Baha’i Perspectives

nava May 29th, 2008

In countries the world over there seems to be a growing obsession with everything-celebrity. Gossip rags in every grocery-store checkout aisle. Celebrity blogs growing every day in popularity. “How many drugs is X snorting these days?” “Will Y suffer another meltdown or is Y’s life finally back on track?” “Which celebrity slit his wrists this time?” How sad that these titles are practically ripped from the headlines, and aren’t even remotely new or surprising. Some of us don’t even feel a tinge of sympathy when we read these things, either. Perhaps the constant exposure has desensitized us. Perhaps the “they-brought-it-upon-themselves” factor has hardened us.

But maybe we shouldn’t be so harsh. Who’s to say we wouldn’t encounter the same struggles ourselves in similar circumstances, and wouldn’t end up making the same choices?

All these years of constant exposure to the world of celebrities has left me with a few questions.

For instance, why is it that the people who are often considered the most beautiful, the most wealthy, often the most intelligent, the most talented, the most socially apt, and the most adored are the same people who are snorting drugs to numb the pain, are suffering very public and very embarrassing mental breakdowns, are going bankrupt, are unable to keep a marriage or a family together, and are finding their lives cut short by their own hands — whether intentional or accidental?

Bahá’u'lláh explains that

happiness is one of the attributes of the true believer, but this cannot be achieved by a life founded on the delights and pleasures of this world. For such happiness is only transitory and can indeed be sorrow in disguise.

Could it be that these beautiful, wealthy, talented, “adored” people’s happiness is actually sorrow in disguise? Could it be that their lives are founded on the delights and pleasures of this world — delights and pleasures with definite (and often, extremely quick) expiration dates? Imagine the let down of sampling every material thing the world has to offer and still feeling empty. What would make life worth living?

Additionally, in a world where self-love is the name of the game, how does one keep one’s ego from poisoning one’s character? ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the son of the Founder of the Bahá’í Faith, says that

the master-key of self-mastery is self-forgetfulness.

What happens when your entire sense of self is founded on how others perceive you, and suddenly you’ve packed on a few pounds and the public opinion is no longer favorable? What happens when you realize your friends have had their own pockets and celebrity in mind when spending time with you?

Bahá’u'lláh further explains that

true loss is for him whose days have been spent in utter ignorance of his self.

To which self does He refer? To the material self who is beautiful, fits into size 2 jeans, can charge whatever they want to their credit card, and has a pretty smile? Or to the self who was created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization? Who realizes that their true glory and joy in this life stems from their ability to improve their world — to help their fellow brothers and sisters confront the challenges constantly being poured on their road in the daily struggle to live life with joy and integrity, with humanity and decency?

So, why sympathize with celebrities? At the end of the day, it’s really easy for most of us to read about them in newspapers and magazines, and pass judgement, but who knows how any of us would live our lives given the same circumstances. To watch people make ruin of the precious days of their fleeting lives is very saddening, indeed. Hopefully their [unfortunately public] blunders will serve as something of a wake-up call to the people living that lifestyle — to do something more valuable with their resources and positions — and to the people watching, especially the youth, to choose different and better role models, and to set their, to set our, sights on things more meaningful than the glittering trinkets of this earthly plane.

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nooshin May 27th, 2008

It has been a very difficult two weeks in South Africa. Doubtless you are all aware of the wave of anti-foreigner attacks that has engulfed the country. Figures given on Friday 23 May estimate that there have been over 4,661 incidents and 519 people have been arrested, that over 50 people have lost their lives and more than 550 people have been injured. I have written a summary of this as part of my job at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Southern Africa Zone office.

The number of displaced people is estimated to be between 25,000 and 30,000. That’s how many people have fled from their homes in fear of attacks, and are now living in makeshift shelters at police stations and community halls, trying to stay warm in the biting cold of winter. It is a tragic situation, one which I don’t see being solved very soon.

I was going to focus my blog on the perpetrators of these acts of inhumanity and violence. But I realized that they get enough press time as it. I think the following quotation from Abdu’l-Baha will be sufficient:

In this wonderful age, according to the divine texts, ye must befriend all nations and communities. Ye must not look upon violence, force, evil intentions, persecutions or hostility, nay rather, ye must raise your eyes to the horizon of glory and see that each one of these creatures is a sign of the Lord of Signs and has stepped upon the arena of existence through divine favor and supreme energy. Thus they are known and not unknown, are friends and not strangers. We must deal with all according to the above criterion.

I want to rather talk about the good people in South Africa: and most South Africans are good, generous and caring. I work for the Red Cross, an organization whose life blood is its volunteer base. South African Red Cross volunteers have been at the sites since the first violent attacks, in often dangerous and difficult conditions, providing food, blankets and other items to those affected.

Everywhere around me, I see people looking to see how they can help. My friend Lebo felt he needed to do something, so he collected R2,000 in donations and went shopping for items he could take to the shelters. Lena, another friend, is involved in her Church’s donation drive: she went to buy the stuff they had asked for, and added fluffy blankets and chocolates for the children, even though she knew it wasn’t very practical, but because she so wanted to brighten a child’s day. Fern Lee, a friend of my brother’s from Cape Town, had about two hour’s sleep on the weekend because she was at shelters helping distribute food and clothes. These are the people I want to celebrate in this blog, because they, and the thousands like them around the country, have taught me that each one of us has the power to make a difference, and the responsibility to assist those in need. Baha’u'llah exhorts His Followers to have special care for those less fortunate:

If ye meet the abased or the down-trodden, turn not away disdainfully from them, for the King of Glory ever watcheth over them and surroundeth them with such tenderness as none can fathom except them that have suffered their wishes and desires to be merged in the Will of your Lord, the Gracious, the All-Wise. O ye rich ones of the earth! Flee not from the face of the poor that lieth in the dust, nay rather befriend him and suffer him to recount the tale of the woes with which God’s inscrutable Decree hath caused him to be afflicted. By the righteousness of God! Whilst ye consort with him, the Concourse on high will be looking upon you, will be interceding for you, will be extolling your names and glorifying your action.

Tags: generosity, poverty, prejudice

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iman May 24th, 2008

The recent cyclone in Myanmar and earthquake in China raise questions about whether, apart from the widely-known scientific and environmental causes of such occurrences, natural disasters are Divinely influenced.

Does God have an influence on the occurrence of natural disasters — a punishment, a test, maybe even a reward? One might suggest that the very nature of Creation, with the perpetual movement and state-shifting of matter, would inevitably cause such events to occur. Yet, one of the most common questions we hear during these situations is “why?”; “why must such things happen to all those innocent people?”

The Divine reasoning, because it operates on countless plains of existence beyond our own, is impossible to understand. Our finite thinking would lead us to speculate baselessly given such a meagre understanding of Creation past, present or future. God is “the unknowable Essence” whose far-reaching influence is unfathomable by the human mind:

To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men…No tie of direct intercourse can possibly bind Him to His creatures. He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness. No sign can indicate His presence or His absence; inasmuch as by a word of His command all that are in heaven and on earth have come to exist, and by His wish, which is the Primal Will itself, all have stepped out of utter nothingness into the realm of being, the world of the visible.

(Baha’u'llah, The Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 97)

What we can do, however, is to focus on serving those affected by natural calamities, to encourage and contribute towards scientific progress that helps to dampen the impact of natural disasters and, most importantly, to turn to God during such trying times. Baha’u'llah states in The Most Holy Book, “on the appearance of fearful natural events call ye to mind the might and majesty of your Lord, He Who heareth and seeth all, and say “Dominion is God’s, the Lord of the seen and the unseen, the Lord of creation.”"

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nadim May 21st, 2008

The 2006 documentary film “God Grew Tired of Us” tells the story of a large group of Sudanese boys, known as the Lost Boys of Sudan, who escaped near certain death during the country’s civil war in the 1980s by walking hundreds of miles through barren lands, eventually into neighbouring Kenya. Arriving at a refugee camp desperately malnourished and on the verge of starvation, the boys spend the next decade living hand-to-mouth, at each moment wondering what became of their families and dreaming of returning to Sudan. Naturally, after all this shared suffering, the degree of friendship shared by these boys is immense — such that when the United States agrees to accept some of them as refugees, it is with a great deal of difficulty that they bid farewell to one another.

This is where the real story of the film begins. Arriving in the U.S. never having seen electricity, never having taken a shower much less experienced running water, their plight is seemingly helpless. Indeed, were one to stop watching the film at this point, one would expect this film to proceed in the same vein as so many others: another supposed success story of the “undeveloped” finding “development”", the “have-nots” finding the keys to “prosperity”, the “less civilized” at long last discovering “civilization”. With these patterns of classification so deeply prevalent in society, no one can be surprised at their consequences, not only in the way they affect the nature of our interpersonal relationships with those perceived as outsiders, but also in the unnumbered prejudices, both overt and subtle, that arise as a result.

Watching the film, however, a different picture begins to emerge. The film’s protagonists, after the initial shock of being thrust into their new environment, proceed to evaluate the nature of the this life as compared to life in the refugee camp.

The perspective they provide is truly eye-opening. One of them wonders why, at Christmas time, so much emphasis is placed on Christmas trees and Santa Claus — to paraphrase his comments: “Where are these things mentioned in the Bible? Nobody can answer this question for me. Back in the camp, at Christmas we used to dance to celebrate. We would also reflect on the birth of Christ’s and think about how to improve ourselves.” Another, who found a job at a local supermarket, talks about a distressing incident where a lady was crying and everyone passed by without caring to ask her what was wrong. He reached out to her, as was the custom back home, and she took the opportunity to open up to him (much to his own surprise, it must be added). All of them speak of the sense of isolation that they feel living in a society where group culture is non-existent and neighbours hardly talk to each other.

Today, all the peoples of the world are indulging in self-interest and exert the utmost effort and endeavour to promote their own material interests. They are worshipping themselves and not the divine reality, nor the world of mankind. They seek diligently their own benefit and not the common weal. This is because they are captives of the world of nature and unaware of the divine teachings, of the bounty of the Kingdom and of the Sun of Truth.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 103)

This film provides a striking demonstration of how the two dimensions of human existence, the material and the spiritual, should both be looked after in order to promote true human welfare. The lost boys of Sudan would never have achieved their dream of receiving a higher education were it not for the structural and material means afforded to them by moving to the United States. At the same time, by their simple yet moving commentary on the realities of life in the U.S. compared to back home, they display a maturity of insight that a purely secular system of schooling could never provide.

We must care for man’s two natures; for as the material man makes certain demands for food and raiment and if not looked after suffers, even so his spiritual reality suffers without care.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Divine Philosophy, p. 96)

Reflecting further, there are two pairs of themes that are at play here, which historically have given rise to failed or failing ideologies. These themes are touched on somewhat indirectly during the film, yet in a sense they encapsulate the context that the boys find themselves in. In the next part, I will identify these themes and try to examine them.

Meanwhile, I suggest renting this film and watching it — it’s well worth it.

Tags: culture, development

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geoffrey May 19th, 2008

Egyptian Fe-mail is a blog whose post of April of last year speaks directly on this subject of a guilt-culture. The author states:

“Shame” – what a word! It has the power to clog your mouth and seal your lips just by pronouncing it. Have you ever noticed how such a tiny word can lock your mind, inhibit your feelings, and imprison you in a world of rules that are not supposed to be broken just because it is a “shame”? We were born free and uninhibited, and then we were given “the rules of shame and its derivatives”; cover your body, hide your feelings, withhold from expressing your opinion, and filter your words before you get yourself in trouble, were all tips to treasure from childhood onwards.

The critical theme of this post is the oppressiveness and judgment of a society built upon the concept of shame and guilt, which in turn actually leads to a spiral of self-delusion, self-hatred and in essence self-negation within a society. Other critical concepts to take into account from the Bahá’í perspective, with regards to individual and community life, are those that deal with and encourage a mindset of learning.

This simple statement has profound impact and meaning. It allows one to transcend and be open to a process of transformation, and recognizes the need to place the high station of man’s inner being and true essence at the forefront of ones decisions. It allows one to be in a state of growth, development and reflection. It allows us to bring ourselves to account, to investigate the nature of our actions, to use “shame” as a positive instrument in the building a of stronger sense of conviction and consecration.

The sense of shame, when considered in its rightful context, can serve as a powerful agent for proactive societal change. Yet, even as a reactive force, it plays a needed role. Without it, how could nations feel compelled to right the wrongs of past generations? How could the privileged ever consider uplifting the previously down-trodden in society, often at their own expense? Without a new found sense of understanding guilt, how could we begin to repair those insidious affects of years of racial prejudice experienced by (and still affecting) such countries as the United States and South Africa?

Abdu’l-Baha, the son of the founder of the Bahá’í Faith, Baha’u'llah, further comments on prejudice:

The causes of dispute among different nations are always due to one of the following classes of prejudice: racial, lingual, theological, personal, and prejudices of custom and tradition. It requires a universal active force to overcome these differences. A small disease needs a small remedy, but a disease which pervades the whole body needs a very strong remedy. A small lamp may light a room, a larger would light a house, a larger still might shine through the city, but the sun is needed to light the whole world.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Abdu’l-Baha in London, p. 59)

Continuing on the concept of racial prejudice, how are we to ameliorate the affects of such a detrimental and long lasting illness? It is through the acceptance of the “universal active force” of the oneness of humanity.

In the Bahá’í view, the oneness of humankind represents an organic interdependence within a corporeal social entity. This implies that the welfare of the constituent components of this body is inextricably interwoven with that of the whole. Moreover, the essential oneness of the human race is not restricted to the physical dimension; it extends to the social and spiritual aspects of human life. Through the nurturing and unfolding of man’s transcendental potential, cultural diversity can begin to be viewed as the expression of this universal and basic truth. Only then can perceived racial barriers be overcome.

(Baha’i International Community, 1990 Jan 26, Combating Racism)

Again, at the foundation of this post is the need to reorient and restructure the concept of guilt or shame — to take it away from a repressive force, to one that is both active and positive. This will, of course, require a shift in education and moral training which would need to be structured in such a way as to provide the holistic perspective — a perspective that surpasses the narrow vision of excessive individualism and fragmentation. Its objective would be to provide solutions by which we approach the realities of life and our decisions proactively and through reflection.

Tags: guilt, prejudice

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geoffrey May 16th, 2008

The concept of guilt and shame is multi-faceted, and critical to understand when engaged in the field of civilization building, which is of course what we all are, consciously or unconsciously, part of and contribute to. It applies and has influence over every sector and sphere of human existence: personal, communal and global. It affects our psyche and mental capabilities, it affects us spiritually.

When attempting to begin a discussion on this topic, and see how it operates and functions within the construct of a Bahá’í perspective, one must envision the Bahá’í revelation as a sphere with the many points dotted across its surface. Some are on opposing sides, but still remain part of the entire matrix that represent the epistemological aspects of the Bahá’í Faith.

Thus when investigating the field and role of shame, one has to simultaneously look to what may seem as those opposite sides of the sphere – those points which can be identified as “encouragement”, “honor”, “justice” and “nobility”. From this perspective it is not possible to operate successfully in this world without understanding this balance and other counterweighing factors.

Indeed, there existeth in man a faculty which deterreth him from, and guardeth him against, whatever is unworthy and unseemly, and which is known as his sense of shame.

(Baha’u'llah, Tablets of Baha’u'llah, p. 63)

We can deduce from this statement that shame is a positive force that propels us through with a balanced perspective in life, and in fact guards us against what is “unworthy” of our being. This naturally flows into one of the foundational concepts of human existence: the nobility of man. Baha’u'llah states:

13. O SON OF SPIRIT!

I created thee rich, why dost thou bring thyself down to poverty? Noble I made thee, wherewith dost thou abase thyself? Out of the essence of knowledge I gave thee being, why seekest thou enlightenment from anyone beside Me? Out of the clay of love I molded thee, how dost thou busy thyself with another? Turn thy sight unto thyself, that thou mayest find Me standing within thee, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting.

(Baha’u'llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

One of the hallmarks found in the Bahá’í Writings is that we should continuously look to the positive aspects of our person. We should not dwell on, though we should identify, those lower aspects of our nature that result in actions that cause us to feel shame. Often times, we feel guilt for the outcomes of our actions, which I think is a distracting tendency. We should instead look to the root issue. It is the difference between administering to a symptom as opposed to addressing the disease or malady directly.

Again, when attempting to envision the concept of guilt through this chain of thought, it transforms shame from an oppressive force into a method, instrument or process that leads to upliftment. It begins a tool that reinforces the nobility of man and actually serves as a source of freedom.

In our current world, I do not believe we handle our guilt well. Not only does it operate as a rampant destructive force within individuals across sectors, many cultures and social norms inherently impose a strong notion of shame as a means of confinement, as opposed to a releasing of positive potential.

In Part II, I will elaborate further on this theme.

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nadim May 13th, 2008

This one caught my attention!

According to this Science Blog article, PETA is offering a US$1 million reward to the first scientist to produce, and bring to market, artificial meat manufactured in the laboratory. Promising first steps have already been made using animal stem cells and in-vitro methods but there is still a way to go. Interested? To win you must achieve both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
• Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states in the United States.

I’m pretty skeptical about the first point, since the taste of meat depends to some degree on the diet of the animal. And, although I would love to be proven wrong, humans tend to be quite adept at distinguishing the real from the processed.

Then again, do we actually know what real chicken tastes like these days? With all the hormones being pumped into chicken, not only is it beginning to taste like processed fish, but the moral and ethical implications of “keeping up with demand” are being questioned more than ever by groups such as PETA.

Truly, the killing of animals and the eating of their meat is somewhat contrary to pity and compassion, and if one can content oneself with cereals, fruit, oil and nuts, such as pistachios, almonds and so on, it would undoubtedly be better and more pleasing.

(From a Tablet of Abdu’l-Baha, The Compilation of Compilations vol. I, p. 462)

Perhaps a breakthrough in producing artificial meat will resolve the ethical dilemma of meat consumption, leaving us free to address the next challenge, that of leading strong and healthy lives without the need for meat.

Considered from another angle: if there is a breakthrough and the solution is made affordable enough, it may even help to control those soaring food prices…

Tags: food

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