Hidden Word, Persian 44: One Truly Wise Companion

The forty-fourth Hidden Word in Persian is one of the most distilled expressions of Bahá'u'lláh's teaching on contentment in the midst of difficulty.

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> O COMPANION OF MY THRONE! Hear no evil, and see no evil, > abase not thyself, neither sigh and weep. Speak no evil, > that thou mayest not hear it spoken unto thee, and magnify > not the faults of others that thine own faults may not > appear great; and wish not the abasement of anyone, that > thine own abasement be not exposed.

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Live then the days of > thy life, that are less than a fleeting moment, with thy > mind stainless, thy heart unsullied, thy thoughts pure, and > thy nature sanctified, so that, free and content, thou > mayest put away this mortal frame, and repair unto the > mystic paradise and abide in the eternal kingdom for > evermore.

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The Hidden Word is composed almost entirely of negative imperatives — *hear no, see no, abase not, sigh and weep not* — followed at the close by a single comprehensive positive: *live then the days of thy life... with thy mind stainless, thy heart unsullied, thy thoughts pure, and thy nature sanctified.*

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The structure is pastoral. Bahá'u'lláh names the small inhabitants of the disordered inner life — the appetite for gossip, the pleasure of contempt, the magnification of others' faults — and asks the believer to clear them out, one by one, so that the chamber of the soul may be empty of clutter and ready for the inhabitation of the genuine spiritual life.

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The closing image is consoling. The mortal frame is *less than a fleeting moment.* The spiritual life is the *eternal kingdom for evermore.* The Hidden Word does not minimise the troubles of the present body. It places them in their actual scale.

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This Hidden Word is among the most often committed to memory. It functions as a small handbook of inward conduct, useful in hot moments of temptation and in the long quiet hours of the inner life. The believer who has memorised it has, in effect, inscribed on the inner wall a small examination paper that the soul may check itself against, daily.

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