Thus Jesus, Son of Mary, whilst seated one day and speaking in the strain of the Holy Spirit, uttered words such as these: “O people! My food is the grass of the field, wherewith I satisfy my hunger. My bed is the dust, my lamp in the night the light of the moon, and my steed my own feet. Behold, who on earth is richer than I?” By the righteousness of God! Thousands of treasures circle round this poverty, and a myriad kingdoms of glory yearn for such abasement! Shouldst thou attain to a drop of the ocean of the inner meaning of these words, thou wouldst surely forsake the world and all that is therein, and, as the Phoenix wouldst consume thyself in the flames of the undying Fire.
Back in paragraph 102, the first paragraph in Part 2, Baha'u'llah says that the Messenger of God has "undisputed sovereignty over all that is in heaven and on earth, though no man be found on earth to obey Him." From there, He goes on to say that He is also "independent of all earthly dominion, though He be utterly destitute."
As He has just talked about the issue of sovereignty, we can now see that He is moving on to the next topic, namely that of wealth and poverty.
Here, in this paragraph, we see that He is connecting this to the previous theme with the word "thus". By going back a sentence we read, "Amidst the darkness of their abasement there shineth upon them the light of unfading glory, and upon their helplessness are showered the tokens of an invincible sovereignty." Now He is connecting this to the issue of wealth and poverty, demonstrating the truth of this assertion with the quote from Jesus, which clearly shows His sovereignty over the world.
If we try to focus on what we typically think of as wealth, then we will fall into the same problem as we did when we thought of sovereignty as being an earthly sovereignty. The Manifestations generally are not wealthy, in the sense that They do not have money stored up in a bank somewhere. Their wealth, Their ability to survive in the world, comes from a different perspective of the world itself. They do not count wealth based on what They can buy. They see wealth as a recognition of what is possible.
If we think of wealth as a recognition of choice, and use the buying of a car as our example, then we can clearly see that the more money we have, the more options we have. But when we recognize that we do not need a car, that our feet will carry us more places with less damage to the world around us, then we realize that we have even more choice then we first considered.
Jesus is pointing out, in this quote, that He will never starve, for He sees all the different bounties that God has given us in the world. He can eat the grass in the field, if need be. He will never be homeless, for the entire world is His bed. He has lights in the night far more beautiful than anything in our modern electric world. This, He seems to say, is true wealth, and we should not be distracted by such trivialities as money.
There is another thing here that catch our attention, too: Thousands of treasures circle round this poverty, and a myriad kingdoms of glory yearn for such abasement!
What does this mean?
Perhaps it is a recognition that this poverty, this lack of material wealth is, in fact, worth far more than any material riches. Gold, we know, can be stolen, or lost, but this perspective of our position in the world is eternal. We may lose everything we have of our material possessions, but this understanding of the true bounty all around us allows us to be detached from them.
Tying it back to the issue of sovereignty, He says that these many kingdoms long for such abasement. It reminds us of E. G. Browne's comment that Baha'u'llah was "the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain", even though to outward seeming He was a prisoner.
We could talk more about this, but really, Baha'u'llah will further explore this theme over the next few paragraphs.
