Brief video introducing the Baha'i Faith

Baha'u'llah was a Sufi.

It is a shame he was imprisoned and thus separated from his Sufi Master.

I feel that this has made him feel special.

He says somewhere that only the Manifestations of God are constantly in the state of oneness.

For every Sufi there is no other purpose for life.

This is my issue with Baha'u'llah, he wants you to be subservient to his truth.

He denies wholly that it is the only Truth.

He makes himself greater than you.

Through him, you will believe that your birthright is not possible.

This is a crime.

Baha'u'llah is not special, he has simply fulfilled the purpose of life in himself.

I hope it is fulfilled in you too.
 
YET, and please don't misunderstand this:

I fully uphold Baha'u'llah, as another Sufi I see truth in him.

I do not reject him at all, I just think he has thought too lowly of the masses...

He wants them to do Gods work, but in my experience of Baha'is, they miss God.

By becoming partial, unity is lost.

It is well meaning, but the Baha'i faith has failed.

It has become another identification.
 
Yet, when Baha'u'llah reaches his peaks, who does he quote?

Rumi

I have no desire to create discord...

I only want you to look more deeply than this.
 
Thanks for your posts "Ruh Ishq" ... I see you are relatively new here and so a welcome is in order!

My purpose in posting the video was to provide those interested with a brief review of what the Baha'i Faith is about on this Forum.

Baha'u'llah as you may know suffered some forty years of imprisonment and exile from His native Persia.. While Baha'u'llah was in exile He visited Kurdistan for a few years and corresponded with some Sufis there. Among His works were The Seven Valleys and the Four Valleys which you can find online at

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/SVFV/

You can also read about His visit to Kurdistan:

https://bahai-library.com/masumian_bahaullah_kurdistan

Once again I'm so happy you've posted on the Baha'i Forum!
 
I have read both, he quotes many Sufi's in these texts.

I have even been to some local Baha'i events.

My feeling is that the Baha'is are too worldly and service oriented.

At least at the local assembly, there were none advancing spiritually, everyone was too concerned figuring out how to preach without proselytizing. I specifically recall an exercise where the whole was nothing else, and then there is the notion of Entry by Troops that is just creepy - some members at the less family oriented meetings made a point to "be honest" about a coming war Baha'is will have to fight?!?

I would suggest you lose nothing of Baha'u'llah by going to the Sufi's directly, just living examples of his majesty in the Pirs.

I hope you will seek some out, they are each as beautiful as Baha'u'llah at his highest.

The greatest Sufi speaking publically today is perhaps Llewelyn Vaughan-Lee of the Naqshabandi Order, perhaps you will look at some of his videos on YouTube?

I just have to question whether the world needs a new religion to identify with?

I don't think Baha'u'llah has contributed anything that wasn't already asserted by Rumi, except the new laws and calendar etc...

He has attempted to make Sufism available for the masses by making it more superficial.

This is a crime, for me.
 
Ruh Ishq said:
I have read both
Click to expand...

Okay.

Ruh Ishq said:
It is a shame he was imprisoned and thus separated from his Sufi Master.

I feel that this has made him feel special.
Click to expand...

Many Bábís viewed Shaykh al-Ahsá'í, the founder of the Shaykhi movement, as a precursor to the Báb, who Baha'is believe prepared the way for Bahá'u'lláh. Shaykh Ahmad had some critical comments about Sufism. For example, he "believes the Sufi shaykhs arrogate to themselves functions and stations appropriate only to the Twelve Imams". See a summary of his critique of religious authority in Sufism here (click on here). As Vahid Rafati notes in The Development of Shaykhi Thought in Shi'i Islam, some of these attitudes toward Sufism continued in the Bábí movement.

But in more detail why this negative view of the stations some pirs claim? As far as I can tell, it has to do with the concept of walaya, which can mean different things in different contexts. Todd Lawson's The Authority of the Feminine and Fatima's Place in an Early Work of the Bab here (click on here) looks at the term walaya in the Báb's writings. Here's a brief quote from Lawson's work:

"It is something of a truism that the Shi'i Imam is the analogue of the Sufi shaykh (or vice versa). One reason is that the basic understanding and function of the term walaya seems to be fairly constant across the borders that otherwise separate the two. The point is that concern with walaya means concern with power and authority. In the early work by the Bab, there is a great deal of concern with walaya. In this study we are interested mainly in the walaya and spiritual authority of Fatima."
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​

Moojan Momen notes in An Introduction to Shi'i Islam that the Sufi masters (also called Qutb, Shaykh, Murshid, or Pir) trace their chain of authority to Ali. This leads to conflict between Shi'is and Sufis:

"The concept of the Qutb (who for most Sufi orders is the head of the order) as the purveyor of spiritual guidance and God's grace to mankind is in direct conflict with the concept of the Imam who in Shi'ism fulfills this role. The vow of obedience to the Shaykh or Qutb which is taken by Sufis is considered incompatible with devotion to the Imam. Indeed, for Shi'is, the Twelth Imam, who is alive and only in occultation, is the living Qutb and there can only ever be one Qutb upon the Earth at one time."
Click to expand...

Noting the religious concepts in the background of the Baha'i Faith above, I doubt it was Bahá'u'lláh's imprisonment and separation from a pir that led him to "feel special".
 
For me, the only Authority is God, Love.

I do not uphold the notions of the Shi'a, or for that matter the Sunni... these are human interventions and structures.

Love is always one, so rightly there cannot be two Qutb.

The devotion of a disciple requires first complete surrender, this is simply part of the process.

A true Pir has utterly dropped autonomy, they are walking talking Love.

In this, many Sufi's have lost their life.

Yet, I will suggest that such notions are exactly why Baha'u'llah along with people like Ghulam Ahmad and Meher Baba have become confused.

It is further evidenced in Christian cults, because such a state is denied as possible, that it has happened must mean you are Christ returned...

It gets really messy, and causes much conflict.

All of it takes us away from our search for True Love, God.

There is no other purpose for conscious life.
 
Ruh.. I love your name..

One of the reasons I don't post on the Abrahamic section here and specifically on the Islam sector and then only on very rare occasions is that it could cause some ill feeling because I know a lot of Muslims have animosity for the Baha'is and because Baha'is are persecuted today in Iran and other places...

I would therefore ask you as a matter of courtesy to allow us to post news and other items here about the Baha'i Faith...

In friendship

Arthur
 
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