As regards the teachers, they must completely divest
themselves from the old garments and be invested with a new garment. According
to the statement of Christ, they must attain to the station of rebirth—that is,
whereas in the first instance they were born from the womb of the mother, this
time they must be born from the womb of the world of nature. Just as they are
now totally unaware of the experiences of the fetal world, they must also
forget entirely the defects of the world of nature. They must be baptized with
the water of life, the fire of the love of God and the breaths of the Holy
Spirit; be satisfied with little food, but take a large portion from the
heavenly table. They must disengage themselves from temptation and
covetousness, and be filled with the spirit. Through the effect of their pure
breath, they must change the stone into the brilliant ruby and the shell into
pearl. Like unto the cloud of vernal shower, they must transform the black soil
into the rose garden and orchard. They must make the blind seeing, the deaf
hearing, the extinguished one enkindled and set aglow, and the dead quickened.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (‘Tablets of the Divine Plan’)
