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.

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> 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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