Letter to the NSA of the Bahá'ís of Canada

Background: As the person who facilitated the Pipe Ceremonies for both Dr. and Mrs. Lazlo and at the Peigan First Nation mentioned in this letter, I can fully attest to the truth that our Hand of the Cause is expressing in her letter. The Persian friends in administrative leadership, at both events, were strongly against having the Sacred Pipe Ceremonies. It was Rúhíyyih Khánum that stood up and ensured the Pipe Ceremonies occurred. Thank you, Rúhíyyih Khánum!

I believe it is very important for all concerned friends and our Administrative Order deeply consider and reflect on why 1000’s and 1000’s of Indigenous peoples, across the Americas, have stepped away from the Faith. Why does there seem to be such a disparity between the Prophecy regarding the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas in the Tablets of the Divine Plan and the reality that there is very little participation of Indigenous peoples in activities of the Faith?

That is not to say that there are not Indigenous Baha’is, with great dedication, fulfilling the Prophecy, there are! But only a small percentage of Indigenous Peoples are active in the Faith, as compared to the past, in Canada, and in the overall Indigenous Population of the Americas.

This will change and the Prophecy will be fulfilled, but we could use some dedicated, concerted and unified prayers and actions to support the fulfillment of this prophecy. (Phil Lane Jr., on facebook.com)

To the NSA of the Bahá'ís of Canada

Very dear Bahá'í Friends,

Since our return to Israel on the 6th of October, there have been a great many things to attend to, as you can imagine, hence the delay in writing to tell you what a joy the whole Canadian trip was to me, how happy I was to meet with your Assembly in Pincher Creek, and to have the opportunity of being with various members of it on different occasions, particularly with dear David Hadden, who made the wonderful trip to the North, and various Indian centres, possible—indeed proposed it!

I particularly want to write you my feelings regarding the Indian Bahá'ís (and to a lesser extent the Eskimos as they are a much smaller group). I think the most valuable part of my trips to the Indian Reservations after Frobisher Bay was that they developed and strengthened in me certain ideas that have been growing for a long time. I am so seldom in North America and so seldom have any chance to think about these matters once I leave it, that it has taken far too much time to come to my present conclusions, which I feel it important to share with you. I have already shared them with the Universal House of Justice in my meeting with them upon my return to Haifa.

The significance, the explanation if you like, of the extraordinary prophesy of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá in the Tablets of the Divine Plan — "attach great importance to the indigenous population of America. … Likewise, these Indians, should they be educated and guided, there can be no doubt that they will become so illumined as to enlighten the whole world" (www.bahai.org/r/190926614) — has been brought home to me during this last trip. As far as I know, this highly significant passage is the only “racial” prophecy in the Bahá'í Teachings. It is a pretty challenging thing to state that if a certain group of people accepts the Message of Bahá'u'lláh they will become so enlightened that the whole earth will be illumined! An idea has been growing in my mind, greatly strengthened by the experiences of this last contact with the Indians; it is hard to put into words, but I think I should try and express it to you.

The Indians have a triangle, this is the way I express it in my own mind: the Most Great Spirit (God), man, and nature; they seem to have a profound inner understanding of this fundamental relationship in the universe; I think this relationship is supported in our Teachings, if we perhaps read them with a more understanding concept of this subject. The Indians are profoundly spiritual people—particularly those least affected by our civilization—with a tremendous orientation to prayer, to the Creator, on the one hand, and a deep rapport with nature on the other. The words of Bahá'u'lláh quoted by ‘Abdu'l- Bahá; “the city is the home of the body, the country is the home of the soul’, do not mean much to our race and certainly nothing to our civilization, but to the true Indian they are a deep reality. If you take the concept of this triangle, God, man, and nature, and you insert one more factor, between God and man, in other words the principle of the Ray, the intermediary or Prophet, that carries communion with the Great Spirit to us the Indians’ entire theology, if you like, or concept of life and the cosmos, become complete from the Bahá'í standpoint. I think we should approach the Indian teachings in this way. Too often, at least we white Bahá'ís are preoccupied with trying to place indigenous people, in this case, the Indians, inside our own framework of what we think the Cause is. I think very few Bahá'ís of our type ever think much about theology! We think about administration, goals, plans, etc. Obviously, all these things are important, but to attract the Indians by this approach is not working at all. Maybe in the end, with the insertion of the principle of the Manifestation of God, this Indian fundamental concept of theology is closer to the Teachings of Bahá’u’lláh than the way most of us understand them at present!

I need not tell you what a profound experience the Pipe Ceremony on the Peigan Reservation was. It was probably the most moving thing that happened to me during my whole trip, and one of the most moving things that happened to me in my whole life. As I could neither understand the Indian words nor clearly see what was happening, it was undoubtedly the profound spiritual feeling of the Indians connected with this most sacred ceremony that affected.

You also know that the behavior of many of the Bahá'ís, particularly some of the Persian friends, was totally lacking in either patience or respect for this holiest ceremony of the Indians and showed no consideration for their feelings. When I spoke to the Bahá'ís of Regina they asked me to say something in Persian at the end of my talk, and I spoke as strongly as once can humanly do on the subject of not going near the Indians or approaching them or going to the Reservations unless they could treat them with respect and honour their customs and feelings. I pointed out that although some of the most active, successful, and much loved Bahá'í teachers in the whole of Canada amongst the Indians are Persians, the conduct of some of the others in Peigan was very detrimental to the Faith, that they as Bahá'ís would be very offended if people showed disrespect when visiting our Holy Shrines at the World Centre, but we saw no reason why we should respect something that meant as much to them as that does to us. The talk was recorded, and if you want to get someone to translate these Persian remarks of mine, they might be of some use to you if used in the right way.

The “Tablets of the Divine Plan” were given to us in 1919, almost 70 years ago; unlike South and Central America, we have done almost nothing to teach the indigenous people of the Americas in North America. In the meantime, I heard from Phil Lane that some of these Indian swami movements are very attractive now amongst the Indians, in other words, they are doing what we should be doing. It says in the Bible you cannot put new wine into old bottles which I have always understood to mean that when something was full there was no place to add it. If these people are going to fill the spiritual vacuum in the lives of the Indians, their longing for recognition of their culture and inner spiritual fulfillment, then would you mind telling me when we are going to fulfill the prophecy of ‘Abdu'l-Bahá? We Bahá'ís – and I am certainly old enough to assert this authoritatively—do nothing but miss busses; one bus after another whiz by, and for one reason or another we are always going to catch the bus but too often we do not. Are we going to miss this Indian bus for the whole period of the Bahá'í Dispensation? I think you have to ask yourselves this very seriously. I know you have a tremendous amount of work, limited resources, and all the rest of it, but I firmly believe that every Bahá'í individually and the administrative bodies of the Faith as such, are obligated to consider priorities and to judge what should be done now or it will never happen.

Your Assembly has done a great deal more in recognizing the native believers of Canada than ever before, witness giving them a session at the Montreal Conference in 1982, your Assembly meeting with them recently on the Peigan Reservation, you’re giving them an evening at the London, Ontario Association for Bahá'í Studies conference. All of us who were there remember how profoundly Dr. and Mrs. Lazlo were affected by the simplified Pipe Ceremony, and when I crossed the stage afterward I saw how profoundly they were moved, she had tears in her eyes. Obviously, this does not mean we must grace all Bahá'í occasions with the Pipe Ceremony! But it certainly should be an eye-opener for us. But my dear friends, it is not enough! I remember Shoghi Effendi telling the American pilgrims at the dinner table in the Western Pilgrim House that the American Bahá’ís were tainted with race prejudice; he said: “they do not know that they are, but they are.” I think that this holds true also of the whole situation vis-à-vis the Indians in North America.

I am greatly preoccupied with this subject. I wonder whether, amongst the Persian Bahá'ís, cannot be found teachers of these people. I remember I think it was Phil Lane, the subject came up of how deeply the Indians crave prayer. Why could not a Persian friend, preferably middle-aged or elderly, go to the Reservations, stay for a period and just hold dawn prayer gatherings? Many of these good Persian Bahá’ís, particularly the older ones, are sad at heart because they see no field in which to serve the Faith, they often have no command of English, but the love of the Faith in their hearts, their loyalty and grasp of the Teachings, their oriental warmth, and demonstrativeness can, I believe, be put to marvelous use in this field. In the cities, their capacities are never drawn upon for obvious reasons, but with the Indians, love, faith, prayers, courtesy, respect for the elders-all could work hopefully miracles. You have this reservoir to draw upon.

(Signed) Rúhíyyih

Cc: The Universal House of Justice
The International Teaching Centre
National Spiritual Assembly of the United States