The Elders

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In 1992, British rock musician Peter Gabriel founded Witness, an organization that uses video to advance human rights. In 1999, he began a conversation with media mogul Richard Branson about The Elders, a new gathering of world leaders who would pool their wisdom to guide and support our global village. For their model they looked to traditional village elders, trusted by people for millennia around the world to resolve conflict within their communities. In 2001 Gabriel and Branson took their idea to Nelson Mandela and Graça Machel, who were enthused and assembled Ella Bhatt, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu, Gro Bruntland, Fernando Cardoso, Aung Saan Suu Kyi, Kofi Annan, Lakhdar Brahmini, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, and Muhammad Yunus.

Nelson Mandela: “This group can speak freely and boldly, working both publicly and behind the scenes on whatever actions need to be taken. Together we will work together to support courage where there is fear, foster agreement where there is conflict, and inspire hope where there is despair.”

Desmond Tutu: “Despite all the ghastliness that is around, human beings are made for goodness. The ones that ought to be held in high regard are not the ones who are militarily powerful, nor even economically prosperous. They are the ones who have a commitment to try and make the world a better place. We- The Elders – will endeavour to support these people and do our best for humanity.”

Their very first mission was to Sudan to intervene in the Darfur conflict. From September 30-October 4, 2007, they met with as many officials and groups represented in the conflict, down to the powerless and displaced villagers. Their mandate, in their own words, was: “We act only as individuals and a group of men and women who have lived long, learned much, and are united in the belief that we must do everything in our power to contribute to bring peace where it is absent, justice where it has been denied, and dignity where it is under attack. We want to amplify the voices of people who are not heard and give hope to the marginalized and help to the peacemakers.”

They released their report in November 2007, which described the fragile peace as on a “knife edge.” Their recommendations included an immediate ceasefire, inclusive peace, a peacekeeping force, freedom of humanitarian agencies, and of course, democracy.

Laudable as this initiative has been, I am disappointed and unimpressed by this initial salvo. Any reasonable commission could have come up with these conclusions, even before going there. Since the departure of The Elders, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 has continued to be violated, and the brutal inhumanity of war continues. It might lead one to the painful realization that not only are the temporal and religious leaders of the world impotent to stem the cascading torrent of the age, but even such a collective of the wise are chaff in the wind – it’s too big even for them. So shall we throw up our hands in despair and submit to our gloomy fates? Bahá’ís are not so inclined. In the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Bahá’u’lláh wrote: “Religious fanaticism and hatred are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction.” (pg. 13)

And what did the Hand of Divine power ordain? “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 . . . 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 . . . 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.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pg. 254-255)

Not only did He ordain it, but gave instructions on how it was to be accomplished: “The Great Being, wishing to reveal the prerequisites of the peace and tranquillity of the world and the advancement of its peoples, hath written: The time must come when the imperative necessity for the holding of a vast, an all-embracing assemblage of men will be universally realized. The rulers and kings of the earth must needs attend it, and, participating in its deliberations, must consider such ways and means as will lay the foundations of the world's Great Peace amongst men. Such a peace demandeth that the Great Powers should resolve, for the sake of the tranquillity of the peoples of the earth, to be fully reconciled among themselves. Should any king take up arms against another, all should unitedly arise and prevent him. If this be done, the nations of the world will no longer require any armaments, except for the purpose of preserving the security of their realms and of maintaining internal order within their territories. This will ensure the peace and composure of every people, government and nation . . . The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home. These things are obligatory and absolutely essential. It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action . . . That one indeed is a man who, today, dedicateth himself to the service of the entire human race . . . It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pg. 249-250)

And since He ordained it and told us how to do it, will it happen? "Once . . . asked Bahá’u’lláh, 'How will the Cause of God be universally adopted by mankind?' Bahá'u'lláh said that first, the nations of the world would arm themselves with infernal engines of war, and when fully armed would attack each other like bloodthirsty beasts. As a result, there would be enormous bloodshed throughout the world. Then the wise from all nations would gather together to investigate the cause of such bloodshed. They would come to the conclusion that prejudices were the cause, a major form being religious prejudice. They would therefore try to eliminate religion so as to eliminate prejudice. Later they would realize that man cannot live without religion. Then they would study the teachings of all religions to see which of the religions conformed to the prevailing conditions of the time. It is then that the Cause of God would become universal." (Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, Volume 4, pg. 56)

The one criticism of the Faith I hear with any consistency is the cynical one that its ideals are too high, they’ll never work. For over a century now, Bahá’ís around the world have been working to establish these realities, and have been building up institutions to implement these ideals that will be in place as the old world order crumbles. They are doing so at every level, mostly at the grassroots, but on high diplomatic levels as well. Anyone who wishes to investigate the chronicle of this amazing process is referred to the document Century of Light, online at http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/bic/COL/col-2.html, which will explain the astonishing happiness and purposefulness of the Bahá’ís in the face of the world caught whirling in a maelstrom.

Stuck in a Cheese Grater?

I love puzzles of all kinds, and am a crossword puzzle addict, er, I mean cruciverbalist – yeah, that’s the word. I solve them by the truckload and am irresistibly drawn when I espy a naked one or someone else solving one, and have often met interesting people that way, though I can’t claim I’ve met my best friend, the love of my life – one can have fantasies, can’t one? -- or had a career break by this form of contact.

I first started doing them in earnest when I would take my daughter to Hungarian school on Saturday mornings and would have over two hours at the library before I picked her up again. At first I did it desultorily and unsuccessfully, but on a trip to Halifax to audition for the Atlantic Symphony, my host’s roommate walked around the house with a copy of the New York Times, vowing that she would solve it before the week was out – did I know a seventeen letter word beginning with ow for when your elbow gets stuck in a cheese grater? Intrigued, I helped her out and found I could do it, and in the process I was initiated into the world of crossword puzzle words, actual words (unlike bogus words in a Scrabble dictionary that start with Q but are not followed by U) though not in common usage, like ort and erne and yegg, and began a lifelong relationship with Estes Kefauver.

So every Saturday for the next 20 years I did the weekend crosswords in the Toronto Star, and once I began to see certain patterns of language peculiar to them, I would complete two of them at a single sitting in under an hour. I never used dictionaries or other aids, but would occasionally ask my wife when I got stuck on a certain clue, and though she had no confidence in her own language skills, surprisingly often supplied a recalcitrant word, a movie title, disease, or colloquialism.

My halcyon days were when the local paper printed the New York Times Sunday puzzle (a week later, so what?), but eventually advertisements ate up its space. In case you don’t know, most large or sophisticated puzzles have themes, or quips from comedians’ one-liners, and part of the fun is cracking the code of the theme. Puns, palindromes, and conundrums are the mainstay of clever clues, and you should know that puns are followed by questions marks in the clues. For instance, from Jan 5/03, entitled Bonus Rounds, you have to add an “O” to a well-known phrase to come up with a new one: the clue “Dentist’s Jazz band?” produces “FineToothCombO,” and “I think, therefore I wrestle?” yields “CogitoErgoSumO.” Ha ha. One of my favourites is a St. Patrick’s Day special in which the centre black square is surrounded by four white ones, or rather green ones, as the colour green completes each of the solutions around it, forming a four-leafed clover. Particularly tricky are those that have more than one letter or even a full word in selected squares. However, what makes difficult crossword puzzles more challenging is usually not the solutions, but the clues, which get more abstruse and deliberately misleading the higher the degree of difficulty. The clue is always in the same tense or part of speech as the solution, but the part of speech itself is not easy to decipher. And it is true that, unlike many other types of word puzzles, you do have to have a fairly wide knowledge base that spans cultures, topics, and generations – if you don’t know who Yma Sumac and Mel Ott were, you’ll have a tough time beyond the moderate level.

Sure, puzzles and games are largely a source of amusement, but I believe all enduring games contain something valuable. Word puzzles and trivia games make your brain’s search engine skitter around your neural pathways like a frightened rodent, lighting up dusty corners, finding alternative routes unimagined by Mapquest, shrieking the wrong way down streets marked One Way, and creating new constellations. I’m told that it’s a prophylactic against Alzheimer’s, and thank God for that. For me, it performed an indispensable service when I was going through a major crisis that consumed my life: once I had said all my prayers, done all my work, and dumped my woes on my good friends, crossword puzzles kept my mind off fretting over sorrows which only time had the power to heal and change. Little could those little men and women fussing in solitude over the construction of these anagrammed squares have imagined.
In my pre-crepuscular years I have become one of those little men, creating puzzles, not professionally but as supplementary learning materials for various courses I teach. One of these is the Ruhi Institute, and the puzzles help the participants return again and again to the Scripture they are studying, expanding their vocabulary and even deepening their insight as they scour the passages again and again.

And I continue to meet interesting people on trains and in cafés who are poring over crosswords, erasing and scratching their heads, but I doubt that I will ever attend any conventions – I presume they exist – or travel thousands of miles to meet Will Shortz, the Grand Imperial Wizard of cruciverbalism. Yeah, that’s the word.

The God Gene

The geneticist Dean Hamer’s book The God Gene examines the possibility that our predilection or lack thereof towards spirituality is “hard-wired into our genes.” To those of faith the very idea may seem preposterous or absurd, but Bahá’ís would welcome this, as embedded in the Teachings is the principle of the essential harmony of Science and Religion, setting aside the fallacious disputes between the two. Perhaps on the relative success in locating a “gay gene,” the question arose as to whether a similar detective search would yield information that will rock our world.

The studies that fed this report were a mix of biochemistry, neurology, and anatomy, citing new research such as brain imaging during meditation to the application of previous methods such as Temperament and Character Inventory and studies of identical twins. The former gave rise to the Newberg Scale, eerily parallel in scientific terms to The Seven Valleys, a mystical document from the Pen of Bahá’u’lláh. Various religious groups were studied: particularly interesting were the genetic congruity of the Jews, and to some extent the Hindus. Some of these investigations gave rise to curious and bizarre speculations on the part of some scientists, such as that the mystical visions of St. Paul, the Prophet Muhammad, Joan of Arc, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky were all a result of temporal lobe epilepsy. Another curiosity is that spiritual ecstasy lights up the same spot in the brain that hallucinogens do, giving some credence to those who assert that their drug trips are transcendental.

One of Hamer’s basic premises is the separation of religion and spirituality. Spirituality he deems as the impulse to worship, of “self-transcendence,” the experience of the mystical and the personal apprehension of worlds beyond the physical, whereas religion he sees as learned – the teachings, doctrines, dogmas, and practices of a belief system. His research focuses chiefly upon the former.

Did he find the gene? In a word, no. However, he still has his hopes set on the gene VMAT2, looking for the fire in that cloud of smoke. I especially had to laugh at his explanation of the results of a twin study: “The remainder of the variation for each trait could be ascribed to that mix of events, serendipity, and measurement uncertainty called unique environment.” Serendipity is now a research factor? -- Cool! And early on in the book (pg. 16), he all but negates all his scientific inquiry by his own assertion: “Spirituality is ultimately a matter of faith, not of genetics.” And, like his colleague Francis S. Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, he quotes Einstein, in a famous statement virtually identical to a well-known Bahá’í dictum: “Religion without science is blind; science without religion is lame.”

I wrote to Dr. Hamer, offering him to research Bahá’í communities, which are small, but readily available, willing, and a much wider gene pool than any he quotes in his book. I hope he takes us up on it.

The Varqá Legacy

September 22, 2007 brought to a close the ministry of the Hands of the Cause of God with the passing of Dr. ‘Ali-Muhammad Varqá in Haifa, Israel. 50 known Hands were appointed by the Central Figures of the Faith to protect and propagate the Cause. They included some family relations, but none match the 3-generatioin legacy of the Varqá family of Persia.

1. Mírzá’Ali-Muhammad Varqá (c.1856-1896)had a dream as a child in which God came and threw the dolls he was playing with into a fire and told him to cast away his vain imaginings. His father was a Bábí and an eloquent speaker who was flogged, then exiled with his two sons for holding a meeting of 200 Bábís in Yazd.

His own fame was as a poet, but he was also a doctor. In Tabríz, Varqá prescribed a remedy to an employee of the Crown Prince which helped his wife to conceive a child. In gratitude Varqá was given the Prince’s daughter in marriage, which began a very complicated family life filled with dangers. He had to finally leave Tabriz with his son Rúhu’lláh, divorcing his wife after a plot on his life. Later in Zanján he remarried, but later his first wife became a Bahá’í.

"Once Varqá asked Bahá'u'lláh, 'How will the Cause of God be universally adopted by mankind?' Bahá'u'lláh said that first, the nations of the world would arm themselves with infernal engines of war, and when fully armed would attack each other like bloodthirsty beasts. As a result, there would be enormous bloodshed throughout the world. Then the wise from all nations would gather together to investigate the cause of such bloodshed. They would come to the conclusion that prejudices were the cause, a major form being religious prejudice. They would therefore try to eliminate religion so as to eliminate prejudice. Later they would realize that man cannot live without religion. Then they would study the teachings of all religions to see which of the religions conformed to the prevailing conditions of the time. It is then that the Cause of God would become universal."*

In 1896 Varqá managed to get precious Bahá’í archives out of Zanján, but he himself was arrested and taken back. 16 days of pressure failed to make him recant his Faith, so he and his son were sent to a Tihrán dungeon. Násiri’d-Din Sháh was assassinated May 1, 1896, on the eve of his jubilee celebration, and the steward of the prison took revenge on the innocent Bahá’ís. He himself stabbed Varqá in the belly and ripped his body apart. He then turned to Rúhu’lláh and offered to take him and give him an allowance, but the 12-year old boy just sobbed that he wanted to be with his father, so the boy was strangled with a rope.

2. Rúhu’lláh’s older brother Valíyu’lláh Varqá (1884-1955) learned the Faith from an uncle; in his spare time he learned English and Arabic. In 1911-12 he accompanied ‘Abdu’l-Bahá on his trips to America and Europe, as treasurer and interpreter, and was dearly loved by him. Back in Irán he worked as a translator at the Turkish Embassy in Tihrán.

In 1934 he was elected to the National Spiritual Assembly of Irán, sometimes serving as Chairman, and In 1938 Shoghi Effendi appointed him Trustee of Huqúqu’lláh. Upon being appointed a Hand of the Cause in 1951, like most other Hands he traveled extensively to Bahá’í conferences and on teaching trips to Uganda, Stockholm, Chicago, New Delhi, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Germany, and South America.
In 1953 he fell ill in Einstein’s home town of Ulm, but continued to travel and serve; he finally succumbed to his illness in 1955 in a German hospital.
On his death his son ‘Ali-Muhammad was appointed both a Hand of the Cause and Trustee of Huqúqu’lláh in his place.

3. Dr. ‘Alí-Muhammad Varqá (1912-2007) was born while his father was traveling in America with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. He studied economics and history in Tihrán, completed his doctorate at the Sorbonne in Paris and became a professor at Tehran and Tabríz universities.
On his father’s death in 1955, he was appointed to replace him both as a Hand of the Cause and as Trustee of Huqúqu’lláh. During his tenure, the Institution of Huqúqu’lláh expanded around the world, with the establishment of Boards of Trustees, deputies, and representatives.


After 1963 he represented the Universal House of Justice at inaugural elections of many NSAs, including such unusual places as Sicily, Central African Republic, the Windward Islands, and Greenland.

Because he was Francophone, he was often sent by the Universal House of Justice to French-speaking countries around the world, most notably to France in 1962 to strengthen the new NSA that replaced the one that had largely supported Mason Remey in his claim to be the next Guardian.

In the 1970s he was assigned to collect reliable accounts of the early days of the Faith around the world. He was away from Irán during the Revolution of 1979, never returned; he was accepted as a refugee in Canada.

My own last memory of Dr. Varqá was on May 27th of this year. Since one of his great joys was to have seen during his lifetime the Bahá’í Faith spread all over the world, he loved after his addresses to the pilgrims assembled in Haifa to hear prayers chanted, sung, and recited in their native languages. Among many others, even though I am Canadian, I recited a prayer in my mother tongue of Hungarian. All of us did so with added fervour to the beaming face of our beloved Dr. Varqá.

The Universal House of Justice is vigilant not to arrogate to itself powers and functions not mandated in the holy writings of the Bahá’í Faith, and they could find nothing that granted them the authority to appoint more Hands of the Cause. Since these functions nevertheless had to continue to be carried out, they instead appointed Continental Boards of Counselors that work as advisors to the elected Institutions of the Faith and circumscribed their duties in great detail in the document The Institution of the Counsellors.

Dr. ‘Ali-Muhammad Varqá is survived by three daughters.

*Adib Taherzadeh, The Revelation of Bahá'u'lláh volume 4, pg. 56

Rumi at 800

September 30, 2007 marks the 800th birthday anniversary of arguably the world’s most beloved poet, Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273). If only the place of his birth were as certain as the date, for he is generally thought to have been born in eastern Afghanistan, but more likely in what is now Tajikistan. Notwithstanding this and the fact that his entire poetical career was lived in Konya, Turkey, he is Persian through and through, in the great tradition of the mystic poets that preceded him -- ‘Attar, Khayyam, Ferdowsi, Sana’i, et. al -- his contemporary Sa’adi, and those who followed, such as Hafiz.

His prodigious output, several times that of Shakespeare’s, is all the more remarkable in that he didn’t begin until mid-life. He had been following in the footsteps of his scholarly father until the arrival on the scene one day of a certain Shams from Tabriz, Persia, who challenged his whole approach to the spiritual life. Legends abound about how this took place, the most popular being that Shams burst upon Rumi reading to his students from his own father’s works, and knocked the book into the fountain behind him. More likely was the less melodramatic problem posed by Shams about the Prophet Muhammad and Bayazid. At any rate, the older Shams became a mentor/muse/axis mundi/sounding board and human incarnation of his spiritual beloved all rolled into one, a relationship unknown in the western world. Rumi was initiated into the mysteries of Sufism, with its attendant devotional poetry about yearning to be reunited with the Beloved, music, chanting, and ecstatic, trancelike movement. Rumi began composing verses, many of them while “whirling,” and rarely stopped until the end of his life.

His relationship with Shams was fraught with turbulence and aroused the jealousy of his students. Shams disappeared at least twice, casing him untold anguish. He was once found in Damascus and brought back, but the last time he evaporated for good – rumours of his murder are unsubstantiated, and this last disappearance remains a mystery. Rumi eventually came to terms with this, reportedly discovering that Shams was somehow with him and he carried on.
Nevertheless two others in succession fulfilled Shams’ role, Salah al-Din, and Hosam al-Din, and the poetry showed marked differences in these periods. For instance, during the Shams period, his major work was the Divan – ecstatic poems suffused with longing, beautiful imagery, and mystical insights. These continued, but under Hosam’s prodding, he produced a no less-beloved work, the Mathnawi, full of instructional moral tales drawn from the Qur’an and the lore of the Middle East and Central Asia.

After his passing, his students established the Mevlevi Order in his honour and remembrance, famously known as the Whirling Dervishes, which have in these days been taken over by the government of Turkey as a cultural feature and export.

The present popularity of Rumi in America is largely attributable to the work of Coleman Barks, who has published several best-selling volumes of translations. Purists squirm at these, since Barks has taken all manner of liberties in trying to free them from their original context and make them contemporary and universal; notwithstanding Barks has struck a nerve, and the public is devouring them. Rumi has also become an icon himself, as films, stage productions, and musical works are devoted to his life and work.

Bahá’u’lláh quotes Rumi often in His own Writings, most notably in The Seven Valleys, an early mystical work revealed in Baghdad, ensuring that Rumi’s legacy will continue as long as the Bahá’í Faith endures, unforeseen in the wildest imaginations of the 13th century.

In 2000 Franklin Lewis published the most comprehensive scholarly work yet on the poet, the 686-page Rumi – Past and Present, East and West, and for this was invited to Iran for special recognition, all the more remarkable as he is non-Persian and a Bahá’í for good measure.

Here are the opening lines of the Mathnawi:


HEARKEN to the reed-flute, how it complains,
Lamenting its banishment from its home:
"Ever since they tore me from my osier bed,
My plaintive notes have moved men and women to tears.
I burst my breast, striving to give vent to sighs,
And to express the pangs of my yearning for my home.
He who abides far away from his home
Is ever longing for the day ho shall return.
My wailing is heard in every throng,
In concert with them that rejoice and them that weep.
Each interprets my notes in harmony with his own feelings,
But not one fathoms the secrets of my heart.
My secrets are not alien from my plaintive notes,
Yet they are not manifest to the sensual eye and ear.
Body is not veiled from soul, neither soul from body,
Yet no man hath ever seen a soul."
This plaint of the flute is fire, not mere air.
Let him who lacks this fire be accounted dead!
'Tis the fire of love that inspires the flute,l
'Tis the ferment of love that possesses the wine.
The flute is the confidant of all unhappy lovers;
Yea, its strains lay bare my inmost secrets.
Who hath seen a poison and an antidote like the flute?
Who hath seen a sympathetic consoler like the flute?
The flute tells the tale of love's bloodstained path,
It recounts the story of Majnun's love toils.
None is privy to these feelings save one distracted,
As ear inclines to the whispers of the tongue.

Civil Obedience

At a recent talk given at Transitions Bookstore in Chicago, Robert Stockman (pictured here with his family) coined the term Civil Obedience, a model of social change the Bahá’ís have used, and which he wistfully reflected the world in general may not yet be ready for. Bahá’ís are the supporters and well-wishers of every just government and are obedient to their own, and since only the Universal House of Justice has the authority to deem any government unjust and has never exercised this prerogative in the 44 years of its existence, the believers cannot agitate against civil authorities and can only use means within the laws of their lands to seek justice.

He cited a number of examples. In the Iranian city of Yazd, 150 families received a letter from the police, ordering the heads of the household to appear at the station on the morning of a given date. This kind of summons could only mean impending arrests, so the Bahá’ís held a meeting and at the appointed hour 150 women appeared in front of the police, as Bahá’ís maintain complete gender equality. Flummoxed, they let the women go.

In apartheid South Africa blacks were only allowed to enter the rear doors of homes, so the Bahá’ís placed heavy furniture blocking the front doors so everyone would have to enter through the back. When mixed-race meetings in public buildings were banned, members of Bahá’í committees were picked up in cars and the meetings were held while riding about the city, perfectly legal. When mixed-race Assemblies were outlawed, all the white members resigned, and the community was run by all-black Assemblies, a situation perfectly acceptable to the Bahá’ís, but not exactly what the government had in mind.

The Iranian Bahá’í community is rife with many examples. An ongoing dilemma is the systematic deprivation of Bahá’í students to a university education, a cat-and-mouse game in which, although books, computers, and records of a private Bahá’í university have been confiscated by the government, 500 students have obtained degrees and have been accepted into graduate studies in foreign countries. This year 800 students are enrolled, and all are studying English, as their online studies are administered by a computer network in Canada.

Bahá’ís continue to seek justice – never retribution or revenge – by diplomatic and legal means. They support UN Resolutions on human rights violations and encourage the local elected officials in their own countries to ask their national governments to support these resolutions as well by presenting them with unbiased, documented facts. And the students in Iran have garnered the support of campus and online organizations, Bahá’í and non- Bahá’í alike, so they might receive the education whose results will redound to the glory of their own nation.

Hatcher's Proof

There are certain existential questions that have never interested me. One of these is the proof of God’s existence. I have maintained for some time that you cannot prove nor disprove His existence through rational argument; rather it is a matter of either faith, or even better, a Reality once you have come face to face with either through experience, insight, or revelation that has removed all doubt forever. The challenge with this lack of doubt is to communicate it to unbelievers and convince them you are rational or sane. Yes, they might envy you your certitude or have their atheistic armour pierced by observation of your fine human qualities by virtue of your “irrational” views, but to convince them of the veracity of your view is an uphill battle.

There are traditional proofs of God, but they are existential and not scientific in the modern sense, and inadequate as arguments to a skeptical heart and mind. The Bahá’í Scriptures maintain that this has always been and will always be the way of the Almighty, for He places a high value on His creatures who will seek and find Him, which would simply be too easy if He were apparent for all to see without any hard-won spiritual insight.

Undaunted by attitudes such as mine, the late William Hatcher published several books on the subject, collating the best knowledge we have from the fields of mathematics, philosophy, physics, metaphysics, epistemology, and even linguistics to formulate his scientific proof of the existence of God, a proof which he calls Minimalism. Building on the classical Greek philosophers through Avicenna, Descartes, Gödel, and more modern thinkers, his approach seeks to debunk the excesses of reductionism and subjectivism, the fallacies of materialism and post-modernism, uproot the attitudes of atheism, agnosticism, cynicism, and skepticism, and tries to establish the invigorating breezes of rational thought over illogical dogmatism. [This has to be the worse sentence I’ve written since fourth grade.]

After a careful building up of parameters and methodology, in his last work: Minimalism: A Bridge Between Classical Philosophy and the Bahá’í Revelation, Hatcher has arrived at four metaphysical principles (as I understand them): first that Reality, the totality of existence, is composite; secondly, that every phenomenon is either caused by something else, or self-caused, but never both; thirdly, the cause of a phenomenon will also be the cause of its parts; and fourthly that a part of a phenomenon cannot be a part of its cause. From these principles he proposes a theorem that there can be only one universal cause and goes about proving it by arguments derived from the four principles.

Confused? If so, it’s not Hatcher’s fault, by mine, for he sets out these arguments with exemplary lucidity and relish. It should provide a colossal challenge for those who are predisposed to dismiss any introduction of a spiritual dimension into scientific inquiry as hokum, as it did in college milieu wherever he presented it. Check it out.

God Bless America

Now that I have lived in the United States for one full year, I have to pose a question I could keep at arm’s length when I was in Canada, but which is now in my face: Since when did God become American?

Over the millennia, many a culture has conceived a God in its own image, and it has even been said that if a triangle had a god, it would have three sides. Many races and nations have had their particular claim on God, fashioning their special status or justifying aggression. But America seems to have taken this to a whole new level, not only claiming that God is on our side, but that God is an avid supporter and defender of the American Way, the American Dream, the American Way of Life, as though the Almighty is a glorified cheerleader for the Dallas Cowboys, one with an I-phone, wears the latest designer clothes, and eats at fast food restaurants. In effect, it has put American patriotism and values above God, and assumes that God enthusiastically approves of every move made by the greatest nation the world has ever seen. Surely I am not the only one who sees danger in such hubris. Am I wrong about this?

I queried a Bahá’í scholar on this vexing scenario. He posited that God was woven into American culture right from the beginning, and it has grown from there. That is certainly true, but since this notion is unique in the world, there must be forces that maintain and propagate this position. On the one hand, early American documents and manifestos mention God (though, interestingly enough, not Jesus Christ) frequently, and even the cash we handle daily affirms that God is a bedrock of American life. In our current climate, it has even been claimed that anyone who is an atheist has a questionable right to American citizenship. Shortly before his death, the playwright Arthur Miller spoke of the patriotic overlay on religion, and that there is even a small but vocal segment of society that is “aching for an Ayatollah.” On the other hand, the separation of church and state was guaranteed from the outset, and Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Buchanan, and Lincoln were not church-goers and spoke out against religion both in public and even private life.

We mostly hear these attitudes in conjunction with Christianity, usually of the more fundamentalist stripe, and associated with Conservatism. But some of the followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation fame have made claims that America can become invincible through the collective energies of 2500 yogic flyers, and receive an annual $12 million grant from a private foundation to carry forward research in this area. Indian spiritual thought has embraced belief from the highest mysticism and philosophy to the wildest imaginations of cults and madmen, but I sincerely doubt that any holy personage or group ever conceived that yoga, meditation, or any other spiritual practice would lead to the invincibility of India as a nation or political entity. It seems to be a particular American genius.

It is easy sport to criticize the weaknesses and foibles of any group, and the strong and unique are easy prey. For all its visible shortcomings, any fair person would acknowledge that the United States of America is a major player in the world, that its culture has touched down in every other nation in the world, and that in its short history it has brought incalculable benefits to the human race. The Bahá’í Faith affirms its special status. Bahá’u’lláh addressed these words to the leaders of the American Republics, during the tenure of Ulysses Grant:

Bind ye the broken with the hands of justice, and crush the oppressor who flourisheth with the rod of the commandments of your Lord, the Ordainer, the All-Wise.

In 1912, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá revealed this “Prayer for America”:

O Thou kind Lord! This gathering is turning to Thee. These hearts are radiant with Thy love. These minds and spirits are exhilarated by the message of Thy glad-tidings. O God! Let this American democracy become glorious in spiritual degrees even as it has aspired to material degrees, and render this just government victorious. Confirm this revered nation to upraise the standard of the oneness of humanity, to promulgate the Most Great Peace, to become thereby most glorious and praiseworthy among all the nations of the world. O God! This American nation is worthy of Thy favors and is deserving of Thy mercy. Make it precious and near to Thee through Thy bounty and bestowal.

And the Guardian of the Faith chose America to establish the Administrative Order, which would spread over the earth and usher in the Golden Age of the World Order of Bahá’u’lláh. So its station and destiny, along with the responsibilities therein enshrined, are high indeed.

But if I just might add with my lone small voice, please make the nation under God, to make its future secure with divine guidance and truly spiritual forces and virtues.

Is This On?

I recently watched the 2003 documentary film When Standup Stood Out, about the Boston standup comedy scene from 1977-1985. I’ve always loved jokes, and can remember hundreds of them on demand, of all varieties. In my student days, to let off steam I would visit a pair of buddies in a neighbouring university, and we would share routines from Richard Pryor to Spike Jones all weekend, non-stop. We would re-create classic skits from Monty Python to Woody Allen to Groucho Marx, and I would return to my studies with sore ribs and shoulders from laughing. I once even considered standup as a career (this I never shared with my parents), but decided I didn’t want to have to be funny on cue, and didn’t want every moment of my life to be material for gags.

I never believed Freud when he reduced laughter to “social nervousness” – deep down I knew it was a good thing, a reaction to the intrinsic absurdity and surprise of life, but also something that unites people and makes them happy. But why do people go to comedy clubs, and what do they expect from comedians? Doubtless there are many reasons, but one of the chief ones in my estimation is that we go to hear the truth, as comedians are one of the few groups in today’s society that are allowed to tell the truth, a role that poets and musicians have bartered away. Certainly we don’t hear it from our parents and teachers, politicians, philosophers, scientists, and doctors, either because they don’t know or won’t tell.

I’m with Steve Smith of The Red Green Show fame, who expressed that making people laugh was a “special state of grace”, even more with the Prophet Muhammad when He says in the Qur’an, “The Gates of Heaven are open wide to him who can make his companions laugh,” and even with Bahá’u’lláh, who as a Manifestation of God, had a scathing wit. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá asserted that his home was a place of “mirth and laughter.” Many books have been written the last few decades on the therapeutic benefits of laughter. Therefore I submit to Bahá’ís that we need to laugh more, let out hair down and be irreverent – within limits, though comedians chafe at having limits – and to value humour as an aspect of the soul and culture as the Jews and the Irish, for instance, have done.

There are at present only a handful of bona fide Bahá’í jokes that make the rounds, and two or three well-known Bahá’í comedians. There are, of course, a multitude of anecdotes and amusing stories, but not many actual jokes. So here follows my own submission of jokes in the well-worn Jeff Foxworthy tradition of “Redneck” jokes:

If you've been divorced three times and still need your mommy and daddy's permission to get married, you might be a Bahá'í.

If a movie star offers you a night of passion and your response is "Um . . . can I investigate your character?" you might be a Bahá'í.

If you get more excited by LSA than LSD, you might be a Bahá'í.

If the only smoke you envision when you hear the phrase "joint feast" is from overdone tadiq, you might be a Bahá'í.

If you think March Madness is the result of extreme hunger, you might be a Bahá'í.

If you see "Some Assembly Required" written on a box and you think it came from a place that needs homefront pioneering, you might be a Bahá'í.

If you see a real estate billboard that says "Fully Detached Community" and you drive on saying "We're not needed here", you might be a Bahá'í.

If your stomach growls on the Ides of March and you answer the pager on your belt, you might be a Bahá'í.

If your idea of the perfect family vacation is to wait for ten years, climb a mountain on foot where there are no casinos, no golf or tennis, you have stay quiet, stand in line, cannot take pictures, you visit a lot of gravesites, and at the end of ten days they kick you out of the country, you might be a Bahá'í.

And you are definitely NOT a Bahá’í if

You think “Paris Talks” was first published in People Magazine.

You think the “Hidden Words” are the lyrics to “Louie, Louie.”

You think the Hands of the Cause aided and abetted a felony.

You think the Tablet of Carmel is chewy.

Magical Buffet

This interview of me appears in the July 20 issue of The Magical Buffet (http://www.magicalbuffet.com/)

Q: What is the Bahá’í Faith?

A: Thank you for this opportunity to respond. I’m tempted to give Louis Armstrong’s classic reply of “Man, if you don’t know, I can’t tell you,” but you might get some idea that it’s some kind of jazz heaven, which actually may not be too far off. Bahá’ís believe in Progressive Revelation, meaning that from time to time God raises up Messengers to educate humanity, such as Buddha, Abraham, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, Christ, Muhammad, etc., and that the latest one arrived in the 19th century under the title “The Glory of God”, who lived and taught mostly under exile and imprisonment in Middle Eastern lands from Iran Iraq to Turkey and what is now Israel. These Messengers reiterate the eternal spiritual truths that are the foundation of all religion, but also give social teachings for the age. This age particularly needs guidance for an emerging global consciousness, ethics and morality for international travel, finance, ecology, communication, science and technology, and the realization that the entire globe and its inhabitants are in the same boat traveling together. Humanity on its own has no hope of solving the colossal challenges besetting it today. One of the most remarkable elements of this Revelation is that it gives not only a vision of the new World Order, but actually gives a blueprint of how to achieve it. So Bahá’ís worldwide are endeavoring to establish this order right in the midst of the crumbling of one human institution after another. The “Glory of God” has given the believers this directive: “It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action,” and emphasized that we all have a part to play: “All men have been created to carry forward an ever-advancing civilization.”



Q: What are some the basic teachings of the faith?

A: Every faith teaches the same basic things, those being the nature of God and truth, morality and virtue, prayer and worship; the emphasis is different, according to the needs of the times; Judaism emphasized the Law, Christianity focused on love and good works, and Islam on submission to the Will of God, for instance. The Bahá’í Faith’s overriding value is unity: God is one, His Messengers are one, religion is one, humanity is one; therefore the thousand-year mission of the Bahá’ís is to effect the organic unity of the entire human race, for it is written “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” Principles that accompany this central mission are removal of prejudices of all kinds, gender equality, universal education, universal systems of governance/ justice,/currency, and a language by which the whole world can communicate. And one other very important one: mankind has progressed to the point where each individual’s spiritual progress is their own responsibility; therefore it behooves every person to independently investigate truth and reality for themselves – ergo, no clergy.
And here’s a good one: Science and religion must work together to root out superstition and provide a moral foundation for knowledge and its application.


Q: How does the Bahá’í community view and interact with other faiths?

A: Baha’is do not cling to each other, but regard all humanity as their brethren. The Founder proclaimed, “Consort ye, O people, with all religions with joy and fragrance!” They tend to spearhead and are often over-represented at Interfaith gatherings; all divinely-revealed faiths are honored, so there is no concept of “other”. Just once I would like see a Bahá’í jump up and yell, “All you heathens are going to Hell!” but (sigh) it just isn’t going to happen. (This is just kidding, of course.) Seriously, the last thing we need is yet another religion; what we need is to come together.


Q: For our readers who may have not have heard of the religion before now, is there a fictional character in television or film that embodies the ideals of the faith?

A: Ha ha. I consulted some of my Bahá’í friends on this one, and got suggestions such as McGyver, since he used non-violent technological ingenuity to solve problems, the humble Frodo Baggins on his glorious quest of faith, or Star Trek with its multiethnic co-operation boldly braving the final frontier.

Q: What holidays do Bahá’ís observe?

A: There is a calendar of 19 months of 19 days, with a few extra Mardi-Gras type celebratory days thrown in to round out the solar year. And the Faith has its own holy days celebrating the births and deaths of the Central Figures, as well as a few others, such as the Day of the Covenant, Nov. 26, celebrating the fact that God does not leave humanity adrift without guidance. Individually, believers tend to celebrate just about any festival of any religion or culture with other friends – we love a party!

Q: What is the biggest misconception, if any, about the religion?

A: The Bahá’í Faith is not, nor ever was, a sect of Islam. It grew out of an Islamic environment, as did Buddhism out of Hinduism or Christianity out of Judaism. Also, since it is so all-embracing, some get the idea that it is eclectic and syncretistic, drawing from the good points of bygone traditions and philosophies, or that is accepts all faiths as being equally true and valid. It regards itself as the latest stage in the unfolding Faith of the one God that has been called by many names, and that its principles and beliefs have been divinely revealed just as the Ten Commandments or the Vedas, the Dhammapada or the Qur’an.

Q: According to http://www.religionfacts.com/ Dizzy Gillespie, Carole Lombard, and Rainn Wilson were/are all Bahá’í. Would you be offended if I said that was really cool?

A: Many distinguished people are Bahá’ís, but they don’t get obnoxious, obsequious, or obstreperous about it. They found universities, establish socio-economic projects, and are inventors and innovators. The head of state of Samoa is Bahá’í [note: died May 11, 2007], as have been Queen Marie of Roumania and other royalty, and it has attracted great minds from Tolstoy to Tagore to Khalil Gibran – would you believe President Woodrow Wilson got the idea for the League of Nations from his Baha’i daughter? Another Khalill, Khalil Green, shortstop of the San Diego Padres, is perhaps the most well-known Bahá’í presently in popular culture. In America, the duo of Seals and Crofts (“Summer breeze, make me feel fine . . . . “ c’mon sing it with me now) spread the Faith by giving talks after their concerts on tour in the 1970s. Others include K. C. Porter (producer to Santana and Ricky Martin), and British funnyman Omid Djalili (remember him from Whoopi’s sit-com?) Cool! Hot!

Q: Do you care to comment on the plight of the Baha’is in Egypt?

A: The Bahá’ís in Egypt are a fairly small community, but have been placed in a quandary; they are required to carry ID cards, on which they have to identify their religion. They have no problem with this, as all Bahá’ís in every country are obedient and loyal to their governments. But they have only three choices: Christianity, Judaism, or Islam -- it’s like those dating sites or online questionnaires where you only have a limited choice of responses, none of which apply, but there is no “other” option, and it will not let you skip the question or continue without answering. Baha’is cannot lie about their religion or anything else, and without these ID cards they have no access to education, medical services, employment, or many other basic services. So they are continuing to work to get the Bahá’í Faith official recognition so they can have legal status just like other Egyptian citizens.


Q: Where can I go to learn more about the religion?

A: Even though there are only about 6 million Bahá’ís worldwide, we are spread like a thin film over the entire planet, including in such unlikely places as Greenland, North Korea, the Faroe Islands, Tasmania, Alaska, Mongolia, Madacasgar, Botswana, and virtually every island in the Pacific, so with a little checking in phone books or word of mouth, a human representative of probably the most hospitable community in the world can be found, but beware, you will be plied with tea and sweets and all the literature on the Faith you’d ever want. Baha’is, however, do not proselytize. Since it purports to be the most truly international and universal expression of spirituality, it is not surprising that it should be the first Faith on the Internet; sites abound, a couple of the main ones being: http://www.bahai.org/ and http://www.bahai.us/. You are most welcome to contact this author at gezabahai@yahoo.ca.

Q: Parting shot! Ask us here at The Magical Buffet any one question? (this question cannot be changed. We ask everyone this one question. You can ask anything, even silly stuff like who is your favorite boy band or boxers or briefs!)

A: This is confusing, but if I read it correctly, you want me to ask you a question. Okay, I’ll be brief, I mean boxer. I see that you love feasting at the salad bar of heavenly delights, but do you ever get spiritual indigestion?

MB: Yes.

Bio of Geza Farkas:Geza (rhymes with amaze-a) Farkas, the Funky Flutist of Faith, became a Baha'i in 1997 after a lifetime of study of the works of the world's great mystics, saints, and seers, since he sensed that in it appeared that which has never appeared before, namely a blueprint by which all of human civilization can be spiritualized, and not just a few special individuals. Hungarian by birth, Canadian by nationality, and Indian in spirit, he has recently emigrated to Chicago and lives near the Baha'i House of Worship for the North American Continent in Wilmette, known as the "Mother Temple of the West."

Let Your Vision Be World-Embracing

“Let your vision be world-embracing, and not confined to your own self,” Bahá’u’lláh told humanity over a century ago. He also asserted, “The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens.” Not content to leave this at the level of principle, He exhorted his followers: “It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action.”

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley‘s avowed goal is to have the greenest city in the United States, and as such is the honorary co-chairman of “Cool Globes,” an art installation this summer along the shore of Lake Michigan, featuring 124 5’ diameter sculpted globes created by artists from around the world, as well as 200 mini-globes around the city made by art students and celebrities such as Barack Obama and filmmaker Ken Burns, to raise awareness, create dialogue, and find solutions to global warming.

Throughout the summer, exhibit visitors will be challenged to implement five changes in their daily lives or business operations to combat global warming. Pledges can be made at the CoolGlobes and Chicago Sun-Times Web sites. At the end of the summer, a raffle will be held to award a Toyota Prius to one of the pledge participants.

On July 11 CEOs and other senior-level leaders from Cool Globes’ corporate sponsors will hold a roundtable discussion to share ideas for environmentally sensitive business practices, as well as strategies for developing and marketing green products.
On October 5 the globes will be auctioned off to benefit environmental education programs. More information can be had at http://www.coolglobes.com/.

The globes depict, whether clumsily or cleverly, global environmental conditions, and their possible solutions, none of which we haven’t heard before, and one even reminds us of the Kyoto Protocol, which governments have had so far a poor record implementing. #74 was done by Bahá’í artist Michelle Maynerick, and includes a quotation from Baha'u'llah: “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.” This may seem an innocuous statement, but is at the very heart of Bahá’í teaching. The problems of the world are such that if we attacked them one at a time, even without new ones arising, it would take us until eternity and beyond to fix them.

So are these laudable efforts useless, candles in the wind? Bahá’u’lláh paints the picture: “The winds of despair are, alas, blowing from every direction, and the strife that divideth and afflicteth the human race is daily increasing. The signs of impending convulsions and chaos can now be discerned, inasmuch as the prevailing order appeareth to be lamentably defective.”
“The All-Knowing Physician hath His finger on the pulse of mankind. He perceiveth the disease, and prescribeth, in His unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problem, and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the world needeth in its present-day afflictions can never be the same as that which a subsequent age may require. Be anxiously concerned with the needs of the age ye live in, and center your deliberations on its exigencies and requirements.”

“We can well perceive how the whole human race is encompassed with great, with incalculable afflictions. We see it languishing on its bed of sickness, sore-tried and disillusioned. They that are intoxicated by self-conceit have interposed themselves between it and the Divine and infallible Physician. Witness how they have entangled all men, themselves included, in the mesh of their devices. They can neither discover the cause of the disease, nor have they any knowledge of the remedy.”

And what is the remedy for this age? “He Who is your Lord, the All-Merciful, cherisheth in His heart the desire of beholding the entire human race as one soul and one body.”

The present situation may be likened to a couple experiencing marital problems. They may think, “When our financial situation improves, when our children’s school grades rise, when our in-laws will stop pestering us, when we both work our psychological baggage, when the other one will change, when we get relief from stress, then we’ll be happy.” Happiness and unity are not the end result, but the foundation without which the problems will never end. And thus Michelle Maynerick has inscribed upon her earth, “The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established.”

The Spirit of 1893

This is the seond in a series looking at the multifarious groups and organizations around the world that have been inspired to envision in their own way the Teachings Bahá’u’lláh loosed upon the world in the 19th Century. Bahá’ís not only consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness, but seek especially to connect with like-minded people who seek to inculcate these ideals for the betterment of the planet and its inhabitants.

In 1892 Bahá'u'lláh passed from this world, having completed His mission to bring a Revelation from God to this needy world. In 1893 a Columbian Expo was held in Chicago to commemorate the 400th Anniversary of Columbus’ discovery of America, showcasing the glorious advancements in science and technology. Almost as an afterthought, a World Parliament of Religions was added to it, ostensibly to show the superiority of the Christian Faith over all the others that were slowly garnering public attention with the opening up of the world to travel and communication. However, man plans and God laughs. Events did not follow the script. The Parliament of Religions outshone the Expo in notoriety, and the stars of the show were deemed minor players at the outset.

7000 attended, and some of the notables were Gandhi representing the Jains, and Annie Besant representing the Theosophical Society. Enter Swami Vivekananda (pictured above), #31 on the roster. Indian spiritual thought preceded any actual exponents to America through the Transcendentalist Movement headed by such figures as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman, but now here was one in the flesh, not merely a Hindu priest but the chief disciple of the latest God-man of India, Ramakrishna (1836 -1886). The delegates arose one by one and delivered prepared speeches, but when it came his turn, Vivekananda was too nervous to speak, seized with stage fright, so postponed several times. It became known that he did not have a prepared script and would speak from his heart. So when he finally got up the gumption, all eyes were expectantly on him. He began by bowing to Saraswati, the Goddess of Wisdom, and began, “Sisters and Brothers of America,” which so touched a nerve that these five words aroused a spontaneous 2-minute standing ovation. He proceeded to speak to everyone’s astonishment not of his own religion as all of the others had, but of tolerance and acceptance, quoting “As different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take . . . all lead to Thee.” Deafening applause followed his final plea for the quick termination of sectarianism, bigotry, and fanaticism. He had hit on the hidden hope of all, a desperate desire for unity.

He gave six addresses over the course of the Parliament, which included these words on Sept. 19: “If there is ever to be a universal religion, it must be one which will have no location in place or time; which will be infinite, like the God it will preach, and whose sun will shine upon the followers of Krishna and Christ, on saints and sinners alike; which will not be Brahminical or Buddhist, Christian or Mohammedan, but the sum total of all these, and still have infinite space for development; which in its catholicity will embrace in its infinite arms, and find a place for, every human being, from the lowest groveling savage, not far removed from the brute, to the highest man, towering by the virtues of his head and heart almost above humanity, making society stand in awe of him and doubt his human nature. It will be a religion which will have no place for persecution or intolerance in its polity, which will recognize divinity in every man and woman, and whose whole scope, whose whole force, will be centred in aiding humanity to realize its own true, divine nature.”

There was yet another event of significance at the Parliament that was less evident at the time. On Sept. 23, Rev. George Ford of Syria read a paper sent by Henry Jessup, Director of Presbyterian Missionary Operations in North Syria, which ended thus:

“In the Palace of Bahjí, or Delight, just outside the Fortress of 'Akká, on the Syrian coast, there died a few months since, a famous Persian sage, the Bábí Saint, named Bahá'u'lláh --the "Glory of God"-- the head of that vast reform party of Persian Muslims, who accept the New Testament as the Word of God and Christ as the Deliverer of men, who regard all nations as one, and all men as brothers. Three years ago he was visited by a Cambridge scholar [Edward Granville Browne] and gave utterance to sentiments so noble, so Christlike, that we repeat them as our closing words:

“‘That all nations should become one in faith and all men as brothers; that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened; that diversity of religions should cease and differences of race be annulled. What harm is there in this? Yet so it shall be. These fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come. Do not you in Europe need this also? Let not a man glory in this, that he loves his country; let him rather glory in this, that he loves his kind.’”

Now it sounds like Jessup was trying to affirm that the teachings of Christ were gaining ascendancy among the Muslim strongholds in the Holy Land, but Bahá’ís point to this as the first public mention of the Bahá’í Faith in America. This paved the way for several pockets of burgeoning Bahá’í communities, and the 239-day tour of North America by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, son of Baháu’lláh in 1912 was feted with great celebrity by the media, and this “Persian sage” spoke to audiences of thousands in universities, churches and synagogues, hotels, etc., from New York to San Francisco, as well as leaders and intellectuals of the day, such as Theodore Roosevelt and Alexander Graham Bell. The most visible legacies of this are the communities of believers in every state and major city in America, and the magnificent House of Worship in Chicago that draws visitors in six figures annually. The legacy of Vivekananda is also two-pronged, spawning interest in the Orient from which have sprung virtually all authentic spiritual movements, and the establishment of hospitals in India which still bear the names of him and his master.

There are a number of remarkable parallels in the careers of Vivekananda and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá: they were both the celebrated right-hand man of the central figure that they humbly served, both blazed trails in America and Europe, both were instrumental in social and spiritual revolutions, and both were indispensable heroes to the propagation of holy messages, both spoke of the new consciousness of unity of religion and mankind, and they were virtual contemporaries, though the two never met.

Damanhur -- Temples of Humanity

Beautiful!!!

This is the first in a series looking at the multifarious groups and organizations around the world that have been inspired to envision in their own way the Teachings Bahá’u’lláh loosed upon the world in the 19th Century. Bahá’ís not only consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness, but seek especially to connect with like-minded people who seek to inculcate these ideals for the betterment of the planet and its inhabitants.

By accident I ran across a large picture-book at my local library entitled Damanhur – Temples of Humanity, and I was intrigued. The story goes that in 1978 a group of artisans and visionaries led by one Oberto Airuadi gathered around a campfire near Turin, Italy watched a meteor leave a trail of stardust in its wake. They took this as a sign to begin turning the dream they’d harboured for some time into a reality and forthwith picked up their shovels and picks and began to dig. For the next 13 years the subterranean building went on in secret, all by hand tools, in 8,500 cubic metres on 5 levels, joined by hundreds of metres of corridors, inside a seam of mylonite.

In 1991 the secret was leaked, and only upon threat that the mountainside would be exploded if they refused to reveal the location of the temples, beginning four years of a predictable dogfight with political and religious authorities and ensuing court battle.

This self-contained kibbutz-like community of 800 people sports its own laws, constitution, and currency, considers itself a “template for a sustainable world with a permaculture future,” and the temples as a modern-day Noah’s Ark. Their philosophy attempts to be universal and inclusive, but is based heavily on ancient pagan traditions, especially from Mediterranean cults, with tarot, astrology, meditation, spiritual healing, and other occult sciences (including time travel). Added to this are ecology, a concentration on the arts, and an overarching New Age sensibility. All this might suggest that they are a hermetic commune, but their doors are open to visitors and those who would learn from the courses they offer, and they are making efforts to collaborate and co-operate with large worldwide organizations. They produce publications and have hosted festivals.

I should leave no doubt that their ideals are high but not all of its esoterica is in line with Bahá’í teachings, rather in its ideas of unity of religion and humanity, commitment to the environment, and harmony of science and religion. But what really got my attention is the phantasmagorical artwork. Murals, sculpture, mosaic, and stained glass of astonishing skill and inventiveness adorn the walls of the Blue Temple, Hall of Water, Hall of the Earth, Hall of Metals, Hall of Spheres, Hall of Mirrors, and adjacent smaller spaces. A maze of illuminated pathways called the Labyrinth is dedicated to the harmony and union of Divine Forces; in it are contained 35 stained glass windows, each in honour of a spiritual tradition, from ancient to modern, representing all parts of the globe, each one with a central image surrounded by what they term Sacred Language ideograms. All this can be best viewed in the book: Ananas, Esperide (2006). Damanhur: Temples of Humankind. New York: CoSM Press. ISBN 1-55643-577-0, but a fairly good peek can be had at: http://www.damanhur.org/temple/ -- click on the images and follow the slide show.

Here is part of an e-mail I sent Esperide Ananas (Silvia Buffagni) :

You might be interested in knowing of the Baha'i Faith because you share many of its ideals and purposes. From its inception in Iran in 1844, its avowed one thousand year mission is to effect the organic unity of the entire human race, and has been given the tools and method to actually achieve this. The Founder, Baha'u'llah (Glory of God), stated, "The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is firmly established." Furthermore, He derived His authority from the same source as Jesus and Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna , Abraham, Moses, and others who have been sent by God to educate humanity, and His claim is that He is the Promised One foretold in all the Scriptures of the past, the One who will usher in the Golden Age.
In 164 years, the Faith has spread all over the planet, its 6 million believers spread like a thin veneer over the surface of the globe. Already in its short history, the Baha'i Faith has an intimate connection with Italy in that the marble for the buildings on the "mountain of the Lord" (Mount Carmel in Haifa , Israel), was transported there from Italy .
I am sure that the promotion of Damanhur and its vision occupies your entire life and being, its model offering a spiritual alternative to the downward spiral of the crumbling civilizations of humanity. I encourage you to investigate the Baha'i Faith as a like-minded partner in the building of a new World Order.

She answered me back within minutes, telling me a government official had recently informed her about the Babaji [sic] Faith, figuring the two had compatible aims and beliefs.

Gambling With God

Einstein famously asserted that God does not play dice with the universe. Nevertheless religion and gambling have a long history.

Yuddhishtira in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata is the eldest of the five Pandava brothers, and he has a list of virtues as long as his wife’s sari (check that story out), but also a fatal flaw, a weakness for dice games. The brothers are to inherit the kingdom, but Yuddhishtira is lured into a “friendly” game of dice by his cousin Duruyodhana who wants to usurp the throne. To no one’s surprise (except the Pandavas – apparently a knowledge of human nature is not on that long list of virtues, like Vitamin C missing from the nutrients the body produces – talk about design flaws!), Duruyodhana has enlisted a ringer to play on his behalf, and after initial winnings, Yuddhishtira begins to lose. Like all gamblers after him, he feels his luck must turn, but it doesn’t, and not only does he lose all his earthly possessions, but also his birthright, their wife (again, you really have to check this story out), and finally the lives of himself and his brothers, who must become slaves. And after the many years they submit to their loss and work off their debt, they return to claim their inheritance, and are refused. This ultimately results in the battle of Kurukshetra, on the eve of which Lord Krishna reveals to Yuddhishtira’s brother, the master archer Arjuna, the Bhagavad-Gita, holy book of the Hindus.

Fast forward to 17th century Cartesian France. Mathematician Blaise Pascal, dour and sickly, a Jansenist Catholic, whose previous claim to fame was demonstrating the existence of a vacuum, was contacted by a gambler to help increase his odds of winning, and through their correspondence the laws of probability were first established, sparking a revolution in European intellectual and philosophical thought. Then he had his “night of fire,” his personal mystical meeting with God, a fact which was not discovered until after his death – people simply knew he had changed, though they couldn’t fathom the reason. It caused him to want to integrate his mathematical knowledge with his newly-intensified belief. And so he formulated his “wager” on belief in God, which consisted of only four possibilities:

1. You believe in God, and are correct. You win the jackpot in heaven forever.
2. You believe in God, but you are wrong. All you have lost is a few years of debauchery, a blink in the infinite vastness of time. The House wins.
3. You don’t believe in God, and you are right. So you spend a few years following your own passions, but when it’s over, it’s really over. The House wins.
4. You don’t believe in God, but you are wrong. You are in deep deep doodoo for all eternity.
So roll the dice, how do you like the odds? What’s it going to be?

Now gambling is expressly forbidden in the Bahá’í Writings, though interestingly the playing of lotteries is not, and many Bahá’ís assert that the Faith would see the fruits of their winnings. But the most famous example of gambling in the Bahá’í Faith involved no less a person than its Founder, Bahá’u’lláh. It happened during the early 1860s in Baghdad. The local clergy were not amused at the high esteem in which He was held by members of all levels of society, including not only high-standing government officials, but some among their very own ranks. Plus there was that endless stream of visitors paying him homage, traveling hundreds of miles on foot to do so, a worship they could only watch and covet, regardless of how much they desired it for themselves. And He had never studied Qur’anic exegesis, philosophy, theology – in short, He was an amateur! This would not do. But getting Him denounced as a dangerous heretic didn’t fly, as they couldn’t obtain the necessary signatures. So they resorted to a ploy of public humiliation, which would see His career come tumbling down. A mullá was dispatched to interview Him and then ask that He perform a miracle for them, which would be solid proof of His divinity. Instead of being insulted that these clowns would make a circus of religion, He called their bluff: "Although you have no right to ask this, for God should test His creatures, and they should not test God, still I allow and accept this request.... The [scholars] must assemble, and, with one accord, choose one miracle, and write that, after the performance of this miracle they will no longer entertain doubts about Me, and that all will acknowledge and confess the truth of My Cause. Let them seal this paper, and bring it to Me. This must be the accepted criterion: if the miracle is performed, no doubt will remain for them; and if not, We shall be convicted of imposture."*

The clergy deliberated for three days, but couldn’t decide. Their problem now was: what if He actually pulled it off? Then they would have no further recourse. Oops! – they hadn’t quite thought this one through. They were forced to cut their losses and drop the matter. They gambled and lost. The House, as always, won.

And finally, from the words of Baha'u'llah: "Even or odd, thou shalt win the wager." The friends of God shall win and profit under all conditions, and shall attain true wealth. In fire they remain cold, and from water they emerge dry. Their affairs are at variance with the affairs of men. Gain is their lot, whatever the deal. To this testifieth every wise one with a discerning eye, and every fair-minded one with a hearing ear.**
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* Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, pg. 144
**Baha'u'llah (The Compilation of Compilations volume. I, pg. 154)

p.s.: In response to several comments made, I should make it clear that what I meant is that the clergy were gambling, not Baha'u'llah.

Trustees of God's Faith

On July 11, The Associated Press reported: “For the second time in a week, Pope Benedict XVI has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, reasserting the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church and saying other Christian communities were either defective or not true churches.” This was not a new pronouncement from the Vatican, but nevertheless sent ripples of consternation throughout the non-Catholic Christian world. Most reaction was that this is a setback for the Interfaith movement, and even for Christian ecumenism, though there were a few conciliatory voices, such as The Rev. Sara MacVane, of the Anglican Centre in Rome: “there's the huge amount of friendship and fellowship and worshipping together that goes on at all levels, certainly between Anglican and Catholics and all the other groups and Catholics."

In April 2002, the supreme administrative body of the Bahá’í Faith, the Universal House of Justice, sent a letter to the religious leaders of the world, detailing the progress the human race is making in so many areas of human endeavor, but that religion is hampered in its development. It identified claims of exclusivity to be the single greatest obstacle. It quoted its founder, Bahá'u'lláh:

“There can be no doubt whatever that the peoples of the world, of whatever race or religion, derive their inspiration from one heavenly Source, and are the subjects of one God. . . Cleave unto that which draweth you together and uniteth you.”

The Universal House of Justice went on to explain: “Such an appeal does not call for abandonment of faith in the fundamental verities of any of the world's great belief systems. Far otherwise. . . What the above words do unequivocally urge is renunciation of all those claims to exclusivity or finality that, in winding their roots around the life of the spirit, have been the greatest single factor in suffocating impulses to unity and in promoting hatred and violence.”

The letter goes on to argue that there is an emerging global consciousness that humanity is one entity, that the earth is one common homeland for all peoples, that rights and privileges belong to all. This vision is yet fragile and not fully formed, and under attack by cataclysmic events, and therefore the peoples of the world look to their leaders, including religious ones, to cement and support this “intuitive awareness.” “It is to this historic challenge that we believe leaders of religion must respond if religious leadership is to have meaning in the global society emerging from the transformative experiences of the twentieth century.”

This letter was not only sent to major religious leaders of every established faith around the globe, but was carried by individual rank and file Bahá’ís to the pastors, deacons, mullahs, priests, lamas, and other clergy in their immediate communities. The reactions, were, predictably, mixed, and, predictably, there was not a wholesale and spontaneous acceptance of the appeal. But there was much in there for the trustees of the spiritual life to mull, such as:
“In order for this diffuse and still tentative perception to consolidate itself and contribute effectively to the building of a peaceful world, it must have the wholehearted confirmation of those to whom, even at this late hour, masses of the earth's population look for guidance.”

Furthermore the message contains not only an earnest plea for religion to catch up with human progress and become a moving force in morality, peace, unity, and knowledge, but it contains admonitions as well: “What cannot be morally justified is the manipulation of cultural legacies that were intended to enrich spiritual experience, as a means to arouse prejudice and alienation. The primary task of the soul will always be to investigate reality, to live in accordance with the truths of which it becomes persuaded and to accord full respect to the efforts of others to do the same.”

For Bahá'u'lláh Himself had warned: “Religious fanaticism and hatred are a world-devouring fire, whose violence none can quench. The Hand of Divine power can, alone, deliver mankind from this desolating affliction.” (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, pg. 288) Therefore Bahá’ís continue to promulgate this message of the oneness of humanity, the oneness of religion, calling mankind’s spiritual legacy “one common faith,” believing that true progress for civilization in this age consists of organically unifying our human heritage at every level.

The complete text of the Universal House of Justice’s Letter to the World’s Religious Leaders may be viewed at:

http://bahai-library.com/published.uhj/religious.leaders.html