How I became a Baha’i- Part 1

I am a recent member of the Baha’i Faith, a Faith that has been around for only 175 years but has taken the world by storm. It arose in the land of Persia, spread to Iraq and the Holy Land, and to the West around the turn of the century. In the 20th century, the Baha’is pioneered throughout the world, eventually reaching every country except North Korea(we’re working on that one). Each individual has their own Baha’i journey, the way they found themselves as part of the Faith. Some were born into the Faith, while others found themselves joining much later on in life. Some shy away from the Faith as adolescents and young adults, but then they come back to it far stronger. Some people join after going to a few Baha’i events, others join after years of study and contemplation.

We welcome everybody sincerely committed to living by the teachings of Baha’ull’ah, a man whose title means the Glory of God in Arabic. He was a Persian nobleman who became a follower of the Bab(means gate in Arabic), a prophet who came to prepare the world for Baha’ull’ah himself. The Bab was eventually martyred by the Iranian government in 1850, and Baha’ull’ah was exiled to Iraq in 1853 during a severe round of persecution and massacre of the Babis. He later declared his mission in 1863 in the city of Baghdad and spent the rest of his life revealing the verses of God, proclaiming the unity of mankind, and guiding the Baha’i community. Despite the attacks of Ottoman officials and his half-brother Mirza Yahya, Baha’ull’ah rallied the Babi community to his side and his opponents failed to extinguish the light of his Faith. The Baha’i Faith spread to other parts of the world after his death, and it has brought a diverse group of people together under its banner.

My goal is not to give an introduction to the Baha’i Faith, but if you wish to learn more, here is a link: https://www.bahai.org/beliefs/. I’d like to focus on how I became a Baha’i, my spiritual journey in life so far.

It starts with growing up in a Hindu family. I was born in New York City in 1995 into an immigrant Hindu family, but I did not have a strong attachment to Hinduism growing up. I would attend religious rituals called pujas and go to temples, but I did not grasp the meaning or symbolism behind these practices. I did not feel the need to do my own reading and study of it; I also felt confused by the litany of gods we prayed to, like Ganesh, Vishnu, Shiva, Kali, Surya, among others. I also had no idea how prominent Hinduism was among the New Age community or the popular gurus in the West. To me, Hinduism was merely a cultural system, not a faith/umbrella of religious traditions from India. I spent most of my life until college bouncing back and forth between atheism and theism. I would wake up some days and not have any faith in God; there were other times that I felt connected to God, yet it always seemed faint and dim. The topic of religion and spirituality never concerned me much in those days; I was a carefree boy playing video games, studying, and trying to navigate my homework and puberty. In short, I averaged out to be an agnostic. My first encounter with the Baha’i Faith was during this period; my family visited the Lotus Temple in 2007 during a trip to India and I admired the architecture of the building. In particular, the shape of the building was magnificent with its lotus shaped dome and pools of water located around the building. I took a pamphlet and read about the Baha’i Faith briefly; I remember wondering “What’s a Baha’ull’ah” and “this seems like a pipe dream, the idea all religions are fundamentally one”. I then filed that experience away in a mental filing cabinet, to be retrieved later on in life when I met other Baha’is.

When I entered college, I entered a turbulent, pivotal period of my life. Free of the restrictions of K-12 education, I felt lost and adrift at Georgia Tech, the institution I chose to attend. I felt at times that nobody cared about me and that I wasn’t smart or adequate enough to succeed in life. My coursework had become stressful and strenuous, my courses stretching the limits of my abilities. My parents were also going through a divorce at the time, which further contributed to my feelings of moderate depression and anxiety. Yet in the depths of this misery, I began turning to spirituality, to faith in a higher power to guide me through my entry into adulthood. I began to focus more on how I could serve others as opposed to myself; I did volunteering and helped my classmates in their courses. I also found a better balance between my studies and my social life, which helped me get through the worst of times at Tech. Chief among this was my encounter with a group named Chi Alpha, a campus missionary group with an evangelical affiliation. They were committed to leading people to Christ and empowering them spiritually. While I disagreed with a lot of their theology, I knew they were good people who looked out for me. I enjoyed going to the events and Bible studies they held, even when I didn’t think much of Jesus other than the brown-haired white dude worshipped for 2000 years as the Son of God. They were quirky, sincere, witty, and insightful, and I saw it as an alternative to the overly materialistic, busy culture of Tech. I also studied Buddhism and began meditating during this time in my life; I liked the focus on personal spiritual development and inner peace that Buddhism gave me. But through all the tumult and shocks of this period, I found a solid, durable faith in God. I founded a startup to help people on the autistic spectrum during this period, all based on a flash, a spark of divine inspiration. I knew God was guiding me and helping me to learn and grow during this time; I was able to graduate college a year early with highest honors and landed a job in computer science.

Upon graduation, I suddenly had a lot of money and free time to do what I wanted to do. I had a period where I went out and had fun almost every weekend with my friends still in college; I also met people who challenged my belief in God as well as affirmed it. With my newfound free time, I began studying Buddhism and Christianity more deeply, to see what truths they contained. With Christianity, I read about the story of Jesus and his ministry. I was touched by how he saved a woman from getting stoned, resurrected people from the dead, and healed blind people and lepers. He was also rather gracious and modest, extolling a poor woman who donated out of her poverty to his cause and comforted his Apostles during a storm. What truly fascinated me was the story of the Resurrection, and how the Gospel accounts were an eyewitness testament to what they experienced. Jesus’s resurrection was attested in other sources and the Gospels were written only a few decades after the fact. His tomb was found empty on Easter and his disciples learned about it from Mary Magdalene and Jesus’s mother Mary, as opposed to discovering this fact first for themselves. There were also numerous reports of Jesus appearing to his disciples, hundreds in fact, in the Gospels. After these reports, the disciples committed their lives to spreading Jesus’s teachings, even facing persecution and martyrdom for their efforts. I saw Jesus’s influence and power in these accounts, and I felt truly Christian in accepting the Resurrection, that Jesus died for my sins.

But how could I ignore the Buddha, especially when his example and his teachings shared broad similarities with Jesus and felt equal to Christ’s in my view. Jesus spoke of praying earnestly in the privacy of one’s room; the Buddha spoke about practicing meditation in quiet places to calm one’s mind and develop spiritual qualities. Jesus and Buddha taught patience, mercy, and detachment from worldly goods and riches. They also clashed with the priests of their day, who maintained strict laws and social structures. As I read from the Pali canon and the New Testament, I wondered why I had to choose between them. Of course, a Buddhist would say I could be atheist and still follow Buddhist teachings, but that might explain why I felt Buddhism was more individualistic and lacking in communal feeling. My Christian friends told me to follow Jesus, and that Buddhism was a man-made, potentially Satanic tradition. The contrast between relying on God vs relying on personal spiritual effort was one central issue in my spiritual life at this time. Another was the pursuit of fame and personal wealth; part of me wanted to become a millionaire by the time I was 30, the other part wanted to become a monk. I noticed how this divide impacted my life and caused me confusion, and I was thus determined to overcome it.

After much thought and reflection, I decided to begin studying the Baha’i Faith and Sikhism together. I was prompted by my mother, who encouraged me to look at other religions(like my native Hinduism). I really liked what I read in the Sikh holy book the Guru Granth Sahib, and it appealed to my ties to my Punjabi heritage since it arose in the Punjab and most adherents of Sikhism are Punjabi. It also offered a spiritual path to me that eschewed monasticism and required doing productive, honest work in order to make a living. It also encourages service to fellow human beings, the unity of God, the focus on cultivating a relationship with God, and transcending one’s pride and ego to be one with God. This appealed to me, but I was concerned about the 5 items that baptized Sikh men were required to wear. It seemed a bit arbitrary and strict, as well as impractical in today’s day and age. I kept Sikhism in mind, but then I turned to the Baha’i Faith, starting with an event in May 2018 that I went to. I will discuss more of this in another article.