"I swear by Him Who hath fashioned Me from the light of His own Beauty! None have I ever seen that surpasseth you in heedlessness or exceedeth you in ignorance. Ye seek to prove your faith in God through such holy Tablets as ye possess, yet when the verses of God were revealed and His Lamp was lighted, ye disbelieved in Him Whose very Pen hath fixed the destinies of all things in the Preserved Tablet. Ye recite the sacred verses and yet repudiate Him Who is their Source and Revealer. Thus hath God blinded your eyes in requital for your deeds, would ye but understand. Day and night ye transcribe the verses of God, and yet ye remain shut out, as by a veil, from Him Who hath revealed them."
Comments:
· We are told in the Writings that it’s almost impossible for us human beings, to really understand the reality of the Manifestations of God – They belong to the Kingdom of Revelation, and we to the Kingdom of Creation. We saw earlier in paragraph 1.7 that one of the references to the Manifestations of God is that They are “the Mystery of God”. So, how can we ever truly understand Their essence or It’s relation to God? We could ponder over the explanations provided by Baha’u’llah Himself in His Writings as well as the subsequent interpretations and explanations of the beloved Master and the Guardian to get a glimpse of Their awe-inspiring Station!
Comments:
· We are told in the Writings that it’s almost impossible for us human beings, to really understand the reality of the Manifestations of God – They belong to the Kingdom of Revelation, and we to the Kingdom of Creation. We saw earlier in paragraph 1.7 that one of the references to the Manifestations of God is that They are “the Mystery of God”. So, how can we ever truly understand Their essence or It’s relation to God? We could ponder over the explanations provided by Baha’u’llah Himself in His Writings as well as the subsequent interpretations and explanations of the beloved Master and the Guardian to get a glimpse of Their awe-inspiring Station!
· One such reference is the first line of Paragraph 1.10, where Baha’u’llah provides us with a very interesting insight that He was “fashioned .. from the light of His [God’s] own Beauty.” What a remarkable concept! When we say something is beautiful we generally refer to its physical appearances. Is that the same with the phrase “God’s Beauty” in this paragraph or is there much more to it?
· There is an interesting explanation from the Universal House of Justice concerning the nature of the Manifestation of God. It is in the Notes section of the book containing the English translation of the Kitab-i-Aqdas:
“The Bahá'í Writings contain many passages that elucidate the nature of the Manifestation and His relationship to God. Bahá'u'lláh underlines the unique and transcendent nature of the Godhead. He explains that "since there can be no tie of direct intercourse to bind the one true God with His creation" God ordains that "in every age and dispensation a pure and stainless Soul be made manifest in the kingdoms of earth and heaven". This "mysterious and ethereal Being", the Manifestation of God, has a human nature which pertains to "the world of matter" and a spiritual nature "born of the substance of God Himself". He is also endowed with a "double station."” The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself... The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: "I am but a man like you." "Say, praise be to my Lord! Am I more than a man, an apostle?" Bahá'u'lláh also affirms that, in the spiritual realm, there is an "essential unity" between all the Manifestations of God. They all reveal the "Beauty of God", manifest His
names and attributes, and give utterance to His Revelation.” (UHJ, Notes section of The Kitab-i-Aqdas, p. 233)
· We read in Paragraph 1.4 that: “Blessed is He Who, in a well-guarded Tablet, hath prescribed a fixed measure unto all things.” Now in Paragraph 1.10 we see the verse: “ …Him Whose very Pen hath fixed the destinies of all things in the Preserved Tablet.” If we assume that these two references pertain to the same phenomenon, it appears that the Source of “Whose very Pen hath fixed the destinies of all things in the Preserved Tablet” is Baha’u’llah for our age – as it was previously the Bab, Muhammad, Jesus, Moses and other Manifestations of God.
· In this paragraph we also see how Baha’u’llah addresses those Babis that had doubts about His claim as the Promised One of the Bab. He reminds them that the Reality that has manifested through Him is the “Source and Revealer” of those “verses of God” that they transcribe by day and night. It’s an amazing concept that although majority of the Babis did recognize Baha’u’llah, for those that didn’t the Manifestation of God, out of mercy and compassion, tries to awaken them to the Realities involved.
