Being a Baha'i: Daily Prayers and Meditation
maggiewilkins
An important part of the spiritual practice of members of the Baha'i Faith is daily prayer and meditation. Maggie Wilkins, a Baha’i in Highland Park, Illinois, knew that saying prayers was key in her spiritual development, but found the Baha'i prayers “next-to impossible” to learn because of her dyslexia.
Wilkins had a deep-seated desire to overcome her limitations and “transform disability into victory.” From that desire, came Divine Prayers, a 2-CD set of recited prayers that Wilkins developed with the intention of helping “all who would like to learn and know the sacred words of God, with the main focus on the Baha'i obligatory prayers.”
The first CD focuses on the obligatory prayers, and includes versions of all three with and without narrated actions. The second CD includes prayers, writings and chants of the sacred words of Baha’u’llah, The Bab and Abdu’l-Baha, the central figures of the Baha'i Faith, recited by 30 different people.
“I learn by hearing,” said Wilkins, “And after becoming a Baha’i about a year ago, I found it impossible to learn any prayers and…I know that if I have problems learning these prayers, others do too.
”While attending a prayer service at the Baha’i House of Worship, in Wilmette, Wilkins felt a sudden “explosion of excitement” and knew that she had to make a CD – a CD that could be a teaching tool for all who would like to learn the Sacred Words of God.
She got the go ahead to record the prayers at the House of Worship and “by the grace of God,” Wilkins said, “all the right people started to show up in my life,” to help with the prayer selection, reading, graphics, recording, publishing, funding and so on.
The commitment to the CD project was a big one – Wilkins said that for eight months, six days a week, she would get up at 4 a.m., work on the CD until 9 a.m. go to work until 4 p.m. and work on the CD after work, often till midnight. It was difficult, but Wilkins’s husband and two sons supported her throughout and understood her passion. “During this time,” she said, "every moment was a joy, and it seemed I did not need much sleep.
”Wilkins feels “deeply blessed” to have seeded this project and allowed it to flower, especially as a relatively new Baha’i. “After over 30 years of different studies and nine different belief systems, I found the Baha’i Faith – actually the Baha’i Faith came to me.”
“For me being a Baha’i is about me taking responsibility for my personal relationship with God,” said Wilkins. “Over the years I have studied many belief systems and religions; all seem to tell me how to have my relationship with God, and if I did not do it that way, it was not really a relationship with God. Being a Baha’i, my relationship with God is private and only between God and me. That has made me step up to the plate and take action, for I am the only one responsible for my relationship with God, no other.”
Her vision for Divine Prayers is to help people embrace the obligatory prayer every day and use the profits to help fund the youth classes she is developing.
Related items:
In the Baha'i Faith the Qiblih is the location that Baha'is should face when saying their daily obligatory prayers, and is fixed at the Shrine of Baha'u'llah in Bahjí, near Akka, in present day Israel. Use the following site to find the "Point of Adoration" from any place in the world.
Additional recordings of the Baha'i Writings can be found at Baha'i audio Readings Repository.
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Reprinted with permission from the Baha'is of the United States
(see U.S. Baha'i News)