THE SIXTY-SECOND DISCOURSE On love, the beloved, and what is required in respect of both

How strange it is you should often say that so and so attained nearness to God and so and so has been kept away, and so and so has been favoured with gift and so and so has been deprived of it, and so and so has been enriched and so and so has been empoverished, and so and so has been kept healthy and so and so has been made ill, and so and so has been exalted and so and so has been rendered low, and so and so has been praised and so .and so has been reproached, and so and so has been made truthful and so and so has been belied! Do you not know that He is One and that the One loves oneness in the matter of love and loves one who is singular in his love to Him? If He draws you near to His blessings and favours through others, then your love for Him will become faulty thereby and will be scattered. Because many a time there enters into your mind an attachment to one through whose hands appears the attainment of a blessing. As a result, the love of God in your heart suffers deficiency; and He, the Mighty, the Glorious, is jealous and does not love an associate; so He restrains the hands of other people from reaching you for assistance and the tongues of others from singing your praise and the legs of others from coming to you so that they may not divert you from Him. Have you not heard the saying of the Holy Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)? "Hearts are so constituted that one cannot help loving a person who has done him a favour, and must be repulsed from one who has caused him any harm." So He withholds in all possible ways people from doing an act of favour to you until you realise His unity and love Him and become His wholly and solely, outwardly and inwardly, in your movements and restful conditions, so much so that you do not see any good except what comes from Him, nor any evil except what comes from Him; and you become completely removed from the creation and from your own self and from your desires and from your purpose and from your wishes and from all that is besides God. Then hands are made to open towards you with ampleness, munificence and gifts and tongues are released with your praise. Then you are nourished with lavish care through all times in this world and then in the hereafter. Do not be ill-mannered, look at one who looks at you and be attentive to one who is attentive to you, and love one who loves you and respond to one who calls you, and extend your hand to one who keeps you firm against falling, who brings you out from the darkness of your ignorance and saves you from perishing and washes you clean of your dirt and purifies you from your filth and will release you from your dead and stinking self from your low desires and from your unredeemed self which commands evil, and from your misguided associates who are your devils, and from your ignorant friends who are waylayers on the way to God and who stand between you and everything that is decent and precious and attractive. How long will you stick to your animal nature and to the creation and to your desire and to your disobedience and to the world and to the life after death and to whatever is besides God? Why are you so away from the Creator of things and from One who has brought everything to existence, Who is the first and last, the manifest and the secret, the returning point and the issuing point of things, and to Whom belongs the heart and the solace of the souls, and the unburdening of burdens and the giving of gifts and bestowing of favours?