Morning
As to the “realm of subtle entities” [1] which is often referred to, it pertaineth to the Revelation of the Prophets, and aught else is mere superstition and idle fancy. At the time of the Revelation all men are equal in rank. By reason, however, of their acceptance or rejection, rise or fall, motion or stillness, recognition or denial, they come to differ thereafter. For instance, the one true God, magnified be His glory, speaking through the intermediary of His Manifestation, doth ask: “Am I not your Lord?” Every soul that answereth “Yea, verily!” is accounted among the most distinguished of all men in the sight of God. Our meaning is that ere the Word of God is delivered, all men are deemed equal in rank and their station is one and the same. It is only thereafter that differences appear, as thou hast no doubt observed.
- Baha’u’llah (‘The Tabernacle of Unity, Bahá’u’lláh’s Responses
to Mánikchí Sáhib and Other Writings’)
[1] The “realm of subtle entities” (’álam-i-dharr) is an allusion to the Covenant between God and Adam mentioned in Qur’án 7:172. In a Tablet ’Abdu’l-Bahá has written: “The realm of subtle entities that is alluded to referreth to the realities, specifications, individuations, capacities and potentialities of man in the mirror of the divine knowledge. As these potentialities and capacities differ, they each have their own particular exigency. That exigency consisteth in acquiescence and supplication.” (Má’idiy-i-Ásmání, vol. 2 (New Delhi: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1984), p. 30)
Evening
Meditate on the world and the state of its people. He, for Whose sake the world was called into being, hath been imprisoned in the most desolate of cities (Akká), by reason of that which the hands of the wayward have wrought. From the horizon of His prison-city He summoneth mankind unto the Dayspring of God, the Exalted, the Great.
- Baha’u’llah (‘Epistle to the Son of
the Wolf’)
