The Fourth Degree of the Luminous VerseFor Us Allah Suffices
One time, when a period of heedlessness coincided with my being shaken by various indispositions like old age, exile, illness, and defeat, I was overcome by a grievous anxiety that my very existence, to which I was intensely attached and by which I was captivated, would cease to be, as would the existences of all creatures. Again I had recourse to the verse For us Allah suffices. It told me: “Study my meaning and look through the telescope of belief!”
I looked and I saw through the eyes of belief that my miniscule being was the mirror to an infinite existence, and through an infinite expansion was the means of gaining innumerable existences; it was a word of wisdom yielding the fruits of numerous everlasting existences far surpassing itself in value. I understood with the knowledge of certainty that due to its relation with that infinite existence, to live for an instant was as valuable as existing eternally.
For by understanding through the insight of belief that my being is the work, artefact and manifestation of the Necessarily Existent, I was saved from the endless darkness of desolate fears and the pains of innumerable separations. I knew that within a temporary separation was a permanent union with the beings I loved, with which, through bonds of brotherhood to the number of divine names manifested in the acts related to living creatures in particular, I had gained a relation.
It is clear that those who share the same village, town or country, or the same regiment, commander, or master will feel a close brotherhood and warm friendship, while those deprived of such bonds feel a constant painful torment surrounded by darkness. The fruits of a tree, too, if they had intelligence, would feel that they were brothers, companions, and observers of each other. If the tree ceased to exist or they were plucked from it, they would experience separations to the number of fruits.
Thus, through belief and the relation that results from it, my existence – like that of all believers – gains the lights of myriad existences untouched by separation. Even if it departs itself, it is content, for they remain behind as though it had itself remained.
Moreover, as is demonstrated in detail in the Twenty‑Fourth Letter, the existences of all living creatures and particularly those with spirits, are like words. They are spoken and written down, then disappear. But in place of their own existences, they leave behind numerous existences which may be counted as second degree existences, such as their meanings, their similitudes and forms, and their results, and if they are blessed, their rewards and their realities. Only then do they pass beneath the veil.
In just the same way, when they depart from external existence, my existence and the existences of all living creatures leave behind them their spirits, if they possess them, and their meanings, and realities, and similitudes, and the worldly results and fruits of the hereafter produced by them individually; they leave their forms and their identities behind in memories and on the Preserved Tablet, and in the films displaying eternal vistas, and in the exhibitions of pre‑eternal knowledge; and they leave the divine glorifications offered by their essential beings, which represent them and give them permanence, in the notebooks of their deeds; and their innate responses to the manifestations of the divine names and what the names necessitate, and their being existent mirrors to them, they leave in the sphere of the names. They leave behind in their places numerous non-physical existences like these, more valuable than their external existences, then they depart. This I knew with the knowledge of certainty.
Thus, through belief and the insight and relationship resulting from belief, one may lay claim to the above‑mentioned everlasting, immaterial existences. In the absence of belief, besides being deprived of all those other existences, even one’s own existence goes for nothing, for oneself, and is lost in non-existence.
At one time, I felt great sorrow at the speedy destruction of the spring flowers; I even pitied those delicate creatures. But the above‑mentioned truth arising from belief shows that such flowers are seeds in the world of meaning. Each like a fruit-producing tree or a shoot, – in respect of the lights of existence – all those existences apart from spirit, as explained above, produce a hundredfold profit. Their external existences do not go to non-existence, they are hidden. They are also the new forms of the permanent reality of a species. For the beings of last spring such as the leaves, flowers, and fruits are the same as those of this spring; the difference is only apparent. I realized that the apparent difference, even, was to allow those words of wisdom, phrases of mercy, and letters of power to acquire numerous different meanings. Instead of lamenting, I exclaimed: “What wonders Allah has willed! How great are His blessings!”
Thus, through the insight of belief and by being connected through belief to the Maker of the heavens and earth, I perceived from afar what a source of pride and honour it is to be the work of art of a craftsman who adorns the skies with stars and the earth with flowers and exquisite creatures, and demonstrates a hundred miracles in every one of his artefacts –how precious and unique it was to have been made by such a wondrous artist. The verse taught me in particular that since that wonder‑working Artist had inscribed in the tiny copy of man the mighty book of the vast heavens and earth, even making him a choice and perfect summary of the book, what a great honour and achievement and way of acquiring value it was for man, and that through the relation and insight of belief, he could receive and lay claim to that honour. Conceiving of all beings in my mind, I formed the intention and declared through the tongues of all of them: For us Allah suffices; and He is the Best Disposer of Affairs!