Al-Ghazali, who abandoned his prestigious post as the greatest scholar of Baghdad to wander as a mendicant seeking truth, wrote:
"I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known, so I created the world that I might be known."
This is the secret at the heart of existence. The One desired to know Itself, and so the Many came forth. But the Many are not other than the One — they are the One knowing Itself through infinite mirrors.
"The human being is the mirror in which the Divine sees Itself most clearly. This is our purpose and our burden. This is why we suffer and why we rejoice. Every experience of the human heart is the Divine experiencing Itself.
"When you weep, the Divine weeps through you.
When you laugh, the Divine laughs through you.
When you love, the Divine loves through you.
When you die, the Divine dies through you — and resurrects.
"Understand this and you will fear nothing. Not pain, not loss, not death itself. For what can be lost? The wave returns to the ocean. The mirror reflects and ceases to reflect. But the Light that was reflected was never contained in the mirror."
Al-Ghazali warned:
"Do not speak these truths to those unprepared to hear them. They will misunderstand. They will think you speak of resignation, of passivity, of abandonment of the world. But this teaching calls for the opposite: the most intense engagement with life, precisely because life is the field of the Divine's self-knowing.
"Every action matters infinitely. Every choice reverberates eternally. For you are not a separate creature doing separate deeds — you are the hands and eyes and voice of the Infinite."
Teaching 5
You are not separate from the Divine. Your life is the Divine's life. Your death is the Divine's death. Live accordingly.