During a period of realizing Baha’is around my age had a very different idea of what the Baha’i Faith is all about and also realizing that many of the things I expected to see in my life and in other Baha’is and the Baha’i community weren’t materializing, I started to question my beliefs. I decided to use the passage from the Kitabi-Iqan, identified as the tablet to the true seeker, as the basis for acquiring the capacity to understand God and His Manifestations. Like with the synopsis, I found that visualizing myself with these capacities wasn’t working, I turned this passage into prayer. I added random names of God, found in the Baha’i writings, to make this prayer easier to read, more interesting and potent. I also added two lines from the first two paragraphs of the Kitabi-Iqan.
Here is the original tablet, and here is a personal commentary on the tablet by a believer, and here is a video about the tablet to the seeker by Hooper Dunbar.
The Prayer
Oh God, the Divine Being, please help me cleanse and purify my heart, which is the seat of the revelation of the inner mysteries. Oh God, the Divine Charmer, please help me purify my heart from the obscuring dust of all acquired knowledge, and the allusions of the embodiments of satanic fancy. Oh my God, the Divine Countenance, please help me purge my breast, which is the sanctuary of the abiding love of the Beloved, of every defilement. Oh God, the Divine Educator, please help me sanctify my soul from all that pertaineth to water and clay, and from all shadowy and ephemeral attachments.
Oh my God, the Divine Essence, please help me so cleanse my heart that no remnant of either love or hate may linger therein, lest that love blindly incline me to error, or that hate repel me away from the truth. Even as I witness, in this day how most of the people, because of such love and hate, are bereft of the immortal Face, have strayed far from the Embodiments of the divine mysteries, and, shepherdless, are roaming through the wilderness of oblivion and error.
Oh my God, the Divine King, please help me at all times put my trust in You. Oh God, the Lord of Earth and Heaven, help me renounce the peoples of the earth. Oh God, the Loving, help me detach myself from the world of dust, and help me cleave unto You the Lord of Lords. Oh my God, the Divine Ordainer, please help me detach from all that is in heaven and on earth. Oh my God, the Divine Presence, please help me to cease to regard the sayings and doings of mortal humans as the standard by which to recognize You and Your Manifestations.
Oh my God, the Divine Spirit, please help me never seek to exalt myself above any one. Oh God, the Maker of the Heavens, help me wash away from the tablet of my heart every trace of pride and vainglory. Oh God, the Most Bountiful, help me cling unto patience and resignation. Oh God, the Most Generous, help me observe silence, and refrain from idle talk. For the tongue is a smouldering fire, and excess of speech a deadly poison. Material fire consumeth the body, whereas the fire of the tongue devoureth both heart and soul. The force of the former lasteth but for a time, whilst the effects of the latter endure a century.
O my God, the Dominant, help me regard backbiting as a grievous error, and keep myself aloof from its dominion, inasmuch as backbiting quencheth the light of the heart, and extinguisheth the life of the soul. Oh God, the Educator of all beings, help me be content with little, and be freed from all inordinate desire. Oh God, help me treasure the companionship of those that have renounced the world, and regard avoidance of boastful and worldly people a precious benefit.
At the dawn of every day Oh my God, the Equitable, help me commune with You, and help me, with all my soul persevere in the quest of You. Oh my God, the Essence of Learning, help me consume every wayward thought with the flame of Your loving mention, and, help me, with the swiftness of lightning, pass by all else save You. Oh my God, the Essence of Bounty, help me to succour the dispossessed, and never withhold my favour from the destitute. Oh my God, the Essence of Loving Kindness, help me to continue to show kindness to animals, how much more unto my fellow-man, to him who is endowed with the power of utterance.
Oh my God, the Eternal, help me not hesitate to offer up my life for You. Oh God, the Omnipotent Protector, help me not allow the censure of the people to turn me away from the Truth. Oh God, the Eternal King, help me not wish for others that which I don’t wish for myself. Oh God, the Origin of All Things, help me not promise that which I do not fulfil.
Oh my God, the Eternal Truth, help me, with all my heart avoid fellowship with evil doers, and pray for the remission of their sins. Help me, Oh my God the Everlasting Candle, forgive the sinful, and never despise his low estate, for none knoweth what his own end shall be. How often hath a sinner, at the hour of death, attained to the essence of faith, and, quaffing the immortal draught, hath taken his flight unto the celestial Concourse. And how often hath a devout believer, at the hour of his soul’s ascension, been so changed as to fall into the nethermost fire.
“Our purpose in revealing these convincing and weighty utterances is to impress upon the seeker that he should regard all else beside God as transient, and count all things save Him, Who is the Object of all adoration, as utter nothingness.”
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