MACROCOSM / MICROCOSM

Part 1 – The Universal Glue

When I was a child growing up in rural Maine, my siblings and I loved to sleep outdoors in the back yard during the summer. I remember lying on my back and contemplating the vastness of the night sky with the moon and countless twinkling lights. I was a microcosm contemplating the macrocosm. This memory is one of the high points of my life. Unfortunately, many people never see the night sky with its stars because the lights of civilization interfere.

In order to begin to comprehend the macrocosm and the microcosm of the universe, let’s review a little astronomy from NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Based on data from the Hubble space telescope, scientists estimate there are approximately two trillion galaxies within the observable universe. A galaxy is a system of millions or billions of stars, together with gas and dust, that are held together by gravitational force. It is estimated that our galaxy, the Milky Way, has between 100 and 400 billion stars, and our sun is one of them. Most of the stars in our galaxy are thought to host their own families of planets. Do the math! (“Hubble’s Field Guide to the Galaxy,” NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

Despite these staggering numbers, we know from the sacred scriptures of all the major world religions that God has poured love and attention into our tiny planet that we call Earth, and also that He knows us not only collectively but individually. Having made us part of His creation, God has taken responsibility for our education and progress. In addition, we are each part of a whole, and our planet is part of a whole. So how can we best approach this unfathomable reality?

The short answer is that God’s ongoing plan for humanity encompasses the duration of humanity’s existence, which for homo sapiens alone has been at least 300,000 years. The Bahá’í writings mention in passing that there were many advanced civilizations eons ago on earth that disappeared leaving no traces. The Bahá’í writings start commentary on human history with the beginning of the Adamic Cycle, also known as the Prophetic cycle, that started about six thousand years ago and ended with the revelation of Muḥammad. This cycle was characterized by a succession of Prophets of God, divine teachers, who came to all peoples and cultures at one time or another to advance human spiritual and social capacity. Records of some of these Advents were preserved in writing, and others were preserved in oral history. In 1844, humanity entered the Cycle of Fulfillment, which is to last a very long time. This new cycle for humanity was heralded by the Báb, the first Prophet of the Bahá’í Faith. The second Prophet, Bahá’u’lláh, laid the extensive foundation for a world-encompassing new spiritual understanding. The years since have also brought incredible civilizational advancement –– as well as chaos. Time has speeded up.

Let us backtrack to the macrocosm, that dark sky lit by millions of stars, and the written work “The Tablet of the Universe,” which is a theological description of reality and which advises seeing physical objects in our world as “signs and imprints of spiritual things. We will examine only one aspect of this incredible document which states that God, the Creator, caused His names and attributes to penetrate all degrees of existence, and Who made the resulting effects to shine and their signs to be firmly established in all aspects of His creation (“in both the hidden and manifest worlds”). This enormity is described as follows:

He hath ordained these Names and Attributes to be the first and foremost origin and cause of being in the world of creation and the source of the different grades of realities in the degrees of existence. When, through its power of attraction and propagation, the Day-Star [the Divinity] of Names and Attributes shone upon the hidden realities in the heart of the unseen realm, they issued forth, were spread abroad, scattered about, set in order, became the recipients of the grace of God and His outpourings, and were made to be the sole manifestations of the Divine conditions and Eternal signs. Emerging from behind the veils, they appeared clothed in raiments of light, moving in the firmament of the unity of God, in orbs of sanctity and circles of glorification. Thus, the suns of the praise of the one true God moved resplendent in a vast, infinite space, capable neither of being defined by limits nor contained within the compass of signs and allusion.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “The Tablet of the Universe,” c. late 1870s-early 1880s)

The stars of the universe are described as luminous, divine orbs. And within those orbs are described orbits within atoms and their counterpart in the spiritual world. The spherical harmonics of electrons, protons, and neutrons are bound by the attraction of a force generated by the electric field of the atom.

What is this force?

The tablet also states, “He made the circuits of these luminous divine orbs to be their lofty and celestial spheres; and He made the bodies of these spiritual spheres to be subtle and soft, flowing and liquid, undulating and vibrating, in such manner that these refulgent orbs swim in the circumferences of the spheres, and move in their vast space by the aid of their Creator and Maker, their Ordainer and Fashioner.”

What is this power?

Love is the universal magnetic power between the planets and stars shining in the lofty firmament.
Love is the cohesion manifest between atoms of these composing elements.
Love is the cause of the manifestation of the Truth (God) in the phenomenal world!
Love is the conscious bestowal of God, the bond of affiliation in all phenomena and the absence of love is the cause of disintegration or nonexistence.
Love is the mystery of divine revelations.
Love is the breath of the Holy Spirit inspired into the human spirit!
Love is the necessary tie proceeding from the realities of things through divine creation!
Love is a light of guidance in the dark night!
Love is the bond between the Creator and the creature in the inner world!
Love is the spiritual fulfillment!
Love is the greatest law in this vast universe of God!
(Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas, p. 525. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was the son of Bahá’u’lláh and was designated by Him to be the His successor and interpreter of His writings, but he was not a Prophet. ‘Abdu’l means “servant,” the title he gave to himself.)

David Langness wrote, “So the next time you stand on the Earth and look up into the heavens, whether through a powerful telescope or with the naked eye, know that you are seeing the perfect handiwork of a loving and kind Creator.” (David Langness, “The Absolute Perfection of This Endless Universe,” BahaiTeachings.org, March 22, 2026)

About Eileen and More Reading

Eileen Maddocks is an independent researcher and writer who lives in Vermont. She alternates her cerebral lifestyle with ballet, tap, and jazz classes and performances. She is the author of 1844: Convergence in Prophecy for Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahá’í Faith and the three-volume series The Coming of the Glory: How the Hebrew Scriptures Reveal the Plan of God. Eileen also has a library of recorded PowerPoint presentations she gave for Clearwater Bahá’ís