Is it at all possible that the Munificent and Compassionate Creator would accept the insignificant wish of the tiny stomach and its supplication through the tongue of disposition for a temporary immortality by creating innumerable delicious foods, and not accept the  intense desire of all humankind, which arises from an overpowering innate need, and its universal, constant, rightful, just prayer for immortality, offered through word and state? God  forbid, a hundred thousand times! It is impossible that He would not accept it. Not to accept it would be in keeping with neither his wisdom, nor His justice, nor His mercy, nor His power.

Since man is most desirous of immortality, all his perfections and pleasures are dependent upon it. And since immortality is particular to the Eternal One of Glory; and since the Eternal One’s names are enduring and immortal; and since the Eternal One’s mirrors take on the hue of the Eternal One, and reflect His decree, and manifest a sort of immortality; for sure the matter most important for man, his most pressing duty, is to form a relation with  that  Eternal One and to adhere to His names. For everything expended on the way of the Eternal One receives a sort of immortality. The second “O Eternal One, You alone are Eternal!” expresses this truth. In addition to  healing  man’s  innumerable  spiritual  wounds,  it  satisfies  the  intense  wish  for immortality inherent in his nature.

THIRD POINT

In this world, the effects of time on things, and on their passing, differ greatly. Beings are one within the other like concentric circles, yet they differ in regard to the speed of their passage.

Just as the hands of a clock counting the seconds, and those counting the minutes,

hours, and days superficially resemble each other but differ in respect of their speed, so too the spheres of the body, soul, heart, and spirit in man differ from one another. For example, the body possesses an immortality, a life, and an existence in the present day, and even in the present hour while its past and future are dead and non-existent, but the heart’s sphere of existence and life extends from many days previous to the present day and to many days in the future. Then the sphere of the spirit is vast; its life and existence extends from years previous to the present day to years subsequent to it.

By virtue of this capacity – in respect of knowledge, love, and worship of God the Lord and Sustainer and the pleasure of that Most Merciful One, from which spring the  life of the  heart and  spirit  –  transient  life  in this  world  contains within  it  a perpetual life, results in an eternal life, and resembles everlasting life.