Baha’i Perspectives

elliott March 30th, 2009

I pray Thee, O my Lord, by Thy hidden, Thy treasured Name, that calleth aloud in the kingdom of creation, and summoneth all peoples to the Tree beyond which there is no passing, the seat of transcendent glory, to rain down upon us, and upon Thy servants, the overflowing rain of Thy mercy, that it may cleanse us from the remembrance of all else but Thee, and draw us nigh unto the shores of the ocean of Thy grace…

(Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 300)

We know that prayer is a form of spiritual nourishment, that it connects us with our Creator, and that it is part of our covenant with God.  I would like to discuss another light in which the practice may be viewed – that prayer is an act of remembrance.

It may seem inherently clear that when we pray we are remembering our Maker, but I find that this is true on very profound levels, and that this view might help us understand the various practices associated with prayer. There are many prayers which have been revealed by the Central Figures in the Baha’i Faith. Three of these have been designated as “Obligatory” prayers, and each day Baha’is choose one of these prayers to recite. I will focus on this practice in particular.

“O Thou Who art the Lord of all names and the Maker of the heavens!” “Thou, in truth, art the Mighty, the All-Knowing.” We are reminded of who we are conversing with. Our human tendency is sometimes to forget.

Daily, we are called to remember that we were created to know and worship God, and we humbly remember our powerlessness before His Might, and our poverty before His Wealth.  That we are called upon to wash our hands and face and turn towards the Most Sacred Spot when we do this allows us to understand the importance of our commitment to keep these things in mind. In the case of the Long Obligatory Prayer, the prayer is accompanied with bodily postures and gestures. I remember the first time I said this prayer. I was ever so self-conscious when kneeling or raising my arms in front of little else than a wall, alone in my room.

But when we practice these gestures we ask ourselves whether or not we feel the same love inside that we are expressing outwardly to God and His Manifestation. I feel this is a very important reflection to have. We are reminded of our position in this world with respect to our Creator.

Furthermore, the body itself also has an ability to remember. When we type on a keyboard we don’t think expressly about where each key is, because our fingers seem to “know” what they’re doing. When it comes to prayer – what better way to actively remember our connection with Him than to involve our entire bodies?

These are but a few thoughts on prayer as an act of remembrance. There is so much that can be said about prayer. I would encourage anyone interested to read a more in-depth article on the subject of prayer as remembrance by Christopher White, which I personally found to be quite illuminating!

Tags: prayer, spirituality

• Baha'i Concepts
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Baha'i Perspectives March 27th, 2009

Received in the Baha’i Perspectives mailbox…

FILMMAKER AIMS TO DEMOCRATIZE SOCIAL ACTION
Technology Puts a New Twist on Mobilizing Fans

Iranian-American documentary filmmaker Bita Haidarian, whose work has been described as “the best hope for film and politics in Australia,” launched a groundbreaking project this week, giving her fans a deciding voice in the new initiative.

After placing a rough trailer of her upcoming film Finding Bibi online in December, Haidarian was inundated with positive responses. The film itself, which follows Haidarian around the world as she documents the lives of Middle Eastern women and interviews notables like human rights activist Mukhtaran Bibi, already serves as a clarion call for women’s empowerment. But her fans wanted more.

In response, Haidarian, the daughter of Baha’i religious refugees from Iran, announced the Finding Bibi movement this week. But unlike many documentary activists, Bita decided to bring her fans in at the very beginning. Rather than craft a program in isolation and mobilizing supporters around it, she is offering them the chance create the first project themselves. Using the ranking technology Slinkset, similar to applications used in social bookmarking sites like Digg, Finding Bibi fans are able to submit project ideas and other comments which their peers can rate by clicking simple up or down arrows. Over time, the most popular ideas rise to the top. After submitting the top five projects to a final vote, Haidarian has committed to working out the logistics and obtaining the resources to transform the best idea into a reality.

“By giving our fans an active role in building the organization and its projects from the get-go, we know they’ll be even more committed to seeing it succeed later on,” said Todd Brogan, Head of Creative Expansion for Finding Bibi. “We’re creating a cycle of empowerment. We give fans ownership in projects that will in turn empower women and girls to act against the attitudes and practices negatively affecting them.”

The website, FindingBibi.com, also features updates on the film and its most recent trailer, as well as regular blog posts on the constantly innovating organization. The film is slated for completion late this year.

To read more about this initiative, as well as watch the trailer and have a say in the selection of the project, please visit FindingBibi.com. 

Tags: film

• Arts & Culture
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nava March 24th, 2009

…you should be overly familiar.

I should probably preface this entry by explaining that I am wholly unqualified to write it as I am not nor have I ever been married.  Notwithstanding, family is an area in life that interests me greatly and I have had the good fortune of being raised among the 49% of parents in the West whose marriages do work, and probably the even slimmer percentage of parents whose marriages are happy. 

My interest in writing this piece was born of a conversation I had with a good friend of mine the other night revolving around the idea of “easy familiarity”.  In the Bahá’í Faith, we are discouraged from being overly familiar with others.  This can range from something as simple as, don’t open someone else’s refrigerator and start rummaging through their food without permission, to something like, don’t give yourself permission to be overly intimate with another person outside the confines of marriage.  But I’d never really thought about this concept of not being easily or overly familiar within a marriage.  Clearly, the refrigerator and intimacy examples don’t apply among marriage partners.  But what about the tone in which you address your spouse? 

It’s interesting how often our family members are the people we are most rude and unkind to-because we’re tired at the end of the day when we see them; because we know them so well and feel so comfortable around them that we don’t censor ourselves; because we assume they’ll always be there.  But if you think about it, these are the people we should show the most kindness to, precisely because we’re in it for life.  Why not make that the most loving, joyous experience it can be? 

It is not easy to live life always being vigilant over what you think and say.  But, life isn’t meant to be easy.  And realistically, things don’t work in isolation.  If we are truly intent on developing our virtues-kindess, patience, forbearance, forgiveness-what better laboratory than home? 

Marriage partners have to be so careful not to give themselves permission to snap at each other, to cross lines they justify crossing with ideas like, “But he’s my husband. I should be able to say anything I want around him!”  Why?  Why should you be allowed to gossip with your husband? Why should you be allowed to say something so critical and harsh, something so hurtful, that you would never dare say to another?  Of course, marriage isn’t about ignoring each other’s flaws.  You help each other grow and develop into better people.  But that process doesn’t happen with snide remarks or dwelling on each other’s imperfections, either.  You support one another, you uplift one another.

We shouldn’t confuse being thoughtful and biting our tongues with being formal.  Perhaps formality works among some couples, but that’s certainly not what I’m suggesting.  It is absolutely possible to be comfortable, to be intimate, to be honest and open with a partner without crushing their spirits in the way you speak to them.  And sometimes it is better to simply overlook; to forgive. 

As ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains, “their [husband and wife's] purpose must be this: to become loving companions and comrades and at one with each other for time and eternity…” If they are vigilant over themselves, faithful and true in their actions and kind and respectful in their words, they may experience true marriage, which is “that husband and wife should be united both physically and spiritually, that they may ever improve the spiritual life of each other, and may enjoy everlasting unity throughout all the worlds of God.”

If we regard marriage as an institution whose purpose is, among other things, to add to world unity by starting at the most basic level, and not just as a coming together of two individual beings; if we regard ourselves as partners whose purpose is to strive to ever improve the spiritual life of the other, maybe biting our tongues once in a while, lowering our voices, sweetening our words (genuinely, not condescendingly) will become second nature to us, and marriage won’t feel like hard work.  Instead, we will experience the following, which we are assured is possible, perhaps inevitable, when we align our behavior with the laws of the All-knowing Lord:

In this glorious Cause the life of a married couple should resemble the life of the angels in heaven-a life full of joy and spiritual delight, a life of unity and concord, a friendship both mental and physical. The home should be orderly and well-organized. Their ideas and thoughts should be like the rays of the sun of truth and the radiance of the brilliant stars in the heavens. Even as two birds they should warble melodies upon the branches of the tree of fellowship and harmony.  They should always be elated with joy and gladness and be a source of happiness to the hearts of others. They should set an example to their fellow-men, manifest a true and sincere love towards each other and educate their children in such a manner as to blazon the fame and glory of their family.

~ ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

 

Tags: marriage

• Baha'i Concepts , General Interest
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Baha'i Perspectives March 15th, 2009

Then it is clear that the honor and exaltation of man must be something more than material riches. Material comforts are only a branch, but the root of the exaltation of man is the good attributes and virtues which are the adornments of his reality. These are

the divine appearances,
the heavenly bounties,
the sublime emotions,
the love and knowledge of God;
universal wisdom,
intellectual perception,
scientific discoveries,
justice,
equity,
truthfulness,
benevolence,
natural courage and innate fortitude;
the respect for rights and the keeping of agreements and covenants;
rectitude in all circumstances;
serving the truth under all conditions;
the sacrifice of one’s life for the good of all people;
kindness and esteem for all nations;
obedience to the teachings of God;
service in the Divine Kingdom;
the guidance of the people,
and the education of the nations and races.

This is the prosperity of the human world! This is the exaltation of man in the world! This is eternal life and heavenly honor!

These virtues do not appear from the reality of man except through the power of God and the divine teachings, for they need supernatural power for their manifestation. It may be that in the world of nature a trace of these perfections may appear, but they are unstable and ephemeral; they are like the rays of the sun upon the wall.

As the compassionate God has placed such a wonderful crown upon the head of man, man should strive that its brilliant jewels may become visible in the world.

~ Abdu’l-Baha

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nooshin March 10th, 2009

I read something last week that made me cry a little.  It’s a blog on grieving by Meghan O’Rourke, where she chronicles her bereavement after the death of her mother. 

It made me cry because she describes so well the devastation of death.  I recognized it because I lost my father eight years ago, only a few months after the death of my aunt.  One of the most poignant descriptions O’Rourke gives is that bereavement feels “like you’re pacing in the chilly dark outside a house with lit-up windows, wishing you could go inside. You feel clueless about the rules of shelter and solace in this new environment you’ve been exiled to“.

In the third instalment of the blog, O’Rourke touches on several theories of grief, including the one they taught us in Psych 101, Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grieving: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.   I tried to figure out if I had gone through the five stages, and in what order and how quickly.  And then I realized that perhaps a belief in an afterlife would affect how you cope with death.  If you see this life as an end to itself, then death has a finality and cruelty which would be hard to accept.

But if you believe that the soul is immortal, and that this life is just a period of its existence and not its whole, then death is not so much a “goodbye” as a “see you later”.  Even in the darkest days after my father’s death (from a car accident caused by a drunk driver), and the surreal wrongness of it all, I knew with all my heart that he was still with me, and in a better place.  And the Baha’i Writings on the nature of the human soul, and its journey towards God, were my constant solace. 

Bahá’u'lláh, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, gives the following explanation of the journey of the soul after death.

And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter. …

The Prophets and Messengers of God have been sent down for the sole purpose of guiding mankind to the straight Path of Truth. The purpose underlying Their revelation hath been to educate all men, that they may, at the hour of death, ascend, in the utmost purity and sanctity and with absolute detachment, to the throne of the Most High. The light which these souls radiate is responsible for the progress of the world and the advancement of its peoples.They are like unto leaven which leaveneth the world of being, and constitute the animating force through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest. …

The world beyond is as different from this world as this world is different from that of the child while still in the womb of its mother.When the soul attaineth the Presence of God, it will assume the form that best befitteth its immortality and is worthy of its celestial habitation.

O’Rourke talks about the great metaphor for picturing her mother’s existence after her death.  I picture my dad reading over my shoulder as I write this, because he always bugged me to become a writer.  And I imagine him playing backgammon and drinking coffee. But my favourite images of him are from the following Baha’i prayer (which is also inscribed on his tombstone):

O Lord, glorify his station, shelter him under the pavilion of Thy supreme mercy, cause him to enter Thy glorious paradise, and perpetuate his existence in Thine exalted rose garden, that he may plunge into the sea of light in the world of mysteries.

Tags: afterlife, spirituality

• Baha'i Concepts
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Baha'i Perspectives March 6th, 2009

With uncertainty clouding the future of the Baha’is currenly held captive by the Iranian authorities, and with the recent upswing in human rights violations perpetrated towards the Baha’i community there, the Baha’i International Community has produced a document for the immediate attention of the Iranian Prosecutor General, Ayatollah Qorban-Ali Dorri-Najafabadi. 

This tremendous composition exposes the absurdity of the charges against Baha’is, and states in a factual, clearly presented manner, the reality of the persecutions that Baha’is have experienced in Iran over recent decades. It is an appeal to mind and heart of every human being following the situation, be they perpetrators, journalists, well-wishers or simply spectators — and in particular to the governing authorities of Iran — to take stock of what is happening and to accord the freedom and dignity due to every citizen of that land. 

Read it here.

Tags: Iran

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Baha'i Perspectives March 6th, 2009

As one of the better known Baha’is on the international scene, Rainn Wilson (who plays Dwight on The Office) has been letting people know the basics of this Faith whenever afforded the opportunity in the media — particularly mentioning the onenesses of God, religion and humanity.

Recently, as many are already aware, he wrote a commentary for CNN bringing awareness to the plight of the 7 Baha’i leaders who remain wrongfully incarcerated in Iran.

And now, he will be chatting with Oprah Winfrey on her “Soul Series” webcast. Some details of the upcoming interview, taken from Oprah.com:

Rainn Wilson
Actor and creator of a website that aims to connect people and offer a place to discuss life’s big questions. 

Coming Up: March 9

Be sure to tune in online. Spread the word to your friends. And in case you were wondering which website is being referred to, here is a sneak preview:

Soul Pancake

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