Tag: independent investigation

239 Days in America, Day 185: October 12, 1912 | San Francisco

Rabbi Martin Meyer Hosts ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Temple 1

THE LATE MORNING SUNLIGHT filtered down through opalescent windows and settled on the soft features of Rabbi Martin A. Meyer. At 10:45 a.m. on the cool morning of Saturday, October 12, 1912, he stood upon his pulpit, hand-carved from weathered oak, and looked out over two thousand members of his congregation. They filled the majestic sanctuary of San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El.

The massive Gothic Revival synagogue, built in the 1860s, was one of the largest vaulted chambers ever constructed in the state of California. Two octagonal towers shot up at the temple’s front corners on Sutter Street, supporting bronze-plated Russian domes that impressed themselves on the city’s skyline. The vaults and the domes had come crashing down on the fateful morning of April 18, 1906, and the temple had burned to its skeleton in the fires. But just sixteen months later Temple Emanu-El rose again from the ashes: squat towers now stood where the domes had been, a ceiling of Oregon pine replaced the vaults, and chandeliers hung down in the shape of six-pointed stars.

“It is a privilege, and a very high privilege indeed,” Rabbi Meyer said, “to welcome in our midst this morning Abdul Baha, a great teacher of our age and generation. . . . Abdul Baha is the representative of one of the religious systems of life, and it appeals to us Jews, because we Jews feel that we have fathered that ideal throughout the centuries of men.”

California 2

On Saturday, October 12, He presented His memorable address to an audience of 2,000 in the Temple Emmanu-El, emphasizing “the truth of His Holiness Christ, the reality of Islam, the oneness of humanity and universal peace.”

Saturday, October 12, 1912 3

The Master’s address at the Jewish Temple was unique and magnificent. His talk, which was delivered to some two thousand Jews, concerned the truth of Christ, the reality of Islam, the oneness of humanity and universal peace. This gathering was clear evidence of the power and majesty of the Center of the Covenant. Indeed, it can be counted as a miracle. The proofs supporting the truth of the reality of Christ and Muhammad, the Messengers of God, flowed from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s lips with such majesty and authority that all were dumbfounded. After His talk, many humbly came to see Him to express their gratitude, except for a very few diehards who left in dismay. The chairman of the meeting, considered to be an eminent and learned Jew, introduced the Master:

It is our privilege to welcome in our midst ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, a great teacher of our age and generation. The heart of the Orient seems to be essentially religious, and now and then, out of the heart of the Orient, the fundamental religious message for the world is stated and restated. This century is very great and this age is the age of the maturity of the world. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá is the representative of one of the religious systems which appeals to us Jews, because we feel that we have fathered that idea throughout the centuries. This morning He will speak to us, the followers and the children of Israel, in His native tongue through an interpreter, on ‘The Fundamental Unity of Religious Thought’. I am certain that whatever He says will be of great significance to us. …

Address by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

‘Abdu’l-Bahá gave this address in the afternoon at the home of Mrs Goodall and Mrs Cooper:

“Today we spoke in the Jewish temple. You saw how it was proven that Christ was the Word of God and Muhammad the Messenger of God. From the beginning of Christianity and Islam up to the present day, no one has spoken thus, proving the validity of Christ and Muhammad in a Jewish temple and in a manner to which no one took exception. Rather, most were appreciative and content. This is none other than the assistance of Bahá’u’lláh.”

The effect and influence of the address were such that from then on there was evidence of unity and communication between the Christians and Jews. They even made plans to visit each other’s places of worship to give talks about the unity of peoples and religions. Whenever they met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or attended Bahá’í gatherings, they expressed their gratitude from the depths of their hearts for this great Cause and its new teachings.

Talk at Temple Emmanu-El, 450 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 4

The greatest bestowal of God in the world of humanity is religion, for assuredly the divine teachings of religion are above all other sources of instruction and development to man. Religion confers upon man eternal life and guides his footsteps in the world of morality. It opens the doors of unending happiness and bestows everlasting honor upon the human kingdom. It has been the basis of all civilization and progress in the history of mankind.

We will, therefore, investigate religion, seeking from an unprejudiced standpoint to discover whether it is the source of illumination, the cause of development and the animating impulse of all human advancement. We will investigate independently, free from the restrictions of dogmatic beliefs, blind imitations of ancestral forms and the influence of mere human opinion; for as we enter this question, we will find some who declare that religion is a cause of uplift and betterment in the world, while others assert just as positively that it is a detriment and a source of degradation to mankind. We must give these questions thorough and impartial consideration so that no doubt or uncertainty may linger in our minds regarding them.

’Abdu’l-Bahá in America, 1912-2012: Calling America to It’s Spiritual Destiny

Presenting proofs supporting the truth of the reality of Christ and Muhammad

Celebrating the Centenary: The Master in America

Curated by Anne Perry

October 12, 1912

  1. Menon, Jonathan. “Rabbi Martin Meyer Hosts ‘Abdu’l-Bahá at Temple Emanu-El.” 239 Days in America, 12 Oct. 2012, https://239days.com/2012/10/12/rabbi-martin-a-meyer-hosts-abdul-baha-longest-address-in-america/. ↩
  2. Ward, Allan L. 239 Days: ʻAbdu’l-Bahá’s Journey in America. Wilmette, Ill: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1979, 168. ↩
  3. ’Abdu’l-Bahá, and Mirza Mahmud-i-Zarqani. Mahmúd’s Diary: The Diary of Mírzá Mahmúd-i-Zarqání Chronicling ’Abdu’l-Bahá’s Journey to America. Edited by Shirley Macias. Translated by Mohi Sobhani. Oxford: George Ronald, 1998. https://bahai-library.com/zarqani_mahmuds_diary&chapter=8#section203 ↩
  4. ʻAbduʼl-Bahá. The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ʻAbduʼl-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. Edited by Howard MacNutt. 2nd ed. Wilmette, Ill: Baháʼí Publishing Trust, 1982, 361-362. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/abdul-baha/promulgation-universal-peace/27#592795487 ↩

Where Am I — How Do I Find Out?

My previous post, Where Am I?, presents a number of cosmic possibilities for where one could be. How to narrow the options, though, is a personal decision. One must choose carefully among many reasoned and compelling theories about cosmology even as they are being challenged, revised, or supplanted through new discoveries, developments, and detours. The goal is to settle on whatever instills sufficient confidence to go forward as a “knowledge broker.” 1

Being lost is not a permanent condition. Being found is to confront the primary challenge mentioned above of knowing what integrity is and addressing the confounding questions honestly and openly. Peeling back the onion-like layers of representation that shroud our integrity is an exercise in independent investigation of truth – —a fundamental endeavor for a knowledge broker. 2

Independent Search after Truth, then, becomes the first of three core activities in the pursuit of knowledge:

Furthermore, know ye that God has created in man the power of reason, whereby man is enabled to investigate reality. God has not intended man to imitate blindly his fathers and ancestors. He has endowed him with mind, or the faculty of reasoning, by the exercise of which he is to investigate and discover the truth, and that which he finds real and true he must accept. He must not be an imitator or blind follower of any soul. He must not rely implicitly upon the opinion of any man without investigation; nay, each soul must seek intelligently and independently, arriving at a real conclusion and bound only by that reality. The greatest cause of bereavement and disheartening in the world of humanity is ignorance based upon blind imitation. It is due to this that wars and battles prevail; from this cause hatred and animosity arise continually among mankind. 3

The second core activity is the apprehension of reality through various worlds of perception:

  • material — one that can be perceived through the senses;
  • rational — one that can be perceived through the intellect;
  • historical — one that can be perceived through traditions and narratives; and
  • spiritual (non-material / suprarational) — one that can be perceived through a conduit or postulated as a theoretical possibility, but cannot be tested (observed) or proven with available knowledge. 4

While each realm is valuable in myriad ways, to regard any one of them as a sufficient pathway to applicable knowledge is susceptible to distortion of information and error in judgement. More useful answers emerge from mutually supportive evidence gleaned from several “worlds of perception” (or “multiple intelligences”) 5 and diverse starting conditions.

The third core activity is the adoption of a disciplined, “scientific method” 6 to follow when processing what one perceives in order to achieve a better understanding. This methodology applies in both material and spiritual realities especially when bridging between them as noted in this statement by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:

It (science) is of two kinds: material and spiritual. Material science is the investigation of natural phenomena; divine science is the discovery and realization of spiritual verities. The world of humanity must acquire both. A bird has two wings; it cannot fly with one. Material and spiritual science are the two wings of human uplift and attainment. Both are necessary—one the natural, the other supernatural; one material, the other divine. By the divine we mean the discovery of the mysteries of God, the comprehension of spiritual realities, the wisdom of God, inner significances of the heavenly religions and foundation of the law. 7

The diagram below by Keng-Laing Huang 8 illustrates how the scientific method provides a disciplined approach by which an independent seeker can sort through spiritual and material perceptions about any topic and secure a firmer grasp on reality:

Armed with independence, perception and process, one forges ahead as a steeled knowledge broker confident to meet any circumstance during life’s journey. Along the way one learns through the merit of one’s logic, the strength and consistency of one’s narratives, and the perseverance of one’s curiosity and imagination to keep after truth. In effect, one maps one’s place in the cosmos and finds what may have seemed lost.

  1. “I describe myself as a “knowledge broker.” With the pervasiveness of ICT capabilities, the roles we play in our work and relationships to one another are a complex mix of saying our truths, aggregating these diverse points of truth into recognizable frameworks of patterns, and putting theories into action we believe will influence the patterns we see and experience. Knowledge brokers move easily and freely among these three roles depending upon the current circumstances in which they find themselves.”
    Bosserman, Steven L., “Welcome,” Steven L. Bosserman Archives (Blog), August 31, 2005. <https://stevenlbossermanarchives.com/2005/08/25/welcome/> ↩
  2. Bosserman, Steven L., “Integrity and Groundtruth,” Steven L. Bosserman Archives (Blog), August 31, 2005. <https://stevenlbossermanarchives.com/2005/08/31/integrity-and-ground-truth/> ↩
  3. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “Talk at Home of Madame Morey, 34 Hillside Avenue, Malden, Massachusetts, 29 August 1912,” The Promulgation of Universal Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912, 2nd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982), 291. http://www.bahai.org/r/693658082 ↩
  4. “Abdu’l-Bahá 1904-1906. “The Four Methods of Acquiring Knowledge”. Some Answered Questions. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1981, 297-299). ↩
  5. “The purpose of their performance was three-fold. First, make rhythm and dance integral in the design of the leadership workshop as an appeal to the auditory-musical and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences of attendees, à la Howard Gardner and his theory of multiple intelligences.”
    Bosserman, Steven L., “Keeping the Beat with Jump Rhythm Jazz Project,” Steven L. Bosserman Archives (Blog), December 5, 2005. https://stevenlbossermanarchives.com/2005/12/05/keeping-the-beat-with-jump-rhythm-jazz-project/ ↩
  6. “The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century. It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method> ↩
  7. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. “Talk at the Home of Mr. and Mrs. Francis W. Breed, 367 Harvard Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 23 May 1912,” The Promulgation of World Peace: Talks Delivered by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá during His Visit to the United States and Canada in 1912. 2nd ed. (Wilmette, IL: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982). 138. http://www.bahai.org/r/988275660 ↩
  8. Huang, Keng-Laing, “The Science of Living,” BahaiTeachings.org
    February 28, 2020. <https://bahaiteachings.org/science-of-living/&gt; ↩