This is a usage of the people of the East; it is of Islam.
Their purpose is that in every matter the commencement should be in the Name of
God (i.e., everything we do must begin with the Name of God). As to its
observance in the divine tablets, the purport is this: The reality of the
Divine Entity is holy above comprehension, beyond definition, and far from the
reach of imagination, for that which is imagined is finite, of man, and thereto
man is infinite; and certainly the infinite is greater than the finite.
Therefore, it is made evident that what is imagined is a creation and not the
Creator, for the Essence of Divinity is beyond human imagination.
Now all people worship an imagination, for they have created
a God in the realm of imagination and him they worship. If you ask a soul, when
he is praying, who art thou worshiping? He will say, God. Which God? The God of
my conception. When, in truth, what he imagines is not God. Hence, all people
are worshippers of imaginations and ideals. Consequently, there is no pathway
or escape for man except the Holy Manifestations, for, as we said the Essence
of Divinity is pure, is holy and cannot be brought into the world of ideas.
That which can be brought to ideation are the Holy and Divine Manifestations.
Further than this, man has no other point for concentration. If he exceed that
bound, it will be an imagination.
Therefore, the purpose of the word "He is God" is
this: That visible Majesty (the prophet) is the Promised Beauty of the Sun of
Reality, the Manifestation of the mysteries of Divinity and Deity, the Revealer
of the mysteries of the Merciful, the Origin of the signs of singleness. And I
begin with His Blessed Name.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (Excerpts from a table talk in Akka
in 1907, notes taken by Corine True; ‘Notes Taken at Acca’, booklet published
by Baha’i Publishing Society, Chicago 1907)
Another Source:
Thou hast asked regarding the phrase, "He is God!"
written above the Tablets. By this word it is intended that no one hath any
access to the Invisible Essence. The way is barred and the road is impassable.
In this world all men must turn their faces toward "Him-whom God-shall-Manifest."
He is the "Dawning-place of Divinity" and the "Manifestation of
Deity." He is the "Ultimate Goal," the "Adored One" of
all and the "Worshipped One" of all. Otherwise, whatever flashes through
the mind is not that Essence of essences and the Reality of realities; nay,
rather it is pure imagination woven by man and is surrounded, not the
surrounding. Consequently, it returns finally to the realm and conjectures.
- ‘Abdu'l-Baha ('Tablets of ‘Abdu'l-Baha vol. 3')
