Prayer: The answer to all of life’s difficult questions

August 26, 2009 at 5:36 am (Baha'i, Faith, Prayer, spirituality)

A new Baha’i whom I was tutoring in Book 1 would occasionally ask me questions about life.  “What should I do in this situation?” or “What should I do if that happens?”  I would carefully consider each question, but to every one I had but a single answer: “Pray.”

One day she said, “I think I finally get it, the answer to every question is to pray!” 

We had a good laugh, but the truth of it struck home. It’s easy to tell someone else that clearly, prayer would help them in their situation, but it’s much harder to look at our own lives and say, “Oh yes, obviously this is something I need to pray about!” 

I guess that’s why teaching is so important: when we teach others, we learn.  Sometimes we even learn more than when we were the ones studying! 

And so it was that a new Baha’i held up a mirror and reminded this old Baha’i that the answer to all of life’s difficult questions is to pray!

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Update on Service vs. Service

April 8, 2009 at 5:23 am (Baha'i, Career, Faith, Service, Verdanta, audiobooks, business, life balance, volunteering)

In a recent blog, I was conflicted because I felt like one area of service in my life was competing with another. It didn’t help when my beloved ABM (Auxiliary Board Member) reminded me that the 4 core activities are THE most important thing we should be working on right now.    

Well, as of today, with the help of my ATC (Area Teaching Committee) Secretary, I’ve offloaded a significant portion of my responsibility.  I will continue to support the core activities through tutoring, teaching, etc…, but I will do it within clearly defined time slots.  (A discipline issue on my part.)

But the biggest update for me is that I’ve finally uncovered the one detail that I missed when I originally wrote this blog entry: if I weren’t working on Verdanta, I would be working somewhere else, and it probably wouldn’t have ANYTHING to do with the Baha’i Faith, nor would it be as flexible or fulfilling as Verdanta.

It’s all going to work out just fine.  I knew it would.  Didn’t you?

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The dilemma of service

March 11, 2009 at 12:47 am (Baha'i, Faith, Service, Verdanta, Work)
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I have to be careful here, because blogging is a short step away from confession which as a Baha’i, I am forbidden to do.  But I’ve been struggling with something, and it’s something that I hope other people are – or will be – struggling with more and more:

What do you do when one aspect of your service gets in the way of another aspect of your service? 

If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’ve spent hundreds of hours starting an audiobook business as a way to serve Baha’u'llah, humanity and my family all at the same time.

The process of starting Verdanta has been slow, with a lot of downtime.  So I used that free time to serve the Baha’i Faith through the teaching field, becoming more and more involved in my community’s expansion and consolidation activities.  It’s been so wonderfully rewarding!  I’ve learned so much, given and received so much, and grown so much because of it.  I could dedicate a whole blog to those activities alone.

But now the seed that Verdanta began as, has sprouted and begun to grow.  It’s to the point where if I’m going to make it work, I HAVE to start spending significant time recording and editing.  Much more than I have available right now around my teaching work. 

Both activities are intended to serve Baha’u'llah, so I ask again:

what do you do when one aspect of your service gets in the way of another?

On the one hand, the teaching work is the most important work there is, right?  And my friends in the field are all working so hard, are so dedicated, and I love them so much that I feel horribly guilty about abandoning them.

On the other hand, the audiobooks are also important.  Every time I turn around, someone is saying “I wish we had…” and I think to myself, “I can help with that!”  And why else would Baha’u'llah have me spend so much time and effort on it, opening so many doors along the way, if He didn’t want me to do it?  Complicating matters is an intensifying sense of urgency that’s been creeping over me, urging me to get to work on Verdanta.  It’s like an adrenaline rush, a sense of panic that I’m not doing what I need to be doing. 

I’ve prayed on it, and put it in Baha’u'llah’s hands.  I told my ATC secretary the dilemma I feel, and I’ve promised to keep up my teaching activities until I can be replaced.  I figure, since Baha’u'llah is in charge of personnel, when he’s ready for me to work on Verdanta full time, He’ll send in my replacement.   

Now all I have to do is be patient. 

Anyone have a spare cup of patience I can borrow?

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Even the Tortoise has bad days

October 29, 2008 at 5:55 am (Baha'i, Entrepreneur, Faith, audiobooks)
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I’ve been feeling ungrounded lately.  Like one of those cartoon characters whose feet are running a hundred miles an hour, but because those feet aren’t touching the ground, they aren’t going anywhere.

I know I need to be patient like the tortoise, but I’m happiest when I know what I need to be doing.  Even the tortoise knew exactly what his next step was: his next step!

I prayed for assistance the other day, about what I needed to do next.  The answer was, “it will become clear.”  In other words, be patient! 

Last week, I met with my friend and mentor Kevin, and told him my problem.  He gave me some excellent advice: Make a list of all the things I need to do, then make a list of 5 things I would like to see done in the next week.  I made the lists last night because I was meeting with him today to report.  To be thorough, I also made a list of what I had accomplished over the past week.  I was surprised at how much I had gotten done!  And I’ve already gotten three big things done on my list for next week.  What a great tip – thanks Kevin!

I had a dream a few nights ago: I was in a house on the side of  steep hill.  We all knew it was only a matter of time before the rain washed out the foundation, and the house slid down the hill, so we were already looking for a new place to go.  Sure enough, first one end of the house tilted, followed quickly by the other, and there we all were, sliding down the hill in our house.  Fortunately, as dreams go, when the house finally came to a rest, it was still remarkably intact.  When I looked around at where we were, I saw that we had landed exactly where we had decided was the perfect location! 

I did a little research and discovered that the house is symbolic of self, and mud symbolizes being stuck.  Sound familiar?  I have definitely been feeling stuck lately!  When I realized this, I had that “Hand of God” feeling, and I knew that everything was going to work out just fine!  But then, I knew that already, didn’t I?

Oh God! Refresh and gladden my spirit.  Purify my heart. Illumine my powers.  I lay all my affairs in Thy hand.  Thou art my Guide and my Refuge.  I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved, I will be a happy and joyful being.  O God!  I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me.  I will not dwell on the unpleasant things in life.  O God!  Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself.  I dedicate myself to Thee O Lord!

- ‘Abdu’l-Bahá

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10 Lessons Public Speaking has for New Bloggers

October 5, 2008 at 11:05 pm (Baha'i, Entrepreneur, Faith, Passion, Verdanta, audiobooks, business)
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I’m a blogging newbie, but a relative veteran when it comes to public speaking.  I’ve been in Toastmasters for three years, serving two years in executive officer positions, and I’ve even taught public speaking at the community college level.  I know what differentiates an average speech from a great one.  And yet, it never occurred to me to apply what I knew about public speaking to blogging. 

Last week, I received an email that a book I had put on hold was available for pickup.  I put books on hold all the time, so I wasn’t too sure what it might be.  I was surprised to find ProBlogger: Secrets for Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income sitting on the shelf, because I didn’t remember reserving it.  Looking at the title, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to check it out because money wasn’t my primary motivation for blogging.  Still, I thought maybe there would be some tips on how to make my blog better.

Am I glad I did!

Yes, the book was very interesting, but what really got me excited was a post I found at the ProBlogger website: How to Craft a Blog Post – 10 Crucial Points to Pause.  As I read through it, I realized that most of what Darren Rowse suggested were things I already knew – from public speaking!  That’s when I realized, blogging was nothing more than a Toastmasters speech in written form!

I sat down and in five minutes thought of 10 tips that apply equally well whether writing a blog entry or a speech:

1.    Know your general purpose

2.    Know your specific purpose

3.    Write with your audience in mind

4.    Answer the question “So what?”

5.    Know exactly what you want your audience to walk away knowing

6.    Realize that your audience is voluntary

7.    Use metaphors, personal stories, anecdotes, and quotes to add depth, interest and credibility to your story

8.    Make statistics accessible to your audience

9.    Choose a topic about which you are passionate

10.  Don’t try to cram too much in

In the interest of not violating #10, I will spend the next several weeks exploring each of these tips in its own post.  I know this list is by no means complete, so I encourage you to comment on other similarities that I may have left out.   I could be adding your tip to my list!

If you’re not a Baha’i, feel free to stop reading here.  If you are, or you are a prior visitor to my blog, read on!

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My previous readers know that this blog is about chronicling the conception, gestation, birth and development of my entrepreneurial baby, Verdanta, a business that will record Bahá’í audiobooks.  A discussion of how to improve one’s blog may not immediately seem relevant.  I would posit, however, that since a blog is such a wonderful way to spread the word about something, and that the Bahá’í Internet Agency encourages Bahá’í bloggers, then learning to blog well is exceedingly important, if for no other reason to represent our Faith well.

 

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Bahai Audiobook Publisher Performs Her First Sound Check

September 30, 2008 at 9:49 pm (Faith, Humanity, Verdanta, audiobooks)
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My husband finished the iso box for the computer, and it’s a huge, black behemoth!  There’s a slight low hum from it, which is caused not by the computer itself, but by the two cooling fans which prevent the computer from overheating.  I believe he used Silenx fans, which are supposed to be the quietest in the industry.  But while they are relatively quiet, I wouldn’t say they’re silent.  We could have gotten the sound down even more, but it would have required an even bigger box, and I don’t have unlimited space.   Besides, the big question isn’t whether it’s completely silent, but whether it’s quiet enough.

To that end, I set everything up yesterday and tried it out.  The preliminary results are VERY promising.  The amount of room noise (read: background) is visibly less.  When I say visibly, I’m looking at the sound wave as recorded in Cubase, the recording software I use.  I could hear it a little when I turned it up loud enough, but at that point it was uncomfortably loud. 

To get a little technical here, I am testing out two tracks: one unprocessed, direct from the mic, and one processed through hardware compression and EQ.  I am rough editing them, then I will dump them onto a CD and listen to them over whatever speakers I can find and see which sounds better.

I can’t remember whether I mentioned it yet, but a short while ago I went into a local professional recording studio and recorded the same text I recorded yesterday.  This recording is my primary baseline.  If I can get my home studio material to sound as good as the pro studio track, I’ll be golden!  If not, it just means I have a little more tweaking to do in my room.

Isn’t this exciting? 

By the way, the file I recorded is “Racism: America’s most challenging issue.”  I know it isn’t globally applicable, but it was short and sweet making it an affordable option when going in and recording in a pro studio.  If you’re interested in being one of my test listeners when the time comes, please email me at El.verdanta@gmail.com.

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The beginning

September 22, 2008 at 5:13 am (Baha'i, Career, Entrepreneur, Faith, Humanity, Mystery, Religion, Ruhi, Work, spirituality)

As difficult as it is to identify a beginning in the middle of a spiderweb, I’m going to try.

A few years ago, I started taking Ruhi Book 1.  (It’s the first class in a series designed to help anyone interested – Baha’i or not – to learn about the Baha’i Faith.)  I had been wanting to for a long time, and the manifestation of that desire was everything I wanted it to be:  A weekly dip in the ocean of God’s grace, fertilizer to grow the spiritual connections among members of my community, and a spiritual fix to help me make it through days weighed down by materialsm and ego.  

I loved it so much, I looked for other ways to increase my spiritual connection to the Word.  I looked for Baha’i Audiobooks, but found none.  Then one day, a substitute tutor happened to mention some recorded lectures by Adib Tahirzadeh on CD.  That was all I needed to know.  I looked them up as soon as I arrived home and ordered a set.  They were wonderful!  I could (and did) listen to each of the 11 CD’s several times over, learning something new each time I did. 

When I finally finished them, I looked for more.  This time, I found the website that contained all the books on tape recorded many years ago by Services for the Blind, available for free download.  I thought I had found heaven!  I loaded Paris Talks onto my iPod and went for a long walk.  

It was intensely anticlimactic. 

I like to think that I’m a tolerant person, especially when it comes to individual efforts within the Baha’i Faith.  It turns out that when it comes to audiobooks, I am very intolerant.  

The problem with the tapes were that:

  1. Each track was 45 minutes long, based on the length of the side of a cassette tape
  2. The readers occasionally turned their head away from the mic making it impossible to hear
  3. When a reader stumbled on a passage, they didn’t delete and do a retake, they just kept going.
  4. Page numbers were read aloud
  5. The table of contents was read aloud
  6. The sound was muffled sounding

For me, that was too many strikes.  Every time I tried to listen, I’d find myself chanting “I could do this better.  I could do this better.  I could do this so much better.” 

Then one day, the chant of “I could really do this better” was answered with ”Well, why not try?”  Of course, that first thought was immediately followed with “Yeah right!”  But over the course of several more walks on several more days, the same sequence repeated itself.  Then one day, I stopped walking, looked at the sky and asked flat out, “Wait, are you saying you want me to try to do this?”  I was immediately filled with such an overwhelming feeling of joy that I fairly floated home. 

And that was the very beginning.  Or one of them.  So once again, Darrel was correct.  Verdanta was created for one purpose: to create professional quality recordings of the Baha’i writings and make them available to as many people throughout the world as is possible. 

It’s been an exciting journey so far, but lonely at times.   I created this blog so I wouldn’t have to walk that journey alone.   If you are, like me, always searching for more ways to incorporate the Word into your life, then perhaps you will accompany me, and together we can administer the healing prescription of Baha’u'llah throughout the world.

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Mystery Job: Clues to date

September 9, 2008 at 12:34 am (Baha'i, Bliss, Career, Entrepreneur, Faith, Humanity, Mystery, Prayer, Reading, Religion, Service, audiobooks, business, life balance, spirituality, work as worship)

I thought I would summarize the breadcrumbs (aka “clues”) I have dropped so far, so you could see the trail of where I’ve already been laid out more clearly.  There have been a few hints I’ve dropped without labeling them as such, so we’ll see if you were paying attention!

  1. I’m a Baha’i
  2. I love to learn
  3. I love to read
  4. This new career involves at least one activity that requires “mushin”
  5. It allows me total freedom to set my schedule
  6. It lets me use my unique talents (public speaking, organization, leadership and communication) 
  7. It lets me serve humanity through the Baha’i Faith
  8. Books on CD
  9. It fills a need which I have identified in the world
  10. My mission through Verdanta is to “be always occupied with the mention of Baha’u'llah.”
  11. It involves building a business that aligns with the teachings of the Baha’i Faith
  12. My success depends on persistent, consistent, constant action.
  13. I have used the five steps described in “The Power of Prayer” to get where I am today.

That’s it so far.  I’ll even toss out one more:

  14.  It requires the purchase of quite a bit of equipment that must be installed, configured, and learned.

Has anyone figured it out yet?  Drop me a comment and let me know your guess!

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Five Easy Steps for Powerful, Effective Prayer

September 5, 2008 at 2:00 am (Baha'i, Faith, Prayer, Religion)
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How do you know what the “right” thing to do is?  How do you know if you’re doing what God wants you to do?  When faced with a decision, how do you choose?  I have mentioned several times my efforts to “walk the path” or “choose God’s Will over mine.”  All these, to me, are more or less the same thing.  And the answer to all of them is: prayer.

I’ve been a Baha’i all my life, so I’m not sure how other religions think about prayer, but for me, prayer is a very direct, personal, and practical thing.  It helps me figure out what I’m supposed to do. 

Shoghi Effendi, who was the great grand-son of Baha’u'llah, the founder of the Baha’i Faith, shared with us “a most concise, complete and effective formula for the Dynamics of Prayer.”  I think this approach to prayer is somewhat different than how many religious approach prayer, so I thought I would share it.  Here it is, in its entirety:

If we have a problem of any kind for which we desire a solution or wish help, we should use these five steps:

1. Pray and meditate about it.  Use the prayers of the Manifestations as they have the greatest power.  Learn to remain in the silence of contemplation for a few moments.  During this deepest Communion take the following step

2. Arrive at a decision and hold to this.  This decision is usually born in a flash at the close or during the contemplation.  It may seem almost impossible of accomplishment, but if it seems to be an answer to prayer or a way of solving the problem, then immediately take the next step. 

3.  Have determination to carry the decision through.  Many fail here. The decision, budding into determination, is blighted and instead becomes a wish or a vague longing.  When determination is born immediately take the next step.

4.  Have faith and confidence, that the Power of the Holy Spirit will flow though you, the right way will appear, the door will open, the right thought, the right message, the right principle or the right book will be given to you.  Have confidence, and the right thing will come to meet your need.   Then as you rise from prayer take immediately the fifth step.

5.  Act as though it had all been answered.  Then act with tireless, ceaseless energy.  And, as you act, you, yourself will become a magnet which will attract more power to your being, until you become an unobstructed channel for the Divine Power to flow through you.  Many pray, but do not remain for the last half of the first step.  Some who meditate arrive at a decision, but fail to hold it.  Few have the determination to carry the decision through, and still fewer have the confidence that the right thing will come to their need.  But how many remember to act as though it had all been answered?  How true are those words – Greater than the prayer is the spirit in which it is uttered, but greater than the manner in which it is uttered is the spirit in which it is carried out.

If you’ve read some of my other posts, you know that this is a process I apply to my life constantly.  It is precisely how this venture turned from a nagging gripe of “I could do this better!” into a confident assertion that ”I am going to do this better!”  I have already mentioned several of the elements in other blogs: using faith to overcome fear and doubt, exerting effort ceaselessly, and having determination.  I speak from experience when I say this process works. 

It really is that easy. 
Try it and let me know how it turns out.

Peace.

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Slowing Life Down: Learning to Appreciate the Tortoise

September 4, 2008 at 8:01 pm (Baha'i, Career, Entrepreneur, Faith, Reading, Religion, Work, business, livelihood, work as worship)

You’ve heard the story of the tortoise and the hare?  In the past, I’ve always been the hare.  I’d get excited about something I’d read, and dive in.  The smell of burning rubber hung in the air as I hurled myself into a furious, frantic frenzy of activity.  The problem was, as soon as my momentum petered out, I had nothing left.  I’d quit with nothing to show for it. 

Eventually, a wise man (my husband) pointed out that it’s never as easy as the books say, and if I wanted to pursue something new, great, but I had to do my homework.  I had to ask hard questions of lots of people, including myself.  That is when I began to learn the wisdom of the tortoise.

The tortoise plods along, with patience and persistence, passing each milestone in turn, without rushing, without panicking, without stopping.  When the idea first came to me to start this business, I was at a complete loss.  I had never started a business or worked anywhere except corporate America.  I was the anti-entrepreneur.  And there were a lot of new skills I needed, skills I had never even contemplated acquiring.  It was very intimidating.  I had no reason to believe I could do it.  I only knew I had a very strong feeling that it needed to be done, and that I ought to try to do it. 

So I did. 

I started to do research on the Internet.  I started checking books out from the library.  I began talking to people.  I began (shudder) networking.  When I started, I knew nothing about anything,  but I kept on reading and talking and listening.  Slowly, ploddingly, I have learned many many new things.  I have also found many wonderful (human) resources along the way.  (My thanks to all of you – you are a gift and a treasure to me!)

One resource I found available to anyone in the United States is an organization called SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives).  It is a volunteer agency within the Small Business Administration.  They offer free counseling services to anyone wanting to start a business.  They have given me a much needed reality check, helped me write a business plan, and given me a lot of encouragement along the way.  Writing a business plan is not for the feint of heart!  It’s a long, drawn out process requiring much patience, and if you’re wise, much help. 

Throughout this journey, I have learned the importance of not rushing things.  If it’s a good idea today, it will be a good idea tomorrow.  If it is God’s Will that I do this thing, then it will happen.  All I have to do is keep moving forward, keep exerting effort, keep identifying the next thing that could/should be done, and doing it.  If I get stalled on one front, then I start chipping away at a different front.  All things happen in God’s time, not ours, so we must patiently wait for Him to bring to us that which we need.  And we must be detached enough to recognize it when it appears. 

(Of course, if it is not God’s Will that I do this thing, then I don’t want to do it anyway, and I trust that He will block the way forward, pushing me in a different direction.)

Life in general is so much more pleasant as a tortoise.  I’m more relaxed and forgiving with everyone, particularly my children.  The truth is, patience comes more easily when you realize there is no need to rush. 

If nothing else comes of this venture, I am grateful for what I have already gained from it.  Thank goodness I’ve discovered the joys of being a tortoise!

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