Re: From a non-Bah'ai: re-envisioning progressive revelation



JanetDoe wrote:

I'm not sure that completeness and progress are all that different. You
may be familiar with the passage where Baha'u'llah speaks of an
'ever-advancing civilization.' The word translated as 'ever-advancing
civilization' is salah-i alam which literally means the 'reparing of
the world' which sounds more like your concept of completeness. It is
the Arabic equivalent to the Jewish concept of tikkun alam.



That's an interesting point, and it is perhaps for this reason alone
that fidelity to the meaning of words should be adhered to as much as
possible, despite the trouble with translation.  Beyond this, the
notion of "repairing of the world" as opposed to "ever-advancing
civilization" seems more respectful with regards to other spiritual
orientations (not the same as religion; I'll explain later).


I think all relgions do and will contribute to our mutual understanding
but whether or not they do so egually is perhaps another issue. The
Baha'i Faith, in the final analysis is a revealed religion, not a
naturally one. We believe it reflects God's will for our day. And we
all have a responsibility to respond to God whenever and however He
comes to us. That's the Covenant.



Of course.  I wouldn't argue otherwise.  However, in the meantime, I
believe achieving that end rests heavily upon how open one is to
different spiritual paradigms.  And I don't mean in the sense of basic
tenets and goals.  I mean completely different ways of perceiving and
understanding the world.

As a comparison, I'll briefly touch upon something called the
Meyers-Briggs Personality Indicator (for those unfamiliar with it).
According to Meyers-Briggs, the human personality has 4 components.
They describe: how an individual energizes herself; how she understands
the world; how she makes decisions; and how she organizes her life.
Each individual has a preference for one aspect or another, and this
colors her values, her perceptions, her strengths and weaknesses, etc.
These preferences are represented with letters.  E/I for
Extraversion/Introversion; S/N for Sensing/Intuition; T/F for
Thinking/Feeling; J/P for Judging/Perceiving.  It's more complicated
than this, but it's fascinating stuff, so if you have the spare time,
it's worth looking into.  What MBTI boils down to is this: people are
different.  They have genuinely different concepts of themselves, of
the world around them, of relationships, and of values.  They share
humanity, but how they define and express their humanity are markedly
different.  Each type is a complete manifestation of humanity in and of
itself.  An ESTJ, for instance, is not a dysfuntional INFP.  However,
but understanding each of the types and respecting them as they are on
their own terms, we have a richer, more complete (as in encompassing as
many diverse conceptions and expressions of it as possible)
understanding of humanity than would otherwise be possible if we only
approached things from our own "ABCD" perspective.

The same can also be applied to discourse between faiths, particularly
with the "responsibility to respond to God whenever and however He
comes to us."  In addition, I would go so far as to say that one cannot
begin to do this without understanding and appreciating the various
spiritual paradigms as expressing truths that are complete and eternal
in and of themselves.  Like a lot of things that are worth doing, it's
easier said than done.  It's easy to proselytize, debate, challenge,
defend, condemn, and otherwise make noise.  It's hard to simply be, to
simply express, to simply listen, to simply let be.


TRB is a great place for making noise, and many do come here to proselytize.

You did hit upon something I do find interesting, and it occurs to me that it touches on something like Meyers-Briggs, and it transcends revelations. Some groups are physically expressionistic: Hasidic Jews, shaking as they pray; Charismatic Christians, some dancing as they pray; Muslims of the Mevlevi Order whirl. That these believers worship, using physical motions to express spiritual energy, is orthogonal to the revelation which they profess.

Going back to that awful grade school analogy, some of the fourth graders are farther along in most of their subjects than some of the sixth graders.

With these different dimensions of mode, spiritual insight, and recognized prophet, for an individual, religion is not a flat continuum.

- All Bad

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