaining the “Presence of God”
is not a literal event
The knowledge of Him, Who is the Origin of all things,
and attainment unto Him, are impossible save through
knowledge of, and attainment unto, these luminous
Beings who proceed from the Sun of Truth. By
attaining, therefore, to the presence of these holy
Luminaries, the "Presence of God" Himself is attained.
From their knowledge, the knowledge of God is
revealed, and from the light of their countenance, the
splendour of the Face of God is made manifest.
Bahá’u’lláh
Intermediary Relationship
Persists in Afterlife
We will have experience of God’s spirit through
His Prophets in the next world, but God is too
great for us to know without this Intermediary.
The Prophets know God, but how is more than
our human minds can grasp.
Shoghi Effendi
The Bridge of Causality for a Love
Relationship with God at Macrocosmic Level
1.
from the Unknowable Essence of God emanates
2.
the Primal Wish or Will of God by Means of
3.
the Holy Spirit that conveys this wish to
4.
the Pre-Existent Manifestation Who determines to
5.
assume the guise of a human persona that He might
6.
exemplify godliness in His person and actions and
7.
provide laws and guidance for our creative action
8.
so we can progress in our love relationship with God
The Bridge of Causality for a Love
Relationship with God at the personal,
local or Microcosmic Level
Three Stages of
Consciousness of Self
•Pre-natal confines of womb
•Associational constraints
•Post-associational clarity
Stage One:
Before incarnation
While newborns do not smile until 4-6 weeks after
birth, babies in the uterus do, perhaps because the
uterus is warm, comfortable, and shielded from loud
noise and bright light and SUV’s.
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.”
Three pounds of electrified meat
or the repository of the
consciousness mind?
Brain
One hundred and fifty billion storage
units of memory and self, or electrical
circuitry for an intermediary between the
soul and reality?
Neuron
Manifestations are sole means by
which we can learn about reality!
The source of all learning is the knowledge
of God, exalted be His Glory, and this
cannot be attained save through the
knowledge of His Divine Manifestation.
Bahá'u'lláh
Stage Two:
During Incarnation
The Reality and Realm of the Soul
Rational Faculty
Human Physical Activity
The Reality and Realm of the Soul
Transparency
Human Physical Activity
Healthy brain as transparent
intermediary between soul and
physical reality
Brain
What mind intends
(transceiver)
What body expresses
The Reality and Realm of the Soul
I don’t feel like
myself today
Human Physical Activity
Dysfunctional Brain:
Reality of soul is distorted or
concealed from others
Brain
Intention
broken
transceiver
Result
Dysfunctional Brain:
Though
to delusional
everyone else!
Realityobvious
of soul is
and
distorted or concealed from self
Brain
Intention
chemical
imbalance
Result
indirect methodology for acquiring information
periscopic relationship with reality
(during our associative relationship)
Physical
Reality
SOUL
Brain as Intermediary
or Transceiver
The Mind
Homemade Periscope (milk carton and
(Conscious Self)
orange juice carton and tape)
our direct methodology for acquiring information
(still with associative relationship)
SOUL
The Mind
(Conscious Self)
Realm
of the
Spirit
Brain as
Intermediary
This very process is happening
bi-directionally at this moment
between you and me!
image of Self with healthy brain in a
healthy Body
Condition and Powers
of Soul
healthy brain in a
healthy body
(mens sana in
corpore sano) =
Transparency!
Conscious Sense of Self
Appearance of Powers to Others
reason, will, self consciousness,
ideation, memory, emotion, actions
Confused Image of Self with Unhealthy or
Injured brain and Body
Condition and Powers
of Soul
Dysfunctional
Brain as
Translator or
Intermediary
Conscious Sense of Self
Appearance of Powers to Others
reason, will, self consciousness,
ideation, memory, emotion, actions
Confused Image of Self with Unhealthy or
Injured brain and Body
Condition and Powers
of Soul
Dysfunctional
Brain as
Translator or
Intermediary
Stage Three:
After Incarnation
Image of Self in world of Vision
Condition and Powers
of Soul
healthy mind and
human powers
without need of
associational
relationship
Conscious Sense of Self
Relation and Powers with Other Souls
reason, will, self consciousness,
ideation, memory, emotion, actions
The Chain of Causality
(with additions)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
from the Unknowable Essence of God emanates
the Primal Wish or Will of God by Means of
the Holy Spirit that conveys this wish to
the Pre-Existent Manifestation Who determines to
assume the guise of a human persona that he might
exemplify godliness and provide creative action
which the human mind conveys to the
human soul through the intermediary of the
human brain so long as the human souls is in
an associative relationship with the human body
The houri of the veil
between our consciousness
and metaphysical reality
during our associational
period of existence
SON OF MY HANDMAID! Didst thou behold
immortal sovereignty, thou wouldst strive to pass
from this fleeting world. But to conceal the one
from thee and to reveal the other is a mystery
which none but the pure in heart can comprehend.
Bahá'u'lláh
Immortal Sovereignty
(the big bang from the
perspective of the Creator)
Mortal Sovereignty
(the post-associational life review)
The End