ABJAD (Part 1)

What is the abjad?

As may be seen in the "glossary" of the online resources listed in this site, it is the simplest form of numerical associations to the arabic alphabet. To some, it is merely an outdated form of using letters for the accounting of commodities prior to the adaptation of the Hindi system now known as Arabic numerals. Others, who have meditated upon the examples of arabic and the values attained by the addition of the corresponding numbers, have discovered a system of associations.

The most public of these associations is the date a building was erected in an Arabic country. Upon the cornerstone of some buildings, one finds a word inscribed. By using the abjad notation, attributing a value to each letter, and totalling such values, one may arrive at the date the building was created.

Names and words, using such a system, reveal hidden meanings within the depths of the word structure. For example, as noted in the glossary, Baha (the English transliteration from Arabic) is 9 by the system of abjad (b=2, a=1, h=5, a=1 with a total as 9). As the human mind can be likened to the threads that compose the matrix of the universe, such numbers reveal a link between varied thoughts. Following such a thread, as is the number 9, associates Baha with all other words (concepts) that equal the value of nine. In this manner, one may follow such a thread of associations into the depths of Wisdom and the Ocean of Understanding.

Ones own sub-conscious may store all associations that have been consciously learned, or it may attribute varied experiences to images, associated one to another, to communicate a thread to the conscious mind. Such is the present use as is known in psycho-analysis.

As one may not consciously recall their own dreams, a person may not be aware of what the sub-conscious has been storing and attempting to communicate to the conscious mind.

It was common knowledge among the Natives of the Pacific, that the sub-conscious was the two-way communicator between the conscious and the supra-conscious aspects of mind. Should one recall their own dreams, analysis is possible with the thread of associations, thus revealing much to the person concerning their own daily life and their relationship between all things.

In this, should one fathom the Holy Word, one may "see" as did Joseph. With such understandings, dream analysis of both the small and the larger scope of relationships becomes possible. The criteria for such a standard is discovered in the Truth of Holy Writ.

The word abjad is "coined" from the placement of such letters above the values. Classical Hebrew has a similar system. If one takes the original form of the alphabet, divides it in half and places each half above the other over the standard sequence of numbers, the name "abjad" is formed from the first two letters on the top line and the letters of the bottom line that appear below the a and the b. Thus we have ABJD and to pronunce such we add vowels to utter the name as "abjad." In Hebrew, the same system is called "abgad".

Using variations on this theme, we also discover the other systems that are also used in discerning such KBLH (kabalah).

The importance is not as much in the "jibberish" that appears to some, but in the concepts that are found as associated threads of thought leading unto a greater knowledge of God and His Worlds, a greater understanding, and unto the wisdom of Baha'u'llah.

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