Morning
O My brother! Not every sea hath pearls; not every branch
will flower, nor will the nightingale sing thereon. Then, ere the nightingale
of the mystic Paradise repair to the celestial garden, and the rays of the morn
of inner meaning return to the Day-Star of Truth, make thou an effort, that
haply in this dust-heap of a mortal world thou mayest catch a fragrance from
the everlasting rose-garden and live in the shadow of the inhabitants of this
everlasting city. And when thou hast attained this highest plane and most
exalted degree, then shalt thou gaze on the Beloved and forget all else.
Through every door and wall, O ye endued with sight!
[Hatif-i-Isfahání]
Thou hast given up the drop of life and drawn nigh unto the ocean of the Well-Beloved. This is the goal thou didst seek; God grant thou mayest attain thereunto.
In this city, even the veils of light are rent asunder and vanish away. “His beauty hath no veiling save light, His countenance no covering save revelation.” [From a Hadith] How strange that the Beloved is as visible as the sun and yet the heedless still hunt after tinsel and base metal. Yea, the intensity of His revelation hath veiled Him, and the fullness of His shining forth hath hidden Him.
Even as the noontide sun
Hath the True One brightly shined,
But alas that He hath come
To the city of the blind! [Attributed to Rumi]
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Seven Valleys’, revised translation by the Baha’i World Center included in ‘The Call of the Divine Beloved’)
Evening
O Shaykh! My Pen, verily, lamenteth over Mine own Self, and My Tablet weepeth sore over what hath befallen Me at the hands of one (Mírzá Yahyá) over whom We watched for successive years, and who, day and night, served in My presence, until he was made to err by one of My servants, named Siyyid Muhammad. Unto this bear witness My believing servants who accompanied Me in My exile from Baghdád to this, the Most Great Prison. And there befell Me at the hands of both of them that which made every man of understanding to cry out, and he who is endued with insight to groan aloud, and the tears of the fair-minded to flow.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of the Wolf’)
