GOD-centric :

A life centered on the pursuit of a good and fair God of love

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Ch. 5 The Quest (continued)

Baha'i

  "The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens" so said Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Baha'i religion. That sounded right up my alley! I was clicking my heels thinking I had finally found the one. Most young women were having that type of thought about young men but I only had eyes for God.

  The Baha'i in me embraced its message of unity and social justice and belief in one God who had been described in different ways by different religions. I found value in its three core principles of the unity of God, the unity of religion, and the unity of humankind. I agreed that human nature was essentially good and that the purpose of life was to develop spiritually and draw closer to God, in part, by striving for social justice and equality. I also agreed that heaven and hell were not literal places but states of being that reflected the individual's moving closer to or further away from God.

  I was not a Baha'i because I disagreed with its belief that manifestations of God progressively revealed God to humanity with Bahá'u'lláh, of course, being the most recent and relevant. I had thrown aside any notion of special prophets sent to reveal special knowledge. If God could send prophets, why not just create a prophethood of all believers? As my spiritual journey moved forward, I became convinced that my gut instinct and original experience of God were correct: God loved all of us equally and would not choose special times, places, or people that could not be equally available to all in which to reveal Himself. I disagreed with the Baha'i belief that God was completely transcendent because I had experienced God as an immanent presence. While I agreed that God may be ultimately unknowable, I believed that God could be better known through love, devotion, pursuit, spiritual disciplines, and the living out of God's love in the world. Finally, human history had disproved the Baha'i suggestion that religion was orderly and unified in its progression from age to age.