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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leila July 18th, 2008

Every morning, I sleepily stumble into my office, a glass of steaming Lady Grey Tea in hand, absent-mindedly clack away at the keyboard to log into my computer, and catch up on the world.

Living abroad this year, I’ve soaked up the news more than ever before. I don’t know if it’s an attempt to stay connected with home, or just a new means of procrastination.

And what a year to stay connected — natural disaster in Burma, a heated race in Zimbabwe, Olympic protests against China, a historical presidential election in the U.S.

I reflect on the year, and I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of the news is, well, quite gloomy. Even with the unprecedented breaking of gender and racial boundaries in the U.S. presidential election, the news was constantly fraught with the polarizing, oftentimes nasty coverage that emphasized personality and appearance over issues of substance.

It made me remember why, in the past, I avoided reading the news in the first place — because it was so darn depressing.

But my personal habits have also shifted a bit this year, in that I’ve made a more serious commitment to read from the Bahá’í Writings. And in the process of steadily increasing my knowledge of the Bahá’í Faith, the gloomy nature of the world suddenly seems less depressing to me. In fact, it makes a lot of sense — and, I’d venture to assert, it’s kind of exciting?

Let me backtrack by saying that lives lost, the triumph of dictators, or partisan quarreling in the presidential election is not exciting. It’s sad, and, if I didn’t have the writings of Bahá’u'lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi from which to draw perspective, I’d hop on the next train to the Himalayas with my bag of soy nuts to stare at the clouds in seclusion rather than face the pain of this world.

Two words, however, ring in my head as I read about the world’s woes and triumphs: disintegration and integration.

Let me put this in some context. Most of the world’s traditions — religious, cultural, tribal, or otherwise — speak of the promise of a bright, peaceful, unified future. Bahá’ís believe that that time has arrived.

“But what of all the depressing gloominess you were just talking about?” some of you might be thinking.

This is where my favorite analogy — that comparing the whole of humankind to a human being — comes in. Humanity has gone through its childhood already: grappling with the fact that women are equal to men, that slavery is inhumane, how to rub two sticks together to create fire, and the like. Not everyone is fully in accordance with all those issues (except for the fire part), but in the past century and a half, we’ve made more progress than all previous centuries combined.

Nowadays, we seem to be zooming ahead in certain aspects. Information from India to Chile in seconds? Check. Eradication of many communicable diseases? Check. And yet, we still haven’t figured out a way to get along. We’re making inroads, but somehow, the tension in the world seems to be getting worse and worse.

Isn’t it a bit like adolescence? You’ve figured out how to walk, talk, and feed yourself, but suddenly, a whole new set of problems abounds. Mom and dad are still driving you around -- embarrassing! –, that blemish on your nose never goes away, and you seem to be a lot smellier these days.

And so it is with humanity. We’ve figured out some of the basics, and we astonish ourselves with our scientific and technological advancements. But doesn’t some of that partisan political sniping remind you of gossiping middle-schoolers? Are not the waves of violence and oppression that plague societies reminiscent of the turbulence that surrounds the teenage years? Our global community searching for commonality — what are human rights, what is justice? — similar to an adolescent seeking his or her identity? And likewise, doesn’t our endless quest for knowledge and truth, or our rising suspicion of and exasperation with many present institutions, bring to mind that struggle in the chasm between childhood and adulthood?

It’s certain that the old, oppressive ways are the world are disintegrating – at times rapidly, and other times at a painfully lethargic pace. But with this disintegration has come a gradual, sometimes subtle integrative process.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá elucidated this theme in a talk given in New York City, in 1912:

From every standpoint the world of humanity is undergoing a reformation. The laws of former governments and civilizations are in process of revision; scientific ideas and theories are developing and advancing to meet a new range of phenomena; invention and discovery are penetrating hitherto unknown fields, revealing new wonders and hidden secrets of the material universe; industries have vastly wider scope and production; everywhere the world of mankind is in the throes of evolutionary activity indicating the passing of the old conditions and advent of the new age of reformation. Old trees yield no fruitage; old ideas and methods are obsolete and worthless now. Old standards of ethics, moral codes and methods of living in the past will not suffice for the present age of advancement and progress.

(Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 438)

In Part II, I’ll explore the integrative phenomena arising in today’s world, and the central role the Bahá’í Faith plays in the building up of a new civilization.

Meanwhile, a homework assignment: try reading the news today. Any examples of the integrative processes I mentioned? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Tags: integration/disintegration, maturity, oneness, politics

• Baha'i Concepts , News & Current Affairs , Society
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leila July 28th, 2008

I sat down this morning, with my glass of Lady Grey, scanning the pages of the New York Times, guiltily avoiding writing the sequel to my last post. My editor’s voice haunted me, with the words “deadline” and “Sunday” echoing in my head. I sleepily rubbed my shoulder, feeling tense from the day’s depressing headlines, trying to re-ignite the cheery tone with which I had left off in my previous post.

The disintegrative forces — those old, oppressive, corrupt phenomena in the world — were, no doubt, getting me down.

Sometimes, it seems as if oppression, corruption, and injustice are King. Sometimes, it seems the change brought about by the integrative forces is painfully slow.

As I scanned the news, it seemed all hope was lost: a bomb in Istanbul, soaring fuel prices, and the inevitable snarkiness that surrounds the U.S. presidential elections.

Then, hidden among the headlines, I found a gem of a story. It spoke of a music program at a woman’s prison in Venezuela. The women — some thieves, some drug smugglers, and even a Malaysian law student who claimed she was wrongly imprisoned — participate in a voluntary orchestral program that offers classical training. In this program, the women find hope and purpose. One participant remarked, after her three daughters watched her performance, “I finally felt useful in this life.”

This, to me, is an example of the integrative forces arising in the world. Sometimes small, sometimes quiet, but altogether a reflection of a changing attitude in the world.

It’s easy, though, to look at these integrative efforts with a sense of cynicism. I often hear, from my peers or in my own mind, lamentations about how the U.N. is mired in stagnation, or that the millions of dollars the World Bank pours into development hardly produces equivalent results. Or, that successful and well-meaning endeavors in social and economic development are too small to make any kind of true impact.

Our generation is an eternally impatient one, and tends to seek quick-fixes. If we only stopped to reflect on how much we’ve accomplished in the past century, and how much more, as our consciousness expands, humanity will inevitably grow.

In order for humankind to progress, though, it is imperative that we reflect on the nature of the world, on the failures and successes of present institutions, and then act accordingly. Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, wrote:

The world is in great turmoil and its problems seem to become daily more acute. We should, therefore, not sit idle, otherwise we would be failing in carrying out our sacred duty. Bahá’u'lláh has not given us His Teachings to treasure them and hide them for our personal delight and pleasure. He gave them to us that we may pass them from mouth to mouth until all the world becomes familiar with them and enjoys their blessings and uplifting influence.

– Shoghi Effendi, Bahá’í News, no. 73 (May 1933), p. 2

Bahá’ís believe that Bahá’u'lláh’s teachings, rooted in the concept of the oneness of humanity, are not only those that will help solve the world’s ills in the future, but are already beginning to do so. Bahá’u'lláh was imprisoned and placed into exile for most of His life — yet His teachings have already manifested themselves in ways both small and large, and millions of individuals around the world, on all continents, have embraced His Faith.

And I’d venture to assert that as a steadily growing cohort of individuals who engage in sustained social action emerges, beginning from the grassroots, and based on the spirit of Bahá’u'lláh’s teachings, our adolescent world will, ever steadily, blossom into the calm of maturity.

So, while my awkwardness personally never ended after adolescence, my adherence to Bahá’u'lláh’s teachings makes me certain that humanity’s will.

Tags: integration/disintegration, maturity, oneness, politics

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