Hidden Word, Arabic 5: My Mansion is the Heart

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.

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> 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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