We come to the explanation of the words of Bahá’u’lláh when
He says: “O King! I was but a man like others, asleep upon My couch, when lo,
the breezes of the All-Glorious were wafted over Me, and taught Me the
knowledge of all that hath been. This thing is not from Me, but from One Who is
Almighty and All-Knowing.” This is the station of divine revelation. It is not
a sensible, but an intelligible reality. It is sanctified from and transcendent
above past, present, and future. It is a comparison and an analogy—a metaphor
and not a literal truth. It is not the condition that is commonly understood by
the human mind when it is said that someone was asleep and then awoke, but signifies
a passage from one state to another. For example, sleeping is the state of
repose, and wakefulness is the state of motion. Sleeping is the state of
silence, and wakefulness is the state of utterance. Sleeping is the state of
concealment, and wakefulness is that of manifestation.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Table
talks in Akka, authenticated by ‘Abdu’l-Baha; ‘Some Answered Questions’ – 2014
revised translation by the Baha’i World Centre)
