Hidden Word, Arabic 2: The Best Beloved of All Things

In the second Hidden Word in Arabic, Bahá'u'lláh moves from the inner condition of the heart — addressed in the first counsel — to the inner faculty of the soul. He names that faculty *justice* and lifts it to a place of singular honour.

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> O SON OF SPIRIT! The best beloved of all things in My sight is > Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and > neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou > shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of > others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through > the knowledge of thy neighbour.

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Ponder this in thy heart; how > it behoveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and > the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes.

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The Hidden Word speaks first of justice as a love. *The best beloved of all things in My sight* — the language is the language of love poetry. Justice is not, in this counsel, a system of courts and decrees. It is something Bahá'u'lláh loves above any other quality the human heart can possess.

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The middle of the Hidden Word names what justice does. Through its aid, *thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbour.* The faculty of just seeing is the foundation of independent investigation.

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Without it, the soul receives the world second-hand: the prejudices of its parents, the assumptions of its tribe, the rumours of its information sources, the convenient simplifications of its political party. Justice, exercised inwardly, is the discipline of refusing those second-hand impressions and going to see for oneself.

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The closing line names justice as a gift. *Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness.* It is not a burden imposed on the soul from without. It is a faculty given to the soul from within, as a sign of the love in which the soul was made.

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The Hidden Word stands at the foundation of the Bahá'í teaching of independent investigation of truth.

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