The beauty of the rose (gol) or mere mortal dust (gil)?
To me, this 2 nd Hidden Word builds upon and continues from the 1 st of the exploration of being aware and vigilant about what our heart dwells upon, what occupies and concerns our mind. Jesus was remembered to have said, “ For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also . ” (Matthew 6:21) What we truly treasure determines the location of our heart, or—in Buddhist terms—our reality is determined by our thoughts. In this Hidden Word, Bahá’u’lláh uses again the example of what is most befitting for a bird to summon the bird-of-the-human-heart to lift itself higher than that which is sociologically customary. He affirms that the best home for a bird is its “ nest ,” just as for the “ hearts of men ” (men in Persian/Arabic ‘ibád , which more literally translated would have been “worshippers” or “servants”) it is not “ transient dust ” ( turáb-e-fání ) but our “ eternal nests ” ( a sh yán-é-báqí ). Bahá’u’lláh poetically juxtaposes gil - há (“ slou...