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Practices for Devotional Meetings

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Practices for Devotional Meetings Practices for Devotional Meetings Intone, O My servant, the verses of God that have been received by thee, as intoned by them who have drawn nigh unto Him, that the sweetness of thy melody may kindle thine own soul, and attract the hearts of all men. Whoso reciteth in the privacy of his chamber, the verses revealed by God, the scattering angels of the Almighty shall scatter abroad the fragrance of the words uttered by his mouth, and shall cause the heart of every righteous man to throb. Though he may, at first, remain unaware of its effect, yet the virtue of the grace vouchsafed unto him must needs sooner or later exercise its influence upon his soul. Thus have the mysteries of the Revelation of God been decreed by virtue of the Will of Him Who is the Source of power and wisdom. -Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh PREPARATION Atmosphere is critical: the sounds and smells and what is seen. If you have ever been to a Tranquility Zone, that's the idea -- attar of rose if you can afford it or rose oil, and soft music or a water fountain, and soft billows of pastel-colored cloth on the walls. As much as possible without being objectionable or controlling, the host for the evening should attempt to keep conversation on spiritual topics – the focus at all times should be on the objective for the meeting, which is worship. Greetings and fellowship and love are to be encouraged, but there shouldn't be opportunity given for people to be allowed to fall into discussion of politics or much chit-chat. The meeting should start maybe 10 minutes after the appointed time. The best way par excellence to discover the "science of the love of God" is to follow the steps proposed in the Tablet of the True Seeker (Kitáb-i Íqán, pp. 192-4), which describes how to seek "knowledge of the Ancient of Days". In fact, this approach is recommended as preparation for regular scientific research also. It is a method of purifying the soul and removing prejudices, so as to make it more open to spiritual knowledge. Inasmuch as spiritual knowledge, as 'Abdu'l-Bahá points out, can also overlap with "intellectual" knowledge, it doesn‟t seem that the method of preparing oneself to seek them need differ. So, what do you do? First, "he must, before all else, cleanse and purify his heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries of God, from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy." 2 Notice that this focuses on the "heart", not the brain. So this knowledge is not rational knowledge, which is the province of the mind, and seated in the brain. It is knowledge of a sort which is deeper, more atavistic, and is sensed by the heart, which is the sensory organ for spiritual knowledge, knowledge of the Science of Faith. Note also that "all acquired knowledge" must be purged. That is, everything. Knowledge of family, friends, self, language, other religious teachings -- everything, everything which is acquired. So this says that the knowledge we seek is not acquired. Huh? How can that be? It's not so hard, actually -- that which is not acquired is innate! So this must be an innate knowledge which we seek, which is obscured by knowledge that we have learned in life. Plus, of course, it is obscured by desires that are worldly -- not spiritual. So if this knowledge is innate, then we don't need to be taught it -- we need to open ourselves to it. This is done through prayer and meditation. No need for worldly books or teachers, other than the Manifestation. And the Manifestation of God is manifest in the heart as well as in the Writings -- we can seek Him in both places, but for the purpose of this science of the love of God, we must seek Him within. "At the dawn of every day he should commune with God, and with all his soul persevere in the quest of his Beloved." Also, the seeker of this science should act in his life in accordance with the teachings of the Manifestation, both in terms of living a moral life, in his treatment of animals and other people, and in his companions. Not the standard idea of the scientist, perhaps, but this kind of scientist -- the scientist of the love of God, lives in this way. No person can teach another the results of this inquiry, as the knowledge can only be learned by the heart. The Writings point in this direction, they show the methods required to obtain this knowledge, they reveal many prayers and meditations, give the teachings of how to lead a moral life, but the results of this teaching manifest themselves only in the heart itself, how a person is, not what his brain knows or his tongue recites. The Universal House of Justice, in a letter dated 1983-09-01, wrote: “Bahá'u'lláh has specified no procedures to be followed in meditation, and individual believers are free to do as they wish in this area, provided that they remain in harmony with the Teachings.” "The prayerful condition is the best of all conditions, for man in such a state communeth with God, especially when prayer is offered in private and at times when one's mind is free, such as at midnight. Indeed, prayer imparteth life." -From a recently translated Tablet of 'Abdu'l-Bahá "The wisdom of prayer is this: that it causeth a connection between the servant and the True One, because in that state man with all heart and soul turneth his face towards His Highness the Almighty, seeking His association and desiring His love and compassion The greatest happiness for a lover is to converse with his beloved, and the greatest gift for a seeker is to become familiar with the object of his longing -- that is why with every soul who is attracted to the kingdom of God, his greatest hope is to find an opportunity to entreat and supplicate before his Beloved, appeal for His mercy and grace and be immersed in the ocean of His utterance, goodness and generosity. Beside all this, prayer and fasting is the cause of awakening and mindfulness and conducive to protection and preservation from tests." 3 -Tablets of 'Abdu'l-Bahá ‘Abbás, pp. 683-4 "[T]he core of religious faith is that mystic feeling which unites man with God. This state of spiritual communion can be brought about and maintained by means of meditation and prayer. And this is the reason why Bahá'u'lláh has so much stressed the importance of worship. It is not sufficient for a believer merely to accept and observe the teachings. He should, in addition, cultivate the sense of spirituality which he can acquire chiefly by means of prayer. The Bahá'í Faith, like all other Divine Religions, is thus fundamentally mystic in character. Its chief goal. is the development of the individual and society, through the acquisition of spiritual virtues and powers. It is the soul of man which has first to be fed. And this spiritual nourishment prayer can best provide. Laws and institutions, as viewed by Bahá'u'lláh, can become really effective only when our inner spiritual life has been perfected and transformed. Otherwise religion will degenerate into a mere organisation, and becomes a dead thing." -From a letter written on Behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer, 18 Dec, 1935 "The most acceptable prayer. is the one offered with the utmost spirituality and radiance; its prolongation hath not been and is not beloved by God. The more detached and the purer the prayer, the more acceptable is it in the presence of God." -Selections from the Writings of the Báb, pp. 77-8 MENTION THE NAME OF GOD "True remembrance is to make mention of the Lord, the All-Praised, and forget aught else beside Him." -from Words of Wisdom, in Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh, p. 155 The Arabic word for “mention” and also “remembrance” is dhikr. It is often used specifically to refer to the utterance of the name of God. Among Sufis (mystics of Islam) the word dhikr is used to refer to a mystical ceremony in which the namne of God is said many many times in order to achieve an ecstatic effect. Bahá'u'lláh, who lived as a Sufi in the hills of Kurdistan for three years, was very familiar with the dhikr ceremony. Multiple repetitions of the Greatest Name can be said in rounds -- 9 or 19 or 95 or 81 or 361 (number of kullu shay'in "all things") or 500 at a time. This is extraordinarily powerful. In the Kitáb-i-Aqdas (#18) it is written: It hath been ordained that every believer in God, the Lord of Judgement, shall, each day, having washed his hands and then his face, seat himself and, turning unto God, repeat "Alláh-u-Abhá" ninety-five times. This injunction has frequently been compared to a mantra (a Sanskrit word meaning “word), which is used in Hindu or Buddhist terms for a word of power, which is often repeated for dozens of hundreds of times as a meditation tool. The idea is that the word itself can bring about a spiritual effect to the person repeating it – in addition, the mere 4 hypnotic repetition of the word induces a mental state conducive to relaxation of body and mind, and to allowing the influence of spiritual forces to affect the soul.
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