Tablet of the Master `Abdul’-Bahá to Karbalái Muhammad Salmáni

 He is God!

 His honour Karbalái Muhammad Salmáni,

 upon Him be the Glory of God the Most Glorious One!

 O thou the servant of Bahá!

 Praise be to God that thou art

  a candle in the heart of the assembly of love,

  a light in the meeting place of divine love,

  the fruit upon the tree of grace,

  a flowering bud in the rose garden of divine mercy.

 Thou art stirred by the breezes of the garden of

 paradise and art verdant by the gentle winds of

 heavenly bounty.

 Now that thou art confirmed in this grace thou must

 pass the days of thy life to obtain that which will

 attract divine nearness, nearness to the divine

 threshold.

 This nearness does not consist in physical

 nearness but it resides in supplication, in prayer,

 in servitude of the world of God. The more you strive

 in this servitude the more divine nearness will be

 realized and you will become close to Him.

 As much as is possible you should acquire those

 attributes and characteristics, so that you may

 become

  utterly evanescent

  and nothingness itself in the Path of God,

 so much so that

 even a trace of being may not remain within you,

 and that one should be as a dead corpse before the

 hands of the washer of the dead, utterly ephemeral,

 having no thought or remembrance of the self and ego,

 become as nothing face to face with the observance of

 the divine ordinances, attracted and enamoured of the

 commandments of the All-Merciful, to move by that

 strength, to be distinguished by those qualities.

 This is the station of self-annihilation in God and

 being everlasting through God, and upon thee be the

 Glory [the Bahá’].

 AA.