Oh, you, peaceful soul… | Sufi Path of Love

“Oh, you, peaceful soul

Return to your Lord, approving and approved

Enter among My servants

and enter My Paradise.”

(Quran 89: 27-29)

This soul whom his Lord thus addresses, describing him as “pacified, approving and approved,” He commands him – and this command is in fact an authorization, a permission and a mark of honor – to enter among His servants, those whom he expressly attributes to Himself, who have been chosen by Him. These are those who know their true relationship to servitude and Lordship, that is to say, those who know that in naming the “servant” one does not designate anything other than a particular manifestation of the Lord such as conditioned by the characteristics of the servant: the essential Reality is “Lord”, the external form is “Servant”. The servant is a “Lord” manifested in the form of a “Servant” and, in the appearance of the worshipper, it is He Himself who worships Himself.

The entrance into His paradise ( fi jannatihi ) consists for the servant [in accordance with the meaning of the root JNN] in occulting himself ( ijtinan ) in His Essence. He who achieves this has passed through the veils of creatures and divine Names. For him the illusory creaturely determinations which have reality only at the level of sensible perceptions have vanished. Were it not for these perceptions, there would be only pure, absolute Being.

Then, the creature being “enveloped” by God, its ipseity disappears – in terms of its existential status, but not in terms of permanent reality. On the contrary, when the divine Ipseity is “enveloped” by the creature, it remains in its immutable transcendence and is never affected by any change.

This divine challenge and command, however, only comes to the soul when it has passed beyond the stage of the “science of certainty” to that of the “reality of certainty,” thanks to authentic spiritual experience and perfect unveiling, and this in connection with two things.

First, this soul must have the certainty that God is a free Agent who does, in accordance with His science and wisdom, what is appropriate, as is appropriate, to the appropriate extent, at the appropriate time; with the consequence that, in whatever respect or from whatever point of view, there can be no act more perfect and wise than that, and that if the servant had access to divine Wisdom and to the knowledge of what circumstances require, he would not choose to perform any other act than that. Once the soul possesses this certainty, it reaches the station of “pleasure” with the will of Allah, it is “pacified” and the accomplishment of the divine decrees does not shake its immutable serenity.

Secondly, it must have the certainty, based on spiritual experience and intuitive revelation, that God is the sole Agent of all that proceeds from His creatures without any exception. Whether the creature plays, in relation to a given act, the role of cause, condition or impediment, it is in reality God who “descends” from the degree of His absoluteness – without ceasing to be absolute – into this form which is called condition, cause or impediment. He does what He does by means of this form. He could do without it if He wished to act without it, but such is His free choice and such is His wisdom. The act is therefore attributed at first sight to this form, whereas it really belongs only to Him, alone, without associate.

Then the soul will be “accepted” with its Lord, since from it no act can proceed, and consequently nothing can cause it to cease to be accepted. The pleasure and love of Allah for His creatures constitute the original state. It is through them that He has brought them into existence and they are the cause of this existence. He who knows that he has neither being nor doing, he finds himself in this original state of pleasure and divine love.

May Allah, by His grace and generosity, place us and our brothers among those who are included in the call of this verse! So be it!

Al Amir Abd el Kader Mawqif 180

When the soul turns to the qibla to perform the ritual prayer, he sees that the one who is directed is God, and that the one to whom he is directed is God too.
When he gives alms, he sees that the giver is God, and that the receiver is God too…
When he recites the Quran, he sees that the one who speaks is God, and that the one to whom he is spoken is God too.
When he listens to the Quran, he sees that the Word is God, and that God is the Hearer.
When he looks at something, he sees that the one looking is God and that the one looking at is God.

Emir Abd el-Kader. Mawqif 180

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