Hidden Word, Arabic 7: The Best Beloved

The seventh Hidden Word in Arabic is a small composition of luminous abundance. It is one of the most generous of the opening sequence: God names what He has prepared for the human soul, and bids the soul receive it.

O SON OF MAN! My eternity is My creation, I have created it for thee. Make it the garment of thy temple. My unity is My handiwork; I have wrought it for thee; clothe thyself therewith, that thou mayest be to all eternity the revelation of My everlasting being.

The grammar is striking. The Hidden Word treats eternity and unity as garments — things that may be put on, and that transform the wearer. Eternity is not, in Bahá'u'lláh's image, a distant condition the soul will inherit at some future judgment. It is a garment laid out, ready, for the soul's wearing now.

To clothe thyself with My unity is to recognise oneself as a member of the one human family, the one creation of one God. It is to live, in the body, what one knows in the spirit — that the distinctions of nation, of class, of faction, of tongue, are lighter than the underlying unity that holds them all in being.

The Hidden Word names the consequence of putting on this garment: the soul to all eternity becomes the revelation of [God's] everlasting being. This is a high promise. The human soul that has been clothed in unity becomes, by that clothing, a place where God's eternal being is itself revealed. The soul becomes a window, not a wall.

In the Bahá'í community this Hidden Word is read often at moments of consecration: at marriage, at the dedication of a House of Worship, at the funeral of a departed believer. The image of the garment makes plain that what is being asked of the soul is not a feat. It is a willingness to be dressed.

Source: Bahá'u'lláh, The Hidden Words (Bahá'í Publishing Trust). Public domain text from the Bahá'í Reference Library.

Bahá'u'lláh. (1858). *The Hidden Words*. Bahá'í Publishing Trust. https://www.bahai.org/library/authoritative-texts/bahaullah/hidden-words/