O Banished And Faithful Friend! Quench The

Sources: Gleanings From The Writings Of Baha'u'llah

O banished and faithful friend! Quench the thirst of heedlessness with the

sanctified waters of My grace, and chase the gloom of remoteness through

the morning-light of My Divine presence. Suffer not the habitation wherein

dwelleth My undying love for thee to be destroyed through the tyranny of

covetous desires, and overcloud not the beauty of the heavenly Youth with

the dust of self and passion. Clothe thyself with the essence of< r />
righteousness, and let thine heart be afraid of none except God. Obstruct

not the luminous spring of thy soul with the thorns and brambles of vain

and inordinate affections, and impede not the flow of the living waters

that stream from the fountain of thine heart. Set all thy hope in God, and

cleave tenaciously to His unfailing mercy. Who else but Him can enrich the

destitute, and deliver the fallen from his abasement?



O My servants! Were ye to discover the hidden, the shoreless oceans of My

incorruptible wealth, ye would, of a certainty, esteem as nothing the

world, nay, the entire creation. Let the flame of search burn with such

fierceness within your hearts as to enable you to attain your supreme and

most exalted goal--the station at which ye can draw nigh unto, and be

united with, your Best-Beloved....



O My servants! Let not your vain hopes and idle fancies sap the

foundations of your belief in the All-Glorious God, inasmuch as such

imaginings have been wholly unprofitable unto men, and failed to direct

their steps unto the straight Path. Think ye, O My servants, that the Hand

of My all-encompassing, My overshadowing, and transcendent sovereignty is

chained up, that the flow of Mine ancient, My ceaseless, and all-pervasive

mercy is checked, or that the clouds of My sublime and unsurpassed favors

have ceased to rain their gifts upon men? Can ye imagine that the wondrous

works that have proclaimed My divine and resistless power are withdrawn,

or that the potency of My will and purpose hath been deterred from

directing the destinies of mankind? If it be not so, wherefore, then, have

ye striven to prevent the deathless Beauty of My sacred and gracious

Countenance from being unveiled to men's eyes? Why have ye struggled to

hinder the Manifestation of the Almighty and All-Glorious Being from

shedding the radiance of His Revelation upon the earth? Were ye to be fair

in your judgment, ye would readily recognize how the realities of all

created things are inebriated with the joy of this new and wondrous

Revelation, how all the atoms of the earth have been illuminated through

the brightness of its glory. Vain and wretched is that which ye have

imagined and still imagine!



Retrace your steps, O My servants, and incline your hearts to Him Who is

the Source of your creation. Deliver yourselves from your evil and corrupt

affections, and hasten to embrace the light of the undying Fire that

gloweth on the Sinai of this mysterious and transcendent Revelation.

Corrupt not the holy, the all-embracing, and primal Word of God, and seek

not to profane its sanctity or to debase its exalted character. O heedless

ones! Though the wonders of My mercy have encompassed all created things,

both visible and invisible, and though the revelations of My grace and

bounty have permeated every atom of the universe, yet the rod with which I

can chastise the wicked is grievous, and the fierceness of Mine anger

against them terrible. With ears that are sanctified from vain-glory and

worldly desires hearken unto the counsels which I, in My merciful

kindness, have revealed unto you, and with your inner and outer eyes

contemplate the evidences of My marvelous Revelation....



O My servants! Deprive not yourselves of the unfading and resplendent

Light that shineth within the Lamp of Divine glory. Let the flame of the

love of God burn brightly within your radiant hearts. Feed it with the oil

of Divine guidance, and protect it within the shelter of your constancy.

Guard it within the globe of trust and detachment from all else but God,

so that the evil whisperings of the ungodly may not extinguish its light.

O My servants! My holy, My divinely ordained Revelation may be likened

unto an ocean in whose depths are concealed innumerable pearls of great

price, of surpassing luster. It is the duty of every seeker to bestir

himself and strive to attain the shores of this ocean, so that he may, in

proportion to the eagerness of his search and the efforts he hath exerted,

partake of such benefits as have been pre-ordained in God's irrevocable

and hidden Tablets. If no one be willing to direct his steps towards its

shores, if every one should fail to arise and find Him, can such a failure

be said to have robbed this ocean of its power or to have lessened, to any

degree, its treasures? How vain, how contemptible, are the imaginations

which your hearts have devised, and are still devising! O My servants! The

one true God is My witness! This most great, this fathomless and surging

Ocean is near, astonishingly near, unto you. Behold it is closer to you

than your life-vein! Swift as the twinkling of an eye ye can, if ye but

wish it, reach and partake of this imperishable favor, this God-given

grace, this incorruptible gift, this most potent and unspeakably glorious

bounty.



O My servants! Could ye apprehend with what wonders of My munificence and

bounty I have willed to entrust your souls, ye would, of a truth, rid

yourselves of attachment to all created things, and would gain a true

knowledge of your own selves--a knowledge which is the same as the

comprehension of Mine own Being. Ye would find yourselves independent of

all else but Me, and would perceive, with your inner and outer eye, and as

manifest as the revelation of My effulgent Name, the seas of My

loving-kindness and bounty moving within you. Suffer not your idle

fancies, your evil passions, your insincerity and blindness of heart to

dim the luster, or stain the sanctity, of so lofty a station. Ye are even

as the bird which soareth, with the full force of its mighty wings and

with complete and joyous confidence, through the immensity of the heavens,

until, impelled to satisfy its hunger, it turneth longingly to the water

and clay of the earth below it, and, having been entrapped in the mesh of

its desire, findeth itself impotent to resume its flight to the realms

whence it came. Powerless to shake off the burden weighing on its sullied

wings, that bird, hitherto an inmate of the heavens, is now forced to seek

a dwelling-place upon the dust. Wherefore, O My servants, defile not your

wings with the clay of waywardness and vain desires, and suffer them not

to be stained with the dust of envy and hate, that ye may not be hindered

from soaring in the heavens of My divine knowledge.



O My servants! Through the might of God and His power, and out of the

treasury of His knowledge and wisdom, I have brought forth and revealed

unto you the pearls that lay concealed in the depths of His everlasting

ocean. I have summoned the Maids of Heaven to emerge from behind the veil

of concealment, and have clothed them with these words of Mine--words of

consummate power and wisdom. I have, moreover, with the hand of divine

power, unsealed the choice wine of My Revelation, and have wafted its

holy, its hidden, and musk-laden fragrance upon all created things. Who

else but yourselves is to be blamed if ye choose to remain unendowed with

so great an outpouring of God's transcendent and all-encompassing grace,

with so bright a revelation of His resplendent mercy?...



O My servants! There shineth nothing else in Mine heart except the

unfading light of the Morn of Divine guidance, and out of My mouth

proceedeth naught but the essence of truth, which the Lord your God hath

revealed. Follow not, therefore, your earthly desires, and violate not the

Covenant of God, nor break your pledge to Him. With firm determination,

with the whole affection of your heart, and with the full force of your

words, turn ye unto Him, and walk not in the ways of the foolish. The

world is but a show, vain and empty, a mere nothing, bearing the semblance

of reality. Set not your affections upon it. Break not the bond that

uniteth you with your Creator, and be not of those that have erred and

strayed from His ways. Verily I say, the world is like the vapor in a

desert, which the thirsty dreameth to be water and striveth after it with

all his might, until when he cometh unto it, he findeth it to be mere

illusion. It may, moreover, be likened unto the lifeless image of the

beloved whom the lover hath sought and found, in the end, after long

search and to his utmost regret, to be such as cannot "fatten nor appease

his hunger."



O My servants! Sorrow not if, in these days and on this earthly plane,

things contrary to your wishes have been ordained and manifested by God,

for days of blissful joy, of heavenly delight, are assuredly in store for

you. Worlds, holy and spiritually glorious, will be unveiled to your eyes.

You are destined by Him, in this world and hereafter, to partake of their

benefits, to share in their joys, and to obtain a portion of their

sustaining grace. To each and every one of them you will, no doubt,

attain.