There is many an utterance of the mystic seers and doctors of former times which I have not mentioned here, since I mislike the copious citation from sayings of the past; for quotation from the words of others proveth acquired learning, not the divine bestowal.  Even so much as We have quoted here is out of deference to the wont of men and after the manner of the friends.  Further, such matters are beyond the scope of this epistle.  Our unwillingness to recount their sayings is not from pride, rather is it a manifestation of wisdom and a demonstration of grace.

    If Khidr did wreck the vessel on the sea,
    Yet in this wrong there are a thousand rights.(47)

Otherwise, this Servant regardeth Himself as utterly lost and as nothing, even beside one of the beloved of God, how much less in the presence of His holy ones.  Exalted be My Lord, the Supreme!  Moreover, our aim is to recount the stages of the wayfarer’s journey, not to set forth the conflicting utterances of the mystics.

Although a brief example hath been given concerning the beginning and ending of the relative world, the world of attributes, yet a second illustration is now added, that the full meaning may be manifest.  For instance, let thine Eminence consider his own self; thou art first in relation to thy son, last in relation to thy father.  In thine outward appearance, thou tellest of the appearance of power in the realms of divine creation; in thine inward being thou revealest the hidden mysteries which are the divine trust deposited within thee.  And thus firstness and lastness, outwardness and inwardness are, in the sense referred to, true of thyself, that in these four states conferred upon thee thou shouldst comprehend the four divine states, and that the nightingale of thine heart on all the branches of the rosetree of existence, whether visible or concealed, should cry out:  “He is the first and the last, the Seen and the Hidden...."(48)

These statements are made in the sphere of that which is relative, because of the limitations of men.  Otherwise, those personages who in a single step have passed over the world of the relative and the limited, and dwelt on the fair plane of the Absolute, and pitched their tent in the worlds of authority and command—­have burned away these relativities with a single spark, and blotted out these words with a drop of dew.  And they swim in the sea of the spirit, and soar in the holy air of light.  Then what life have words, on such a plane, that “first” and “last” or other than these be seen or mentioned!  In this realm, the first is the last itself, and the last is but the first.

    In thy soul of love build thou a fire
    And burn all thoughts and words entire.(49)

O my friend, look upon thyself:  Hadst thou not become a father nor begotten a son, neither wouldst thou have heard these sayings.  Now forget them all, that thou mayest learn from the Master of Love in the schoolhouse of oneness, and return unto God, and forsake the inner land of unreality(50) for thy true station, and dwell within the shadow of the tree of knowledge.