Transcript:Gregory Dahl/Study tape on morality
| Transcript of: Study tape on morality (circa/1969) |
 Proofread onceDownload: mp3, Source: © Gregory C. Dahl
|
[0:00] [Dahl] This is a study tape on Bahá’í morality. Because we're limited to 30 minutes we will be spending most of our time reading directly from the Writings of the Bahá’í Faith and these will be our point of emphasis.
[0:16] [Christensen] And we'd like to stress at the outset that the other material on this tape are simply the views of two individuals Greg Dahl and Phil Christensen. The crucial thing here is the writings themselves our divine standard, and as some of the quotes will emphasize later in this tape, it is utterly necessary for each individual to turn to them.
[0:37] [Dahl] Let's begin right away by getting into the writings, we know that Bahá’u’lláh over and over again stresses what He calls detachment, on pages 328 and 329 of Gleanings. He says "The world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance of reality. Set not your affections upon it. Break not the bond that uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and strayed from His ways. Verily I say, the world is like the vapor in a desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with all his might, until when he cometh upon it, he findeth it to be a mere illusion. It may, moreover, be likened unto the lifeless image of the beloved whom the lover hath sought and found, in the end, after his long search and to his utmost regret, to be such as cannot “fatten nor appease his hunger.”"
[1:43] [Christensen] Notice the contrast between this quote from the Gleanings of Bahá’u’lláh and the current standard in our society. And again, one of the points we want to stress in this tape is the remarkable difference between the Bahá’í teachings and the ideas is that are accepted by our contemporaries. Because here Bahá’u’lláh is telling us how unimportant, at a very basic level, the things that are so highly prized by many people we know, how important those very things are. In a way we're very lucky because Bahá’u’lláh not only talks about the world, but defines it for us. And on page 276 of the Gleanings, he says: "Know ye that by “the world” is meant your unawareness of Him Who is your Maker, and your absorption in aught else but Him. The “life to come,” on the other hand, signifieth the things that give you a safe approach to God, the All-Glorious, the Incomparable. Whatsoever deterreth you, in this Day, from loving God is nothing but the world. Flee it, that ye may be numbered with the blest." Remember that Bahá’u’lláh defines the world not so much is that which is material, but very specifically as that which keeps you back from God. And as we'll see a little later that means that some material things which can bring you closer to God, indeed are praiseworthy. But the other side of that coin is that some things which are often accepted to be mystical or religious such as drugs and hallucinogenic experiences which might keep you back from God, are indeed of the world and should be fleet.
[3:29] [Dahl] Listen to how beautifully he states on page 35 of the Hidden Words the importance of growing spiritually and how beautiful that is, how poignant this passage: "O MY SERVANT! Abandon not for that which perisheth an everlasting dominion, and cast not away celestial sovereignty for a worldly desire. This is the river of everlasting life that hath flowed from the well-spring of the pen of the merciful; well is it with them that drink!"
[4:04] [Christensen] Just a beautiful passage, again emphasizing the necessity for our being detached from the world and attached to God, something that must permeate every second of our lives. And Bahá’u’lláh says the same thing in another passage on page 127 of the Gleanings, with almost a little touch of humor in it: [Dahl] "Say: If ye be seekers after this life and the vanities thereof, ye should have sought them while ye were still enclosed in your mothers’ wombs, for at that time ye were continually approaching them, could ye but perceive it. Ye have, on the other hand, ever since ye were born and attained maturity, been all the while receding from the world and drawing closer to dust. Why, then, exhibit such greed in amassing the treasures of the earth, when your days are numbered and your chance is well-nigh lost? Will ye not, then, O heedless ones, shake off your slumber?" He's almost a, well He is a pragmatist.
[5:10] [Christensen] It's a beautiful thing. And here is one of the places where it becomes so clear, the importance of having the Manifestation Himself continually re-applying God's truth, because men for many centuries have understood the dangers of turning towards those things which separate us from God and yet some of them have interpreted that to mean that we must become aesthetics. That is, we must cloist ourselves away and must consider anything that gives us pleasure as evil. Well Bahá’u’lláh makes it very clear that that is not the case. As a matter of fact, in the very passage that we read earlier on page 276 of the Gleanings where He defines the world as your unawareness of Him, who is your maker and your absorption in aught else but Him, in that very passage continues: "Should a man wish to adorn himself with the ornaments of the earth, to wear its apparels, or partake of the benefits it can bestow, no harm can befall him, if he alloweth nothing whatever to intervene between him and God, for God hath ordained every good thing, whether created in the heavens or in the earth, for such of His servants as truly believe in Him. Eat ye, O people, of the good things which God hath allowed you, and deprive not yourselves from His wondrous bounties. Render thanks and praise unto Him, and be of them that are truly thankful."
[6:51] [Dahl] You know, Bahá’u’lláh even recognized the tendency, maybe particularly of Christians, I don't know, I think this is important in Eastern religions, the tendency to feel that anything which gives pleasure is evil and is not fulfilling the goal of detachment. And so he made it easier for us, Bahá’u’lláh made it easier by actually prohibiting such religious practices as asceticism and mendicancy and monasticism. The idea of cloistering yourself away as Bill mentioned, you can find a reference to that in God Passes By on page 214 where Shoghi Effendi resumes the laws of Bahá’u’lláh found in The Aqdas. This is in Bahá’u’lláh's Most Holy Book. He prohibits this kind of behavior for the Bahá’ís and in many other places as we'll see in a moment, He emphasizes the need to face the world and its challenges and to come to grips with it in those terms, which in fact, is detachment more than running away from it. If you run away from something, you are being controlled by it. But if you grow to the point where you can face it and change it and deal with it, then you are in fact detached.
[8:05] [Christensen] Greg perhaps we could explore this area a little further because we've now seen two basic commandments given to us by the manifestation of God, Bahá’u’lláh, one to be detached from the world, all that that comes between us and our creator, and yet on the other hand to enjoy the good things which God had ordained, and that may be easily said but it's not so easily done. Now the standard approach, as perhaps we've already implied to that, to being a moral person, to fulfilling commandments like that has been a negative approach, and perhaps we could explore now how Bahá’u’lláh enters this area?
[8:49] [Dahl] Well again He's made it so easy for us, really if we turned to the Writings to find what He has to say, because in addition to stating the goal, He also gives us the means. On page 323 and 4 of Gleanigns "O My servants! Were ye to discover the hidden, the shoreless oceans of My incorruptible wealth, ye would, of a certainty, esteem as nothing the world, nay, the entire creation. Let the flame of search burn with such fierceness within your hearts as to enable you to attain your supreme and most exalted goal—the station at which ye can draw nigh unto, and be united with, your Best-Beloved."
[9:35] [Christensen] This imagery of fire, of purification, is repeated in the very well known tablet that begins "when a true seeker determineth to take the step of search". On page 265 of the Gleanings Bahá’u’lláh talking about that seeker says "He should consume every wayward thought with the flame of His loving mention, and, with the swiftness of lightning, pass by all else save Him." Now just think of the difference between that and what many of us have been taught. So many of us have been taught that when we have a thought that we would call evil, a bad thought, a thought that tends to bring us back towards our animal selves instead of towards our human are divine selves, why we should repress it, stomp on it, just ignore it, perhaps, and it will go away. But it doesn't and modern psychology recognizes that fact, somehow that energy must get out. Well, Bahá’u’lláh tells us instead of thinking in the negative, to think about Him, to burn up a wayward thought with His mention. For example in that one case, Bahá’u’lláh tells us that when we are offended by another person to see, behold me standing in front of you, or something like that, that's a paraphrase. If we think of Bahá’u’lláh and attach ourselves to Bahá’u’lláh, it becomes much more easy to detach ourselves from the world.
[11:08] [Dahl] Have you ever felt that you were overcome or maybe dominated by desires? And you knew that either intellectually or spiritually that they were, you know, that you felt intellectually or spiritually that that was wrong, and you didn't know how to better the situation? Well again, Bahá’u’lláh has helped us on page 343 of the Gleanings, He tells us how to overcome our desires. "Were any man to ponder in his heart that which the Pen of the Most High hath revealed and to taste of its sweetness, he would, of a certainty, find himself emptied and delivered from his own desires, and utterly subservient to the Will of the Almighty. Happy is the man that hath attained so high a station, and hath not deprived himself of so bountiful a grace."
[12:03] [Christensen] A tremendous faith to give us such a high standard and we should be very clear friends that the standard of Bahá’u’lláh is not an easy one because it does not always deal in the negative and the do nots, it is indeed much harder, it's such a high standard because Bahá’u’lláh exhorts us to be continually progressing towards God. And yet he doesn't just command us, He gives us mechanisms like this, like the one Greg just read, to help us in our progress towards God. Or like the one we find on pages 294 and 95 of the Gleanings: [Dahl] "Say: Deliver your souls, O people, from the bondage of self, and purify them from all attachment to anything besides Me. Remembrance of Me cleanseth all things from defilement, could ye but[Page 295] perceive it."
[13:03] [Christensen] Perhaps when this tape is over, we might all meditate a little bit on just that one phrase: "Remembrance of Me cleanseth all things from defilement." It's a tremendously powerful idea, and let's stress once again that although Bahá’u’lláh has not simply revealed a set of laws and ordinances, and He says that in a passage which is found both in the Gleanings and in Bahá’í World Faith on page 127, He says: "Think not that We have revealed unto you a mere code of laws. Nay, rather, We have unsealed the choice Wine with the fingers of might and power. To this beareth witness that which the Pen of Revelation hath revealed. Meditate upon this, O men of insight!" And yet in not revealing a mere code of laws and in revealing laws and more than laws Bahá’u’lláh has given us a very difficult task, and one which we must work at continually.
[14:09] [Dahl] On the rather well known and often over-warn page 25 of the Advent of Divine Justice, we find a paragraph by Shoghi Effendi, the Guardian of the faith, in which he defines for us what is meant by chastity in the Bahá’í writings. And chastity, which in the previous page he points out, is the primary challenge for Bahá’í youth to exemplify in a society in which morals are declining all around. This is one of those areas which youth, even more than other age groups, can exemplify the potency and the power of Bahá’í teachings. He says, I can't put the whole passage for lack of time, but he says: "Such a chaste and holy life, with its implications of modesty, purity, temperance, decency, and clean-mindedness, involves no less than the exercise of moderation in all that pertains to dress, language, amusements, and all artistic and literary avocations." Just pause for a moment friends and see how broadly he defines the concept of chastity. We all know how it's defined in other religions, and well in the dictionary definition of chastity is not having sexual intercourse outside of marriage, or illegal sexual intercourse. Look how broadly Shoghi Effendi defines it. And anything that has to do with, well he says later, frivolous conduct, with amusements, excessive attachment to trivial and often misdirected pleasures, it's relative to decency and clean mindedness, look how broad a concept.
[15:58] [Christensen] One way that this is applied, this concept of a moral, and a chaste, and a pure life is to the area of marriage. And Shoghi Effendi again on page 214 of God Passes By tells us that Bahá’u’lláh stresses the importance of marriage. Marriage is an extremely important ordinance of Bahá’u’lláh. One of the best descriptions of its beauty is found indeed in our prayer book. If we turn to page 187 which is towards the back and perhaps not often enough seen by we Bahá’ís we find the marriage prayer.
[16:36] [Dahl] "And when He desired to manifest grace and beneficence to men, and to set the world in order, He revealed observances and created laws; among them He established the law of marriage, made it as a fortress for well-being and salvation, and enjoined it upon us in that which was sent down out of the heaven of sanctity in His Most Holy Book. He saith, great is His glory: “Marry, O people, that from you may appear he who will remember Me amongst My servants; this is one of My commandments unto you; obey it as an assistance to yourselves.”" We see in this passage how marriage is enjoined on Bahá’ís for their own well being and for the well being of society. And I think a lot of questions having to do with morality in the Christian sense are cleared up from the Bahá’í point of view when we consider the importance of marriage as an institution in the Bahá’í faith. And that in fact, many kinds of transgressions which are usually viewed from a sexual morality point of view, are in fact primarily in the Bahá’í faith transgressions of the marriage law. Bahá’u’lláh has enjoined us to marry, and this is an institution for society and for the future, and for the propagation of mankind, as well as for the well being of us, for the stability of that kind of social unit. Psychologists have proven to us how important the family unit is, and I'm sure that this will be even better understood in the future when the institution of Bahá’í marriage is better known. So that a lot of things are cleared up when we stopped to think, and I urge you to stop and to think about the importance, the positive importance of marriage as an institution.
[18:22] [Christensen] As a matter of fact, Shoghi Effendi makes this very clear in a letter written to an American Bahá’í through his secretary and dated September 5th, 1938. Now this letter was reprinted in the National Bahá’í Review, April of 1968 and it stresses the Bahá’í teachings on sexual morality. But note that the Guardian is very careful to place this in the context of the marriage law. In brief, he says: "the Bahá’í conception of sex is based on the belief that chastity should be strictly practiced by both sexes, not only because it is in itself highly commendable ethically, but also due to its being the only way to a happy and successful marital life. Sex relationships of any form, outside marriage, are not permissible therefore, and whoso violates this rule will not only be responsible to God, but will incur the necessary punishment from society. The Bahá’í Faith recognizes the value of the sex impulse, but condemns its illegitimate and improper expressions such as free love, companionate marriage and others, all of which it considers positively harmful to man and to the society in which he lives. The proper use of the sex instinct is the natural right of every individual, and it is precisely for this very purpose that the institution of marriage has been established. The Bahá’ís do not believe in the suppression of the sex impulse but in its regulation and control."
[19:58] [Dahl] It's most important too, to emphasize that this particular branch of the Bahá’í teachings, that the responsibility falls primarily on the individual to apply the Bahá’í teachings and the very clear Bahá’í standard in his own life. For instance, we find in the book Messages to Canada from Shoghi Effendi on pages 51 and 2, that Shoghi Effendi, writing through his secretary, said the following: "He considers that under no circumstances should any Bahá’í ever be suspended from the voting list and deprived of his administrative privileges for a matter which is not of the utmost gravity. By that he means breaking of laws, such as the consent of parents to marriage etc., or acts of such an immoral character as to damage the good name of the Faith. He has informed, some years ago, the American National Spiritual Assembly that, before anyone is deprived of their voting rights, they should be consulted with and lovingly admonished at first, given repeated warnings if they do not mend their immoral ways, or whatever other extremely serious misdemeanour they are committing, and finally, after these repeated warnings, be deprived of their voting rights."
[21:16] [Dahl] We know friends that deprivation of voting rights is about the most severe punishment, in the form of punishment, that the administrative institutions can bring to bear against an individual. And we see how clearly in this passage and also in others how the Guardian has exhorted us to apply this kind of sanctions only after a period of time, of loving consultation and working with the individuals. The faith recognizes that not everyone is perfect, and the important thing to Bahá’ís is growth and progress and change, and not any absolute level of attainment. So if one is sincerely trying, that is what is expected.
[21:58] [Christensen] So we see that essentially the Bahá’í law of morality is a broad issue which can and is specifically applied to the institution of marriage and that the institution of marriage, in the context of Bahá’í morality, promulgates the law of chastity, in the narrow sense of sexual chastity. And we see that it's primarily the individual's responsibility. Now the Universal House of Justice itself made this very clear when it wrote, and this letter is reprinted in the National Bahá’í Review July 1969 and said: [Dahl] "It is neither possible nor desirable for the Universal House of Justice to set forth a set of rules covering every situation. Rather is it the task of the individual believer to determine, according to his own prayerful understanding of the Writings, precisely what his course of conduct should be in relation to situations which he encounters in his daily life. If he is to fulfill his true mission in life as a follower of the Blessed Perfection, he will pattern his life according to the Teachings. The believer cannot attain this objective merely by living according to a set of rigid regulations. When his life is oriented towards service to Bahá’u’lláh, and when every conscious act is performed within this frame of reference, he will not fail to achieve the purpose of his life."
[23:21] [Christensen] This very point is emphasized by the Guardian himself, writing through his secretary and printed on page 8 of Messages to Canada, he says, "Our teachings, as outlined in the Advent of Divine Justice, on the subject of living a chaste life, should be emphasized . . . but certainly no ruling whatsoever should be laid down in this matter. The Bahá’ís have certainly not yet reached that stage of moral perfection where they are in a position to too harshly scrutinize the private lives of other souls, and each individual should be accepted on the basis of his faith, and sincere willingness to try to live up to the Divine Standards; further than this we cannot go at present." In other words, this is basically an individual matter. It is up to you and to me to try and put into practice that tremendously high calling that Bahá’u’lláh has given to us, and that only when we need help, or when our actions begin to hurt the faith itself, do the administrative institutions step in.
[24:32] [Dahl] For some minutes now we've been considering the specific problem of sexual morality, and I think it's very important in conclusion to emphasize that this in many ways is a hang up of our particular society and our cultural heritage. As Dr. Deneche who's a Bahá’í psychiatrist in the Chicago area, has pointed out in a number of occasions, Christianity and the heritage of our country are very sexually oriented. If you stop to think about how important in the churches presentation of Christianity, sexuality and for instance celibacy for priests and the concept of the virgin birth and any number of other emphasizing of sexuality are in a Christian's daily worship, and how important in our society and the whole advertising ethic. And then, on the other hand, the morality of the older generation to the young, which is which contradicts that advertising ethic, how important this conflict is in our society, and how therefore very much over sexed we are, and how much over concerned with this particular aspect of life. Much more it turns out many other cultures. And so we have to bear this in mind and not be surprised that Bahá’u’lláh has maybe very pointedly chosen not to lay as much emphasis on this particular aspect of daily living and of chastity, that rather He speaks about detachment, the thing that we began the tape with and exhorts us to rise above any preoccupation in any way with such mundane matters a sex. The emphasis is on the positive and the way we achieve this is not by running away from anything which we conceived to be evil, but rather by turning to Bahá’u’lláh. We'd like to end with this prayer sung by Johnny[?] Lincoln.
[26:33] [Female singer] "O God! Make me a hollow reed from which the pith of self hath been blown, that I may become a clear channel through which Thy love may flow to others".