Journey to the Bahá’í Faith 

It took a village to raise me into the Bahá’í Faith: a loving wife and partner who looked only to the contents of my character; a community whose intentions were that of fellowship and unity, and divine intervention. This is how it happened: 

When I was 21 I drowned and died. I was swimming with some friends in Lake Bled in Slovenia. For reasons still unknown to me 14 years later, I blacked out in the middle of the lake and I drowned. My friends held me up, a lifeguard carried me to the side of the lake, and by the Grace of God two British policemen were travelling through the country on motorbikes, saw what was happening, and swept in to resuscitate me. They said my skin and lips had turned blue, and rather ominously that ‘they’d seen a lot of dead bodies, and this looked like one of them’. In hospital I contracted pneumonia, and I was put on a life support machine. 

Once I came through the experience, I recall sitting in my hospital bed and recognising the immense work of the doctors and nurses around me, but also as though some ‘thing’ bigger had carried me through. 

Such was my exposure to religion at this time, I attributed this to Jesus Christ (which, in a sense, it was). I felt a strong sense of Protection, and such gratitude for having lived. 

I got home to my mum’s house, just outside Leeds about 3 weeks later. I switched on the news and there was a story about three young men, about my age, who had been on holiday in Ireland. All three had died from carbon monoxide poisoning staying in a rental cottage. The story was very different to my own, but with enough similarities to jar. Why would God have saved me but not these three men? I couldn’t countenance this. 

Motivated by, I think, a survivor’s guilt and some shame, I put religion, God and everything associated with spirituality in a box, and closed the lid. 

A Complex Relationship with Faith 

This was perhaps characteristic of my relationship to God, spirituality and faith throughout my life to this point. I was born in 1988 and Christened as a Catholic the following year. My grandparents were devout Catholics and sang in the church choir. Unlike most of my friends, even my sisters, I wasn’t indifferent or apathetic towards God. In the 1990s in England, it was a period of material abundance and comfort – and many people seemed to treat religion as either a relic of a bygone era or a kind of cultural signifier. I always kept one eye on my feelings about God, and had a sincere will to believe in something, in part I think motivated by my respect for my grandfather, who was a gentle and kind person. 

When I drowned, I put these feelings away, but as unattended feelings tend to, they festered. The unresolved guilt became anger and frustration against God. 

Initial Encounter  

It was at this time that two things happened: I met my future wife, Lara, and I began my studies to become a music therapist. 

Lara is a Bahá’í and was born into a Bahá’í family. When we met, Lara told me about her faith. I found lots to be refreshed about in the concepts of the Bahá’í Faith, but in truth I lacked the resolve, maturity or humility to investigate them further. This was not a problem for Lara, she looked at the content of my character and stressed my ‘identity’ as a Bahá’í/”non-Bahá’í” was not of importance to her. As I look back now, this grace, detachment and acceptance is perhaps the greatest gift of my life. It allowed me to walk at my own pace, and find the Faith not through desire to ‘please’, but through love and my own relationship with Bahá’u’llah. 

Spiritual Re-awakening  

As a music therapist, my anti-theist tendencies were being challenged daily. Music therapists often work with people in unimaginable and difficult life circumstances: profound and disabling learning difficulties; brain injuries, dementia. In many ways their bodies are not able to quicken with the vibrancy of their spirit. Yet music could reach through the part of the person that was not well enough for something that was whole, and untouched. I was encountering people’s souls in my work each day, and this was an empirical Truth that could not be denied. 

For the years of my life where I lived in this incongruence, I think I existed somewhere between hope and hopelessness. I was encountering so many reasons to be hopeful, but I had no Cause to attach this hope to. The world was slowly unravelling – individualism, prejudice and inequity were rising daily – and I felt no meaningful solution to these ailments was presenting itself. How ironic that this solution was right in front of my eyes! ‘Even as the sun, bright hath He shined, but alas He hath come to the town of the blind’. 

As my despair at global tribulations increased, Lara moved to London and into a youthful and vibrant Bahá’í community in Islington.  

Visiting her from my home in Leeds, it became more and more natural for me to attend gatherings: firesides, devotionals, community outreach. In this community I found a beautiful paradox that I have since found to characterise the community at large: the Bahá’ís were realists and idealists; they were spiritual and practical about it! They were alert to the hardships the world was facing, and they were realistic about their capacity to contribute to the change of this hardship on a grassroots level. They also had a plan, a cause and a means towards unity and oneness. I found this so inspiring, and unique. 

My cynicism about religion was slowly being deconstructed by the love, compassion, intelligence and grace of this community. 

I became involved in a Ruhi Book 1 in York, with Ronnie Bindra. I met him, by some confirmation of God, at a wedding about a week after Lara had returned from pilgrimage. I found in Ruhi the challenge of being asked not just to hear an ‘idea’, but to meditate on what it would be like to bring this idea into action. What would it take, and what would happen to the world if we all lived like this? 

I began to live my life as a Bahá’í. I did my best to follow the laws and found a huge transformation in my sense of purpose, hope and love towards my fellow man. I felt, in my heart, that I was a Bahá’í. But it was very difficult to bring this knowledge out of my heart and into my mouth. It was difficult to say I was Bahá’í, it felt so monumental and such a commitment. 

Confirmation and Transformation  

This went on for almost a year. In December of 2017 I was presenting at a conference about ‘Spirituality and Music Therapy’. I submitted a request to deliver a paper on ‘two-fold moral purpose’ in my practice as a music therapist. I quoted the Bahá’í writings throughout the talk and meant every word. It felt like something of a public declaration of my spiritual philosophy. But it was still so difficult to just say ‘I am a Bahá’í’ to the world. 

 That same night, I had a dream: 

 I am walking with Lara. She is holding my hand and gently guiding me forward. 

“Look there, can you see it?” Lara says. 

“No, what am I looking for?” I ask 

“There, just beyond that tree” 

I dip my head to peer under the canopy of a large olive tree towards the distance. There stands The Shrine of The Báb, majestically perched on the top of a hill. 

We walk towards the Shrine, and approach the gated entrance.  

There is a man on the gates, asking for tickets. 

“How much is it to enter?” I ask 

“It’s free to enter, just go ahead if you wish”, he replies. 

I walk through the gates and begin to climb the hill. 

Suddenly, dozens of dogs emerge from the periphery and begin biting and growling at my feet. 

I wake with a start. 

When I awoke, I opened an app on my phone which contained many Bahá’í writings. I searched the word ‘dog’ in the app. There was one quote: 

 “This mortal life is like unto the carcass of a dog, around which none would gather, nor would any partake of, except those who gainsay the life hereafter. Verily it is incumbent upon thee to become a true believer in God…” 

 (In writing this, I have just followed through the same task, and again in a further and beautiful confirmation, found a second reference, from Bahá’u’lláh, which is remarkably aligned with my dream: 

 ‘As bidden I waited expectant upon the hill of faithfulness, yet inhaled not from them that dwell on earth the fragrance of fidelity. Then summoned to return I beheld, and lo! certain doves of holiness were sore tired within the claws of the dogs of earth.’) 

This was early December 2017. I fretted the rest of the month over this mysterious, profound encouragement of my desire to declare as a Bahá’í. My courage still lacking, I waited. 

Certitude  

At New Year 2017-2018 (Dec 31-Jan 1), Lara and I went away to the Cotswolds with a number of Bahá’í friends. I had in my mind that I would ‘declare’ as a Bahá’í on New Year’s Day…I couldn’t countenance going into the New Year not a Bahá’í. At this stage, it felt so unintegrated. 

On New Year’s Day, I came close a fair few times. I remember my friend Karen looking nervously as it seemed to be on the tip of my tongue. But I just couldn’t say it. The anxiety was building! 

Off we went, as a group, to ‘Broadway Tower’. It is an old monument, a tower situated at the crest of a hill. Our intention was to slope our way gradually up the hill, but as the day waned, we ran out of time. We’d have to go directly up. 

We arrived, pushed open the gate and walked into the field. We began to climb. New Year’s dog walkers were out in the setting sun, and the dogs ran freely through the fields. 

It was right there, ‘I am a Bahá’í, I am a Bahá’í,’ I kept thinking, but when or how could I say it? 

Lara turned back to me, she’d spotted the tower. ‘Can you see it yet?’ she said. 

At this moment, I realised. Here I was, climbing towards this monument on the hill, surrounded by Bahá’ís, dogs running free…and Lara saying those exact words she’d said to me in my dream. At the precise moment I had decided, in my mind, to try to summon the courage to say ‘I am a Bahá’í’. 

It felt like the world had inverted. My dream felt like a reality, and my reality felt like my dream.  

So I said it. 

Three months later, Lara and I were engaged at Broadway Tower and married in the autumn. In fact, all 6 friends on that trip found their spouses within the year, and were married. 

It was a period of such spiritual abundance: the years between the 200 year anniversaries of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh (2017) and The Báb (2019). 

Richard Bennett  

Ridvan 2024 

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