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08-25-2007, 07:32 AM
| #1 |
| Guest Posts: n/a | Questions about the faith
Hello everyone, I'm reading "Bahá'u'lláh and the New Era" by J.E. Esslemont in an attempt to understand the Bahá'í Faith. I have a few questions I'd like to pose to this group. First, according to `Abdu'l-Bahá: A mediator is necessary between man and the Creator for prayer. `Abdu'l-Bahá states: If a man wishes to know God, he must find Him in the perfect mirror, Christ or Bahá'u'lláh. Is this a teaching of Bahá'u'lláh also or just `Abdu'l-Bahá? If Bahá'u'lláh teaches this, which of his writings support this requirement? Second, disasters due to floods, hurricanes, and earthquakes as well as other calamities are attributed by `Abdu'l-Bahá to disobedience to the Divine Commands of God. Here again, is this a teaching of Bahá'u'lláh or just `Abdu'l-Bahá? Which of Bahá'u'lláh's writings support this statement? Finally, how does the Bahá'í Faith view Jesus? I realize he is considered one of the Prophets, but do you see him as something more than that. How do you view the virgin birth and crucifixion/resurrection? If `Abdu'l-Bahá is correct regarding mediation in prayer (see question 1) then he must place Jesus in a higher rank than the other prophets, and at least the equal of Bahá'u'lláh. Is that true? Thank you and I'm looking forward to furthering my studies of the Bahá'í Faith. |
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08-25-2007, 08:30 AM
| #2 | |
| Senior Member  Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 733 From: California |  Welcome gedumer! Quote:
and so happy you are reading Baha'u'llah and the New Era...probably still one of the best introductory books out there on the Baha'i faith! Now your questions... I may have to break them down in order to reply to all of them... Yes Abdul-Baha is the authorized Interpretor of the Writings of Baha'u'llah so we accept that. Baha'u'llah taught that the Manifestations were like mediators between God and man. Here's one verse revealed by Baha'u'llah: It hath been demonstrated and definitely established, through clear evidences, that by “Resurrection” is meant the rise of the Manifestation of God to proclaim His Cause, and by “attainment unto the divine Presence” is meant attainment unto the presence of His Beauty in the person of His Manifestation. Now regarding disasters...yes again, Abdul-Baha is the Interpretor of Baha'u'llah and when Abdul-Baha explains something He is speaking as His Father's Interpretor... another word for disasters is calamities...trouble and adversities. Here Baha'u'llah reveals in the Gleanings: Behold the disturbances which, for many a long year, have afflicted the earth, and the perturbation that hath seized its peoples. It hath either been ravaged by war, or tormented by sudden and unforeseen calamities. Though the world is encompassed with misery and distress, yet no man hath paused to reflect what the cause or source of that may be. Whenever the True Counsellor uttered a word in admonishment, lo, they all denounced Him as a mover of mischief and rejected His claim. How bewildering, how confusing is such behavior! No two men can be found who may be said to be outwardly and inwardly united. The evidences of discord and malice are apparent everywhere, though all were made for harmony and union. The Great Being saith: O well-beloved ones! The tabernacle of unity hath been raised; regard ye not one another as strangers. Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. We cherish the hope that the light of justice may shine upon the world and sanctify it from tyranny. If the rulers and kings of the earth, the symbols of the power of God, exalted be His glory, arise and resolve to dedicate themselves to whatever will promote the highest interests of the whole of humanity, the reign of justice will assuredly be established amongst the children of men, and the effulgence of its light will envelop the whole earth. Now the third question.. Baha'u'llah accepted that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin His mother Mary and that He was crucified.. All the Proiphets and Manifestations of God are the same however with equal qualifications... Just as in school all your teachers had to be credentialed but each taught at a specific level ...for various children depending on age and qualifications. "All the teaching of the Prophets is one; one faith; one Divine light shining throughout the world. Now, under the banner of the oneness of humanity all people of all creeds should turn away from prejudice and become friends and believers in all the Prophets." Please feel mosty free to ask anymore questions! - Art  Last edited by arthra; 08-25-2007 at 08:32 AM. | |
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08-25-2007, 09:52 AM
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08-25-2007, 05:55 PM
| #4 |
| Senior Member Joined: Jun 2006 Posts: 733 From: California |
Hello Gedumer! Thanks for your comments: I understand mediators in that sense, but Abdul-Baha spoke of mediators with regard to prayer to God. He suggests that one must not pray directly to God, rather we must pray through either Christ or Baha'u'llah to have access to God. I find that difficult to accept. Can you help me with that? My reply: In the matter of prayer: Here is what the Guardian Shoghi Effendi expressed about prayer and this is I believe the attitude of by and large the Baha'i community: In regard to your question: we must not be rigid about praying; there is not a set of rules governing it; the main thing is we must start out with the right concept of God, the Manifestation, the Master, the Guardian-- we can turn, in thought, to any one of them when we pray. For instance you can ask Baha'u'llah for something, or, thinking of Him, ask God for it. The same is true of the Master or the Guardian. You can turn in thought to either of them and then ask their intercession, or pray direct to God. As long as you don't confuse their stations, and make them all equal, it does not matter much how you orient your thoughts. (24 July 1946 to an individual believer) We can pray directly to God but we also accept there can be intercessors for us thus we accept that prayer can be directed to say Abdul-baha as long as we understand that it for intercession. Baha'i prayers were revealed by Baha'u'llah, the Bab and Abdul-Baha and we feel there is a special potency inthose prayers but we are also free to compose a prayer ourselves... When people turn away from the Manifestation of God we feel this invites calamities and disasters...Above Baha'u'llah revealed: ...yet no man hath paused to reflect what the cause or source of that may be. Whenever the True Counsellor uttered a word in admonishment, lo, they all denounced Him as a mover of mischief and rejected His claim. Natural disasters also can I think be seen as what we indirectly cause say by our ignoring the laws and balance of nature by polluting tyhe environment and ignore the balance of nature.. Too much industry and urban life can bring this about.. Also natural disasters test our ability to respond to them...and we can learn from them and develope ways to cope or prevent disasters... mnore cooperative responses are called for ...greater unity. - Art Last edited by arthra; 08-25-2007 at 06:00 PM. |
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08-27-2007, 08:30 PM
| #7 |
| The Evil Visir  Joined: Mar 2006 Posts: 131 From: Chapel Hill | 
Welcome to the Forum Gedumer! Here is something I pulled out of the "World Order of Baha'u'llah"(p112-114), in the section called "The Dispensation of Baha'u'llah". The end of it, I think, may shed some more light on your question about praying to God and/or His Manifestations. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P. 112-114 To whoever may read these pages a word of warning seems, however, advisable before I proceed further with the development of my argument. Let no one meditating, in the light of the afore-quoted passages, on the nature of the Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh, mistake its character or misconstrue the intent of its Author. The divinity attributed to so great a Being and the complete incarnation of the names and attributes of God in so exalted a Person should, under no circumstances, be misconceived or misinterpreted. The human temple that has been made the vehicle of so overpowering a Revelation must, if we be faithful to the tenets of our Faith, ever remain entirely distinguished from that “innermost Spirit of Spirits” and “eternal Essence of Essences”—that invisible yet rational God Who, however much we extol the divinity of His Manifestations on earth, can in no wise incarnate His infinite, His unknowable, His incorruptible and all-embracing Reality in the concrete and limited frame of a mortal being. Indeed, the God Who could so incarnate His own reality would, in the light of the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, cease immediately to be God. So crude and fantastic a theory of Divine incarnation is as removed from, and incompatible with, the essentials of Bahá’í belief as are the no less inadmissible pantheistic and anthropomorphic conceptions of God—both of which the utterances of Bahá’u’lláh emphatically repudiate and the fallacy of which they expose. He Who in unnumbered passages claimed His utterance to be the “Voice of Divinity, the Call of God Himself” thus solemnly affirms in the Kitáb-i-Íqán: “To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the Divine Being, is immeasurably exalted beyond every human attribute such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress… He is, and hath ever been, veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men… He standeth exalted beyond and above all separation and union, all proximity and remoteness… ‘God was alone; there was none else beside Him’ is a sure testimony of this truth.” “From time immemorial,” Bahá’u’lláh, speaking of God, explains, “He, the Divine Being, hath been veiled in the ineffable sanctity of His exalted Self, and will everlasting continue to be wrapt in the impenetrable mystery of His unknowable Essence… Ten thousand Prophets, each a Moses, are thunderstruck upon the Sinai of their search at God’s forbidding voice, ‘Thou shalt never behold Me!’; whilst a myriad Messengers, each as great as Jesus, stand dismayed upon their heavenly thrones by the interdiction ‘Mine Essence thou shalt never apprehend!’” “How bewildering to me, insignificant as I am,” Bahá’u’lláh in His communion with God affirms, “is the attempt to fathom the sacred depths of Thy knowledge! How futile my efforts to visualize the magnitude of the power inherent in Thine handiwork—the revelation of Thy creative power!” “When I contemplate, O my God, the relationship that bindeth me to Thee,” He, in yet another prayer revealed in His own handwriting, testifies, “I am moved to proclaim to all created things ‘verily I am God!’; and when I consider my own self, lo, I find it coarser than clay!” “The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days,” Bahá’u’lláh further states in the Kitáb-i-Íqán, “being thus closed in the face of all beings, He, the Source of infinite grace … hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being and tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence… All the Prophets of God, His well-favored, His holy and chosen Messengers are, without exception, the bearers of His names and the embodiments of His attributes… These Tabernacles of Holiness, these primal Mirrors which reflect the Light of unfading glory, are but expressions of Him Who is the Invisible of the Invisibles.” |
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04-29-2009, 01:22 AM
| #9 |
| Junior Member Joined: Apr 2009 Posts: 6 From: United States |
I personally view the mediator as the Teachings of Baha'u'llah. Because, I believe, for my prayers to make sense, I have to act upon them. As Baha'u'llah mentioned: "Let deeds, not words, be your adorning." Isn't it wonderful that Baha'u'llah considers a commendable action as an act of worship? (along with prayers of course) |
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