Category: baha’i

Last week my wife attended a Bahá’í workshop on racism held at the Little Chapel of all Nations on the University of Arizona campus, and when the day ended, everyone said “Let’s go to the Abdu’l-Báhá garden”. We didn’t know of any such location on campus, but they went, and she took a picture which explains why they called it that:

Officially this is the Underwood Family Sonoran Landscape Laboratory at the UA College of Architecture, Planning, & Landscape Architecture.

Inscribed on the steps in the picture is this 1921 quote from ‘Abdu’l-Báhá:

At the gate of the garden some stand and look within, but do not care to enter. Others step inside, behold its beauty, but do not penetrate far. Still others encircle this garden, inhaling the fragrance of the flowers; and having enjoyed its full beauty, pass out again by the same gate. But there are always some who enter, and becoming intoxicated with the splendor of what they behold, remain for life to tend the garden.

To actually try to read the quote, view the fullsized 18mb image. Even then it’s a little hard to make out.

(the quote is what we call a pilgrim’s note, not authenticated, and the wording varies a little in some sources. But it’s essentially the parable of the sower and the seed.)

A bit similar to “Another World“, a video I mentioned last month, this musical one is short and cheerful: “Waves“.

Make us as waves of one sea …

Addendum: The composer of this song is Elika Mahony, and another version of it is here. Both versions are valid, I’m not sure what their publishing arrangement is.

I was listening to a podcast where she is interviewed, and when asked where she’s from she says “I was born in the US, raised in Kenya, and my parents are from Iran … I’ve lived in China for the last 20 years …”

What this brings to mind is just how many of the generation after mine have biographies like that, a mix of cultures and places listed as a normal path, nothing special.

With a little effort I could cite other stories like that among people I follow online and those in our local community. One of my wife’s acquaintances speaks 7 languages and helps her communicate with African immigrants who don’t speak much English, but whose second language is often French (there’s a reason for the phrase lingua franca).

Some of this generation are actually experiencing, if imperfectly, that “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens,” and it’s great!

Tarikat (17min video)

This is another video that I find touching — I have no idea how accurate/authentic it is, but it feels real. It’s a sufi ritual, apparently filmed in a small gathering in Turkey, and I think it will look a little strange if approached without empathy.

Increasingly I think the Sufi longing, the goal of mystical union with God, while literally impossible, is still at the heart of all religion, as opposed to the “follow the rulebook and your ledger will be positive” approach. Kind of like trying to write down the number π — it can’t be done, but you can get closer and closer.

The website Sifter of Dust is named after a story retold by Baha’u’llah in the Seven Valleys:

One must judge of search by the standard of the Majnún of love. It is related that one day they came upon Majnún sifting the dust, his tears flowing down. They asked, “What doest thou?” He said, “I seek for Laylí.” “Alas for thee!” they cried, “Laylí is of pure spirit, yet thou seekest her in the dust!” He said, “I seek her everywhere; haply somewhere I shall find her.”
Yea, though to the wise it be shameful to seek the Lord of Lords in the dust, yet this betokeneth intense ardour in searching. “Whoso seeketh out a thing and persisteth with zeal shall find it.”

It feels like there’s a progression in religious history (I’m way oversimplifying here) of our approach to God — In the Old Testament, the Israelites as children in need of repeated discipline by Moses; in the New Testament, The idea that God doesn’t just discipline & punish, it’s love and protect, and sacrifice; and in the mystical writings of Bahá’u’lláh such as the Seven Valleys, the metaphor of God as lover. (this was actually the source of the rule that Priests and Nuns can’t marry, they are married to God or to the Church).

It’s not that older Revelations aren’t as mystical, there have been hermits and seekers in every one (I plan to write a short note on a vision of Julian of Norwich), but maybe as our civilization progresses, that mystical strain will be a little more mainstream, diffused in individual consciousness a bit more.

I almost never watch TV, and very rarely movies; of the movies I do see and like, I almost never feel a need to see them again. But the SF movie “Arrival” (2016, plot summary in Wikipedia) fascinates me, and I’ve probably watched it a dozen times.

A good SF story is a chance to ask “what if X were different than it is in our world, what would that mean? How would things be different?” This one primarily asks “what if we weren’t limited by time, but could see the future as well as the past?” and secondarily asks “how will we react if aliens land?”

Louise, the protagonist, is shown gradually experiencing her future in flash-forwards as she goes beyond the limitations of temporal perception; in that future she marries someone, they have a child with some happy moments, but who dies very young of a disease, followed by the marriage splitting up. The question she asks is, knowing this future, will she still go ahead on that path? and of course this is a romance of sorts, so yes she will. This is sensitively presented, I think, although the movie doesn’t really deal with temporal paradox issues.

This is the more interesting to me because I believe we are told as Bahá’ís that our experiences in the next world won’t be limited by time as they are here. One analogy I saw used was to think of our life here as a VCR tape, where jumping around in time is tedious, vs. a DVD in the next world, where it’s pretty easy to jump around. That comparison only goes so far, since we really can’t imagine being outside of time.

When I was about 15, I ran across a copy of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I found it pretty challenging and only made it through the introduction. But that was some intro; what I remembered was that Kant demonstrated that Space and Time don’t really exist. Actually I misunderstood it somewhat, but to me then, his proof was: If you sit and think, eyes closed and ignoring the outside world, even your body, you cannot conceive of space and time not existing; the closest you can get is empty space and nothing happening in time. So the very fact that you can’t escape them in your mind means there is no way to show that they are not categories created within your own mind, and thus there is no way to prove that they do exist apart from our minds, objectively. At 15 this was hot stuff.

The other Bahá’í concept in the movie is that the Aliens wanted us to be unified and work together, and so they came in 12 different vehicles, each at a different location on earth; each would hand out 1/12 of the total message, so that we would have to share info to get the total. And in the movie, most humans were suspicious of a divide & conquer approach, where the aliens get us to fight each other. This is what humans have done to each other, so of course we suspect them of the same approach. And so there is footage of riots, sabotage, suicides, and all kinds of panic. This is pretty standard for a SF film on aliens, but as I compare my reaction to it back when I first saw the film, vs. now, it isn’t as convincing now. I think that’s because I’m getting more optimistic about our ability to change and grow (where by “our” I mean especially young people, not a creature of habit like myself).

The Faith is still in an early stage of history (this is year 178 BE), and numbers & resources are relatively few — but those limitations inspire a directness and sincerity in communication that to me can be rare in the current world. This short video, according to https://carmelfutures.com/pages/anotherworld, was put together by parents meeting after their children were asleep each evening; they “crafted a vision” for the world their children would inherit. Online, during the pandemic, as far as I can tell. Not slick; low-budget probably. But I find it so touching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T6R33WOjK0

When I thought of doing this personal blog, with most posts probably being about some aspect of the Baha’i Faith or about trying to be a minimally decent Bahá’i, it occurred to me that this may not make much sense to others without some explanation. But a Revelation is a huge thing, and I fear each post turning into a descending maze of footnotes to other footnotes. So it’s only fair to at least put a minimal summary here and some links. This is only as I personally understand things; there is nothing official here.

Before I start fumbling around, the crucial source of information is the actual Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, the Báb, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts

Within that site, the Hidden Words is short and yet deep, and the Kitáb-i-Íqán (Book of Certitude) is the source for what I’ve written below, which is the concept of “progressive revelation”. Both are by Bahá’u’lláh.

Some sites that are unofficial blogs (and better than this one) include:

Bahai Teachings
Baha’i Blog
Sifter of Dust, a new one

To me the best way to explain it is by way of analogies, and actually the physical world lends itself to comparisons, which I think is by design:

“Say: Nature in its essence is the embodiment of My Name, the Maker, the Creator. Its manifestations are diversified by varying causes, and in this diversity there are signs for men of discernment. Nature is God’s Will and is its expression in and through the contingent world.” (Lawh-i-Hikmat = Tablet of Wisdom)

The purpose of life is to grow spiritually, develop our potential, “carry forward an ever-advancing civilization”, and to be of service to others (which is actually more rewarding than being served by others). This world is a school. Our body is the horse we ride for now.

There are 3 stages in this: Our time in the womb, our time in this physical world, and our time in the next world (non-physical, “heaven”). And there may be more than 3, we’ll have to find out. In each stage we need to prepare for the next one. If a kid fails to grow arms in the womb, they’ll be at a disadvantage after birth. Similarly, we’ll be hampered if we fail to acquire now the virtues and perception we will need in the next world.

A school needs a teacher, and each major religion was founded by a Messenger from God, a “Manifestation”. Their teachings (not just words, but by example and by spiritual energy released) help people and society, but over time gets forgotten, distorted, dispersed, calcified like an old tree in winter. So a renewal and update is needed, which on the average is every 1000 years or so (“springtime” by analogy).

Disputing which major religion is the “true” one is somewhat like arguing over which chapter in a book is the true one.

The Manifestation for this time is Bahá’u’lláh (1817-1892). His biography is a whole topic itself. The Báb (meaning ‘gate’) (1819-1850) was His forerunner and also a Manifestation, thus only partly analogous to John the Baptist in the Bible. There will be more Messengers in the future.

Over time, societies are ready for more advanced understanding, building on what was taught in the past. The Manifestation teaches to the capacity of the people of that time; this does not mean their own ability/knowledge is more than previous ones, just that they are able to reveal more of it. Just as in an ideal school, the first-grade teacher knows as much as the college teacher, but will not overload the young children with more than they can understand.

Another aspect to these seeming differences is that it’s hard to explain things if the audience doesn’t yet have the vocabulary or the concepts, and if this is new knowledge, very likely our language won’t “hold it” very well. Look at the first verses of the Christian gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us …” Does anyone reading this now think “Word” is being used in its everyday meaning here?

Side note: There is a Baha’i physicist who studied ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Tablet of the Universe for hints about physics, based on the belief that ‘Abdu’l-Baha knew more than the language of that time could express, and it does read that way to me– One Physicist’s first Look at Abdu’l-Baha’s Tablet of the Universe.

So, we believe the Baha’i Faith contains the latest and most relevant (not the only) education from God, coming at a critical time in human evolution. The world is now small enough that we have to realize our essential unity, eliminate prejudice and the disparity between rich and poor, form a world federated (grassroots, not authoritarian) government to solve problems individual nations can’t, eliminate war, [… lots more…], and basically grow out of adolescence to be a functional adult human race.

After a recent spiritual faceplant, for a while I felt ashamed to be calling myself a Bahá’í after such a failure. And it’s not as if I haven’t been given time to learn.
But then I remembered that a common metaphor for the Manifestation is that of a physician:

Every divine Manifestation is the very life of the world, and the skilled physician of each ailing soul. (Abdu’l-Bahá)

And you see the same metaphor in the gospels, where Christ is walking along and all the sick people suddenly get up and follow Him.
When I was a new Bahá’í many of us referred to ourselves as “children of the half-light”, i.e. we of this generation could never fully shake our origins.
But the goal for now is to keep on trying:

Let each morn be better than its eve and each morrow richer than its yesterday.
— Bahá’u’lláh

Several years ago one of the African refugee families that we were helping had a daughter, and they named her Deborah after my wife. At that time one of our Bahá’í friends told us about this story from Star of the West, June 1932: “There was glad rejoicing when Baha’u’llah from ’Akka sent these parents a Tablet (a letter) about this new babe … Baha’u’llah wrote:

O Vargha! It is for thee to chant in both ears of this little one three times: Verily, thou hast come by the Command of God! Thou hast appeared to speak of Him, and thou hast been created to serve Him Who is the Dear, the Beloved! “

I found this touching, because it affirms that each person coming into this world is welcome and has a purpose, no matter how much we worry about the state of the world they’re entering right now. I remembered this when watching a talk by Hooper Dunbar on YouTube (unfortunately I can’t remember which one) where he discusses suicide, and made a point that stuck with me — some people might think suicide is OK because they should be able to make their own decisions about their own life, but that this is not true — that we can choose what we do in this life, but we are not to choose when we leave any more than when we enter. Taking a life is wrong, no matter whose life it is. He compared normal death to arriving at a banquet in the next world, whereas a suicide arrives at the banquet but there is no place ready for them yet, because they arrived at the wrong time. But there is the same theme of being welcomed in both transitions from one world to the next, and I like that. (disclaimers: unauthoritative, old translation [but I like it], etc.)