|  | 156: O thou servant of the Holy Threshold!  We have ... | 
	| 1 | O thou servant of the Holy Threshold!  We have read what flowed out from thy pen in thy love for God, 
and found the contents of thy letter most pleasing.  My hope 
is that through the bounty of God, the breaths of the All-Merciful 
will at all times refresh and renew thee. | 
	| 2 | Thou didst write of reincarnation.  A belief in reincarnation 
goeth far back into the ancient history of almost all 
peoples, and was held even by the philosophers of Greece, 
the Roman sages, the ancient Egyptians, and the great 
Assyrians.  Nevertheless such superstitions and sayings are 
but absurdities in the sight of God. | 
	| 3 | The major argument of the reincarnationists was this, 
that according to the justice of God, each must receive his 
due:  whenever a man is afflicted with some calamity, for 
example, this is because of some wrong he hath committed.  
But take a child that is still in its mother's womb, the 
embryo but newly formed, and that child is blind, deaf, 
lame, defective--what sin hath such a child committed, to 
deserve its afflictions?  They answer that, although to outward 
seeming the child, still in the womb, is guilty of no 
sin--nevertheless he perpetrated some wrong when in his 
previous form, and thus he came to deserve his punishment. | 
	| 4 | These individuals, however, have overlooked the following 
point.  If creation went forward according to only one 
rule, how could the all-encompassing Power make Itself 
felt?  How could the Almighty be the One Who `doeth as 
He pleaseth and ordaineth as He willeth'?
[cf. Qur'án 3:35; 2:254] | 
	| 5 | Briefly, a return is indeed referred to in the Holy Scriptures, 
but by this is meant the return of the qualities, conditions, 
effects, perfections, and inner realities of the lights 
which recur in every dispensation.  The reference is not to 
specific, individual souls and identities. | 
	| 6 | It may be said, for instance, that this lamplight is last 
night's come back again, or that last year's rose hath returned 
to the garden this year.  Here the reference is not to 
the individual reality, the fixed identity, the specialized 
being of that other rose, rather doth it mean that the qualities, 
the distinctive characteristics of that other light, that 
other flower, are present now, in these.  Those perfections, 
that is, those graces and gifts of a former springtime are 
back again this year.  We say, for example, that this fruit is 
the same as last year's; but we are thinking only of the 
delicacy, bloom and freshness, and the sweet taste of it; for 
it is obvious that that impregnable centre of reality, that 
specific identity, can never return. | 
	| 7 | What peace, what ease and comfort did the Holy Ones 
of God ever discover during Their sojourn in this nether 
world, that They should continually seek to come back and 
live this life again?  Doth not a single turn at this anguish, 
these afflictions, these calamities, these body blows, these 
dire straits, suffice, that They should wish for repeated visits 
to the life of this world?  This cup was not so sweet that one 
would care to drink of it a second time. | 
	| 8 | Therefore do the lovers of the Abhá Beauty wish for no 
other recompense but to reach that station where they may 
gaze upon Him in the Realm of Glory, and they walk no 
other path save over desert sands of longing for those 
exalted heights.  They seek that ease and solace which will 
abide forever, and those bestowals that are sanctified beyond 
the understanding of the worldly mind. | 
	| 9 | When thou lookest about thee with a perceptive eye, 
thou wilt note that on this dusty earth all humankind are 
suffering.  Here no man is at rest as a reward for what he 
hath performed in former lives; nor is there anyone so 
blissful as seemingly to pluck the fruit of bygone anguish.  
 
And if a human life, with its spiritual being, were limited 
to this earthly span, then what would be the harvest of 
creation?  Indeed, what would be the effects and the outcomes 
of Divinity Itself?  Were such a notion true, then all 
created things, all contingent realities, and this whole 
world of being--all would be meaningless.  God forbid 
that one should hold to such a fiction and gross error. | 
	| 10 | For just as the effects and the fruitage of the uterine life 
are not to be found in that dark and narrow place, and only 
when the child is transferred to this wide earth do the 
benefits and uses of growth and development in that previous 
world become revealed--so likewise reward and 
punishment, heaven and hell, requital and retribution for 
actions done in this present life, will stand revealed in that 
other world beyond.  And just as, if human life in the womb 
were limited to that uterine world, existence there would 
be nonsensical, irrelevant--so too if the life of this world, 
the deeds here done and their fruitage, did not come forth 
in the world beyond, the whole process would be irrational 
and foolish. | 
	| 11 | Know then that the Lord God possesseth invisible realms 
which the human intellect can never hope to fathom nor 
the mind of man conceive.  When once thou hast cleansed 
the channel of thy spiritual sense from the pollution of this 
worldly life, then wilt thou breathe in the sweet scents of 
holiness that blow from the blissful bowers of that heavenly 
land. | 
	| 12 | The Glory rest upon thee, and upon whosoever turneth 
toward and gazeth on the Kingdom of the All-Glorious, 
which the Lord hath sanctified beyond the understanding of 
those who are neglectful of Him, and hath hid from the 
eyes of those who show Him pride. |