The Mirror of the Excellences of Islam — Page 167
166 Ā'ĪNA-E-KAMĀLĀT-E-ISLĀM―DĀFI‘UL-WASĀWIS At this juncture, various objections may arise, the rebuttal of which is my responsibility. One of them is that since the Holy Spirit is bestowed only upon the favoured ones who arrive at the stage of baqā [revival] and liqā,¹ how can it be the guardian of everyone? The answer is that the perfect descent of the Holy Spirit does indeed take place only upon the favoured ones, but others also enjoy its general support according to their degree of love and sincerity. The statement of mine given earlier only indicates how the higher manifestation of the Holy Spirit takes place: When, at the stage baqa and liqa, the love of Allah descends upon human love, the meeting of the two loves produces the higher manifestation of the Holy Spirit, compared with which the other manifestations are insignificant. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the other manifestations do not exist. God Almighty does not let so much as a particle of sincere love go to waste. His love descends upon the love of human beings, and the splendour of the Holy Spirit arises to this very degree. It is an unvarying law of God Almighty that the divine love continues to descend in accord with the measure of every love, and when a river of human love begins to flow, a river of love descends from the other side as well; when those two rivers meet, a mag- nificent light is generated which, in our idiom, is called the Holy Spirit. AUTHOR'S MARGIN NOTE Deficient descent of the Holy Spirit However, just as you can see that if a trace amount of sugar is added to a large quan- tity of water, the taste of sugar will not be felt and the water will seem as bland as before. Nonetheless, we cannot say that sugar has not been added, but neither can we say that the water 1. Islam recognizes three stages in man's spiritual journey towards God: The first stage is (fanā passing away), which is the total annihilation of one's ego for the sake of God; the second stage is te (bagā—subsistence), which denotes a new spiritual life; and the third stage is (liqā—meeting), which is the state of achieving union with God. [Publisher]