Why We're Baha'is - the soundtrack

We just finished a 30 minute film for our local cable TV system. We interviewed about two dozen people, children, teens and adults, and we borrowed some video from www.BahaiVideo.com to produce an interesting film.

Hopefully it makes a good podcast too. If you'd like to see the film, here's a 345MB iPod version, and a 24MB MP4 version.

One concern that I often have when Baha'is are talking casually is that Christians may not understand that we see Baha'u'llah as the Messenger of God--and not God as some Christians view Jesus. We often say, "Baha'u'llah says . . . " when a more precise statement might be, "God told us through Baha'u'llah that . . . ."

The safest thing to do is to read God's Word for yourself--directly as it was revealed through Baha'u'llah. See www.bahai.org or www.BahaiBookstore.com.

Thanks for listening.

Ron

Why I'm Excited About the Baha'i Faith

Whoops! I've gotten behind in this blog. There are two podcasts that came out of one project--I interviewed eight of my friends and combined their comments with great music by the First Commandment Gospel Singers. Their CD "We Have Come to Praise Him" is available from www.liveunity.com.

I hope you enjoy the podcasts.

Ron

Swami Jnaneshvara Bharati

It's always a joy to talk to Swami J who lives about 20 minutes away from me. I think you'll enjoy this discussion which nominally is about the oneness of religion--or the lack of it. But it really goes much deeper. He talks about the world religions in a multi-dimensional sense and through simple nature-based analogies helps us to see the reasons behind some of the conflicts among the various religions--and even within the same religion.

Explore Swami J's vast contribution to the world's understanding of the science of Yoga, Vedanta, and Tantra at www.swamij.com.

For those of you that have sleeping difficulties, check out his Yoga Nidra CD. It will change the way you sleep. Yoga Nidra simply means yogic sleep. See www.yoganidracd.info. I have Yoga Nidra on my iPod so when I'm wide awake at 3am, I just start listening to Yoga Nidra and I'm asleep before I reach the end of it. If you listen to it when you're not exhausted and sleepy, you'll get to an interesting relaxed state that is probably different than what you may have experienced before.

Send me a comment or a voicemail. I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks for listening,

Ron

Baha'i Marriage: the Marriage Transformation Project

Susanne Alexander and Craig Farnsworth are the principals of a Baha'i project called the Marriage Transformation Project (see www.marriagetransformation.com). Their recent books are Pure Gold, a book for married couples, and Can We Dance, a book for people who are looking for a marriage partner or investigating the character of a prospective partner. They hold workshops around the world training couples to use this simple and effective system.

During the podcast they mentioned the Virtues Project (www.virtuesproject.com) which is a system to teach positive character qualities (virtues) to children and youth.

They also mentioned Dr. Gary Chapman's work on the Five Love Languages. Everyone that is in a relationship needs to understand the love languages and know which one you're partner speaks and responds to. Even if you've been married twenty years, you may not know ;-)

I'm sorry that it's been a while since I've produced a podcast. It's been a busy time. My second daughter got married last weekend. She didn't read Can We Dance first, so I'll send her a copy of Pure Gold.

Thanks for listening,

Ron

Rod Debs - Creating Loving Religious Communities

Rod Debs is the minister at our local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. This podcast is a continuation of an ongoing conversation that Rod and I have been having for the last two or three years. Rod continually strives to increase the religious experience of his congregation without, in any way, controlling their experience. He seeks only to stimulate thought, and to urge them to wholeness--whatever that would mean for them. He is a challenging person to listen to because he doesn't settle for conventional wisdom or platitudes; he tries to put each issue in a global context and treat the views of all people as worthy of consideration.

In this podcast we talked about the goals that are shared by both the Baha'i Faith and Unitarian Universalists and how the two religions take a different approach to achieving their goals.

Check out Rod Debs sermons--you'll see what I mean. You might want to subscribe to his podcast to try to keep up with his latest thoughts.

Rod mentioned Carter Heyward during the podcast. There are several more links about this famous theologian on the web.

In God's Word, there is this quote, "Consort with the followers of all religions in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship. Whatsoever hath led the children of men to shun one another, and hath caused dissensions and divisions amongst them, hath, through the revelation of these words, been nullified and abolished." (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 94)

Thanks for listening,

Ron

Fireside 4 - Alan Halm and Joel Smith

Alan Halm and Joel Smith have both thought deeply for many years about the evolution of religions--how they are born, grow and eventually decline. This was a very interesting discussion of the evolutionary process.

At one point Alan mentioned that Baha'u'llah wrote that if it were God's will He could have forced all mankind to recognize each Messenger, but that God's will was that mankind should be tested. Note the word "Say" at the beginning. God is dictating the passage through Baha'u'llah including the instruction to "Say." Baha'is often say that Baha'u'llah said this or that, but in almost every case it is God dictating to His Messenger rather than the Messenger speaking on His own. Here is the relevant quote from Baha'u'llah:

"Say: If it be Our pleasure We shall render the Cause victorious through the power of a single word from Our presence. He is in truth the Omnipotent, the All-Compelling. Should it be God's intention, there would appear out of the forests of celestial might the lion of indomitable strength whose roaring is like unto the peals of thunder reverberating in the mountains. However, since Our loving providence surpasseth all things, We have ordained that complete victory should be achieved through speech and utterance, that Our servants throughout the earth may thereby become the recipients of divine good." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 197)

At another point Alan mentioned that there is always confusion because the new Messenger doesn't seem to match the expectations of the members of the previous religion. He mentioned the quote below that refers to the problem of the Christians failing to recognize Baha'u'llah because of the New Name--even though the Book of Revelation mentions the New Name:

"Say, O followers of the Son![Jesus] Have ye shut out yourselves from Me by reason of My Name? Wherefore ponder ye not in your hearts? Day and night ye have been calling upon your Lord, the Omnipotent, but when He came from the heaven of eternity in His great glory, ye turned aside from Him and remained sunk in heedlessness.

"Consider those who rejected the Spirit [Jesus] when He came unto them with manifest dominion. How numerous the Pharisees who had secluded themselves in synagogues in His name, lamenting over their separation from Him, and yet when the portals of reunion were flung open and the divine Luminary shone resplendent from the Dayspring of Beauty, they disbelieved in God, the Exalted, the Mighty. They failed to attain His presence, notwithstanding that His advent had been promised them in the Book of Isaiah as well as in the Books of the Prophets and the Messengers." (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 7)


Geothe Faust was mentioned as we discussed the struggle of mankind as it reaches for the divine while fighting against change.

Joel's website that discusses the prophecies of various religions is www.bci.org/prophecy-fulfilled/

I really good discussion and summary of the references to Jesus Christ in the Baha'i Writings is available. Just click the link in the sentence above.

I'm working on three more podcasts--but it's summer--it's hard to get people lined up. Hopefully it won't be long before the next one is ready.

Thanks for listening,

Ron

Fireside 3 - Michael Mathein and Timothy Alford

Michael Mathein, Timothy Alford and I are great friends here on the Emerald Coast. They both live in Fairhope, Alabama. Their part of the coast was very much affected by the 2004 and 2005 hurricanes so I haven't seen much of them lately. It was great to talk with them for an hour.

We talked about the concept of a personal God, what it meant to us as Christians, and how that concept evolved after we became Baha'is.

Here's a link to authoritative information about the Baha'i concept of God. (Just in case we got it wrong :-)

We mentioned the Ringstone Symbol during the podcast. Here's a link to the Ringstone Symbol and other Baha'i symbols, with explanations.

We're having fun doing these firesides so we're working on a few more. Let me know if you've got any ideas or if you'd like to participate. People keep asking about having a Christian seeker join a fireside. We'd love to have one of you do that. I realize that it's asking a lot, but if one of our Christian friends would like to join us, it would be great to have some hard questions to answer.

If you'd rather not participate but would still like to ask hard questions--call our toll-free line listed on the left side of this page.

Love to all,

Ron