His Third Duty

Through his life, it is to act as a mirror to the Ever-Living and Self-Subsistent One and His qualities and all-embracing attributes in three respects.

First Aspect: This is to perceive through his own absolute impotence the absolute power of his Creator and its levels, and through the degrees of his impotence, the degrees of His power. It is to understand through his own absolute poverty, His mercy and the degrees of His mercy, and through his own weakness, His strength; and so on. Through his own defective attributes, it is to be a mirror which is like a measuring instrument to his Creator’s attributes of perfection. In the same way that the darkness of the night is a perfect mirror for displaying electric light, the brilliance of the light being in proportion to the darkness of the night, man also acts as a mirror to the Divine perfections through his own defective attributes.

Second Aspect: Using the universe as a yardstick and through his own partial will, tiny knowledge, minute power, and apparent ownership, and through building his own house, man understands and acts as a mirror to the ownership, art, will, power, and knowledge of the Fashioner of the universe.

Third Aspect: Man’s acting as a mirror in this respect has two faces:

First: It is to display in himself the ever-differing embroideries of the Divine Names.