THE FORTY-SIXTH DISCOURSE On the Sacred Tradition “When someone is too busy remembering Me…”

There is a saying of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) who reports it from his Lord that: "Whoever engages himself in My remembrance and has no time to ask anything of Me, I give him better than what is given to those who ask for things." This is so because when God wishes to choose and select a believer for His Own purpose, He makes him pass through various spiritual conditions and tries him with various kinds of struggles and calamities. He makes him poor after affluence and compels him almost to the point of begging from people for his livelihood at times when all the various ways are closed for him; then He saves him from begging for a livelihood but compels him almost to the point of borrowing from people. Then He saves him from borrowing as well, but compels him to work for his livelihood and makes it easy for him. Then he lives by his earning which is after the example of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah upon him). But then He makes earning hard for him and commands him by revelation to beg from people and this is a secret commandment which is known and recognised by the person concerned. He makes this begging an act of devotion for him and makes it sinful to discard it, and this in order that his vanity may disappear thereby and his ego be smashed, and this is a state of spiritual exercise. His begging is under Divine compulsion and not by way of polytheism. Then He saves him from this and commands him to take to borrowing from people by an absolute commandment from which it is not possible to escape as was the case with the previous kind of begging. He then changes him from this condition and severs him from people and makes his livelihood dependent on his asking it from Him. So he asks from everything that he needs from God and He gives it to him and does not give anything if he keeps silent and refrains from praying for it. Then He changes him from the state of asking by tongue to that of asking by heart, so he asks from Him everything that he needs by heart, and He gives him everything that he needs, so much so that if he asks by his tongue, He does not give it to him or if he begs from people they either do not give anything to him. Then He makes him disappear completely both from himself as well as from begging either in open or in secret. He then rewards him with everything that puts right and reforms man, — from among things that are eaten and drunk and worn and constitute other requirements of human life without his making an effort for it or without even the thought of it crossing his mind. Then He befriends him and this is in accordance with the saying: Surely my friend and guardian is God Who has revealed the Book and He befriends the righteous people (7:196). Now the word received from God by the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) becomes demonstrated in fact, that is, "Who has no time for asking anything I give him more than what I have given to those who have asked," and this is the state of merging in God and a state which belongs to the ordinary saints as well as the abdal. At this stage he is given the power of creation and all that he needs comes into existence by the permission of God and to this effect there is a word of His in a Book of His: "O son of Adam! I am God, there is no god except Me; I say to a thing "Be" and it comes into existence. Obey Me, so that if you say to a thing "Be" it likewise will come into being."