Akbar, The Emperor Of India

essence seizes not the light, but the power of the
light. But the mirror of power catches the light,
as water does the sun ; for water is as a clear mirror
in comparison with earth.
14. Now if water be mixed with earth, it no
longer catches the sun's light; so likewise the human
spirit or soul catches not God's light, unless it
remain pure and set its desire upon that which is
pure, viz. upon the light; for what life imaginates
after, that it receives. The life of man is the
form of the two inward worlds. If life desire sul-
phur in itself, then is Phur out of Sul its darkening;
but if it desire only Sul, then it receives the power
of the light, and in the power the light with its
property. For in Phur, viz. in fierce wrathful
Nature, life cannot remain clear as a mirror, but
in Sul it can ; for the life of man is a true mirror
of the Deity, wherein God beholds himself. He
gives his lustre and power to the human mirror,
and finds himself in man, as also in angels and in
the forms of heaven.
15. The light-world's essence is his finding or
revelation, and the dark world's essence is his
loss. He sees not himself in the dark world,
for it has no mirror that were susceptible of the
light. All that imaginates after the dark world's
essence and property, that receives the dark world's
property, and loses the mirror of God. It becomes
filled with dark wrath ; like as one mixes water
with earth, and then the sun cannot shine therein.
This water loses the mirror of the sun, and must
withdraw again from the earth ; else it is never-