Fihi Ma Fihi, Majlis No. 36 :-

All forms spring from Love, as branches spring forth from their root. No branch can exist without its root. Therefore, God is not called a form, since form is the branch. How can God be called a branch?

Someone said: “Love too cannot be expressed or experienced without form. Hence it is the branch of form.”

Why cannot Love be a form without form? On the contrary, Love is the sculptor of form. A hundred thousand forms are raised up on Love’s pottery wheel. Although a painter cannot exist without paintings, still painting is the branch and the painter is the root. As the finger moves, so moves the ring.

Until someone has love for a house, no architect will draw up designs. In the same way, corn is at the price of gold one year, another year it is at the price of dust. The form of the corn is the same—therefore its value comes from love. The sciences you study with such love—in your eyes they are valuable. But when no one pursues them and no one wants to learn from them, then who will teach those sciences?

Someone said: “Love is the want and need for a certain thing. Hence the need is the root, and that thing needed is its branch.”

These words of yours are also spoken out of need. First you had the desire for these words, then they were born. So the need existed first and then your words were born from it. This means your need existed, in the beginning, without any words. Therefore, love and need are not the branches of words.

Someone said: “But after all, the goal of that need was these words, so how can the goal be the branch?”

The branch is always the goal. The tree’s roots exist for the sake of its branches.

All forms spring from Love, as branches spring forth from their root. No branch can exist without its root. Therefore, God is not called a form, since form is the branch. How can God be called a branch?

Someone said: “Love too cannot be expressed or experienced without form. Hence it is the branch of form.”

Why cannot Love be a form without form? On the contrary, Love is the sculptor of form. A hundred thousand forms are raised up on Love’s pottery wheel. Although a painter cannot exist without paintings, still painting is the branch and the painter is the root. As the finger moves, so moves the ring.

Until someone has love for a house, no architect will draw up designs. In the same way, corn is at the price of gold one year, another year it is at the price of dust. The form of the corn is the same—therefore its value comes from love. The sciences you study with such love—in your eyes they are valuable. But when no one pursues them and no one wants to learn from them, then who will teach those sciences?

Someone said: “Love is the want and need for a certain thing. Hence the need is the root, and that thing needed is its branch.”

These words of yours are also spoken out of need. First you had the desire for these words, then they were born. So the need existed first and then your words were born from it. This means your need existed, in the beginning, without any words. Therefore, love and need are not the branches of words.

Someone said: “But after all, the goal of that need was these words, so how can the goal be the branch?”

The branch is always the goal. The tree’s roots exist for the sake of its branches.