vanish. Another group comes for a minute and then passes on. One species stops by in the Manifest Word for an hour, then enters the World of the Unseen. Some of them come and alight in the Manifest World for a day, some of them for a year, some for a century, and some for an age; they perform their duties and then depart.
This astonishing travelling and passage of beings and flow and flux of creatures is driven and directed with such order, balance and wisdom, and the one who commands them and those convoys does so with such insight, purpose and planning that even if all minds were to unite and become one mind, it would be unable to comprehend the essence of this wise direction; it would be unable to find any fault in it and so could not criticize it.
Thus, within this dominical activity, not allowing any of those pleasing creatures that it loves, especially animate creatures, to open their eyes, the pen of divine determining and decree despatches them to the World of the Unseen; not permitting them even to draw a breath, it discharges them from the life of this world. It continuously fills the guesthouse of the world and empties it without the guests’ consent. Making the globe of the earth like a slate for writing and erasing, through the manifestation of
He grants life and deals death,(2:258)
the pen of divine determining and decree ceaselessly inscribes writings on it, and renews and replaces them.
One meaning of the wisdom in this dominical activity and divine creativity and a fundamental requirement and a motive cause of them is a limitless, endless instance of wisdom that may be divided into three important branches.
The First Branch of that wisdom is this: Every sort of activity, whether particular or universal, yields pleasure. There is a pleasure in all activity. Indeed, activity is pure pleasure. Yes, activity is the manifestation of existence, which is pure pleasure and is the shaking off and becoming distant from non-existence, which is pure suffering.
Everyone with ability follows with pleasure the unfolding of his ability through activity. The revealing of innate talents through activity arises from a pleasure and results in a pleasure. Everyone who possesses some perfections follows with pleasure their disclosure through activity.
Since there is present in every activity a perfection and pleasure which is thus loved and sought after, and activity too is a perfection; and since there are apparent in the world of animate creatures the manifestations of a boundless love and infinite compassion which arise from a perpetual and pre-eternal life; those manifestations show that as the requirement of that