Thursday, February 19, 2009

Responsibilities and possibilities of hearts turned to God

I see myself trying to follow Baha'u'llah, trusting Him, subordinating my interests and ideas to His, trying to continually improve my understanding and practice of His purposes and prescriptions. I feel welcome to follow my own interests and ideas, within the limits of His prescriptions, but I never equate my interests or ideas with His, and I imagine His are better than mine, and always will be. I hope to continually improve in understanding and following them.

I see a possibility that this is what God means by turning to Him. A Christian might feel the same way about Christ, and that might be what salvation means in Biblical terms. A Jew might feel the same way about some or all of the Hebrew scriptures, and a Muslim might feel the same way about the Qur'an. I don't know. I have an idea what it looks like when a heart is turned to God in a Baha'i or Christian context. I don't have much of an idea in other contexts of what it looks like, conceptually. In terms of action I imagine that in any context I would see a person using some scriptures to help her improve herself, to spread the knowledge and love of God, and to help improve the world.

I'm not sure there's any way for me, or anyone else, to know if any particular person, including me, is turned to God, or saved, or whatever. I hope I am or will be, and I want to act accordingly.

To put it in the context of practicing and promoting better conduct, different people might have different reasons and conceptual frameworks for doing that. There could be a variety of discussions in the contexts of those reasons and frameworks, and I would welcome any comments from anyone in any context, about practicing and promoting better conduct. I'm particularly interested just now in the context of turning to God, and that might continue for some time, but I imagine I would be thrilled to have any kind of discussion with anyone in any context, about practicing and promoting better conduct.

Back to the topic of this post: I want to discuss with people of all religions and ideologies who think God might have turned their hearts to Him, the responsibilities and possibilities that might come with that. As an example from my own experience, I'll be discussing some words of Baha'u'llah addressed to the people of Baha, and some ideas about practicing and promoting devotion to the interests of the House of Justice.

For people who don't think in monotheistic terms, or any theistic terms at all, I haven't learned yet how to describe the condition I'm talking about. I would welcome any help that anyone would like to offer. I imagine some kind of deep, abiding interest in improving yourself, and in helping to improve the world. Some kind of idea of some kind of force for good. Some body of writings that speaks for that force, where you find wisdom and moral support and a standard of conduct, and where your interests and ideas are continually challenged and improved.

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