But as for the soul that was never enveloped by those lights, it retreats backward in headlong flight, just as a bat flees from the brilliant light of the sun.

And for this, there are textual testimonies from the sayings of some of the Masters: 'Whosoever recognizes Allah through His essential luminosity is rendered safe from metamorphic degradation [al-masyukhiyyah].' And it is utterly impossible for a believer to be truly faithful, possessing esoteric gnosis of Allah and asserting His absolute unity, unless there is instilled within them a permanent faculty of turning away [malakat al-insiraf] from this dark, turbid world and connecting with the unadulterated, abstract lights. At that exact moment, divine realities breathe vibrantly within their soul. 'So turn in repentance to your Creator and kill your souls.'

By 'killing,' he intended the systematic severing of the souls from their physical attachments and their connection to the loftiest world, which contains the hierarchical degrees of true life, eternal duration, and everlasting bliss... up to his saying: 'And that is because a human being possesses a physical position and a material form encompassed by the six spatial directions. Yet, when a human is perceived intellectually as an abstracted entity,