THE FORTIETH DISCOURSE On when the aspirant truly belongs in the company of spiritual people

Do not expect to be included in the company of spiritual people unless you have become an enemy of your whole self and have become absolutely separated from all the organs of your body and all your limbs and have cut off all connections with your existence, with your movements and restful conditions, with your hearing and seeing, with your speaking and holding, with your effort and action and your intelligence and with everything that proceeds from you before your spiritual existence comes into being in you. All that will be found in you after the spiritual existence is breathed into you because all these things constitute a screen between you and your Lord. So then you become a soul pure and simple, secret of secrets and unseen of the unseen, positively distinct from all things in secret and recognising everything as an enemy and a screen and darkness, just as Abraham the friend of God (peace be on him) says: Surely they are an enemy to me, hut not (so) the Lord of the worlds (Who is the only friend) (26: 77). He said this in respect of the idols, so you should consider your whole being and your parts, as idols together with the rest of the creation and should not obey anything out of them and should not follow them at all. Then you will be endowed with secret and Divine knowledge and rare things in it, and will be gifted with the power of creation and miracle-working which is of the type of power to be found in the possession of believers in heaven. You will be in this condition as if you are resurrected after death in the hereafter. You will be wholly a manifestation of the power of God; and will speak through God, and hold through God, and walk through God, and understand through God, and will have your comfort and rest through God. Thus you will be blind to everything besides Him; you will be deaf to everything besides Him; you will not find anything existing besides Him so long as you observe the limits of law and conform to the injunctions and prohibitions. Then if anything is amiss in you from the requirements of law you should know that you are being tried and tempted and played with by the devil. So return to the commandment of the Law and stick to it and keep yourself clear of the low desires, because every fact which is not confirmed by the Law is unbelief.