The 9 Elements of
My Own Personal,
Partial, Incomplete
List of Ways to
Develop a Spiritual
Lens
1. Complete Faith in God’s
Love, Wisdom, Purpose, &
Responsiveness



He will always, always, always care for His loved
ones (that means everyone)
The interesting thing is that you can practice
having faith. Like Indiana Jones.
His Hand is always at work- It’s like playing
chess with God and He can see infinite moves
ahead (and it can feel like you’re losing most of
the time)
Which president do you think
these quotes refer to?






He’s an embarrassment
Other leaders will meet him and ask themselves,
“Can he really be the President of the United
States?”
An embarrassing speaker
He’s trampling on the Constitution in the name of
conducting a war
“Nothing more than a well-meaning baboon”
“The original gorilla”
2. A Sense of Timelessness


Time is not a fixed entity-time as we know
it was developed to instill order and tell us
when to eat. It’s a social and cultural
construct.
There are two measures of time that I try
to keep in mind, one personal and
individual, the other civilizational.
Personal Clock



The only clock that really matters is the one along which runs our
spiritual development. We have a fixed amount of time in this world,
within which we have opportunities we’ll never have again. So in a
sense the question isn’t what have I done with my life, or what will I
do, but what am I doing with my life right now at this moment?
“He should forgive the sinful, and never despise his low estate, for
none knoweth what his own end shall be. How often hath a sinner
attained, at the hour of death, to the essence of faith, and, quaffing
the immortal draught, hath taken his flight unto the Concourse on
high!”(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p. 266)
Also, life will go on infinitely-if we put all of our spiritual life on a oneyear calendar, it would be just after midnight on New Year’s Day.
Civilizational Clock




What I do now will have both immediate influence, on my
self and the people around me, and long-term
“For the tongue is a smoldering fire, and excess of speech
a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body,
whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and
soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst
the effects of the latter endureth a century.” (Baha'u'llah,
Gleanings, p. 264)
Many of the things I’m doing now will reach their fruition
hundreds of years from now
A recent article compared how politicians view time (in 4-6
year increments) to how Muslim fundamentalists who are
terrorists view time (in hundreds of years)
3. Prayer and Meditation

See 1 & 2 above
4. Development of a Service
Outlook/Attitude


Service in the larger world is often defined by
events--one engages in a service project, or
series of service projects, and then you’re done
Service can be an attitude, where everything we
do can be an act of service
-Neopets
-Helping Amia get to sleep
-Watching the Soprano’s
-Going to Assembly meetings
5. Understanding the Divine
Writings




It’s not enough for me to know the Writings, I
have to know know the Writings
If they are to be of any use I have to be able to
apply the spiritual principles to concrete
situations
The problems of the world are spiritual in nature.
This is the next step in the study circle process-after study comes the service and application
The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health for the
World Health Organization brought together economists
and public health officials. They found that:
 $25 billion from the rich world could save 8 million lives
annually, many of them children under 5, who die from
“AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, vaccine-preventable
diseases, and unsafe child birth”
 This represents $.10 per every $100 of GNP from the rich
world (US, E.U., Aus., NZ, Can., and Japan)
 In the US alone, $200 billion in tax cuts “from the rich” has
been given away.
 And the US military budget increased by $150 billion
since Bush came into office, pushing spending to $450
billion
-the second largest military, China, spends $60 billion
annually
6. “Don’t Worry Be Happy”





I don’t see a place for anger--I used to think that anger
was necessary, even desirable, if it motivated me into
action (like the Public Enemy song)
Love should propel me, not anger
Anger is a door to hate
“Let nothing grieve thee, and be thou angered at none.”
(Abdu'l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu'lBaha, p. 25)
An emotion like that can cloud not just reason, but a
spiritual understanding of what is happening
“…he will enter The Valley of Knowledge and
come out of doubt into certitude, and turn from
the darkness of illusion to the guiding light of the
fear of God. His inner eyes will open and he will
privily converse with his Beloved…He in this
station is content with the decree of God, and
seeth war as peace…The wayfarer in this Valley
seeth in the fashionings of the True One nothing
save clear providence…He beholdeth justice in
injustice, and in justice, grace. In ignorance he
findeth many a knowledge hidden, and in
knowledge a myriad wisdoms. He breaketh the
cage of the body and the passions, and
consorteth with the people of the immortal
realm”. Bahá’u’lláh, The Seven Valleys, p.12
7. Unbounded Love


“let your heart burn with loving kindness for all
who may cross your path.” (Abdu'l-Baha, Paris
Talks, p. 15)
It’s not my job to decide who not to love
-a friend in Chicago was recently mugged at
gunpoint. She’s now looking for ways to reach
out to the mugger, by writing him in jail,
reasoning that God put him in her path so she
has a responsibility towards him.
8. Internalizing a Purpose and
Plan for the World


Realization that I don’t know how to fix the world, that
He does, and that all the occurrences in the world are
part of an underlying plan
“O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on
this earthly plane, things contrary to your wishes
have been ordained and manifested by God, for days
of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in
store for you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will
be unveiled to your eyes. You are destined by Him, in
this world and hereafter, to partake of their benefits,
to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their
sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you
will, no doubt, attain.” (Baha'u'llah, Gleanings, p.
329)
Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the
duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated
that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even
before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an
easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and
astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same
God, and each invokes His aid against the other…The
prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has
been answered fully. The Almighty has His own
purposes…If we shall suppose that American slavery is one
of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must
needs come, but which, having continued through His
appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives
to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to
those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein
any departure from those divine attributes which the
believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do
we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of
war may speedily pass away.
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the
wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred
and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk,
and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash
shall be paid by another drawn with the sword,
as was said three thousand years ago, so still it
must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true
and righteous altogether.’” Abraham Lincoln,
Second Inaugural Address, 1865
9. Become as Knowledgeable
as Possible About the World


We live in a time unprecedented in the
amount of information available to us
I feel like if I look long and hard enough I’ll
catch glimpses of God’s “invisible hand”
“In this journey the seeker reacheth a stage
wherein he seeth all created things wandering
distracted in search of the Friend…he will behold
many a lover, hasting to seek the Beloved, he will
a witness a world of desiring ones searching after
the One Desired….
One must judge of search by the standard of the
Majnún of Love. It is related that one day they
came upon Majnún sifting the dust, and his tears
flowing down. They said, ‘What doest thou?’ He
said, ‘I seek for Layli.’ They cried, ‘Alas for thee!
Layli is of pure spirit, and thou seekest her in the
dust!’ He said, ‘I seek her everywhere; haply
somewhere I shall find her.’ Bahá’u’lláh, The
Seven Valleys, p.6
What Makes Up Your Lens?