For Everything, There Is A Sign. What’s the Sign of Love?

Have you ever been around someone who radiates positive energy – who affects your soul without even trying? We all know well what a joyous feeling these kinds of people can elicit in us.

Wherever they dwell, a space seems to appear around them brimming with enthusiasm, quietude, and joyous happiness. We want to be in the presence of people like that no matter who or how old they are.

How do these people navigate their lives with such an altitude of spirituality that, like a magnet, attracts hearts and captivates souls? Those who effortlessly attract souls with a glance, who never leave our consciousness – what’s their secret?

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Perhaps, the Baha’i teachings say, the secret is love. 

Here is one of the many truths Baha’u’llah, the prophet and founder of the Baha’i Faith, tells us about love: “O Son of Man! For everything, there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.”

So love has signs. One is fortitude, Baha’u’llah tells us, and the other is patience.

There – the mystery of these radiant people is revealed! They are the lovers, who speak with the tongue of love, this mother of all languages, with its unspoken diction and syntax of the heart. Patience and fortitude germinate in their hearts as a result of this love. That is why they emanate love to others.

Those special souls have a deep love for humanity, and everyone around them can sense it. Their love for humanity occurs because they love the Creator.

In this short prayer, Baha’u’llah asks us to bring these words home every day:

I bear witness, O my God, that Thou hast created me to know Thee and to worship Thee. I testify, at this moment, to my powerlessness and to Thy might, to my poverty and to Thy wealth.

There is none other God but Thee, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting.

The radiant souls who take these words to heart and live into their realities have discovered the purpose of our existence in this first life and in the life beyond.

This seems so straightforward, but that doesn’t make it easy. All we have to do is become a lover and get on that path that these people tread, the path of the love of God. When we take that path, our hearts can become illumined and filled with love. We know who we are, and we spread the love of God around us. Simple enough!

But why does love, in this case loving humanity – the creation – and therefore loving God, the Creator – require patience and fortitude?

We’ve all been to the doctor, and we know that to get healed we need to take the path to healing by trusting the physician and taking the prescribed medicine, as bitter as it may be. Thus, our fortitude and strength in following God’s prescription for today’s ailments is a sign of our trust and love for Him. His decree and healing remedy for today’s life should be followed with fortitude, repelling the ailments of the soul — doubts and uncertainties about choosing the path to God. Indeed, the heart can cater to love or fear. It cannot harbor two opposite emotions at the same time. The lover knows the path he takes will have tests and difficulties. The pledge and fealty offered by the lover to the Beloved are endurance and patience. We hear the call of the lover beseeching healing medicine from the Creator in this beautiful passage from Baha’u’llah: 

O God! The trials Thou sendest are a salve to the sores of all them who are devoted to Thy will; the remembrance of Thee is a healing medicine to the hearts of such as have drawn nigh unto Thy court; nearness to Thee is the true life of them who are Thy lovers …

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We need patience because the tests and trials of life line this illumined path to God. A lover has to prove his worth to enter the threshold of the Beloved. Not everyone can claim to be the lover of God – and everyone who does will be tested. Baha’u’llah reminded us that if we get impatient on the spiritual path, we risk depriving ourselves of the wine of God’s nearness: “Whosoever, O my Lord, is impatient in the tribulations befalling him in Thy path, hath not drunk of the cup of Thy love nor tasted of the sweetness of Thy remembrance.”

Is that why our souls long to be in the orbit of those who have radiant resignation and strength, those who have been tested and who have persevered, those who have left many traits of the lower self behind for their Beloved?

It is never too late to know and love God and gain fortitude and patience. You too can join those who tread this path toward the Beloved, the Manifestation of God for today. That spiritual path entails progress – and joy – for every soul.