A Breath of God’s Spirit

O SON OF THE WONDROUS VISION!

I have breathed within thee a breath of My own Spirit, that thou mayest be My lover. Why hast thou forsaken Me and sought a beloved other than Me?

O SON OF SPIRIT!

My claim on thee is great, it cannot be forgotten. My grace to thee is plenteous, it cannot be veiled. My love has made in thee its home, it cannot be concealed. My light is manifest to thee, it cannot be obscured.

O SON OF MAN!

Upon the tree of effulgent glory I have hung for thee the choicest fruits, wherefore hast thou turned away and contented thyself with that which is less good? Return then unto that which is better for thee in the realm on high. – Baha’u’llah, The Hidden Words, pp. 8-9.

Albert Einstein

People continually asked the great scientist Albert Einstein, in almost every one of his public speaking engagements, about the existence of God. He had an intriguing answer: “When I see a piece of toast, I know that somewhere there is a toaster.”

In his homely metaphor Einstein admitted that we can’t see our Creator, but that the creation itself bears witness to the reality of God. Baha’is think of God in the same spiritual and yet scientific way – as an unknowable essence:

To every discerning and illumined heart it is evident that God, the unknowable Essence, the divine Being, is immensely exalted beyond every human attribute, such as corporeal existence, ascent and descent, egress and regress. Far be it from His glory that human tongue should adequately recount His praise, or that human heart comprehend His fathomless mystery. He is and hath ever been veiled in the ancient eternity of His Essence, and will remain in His Reality everlastingly hidden from the sight of men. – Baha’u’llah, The Book of Certitude, p. 97.

And in these three of Baha’u’llah’s mystical Hidden Words, we learn that God’s light lives within each human being; that every one of us has deep within us the love and the breath and the grace of the Creator.

This wondrous declaration conveys a whole host of powerful messages. Baha’u’llah tells us here in the Hidden Words that the love of God suffuses our entire beings; that God has “hung the choicest fruits” “upon the tree of effulgent glory” for each of us; that the Creator’s great claim on our hearts “cannot be forgotten.”

Perhaps that explains why human beings, as a species, have always gravitated toward an abiding faith in something beyond the realm of the senses. We know that the vast majority of the world’s people believe in a Supreme Being, and despite their efforts, scientists have not determined why.

These three Hidden Words tell us why. When an artist fashions a sculpture or a painting or a song or a book, the artist puts something of him- or herself in that work of art. In great art, the inner essence of the artist’s being gets deposited in the creation. In the same way, Baha’u’llah reminds us, each human being is a work of art made and infused with life by the Great Artist:

The purpose of God in creating man hath been, and will ever be, to enable him to know his Creator and to attain His Presence. To this most excellent aim, this supreme objective, all the heavenly Books and the divinely-revealed and weighty Scriptures unequivocally bear witness. Whoso hath recognized the Day Spring of Divine guidance and entered His holy court hath drawn nigh unto God and attained His Presence, a Presence which is the real Paradise, and of which the loftiest mansions of heaven are but a symbol. – Baha’u’llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, p. 70.

In exalted and deeply metaphorical language Baha’u’llah tells us here that those who recognize the “Day Spring of Divine guidance” – the Prophet of God — have attained the real paradise of the soul that these three Hidden Words call us towards. Although we know that the Supreme Being’s reality lies far beyond our comprehension – after all, how can the painting comprehend the painter? – in this passage Baha’u’llah identifies the intermediaries of God, the Manifestations and Prophets who create the great Faiths, and asks us to turn toward their messages of hope, faith and love.

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