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Selections From the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá
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Pages 167-168
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143: O thou who hast drawn nigh unto the spirit of ...
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O thou who hast drawn nigh unto the spirit of Christ in the Kingdom of God! Verily the body is composed
of physical elements, and every composite must needs be
decomposed. The spirit, however, is a single essence, fine
and delicate, incorporeal, everlasting, and of God. For this
reason whoso looketh for Christ in His physical body hath
looked in vain, and will be shut away from Him as by a
veil. But whoso yearneth to find Him in the spirit will
grow from day to day in joy and desire and burning love,
in closeness to Him, and in beholding Him clear and plain.
In this new and wondrous day, it behoveth thee to seek
after the spirit of Christ.
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Verily the heaven into which the Messiah rose up was not
this unending sky, rather was His heaven the Kingdom of
His beneficent Lord. Even as He Himself hath said, `I came
down from heaven,'
[1]
and again, `The Son of Man is in
heaven.'
[2]
Hence it is clear that His heaven is beyond all
directional points; it encircleth all existence, and is raised up
for those who worship God. Beg and implore thy Lord to
lift thee up into that heaven, and give thee to eat of its food,
in this age of majesty and might.
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Know thou that the people, even unto this day, have
failed to unravel the hidden secrets of the Book. They
imagine that Christ was excluded from His heaven in the
days when He walked the earth, that He fell from the heights
of His sublimity, and afterwards mounted to those upper
reaches of the sky, to the heaven which doth not exist at all,
for it is but space. And they are waiting for Him to come
down from there again, riding upon a cloud, and they
imagine that there are clouds in that infinite space and that
He will ride thereon and by that means He will descend.
Whereas the truth is that a cloud is but vapour that riseth
out of the earth, and it doth not come down from heaven.
Rather, the cloud referred to in the Gospel is the human
body, so called because the body is as a veil to man, which,
even as a cloud, preventeth him from beholding the Sun of
Truth that shineth from the horizon of Christ.
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I beg of God to open before thine eyes the gates of
discoveries and perceptions, that thou mayest become informed
of His mysteries in this most manifest of days.
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I am most eager to meet thee, but the times are not
propitious. God willing, we shall let thee know of a better
time, when thou canst come rejoicing.
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Notes
1. [John 6:38]
2. [John 3:13]
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