THE ELEVENTH PHRASE: “And with Him all things have their end”
Human beings are sent to this world, the realm of trial and examination, with the important duties of trading and acting as officials. After they have concluded their transactions, accomplished their duties, and completed their service, they will return and meet once more with their Generous Master and Glorious Creator who sent them forth in the first place. Leaving this transient realm, they will be honoured and elevated to the presence of grandeur in the realm of permanence. That is to say, being delivered from the turbulence of causes and from the obscure veils of intermediaries, they will meet with their Merciful Sustainer without veil at the seat of His eternal majesty. Everyone will find his Creator, True Object of Worship, Sustainer, Lord, and Owner and will know Him directly. Thus, this phrase proclaims the following joyful news, which is greater than all the rest:
O man! Do you know where you are going and where you are being driven? As is stated at the end of the Thirty-Second Word, a thousand years of happy life in this world cannot be compared to one hour of life in Paradise. And a thousand years of life in Paradise cannot be compared to one hour’s vision of the sheer loveliness of the Beauteous One of Glory. You are going to the realm of His mercy, and to His presence.
The loveliness and beauty in all the creatures of this world and in those worldly beloveds by which you are so stricken and obsessed and for which you are so desirous, are but a sort of shadow of the manifestation of His beauty and of the loveliness of His names; and all Paradise with all of its subtle wonders, a single manifestation of His mercy; and all longing and love and allurement and captivation, but a flash of the love of the Eternal Worshipful One and Everlasting Beloved. You are going to the sphere of His presence. You are being summoned to Paradise, which is an eternal feasting place. Since this is so, you should enter the grave not weeping, but smiling in expectation.
The phrase announces this good news as well: O man! Do not be apprehensive, imagining that you are going to extinction, non-existence, nothingness, darkness, oblivion, decay, and dissolution, and that you will drown in multiplicity. You are going not to extinction, but to permanence. You are being impelled not to non-existence, but to perpetual existence. You are going to enter not darkness, but the world of light. And you are returning to your true owner, to the seat of the Pre-Eternal Monarch. You will not drown in multiplicity, you will take your rest in the realm of unity. You are bound not for separation, but for union.”