“The place of his acquisition is a place known.”
The explanation of this is, that, as the elemental body cannot deviate from the elemental world, and the soul, however composed it may be, cannot make a step out of the nether dominion, as well as the heart cannot leave the outer skirts of the upper angelic courts, so that the mystery never comes forth from the middle of the upper dominion, and the spirit cannot make a step out of the extreme ends of the upper regions into the âalem-i-jabrút, “the highest empyreal heaven,” and the hidden cannot transgress the empyreal world. Hence proceeds the sense of ghaib al ghaiyûb, “evanescence of evanescences,” the mysterious hidden.
The Enka, upon the mount Kâf,[210] is divinity, and there is annihilation into God. He does not allow plurality nor partnership of eternal beauty and strength, and from that exalted station there is no descent. When a bird or man is annihilated, a name is always without a designate object. Vás el, “the perfect master of union,”[211] finds in this station by annihilation into God emancipation from the confinement of visible existence, and acquires with an eternal mansion the intimate connection with God, and an exit from the garment of servitude, and becomes endowed with divine qualities. In the station of transition into God, Jabríil is the image of wisdom and of manifest knowledge, on which account it has been declared—
“There are moments when I am with God in such a manner that neither angel nor archangel, prophet nor apostle, can attain to it.”
When at the time of transition, science, comprehension, knowledge, and all qualities are cancelled and vanish, then transitory knowledge unites with the perfect science, the dangers of mankind are carried off and disappear, before the rays of light of the supreme Being. And this is the kind of knowledge which Jabríil revealed. Above this station resides the absolute Being. Again, ascent and descent, and letter and sound denote the meaning that mankind comprises all qualities—the high and the low; by the exigency of its united properties, at times drowned in the ocean of unity, man is bewildered; and, at times, yielding to this prevailing nature, he associates with women. Know what Shaikh Aziz Nasfy says: Men, devoted to God’s unity declared, regarding the expression táí asmavat, “the folding up heaven,” that “heaven” signifies something that is high and of a bountiful expansion[212] with respect to those who are below it, and this, causing a bountiful communication, may take place either in the spiritual or in the material world; the bestower of the bountiful communication may be from the latter, he may be from the former, world. Further, any thing may be either terrestrial or heavenly. If thou hast well conceived the sense of the heavenly and terrestrial, know that mankind has four nishá, “stages,”[213] in like manner as the blasts of the trumpet are four times repeated: because death and life have four periods. In the first stage, man is living under the form of a thing; but, with respect to qualities and reason, he is a dead thing. In the second stage, under the form of mind, he is a living thing, but, with respect to qualities and reason, a dead thing. In the third stage, under the form of mind, qualities he is a living thing, but, with respect to reason, a dead thing. In the fourth stage, under the form of mind, qualities, and reason, he is a living thing. In the first stage, he is entirely in the sleep of ignorance, darkness, and stupidity, as
“Darkness upon darkness——”
In this stage he awakes from the first sleep; in the second stage, from the second; in the third, from the third sleep; in the fourth stage, from the last sleep; and in this awaking of the heart he becomes thoroughly and entirely awake, and acquires perfect possession of himself, and knows positively that all he had known in the three preceeding stages was not so: because truth, having been but imaginary, was falsehood; and that heaven and earth, as they had been understood before, were not so. Further, in this stage, earth will not be that earth, and heaven not that heaven, which men knew before. This is the meaning of the words:
“On the day when the earth shall be changed into something else than the earth, as well as the heaven, and when all that shall be manifested by the power of God, the only one, the Almighty.”[214]
And when they arrived at that station and possessed positively the form of mind, qualities, and reason of an individual, certainly they knew by means of revelation and inspiration, that except one there is no being, and this being is God, the glorious and sublime; they were informed of the real state of things from the beginning to the utmost extremity. In the account concerning the obscuration of the moon, and sun, and stars, they said: that stars have their meaning from the beginning of the light, which is produced in the hearts of the intelligent and select; that the sun denotes the utmost fulness and universality of light; and that the moon, a mediator between the sun and the star,[215] from all sides, spreads their tidings. Then the sun is the universal bestower of abundant blessings; the moon is in one respect “a benefactor,” in another respect, “benefitted.” As often as the sun’s light, which is the universal light, manifests and spreads itself, unity of light comes forth; the light of the moon and that of the stars is effaced by the light of the sun. From the beginning, the prophet says, that—
“When the stars shall fall,