Talk:Spontaneous vs. revealed prayers

Public Meetings and Spontaneous Prayers

The guidance seems to explicitly state that prayers from other Manifestations are permitted in public gatherings. But there is no information with regards to spontaneous, non-revelead prayers to be said in public? Are there any guidance or clarification on this subject? AB (talk)

With the House specifically stating "You did not specifically mention whether your concern was about prayers originating from other sacred scriptures or from compositions by individuals", while answering generically "No prohibition has been found in the Bahá'í Writings against the recitation at public gatherings of prayers other than those provided in Bahá'í Scriptures", it seemed like other prayers could be used and not only those from other Manifestations. They do go on in the next sentence to state "Bahá'ís are generally encouraged to use the Creative Word", and I can see the wisdom of this as one could imagine devotional meetings becoming dominated by some folks intent on making their own commentary with a captive audience or otherwise sharing ideas and New Age feelings that don't have the same call to humility and character, etc. as implicit in the Baha'i prayers.

OTOH, I think the flexibility in a lack of a categorical prohibition would allow for non-Baha'is saying some words, or Baha'is beseeching for their loved ones, or sharing an occasional composition, like the prayer praised by 'Abdu'l-Baha.

However, prayers in the Baha'i Temple only seem to have whitelisted Scriptures (though not laying hard-and-fast rules, e.g., not excluding Native American scriptures even if with them not being specifically confirmed in our Writings) and the Feast has similar restrictions. But it would seem to me per the quote under discussion that (non-Temple) public gatherings would be a different matter. WikiSysop (talk) 08:20, 31 December 2017 (UTC)