When the Real Evidence is Manifest – Abdur Rahman’s Corner

Peace, one and all…

‘Someone asked Hasan ibn Ali ibn Yazdanyar, ‘When does the person endowed with ma`rifa experience God?’ He answered, ‘When the real evidence is manifest, and the counterfeits pass away, and the senses lose their purchase, and sincerity becomes irrelevant.’ His words ‘real evidence is manifest’ refer to the evidence of what God has done with you previously, His attentiveness and largesse in infused knowledge of Him, conviction of His oneness, and belief in Him. Awareness of all that sends attention to your own deeds, devotion, and obedience into oblivion. As a result, you realise how the ‘much’ that apparently originates with the self is engulfed in the ‘little’ that apparently originates with God; and, in fact, what originates with the self is not the ‘much’. His words ‘the counterfeits pass away’ refer to the individual’s no longer adverting to whether other people represent threat or advantage, criticism or adulation. His reference to the senses’ loss of force alludes to God’s saying, ‘He speaks through Me and he sees through Me’. When he says that sincerity becomes irrelevant, he means that when the individual takes stock of his own qualities, he no longer considers himself sincere nor does he judge his actions, past or to come, as sincere, since his personal qualities are contingent just as he himself is’

Abu Bakr al-Kalabadhi, Kitab al-Ta`arruf
trans. J. Renard