pure
independence would become mere poverty, and true existence would become
nonexistence, and this is impossible.

Therefore, all creatures emanate from God--that is to say, it is by God
that all things are realized, and by Him that all beings have attained to
existence. The first thing which emanated from God is that universal
reality, which the ancient philosophers termed the "First Mind," and which
the people of Baha call the "First Will." This emanation, in that which
concerns its action in the world of God, is not limited by time or place;
it is without beginning or end--beginning and end in relation to God are
one. The preexistence of God is the preexistence of essence, and also
preexistence of time, and the phenomenality of contingency is essential
and not temporal, as we have already explained one day at table.(144)

Though the "First Mind" is without beginning, it does not become a sharer
in the preexistence of God, for the existence of the universal reality in
relation to the existence of God is nothingness, and it has not the power
to become an associate of God and like unto Him in preexistence. This
subject has been before explained.

The existence of living things signifies composition, and their death,
decomposition. But universal matter and the elements do not become
absolutely annihilated and destroyed. No, their nonexistence is simply
transformation. For instance, when man is annihilated, he becomes dust;
but he does not become absolutely nonexistent. He still exists in the
shape of dust, but transformation has taken place, and this composition is
accidentally decomposed. The annihilation of the other beings is the same,
for existence does not become absolute nonexistence, and absolute
nonexistence does not become existence.

54: ON THE PROCEEDING OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT FROM GOD

Question.--In the Bible it is said that God breathed the spirit into the
body of man. What is the meaning of this verse?

Answer.--Know that proceeding is of two kinds: the proceeding and
appearance through emanation, and the proceeding and appearance through
manifestation. The proceeding through emanation is like the coming forth
of the action from the actor, of the writing from the writer. Now the
writing emanates from the writer, and the discourse emanates from the
speaker, and in the same way the human spirit emanates from God. It is not
that it manifests God--that is to say, no part has been detached from the