LETTER 41: NAKED FAITH

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!

Brother Shamsuddin may God adorn you with right conduct and faith! The Messenger of God has given us this helpful hint: Faith is stripped hare: Its raiment is fear of God and chastity. For faith, nothing remains closed. It is a key opening up things that are closed but is not itself closed. The intellect of man is closed, while faith is wide open. A novice should be stripped of everything included in the lower portion of the wide-ranging blessings of faith, and then the full beauty of faith will be revealed to him!

Alas, you are in love with yourself! You do not possess the strength derived from faith that would enable you to doff the cap of lordship, nor can you put up with hearing your good name being dragged into the mud; nor can you exchange your own security for the onslaught of reproaches! Every day you walk pompously out of some school and enter a cloister in order that your cap of lordship, as well as the beginnings of piety, knowledge, and rank, might become higher and more exalted. As your tongue grows longer and you cover an ever-wider range of topics, your despotic rule and killing of people also increases. Simply on the basis of your own knowledge, you be- stow excellence on ordinary people while, by means of your touted mystical knowledge, you consider yourself better than the nobility.

O brother, know what the real state of affairs is, namely, that with these counterfeit resources, there is no access for you or me to this divine Presence! A morsel that is suited for a falcon's gullet can scarcely fit into our sparrow like apertures! A robe that has been sewn to bedeck the torso of some rich nobleman will scarcely fit us, poor and resourceless as we are! Every day our conversation becomes more inconsequential, and our lives grow darker. Genuine delicacy should be expressed in compassion, not in speech. If we foolish talkers were to be called to account tomorrow for what we have said today, we would experience what occurred to Pharaoh, Abu Jahl, and Abu La hab. Those well-grounded in the faith talk little, since they have been emptied of all relationships. They are completely free of pollution from creation that might cling to them. Their hands are clean of any defiling stain. There is the command, Be! and it comes into being. This is some sort of manifestation for the heart so that, by the light of this manifestation, they see Him. They become engrossed in the sight of Him. They no longer see themselves, for they no longer exist. They forget themselves as they rejoice in His Being, They, along with all that is theirs, belong to Him. Even though they speak, it is not really, they who speak. The same could be said for hearing, walking, sitting, and so on. In their being, there is no being. In their speech, there is no talking. Speakers are struck dumb. There is hearing, but no hearers. They were ignorant of the real condition of creatures, but have now become capable of understanding what it is. In the presence of God, neither the dust of this world nor the dust of the next has any idea of where they have gone! Their hearts are with God, while their bodies are in the midst of creatures. Good things fell to their fellowman but not to them, for they themselves no longer existed!

God does not give man orders for the sake of work, but for the sake of the joy of what is commanded. He does not have to order a bird to fly, but to descend. Even though a culture soars high, it alights upon carrion. A falcon also soars high, yet its prey is always something alive, for its pleasure is in seizing something with life in it. Life should be sought! Until the soul becomes intimately acquainted with that Life, it cannot live by It! Anyone who lives by the powers of his own soul becomes enslaved by its impulses! By contrast, all the resources of anyone who lives for God become subject to Him. No- body can live with God except in the world of Unity. This demands the price of not paying attention to oneself. Whoever looks at him- self is a polytheist! Looking at oneself means giving birth to your self! There is a debt involved in this birth, which is incurred by birth itself! Do you not see that, as long as the fluid from which God creates children is within the womb of the mother, it is not under the command of the Law? There is no obligation to perform the ablutions. When, however, it leaves its own place and comes into the open world, then the obligation to perform the ritual ablutions has to be fulfilled, whether the child is legitimate or not. Every speaker reveals himself by what he says, by reciting. There is no god but God, or by saying, I am your master, the exalted One! Try to un-Der stand, at this stage, the insight of Imam Shibli when he said: If I were to pray, I would commit the sin of polytheism; if I did not pray, I would be guilty of infidelity! Every form of knowledge that is sent to you through your faculties is, for you, a veiling of the Truth: whereas all knowledge sent to you through Him is Truth itself. Those scholars who have remained confined to their own senses

have gained knowledge only by means of the path of the senses. Everyone who remains bound up in things that are felt becomes excluded from the benefits of the hidden world. The knowledge that wells up from the depths of a living stream arises in such a way that there is no need of the senses. Everything that occurs in the world of the senses derives its origin from the events of life. Any form of knowledge that does not make you preoccupied with yourself, or make anyone else preoccupied with you, will not turn out to be a veil along the Way. Abul Qasim Qushairi says. The knowledge we acquired was acquired when we were resting. On the other hand, anyone who lapses into his own knowledge and is content to remain there should at least realize that he has consigned himself to the veil of words. It is just like someone who has an almond and looks only at its skin, not comprehending that its kernel is hidden from his sight. The life is not in the skin. It is in the kernel. The skin hides the meaning, lest it be- come apparent to the uninitiated. This saying cannot be clarified with reference to the writings of religious scholars. If you were to read out this saying in front of them, they would tell you that it was foolish and a suspension of the Law. Others would say: This is the height of compulsion! Understand that it is neither compulsion nor predestination, nor a suspension of the Law, but the divine Unity in its purest state! A poet gave the following hint about this state.

The servant reached the place of self-effacement: After that, no work remained except God's!

O brother, a church is able to be turned into a mosque, while a rubbish heap can become the site of a royal palace. The raw material for all this is like pieces of iron covered with rust: They can be made into mirrors in which objects can be reflected, but only after a craftsman has placed the whole in a furnace, purified it of its imperfections, and hammered it out on a hard anvil. The polisher is then or dared to rub off any surface rust. The first thing to be seen in it would he the beauty of the polisher! In a similar manner, the constituent elements of human nature should be thrown into the furnace of austerity and be hammered out on the anvil of struggle with self. The whole should then be entrusted to Love, the Polisher, who will rub off the rust of human qualities. Immediately the reflection of the World of Meaning will appear in it, and it will become a fitting place for the King to gaze upon His own beauty, as someone has said:

We are simply mirrors while He is the one possessing beauty It is only for the sake of His seeing that we seek Him!

Peace

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate!

Brother Shamsuddin may God adorn you with right conduct and faith! The Messenger of God has given us this helpful hint: Faith is stripped hare: Its raiment is fear of God and chastity. For faith, nothing remains closed. It is a key opening up things that are closed but is not itself closed. The intellect of man is closed, while faith is wide open. A novice should be stripped of everything included in the lower portion of the wide-ranging blessings of faith, and then the full beauty of faith will be revealed to him!

Alas, you are in love with yourself! You do not possess the strength derived from faith that would enable you to doff the cap of lordship, nor can you put up with hearing your good name being dragged into the mud; nor can you exchange your own security for the onslaught of reproaches! Every day you walk pompously out of some school and enter a cloister in order that your cap of lordship, as well as the beginnings of piety, knowledge, and rank, might become higher and more exalted. As your tongue grows longer and you cover an ever-wider range of topics, your despotic rule and killing of people also increases. Simply on the basis of your own knowledge, you be- stow excellence on ordinary people while, by means of your touted mystical knowledge, you consider yourself better than the nobility.

O brother, know what the real state of affairs is, namely, that with these counterfeit resources, there is no access for you or me to this divine Presence! A morsel that is suited for a falcon's gullet can scarcely fit into our sparrow like apertures! A robe that has been sewn to bedeck the torso of some rich nobleman will scarcely fit us, poor and resourceless as we are! Every day our conversation becomes more inconsequential, and our lives grow darker. Genuine delicacy should be expressed in compassion, not in speech. If we foolish talkers were to be called to account tomorrow for what we have said today, we would experience what occurred to Pharaoh, Abu Jahl, and Abu La hab. Those well-grounded in the faith talk little, since they have been emptied of all relationships. They are completely free of pollution from creation that might cling to them. Their hands are clean of any defiling stain. There is the command, Be! and it comes into being. This is some sort of manifestation for the heart so that, by the light of this manifestation, they see Him. They become engrossed in the sight of Him. They no longer see themselves, for they no longer exist. They forget themselves as they rejoice in His Being, They, along with all that is theirs, belong to Him. Even though they speak, it is not really, they who speak. The same could be said for hearing, walking, sitting, and so on. In their being, there is no being. In their speech, there is no talking. Speakers are struck dumb. There is hearing, but no hearers. They were ignorant of the real condition of creatures, but have now become capable of understanding what it is. In the presence of God, neither the dust of this world nor the dust of the next has any idea of where they have gone! Their hearts are with God, while their bodies are in the midst of creatures. Good things fell to their fellowman but not to them, for they themselves no longer existed!

God does not give man orders for the sake of work, but for the sake of the joy of what is commanded. He does not have to order a bird to fly, but to descend. Even though a culture soars high, it alights upon carrion. A falcon also soars high, yet its prey is always something alive, for its pleasure is in seizing something with life in it. Life should be sought! Until the soul becomes intimately acquainted with that Life, it cannot live by It! Anyone who lives by the powers of his own soul becomes enslaved by its impulses! By contrast, all the resources of anyone who lives for God become subject to Him. No- body can live with God except in the world of Unity. This demands the price of not paying attention to oneself. Whoever looks at him- self is a polytheist! Looking at oneself means giving birth to your self! There is a debt involved in this birth, which is incurred by birth itself! Do you not see that, as long as the fluid from which God creates children is within the womb of the mother, it is not under the command of the Law? There is no obligation to perform the ablutions. When, however, it leaves its own place and comes into the open world, then the obligation to perform the ritual ablutions has to be fulfilled, whether the child is legitimate or not. Every speaker reveals himself by what he says, by reciting. There is no god but God, or by saying, I am your master, the exalted One! Try to un-Der stand, at this stage, the insight of Imam Shibli when he said: If I were to pray, I would commit the sin of polytheism; if I did not pray, I would be guilty of infidelity! Every form of knowledge that is sent to you through your faculties is, for you, a veiling of the Truth: whereas all knowledge sent to you through Him is Truth itself. Those scholars who have remained confined to their own senses

have gained knowledge only by means of the path of the senses. Everyone who remains bound up in things that are felt becomes excluded from the benefits of the hidden world. The knowledge that wells up from the depths of a living stream arises in such a way that there is no need of the senses. Everything that occurs in the world of the senses derives its origin from the events of life. Any form of knowledge that does not make you preoccupied with yourself, or make anyone else preoccupied with you, will not turn out to be a veil along the Way. Abul Qasim Qushairi says. The knowledge we acquired was acquired when we were resting. On the other hand, anyone who lapses into his own knowledge and is content to remain there should at least realize that he has consigned himself to the veil of words. It is just like someone who has an almond and looks only at its skin, not comprehending that its kernel is hidden from his sight. The life is not in the skin. It is in the kernel. The skin hides the meaning, lest it be- come apparent to the uninitiated. This saying cannot be clarified with reference to the writings of religious scholars. If you were to read out this saying in front of them, they would tell you that it was foolish and a suspension of the Law. Others would say: This is the height of compulsion! Understand that it is neither compulsion nor predestination, nor a suspension of the Law, but the divine Unity in its purest state! A poet gave the following hint about this state.

The servant reached the place of self-effacement: After that, no work remained except God's!

O brother, a church is able to be turned into a mosque, while a rubbish heap can become the site of a royal palace. The raw material for all this is like pieces of iron covered with rust: They can be made into mirrors in which objects can be reflected, but only after a craftsman has placed the whole in a furnace, purified it of its imperfections, and hammered it out on a hard anvil. The polisher is then or dared to rub off any surface rust. The first thing to be seen in it would he the beauty of the polisher! In a similar manner, the constituent elements of human nature should be thrown into the furnace of austerity and be hammered out on the anvil of struggle with self. The whole should then be entrusted to Love, the Polisher, who will rub off the rust of human qualities. Immediately the reflection of the World of Meaning will appear in it, and it will become a fitting place for the King to gaze upon His own beauty, as someone has said:

We are simply mirrors while He is the one possessing beauty It is only for the sake of His seeing that we seek Him!

Peace