the bookstore, (hint, hint) its really excellent, the introduction is about, the first twenty-eight
pages is by Dr. John Hatcher and it was a very exciting and interesting introduction,
and he raises a bunch of questions in this introduction that the text that was selected
quotes answer for us. So we might be able to touch on a little bit about that tonight,
it's a great book. It's a great primer for anyone that's interested in the Faith, and
its a wonderful deepening for those of us who may have a little fuller understanding
the Baha'i Faith.
I believe that this quote is from Mr. Nakhjavani, I didn't hear him
personally say it, but even if he didn't say it, it really touched my life, my heart very
profoundly, and it goes, "some days I am a lover of Baha'u'llah, some days I want to
be a lover of Baha'u'llah, and some days I. Want to want to be a lover of Baha'u'llah,
and we wake up in these bodies each day with this ego, and we know that part of our purpose
in Life is to Know and Love our Creator. And minimize the ego and fill ourselves up with
spirituality in the Love of God.
And we're all on this journey together. There are Four
Qualities that Baha'u'llah desires to see in his followers, probably for all of mankind;
courage and enthusiasm, and this quote from Baha'u'llah says the source of courage and
power is the promotion of the World of God, and steadfastness in His Love. To have a face
wreathed in smiles, I want to tell you that I've got one of these four done, because I'm
a big smiler, so I'm well on my way, the other three I'm working on. Be happy, be happy,
be happy.
Abdu'l-Baha reminds us that the spiritual world bestows only joy and happiness,
so if we're sad or negative we need to look where our vision is. We need to see with our
own eyes, and not through the eyes of another, and this is a fundamental principle that Baha'u'llah
has brought to the world, introduced to the World. The independent investigation of Truth.
Its really good to talk to people who are learned or in the know, but ultimately you
have to way what they say in the balance of your own search, and your own understanding
in your relationship with God, because then its real, then its lasting, and then its forever.
And once you, Baha'u'llah also wanted us to, once you start something, see it through to
a conclusion. So these are just four great qualities that we all can incorporate into
our lives.
That, whether we are Baha'i or not that would be wonderful to see in everyone.
So some of the questions that we are hoping to answer tonight are, What are the standards
of Science the physical study of Nature, what are some of the Ideal standards, that should
permeate our study of the science of religion. Metaphysical reality, we're going to look
at the outline of one reality, the Harmony of Science and Religion. The introduction
by John Hatcher, and then there are six chapters of selected quotes that I have picked out
a few that, that I'm hoping that we will get to and talk a little bit about, and what I'd
like to do is you can ask a question anytime but it would probably be better if we asked
it at the end, so make a little note that if you have any questions, and there is not
any question that we can't answer, or find the answer to, if its we have a lot of resources
in this room and that's really good. He, this is a quote that Bob just read, "He Baha'u'llah
proclaims that religion must be in harmony with science and reason...The harmony of religious
belief with reason is a new vista which Baha'u'llah has opened for the soul of man." So this is
a relatively new concept in religious history and we know that Baha'u'llah appeared in the
middle 1800's, he passed away in 1892 and the Baha'i Faith is approximately 170 years
old as of this year.
Abdu'l-Baha says that the spiritual is like unto the phenomenal
world. The physical world they are the exact counterpart of each other. Whatever objects
appear in the world of existence are the outer pictures of the world of heaven. So I, thought
this paragraph which was cited in this compilation was a good place to start.
We're going to
try and define what Science is. Where going to try and define what religion is, and some
characteristics of scientific methodology and the characteristics of the study of Theology
or Religion, and then we'll look at these quotes. "Scientific knowledge is the highest
attainment upon the human plane, for science is the discoverer of realities. It is of two
kinds: material and spiritual.
Material science is the investigation of natural phenomena;
divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities. The world of humanity
must acquirer both. A bird has two wings; it cannot fly with one. Material and spiritual
science are the two wings of human uplift and attainment.
Both are necessary - one the
natural, the other supernatural; one material, the other divine. By the divine we mean the
discovery of the mysteries of God, the comprehension of spiritual realities, the wisdom of God,
inner significances of the heavenly religions and the foundation of the law. So this is
just a little outline of that little a line of that paragraph we just read, and we're
going to talk about what science is and so on and so forth. So lets define science just
briefly for us.
Science is a branch of knowledge of study dealing with a body of facts or truths
systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
Science usually dealing with physical reality, the study things that you can measure, that
you can objectify with your senses, its a systematic knowledge of the physical and material
world, gained through observation and experimentation, any branches of natural and physical sciences,
systematized knowledge in general, and knowledge as a facts or principles gained; knowledge
gained by systematic study. So we know that the study of religion can also be very scientific
in its nature. Reason, I thought we should define reason, its a power of the intellect;
the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences, and so we are given
this mind and these powers of thought and understanding so that we can use these gifts
to apply them to our physical environment and also to our understanding of who God is,
How He communicates with Us, and using religion as a Source of Good for the World. It's also
Sound Judgment or Good Sense.
So whatever I reason out, the ultimate thing, it should
be sound and make good sense, in my thinking. That human knowledge is of two kinds. One
is the knowledge of things perceptible to the senses - that is to say, things which
the eye, or ear, or smell, or taste, or touch can perceive, which are called objective or
sensible... Abdu'l-Baha goes on to explain, "with these Intellectual realities one is
obliged to express them by sensible figures, because in exterior existence there is nothing
that is not material, therefore to explain the reality of the Spirit, its condition,
its station - one is obliged to give explanations under the forms of sensible things because
in the external world all that exists is sensible." So we use, sensible descriptors to describe
this chair, this chair has four legs, it has a seat, it has a back, its made of metal,
and clothe and so on, we can see that, we can feel it, if we wanted to lick it we could
taste it, we use these, this language to describe physical things, right? But to talk about
intellectual realities or Spiritual Realities, we often use, we have to use physical sensible
forms to talk about something that is immaterial, or intangible, or intellectual or spiritual.
That's been a challenge in the study of religious text in history that we're going to talk about
in a little bit.
So this was compiled by Bonnie J. Taylor, I don't know Bonnie, but she made
some really wonderful selections for us, for our review and study, and the introduction
was by John Hatcher, and my claim to Fame is, I've known John ever since I was 12, so
I've been around this guy a long time and we're really good friends, and if I have any
questions about the Baha'i Teachings or something of them are Good Questions, some of them are
really stupid Questions, he's always very gracious and kind to help me improve my understanding
of things. So John's introduction is twenty-eight pages, and this is a very entertaining read,
and very, he brings to our attention a lot of thought provoking questions, and this is
a little outline of his introduction; schism between science and religion, why can't we
all just get along? Reality is what Reality is. Fortunately Reality is Logical.
Why Reality
is Comprised of a Dual Nature. Physical and beyond physical, meta-physical. And Mutual
Discovery of Ourselves, and then Stitching Reality together. So the outline of this book,
that Bonnie Taylor has gleaned a lot of different passages from, talks about the principle of
Harmony and Religion, we're going to go through these sections, each a little bit, and I've
picked out a few little samplings of each, topic for us to discuss a little bit.
That's
in the book so we can move on with that. And then you know like some of these, out of nothingness
the unity of God, creation is perfect, so on and so forth. And Like I said its really
pretty good. So I want to talk a little bit about scientific proof, and these notes primarily
come from John's Brother Bill Hatcher, who passed away a few years ago, and he was a
mathematician extraordinary, this was a compilation of their essays that was published a few years
ago.
They're commonly held misconceptions about the nature of scientific proof and we're
going to talk about what those are. Towards the end of this, in science there's two, remember
science; physical science is about things we can measure in and observe and then make
some conclusions about, right? So there's the concrete and the abstract, and the concrete
or observable dimensions we accumulate observations of some phenomena and record these observations
in the form of observational statements, this record constitutes our body of observed truths
or facts about any given phenomenon. So this is how scientist approach these things. And
John, in one of his
essays said that we all really should strive to become our own scholars, now I've never
published any papers or books, but you know I feel like I can be empowered to a scholar
as a Baha'i, I can think for myself, I can weigh what I have been taught, a lot of us
have been brought up in traditions where we are just told to accept certain things, and
don't question them, as a Baha'i I was raised more or less a Baha'i, my mother became a
Baha'i when I was about seven years old, and I got, fortunately got very immersed in Baha'i
Teachings early on, but one of the things that was, that I became aware of was that
when I turn 15, the beginning of the age of spiritual maturity, I had to decided whether
I was a Baha'i for myself, so I had to go through this process, who is Baha'u'llah,
does he make any sense, is he really, has he really been sent by God, what's his relationship
to all these other great teachers in the World.
My mother overcame this great hurdle of being
a born again christian, had a spiritual experience, and found, [she] was in the presence of Christ
and he said to her I've come again, come find me. And so I was introduced to this process
through her coattails, but I still had to make this religion my own, even though you're
born a Baha'i it doesn't mean you will be a Baha'i, but all the other religious traditions,
the Jews, if you are born a Jew, you're always a Jew, if your a christian you're always a
Christian, and the wonderful thing about that experience for me is that all of these great
traditions are my traditions, so I didn't have to deny the reality of my love for Christ
or and I gained this great love and appreciation for Muhammad and all these other great traditions
because of my exposure to Baha'i. The other dimension is abstract or theoretical dimension,
this is where science can get into a little bit of trouble, because what they do is they
observe, the facts that they can measure that are sensible, see, hear, feel, taste and touch
and then they try to explain what's happening so an example of that is this concept of the
big bang theory, right? So one of the things they observed in their studies is that we
live in a Universe that seems to be expanding. Well if something is expanding, if must have
been not as big before right, it must have been contracted and so they come up they work
their way back, and they think the Universe is 14 or 16 billion years old.
This is how
we can get into trouble because its just a Theory, but we tend to culturally in this
country anyway and i'm sure its this way in the rest of the world, science tends to be
absolute, right? Like this is just the way it is, and then in religious traditions depending
on which one you come from, they get a stanch or stuck in their view of things, their scientific
way of looking at things, and neither the tween shall meet. Same with the concept of
Evolution and so on and so forth, these are theories to explain known observable facts
and sometimes they get, and mostly science does a big bang up job for us, but sometimes
it becomes problematic. So we're going to skip through, well, how it works and how it
operates leads us to formulate a hypothesis (or if you will, a theory) that represents
our mental conception of the underlying dynamic of the phenomenon. The theory usually expressed
in abstract terms, i.E.
Referring to non-observable entities or forces. The most invisible non-observable
force that we all experience everyday is gravity, right; its the constant attractive nature,
its related to mass and distance, and its the weakest of these invisible forces. Other
examples are on an atomic level, electrons, forces like the strong nuclear force, that
holds atom elements together, the weak nuclear force that's responsible for radioactive decay,
and they can measure that to see how long something been somewhere like carbon dating,
and then electromagnetism, we've all tried to put the same side of the poles together
and there's this invisible force that we can't push them together, we put the opposite poles
they come and they lock together. So these are examples of non-observable forces that
science accepts as real and they are real, its just that we can't see them, hear them,
taste them, touch them and they come up with these theories about how it works and its
worked for the most part pretty well, and then lets move, ok.
So when they make statements
about observable facts, the true value of those facts, those observation statements
are always relative. The widely held belief that the facts of science are absolute or
incontrovertible is really a misconception. Testing the truth of theoretical statements
of science is a still more complicated process. We begin by deducing new observation statements
as logical consequences of the theory; then we test these observations statements in the
usual way.
If our theory says such-and-such a thing does in fact happen; if our theory
says that snow is white, then we look to see if the snow is, in fact, white. So these observation
statements should always be confirmed by our experience or measure of physical sensible
things and whenever something steps out of the norm that we measure and observe then
we have to revisit what our theory or understanding or hypothesis of that phenomenon is. The truth
value of a theoretical statement of science is also relative, for even if all current
predictions of a theory are confirmed by observation, nothing excludes the possibility that in the
future new predictions will prove false. So one of the beauties of science is you observe
facts you come up with these theories, but just as soon as you get evidence that refutes
that theory, a shift has to be made in science, you have to re-evaluate how you look at things,
and so science the study of physical nature there really looking at this aspect of reality
the physical reality and the goal is the truth, right? And if facts refute our theory, then
they need to be changed or modified in some meaningful way.
No matter how many predictions
of theory have been confirmed through observation, the possibility always remains of the theory's
future falsification as a result either of novel predictions that contradict known evidence
or novel evidence that contradicts known predictions. So fact gathering and theory making are in
some respects mutually independent, fact gathering is a slow gradual process, theory making involves
a creative, discontinuous leap of the imagination. When gathering facts we seek to know how things
are, when we see the theory we try to image how things might be, non of the truths of
science can ever be considered as proved Absolutely, the notion of absolute proof is simply not
a part of science. So the wide spread belief that the essential characteristics of scientific
truth is its absoluteness and exactness (in supposed contrast to the relativity and imprecision
of truth in philosophy or religion) is a misconception.
Though some people deplore this relativity
of scientific truth, it has quiet a positive aspect because it makes truth seeking in science
an enterprise that is dynamic and progressive rather than static and sterile. The efficiency
of scientific method has been powerfully confirmed by its success in generating an increasing
number of highly validated theories resulting from its systematic application of the last
several hundred years. So we say, a proposition may be said to be scientifically proved when
we have rendered that proposition considerably more plausible (meaning probably true) than
all known, logically possible alternatives. In this paper that Bill Hatcher wrote, John's
Brother, he goes on to prove, to give a scientific proof of the existence of God.
Its a very
powerful little essay about looking at things in a systematic scientific way. So to speak
of a scientific proof of God's existence is to affirm that we can render the proposition
that God exists considerable more plausible then any of the known alternatives and in-particular
the alternative that God does not exist. In other words, we can know that God exists with
the same degree of certainty that we know the strong nuclear force or electrons exist.
Those invisible forces we talked about before, the strong nuclear force, gravity, electromagnetism
can exist. So about the 1800's on science has progressively broken off the shackles
of religious orthodoxy and we know that in human history that religion has kind of put
the kibosh on scientific methodology when it didn't agree with the churches perspective
on things, and there's all kinds of classic examples, they had the ptolemaic understanding
of how solar system worked, they had earth at the center of our solar system and the
sun and the other planets revolved around that because God, should be the most important
thing in our lives, and then of course Galileo becoming aware of Copernicus work refuted
that and we know how well that went for Galileo, right? It was a tough proposition for him,
but science has slowly broken the shackles of religious orthodoxy and then we've got
these two camps, Abdu'l-Baha we said earlier that we should be scientific and use reason
and our logic to affirm our belief systems, so there's some great guide lines for how
we should study religious writings in a scientific way, and these notes come from Dan May, I
don't know if anybody has met Dan, but this was done in 1989 and we're going to talk about
these principles that he's brought to our attention.
So science, we use observable,
physical quantifiable ways to measure things, sometime we make discontinuous leaps about
Abstract Theories that may or may not be good, that can be a challenge, but we know with
science that as soon as there is evidence to refute what's going on, then we need to
change or modify our theory. In religious, the study of science of theology or Hermeneutical
principles, Hermeneutics is broadly defined as the science and methodology of interpretation.
Everything we do in life, we interrupt, anything we read, anything anyone is saying to you,
you're interrupting right now, whatever it is that you think you hear I'm saying, so
we are compelled to gain an understanding of things by interrupting things, so when
we read religious scripture and not only Baha'i Scriptures but all the world's great traditions,
these principles are worthy of our consideration, so there's pitfalls to interruption, and anybody
that discussed religion with anyone other than Baha'i. Knows there is a lot of pitfalls
out there that are promoted. There's a tendency to over-conceptualize or overanalyze a text
or religious tradition; it should be allowed to speak for itself.
The meaning of the words,
we should avoid the tendency to ignore the obvious meaning of the words vs. Unwarranted
or extremely allegorical interpretations. These are pitfalls we want to avoid, we need
to neglect or overemphasize the social and historical context of particular tradition.
The tendency to interpret passages, especially obscure ones, out of context or in isolation
from the larger body of canonical writings. Is sometimes problematic we need to look at
the specific and then whenever we can see it in the context of the whole, and if we
can't see in the context of the whole, we might not want to hold onto that understanding
too vigorously.
So these are the principles that he outlined, he says that religious text
contain multiple meanings, and remember what Abdu'l-Baha said earlier, we use sensible
understandings meaning see, hear, feel, taste, and touch. To describe intellectual or spiritual
realities, so there's always a metaphorical process going on, that we should understand,
when we read religious text. So Baha'u'llah says that you know the word of God is the
Master Key to unlock the Hearts of Men, which in reality are the doors to the kingdom of
Heaven. So we study the word of God, Baha'is accept the old testament, the new testament,
the Quran, the Baha'i writings, the Bhagavad Gita and so on and so forth through great
religious traditions as the word of God.
But we understand when we read them that there
might be a literal obvious meaning, but we also know that there are multiple meanings
to these things, so symbolic and mythological character of religious language, not only
is religious scripture symbolic but it is profoundly symbolic. You know what I say to
people, one of the commandments is "thou shalt not kill!" You know there's not too many metaphorical/allegorical
meanings to that. It's pretty literal, its one of the few things that we can just take
literally. But the other ones we need to work out a little more, so in summons of the lord
of hosts - Baha'u'llah says that the manifestations of God speak in these similitudes, they speak
in analogies, similes and metaphors, perchance they, you and me, may transcend a mere plant-like
level of existence and attain unto true maturity in this resistless and immovable Cause.
So
we need to take these sensible words and see if there's depth and meaning there; so we
need to also take careful attention of the role of science and reason in the interruptive
process, so Abdu'l-Baha in a talk in Promulgation of Universal Peace, says there's four ways
that we prove something to ourselves; the first one is, is it sensible - what like science
does, do we see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, touch it. But we know that these senses
can sometimes full us, the example of that is a mirage, sometime we can use our vision
and we see something from the heat coming off the roadway or off in the distance. That
looks like something that's not there, its an allusion, so each of these ways that we
prove things by themselves can be potentially flawed, we need to understand that, we use
reason or logic. The problem with that is we get a set of facts and we have one camp
over here that looks at the set of facts one way, and another camp over here that looks
at the set of facts another way and come up with two totally different conditions and
we go to war over it, right? So reason and logic - even though we're encouraged to do
that can often be problematic, if we use that proof methodology by itself.
Inspiration,
how many have had a wonderful inspiration come into their lives, right? So there was
a few years ago in the D.C. Area these two guys had the inspiration to get High-powered
Rifles and shoot people passing in cars. I'm sure they didn't think, I'm sure they were
inspired to do that somehow, right? But we understand that there is a Divine Inspiration,
and you weigh that against the Divine Standards of Religion; does it promote Love, Joy, Peace,
Goodness, and so on. Or is it Satanic, is it Ego driven, we know that the Great Satan,
the Evil One is this Ego inside each of us, its the Absence of Good in our Lives that
seems to be, pretty well expressed today.
And the Abdu'l-Baha says, do religious traditions
support it. So any of these four, these are the four ways that something is proved. And
we'll talk just a little bit more about that.And this is Abdu'l-Baha, again. He says when we
come to consider even the Holy Books.
Proving, Thinking something through in support of Traditional
teachings, the Books of God, we are lead to ask, I just love this, "Who understands these
Books?" This is Abdu'l-Baha talking, right? By what authority of explanations may these
books be understood. It must be the authority of Human Reason. And if reason or intellect
finds itself incapable of explaining certain questions. Or if the possessors of intellect
contradict each other in the interpretation of tradition, how can such a criterion be
relied upon for accurate conclusions.
So this is the important role of thinking for yourself
and using intellect and mind for these understanding. It continues on in this article, and this
is really powerful, a statement presented to the mind, accompany by proofs, which the
senses can perceive to be correct, which the facility of reason can accept. Which is in
accord with traditional authority and sanctioned by the promptings of the heart, inspiration
can be adjudged and relied upon as perfectly correct, for it has been proved and tested
by all the standard of judgement and found to be complete. When we apply but one test,
there are possibilities of mistake.
This is self-evident and manifest. And this is a powerful,
personal methodology for me. I try to apply these four criteria to whatever it is I'm
going to believe or accept, and if all four are met, then I can embrace this whole-heartily
and I know that I'm in touch with reality, with what is real and what is the best thing
in my life. So the next principle is that religious, the progressive and relative nature
of religious truth.
We understand that our Creator is infinite beyond our wildest imaginings,
created us, loves us, wants to teach us about his ways, and he sent these divine beings
into the world, that we've known by different names, throughout history, from Adams to Krishna,
Buddha, Zoroaster, Abraham, Moses, Christ, Muhammad, the Bab, and Baha'ullah. And that
God, has revealed these truths to us in measured fashion. To the capacity of the age in which
they appear. So when maybe way back when Adam and Eve got together, you know maybe the only
thing mankind could understand was that there was a right and wrong.
And now we've enter
the beginning of the age of spiritual maturity, and Baha'ullah has revealed over 100 tablets
and books, that he's left for our guidance, and so we have this great wealth of information
that we believe our creator has communicated with us, through the appearance of Baha'ullah.
The two fold nature of religion, we have to keep that foremost in our understanding about
the study of Holy scripture, there are essential and non-essential aspects. The spiritual truths
are universal, love your brother before yourself, love God, make the world a better place, because
you were here, and non-essential aspects; like dietary law changes and so on and so
forth. We tend to latch onto things in our religious tradition that really are not that
important, and then we think we are better than another group or you know worse, and
it becomes problematic. There's the problem of personal bias and presuppositions, and
we're encouraged to not judge religious writings by our own deficient standards, there should
be a spirit of humility that we approach these words in our studies.
Baha'u'llah says that
the understanding of scripture or the word of God is not dependent on how smart you are,
how well trained you are its purity of heart. That's when the door to our heart, is the
door to the kingdom of heaven, that causes that to open. It becomes if its a mirror,
it becomes polished and we reflect the Love of God more fully in our lives, again the
independent investigation of truth, not only do we need to see with our own eyes, so not
through the eyes of another, but Baha'u'llah says that we're empowered in this day in the
Kitabi-Iqan to see with the eye of God. And the way we see with the Eye of God is we study
these scriptures with these principles in mind, so that there's an abundance of the
fruits of the Holy Spirit in our Lives.
Love, Joy, Peace, Goodness and so on. The last principle
is interpretative moderation, whatever is carried to excess will cease to exert a beneficial
influence. Moderation in all things, we talked about John's Introduction, he talks about
the schism between Science and Religion, I'm just going to flip through these, its the
introduction you can read for yourself. One of the issues in Science is the women's right
to choose, versus the civil rights of the unborn child, and so on.
Does God continue
to see his creation, etc. A very interesting introduction and these questions that he raises
are answered mostly in the selections that Mrs. Taylor has brought to our attention.
In this compilation. I was putting this together and I realized that I had way, way too much
material to share with people, it was really excellent.
Let me go back here for a little
bit, and just talk about a couple of these, he outlines some fundamental Baha'i Axioms
that might be worth our attention, and creation is not an accident, human life is the fruit
of Evolution. In science they have this law called the Second Law of Thermodynamics and
basically it says that complex systems should become simpler and less complex. Unless there
is some outside force injecting some energy or change into the system. If we look at human
beings, where we are today, and we accept the fossil records and accept the concept
of Evolution of course Baha'is believe that man is always been man, we didn't always look
like this but we were never monkeys, there is no missing link that they're going to find,
that monkey's jumped to humans, we were humans, monkey's were monkey's.
But we evolved, the
reason this earth, this world is in existence is because, God commanded it to produce fruit,
and the fruit are human beings. And the fruit is to know and love our Creator, acquire divine
virtues, and carry forward and ever advancing civilization. John talks about the most logical
explanation is that this complex order has come about in the world, is that some outside
force, outside the physical universe, meta-physical has exerted sufficient intelligence or propitious
influence to bring about human beings and by degrees a highly sophisticated if presently
quarrelsome human global civilization. So I just wanted to say this about What Baha'is
believe, the Baha'i outlook long term, is incredible positive, we think, we really believe
that human beings through these divine teachings are going to establish the kingdom of God
on earth.
But it has to be worked, its not going to happen instantaneously and the longer
that ignore this divine guidance in the world, the slower that process will be. So I say
short term we got a long ways to go. There's a tough row to hoe, and if anybody's been
in the garden with a long row of weeds to get out it is tough. We believe there is a
Creator or God, who while essentially unknowable we can not detect the essence of his Being
with our senses or comprehend the Totality of his mind or will is immanently knowable
in terms of his attributes and powers.
This is what Baha'u'llah says, he says from the
Exalted Source, and out of the essence of His favor and bounty He hath entrusted every
created thing with a sign of His knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived
of its share in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this knowledge.
We need to learn how to discern symbolic and metaphorical expressions of reality embodied
in nature, and in the natural laws that bind nature together, to acquire this knowledge.
Every create thing exhibits at least one attribute of God. There's only one thing that potentially
reflects all the attributes of God, and that's you and me. That's our Goal, we begin our
spiritual existence, we're really spiritual beings having a human experience, its through
this great workshop of life that we can bring out all these potential divine qualities in
our lives. Struggle, testing is a Universal Phenomena that will transcend time, every
generation will be tested to bring out these divine qualities.
Our Creator wishes to establish
a love relationship with beings who are capable of abstract thought and have free will to
choose to participate, a bilateral and reciprocal relationship. Baha'u'llah says speaking with
the Voice of God, Love me that I may love thee, if thou lovest me not, my love can in
nowise reach thee, know this oh servant. We have to make efforts, we have to plugin to
that spiritual power to transform our lives, we are really spiritual beings, souls, free
will makes us responsible to use our capacity for abstract thought to recognize the divine
teachers that God has sent into the world. When we follow the Guidance of these teachers,
our lives individual and collectively as a community and the institutions that serve
humanity are elevated and service at a higher level.
We are eternal beings. Science teaches
this concept that matter can neither be created nor destroyed, this body is composed, Baha'is
accept that when the spirit disassociates from the body, it will decompose, but the
spirit lives on and moves on. Its a really freeing concept that we are eternal, that
we move on to these spiritual worlds of God, that these powers of the Brain of imagination,
thought, understanding and memory continue to serve us in the spiritual dimension or
realm. We know that the Reality is devised of physical and meta-physical nature.
Physical
and non-physical, John reminds us that these twin dimensions are not co-equal, the physical
dimension, sensible expressions and experiences as the foundation for our comprehension of
the divine realm are subordinate to the spiritual understanding that we're encouraged to bring
about in our lives. Spiritual and Physical aspects of creation are designed as coherent
dimensions of a single reality. There designed to increasingly refine our love relationship
with our Creator. Everything that happens to us, everything in this material realm of
existence is for our benefit, even the most horrific things.
So John's Introduction is
pretty thorough, you would expect that to be 28 pages long. Let's just talk a little
bit about, and I'll touch on a few of the quotes in this outline, of course, you are
being subjected to my understanding of what I think is important or what caught my minds
eye. But each of us is required to investigate these things for ourselves, and what I like
to do is when I read something from a religious text, especially I like to try and put a question
to it. And see how the text answers that question.
We saw this quote, previously but it's worth
repeating, He Baha'u'llah proclaims that religion must be in harmony with science and reason...The
harmony of religious belief with reason is a new vista which Baha'u'llah has opened for
the soul of man. No other religion in the world teaches this concept, at least not that
I'm aware of, or at least not prior to the appearance of Baha'u'llah in the middle of
the 1800's. The tablets of Baha'u'llah are many we touched on that earlier, every subject
is considered. So when I say to you, that there's not any question that you couldn't
have, that Baha'u'llah and his writings and teachings don't answer, I'm not just whistling
dixie, alright, I'm not.
I could but I don't whistle very well, but any question that you
have, I might not know the answer, gilbert might not know the answer, but we'd find the
person that would, or we'd find the reference for you, so save your question until the end.
Then you can put me to the test there. The Baha'i Faith recognizes the unity of God and
his prophets and upholds the principle of unfettered search after truth. Fundamental
purpose of religion is to promote concord and harmony, that it must go hand in hand
with science. These are some of the fundamental aspects of Baha'i.
The unfettered search after
truth, Baha'u'llah goes on to say that if religion is not a source bringing people together,
then really we are better off without religion. If its a cause of division and dividing and
hatred and bigotry and all these ugly things that religion, religious history, that we're
all familiar with. But its also, these divine educators, if they had not appeared in the
world, the source of morals and ethics in our lives, and that if these spiritual truths
had not been introduced to us, we'd be worse than the beast of the field. Depending on
which news channel you look at you think that we're pretty close to that anyway, but there's
hope.
Religious History demonstrates that there is hope. If we say that religion is
opposed to science, we lack knowledge of either true science or true religion, for both are
founded upon the premises and conclusions of reason, and both must bear its test. And
this concept, it just runs counter to, fortunately I wasn't so fully indoctrinated into christianity
because I got out of that indoctrination experience at the age of 7 but you know my mother struggled,
with all kinds of things, like she had this great belief in christ, and she recognized
Baha'u'llah but she felt like she was cheating on Christ, I mean its just, there's this guilt
and fear that's pumped into these doctrines that are taught and in Christianity they don't
talk about this very much, but there is over 23,000 different sects of christianity, some
of which you're not a christian if you do a hair do, or some you're not christian unless
you play with poisonous snakes and demonstrate your faith that way, of course there's more
reasonable tracts too. And then some of the theories christianity like and this is not
to pick on christianity but I think its because of my background, its sufficient to think
about that we are damed to hell because of something Adam and Eve did for original sin.
Is this sensible at all, is this logical at all, well as a Baha'i we go no.
I doesn't
bare the test of reason and understanding, and logic and so on, and we have to reject
it, that doesn't mean we can't honor our christian friends who accept that, but we're freed from
those shackles, right. We're freed from that impossible understanding that has been spoon
fed to a lot of people since they were early. As a Baha'i to my Christian friends, I would
say your belief in Jesus is absolutely essential, but what you clothe that belief with is problematic.
Because it promotes the exact opposite of what the religion of God is suppose to be
doing in the world. Baha'u'llah tells us, religion has a beginning, a middle and an
end.
It becomes corrupted and that's why its renewed. That's why these divine teachers
are sent into the world, again and they all suffer, and they all suffer terribly for it.
Because of these entrenched understandings that, in 320 something A.D. In Christianity
they had this great council, the council of Nica where there were these two camps, that
came together and the one camp was this more literal fundamental approach to Christianity,
that Christ was God incarnate, appeared on the earth and the other was this camp which
is the Baha'i Understanding, that this is an intermediary, an emissary from God, that
for all practical purposes he is God, but God is infinitely beyond him, and they took
a vote and we know who won. And then what did the people who won did, they set about
attacking and killing off the people that this more symbolic, metaphorical interruption
of religion.
I don't know that it served us that well, from that time on. Baha'u'llah
has declared that religion is in complete harmony with science and reason. Does that
not mean there are some mystical things that we don't understand, and that aren't completely
clear. There probably are, but they're minimal, right.
We understand that there's three levels
of creation, that Baha'u'llah talks about, of course there's the level of our Creator,
there's the level that we live in, of creation, creation of servitude and what connects those
two conditions is this other independent condition, the realm of the Manifestation of God, we
understand that they're pre-existent that they come into the world, they have all knowledge
and all power, their methodology is usually indirect, they don't forces their teachings
or understandings on people. They're usually slow to develop and evolve, and then eventually
spread. Because they've got good things to say to us. Good advice on how to live our
Lives for the most part.
Baha'u'llah reminds us that there's no real separation between
this life and the next, even though we're veiled from it. One of the reasons that we're
veiled from it, Baha'u'llah says that if we could get a glimmer of the life to come, that
we couldn't stand to be in these bodies anymore, that we would want to harm ourselves to free
our spirits from these cages of the body. But we know that there's these opportunities
for incredible growth spiritual to become more god-like and to build, and to build this,
that this world will mirror the heaven and realities of existence. Religion and science
are intertwine with each other and cannot be separated, they are the two wings with
which humanity must fly.
This bird analogy is really good, right. Its a physical, its
a physical sensible thing, right. We're trying to describe an intellectual or spiritual reality,
right. Humanity is the Bird.
So Everybody has seen a broken winged bird, right? Poor
thing trying to get off the ground, can't do it, that's science, science alone can't
do it. The other wing, that's the wing of religion, the study of science of Theology
by itself it doesn't get anywhere. It exists, its alive, but it doesn't function very well.
The Baha'is understand that when we blend these two understandings, when we think for
our selves when we independently investigate, when we look at the word of God and say is
it reason, is it logical, we can still have these divine mystical inspirational connections
with our Creator, but we understand that both wings have to work for humanity to move forward.
Otherwise the extreme of science and extreme of religion, the evidence is abundantly clear
that its problematic when they stand alone. So here's what Abdu'l-Baha reminds us, he
says if religion is opposed to reason and science, faith is impossible; and when faith
and confidence in the divine religion are not manifest in the heart, there can be no
spiritual attainment.
You know I'm a chiropractor and I treat people that are in pain and have
difficulties and so on, and there's this one quote about, related to confidence and I just
wanted to share it with you in terms of healing, Abdu'l-Baha says that there's only one power
that heals, and that's God, so we want if we're sick we want that power in our lives
and he says there's a state or condition that attracts this power and that's confidence
of the heart. I don't have this quote up here, but, and some of us get this confidence by
pills, by potions, by the doctor, some people through fasting, some people through the practice
of hygiene and the last way that this confidence can be brought into our lives is through observation.
So this principle applies to everything we do, we want to have this confidence in our
lives because it attracts the power of God in our Lives. When we have Confidence in Divine
Religion and its manifest in our heart, then there is spiritual attainment. And we fulfill
God's purpose in our Lives.
Individually, Collectively and in the Institutions that
we raise up to serve these processes. This is what reason and science does for us. We
think for our selves, we weigh what we believe within, it is logical, is it reasonable, if
its not we reject it, and we move on. God has endowed man with reason that he may perceive
what is true.
If we insist that such and such a subject is not to be reasoned out and tested
according to the established logical modes of the intellect, what is the use of the reason
which God has given man? Why do we throw reason and logic out when it comes to religious issues.
We know that historically there's people that have died and suffer because they stood up
against religious orthodoxy and the twisting of the power of the church to have people
believe just the way they want them to believe. God has bestowed the gift of the mind upon
man in order that he may weigh every fact or truth presented to him and adjudge whether
it be reasonable. That which conforms to his reason he may accept as true, while that which
reason and science cannot sanction may be discarded as imagination and superstition,
as a phantom and not reality. My Baha'i Mentor, a really wonderful lady, she said that there's
two ways to learn things, we can be told by a mentor this is how things are and take their
advice and proceed on that way, or we can go through the trial and error process.
We
can reinvent the wheel, and go through, I've done a lot of trial and error processing myself,
and its really usually pretty painful, right. In the times that I've accepted the mentoring,
I've done a lot better. And her advise to me as a young Baha'i was that I should accept
these divines principles that Baha'u'llah's brought into the world as true and factual
until their proven wrong to me. Like I could take these principles and incorporate them
into my life, and assume that they're right and correct, and then when and if they prove
not to be correct then I could make appropriate changes, and I think that's a much better
way to go instead of the trial and error method, but we all go through these processes separately.
That again reinforcing those quotes about using science and reason in our belief in
understanding, so here's what the guardian says, you see our whole approach to each matter
is based on the belief that God sends us divinely inspired Educators; what they tell us is fundamentally
true, what science tells us today is true; tomorrow may be entirely changed to better
explain a new set of facts.
That's one of the beauties of science even though there
are science people that get entrenched in dogmatic views of things like there is only
a physical explanation of reality there's not a supernatural or metaphysical intervention
in the process, but you know science is starting to come around, science, John brings up in
his introduction, he talks about science, that you cannot influence things from a distant,
like saying prayers to help someone heal, and now there's a lot of scientific studies
that come out that this in fact is a reality, that people are saying prayers for people
that are sick and changing their lives, so there's an effect of physical things from
a distance, and so science once they gather these facts from their systematic study will
have to rethink and revisit these concepts of is there a supernatural metaphysical influence
in the world of course Baha'is accept that there is. Abdu'l-Baha says, Why would all
these great teachers of the world come into the world and bare all of these cruelties
and horrific things, put up on the cross and killed, shot by a squad of 750 riflemen, have
every indignity heaped upon them, be imprisoned for forty years of your ministry under the
most horrible circumstances and so on, unless they had this vision of the spiritual reality
which we're trying to just get a glimmer of and then act these wonderful things out in
our lives. Out of all of the realities of Existence, this is Abdu'l-Baha again he has
chosen the reality of man and has honored it with the intellect and wisdom, the two
most luminous lights in either world. When we say either world we say this level of existence
or the life to come, the spiritual dimension, and then here's the bird analogy again.
Knowledge
is a wings to man's life, and a ladder for his accent, God has made religion and science
to be the measure, as it were, of our understanding. Take heed that you neglect not such a wonderful
power. Weigh all things in this balance. The source of crafts, sciences and arts is the
power of reflection.
Baha'is are required to pray and meditate everyday, that's an obligation,
that's imposed upon us, but its really not an imposition at all. Baha'u'llah has revealed
these incredible prayers, that you can read through, you can ask for forgiveness, you
can ask for aid and assistance, you can ask for the development of your loved ones that
have passed onto the next world for their spiritual progress and so on and we're also
required to mediate and in Baha'i there's not a specific form of meditation that is
endorsed. So we have to find our own little technique, to mediate, basically you're quiet
and you quiet the thoughts of your mind. Science tells us that we think about 60 to 80,000
thoughts a day.
Its hard to get that raging river of thoughts to calm down, so we can
be reflective and be quiet, and there's different techniques to give you that ability to focus.
But meditation as one Baha'i author suggested, was that it opens us up to this great spiritual
warehouse, that can reflect, back on the mirror of our heart and we can solve problems we
can see our way in the world to set goals and do things in our lives that we wouldn't
be able to accomplish, so meditation is a very key part of the Baha'i experience, that
we're all at varying degrees of cultivating in our lives. This is Baha'u'llah, look at
the world and ponder a while upon it...It will acquaint thee with that which is within
it and upon it and will give thee such clear explanations as to make thee independent of
every eloquent expounder. All physical reality reflects one of these spiritual attributes
of God. Man has a potential for all of them, but we can see God in it, during it, and after
it.
Baha'u'llah says there is a sign (from God) in every phenomenon: the sign of the
intellect is contemplation and the sign of contemplation is silence, because it is impossible
for a man to do two things at one time - he cannot both speak and mediate. So Baha'u'llah
says that we should observe silence, and that has all kinds of profound implications. Like
we should just zip our lips, and here I am, running my mouth. But I'm supposed to.
Our
spiritual reality, the spirit of man is circumambient power that encompasseth the realities of all
things. We have these potentialities within us, that we each need to explore. I'm going
through these things kinda of quickly and touching on them just a little bit this book
is great this compilation incredible and you just go through one of these little sections
like the acquisition of science and it just opens this whole vista of ideas and thoughts
for to explore and try to understand and Baha'u'llah says that the reading of scripture is for
no other purpose but to promote an understanding, we should be reading these things to try and
understand who we are, what is Baha'u'llah trying to tell us, what's God's purpose in
our lives, and then act it out in appropriate ways. We all know how we can immediately extinguish
our spiritual life, if we just want to kill ourself spiritually we know what to do right?
Baha'u'llah says that Backbiting extinguishes the life of the soul.
So he tells us things,
of what to avoid if we want to have a spiritual life, and have a meaningful relationship with
our creator, he also tells us a whole load of things that we can do, to maximize our
spiritual development and evolution, so ever since I was a little boy I had more than a
few near death experiences when I was little, being very tragically ill, i saw a young man
shot and killed in my living room, when I. Was a little boy, and all kinds of horrible
things like this, so that's really bent me in a way to have this very meaningful vision
of this life to come, right. That there's something more than the craziness that's going
on in the world. Baha'u'llah says that we, that everything in the world is created for
us, and for our benefit as long as we don't let those things interfere with our relationship
with our creator, so we can be the riches person on the planet, we can be the poorest
person on the planet, we still have this opportunity to activate these spiritual understandings
and develop this relationship with our Creator.
The potential upside to that is I've always
wanted to be a Baha'i, and I hope that is still my life long goal, to be a Baha'i, and
you know you become a Baha'i its an ongoing process. You don't just get it and your in,
even though there are suggestions that that might be the case, Baha'u'llah says if you
believe in God and his messengers but you don't any righteous deed in your life, because
of this belief perchance, perchance maybe God will set aside all of your wrong-doings.
So even if I'm just a horrible baha'i, I'm just terrible, but I've accepted Baha'u'llah,
or I've accepted Muhammad, or Christ or so on. There's still hope for me, which is really,
really wonderful in terms of that, but we also know that, if faith is first conscious
knowledge, the scientific approach to faith and then an abundance of deeds. So I've always
thought that if we're in this womb of humanness, i'm in this process of developing spiritually
like the baby growing in the womb of the mother.
I want to develop my fingers and arms, and
legs, I want to develop these spiritual, capacities, then maybe when I leave this world, when I
disassociate from this body when the horse dies and I'm the rider and I walk off into
eternity, or the cage breaks and the bird flies free, then maybe instead of having to
be cradled and babied in the life to come, that I might be able to hit it on the run.
And be of service in some meaningful way throughout all the worlds of God. And it's a very Powerful
vision for me..
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