When He has made you extinct… When He has made you extinct to your passion by decree, and to your self-will through knowledge, you will become a servant with undivided loyalty, with neither passion nor will of your own. Then the veil will be lifted for your benefit, so that servitude will vanish away into Oneness, for the servant will be annihilated and the Lord (Almighty and Glorious is He) will remain.
The whole of the Sacred Law [Shari’a] is constriction, and the whole of knowledge [‘ilm] is expansion, and the whole of direct experience [ma’rifa] is dalliance and playful teasing.
Our method is love, not labor, and annihilation, not perpetuity. When you enter into work, you belong to you, and when you enter into love, you belong to Him. The worshipper looks to his worship, while the lover looks to his love.
When you have come to acknowledge Him, your breathing will be through Him, and your movements will belong to Him, but if you are ignorant of Him, your movements will be your own.
The formal worshipper [‘abid] has no rest; and the ascetic [zahid] has no appetite; and the champion of truth [siddiq] has no dependent reliance; and he who is endowed with direct experience [‘arif] has neither might nor strength, neither choice nor will, neither movement nor rest; and he who is existent [mawjud] has no existence.
When you have come to be on familiar terms with Him, you will be estranged from you.
“If someone is preoccupied with Us for his own sake, We shall make him blind. But if someone is preoccupied with Us for Our sake, We shall give him sight.”
When your passion has faded away, the door of the Reality [Haqiqa] will be unveiled for your benefit, so that your own will is annihilated and Oneness [Wahdaniyya] is unveiled to you and then you will realize that it is He, not you.
If you surrender to Him, He will draw you close, but if you argue with Him, He will keep you at a distance.
If you draw near through Him, He will bring you close, but if you draw near through you, He will keep you at a distance.
If you seek Him for your own sake, He will burden you, but if you seek Him for His sake, He will pamper you.
Your nearness to Him is your separation from you, while your distance is your sticking with you.
If you come without you, He will accept you, but if you come through you, He will exclude you.
The worker is hardly likely to be free of attachment to his labor. So be one of the sort disposed toward grace [minna], not one of the sort disposed toward work [‘amal].
If you know Him, you will come to rest, but if you are ignorant of Him, you will be agitated. So the point is that He should be and you should not be.
As for the common folk, their works are suspect, and as for the élite, their works are good deeds, and as for the élite of the élite, their works are degrees of spiritual progress.
Whenever you shun your passion, your faith is reinforced, and whenever you shun your own essence, your realization-and-affirmation-of-Oneness [tawhid] is reinforced.
Creatures are a screen and you are a screen, but the Lord of Truth is not one to be secluded, and He is concealed from you because of you, and you are concealed from you because of you. So separate from you, and you shall witness Him.
©Baz Publications
