Well, here we go again.  During this month I will be a Baha’i, one of some six million adherents around the world.  Baha’i is the first monotheistic religion I will be practicing and I have two things to look forward to already: obligatory prayer and a nineteen day fast.

There are several different forms of the obligatory prayer- a short, medium, and long version each with different acts of bowing and supplication.  The short, easy to remember version which only needs to be said once a day is as follows,

I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee.  I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.

There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. [1]

Much like its parent faith Islam, these prayers are required in order to foster feelings of humility, faith, and devotion towards God, who in the Baha’i faith is the center and creator of every major religion on Earth.

The nineteen day fast stretches from March 2 to March 20, and is concludd by the Baha’i New Year, a celebration called Naw Ruz.  The fast is to be performed during daylight hours during whcih I will not be eating anything.  During the entire week I will be abstaining from carnal things like sex, alcohol, drugs, and video games (gulp).  If you can think of anything else I should avoid then I’m all ears, I really want to make these nineteen days count for something.  As to the purpose of the fast, the former head of the Baha’i Faith, Shoghi Effendi puts it quite well.

It is essentially a period of meditation and prayer, of spiritual recuperation, during which the believer must strive to make the necessary readjustments in his inner life, and to refresh and reinvigorate the spiritual forces latent in his soul. Its significance and purpose are, therefore, fundamentally spiritual in character. Fasting is symbolic, and a reminder of abstinence from selfish and carnal desires. [2]

Frankly this sounds like something I could really use, doubly so since I kind of ignored similar perscriptions during Taoism.

Wish me luck!

[1] Baha'i Reference Library- Prayers and Meditations by Baha'u'llah p. 314

[2] Baha'i Reference Library- Directives from the Gaurdian pp. 27-29