How can a true lover
continue to exist when once the effulgent glories of the Beloved are revealed?
How can the shadow endure when once the sun hath shone forth? How can a devoted
heart have any being before the existence of the Object of its devotion? Nay,
by the One in Whose hand is my soul! In this station, [the City of Absolute
Nothingness] the seeker’s complete surrender and utter effacement before his
Creator will be such that, were he to search the East and the West, and
traverse land, sea, mountain and plain, he would find no trace of his own self
or of any other soul.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Gems of Divine Mysteries’)
