My path: following a spiritual teacher within a worldwide community of practice

Longfellow

Longfellow

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The path that I'm currently following includes following a spiritual teacher within a worldwide community of practice. The teacher that I've chosen is the Baha'i prophet Baha'u'llah, and my community of practice is the community of people recognized as members by the Baha'i Universal House of Justice seated on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel.

For now, what I'm planning to do in this thread is post examples of how I practice, some random thoughts about my teacher and my community, and answers to questions if there are any. Not questions about Baha'i beliefs or the Baha'i Faith in general, but only about my path and my own personal views.
 
This story is from a time when I was experimenting with following Baha'u'llah, before I decided to join the community of practice. I was proud of my capacity to learn from books. I learned a lot about math from books, long before it was covered in my high school classes. When I decided to try following Baha'u'llah, I had the idea that I could learn everything there was to learn from his writings, the same way I learned math and other skills, by reading the text and doing the exercises. I started with "The Hidden Words." The first one says "Possess a pure, kindly and radiant heart ..." so I went to the library to see if I could find a book about how to have a pure heart. That was back when we searched for books by ruffling through index cards in drawers. Actual, physical cards and drawers. That might require a stretch of imagination for people now. Speaking of that, my first experience with computer programming, was writing programs in assembler language and punching them onto cards. Then we would add a card called a "cold start card," with instructions for the computer to read and store all the cards and execute the program.

Back to my story. Searching through the cards for books about how to possess a pure heart, I saw "Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing." That was before I ever heard of Kierkegaard or most other famous philosophers. I don't even have a memory of seeing that name. Even after I read some writings of Kierkegaard, it was many years later that I found out that he wrote that book. I didn't even go looking for the book. The title, all by itself, gave me enough to work with for more than 40 years. It was only some time in the last 10 years that I finally decided to move on to "kindly" and "radiant," not because I've mastered "purity," but because I became more aware of a lack of kindness and radiance in my attitudes and behavior, online and offline.
 
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One of my ways of practicing is to choose a virtue, like I did in the story above, and try to find ways of moving myself more in that direction. I haven't really learned to change my attitudes and behavior as much as I would like to, but I have seen some small progress over many years in the areas where I've tried to improve.
 
Considering how slow my progress is in improving my attitudes and behavior, I started thinking that I could do the world more good by learning to help train children in ways that will help improve the world for future generations. Our children are grown up, but one of them has asked us to give their children lessons for their moral and spiritual training. We make videos for them with activities for them to do. We have some older grandchildren who might start having children in a few more years, so we'll be having discussions with them about training their children when they have them. We have a workbook that we're using to help us think about what to do and how, in mentoring our grandchildren and their children, and to help us practice. Even though I don't think that I can improve myself enought to do the world much good, I'm thinking that the children will learn much better to continually improve themselves all their lives, if they see me trying to do it.
 
I've seen some discussions about the political ambitions of Baha'is, and the Baha'i Faith possibly aiming for a worldwide Baha'i theocracy, so I decided to post some random thoughts here from my own personal views about that. First, in my understanding, part of what the Baha'i Community is aiming for is for the laws of Baha'u'llah to be followed by all people everywhere, some day. When I say "Baha'i Community" in my posts, I mean my community of practice which I defined in the first post in this thread. I've read that some influential Bahai'is in the past promoted the idea that some day the local, national and international councils of the Baha'i Faith will become the governments of the world, but I don't think that idea is popular any more in the Baha'i Community if it ever was, and I haven't seen any Baha'i institutions promoting it. My own personal view is that some day the laws of all the world will include all the laws of Baha'u'llah, but it won't happen by majorities of people becoming members of the Baha'i Community, and it won't happen from any political or economic influence that the Baha'i Community will ever have. I'm thinking that maybe it will happen by more and more people seeing the wisdom in the laws of Baha'u'llah, whether they are members of the Baha'i Community or not.

Sometimes I've seen Baha'is responding to people's concerns by talking about our teachings against involvement in partisan politics, and saying that even if a majority of people became Baha'is they would not discriminate against anyone because that would be against our teachings. :rolleyes: None of that looks very convincing to me. Even at this early stage, I have seen Baha'is trying to use what little influence they have in organized campaigns to stir up alarm and anger against the Iranian government in all of society all around the world, to try to intimidate it into changing its policies and practices towards Baha'is, while steadfastly refusing to participate in any campaigns to change oppressive policies and practices of any governments towards any other people.

I don't think that there is really any danger of Baha'is taking over the world, or even any country, and ruling it in oppressive ways, any time in the next 6 or 8 centuries, but I'll need to think about it some more to see if I can find some good reasons for saying that. :D
 
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Longfellow said:
One of my ways of practicing is to choose a virtue, like I did in the story above, and try to find ways of moving myself more in that direction. I haven't really learned to change my attitudes and behavior as much as I would like to, but I have seen some small progress over many years in the areas where I've tried to improve.
Click to expand...

What are the hindrances you found when trying to become more pure, kindly, or radiant?
 
Cino said:
What are the hindrances you found when trying to become more pure, kindly, or radiant?
Click to expand...

One problem is trying to understand what it means, well enough to have some ideas about how to practice it. Another is finding ways to practice, that will actually change my attitudes and behavior. Another is just doing it. That's actually the biggest problem for me. Even when I have ideas about how to improve my attitudes and behavior, I keep putting it off, because there are always more fun things to do, when I'm not busy with the necessities of life. :D

(later) "Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?" :D

Hmm ... That gives me an idea for an improvement to work on in my attitudes and behavior ... if I ever get around to it. :D
 
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yeah, procrastination is a thing.

How are you dealing with it?
 
I’m thinking now of making it part of my daily routine to consider how well I’ve done in some areas that Ive chosen for improvement, and how I might do better tomorrow. I might try using a mind map system that my son has been using for himself and with his children.

Maybe starting tomorrow, or next week, after … :D
 
The challenge is real, yes.

Does your religion have any on-board tools? Does it just supply the ideal to aspire to, and you are on your own to bring it about? How is this ideal embedded within your religion, what role does it play with respect to other aspects?
 
My spiritual teacher is not living now. All I have is his writings and the interpretations of two others that I’m trusting for that. I can search for answers to questions if I can find the right search words. Often I can remember words that I’ve read. For example, just now my idea for reviewing my progress every day came from remembering my teacher’s words “Bring thyself to account each day …”

The community of practice has a framework for action for learning and working with neighbors on improving the community life for everyone in the neighborhood. I use that to think of ways of practicing what I’m learning from my teacher.

The community has also developed service learning workshops for developing qualities and capacities for community service, and I have participated in those. Something like work/study classes in universities.
 
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It’s hard for me to describe my path because I don’t have any organized, systematic way of following it, and most of the time I’m not even following it at all, either busy with the necessities of life or just entertaining myself.

Currently, in my mind I’m putting it all under three headings:
- Helping to train children in ways that will help improve the world for future generations.
- Learning to be a safe, easy, fun and helpful person to talk to, for all kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances.
- Helping with the growth and spread of healthier, happier and more loving communities, in neighborhoods and villages all around the world.

Mostly the way I’m using my spiritual teacher now is searching in his writings sometimes for answers to some questions and for ideas about what I’m learning to do; and to better understand his purposes and prescriptions. Sometimes when there’s a new collection of his writings, I’ll read it all the way through.

The way I’m using my community of practice is by trying to find ways to practice every part of its framework for action for learning and working with neighbors on improving the community life for everyone in the neighborhood. That includes participating in the service-learning workshops, finding ways of practicing community service in my neighborhood, spending time with other people, and working on improving my attitudes and behavior. Also of course, conversations with others in the community sharing ideas and experiences.
 
The three headings you listed are worthy goals. They are also very general, anyone could pursue them without being a member of your religion. Or, to put it the other way around, in what way does the pursuit of these goals mean you are a member of your religion, and not, say, an atheist? What's the unique Baha'i angle? Or to put it yet another way, in what way do you feel called to do these things, that you were not, prior to your adoption of the Baha'i faith (presuming there was such a time)?
 
I've thought some more about possible reasons for thinking that there is no danger of Baha'is coming to power in any country and oppressing people. All I can think of is that if and when Baha'is come to power in some country, people's attitudes and behavior in all of society will have improved enough that no government in the world will be oppressing people, no matter who is in power, even if it's Baha'is. :D At least, not oppressing people as much as most or all of them are now. For example, part of what makes the oppression, and ravaging of the earth, possible is multitudes of people selling their capacities to the highest bidder, regardless of how their capacities are being used, and I'm thinking that some time in the next few centuries people will learn to know more, and care more about how all people everywhere, and all of nature, are affected by what they do. That's just one example of the kind of progress that I'm imagining for the future, that will reduce the amount of cruelty, violence and oppression in the world some day.
 
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