A Pennsylvania-based Baha'i website that explores God's latest Revelation to all humanity
O SON OF SPIRIT! With the joyful tidings of light I hail thee: rejoice! To the court of holiness I summon thee; abide therein that thou mayest live in peace for evermore
Photo courtesy of Morteza-Bach on unsplash
Music from Paul Parrish, available at ladderforyoursoul.com
Thank you for joining us on this! We hope you find it spiritually refreshing and enlivening. We’re going to take a very unique approach in the next 19 days and draw on the scriptures of three great religions- Christianity, Islam, and the Baha’i Faith- to try and grow spiritually and as people. As this is a program inspired by the Baha’i teachings, we are going to view these religions as Baha’is view them- not as separate “religions”- but as part of One Religion- the “changeless Faith of God”- as Baha’u’llah referred to it. This is therefore not an “inter-religious” program, but one that views each of these great revelations as part of one continuous whole. It’s a unique perspective, and takes a little getting used to, but it is extraordinarily enriching once you get your mind and heart around it.
We should note that there is no intention to exclude the other great revelations from God, and Baha’is accept that there were many others. We could have equally used passages from the Hebrew Scriptures, or the Bhagavad Gita, or others, but we wanted to keep it simple.
Our other focus is on this concept of the “voice of God”- that there is an inner melody to the diverse forms of language and concepts in these scriptures- a “voice” that you learn to recognize when you listen to them with your heart. That “voice” is humanity’s true Beloved, one that these scriptures all tell use we need to learn to recognize and follow. It’s a “spiritual thing”, but you’ll know it when you feel it. Some have compared it to the voice of their mother or father. Your mother spoke to you in different ways- sometimes gently, sometimes forcefully- and said many things, but it was still your mother’s voice and you knew it when you heard it. Same idea here.
The theme of this year’s challenge is “Finding your Beloved”. Even the title betokens a more intimate idea of God than many people may be used to, but it is at the center of what people feel in their heart when they develop a “personal relationship with God”. Your first “assignment” is to reflect on this beautiful quote from the Bab, that expresses a sense of spiritual intimacy-
“Behold with the eye of thy heart. Verily thy truth, the truth of thy being, is the divinity of thy Lord revealed unto thee and through thee. Thou art He Himself, and He is thou thyself, except that indeed thou art that thou art, and He is that He is…Verily, God ceaselessly sheddeth His effulgence, gazeth upon thee through thee, and embraceth thee through thee. This station is thine uttermost paradise and ultimate goal.”
Even if our minds may be cluttered with all kinds of different ideas about God- different impressions, some positive, some not so much- we can all feel the beauty of this way of thinking about God. It’s universal and that’s why we wanted to take this perspective for the Challenge.
Each morning, you will be presented with short passages to read and absorb. We highly encourage you to try and memorize them, at least the portions of them that you find significant. It helps to internalize them and you’ll be surprised when you find yourself thinking about their words while waiting in line at the supermarket or some other down moment. Those moments of reflection in real life can be the most enriching moments.
We will also supply music of the same passages we present when available, as music is a “ladder for our souls” and illuminates spiritual ideas. This is easier for Baha’i scriptures- particularly the Hidden Words- as Baha’is commonly put their scriptures to music. It is not as easy for Christian scripture, as Christians did not typically put the actual words of Jesus to music, and it is not possible to find music expressing words from the Quran in English.
The Challenge will follow an order from “inside” to “outside”- meaning we will start with trying to develop that sense of inner spirituality and how to nurture it, then move towards expressing that in the world through our actions. So, we’ll be pretty mystical at first, more practical later, but the whole idea of religion is to transform our insides and then express that in the world, so this is the perspective we took.
In the evening, you will be presented with longer passages and alternatively “Profiles of Spirituality”- stories of some of the beloved figures of history who have truly expressed genuine spirituality in action. Some of them will be familiar to you, others likely not, but they all exhibited amazing virtues that showed us what religion is really supposed to be about.
Our website does not allow comments but our Facebook and Twitter pages do, so please feel free to post any thoughts or comments on those pages for others who may be doing the Challenge. If you know of something inspiring related to something we post, please share it so others can benefit as well. And of course, feel free to share any of the content with other friends.
Thank you again for joining us! We hope you enjoy the Challenge!
The Revelation of Baha’u’llah, God’s revelation for our time in history, consists of the words of Baha’u’llah but also those of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’- the appointed interpreter of His teachings. ‘Abdu’l-Baha exemplified the ideals of Baha’u’llah- selflessness, purity of heart, keenness of mind, embrace of progress and science, and love of all people. The post below describes the life of ‘Abdu’l-Baha’ and posts that highlight his life or writings are catgeorized and can be found off the link on the main page. ‘Abdu’l-Baha’ is incredibly inspiring and illuminating! Please do take the time to read about him and explore his writings,. You will be very happy that you did!
For Baha’is, two extraordinarily significant things happened on the evening of May 23, 1844. The first was the Báb was announcing his revelation to the first believer, and the other was the birth of Baha’u’llah’s son, `Abdu’l-Bahá. It is remarkable that they occurred simultaneously. Some conjecture that, just as the revelation of God for today was being created, a human who could accept it on behalf of all humanity was also being created. Such mystical things we will never know, but we can say that `Abdu’l-Bahá was an extraordinary human by any measure.
Born with the given name of Abbas, the man we know as `Abdu’l-Bahá was a young child of 9 years of age when His father and family were exiled from their native Persia. He was 19 when His Father formally declared His mission to humanity. During His Father’s lifetime, `Abdu’l-Bahá increasingly represented the community to the outer world, allowing Baha’u’llah to carry out the work of His mission. Made an exile at the age of 9, `Abdu’l-Bahá remained a prisoner until he was 64 years old, with all the “good years’ of his life being spent in the harsh imprisonment of Akka- his only crime being that he was the son of a Prophet of God. When Baha’u’llah passed away in 1892, he made `Abdu’l-Bahá the center of His faith, describing him as the “Mystery of God” and stating “Blessed, doubly blessed, is the ground which His footsteps have trodden, .. the heart that hath tasted the sweetness of His love, the breast that hath dilated through His remembrance, the pen that hath voiced His praise, the scroll that hath borne the testimony of His writings”.
After being released from prison by the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire, `Abdu’l-Bahá then traveled to the US and Europe in 1912 to promote his Father’s teachings. He had no formal education, had never spoken in public, and had been a prisoner all his life, but his presentations captivated people across America and Europe as he unfolded to them a vision of universal peace and justice. His visit encompassed dozens of stops and a variety of venues including talks at Columbia and Stanford Universities. Admired from afar by the founder to Temple University, Dr Russell Conwell, he was invited to speak in Philadelphia at the Baptist Temple on campus where he declared that “an equal standard of human rights must be recognized and adopted”, foreshadowing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that was signed by all nations after the founding of the United Nations in 1945. Throughout these trips, `Abdu’l-Bahá declared the oneness of humanity, promoted the equality of men and women, proclaimed the fundamental unity between science and revelation, and exemplified how religion could be a source of goodness and truth. He had a remarkable mind, a gentle spirit, and an equally remarkable ability to explain spiritual ideas in accessible terms. The clarity, sweetness, and poetry of his language is unlike anything ever seen in the religious history of humankind.
In `Abdu’l-Baha’s travels, he spoke to western audiences and used language and examples that were familiar to those audiences. For that reason, many people find his writings to be very understandable and accessible, particularly if the Baha’i Faith is new to you. His talks in America are compiled in a book called “The Promulgation of Universal Peace”, while those in Europe may be found in “Paris Talks” among other compilations. “Selections of the Writings of `Abdu’l-Bahá” presents a selection of his vast correspondence to the Baha’is of the West and the larger Persian communities that he shepherded. The truths he expressed in these talks and letters, originally spoken and written 100 years ago, feel like they were from just yesterday.
Generations of Baha’i children from around the globe have memorized prayers and passages of `Abdu’l-Bahá- prayers such as ‘O God, refresh and gladden my spirit, purify my heart, illumine my powers”, and passages that teach children to see all humanity as a garden, with different colored flowers whose diversity contribute to the beauty of the whole.
Wherever he went and whatever he did, his sole desire was to demonstrate the truth of his Father’s revelation through word and deed. His public life was only about 20 years, but he left a wellspring of words and stories that will be guide to human civilization for centuries.
‘Abdu’l-Baha’s writings and talks can be found in several publications. “The Promulgation of Universal Peace” is a collection of his talks in America. “Paris Talks” collects his talks given in Paris. “‘Abdu’l-Baha in London” chronicles his visit to the UK. “Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha'” is a compilation of letters he wrote to Baha’is around the world. “Some Answered Questions” addresses various topics that were asked of him in a series of table conversations with Laura Clifford Barney, an educated woman from New York who had become a Baha’i in the early 20th century.
All of these are worth putting on your bedside table!
Photo is of `Abdu’l-Bahá (center) surrounded by a diverse group on one of his stops in America
