Hidden Word, Arabic 5: My Mansion is the Heart
Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words, (1858), Bahá'í Publishing Trust · Read original
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The fifth Hidden Word in Arabic gives one of the most arresting images in the whole book. The heart of the human being is named, plainly, as the very residence of God.
O SON OF BEING! Thy heart is My home; sanctify it for My descent. Thy spirit is My place of revelation; cleanse it for My manifestation.
The Hidden Word reverses the normal architecture of religious imagination. The temple is not a stone building one travels to. The temple is the human heart that one carries with one always, day in and day out, in commerce, in conversation, in solitude, in sleep. God's home in the world is the human heart. His place of revelation is the human spirit. The whole question of the spiritual life is whether those interior chambers are prepared for their proper Guest.
The two verbs — sanctify and cleanse — name the work. Both imply that the chambers are not, by default, ready. The work of preparation is the soul's lifelong undertaking. It is the daily removal of the accumulated dust of grievance, calculation, distraction, vanity. It is the lighting of the small lamps of prayer. It is the laying of the carpet of remembrance and the opening of the windows of generosity.
The Hidden Word is brief. It does not give a method. It gives a demand and a promise. The demand is the sanctification. The promise is the descent. Where the chamber is made ready, the Guest will come.
Bahá'u'lláh's mystical Tablets often return to this image. The believer is not a temple-goer; the believer is a temple. The laws of cleanliness in the Aqdas, the obligation of daily prayer, the practice of the long obligatory prayer with its kneelings and its standings — all of these are, in this fifth Hidden Word's framework, the daily housekeeping of a residence whose Owner has announced His intention to come.
Source: Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words (Bahá'í Publishing Trust). Public domain text from the Bahá'í Reference Library.
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Reflection
- The image is startling — the heart of a human being is the mansion in which God seeks to live. What in your daily life affirms or denies that this is true?
- *Sanctify thy heart that I may descend upon it.* What in your inner life is being asked to be set aside this season?
Cite this story
Bahá'u'lláh. (1858). *The Hidden Words*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/hidden-words/
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