Teaching

My God! my God! Thou art my hope and my beloved, my intended aim and desire! With great humbleness and entire devotion I pray to Thee to make me the minaret of Thy love in Thy region, the lamp of Thy knowledge among Thy creatures and the banner of Thy gift in Thy Kingdom. Make me one of Thy worshippers who cut themselves from everything but Thee and sanctify themselves from everything pertaining to the world and divert themselves from the defects of the suspicious. Let my heart be dilated with joy through the spirit of confirmation from Thy Kingdom and illumine my sight with seeing the hosts of success following one another and descending upon me from thine Omnipotence. Thou art the Almighty, the Invincible, the Powerful!

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v2, p. 329-330

O Almighty! O God! O Thou compassionate One! This servant of Thine has hastened to the regions of the West from the uttermost parts of the East that, perchance, these nostrils may be perfumed by the fragrances of Thy bestowals; that the breeze of the rose garden of guidance may blow over these cities; that the people may attain to the capacity of receiving Thy favors; that the hearts may be rejoiced through Thy glad tidings; that the eyes may behold the light of reality; that the ears may hearken to the call of the Kingdom. O Almighty! Illumine the hearts. O kind God! Make the souls the envy of the rose garden and the meadow. O incomparable Beloved! Waft the fragrance of Thy bounty. Radiate the lights of compassion so that the hearts may be cleansed and purified and that they may take a share and portion from Thy confirmations. Verily, this congregation is seeking Thy path, searching for Thy mystery, beholding Thy face and desiring to be characterized with Thine attributes. O Almighty! Confer Thou infinite bounties. Bestow Thine inexhaustible treasury so that these impotent ones may become powerful. Verily, Thou art the Kind. Thou art the Generous. Thou art the Omniscient, the Omnipotent.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 13

O my Lord! Flood Thou their minds with Thy holy light; cleanse Thou their hearts with the grace of Thine assistance; gladden their bosoms with the fragrance of the joys that waft from Thy Company above; make bright their eyes by beholding the signs and tokens of Thy might; cause them to be the ensigns of purity, the banners of sanctity waving high above all creatures on the summits of the earth; make Thou their words to move hearts which are even as solid rock. May they arise to serve Thee and dedicate themselves to the Kingdom of Thy divinity, and set their faces toward the realm of Thy Self-Subsistence, and spread far and wide Thy signs, and be illumined by Thy streaming lights, and unfold Thy hidden mysteries. May they guide Thy servants unto gentle waters and to the fountain of Thy mercy that welleth and leapeth in the midmost heart of the Heaven of Thy oneness. May they hoist the sail of detachment upon the Ark of Salvation, and move over the seas of Thy knowledge; may they spread wide the pinions of unity and by their aid soar upward to the Kingdom of Thy singleness to become servants whom the Supreme Concourse will applaud, whose praises the dwellers in Thine all-glorious realm will utter; may they hear the heralds of the invisible world as they raise their cry of the Most Great Glad-Tidings; may they, in their longing to meet Thee, invoke and pray unto Thee, intoning wondrous orisons at the dawn of light -- O my Lord Who disposest all things -- shedding their tears at morningtide and even, yearning to pass into the shadow of Thy mercy that endeth never. Help them, O my Lord, under all conditions, support them at all times with Thine angels of holiness, they who are Thine invisible hosts, Thy heavenly battalions who bring down to defeat the massed armies of this nether world. Verily art Thou the Mighty, the Powerful, the Strong, the All-Encompassing, the One Who hath dominion over all that is.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, p. 5-6