After seeing Bryan's post I felt compelled to update as well, after about two years of inactivity. This is essentially a coming out post. I have only told a handful of people where I am at - out of worry that I would disappoint friends. Now it has been a while, and since I helped start this blog I feel like I should use this forum to explain myself. To put it simply: I lost my faith. Since then I have regained interest in spiritual practice - but not belief in a Baha'i sense. Let me explain.
I had already been going through a deep process of questioning and doubt during the summer of 2010 as I was doing an internship in Morocco. Most of my posts during that time were produced out of a dialectic in my mind between doubt and my Baha'i identity trying to reconcile it. Near the end of the summer and that fall I cut that identity. I no longer believed the Baha'i story - in particular the idea of divine progressive revelation. I still saw religion as progressive and evolutionary, but a social construct, a product of time and place, a story people tell themselves to facilitate the embedding of morals and institutions in a culture. I still viewed the Baha'i Faith as the most forward looking, inspired, and effective religion serving humanities needs in this day. But I also stopped thinking of it as "divine". I stopped believing that prayer was doing anything other than serving psychological needs.
About a year later I moved to Michigan and started a PhD program. I looked forward to getting to a new place where I no longer felt the need to hide anything. And that occurred. From the beginning I presented myself as a friend of the Faith - a husband of a Baha'i.
For a while I put away all thoughts of spirituality. I generally viewed things through a secular lens, yet I never could disbelieve either - in God, a divine plan, teleology, something. My worldview became kind of bleak. I stopped having any kind of ultimate vision to motivate my actions. Yet I maintained a more provisional humanistic drive. I started accustoming myself more and more to the idea of non-existence after death.
In the last six months I have taken up with great interest something that first intrigued me in high-school and helped lead me towards the Baha'i Faith in the first place: the idea of higher consciousness. A friend sent me a book by Eckart Tolle which opened up a space within me that I had long considered closed. This has led to a daily meditation practice with special interest in secularized Vipassana.
I am again interested in spiritual experience, but I am not interested in contextualizing it within a belief framework. I have come to an equilibrium of deep reverence for the figures of the Faith. The more mystical writings - in particular the Seven Valleys and some of the Hidden Words have guided me in my new practice. As I write these words a part of me bows down in surrender to Baha'u'llah.
I don't know what the future holds, I am not closed to anything. I am involved in a personal investigation of the truth, as are we all. I know that I will continue to be interested in pragmatic action to make the world a better place. I see the Baha'i community as one of the most innovative and progressive forces for social change - and I will still seek opportunities to collaborate in Baha'i initiatives.
One final note. This blog was initially set up for Baha'is to collaborate on their ideas. Since I no longer identify as a Baha'i, I am not sure what involvement I will/should have with this space. If anything, I might be interested in writing about meditation and spiritual experience, we'll see.
I had already been going through a deep process of questioning and doubt during the summer of 2010 as I was doing an internship in Morocco. Most of my posts during that time were produced out of a dialectic in my mind between doubt and my Baha'i identity trying to reconcile it. Near the end of the summer and that fall I cut that identity. I no longer believed the Baha'i story - in particular the idea of divine progressive revelation. I still saw religion as progressive and evolutionary, but a social construct, a product of time and place, a story people tell themselves to facilitate the embedding of morals and institutions in a culture. I still viewed the Baha'i Faith as the most forward looking, inspired, and effective religion serving humanities needs in this day. But I also stopped thinking of it as "divine". I stopped believing that prayer was doing anything other than serving psychological needs.
About a year later I moved to Michigan and started a PhD program. I looked forward to getting to a new place where I no longer felt the need to hide anything. And that occurred. From the beginning I presented myself as a friend of the Faith - a husband of a Baha'i.
For a while I put away all thoughts of spirituality. I generally viewed things through a secular lens, yet I never could disbelieve either - in God, a divine plan, teleology, something. My worldview became kind of bleak. I stopped having any kind of ultimate vision to motivate my actions. Yet I maintained a more provisional humanistic drive. I started accustoming myself more and more to the idea of non-existence after death.
In the last six months I have taken up with great interest something that first intrigued me in high-school and helped lead me towards the Baha'i Faith in the first place: the idea of higher consciousness. A friend sent me a book by Eckart Tolle which opened up a space within me that I had long considered closed. This has led to a daily meditation practice with special interest in secularized Vipassana.
I am again interested in spiritual experience, but I am not interested in contextualizing it within a belief framework. I have come to an equilibrium of deep reverence for the figures of the Faith. The more mystical writings - in particular the Seven Valleys and some of the Hidden Words have guided me in my new practice. As I write these words a part of me bows down in surrender to Baha'u'llah.
I don't know what the future holds, I am not closed to anything. I am involved in a personal investigation of the truth, as are we all. I know that I will continue to be interested in pragmatic action to make the world a better place. I see the Baha'i community as one of the most innovative and progressive forces for social change - and I will still seek opportunities to collaborate in Baha'i initiatives.
One final note. This blog was initially set up for Baha'is to collaborate on their ideas. Since I no longer identify as a Baha'i, I am not sure what involvement I will/should have with this space. If anything, I might be interested in writing about meditation and spiritual experience, we'll see.
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