"Say: O people! Can ye ever hope to escape the sovereign power of your Lord? By the righteousness of God! No refuge will ye find in this day, and no one to protect you, save those upon whom God hath bestowed the favour of His mercy. He, verily, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Compassionate. Say: O people! Forsake all that ye possess, and enter beneath the shadow of your Lord, the All-Merciful. Better is this for you than all your works of the past and of the future. Fear ye God, and deprive not yourselves of the sweet savours of the days of the Lord of all names and attributes. Take heed lest ye alter or pervert the text of the Word of God. Walk ye in the fear of God, and be numbered with the righteous."
Comments:
• Let’s remind ourselves about this phrase in Paragraph 1.31:
“O Living Temple! Stretch forth Thy hand over all who are in heaven and on earth, and seize within the grasp of Thy Will the reins of command. We have, verily, placed in Thy right hand the empire of all things. Do as Thou willest, and fear not the ignorant.”
In Paragraph 1.32 we are being educated that indeed there is no way that one could “escape the sovereign power” of the Manifestation of God – whether a person accepts this fact or not is a different story. Having acknowledged this fact, one can then humbly bow down to the realization that unless he becomes the recipient of God’s “mercy”, through His Manifestation, he could find no “refuge …in this day, and no one to protect …[him] ..” See how much we need to crave for God’ mercy and how Baha’u’llah assures us that “He, verily, is the Ever-Forgiving, the Most Compassionate.”
• The phrase: “Forsake all that ye possess, and enter beneath the shadow of your Lord, the All-Merciful.” brings to one’s attention the principle of detachment. Detachment from all that one “possess” is not an easy task, but we are called upon to work on it, so with Baha’u’llah’s help we gradually become more detached from what we possess and more attached to what Baha’u’llah wants for us. This reference from the beloved Guardian puts it in an interesting context:
"The great thing is to 'live the life' - to have our lives so saturated with the Divine teachings and the Baha'i Spirit that people cannot fail to see a joy, a power, a love, a purity, a radiance, an efficiency in our character and work that will distinguish us from worldly-minded people and make people wonder what is the secret of this new life in us.” (From a letter dated February 14, 1925 written on behalf of the Guardian to an individual believer; printed in The Baha'i Life p.2)
• This paragraph also brings to our attention the whole concept of the “fear of God”, our own need to become more educated and familiar with it, and its inclusion in our daily lives to a point where we could begin to “walk .. in the fear of God”. Just like the process through which babies learns how to walk, we too need to use the gift of our own volition and gradually train our spirit with the skills needed for this metaphoric walk. Perhaps a good starting point would be to improve our own understanding of how the “fear of God” is explained in the Baha’i Writings.
