And when We divided, by your presence (wujūd), [for you] the sea, that is, the black clamouring sea that is the corporeal substratum when it was parted by your presence as the earth is parted by [rising] plants; and We delivered you, by disengaging you therefrom, and drowned Pharaoh's folk, namely, [drowning] the ego-centric power in it by forcing it to cling to it and its destruction on account of its corruption, while you were [beholding], witnessing that. Accordingly one can interpret the Children of Israel at the beginning of the address as [representing] those spiritual powers; the favour by which He favoured them as the guidance [He gave them] to the acceptance of the lights effusing upon these [powers] from the world of the spirit and [to] the reception of the gnostic sciences and wisdoms and their fulfilment of the covenant and their projecting forth of what is centred in these [powers] in accordance with the initial preparedness in the way of the proofs of unity and the universal meanings that lie dormant within them through purification and the performance of acts specific to these. His fulfilment of the covenant with them is the effusion of the light of perfection upon these [powers] when they give what is due to the light of preparedness by way of purification and employing what they possess in the way of meanings. If you are to be in awe of something, then be in awe of the veiling [from you] of My lights upon the disappearance of your preparedness; and believe, that is to say, and accept what is effused upon you by Me in the way of luminous radiations and auspicious thoughts form the Unseen as verification [from Me] of the light of primordial nature [contained] within your preparedness. And do not be among the foremost rank of those veiled from the acceptance of these [from Me] by orienting yourselves towards the lower aspect. And do not exchange these for the pleasures of the soul and what it seeks. And do not muddle the truth of the spiritual sciences and the holy lights with the false demands of the senses and the attributes of the soul, suppressing those lights and sciences by allowing these to manifest themselves upon you. And establish and maintain your orientation towards the Presence of the Spirit and towards the fulfilment of Its command. And pay the alms [due] upon those things known to you, which are your wealth, by perusing them and composing them so that you might secure thereby the reward of the results and the concomitants [of such knowledge]. And expend these [alms] upon the poor in your presence, [these poor] being the natural corporeal powers so that these [latter] can survive on them and acquire through them virtuous character traits and beautiful dispositions. Teach these to the children of your species so that they might reach perfection thereby. Bow and submit to the acceptance of intelligible commands, spiritual lights and the acts of the heart: Will you bid others to piety and forget yourselves … [Q. 2:44], [that is to say], will you direct the faculties below you through [imposing on them] beautiful devotions and virtuous manners to rise to your station and to assume your manners but forget to edify your souls in the presence of God with the manners of the spiritual folk, to practise self-examination, to illumine yourselves by the lights of the spirit at the station of witnessing and to rise to His station upon being annihilated in the Unity; [all this] while you recite from the Book of intelligibles sent down from the Lord of the spirit by means of the angel of the intellect to the Prophet of the heart. Will you not understand by means of the intellect that is disengaged from the blemishes of caprice (hawā) and illusion (wahm). And seek assistance through patience against what manifests itself upon you and comes [upon you] as a result of the sway of the lights of the authority of the Spirit and its stipulations and the overwhelming power of the self-disclosures of the Greatness and [by] the presence of the Truth. And verily the seeking of such assistance is burdensome except to the humble, the satisfied, who submit to the obedience of the commands of the heart and the spirit, those who are certain that they are in His Presence and upon His encounter and that they are returning to Him by the acceptance of His lights. Their being favoured over the worlds is the honour they enjoy over all the faculties that man possesses.