Throughout this endless universe, the greatest means for the
progress and renewal of existence is that all things are eaters and eaten. This is a condition that applies to all the
particles of the universe, and it is through this means that created things are
renewed, transformed into one another, and endowed with a new reality unlike
the previous one. And this indeed is the
means of renewal.
For instance, in the mineral kingdom the soil absorbs the
air and the water and decomposes the creatures within it, and thus enables the
existence of plants. The more
microscopic animals exist in the soil, the better the plants will grow. And when the plant has grown, it is consumed
by the animal, is incorporated in its body, and is endowed with a new
existence. Thus it progresses further
and assumes a higher reality than that which it initially possessed. This indeed is the means of progress and renewal
from the mineral to the vegetable, from the vegetable to the animal, and from
the animal to the human world.
- ‘Abdu’l-Baha (From a talk, new resources
prepared by the Baha’i World Center, 2019; Baha’i Reference Library)
