Baha’i Perspectives

nava April 29th, 2009

Is it just me or does it seem like the sex card is the permanent trump these days?

The other day I was flipping through a magazine and on the third page, there was an ad of a half-naked girl in a silver bikini and silver body paint staring back at me with a very come-hither look on her face.   Guess what she was advertising:  water.  One of the most basic, natural things in creation, advertised by half-naked, silver-body-paint girl who had positioned the bottle very seductively near her mouth.  Really?  Is this supposed to entice me to buy water?  I drink water.  I’ve been drinking it since I was born.  I don’t look like her.  Neither will you.  Realistically, anyone looking at the ad knows that, too.  Yet, there must be an appeal; it must work on some level, or else every ad-campaign from “Got Milk” to “Axe Deodorant” to anything else you can think of wouldn’t objectify women and men to promote a product.  Whether or not we actually engage in it, most of us are OD-ing on sex.

So where does the obsession even come from?  There are lots of theories, I’m sure.  I have my own.  Every human being was created because of love and to love, and the highest physical expression of love is sex.  But this is only true within its proper confines (i.e. marriage).  When we separate it from this context, when we sexify everything from water to milk to hygiene products, what value does it hold?  Suddenly what is meant to be, aside from the vehicle for procreation, a special act which deepens ties of intimacy and union between two committed individuals becomes trivial and mundane. 

Unfortunately, the effects of sexification don’t stop at the depreciation of its own intrinsic value. We are told by the religious scriptures of the world’s major religions that we should not engage in sex until marriage. But, why?  Shoghi Effendi explains that:

Briefly stated the Bahá’í conception of sex is based on the belief that chastity should be strictly practised by both sexes, not only because it is in itself highly commendable ethically, but also due to its being the only way to a happy and successful marital life.

I remember the first time I came across this quote.  ”…the only way to a happy and successful marital life.”   Bold statement.   One I didn’t quite understand.  I could wrap my mind around it having negative effects on my soul that I didn’t comprehend because the workings of the spiritual world are a complete mystery to me, anyway.  But this implied that the reason wasn’t merely spiritual.  That it wasn’t a matter of “have sex and you go straight to hell” but that this was also a practical law.  Shoghi Effendi was warning us that engaging in sex outside of marriage would affect us within marriage.  The reasons why sex outside of marriage when you are already married is wrong is obvious.  It’s hard to paint adultery in a favorable light so I will assume that anyone reading this can also understand why fidelity and truthfulness would never allow for one to engage in intimate acts with anyone other than one’s spouse.  But why not be allowed to have sex before we’ve made that commitment?  How is that harmful? 

When I tried to understand this law, it all came down to foundation.  If you build a house on a cracked foundation, the chances that it will crumble are so much higher than if you build it on a firm one.   Even though sex is a physical act, chastity is primarily a spiritual law.  On at least one level, the protection in this law is abundantly clear to me.   As God has designed us, He knows how we’re hard-wired.  He knows what’s good for us, what will hurt us, and how we will react to different things.  If He has ordained that we wait until marriage, perhaps it is in part because He knows that physical acts of intimacy bind us to one another emotionally in ways that are not meant to be broken;  in ways that He did not design to be broken.  So whether we engage in those acts casually, they still have an effect on us, and make it harder for us to be detached from one another, thereby often binding us to people who really aren’t right for us.  Think what a thick veil sex becomes in the process of getting to know someone to determine if he or she is the right person for you.  How many people stay in bad relationships, to the point of marrying the person, because the physical aspect blinds them completely.  Sex is intoxicating.  Why make a potentially life-altering, life-long decision while under the influence? 

And then there’s just common sense.  Human beings are creatures of habit.  When we get used to sleeping with whomever we want whenever we want, when we never learn to develop self-control or discipline, and have never even tried to resist temptation, what’s magically going to enable us to do that once we’re married?  Not a whole lot.

It’s no surprise then that the verity of that “bold statement” about the only way to a happy and successful marital life is everyday confirmed in the marriages crumbling all around us.

Tags: chastity, marriage, relationships, sex

• Society
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kerii April 26th, 2009

The world seems to be completely smitten with the idea of getting to know one self all of a sudden. Or at least it appears that way to me.

I just returned to Namibia after having lived in Israel for the better part of the past three years. In catching up with a number of friends I have been surprised to find that a common topic of discussion with people nowadays is the question, “How do I get to know myself better?”

At first I thought it may have just been a Namibian thing, but to be sure I decided to go online to see if this was a global trend I somehow missed.

I found a staggering 140 thousand news articles that had written about the concept in one way or another last month alone! I found a further 166 million Web pages that had content relating to the concept.

Now these numbers may not be as big as the 526 thousand news articles that were written containing the name Barack Obama last month, but they were significantly higher than the 53 thousand articles written with the words climate change. Therefore I came to the conclusion that this was a topic that merited investigation.

As always, the source of my initial enquiry into this matter was the Baha’i writings. And it is here that I found the gems that inspired this post.

It seems the Baha’i Faith takes a different approach to the issue of knowledge of “self” to that of contemporary society. One can find thousands upon thousands of sites and articles on-line that suggest true happiness comes from finding out who you really are as an individual — and then designing your life to fit that self-informed identity.

Though the Baha’i writings do not disagree with this entirely, they do offer a nugget that I have not expressly found in other sources: The only way to truly find one’s self is to find God!

Baha’u'llah says,

O My servants! Could ye apprehend with what wonders of My munificence and bounty I have willed to entrust your souls, ye would, of a truth, rid yourselves of attachment to all created things, and would gain a true knowledge of your own selves — a knowledge which is the same as the comprehension of Mine own Being.

Therefore true knowledge of ourselves is the same as that of knowing God! In the words of one of my heroes, “put that in your pipe and smoke it!”

It is with this understanding that my mind truly began to swirl. God is everything! How can my reality be the reality of every other thing too?

The question betrayed a paradox between my understanding of how the contemporary world defines “self” and the Baha’i writing’s definition of this same concept. On the one hand the world sees “self” as an entirely subjective and highly individual state of being. On the other, the Baha’i writings see “self” as an integral part of one of the broadest concepts our minds can conceive of – everything!

Case in point: Abdu’l-Baha says to master self is to become part of the “universe and the inhabitants thereof.”

Full quote:

Today the confirmations of the Kingdom of Abha are with those who renounce themselves, forget their own opinions, cast aside personalities and are thinking of the welfare of others. Whosoever has lost himself has found the universe and the inhabitants thereof. Whosoever is occupied with himself is wandering in the desert of heedlessness and regret. The ‘master-key’ to self-mastery is self-forgetting. The road to the palace of life is through the path of renunciation.

My understanding of the Baha’i writings regarding this point is not that we all become monks and meditate until we become one with the world. Rather it is that we become the living embodiments of this principle and strive to employ it in all of our daily activities.

Further my investigation into the writings uncovered a deeper nuance. The writings suggest that all individuals consist of two selves. One of which we commonly know as Ego. The other is the Higher Self.

Shoghi Effendi said,

…self has really two meanings, or is used in two senses, in the Bahá’í writings; one is self, the identity of the individual created by God. This is the self mentioned in such passages as “he hath known God who hath known himself”, etc. The other self is the ego, the dark, animalistic heritage each one of us has, the lower nature that can develop into a monster of selfishness, brutality, lust and so on. It is this self we must struggle against… in order to strengthen and free the spirit within us and help it to attain perfection.

How do we do this? An answer I found was in meeting the challenge Baha’u'llah gave us when He raised the bar on the golden rule. He said,

Blessed is he who preferreth his brother before himself.

“Do onto others as you would have them do onto you” is no longer good enough.

Of course the other part of this answer is a good dose of daily prayer.

After writing and looking back at all of this, I felt that we were being asked to do something super human. Apparently I was right! In explaining these ideas to a believer, Shoghi Effendi said meeting these challenges would be impossible for a human being. However, as human beings it is our responsibility to try.

The only people who are truly free of the “dross of self” are the Prophets,” he said. “…for to be free of one’s ego is a hallmark of perfection. We humans are never going to become perfect, for perfection belongs to a realm we are not destined to enter. However, we must constantly mount higher, seek to be more perfect.

So… now that I had an informed perspective on how to find one’s self and all the different implications that had, I decided to call one of my friends who asked me the question that started this all in the first place.

The phone rang….

Tags: ego, self

• Baha'i Concepts , General Interest
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iman April 17th, 2009

I woke up with a thought in my mind: why do I sometimes resist change; character improvement for the better?  It’s simply easier to stay the same, I guess, even if it’s not always comfortable. Sometimes it may be because we are too comfortable that we don’t feel the urge to adjust ourselves. Sometimes we just don’t realize that we need to change. Realization occurs only after careful and constant reflection on our actions; but sometimes we don’t reflect and don’t try to change. In truth, however, it isn’t easy to disregard all past habits and experiences and start anew.  Abdu’l-Baha says:

It is extremely difficult to teach the individual and refine his character once puberty is passed. By then, as experience hath shown, even if every effort be exerted to modify some tendency of his, it all availeth nothing. He may, perhaps, improve somewhat today; but let a few days pass and he forgetteth, and turneth backward to his habitual condition and accustomed ways.

Therefore it is in early childhood that a firm foundation must be laid:

It followeth that the children’s school must be a place of utmost discipline and order, that instruction must be thorough, and provision must be made for the rectification and refinement of character; so that, in his earliest years, within the very essence of the child, the divine foundation will be laid and the structure of holiness raised up…Know that this matter of instruction, of character rectification and refinement, of heartening and encouraging the child, is of the utmost importance, for such are basic principles of God.

Hardship and tests can act as a catalyst for change, not only on a personal level but also on a global one. Mankind as an entity faces challenges similar to those restraining us in our journey of personal transformation. It seems to be the common case, globally, that change is resisted. It seems as though only until our ‘backs are against the wall’ that we begin to discern the importance of altering our unsustainable patterns of old.

How long will humanity persist in its waywardness? How long will injustice continue? How long is chaos and confusion to reign amongst men? How long will discord agitate the face of society?…The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appeareth to be lamentably defective.

(Baha’u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 215)

Shoghi Effendi goes on to say:

Economic distress…together with political confusion, financial upheavals, religious restlessness and racial animosities, seem to have conspired to add immeasurably to the burdens under which an impoverished, a war-weary world is groaning…The world…is everywhere assailed by forces it can neither explain nor control.

That the forces of a world catastrophe can alone precipitate such a new phase of human thought is, alas, becoming increasingly apparent. That nothing short of the fire of a severe ordeal, unparalleled in its intensity, can fuse and weld the discordant entities that constitute the elements of present-day civilization, into the integral components of the world commonwealth of the future, is a truth which future events will increasingly demonstrate.

Does this imply that dire times lie ahead?

Nothing but a fiery ordeal, out of which humanity will emerge, chastened and prepared, can succeed in implanting that sense of responsibility which the leaders of a new-born age must arise to shoulder.

(Shoghi Effendi, The World Order of Baha’u'llah, p. 45)

Drawing on Ohm’s law, the more the resistance experienced, the greater the potential. The onus is on us to make use of this potential.

Tags: change, education, integration/disintegration

• Baha'i Concepts
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nooshin April 14th, 2009

You will have to forgive me if this is against proper netiquette, but I am going to blog about one of my own articles.  It’s one I wrote about after a trip to flood-affected areas of northern Namibia, telling the story of Helvy, a 84-year old great grandmother.  I met her in a relocation camp, where her village had moved after their homes were submerged when the nearby river burst its banks.

Almost six hundred people are living in the camp, five or six families in each tent. They have to sleep on the hard ground, and at night when it gets colder, only a few have blankets to cover them.  There are two taps in the whole camp, and the Red Cross has built three temporary toilets on the outskirts.  They have lost not only their homes, but also their fields of maize and sorghum.  So, not only is this year’s harvest gone, but next year’s one is lost too, because the seeds for next year come from this year. 

I met Helvy during our brief visit to the camp, a little bit after midday.  She was dressed in what I suspect is her best dress, accessorised with a beautiful long handmade bead necklace.  There had been a state visit earlier in the day, and the whole camp was spick and span.  Helvy was sitting outside her tent, cradling a sleeping child in her arms.  I don’t know if it was one of her own great-grandchildren, but from the number of children clustered around her tent, I think she must be a child-magnet.

Through an interpreter, she told me about the night they had to abandon their home and escape to the camp.  She told me that they had lost most of their possessions and their food and about how scared she had been.  Then she gave me a blinding smile, and said “But I am blessed.  My family is safe, I am safe, and we are together.  I am very thankful to God”.

I was taken aback.  After all this hardship, shouldn’t she be bitter and miserable? Shouldn’t she be bemoaning her fate, instead of being thankful?  I kept thinking about her all day, humbled by her radiant acquiescence, her detachment from material things, and her love for her family. She seemed to epitomise what the Baha’i Writings tell us about tests and difficulties:

For what can dark doubts do with the light of guidance, or clouds with the shining moon? Tests and trials only cause agitation to weak hearts. But the pure souls, a hundred thousand tests are but to them like mirage, imagination and shadow. 

Praise be to God that thou hast kept steadfast with all firmness under the millstone of tests like unto a grain of diamond. Be not grieved; tests lead to the development of holy souls and the ardor of the flame of fire causeth the pure gold to shine and the violence of winds is conducive to the growth and thriving of a firm and well rooted tree.

So the next time there is a blip in my ordered life, and things do not go as planned and I begin to feel sorry for myself, I hope I will remember Helvy and her blinding smile.

Tags: tests

• Baha'i Concepts , Principles in Action
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shadi April 9th, 2009

Recently, my husband and I were on a long road trip using the cheapest rental car we could find. As a result of our thriftiness, we had a car with only radio access (no ipod connection), which made for some meaningful one-on-one conversation. After a good thirty minutes of talking about work and our to-do-lists and so on, we started to get more creative.

I asked him, “What are the things you enjoy doing the most?”

He replied, “Are you serious? You know what things I enjoy doing!”

“Well… sure, I know some of them… maybe even most of them… but maybe there are things that will be new to me.”

My husband, always willing to play along, proceeded to highlight a list of things he enjoys doing, some of which I definitely knew and a few things that were new to me.

Then he proceeded to ask me the same question. I started to list the things I really enjoy doing, and a very strange thing happened. Halfway through my list, I began to tear up and eventually cry a bit. I realized that most of the things on my list were things I WANTED to do, but not things I was actually DOING. Woah, man!

My husband and I proceeded to break down my list and realized that most of the things I enjoy doing are creative in nature (i.e. reading for pleasure, dancing to happy music, listening to inspiring music, and the list goes on and on). Why wasn’t I doing any of it?

Initially I blamed it on a lack of time, but eventually we decided that if you really want to do an activity, you tend to make some time for it. Skip past further novice psychoanalysis, and we realized it all boiled down to guilt. I felt guilty spending an hour curled up with a good book or taking the time to listen to an inspiring song rather than using that same hour to do something more “productive” like responding to work e-mail after hours or doing an extra load of laundry.

The Baha’i writings speak highly of engaging in the arts such as music. In one passage, Shoghi Effendi tells us the following:

It is the music which assists us to affect the human spirit; it is an important means which helps us to communicate with the soul.

(Compilations, The Compilation of Compilations vol II, p. 80)

Abdu’l-Baha tell us the following:

Among certain nations of the East, music was considered reprehensible, but in this new age the Manifest Light hath, in His holy Tablets, specifically proclaimed that music, sung or played, is spiritual food for soul and heart.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 112)

I started thinking that maybe my soul decided to start that conversation to let me know that it’s starved for some creative food. Although it’s still not second nature, I have allotted myself twenty minutes a day since our road trip to engage in non “productive” activities. I’m starting to think that these twenty minutes might end up being the most productive minutes I have.

Tags: music

• Arts & Culture
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nadim April 2nd, 2009

Ever have one of those days where the media bombards your senses with one single theme? Where just about everything you see or hear is related to the same issue? For me, this day was Friday the 20th of March (yes, months after the U.S. presidential elections and weeks before the G20 economic summit).

I settled down in my train seat, free newspaper in hand, all geared up for the early morning commute to work. Being free of charge, it’s quite a challenge finding anything of substance amongst the pages of tabloid gossip, cheap flight promotions and stories of cats in trees. This particular morning though, I found two stories of the compare-and-contrast variety, both to do with alcohol. The first was a Japanese study which concluded that moderate social drinking reduces the risk of heart disease, as opposed to drinking in isolation which has less effect. All well and good, but this naturally leads to the question: does this study have more to do with alcohol or with social interaction? Replace alcohol with, say, grapes or broccoli, and the findings will no doubt be the same…plus you wouldn’t have to deal with all the harmful side effects. Not sure that the idea of social broccoli eating will take off anytime soon though. Seedless grapes might have a chance though .

So much for that. The next article highlighted the consequences of the growing binge drinking culture across Britain. 

An ambulance for drunks will run all year in London to cope with the growing scourge of binge drinking.

Today London Ambulance Service announced its “booze bus” will operate every week to relieve pressure on other crews of medics and to save thousands of pounds…

Since starting four years ago, the service has only operated during periods of high demand such as weekends in December, New Year’s Eve, and the 2006 World Cup. But now a paramedic crew will trawl the West End each week in the Central London Alternative Response Vehicle, treating drunken revellers.

Among the more obvious repercussions of binge culture, to add to the growing list of medical crises related in some way to alcohol, is the dramatic rise in demand for liver transplants. Problem is, there is also a major shortage of liver donors. What’s more, the liver guardians (frequently a family member of the deceased donor) have the final say in who receives the organ – and quite often they will decide against donating the liver to an alcohol abuser, lest the person ends up going back to the bottle post-operation. One can’t help but feel sympathy for all parties concerned: the patient who requires urgent medical care, the doctors who are trying to help him, and the donor who feels priority ought to be given to someone who hasn’t “brought it upon themselves” and will genuinely treasure the second chance.

When people ask me why I’m a non-drinker, the question goes something like this: “Is it because of your religion?” My answer is a hesitant yes. Yes because my religion forbids me to drink. Hesitant because by giving a one-word answer, the practical and philosophical reasons get lost. The topic often changes immediately, and I’m surreptitiously cast into the pile of inhibited fellows whose religion “forces them to do it”, when actually this is far from the truth. I follow the law because firstly, it makes practical sense, and secondly because I believe in the Personage who brought the teaching, and believe he knows what is best, not only for us but for general society too.

Sitting in on a Ruhi class one day, in the presence of a warm, thoughtful group of people investigating the teachings of the Baha’i Faith, the topic of alcohol prohibition arose. Surely, pointed out one participant, the fact that there are millions of people out there who drink responsibly should be considered and that they should be afforded their dues. Another participant responded that the line between drinking responsibly and overstepping the mark was very fine indeed, thereby we always ran the risk of irreperably harming our own physical/spiritual selves and the lives of those around us. 

This conversation went back and forth for a while, but ultimately it came down to one question, one that all the participants were engaged in by attending the class: Was Baha’u'llah really who He claimed to be? Was he really the Divine Educator for this day and age? If the answer is affirmative, and each individual is free to decide that for themselves, then one has absolutely no grounds to argue against the laws He has revealed. For how can we, the puny and unintelligent beings that we are, argue against the perfect wisdom of the Divine? How can we with our limited comprehension argue against that which is limitless?

Regardless of what one ends up believing, if the truth really is enshrined within Baha’u'llah’s laws and teachings, then what is certain is that the wisdom behind them would become ever more apparent as time goes by. In other words, society is in a state of constant flux, and conditions would evolve in a way that only reinforces the rationale behind these laws.

The UK government has poured millions of pounds into failed drink reduction policies, and they certainly aren’t the only government battling the epidemic. The latest proposal by the UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, is to raise the minimum price of alcohol in an effort to prevent young people from being able to afford it. In the comments section below the article, paulaxed from East Yorkshire is not impressed: “Its a cultural / attitude thing and playing with prices will not change it.”

Point taken, but to the cultural/attitude thing I would hasten to add the moral/spiritual thing. Because until we teach a deeper appreciation of our true selves, the reasons behind our existence and the heights to which we must strive, such scourges won’t be disappearing any time soon.

22. O SON OF SPIRIT!
Noble have I created thee, yet thou hast abased thyself. Rise then unto that for which thou wast created.

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

Tags: alcohol

• Baha'i Concepts , News & Current Affairs , Society
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