What follows is my provisional translation (in other words, not official or authorized; see here for more) of a passage from a Tablet of Bahá’u’lláh, the original text of which has been published in Áyát-i-Iláhí, vol. 2, p. 138.
Concerning the degrees of the edification of souls and their detachment, as well as what beseemeth the Cause and becometh humankind, hath been sent down from the Kingdom of divine utterance that which, if the beloved of God should act upon it, would cause every one to turn toward His Law. The life of man in this world hath been likened unto a bird that alighteth upon the wall of a palace, warbleth its melody, and taketh flight. Despite this abundantly clear and obvious insignificance, and such swift and imminent evanescence, the people have been kept back from God, the transitory things of this realm having so veiled them that they have held fast to hellfire and turned away from the Kingdom of celestial mercy. By God! By God! Were they to truly inhale and discover the fragrance of but a single one of these utterances, a hundred thousand worlds like this one and all their misfortunes would fail to sadden them or shut them out from the True One. The joy that would result therefrom is even as the sort that children derive from playing with toys.*
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* More literally, “playing with dolls” (ʻarúsak-bází).
A typescript of the original Persian text of this passage appears below (all punctuation and short vowel marks mine).
Adib Masumian 