"For in and out, above, about, below..": The contemporary religious labyrinth and the Bahā'ī criterion of truth.

Stephen N. Lambden

The contemporary market-place of religions and ideologies is bewildering in the extreme. Established religions are multi-faceted and constantly being restructured and revamped. New religious movements and ideologies are legion:  springing up practically every month. Conflicting definitions and concepts of spirituality, mysticism and religious `truth' leads sectors of modern society into a state of bemused apathy or secularized indifference towards things ` spiritual; ` theological' or ` religious'. Conceptual and pragmatic confusion breeds forms of apathy that could be reckoned one of the features of this not-yet so-golden millennial age.

Bahā'ī sacred scripture exhorts humankind to seek truth zealously and individualistically. It provides some guidelines in this endeavour. The seeker should not be uncritically reliant upon potentially fallible human guides, gurus, self-confessed hierophants, priests or scientists. etc. This also bearing in mind that such time-honoured criterion of truth as empiricism; rationalism; scriptural exegesis and inspirational realization are all considered limited or potentially fallible. How "truth" can be sought, realized and appropriated individually and collectively by seekers of conceptual and other dimensions of `reality' is addressed in this paper. This in the light of the Bahā'ī theology and theophanology of divine revelation. These and related themes will be considered in the context of the plethora of contemporary avenues to self-realization and religiosity.