Bahai Faith
Bahai Faith
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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……
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True Feminism Raises the Spiritual Bar
These days, more and more people are identifying with the term “feminist” to show their support for women. While there is an increased popularity in being a feminist and proclaiming…
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Women: the Key to Human Progress
On August 26th, the day in 1920 when the United States certified the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, which granted women the right to vote, Americans observe Women’s Equality Day.…
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What Does It Mean to Be a Baha’i?
Baha’is belong to the world’s newest major Faith, founded by Baha’u’llah, a 19th Century Persian mystic, prophet and prisoner who taught the unity of all nations, races and religions. The…
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What Is Reality – and Can Our Senses Understand it?
My friend is a materialist—that is to say, he accepts as reality only that which can be perceived by the senses. Are you a materialist, too? If so, along with…
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The 3 Main Principles of the Baha’i Revelation
The sacred writings of Baha’u’llah, who lived from 1817 to 1892, extend from 1852, the year of the inception of the Baha’i Faith, to 1892, the year of his ascension…
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Making Economics Serve Humanity – BahaiTeachings.org
The recent pandemic has highlighted the glaring disparities in the economic system between the rich and the poor. On the one hand, we have the plight of poor people living…
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What I Know about God
I’ve tried to strengthen my faith through earnest seeking, through more or less constant reflection and prayer, and in trying to do right. Isn’t that the essence of all religious…
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Can I Overcome My Racist Programming?
I am a white American woman who has, for most of my life, been oblivious to my white privilege — those benefits that accrue to me simply because of my…
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Is God Mad at Us?
Do natural disasters mean that God is mad at humanity? This subject is too big for a text conversation, yet a friend and I began sharing some random thoughts via……
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6 Baha’i Concepts for Life Beyond Adversarial Politics
How do we move towards a more inclusive reality beyond the trappings of adversarial partisan politics? We might want to try these six unity-building principles from the Baha’i teachings. They…
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Observing the Martyrdom of the Bab
Streaking across the heavens in 1843, a great comet alarmed many and served to validate the belief of others that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent. In that same…
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A Spiritual Guide to the Dream World
We spend nearly one-third of our lives sleeping and we can’t function physically without it. But I’ve often wondered if there is also a spiritual reason we need to sleep…
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We’ve Reached the Limits of Partisan Politics
The principal teaching of the Baha’i Faith is the oneness of humanity. Baha’u’llah wrote, “The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens” over 100 years ago. By now,…
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5 Ways to Prepare for the Next World
During this unprecedented time in history, I find myself reflecting on my life’s purpose and my mortality. More than ever, I feel the need to focus on preparing myself for…
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What Is the Purpose of Our Lives?
When a baby is born into this world, she “dies” with respect to the warm comfortable mother’s womb where she has happily lived for nine months. She leaves that life…
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Meteor or Metaphor: Finding Meaning in Suffering
Night descended on Yosemite National Park, the beginning of a twilight adventure for our family. We groped in the backpack for a flashlight, quickly shined it on the paved path,…
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5 Ways to Combat Depression and Pessimism
If you’re like me, you’ve spent some time in recent months and years feeling ineffective – because of the seemingly intractable problems we humans face as a result of endemic…
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Building Family Unity From the Inside Out
Our families are the building blocks of society, and where we can start to build uncompromising unity — it’s where we have the opportunity to model and live out our…
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My 50th Baha’i Anniversary, and a Powerful Dream
I recently came across this old 1974 photo of me, aged 22, holding my new baby son Will. Sometime late that month, 50 years ago, I made the most momentous…
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If We’re Spiritual Beings, Why Do We Live in a Physical World?
During my half-century as a university professor and publishing scholar, I devoted a good deal of time to an obvious but puzzling question: If we presume an omnipotent Creator exists,…
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How an Animal Helped Heal My PTSD
I held Darwin’s food bowl out to him. It was breakfast time at PrimRose Donkey Sanctuary, usually Darwin’s favorite time of day. He hung his head and turned away. Darwin…
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Praying for—and With—Your Children – BahaiTeachings.org
The miracle of childbirth transforms people. Parents and grandparents feel mesmerized watching each infant emerge and evolve into an intelligent, creative being with unique personality traits and proclivities. We wonder:…
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Why Do We Have Good and Bad Dreams?
According to the Sleep Foundation, most people dream for around two hours every night. Dreaming is a universal experience, regardless of whether or not you remember them upon waking. RELATED:…
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Quantum Mechanics, Modern Physics and the Baha’i Teachings
When I reflect on the Baha’i teachings, which stunningly prefigure many of the discoveries of modern physics, I see an interesting pattern. As a physicist, I’ve noticed that most of…
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Losing the Stigma: May is Mental Health Awareness Month
Have you been seeing lime green ribbons tied to trees this month? Those would be in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month. Mental Health Awareness Month (MHA) was first observed…
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How to Spiritually Deal with Workplace Bullying and Backbiting
Have you ever had a terrible boss or colleague, one who had obviously forgotten they were no longer in middle school? Workplace bullying sadly happens on a different level than…
