(A slightly edited transcript of a talk given by Dr. Peter
Khan on 13 August 2006 at the Association for Bahá’í Studies conference in San
Francisco, California. Headings have been added)
THE ENLIGHTENED MIND
The Universal Applicability of Bahá’í Laws and Principles
By way of preamble, I would like to draw your attention to one of the distinctive features of our religion: the fact that we have, as an integral element of the structure of our teachings, the concept of the supremacy of the rule of law. By that I mean that the laws and teachings of our Faith are applicable to all members of the Bahá’í community irrespective of any other consideration. This is relatively unusual; so often in religious communities there are certain individuals who, rightly or wrongly, feel themselves excused from some aspects of their teachings by virtue of their rank, their social standing, or some other consideration; whereas in our religion there are a number of universal principles applicable, without distinction, to all. I want to spend a few minutes – before getting into the meat of my subject – I want to spend a few minutes exploring a few of those universally applicable principles, and I think they can be gathered together under the heading of the “enlightened mind”.
We are all familiar with the fact that religions have, as a matter of course, down through the span of human history, religions have concerned themselves with enlightenment. It’s even been carried to the point of caricature. Janet and I have just spent a few days being very lazy, which included watching television in Northern California. Those of you who have been equally indolent may be familiar with a TV ad for Yellow Pages, some poor soul climbs a mountain to find an individual who is some kind of guru and a source of enlightenment and our traveler seeks guidance from him on how all information can be obtained and this enlightened soul refers him to the Yellow Pages. Be that as it may, the attainment of enlightenment has always been the goal of religion.
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