Baha'i:

1. Transcript (see video below)

When I say the word “religion”, what is the first thing that comes to your mind - God, division, war? Houston ... we have a problem. In the world more than 5.7 billion people follow a specific religion and if religion means war and division, then how is our future going to be any different from our past?

Well ... meet the Baha'i faith - a religion whose mission is to bring unity to the world. The first time I heard about the Baha’i faith was a long time ago in India, where I saw this spectacular lotus flower-shaped temple, and Yes, that’s me at 15 years old. To my surprise, inside this temple there were no symbols, no drawings, no statues - nothing, just a large space open to anyone. Since then I’ve seen two more of these temples, one in Australia and one in Israel, and a few days ago I visited the Baha’i temple for South America, which is located In Chile.

I wanted to dig a little deeper, so I decided to interview a couple of Baha’i people. Now neither of them wanted to be on camera just because they were shy, so I will tell you what they told me, because I think their perspective is quite unique and open minded. How is Baha'i different from other religions? For starters, unlike other religions, to be a Baha'i you are not required to quit your previous religion. You are allowed to be a Christian and Bahai, to be Jewish and Bahai, or Muslim and Bahai, etc. Inside their temple you are welcome to pray in any way you feel like, as long as it’s respectful with everyone else. This means that there can be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Jew and a Muslim praying all together in the same space - each one to their own (idea of) god. The reason for this is that for the Baha’i faith there is only one God, but they mean it quite literally. This god, this god, this god... they believe it’s the same One.

For them, Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Muhammad are all prophets from that one God. Basically all religions in the world are the same religion that keeps evolving over the centuries, and not only that, but they even believe that new religions and messengers from the same God will continue to come still after the Baha’i, when society will evolve into something else. Talking with them, I found that this idea of unifying humankind without trying to change people's beliefs but accepting each other, is actually a good thing for society. And before I go, I want to leave you with some Baha’i values that caught my attention: integration of different races, equal rights and opportunities for men and women, promoting education, promoting seeking of the truth through investigation and the unity of humankind.

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2. Video