The Hidden Words

The opening Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's first counsel in the mystical aphorisms revealed in Baghdád — names what He most desires of the human heart: that it be pure, kindly, and radiant, so that an everlasting sovereignty may be conferred upon it.

The twelfth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's reminder that the soul was fashioned with God's own hands and was not intended for the dust of bondage.

The thirteenth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's confronting question to the soul that has forgotten its own original nobility and has set itself in the rank of the abased.

The second Hidden Word in Arabic names justice — *the best beloved of all things in My sight* — and explains it not as rule of law but as the soul's capacity to see with its own eyes and know with its own knowledge.

The third Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's promise that the soul which finds within itself the love of God shall enter the bounty of His mercy.

The thirty-second Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's image of the soul's freedom: that no journey through space and no traversal of the heavens can substitute for inner detachment from all save God.

The fourth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's small, two-line reciprocal of love between God and the soul, the line that has been memorised perhaps more than any other in the entire collection.

The fifth Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's image of the human heart as His own mansion, and His invitation to sanctify it for His descent.

The seventh Hidden Word in Arabic — Bahá'u'lláh's call to the son of man to forsake all but Him, that he may attain to His presence and abide in His company.

The opening Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's foundational description of the human temple as the residence of His remembrance, the place where His mention shall be made.

The third Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's tender injunction that the believer plant only the rose of love in the garden of the heart, and that the heart itself be the dwelling of the Beloved.

The thirty-second Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's command that holy words and pure deeds rise to the heaven of celestial glory, and the warning that fair speech without fair conduct is empty.

The fourth Hidden Word in Persian — Bahá'u'lláh's invitation to the believer to behold, with the eye of the heart, the manifestation of God's eternal beauty in His own being.

The forty-fourth Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's praise of the soul who has chosen a single true companion in the Beloved over the world's many fair-weather companions.

A Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's tender vision of the believer who walks the world bearing within the inward fragrance of the divine love.

The seventh Persian Hidden Word — Bahá'u'lláh's testimony that the believer is, in his or her created reality, the day-star of the heavens of God's holiness, and must therefore not allow the dust of the world to dim the light.