Annual Baha'i Fast cleanses, challenges mind and body

February 13, 2008 - 4:20pm

From March 2-20, Baha'is worldwide will rise before dawn to eat breakfast, pray and then abstain from eating or drinking until sunset in observation of the annual 19-day Fast.


As in many world religions, the Fast is a time for reflecting on one's spiritual progress and making an effort to detach from material desires. As one Baha'i puts it, "During the fast, we make an effort to know God better.”

The Faith exempts from fasting those who are ill, elderly, traveling, pregnant, nursing, menstruating or engaged in heavy labor. Baha'is from age 15 to 70 are enjoined to participate in the annual fast.

Abdu'l-Baha, the son and appointed successor of Baha'u'llah, wrote that “Fasting is the cause of awakening man. The heart becomes tender and the spirituality of man increases.”

The Fast, said, Baha'u'llah, helps people become better aware of the sufferings of the poor. Abdu’l-Baha described how the Prophets of God - including Moses, Jesus and Baha'u'llah - all fasted. Thus, He said, the Baha'i period of fasting allows believers to feel closer to the founders of the great religions by sharing this experience.

Ashley Sandvoss chronicled her first Fast in her blog last year, shortly after becoming a member of the Baha’i Faith. For Ms. Sandvoss, reflecting on the approach of her second Fast, one challenge will be to get through two college midterm exams. “If I remember what it (the Fast) is really all about,” she writes, “I’ll have a bit of an advantage going into my studies, a grounding in faith, Baha’u’llah among all the lines of my textbooks.”

Baha'i Dale E. Lehman says he and his fellow Baha’is look forward to this opportunity to “recharge our spiritual batteries.” “The Universal House of Justice has in the past referred to the ‘spiritual energies unleashed by the Fast,’" he says. “These energies, real and potent, propel us forward into the new year that dawns with Naw-Ruz at the close of the Fast.”

Australian Baha'i Community Commends Apology

CANBERRA, 13 February 2008

The Australian Baha’i Community commends the national commitment to deliver justice to indigenous people as signalled by today’s apology by the Federal Parliament to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

The acceptance and application of the fundamental spiritual principle of justice will enable Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to join in full partnership in the construction of a united, progressive society, said Baha’i spokesperson, Natalie Mobini-Kesheh.

“Justice demands the recognition of human rights, and it is an unavoidable reality of Australia’s past that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have been denied the opportunity to fully enjoy those rights,” Dr Mobini-Kesheh said.

“At the root of all forms of injustice, discrimination and intolerance is the mistaken idea that human kind is somehow composed of subgroups that possess varying intellectual, moral and physical capacities which justify different forms of treatment,” she said.

“The reality is that there is only the one human race," she said.

“We are a single people, one human family, a single entity created from the same substance.”

Spiritual

Dr Mobini-Kesheh said it was the Baha’i view that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have much to offer humanity through their spiritual perspective, understanding and view of life.

“Our hopes for the future will be realised when the people of Australia come together in a harmonious and creative relationship based on such underlying spiritual principles as justice and the oneness of humanity,” she said.

Reconciliation

The Australian Baha’i Community has had a long-standing commitment to reconciliation in Australia.

Since the 1950s, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians have been part of the Baha’i Community, participating in its development and national leadership, and as representatives at national and international events.

Today, more than three percent of the Baha’is in Australia are indigenous people. The Australian Baha’i Community was one of the first faith groups represented on the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation's Advisory Group of Faith Communities.

To read related statements by the Australian Baha'i Community, please visit the Human Rights section of this website.

Above

Priscilla Wightman, right, with her friend Judith Light from the Lismore Baha'i community.

Ms Wightman travelled from Goonellabah, northern NSW to Canberrra to watch the speech by Prime Minister the Hon Kevin Rudd. Money for her flights was donated by the Lismore Baha'i community and Lismore People for Reconciliation.

Ms Wightman was taken from her parents at the age of two in 1960.

Photograph courtesy of the Lismore Northern Star