Strategic Questions

3. Strategic Bridges Strategic Questions Strategic Answers

4. Why Did the Creator Think Physical Reality a Good Idea?

5. 1977

6. 1987

7. The Divine Law of Detachment 70 60 Spiritual Development Physical Development 50 40 Borrowed Time 30 20 10 0 Dandelion Effect

9. 1994

10. 2005

11. Unveiling the Houri of Love

12. What is a Houri?

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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.

20. Let’s see how smart you are without your head! Napoleonvs.LaPlace versus You silly emperor-type person!

21. I can unleash your inner power! Tony RobbinsvsFrank Wilczek versus I can split a Quark!

22. How God Can Be Known and Loved in One Easy Step Kun fa yakúnu! “Be and it is!"

23. 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

24. Shazam!

25. It’s a Dyson!

26. A single event that occurred 6,000 years ago

27. Thanks! I needed that!

28. A single event that occurred 16,000,000000 years ago

29. The Not-so-big Bang

30. Fearing Infinity

31. Embracing Infinity

32. The Nature of Love

33. It’s the Law!

34. 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

35. the contemporary concept of love as an affliction derived from an acutely neurotic social history

36. the Escalade of Love

37. We done been hit by the Escalade of Love!

39. the New and Improved Escalade of Love

41. 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

42. Obstacle is Everything

43. 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 End of Story He must Prove Himself Love at First Sight “It just can’t get any better than this!”

44. 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. . . .”

45. 3. Western Romantic Concept of Love With Tragic Ending

46. 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.

47. According to ‘Abdu’l-Bahánone of these three paradigms (events) is authentic love!

48. 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.

49. 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.

50. Love as Process