Hi everybody. So I'm here to talk tonight about how to apply the Bahá'í faith. But since a lot of you are learning about the Bahá'í faith, I thought I'd start with a short introduction of the Bahá'í faith itself. So I've been a Bahá'í for 10 years. I grew up Jewish. I became a Bahá'í at the age of 49 in 2015. So it's been a 10-year journey for me, a wonderful 10-year journey, and I met lots of wonderful Bahá'ís from all over the world. Traveled all over the world as a Bahá'í. It's been really a privilege.
But what is a Bahá'í? There's a lot of definitions of a Bahá'í. Abdul-Bahá, the son of Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the faith, he said essentially, and I'm paraphrasing, that to be a Bahá'í is to love the world and to serve humanity. So love God, love the world, and serve humanity. That could also be what it is to be a Christian or to be a Jew or to be a Muslim. If you're following your faith, you do that. It's all about service.
What Bahá'u'lláh said, you know, maybe I'll just start at the beginning. In the 1840s, there was a great fervor all around the world among Jews, among Christians, and among Muslims that something was going to happen, that a messenger was going to come. The Jews were expecting the Messiah, the Christ. The Christians, the return of Christ. And the Muslims in Persia were expecting the 12th Imam. The Jews expecting the Messiah in 1840, I'll save some time, did not see the Messiah. But they had two other things they were expecting. Number one, a return to the Holy Land, which has happened from less than 10,000 Jews in 1844 to over 7 million today. And a technological revolution that was predicted in the Jewish Zohar, the mystical book. 75% of the inventions in the history of the world have happened since 1844. Cars, trucks, planes, plastics, skyscrapers, everything. Even... and this is going to shock some of the younger people in the audience. These did not exist in 1844.
But the Jews didn't see the Messiah. So I move to the Christians. As the Jews were searching in vain for the Messiah, Christians all over the world, hundreds of thousands of them were waiting for the return of Christ. In Germany, in France, in Switzerland, in Holland, Sweden, England, Ireland, and in North America, and many other places, hundreds of thousands of Christians were waiting eagerly for Christ to return and the world to end. Who said this? It was a lot of prominent people. Maybe you have heard of Martin Luther. He predicted it would happen by 1840. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist faith, predicted it would happen in 1836.
Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith, he said in 1843, 'There are those of you of the rising generation who will not pass away till Christ returns.' And the most famous one here in America, a contemporary of Mr. Smith, was a man named William Miller who started out as a farmer, had this kind of miraculous thing happen in the world in the War of 1812, and he was transformed. And he started searching for the return of Christ. Read the Bible fervently for two years and he decided based on Bible signs that Christ was going to return exactly in 1844. And he convinced a hundred thousand people that he was right. And they were all waiting on October 22nd, 1844, looking up in the sky for Christ to come in clouds and waiting for the world to end.
Has anyone heard of the Great Disappointment? The world did not end on October 23rd, 1844. So when the sun came up on October 23rd, 1844, it was the Great Disappointment. Miller was shocked. He had read and reread the Bible, and he was sure he was right. He'd done his calculations over and over again. In 2300 days, the temple shall be cleansed. He starts with when the temple's rebuilt. He adds 2,300 years, gets to 1844, convinces 100,000 people he's right. What went wrong? Not Miller. It was the Bible. You see, the Bible was wrong. And that was the problem for all the Adventists. It was the King James Bible they were reading. And the King James Bible, it says, 'When's it going to happen, Jesus?' And Jesus says in several places, 'End of the world.' But actually, that's not what it said. That was a mistranslation specifically in the King James Bible that's been corrected in all the New Bibles that now say 'end of the age.' So Miller and all the Adventists like him should have been looking for a new age, but they were looking for the end of the world, and that wasn't going to happen.
And there's other parts of the Bible that make that very clear, like the 20th chapter of Revelation, which talks about a thousand years of peace. How do you get a thousand years of peace if the world ends? That doesn't make sense. And then a New Jerusalem in the next chapter. So, it makes sense that there's going to be a new age. But too late for the Adventists, we move on to the Muslims.
Now, here's one of the most interesting things about the Christian Bible. I point this out to everyone I meet. 1260. Raise your hand if you come from a Christian background. Raise your hand high. And if you raise your hand if you come from a Christian background and you're not a Bahá'í. Okay, we got a few. So here's the question. The number 1260 is in the Christian Bible, 10 times, seven times in the book of Revelation and three times in the book of Daniel. Anybody? What does it mean? It's the year of the end of the age. The end of the age. So 1260 is the end of the age. What age? The end of the Adamic cycle and for a new age to be ushered in as prophesied in the book of Daniel.
From a Bahá'í perspective, I'd say yes, but not from a Christian perspective. From a Christian perspective, no idea. So from a Christian perspective, it doesn't mean anything. And the reason is it's not a Christian year at all. Here's the coolest thing I think about the Christian Bible. It's a Muslim year. So that 1260 is in there seven times in the book of Revelation. Most common, the most well-known is 11:2 and 11:3. Two witnesses will reign for 1260 days or 42 months. But this doesn't really mean anything to Christians. Means a lot to Muslims. You see, after Muhammad comes the first Imam, Ali, he's his chosen successor. He's killed. The next 10 Imams are killed. The 12th Imam disappears in what year? 260 Muslim years. And according to Muslim prophecy, he's supposed to return in 1260.
So it comes that in the year 1260 in Persia, not reading the Christian Bible, almost everybody is waiting for the 12th Imam to come. Most people waiting for a thousand-year-old man to come out of hiding because he's gone into hiding or occultation. So they're all waiting for a 1200-year-old man. For some of you younger people, would you believe if I told you I was 12,000 years old? No. My kids think that, but I'm not. So there's no such thing as a thousand-year-old man. And so that didn't happen. But there was a group called the Sheykhis. And the Sheykhis were waiting for a young man to come. And that's precisely what happens. And that kicks off the era that we're in, the Bahá'í era.
So the Báb declares in the year 1260. 1844, by the way, Miller was right in Christian years. 1260 in Muslim years is 1844 in Christian years. The same exact year the Jews start returning to the Holy Land with the Ottoman Edict of Toleration. The same exact year that Miller predicted and many other things happen in 1844. For example, the theory of relativity — that was actually the draft version was finished in 1844. The telegraph was invented in 1844. The very first telegraph happened the day after the Báb declares. He declares on May 23rd, 1844, the very next day. Not to be outdone, Samuel Morse sends the first telegraph, 'What hath God wrought' about the coming of a messenger. He did not know a messenger had declared the previous day.
So this shoots like wildfire all across Persia. The Báb gets over a hundred — by the way, the Báb means the Gate, as in a gateway to a new age. The Báb declares he's the 12th Imam. He gets over 100,000 followers. Over 400 religious scholars become followers, believers in him. The most prominent is a man named Vahid who was sent by the king, the Shah himself, to kill the Báb. They meet three times. He doesn't kill the Báb. The third time they met, the Báb revealed right in front of Vahid the equivalent of one-third of the Quran in a single setting, single day. And Vahid said after seeing this, 'If all the forces on earth were led against me, I would not abandon my confidence in the success of this cause.' He became a follower, as I mentioned, 400 other religious scholars.
And so the mullas of Persia had to make a decision. Were they going to accept the Báb? They've been promising for centuries that as soon as the 12th Imam comes, they accept him. You see, there's no clergy in Shia Islam. The mullas had arisen borrowing the power from the 12th Imam guaranteeing they're going to give it back as soon as he comes. And now he comes with 100,000 followers plus some of the most prominent religious scholars in the country vouching for him. 400 scholars all told, and they have to decide: do they merely fulfill what they've been promising for centuries or do they put him in jail? So anyone who's not a Bahá'í, what do you think they did? Who's never heard this before? What do you think?
They put him in jail. You've been reading your religious history. But the jailer became a believer and they put him in another jail. That jailer became a believer. So they put him on trial, asked him who he was. He said, 'I am the promised one you've been expecting for a thousand years.' So they had to kill him, which they did. They killed him and they killed over 20,000 of his followers. The last remaining leader was a Persian nobleman by the name of Bahá'u'lláh. Bahá'u'lláh was known at the age of 13 for his great wisdom, innate wisdom. Every messenger of God has innate wisdom. By his early 20s, he's known as the father of the poor. His dad was one of the wealthiest men in Persia. So this kind and wise nobleman almost as soon as the Báb declares became a follower and a great leader in the Bábí cause. And eventually in 1852 he was the last one standing.
They'd killed over 20,000 Bábís desperately trying to hold on to their power. Bahá'u'lláh was the last major leader standing. So they arrested him, accused him of a crime he didn't commit, tortured him and put him in a place called the Black Pit. And it was in the Black Pit that Bahá'u'lláh saw a vision of a maiden who said he's the promised one of all faiths. For the Hindus, the 10th avatar. For the Jews, the Messiah. For Christians and Muslims, he would be the return of Christ. For Buddhists, the fifth Buddha. Different names, but every major faith is waiting for a redeemer. He's that redeemer. Bahá'u'lláh came out of that prison and for 40 years was exiled and revealed the equivalent of 60 Christian Bibles. And that's what I'm here to talk about today. What did he say and how do we apply that to our lives?
Bahá'u'lláh's message revolves around this unity. I have four of these t-shirts. I wear them as many days of the week as I can. When I'm not wearing this, I wear other Bahá'í shirts. So, unity. Bahá'u'lláh revealed a road map to world peace. Raise your hand if you think that's something we should think about. Raise your hand high. Okay, if you're not raising your hand, I think we got everyone. What could be more important than world peace? The problem is most of the world doesn't think it's possible. As a Bahá'í, I can't speak for all Bahá'ís, but I can probably tell you most Bahá'ís would agree with me. I believe, because it says so in the writings, that world peace is not only possible but inevitable.
To those of you who aren't Bahá'í, that may sound a little over-hopeful, but it isn't. World peace is inevitable. Bahá'u'lláh has said so. A lot of times I talk to people who don't have a lot of faith and they think there's no possibility whatsoever that we can ever get to peace, and I agree with them if there was no God. But everything is possible with God, or if I'm talking to a Christian, I say everything's possible with Christ. Now let me talk a little bit about that in terms of Christ. Who is Bahá'u'lláh? Well, Bahá'u'lláh is Christ. But what is Christ? Christ is simply the Anointed One. Jesus was the Anointed One. So was Muhammad. So was Buddha. And so was Bahá'u'lláh.
Every 500 to a thousand years, God sends a messenger. And those messengers are all perfect. You can't be better than perfect. We ordinary humans are not. I can tell you I have some very close friends and spouse that would tell you very quickly how imperfect I am. You'd have to take a few days to hear all of that. But all of us humans are very imperfect. But the messengers of God are different. The messengers of God are perfect. And so, is Bahá'u'lláh more perfect than Jesus? No. Is he less perfect than Jesus? No. Each one of those messengers according to Bahá'u'lláh is a perfect mirror of all the beautiful virtues of God. Love, kindness, compassion, truth, justice, and we are the recipients of the light that they bring to the world. And in every age, that light is renewed.
So, what does the messenger of God come to do? They come to renew that light and to give us the specific directions for each age. In this age, it's unity. So what does Bahá'u'lláh say? He says, 'I've come with the Most Great Peace.' And we get it when we understand the oneness of humanity. What do we have to do? Sexism. Women are equal to men. Get rid of that. Racism. There's a single human race. He's saying this in the 1800s. People did not believe that then. It's scientifically proven. We need to get that in our hearts, not just our heads, but in our hearts that there is a single human race and that we need to look at everybody, everybody as our brothers and sisters. Period. And everybody should be viewed exactly equally.
Same thing with nation. The earth is but one country, says Bahá'u'lláh. The earth is but one country and mankind as citizens. And all these great religions that were born into — I was born into a Jewish family, others into a Hindu, into a Christian, into a Muslim. There's but one God. And the way I describe it is this way. God sent a messenger, the messenger of God. And 3,500 years ago, he led the Hebrews out of Egypt. And 3,000 years ago, he led people in Persia and created the great Persian Empire in his wake. And 2,500 years ago, that messenger came back in Nepal and India and led to the great Maurya Empire, which had two million square miles.
And 2,000 years ago, despite being crucified after a mere three years of ministry, he created in his wake the great Byzantine Empire, a wonderful empire that served the world. And 1,400 years ago, in the wake of the messenger, we had a great golden age that lasted 500 years and saw the invention of algebra and algorithms and the reinvention of almost every field of human endeavor.
Do you notice I didn't say any names? The names, the world of names is where we start getting into problems because people fall in love with the name. The name — and I'll say this, it may almost be insulting — the name Jesus doesn't matter. The person of Jesus matters. The spirit of Jesus, that Christ spirit that Jesus had, that divine perfection matters. A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet according to Shakespeare. And Jesus by any name would smell — whether he was called Buddha or Gautama the Buddha, whether he was called the Christ, whether he was called Muhammad. That great spirit is recognizable. We need to tune to the spirit, not the name. And that goes for countries and race and all the other things we think divide us.
Politics. Anything that divides us according to Bahá'u'lláh is something we need to do away with. So we as Bahá'ís have to avoid partisan politics. Now how do we apply this to our lives? So let's take this from this 10,000-foot view and let's bring it down a little bit. The first thing we do when we meet someone in the street: Abdul-Bahá, the son of Bahá'u'lláh. So Bahá'u'lláh's son and successor was Abdul-Bahá. When Bahá'u'lláh ascended in 1892, which was last week in 1892, he said in writing that his son Abdul-Bahá would be his successor and he was a wonderful successor and he led the Bahá'í faith until he passed away in 1921.
And they're building a beautiful shrine as we speak for him in Acre, Israel, which hopefully in the next year or two will be completed. Abdul-Bahá said, 'See His face in everyone we meet.' So see God in everyone you meet. Think about this. Think of the worst people we meet. And I have to remind myself of that every day. The worst person, the person you hate so much, who's terrible, and you can fill in the blanks as to how terrible they are and why they're terrible. But now see that person. Now imagine — I want everyone to imagine this — imagine that person you're supposed to hate. And then I want you to see the face of God instead of that person's face. Can you hate them? You see, each of us is a soul.
And the goal of that soul is what? To become a good person. And some people are just better at it than others. And so if someone — and I recently had this experience — and so what do you do as a Bahá'í? You pray for that person. And I recently prayed for two people who've given me a lot of trouble. I went to the threshold of Bahá'u'lláh, put my head down there and said, the first two people I prayed for were two people that had given me an awful lot of trouble. And I prayed for them because they need it in my opinion. And I didn't pray that they'd be incinerated. That was a thought. But I prayed for their well-being. And I think that's important to see them as divine beings.
Every one of us. I went to — so I remember I come from a Jewish background. And I went to temple with my parents after I became a Bahá'í. And we're having a discussion after services, after Jewish services. And the question I asked is, do you want Adolf Hitler in heaven or hell? I was the only one who said heaven. Now mind you, we lost 20 members of our family in the Holocaust. Mind you that there was a lot of suffering in my own family. But I wanted him in heaven. Maybe after a little suffering, maybe after a little justice. That's up to God, not me. We're not the judge of anybody. But every soul I want to be in heaven because we have to love them for their humanity. Everybody.
And I chose him as an example. Whoever you think is like Hitler or whatever, you know, the Ayatollah or whoever you think is the worst person in the world — they're human. And so if they're struggling to be a good human, we hope that they can be better. We don't wish ill on anybody as a Bahá'í. So that's the first part. Look upon everybody and see the face of God.
And then there's one of my favorite books in the Bahá'í faith is the Hidden Words. I've memorized the Arabic. I'm getting to the Persian. I've memorized all the Arabic. And there's one that starts off with, 'O Children of Men! Know you not why We created you all from the same dust, that no one should exalt himself over the other.' I'm just going to go with the start of that. So think about it. What reasons do we have to exalt ourselves? I recently had a situation where I'm like, gosh, I was with some — we had an entrepreneurship contest in my local community and actually it was in a college near my local community and they didn't invite me. And I was like, I told my best friend, I said, why didn't they invite me? I'm a great entrepreneur.
And she looked at me and laughed and basically told me to shut up. And I realized when she said that, it's like, okay, I may think I am, and I might be, but if they don't want me, they don't want me. It's fine. And don't feel like you're the best. And maybe I wasn't supposed to be there. And the person they invited is a wonderful person, a wonderful, very successful businessman. And so I don't have to be everywhere. And I was just so excited because there were a couple young kids from Congo at this local college getting in on it, and I love these kids and I just wanted to be there and support them. But you know what? She said, 'You're showing a little ego.' And she was right. She was right because you know what? It's not about how great you are ever. I don't care what you've ever accomplished. Don't exalt yourself over everybody. And you have to do that every day. All of us have to do that every day.
And there's a lot of reasons why we might. Some of us might be younger. A lot of you are younger than me and stronger and faster now as I get older. But we all have things that we're good at. I can't, for example, sing. So some of you — almost all of you probably can out-sing me. You know, whatever, whatever you have, each of us has our special things that we shine on. But we can't do that with ego. Everything should be of service.
So that's another thing. As a Bahá'í, our focus should be on service. So I have a foundation. I have two foundations. Julian Grace, which is my family foundation, and I started a Bahá'í-inspired foundation which I unfortunately had to close down. I'm actually winding it down right now in a very public lawsuit and I became a target. And so actually this is public knowledge but I'll say it: about a month ago my daughter was targeted. There was a threat that she was going to be kidnapped and killed. And so I've had multiple death threats, I've had a lot of things going on, and that and some other internal threats caused me to close down the foundation.
But one of the things that actually influenced me was there were some people there internally who had forgotten about the service and it became more of — we had forgotten why we're there. And so I'm committed to giving away the majority of my wealth. I remain committed to that. But I'm going to do it privately. And part of it is I want to make sure that when I give away wealth that I'm not a target. And so I think we had gotten away from the issue of service. And so we were spending a lot of money that we didn't need to spend. And it really bothered me because to me the most important thing with the foundation is to give to communities. And actually what I'm going to do is give much more quietly now to the same communities, but I'm going to save a lot of money doing it because we were spending a lot of money on travel, we were spending a lot of money on conferences, but I don't think we were as effective. And to me every dollar I give has to be as effective as possible and I think the focus has to be on service always and it should be everything you do.
So what Bahá'u'lláh said in this dispensation, in this age: work is worship as long as it's done in the spirit of service. So first thing: everyone you look at, see the face of God. Don't exalt yourself over anybody. And do everything with the spirit of service. So that's what I'm trying to do.
So a couple of my ventures right now: I'm actually starting up a podcast network. So we have a podcast right now. We have a couple. One is Rainn Wilson's. Has anyone listened to Soulboom? If you haven't, it's a wonderful podcast with my wonderful friend Rainn. And then we have a podcast called Man Enough, which has been successful. And so I thought, well, we should probably expand this. And we ended up hiring someone who's built a great podcast network. And he's come to Companion Arts, which is our sister company to Wayfarer Studios. What's the purpose of this podcast network? To bring goodness, to have podcasts which are positive and spiritual.
I have a movie theater. So my movie theater is very good at losing money. We're going to lose about a million dollars this year, which should never be the goal of any business. But why are we doing it? Because my town in Highland Park, we had a terrible tragedy. It's now three years ago on July 4th, we had a shooting. 51 people were shot by a very sick young man. Seven of them died. And the movie, the local movie theater — and this is also coming off of COVID — was basically dead. No one was going. People were afraid to go to the movie theater. They're afraid of a mass shooting. And you know, of course, movie theaters have been suffering after COVID. So, um, I was given the movie theater for free.
Here's a movie theater that's losing money every month. Here you go. I just happened to have a family office in the same office with the landlord. So they gave me the theater. But what's the purpose of the theater? Two things. To take this community that was suffering and try to contribute — because I've lived there for now almost 30 years in this community — to lift up the community, unite the community. And the last thing is that I want to show and we do show films that are good for the soul. I believe that, and this is also the reason why I along with the great Justin Baldoni, who I adore, we started Wayfarer Studios to make films that uplift the world, that show the nobility of every person.
And if you see the pattern of our films, it's different people — whether they be autistic, transgender, whatever — like people that maybe might not be appreciated. We're showing this. We have a film called Racist Trees looking at racism. We have a film looking at body image. The great Ezra film we put out last year, which didn't do very well at the box office but I love the film, is showing an autistic child. We have a film about paramedics coming out in September. We have a film about ageism about a 59-year-old man who makes his college football team. True story actually. I happen to be 59 and I'm not making any college football team, but I wouldn't have made it when I was 19 and I won't make it when I'm 59. But this man actually made his team.
So what we're trying to do is lift up the world with everything we do. And what we're avoiding is a lot of what Hollywood does today, which is films that are chock full of violence and gratuitous sex and very negative images. I believe, and this is true for anyone who's in the arts, and I know there's a disproportionate people here who are in the arts because we're in LA, that what we put in our soul matters. And so, in the movie theater and in the movie studio, we're trying to serve humanity with what we do. And we're very particular about what we play. And I'm losing more money every month. I know this because there's movies I won't play and I don't care. And I'm actually looking to expand what we're doing into some areas that'll probably appreciate this more. We're looking at a couple places to expand right now. People who are looking for clean movies.
How many people think that Hollywood probably could raise the quality of the subject matter? Look around. Look, everyone look around. Almost every hand went up. And I can tell you that that's true most places I go. It's getting — and it's getting more true every day. Not just the quality of the films, but actually what they're about. And I think we're at a situation right now where that's becoming even more evident. So, it's a good time to do that.
Bottom line is no matter what you do, whether you're a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant, an actress, a film writer, a screenwriter, a producer, a banker — serve the world.
Now, how do we do this? So, something my foundation supports, which I'm very proud of, and my wife and I have supported — one of the reasons I became a Bahá'í. It's not the only reason, and I had already decided to become a Bahá'í. But my company went public in 2014. And with my newfound wealth, the first thing I decided to do was contribute to a center in Chicago called Shurat. Basically inspired by a wonderful man by the name of Bill Strickland. And Bill works in urban — had inspired 10 different centers in urban neighborhoods in Pittsburgh and other places. Vocational for adults and arts for kids. And I thought, I want one of these in Chicago. So I called up Bill and we started building a place called Shurat, which has now been around for several years.
And about five or six conversations in, Bill says, talking to these Jewish philanthropists in Miami about building one of these in Acre, Israel for Jews and Arabs. And I almost fell out of my seat. For those of you who aren't Bahá'í, Acre, Israel is where Bahá'u'lláh has been laid to rest. That's our point of adoration. We turn towards Acre and pray every day. Every Bahá'í in the world does that. So here I am being asked to go to our Bahá'í Mecca essentially. And by someone who's not a Bahá'í, I'd never been to Israel. I wasn't yet a Bahá'í. I'd asked my wife to become a Bahá'í. She told me I had to wait two and a half years until after our kids' bar mitzvah. And so I was waiting to become a Bahá'í. And I was summoned, I think, to Acre.
And I walked outside the shrine of Bahá'u'lláh on September 12th, 2014, and I've never been the same since. So I had a spiritual transformation that day. But I went there to build the center which is now called IBCAT and it's absolutely amazing. It's run by a person who's become a very good friend who is a Christian Arab and it's for Arabs and Jews and it's 50% Arabs, 50% Jews side by side. Has been running like this for years and it's a rock in the community.
Now we have another project called United which we support which is also Arabs, Jews, and it's a high school. Arabs, Jews, and kids from 20 different countries that come together. And these things are beautiful. What people realize when they come together is that we're one. And during this terrible war that's going on now, I talked to the person who runs United and she said the kids, it was a little tough, but they had no problems really. They had some difficult conversations, some tears, but they stayed together. They stayed united, ironically the name of their school. And the reason is we are so clearly one human family, but we separate ourselves on the basis of tribes.
Actually, I had an Uber driver today from Rwanda. He said that things are much better now, but they've done away with the tribes there. Those tribes are fake. He said he agreed with me. But yet millions of people died in Rwanda because of those fake tribes. And we have the fake things. So everything that we think is dividing us is an illusion. Race is an illusion. It's statistically an illusion. We are one human race. Some of us are darker, some of us are lighter. Our hair is different. Our eyes are different. Okay, get over it. It doesn't make someone better or worse. It is just an accident of climate. That's all. There is no value in it one way or another.
Same thing with nation. Same thing with religion. Why was I a Jew? So, when I first started studying Christianity, I was 25. I had a friend of mine — actually, he had just asked me today. I told him, 'I can't make it. Okay, we'll do it next year.' But we've been studying the Christian faith for now over 30 years. And I kind of overshot the mark and became a Bahá'í. But he was really hoping I'd become a Christian. My friend, Pastor Kevin, who introduced me to love Jesus, and I'm eternally grateful for him for that.
When he first met me, I was 25 and he said, 'Do you want to do Bible study?' I said, 'No, I'm Jewish.' He asked me again, I said, 'No, I'm Jewish.' And the third time he asked, I said, 'Okay.' And I started studying the Bible. And after a few months, I thought I was genetically unable to believe in Jesus. I did. I thought it was genetics. I thought I'm Jewish. I can never believe in Jesus. And after a few months of studying the Bible, I'm like, 'Wait a second. Okay, wait a second. I never really considered this. Why can't I believe in Jesus?' Like, do I not believe he existed? No, I do believe he existed. Did I not like everything he said? No, I loved everything he said. I'm like, 'Well, why don't I believe in him again?' And I couldn't. So I came to love Jesus pretty quickly because his words are so beautiful. He's beautiful. And so, I learned to — as the Bahá'í would say, a manifestation or a messenger of God — I learned to love a messenger. And when Bahá'u'lláh came around, happened all over again. I learned to love a messenger.
I encourage everybody to read the words of all the messengers. Why are we different religions? Because of prejudice. What I mean by that is we think we're right and others are wrong. I'm a Jew. The Christians are wrong. Not really. You know, sometimes it's a little bit more gray than that. But why limit ourselves to one messenger? If Bahá'u'lláh is correct — really, not me — and all the messengers are unspeakably beautiful, why not love them all? Why limit yourself to one? And so the Bahá'í faith is the acknowledgment of the oneness of humanity and the oneness of God and the oneness of His messengers.
Now imagine a world — imagine a world where everyone believed that. Imagine a world where people weren't killing each other over religion, over race, over nation. That is the real world. That's not an imaginary world. It sounds like an imaginary world based on where we live today. But really, the imaginary world is the one we live in. The one where we imagine that race matters. The one where we imagine that nation matters. The one where we imagine that religion matters. The religion we were born into.
Why are people different religions? Because we haven't searched for truth. That's what Abdul-Bahá said. He said, 'If you forget what you know and you search for truth, you'll fall in love with all the messengers. How could you not in my mind?' Now, one of the main tenets of the Bahá'í faith is independent investigation of truth. So, if you're not a Bahá'í, don't bother listening to me. It's okay. You don't have to be a Bahá'í, but I would investigate and ask yourself those same questions I did. Say, why not believe in Bahá'u'lláh? What does he say? What do I think? Study it for yourself and come to your own conclusions.
I believe that anyone who truly studies any of the messengers, whether it be Buddha, Muhammad, Bahá'u'lláh, will fall in love with them because they're all unspeakably beautiful. What's the ugly part? The followers, including us, Bahá'ís. We're the ones who make it bad, including myself. So, you know, we're not perfect human beings, but the messengers themselves unspeakably beautiful. And that's that light we need in the world today. We need the light of the messengers. And I think particularly of the latest messenger, Bahá'u'lláh, that light he's brought to the world.
So spread light in the world. How many people think the world's pretty dark right now? Raise your hand. Look at all those hands. It's not. It's lighter than it's ever been and it's darker than it's ever been. For those of you who are Bahá'í, this is going to sound pretty familiar. These are simultaneous interwoven processes going on.
Process of disintegration and integration: the world is falling apart very quickly and yet it's rising up very quickly, and those are two processes that are happening together. So the faster the world falls apart, Bahá'ís are like, it's funny talking to, 'Oh wow, the world's falling apart. Isn't that great?' We're so happy about it because we know that the other process is going on even stronger, which is the world rising up. Imagine a forest full of decaying old trees that are blocking the sun, and you've got little saplings that need the sun to rise and grow. Those trees have to fall. And it's not pretty when an old tree falls. It makes a lot of noise. And that's what you see. You don't even notice that little sapling growing. But those little saplings are the big trees of the future. And those old trees must fall. The systems of the world have to die so that the new ones can rise up in order to get to this world we're talking about where everybody, regardless of race, religion, nation, gender, is treated as noble and equal and we have a just and equitable and united world. Those trees have to die and it's going to be a little painful and a little messy. As a female Bahá'í friend told me, we're in labor pains right now of a great new world order. By the way, world order is kind of a trigger for some Christians. But the new world order, I always say I'm very scared of the new world order. The new world order is really scary. It's warring nations who disagree about politics, who are totally corrupt and greedy, and it's this world based on lies and superstition and just corruption and disunion and racism and sex. Oh, I'm sorry. That's the current world order. I always get confused. The new world order, what is that? That's what Jesus was, is what Bahá'u'lláh is. The new world order is love and kindness and unity. It's all the spiritual virtues. It's a world that runs on those spiritual virtues. It's the world described in the Bible. It's ironic when Christians talk about the new world order with such contempt because the Bible talks about the thousand years of peace. That's the new world order, the new Jerusalem, which by the way, Revelation 21:11 and 21:23 is lit in Arabic. When you have an Arabic Bible, lit by Bahá'u'lláh, the glory of God. It says it right there in the Bible. Look for the new Jerusalem lit by Bahá'u'lláh. Here he is. So, I think that's, you know, what we do is, I guess the last thing I'll say because I want to open it up to some questions and not do all the talking. We're here to walk through the world and to spread oneness and love wherever we go with everything we do. And in this world of accelerating destruction, we need to lean into it and spread that light even more. So, when the darkness comes, spread the light. When the darkness hits you in the face, and believe me, this has been a year where that's happened for me a few times, spread the light. Spread the light. Sometimes darkness knocks you out for a day or two. Stand back up and spread the light and never give up. We are going to get there. That world that Bahá'u'lláh described is coming. Whether we like it or not, we Bahá'ís especially, you know, whether we do our part or not, it's coming. Whether we do our part is a duty, but more importantly it's a bounty. And I encourage each and every one of you to get up tomorrow and spread that light. So with that, I'd like to open it up to questions.
