Words, Words and More Words

The secret power of creative speech

What I am about to recount might seem foreign and strange. If you find ideas larger than yourself frightening, don’t read on.

The most fundamental particle in the universe is no particle at all. It is an idea. Everything that exists and everything that occurs is the manifestation of an idea, its essence hidden but its expression omnipresent. What is that hidden essence? Now is not the time for a full discussion, but we can designate it "Goodness" in a general way. The parameters of goodness dictate the totality of reality that we experience particularly in the myriad details of our lives.

Goodness is active, alive, pulsating and creative. Actuated goodness is event that comes to be, eternal (that is, relevant to the future) in the measure that it is true to the good idea at its root. This is the most fundamental equation of being, advanced particle spirits. Generic goodness becomes manifest as righteousness, justice and kindness, the specific qualities we sense and discover in the universe, and these give rise to the laws of the physical sciences, i.e., the order of nature that embodies idea concretely.

Historical process itself is in service to the great idea. Something is happening. A rarefied notion is being developed and given precise form, playing out dynamically in historical time, and the idea becomes clear, defined and cognized. If the idea is the measure of reality, its development is the measure of progress.

The story of the world is but the story of the idea.

Most people are blissfully unaware of the secret, living world of the idea, and think of themselves as active agents of their own personal destiny, as if there was no story but the one that they create and tell. But some select few know, and their minds ache from knowledge, and their hearts tremble in the unknowable thought that they are slaves of universal destiny and not its master until they unite with the idea and control the universe as it does, in its image.

The elect few who perceive the idea are also the vehicle of its advance. For idea, as such, requires knowledge, and makes no progress in an unperceiving world. Goodness unknown cannot be so designated. The idea utilizes those who are aware of it for its realization, and to the extent that they are aware.

Imagine, for example, that the goodness which is kindness must become manifest in history. Through whom could it do so? Through an unkind person who doesn’t believe in this value? Such a person would not know kindness if he experienced it; if he were to benefit and prosper, this would only promote his selfish, ephemeral value of greed or desire, and the universal, eternal idea of kindness would remain hidden and unrealized.

Knowledge of the idea is thus the prerequisite of its manifestation: Word begets word, for one becomes worthy of the world-word, the idea, only to the extent that he knows it. The idea seeks out those who know it and prepare for it, and then becomes manifest through them.

How does one prepare for the word-to-come? By anticipating it and articulating it in advance. The idea is manifest always through particulars, but only through such particulars that present it and reflect it – that is to say, such particulars that are perceived in its light. Consider a possible future occurrence in light of the idea, thinking, “If thus-and-thus would happen, it would be right and good and advance the world-story,” and you are preparing yourself to be a vehicle for the idea, the medium of its expression. Indeed, through mere articulation, the occurrence of that possible event becomes more probable, for the imperative of the idea’s fulfillment is what drives all occurrence. Words magically create, the word at the core of all being born onward in time by whoever would offer heart and soul in its service.

This is the secret called prayer: preparation of the self to encounter and further the Idea. If you can and if you dare – pray!

To learn more about prayer, see the course “And Abraham Approached.”

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Concepts:

• Prayer/תפלה

• The Word of Hashem/דבר השם

Sources and references:

• Genesis 47:10

• Psalms 33