‘Dwellers In The City Of Eternity’

I am struck by Bahá’u’lláh’s use of city metaphors to describe spiritual states, or planes of existence in the following verses from the ‘The Hidden Words’ -

‘O YE THAT PRIDE YOURSELVES ON MORTAL RICHES! Know ye in truth that wealth is a mighty barrier between the seeker and his desire, the lover and his beloved. The rich, but for a few, shall in no wise attain the court of His presence nor enter the city of content and resignation. Well is it then with him, who, being rich, is not hindered by his riches from the eternal kingdom, nor deprived by them of imperishable dominion. By the Most Great Name! The splendor of such a wealthy man shall illuminate the dwellers of heaven even as the sun enlightens the people of the earth’!

‘O MY FRIENDS! Call ye to mind that covenant ye have entered into with Me upon Mount Paran, situate within the hallowed precincts of Zaman. I have taken to witness the concourse on high and the dwellers in the city of eternity, yet now none do I find faithful unto the covenant. Of a certainty pride and rebellion have effaced it from the hearts, in such wise that no trace thereof remaineth. Yet knowing this, I waited and disclosed it not’.

O SON OF MY HANDMAID! Quaff from the tongue of the merciful the stream of divine mystery, and behold from the dayspring of divine utterance the unveiled splendor of the daystar of wisdom. Sow the seeds of My divine wisdom in the pure soil of the heart, and water them with the waters of certitude, that the hyacinths of knowledge and wisdom may spring up fresh and green from the holy city of the heart.

‘O COMRADES! The gates that open on the Placeless stand wide and the habitation of the loved one is adorned with the lovers’ blood, yet all but a few remain bereft of this celestial city, and even of these few, none but the smallest handful hath been found with a pure heart and sanctified spirit’.

‘O DWELLERS IN THE CITY OF LOVE! Mortal blasts have beset the everlasting candle, and the beauty of the celestial Youth is veiled in the darkness of dust. The chief of the monarchs of love is wronged by the people of tyranny and the dove of holiness lies prisoned in the talons of owls. The dwellers in the pavilion of glory and the celestial concourse bewail and lament, while ye repose in the realm of negligence, and esteem yourselves as of the true friends. How vain are your imaginings’!

‘O YE THAT ARE FOOLISH, YET HAVE A NAME TO BE WISE! Wherefore do ye wear the guise of shepherds, when inwardly ye have become wolves, intent upon My flock? Ye are even as the star, which riseth ere the dawn, and which, though it seem radiant and luminous, leadeth the wayfarers of My city astray into the paths of perdition’.

Source: The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh

‘I Loved Thy Creation, Hence I Created Thee’

There are a number of verses in ‘The Hidden Words’ on the subject of creation which I find particularly inspiring. Amongst other subjects these verses touch on the love between the creator and the created and how the spirit of the creator infuses creation with life.

O SON OF MAN! I loved thy creation, hence I created thee. Wherefore, do thou love Me, that I may name thy name and fill thy soul with the spirit of life.

O SON OF MAN! Veiled in My immemorial being and in the ancient eternity of My essence, I knew My love for thee; therefore I created thee, have engraved on thee Mine image and revealed to thee My beauty.

O SON OF BEING! With the hands of power I made thee and with the fingers of strength I created thee; and within thee have I placed the essence of My light. Be thou content with it and seek naught else, for My work is perfect and My command is binding. Question it not, nor have a doubt thereof.

O SON OF BOUNTY! Out of the wastes of nothingness, with the clay of My command I made thee to appear, and have ordained for thy training every atom in existence and the essence of all created things. Thus, ere thou didst issue from thy mother’s womb, I destined for thee two founts of gleaming milk, eyes to watch over thee, and hearts to love thee. Out of My loving-kindness, ’neath the shade of My mercy I nurtured thee, and guarded thee by the essence of My grace and favor. And My purpose in all this was that thou mightest attain My everlasting dominion and become worthy of My invisible bestowals. And yet heedless thou didst remain, and when fully grown, thou didst neglect all My bounties and occupied thyself with thine idle imaginings, in such wise that thou didst become wholly forgetful, and, turning away from the portals of the Friend didst abide within the courts of My enemy.

O SON OF MAN! My eternity is My creation, I have created it for thee. Make it the garment of thy temple. My unity is My handiwork; I have wrought it for thee; clothe thyself therewith, that thou mayest be to all eternity the revelation of My everlasting being.

The Hidden Words of Bahá’u’lláh

Spiritual Awakening

As one who occasionally finds himself spiritually asleep I always find reading the following verses from the Hidden Words something of a wake-up call.

O ESSENCE OF DESIRE! At many a dawn have I turned from the realms of the Placeless unto thine abode, and found thee on the bed of ease busied with others than Myself. Thereupon, even as the flash of the spirit, I returned to the realms of celestial glory and breathed it not in My retreats above unto the hosts of holiness.

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/HW/hw-101.html

This verse is particularly poignant with it’s depiction of a heartbroken lover returning home after finding their beloved ‘on the bed of ease busied with others’.

O SON OF MAN! Many a day hath passed over thee whilst thou hast busied thyself with thy fancies and idle imaginings. How long art thou to slumber on thy bed? Lift up thy head from slumber, for the Sun hath risen to the zenith, haply it may shine upon thee with the light of beauty.

http://reference.bahai.org/en/t/b/HW/hw-63.html

I particularly like the image of the sun having risen to the zenith i.e. midday and the sleeper is still in bed…

‘The Immortal Phoenix’

The firebird is a recurring motif in world mythology from the Phoenix of classical times referred to by the Roman poet Ovid to the mythical Garuda of Ancient India.

In Iranian legend the ‘Simurgh’ (or ‘Angha’) is a magical bird so long lived that it is considered to be the wisest of all God’s creatures. (The name ‘Simurgh’ has been seen as meaning ‘thirty birds’- perhaps a reference to it’s majesty). In one form of the legend the Simurgh is said to live for over a thousand years before being consumed by fire. I find this an interesting reversal of the legend of the Phoenix which finds it’s rebirth in fire instead.

The Simurgh is a common reference in both classical and contemporary Persian literature.  Arguably the most notable appearance is in Ferdowsi’s ‘Shahname’ (or ‘Book of Kings‘) where Prince Zal- cruelly abandoned on Mount Alborz -is raised by the kindly Simurgh.

In the poems of the Sufis the Simurgh is often used as a symbol for God. An example of this is the poem’ Conference of the Birds’ by the 12th Century poet Farid ud-Din Attar. This poem concerns the quest of a flock of birds for the wondrous Simurgh. The poet describes the Simurgh luring creatures siren-like to it’s nest  and consuming them (arguably a metaphor for Sufi ideal of being ‘consumed’ by the beloved).

This literary tradition continues in the writings of Bahá’u'lláh with a reference to the ‘immortal phoenix’ which can be read as a metaphor for the soul.

‘O immortal phoenix! dwell not save on the mount of faithfulness. Therein is thy habitation, if on the wings of thy soul thou soarest to the realm of the infinite and seekest to attain thy goal’.

‘O SON OF SPIRIT! Burst thy cage asunder, and even as the phoenix of love soar into the firmament of holiness. Renounce thyself and, filled with the spirit of mercy, abide in the realm of celestial sanctity‘.

I personally also see ‘the immortal phoenix’ and ‘the phoenix of love’ as references to Bahá’u'lláh’s station as a spiritual educator of humankind and was interested to find `Abdu’l-Bahá make this connection explicit when he wrote-

‘O phoenix of that immortal flame kindled in the sacred Tree! Bahá’u’lláh’

This is a particularly rich metaphor as the mythical Simurgh is pictured as an agent of purification and fertility; like the great spiritual educators the Simurgh is also described as uniting both ‘earth’ and  ‘heaven’ as a messenger.

‘The Beauty Of The Rose’

I have always loved the rose- which is of course a traditional symbol of beauty and  love. It has also been the flower of choice of many a poet including W.B Yeats who amongst other devices used  the rose as a symbol of his personal muse and poetry in general. See for example the following line from ‘To The Rose Upon The Rood Of  Time’

‘RED Rose, proud Rose, sad Rose of all my days!
Come near me, while I sing the ancient ways…’

Apparently in classical times the rose was sacred to a number of goddesses including Aphrodite and Isis. It is also a symbol of love and beauty in Persian poetry and the writings of the Sufis. I am struck by the amount of rose imagery in the writings of Bahá’u'lláh (who for some time assumed the guise of a dervish on the banks of the Tigris).  My favourite example is this from the ’The Hidden Words’

‘O FRIEND! In the garden of thy heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold. Treasure the companionship of the righteous and eschew all fellowship with the ungodly‘.

Bahá’u'lláh also uses the rose as a symbol of spiritual enlightenment referring to ‘the rose-garden of knowledge’ and the ‘rose-garden of My wisdom’. He also exhorts the reader to

‘…soar upward from the clay of self and dwell in the rose bower of the heart’

The rose symbolising spiritual enlightenment is also contrasted with clay as a symbol of materialism

‘O MY CHILDREN! I fear lest, bereft of the melody of the dove of heaven, ye will sink back to the shades of utter loss, and, never having gazed upon the beauty of the rose, return to water and clay‘.

Bahá’u'lláh also appears to use the rose as a symbol of the arrival of a new spiritual era-

‘Hear Me, ye mortal birds! In the Rose Garden of changeless splendour a Flower hath begun to bloom, compared to which every other flower is but a thorn’

(All quotations taken from the Bahá’í Reference Library)

‘With Fire We Test The Gold’

I recently came across a wise quotation attributed to the author Henry Fielding (1707 – 1754) which says

Make money your god and it will plague you like the devil.

It sometimes appears that what is merely a useful fiction to facilitate the exchange of goods and services has become a false god demanding worship from us all. Despite living in a world of fiat currencies which only have value in our collective imagination we seem surprisingly ready to dismiss human virtues as abstractions. I am reminded of a section from the ‘Hidden Words’ which says

.. with fire We test the gold, and with gold We test Our servants.

(If we haven’t passed the test yet perhaps we are at least studying hard as searching on Google delivered only 837,000,000 results for ‘money’ whereas ‘love’ delivered 1,610,000,000..).

‘The Pastures Of Desire And Passion’

I have just read an interesting quotation by the Greek philosopher Epictetus who said “Freedom is secured not by the fulfilling of one’s desires, but by the removal of desire.” Epictetus was born in Phrygia around 55 AD- though he spent much of his life in Greece after his banishment there by the Roman Emperor Domitian. Although born into slavery he studied philosophy and rose to prominence in the Stoic school. He taught that philosophy is not just an academic pursuit but is a spiritual path. Put another way he believed that it is not sufficient to merely understand what is good- the true philosopher must also put his ideals into practice. As a rational being the individual has a responsibility to care for all human kind. Epictetus explained human suffering as arising from a futile attempt to control external events whilst abandoning control of our personal desires and actions. Happiness is to be found in calm acceptance of what we cannot control and doing what is within our control to promote the greater good. This emphasis on detachment in the name of a greater good brings to mind a quotation from ‘The Hidden Words’

ALAS! ALAS! O LOVERS OF WORLDLY DESIRE! Even as the swiftness of lightning ye have passed by the Beloved One, and have set your hearts on satanic fancies. Ye bow the knee before your vain imagining, and call it truth. Ye turn your eyes towards the thorn, and name it a flower. Not a pure breath have ye breathed, nor hath the breeze of detachment been wafted from the meadows of your hearts. Ye have cast to the winds the loving counsels of the Beloved and have effaced them utterly from the tablet of your hearts, and even as the beasts of the field, ye move and have your being within the pastures of desire and passion.

Bahá’u’lláh

‘Even As The Phoenix Of Love…’

O SON OF SPIRIT! Burst thy cage asunder, and even as the phoenix of love soar into the firmament of holiness. Renounce thyself and, filled with the spirit of mercy, abide in the realm of celestial sanctity.

Bahá’u’lláh

‘The Bird Seeketh Its Nest’

O SON OF SPIRIT! The bird seeketh its nest; the nightingale the charm of the rose; whilst those birds, the hearts of men, content with transient dust, have strayed far from their eternal nest, and with eyes turned towards the slough of heedlessness are bereft of the glory of the divine presence. Alas! How strange and pitiful; for a mere cupful, they have turned away from the billowing seas of the Most High, and remained far from the most effulgent horizon.

Bahá’u’lláh

One Of My Favourite ‘Hidden Words’

O SON OF BEING! How couldst thou forget thine own faults and busy thyself with the faults of others? Whoso doeth this is accursed of Me.

Bahá’u'lláh

The ‘Hidden Words’ of Bahá’u'lláh

Almost every morning and evening for the last twenty-four years I have read a verse or two from the ‘Hidden Words’ of Bahá’u'lláh. It is a mine of spiritual gems ( and also provides  the title of this blog). Bahá’u'lláh wrote in His preamble to the ‘Hidden Words’ that

‘…This is that which hath descended from the realm of glory, uttered by the tongue of power and might, and revealed unto the Prophets of old. We have taken the inner essence thereof and clothed it in the garment of brevity, as a token of grace unto the righteous, that they may stand faithful unto the Covenant of God, may fulfill in their lives His trust, and in the realm of spirit obtain the gem of Divine virtue’. 

I would recommend anyone who feels the need for spiritual inspiration to read the beautiful verses of the ‘Hidden Words.’