So far has the evil principle in man hitherto prevailed over the Good that looking down the vista of the Prophetic Cycle now gone by, Bahá’u’lláh sees man by his own choice and act, impoverished and abased, busy with his own empty fancies and idle imagining, distrusting and rebelling against God and thus destroying his hope, choosing boundless shame, binding himself in the fetters of this world and in the prison of self, bartering Paradise for the dust heap of a mortal world.6

Throughout the whole of the book, the subtle destructive power of the lower self is exposed, and man is warned of the need of ceaseless uncompromising struggle against it in all its forms. He is bidden “turn away from thyself”...“there is no peace for thee save by renouncing thyself; it behoveth thee to put thy trust in Me and not in thyself.” “Turn thy face unto Mine and renounce all save Me.” “Forget all save Me.”7

He who would have God, he is assured, must seek no other; he who would gaze on God’s beauty must be blind to all the world. God’s will and the will of another cannot dwell in one heart.8 While the heart is defiled with desire and passion, none can commune with God. If man seeks to drink the wine of immortal life from the well-spring of detachment he must cleanse himself from the defilement of riches.9 If the seed of divine wisdom is to spring up and grow in him, the soil of the heart in which it is planted must be pure and the seed must be watered with waters of assurance and certainty.10 Man is warned that if in this