Year of Faith

I’m going to take this opportunity to speak again about the Baha’i community, since it is such a central part to the Baha’i faith, and has really been the focus for me for the last few days.

Let us begin with the Baha’i Bookstore and Information Centre here in Vancouver.  It isn’t much, to be honest.  From the outside it looks like a modest community center crossed with a Jehovah’s Witnesses church.  It is plain and nondescript, it is humbleness incarnate.  Inside are the basics- the largish gymnasium that could comfortably hold a hundred or so people, rows of stacked chairs along the walls, and some adjacent meeting rooms.  If not for the small but abundant Baha’i bookstore in front you would probably pass it by with nary a glance.  In this store there are books on almost every Baha’i topic, from sex to interfaith studies to children’s books.  There are multiple editions and translations galore- a little something for anyone who might walk in.

This selection of materials hints at their zeal for newcomers to the faith.  Baha’is do not proselytize, instead they look out for people who are interested in the Baha’i faith, spirituality in general, or who are just curious.  They assess the person’s interests and then facilitate their studies, letting them learn for themselves, in their own way, about the faith.  In the Baha’i understanding an individual’s search for truth is to be valued, and therefore there is a lot of respect for everyone’s spiritual autonomy.  There is no pushing, just encouragement.

Anyway, back to the Baha’i Centre.  The whole thing is a real far cry from the grand examples of Baha’i architecture in the Middle East.  The Shrine of Baha’u'llah in Acre, the Universal House of Justice and the Shrine of the Bab in Haifa are just a few examples.  They are magnificently designed, and are surrounded by beautiful and immaculate gardens.  They are everything one imagines the Middle East to be- large, impressive, almost foreboding in their scale and grandeur, and borne of the faith and belief in that which is always greater.  The Baha’i Centre is none of these things, but it doesn’t need to be, because the people that inhabit this small place, the ones who make up this Baha’i community, more than make up for any of the grandeur that may have been lost in translation.

I am probably going to disagree with these people ideologically on a few things, but in the long run I don’t know if that matters, given the quality of the human beings I have been interacting with.  These are people who genuinely want to help the world, to be better people, to raise better people, to make better communities- full stop.  I can maybe question the finer points of their philosophy- the ability to maintain religious unity and still lay claim to the latest manifestation of God, their case for the unity of humanity but strangely conservative stance on same-sex unions- but I cannot question their motives.

God’s purpose in sending His Prophets unto men is twofold.  The first is to liberate the children of men from the darkness of ignorance, and guide them to the light of true understanding.  The second is to ensure the peace and tranquility of mankind, and provide all the means by which they can be established.

-Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u'llah, p. 79

I have only been to the Baha’i Centre once this month.  I will be going there tomorrow to celebrate Naw Ruz, the Baha’i new year, and then perhaps later in the month to observe one of their more bureaucratic meetings.  On my first visit I was just looking to pick up some books, but ended up staying for over an hour, talking to some Baha’is who really wanted nothing more than to ensure I had everything I needed to properly study the faith.  I told them about my website, and from then on I was being contacted by different Baha’is from all over the city, all eager to invite me into their homes to teach me about the faith.  It was actually kind of creepy.

Without a clergy or church, it falls to the members of the faith to volunteer their time and their homes to teach the religion to newcomers and hold gatherings for Baha’is or people of any spiritual persuasion.  Community is not just an integral part to the faith as it may be for other monotheisms, Baha’i is community.

Tomorrow I will be going to the Baha’i Bookstore and Information Centre, but the centre of the faith is not that building, it is not the ground that it sits upon, nor the space that fills it.  It is in the people that inhabit it.

I know I have been reticent to post here, and I apologize.  I have to say I only have a vague idea of who I’m talking to in this blog.  I really don’t know how many of you are out there, and when I try to think that more than a dozen or so people are reading this I get kind of flustered.  Finding out wouldn’t be much of a to do, I’m sure, and doing so might make it easier to post regularly, but right now it would just make me feel guilty.  So I’m glad you’re all still so very, very anonymous.   Much like that demon from the Bible, Legion- you are numerous but easily transubstantiated into livestock.  Hmm, that analogy kind of got away from me… Anyway, sorry for the delay.

The reason for my absence is that I’ve been spending a lot of time in the Baha’i community.1  I’ve gone from knowing a couple of Baha’is to meeting a different group every day of the week.  Almost every night this week is full of meetings with local Baha’is who are eager to share their faith with me, and Saturday is Naw Ruz, the Baha’i new year that ends the Nineteen Day Fast.  It’s quite staggering, a real change from the last two months.  I’m kicking myself for not making a more concerted effort to interact with the local Taoist groups or tracking down some more Satanists to gab with.  I suspect I’ll be making up for lost time at the end of the year, filling in the necessary holes in preparation for The Book.  This really should be a no-brainer for me by now, the whole interacting with the community thing.  I hope these experiences will give me more confidence in the months to come.

I’m utterly disarmed with how nice and candid these people have been.  I’ve come across nothing but open doors and charity from start to finish.  Every time I think I may have an issue or a real deal-breaking problem with the faith it is washed away by their heartfelt smiles and their concerns with how my studies are coming along.  It’s refreshing, and creates a fertile and solid ground for spiritual discourse.

There is a lot more to say, but it is late, and I need to pray and read before I sleep.

Writing, I’ve missed you.  Let’s play some more tomorrow, okay?

1. Also I just discovered Fourth Edition Dungeons & Dragons and am trying to find a group to play with.  Intone and let it be known that I am a nerd.  Now carry on.

Unity is an all-pervasive theme within the Baha’i faith- unity of mankind, unity of religion, of race, etc.  Baha’u'llah, in his writings, constantly stresses that the same God has made Himself known to the Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Baha’is.  Since we cannot conceive of God, He makes himself known through his various manifestations, these rare and charismatic individuals who are the originators of each great world religion.  In the Baha’i understanding of things, each of these manifestations, over time, is able to reveal more and more of God’s spiritual message, capitalizing on what came before him, building on our spiritual selves like a series of divine lectures.  Each compliments and fulfills the lessons that have come before.  Since the Baha’is believe that the universe is infinite, then this cycle of enlightenment and instruction will go on for as long as we are here.  God has made a covenant with us that He will not abandon us.

There is a lot I like about this idea of progressive revelation .  First, it means that no one gets the final say on the human spirit, or on God and religion.  Each is a piece of a much larger happening, something beyond the scope of any one dispensation.  There is a humility here that I did not expect to find in a monotheistic religion, not only an admission that they may be wrong, but that one day they will be proven wrong, or at least guided in an entirely new direction by the authority they trust in.

This tends to be what separates religion from other social sciences like philosophy, the whole divine revelation thing, but I find that progressive revelation makes religion seem more like philosophy or science, or any other human endeavor to understand what the hell is going on.  Every manifestation is simply doing his best to communicate what must be a huge burden.  This is the second thing I like about progressive revelation, it highlights the human side of religion.

God Speaks Again by Kenneth E. Bowers is a great general introduction to the Baha’i faith, and it begins by showing the various trials and tribulations of the founders of the Baha’i movement- Ali-Muhammad (the Bab, meanign ‘the Gate’) and Mirza-Husayn-Ali (Baha’u'llah, ‘the Glory of God’).  Baha’i writings such as the Kitan-I-Iqdas (The Book of Certitude) constantly highlight the struggles these religious revolutionaries had when they revealed their message, the constant persecution, skepticism and assault upon the ideas that would come to shape our world.  One cannot help but be sympathetic, to see the humanity in such a struggle, one person trying to be heard and understood so as to benefit us all, to impress upon us the importance of treating one another well, to be genuine, to be better human beings, that we may improve our spirits.  One man teaching others to be better.  I like that image.

Progressive revelation also makes me consider each religious figure and his message in turn.  What were these people saying that was so inspiring, so tempting as to gather hundreds and then thousands of people, and earn so much contempt from others?  In many ways my study of the Baha’i faith will not be complete until I finish this project, until I am exposed to every major religion so that I may learn what the Baha’is purport to be the central hidden truths progressing through each of them.

Ostensibly these truths seem simple enough, treating others well, loving them as much as you love God, valuing unity, charity, compassion, etc.  It is always a message of peace, so the Baha’is say, because these manifestations always come at times of great turmoil, when the dispensation of the previous manifestation has been lost and corrupted.  When we have lost the way and religion is a cause of chaos and strife rather than unity, then God presents his next spiritual lesson through His chosen apostle, and tries to make us virtuous and kind once more.

Again, this helps me get into the swing of things by showing the human side of religion, I can envision these manifestations as great moral philosophers who actually practice what they preach.  Every apostle is like a Socrates, dispensing his wisdom dispite ridicule and trouble with the law.  If I just add in all that God stuff then I’ve got the basic picture, right?  Right…

It’s an expression I don’t like using, but when all is said and done I think the Baha’is are trying to have their cake and eat it too here.  Sure, progressive revelation makes it so that no religion can claim dominance over any other… that is, except for the Baha’i faith, who gets that mantle by pointing out how everyone else is wrong in wanting to be right.  Make no mistake, the Baha’is want their turn in the sun too, their chance to unite the world for whatever fleeting moment has been allocated until the next manifestation shakes things up, and they are building towards that.  It’s not wrong, but it seems slightly hypocritical.  The Baha’i faith equates all religions, and does so with the same divine authority that a Christian, Jew, or Muslim would use to say exactly the opposite.

This is the kind of feeling I’ve been getting lately, especially since my last lesson with Jack, “Why God and Why Religion?” in which we discussed religion and God as the only genuine sources of meaning and unity in the world.  The feeling is that despite all this talk of equality,  that they believe God is really on their side.  If that is true then they are claiming a monopoly on truth, and we are back to square one.

It’s a depressing thought.  I think tonight I will pray for guidance.

Last night I had some instruction with a local Baha’i.  Let’s call him Jack.  Jack is a 70-something retired high school teacher who converted to Baha’i when he was 18.  For the last twenty years he has been informally teaching people at his home who are interested in the Baha’i faith.  Since there is no clergy and no churches in Baha’i, this kind of thing is pretty common.  In order for the Baha’i message to spread, adherents volunteer their time and expertise to teaching the faith to the unenlightened.  Of all the people this very kind man has invited into his home, about half have converted to Baha’i.

His course is four weeks long and takes the form of an hour and a half informal lecture.  He expounds on different parts of the Baha’i faith, often referring to the source texts spread liberally throughout his large and comfortable living room.  He often pauses to make sure I’m following him as I madly scribble down notes, and seems open enough to questions and dissenting opinions.  This last part is good, because I’m already starting to bump up against some Baha’i doctrine.  But first let me make sure that we’re all on the same page, I’ll share the bits of Baha’i that I learned that night.

• Adam was not the first human, rather he was the first human who became aware of God.  This is interesting, since I have often imagined something similar while working on my own religious fiction.  As far as I know, most monotheisms see Adam as the first man, full stop.  I suppose we’ll see if this is actually the case later in the year.
• The only ones who could interpret the doctrines of Baha’i were the past heads of the religion (Baha’u'llah, Shoghi Effendi, etc).  The current council that leads the faith, the Universal House of Justice, can add certain laws in order to keep the faith current, but cannot reinterpret existing doctrine.  This means that there is no theology within Baha’i, people are not free to re-imagine the faith as they want- that has all been done, and all we can do is understand it as best we can, in our own way.  For me this raises an immediate red flag, but I need to have a  bit more time with the Baha’i texts for me to properly communicate this worry.
• God is unknowable, and his message is only communicated through His various manifestations (Baha’u'llah, Jesus, Muhammad, etc.) who do not have any greater access to God than we do, they are just His conduit.  These manifestations help us to evolve our spirit so that we will be more prepared to exist as spiritual beings.
• Baha’i does not give much credence to evolution.  Jack used the term “scientism” to refer to the standard biological understanding of evolution, implying that they see it as a kind of dogma.  Instead they see the creation of life as like a seed, planted by God at the beginning, and left to flourish in all forms of life.  So, evolution does take place, but in a very specific way.
• The spirit that animates human beings and is the seat of creative thought and intelligence exists apart from our physical bodies.  Our spirits exist in a parallel, timeless and infinite realm.  The separation between that realm and our own is “but a hair” and what happens in one can affect the other.  When we die, our bodies cease to exist, and we being to live our spiritual side, using all the things we learned with our physical shells.  Therefore human beings, once created, exist forever.

I was extremely nervous at the beginning of the evening, but I really had no reason to be.  Jack is amiable and good natured and his genuine love of his religion is apparent in his lessons and character.  He has given me a lot to think about, and although I didn’t have a lot to ask him last night, next week I’ll probably talk his hear off.