u/Primary-Conflict6681

Feeling conflict here. Trying to discern my will from the will of God. I finally got my wife to read a few pages in “Baha u llah and the New Era“, Section 5. When she encountered the words “Jesus Christ“, she stopped reading and said she didn't want to read anymore. 

She said she doesn't believe in soul and she believes nothing exists after death. Therefore, she wants to accumulate as many fun experiences as possible before death. She says she loves me, and I do feel it in her actions. I no longer feel like big throw away, useless garbage as I did in the past. My wife comes through when I am sick and stuff like that. She never neglects or abuses me like my last marriage. Quite the opposite. She showers me with unconditional love. And I see she has that same love for her mom (93) and daughter (45) that she has for me. It comes through in her actions. But her social sphere is limited to me, her mom, and her daughter. 

She also feels intense negative feelings towards my ex that defy all rationality. 

I feel immense love from her and can't help but reciprocate. But when push comes to shove, I will fiercely protect son and daughter, too (both from previous marriage), if it comes to that point. 

Her not being Baha'i is not an issue. But her intense jealousy, or whatever it is, for my ex is.

I do get her fierce independence as I am the same. I, too, had an alergy to religion before encountering the Faith. But I had a mystical experience in 1986 that made clear that Baha-u-llah was who he claimed to be. 

My earlier experiences were very negative, watching televangelists in the 60s and 70s was mostly comic relief. A Roman Catholic high school which taught heaven, hell, and purgatory put me off Catholicism.  

In the early 80s, we had an A-circuit band. When the band broke up, our drummer became Jehovas Witness. He invited me to study with his elder on Wednesday evenings. I told my friend that I did not believe in dead bodies coming out of the grave, getting limbs back, and 144,000 inheritting the Earth forever. I did attend my friend's baptism at the Kingdom Hall, however, and I wished him well. 

Later, our bass player joined the Pentacostal church. They were laying on hands and speaking in tongues and practicing forced conversions. I walked out of their church. I couldn't tolerate what I saw and swore I would never get involved with religion again. For the first time, I encountered a religous group that I felt was, for lack of a better term, plain evil. That was around 1983. 

Then, fast forward to 1985, I made a Persian friend who practiced a religion I never heard of before which was very similar to what I always believed in. I kept asking him questions about his religion and he said you don't want to know and he said “let's just enjoy our friendship“. 

It was driving me crazy. I decided to go to the library and investigate for myself. I got out a stack of books and brought them home. The first book was “BATNE“. I was convinced by the end of this book that this matched what I always believed. 

Then, I picked up a thick, red book called “Tablets of Baha-u-llah“. I read two tablets that night. While reading one tablet, The Tablet of Carmel, a warm breeze began blowing up from my toes. While it gently wafted over my body, I could smell a sweet, scent of a flower which was unlike any flower I had ever smelt before. Then, when the breeze gently rolled over my face and eyes, suddenly the words on the page came alive. I had a mystical experience I could not deny. I knew at that moment I was Baha'i. I waited a whole year until April 3,1987 to declare my Faith. 

Sometimes I think Baha-u-llah gave me that experience because maybe I am too thick to get it any other way. 

But I am digressing here. Let's get back into the thrust of this post. I am feeling a little conflicted. I am conflicted between my allegiance to my wife, my children, and my love for Baha-u-llah. My wife says to give her time. She is 70 years old, and says she has never encountered religion before, other a brief encounter with SGI when she was in her teens/early 20s, although she never joined SGI and the experience did not sit well.  

I can relate to her apprehension and not being able to wrap one's head around religion. I am not looking for heavy-handed judgement calls, just guidance. For me, BATNE intrigued me. For her, BATNE is leaving her lost. Anything that could work for a person from a country of 120,000,000+ souls who for the most part don't practice religion. That country has only 2,000 declared Baha'is with only a few hundred active. 

She lives in a country that for the most part believes all existence ends at death, sprinkled with a few other beliefs like reincarnation. My wife is one of those that believes all existence ends with death (maybe for that reason the concept of soul is hard).

Anyway, please keep us in your prayers and offer any loving guidance you can.

I love my wife, children, and Baha-u-llah and feeling conflicted.

Sorry for rambling... no AI was used in writing this. Just to be clear.

Thank you in advance.

I am struggling today, and I hope some of you can help me think this through from a Bahá'í perspective.

I recently learned of the death of a young Bahá'í man while in ICE custody. Regardless of anyone's views on immigration policy, the thought of a young person with leukemia allegedly being denied needed medical care and dying in custody has left me heartbroken and deeply troubled.

My struggle is this: as Bahá'ís, we are taught to avoid partisan politics. At the same time, we are also called to uphold justice, defend the oppressed, and be, in Bahá'u'lláh's words, "the defenders of the victim of oppression."

How do we reconcile these principles?

Is it political to grieve publicly when someone dies under such circumstances? Is it political to call for compassion, accountability, and the humane treatment of every person? Or is that simply a moral and spiritual obligation?

I am not interested in debating immigration policy or assigning partisan blame. I am interested in understanding how Bahá'ís live the principle of justice without becoming drawn into the spirit of contention that so often surrounds these issues.

To me, silence can sometimes feel like indifference, yet anger can easily become destructive. I don't want to respond from anger. I want to respond from the teachings of Bahá'u'lláh—with truthfulness, justice, compassion, and dignity.

How have you approached situations where your conscience tells you that an injustice has occurred, but you also want to remain faithful to the Bahá'í principle of non-involvement in partisan politics?

I would genuinely appreciate your thoughts.

I have a question that has fascinated me for many years, but first a little context.

Before becoming a Bahá'í in 1986, I considered myself a spiritual agnostic. One of the writers who most influenced me was William Blake. My favorite lines were always：

To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

Even before I encountered the Bahá'í Faith, I was drawn to the idea that the infinite can somehow be reflected in the smallest things—that the microcosm can reveal the macrocosm.

The moment I encountered Bahá'u'lláh's writings, something profound happened. I was lying in bed reading a Tablet that begins, "All glory be to this Day, a Day so blest that ages past can never hope to rival it." As I read it from beginning to end, I had a deeply mystical experience that convinced me, in an instant, that Bahá'u'lláh was who He claimed to be. I've never forgotten that night.

Later, The Seven Valleys became one of my favorite works, especially its rich Sufi imagery. One passage in the Valley of Knowledge has stayed with me ever since:

"Split the atom's heart, and lo! within it thou wilt find a sun."

I've often wondered what Bahá'u'lláh intended by this metaphor.

Was He simply expressing the mystical idea that the infinite is reflected in the infinitesimal, much like Blake's "world in a grain of sand"? Is it connected to the Sufi notion that every created thing contains signs of the Divine?

Or might there be additional layers of meaning? It's hard not to think of modern discoveries—nuclear fission, the immense energy hidden within the atom, the furnaces of stars and supernovas that forged the elements from which we ourselves are made. Of course, I don't want to read modern science back into a 19th-century text. But the imagery is remarkably evocative.

I'm less interested in proving that Bahá'u'lláh was anticipating nuclear physics than in understanding the spiritual symbolism of this passage.

Does anyone know whether Bahá'u'lláh elaborates on this image elsewhere in the Writings? I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially if there are related passages that explore this theme of the infinite revealed within the seemingly smallest realities.