Saturday, December 27, 2008

Blotter


For those who have not had the privilege or opportunity to peruse the books of Nader Saiedi, they come highly recommended from this quarter. Many an ecstatic hour has been spent perusing the pages of Logos and Civilization and Gate of the Heart – Understanding the Writings of the Báb. In fact, the title of the latter has been prophetic in this life, as it has removed many opaque obstructions to understanding the writings of the Herald of the Faith. (Perhaps I shall comment on this further once I have reread the book in a less inebriated state, if that is possible.) Just one of the many valuable aspects of these books is the many provisional translations the author has made, opening worlds of insight and meaning to those of us who speak neither Persian nor Arabic, worlds that hopefully will be accessible to all of us in authoritative versions erelong. Here follows a passage (a summary and paraphrase, not a translation) from of Logos and Civilization, a chapter discussing the Kitáb-i-Badí, an untranslated work of Bahá’u’lláh, a companion volume to the Book of Certitude, and like its predecessor, revealed astonishingly swiftly, 400+ pages in the space of three days.

(One should know, before reading this, that Mírzá Yayhá was a half-brother of Bahá’u’lláh who became His arch-enemy, trying to usurp His place in the hearts of the believers by making spurious claims, issuing ridiculous challenges, stealing and perverting His writings, blackening His name with the Persian and Ottoman authorities with lies and calumny, performing evil deeds such as shaming the Báb’s second wife, ordering the murder of Dayyán, and on several occasions making attempts upon His life, including a poisoning that left His Hand shaking for the rest of His earthly days. Eclipsing the patience of Job, Bahá’u’lláh endured all, protecting Yahyá, keeping him close to Him, helping him to get set up in various businesses, and demanding that the rest of His family respect him, until He had finally had enough, and the Most Great Separation occurred in what is now European Turkey; Yahyá was cast out from the community of the faithful, and ended his days in ignominy and exile in Cyprus, virtually alone.)

Okay, here we go:

"Another moving stylistic element in the Kitáb-i-Badí is Bahá’u’lláh’s narrative of the lamentations and supplications of Mírzá Yahyá’s pen, which has been used to write against the Promised One of the Bayán . . . [the] pen has secretly escaped from him and attained the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, where it has wept and wailed, confessing its shame, sorrow, bewilderment, and anger at Yahyá and its abuse and suffering at the hands of its owner, the arch covenant-breaker. The pen entreats Bahá’u’lláh to act as a fatal weapon against Yahyá, and if He does not grant that wish, at least to liberate it from the fingers of Bahá’u’lláh’s enemy. It expresses its shame before the community of pens and it avows that even if Bahá’u’lláh forgave its sins, it would continue to be mortified because of its role. It admits its confusion and distress at its fate a fate that could not be deserved because it knows that it is non-existent before the divine will, and could not be said to be undeserved because it is unable to understand the logic of mysterious divine wisdom. It complains of the fact that other pens have been used to reveal the words of God in the hand of Bahá’u’lláh, while it has been imprisoned in the grip of the enemy of the Cause of God. The pen declares that its gravest concern is that because of its sins the Pen of Glory may cease to reveal divine worlds, and it implores Bahá’u’lláh to settle its fate and emancipate it from its sorrow, or else make it cease to exist.

"The pen continues to recount its life story to Bahá’u’lláh. From the very first days of its existence as a reed, it longed to attain the presence of Bahá’u’lláh and spent its days and nights in a state of yearning. It endured all hardships for the sake of that wish. Then it was cut off and moved from hand to hand and from place to place until it was bought in the market by one of His servants. But when it was placed in that man’s hand it sensed the odour of his heedlessness and became saddened but remained silent. The servant carried the pen from land to land until he arrived in the land of Bahá’u’lláh’s residence. Joy and delight overtook the pen and it felt itself the king of all kings. It remained in that state of ecstasy till its bearer arrived at a crossroads – one path led to the right and another path led to the left. The man chose the left-hand path, and the pen found itself trembling and wailing until at last the servant reached a house exuding the stench of hell and placed the pen in the hand of the tyrant who rose against Bahá’u’lláh.

"The pen continues to express its unending sense of shame and implores Bahá’u’lláh to take its life and then to recreate it so that it might expunge the memory of its unhappy past. "
(Kitáb-i-Badí, pg. 239-250) Logos and Civilization, pg. 177-178

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Birth of the Báb Quiz



Easy

1. In which city was the Báb born?

2. What was the Báb’s given name?

3. Who raised the Báb from a young age?

4. In what year was the Báb born?

5. What is the present-day name of the country in which the Báb was born?

6. On what month and day was the Báb born?

7. Where is the Shrine of the Báb?

8. Who was born first, the Báb or Bahá’u’lláh?

9. What were the followers of the Báb called?


Medium

10. What religious teacher in Karbilá told his students to find the Báb?

11. How many times did the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh meet in person?

12. The Báb was a descendant of what other Manifestation of God?

13. Why is the Birth of the Báb celebrated over two consecutive Gregorian calendar dates?

14. What did the Báb name the calendar He created?

15. Who wrote the chronicle of the early believers in the Báb?

16. Who was the only woman among the first eighteen followers of the Báb?


Difficult

17. Who was the Persian king at the time of the birth of the Báb?

18. Who were the Báb’s parents?

19. In the future, why will be birthdays of the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh be celebrated on the same day?

Answers:

1. Shiráz, Persia
2. ‘Alí-Muhammad
3. His maternal uncle, Hájí Mírzá Siyyid ‘Alí
4. 1819
5. Irán
6. October 20
7. Haifa, Palestine/Israel
8. Bahá’u’lláh (November 12, 1817)
9. Bábís
10. Siyyid Kázim-i-Rashti
11. None
12. The Prophet Muhammad
13. The Bahá’í day is reckoned from sunset to sunset.
14. Badí Calendar
15. Nabíl-i-‘Azám
16. Tahirih
17. Fatih-‘Ali Shah
18. Fatimih Begum and Mírzá Muhammad-Ridá
19. On the Muslim calendar, the two dates fall on consecutive days.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Sai Satya Baba


India is at once the most religious country on earth and the most open and tolerant. All spiritual pursuits find fertile ground to put down roots in India, and it absorbs with grace and patience even the most fanatical of sects. Sai Satya Baba (pictured above) and his millions of followers in both India and abroad are no exception to this attitude, to the extent that Sai International's bimonthly newsletter, Volume 6, #3, is dedicated in all but the last page entirely to the Bahá'í Faith, with several articles and photos from Bahá'í and non-Bahá'í sources. What a laudable act! And surprisingly accurate for the most part. The errors are so few that pointing most of them would be mere quibbling, so only a few that could actually have been misleading have been selected for correction, and only that Baba's followers may not develop any basic misconceptions.

Naturally, in these pages the teachings found in the Bahá'í writings are compared with those of Sai Baba, and the various authors gleefully round up the similarities, which, given the enlightenment of their holy man, are indeed many. But Ambasht on pg. 4 lets his enthusiasm get the better of him when he proclaims, “Baba is also considered a 'Manifestation of God.'” This designation is reserved by the Bahá'í Faith for those individuals with a direct revelation of the Word of God, constituting scripture, including Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, Christ, and so on. Notwithstanding, learned and holy ones are highly reverenced in the Faith.

Sangeeta Sharma asserts on pg. 4: “The Bahá'ís declare that 15 years of age is the best to get married.” There is no such declaration. 15 is the minimum age. She further (this time correctly) observes, “This book [The Kitáb-i-Aqdas] allows a man to marry two wives under the condition that they are treated equally.” Bahá'ís understand that this is an impossible condition, and therefore only one wife is permitted, and by mutatis mutandi only one husband.

As to the marriage of Bahá'u'lláh Himself, until the revelation of The Kitáb-i-Aqdas (His Book of Laws for this age), He subjected Himself to previous (Islamic) law, and He had, in fact, three wives and a total of fourteen children. When Progya Shankar on pg. 5 states, “Bahá'u'lláh was married to Asiyih Khanum, they had three children, two sons and a daughter,” the reference is to the the surviving children from His first wife, who were the most distinguished and faithful among His offspring.

On pg. 6 Ved B. Kochar, in discussing Shoghi Effendi, writes, “He appointed 27 individuals as 'hands of the promotion of God' with the tasks of promotion and protection of the Bahá'í Faith.” In English the official title is “Hands of the Cause of God,” and the Guardian actually appointed 42 of them, some posthumously.

In referring to current Bahá'í activity, Kochar writes, “Bahá'í classes for children, which are open to all, focus on normal development in the context of the Bahá'í teachings of the oneness of humankind and the unity of the world's religions.” Surely the word “normal” is a typographical error and was meant to be “moral.”

May millions and billions be as liberal and open-minded as the followers of Satya Sai Baba in their pursuit of truth.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

World Ends Wednesday


On September 10th, the European Nuclear Research Centre will activate the Large Hadron Collider, the 17-mile circumference, $8,000,000,000 particle collider 300 feet underground near Geneva, Switzerland. Why? To unlock the mystery of Creation, simulating the first moments immediately after the Big Bang. The LHC will circulate atomic particles around its 17-mile circumference at more than 11,000 times per second before then smashing those atoms into each other in the ultimate carnival bumper-car ride. The machine has been designed to help scientists discover new forms of particles, most notably the elusive Higgs Boson (the vaunted “God Particle”), along with more insights into dark matter and the matter/antimatter dichotomy. No word yet on dilithium crystals.

But not everyone’s in the party spirit. The hue and cry is that there is the danger of creating a black hole that will swallow up the planet Earth. The London Telegraph reports that American Nobel prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek has received death threats with regard to Wednesday’s launch.

Predictably, the scientific community claims the doomsday gloomcasters are overreacting out of ignorance and superstition, or watching too many sci-fi thrillers. Every care and precaution has been taken, every test done and redone, every eventuality has been considered, re-considered, and considered again to ensure that nothing can possibly go wrong, go wrong, go wrong, go wrong . . . (Surely you saw that one coming.) James Gillies, the head of communication and spokesman for CERN says, “What we are doing is enriching humanity, not putting it at risk.” Well, that puts everyone’s mind at ease right away. (Beam me to any co-ordinates on the planet Vulcan, Scotty, pronto.)

Being a Bahá’í means that I bring my best intelligence to bear on all matters, but also that I turn to the Scriptures to see if they shed any light on the questions at hand. As far as the Big Bang is concerned, I was very struck by reading in Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time words to the effect that the mathematics of the Big Bang Theory have been mapped out and work perfectly, with the seemingly absurd proviso that they apply only if the Big Bang did not actually take place! Huh? And yet for me, this paradox echoes the words of Bahá’u’lláh:

Know assuredly that God's creation hath existed from eternity, and will continue to exist forever. Its beginning hath had no beginning, and its end knoweth no end. His name, the Creator, presupposeth a creation . . . (Gleanings, pg. 150)

The one true God hath everlastingly existed, and will everlastingly continue to exist. His creation, likewise, hath had no beginning, and will have no end. All that is created, however, is preceded by a cause. (Gleanings, pg. 162)

Yet another Bahá’í principle applies here, that of the Harmony of Science and Religion. The two must work together, so that we don’t have defensive scientists claiming exclusivity and should be left alone to pursue knowledge that will benefit the human race, nor should superstition and ignorance rule the day. Human knowledge must progress, and religion must supply the moral framework, but it must be knowledge that will advance the best interests mankind and it must be true religion, not pietistic flummery. Then we shall be rid of this mutual suspicion and have more joyous examples like the ones where we have seen rockets setting out towards the unknown, and the astronauts gaping with wonder at the beauty and majesty of God’s universe.

From the light tone of this article, you can no doubt discern that I personally am not much more worried about the prospects of this planet than during other weeks. I am reminded of the cartoon in which a robed and besandled character carries a sign announcing, “The world ends Wednesday!” and the cop on the beat tells him, “Just don’t let me catch you here Thursday!”

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Beijing Trifecta

***************************************************
********** The book of the Bahá’í presence at the Beijing Olympics consisted of three chapters. The first was the song “Beijing Olympics Hao Yuing (Good Luck),” written by Bahá’ís Phil Morrison and Keith Williams, of Brunswick, Georgia, USA (not the other Georgia that was making news at the same time). The song was one of 30 selected by Olympic organizers from 3,000 submissions to communicate to visitors the spirit of the 2008 Games, and the only one to have been penned by American-born musicians. Its lyrics include such Bahá’í ideas as, “Just one human family,” “The earth will celebrate -- For World Unity,” “Promoting peace and friendship for all -- The world will come together -- we'll open up the gate.” It can be heard at http://www.philmorrisontrio.com/.

Chapter Two, just days before the Games began, was provided by a British teacher resident in China, Wilma O’Sullivan, 52, who was chosen to carry the torch as a nationally acclaimed contributor to education in China. Perhaps a little-known fact is that torch bearers get to keep their torch after they pass the flame along to the next leg of the journey, so whereas it’s not an Olympic medal, it’s an impressive souvenir. Bahá’ís routinely leave their homelands to provide sacrificial service to humanity in other countries.

But the third chapter was a great climax and a shining moment, as Portugal’s Nelson Evora leapt for gold in the Triple Jump event. While not a marquee event, the Triple Jump is nevertheless a hotly-contested major track and field competition. Evora finished 40th in the same event in 2004 in Athens, but brought his A game this time around, clearing 17.67 metres to capture the gold. In true Bahá’í World Citizen fashion, Evora was born in Cotê d’Ivoire of Cape Verdean parents, and for whom he competed until 2002, when he acquired Portuguese citizenship.

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Omid, Oh My!


While watching Omid Djalili's 2005 HBO One Night Stand special, I noted that he did not mention that he was a Bahá’í -- I'm supposing the fact that he is Iranian AND British was confusing enough for his audiences, so he played it as though he was Muslim, just as he had done on Whoopi Goldberg’s sitcom. Anyone who has seen his YouTube videos knows it is not out of shyness. In fact, in an introduction to a compilation on humour in the Bahá’í Writings (co-written with Annabel Knight), he did not hesitate to poke at his own religious community in making this astonishingly bold critical assertion: “Amongst religious communities, including in Bahá'í society, the place for humour is invariably segregated from spiritual life. It is confined to a carefully placed joke in a talk by a keynote speaker, or in the form of an evening programme where ‘the youth,’ as they are affectionately called, can run amok with a mish-mash of ‘challenging’ sketches. There is a time for spirituality, and there is a time for humour. The two do not mix.”

However, he did sing "We are drops of one ocean," a song of Pacific Ocean origin (most likely Hawaiian), which is sung by Baháí children the world over, which he bizzarely associated with the “insanity” of Donald Rumsfeld. This again walks perilously close to the edge of the limit of this Bahá’í principle: “Speak thou no word of politics; thy task concerneth the life of the soul, for this verily leadeth to man's joy in the world of God. Except to speak well of them, make thou no mention of the earth's kings, and the worldly governments thereof.” (Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, pg. 92)

The first verse of this call-and-response ditty runs thus:

We are drops of one ocean
We are waves of one sea
Come and join us
In our quest for unity
It’s a way of life for you and me.

My view of comedians is that they are almost alone in present-day society in being allowed to tell the truth, a role abnegated somewhere along the line by poets and musicians. Furthermore, that is one of the chief reasons we tune in to them and pay to see them debunk nonsense ranging from our human relationships to political issues to our private behaviour, religious malparactices and human condition. This being a precious commodity in our time, I am inclined to grant them as wide a latitude as possible in making us squirm in our seats while laughing involuntarily.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Am I Bibulous?


The Year of Living Biblically is the journal of a “controlled experiment” by A. J. Jacobs, a New Yorker, nominally Jewish, erstwhile Who Wants to Be a Millionaire contestant, and self-absorbed, obsessive/compulsive writer for Esquire magazine. This experiment was to live for [only] one year following literally everything in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, especially its 600+ laws and ordinances.

Most people he knew found the whole conceit silly. However, he didn’t “perform” this alone, but assembled a whole host of spiritual advisors of every Jewish and Christian stripe, personal and online, and a library of about 100 books. (One he read rather sparingly during the year, however, was the actual Bible.) I say “perform,” since this was done much less out a need for spiritual growth than as an exhibitionistic performance-art piece to be perpetuated for a few more years by its published documentation. For this he had role models: “The prophets didn’t just utter their prophecies. They staged what are known as ‘prophetic acts’ – wild, attention-grabbing, God-inspired pieces of performance art.” (88) So he grew his hair and bought a Biblical robe at a Hallowe’en costume store and tassels from Tassels Without Hassles. He took his Biblical 10-string harp out for walks (169), but unlike the prophets, he often ran away from people because he couldn’t explain or justify his bizarre behaviour. (On eating locusts: “It’ll be Fear Factor, Old Testament style.”) (174)


What was his spiritual state before starting out?: “I’ve rarely said the word 'Lord,' unless it’s followed by 'of the Rings.' I don’t often say 'God' without preceding it with 'Oh my.'” (21) His relationship with God had several other hurdles to jump: “Deuteronomy 5:9 the Bible says ‘I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.’ . . . Why should God punish my grandson for my sins? It seemed outrageously un-American.” (145)


People beside his skeptical wife noticed changes immediately: “I’ve even started to get the occasional positive comment about my looks. The Italian woman who works at the corner deli said she feels more sacred in my presence and is afraid to curse or gossip. And my co-worker Tom, whom I hadn’t seen in months, said he was all ready to greet me with a one-liner about Mel Gibson’s facial hair, then decided he couldn’t make a joke because he felt almost reverential. Reverential, that’s the word he used. I was on a high for two days afterward.” (180)


There is admittedly a good deal of information about Judeo-Christian groups across America, their practices and interpretations, beliefs and evasions. They range from the banal (Jerry Falwell was “disappointing”) to the bizarre (a visit to a Creationist museum with dinosaurs). We also read about Samaritans, red heifers, the origin of the mezzuzah, attaching the Ten Commandments between your eyes, and serpent-handlers. (Here’s where Bahá’ís can be grateful that we have no warring sects and conflicting ideologies and can all turn toward recognized authority for guidance.)

His spiritual odyssey included a trip to Jerusalem. “Walking around Jerusalem in my biblical persona is at once freeing and vaguely disappointing. In New York . . . I’m still unusual enough to stand out. But in Israel I’m just one of the messianic crowd.” (220) “I’m resting here on the stone steps [Jaffa Gate, Jerusalem], which . . . have a bumpy surface that makes them look like a Rice Krispies Treat.” (219)


Did he achieve any spiritual progress? “I get bored easily . . . Maybe spirituality attracts me for its novelty factor.” (193) “I have managed to slash my total production of white lies by one-third.” (195) “If you try to literally follow Leviticus 19:18 – ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ – well, you can’t.” (323) “I’ve taken a step backward again, spiritually speaking. My faith is fragile. Little things jolt me back to pure agnosticism.” (193) “The truth is, I’ve begun to get really rigorous with my rituals. I hate missing my daily routine . . . Why? Perhaps because these rituals dovetail beautifully with my obsessive-compulsive disorder.” (148) He found a checkbook on a plane and mailed it to its owner, who replied with a thank-you-card and a gift card to Starbuck’s: “The checkbook triumph gives me such a moral high, I use the card to pay for the latte of the guy behind me at Starbuck’s. I got the idea from a religious website devoted to kindness.” (179)


His plethora of advisers gave a lot of mixed signals that would confuse anybody. For instance, following Deuteronomy 22:6: “[Mr. Berkowitz] has set up two pigeon nests on his third-floor windowsill . . . Whenever there’s a newly-laid egg, he allows a faithful seeker to come over, pay one hundred dollars to charity, shoo the mother pigeon away, pick up the egg, hold it aloft, say a prayer, place it back in the nest . . and thereby check off this commandment as officially ‘fulfilled.’”


And when his experiment was all over: “I’m not just shaving my beard, I’m amputating a large part of my identity. In a couple of hours, I won’t be Jacob anymore. I’ll be back to being a regular old, unremarkable New Yorker, one of millions.” (330) “I’m still agnostic [but] I’m now a reverent agnostic.” (329) I suspect his real religion is “America,” or even more specifically, “New York.”

Perhaps the best value of this book is that of laughter. In fact, I found the book not in the religion section, but the humour section, and it is marketed as such. Jacobs has a gift for funny characterizations, such as Guru Gil, his uncle in Israel. Here’s two samples of hilarious scenes:
On hundreds of Hassidic men dancing at Simchas Torah: “. . . an ocean of undulating black hats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them in a hall the size of a large gymnasium. It’s as loud as any concert I’ve been to. But instead of drums and guitar, it’s a village of men singing Ay yi yi yi . . . Everyone’s bumping, smacking, thumping into one another . . . sort of a Holy Roller Derby.” (86)
On a circumcision support group: “They called themselves RECAP, short for Recover a Penis . . . ‘I don’t feel whole,’ said one. ‘I want to feel whole again.’ Another asked, ‘Can you imagine what it’s like to have sex with a foreskin? It must be like watching colour TV.’”

So shouldn’t I just lighten up and laugh along? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. But I balance that with Bahá’u’lláh’s admonition: “This is not a Cause which may be made a plaything for your idle fancies, nor is it a field for the foolish and faint of heart.” (The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, par. 78)
Anyway, it is Jacobs who is laughing all the way to the bank, for even if my complaints are valid, the fact remains that I still bought and read his frivolous book. You’ve been amply warned.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Quiz Answers

1. Tabríz
2. Muhammad-‘Alí-i-Zunuzí (“Anis”)
3. Mount Carmel, Haifa.
4. Chihríq
5. Assassination attempt on Nasir’id-Din Sháh.
6. Táhirih
7. He was under house arrest, as some Bábís in Mashhad had killed some guards that were parading his servant around the city with a rope through his nose.
8. A cholera epidemic struck suddenly. The Governor fled, and the Báb healed the son of the Chief of Police, who interceded on His behalf.
9. 1500 (2 x 750)
10. Hájí Mírzá Siyyid-‘Alí, His maternal uncle.
11. Táhirih
12. Sam Khán
13. Zachary Taylor
14. 40 days
15. Siyyid Husayn
16. 84
17. King of Martyrs and Beloved of Martyrs
18. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (She was Múnirih Khánum)
19. They all housed the remains of the Báb for a time.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Martyrdom of the Báb Quiz


On each of the Bahá’í Holy Days, I'll post a quiz, with the answers following a few days later.


Easy

1. In what city was the Báb martyred?

2. Who was martyred along with the Báb?

3. Where are the Báb’s remains today?

4. Where was the Báb during the Conference of Badasht in July 1848?

5. What happened in August 1852 as a direct consequence of the Martyrdom of the Báb?


Medium

6. Who dramatically announced the end of the Muhammadan Dispensation at Badasht in 1848?

7. Why was Mullá Husayn not at the Conference of Badasht?

8. Why was the first order to execute the Báb in 1845 in Shíráz not carried out?

9. How many shots were fired toward the Báb on July 9, 1850?

10. What relative of the Báb was the first of the Seven Martyrs of Tehran?


Difficult

11. Who translated the Báb’s Commentary of the Surih of Joseph from Arabic into Persian?

12. Which participant of July 9, 1850 had formerly been Chief of Police in Mashhad?

13. What U. S. President died on July 9, 1850?

14. How long after Mullá Husayn declared his belief in the Báb did the second Letter of the Living do so?

15. Who was the only person to share a jail cell with the Báb and also be incarcerated with Bahá’u’lláh in the Siyyáh-Chál?


Yeah, Good Luck

16. According to Shoghi Effendi, how many Bábís participated in the Conference at Badasht in July 1848?

17. Which two brothers, 9 and 11 years old at the time, served the Báb at a banquet given in His honour by their father in Isfahán in 1846?

18. The niece of the host of the previous question was conceived through the intercession of the Báb. Who became her husband?

19. What do the Shrines of Ibn Bábuyyih and Imámzadih Zayd, the residences of Aqá Husayn ‘Alí Núr and Muhammad Karím ‘Attar in Tehran, and the House of ‘Abdu’lláh Páshá in ‘Akká all have in common?

Monday, June 30, 2008

Voices of Joy




One of the best-kept secrets of the Bahá’í world must be the Voices of Bahá. Created almost as an afterthought to the Second Bahá’í World Congress in New York in 1992, it remains its most enduring legacy: the gorgeous choral music swept the assembled away, and the subsequent recording, played at thousands of gatherings, is perhaps the only music that has some claim to be well-known throughout the Bahá’í world community. But the “secret” part is that the Voices of Bahá embarked on annual tours that took them not only several times to the great concert halls of Europe, often with first-rate symphony orchestras (Madrid, Paris, Budapest, Warsaw, Prague), but to the former Soviet Union, the Caribbean, and the Far East. Sandwiched in amongst these were a Heartland of America tour and a Mississippi Riverboat tour, on which concerts were given where the riverboat docked.

The entire enterprise was intiated and shouldered by Nashville composer, arranger, and conductor Tom Price, who virtually single-handedly (Ohio’s Barbara Baumgartner became his right hand in the mid-90s) arranged all aspects of the tours, from travel and lodging to arranging all the music, auditioning singers over the telephone, producing practice recordings of all the parts, and the multitude of vagaries involved. The local Bahá’í communities would arrange the venues, advertise the events, and distribute the proceeds to charities. Two of his daughters were perpetually featured soloists.

Wherever they performed, not only did thousands attend the concerts, but local and national Bahá’í communities arranged a multitude of teaching events and initiatives in order to optimize the energy generated by the tour, for in many of these places the actual Bahá’í communities are rather small. For instance, in Thonon-les-Bains, France, near Geneva, there were only two believers (one of which was in the hospital), but an intense radio campaign and bus shelter advertising ensured a sellout in the Sports Palace in spite of a scathing newspaper article attempting to denigrate the Bahá’ís.

The singers represented as many as 22 countries, all who paid their own way. A few stalwarts, such as American Steve Brisley (pictured above) have participated in virtually every performance of the Voices of Bahá. After preparing individually for weeks via printed scores and practice recordings, 2-3 days of intense rehearsal would be all before the performances began. The programme consisted of music in styles ranging from ethnic folk to classical to gospel to several composed by Price himself, in a variety of languages, and in every locality some attempt was made to sing in the local tongue. One song, in particular, “O God My God,” has been sung in at least a score of languages from Slovak to Catalan to Hungarian, and local debates on pronunciation were often very lively indeed.

Highlights are more than can be counted, and surely someone will write a book to accompany the various video and audio archives. Here I’ll just mention a very few. While recording in Moscow, a revolution broke out, and everyone was confined to their hotel while the government buildings were under siege. Yet when the curfew was lifted, a full house attended a concert without any advertising.

In 2001 Tom Price decided it was time raise the international profile of the choir, and so in addition to concerts in France, Slovakia, Spain, and Germany, the choir was entered into several categories in a prestigious international choral competition in Wernigerode, Germany. 186 singers rehearsed Mendelssohn and Brahms in snatches between concerts, after meals, and on long bus rides, and switched from performance mode to Olympic-type competition, from unity to striving for excellence. Far from embarrassing themselves, they earned silver or gold standards in all categories entered, and were specially invited to sing for the throngs of tourists in the city square at the close of the competition. 2003 saw a return engagement.

In 2002, Price arranged a New York City Arts Festival to mark the 10th anniversary of the Second Bahá’í World Congress that started it all. As well as a slate of daily theatre, dance, visual, and mixed-media presentations around Manhattan, three grand concerts were given: a Persian concert shown via satellite in Iran, a full gospel concert, and a Carnegie Hall performance by the largest edition of the Voices of Bahá ever assembled: 550 voices and a full symphony orchestra.

Perhaps the most gruelling day for the Voices of Bahá was in Caracas, Venezuela in July 2005. The day began with a morning recording session of a full concert programme at the national television studio, followed by a live performance in front of television cameras of the same programme in the early afternoon. Another 6 hours was spent re-recording bits and pieces, and after the outer limits of exhaustion, they lip-synched the entire show again to their own recording for the benefit of the cameras. This was all for a documentary film to be used throughout Latin America. And these were largely amateurs of all ages with little experience of the rigours of touring.

On the same tour, the plane set out from Miami to the Dominican Republic and had to fly around Hurricane Dennis. After stops in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Trinidad, they arrived in Jamaica just two days after a hurricane had hit there, so they became media darlings of the Tourist bureau. Not two weeks later Hurricane Katrina hit.

An element of gospel music has been a part of the Voices of Bahá from its inception. Van Gilmer (pictured above, with Rachael Price) pioneered in bringing gospel music into a Bahá’í context with his groups and many popular compositions, and in 2004 he led a full gospel tour to Britain and Western Europe in lieu of the regular Voices of Bahá tour. In 2007 and 2008 the large choral tradition has been continued by a festival at the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois, where Gilmer serves as Music Director.


For these events and tours, singers save up all year, endure pickpockets, laryngitis and other ailments, and local food; they often witness crushing poverty, yet travel and work as one big happy family, running on adrenalin physical and spiritual, and nowhere where they’d rather be than spreading this message for the healing of the world. Furthermore, this “parent choir” has spawned local chapters around the globe, especially in Canada and the United States, enriching celebrations and developing a Bahá’í artistic life.

Monday, June 23, 2008

The Fifth Buddha



*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
This is the fourth in a series about organizations that reflect some of the new values and teachings that have come into the world in this age that has witnessed the dawning of the Bahá’í Faith.

The Maitreya Project at Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh in northern India is erecting a 152m bronze statue of the Buddha. Buddhists await the advent of “Maitreya-Amitabhá.” Even though the Buddha’s texts were revealed in the Pali language, “Maitreya” is from the Sanskrit “maitri” meaning “universal loving-kindness,” while “-abhá” is a form of “Bahá” (Glory) in Arabic. Bahá’u’lláh claimed to be that Universal Manifestation, the Promised One of all ages, the fulfillment of all millennial prophecies.


The physical outlay of the Maitreya Project has some striking simlilarities to Bahá’í Houses of Worship, which are to be surrounded by a number of other facilities, including universities, hospitals, and even drug dispensaries. (The present stage of the Houses of Worship has yet to realize these adjuncts.) According to the Maitreya Project website http://www.maitreya-statue.org/, there are plans for “temples, exhibition halls, a museum, library, audio-visual theatre and hospitality services. All will be set in beautifully landscaped parks with meditation pavilions, beautiful water fountains and tranquil pools. The buildings and grounds of the Project will contain a remarkable and inspiring collection of sacred art.” (Projected cost: $250 million.) Bahá’í Houses of Worship are all surrounded by gardens and fountains (pictured above is the Lotus Temple, near New Delhi). The bronze statue is designed to stand for at least 1,000 years. The Bahá’í structures on Mount Carmel were specifically designed and built with Mediterranean marble to also last a millennium.


There are glaring differences, of course. Building the Maitreya statue is intended to create, economic stability, as well as spiritual and social renewal, in and around the Project site, whereas the Bahá’í Houses of Worship are part of global plans and visions, and there will never be any admission fees or donations accepted. And though the Buddha is revered by the Bahá’ís, there are no representational images, nor will there ever be. Interestingly, in the early days of Buddhism, there were no images of the Buddha, only symbols or ciphers. The idea entered the East via the Greek statues brought by Alexander the Great’s armies. Since by then no one knew what the Buddha had looked like, He was portrayed as an Adonis-like young man sitting in the lotus position. As time went on, the form of the Buddha took on various cultural ideals in different places.


As a Bahá’í, I ask myself, will they come to recognize Bahá’u’lláh as that “Fifth Buddha,” the Maitreya-Amitabha, or wait another thousand years?

Thursday, June 19, 2008

This 'n' That


For its viewers Seinfeld coined meanings for “this” and “that,” humourous euphemisms meaning “Platonic friendship” and “Sex,” respectively. Absolutely everything turns my diseased mind into spiritual matters, and I’m going to drag you along with me. First to Hinduism:

The essence of Vedanta and the pinnacle of Hindu insight is enshrined in the four “Mahavakyas,” (Great Sayings), the first of which is Tat Tvam Asi, (“That Thou Art”).

Huh? “That Thou Art”? That’s a great saying? Reefer madness?

Some explanation is obviously needed. There’s a prayer (or affirmation) in the Isavasyopanishad that in the original Sanskrit runs:

Om Purnamadah Purnamidam
Purnat Purnamudacyate
Purnasya Purnamadaye
Purnamevavasisyate
Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

One clumsy English rendition minus the “Om Peace” (italics mine):

That is whole; this is whole;
From that whole this whole came;
From that whole, this whole removed,
What remains is whole.

Well that cleared it up, didn’t it? The intended meaning is thus: “That” is the spiritual realm, the object of our search, invisible. “This” is creation, the physical, phenomenal world. So in a nutshell the teaching implied in the above verse is creation emanates from spirit and is ultimately a projection, a superimposition, real enough on its own level, but possessing no substantial reality of its own, being totally dependent upon spirit for its creation, and sustenance, and the ever-present possibility of its dissolution. (Notice I didn’t use the words “this” and “that” in cette paragraph, which wasn’t easy.)

The claim of Bahá’u’lláh is of being the Promised One of All Ages, the fulfillment of the prophecies of ALL past Dispensations and traditions. And whereas the Buddha, Zoroaster, the Great Spirit, and men of India meditating in caves get passing mention, the overwhelming context in which the Bahá’í Revelation is placed is firmly in the Adamic-Abrahmic-Judeo-Christian-Islamic line – in other words, the traditions of the Middle East. So I’m particularly tickled to find what I deem direct connections with teachings that emanated from elsewhere.

A significant portion of the Báb’s output is in the form of Commentary which has been exalted to the rank of Revelation (please just take my word for it here). In the Commentary on the Surih of the Cow II, He expounds on a tradition of the Imám Ridá, where “that” and “this” are referred to as “there” and “here”:

Elevate the alphabetical letters of that divine verse unto the sublime station of the manifestation of their heart . . . Verily that ascent is the spirit of the Elixir of true knowledge, so that the servant may advance all that is motionless unto the lofty station of vibrant motion, and make manifest the Causes of his existence within the stage of the effect, and reveal the fruit of the Final Cause in the rank and station of the receptive phenomena. That is the true meaning of the words of Imám Ridá, peace by upon Him, that verily those endued with understanding cannot know that which is there, except through that which is here. (provisional translation by N. Saiedi)

Obviously there are many concepts in that short quote; the Báb’s writing is extremely dense and dripping with meaning just as His own dream of the blood of the Imám Husayn. But I hope I made the connection clear.

If not, I apologize and leave you with another Jerry Seinfeld quote: “There is no such thing as ‘fun for the whole family.’”

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Unforgettable


It is fitting that as the last of the Hands of the Cause of God passed away last year, that tributes to these 50 individuals that were appointed by the Central Figures of the Bahá’í Faith to “diffuse the Divine Fragrances, to edify the souls of men, to promote learning, to improve the character of all men and to be, at all times and under all conditions, sanctified and detached from earthly things,” should begin to appear in print. Such is the book The Unforgettable Hands of the Cause by Ohio-born Michael Woodward, just published by the Bahá’í Publishing Trust of India.

It consists almost entirely of first-hand reminiscences and anecdotes of the author’s interactions with 14 of the Hands while living in Hawaii, pioneering in Africa and Taiwan, and on trips to Conferences and the Holy Land. Therefore it is an intimate account, almost too intimate at times, as he details personal the involvement with his family’s life and tribulations of Abu’l-Qásim Faizi (pictured above) and Enoch Olinga. In the early part of the book, Woodward falls into the trap like many before him, of describing minute events with overenthusiasm, making the stories sound lame. The difficulty, of course, is that the events themselves are outwardly unremarkable: a word here, a gesture there, but suffused with spiritual potency and immediacy that makes an impression lasting a lifetime, and these things take no small literary skill to articulate.

However, when he moves on to document conferences and the lessons and talks given by the Hands at these momentous gatherings, we get a good sense of how they taught the friends, encouraged, exhorted and admonished them with illustrative stories, explanations of the Writings and the guidance from the World Centre. We see figures Bahá’ís have come to know so well: Dr. Muhajer, Bill Sears, Ruhiyyih Khanum, Collis Featherstone, and others in the full flower of their glory in accomplishing the Herculean tasks given to them.

While Woodward’s writing is not first-rate, one thing he accomplishes very well is the sense of history, especially the murmur of anguish felt by the Bahá’í community around the world as the number of the Hands -- 27 in 1957 at the passing of the Guardian, inexorably dwindled down to only three well before the turn of the Millenium, and so how every moment with these sublime mentors was so precious.

Surely many more volumes are in the offing, especially as we have full biographies of only a smattering – I almost wrote “handful” – of these seminal figures, without whom it would be impossible to envision the Bahá’í Faith as it has come to exist, flourish, and grow to this day.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

Sirens in Daidanaw


It is now exactly a month since Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy River Delta, killing over 200,000 and leaving countless others destitute in Myanmar (Burma). And so far very little aid has been getting through, since the government in adamant in controlling who and what enters the country and how. Its concern has been its own clinging to power rather than the welfare of its peoples, as it received a scare only a few months ago with the worldwide attention received by the rebellion of Buddhist monks.


For the Bahá’ís in the delta town of Daidanaw, it’s the second time that carnage has been visited upon them almost incidentally as part of a larger catastrophe. The first was in 1945, when the town was attacked for ethnic cleansing, and 11 Bahá’ís were killed and their homes, a school, and the Bahá’í Centre razed to the ground. Among the casualties was Mustafáy-i-Rúmí (pictured above), posthumously named a Hand of the Cause of God, a very high honour and designation bestowed upon only 50 individuals, all who have now passed on, and no others will ever be so named again. Rúmí was a religious scholar from ‘Iráq who spoke at least seven languages, engaged in the rice trade in India, and became a Bahá’í in Calcutta. He travelled all over Southeast Asia teaching the Faith and converted all 800 inhabitants of Daidanaw, the first all- Bahá’í village outside of Irán. He made his home there and among the many services he performed was to spearhead the creation of a marble sarcophagus which he not only helped pay for but was one of the people who transported it to the Holy Land. The remains of The Báb (Prophet-Herald of the Bahá’í Faith), hidden and moved about to about two dozen different locations since His martyrdom by firing squad in Tabríz, Persia in 1850, were finally interred in this sarcophagus in a shrine on Mount Carmel, its golden dome the most recognizable Bahá’í building on earth.


The Bahá’í Centre in Daidanaw was rebuilt. At the present time it is a refuge for abut 800 families (Bahá’í and non) who are in desperate need of the necessities of survival, which are still only trickling in.


Providentially, the nine members of the National Spiritual Assembly of Myanmar were in consultative meetings in Thailand when the cyclone hit and so were spared. An irony that is surely not lost on Bahá’ís of Iránian background is that the name chosen for this cyclone – Nargis -- is identical to that of the most favourite of Iránian Bahá’í sirens.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Cinco de Mayo

What connection could there possibly be between Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo celebration and the early history of the Bahá’í Faith? On May 5, 1862, 8,000 invading French forces with state-of-the-art equipment were turned back by 4,000 rustic Mexicans (albeit with a splendid cavalry) in the battle of Pueblo. The French soon pressed on to victory, installing Maximilian I (brother of Austro-Hungarian Emperor Archduke Ferdinand) as ruler for a short five year period until democrat-ically elected Benito Juarez was able to reclaim the land for the locals. Nevertheless the heroism of the Battle of Pueblo is what is celebrated every May 5th.


And who ordered this French invasion? Why, none other than Napoleon III (portrait above by Franz Xavier Winterhalter). Bahá’u’lláh addressed admonishing and prophetic letters to many of the temporal and religious leaders of the day from His exiles in Ottoman lands, instructing them in how to be enlightened leaders, announcing to them His stupendous claims, and offering them the Most Great Peace should they arise to accept Him. He also warned of dire consequences should they not heed His advice and change course. In his book The Promised Day is Come, Shoghi Effendi documents the swift and dramatic downfall of those who spurned Bahá’u’lláh’s message, including Kaiser Wilhelm I (2 assassination attempts), Emperor Franz Josef (too many disasters to list culminating in World War I), the Ottoman Sultan ‘Abdu’l-Azíz (deposition and murder, followed by the cataclysmic demise of the entire empire), the Sháh of Irán (assassinated in 1896), and Pope Pius IX (loss of papal lands and temporal authority, self-imposed imprisonment). Czar Nicholas II, who through his Foreign Minister Prince Dolgorukov (or Dolgoruki) was instrumental in freeing Bahá’u’lláh from a dreadful Tehrani dungeon, suffered a slower decline, and Queen Victoria, whom Bahá’u’lláh praised and whose response was the most favourable of all, escaped calamity altogether.


In fact, Bahá’u’lláh sent two letters to Napoleon III. The first one he was reported to have tossed behind him haughtily, exclaiming, “If this man is God, I am two Gods!” and furthermore it was laughably construed to be a veiled request for money! The second letter was more stern. It began: “O King of Paris! Tell the priests to ring the bell no longer. By God, the True One! The Most Mighty Bell hath appeared in the form of Him Who is the Most Great Name.” After several paragraphs in this vein, He confronted Napoleon regarding his hypocrisy in the Crimean War: “Thou didst say: ‘. . . the cry of the oppressed, who were drowned in the Black Sea, wakened me.’ . . . We testify that that which wakened thee was not their cry but the promptings of thine own passions, for We tested thee, and found thee wanting . . . From what thou hast done, thy kingdom shall be thrown into confusion, and thine empire shall pass from thy hands, as a punishment for that which thou hast wrought.”


His descent began within a year: in May 1870 he was confirmed in a popular vote, but corruption and dissent in the army revealed itself when by July when he declared war on Prussia as part of a scheme to install Leopold von Hohenzollern on the Spanish throne. After several ghastly and catastrophic defeats, the mighty French army received its coup de grace on September 1 at Sedan, and the Second Empire was ended in one fell swoop. Napoleon spent the remaining three years of his life in exile in England, but as a final punctuation mark, his son was killed in the Zulu Campaign in 1879.


The French agent in Palestine who translated and sent the second letter became a Bahá’í himself when he witnessed the prophecies so remarkably fulfilled.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Collateral Damage


The persecution of Baháí’s in Iran has spilled over to a high-profile non- Bahá’í citizen, an eminent personage no less than the 2003 Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi. On April 14 the AFP reported that she had been receiving death threats pinned to her office building entry, signed by the “Association of Anti- Bahá’ís.” Ebadi is not a Bahá’í, so what’s their beef? Other groups in the country have been less than comfortable with her promotion of the rights of women and children, and her speeches made abroad on justice. But this group cites her “un-Islamic and “Bahá’í-based faith,” and include her daughter in these threats. Bahá’í-based? That’s a new one! Is this a reference to the Bahá’í principle of the Equality of the Sexes?
The Islamic Republic defends its record on human rights and its treatment of religious minorities, but it does not consider the Bahá’í Faith a religion but rather an apostasy of Islam, and therefore feels justified in denying the Bahá’ís the rights granted other minorities. The denied right currently receiving the most worldwide attention is that of higher education, and not only the Bahá’í Faith but campus groups around the globe and even the Presidency of the European Union are expressing their outrage and calling for justice. In America, a proposed bill from Illinois Congressman Kirk is gaining momentum and the American Federation of Teachers is expressing concern.

Ebadi has not been taking these threats as ideological rather than personal and has assigned a fellow colleague to defend her case.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Spirit in Celluloid


Easter brings the inevitable: children biting the ears off chocolate rabbits, and the spate of Jesus movies featuring in the starring role what look like washed-up, drug-sodden ex-rockers in the final stages of syphyllitic decline. Why is that? Even as a child I knew for certain that Jesus didn’t look or behave like those clueless indigents out of whose mouths the very words of the Son of God sounded inane.

So the Bahá’í injunction prohibiting the representation of Holy Personages as characters in a story makes a lot of sense to me. The central reason is that we cannot do them justice – cute as some find the idea, God isn’t “just a slob like one of us.” The only portrayal of a Manifestation of God that had any ring of truth to it for me was Charlton Heston (died April 5, 2008) as Moses in The Ten Commandments. But his more recent freeze-frame image was not holding up Moses’ staff, but a shotgun for the NRA. Likewise Willem Defoe moved from portraying Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ to the evil villain in Spiderman – it just doesn’t sit right. (Here’s a bit of trivia: James Caviezel – the actor portraying Jesus -- was struck by lightning during the filming of The Passion of the Christ, which somehow didn’t attract as much attention as the director’s subsequent racist remarks under the influence of alcohol, a potent truth serum.) Morgan Freeman as God? Or George Burns? Granted these were comedies, but it underscores the painful fact that Hollywood doesn’t understand God or spirituality in any meaningful way. Even Martin Scorsese’s Kundun (about the Dalai Lama), respectful, though it was, was a grand spectacle that was otherwise devoid of drama, displeasing the critics.

There are many inherent difficulties in filming religious narratives, not the least of which is that the stories from the Bible and other Holy Books are well-known, removing most of the suspense and locking in the main features of the story. (Tricks like Deepak Chopra’s recent novel of the Buddha, in which he introduces a number of fictional central characters, won’t fly with the much more vigilant Christian church authorities.) In the theatre of the past, from ancient Calcutta to the Passion Plays of European Middle Ages, this was a strength, not a weakness, and modern film-making surely can be creative within these constraints, but only if it is respectful and reverent rather than wishing to put the past into the service of contemporary ideologies or individual quirks, which Bahá’ulláh stigmatized as “idle fancies and vain imaginings.” And, speaking of Buddhism, the fabulous American Buddhist children’s author and illustrator Demi was commissioned to create a book on the Prophet Muhammad, and had her illustrations complete before discovering that Islam had a similar, though not identical prohibition. Nonplussed at first, she covered over the form of the Prophet with gold.

Classical Greek drama is replete with human actions that boggle the mind, but they were never represented onstage, but rather recounted by eyewitnesses. Now they didn’t have the resources of the Bayreuth Opera House, but we still study them today as some of the greatest examples of the thespian art. I never saw the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I’m told that the real horror of it was that it happened off-camera, leaving the imagination to plumb its own depths of fear, while subsequent filmings of the story were weakened by the graphic gore. Mystery, suspense, drama, and intrigue can be heightened by the conspicuous absence of the God-figure onscreen, making the potency of their imminence feel even greater. Ha, if Godot can drive a plot with his non-existence, how much more the Creator of the Cosmos and His emissaries?

I am one of those people that often re-imagines a film the way I would have made it, or visualize the way a story could be put on the big screen. And a recurring technique in this inner cinema is that the camera is the eye of a witness or protagonist, making the story a first-person narrative and giving it an immediacy that no voice-over could ever give. I offer this suggestion of this rarely-used technique to any enterprising young filmmaker who can make fruitful use of it.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Attempt to Torch a Baha'i in Shiraz March 19

The following is the text of the report sent by the person who was engulfed earlier today in persecutions directed at Baha'is in Shiraz by a certain group called Sarbazan Gumnam Imam Zaman.for the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Province of Fars :

"The Esteemed Ministry of Intelligence and Security of the Province of Fars ;

"With respect, attached please find a copy of a warning letter dated 17 March 2008 sent by the group Sarbazan Gumnam Imam Zaman ('the unknown soldiers of the Lord of the Age'), indicating that I and eight others will be publicly executed for being Baha'is.

"Today, 19 March 2008, I parked my automobile in Davari Street in order to attend to a business engagement in Sadi Street . I attended to my work on Sadi Street and when I returned to my car and opened its door, I noticed a person [on the sidewalk] who was holding a gallon size container. He asked me for gasoline, saying, "My family is in my car [which has ran out of gas] and if possible, please give me some gas so I can reach the gas station." I opened my gas tank, but didn't have a hose. He went to his car, in which a woman in a black chador was sitting in the front seat, and from the truck brought out a hose. He siphoned gas from my tank and filled his gallon container.

"He then placed the container on the asphalt and from behind grabbed me firmly, placing one hand over my mouth. At the same time another person, who appeared to be passing by on the sidewalk, quickly came forward and helped him carry me to a nearby tree where they chained me and secured it with a lock around my neck. They then poured gasoline all over me. The first person quickly went to his car and got in. The second person struck a match and threw it towards me. But it did not light. The second match died when struck. The third match struck my clothes and extinguished. The fourth and final match fell near my foot and while it was lit, I put it out with my shoe.

"At that point, he too ran away and got into the car and together they disappeared. Two kids were riding their bicycles in the same sidewalk and saw me. I called them forward. At the same time, one of the residences was leaving his house in his car. I also called him, and upon seeing the situation, he was frightened. I told him, "Call 110 [the emergency in Iran ]". But he said, "I'm not from here; ask someone else." He left. Other residents began to tell each other and soon a crowd was gathered.

"By that time, I was beginning to recover somewhat. I noticed my own mobile phone and called 110. Other residents also called the emergency services. After a half an hour, officers came from Zand police station. At first, they tried to break the chain with an axe, to no avail. Then one of the neighbors brought some keys and managed to open the lock.

"One of the officers placed me in his car and took me to the police station; where a report was prepared, which I enclose.

"With respect."

(Signature withheld.
29.12.1386 [19 March 2008])


From the Sarbazan Gumnam Imam Zamam:

"In the Name of God, the Sentry of the blood of martyrs and the Destroyer of corrupts and oppressors!

"Mr. _________ [name removed by Iranian Baha'is]

"Another page is recorded in the golden tablet of the Islamic Revolution, so that future generations will know that Islam and Muslims are vigilant and would not fall prey to the trickery of the devotees and spies of Israel , nor would they allow followers of the pure religion of Muhammad to be deceived by charlatans like you. Therefore, in accordance with the research conducted by the Sarbazan Gumnam of the Imam Zaman, established in the city of [Shiraz] you and eight other infidels (i.e. Baha'is) are condemned to revolutionary execution which will be soon carried out publicly.

"As a follower of the false Prophets Baha'u'llah and Siyyid-e Bab, ask them, if indeed they are true, to prevent the execution of this decree, and much like Abraham the Friend, for Whom God made the fire cool, to cool the fire for you.

"Let this serve as a warning notice for all your co-religionists."

-- Ahang Rabbani, PhD http://ahang.rabbani.googlepages.com/ _

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Solomon's Ring

The Bahá’í period of fasting is during the daylight hours of March 2-20 every year, and is mandated and intended as a time of spiritual renewal, so all other considerations associated with it – nutrition, health benefits, work, losing weight, etc., are all secondary to this chief objective. And since the central intent is spiritual, Bahá’ís may certainly gather to break the Fast together and enjoy fellowship, but not hold large feasts to gorge themselves in the dark. Nor is it a time to distract oneself with frivolous activity, but to increase prayer and reflection.

A wee little confession: in my early days of studying the Bahá’í Writings, I encountered these words in a prayer for the Fast: “Thou hast endowed every hour of these days with a special virtue, inscrutable to all except Thee.” I took this to mean that every hour had its own particular and separate virtue, and wanted to make sure I didn’t miss out on a single one of them. I still don’t want to miss a single hour of it, but am much more serene in my approach.

It is personally my most favourite time of the year; I actually fasted during the two years before I declared myself a Bahá’í. During this time perceptions are sharp, spiritual insights abound, and the words of the Scriptures penetrate the heart as at no other time. The appetite for sublime beauty is insatiable, the waves of love sweep the heart out of control, the sweetness of music sets dancing every molecule and pore. Life is awesomely, ineffably wondrous.

Physically, it is not difficult, though I should speak for myself. It just means skipping lunch and to ensure enough liquid intake before sunrise to combat dehydration. Even with that it is much more than the vast majority of the people of the world get for their daily intake.

I don’t want the Fast to end, and often toy with the thought of simply carrying on well after the prescribed date, but inevitably by the end, it is physically wearing, and the body is happy to resume is normal regimen.

One year I was so eager to reap a winter harvest from the Fast that I decided to go it alone during November – this is allowed, but not as a replacement for the March Fast. I was very disappointed in the result. The days were, in Toronto, much shorter than in March, and the whole spiritual atmosphere was quite different – November is a busy month for Bahá’ís, with two holy days (one of them commemorated in the wee hours of the morning), 2 Feasts, the Day of the Covenant, Unity in Diversity Week, and hardly has a November passed where other dates have not been added for various reasons (Thanksgiving in America, etc.). So whether it’s the time of year or whether it’s the synergistic effect of all the Bahá’ís around the world participating in this together, or that it is specially ordained, the March month of fasting is what delivers the goods.

And each and every Fast is unique, with One of the highlights for me this year is chanting one of the long fast prayers in the Bahá’í House of Worship in Wilmette, Illinois. This is as good as it gets.

And what are these aforementioned insights? Some of them can be articulated, and some just cannot. They are highly personal, and one really needs to explore this for oneself. They are as unexpected as they are unasked, and are breathtaking as only grace can be. The month is replete with e-mail testimonials from friends around the world on the subject, but no one has said it better than Jalauddin Rumi, the 14th Century Persian mystic poet:

There is an unseen sweetness in the stomach’s emptiness.
We are lutes. When the soundbox is filled, no music can come forth.
When the brain and belly are burning from fasting, every moment a new song rises out of the fire.
The mists are clear, and a new vitality makes you spring up the steps before you.
Be empty and cry as a reed instrument.
Be empty and write secrets with a reed pen.
When satiated by food and drink, an unsightly metal statue is seated where your spirit should be.
When fasting, good habits gather like helpful friends.
Fasting is Solomon’s ring. Don’t give in to illusion and lose your power.
But even when all will and control have been lost, they will return when you fast, like soldiers appearing out of the ground, or pennants flying in the breeze. A table descends to your tents, the Lord’s table.
Anticipate seeing it when fasting, this table spread with a different food, far better than the broth of cabbages.

Monday, February 25, 2008

SaveYourself By Telling the Truth



Camelia -- Save Yourself By Telling the Truth is a personal memoir of Camelia Entekhabifard, an Iranian journalist who suffered persecution and imprisonment in her homeland in 1999. As a Bahá’í, I am accustomed to hearing heroic and self-sacrificing accounts of persection and martyrdom in Iran, true martyrdom in which souls stand up for what they believe and face the consequences joyfully and without fear. But the author is by her own admission a spoiled little rich girl whose family had enjoyed privilege in the time of the Shah and were habituated to European vacations. Whatever historical background she gives are relevant only as the orbit to her own unexemplary life. Typically, when the family heard of the announcement of the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, her mother became hysterical and beat her for no reason she could fathom, and she freely admits: “To me, the first important thing that happened to me was that the schools were closed for a week and the final exams were postponed.”

Yes, she endured the wrath of the new regime in the form of fundamentalist vigilantes in school and on the streets as a child and as an adult and a journalist was imprisoned and interrogated for 70 days without justification, as a “spy for Israel.” Her account of her interrogator is not within the context of justice, but in the absurd context of her falling in love with her abuser, though neither sees each other’s face. And when she is given a list of sixty-seven men she has allegedly had relations with, which include several close relatives, she begins to lie and lie and lie, with the view of saving her own skin, since that is what everyone is Iran does, according to her. A typical reply was, “I wasn’t educated properly, I wasn’t a good Muslim, I was addicted to sex. I’m so full of sin you should punish me however you decide.” She also recounts her tawdry love affair with the nation’s most famous soccer player which, after the initial flush of not love but notoriety, fizzles unceremoniously out since neither of their expectations works out – she wants life in the fast lane, the jet set, while he wants a wife who will cook him several meals a day. How banal!

The subtitle of the book is misleading, inasmuch as it suggests clinging to the truth as one’s weapon against corruption, injustice, and tyranny, and with that weapon one would prevail, either in this world or the next. We find, however, that these words were addressed to her by her interrogator, and “the truth” was far from the intention of either of them. His was extracting from her the confessions his superiors wanted to hear, and hers was to secure her freedom with as little pain and as soon as possible, by any means necessary. She attempts to impress us with her clever prevarication in her quest for her own freedom, her ability to survive and thrive, which is her prerogative as a memoirist, but if we’re looking for a bona fide heroine here, we are bound to be disappointed by this self-absorption.

She achieves national attention as a young poet – even this under false pretences, as she reads a love poem which she misrepresents as being inspired by and directed towards the Ayatollah. In her book, she resorts to a non-chronological narrative, juxtaposing her halcyon youth with her barbaric treatment at the hands of her jailers. This writer hopes he is not being unfair, and though himself having escaped a totalitarian regime under dramatic circumstances, has never been subjected to intense personal persecution. Still, this book compares quite unfavourably with Azar Nafizi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, which was told in the context of a love of beauty in literature, or certainly with the heroic episodes of such accounts as The Dawn-Breakers, which are still unfortunately little-known outside of Bahá’í readership, but which nevertheless I believe will before long sweep the world.

The book is not without virtues, even if incidentally. To North Americans, and even to Bahá’ís at large, Iran is seen as a monolithic, backward culture of Islamic fundamentalists, and their leaders are demonized as such in the media. Accounts such as this give us at least a glimpse of the complexity and diversity of Iranian society, its class clashes, its struggles between tradition and modernity, its shifting patchwork of religion and politics, and its pride in its glorious heritage. For this little girl, perhaps the greatest shock outside her sometimes petty personal concerns is the aggressive replacement of the Persian culture of her family and ancestry by the foreign values of the Ayatollah’s theocracy.

Another element is her relationship with her interrogator, with whom she says she falls in love, but manipulates to fall in love with her in order to win her freedom, and their love/fear/power struggle relationship continues after her release in an ugly and indecent affair. This seems like a microcosm of the relationship Middle Easterners tend to have with their leaders, bizarre as it may jangle in Western ears.

She mentions the Bahá’ís twice, briefly. On page 154, her mother’s words: “. . . this Nava is a Bahá’í and unclean . . .” On page 179, while she was incarcerated: “I was given religious books from the prison library to read. One of the books was about the candle stuffing of the Bahá’ís by Amir Kabir. The book told how he persecuted them and would stuff all the orifices of their bodies with lit candles and parade them around the city in a ghastly spectacle. My stomach churned, and I shut the book in disgust. It was horrifying.” This disgust doesn’t seem to have translated into any subsequent journalistic search after truth on her part. Her most scandalous piece, never published, was on the prostitutes (wives for a day) in the clerical city of Qom. I submit that to write of the plight of the Iranian Bahá’ís who sacrifice themselves with no personal thought but rather for the spiritual regeneration of the entire human civilization would be a more worthy enterprise. This link would be a good place to begin: www.kdkfactory.com/quench/

Friday, February 8, 2008

The Great Need of the Hour


In a speech delivered in a church in Atlanta, Georgia, on January 20, 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama, addressed the congregation with words echoing Dr. Martin Luther King: “Unity is the great need of the hour.”

Much of this speech dealt with political matters on which I am not qualified to speak, and included much Civil Rights jargon which, as a Canadian, I simply cannot relate to with the fervour that stirs Americans. The part which grabbed my attention was the apparent realization that unity is the key to solving the nation’s (and, by extension, the world’s) insoluble problems. There is a widespread unexamined notion that unity is something we will achieve at the end of our efforts to put humanity on the right track for the future, after we have confronted and triumphed over the myriad social, ecological, political, moral, technological, and economic challenges of our age, whereas Bahá’ís proceed on the assumption that unity must come first, and is in fact the essential element without which progress is stalled in the quagmire we find ourselves in as humanity’s ills only deepen and the wisest of the wise are struck dumb with helplessness. Perhaps the most oft-quoted passage in the Bahá’í Writings is: “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” This is emphatic and unequivocal.

Please let it be clear that I am not endorsing any candidate and have not an iota of interest in partisan politics, merely the hope of the paradigm shift, the idea whose time has come, aided by those who have the ear of the multitudes. Here are the relevant nuggets from Senator Obama’s remarks, to mull in our own hearts, irrespective of politics:

“Unity is the great need of the hour - the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.

“I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.

“I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.

“All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.

“But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes - a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.

“We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.

“So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others - all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face - war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down.

“The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.”

Friday, February 1, 2008

Divine and Human


In 1900 Leo Tolstoy was not only a world-famous writer, but arguably the most famous person in the world. Spiritual crises tormented him relentlessly from an early age right up until his death; he had an intense desire for the ascetic life to search for the ultimate meaning of life, but his wife would have none of it. His struggles led him into the study of Oriental religions and got him excommunicated from the Russian Orthodox Church for blasphemy. As early as 1855 Tolstoy wrote in his diary plans to create a new religion “cleansed of faith and mystery, a practical religion, not promising future bliss, but giving bliss on earth.” He sought religion with social justice without prejudice and superstition. In the twilight of his life he encountered the Bahá’í Faith, which fit the bill of his searching. We have on record a number of references he made to the Faith: speaking of the eternal enigma called life, and deploring the fact that we spend our entire earth allotment of time trying to solve the riddle, he goes on to add: “But there is a Persian prophet who holds the key.” His most explicit endorsement: “The teaching of the Bábís have great future before them....I therefore sympathize the Bábísm with all my heart, inasmuch as it teaches people brotherhood and equality and sacrifice of material life for service to God....The teachings of the Bábís which come to us out of Islám have through Bahá'u'lláh's teachings been gradually developed, and now present us with the highest and purest form of religious teaching.” The year after his death, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá was in London, where he said, “I received a letter from Tolstoy, and in it he said that he wished to write a book upon Bahá'u'lláh.”

Alas, he did not leave such a work to posterity. But recently I perused a newly-translated sampling of his later short stories under the title Divine and Human, and looked for tell-tale signs of Bahá’í influence on his writing. I did find about a half-dozen passages which it seemed to me couldn’t have been written without this influence, but this is nevertheless speculation on my part. However, one of the stories, A Coffeehouse in the City of Surat, could well have been told by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá himself. A Persian scholar studied the essence of God all his life, but in the end became confused, and the king exiled him. So in this coffeehouse in India, he has a conversation with his slave about God, which attracts the interest of a number of travelers who happen to be there at the time. In turns a Brahmin priest, a Jewish moneychanger, an Italian Catholic, a Protestant pastor, and a Turkish customs officer expounded on the nature of the one true God from their own limited perspectives, and a great commotion ensued where everyone argued. All participated in the melee but one Chinaman who sat quietly in the corner. Observing this, they stopped their arguing and asked the Confucian to arbitrate. Instead of choosing any one of them as a victor, he told a parable about traveling all over the world and listening to people argue childishly about the nature of the sun, each claiming the sun for themselves. Finally the skipper of the ship, who had seen the sun in all these various regions set them all straight. Tolstoy has the Chinaman wrap up the story thus:

“And tell me now, whose temple can compare with that which was created by God himself when he wanted to unite all people into one faith? All human temples are copies of this temple—that is, the world created by God. All temples have domes and ceilings, all temples have lanterns, icons, images, inscriptions, books of laws, sacrifices, altars, and priests. Which temple has a bath as great as the world’s oceans, or a dome as high as the heavenly dome, or lanterns like the sun, moon, and stars; or images such as people living together, loving and helping each other? Are there any mere inscriptions about the love of God that are more easily understood than the blessings God gives us for our happiness? Where is the book of law more easily understood than the law of love, which is written on our hearts? Where are the sacrifices equal to the ones people give every day to those they love? Where is the altar that compares with the heart of a kind person in which God himself receives the sacrifice?

“The more one tries to understand God, the closer one will come to him, reflecting God’s goodness, mercy and love to everyone.

“Let him who sees the whole light of the sun that fills the world not despise the superstitious man who sees only one ray of this very same sun in his idol. Let him also not despise the unbeliever, who is blind and cannot see any light at all.”

When the Chinese man had said this, all the people in the coffeehouse ceased their arguments about whose religion was the best.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Whack the Platypus


A current bestselling novelty book is entitled Plato and Platypus Walk Into a Bar, which quite deftly explains philosophy through jokes, most of which we’ve hear before, but their context makes them funnier in the deconstruction process. On page 86, it lists the various incarnations of the Golden Rule in spiritual traditions chronologically. Bahá’ís are very familiar with this, as we often use this to illustrate the unity of religion, and I was pleased to see Bahá’u’lláh’s Arabic Hidden Word #29 quoted: “O Son of Being! Ascribe not to any soul that which thou wouldst not have ascribed to thee, and say not that which thou doest not. This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it.” And since it was chronological, the Bahá’í quotations are always final. However, the authors located one even more recent, from Episode Twelve of the Sopranos: “Whack the next guy wit the same respect you’d like to be whacked with, you know?” Ha ha ha!! I got a good laugh out of that one.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Epistle to a Philosopher


(Recently sent to Jacob Needleman at San Francisco University)
Dear Professor Needleman,

I read your book Why Can’t We Be Good? with keen interest and genuine enthusiasm, and thought you might like to hear from a reader with no professional or academic skew in its apprehension. I was drawn to many aspects of your presentation and argument, one of which was keeping God in the equation without making it contentious in any way; another was that you kept the content personal, both for yourself and the reader, thus maintaining a knife-edge immediacy and keeping it on a plane of human intimacy rather than imposing the imperious distance of the theoretical.

I do not have venom- or envy-tinted glasses, and am hereby an admirer, though not flatterer. I noticed from your jacket biography that you are a former director of the Center of the Study of New Religions at Berkeley. From that I have to tentatively surmise that you are acquainted with the Bahá’í Faith, though if you are you didn’t breathe a specific word of it in this particular work.

As a lifelong student of the inner mysteries, I recognize and commend that though your commitment to your Jewish Faith is evident, you do more than give token honour to the world’s great spiritual traditions. As a Bahá’í myself, I can pay you no greater tribute than to confirm many of your hard-won insights with the supreme authority of the Word of God, and invite you to investigate for yourself the veracity of its claims.

On pg. 6 you wrote: “But to know these ideas only with the mind is not enough. They must be allowed to penetrate a man or a woman’s heart and soul down to the very tissues of the body. Struggle with and within oneself is necessary to allow the inner opening to what is called God, a force which alone makes possible a sense of responsibility to one’s neighbor, and hence, genuine moral action.”

Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith, in a letter to the believers of America, dated Sept. 24, 1924, made this unequivocal statement: “One thing and only one thing will unfailingly and alone secure the undoubted triumph of this sacred Cause, namely, the extent to which our own inner life and private character mirror forth in their manifold aspects the splendour of those eternal principles proclaimed by Bahá'u'lláh.”

Throughout the first half of the book you refer to the marvelous phenomenon of “thinking together.” For every Bahá’í, high or low, and for all the Institutions of the Faith, this mandated. Since there is no clergy in the Faith and for the sake of unity it is forbidden to foist one’s understanding of the scripture on anyone else -- “For the faith of no man can be conditioned by any one except himself.”1 -- Bahá’ís habitually “deepen” (note this word) their understanding by studying together. And to all is given the command to “consult,” an innocuous and unglamourous-sounding word with far-reaching ramifications. “Consultation bestoweth greater awareness and transmuteth conjecture into certitude. It is a shining light which, in a dark world, leadeth the way and guideth. For everything there is and will continue to be a station of perfection and maturity. The maturity of the gift of understanding is made manifest through consultation.”2
Breaking the Semitic tradition of arguing for one-upmanship, we are told that, “The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions.”3 In fact, the guidance is unequivocal: “The text of the Divine Book is this: If two souls quarrel and contend about a question of the Divine questions, differing and disputing, both are wrong. The wisdom of this incontrovertible law of God is this: That between two souls from amongst the believers of God, no contention and dispute might arise; that they may speak with each other with infinite amity and love. Should there appear the least trace of controversy, they must remain silent, and both parties must continue their discussions no longer, but ask the reality of the question from the Interpreter. This is the irrefutable command!”4
The model of consultation operates thus: when the friends desire a solution to a problem, they gather together with the mindset of seeking the best path, purging their breasts of any other motive. Then they pray together in sincerity to unify their hearts and minds. Then each person puts their best ideas on the table, freely and frankly (but with courtesy and moderation), and no one must belittle the idea of another. But – and this is the pivotal point – once an idea is expressed, it is no longer that person’s idea, but the property of the group in its consultation. So there is no jockeying for position or lobbying for one’s own ideas over another’s. It is though the table were a boiling cauldron in which the ideas are stirred until the right solution presents itself. The group strives for consensus; failing this, a vote is taken, and the majority prevails. Once a decision is reached, all the members accept it spontaneously and unreservedly, and implement it forthwith. There is no dissension; if an individual strongly believes that the wrong decision was arrived at, he may ask for the mater to be raised again, but he does not criticize it to others.
I’m sure this scenario will raise an eyebrow or two and give rise to many questions.

On pg. 86, you state: “How to remember, how to see that being swallowed by moral despair (and its crippled spawn of guilt and passive helplessness) actually conceals from us the fact that we simply do not understand what Man is, what place he occupies in the cosmos.” Bahá'u'lláh makes this extraordinary assertion: “All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.”5 Therefore, there are no superfluous men, and all play a part in the destiny of the human race.

One of your noble themes is the nature of true love and its expression. You may be inspired, even astounded perhaps, by this description of love given by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: “Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God's holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven's kindly light, the Holy Spirit's eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God's revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.”6

Or by Bahá'u'lláh on justice: “O son of Spirit! The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.”7

One of your most beautiful passages can be found on pg. 246: “. . . pure duty, pure morality, is intrinsically joyous; it is meant as a call to that in us which brings ultimate happiness and meaning to human life.” In the first 5 paragraphs of His Most Holy Book of laws for this Dispensation, Bahá'u'lláh writes, “O ye peoples of the world! Know assuredly that My commandments are the lamps of My loving providence among My servants, and the keys of My mercy for My creatures. Thus hath it been sent down from the heaven of the Will of your Lord, the Lord of Revelation. Were any man to taste the sweetness of the words which the lips of the All-Merciful have willed to utter, he would, though the treasures of the earth be in his possession, renounce them one and all, that he might vindicate the truth of even one of His commandments, shining above the Dayspring of His bountiful care and loving-kindness.” “Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine with the fingers of might and power. To this beareth witness that which the Pen of Revelation hath revealed. Meditate upon this, O men of insight!” Furhter, “They whom God hath endued with insight will readily recognize that the precepts laid down by God constitute the highest means for the maintenance of order in the world and the security of its peoples . . .We, verily, have commanded you to refuse the dictates of your evil passions and corrupt desires, and not to transgress the bounds which the Pen of the Most High hath fixed, for these are the breath of life unto all created things.” Morever, here’s the joy: “From My laws the sweet-smelling savour of My garment can be smelled, and by their aid the standards of Victory will be planted upon the highest peaks. The Tongue of My power hath, from the heaven of My omnipotent glory, addressed to My creation these words: ‘Observe My commandments, for the love of My beauty.’ Happy is the lover that hath inhaled the divine fragrance of his Best-Beloved from these words, laden with the perfume of a grace which no tongue can describe.” And finally, the challenge: “The first duty prescribed by God for His servants is the recognition of Him Who is the Dayspring of His Revelation and the Fountain of His laws, Who representeth the Godhead in both the Kingdom of His Cause and the world of creation. Whoso achieveth this duty hath attained unto all good; and whoso is deprived thereof hath gone astray, though he be the author of every righteous deed. It behoveth every one who reacheth this most sublime station, this summit of transcendent glory, to observe every ordinance of Him Who is the Desire of the world. These twin duties are inseparable. Neither is acceptable without the other. Thus hath it been decreed by Him Who is the Source of Divine inspiration.”8

Part of your assessment on pg. 249 reads: “Progress made in one sphere is inevitably offset by barbarism in another.” Witness Bahá'u'lláh’s apostrophe to the leaders of the world: “O ye the elected representatives of the people in every land! Take ye counsel together, and let your concern be only for that which profiteth mankind and bettereth the condition thereof, if ye be of them that scan heedfully. Regard the world as the human body which, though at its creation whole and perfect, hath been afflicted, through various causes, with grave disorders and maladies. Not for one day did it gain ease, nay its sickness waxed more severe, as it fell under the treatment of ignorant physicians, who gave full rein to their personal desires and have erred grievously. And if, at one time, through the care of an able physician, a member of that body was healed, the rest remained afflicted as before . . . We behold it, in this day, at the mercy of rulers so drunk with pride that they cannot discern clearly their own best advantage, much less recognize a Revelation so bewildering and challenging as this. And whenever any one of them hath striven to improve its condition, his motive hath been his own gain, whether confessedly so or not; and the unworthiness of this motive hath limited his power to heal or cure.
“That which the Lord hath ordained as the sovereign remedy and mightiest instrument for the healing of all the world is the union of all its peoples in one universal Cause, one common Faith. This can in no wise be achieved except through the power of a skilled, an all-powerful and inspired Physician. This, verily, is the truth, and all else naught but error.”9

And finally, on page 19 you assert: “God is One – yes, but also, and of the highest importance: God is Oneness. God is Unity.” Bahá’ís believe not only in the unity of God, the unity of His Manifestations, and the unity of religion, but are entrusted with a thousand-year mission to effect the organic unity of the entire human race, for as Bahá'u'lláh famously proclaimed: “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established. This unity can never be achieved so long as the counsels which the Pen of the Most High hath revealed are suffered to pass unheeded.”10 “It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action.”11


1 Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, pg. 143
2 Bahá'u'lláh, The Compilation of Compilations. Vol. I, p. 93, #168
3 Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, pg. 87
4 Bahá’í World Faith, pg. 428-429
5 Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, pg. 214
6 Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá, pg. 26
7 Bahá'u'lláh, The Arabic Hidden Words, #2
8 Bahá'u'lláh, The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, par. 1-5
9 Bahá'u'lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, pg. 90-92
10 Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh, pg. 286
12 Tablets of Baha'u'llah, pg. 166

(The Bahá’í Writings may be found at http://www.bahai-library.org/)

May you receive continued blessings and confirmations on your unremitting search for what is true and real.