The Seventeenth Flash

Would you then have any doubt that the builder of that palace must be a wondrous sovereign who rules over the whole earth?

Indeed, every living being is such a palace built by Allah. And among those palaces, the human being is the most beautiful and exquisitely fashioned.

Some of the jewels from which this human palace is constructed come from the ālam-i arwāhThe spiritual realm of souls and spiritual beings., some from the ālam-i mithālThe immaterial realm in which the images of all existence and events are reflected., some from the Lawh-i MahfūzThe Preserved Tablet, the immaterial record in which everything that has occurred and everything that will occur has been inscribed in detail., and still others from the realms of air, light, and the elements.

Moreover, the needs of such a human being extend into eternity; his desires are not confined to this world, but reach as far as the heavens; and his sphere of concern is so vast that he has ties with both this world and the Hereafter.

O you who regard yourself as a human being! Since this is your true nature, the One Who created you can only be the One Who governs with perfect ease the world and the Hereafter, the earth and the heavens, the past and the future, and holds them all within His dominion.

Therefore, the One to Whom prayer is offered, in Whom refuge is sought, and by Whom one may be delivered from danger can only be the One Who rules over the earth and the heavens, and over this world and the Hereafter.

The Second Sign

Let us imagine a foolish person who knows nothing of the sun. When he sees the reflection of the sun in a mirror, he begins to value the mirror itself. He cherishes it and strives to preserve it so that the sunlight appearing within it will not be lost.

But when that ignorant person comes to understand that the sun does not set when the mirror perishes, nor disappear when the mirror is broken, he directs all his affection toward the sun in the sky.

He then understands that the sun appearing in the mirror is not dependent upon the mirror, nor does its continuance depend upon it. Rather, it is the sun that produces and sustains the reflection. Thus, the continuance of the sun does not depend upon the mirror; rather, the continuance of the mirror’s luminous brilliance depends upon the manifestation of the sun.

O human being! Your heart, your identity, and your nature are like a mirror. The intense love of eternity placed within your being and your heart is not directed toward that mirror, nor toward your heart, nor toward your nature. Rather, it is directed toward the Bāqī-i Dhul-JalālAllah, Whose existence is everlasting and Whose majesty and exaltedness are boundless., Whose Names are manifested in that mirror according to its capacity. Yet through foolishness, that love has been turned elsewhere.

Therefore, you should say:

يَا بَاقِى أَنْتَ الْبَاقِىO Everlasting One, You are the Everlasting.

That is:

“Since You exist and are everlasting, transience and non-existence can have no effect upon us.”