From the Twenty‑Sixth WordConclusion
Five paragraphs which silenced the Old Said’s rebellious, proud, vain, conceited, and hypocritical soul, and compelled it to submit.
First Paragraph: Since things exist and they are full of art, they surely have a maker. As is decisively proved in the Twenty‑Second Word, if everything is not one person’s, then each thing becomes as difficult and problematical as all things. Since someone made the earth and the heavens and created them, for sure that most wise and skilful Being would not leave to others living beings, which are the fruits, results, and aims of the heavens and the earth, and so spoil his work. Making it futile and without purpose, He would not hand over all His wise works to others; He would not give their thanks and worship to others.
Second Paragraph: O my conceited soul! You resemble a grape‑vine. Don’t be proud! The vine itself did not attach the bunches of grapes; someone else attached them.##Third Section
Third Paragraph: O my hypocritical soul! Do not become vain, saying: “I have served religion.” According to what the saying signifies, Allah the Most High strengthens this religion by means of sinful men, it was because you were not purified. Indeed, you should know yourself to be such a sinful man, and that your duty and worship is thanks for past bounties. For these are the function of your nature, incumbent on you due to your creation, and the result of art; know this and be saved from vanity and hypocrisy!
Fourth Paragraph: If you want knowledge of reality and true wisdom, gain knowledge of Allah the Most High. For the realities of beings are rays of the divine name of Truth and the manifestations of His names and attributes. The reality of all things, whether physical, non‑physical, essential, non-essential, and the reality of all human beings, is based on a name and relies on its reality. Things are not merely insignificant forms without reality. There is a brief discussion of this mystery at the end of the Twentieth Word.
O my soul! If you long for the life of this world and flee death, know certainly that the conditions you suppose to be life are only the minute in which you are. All the time previous to the present minute and the things of the world within that time are dead in the present minute. And all the time subsequent to the present minute and all it contains are non‑existent in it, and nothing. This means that the physical life on which you rely is only a minute. Some of the learned, even, said it was a tenth of a minute, rather, the passing instant. It is due to this mystery that some saints stated that this world is non-existent in respect of this world.
Since it is thus, give up the physical life of the soul; rise to the level of life of the heart, spirit, and inner faculties; see the broad sphere of life they enjoy. For them, the past and the future, which for you are dead, are living; they are existent and full of life. O my soul! Weep like my heart, and cry out and say:“I am ephemeral; I want no other who is thus;I am impotent; I want no other who is thus.I have surrendered my spirit to the Most Merciful; I want no other.I want another, but let him be an eternal friend.I am a mere atom, but I desire an Everlasting Sun.I am nothing, yet I wish for these beings, all of them.”