Reality, Soul and the Worlds of God
II.   Three Conditions of Existence in Reality
C.   The Greater World: The Kingdom of the Manifestation of God
1.   The Condition that God Manifests: The World of Prophethood
[from the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá:]
125.....the Word of God, the Eternal Bounty, the Holy Spirit....has neither beginning nor end, for these things [beginnings and endings] are related to the world of contingencies and not to the divine world. For God the end is the same thing as the beginning. So the reckoning of days, weeks, months and years, of yesterday and today, is connected with the terrestrial globe; but in the sun there is no such thing—there is neither yesterday, today nor tomorrow, neither months nor years: all are equal. In the same way the Word of God is purified from all these conditions and is exempt from the boundaries, the laws and the limits of the world of contingency. Therefore, the reality of prophethood, which is the Word of God and the perfect state of manifestation, did not have any beginning and will not have any end; its rising is different from all others and is like that of the sun.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Some Answered Questions, Chapter 38: “The Three Stations of the Divine Manifestations”, p. 152)
126.....all creatures emanate from God—that is to say, it is by God that all things are realized, and by Him that all beings have attained to existence. The first thing which emanated from God is that universal reality, which the ancient philosophers termed the “First Mind,” and which the people of Bahá call the “First Will.” This emanation, in that which concerns its action in the world of God, is not limited by time or place; it is without beginning or end—beginning and end in relation to God are one. The preexistence of God is the preexistence of essence, and also preexistence of time, and the phenomenality of contingency is essential and not temporal....
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Some Answered Questions, Chapter 53: “The Relation between God and the Creature”, p. 203)
127.Though the “First Mind” is without beginning, it does not become a sharer in the preexistence of God, for the existence of the universal reality in relation to the existence of God is nothingness, and it has not the power to become an associate of God and like unto Him in preexistence.
(‘Abdu’l-Bahá: Some Answered Questions, Chapter 53: “The Relation between God and the Creature”, p. 203)