The breezes of the Most Merciful have
passed over all created things; happy the
man that hath discovered their fragrance,
and set himself towards them with a
sound heart. Attire thy temple with
the ornament of My Name, and thy tongue
with remembrance of Me, and thine
heart with love for Me, the Almighty, the
Most High. We have desired for thee
naught except that which is better for thee
than what thou dost possess and all
the treasures of the earth. Thy Lord,
verily, is knowing, informed of all.
Arise, in My Name, amongst My servants,
and say: `O ye peoples of the earth!
Turn yourselves towards Him Who hath
turned towards you. He, verily, is
the Face of God amongst you, and His
Testimony and His Guide unto you.
He hath come to you with signs which none can
produce.' The
voice of the Burning Bush is raised in the midmost heart of the
world, and
the Holy Spirit calleth aloud among the nations: `Lo, the Desired
One is come
with manifest dominion!'
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Proclamation
of Baha'u'llah, p. 18-19
Lauded be Thy name, O my God! This
is the hour when Thou hast unlocked the
doors of Thy bounty before the faces
of Thy creatures, and opened wide the
portals of Thy tender mercy unto
all the dwellers of Thine earth. I beseech
Thee, by all them whose blood was
shed in Thy path, who, in their yearning over
Thee, rid themselves from all attachment
to any of Thy creatures, and who were
so carried away by the sweet savors
of Thine inspiration that every single
member of their bodies intoned Thy
praise and vibrated to Thy remembrance, not
to withhold from us the things Thou
hast irrevocably ordained in this
Revelation--a
Revelation the potency of which hath caused every tree to cry out
what the Burning
Bush had aforetime proclaimed unto Moses, Who conversed with
Thee, a Revelation
that hath enabled every least pebble to resound again with
Thy praise,
as the stones glorified Thee in the days of Muhammad, Thy Friend.
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Prayers
and Meditations, p. 144
O ye kinsmen of the Most Great Remembrance!
This
Tree of Holiness, dyed crimson
with the oil
of servitude, hath verily sprung forth out of your own soil in the
midst of the
Burning Bush, yet ye comprehend nothing whatever thereof, neither
of His true, heavenly attributes,
nor of the actual circumstances of His
earthly life, nor of the evidences
of His powerful and unblemished behaviour.
-- The Báb, Selections from
the Writings of the Bab, p. 52
O ye that circle
the throne of glory! Hearken unto My Call which is raised from
the midst of
the Burning Bush, `Verily I am God and there is none other God but
Me.
Hence worship Me, and for the sake of Him Who is the Most Great
Remembrance, offer ye prayers, purged
from the insinuations of the people, for
verily your Lord, the One true God,
is none other than the Sovereign Truth.
Indeed such as invoke others besides
Him are deservedly numbered among the
inmates of the fire, while He Who
is the Remembrance of God verily abideth,
firm and undeviating, on the Path
of Truth amidst the Burning Bush.'...
-- The Báb, Selections from
the Writings of the Bab, p. 69
"Call out to Zion, O Carmel, and announce
the joyful tidings: He that was
hidden from mortal eyes is come!
His all-conquering sovereignty is manifest;
His all-encompassing splendor is
revealed. Beware lest thou hesitate or halt.
Hasten forth and circumambulate the
City of God that hath descended from
heaven, the celestial Kaaba round
which have circled in adoration the favored
of God, the pure in heart, and the
company of the most exalted angels. Oh, how
I long to announce unto every spot
on the surface of the earth, and to carry to
each one of its cities, the glad-tidings
of this Revelation--a Revelation to
which the heart
of Sinai hath been attracted, and in whose name the Burning
Bush is calling:
`Unto God, the Lord of Lords, belong the kingdoms of earth and
heaven.'
Verily this is the Day in which both land and sea rejoice at this
announcement, the Day for which have
been laid up those things which God,
through a bounty beyond the ken of
mortal mind or heart, hath destined for
revelation. Ere long will God sail
His Ark upon thee, and will manifest the
people of Bahá who have been
mentioned in the Book of Names."
-- Bahá'u'lláh, Gleanings
from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 16
Moreover, in the traditions the terms
"sun" and "moon" have been applied to
prayer and fasting, even as it is
said: "Fasting is illumination, prayer is
light." One day, a well-known divine
came to visit Us. While We were
conversing with him, he referred
to the above-quoted tradition. He said:
"Inasmuch as fasting causeth the
heat of the body to increase, it hath
therefore been likened unto the light
of the sun; and as the prayer of the
night-season refresheth man, it hath
been compared unto the radiance of the
moon." Thereupon We realized that
that poor man had not been favoured with a
single drop of the ocean of true
understanding, and had strayed far from the
burning Bush
of divine wisdom. We then politely observed to him saying: "The
interpretation your honour hath given
to this tradition is the one current
amongst the people. Could it not
be interpreted differently?" He asked Us:
"What could it be?" We made reply:
"Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets, and
the most distinguished of God's chosen
Ones, hath likened the Dispensation of
the Qur'án unto heaven, by
reason of its loftiness, its paramount influence,
its majesty, and the fact that it
comprehendeth all religions. And as the sun
and moon constitute the brightest
and most prominent luminaries in the heavens,
similarly in the heaven of the religion
of God two shining orbs have been
ordained--fasting and prayer. `Islám
is heaven; fasting is its sun, prayer, its
moon.'"
-- Bahá'u'lláh, The
Kitab-i-Iqan, p. 39-40