The All-Merciful, the Ever-Merciful. He is the All-Merciful inasmuch as He vivifies, the Ever-Merciful inasmuch as He displays. The vivification is through acts of kindness, the display through lights. He is the All-Merciful who eases the road of wage-earning, the Ever-Merciful who lights up the candle of friendship in the road of the friends. The wage-earner is always toiling in hope of houris and palaces, the friend is inundated by light in the sea of face-to-face vision. The day I reach union with You I will disdain the state of the paradise-dwellers. He is the All-Merciful who gives the strivers the success of struggle, and the Ever-Merciful who gives the finders the realization of contemplation. The former is the state of the desirer, the latter the state of the desired. The desirer goes forth with the lamp of success and reaches contemplation, the desired goes forth with the candle of realization and reaches face-to-face vision. Contempla- tion is the lifting of the barriers between the servant and the Real, face-to-face vision seeing each other such that the servant does not become absent for a moment: He gazes at love with the eye of response, he gazes at the Present with the eye of presence, he gazes at the Solitary with the eye of solitude. Through distance from himself he becomes near to His nearness, through losing himself he becomes familiar with His apparentness, through absence from himself he becomes present with His generous presence. For He is not far from the strivers, nor lost by the seekers, nor absent from the desirers. Have mercy on the creatures' hearts and come out from the veil so that the seventy-two creeds may end their disputes.