"O Ears of this Temple! Purge yourselves from all idle clamour and hearken unto the voice of your Lord. He, verily, revealeth unto you, from the Throne of glory, that there is none other God save Me, the All-Glorious, the Almighty, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. Erelong shall We bring into being through you pure and undefiled ears which will heed the Word of God and that which hath appeared from the Dayspring of the Utterance of your Lord, the All-Merciful. They shall assuredly perceive the sweet accents of Divine Revelation that proceed from these most blessed and hallowed precincts."
Comments:
• The metaphor of purging one’s ears so one could hearken (listen to, hear) the “voice of” his/her Lord appears to be one of those spiritual principles that the Manifestation of God brings to our attention. In this paragraph Baha’u’llah reminds us specifically to free ourselves from the influence of any “idle clamour” (baseless, vain, lacking substance, loud outcry or any vehement expression of discontent or protest).
• Consulting further with the Writings concerning this metaphor of “purging” we see, for example, Baha’u’llah’s reference to the purging influence of the, Word of God, “the living waters of divine utterance”, and the Bab’s explanation of the “purification” process that a believer needs to go through to attain “nearness unto God”:
“God, the True One, testifieth and the Revealers of His names and attributes bear witness that Our sole purpose in raising the Call and in proclaiming His sublime Word is that the ear of the entire creation may, through the living waters of divine utterance, be purged from lying tales and become attuned to the holy, the glorious and exalted Word which hath issued forth from the repository of the knowledge of the Maker of the Heavens and the Creator of Names.” (Baha'u'llah, Tablets of Baha'u'llah, p. 21)
“Know thou that in the Bayan purification is regarded as the most acceptable means for attaining nearness unto God and as the most meritorious of all deeds. Thus purge thou thine ear that thou mayest hear no mention besides God, and purge thine eye that it behold naught except God, and thy conscience that it perceive naught other than God, and thy tongue that it proclaim nothing but God, and thy hand to write naught but the words of God, and thy knowledge that it comprehend naught except God, and thy heart that it entertain no wish save God, and in like manner purge all thine acts and thy pursuits that thou mayest be nurtured in the paradise of pure love, and perchance mayest attain the presence of Him Whom God shall make manifest, adorned with a purity which He highly cherisheth, and be sanctified from whosoever hath turned away from Him and doth not support Him.”(The Bab, Selections from the Writings of the Bab, p. 98)
• These must be aspects of our spiritual transformation that we each need to go through … a never ending process in which all we could do, in light the following reference from the beloved Guardian, is to “constantly mount higher” knowing that we, as human beings, will “never going to become perfect”:
“The only people who are truly free of the "dross of self" are the Prophets, for to be free of one's ego is a hall-mark of perfection. We humans are never going to become perfect, for perfection belongs to a realm we are not destined to enter. However, we must constantly mount higher, seek to be more perfect.” (Shoghi Effendi, The Unfolding Destiny of the British Baha'i Community, p. 453)
• It’s a very humbling process, isn't it?!
