favour and attraction, you have to work and journey spiritually for thousands of years. For example, if you want to draw close to Him through His name of Creator, you have to have a relationship through the particularities of your own Creator, then in regard to the Creator of all humankind, then through the title of Creator of all living creatures, then through the name of Creator of all beings. Otherwise you will remain in shadow and only find a minor manifestation.

A REMINDER: Because of his impotence, the king in the comparison put means like field marshal and general in the degrees of his names. But the Absolutely Powerful One, “in Whose hand is the dominion of all things”(36:83), has no need of intermediaries. Intermediaries are only apparent; a veil to His dignity and grandeur. They are heralds and observers of the sovereignty of His dominicality immersed in awestruck worship, impotent and wanting. They are not His assistants and cannot be partners in the sovereignty of His dominicality.

Fourth Ray

FOURTH RAY

O my lazy soul! Like the soldier in the previous comparison was received into the royal presence as a pure favour, the reality of the five daily prayers, which are like a sort of Ascension, are a being received into the presence of the All-Glorious One of Beauty, the Beauteous One of Glory, Who is the True Object of Worship, as an instance of pure mercy. Declaring “God is Most Great!”, it is to traverse the two worlds either in the mind or in the imagination or by intention, be divested of the restrictions of materiality, pass to a universal degree of worship or a shadow or form of universality; being honoured with a sort of presence, it is to manifest the address of “You alone do we worship!”(1:5) – each person according to his capacity; it is a truly elevated attainment. The repetition of “God is Most Great! God is Most Great!” in the actions of the prayers indicates rising through the degrees of spiritual progress, and ascending from minor particulars to universal spheres, and is a concise title of the perfections of divine sublimity which are beyond our knowledge. It is as if each “God is Most Great!” indicates traversing a step in the Ascension. To attain to a shadow or a ray of this reality of the prayers either in the mind or by intention or conceptually or with the imagination is a great happiness.

The above is the reason for the frequent declaration of “God is Most Great!” during the Hajj. For the blessed Hajj is worship for everyone at a universal level. Just as on a special day or festival a soldier attends the king’s celebrations like a general in the sphere of general, and receives his favours, in the same way, like a saint who has traversed all the degrees, a