Two Mirrors: 'Abdu'l-Bahá on Receiving the Light of God

In Bahá'í World Faith, the 1943 American compilation of selections from the writings of 'Abdu'l-Bahá and Bahá'u'lláh, a short paragraph from the Master's Tablets sets out one of His most often-repeated images.

The light of the sun becomes apparent in each object according to the capacity of that object … One heart may possess the capacity of the polished mirror; another be covered and obscured by the dust and dross of this world.

The image was not new with 'Abdu'l-Bahá. It had been used by the Sufis of the great mystical tradition; it had been used by Bahá'u'lláh in His own Hidden Words and Tablets. But in the hands of the Master it was given a particular and practical edge.

The teaching is exact. The sun does not differ. It sends out the same light upon every object that lies under its rays. The mountain receives that light, and so does the dunghill, and so does the polished bronze mirror, and so does the dusty looking glass at the back of the shop. The light is constant. What differs — and what determines whether the light becomes visible in a given object — is the surface presented to it.

A heart, the Master continues, is in this respect a mirror. If it has been polished — if the small daily dust of self-interest, of envy, of vanity, of resentment has been cleaned from its surface — then the spiritual light that flows continuously from the divine source is reflected back into the world brightly, unmistakably, helpfully. Visitors to that heart are warmed. The work that comes out of it carries its own little radiance.

If on the other hand the mirror has been left to gather dust — if the surface has not been kept up by the small disciplines of prayer and obligation and self-examination — then the same light shines on it as on every other heart, and is met by no surface that can return it. The light is not absent. The receiving instrument has merely failed.

The conclusion 'Abdu'l-Bahá draws is twofold. The first is hopeful: spiritual capacity is not finally a matter of birth, of class, of circumstance, of formal education. It is a matter of the polishing the soul has undertaken. Anyone who is willing to do the work can, by daily attention, become a receiver of the divine light.

The second is sobering: the work cannot be skipped. The friend who lets the mirror grow dusty cannot honestly complain that the sun no longer warms the room. The sun has not moved. The remedy is in the hand that holds the cloth.

The image, in Bahá'í World Faith, sits among many of the Master's other teachings on receptivity. But it is one of the clearest. The sun. The mirror. The dust. Three words. The whole inward life of a believer is set out in them.

Source: 'Abdu'l-Bahá, in Bahá'í World Faith (Bahá'í Publishing Trust, 1943). Public domain text from Project Gutenberg eBook #19239.

'Abdu'l-Bahá. (1943). *Bahá'í World Faith*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19239