The Kingdom of God

One of the things religion aims to teach people is how to appreciate God’s creation. In the Seven Valleys, Bahá’u’lláh says the purpose is “…that every man may thereby win his way to the summit of realities, until none shall contemplate anything whatsoever but that he shall see God therein.”

Since God is the best of all things: the most beautiful, most wondrous, most inspiring Reality one could imagine, then seeing him everywhere means becoming excited by life like a little child. Everything has some new meaning, some secret to be unwrapped.

This is the Kingdom of God. It is paradise, heaven, the apex of consciousness and understanding. And He created it for us, His children. He sent all His Messengers with their Glad-Tidings to summon us to that pure and perfect world.

Nor is it someplace near or far. It is all around us, within us. If we see God in people, we can love everyone; if we see Him in the things of the world, we will fall in love with life; if we see Him in ourselves – “behold Me standing within thee, Mighty, Powerful and Self-Subsisting” – we realize we are never, ever alone.

Christ said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” This is the life we were created to know. It is what our souls have longed for since the moment of conception. And the Path to that Reality can be found through the way of the Manifestations of God, in Their Writings and Their example.

O My servants! My holy, My divinely ordained Revelation may be likened unto an ocean in whose depths are concealed innumerable pearls of great price, of surpassing luster. It is the duty of every seeker to bestir himself and strive to attain the shores of this ocean, so that he may, in proportion to the eagerness of his search and the efforts he hath exerted, partake of such benefits as have been pre-ordained in God’s irrevocable and hidden Tablets.