Reflections on a Bahá’í Pilgrimage
A discussion of cultural and religious identity
The author in the Bahá’í Gardens in Haifa, with the Shrine of the Báb in the background
December 30 2019
How has your 2019 been?
I hope, at the least, it was better than your 2018. If not, I hope, at the least, you gain understanding of why it wasn’t, and that understanding helps to make 2020 better than 2019.
The last year has been an interesting one for me.
Having been ensconced in my former home town of Perth, Western Australia my whole life, I moved to the regional coastal town of Esperance roughly 800 km SE. The principle, at least face value, reason for moving was to ‘pioneer’: a more progressive term for teaching your chosen religion in a remote area than what we would otherwise call missionaries.
There was, as there always is, more to it than that.
I have for a long time, really since I first developed an understanding of it, held a firm belief for what the Bahá’í Faith stands for and what it is trying to achieve. This started on an intellectual level, with fundamental concepts such as progressive revelation and independent investigation of truth, and then progressed to a practical commitment once I saw Bahá’í community building activities in action.
Despite this, I have struggled to ‘feel it’ at a more profound emotional, even spiritual, level. In my heart, not just my head, I guess.
At least part of the reason for this I understand: I am not Persian. That seems a bit blunt, but the reality of the Faith is that, as it stands, even as it takes hold more and more in the West, its roots remain firmly in the Middle East, and more specifically Iran. This is, in many ways, a great thing — if nothing else, Persian food is amazing! (As are Persian people, of course, not that it needs to be said.) If you haven’t had Adas Polo or Ghormeh Sabzi, you haven’t lived. But, for those outside of those roots, it also brings challenges.
From the perspective of explaining and teaching the Faith, it adds an extra level of complexity. While the Bahá’í Faith is an independent religion, and not a branch of Islam as many people assume, there is no doubt that its historical and cultural context emerges from and is shaped by Islam. Many central Bahá’í laws and ordinances were intended as progressions, or perhaps ‘softenings’, of Islamic laws. In this context, they make sense, but without that context, less so.
This context brings particular challenges when trying to teach the Bahá’í Faith to Western countries. You aren’t actually just teaching the Faith in isolation, but also trying to give a primer on this cultural context at the same time (of course, many would see this as an opportunity as well as a challenge).
Then there is the way that the Bahá’í community itself is able to integrate into Western cultures. This can be a touchy subject, and can easily be interpreted to offend. The bottom line is that ‘indigenous’ (with massive apologies to actual Indigenous populations) Bahá’ís in the West are eternally grateful and indebted to those Persians who travelled across the world to introduce the Faith here.
Nonetheless, in my experience, as a legacy of this cultural context there exists a particular understanding of social issues that aren’t necessarily in line with typical Western understandings. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. I like to think I’m humble enough not to presume the culture I am imbedded within is superior to any other, or that I haven’t let my own inherited values take precedence over Bahá’í values for convenience sake.
So these differences aren’t an indication of right or wrong, just of unavoidable differences in culture. Plus, Bahá’í values deliberately aim to be different from those which have currently pervaded society and have come to be taken as truth. Nevertheless, I have seen first hand how the perceived inadequacy of Bahá’ís to appropriately deal with hot button social issues such as abuse have done significant harm to the image of the Faith.
This permeation of culture also brings more personal challenges to Western Bahá’ís. These might range from minor annoyances at certain social customs and ways of communication to more significant feelings of inadequacy and alienation.
For example, you can’t really understand the stories of the early believers of the Faith without understanding the social conditions that they faced in Iran and the surrounding Middle East in the 19th century. And, to some extent, the 21st: what it means to be devoted Bahá’í in Iran and other persecuted areas of the Middle East is vastly different than what it means to be a devoted Bahá’í in the West.
I had always assumed that this cultural connection explained the greater emotional connection that other Bahá’ís had to the history and central figures of the Faith than I did, along with the intense devotion that other Bahá’ís may have to particular modes of teaching the Faith that never resonated as much with me.
So, long story short: I never felt like I truly fitted in to Bahá’í ‘culture’, or was comfortable in it. That’s not to say I didn’t, and still don’t, love my Bahá’í friends in my old home, because I do. To be part of a community who, despite their differences and disagreements, are working side by side in unity towards a single shared goal is a special thing.
And, to be honest, I haven’t really ever fitted in to any particular cultural setting I have been apart of. So it is certainly nothing against Bahá’ís. Instead, I came to understand this alienation as God’s little nudge for me to pioneer, to detach myself from this culture and work out on my own terms, for my self, what it means to be a Bahá’í.
And that self discovery has has what this year has primarily entailed.
And then along came pilgrimage.
Similar to other religions, the purpose of Bahá’í pilgrimage is to travel to the Holy Land of the faith in order to gain a greater spiritual appreciation of and connection with its key figures and events — and by extension a greater appreciation of and connection with God.
There is a ‘sightseeing’ component of it — visiting and learning about the various holy places — but the most fundamental act that Bahá’í pilgrims have is to pray and meditate at the Shrines of its two founders the Báb and Bahá’u’lláh. As these sites are located in Israel, it is also a chance to get a bit of a culture shock and eat cheap, glorious felafel in the process.
The most interesting immediate reflection I have of my pilgrimage (aside from how ridiculously out of proportion the cost of felafel is to pretty much every other form of food in Israel) was that I never actually chose to go on pilgrimage. Because if it was my choice, I almost certainly wouldn’t have.
It is a serious logistical exercise. Firstly, you have to register your interest with the Bahá’í World Centre, and join the long waiting list of would-be pilgrims from the growing number of Bahá’ís around the world. Then the logistical exercise of getting to Israel, finding accomodation and transport, understanding local customs and so on.
Given all this, I would never have gone by myself, which meant going with someone else. I am single, have no direct Bahá’í family, and just moved away from nearly all of my Bahá’í friends. However it just so happened that the neighbourhood that I used to serve in before I left had already began to plan a group pilgrimage together.
By tagging along, I was immediately skipped ahead in the pilgrim line, plus I didn’t have to worry about any of the logistical concerns. A 3-leg flight to and from Tel-Aviv, transport to and from Haifa, accomodation a few minutes walk away from the entrance to the gardens, and various other social events all arranged for me! Cheers.
This brings the unavoidable conclusion that I was meant to go to pilgrimage. Not on some general level, as all Bahá’ís are expected to go at least once in their lives. But in a more specific sense: that it was crucial for me, at this moment of my life, to go on pilgrimage.
And I could see now how important it was. As much as I had enjoyed the new found freedom to explore my own faith in my new home, it was also at the same time being challenged.
When I finally found a job halfway through the year, my timetable overlapped almost entirely with the activities I assumed I had moved here to be doing — forcing somewhat of a re-think of why I had actually moved here (you can’t accept the easy divine confirmations but then ignore the challenging ones, after all).
And without the activities, I began to lose connection with the core of what the Bahá’í Faith is trying to achieve — making communities better in tangible and profoundly spiritual ways.
Parallel to this, I began studying the Bible, and not long after came to a fairly challenging realisation: leaving aside the intellectual and practical elements, I felt more like a Christian than a Bahá’í.
Turns out, the divine organisation that had arranged for me to go on pilgrimage had also been a form of spiritual intervention.
The first few days were an emotional rollercoaster.
I struggle to sleep outside of my own bed at the best of times, let alone in planes and airports, and was ruined by the almost 30 hours (including 8 hour stopover in Istanbul) in transit.
Feeling not a little emotionally fragile, I spent most of the visit to the Shrine of the Báb on the first afternoon trying not to weep publicly. It all hit me at once: the beauty of the gardens, the immensity and majesty of the Shrine, the significance of being here with a group of friends I had served along side of for several years before bailing on, and the gratitude that this had all been done for me, basically without me, simply to allow me to be here and experience this moment. Finally, the emotion that I felt like I should have as a Bahá’í had been granted to me.
I was a Bahá’í.
The Shrine of the Báb
But then then next day, which was a visit to the Gardens of Bahjí and the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, brought the comedown. The gardens were still beautiful, if less staggering in their scope and complexity. The shrine was a different, more humble and modest kind of majesty. The jet lag was setting in. I still knew the significance of where I was and what I was doing as I walked through Collins Gate, but I couldn’t find the emotion to go with it.
The Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh, right, and the Mansion of Bahjí
Call it an unavoidable re-balancing from the high of the previous day, although also seemingly a reminder of the absence of that strong emotional connection to the history of the Faith that other many other Baha’is seem to have.
There were several other occasions that did evoke a strong emotional reaction.
Visiting the prison city of Akka for example, including the cell where Bahá’u’lláh was imprisoned for almost 10 years in the foulest of conditions, and where His son Mírzá Mihdí tragically fell through a skylight and died.
There was also briefly lamenting — while I watched the children in our group play/fight in the beautiful surrounds of the Ridván Garden — why I had so far failed so spectacularly to even get close to being married with kids, but soon getting over it, and remembering that I am exactly where I am for a reason.
However, getting back to the main part of the pilgrimage — to pray at the Shrines — the lack of emotion remained, which was intriguing.
While initially unsettling, as the pilgrimage continued I became more accepting of this absence: the fact that I didn’t need to take any of the free tissues on offer when I entered to pray. That there were plenty of non-Persian Bahá’ís, white and otherwise, who were having these intense emotional reactions, so it clearly wasn’t just a cultural thing. That this lack of emotion was actually beneficial to me being able to find peace in the shrines and concentrate on the things and people that I was praying for.
Maybe my role as a Bahá’í is to be more detached emotionally than the average believer. To observe the Faith from the peripheral but still as a part of it, applying these observations to better explain it to people as imbedded in Western secular culture as I am, or was.
With this realisation, I felt like the main purpose of my pilgrimage had been completed: a profound sense of gratefulness to be here, at being a Baha’i, and being given the chance to explore how to be a Bahá’í in my own unique way.
The reminder of the trip was largely focused on my life back home, my new home, and my planning and praying became orientated towards that. As well as just enjoying the experience of pilgrimage for what it was: a spiritual experience at once universal yet still unique to every individual who undertakes it.
That, and felafel. Did I mention felafel? For 10 sheckle, it’s enough to make a believer of anyone.