Baha'i Faith Richmond, VA

I am so excited to share what I learned last night about the Baha'i Faith but I'm trying to meditate on it first before putting it all out there. It was so fascinating and it has really challenged me to think about my faith and what I believe about the nature of God. I won't go into this now, but basically, the Baha'is believe that EVERYONE is right. That Muhammad, Buddha, Jesus, and Krishna all had it right and are all worshiping the same one God.

I'd be lying if I said that while the foundation of this faith is so appealing it does raise some very interesting questions within myself as it makes some serious claims about Jesus Christ. My "religion" not spirituality makes me instantly doubt the validity of the religion itself (for me, not for the Baha'is who accept it) because it claims that Jesus Christ has already made His return to Earth. With that being said, my spiritual self that believes we are all children of God and our 2 greatest commandments of Jesus himself are to love one another and to love God with all our heart. These 2 commandments bring me to a place of understanding. Those 2 commandments alone make me wonder if these Bahai's are really on to something. It leads me to ask if all other religions are also worshiping the same God of Abraham and I wonder if we can all be "right" in the eyes of God. Of course I want to believe that. It's my sincere hope and desire for this to be true. But then again returns my father's voice, "Truth is not multi-faceted. He was either a liar, or the Son of God and there is one way, one gate, one lamb and in Him and only Him is Salvation." Why when remembering my father and his faith do I only think about his Christian beliefs and not the years after that he explored everything from Confucianism to Taoism? Is that the voice of fear, or the voice of the Holy Spirit? Why do those words ring clear even though he verbally denounced them toward the end of his life?

I don't want to contemplate this all in this post, but instead, meditate on It first to see what bubbles up. But before diving into Baha'i research, I will share this quote with you so in these words you can get a small glimpse of the belief system that these people hold.

A quote from Abdul-Baha' a great teacher of the Baha'i faith:

“Cleanse ye your eyes, so that ye behold no man as different from yourselves. See ye no strangers; rather see all men as friends”

--‘Abdul-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdul-Bahá, p. 24

Sounds a lot like the Golden Rule, right? Now who can argue with that????