Baha’i Perspectives

nava July 13th, 2008

As little children we are fed the notion that growing up is bad. That childhood marks the best years of our lives: we are carefree, we are blamelessly irresponsible, we are pure-hearted, we are truly happy. Movies like Peter Pan featuring the Lost Boys, commercial ads for companies such as Toys’r'Us, with the logo, “I don’t wanna grow up…”, and a slew of other media, teach us that being a child is the peak and culmination of the human experience.

How terribly sad it would be if this notion were actually true. That by 10 or 11 the best years of our lives have faded. Our innocence can exist no longer. And even worse is the thought that the best years of our lives are those marked by immaturity.

Think of the loss when a young man full of potential and intelligence wastes his day away sitting on a couch playing video games. A young man who was created to serve humanity, who was endowed with gifts and talents to do just this — to work for the edification of himself and his compatriots — and who instead never develops these talents — perhaps unaware himself that he is even in possession of them! What could he achieve if he weren’t too busy behaving like a child?

And what about the young woman who wastes her day away gossiping and keeping track of who’s wearing-what and how-tightly-it-fits and who’s-dating-who, and when will that-who-date-me? A young woman who was created noble, who was endowed with treasures and gems that through vigorous education can be unearthed to contribute to the well-being of us all. A young woman who will one day be the primary educator of her children — what will she teach them when her days have been occupied with mindless babble and mundane concerns?

It sounds terribly stereotypical and yet these scenarios, while pedestrian, are all-too-often real. A world full of people who may exist but hardly live.

Baha’is believe that the coming of Baha’u'llah, the most recent in a line of Messengers of God sent to draw people of all nations and races closer to God and reveal the laws and teachings appropriate for the age, marked a new stage in our collective maturity and capacity. So what happens when an entire society behaves like a child? When a people who’ve reached the age of their collective maturity and are enabled with new gifts and capabilities refuse to behave accordingly?

Shoghi Effendi explains that:

The recrudescence of religious intolerance, of racial animosity, and of patriotic arrogance; the increasing evidences of selfishness, of suspicion, of fear and of fraud; the spread of terrorism, of lawlessness, of drunkenness and of crime; the unquenchable thirst for, and the feverish pursuit after, earthly vanities, riches and pleasures; the weakening of family solidarity; the laxity in parental control; the lapse into luxurious indulgence; the irresponsible attitude towards marriage and the consequent rising tide of divorce; the degeneracy of art and music, the infection of literature, and the corruption of the press; the extension of the influence and activities of those “prophets of decadence” who advocate companionate marriage, who preach the philosophy of nudism, who call modesty an intellectual fiction, who refuse to regard the procreation of children as the sacred and primary purpose of marriage, who denounce religion as an opiate of the people, who would, if given free rein, lead back the human race to barbarism, chaos, and ultimate extinction — these appear as the outstanding characteristics of a decadent society, a society that must either be reborn or perish.

The Lost Boys of Peter Pan did eventually make their way out of Never Never Land, even settling down with jobs and family. Baha’is believe that through the teachings of Baha’u'llah, the lost boys and girls of our world can make their way out of the spiritual never-never land they sink deeper into each day; that through the spiritual reawakening of the entire world our society can be reborn before it perishes.   But we must act, and we must act swiftly.

(Part II will address some of the ways Baha’is the world over are working toward this reawakening.)

Tags: childhood, maturity

• Baha'i Concepts , Society
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nava July 23rd, 2008

If there are indeed “lost” boys and girls out there who refuse to grow up, who waste their days away with idle talk and deedless days, is our society just doomed to perish?  Or is there hope for a flourishing of human affairs once again, a spiritual renaissance, if you will?

I believe it is the latter.  Yes, there is work to be done, and a lot of it.  But it can be done.  It will be done, and we will be reborn.  We will flourish.  We will arise.  So when do we start, and how do we start?

We start…today.  That much should be abundantly clear.  There is no time to waste, not a moment to lose. As our environmental woes amass, moral decadence prevails, depression and suicide rates are on the rise, and materialism infects the cells of society like a terminal cancer, how can we hesitate for even a moment to stand up and make a change?  How can we doubt for even one instant that things are not okay and will never be okay until we get out there and do something? But we can’t do it alone.  It would be foolish to think ourselves capable of transforming this mess we currently live into the promised Kingdom of God on earth on our own.

Fortunately, we have Baha’u'llah.  We have the Revelation of Baha’u'llah.  The teachings that are apropriate for the ills of today.  You see, God sends us Divine Teachers (what many refer to as Prophets, what Bahá’ís term Manifestations or Messengers of God) to guide humanity and draw us nearer to Him. These Manifestations of God do this by bringing us laws and teachings according to our collective capacity as a human race. These laws are both new and the same. They are appropriate for the day in which we live — as every new age has its own ill, and every new ill requires a different medicine, the social teachings change and address the specific “disease” of the time — and the spiritual laws which are eternal and unchanging are renewed rather than rewritten.

This accounts for the varying religions.  There are so many, not because one is right and all the rest are false, but because each authentic religion was right in its own historical context, was necessary for the age in which it was revealed, and is renewed, not lost, when the next Manifestation comes. So essentially, there is only one religion — “eternal in the past, eternal in the future” — though at different times it had different names and different laws. Even different teachers. Much like the child going through the same school, but at each new grade learning newer and more complex ideas, humanity is educated by God in the same progressive and gradual way.

Therefore, we believe that Baha’u'llah, the most recent in this series, has brought the teachings which are appropriate for today. He says:

The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.

Equipped with the teachings of Baha’u'llah, the very elixirs for the diseases of the age, Baha’is the world over are engaged in specific core activities aimed at addressing the root causes which result in the symptoms of these diseases plaguing humanity. Too many organizations and institutions address it the other way around — they address the symptoms, not the cause. This at best postpones further symptoms, but does nothing in the way of truly curing and preventing the problems from reocurring.

We believe in grassroots change. We believe in the power of the individual to arise and make a difference. To be an active agent of social transformation, rather than a passive bystander in the perishing of society, or someone who sits on his or her couch all day feeling depressed about the world but offering nothing more than complaints.

Our core activities include, as a vital component, children’s classes and junior youth classes. These classes aim at infusing these youngsters with morality, all-too lacking and underrated these days, so that they can use their lives for the betterment of society.  They are also expected to engage in service activities as a group so that the love of service, which may not be inherently there, can grow and together, they can gradually learn to be the kind of people who care about more than just their own existences.

We support, encourage, and are participating in social and economic development projects, especially those aimed at helping the under-served in our world have a voice, provide for themselves and their families.

We are working for change.

But, we can’t do it alone. We don’t want to do it alone. We want to work shoulder-to-shoulder with our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends, our friends’ friends — in taking responsibility for our planet and together, rebuilding the world in which we live. Transforming it into that long-awaited Kingdom of God on earth.

Boys and girls, men and women, let’s rise up off our couches.  Put away the video remote control.  Stop checking your Facebook updates.  Forget about who your ex-boyfriend is talking to today.  Let’s not be those lost boys and girls.  Let’s be the agents of change.  Let’s transform ourselves and our planet, and let’s do it today.

Tags: baha'i, childhood, maturity, religion

• Baha'i Concepts , Principles in Action , Society
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Baha'i Perspectives April 2nd, 2008

Good behaviour and high moral character must come first, for unless the character be trained, acquiring knowledge will only prove injurious. Knowledge is praiseworthy when it is coupled with ethical conduct and virtuous character; otherwise it is a deadly poison, a frightful danger. A physician of evil character, and who betrayeth his trust, can bring on death, and become the source of numerous infirmities and diseases.

(Abdu’l-Baha, From a Tablet, translated from the Persian)

All over the world, Baha’is are taking this lesson to heart and establishing classes for children, open to all, that develop spiritual and moral habits. To do this effectively, however, they are training themselves first.

There are seven books that currently comprise what the Baha’i community calls the Ruhi Books. They form a sequence of courses used to train participants to become resources for their community’s development. Each book in the sequence offers training in a different line of action that builds on the lessons learned in the earlier books. Book 3 of this sequence trains people to become teachers of classes for children that develop spiritual and moral habits. As with the rest of the sequence, these classes are free of charge, and open to all who wish to make a difference in their local communities.

There are many places where these classes are having a profound impact on peoples’ lives.

If you would like to find out more about the Ruhi training sequence, contact the Baha’i community in your area.

Tags: childhood, Ruhi books

• Principles in Action
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