Monday, November 26, 2007

"...He hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His knowledge..."

God didn't just create us and set us free to wander the earth in ignorance.

He's sent His Manifestations to remind us that He's also implanted Gifts within us that can be laid bare through our efforts to acquire virtues...

"From the exalted source, and out of the essence of His favor and bounty He hath entrusted every created thing with a sign of His knowledge, so that none of His creatures may be deprived of its share in expressing, each according to its capacity and rank, this knowledge. This sign is the mirror of His beauty in the world of creation. The greater the effort exerted for the refinement of this sublime and noble mirror, the more faithfully will it be made to reflect the glory of the names and attributes of God, and reveal the wonders of His signs and knowledge. Every created thing will be enabled (so great is this reflecting power) to reveal the potentialities of its pre-ordained station, will recognize its capacity and limitations, and will testify to the truth that 'He, verily, is God; there is none other God besides Him.'....

"There can be no doubt whatever that, in consequence of the efforts
which every man may consciously exert and as a result of the exertion of his own spiritual faculties, this mirror can be so cleansed from the dross of earthly defilements and purged from satanic fancies as to be able to draw nigh unto the meads of eternal holiness and attain the courts of everlasting fellowship."

Bahá’u’lláh: Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, Selection CXXIV, p. 262