or the
heavenly bounties and seek for the Divine Aurora. In every place where it
appears, one must become its distracted lover. Consider that if the Jews
had not kept turning to the horizon of Moses, and had only regarded the
Sun of Reality, without any doubt they would have recognized the Sun in
the dawning-place of the reality of Christ, in the greatest divine
splendor. But, alas! a thousand times alas! attaching themselves to the
outward words of Moses, they were deprived of the divine bounties and the
lordly splendors!

15: TRUE WEALTH

The honor and exaltation of every existing being depends upon causes and
circumstances.

The excellency, the adornment and the perfection of the earth is to be
verdant and fertile through the bounty of the clouds of springtime. Plants
grow; flowers and fragrant herbs spring up; fruit-bearing trees become
full of blossoms and bring forth fresh and new fruit. Gardens become
beautiful, and meadows adorned; mountains and plains are clad in a green
robe, and gardens, fields, villages and cities are decorated. This is the
prosperity of the mineral world.

The height of exaltation and the perfection of the vegetable world is that
a tree should grow on the bank of a stream of fresh water, that a gentle
breeze should blow on it, that the warmth of the sun should shine on it,
that a gardener should attend to its cultivation, and that day by day it
should develop and yield fruit. But its real prosperity is to progress
into the animal and human world, and replace that which has been exhausted
in the bodies of animals and men.

The exaltation of the animal world is to possess perfect members, organs
and powers, and to have all its needs supplied. This is its chief glory,
its honor and exaltation. So the supreme happiness of an animal is to have
possession of a green and fertile meadow, perfectly pure flowing water,
and a lovely, verdant forest. If these things are provided for it, no
greater prosperity can be imagined. For example, if a bird builds its nest
in a green and fruitful forest, in a beautiful high place, upon a strong
tree, and at the top of a lofty branch, and if it finds all it needs of
seeds and water, this is its perfect prosperity.

But real prosperity for the animal consists in passing from the animal
world to the human world, like the microscopic beings that, through the
water and air, enter into man and are assimilated, and replace that which
has been consumed in