In the mid 1970’s when the Hand of the Cause of God Mr Faizi came to San Francisco for several days, he said that the Baha’i Writings had identified three mysteries — three things that would never be understood by human beings in this world. One was the suffering of innocents (Abdu’l-Baha comments on this in Some Answered Questions). At the moment I don’t remember the second one. The third was, that we can never know the degree to which our actions are our own will, or God’s will.

Brent,

I read many of Mr. A.Q. Faizi’s talks and listened to tapes of them also. He was a good man. But what Hand of the Cause of God Mr. Faizi had to say about anything means absolutely nothing more than what anyone else says or thinks both back then, now, and in the future. Zero. Nada. Zippo. Zilch, To think otherwise is pure 100% pure idolatry and is completely agaoinst the Archetypal Teachings of Moses, Jesus, Mohammad, the Bab, and Baha’u'llah. It will not fly in this World Age.

Secondly, according to the current version of the Administrative Order of the Baha’i Faith (specifically the Sacred Holy Word of His Holiness Peter Khan) anyone who questions anything that comes down from the UHJ is a “corrosive influence”. Conseqyently, there are people who post on this site who could be declared “CI”’s at any time by first class postage (not by Certified or even Registered mail!). I would be very careful posting here lest a file be opened on you in Haifa.

To all the Americans here: Wow! Wasn’t Thursday night something!

I knew many American Baha’is in the 1960’s and 1970’s who had marched with MLK before they became Baha’is. I am so happy that many have lived to see this day. To all the black U.S. veterans here, I am so glad you have lived to see this day.

Best regards to all!

When parents say to a questioning teenager, “Do it because I say so!” it is like a cleric requiring blind allegiance from a disciple or follower. There is a fine line between cult like submission, and reverent obedience.

The UUs governance structure is open, transparent, and democratic. For people who have been raised in other faith traditions it doesn’t seem very “religious”. If people turn to religion looking for answers from someone, or a group, who claims to speak for a higher power, they will be sorely disappointed with the Unitarian Universalists. UU is a faith for mature minds and hearts ready to take on the tough challenge and responsibility of trying to figure out with love, compassion, tolerance, and patience, the best way to live life.

–David Markham

Robert

That every little thing is the Will of God can, I think, only be in that the world was set in motion and it’s a universe of possibilities all brought about by God in whatever and whenever the beginning was. It can be good, all things such as free will and the randomness of the world around us considered, and in the same way, it can be tough. If we could identify something as a test, do we do better in facing it? If we identify something as a simple twist of fate, is it less difficult? Don’t we need the same positive outlook and sense of sturdiness in order to come through it well?

In specific, our difficulties are down to many things - our decisions, our priorities, our struggles, and no one, not even ourselves, can determine the merit of how we meet all these things. That we’ve accepted the fundamentals of a Faith that can heal the ills of the world, spiritual and so, practical, means we have agreed to work on it. If we run into things that hinder us or frustrate us, our daily prayer - since we’ve accepted that our essence is spirit - is to give us the only blind faith in which we are to indulge - that of looking to the principles for answers, and if we are unable to understand a solution at the time, the steadfastness to believe in our initial recognition of the Manifestation for today, to be humble enough to hope to understand eventually.

There are very down to earth things we can apply to keep a balance in our lives; and there are those mystical Writings that are to keep us stretching, evolving in our understanding.

That cultural difficulties get us down is no surprise - look at the world and how well it deals with cultural differences. It’s not easy. With humility comes an attitude of open-mindedness, and if we are openminded, we can learn. If we feel like dupes each time we run into something really difficult, how can we go forward? How then can we give anyone the benefit of the doubt necessary to letting go of self and being right and allowing for differences?

I too have found that with Ruhi came a fundamentalism and a propensity for community members to be beating one another over the head with information, in essence, taking on the responsibility of other peoples’ spiritual condition, and as though others couldn’t possibly understand something so simple. It’s a wanting in the individual - there will always be that, relatively speaking. For me, someone who has always had a deep sense of inadequacey, well, it’s been good for me to be able to turn to my prayers each time I’ve been on the verge of telling someone what they could do with Ruhi.

The old thinking that we do this or we are nothing in the next world, can only serve to remind us that with this desperately needed Dispensation, the world has only crossed the threshold into adulthood, and the habits of the centuries of needing to think about our own spiritual skins if we are to do the right thing will pass very slowly into history, for look at the cultures that have that deeply rooted in them - there is perhaps none that escaped it that was one of the “mainstream”. First Nations all over the world may not have succumbed to this - they’ve had their own brand of decadency, but perhaps not that one. Naturally, humanity is on the road to knowing that we do the right thing for the sake of God - one way of saying that we do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do.

Entering into a world culture will leave many people by the wayside, wondering why they don’t get it. But that’s not gone untold. Shoghi Effendi said people would wash in and out of the Faith like the tides. I think that has to do with our sense of beign right or wrong and how attached we are to those things right now. Very attached, it will severe our ties with the thing we need most: connection to that spirit that will bind us closely with our fellow world citizens. Teenagers emotionally, all of us really. And none lost, only detoured. All the worlds of God stretch ahead of us.

As a grandmother, I’m coming to be less casual about my spiritual state in terms of the more forgiving understanding that I’ve come to appreciate about the nature of our evolution through this world and those to come, not because for a moment I don’t believe in my spiritual future but in that I’d like for my grandchildren to recognize me in those worlds of God. If limbs are chopped from a tree, others grow, but never that one that’s gone. Living continues but it’s altered.

Nothing is simple, there is no one line answer in these matters, we can spend all our ives searching for one, only to find that we need to think each and every day we are alive. The histories of the cultures of the world are staggered and crossed. So many in the world have suffered culturally and prevailed, so many have suffered as individuals in a culture and avoided bitterness, so many have prospered with no effort and inexplicably come out of it decent, empathetic people who are good for the world around them - these are mysteries to ponder in such times as ours.

All of this, all of the doubt, the fear of being duped, the difficulties inherent in not understanding being translated into “must be wrong”, it’s all organic and the way humanity passes from one phase of it’s story to another. If we were all really dull, our history would be less remarkable in both it’s accomplishments and it’s turmoil. In our belief or in our doubt, we are all symptoms of our times and undistinguished in these things, but rather, just living in the world as best we can.

With all, the entire world has a spiritual history and we have a spiritual future together. Baha’is, people who’ve not accepted the Faith, we are all on the same spiritual continuum. And we have the need to become sturdy and tolerant - people will be stepping on our cultural toes for many years to come; is that to keep us from the truth?

http://www.bahai-studies.ca/conferences.php