The Cambrian explosion is a period of biological history over 500 million years ago in which, over a relatively short period of time, almost all the major body types of organisms were developed. Many subsequent organisms, up until the modern day, have descended from these original archetypes. Before that, there is very little in the fossil record. Then, all of a sudden, there is this massive dynamic creation of new body types.
It turns out that if you look at the evolution and development of matter, and particularly biology, it didn’t happen with slow gradual development but was rather “punctuated” by periods of rapid evolution followed by vast stretches of time in which nothing seemed to be evolving at all. In other words, evolution has not been continuous, but has periods of dynamic creativity that result in significant changes. Anyone who has ever watched their children grow up has seen this phenomenon. Kids don’t seem to change day to day, but then one day, usually somewhere in their late teens, you look up and you see that your child is now an adult- standing there asking for the car keys. Their growth has been like the growth of all things- slow, gradual, and then something like puberty happens, and- boom!- they’re a different human.
So what does that have to do with the festival of Ridvan, that Baha’is are celebrating all over the world? Because Baha’u’llah tells us that humanity’s spiritual and social development happens in the same way as biological development has. It is slow and gradual, punctuated by periods of rapid advancement. Those periods of rapid advancement are associated with one of the Revelations of God. When Baha’u’llah entered a garden outside of Baghdad in 1863, on the eve of his departure from the city into further exile, he formally declared His Revelation. The language He uses for that time is extraordinarily compelling, suggesting that there was something far deeper going on than just a Prophet making a claim to divine authority-
Verily, the eye of creation hath never beheld the light of those days, nor hath the gaze of humankind ever witnessed their like. The approach of Him Who is the Desire of the world, His entrance into that garden, His ascent upon the throne of utterance, and the words that streamed forth from the mouth of His will at that moment shall forever transcend every earthly mention. Any attribute that might be ascribed unto them, any praise wherewith they might be extolled will fail to do justice to the dust that hath been ennobled by His footsteps, how much less to His mighty throne, His manifest establishment thereon, and His pervasive and all-embracing utterance. Indeed, the splendours of that Day elude the understanding and comprehension of the peoples of the world.
Baha’u’llah extols this day with words that are astounding, suggesting that all creation was shaken to its depths and a “new life was breathed into the entire creation”. In subsequent Tablets around this period, He would predict a significant growth of human knowledge and advancement in human affairs along the lines His Revelation had outlined. Indeed, this is exactly what we have seen. Consider, for instance, the institution of slavery, or any one of the detestable practices that humanity has abandoned in the last two centuries. It was with us for eons, considered a natural part of life and society, and now the idea of enslaving another human being and limiting their freedom and rights is regarded as so heinous we cringe to even think about it. Why? Because we have made substantial moral and spiritual progress in the last two centuries. Human civilization, which had languished for centuries, blasted off into the heavens in ways that would be unrecognizable to people who lived before.
Science, of course, studies things it can know something about- something we can measure, quantify, or otherwise manipulate. But nobody truly knows why, at our time in history, everything just seemed to come together in new and creative ways. Just like the Cambrian explosion, nobody really knows what happened to make that phenomenon occur. But if we think about it and deduce from some of the principles Baha’u’llah has outlined, we can come up with some really interesting conclusions.
On a fundamental level, what Baha’u’llah is telling us is that the Divine Will- the ultimate impetus behind any creative boost in all development- works similarly at all levels of creation. A Revelation of God is just the Divine Will manifested to humans- a theme repeatedly expressed in the Writings of Baha’u’llah. And it occurs in a punctuated way, with certain intervals of time more “blessed” than others. We just happen to be living in one of the most blessed time in all of human history- “All glory be to this Day, the Day in which the fragrances of mercy have been wafted over all created things, a Day so blest that past ages and centuries can never hope to rival it.”
But we’re never going to be able to see the Divine Will directly. As Baha’u’llah states in the passage above- “the splendours of that Day elude the understanding and comprehension of the peoples of the world”. It’s probably not simply that we are somehow unaware of it when we could be, but rather that it is simply beyond our ability to comprehend. We can never see the Divine Will acting directly, like some physical force. It acts beneath all that, in a manner that we likely can never understand. We can only see its effects.
One of the other principles given in the Writings of Baha’u’llah- and also those of the Bab- is that a massive infusion of energy from the Divine Will creating a great leap forward occurs because creation has the capacity to accept it. This relationship between what is given and the capacity to receive it seems to be fundamental. So, it may seem that nothing much is going on for centuries, or on biological time scales, millions of years- but what is gradually happening is the slow development of increased capacity, then it blasts into a new and dynamic reality seemingly all at once. If you watch a house being built, the creation of the foundation and the erection of the girders and support structures takes a long time, and the process is slow, and then- boom!- they starting putting up the walls and all of a sudden a house is there. That’s because the slow times were building the capacity for you to put up the structures that would ultimately form a new house, which seemingly happens overnight.
Baha’u’llah’s Tablets about Ridvan are very metaphorical, with highly allusive and poetic language describing what is happening “behind the scenes” to creation overall. They are seemingly the expression, in mere words, of something that is ultimately beyond words to express, beyond our capacity to fully appreciate- a new creative infusion of the Divine Will.
It is the Festival of Riḍván, the vernal season wherein the Beauty of the All-Glorious was revealed between earth and heaven. In this wondrous Day the gates of Paradise were flung open before the faces of all people, at the behest of Him Who is the All-Praised, and the outpourings of divine mercy rained down from the clouds of celestial favour upon His countless embodiments and manifestations in the world of being.
