| God is Loved Because He is Perfect |
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| Written by mlife.org | |
| Tuesday, 17 January 2006 | |
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'The cause of love is either pleasure or benefit or sexual or natural inclination or perfection. Perfection is loved because of itself.' That is, you love something or someone because of either the pleasure it gives or the benefit it brings or the sexual or natural (fatherly, motherly or filial, etc.) inclination you feel towards it or the perfection it has. If it is perfection which arouses love, there is no need to search for another cause to love. For example, people tend to love men of perfections, of perfect virtues, although they have no relations to them whatever.
So, by virtue of being true, indisputable and infinite, all the perfections of Almighty God and all His Most Beautiful Names are loved because of themselves. The Majestic Being, Who is absolutely worthy of love and the True Beloved One, loves His perfections and the beauties of His Names and Attributes, which are all true, in a manner fitted for Him. He also loves the works of His Art, which are the mirrors to His Perfections, and the beauties of His creatures. He loves His Prophets and saints, and particularly His noble beloved, who is the lord of the Messengers and the master of the saints. Because of His love for His Own Beauty, He loves His beloved, who is the mirror to that Beauty. Because of His love for His Own Names, He loves His beloved, who manifests those Names in a most comprehensive way, and his brothers-the other Prophets-and Companions. Because of His love for His art, He loves His beloved, who displays that art, and those who are like him, that is the rest of the Prophets. Because of His love for His creatures, He loves His beloved, who welcomes those creatures with due appreciation and applause, saying: ‘What wonders God has willed! God bless them! How beautifully they have been created!’, and those who follow him. Because of His love for the beauties of His creatures, He loves His beloved, who is the most comprehensive embodiment of all those beauties and all moral virtues shared by them, and his brothers and followers. All of the perfections in the whole of the universe are the signs of a Majestic One’s perfections and indications of His Beauty. In relation to His perfection, all the beauty and perfection in the universe are an indistinct shadow. The following is a brief pointer to five of the evidences of this reality.
Similarly, the palace of the world, that perfectly built and decorated work, evidently points to the perfection of acts. For the perfection of a work results from the perfection of acts. The perfection of acts necessarily points to the perfection of the Names like the Organizer, the Fashioner, the Wise, the Decorator, the Builder, which are involved in the building of that place. The perfection of the Names and Titles undoubtedly shows the perfection of the qualities or Attributes. For if the attributes are not perfect, the names originating from them cannot be perfect. The perfection of the Attributes evidently demonstrates the perfection of the competence. The perfection of the competence shows of a certainty that the One Who has built that palace is absolutely perfect, for although His perfection has manifested itself through the veils of Attributes, Names, acts and works, still it reveals such faultless perfection and beauty so far as can be observed in the universe. After you see that infinite perfection originating in the Essence of the One Who has it, you may understand how much the relative perfections manifested in comparison to others or by way of contrast signify.
Like a mighty river glittering with the reflections of the sun’s light, the creatures flow over the face of the earth glittering with the reflections of beauty and perfection. Just as the reflections of light in the bubbles on the surface of the river do not originate from the river itself, so too, the beauties and perfections glittering temporarily on the flood of creatures do not belong to the creatures themselves; rather they are the reflections of the lights of the Names of an Eternal Sun. The disappearance of the mirrors and death of the creatures in contrast to the perpetuity of the reflections in them of the inseparable grace and beauty are among the most manifest proofs that the apparent beauty does not belong to those reflecting them, and that there is One with an ideal beauty and an ever-manifested kindness and grace, One Whose existence is absolutely necessary, Who is Eternal and All-Loving.
In the same way, all the people who are able to uncover the hidden truths and have as certain knowledge of them as seeing them with the naked eye, who belong to either the different classes of truth-seeking, purified scholars or the different ways of the saints or the different schools of the sages, all differing from one another in time, place, method, temperament, and capacity, have all unanimously agreed that the beauties and perfections observed in the mirrors of creatures in the universe are the reflections of the Perfection of a Single Necessarily Existent One and the manifestations of the beauty of His Names, their consensus is an unshakeable decisive testimony. The pleasure, beauty and grace a person or a thing has are judged according rather to those that receive and manifest them, than to their opposites. For example, generosity is a beautiful and praiseworthy virtue. A generous person receives pleasure from the happiness of those whom he has favored a thousand times greater than that he receives from his superiority to the others in generosity. Also, a caring and compassionate one feels greater pleasure in proportion to the comfort of those for whom he feels compassion. For example, the pleasure which a mother receives from the happiness and well-being of her children because of her compassion for them is so great and strong that she nearly sacrifices her life for them. The pleasure of that compassion causes a hen to attack a dog to protect her young. Since the true pleasure, beauty and perfection of laudable virtues and praiseworthy qualities are judged according rather to those that they are related with than to their likes or opposites, for sure, the Beauty of the Mercy of the Perfect and All-Gracious One, Who is the All-Living, the Self-Subsistent, the All-Benevolent, the All-Caring, the All-Merciful and the All-Compassion-ate, should be considered in view of the beings He has mercy for. According to the degree of the happiness and well-being of those whom He favors with His Mercy, and particularly of their enjoyment of His bounties in Paradise, the All-Merciful and All-Compassionate One feels what we call sacred love, sacred pleasure, sacred exhilaration and sacred joy, which are in accordance with His Holy, Transcendent Being, and are infinitely greater, more sacred, more elevated and more refined than their counterparts existing in the creation. You may look at a single manifestation of the comprehensive meaning of this mighty truth by means of the telescope of the following comparison. Related Items: |
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