[86] The Master Muhammad—may his glory be exalted—said: "I ascended to heaven and saw my Lord, and I did not see Him there except exactly as I saw Him here."

The Sheikh said in his epistle: "Were it not for the manifestation of the Creator (al-Bari) within His heaven and His earth, His existence would not be established, the certainty of Him would not be valid, and no one would recognize Him."

Sheikh Mahmud al-Sufi said in his epistle: "It is narrated that the first Name that the Meaning (al-Ma'na) concealed, while manifesting in a form identical to His own within the lineage of the Imams, was al-Hasan—may his glory be exalted. For that reason, He named him Hasan—meaning, it is deemed beautiful (mustahsan) within intellects that the Lord should display a matching likeness of His form to the people of the earthly temperaments, even though He remains unchanged in His absolute Essence. However, physical eyes are directed toward the likeness (al-mithliyyah), whereas the masters of spiritual ranks (ahl al-maratib) view Him only as abstract, essential, and spiritual. These are all clear distinctions demonstrating that the Name is other than the Reality, the Attribute is other than the Essence,