A couple of posts on my friend Rob Weinberg’s excellent new blog, Where the World’s Going, give us fascinating Bahá’í perspectives on:

Whatever

Truth, Fallibility and Consultation

Go, read, I urge you. You’ll enjoy the output of a lively spiritual sensibility.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Rob Weinberg, truth, fallibility, consultation

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The Shrine of the Báb on Mount Carmel, Haifa, Israel

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has today added two Bahá’í shrines to the list of World Heritage sites. The resting places of the twin Founders of the Bahá’í Faith - the Báb and Bahá’u'lláh - are the first sites connected with a modern religious tradition to be added to this prestigious list. They join famous World Heritage sites like the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Vatican, and Stonehenge.

Dr Albert Lincoln, secretary-general of the Bahá’í International Community, expressed the community’s pleasure at the decision:

We welcome the UNESCO recognition, which highlights the importance of the holy places of a religion that in 150 years has gone from a small group found only in the Middle East to a worldwide community with followers in virtually every country.

The Bahá’í community is particularly grateful to the government of Israel for putting forward this nomination.

You can read more about this in the story on the Baha’i World News Service. And it’s well worth reading this longer, more reflective piece, “People can sense the presence of God”, about the significance of these shrines and the whole Bahá’í World Centre.

Bahá’ís long to have the opportunity to visit or, even better, to make their pilgrimage to these stunning buildings and gardens. I have been fortunate to be able to visit regularly and I am awed by them every time I go.

Significance of this UNESCO inscription

This is an exciting development, one that I know has been under consideration for quite some time. As fellow Baha’i blogger Marco Oliveira has pointed out:

I believe it is important to that this inscription is VERY significant. Iran is a signatory of the UNESCO world heritage list, next time they destroy a Baha’i holy place in Iran we can put more pressure on them as with the Shrines being inscribed its a recognition that the Baha’i Faith’s figures and history are of “outstanding universal value” and of importance to humanity.

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Baha’i World Centre, Bab, Baha’u'llah, UNESCO, World Heritage Site, Israel

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Heavy evening traffic slows our progress towards New Southgate and the grave of Shoghi Effendi. By 8.20 p.m., when the three of us in the Secretary’s car arrive outside the green custodian’s hut, the other six have already gathered in the enclosure around the familiar eagle-topped marble column.

This is the time for prayers in this special place that the National Spiritual Assembly (the national governing council of the UK Bahá’í community) had long promised itself.

There’s a certain attitude, a certain posture, that Bahá’ís adopt as they pass between the overhanging pines and wrought iron gates that open into the outer, brick-walled court of this holy place. They pace slowly with slightly lowered head and hands clasped in front of them along the red gravel path until they reach the two steps that lead through the opening in the stone balustrade surrounding the monument itself.

And then they raise their eyes to the gilded eagle with partly opened wings that perches on the stone globe at the top of the column.

Shoghi Effendi

That eagle symbolizes Shoghi Effendi, Guardian of the Bahá’í Faith from 1921, when he was in his 20s and a student at Balliol College, Oxford, until he died prematurely at the age of 60 during a trip to London. A man who wrote books setting out his vision of a future world civilization built on unity and justice, a man who laid out gardens and oversaw the building of great edifices, a man who wrote letters of encouragement to the small but growing Bahá’í community around the world, a man who guided the Bahá’ís through the early stages of building the administrative institutions ordained by Bahá’u'lláh and by Shoghi Effendi’s grandfather, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghi Effendi was a man of extraordinary achievements. Sadly those achievements are as yet little known to the world outside the Bahá’í community.

A posture of reverence

The posture of reverence that Bahá’ís adopt when they approach this place of prayer is not required, it is not a ritual, it is not set down in any text. It is a response of the spirit to the power of the place and the knowledge of the extraordinary responsibility laid on Shoghi Effendi by his Grandfather’s Will and Testament while Shoghi Effendi was still a child and which remained unknown until the Will was read after ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s death in 1921.

So there we nine stand on the white gravel of the inner court, as the twilight deepens, facing the column. A breeze rattles the leaves of the tall trees that grow nearby. There’s a hint of rain in the air.

Prayer list

The Secretary clears his throat and begins to read out our list of the sick, the departed, those who have achieved something special, those who are suffering, the Bahá’ís in Iran, those who have particularly asked for the National Assembly’s prayers. As he reads, the distant sound of the trains rushing through New Southgate station on the Great Northern line floats up the hill, but does not penetrate the prayerful peace surrounding us.

The Secretary comes to the end of the list and falls silent. One of the other members clears her throat and recites a prayer. One by one, along the line, each in turn reads a favourite prayer or a prayer that seems particularly appropriate as we remember the triumphs and the suffering, the victories and the crises, as we express our love for our friends, for the Bahá’ís, for suffering humanity.

Transcendence

These prayers connect us to God. And they connect us to Shoghi Effendi, whose forebears, the Báb, Bahá’u'lláh and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, revealed them in matchless language to give expression to the deepest yearnings of our hearts.

I love to pray outside. When I pray outside I feel a connection not only to God but also to the natural world, which in itself is one of the books of God. But praying as night falls in this particular spot, so holy for Bahá’ís across the world, opens a unique door to transcendence.

The last prayer read, we remain silent for a time. Someone shifts his feet on the gravel. Someone coughs. And then we begin to move, to tear ourselves from this place that so strongly links us to the divine world. We reverse down the steps from the inner court, along the red gravel and back to the wrought iron gates. This walking backwards marks the kind of respect subjects give to a king, in our case a servant king who always signed his letters to the Bahá’ís “Your true brother”, or “Your co-worker”.

But more than that, we can scarcely bear to leave this place and to return to our responsibilities in the quotidian world.

Photo: © Brenton Edwards

Technorati Tags: Baha’i, Bahai, Shoghi Effendi, holy place, prayer, spirituality

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