...the intoxication of love (corresponds) to
states
of knowledge
which are beyond forms and outstrip all thought.
(p. 32)
... if every virtue is a form of the will, then spiritual love is the
will itself transfigured by the divine attraction. Love of God is imperfect
and is even inconceivable apart from love of God in creation (in every
aspect of His Revelation including pure intellect)
and without love of (the very least) creature in God.
In a sense it can be said that man must love God first in creation,
in His Revealed Word and in His Truth, and then secondly
in Himself, in His transcedent
Ipseity,
and finally in those 'least of His little ones' who require our charity.
(p. 89)
Man's aspiration towards God includes the two aspects expressed
in the verse: 'It is Thee whom we adore (or serve) and it is with
Thee we seek refuge (or help).' Adoration is the effacing of
individual will before the the Divine Will which is revealed externally
by the sacred Law and inwardly by the movements of Grace. Recourse
to Divine help is a participating in the Divine Reality through
Grace and, more directly, through Knowledge. Ultimately the words:
'It is Thee whom we adore' correspond to 'extinction'
(al-fana) and the words: 'with Thee we seek refuge' to
'subsistence' (al-baqa) in Pure Being. Thus the verse just
mentioned is the 'isthmus' or barzakh between the
two 'oceans' of absolute Being and relative existence.
(Cf. the Qur'anic verses: '(God) produced the two seas which meet:
between the two is an isthmus which they do not pass' (50:19-20)).
(p. 50)
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