Next the one making these claims went and addressed the broad carpet covering the face of the earth and the lavishly decorated and embroidered shirt clothing it on behalf of causes and in the language of Nature and philosophy, claiming: "I can have control over you and be your owner, or at least have a share in you." So the shirt, the carpet,4 said to him on behalf of truth and reality and through the tongue of wisdom:
"If you have the power and art to weave and create all the well-ordered and purposeful shirts and carpets, whose embroideries are all different, which have clothed the earth to the number of years and centuries, then have been removed in an orderly fashion and strung on the line of past time, and will clothe the earth again, carpets and shirts whose programmes and forms have been drawn and specified in the sphere of Divine Determining, and which will be attached to the ribbon of future time, and if you have two wise and powerful hands with which to reach from the creation of the world to its destruction, indeed, from pre-eternity to post-eternity, and if you have the wisdom and ability to create every one of all my threads and to repair and renew them with perfect order and wisdom, and if you are able to hold in your hand and create the globe of the earth, which is our model, is wearing us, and makes us its veil and outer garment, then you can claim to have mastery over me. If you cannot, then away with you! There is no place for you here!
"Moreover, there is on us such a stamp of Unity and seal of Oneness that one who does not have the whole universe within the grasp of his power, and who cannot see at one time all things with all their functions, and cannot do innumerable things at the same time, who is not all-present and all-seeing everywhere, who is not unconfined by space, and who does not possess infinite wisdom, knowledge, and power, such a one cannot own us, neither could he interfere."
So the representative went off, saying: "Perhaps I will be able to persuade the globe of the earth and find something going for me there." So he went and said to the globe of the earth,5 once again on behalf of causes and in the language of Nature: "Since you travel in such an aimless manner, you demonstrate that you have no owner. In which case, you can be mine." To which the earth replied in a thunderous voice, in the name of truth and with the tongue of reality:
"Do not talk such utter nonsense! How could I be just aimless and without an owner? Have you found my garments or even the tiniest point or thread in them to be in disarray, without order, and have you seen them to be without wisdom, purpose and art that you tell me I am ownerless an aimless?
"If you can really own my vast orbit round which I travel in one year, a distance that should take approximately twenty-five thousand years,6 where I perform my duty of service with perfect balance and wisdom, and own the ten planets, which are my brothers and are charged with duties like myself, together with the space through which they travel, and if you have infinite wisdom and power with which to create and position the sun, which is our leader and to which we are bound and attached by a compassionate attraction, and to fasten me and the other planets to it like stones in a sling, and to employ us and cause us to revolve with perfect order and wisdom, then you can claim to have mastery over me. But if you cannot, get out! Go to Hell! I've got work to do, my duty to perform.