Happiness: Faith
iman October 20th, 2008
Faith. Very powerful, yet equally challenging to practice with consistency. The concept of faith is conveyed, in its basic form, by philosophies such as “The Secret” where ‘forces of attraction’ are acknowledged, yet the origin of these forces is ignored. Quoting The Secret’s web site: “Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance.”
Many decades ago, Abdu’l-Bahá explained the secret behind The Secret: “As ye have faith so shall your powers and blessings be“.
One should strive to have faith that, using the teachings of God for today as our beacon, no obstacles will obscure the endpoint of our journey, will make us “content with the decree of God,” and will give us the perception to see “war as peace“, and find “in death the secrets of everlasting life“. In a world ridden by war and conflict, merely imagining a world without conflict defies the logic created by our finite minds, as a result of this being our only experience, our only benchmark. Baha’u'llah mentions seeing “war as peace”. This seems almost unthinkable given the tragedies the world has witnessed over time.
So in what way can we view “war as peace”? To imagine the unimaginable requires faith, but who’s to say the unimaginable is even possible? If we view God as the Creator of all things, our Protector, and trust that He has and will continue to provide us with guidance through his Manifestations, herein lies the unshakable essence of faith. Most recently, the teachings of Baha’u'llah hold the solutions to personal and global woes, the fruits of which will appear over time. The speed at which this happens though, depends on us.
The more we suffer, the more opportunity we have to increase our faith. Often, time binds us to situation and our faith is tested. However, as time passes grief turns into happiness and we wonder why we were so troubled about our concerns in the first place. This cycle repeats itself and we grow stronger in our faith, but only should we choose to.
The ability to “see the end in the beginning” can go a long way in filling our reservoir of faith:
…since the end was veiled to him, he moaned and made his plaint in the beginning. Yet those who journey in the garden land of knowledge, because they see the end in the beginning, see peace in war and friendliness in anger.
(Baha’u'llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 13)
As we witness injustice and grief all around us, it becomes a lot easier to adopt a defeatist attitude than to have faith, to place one’s complete trust in God, and then act towards a positive solution. By striving towards greater steadfastness of faith, our mindset becomes more positive and detached, and contentment is made more readily accessible:
It is such faith which sufficeth above all the things that exist on the earth, whereas no created thing on earth besides faith would suffice thee…If thou art a believer, thy faith shall be sufficient for thee above all things that exist on earth, even though thou possess nothing.
(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 122)
The next post will draw to a close this series on Happiness with some final thoughts.
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- Baha'i Concepts , General Interest
- Comments(5)
One of my favorite descriptions of faith is “clinging to the hem of the robe”. I thank God every day that but for Him, I would not even know that IS a robe to cling to.
And we cannot let go- even for a moment. That’s how precarious is the position our human egos put us- especially in “good times”. One slip and it’s along crawl back!
You have spoken so beautifully about faith and have tied together the mainstream “trend” that is considering the power of attraction noted in “The Secret” with the power of divine providence which Abdu’l-Baha has so eloquently taught us about.
I have often seen the connections between some of the new age philosophies and the spiritual truths contained in the Baha’i Writings. As Baha’is, we are so fortunate to have knowledge of the Source of these inspirations.
Thank you for your series on Happiness. It is truly enlightening.
“Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance.”
Babies die in garbage dumpsters, the elderly and disabled of neglect and abuse, prisoners of torture… I could easily go on but everyone knows about such things. They happen to millions of people around the world every day and night.
It seems to me that a faith perspective needs to take account of the full breadth of the human experience, not just people who live in relative physical safety and material abundance.
Hi Paul,
According to Baha’u'llah:
“The essence of faith is fewness of words and abundance of deeds; he whose words exceed his deeds, know verily his death is better than his life.”
To me this says that the kind of faith which is purely personal and does not result in meaningful action is worthless. The appalling statistics you’ve mentioned provide just the kind of motivation to keep working for solutions.
That being said, the search for solutions can be limited to looking at symptoms of a problem and alleviating them one by one; essentially putting band-aids on the problem, or alternatively we can investigate why such awful things occur and work towards a lasting cure. A skilled doctor would do both… taking care of a person’s immediate needs (food, shelter, neglect, you-name-it) as well as prescribing the long-term remedy, so that eventually the patient becomes fully self-sufficient.
Baha’is believe Baha’u'llah is the latest Divine Physician whose teachings are the basis for mankind’s long-term material and spiritual prosperity, and daily we strive to put His teachings into practice in programmes of spiritual and social action. Contrary to certain assumptions, Baha’is hail from every social class, race and religion and together represent the second most widespread Faith on the planet. They are acutely aware of the suffering endured by the masses of humanity (themselves included) and are working hard to alleviate it.
Thank you everyone for your comments. Liz, I think a lot of us fear slipping. In a way, though, it is this fear that can motivate us to reach higher.
In addition to Nadim’s comment, I have another thought to add. I feel that the faith is personal experience and that we “who live in relative physical safety and material abundance” have our faith tested in ways which may be poles apart from ways in which the neglected elderly, for example, have their faith tested. What is so unfortunate in the case of the latter is that it is US who are responsible for this test of faith on the elderly. We, as humanity, have a long way to go in terms of how to treat our fellow human beings and this can be achieved through, as Nadim pointed out, observance of God’s most recently revealed laws and ordinances.