Idol Chatter

Today — the 9th day of the 9th month of the 9th year of the New Millennium — must be a very special day. Any world cataclysms on the agenda?

Just curious. I don’t want to give anybody any ideas.

One day — maybe today — the people of the world will tire of the impotence of the established system that runs the world. It is inevitable. The state of world economies and politics will deteriorate, and the world will descend into a great catastrophe; perhaps a war or a worldwide economic collapse, forcing the people of the world to recognize the intrinsic superiority of God’s Administrative Order, and suddenly reject the world establishment and turn to us.

This revolutionary, utopian vision is the outlook that I inherited as a Baha’i child. It sounds remarkably similar to a Marxist outlook, only it adds God to the formula. We called this the day of “entry by troops.” The “troops” are the Bahá’í equivalent of the “workers of the world.”

A year ago, an international financial crisis caused the leadership of the Bahá’í Administrative Order to prepare for the long-anticipated catastrophe and call for great conferences around the world to prepare Baha’i communities for entry by troops. When I was a kid, I would have been surprised to find that it would take the world so long to recognize the superiority of our World Order. We expected something very big to happen by the year 2000, and probably well before that. Since then, The Bahá’í eschatological schedule has slipped, insurance policies extended, and mortgages refinanced, but the general outlook hasn’t changed. Some appear to expect something big to happen in the year 2012.

The Master, praying for patience as an American follower tries to get his brown nose into the shot.

After all, that would be exactly 100 years since “the Master” came to America, and you know what the Mayans say about 2012.

But why wait till 12/12/12 when we can have the party on 9/9/9?

The Bahá’í “Administrative Order” is perhaps the single most distinguishing aspect of the Bahá’í Faith. It is a very bureaucratic religion, and it emphasizes unity above all, not permitting the slightest bit of factionalism. This aspect of the Administrative Order is described succinctly by the following passage from scripture:

The Administrative Order is the embodiment of the unity of God, unity incompatible with the existence of factions.

— The Master

Actually, I doctored that citation a little. The original passage reads as follows:

The Party [is] the embodiment of unity of will, unity incompatible with the existence of factions.

— The Monster (Joseph Stalin)

The Bahá’í Adminsitrative Order even has multi-year plans, you know, like the plans Stalin adored so much!

Anyway, it’s all about unity. And bureaucracy. Put them together an you have “the Party,” or as Bahá’ís say, “the Cause.” As I recently pointed out, the Bahá’í Faith is so bureaucratic, what they call “feasts” are actually committee meetings.

It being crucial that Bahá’ís know exactly what words to use when approached by the “troops”, a massive re-education program — code-named RUHI — has been initiated, and has been proceeding for 13 years now, in anticipation of that great day, expected sometime in the next dozen years. It is known to be a very simple program, tuned to focus on basic talking points of administrative doctrine.

I have lots more to say on this, but I need to post before civilization implodes. Now, where’d I put those boots?

With the great Iranian harvest festival approaching, I’ve got food on my mind.

Okay. I often have food on my mind.

But I’m not alone. Zoroastrians are religious about food, and who can blame them? There are, by name at least, seventeen feast days on the Zoroastrian calendar. Eight of these feasts are observed religiously. Imagine having eight Thanksgivings throughout the year!

A Tajik No Rooz feast

And no, they don’t fast.

After the harvest feast of September comes Mehregan, a particularly significant feast. It is also a harvest feast, by virtue of its placement on the second day of October. It is the Feast of Mehr, or Mithra. Mehr represents two things in the Iranian mind: ethically, faithfulness to contracts, and symbolically, the sun. Thinking of the crucial role the sun plays in the harvest, and thinking of agriculture as a crucial contract with the earth, one can easily see that Mehr is as good a celestial power as any to be recognized at the onset of Autumn.

Not to suggest that there aren’t other good times to throw a feast. The ancient Iranians also had a Spring feast, a feast for the rains, a Summer feast, a round-up feast (yes, like the cowboys have), a Winter fire feast, and an “All Souls Feast” at the year’s end.

Each Zoroastrian congregation celebrated these festivals by attending religious services early in the day, devoted always to Ahura Mazda, and then by gathering in joyful assemblies, with feasts at which food was eaten communally which had been blessed at the services. Rich and poor met together on these occasions, which were times of general goodwill, when quarrels were made up and friendships renewed and strengthened.

Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians

As I have mentioned more than once before, I was raised in an Iranian religion that has little regard for its pre-Islamic Iranian heritage. I never heard of these feasts as a Bahá’í. If my family had a feast day, that was Thanksgiving. I really liked Thanksgiving. Turkey Day was right up there with Halloween and Independence Day. Thanksgiving was one of those Western holidays that we were free to observe because of its lack of any strong ties to Christianity. It would have been a slippery slope. It seems harmless enough to have a Christmas dinner, but next thing you know you’re fasting for Ramadan. You have to nip these things in the bud!

I attended my first Zoroastrian New Year’s (No Rooz) celebration last Spring, and I’ve been meaning to write something down about what a pleasant experience it was. I went to the fire temple first, with no real intention of joining the festivities in the community hall. I enjoy the fire temple, and I’d go much more often if it were in a more convenient location. It’s a quiet, casual experience. One is expected to remove one’s shoes and wear a cap, but that’s not much to ask. I wouldn’t be comfortable tracking dirt in there anyway, and though the cap is a bit formal for my general liking, it gives me a comfortable sense of—how should I put it—spiritual discipline.

As for the festivities, well, I’m hesitant to jump into the fray with a lot of Iranian strangers (and thus they’ve remained strangers over the years), but once invited, I generally enjoy myself. And what’s not to like? Good food, song, dance, and conversation.

Someone’s bound to point out that Bahá’ís do have observances which they call “feasts”. The Bahá’í Calendar features nineteen meetings which they call “Nineteen Day Feasts.” These Bahá’í “feasts” may have been originally inspired by Iranian culture, but they have little in common with Zoroastrian feasts, or any other traditional feast, for that matter: Bahá’í “feasts” are not really feasts at all.

The 19-day Feast is administrative in function …

Shoghi Effendi, Directives from the Guardian

The Bahá’í feast is primarily an administrative event. It does generally include food in its “social portion” as any good committee meeting would, but the meeting is generally a rather exclusive affair, being limited to Bahá’ís who have not lost their administrative rights, hence these Bahá’í feasts tend to exclude non-Bahá’ís and Bahá’ís without said administrative rights.

The Zoroastrian feasts are quite literally feasts; traditionally an opportunity for the fortunate to share the bounty of their good fortune with the less fortunate. The Bahá’í feast, though it generally involves food, is more often described as a feast of spiritual sustenance — in a distinctively administrative sense so characteristic of Bahá’í practice.

Further Reading

John Walbridge, The Nineteen Day Feast

The Heritage Institute: Gahambar

As a child in a Bahá’í family, I was taught that there have been a number of great Messengers of God such as Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. One of the most ancient, and certainly the most unfamiliar, was the Iranian prophet Zoroaster. We Bahá’í youth were told that Zoroaster was as divine as Jesus himself, but in spite of the fact that the Bahá’í Faith is an Iranian religion and Zoroaster has been known throughout the millennia as “the Persian Prophet”, the Bahá’í Faith has very little to say about Zoroaster. I was curious about this ancient, most mysterious of prophets. I remember digging through libraries for information on him, but my resources were limited, so that treasure hunt didn’t last long.

Within a few years I had abandoned theism after realizing the basic immorality of it. Theism is worship of a God or gods that are capable of acting in response to worship or failure to worship. When I figured out that this is essentially arrogant, self-serving power worship, I cast it aside. The only theism that I could abide was that of Ahab:

I now know that thy right worship is defiance

—”Moby Dick,” Herman Melville

Saviors or Space Invaders?

About 15 years later, that curiosity regarding Zoroaster was revived by a new book about Zoroaster by Paul Kriwaczek. Up to that point, I had understood that Nietzsche’s manifesto, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” was not actually about Zarathustra, but upon reading Nietzsche, I realized that it’s not quite that simple. Nietzsche had selected Zarathustra for a couple of reasons, his primary reason being Zarathustra’s singular place in human history as the prophet of morality. I liked what I read about this ancient, prehistoric icon. Make no mistake, this was not a prophet “born in the full light of history”, but his story was a good one, and isn’t that what matters? The factuality of a story need not have any bearing on the virtue, or usefulness, of that story.

Here was a prophet who essentially rebelled against the gods, but unlike Moses and Muhammad, he did not reject the gods on the behalf of a “One True God”, rather, he rejected the gods for the sake of goodness. He rebelled against the worship of power, and replaced it with worship of the good.

Zoroastrianism is fundamentally about right and wrong; good and bad; good and evil. Where gods had previously been revered as celestial powers, they now had to pass the Zoroastrian test of being “worthy of worship”. It was no longer good enough to be a god. A god had to have the best interests of the world in mind, or that god would be opposed.

The drama of Zoroaster is close to my heart. Over the years I’ve grown sick of the myriad excuses theists make for evil. It is just as though they were Satan’s attorneys, defending their Dark Lord in court, or creating verses for “Sympathy for the Devil” too cynical for Mick Jagger to imagine.

I found it quite refreshing to find a religion that is willing to call a spade a spade.

Zarathushtra stigmatizes evil as evil. The existence of so much evil in the world lies heavy on the heart of man. Evil is a challenge, and Zarathushtra accepts it. He does not palliate evil. It is not, he teaches, the passive negation of good. It is the active enemy of good. It is not complementary to good, nor is it good in the making. It is not evil only in name. Evil is just evil, nothing more nor less. It is the fundamental fact of life, and haunts us like our shadows which we cannot evade. Illusion does not cause evil; it exists in the realm of reality. It is the most disagreeable fact in Ahura Mazda’s universe, and the prophet of Iran looks it in the face. It is futile to speak of things as better than they actually are. Bad things of life do not lose their badness by giving them good names.

—M.N. Dhalla, History of Zoroastrianism

As Nietzsche pointed out, here at last was a truth-telling prophet; a prophet prepared to speak truth to power even though that power is a celestial power. This reason, above all, was the reason why Nietzsche chose Zarathustra as the man who would have the courage to pronounce the death of God.

Zoroastrianism, on the whole, is certainly a religion full of dogmatism and superstition, but we need not see Zarathustra a dogmatist, particularly with regard to delineating good and evil. As Nietzsche’s Zarathustra points out, it is futile to attempt to identify any one thing as thoroughly good or evil, but it is not the point of Zoroaster to classify things as good or evil; rather, it is the point of Zoroaster to recognize and oppose evil wherever it appears. Plutarch, an outspoken moral dualist, saw everything in the world as a mix of good and evil, and cited Zoroastrian tradition in making his case:

Twenty-four other gods he [the Good God] created and placed in an egg. But those created by Areimanius [the Evil God], who were equal in number to the others, pierced through the egg and made their way inside; hence evils are now combined with good.

—Plutarch, “Isis & Osiris,” XLVII (from the Moralia)

Is this what the “real” Zoroaster actually preached? No question could be less pertinent. A good idea is a good idea regardless of its origin, and a bad idea doesn’t become good just because it comes from a superhuman being. Gods are like space invaders and conquistadors: we’re all in awe of their technology, but how do we know we can trust them?

It seems much wiser to cease all this forfeiture of reason and conscience to heavenly masters, and join one of my fellow Zoroastrians-in-spirit in swearing our allegiance to this simple creed:

To do good is my religion.

—Thomas Paine, “The Age of Reason”

… or as Zoroaster is said to have summed things up:

Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.

This is a continuation of the What’s Wrong With Islám thread. I’m not satisfied with where I left it.

I have more than once voiced the opinion that Islám can only move forward by disposing of its idols. This, I believe, can be done by Muslims without forfeiting their religious heritage. They must simply recognize that no aspect of Islám is unchangeable, perfect, immaculate, or infallible. This recognition can be achieved within the context of Islamic belief: one need only recognize passages in the Qur’án that assert that:

• No one fully understands the Qur’án but God.
• The face of God is in everything.
• Muhammad was only a man, with flaws like any other.

If that’s not enough, there’s the generally agreed-upon point that the Qur’án cannot be understood fully without reference to less immaculate source materials such as Hadith and histories.

Based upon this, Islám can be permitted to adapt and grow, and not merely continue as a contest between moderates and fundamentalists. If Islám could be inspired by the idea that no man has a monopoly on truth while retaining its heritage of faith, it could be permitted to rise above its heritage of violence and persecution.

The problem I see with this vision is that, when I read the Qur’án, I see frequent reminders of what made Islám so idolatrous. The Qur’án is saturated with judgmental statements that draw a vast gap between believers and unbelievers. Unbelievers will burn in Hell eternally, and it’s nobody’s fault but their own. This may not mean that Muslims are permitted to mistreat infidels, but it does establish a broad moral distinction between Muslims and non-Muslims. It is not so easy to simply see Islám as iconoclasm, because Islám is all about submission to a specific idol. Its iconoclasm is not fundamental; it is derivative. Muslims, taken as a group, never smashed idols for the sake of some lofty unitarian ideal; rather, they smashed idols for the benefit of their own idols (Alláh, Muhammad, the Qurán, etc.).

We might be able to imagine an Islám that transcends its own idolatrous legacy, but I fear that Islám would need to do more than admit the fallibility of the Qur’án; it would need to renounce the tribalistic, sectarian, violent, judgmental, and idolatrous aspects of the Qur’án. Given this, would I be right to encourage Muslims to follow such a path, when it would be more honest of me to encourage them to simply abandon the superstitions of the past and think for themselves?

I would like to see a day when the ultimate expression of Islamic conviction would be the ritual burning of a single Qur’án. That wouldn’t prevent religious violence or gender discrimination, but it might send a clear message that Islám might just be capable of being self-critical. It would be a start—but I don’t see even that happening. Maybe some minority group of Muslims might come to the fore and give us hope by committing such a criminally noble act. They would be doing so at their own peril, of course.

Here are several of my favorite passages from Bahá’u'lláh’s “Most Holy Book.” I think these passages open a window into the future of Bahá’í fashion.

it is not seemly to let the hair pass beyond the limit of the ears. Thus hath it been decreed by Him Who is the Lord of all worlds.

please read this paragraph. I know your eyes want to gaze at the photo below, but please resist that temptation.

I imagine that Bahá’í hippies will not have long hair like the Founding Fathers of the Bahá’í Faith, or rather if they do, they might use those aboriginal-style ear lobe inserts to extend their ears as far as they desire to grow their hair.

The Look of Rock's Future

… or maybe those long-in-the-back new wave hairdos from the ’80s will be permissible. I remember when the guys in Rush all had their hair cut for Grace Under Pressure. I was so impressed by their kosher fashion that I sent them a copy of The Promise of World Peace! That was a little embarrassing, them looking so extremely anti-homophobic and me being such a pawn, but it hardly diminishes the wisdom of keeping one’s ears clear of overgrowth.

… I mean, unless you’ve got Geddy Lee’s ears. Yikes.

Here’s another window into the future:

God hath decreed, in token of His mercy unto His creatures, that semen is not unclean. Yield thanks unto Him with joy and radiance …

I think the inner significance of this is that Bahá’í Rastafarians of the future might glue their modest dreadlocks with semen, or perhaps when future Bahá’ís need a little mousse, they can come by it in an environmentally responsible manner.

I’m talking about hair mousse, of course.

Finally, here’s one the strikes close to home for yours truly:

Shave not your heads; God hath adorned them with hair, and in this there are signs from the Lord of creation to those who reflect upon the requirements of nature. He, verily, is the God of strength and wisdom.

Geeze. Did he really need to use the word reflect?

Observe that the Lizard Man does not shave his head.

Unfortunately, men of the future will not be able to conceal their bald spots by shaving their heads, so I suppose bald guys will cease reproducing and will go extinct.

It’s a little sad, but all for the betterment of the species, I guess.

What’s wrong with Islám? Is it the ease with which the doctrines of jihad and martyrdom can turn bloody? Is it discrimination against women and homosexuals? Is it the theocratic legacy? These are all serious issues, but I see them as symptoms of a disease called idolatry. The symptoms are not unique to Islám, nor is the disease, but let’s discuss Islám.

Here are the physiological components of the disease, as it has adapted itself to Islám:

1. Arrogance. Islam’s fundamental assertion is that a Muslim is one who has identified the Lord of Creation. It just doesn’t get any more arrogant than that.
2. Idolatry. Islam is primarily based upon a book, regarded to be infallible and wholly divine—even uncreated—that declares specific delineations between truth and untruth, and associates virtue with specific practices.
3. Cult of personality.
   1. Muslims generally regard their prophet as perfect, and even those who claim to think he was a mere man seem to think that he could do no wrong. Hence Muslims have created a form of scripture from a vast collection of biographical accounts of their “perfect man.”
   2. Most Muslims regard the first four successors of Muhammad to be “rightly guided.” Shi’a Muslims idolize 14 early Muslims in all as infallible beings. All of these infallible and rightly guided founders of Islam provide a vast body of biographical material by which pious Muslims guide their lives.

But there is hope.

1. If Muslims resist the urge to exalt their God-image over those of others, and abstain from any assertion or implication that they know God best, then they are true monotheists. It seems to me that if any religion can transcend its own idols, Islám ought to be the first. Isn’t Islám all about abandoning idols? Doesn’t this make Islám intrinsically pluralist?
2. The history of Islám attests to the fact that the Qur’án—as it exists today—is not immaculate. The Qur’án was collected and canonized during the third Caliphate. Some manuscripts were favored, and the rest were destroyed. This only regards the consonants. The vowel markings were not added till even later.
3. The Qur’án itself asserts that only God can fully understand the Qur’án, and also asserts that the face of God can be seen in every direction. Why then be so self-assured about the will and identity of God?
4. The Qur’án itself attests to the fallibility of the prophet Muhammad. His every act need not be an example for Muslims. The same goes for his rightly-guided and infallible successors.

There’s an ancient tradition in Iran of regarding some things as “ritually” unclean. Any exposure to such things can cause spiritual illness, and requires that the exposed be ritually purified. If this sounds exotic, just think of baptism or crucifixion—two Christian examples of ritual purification. Among the carriers of such contagious impurity is the infidel—the unbeliever. The tradition goes back into Zoroastrian times, and has persisted as a doctrine of Shi’a Islam and the Bahá’í Faith:

Beware! Walk not with the ungodly and seek not fellowship with him, for such companionship turneth the radiance of the heart into infernal fire.

—Bahá’u'lláh, The Persian Hidden Words

Though the Bahá’í Faith doesn’t provide a ritual for cleansing Bahá’ís after exposure to unbelievers, it definitely teaches that exposure to “the ungodly” sickens the soul. The contagion appears to be quite common, though its severity appears to depend on the degree of ungodliness of the “carrier,” being at its worst when acquired from exposure to people that Bahá’ís call “Covenant-breakers.”

Covenant-breakers are the demons of the Bahá’í Faith. I don’t think there’s anything quite like them in any other religion, though they are somewhat reminiscent of the old Zoroastrian demons of death. They are outwardly ordinary people, though it has been claimed that a very unpleasant odor precedes them wherever they go.

In the following passage, Bahá’u'lláh appears to employ the words of his predecessor in warning his followers against becoming infected by these “manifestations of Satan”:

“Protect yourselves with utmost vigilance, lest you be entrapped in the snare of deception and fraud.” This is the advice of the Pen of Destiny. “Therefore, to avoid these people will be the nearest path by which to attain the divine good pleasure; because their breath is infectious, like unto poison. Endeavor to your utmost to protect yourselves, because Satan appears in different robes and appeals to everyone according to each person’s own way, until he becomes like unto him — then he will leave him alone.”
“…If you detect in any man the least perceptible breath of violation, shun him and keep away from him.” Then He says: “Verily, they are manifestations of Satan.”

Bahá’í World Faith, p. 431

Bahá’u'lláh was also reported by his son Abbas to have warned Bahá’ís throughout his writings about these wicked Covenant-breakers, likening their breath to snake venom:

Bahá’u'lláh, in all the Tablets and Epistles, forbade the true and firm friends from associating and meeting the violators of the Covenant of His Holiness, the Báb, saying that no one should go near them because their breath is like the poison of the snake that kills instantly.

`Abdu’l-Bahá, Bahá’í World Faith, p. 430

This is no incidental, secondary doctrine. It is, rather, “one of the greatest and most fundamental principles” of the Bahá’í Faith:

… one of the greatest and most fundamental principles of the Cause of God is to shun and avoid entirely the Covenant-breakers, for they will utterly destroy the Cause of God, exterminate His Law and render of no account all efforts exerted in the past.

`Abdu’l-Bahá, Will and Testament of Abdu’l-Baha, paragraph 38

One fascinating aspect of Covenant breaking is that it is presumed to be passed from parents to children:

children of Covenant-breakers, who have grown up with and still associate with their parents, are probably thoroughly infused with the Covenant-breaking spirit, and the friends must not associate with them until the Hands of the Cause have ascertained that these children have understood the sin of their parents and dissociated themselves from them.

a letter of the Universal House of Justice dated 5 February 1969 to an individual believer

It should be explained that descendants of Covenant-breakers who have not positively repudiated their forebears and sought readmittance to the Cause should be viewed with caution as they may well have received the poison of Covenant-breaking from their parents and would then have to be shunned by the friends.

a memorandum of the Universal House of Justice to the Hands of the Cause in the Holy Land dated 2 December 1971

For more juicy citations, see Non-association with Covenant-breakers, Directives from the Guardian, and What does the term “Covenant-breaking” mean?

Shunning of Covenant-breakers is typically done on an individual level, but Bahá’í institutions have also been seen exhibiting this practice. In a recent dispute between the United States National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) and the Second International Bahá’í Council, the WIPO panel that oversaw the dispute voiced some disapproval over the unwillingness of the conplainant (the NSA) to communicate with the other party:

Complainant did not send a copy of its request directly to Respondent, apparently believing Respondent had a “religious objection” to communicating with it. While the Panel appreciates Complainant’s sensitivity, it did not interpret the statement that Respondent had, consistent with Respondent’s religious beliefs, ignored Complainant’s cease and desist letter, to be an objection to receiving communications. Moreover, the Panel reminds Complainant of Rule 2(h): “Any communication by . . . a Party shall be copied to the other Party, the Panel and the Provider, as the case may be” (emphasis added).

Yes, that’s right. In this context, “wholly” and “holy” are interchangeable.

Think that the Bahá’í Faith teaches harmony between science and religion? Think again!

Your sciences shall not profit you in this day, nor your arts, nor your treasures, nor your glory. Cast them all behind your backs, and set your faces towards the Most Sublime Word…

Bahá’u’lláh, Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, pg. 97-98

Perhaps Bahá’u'lláh’s actual meaning is not as it appears. Need an authoritative interpretation? Here. Have three:

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.

Shoghi Effendi, Arohanui – Letters to New Zealand, pg. 85

Is not faith but another word for implicit obedience, whole-hearted allegiance, uncompromising adherence to that which we believe is the revealed and express will of God, however perplexing it might first appear, however at variance with the shadowy views, the impotent doctrines, the crude theories, the idle imaginings, the fashionable conceptions of a transient and troublous age?

Shoghi Effendi, The New World Order, Bahá’í Administration, pg. 62

The danger Bahá’í scholars must avoid is the distortion of religious truth, almost forcibly at times, to make it conform to understandings and perceptions current in the scientific world. True Bahá’í scholars should guard against this.

Universal House of Justice, From a letter dated 7 June 1983 to an individual believer

Oh, wait. Pardon me. The Universal House of Justice is not given the authority to interpret the holy scriptures. I suppose if they express an opinion, that must mean that no authoritative interpretation is needed because the scriptures are clear on the subject. After all, they would surely never dare overstep the authority granted them by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s Will & Testament. … or is this—legislation?

Think there’s a broad grey area in which believers can excercise their own judgment? Careful now!

In short, the meaning of “He doeth whatsoever He willeth” is that if the Manifestation says something, or gives a command, or performs an action, and believers do not understand its wisdom, they still ought not to oppose it by a single thought, seeking to know why He spoke so, or why He did such a thing. The other souls who are under the shadow of the supreme Manifestations are submissive to the commandments of the Law of God, and are not to deviate as much as a hairsbreadth from it; they must conform their acts and words to the Law of God. If they do deviate from it, they will be held responsible and reproved in the presence of God.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá’, Some Answered Questions, pg. 173

Don’t you dare entertain a doubt, and don’t you dare hesitate!

Were He to decree as lawful the thing which from time immemorial had been forbidden, and forbid that which had, at all times, been regarded as lawful, to none is given the right to question His authority. Whoso will hesitate, though it be for less than a moment, should be regarded as a transgressor.

Bahá’u’llah, The Kitab-i-Aqdas, pg. 77

Take heed lest ye hesitate in recognizing this resplendent Beauty when once He hath appeared in the plenitude of His sovereign might and majesty. He, verily, is the True One, and all else besides Him is as naught before a single one of His servants, and paleth into nothingness when brought face to face with the revelation of His splendours. Hasten, then, to attain the living waters of His grace, and be not of the negligent. As to him who hesitateth, though it be for less than a moment, God shall verily bring his works to naught and return him to the seat of wrath; wretched indeed is the abode of them that tarry!

Bahá’u’lláh, The Summons of the Lord of Hosts, pg. 54

Thanks to Mavaddat Javid for his comprehensive Bahá’í dogmatism compilation.

Hey, a little quid pro quo never hurt nobody. You scratch my back—I’ll scratch yours!

One of the most reliable ways for a Bahá’í to “grow spiritually” is by proselytizing. Bahá’ís call it “teaching.” I remember wondering as a child: what will Bahá’ís do when everyone is a Bahá’í, and there’s nobody left to teach?

O SON OF MAN! Magnify My cause that I may reveal unto thee the mysteries of My greatness and shine upon thee with the light of eternity.

—Bahá’u'lláh, The Arabic Hidden Words

O SON OF BEING! Make mention of Me on My earth, that in My heaven I may remember thee, thus shall Mine eyes and thine be solaced.

—Bahá’u'lláh, The Arabic Hidden Words

Today’s sweet slice of salvation directs us to block all sensory input, wash our brains, empty our wallets, and close our minds so that we may fully and properly adore Bahá’u'lláh, the Promised Idol of All Ages:

Blind thine eyes, that thou mayest behold My beauty; stop thine ears, that thou mayest hearken unto the sweet melody of My voice; empty thyself of all learning, that thou mayest partake of My knowledge; and sanctify thyself from riches, that thou mayest obtain a lasting share from the ocean of My eternal wealth. Blind thine eyes, that is, to all save My beauty; stop thine ears to all save My word; empty thyself of all learning save the knowledge of Me; that with a clear vision, a pure heart and an attentive ear thou mayest enter the court of My holiness.

—Bahá’u'lláh, The Persian Hidden Words