O thou distinguished personage, thou seeker after truth! Thy
letter of 4 April 1921, hath been read with love.
The existence of the Divine Being hath been clearly
established, on the basis of logical proofs, but the reality of the Godhead is
beyond the grasp of the mind. When thou dost carefully consider this matter,
thou wilt see that a lower plane can never comprehend a higher. The mineral
kingdom, for example, which is lower, is precluded from comprehending the
vegetable kingdom; for the mineral, any such understanding would be utterly
impossible. In the same way, no matter how far the vegetable kingdom may
develop, it will achieve no conception of the animal kingdom, and any such
comprehension at its level would be unthinkable, for the animal occupieth a
plane higher than that of the vegetable: this tree cannot conceive of hearing
and sight. And the animal kingdom, no matter how far it may evolve, can never
become aware of the reality of the intellect, which discovereth the inner essence
of all things, and comprehendeth those realities which cannot be seen; for the
human plane as compared with that of the animal is very high. And although
these beings all co-exist in the contingent world, in each case the difference
in their stations precludeth their grasp of the whole; for no lower degree can
understand a higher, such comprehension being impossible.
The higher plane, however, understandeth the lower. The
animal, for instance, comprehendeth the mineral and vegetable, the human understandeth
the planes of the animal, vegetable and mineral. But the mineral cannot
possibly understand the realms of man. And notwithstanding the fact that all
these entities co-exist in the phenomenal world, even so, no lower degree can
ever comprehend a higher.
Then how could it be possible for a contingent reality, that
is, man, to understand the nature of that pre-existent Essence, the Divine
Being? The difference in station between man and the Divine Reality is
thousands upon thousands of times greater than the difference between vegetable
and animal. And that which a human being would conjure up in his mind is but
the fanciful image of his human condition, it doth not encompass God’s reality
but rather is encompassed by it. That is, man graspeth his own illusory
conceptions, but the Reality of Divinity can never be grasped: It, Itself,
encompasseth all created things, and all created things are in Its grasp. That
Divinity which man doth imagine for himself existeth only in his mind, not in
truth. Man, however, existeth both in his mind and in truth; thus man is
greater than that fanciful reality which he is able to imagine.... (‘Abdu’l-Baha,
‘Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’)
