Weekly Insight: What in the Name of Baha'u'llah are "Intercalary Days"

What in the name of Baha’u’llah are “Intercalary Days”?

(The February 25th 3-Minute Weekly Insight from Spirituality U.)

Intercalary (pronounced, in-terk’-uh-lerry) Days are four or five special days that are part of a very unusual calendar followed by practitioners of the Baha’i faith.

Before talking about Intercalary Days let’s take a brief look at the Baha’i religion and its nineteen month annual calendar.

Founded in 1844 in Persia (now Iran), the Baha’i faith is among the youngest of the world’s religions, but also one of the most widespread in membership—there are more than 5 million adherents spread among 236 countries.

According to the official Baha’i USA web site, “Baha’is view the world’s major religions as a part of a single, progressive process through which God reveals His will to humanity. Baha’u’llah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha’i Faith, is recognized as the most recent in a line of Divine Messengers that includes Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Zoroaster, Christ and Muhammad.”

Baha’u’llah’s core message was that humanity is one single race and that the time has arrived to reunite people throughout the world into one global society.

This one society, according to Baha’u’llah, should be guided by a set of principles for living drawn from the teachings of many religions and completed by insights from Baha’u’llah and other Baha’i leaders.

As one way of communicating these teachings, Baha’is follow an annual calendar of 19 months; and each Baha’i month is made up of 19 days. The Baha’i months are all named for attributes of God. These attributes comprise:Splendor, Glory, Beauty, Grandeur, Light, Mercy, Words, Perfection, Names, Might, Will, Knowledge, Power, Speech, Questions, Honour, Sovereignty, Dominion, and Loftiness.

The Baha’i year begins on the Vernal Equinox (usually March 21) and concludes with a 19 day month of fasting that starts in early March. The month of fasting is called “Ala,” or Loftiness. During this month Baha’is refrain from eating and drinking from sunrise until sunset.

If you do the math, you will note that the total of 19 multiplied by 19 equals 361—four days short of the 365 in the Western calendar (five days short in Leap years). This leads us to the Intercalary Days.

The term “intercalary” is a word that refers to the insertion of days into a calendar such as the Baha’i, to make it synchronized with the Western or solar calendar.

According to one source, “The Days of Ha” (as Baha’is refer to the Intercalary Days) are intended to mark the transcendence of God over His attributes. 

During these days, Baha’is are encouraged to celebrate God and His oneness by showing love, fellowship and unity with the people around them. In many cases Baha’is exchange small gifts as a way of illustrating God’s generosity. This is also a time of generosity and goodwill during which Baha’is participate in a variety of humanitarian activities.

For more information about Intercalary Days and the Baha’i Faith visit:

http://www.bahai.us/

Feb. 18 Insight: You May Be Practicing Ahimsa (and not even know it!)

You May Be Practicing Ahimsa (and not even know it!)

(The 3-Minute Weekly Insight from Spirituality U.)

If you have made a commitment to not harming people (and other animate beings) and you spend a good bit of your time working to make the world a better place, you may be practicing Ahimsa (pronounced “ah-heem’-sah.”) It is a word from the ancient Sanskrit language that means “non-violence” or, more accurately, “non-injury.”

In English we have no positive word to express what Ahimsa actually represents. We are forced to express Ahimsa as the absence of violence—a negative—when Ahimsa actually requires positive action. Ahimsa doesn’t only mean that you don’t shoot, stab, or hit someone. It signifies that you are also careful not to use words to harm someone, and that you are careful to do things that are designed to make the world more fair and enjoyable for everyone.

Ahimsa is associated with at least three different religions from the Indian subcontinent: Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Many of us are familiar with Hinduism (and its many gods) and Buddhism (with its goal of ending suffering for all beings). But not as many of us know about Jainism. This third religion places an extreme emphasis on “non-injury,” extending Ahimsa to all living creatures. Jainism, in fact, makes Ahimsa its central ethical practice. Jains avoid killing anything that moves, even annoying bugs and deadly snakes. Jains are often seen walking down the street wearing surgical masks and carrying brooms to sweep ants and other bugs out of their way so that they don’t inadvertently breathe in gnats or squash bugs with their feet.

The word Ahimsa entered common usage in the West via the life and example of Mahatma Gandhi. For the Mahatma, Ahimsa was a key tool in his non-violent campaigns for equal rights and for Indian independence. All of Gandhi’s campaigns were undertaken with what he termed Satyagraha (pronounced saht-yah’-grah-ha”), or ‘truth power;” Ahimsa was the vital force within that power.

Prior to Gandhi’s use of the word Ahimsa, the word usually meant the absence of violence. Gandhi, however, took Ahimsa to a new level that was more demanding of those who sought to practice it. In Gandhi’s understanding, “Ahimsa precludes not only the act of inflicting a physical injury, but also mental states like evil thoughts and hatred, unkind behavior such as harsh words, dishonesty and lying, all of which he saw as manifestations of violence.” Moreover, Gandhi believed that Ahimsa carries a positive energy, compelling people to work for justice, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and free the wrongfully imprisoned.

Gandhi’s thoughts on Ahimsa informed the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and other leaders of the US Civil Rights movement. It also led the great physician, Albert Schweitzer, to his “reverence for life” philosophy.

But not everyone embraced Gandhi’s expanded view of Ahimsa. Some Indian leaders raised questions about whether one could unreservedly embrace Ahimsa when faced with situations that seemed to demand self-defense or require a “just war.” Others thought it inadvertently led to the partitioning of India.

For more information about Ahimsa visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa

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Feb 11 Insight: What Puts the 'Vision' in a Vision Quest?

What Puts the ‘Vision’ in a Vision Quest?

(The 3-Minute Weekly Insight from Spirituality U.)

A Vision Quest is a cultural and spiritual “rite of passage” practiced by young people in some Native American groups to mark their becoming adults and full members of the tribal community. The Vision Quest takes young people through a symbolic, spiritual process of “passing through,” and “being reborn”.

In this practice, young people—primarily young men—emerge out of adolescence and into adulthood. They do this by taking part in a ritual in which they leave their families and wander alone into an uninhabited wilderness area within walking distance of their community. Their wandering typically lasts one to four days. 

During this period of solitude the person undertaking the Quest often fasts from food and sometimes water, and usually goes without sleep. The Quest is often undertaken under the guidance of an elder from the tribe.

The sensory deprivations endured by the youthful ‘Quester’ may lead to waking dreams or hallucinations (one type of Vision) and to deep spiritual insights (another type of Vision).

One understanding of these visions is that during the period of fasting and sleeplessness the deep concentration leads the Quester to a state in which the mind becomes “comatose” or blank. Thoughts cease and the universe unfolds in the consciousness in a beautiful, non-verbal way.

 The Vision can bring the Quester profound insights into himself and the world. The insights usually relate directly to the young person’s future purpose and destiny in life. The Quest can help the young person develop new forms of spiritual communication and form complex, abstract thoughts not available to children.

During a Vision experience the young person may be visited by a spirit guide that takes the form of an animal such as a coyote or crow that communicates important information. This Vision creature may continue to visit the Quester from time to time throughout adult life.

At the end of the Vision Quest the person who left the tribe as a child returns to the group as an adult who is welcomed as a full partner in the community. As a full partner, the returnee may apprentice himself to another adult in the tribe to follow a “career” path that was revealed during the Quest. Such a path might be that of a medicine man, boat-maker, or crafter of bows.

There seems to be a yearning for people in many cultures and religions to find more profound ways to mark the rite of passage from childhood to adult life. And even though the Vision Quest is traditionally a Native American and Innuit practice, people from other cultures now attempt to complete the Vision Quest experience. One reason for this is the fact that rituals to mark the passage from childhood to adult life have somewhat evaporated from Western cultures. Observant Jews may guide their children through Bar or Bat Mitzvah ceremonies. Some Christians guide their children through “confirmation” when they reach their teenage years. Sadly, graduation from high school (a secular act) is now the key marker of transition out of childhood.

For more information about the Vision Quest ritual visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vision_quest

Feb 4 Insight: What Makes Someone an "Evangelical" Christian?

What Makes Someone an ‘Evangelical’ Christian?

(The 3-Minute Weekly Insight from Spirituality U.)

What makes Christians Evangelical? As always, it depends. According to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), what makes them evangelical is the fact that they “take the Bible seriously and believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.” They are Protestants, drawn from a wide range of denominations, such as Baptist, Reformed, Holiness, Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions.

The NAE web site points out that the word, “Evangelical” comes from the Greek word, euangelion, which translates literally as ‘good news,’ or gospel.

Evangelicals are all around us. In fact, more than 90 million Americans are identified as Evangelical. But that’s only about one fourth of the world population of these Christians. Evangelicalism is a world-wide religious movement. Over 42 million Evangelicals live in Brazil alone.

What makes Evangelicals distinctive within the world-wide Christian community are their core beliefs that humans are essentially sinful, and that the only way for people to be saved from hell is through belief in Jesus (whom they consider the “Christ” or Messiah) as their personal savior.

They further believe, along with other Christians, that Jesus was the one-and-only Son of God and that he was crucified as a sacrifice that washed away their sins, and thus assured them of an eternity in heaven.

But it is their acceptance of Jesus as Savior and Lord—rather than ethical behavior based on his teachings—that is key.

Christian historian David Bebbington points out four distinctive aspects of Evangelical faith. First, Evangelicals believe that we must have the life-changing experience of being “born again.” Second, Evangelicals have a very high regard for the Bible as their main authority. Third, they believe in the saving power of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Fourth, they believe that the Gospel of Jesus must be shared with everyone, especially non-Christians. This leads them to proselytize others, often beginning conversations by asking people, “Are you saved?”

The Evangelical movement began in the 18^th Century, CE, in England and the US. Among its earliest proponents were John Wesley (the founder of the Methodist denomination) and the famous American preacher, Jonathan Edwards.

Evangelicals are often confused with Fundamentalists, but the two are not the same. Fundamentalists (such as the late Jerry Falwell) are a sub-group of Evangelicals who take a literalist view of the Bible and often are religiously, socially, and politically conservative. Non-Fundamentalist Evangelicals come from across the political spectrum and generally emphasize outreach and conversion of new members.

Two prominent contemporary Evangelicals are Rev. Billy Graham and Rev. Jim Wallis. Using televised “Crusades,” Billy Graham has over the last six decades taken an ecumenical approach to the Evangelical movement. He has reached out to Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Christians, as well as to non-Christians around the world. His preaching has converted tens of millions of people. Jim Wallis and his Washington, DC-based Sojourners community have embraced Evangelical values but combined them with a strong emphasis on peacemaking and the addressing of racism, poverty and other ills through what has been termed the “Social Gospel.”

For more information about Evangelical Christians visit:

http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining-evangelicalism

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