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Self-Improvement: Faith, Words and Action
Do you ever think about improving yourself? Most of us do. We want to become smarter, cooler, funnier, thinner, richer, happier. But what truly creates happiness? The Baha’i teachings say…
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5 Ways to Make Friends from Different Cultures
I was in Washington, DC for work a couple of weeks ago and made a point to stop by the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. I love the inspiring quotes…
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A Baha’i Prescription for Achieving Human Unity
We talk a lot about unity – which means “the state of being united or joined as a whole” – but seldom achieve it. Humanity hasn’t reached that state, but…
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Creating a New Consciousness – BahaiTeachings.org
There is a need in our world today for a unifying vision. Whatever can be said about human beings, it must be accepted by every clear-thinking individual that we live…
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Life, Matter and the God Particle
Many atheists believe that no Creator has ever existed—that instead, humans have invented a supernatural God to worship. In the course of defending that atheist worldview during an Intelligence Squared…
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The Ineffable Nature of Dying
Have you ever had an ineffable experience—one you simply couldn’t describe in words? In the accounts of the subjects who had near-death experiences in Raymond Moody’s study, particularly in the…
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3 Baha’i Prayers for a Suffering Humanity
On October 7, 2022, a 22-year-old Black woman in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, “escaped from a white man who she says held her captive in his basement for nearly a month,…
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Winners and Losers in the Citizenship Birth Lottery
Honesty, decency, faithfulness, and comradeship… must be shown when dealing with those of like blood but to no one else. What happens to a Russian, to a Czech, does not…
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Looking for God Within – BahaiTeachings.org
Once you’ve sought a glimpse of God in the natural beauty of the outdoors, you’ll want to go in the opposite direction, too – and look within yourself. Speaking metaphorically,…
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Why Do We Suffer? – BahaiTeachings.org
When thou lookest about thee with a perceptive eye, thou wilt note that on this dusty earth all humankind are suffering. Here no man is at rest as a reward…
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Praying for a Pale Blue Dot
I love looking at photographs of the Earth from space. It makes all of my big, unsolvable, life-shattering problems seem so small. A remarkable picture was taken on February 14,…
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Trust in God and Build the Best Ship
A hundred years ago, immediately after the April 15, 1912 sinking of the Titanic, Abdu’l-Baha answered the question of the “problem of evil” this way: Within the last few days…
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The Two-Way Mirror of Character in Relationships
When a relationship walks out the door, pain and frustration often walk in. Sure, it’s easy to complain: he lied to me or she cheated on me. But let’s look…
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Where is God When We Need Him?
The majority of the world’s people believe in one God. Christians, Jews, Muslims, many Hindus and Buddhists, and even those without any formal religion all see a single Supreme Being…
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Entitlement: Detrimental to Your Spiritual Health
If you live in the developed world like I do you enjoy certain advantages that a lot of people in other places do not: electricity, running water, plentiful food and…
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Do You Believe in Creation or Eternity?
The philosophers of Greece — such as Aristotle, Socrates, Plato and others — were devoted to the investigation of both natural and spiritual phenomena. In their schools of teaching they…
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Proof that God Exists – BahaiTeachings.org
Click here to read Part 1: I Believe God Exists Those without a belief in God argue that humans come from nature – that no God exists, just a wondrously…
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Patience and Perseverance: The Story of Bahiyyih Khanum
Among all the various inner qualities we need right now, patience probably ranks right up there near the top. I know I need it. We can feel impatient about a…
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Encountering a Loving, Forgiving God
The assurance of an afterlife is by itself hardly a sufficient reason to relinquish a fear of death, since few of us can be absolutely certain how well we have……
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Being Trained: Human Experience and the Purpose of Suffering
I don’t know when I became curious about the purpose of suffering. Most likely a slow process eased its way into my awareness as I aged, and I started to…
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Where is Hell, Anyway? – BahaiTeachings.org
Number four on the list of 5 Astounding Hellacious Things: Hell is a real place. You can visit. Well, at least hell used to be a real place. Okay, maybe…
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How a Short Baha’i Book Changed My Spiritual Life
If you haven’t already gotten to know Baha’u’llah’s short book “The Hidden Words,” then you might want to get a copy. And if you’re already familiar with it but haven’t…
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Do Baha’is Believe in Life After Death?
Question: Do Baha’is have an idea of an afterlife? If so what does it consist of? The answer to this question – a very definite and emphatic yes – flows……
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Can You Trust Your Dreams?
Imagine this: you’re a physicist struggling with a major new theory of how the universe works, and you find the answer in a dream. You’re a novelist looking for a…
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Joyously Celebrating the Birth of Baha’u’llah
Today, one of the holiest and happiest days in the entire year for Baha’is, the followers and friends of Baha’u’llah will gather with smiles, laughter, and great joy – please…
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O God! Educate These Children
When my husband and I first saw the results of the tests on our new baby growing in my womb, we both cried. But after all the excellent advice from…
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Knowledge, Resolve, Action: Living a Two-List Life
A colleague sent me an email today lamenting, “I have two lists — one immediate (which grows ever longer) and the regular list which stays the same.” I enjoyed his wit, and……
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5 Reasons Why Spiritual and Material Progress Must Go Together
In his travels through Europe and North America just over a century ago, Abdu’l-Baha spoke continuously of the future society that the practice of Baha’u’llah’s teachings would make possible. He…
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How Meditation Can Help Drive Scientific Discovery
Do science and the inner spiritual life ever collide or cohere? Can they work together? The Baha’i teachings answer those questions with a resounding yes. Although most of my more…
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The Science and the Soul of Dreaming
Do you dream? Yes, you certainly do, the sleep researchers all tell us. Whether you remember what you dreamed when you wake up or not, every human being dreams. Even…
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Conquering Anxiety with Conscious Happiness
In every life we have some trouble,When you worry you make it doubleDon’t worry, be happy! ~Bobby McFerrin, 1988 song lyrics Don’t worry, be happy. You may recognize these four…
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How to Get Rid of Hatred
“There’s so much hate right now,” bewailed a friend recently. Usually one of the most positive and upbeat women I know, she sounded dejected. Deeply concerned about the state of…
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Questions from an Atheist: The God Hypothesis
A self-identifying atheist acquaintance — I’ll call him Maynard — posted questions about God on his blog encouraging any believers hanging out there to please answer. How could I resist?…
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Should We Fear God? – BahaiTeachings.org
Clothe thyself with the essence of righteousness, and let thine heart be afraid of none except God. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 323. Try this for…
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When We Die: the Dissociation of Soul and Body
In the first part of the near-death experience, those who have died and come back to life describe the dissociation of the mind or conscious self from the body. Many……
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4 Steps to Self-Awareness & Self-Transcendence
So many BahaiTeachings.org readers responded to and liked and forwarded and commended and recommended and tweeted and re-tweeted our New Year’s Day article on spiritual New Year’s resolutions that we……
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Needed: Better (Not Just More) Communication
Enthused about an idea for a project, I mentioned it to an acquaintance at an out-of-town event. She liked the idea and had some suggestions for follow-up — which meant we needed……
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Can We Hear God?
Have you ever experienced a sudden conviction, a determination, that there is something you must do—that it isn’t even a choice? Did you ever think that maybe this was God……
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How Faith Asks Us to Deal with Our Pain
We’ve all felt our own anger, and we’ve probably all wondered, after the rage subsides, what to do about it. How can we control it, and move past it? “Where……
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The Role of Empathy and Compassion in Today’s Material Culture
Empathy and compassion are precious human values – but they can be diminished or even disappear because of cultural, racial, political, and religious pressure or through materialistic manipulation. In such……
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Learning to Love God: A Different Kind of Love
If ever there was a universal language in this world, it could be that of love. Regardless of age, race, nationality, gender or social status, we all want to be……
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Finding Inner Peace through the Power of the Spirit
Sanctify your ears from the idle talk of them that are the symbols of denial and the exponents of violence and anger. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah,…
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How to Become a Lucid Dreamer—and Why
As a graduate student, I had a series of vivid, hyper-real dreams—so I decided to see if I could determine what they meant. How did I do it? I read…
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Heaven, Hell, and the Human Soul: A Bahá’í-Christian Dialogue
A friend of mine who is a devout Christian once wrote to me and asked the following questions. He wanted me to answer them based on the Baha’i Writings. Below……
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Baha’i Consultation: Group Work on the Job
On a music streaming service this morning, I happened to hear one of the many recorded versions of the song “No Man Is an Island,” which I remembered singing it at summer……
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Polishing the Soul with Daily Prayer
Having grown up in the tradition of the Baha’i Faith, regular daily devotions were always part of our household practice – including my parents saying prayers with me from a……
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The Spiritual Power of Thought: Shaping Reality with Divine Vision
I was intrigued by a profound statement from Abdu’l-Baha: The reality of man is his thought, not his material body. The thought force and the animal force are partners. Although……
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How to Be a More Spiritual Family
The Baha’i teachings say that until the era when we achieve gender equality and universal education, we cannot even imagine the full spiritual powers an intergenerational family will reveal. In……
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Prayer and Problem-Solving
Achieving our true spiritual station and practicing justice is a tall order, and will be extremely difficult to achieve without prayer. Prayer has the power not only to transform our……
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Why Is There Something Rather than Nothing?
Have you ever wondered why you exist? Of course you have – that question occurs, at some point, to all of us. Science asks it, too, usually in this macro……
