I was supposed to write about this last week, immediately after the event, but I got so carried away with my other life - VLOGGING, with letter V! It's good I remembered my blog today, and this particular event, before it becomes too much of a past. Sometime in October, I was contacted by a student from the University of Santo Tomas, who wanted to meet Baha'is, as part of his school's project. I invited him to the Baha'i Center here in Manila, then he came with a bunch of his classmates and were then presented an introduction to the Baha'i Faith by some of the Baha'is present. A few weeks later, they shared with us (the Baha'i community of Manila) an invitation to a seminar they were organizing, called IISA: Investigation on Interfaith Solidarity and Action, to participate in the dialogue. I decided to go for two reasons: 1) I generally like interfaith dialogues. I have been to so many, both here in the Philippines and in Nigeria and they're very meaningful. It's step one to world unity! peace! harmony! oneness! equality! all the good things! Also, we all know that our world has so so many problems. We've tried political solutions, economic solutions so many times. The problems continue. Have we tried spiritual solutions? 2) I have only been to that part of town "España"(where UST is located) once, so it was a good excuse to visit somewhere I'm unfamiliar with and see if there are any Christmas-y "stuff" for my vlog!
There were four of us; two members of the External Affairs committee of the Baha'is of the Philippines, one of whom was our speaker. I'm not going to tell you about the ice cream that I ate when I arrived, or the KFC we received before the start of the seminar. I'll just dive right in to the program, which opened with a joke. The two emcees said "when you have canned food, what do you need to open it? Answer: a can opener. Which is why we are here to deliver the opening remarks". This caused the Seminary Gym to be filled with dry laughter. Then I learnt that IISA is not only an abbreviation of (see above), but "iisa" is also the Filipino word for oneness or unity. Therefore, the purpose of this seminar that these students organized was to help us all take small steps to becoming more open to the world that's ever-changing. One of these small steps is by talking about what unites us. Mr Dabalos (representative of the Baha'i Faith) was the first speaker, who began his presentation by giving us his own definition of religion "A divine system of education which flows from God to man through his Divine Manifestations."
Baha'is believe that the Divine Messenger from God for this time and age (as promised by all the past Messengers of God) is Baha'u'llah, the founder of the Baha'i Faith. Mr Dabalos then introduced the three main tenets of the Baha'i Faith:
The Oneness of God: whether you call God Allah, Dios, Dieu, Yahwe - we are all referring to one God. Just as there is only one sun, but with many rays, so is there only one God, though we call Him different names. We cannot know God directly; understanding the mystery of God is far beyond our capability (just like the carpenter makes a table, but the table can never know its maker). Baha'u'llah says "The door of the knowledge of the Ancient of Days being thus closed in the face of all beings, the Source of infinite grace, according to His saying, "His grace hath transcended all things; My grace hath encompassed them all," hath caused those luminous Gems of Holiness to appear out of the realm of the spirit, in the noble form of the human temple, and be made manifest unto all men, that they may impart unto the world the mysteries of the unchangeable Being, and tell of the subtleties of His imperishable Essence." (Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah)
So how do we know God? He sends Divine Messengers from time to time to teach us about Him, and to guide us. Hence,
The Oneness of Religion: the spiritual laws of all religions are the same. Those laws have remained constant, from Abraham, to Moses to Krishna to Buddha to Christ, Mohammad, the Bab and Baha'u'llah. What differs are the social laws - these vary from time to time to fit the varying requirements of each era. That's why we have many religions. One religion teaches us to go to Church on Sundays, another religions teaches us to pray 5 times a day, another religion says we can pray anywhere, any time - these are all different ways but they're all teaching us the same important thing, which is to commune with God (pray). No religion says that its teachings are only for the white race, or for the Asians or for the rich or for the educated. All the laws and teachings of every religion are for EVERYONE, and that's because:
The Oneness of Mankind: God's messages are for all of us, no exception and that's because God created all of us equal. Now some people might say, oh then why are some of us rich, some poor, some beautiful, some ugly, some lucky, some unlucky. Yes, you can find millions of details to prove that we are all different, but the essence of being a human being is the common factor. God created us, which means we are all capable of reflecting His qualities. The only problem is some of us just need to clear the dust off the mirrors of our hearts, because that's what's preventing us from reflecting those beautiful qualities present within every single one of us.
It was no surprise that after the presentation, most of the questions asked during the open forum revolved around "why do we still fight?!" So it's not why do we fight..it's why do we STILL fight. This means that even after people accept the fact that both (eg. a Christian and a Muslim) belong to monotheistic religions, religions whose respective Holy Books acknowledge each other, even after people accept the fact that your God and my God are the same.... they still fight.
Christians versus Muslims is a fight that has been going on for centuries in many parts of the world. Here in the Philippines, there is an island where members of these two religions literally fight (it's been several several years already). The next speaker came forward to talk about his group's experiences trying to bridge the gap between the Christians and Muslims in Mindanao. This group is called the Silsilah Dialogue movement. The speaker showed us a video which summarizes what their movement is about, but I can't seem to find the exact same one online, so here's the link to another video which basically introduces its founder, shows a bit of history and what they've been doing over the past three decades. The speaker shared with us their experiences in bringing Christian and Muslim groups in Mindanao together, to find common grounds. Apart from that, they do a lot of social projects especially with children, like literacy and feeding and other outreach programs. I liked the part where the speaker said that in their neighborhood children programs, they have Christian and Muslim children, and they get along so well - they know that each other belongs to a different religion and yet they do not show any prejudice. They play together, share their belongings, eat on the same table. He said watching these children is very inspiring, and that there's a lot we can learn by watching how they interact, because their hearts are still so pure.
Here are my personal thoughts: yes, a lot of children are taught these same values (treat everyone with love and respect, etc) but this hardly lasts through life, right? Experiences, our environment...lots of factors are responsible for the changes that follow. There's a stage between childhood and adolescence which most people neglect. It's called Junior Youth (ages 12 - 15). Most people call those in that age group 'teenagers' and how do we brand teenagers? Rebellious, stubborn, lost... People who through A LOT of changes in that stage in life. Girls and boys become more susceptible to peer pressure; they become more conscious of their looks, their preferences; they start defining their personalities. They learn to say no, and challenge things. There's so much energy that's being released and most people tend to see this as "just a phase....that will pass". So we tend to let them be by themselves. But this is the mistake. This is when they need the most guidance and encouragement. A lot of movements, organizations, outreach programs like to focus on "children". Yes, they are easier to deal with; they will just listen and repeat whatever you say, and it's easy to keep them busy with coloring and drawing. But we need to remember that we don't become adults right after being children. There is a bridge between these two stages that we need to carefully cross. It was good to see lots of UST students at the seminar last week, but I wish these kinds of seminars/ interfaith dialogues also happened in schools where junior and senior school students could participate. We can't say they're too young for this. I spent the whole of last year with thousands of junior youths, and believe me...I was surprised with how much I had to learn from them. They have brilliant ideas; they are extremely creative; they have not yet "defined" anything/they are still in the stage of discovery which means they are ALWAYS in a learning mode, ever ready to learn from one another. These are the people that inspire me.