Philippine Bahá’í Community
Philippine Bahá’í Community
The Covenant Between God and His Creatures
The inmost reality of God is inaccessible to man—for it is impossible for the one created to understand its Creator. However, through God’s unfailing mercy to His creatures, He had made Himself known unto us through His Divine Manifestations.
'Abdu'l-Bahá explains that these Holy Manifestations reflect the qualities and attributes of God. He uses the analogy of a perfectly polished mirror and the sun being reflected on it. The brightness and light of the sun is reflected on a clear and polished mirror. Thus, even though the sun did not come down, as such is unthinkable, its qualities are manifested in the mirror. The same is true with God and His Manifestations.
“God is pure perfection, and creatures are but imperfections. For God to descend into the conditions of existence would be the greatest of imperfections; on the contrary, His manifestation, His appearance, His rising are like the reflection of the sun in a clear, pure, polished mirror. All the creatures are evident signs of God, like the earthly beings upon all of which the rays of the sun shine. But upon the plains, the mountains, the trees and fruits, only a portion 114 of the light shines, through which they become visible, and are reared, and attain to the object of their existence, while the Perfect Man is in the condition of a clear mirror in which the Sun of Reality becomes visible and manifest with all its qualities and perfections.”
