Hi, my name is Rainn Wilson and here's an
animated introduction to the Baha'i Faith that I put together with the help
of some friends. So I'm going to be trying to give you a general overview of the Baha'i Faith and it does bear noting that there are no clergy in the Baha'i
Faith so I'm just a regular Baha'i just like all of the other regular Baha'is on
the planet and I have my own perspective my own way of seeing the world and
interpreting the Baha'i holy writings. There are no Rabbis or Priests or Gurus
or Mullahs in the Baha'i Faith. No intermediaries between the common
worshiper or devotee and the holy writings or God. That is to say that this
little exploration in no way should be viewed as definitive or official in any
way. Just one guy's perspective on what his faith is about. I want to start off
by talking about the word 'cosmology' literally the word means the study of
the cosmos 'loggia' plus 'universe' or 'cosmos' something like that but I'm using
the word as it relates to an overarching worldview. Taking a look at a belief
system from a 20,000 foot perspective. So, before we get to the cosmology of the
Baha'i Faith, let's take a quick look at some of the other ones.
What is the cosmology of atheism for instance. Probably some words and
thoughts come immediately to mind like science and evolution, the Big Bang. So,
the Atheist universal belief system or cosmology in broad strokes is that there
was a big empty space and then there was some kind of explosion from a tiny speck
and within seconds, atoms erupted and formed into molecules and elements and
all of this energy and matter burst forth from this primal point eventually
becoming galaxies and solar systems and planets like ours. Energy, matter plus
apparently dark matter and dark energy and time itself were all created in one
random explosion over 13 billion years ago. So, our watery, mudball earth was spinning around our Sun for a few billion years
and then something happened, I don't know, maybe a lightning bolt hit an ocean or a
meteorite fell in and created the first tiny specks of molecular life.
The specs eventually became guppies which eventually became tadpoles and
eventually crawled on land and became pterodactyls and marmosets and bunnies
and apes and then human beings. Voila! Evolution! Science is then the driving
force behind the universe which has no underlying or objective meaning
according to an atheist or a materialist. The consciousness that we are
experiencing right now is simply a result of our highly evolved and very
large brains. There's not any real difference between us and monkeys. We
just have larger brains that have evolved into being able to know that we
will someday die. Brains that can create beautiful works of art, fall in love. Our
highly evolved consciousness is simply a matter of more evolved gray matter. The
only meaning we find in life is purely subjective and personal. If our work
gives us meaning or our family or children or hobbies or nature, great go
for that thing. There's no supernatural creator 'God' as his existence can't be
scientifically verified and therefore there's no objective moral truth. Now
let's think about what a Christian cosmology might look like. Forgive me for
being reductive or simplistic with either of these belief systems, but in a
nutshell there were a number of Jewish prophets every few hundred years in and
around Judea and Palestine and then all of a sudden God sent His only begotten
Son. Jesus Christ was born of the virgin birth, was baptized, saw the Holy Spirit
manifested in a dove and preached the gospel, performed many miracles and
eventually was put to death. The only way to the father is through him and he died
for our sins on the cross and then was resurrected three days later and went
back up to be with his father. Someday he will return and take true believers with
him and or rebuild the kingdom of God on earth. The Christian universe view holds
that salvation of one's immortal soul comes from believing in Christ, being
baptized and that good Christians eventually go to heaven and that most
others go to hell. Now, there's a lot more to Christianity than that, just as
there's more to atheism than what I previously described but it gives you a
wide angle lens view of what they believe.
Now, let's take a look at the Baha'i cosmology. I'll start with one word, one
name: Baha'u'llah. Baha'is follow the teachings of Baha'u'llah who was the founder of the Baha'i Faith. He lived not long ago actually, in the mid 1800s and was a
Persian nobleman who turned away from his high status position and instead
became a great spiritual teacher. The name Baha'u'llah means the glory of God.
In Arabic 'Baha' is glory and 'Allah' is God of course. It's those two words kind of
mashed up together and this is what Baha'u'llah taught: Baha'is believe
there is only one God call him or her or it whatever you like: Allah, Jehovah, Gaia
the Great Spirit but all people who worship are praying to the same God. An
all-loving, all-knowing, creative force in us and around us as well as in an
infinite amount of other universes beyond this material one. So, point number
one, there is only one God. This is the first key aspect of the Baha'i cosmology:
one God. Remember that. The next aspect is: that there is only one religion, that's
right, but Baha'u'llah taught that, there is in actuality, only one religion. Now, you
might say 'hey that sounds crazy there's dozens of religions and they all believe
in hundreds of very different things how can that be?'
Well, Baha'u'llah taught that there is only one faith ever unfolding as revealed by
that one God that I previously mentioned. This one faith is gradually revealed and
updated by certain divine teachers who come along every 500 or
1000 years or so. You've heard of many of them before. Holy men or prophets or messengers, they go by the names of Abraham, Zoroaster, Krishna, Moses, the Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. The forerunner of the
Baha'i Faith the Bab and now Baha'u'llah. Think of it this way, you have a computer
that gets various updates to its operating system, right? You've got Cougar
and then Leopard and the Mountain Tiger and Mountain Leopard 3.5
etc. They all build on one another. When you get a new operating system it's an
update to what was there previously. Same with
iPhones you had the 3 and then the 3s and the 5s and now the 7
or 8 or whatever phone is next. Well, it's the same thing with religion. Just
as humanity needs to progress materially, socially and technologically, we as a
species need to progress spiritually as well. God takes care of this by sending
his specially appointed messengers and teachers to update his message or his
operating system. Baha'is call this idea of a gradually unfolding faith of
God 'progressive revelation.' Baha'u'llah calls this one faith that is
progressively revealed the "changeless faith of God" eternal in the past, eternal
in the future. And eventually a long time from now this Creator will send more
holy teachers for humanity's spiritual guidance. Now it'd be easy to look at the
differences in the various religious faiths that these men founded. There are
certainly a great deal of differences between say Islam and Buddhism but if
you really look at what the prophets themselves taught, what they specifically
said, or what they were supposed to have said. Remember, people usually didn't
write down what they were saying for hundreds of years after they died. There
are way more similarities than differences. What are some of these
universal truths taught by these divine manifestations of God? Well, how about the idea that we should all love one another? That's pretty universal through all
religions. All you need is love, the golden rule exists in some form in
literally every major world religion. What about the idea that there is a
reality greater than our merely physical life? That there is some kind of
afterlife, that our reality is not that we are just bodies in three-dimensional
space but that we have a soul or spirit that continues on its journey after the
lease on our meat suits runs out, that this material world is kind of an
illusion and that there is a deeper reality above, beyond and behind this
physical veil. This goes hand-in-hand with the concept that we have dual
natures. Although the physical world has its importance, the pursuits of selfish
animal, sensual or ego focused desires and fulfillments of our baser needs are
pointless and will not ultimately make us happy. But, if we pursue spiritual
service to others and goodly deeds and compassionate acts they will lead to
true fulfillment and spiritual bliss. Prayer and meditation, those are two universal actions for enlightenment that run through all the world's major
religions. The concept that there is a divinely ordained idea of right and
wrong, a morality as it were, good deeds and bad deeds and that there are
reverberations and repercussions for both. The lists of commonalities goes on
and on. So, what did Baha'u'llah, the most recent prophet of God, teach? Well, I'd
like to go to a metaphor about these prophets that is really interesting, Baha'u'llah calls these holy teachers 'divine physicians.' He says this, and it's
kind of a long quote, so get ready. You ready? Okay, here we go, "the all-knowing
physician hath his finger on the pulse of humankind. He perceiveth the
disease and prescribeth in his unerring wisdom, the remedy. Every age hath its own problems and every soul its particular aspiration. The remedy the
world needeth in its present day afflictions can never be the same as
that which a subsequent age may require... Be anxiously concerned with the needs of
the age ye live in and center your deliberations on its exigencies and
requirements..." So, as I see it in a nutshell he's saying that these divine
physicians come down to earth at a specific time and place and do two things:
They diagnose the illness for the time and place and they prescribe a cure, a
spiritual cure for what the world needs at that time, just like a doctor but and
it's the last sentence of the quote that I love most: "be anxiously concerned with
the needs of the age you live in." The last sentence is a command: "be anxiously
concerned." And basically focus your conversations and actions on today's
urgent needs and look for solutions. So, and here's my question for you, if you
were a divine physician, sent down to diagnose the world's spiritual problems
in this modern age of humanity, what would you come up with? and what
would you prescribe for that illness? I'll give you a second. Okay, times up.
I'm guessing you might have thought about all the disunity on the planet
today, right? Differences of race, class< economics, gender issues, politics. Well,
this brings us to the main spiritual teaching of Baha'u'llah. "The earth is
but one country and mankind its citizens", in other words, the third major key point
of the Baha'i cosmology. One humanity. The differences that divided us for eons
must be healed as we are, in this day and age, one human family and need to act
like it. Today about 1 billion people go to bed hungry each night. If your brother
or sister or family member went to bed hungry would you allow it? Racism is
probably something that popped up in your brain as you were ruminating before.
The elimination of racial prejudice is one of the most central tenets of the
Baha'i Faith and a must for healing humanity and uniting us all. And that
goes hand in hand with another big issue that probably came up for you and your
personal diagnosis: Economic injustice, the disparity between rich and poor.
RIght now, 26 men own as much wealth as half the planet. That's 3.7 billion
people. Now, there's nothing wrong with those 26 men starting awesome businesses
but this statistic is just plain wrong. It's unjust and unsustainable. It's also
unjust and unsustainable that women are treated like second-class citizens,
subjugated in the developing world as well as in the West. Baha'u'llah was
perhaps the first spiritual teacher to advocate for gender equality and justice.
And this was back in the 1860s, in the Middle East, a truly revolutionary act. Baha'u'llah also addressed the need for science and religion to be in
harmony. He said they were like the two wings of a bird and we need both wings
to fly. Baha'u'llah once wrote, "religion without science is superstition. Science
without religion is materialism." So, Baha'u'llah, Baha'is believe is the divine
physician for this day and age, the prophet for the modern world and is
seeking to unify humanity. He said "let your vision be world embracing" and he
also said "all men have been created to carry forward an ever advancing
civilization." Millions of Baha'is around the world are doing their best to put his
teachings into action each day, to bring love and harmony to an ailing planet,
fight for social justice from a spiritual perspective and live lives of
service. I guess the thing I'll leave you with
is an action item, to read some of Baha'u'llah's writings, investigate his
faith. Maybe check out Bahai.org or BahaiTeachings.org and make a decision. He
is one of two things: either he is a very very wise man who brought beautiful
important mystical teachings of peace or he is who he says he is and is a divine
physician sent by God, giving humanity what it most desperately needs in this
day and age. Either way let's all work together, Atheist, Christian, Baha'i and everyone else to make the world a more loving,
just and better place. Thanks for listening.
One of Rainn’s points about Baha’u’llah advocating for equality between the races and sexes was EXACTLY one of the first things that stunned me when learning about the Faith.
I live in south Texas. Racism and sexism have been and continue to be problems here. I’ve always tried to be aware of racial issues in my city, especially since my boyfriend of almost 5 years is Hispanic and I’m white.
Anyway, I was shocked and amazed when I learned that a guy from 19th century Persia advocates for equality for all humans! Think about where America was during the time when Baha’u’llah was alive. We were fighting each other over slavery, and there were people on the Union side who didn’t view the slaves as humans, forget about equality!
Personally I always say thank God on the anniversary of the Virginia v. Loving case that legalized interracial marriage all across the US. Sometimes I wonder how much longer couples would have had to wait for their state to legalize interracial marriage in their own. Would Texas have legalized it on its own?
So to make a long story short, I was so happy to hear of a religious leader who a) has no problem with me and my boyfriend being together and b) says that I am equal to him. That women are more than baby-makers and homemakers, and that we are capable of spiritual greatness just like men.
Allah-u-Abha y’all! Happy Bicentennial!
Great video!