Letter No. 6- Negation and Assertion

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

“Repository of divine mysteries and the mine of bounties of God, my brother, Khwaja Qutubuddin of Delhi, may the most high God keep you safe.

“One day my Sheikh said a very nice thing about negation and assertion. “Negation”, he said, “means remembrance of the most high God, because a self-conscious man cannot be conscious of God. There must be one who should contradict this negation. If we think that only God exists, we achieve our object. Be it plain to you that this is the case with the Kalimah-e-Shahadat (word bearing witness to the existence of God), the prayers and the fasts. And indeed to ignore their essence and be content with their appearance is useless. He is an errant fool who has not got to the bottom of their truth.”Then, he said, “God always was and shall ever be. The devotee is blind in the beginning. When God gives him sight, he sees and hears and forgets himself. When this is the condition, the one who has attained communion with God, is endowed with eternal life.

Now I add my Salaams.”

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

“Repository of divine mysteries and the mine of bounties of God, my brother, Khwaja Qutubuddin of Delhi, may the most high God keep you safe.

“One day my Sheikh said a very nice thing about negation and assertion. “Negation”, he said, “means remembrance of the most high God, because a self-conscious man cannot be conscious of God. There must be one who should contradict this negation. If we think that only God exists, we achieve our object. Be it plain to you that this is the case with the Kalimah-e-Shahadat (word bearing witness to the existence of God), the prayers and the fasts. And indeed to ignore their essence and be content with their appearance is useless. He is an errant fool who has not got to the bottom of their truth.”Then, he said, “God always was and shall ever be. The devotee is blind in the beginning. When God gives him sight, he sees and hears and forgets himself. When this is the condition, the one who has attained communion with God, is endowed with eternal life.

Now I add my Salaams.”