Baha’i Perspectives

nava March 6th, 2010

Prayer is…a lot.  Prayer is a lot of things.  Things we will never comprehend or fully understand.  But some are clear.  Some are evident.  Some we must not be remiss in meditating about and making use of.

Prayer is communion with God.  Prayer is the channel through which we open our tender, fragile, delicate human hearts to our Lord.  Hearts which He has singled out as His throne — “All that is in heaven and earth I have ordained for thee, except the human heart, which I have made the habitation of My beauty and glory” (Bahá’u’lláh).  Hearts which in their delicateness and fragility often go astray.

We go through life hitching our wagons to stars that fall; whereupon we are miserable, and lasso the next ones.  Our leaves shrivel, our moons wane, the marbles we build our statues of are crumbled.  Only God is always strong, always there, always permanent.  Only God is worthy to be worked for.  And to achieve this detachment from everything except God we require prayer.

(Marzieh Gail, Dawn over Mount Hira)

We all struggle with our existence.  To understand ourselves and to understand one another.  Yet it seems that ‘finding ourselves’ is not something we can actually do on our own.  Shoghi Effendi explains that the more we search for ourselves the less likely we are to find ourselves; ‘Abdu’l-Bahá explains that the master key to self-discovery is self-forgetfulness.  But this task of forgetting ourselves is very difficult.  Especially living immersed in a social reality that begs to differ all the time.

We are exposed to music, television, films, books and popular thought that insist on the promotion of self as the key to happiness, that tell us “self-help” is “within our reach!” And then provide us with easy a+b=c formulas in self-help books and manuals to achieve just that.  But do they really work?  Probably not, or else why would keep buying the manuals?  We’re not satisfied yet.

Prayer and service, however…Prayer and service help us discover our true selves.  In prayer we ask God to help us be detached.  Not to fulfill our every whim and desire but to help us align our will to His.  His infinitely superior, infinitely wiser, infinitely more beneficial will.  And as we align our will to His, the mystery of “who am I?” and “why am I here?” begins to reveal itself.  The thing about this ‘mystery’ is that it does not ever seem to become permanently clear.

Many of us weave in and out of clarity, of acute awareness of who we are why we are here; or at the very least, of the discipline to fulfill our high purpose in this life.

Prayer, like any other habit, must be exercised daily or else it degenerates.  With increased use we become more adept at it, and with decreased use we become more likely to forget why we pray at all.  So we begin to lessen the habit and lessen the habit until it no longer forms part of our reality.  Then we begin to roam the self-help aisles in our mega-bookstores and indulge ourselves in thoughts and actions that centre around our own ‘happiness’ all the while neglecting the true fountain of joy in this life.  Nearness and servitude to God.  Nearness and servitude to His servants.

Each and every one of us, no matter how high or low our station in life, need to serve one another and care deeply about the welfare of each and all.  But maintaining this level of consciousness can be difficult without the assistance of prayer.   Additionally, prayer and meditation often make clear the ‘how’.  How do we assist one another?  How do we grow closer to God?

Then there is the sweetness of prayer.  The sweetness of surrender to One who is so far exalted above us and who loves us so truly, so completely—in a way that we can never really love ourselves or one another.  In His tablet to the Shah of Iran, Násiri’d-Din Sháh, Bahá’u’lláh explains to Him—a human being who caused so much pain and anguish, who was responsible for the torture and mass killings of thousands of early believers in Iran—to this person, Bahá’u’lláh says:

They that surround thee love thee for their own sakes, whereas this Youth loveth thee for thine own sake, and hath had no desire except to draw thee nigh unto the seat of grace, and to turn thee toward the right-hand of justice.

(Baha’u'llah)

But He also explains that in order for His love to reach us, we must love Him.  “Love me that I may love thee; if thou lovest Me not My love can in no wise reach thee.”

Prayer is an instrument we use to express our love for God and to deepen that love; to open ourselves to the grace and bounty that is continually flowing towards us.  Tyrant or saint; king or pauper.  One and all, He loves.

Marzieh Gail offers the following on the absurdity of asking why we must pray to God in order to grow near to Him:

And yet people inquire why they should pray, why God does not come to them — remarks as logical as sitting in a darkened room and wondering why all the sweep and glitter of the summer sunlight does not penetrate.

She also remarks that:

It is not surprising that a prayerless people are driven to drugs and stimulants and a hundred forms of useless activity. They have no antidote for life, and no effective means of achieving the ‘respite and nepenthe’ for which they long. It is not surprising that people cheat one another, desert one another, kill one another, because only universal prayer can make the world safe for us to live in.

Embedded in the act of prayer is also the feeling of ecstasy; the ecstasy of divine communion with the Source of our beings, with the Breath that animates our mortal frames.

Reveal then Thyself, O Lord, by Thy merciful utterance and the mystery of Thy divine being, that the holy ecstasy of prayer may fill our souls – a prayer that shall rise above words and letters and transcend the murmur of syllables and sounds – that all things may be merged into nothingness before the revelation of Thy splendor.

(Compilations, Baha’i Prayers)

Though there is much more that could be said on prayer, a final point that I feel must be included is that of cleansing our hearts.  Benjamin Franklin apparently kept a notebook with all his sins in it, but Confucius said, ‘I can do as my heart lusteth and never swerve from right’. The more we pray, the more we align our will to the Divine; the more we polish the rust from off our hearts and allow our desires to be such as will lead us to joy, to well-being — to God.

Tags: prayer

• Baha'i Concepts , General Interest , Inspiration
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iman January 27th, 2010

Rapid technological leaps forward in the last 10 years mean mankind is closer than ever before to knowing whether extra-terrestrial life exists in our galaxy, one of Britain’s leading scientists said on Tuesday.

It’s been a fascinating week in the world of astronomy. The article continues:

“Now we know that most of the stars, like the sun, are likely to have planetary systems around them and we have every reason to suspect that many of them have planets that are rather like our earth,” Rees told Reuters in an interview.

He said great strides in space search techniques over the last decade had removed one of the big obstacles in finding other worlds, and possibly even complex life forms, in our Milky Way galaxy of more than a 100 billion stars.

“Indeed, we live in very exciting times,” he said.

What rings in the mind of Baha’is are the prophetic utterances of Baha’u'llah from well over a century ago, which not only assure us that many stars have planets, but that they all do:

The learned men, that have fixed at several thousand years the life of this earth, have failed, throughout the long period of their observation, to consider either the number or the age of the other planets. Consider, moreover, the manifold divergencies that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men. Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute.

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

It is indeed exciting to observe how the path of scientific discovery re-enforces the Baha’i writings. Next, perhaps scientists will find an Earth-like planet, or discover creatures on these planets, or even change our perception of the word “creatures”? I wait for that day, with eager anticipation.

Tags: planets, stars

• General Interest , News & Current Affairs
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Baha'i Perspectives January 8th, 2010

Two new audiovisual pieces have recently become available for viewing and download.

First, Arising to Serve: Glimpses from 41 Regional Conferences is a DVD capturing the highlights of the regional conferences that took place between November 2008 and March 2009. The scenes are vibrant and inspirational; check it out at www.bahai.org/arising. You can watch the DVD in parts online or download it in it’s entirety.

“Beyond our culture of contest lies a different kind of democracy: gentle, just and… inevitable”. This is the tagline from the recently released documentary entitled Beyond King of the Mountain produced by DoubleTake.tv. The best way to describe it would be to say that it will leave you begging for more! And here is the film below… enjoy it.

Tags: 41 conferences, democracy

• Arts & Culture , General Interest
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nava December 2nd, 2009

I want to preface this piece with two statements. The first is that I am referring specifically to criticism among peers, friends, and loved ones; not institutions (this can range from parents-children and teachers-students to courts of law, spiritual assemblies, etc.). In those specific areas, I think it is well-understood that criticism has an established place and, though the form of it should be edifying, and “constructive” rather than harsh and tyrannical, it is the role of institutions to guide and sometimes correct. My second prefatory statement comes in the way of a disclaimer: although this blog is called Bahá’í Perspectives, every piece we submit is subjective and represents the views of the author rather than any authoritative view of the Bahá’í writings. With respect to the following article, this is truer than ever. This piece represents merely my thoughts on this topic based on what I know of the Bahá’í writings and my interpretation thereof, but is not a subject I have explicitly seen dealt with anywhere in the Bahá’í teachings, so it is more like the perspective of a Bahá’í than a Bahá’í perspective.

***

About eight months ago a close friend of mine organized a small informal dinner with a married couple who are well known and highly respected. She wanted them to talk to us about marriage and share some insights with us which they have gleaned after over thirty years of a healthy marriage. In the course of the evening the husband made a statement that blew my mind and that I frequently revisit and meditate on (hence this post 8 months later). He said that when he married his wife he vowed to himself that he would never criticize her. (That’s right—never). He said something along the lines of “I married her because she’s an intelligent, mature woman. She has a relationship with Bahá’u’lláh and she’s accountable to Him [not me, he seemed to imply] for her actions. She brings herself to account each night and doesn’t need me to tell her how to improve. Even if she does something that really annoys me, I don’t tell her. She’s smart and I know she’ll figure it out.” Mind blown.

How could you be married to someone for thirty years and never criticize that person? I just could not wrap my mind around the amount of self control that would require. And is it even a good thing? The next day I had lunch with a large group of people and I brought this statement up. It led to a very heated debate about whether criticism in a marriage is a pivotal element of its functioning, and spilled over into a discussion about whether friends and family members should criticize one another.

After giving it a lot of thought, and admitting freely that I think it is very difficult to put into action, I agree with him. I think the crux of the matter is that human beings are accountable before God, not one another, for their actions. Additionally, every human being is fallible and has limited perception. Often the things I have been praised for have ended up being behaviors I should have actually curbed, and likewise, things I was criticized over ended up being behaviors that were positive. Because none of us know the context of one another’s lives—not fully—and we are not able to see all the nuances. More importantly, even if someone is wrong, why do we need to point it out? It is one thing to have an open and earnest conversation with someone and quite another to criticize each other and tell each other what to do.

The gentleman’s wife agreed with her husband’s approach and told us that in her opinion a lot of Western cultures have a strong culture of constructive criticism but most “constructive” criticism is actually quite destructive.

Another young mother was giving me advice once on how to encourage more positive behavior from some of my students and she told me to always point out the ways they have improved and outline the further progress they can make, rather than criticizing them. She said that with her own children she has seen that when she points out their “bad” behaviors, they seem to embody those traits even more, but when she speaks to them from the perspective of ‘this is where we are currently and here is where we can continue to progress’, their behavior improves.

We have to be so careful as human beings not to crush one another with the things we say, even when we think we are being helpful. Because at the end of the day, our role is to love, support and encourage one another, not modify each other’s behavior and pass judgment on one another.

… Each of us is responsible for one life only, and that is our own. Each of us is immeasurably far from being ‘perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect’ and the task of perfecting our own life and character is one that requires all our attention, our will- power and energy. If we allow our attention and energy to be taken up in efforts to keep others right and remedy their faults, we are wasting precious time. We are like ploughmen each of whom has his team to manage and his plough to direct, and in order to keep his furrow straight he must keep his eye on his goal and concentrate on his own task. If he looks to this side and that to see how Tom and Harry are getting on and to criticize their ploughing, then his own furrow will assuredly become crooked.

~ From a letter written on behalf of Shoghi Effendi

On no subject are the Bahá’í teachings more emphatic than on the necessity to abstain from fault-finding, while being ever eager to discover and root out our own faults and overcome our own failings.

~ From a letter written on behalf of The Universal House of Justice

Tags: criticism

• General Interest , Society
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sam November 15th, 2009

Acceptance is the first step to overcoming a problem however simple or intricate it may be. When dealing with wounds of an emotional nature the process of healing must begin at this stage. From there the appropriate steps can be taken that will lead to sound and complete repair. However, until the person reaches that level of acceptance the wound they bear is a danger to their emotional wellbeing.

Human beings are physical as well as spiritual. Having this dual reality, it is therefore necessary to provide for the requirements of both aspects. Hence, emotional wounds must be approached with the same care and attention as physical ones would. This is something that still has to be learned as it is not widely practiced. It is a crucial step in protecting our general wellbeing. This is especially true in current society. People are constantly delivering and receiving wounds from each other with little thought of the consequences of such actions. This raises the urgency of learning how to find and administer appropriate remedies.

There is but one power which heals — that is God. The state or condition through which the healing takes place is the confidence of the heart.

(Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p. 95)

First and foremost, the individual should turn to God. Pray for healing and for aid in finding the correct treatment. It is important to note, that healing takes place through “the confidence of the heart”. The assurance a person has in the treatment being received is vital to the healing process. Such an assertion leaves it to the individual’s needs and state of mind to decide which course of action to take. This of course must be done with both prayerful reflection as well as scientific reason. One cannot just pray and hope that healing will miraculously be administered as the person sits back and waits. Steps must be taken to help the healing take place.

Take for instance, a cut hand; if you pray for the cut to be healed and do not stop its bleeding, you will not do much good; a material remedy is needed.

(Abdu’l-Bahá in London, p. 65)

The mindset of the person is then the next part that must be addressed. One must strive to adopt a learning mentality. This will allow the individual to view everything that is experienced as an opportunity to learn. With this approach, many of the superficial hurts that are received become little lessons, encouraging growth, acting as catalysts for the reassessing of attitudes towards life and hardships experienced. This outlook on life aids in coping with most tests and difficulties encountered. It keeps the spirits up and helps to avoid getting weighed down by the changes and chances of life. With this in mind though, one must also realise that the more serious the wound the more intricate the methods of healing. Occasionally, an experience leaves deep wounds that cannot be dealt with alone.

The question is then raised as to what steps must be taken to provide for a clear path of action in finding the remedy. A good first step to obtaining clarity of mind is to seek counsel with a person whose judgement is trusted. This allows for the situation to be observed by an individual who is not influenced by the pain. Often a counsellor can be visited. Due to their expertise on this subject and the level of experience that they have they can provide very productive and helpful advice that will help open clear paths for action.

Resort ye, in times of sickness, to competent physicians

(Baha’u'llah, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, p. 60)

At this point, another reflection must be taken into account to act as a safety net. When a person harms themselves, a clean environment is sought out to prevent further complications and infections. The same idea must be applied to dealing with wounds of an emotional nature. The individual must be aware of the environment and healing administered, ensuring that it will prevent them from having future complications. This requires sound judgement and reasoning with regards to whom they approach and how they weigh the advice given. To produce this “healthy environment” within our mental psyches it is important to go to a pure Source. This Source provides a standard to work by. This standard will provide a sound framework to start the recuperation as well as a safe basis to weigh against the remedied being suggested by those individuals sought out.

…if thou wishest to know the true remedy which will heal man from all sickness and will give him the health of the divine kingdom, know that it is the precepts and teachings of God. Focus thine attention upon them.

(Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 151)

We must learn to take great care in dealing with emotional wounds. As the damage is not physically visible, acceptance of it is vital in the process of coping with the impact. The next step is then finding clear paths of healing as well as providing a hygienic environment to minimize further damage. As these steps are taken, constant reliance on God and a learning mindset must be held fast to. This pure and open mindset allows for us to receive healing as well as the guidance required to discover the remedies needed for a sound recovery.

Man is under all conditions immersed in a sea of God’s blessings. Therefore, be thou not hopeless under any circumstances, but rather be firm in thy hope.

(Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 204)

Tags: healing, tests

• General Interest , Society
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leila October 29th, 2009

Photo credit: Tom Dyson.

The older one gets, the more one’s own mortality becomes painfully evident.  I had a dream the other night that I was on a jet.  My sister was in the lavatory, and I was outside telling her a joke, wanting to make her laugh.

Suddenly, the plane began to plummet.  We both grew silent, on opposite sides of the door, and in my head, all I could think about was how much had been left undone.

Maybe I had that dream because recently, I’ve witnessed people around me, young and old, be afflicted with terminal illnesses.  I spent the weekend in Northern Virginia, at my pseudo-relatives’ home.  My father and another childhood friend of theirs were visiting D.C., and what was meant to be a jovial reunion weekend was tinged with a sense of how quickly life can change.

Mahin Khanum, my pseudo-uncle’s mother, had last week been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. She had been a feisty woman with a sparkle in her eye who lost her husband at a young age and, at a not-so-young age, picked up and moved from Iran to Brazil when her two sons moved there. Whereas only weeks ago she was meddling in the kitchen, piling endless tea glasses into the dishwasher and effortlessly whipping up steaming pots of Basmati rice, Mahin Khanum could now hardly speak or react, let alone bathe herself.

In a rare moment of calm at the kitchen table, which was littered with crumbs and crammed with plates of fruit and half-empty glasses of tea, Mahsheed joon, my pseudo-aunt, leaned her elbow on the table and placed her head in her hand.  “Zendegi chegadr zood migzareh,” she sighed.  “How quickly life passes by.”  Switching to English, sweetly accented with Persian and Brazilian Portuguese tones, she waved her fork in the air and said, “You are young! Enjoy your youth and don’t take so heavily what might come in the future.”

A few weeks ago, I might have dismissed that advice as frivolous.  But in the midst of another hectic workday, her words rung through my mind, and I wondered whether I was wrongly associating living a purposeful life with gravity and heaviness.  I remembered a quotation from The Secret of Divine Civilization:

It is clear that life in this fast-fading world is as fleeting and inconstant as the morning wind, and this being so, how fortunate are the great who leave a good name behind them, and the memory of a lifetime spent in the pathway of the good pleasure of God.
‘Abdu’l-Baha, Secret of Divine Civilization, page 70.

I can home tonight, and throwing myself on the couch, I picked up my weathered copy of The Secret of Divine Civilization, searching in vain for the passage.  And as I did, I flipped to the last page and stumbled upon this:

“Happy the soul that shall forget his own good, and like the chosen ones of God, vie with his fellows in service to the good of all…”
‘Abdu’l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, page 116

It seems that in the end, what everyone is seeks is a kind of happiness.  The way they go about obtaining that happiness, however, runs the spectrum of being of benefit to being harmful to others.  Some find happiness in shopping (harmless); some, in volunteer work (beneficial); and some, in vandalism (harmful).  When I think about it, I can’t help but think that some of the pursuit of happiness is linked with that nagging feeling we’re going to get old and die.

Well, we are going to get old and die.  And like that moment in my dream, many of us are terrified– not so much that it may be painful, but that we might die and regret that we didn’t live a full life.

In this ever-fragmented, ever-frantic city, these thoughts sometimes elude us.  Or sometimes, we may mistake a “full life” as being those things that, while wonderful, bring us elusive happiness.  I love Washington, with all its quirks, but sometimes it seems as if someone hit a fast-forward button and forgot to hit “pause.”  Those of us in this city sometimes live as if we’re invincible– and that when we do die, all that really matters is how many times our name appeared in print.

But I have to wonder that, when this life ends– and if you don’t believe in an afterlife, when you lie down at night and honestly assess what you’ve done and who you are– what can we say about a life in service for the good of all?  In this ever-fragmented city, it’s easy to be worn out, run ragged, pulled in many directions, and anxious about career prospects.

It was dusk on Saturday evening, the setting sun peeking through the drawn curtains.  Mahin Khanum’s granddaughter, weary-eyed from a sleepless week, grasped her grandmother’s hands in her own, swinging them and singing old Brazilian carnaval songs to her.  There, amidst the pain and exhaustion, was a token of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s words– forgetting her own self, for the good of a loved one in the sunset of her life in this fast-fading world.

Tags: afterlife, happiness, service

• General Interest , Inspiration
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nooshin October 18th, 2009

I’ve been following with interest a debate (a long-standing one which has recently hotted up) about the effectiveness of giving aid to developing countries.  On one side is the argument that developmental aid and humanitarian assistance has been proven to save millions of lives, and it is not just effective, it is necessary.  On the other hand, some (like the author of Dead Aid Dambisa Moyo) say that aid is deterimental to those it is trying to help, bringing corruption, market distortion, further poverty and aid dependence.

My personal take is that it is not that there is good aid or bad aid, but that the circumstances in each situation will determine if it is effective aid or not.  Throwing money at a problem will never completely solve it.  If the underlying issues are not addressed, it’s just good money and effort after bad.  And in particular so if aid agencies, humanitarian organizations and governments don’t recognize the power in grassroots communities and in each individual.  We need to harnass the potentialities latent in each member of the human race, empowering them to become a source of social good and development.

And you really don’t need to go further than the story of William Kamkwamba to see what I mean. At 14, the Malawian boy is forced to drop out of school for lack of fees.  Inspired by a book in the village library (donated by a development agency!), William decides to build a windmill in order to provide electricity for his family home.  He is undettered by the fact that he is not very educated, that he has no access to materials and parts for the windmill, or that no-one has ever done it before.  Relying mostly on the illustrations in the book, and scrounging for scrap metal and materials others have thrown away, and ignoring the ridicule aimed at him, William built a crude but effective windmill which powered four light bulbs, a radio and cellphone charger.

Since he built his first windmill, William has gone on to build five more, in and around his village.  He has been given a scholarship to the African Leadership Academy in South Africa.  He has given talks and speeches at international conferences and received worldwide acclaim.  He is working on projects dealing with HIV, malaria, solar power and clean water. And last month, at the age of 22, his autobiography “The Boy Who Harnassed the Wind” was released worldwide.

When  I read his story, and watched him speak, William humbled me, but most importanly, gave me hope.  And reminded me of the emphasis the Baha’i Faith places on the potentialities in each one of us, and of our duty to make the most of them:

Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can, alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom…

Is any larger bounty conceivable than this, that an individual, looking within himself, should find that by the confirming grace of God he has become the cause of peace and well-being, of happiness and advantage to his fellow men? No, by the one true God, there is no greater bliss, no more complete delight.

Tags: aid, development

• Baha'i Concepts , General Interest , Inspiration
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