Paragraph 219

Wherefore, O my friend, it behooveth us to exert the highest endeavor to attain unto that City, and, by the grace of God and His loving-kindness, rend asunder the “veils of glory”; so that, with inflexible steadfastness, we may sacrifice our drooping souls in the path of the New Beloved. We should with tearful eyes, fervently and repeatedly, implore Him to grant us the favor of that grace. That City is none other than the Word of God revealed in every age and dispensation. In the days of Moses it was the Pentateuch; in the days of Jesus the Gospel; in the days of Muḥammad the Messenger of God the Qur’án; in this day the Bayán; and in the dispensation of Him Whom God will make manifest His own Book—the Book unto which all the Books of former Dispensations must needs be referred, the Book which standeth amongst them all transcendent and supreme. In these Cities spiritual sustenance is bountifully provided, and incorruptible delights have been ordained. The food they bestow is the bread of heaven, and the Spirit they impart is God’s imperishable blessing. Upon detached souls they bestow the gift of Unity, enrich the destitute, and offer the cup of knowledge unto them who wander in the wilderness of ignorance. All the guidance, the blessings, the learning, the understanding, the faith, and certitude, conferred upon all that is in heaven and on earth, are hidden and treasured within these Cities.

He we are at the seventh paragraph describing the nature and station of the true seeker. Our inner being, our outer actions, the object of our quest, along with a glimpse of what we will see and experience when we attain that goal, as well as our total attachment to it: He has described it all. Now He removes the veil and says, in plain terms, that this goal is the Word of God for today.

Back in paragraph 102, at the very beginning of Part Two, Baha'u'llah said, "Thus We reveal unto thee the mysteries of the Cause of God..." It is also like Jesus said in John 16:25, when He told us "a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly" about all these things. That time, it seems, has come.

All these mysterious allusions, all these metaphors and analogies? They are all leading us to the recognition of the new Manifestation in His Day.

All those beautiful promises of those miraculous things we will see? They are all found in the Word of God. And that great transformation we will undergo? It happens when we recognize the new Message whenever it appears.

We could simplify this by saying that He is talking about Progressive Revelation, but it is so much more than that. It is another affirmation of the absolute unity, the complete oneness, of all the religions, their Founders, and their Books.

Note how He is showing how every single one of these Books of God is the firm and irrefutable guide. He is showing us that they all contain this guidance, and they all can be used to help us find the way. They, each and all, give us the "bread of heaven". They all "impart... God's imperishable blessing". Everything we are searching for is found in all of them.

"Beware," Baha'u'llah says elsewhere, "O believers in the Unity of God, lest ye be tempted to make any distinction between any of the Manifestations of His Cause, or to discriminate against the signs that have accompanied and proclaimed their Revelation."

When speaking of these various books here, He refers to them all as "the City of God" in the singular, and then later refers to them as "these Cities", in the plural. It is exactly the same as how He refers to the two stations of the Manifestations, that of essential unity and that of differentiation. That virtue He has mentioned since the beginning, detachment, is what allows us to recognize that they are all the same City, just moving through time. Without detachment, we will see them all as separate cities, but if we are detached, we will recognize them all as the same.

All of the attributes described of this City in paragraph 217 are actually found in all of these Cities. The Word of God is the Word of God, no matter when and where it occurs. It is very similar, if not identical, to His description of the Manifestations in paragraph 110 where He says that they all "are, without exception, the bearers of His names, and the embodiments of His attributes."

This is the last paragraph in which He focuses on the true seeker. He has now revealed to us that what we are seeking is, in fact, the new Word of God for today. This is important because He will now use the Qur'an, the Word of God from Muhammad, to offer His first proof of the Cause of the Bab.

From there He will continue and talk about the actions of his followers, and then the proofs from the life of the Bab Himself.

Everything up to this point has been in preparation for this great proof, His argument in defense of the Cause of the Bab.

And all of these seven paragraphs relating to the true seeker and their goal? It has all been a reminder that what we are seeking is the new Manifestation whenever and wherever they may appear, which, for the uncle to whom this was written, was truly "nearer than his life vein".