Baha’i Perspectives

nooshin August 15th, 2008

Conventional wisdom regards the teenage years as hellish for everyone concerned: the parents and the teachers as well as the teenagers themselves. It is supposed to be filled with angst and rebellion and a mostly selfish outlook on life. Not unusually, conventional wisdom doesn’t reflect the full picture. What most of us are overlooking is the potential and promise of those formative years.

The education of children and youth is held to be a sacred task in the Baha’i Faith. Our responsibilities to the next generation are clearly defined. In their annual Ridvan message to the Baha’is of the world in 2000, the Universal House of Justice says the following:

Children are the most precious treasure a community can possess, for in them are the promise and guarantee of the future. They bear the seeds of the character of future society which is largely shaped by what the adults constituting the community do or fail to do with respect to children. They are a trust no community can neglect with impunity.

The moral education of children is the focus of Book Three in the sequence of Ruhi books. In Book Five (Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth), the focus shifts to the “junior youth”, those who have outgrown children’s classes, but are still too young to be considered youth. The 2000 Ridvan Message provides this explanation:

Among the young ones in the community are those known as junior youth, who fall between the ages of, say, 12 and 15. They represent a special group with special needs as they are somewhat in between childhood and youth when many changes are occurring within them. Creative attention must be devoted to involving them in programmes of activity that will engage their interests, mold their capacities for teaching and service, and involve them in social interaction with older youth.

All over the world, Baha’i communities are starting to place greater and greater emphasis and attention on the “junior youth”. The characteristics of the youth are described by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá as follows:

After a time he enters the period of youth in which his former conditions and needs are superseded by new requirements applicable to the advance in his degree. His faculties of observation are broadened and deepened, his intelligent capacities are trained and awakened, the limitations and environment of childhood no longer restrict his energies and accomplishments.

The Ruhi Book Five course aims for its participants to become “animators” of the junior youth. The text book explanation of an animator is of “an older person who is a true friend to the youth and can assist them in the development of their capacities”, in a peer group setting. The spiritual explanation is given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “one who traineth them to love“.

It is important to note that the first of the three units in Book Five focuses on the potentialities of the human soul. This helps to underscore for the participants the potentialities, the latent perfections, in each and every child and youth they come into contact with. Some of the quotations used in the book include the following two from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

First of all, be ready to sacrifice your lives for one another, to prefer the general well-being to your personal well-being. Create relationships that nothing can shake; form an assembly that nothing can break up; have a mind that never ceases acquiring riches that nothing can destroy. If love did not exist, what of reality would remain? It is the fire of the love of God which renders man superior to the animal. Strengthen this superior force through which is attained all the progress in the world.

And the honor and distinction of the individual consist in this, that he among all the world’s multitudes should become a source of social good. 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: Ruhi books, youth

• Principles in Action , Society
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nooshin August 25th, 2008

Having started the course in May 2007, and after some unforeseen stops and starts, I have finally finished Ruhi Book 5 (Releasing the Powers of Junior Youth), and am now officially an “animator”. I explained my enthusiasm for the course and its spiritual underpinnings in my previous post. In the collaborative spirit of the Ruhi method, I have asked my classmates to share their views of Book 5. All three are in their twenties, and all three have been raised and brought up in Africa. Two are doctors and one is an international relations consultant. Once you read their insightful responses, you’ll see why I loved going to class: I felt more enriched every time.

Me: Why do you think Book 5 is an important class? Is it different from the other Ruhi books?

Well, truth is I only did the book initially for the sake of doing it. I was a bit curious to see what it was like but never thought I would want to do it myself. By the time the book finished, I was dying to have my own experiences. I think the book gives you a taste of what it could be like but you know that the real exciting part would be to get out and do it. By doing my class, I think I learnt a lot about encouragement it helped me in a lot of aspects of my life to take an individual and be a part of their growth. Here you are helping build a generation that will be better than ours was, one which will have a whole new focus. It is a privilege, I think.

Book 5 is a very specific training manual with a concrete practical component, the formation of junior youth animator groups; a peer group that meets regularly, serves as an environment of mutual support for its members, where youth are systematically guided to listen, speak, reflect, analyze, make decisions and act on their decisions in an atmosphere free from fear of censure or ridicule, and encouraged to enhance those qualities and attitudes that a life of service to humanity requires.

What is important for me is the focus on a previously neglected age group. The series of material that has been developed to accompany Book 5 is great for animators, and provides a consistent and systematic methodology.

Me: Are you a fan of the Ruhi process? Do you think it is successful?

A true fan! It is the core to a systematic sustainable growth and development pattern that the international Baha’i community has embarked on. It is globally recognizable and yet locally adaptable and sensitive. It has been successful in deepening the knowledge of the Baha’i community, growing human resources internally, focusing on a specific plan of action, and mobilizing the global community around this. It is clearly a process that is equipping every community with the next level of building blocks required to support the spiritual needs of the entire human race.

Me: Why do you think it is important to focus on this particular age group?

It is a period of transition. Prior to this, their choices are made for them, their morals are imposed on them rather than being their choice. This is the first time they start to question and be critical and really find out why things are done rather than blindly following what they are told to do. They also often shift their focus of guidance, which makes this a very critical time, because a wrong choice here could have disastrous consequences for the future. But if they choose to adopt a positive world outlook and a sense of spirituality, this will remain with them.

Junior Youth require firm mentoring but with open debate, so that they can develop their own thought processes and opinions but based on important spiritual values that will stay with them their entire life. Youth have often already formed this, and it is challenging to steer their pattern of development towards a positive direction.

Junior youth are in the shadows of the age of maturity and the animator youth group casts a light to guide them in the right direction. Abdu’l-Bahá says of the age of maturity (15 years): “Having arrived at this stage it acquireth the capacity to manifest spiritual and intellectual perfections. The lights of comprehension, intelligence and knowledge become perceptible in it and the POWERS OF ITS SOUL UNFOLD“.

Tags: Ruhi books, youth

• Baha'i Concepts , Principles in Action
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negin September 4th, 2008

When discussing the situation of society today, and the many challenges that humanity is facing in regard to the decay in morals and ethics, it is not unusual that the habits, lifestyle and behaviour of teens are brought up as a deterrent example. A rise in drug abuse among youth, a rise in violence among young people and a rise in teenage pregnancies are just a few examples that we hear about.

At the same time, there is rising awareness among youth around the world when it comes to global issues like poverty, racism and the environment. They engage — with heart and soul — in promoting the good of their fellow man, being able to look beyond race, sex and colour to a degree that is touching and inspiring to many.

This age group is, therefore,  a unique one, possessing great potential for awareness and commitment, but also facing an obvious risk of error and degeneration.

Abdu’l-Bahá describes the period of youth in these words:

After a time he enters the period of youth in which his former conditions and needs are superseded by new requirements applicable to the advance in his degree. His faculties of observation are broadened and deepened, his intelligent capacities are trained and awakened, the limitations and environment of childhood no longer restrict his energies and accomplishments.

Youth are thus very sensitive to influences in their environment, one of which has to do with society’s view of them. A prevalent understanding is that adolescence is a time when the individual goes through physical and psychological changes, which must inevitably lead to confusion and crisis. One more or less expects teenagers to misbehave and to be rebellious and self-centered. They are assumed to only care about pleasure and amusement and shouldn’t be bothered with responsibility.

In a letter to a youth, Abdu’l-Bahá says:

The period of youth is characterized by strength and vigor and stands out as the choicest time in human life. Therefore you should strive day and night so that endowed with heavenly strength, inspired with brilliant motives and aided by His celestial power and heavenly grace and confirmation, you may become the ornaments of the world of humanity…

As described in the above two quotations by Abdu’l-Baha, the period of youth is a time when the potential for development and progress is great. During so critical a period, education and encouragement can empower youth to take responsibility of their lives and their surroundings and “become the ornaments of the world of humanity”. But, as rightly pointed out by a previous author, the approach taken must be creative, one that will both engage their interests and be sensitive to their growing potentialities. In the context of Baha’i junior youth programmes, this means avoiding the boredom and monotony of classroom-style lectures in favour of smaller, interactive groups — usually guided by a facilitator who is, in effect, a friend to the participants. This also means entirely steering clear of a patronizing attitude towards the participants, and instead promoting a positive environment where each participant’s talents and opinions are highly valued and allowed to develop.

This is the purpose of the “Junior Youth Spiritual Empowerment Program” that is used by the Baha’is, and has been described in previous articles.

Tags: youth

• Baha'i Concepts , Principles in Action , Society
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geoffrey September 22nd, 2008

Sometimes I think back to when I was younger; well, I mean, I only just turned 24. So “younger” is a relative term. I guess also with turning 24 I think of myself less of as a “youth” and certainly not a “pre-youth” or “junior youth”. I’ve hit an age that, at least in my mind, brings with it connotations of blooming adulthood, where life may become more serious. But certainly, how you take life doesn’t have to. In this third post, I promised to talk briefly on the power of youth with regards to language.

I see that one of my co-posters, Negin, has recently published a post entitled “Youth Can Move the World”. I’ll make sure that repetition is limited or negated all together. What I want to talk about today is “horizontal thinking”. Recently I watched a YouTube video of Thomas Friedman on his book “The World is Flat“. He was giving a keynote address at MIT, and though he covered a lot of material, some of which I did not agree with (but this is for another post perhaps), he did touch on one thing that I was really able to latch on to - it was this process of “horizontal thinking“.

The main thrust of this conjecture about the state of the world is that growth in opportunity, coupled with the integration and growing connectivity of the world, has basically made it flat. And that a person’s ability to access a much larger market, or to interact with a variety of other people across the world, has increased at an incredible rate. Thus, our orientation with respect to the rest of the world is side-to-side rather than top-down, which is a break from traditional vertical thinking (where hierarchy rules and systems of class dominance are perpetuated). Horizontal thinking allows us to see greater opportunities for equality and implies devolution of authority and an increased sense of autonomy for the individual.

Now, in one respect, this does nothing to stem the tide of, what a good friend has called, the cult of individualism, but what it does do is allow greater chances for influence — particularly for youth.

I’ve also recently been getting increasingly fascinated with the medium of podcasting. I mean, I’m only about three years late in becoming interested in this form of media. But it’s never too late I guess. And I look at blogging too, of course. Here I am, writing to… no one and everyone… about things just spinning around in my head… and I hope against hope that it is somehow interesting to someone, somewhere.

And now we find ourselves in a burgeoning world of global connectivity, creating these golden threads of light that circumnavigate the world — creating what though? That we can only guess — what will be the outcome of all this? The only thing we can do is to grasp it, use it and exploit it to its fullest and make sure that this mode of connection can help bring us together.

Where are the poets? We are here; we are everywhere.

This servant appealeth to every diligent and enterprising soul to exert his utmost endeavour and arise to rehabilitate the conditions in all regions and to quicken the dead with the living waters of wisdom and utterance, by virtue of the love he cherisheth for God, the One, the Peerless, the Almighty, the Beneficent.

(Baha’u'llah, Tablets of Baha’u'llah, p. 172)

It would be exhaustive at this point to speak of the power of youth, about their potential. What is more important perhaps is how this potential is used. Wisdom and utterance are of the utmost significance with regards to communication. They are the foundations of mutual understanding and beneficial interactions. The youth of today, as we continue to create a virtual mesh over the entirety of the world, need to utilize, must tap into and be educated in these processes that lead to the “quickening” of men.

And especially in a horizontal world, where communication has become the catalyst for so much, the use of wisdom in incredibly important.  There is a passage in the Baha’i writings that says “Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age in which ye live, and certain your deliberations and exigencies upon it”.  The use of language as a means of power, influence and ultimately love are, in reality, among the greatest goals of today, whether we realize it or not.

The youth of today, indeed, are the vanguard of this endeavor.

O SON OF DUST!
The wise are they that speak not unless they obtain a hearing, even as the cup-bearer, who proffereth not his cup till he findeth a seeker, and the lover who crieth not out from the depths of his heart until he gazeth upon the beauty of his beloved. Wherefore sow the seeds of wisdom and knowledge in the pure soil of the heart, and keep them hidden, till the hyacinths of divine wisdom spring from the heart and not from mire and clay…

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

Let me retract me initial statement.  I am a youth.  This is where the real power of civilization-building lies.

O Lord! Make this youth radiant, and confer Thy bounty upon this poor creature. Bestow upon him knowledge, grant him added strength at the break of every morn and guard him within the shelter of Thy protection so that he may be freed from error, may devote himself to the service of Thy Cause, may guide the wayward, lead the hapless, free the captives and awaken the heedless, that all may be blessed with Thy remembrance and praise. Thou art the Mighty and the Powerful.

(Abdu’l-Baha, Baha’i Prayers)

Tags: art, language, poetry, youth

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