n and transmigration. Believers in it
consider the body as a vessel in which the spirit is contained, as water
is contained in a cup; this water has been taken from one cup and poured
into another. This is child's play. They do not realize that the spirit is
an incorporeal being, and does not enter and come forth, but is only
connected with the body as the sun is with the mirror. If it were thus,
and the spirit by returning to this material world could pass through the
degrees and attain to essential perfection, it would be better if God
prolonged the life of the spirit in the material world until it had
acquired perfections and graces; it then would not be necessary for it to
taste of the cup of death, or to acquire a second life.

The idea that existence is restricted to this perishable world, and the
denial of the existence of divine worlds, originally proceeded from the
imaginations of certain believers in reincarnation; but the divine worlds
are infinite. If the divine worlds culminated in this material world,
creation would be futile: nay, existence would be pure child's play. The
result of these endless beings, which is the noble existence of man, would
come and go for a few days in this perishable dwelling, and after
receiving punishments and rewards, at last all would become perfect. The
divine creation and the infinite existing beings would be perfected and
completed, and then the Divinity of the Lord, and the names and qualities
of God, on behalf of these spiritual beings, would, as regards their
effect, result in laziness and inaction! "Glory to thy Lord, the Lord Who
is sanctified from all their descriptions."(168)

Such were the limited minds of the former philosophers, like Ptolemy and
the others who believed and imagined that the world, life and existence
were restricted to this terrestrial globe, and that this boundless space
was confined within the nine spheres of heaven, and that all were empty
and void. Consider how greatly their thoughts were limited and how weak
their minds. Those who believe in reincarnation think that the spiritual
worlds are restricted to the worlds of human imagination. Moreover, some
of them, like the Druzes and the Nusayris, think that existence is
restricted to this physical world. What an ignorant supposition! For in
this universe of God, which appears in the most complete perfection,
beauty and grandeur, the luminous stars of the material universe are
innumerable! Then we