The Book of the Most Holy CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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The Book of the Most Holy CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Division 526-550

THE MOST HOLY

526.

Cling, O ye people of Bahá, to the cord of servitude unto God, the True [Lord],

for thereby your stations shall be made manifest,

your names written and preserved,

your ranks raised and your memory exalted in the Preserved Tablet.

527.

Beware lest the dwellers on earth hinder you from this glorious and exalted station.

528.

Thus have We exhorted you in most of Our Epistles and now in this, Our Holy Tablet,

above which hath beamed the Day-Star of the Laws of the Lord, your God,

the Powerful, the All-Wise.

529.

When the ocean of My presence hath ebbed and the Book of My Revelation is ended,

turn your faces toward Him Whom God hath purposed,

Who hath branched from this Ancient Root.

530.

Consider the pettiness of men's minds.

531.

They ask for that which injureth them, and cast away the thing that profiteth them.

532.

They are, indeed, of those that are far astray.

533.

We find some men desiring [illustrious] liberty, and priding themselves therein.

534.

Such men are in the depths of ignorance.

535.

Liberty [can], in the end, lead to sedition, whose flames none can quench.

536.

Thus warneth you He Who is the Reckoner, the All-Knowing.

537.

Know ye that the embodiment of liberty and its symbol is the animal.

538.

That which beseemeth man is submission unto such restraints as will protect him from his own ignorance, and guard him against the harm of the mischief-maker.

539.

Liberty causeth man to overstep the bounds of propriety,

and to infringe on the dignity of his station.

540.

It debaseth him to the level of extreme depravity and wickedness.

541.

Regard men as a flock of sheep that need a shepherd for their protection.

542.

This, verily, is the truth, the certain truth.

543.

We approve of liberty in certain circumstances, and refuse to sanction it in others.

We, verily, are the All-Knowing.

544.

Say:

True liberty consisteth in man's submission unto My commandments, little as ye know it.

545.

Were men to observe that which We have sent down unto them from the Heaven of Revelation,

they would, of a certainty, attain unto perfect liberty.

546.

Happy is the man that hath apprehended the Purpose of God in whatever He hath revealed from the Heaven of His Will that pervadeth all created things.

547.

Say:

The liberty that profiteth you is to be found nowhere except in complete servitude unto God, the Eternal Truth.

548.

Whoso hath tasted of its sweetness will refuse to barter it for all the dominion of earth and heaven.

549.

In the Bayá n it had been forbidden you to ask Us questions.

550.

The Lord hath now relieved you of this prohibition,

that ye may be free to ask what you need to ask,

yet not such idle questions as those on which the men of former times were wont to dwell.

Fear God, and be ye of the righteous!

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