also the earth, in its yearly rotation, like a ship or a train, laden with the finest of the hundreds of thousands of vital human necessities, proceeding from the World of the Unseen; and He sends to us too the spring, like a waggon carrying food and clothing for us. Thus does he nurture us, with utmost compassion. In order for us to profit from those gifts and bounties, He has moreover given us hundreds and thousands of appetities, needs, feelings, sensations and senses.

As was set forth in the Fourth Ray concerning the verse on the sufficiency of God, He has given us a stomach that can take pleasure in infinite varieties of food.

He has given us such a life that through the senses associated with it we can derive benefit from the innumerable bounties of the vast corporeal world, just as if it were some bounteous spread.

He has favoured us with the human state so that we delight in the boundless gifts of both the spiritual and material worlds, through instruments such as the intellect and the heart.

He has conveyed Islam to us so that we derive light from the boundless treasuries of the Unseen and Manifest Realms.

He has guided us to faith so that we are illumined by the innumerable lights and gifts of this world and the hereafter. This cosmos is like a palace fitted out and adorned by the Divine quality of mercy with innumerable antiques and valuable items, which then gives to man’s hands the keys to open all the chests and chambers in that palace, as well as bestowing on man’s nature all the needs and senses that will enable him to make use of them.

This mercy that embraces this world and the hereafter, and indeed all things, is without doubt a manifestation of oneness within unity.

Just as the light of the sun is a parable of unity, through its comprehending all things that face it, every bright and transparent object that receives the reflection of the light, heat, and seven colours of the sun, is also a parable and a symbol of oneness. Hence, whoever sees its all-embracing light will conclude that the sun of this earth is one and unique. Witnessing the warm and luminous reflection of the sun in all bright objects, and even in drops of water, he will say that the oneness of the sun, or the sun itself, is present with its attributes