The twentieth chapter: The Eminence of Love
The twentieth chapter: The Eminence of Love
The tiny seed that is sown until it yields a harvest is called a ḥabba. When the ḥabba bears fruit and transforms into a seed encased in a sturdy husk, it becomes a spike or ear of grain. The firm and impenetrable ḥubb, which is endowed with attainment, free from greed and severance, brings fulfillment and delight to the heart, leading the individual to an absolute, sincere acceptance accompanied by reverence, devoid of avarice, judgment, doubt, or conditions, and elevates them to the station of equilibrium—this is termed love.
Love, an Arabic term synonymous with the water lily, signifies surrendering one’s heart to another, perceiving them as inherently true and endowed with intrinsic perfection. It is a gentle and delicate devotion, ensuring no harm befalls the beloved, coupled with an intense and unyielding affection—unending love that strips the lover of independence, liberating them entirely from themselves and their greed. In this state of annihilation, the lover is wholly devoted to the beloved, perpetually united with them.
Prior to love, there exist two preliminary stages: hawas (desire) and mawadda (affection). A faint inclination or attraction rooted in natural disposition is termed hawas. This desire can be a potent catalyst for illusion and imagination, ensnaring the individual in intense attachments and constriction. Through the intensification of desire and the experience of anguish, one may ascend to mawadda. The three-tiered progression of mawadda, maḥabba (love), and ‘ishq (ardent love) has been elaborated in the book Awareness and the Divine Human.
Love necessitates vitality, consciousness, knowledge, sincerity, and purity, the clarity of which depends on the degree and strength of intellectual capacity. Knowledge may be innate or volitional. Love is the active attraction toward preserving what one possesses, whereas longing is the yearning for what is absent, a pull toward a lost or lesser aim of love. The lover, throughout their life, engages in a singular pursuit: the will and decrees of the beloved. They pour their entire existence into this love.
The mark of a pure lover is perfection—nothing less than the highest standard. Anything short of this is failure, a deviation from love, and an affliction of greed. One who has not reached the destination in pure love receives no mark; those who falter or fall away are not merely halted midway but are deemed failed. True love accelerates the individual’s path toward personal development, shortening the journey to the beloved. Just as the human heart is fortified by the use of gold—be it in bracelets, bangles, or necklaces—and just as the dust of poverty and destitution reduces a person to beggary, love can so strengthen and expand the heart, body, and soul that it renders the individual independent of all else.
Love bestows upon the body and soul all perfections and qualities of every substance, granting it richness and self-sufficiency. In this state, the lover, united with their beloved, attains such courage, steadfastness, and abundance that they seem to possess all realms, reign sovereign over all things, and are capable of any epic deed, having secured their eternal felicity. Love constitutes the entirety of the lover’s manifestation, life, vitality, and the potency of their devotion, encompassing all their senses and perceptive faculties—not a weakness of self-loss but a strength of complete dedication.
Love Devoid of Doubt and Conditions
The lover neither doubts the beloved—for doubt is tantamount to severance—nor imposes conditions upon them, meaning they seek no change or hold expectations, accepting the beloved as they are. However, those who are not true lovers but rather greedy, parasitic vines deceive themselves and others in the name of love. If they gain dominance over their purported beloved, they voraciously seize all their possessions. Were they able to usurp God’s place, they would even wrest divinity from the Divine. A true lover, even upon entering the realm of divine essence, does not glance to see what God possesses.
The human being possesses the capacity to attain a collective, pure love, free from greed, doubt, or conditions, through the manifestation of divine authority, provided they have the ability to muster their forces, consolidate them, and possess the power of release, openness, and expansion. Desiring another through carnal lusts is shahwa (lust), which stems from base inclinations. If this desire originates in the heart, since the heart, when directed toward non-intrinsic beloveds, is merely a disposition, its qualities fluctuate in intensity or suffer severance, and such a desire is termed maḥabba. The origin of truth-seeking and love, however, is the spirit. The lover loses themselves but never relinquishes the truth of the beloved, deeming them true without doubt or hesitation, with complete faith and conviction, desiring them unconditionally, absolutely, in all places and circumstances, and remaining ever by their side.
Love, like awareness, is a sweet nourishment for the soul, insatiable in its fulfillment. Not only does the lover pursue the beloved, but at times, inversely, the beloved chases the lover.
The Sincerity of Love
One attains love through freedom of action, without fear or apprehension, and with sincerity, neither concealing nor altering their true self under the pressure of external circumstances. Love infuses the heart with warmth, and the fervent furnace of love softens and prepares the heart to receive its true imprint, fostering growth, expansion, sincerity, and authenticity. The lover, endowed with active sincerity, becomes selfless for the beloved, undeterred by any harm inflicted upon them. They remain steadfast, neither wounded, corrupted, obstructed, nor diverted from the beloved, continuing in kindness for the sake of the beloved and in pursuit of union with them.
Love purifies both heart and mind, guiding the lover to sincerity. Sincerity rests on two pillars: awareness in thought and freedom, expansion, fairness, and justice in action. Sincerity is an inner quality, from which fairness emanates. The root of love is sincerity and fairness. In a society governed by divine guardianship, it is these hearts, love, and sincerity that hold sway, where the human being is paramount, not society. Society is but a margin of the human heart—a heart greater than society itself. In such a society, the heart reigns as the source and cause of unity. Hearts that create a realm of monotheism through love and guardianship attain unity and distinction, becoming one, just as God possesses personal unity and is a single person. The heart, too, is a single person, and all hearts gather around one individual, a leader who is God’s vicegerent, a true person.
A human attains love and fulfillment only when they act with sincerity toward their desired aim and the purpose of their beloved’s actions. If an individual lacks sincerity in their actions toward their aim and, like devils, resorts to deceit and cunning, devoid of awareness, freedom, and fairness, they will never attain love. Given the collective and interconnected nature of actions and the interwoven fabric of all manifestations, where beneficence to every phenomenon originates from God, there is no room for justifying hypocrisy, pretense, or deceit. Love is endowed with sincerity. Conversely, hypocrisy and pretense weaken the individual, afflict them with anxiety, and hasten premature aging.
The Inception of Love
Love begins with a small act of affection, the planting of a single seed (ḥabba). One might carry a few chocolates in their pocket or bag and offer them with sincerity and respect to God’s servants, or greet a fellow being with kindness, embrace them warmly, kiss them, and say, “My dear, I am at your service,” or express affection by saying, “I love you, for you are the purity, love, knowledge, power, grace, and generosity of my God. Even if I offer myself a thousand times for this cherished one, dearer than my soul, it would be the least I could do.” One who steps onto the path of love, annihilation, sacrifice, and proximity first utters “I am at your service” with sincerity and the presence of their soul for all phenomena, capable of relinquishing their finest possessions.
This small act of affection may be the planting of a seed that sometimes yields the fruit of divine revelation or special divine grace. A single act of divine reverence can soothe the nerves, dispel obsession, avert illness or calamity, and spark a redemptive love, for prior to this, a small but respectful and sincere act of giving has brought love and purity to the giver’s heart.
The Effects of Love
Purity, love, affection, and kindness bestow strength and vigor upon the individual, polishing their mind and soul, unraveling their complex layers, and granting them the ability to foresee and anticipate. Those who look upon God’s servants and their loves with disdain, offer them no greeting, disrespect them, or act mercilessly, considering love a form of humiliation or diminution, unable to even polish another’s shoes or clean their stains, will lack health in body, mind, and spirit. They are truly deprived of the universe’s energies, becoming weak and frail.
Life is healthy only when imbued with love and purity, enabling one to love others and interact with them harmoniously and sweetly. Promoting and institutionalizing a culture of compassion and love can be a key factor in maintaining physical and mental health, preventing numerous disorders, particularly complexes and regrets. Those satiated with love are left with no room for complexes or regrets by the power of love. They possess a sense of dignity, never humiliated, nor can anyone demean them. They are like well-watered earth—neither overly saturated to become a quagmire, nor under-watered, avoiding excess or deficiency. Love brings balance and equilibrium to the individual.
The Deprivation of Love
A heart devoid of the authority and fulfillment of love is perpetually a lost and dissatisfied entity. One deprived of love lacks satiety and fulfillment, succumbing to the whims of desire. Such a person is predisposed to various psychological disorders and deficiencies. Weak desires and emotions, though they may manifest with intense or fiery displays, lead to calculation and severance upon the slightest dissatisfaction—these are not love but the greed of the heart.
One bereft of the blessing of love cannot even maintain simple interactions with others, speaking heavily or harboring resentment, becoming excessively secretive or lacking verbal expression. Such a person suffers from cardiac and emotional deficiencies. If stinginess, envy, malice, duplicity, hypocrisy, cynicism, cruelty, unfairness, harshness, sharpness, or violence corrupt an individual’s inner being, turning it into a cesspool, they themselves fall into misery.
A non-lover, no matter how much wealth or resources they possess, is incapable of deriving fulfilling or satisfying enjoyment from them, perpetually plagued by a sense of lack. Even with the greatest expenditures or purchases, they cannot provide the slightest satisfying fulfillment to another. One who is not a lover may succumb to envy. The envious person torments themselves with self-consuming anguish, neither able to use objects themselves nor allowing others to do so, becoming tyrannical.
The envious are self-consuming, and self-consumption is a cause of callousness of the heart. The envious destroy everything with cruelty but forbid others from using it. No one has the right to enjoy anything in their presence. No one may greet another while they are present; attention and greetings must be directed solely to them, for they possess a heart that is knotted, constricted, minuscule, tangled, and dark—unlike the lover, who each night renders their heart as vast and clear as the sea.
Those who do not experience love or fail to sustain successful love, falling short in love, will suffer some form of psychological deficiency or disorder, the least of which is an inclination toward excess or deficiency in decision-making and an inability to maintain balance. One who has neither become a lover nor been loved may indulge excessively in hedonism or, worse, succumb to sadistic tendencies, crime, perversion, or theft, deriving pleasure from harming others or exerting dominance.
A heart devoid of love is cold iron, unyielding to any hammer’s strike, incapable of even being itself. One without love lacks purity and sincerity, pursuing superficial, contentless resemblances, forming shapes without substance. They never become an authentic, meaningful version, for greed and avarice are inseparable from them, and the disposition of greed is in direct opposition to love, its enemy.
Superficial, imitative resemblances devoid of substance yield nothing but delusion and further greed. The material realm (nāsūt) is a field of semblances, a playground for appearances lacking inner essence, in conflict with the divine sources of gentleness and purity. If love and fulfillment are stripped from religion, rendering it hypocritical, religion becomes bitterly unpalatable, no longer appealing or acceptable to any discerning individual.
Love for the Exalted Truth
The highest and most enduring love is love for the Exalted Truth. God Himself is the first lover, and creation is the result of His boundless love for His infinite perfections—perfections that, by necessity, have eternally and perpetually manifested, crafting creation with the measure of endless, boundless love. The foundation of divine lordship is the manifestation and expression of love. God’s agency is an agency of love, and He loves all His phenomena with fidelity, accompanying them everywhere.
Every manifestation and phenomenon exists to the extent of its share in divine guardianship, which stems from the belovedness and love of the Exalted Truth. The intrinsic beloveds of the Exalted Truth are the seals of guardianship, for whom God’s creation has come into manifestation. It is God’s love for His beloveds that has set in motion this grand spectacle of creation and manifestation—not duties, Hell, or Paradise, which emerged along the way and are themselves manifestations of love. The agency of the Exalted Truth is one of love.
The servant, too, must move toward God with love, through love, and with the measure and motivation of love, living a life rooted in love. The path to attainment involves the power to negate determinations, multiplicities, and greed, moving toward love and unity with the ability to adapt to the present moment and align with the current state, mustering strength to fulfill the decree God ordains. The lover, with full will and attention, pure intention, divine motivation, desire, and satisfaction, attains divine permanence with a spirit free from all egoism.
Pure love is an attribute of the essence of the Exalted Truth, wherein God, in His essence, is both the lover of His essence and manifests with His essence in every particle and with every particle. This infinite existence, the progenitor of manifestation, through its love, brings vibrancy to phenomena in a profoundly beautiful form. Just as God participates in all the love of creation, the human being can also enter into all the love of the Exalted Truth—both in God’s love for His acts, thereby entering the love of all phenomena, and in God’s love for His own essence, attaining unity. At this stage, the distinction between lover and beloved ceases, for one must speak of unity and oneness, or better yet, remain silent, as speech itself introduces multiplicity and, outside the vessel of unity, cannot convey oneness beyond the realm of multiplicity.
The Journey of Love
Love for God begins with love for a material phenomenon. Smelling, kissing, caressing, cherishing, sacrificing oneself, holding another’s hand, touching and pressing, embracing or being embraced by a material being, or combing a lock of hair out of love—these acts ignite the love of God in the heart and affirm faith in Him. The heart, through faith in God, gains flexibility, fluidity, and softness, enabling it to flow and move, neither trembling at the pains of forthcoming trials nor becoming rebellious in its longing for attainment and spiritual ecstasies and delights. Instead, it endures them patiently to reach the Exalted Truth and allow God to live within it.
Discordant, diseased, dry, or severed hearts, those of comfort-seekers, or hearts devoid of the light of faith in God, which do not engage with God, never become lovers nor become beloved to anyone. Thus, it must be stated unequivocally that without love for the Exalted Truth, one cannot derive fulfillment or satisfaction from anything or become a lover of another. One must set forth toward God with love and through love. On the journey of love, the lover takes care not to break the delicate heart of God. Every phenomenon possesses a heart, which is none other than God’s heart.
God’s heart is exceedingly delicate and may break with a single sharp glance. Though God’s delicate heart may break easily, it is never wounded. The grandeur, majesty, and absoluteness of God should not cause one to forget that His omnipresent heart is profoundly delicate—a God who is present in every particle and every creation with the full stature of His essence. To draw a blade against any particle is, first and foremost, to draw it against Him.
The saints of God fear for God’s heart. They do not even fear being consigned to Hell, but they cannot bear to break God’s heart. They are captives of God’s heart. They can endure the torments of Hell but not the breaking of God’s heart. God Himself warns, “Do not break My heart with disobedience”: “Say, ‘If you love God, follow me, and God will love you and forgive your sins, for God is Forgiving, Merciful’” (Qur’an, Āl ‘Imrān: 31).
One must set forth toward God with love and pursue the journey of love. At times, a toxic thought makes the grains and particles of a desert’s dust claim entitlement over a person, asserting that in the collective system, no positive act is possible without the support and collaboration of others. This toxic thought diminishes the infinite positive efforts of phenomena, causing worry, distress, and decline.
The Trials and Lover-Slaying Nature of Love
Love is both love and fraught with pain and burning—whether love for God or the beauty of the material realm, it brings both anguish and fulfillment. Love is heat-generating, life-giving, motion-creating, and the springtime of existence, yet it also brings sleepless nights and melts the lover with the agony of separation. Love, which has neither beginning nor end, is inherently wild and bloody in every instance, such that those who are insincere and external flee. One who falters, severs ties, or fails to uphold respect was never a lover. Love is constant, inseparable companionship and respectful fellowship.
A true lover may break countless times but never rejoices in another’s failure, downfall, or discord, nor mocks them with scorn. Even if a person chooses to stray, let it be a straying that allows them to love all—a straying superior to a claim of righteousness that cannot coexist with others. The lover sees no one as an enemy or foe, is capable of companionship with every individual and group, and wishes well for all. One who is a lover adheres to the religion of love, viewing all of God’s servants as their dependents, extending affection to all, whether Muslim or non-believer. They are kind, humble, and meek to all, or even more, in their expansiveness and intoxication, they forge bonds with all without succumbing to any baseness.
The lover is magnanimous. A lover who loves all of God’s phenomena and all that pertains to the Exalted Truth has attained the capacity for intimacy. An intimate lover is safeguarded and cherished by God in the direst of circumstances. The lover possesses steadfastness and dignity. They exhaust exhaustion itself, and even if burdened by a deluge of troubles and the lover-slaying blade, they never open their tongue to complaint or grievance, nor do they demand from God a change in their situation, except to seek greater capacity for loving. In this state, they are content with both mercy and wrath.
Love fills the lover with substance, leaving no void or point of vulnerability for complaints or grievances. The lover, satiated by love, cannot be wounded even by the harshest afflictions. The lover never falls short. They can derive use and fulfillment from everything, remaining ever fulfilled, and are never incapable of fulfilling others, satisfying the desires of anyone who turns to them.
The Intensity and Variation of Love
The love of phenomena varies in intensity, contingent upon their degree of manifestation, rank, capacity, guardianship, and perfection, particularly based on their vitality, consciousness, truth-seeking, and steadfastness in truth, which confer natural or volitional distinction. Natural or volitional love is an intrinsic attribute, not an incidental one, inherent in the realm of demonstration, enduring without cessation, and a secondary philosophical intelligible with external attribution. All phenomena possess external attribution to natural or volitional love.
The Union and Unity of Love
The fruit of love is union and unity. The beloved, by virtue of their dominant energy, shapes the lover in their likeness. Gradually, through encounters, gazes, exchanges of warmth, and interactions, the proximity between lover and beloved intensifies, and their affection for one another grows so profound that they first achieve union, adopting each other’s traits. The lover takes on the qualities of the beloved, and the beloved acquires the attributes of the lover. Subsequently, they attain inner and bodiless unity in this very world, both manifestations becoming akin in essence.
The lover’s relationship with God follows this same pattern. God is a faithful lover who abandons no manifestation along the way, wastes nothing, leaves no one stranded, and accompanies the wayfarers, guiding them with His own steps. The unity of a manifestation with its beloved is made possible through the beloved’s decree, rendering it expressive of the manifestation and its true reality. The lover truly loves this reality, paying no heed to their own independent decree. Thus, the lover pursues the external beloved, constantly seeking to preserve them, and even upon realizing love and unity, they do not become independent of it.
Unity pertains to the Exalted Truth and manifestation, and with the attainment of unity, the lover’s need for the beloved’s essence and attention persists. Moreover, love is insatiable and boundless; the lover never tires or grows weary of love, which grants them a new, distinct, and ever-fresher vitality. The reality of the Exalted Truth, with its pervasive identity, is intertwined with the essence of manifestations, and with its sustaining accompaniment, it is bound to their attributes. God’s determination resides in the identity of manifestation, and manifestation lives and moves with the Exalted Truth, possessing love and unity.
The Exalted Truth is the root of vitality, and through attaining God, one can draw near to all realities of existence, establishing a union or unity. The divine human perceives the Exalted Truth as a personality with the fullest existential capacity, a pervasive identity, and sustaining accompaniment, intimately connected with every particle of phenomena, being their beginning and end, manifest and hidden, transcending all description. Thus, they cannot desire anything but Him or prioritize anything above Him, for no before or after exists to allow preference. Existence and manifestation are the stage of love, unity, and singularity.
The term union pertains to manifestation, referring to the manifest and the manifester, indicating rank and multiplicity. The term unity denotes the Exalted Truth itself, free from lower or higher distinctions or plurality. Unity with the Exalted Truth and love, which is an attribute of the Exalted Truth, is unity with the undetermined essence, devoid of names or attributes, where the Truth itself designates the undetermined manifestation. In such a station, one can perceive the love of the Exalted Truth. Determination and manifestation can only achieve the union of love, and for a unifying unity, they must relinquish determination, becoming nameless and attributeless.
The entirety of the Exalted Truth’s love must be sought in indeterminacy, and the love of manifestation is merely the active love of God, united with the Exalted Truth, not encompassing all of God’s love. The love of manifestation for manifestation exists in determination and union, not in indeterminacy and unity. In unity, the hue of manifestation is absorbed into the hue of the Exalted Truth, and God’s hue wholly overtakes that of manifestation.
All phenomena love the Exalted Truth, which possesses essence and is exalted. The Exalted Truth is the very act of manifestation and disclosure. The Exalted Truth has two motions: existential and declarative. The existential motion comprises intrinsic manifestations, while the declarative motion encompasses active manifestations. In the intrinsic manifestation of the Exalted Truth, both the origin and the aim are the Exalted Truth itself, with no purpose beyond the essence. The essence of the Exalted Truth is manifestation itself, not another; it is the agent, not the aim or purpose. Thus, higher and lower distinctions have no place in it. The philosophical maxim that “the higher does not regard the lower” does not apply to love. Love is the unity between lover and beloved, devoid of higher or lower distinctions. All phenomena are manifestations, dependent on existence and the essence of existence, possessing no independent reality.
Collective Love
Love is of the nature of knowledge, and the steadfastness and endurance of the lover—which is action—are among its consequences. If action ascends, it transforms into knowledge, and if knowledge takes root in the heart, it brings forth love. The Day of Judgment is the visage of knowledge, and even action manifests with the identity of knowledge, which is why it endures. All actions and worship are knowledge manifested in this form. Action is tested and nurtured in the intermediary realm (barzakh), growing until it becomes knowledge.
The saints of God carry their actions from this world as ripened, transformed into knowledge and love, without needing the intermediary realm or the Day of Judgment for testing or maturation. It is ordinary individuals who possess unripe actions. The actions of God’s saints are knowledge in this very world, and their knowledge is their action; there is unity between their knowledge and action, inseparable from one another.
Among them, only the perfect divine saints embody the visage of collective and pure love. In love, collectivity is paramount, and only the perfect divine saints give collective love the form of action. The possessor of collective love inherently holds all the chapters of love, their heart pierced by the delicate stings of the beloved’s whims, shattered and fragmented until it becomes heartless. Such a heart’s ghazal of love is entirely the visage of love, and the visage of love is manifest in all their actions.
The Renunciation of Greed and Pure Collective Love
The path to gnosis and attainment in the mysticism of the beloved is exceedingly concise, swift, and confined to two stations: the renunciation of greed and the embrace of pure love. This journey, propelled by the force of affection and love, is wholly centered on severing greed from others, from oneself, and from God. In love devoid of greed, one may cherish oneself without demanding anything from oneself, love others without claiming entitlement or harboring expectations, and love God for the sake of love itself. These three stations are encapsulated in a single phrase: pure love, which embodies the essence of renouncing greed.
The renunciation of greed entails the shedding of all desires, inclinations, and aspirations for perfection, leaving nothing but love free from doubt, conditions, or judgment. A true lover, whose love is utterly pure, never complains, grieves, or holds expectations of others, nor does their heart harbor regret for worldly matters, the hereafter, or any form of perfection. Such a person becomes a companion to all, a true friend. They form a bond with the Exalted Truth, not out of fear of Hell’s torments nor in pursuit of Paradise’s rewards, but because they find God worthy of companionship, without seeking to beg from Him. As articulated by the Commander of the Faithful, Ali (peace be upon him):
“I have not worshipped You out of fear of Your fire, nor out of greed for Your paradise, but I found You worthy of worship, and thus I worshipped You.”
One may love God, devote themselves to Him, and attain Him without pursuing anything—not even gnosis. God Himself nurtures His servant, and the loving servant harbors no greed for divine perfection. Essential monotheism and divine guardianship are bestowed as gifts within the framework of greedless love.
Pure love, untainted by any impurity or external motive, belongs to the true beloveds of God, those whom God loves and who embody His love. What matters most is that God loves someone. The beloved is bound solely to the essence of the Exalted Truth, and thus maintains a positive outlook on all things, not perceiving even the injustice of an oppressor as evil. The beloved sees only the line of divine grace and sits solely in the presence of God.
The beloved holds a collective perspective toward the Exalted Truth and its manifestations, immersed in collective love. One who embodies this collective visage has the capacity to be compassionate toward all and to love or be content with everything. Love is not pure unless it assumes a collective form, and pure love cannot exist without collectivity. Collectivity is the realization of all divine attributes within oneself and the attainment of all divine names—a love that entails companionship with the essence of the Exalted Truth. One who holds the station of collectivity and is tasked with guiding others is aware of the essence of every particle and the heart of every being, discerning the unique and natural path of each individual. Through the pervasive presence of God in their heart, and by virtue of divine guardianship and bestowed proximity, they maintain a constant, sustaining, and enduring identity with all phenomena. Every pain or joy first settles in their heart. Out of love, they serve all phenomena.
The Self-Sacrificing Lover
The human being in the mysticism of the beloved and divine harbors no greed. They are a self-sacrificing lover who holds no greed toward the Exalted Truth, renouncing greed from all existence, from themselves, and even from God. They do not perceive their renunciation of greed or their love for God, and they renounce even the act of renouncing greed, leaving nothing but love—a love in which lover, love, and beloved are one. Yet, one should not speak of such unity but rather sit in silence and gaze upon the beloved with the eyes of Truth.
Only one who possesses the power of detachment and the ability to relinquish their self can attain monotheism. In monotheism, there is only God and nothing else. God is not so naive as to admit someone who remains “someone” into His sacred precinct. He knows His greedy servants, and thus grants gnosis, proximity, and attainment to the wayfarer free of greed. Such a person realizes that nothing exists but the Exalted Truth, and their motto is: “Long live the Exalted Truth.”
The perfect human in the mysticism of the beloved attains the Exalted Truth through a greedless and loving journey. The light of Truth perpetually radiates within their innermost being, and they see nothing but God, consent to nothing but His presence, and seek nothing but His decrees. Indeed, there is nothing but Him to choose for satisfaction or love.
Only one who is utterly self-sacrificing can reach monotheism. The path to monotheism is open, but its traversal requires detachment, relinquishing, and shedding whatever has been acquired along the way. Through detachment and traversing the stations of ultimate bestowal, the divine guardian becomes the embodiment of God’s beauty and majesty, the speaking Qur’an, and attains the divine encounter and the essence. Here, they encompass all divine names, and no matter how much is said in their description, it remains insufficient.
Renouncing Greed: The Root of Love
Renouncing greed from one’s essence is the sole station of the mysticism of the beloved and the root of love. When greed is uprooted from the heart, the entire material world collapses, and the individual becomes so courageous that they embrace whatever comes. Such courage resides in the station of equilibrium. Living in annihilation and with love, they never experience necessity or need. Love is free from all distress, anxiety, or predicament.
The greedless lover never abandons their love and never forsakes their beloved under any circumstance. Greedless love knows no severance; rather, as time passes, it becomes purer.
The path to mysticism is the renunciation of mysticism, and one attains gnosis by renouncing gnosis, just as the path to attainment is the renunciation of attainment. Renouncing attainment means rising above oneself, and “one flourishing city is enough.” The entire path of the mysticism of the beloved is this: “Long live the Exalted Truth.”
Renouncing greed brings inner purity. In gnosis and inner proximity, only purity is sought, and acquiring gnosis is not achieved through cunning or toil. It is purity that prepares the ground for the bestowal of gnosis, proximity, and attainment. Purity comes through simplicity, not multiplicity. The journey is solely for attaining intimacy with the Exalted Truth and reaching Him.
Intimacy is the result and actualization of gnosis and mysticism. Renouncing greed is the root and foundation of the mysticism of the beloved, and without it, there is no mysticism. Renouncing selfishness is the beginning of renouncing greed, but renouncing greed is its continuation and far more comprehensive, encompassing many subtleties and intricacies.
The greatest obstacle to attainment is greed and the disposition of avarice. One who can renounce greed from themselves, others, and God, and expects nothing, is an attainer: “You are your own veil, Hafiz, rise from within.”
Renouncing Greed from Creation
The first station of renouncing greed is renouncing greed from creation. This means that every created being—whether near or far, whether a friend, intimate, kind, and pleasant, or an enemy and adversary, whether a spouse, child, colleague, companion, or stranger—not only is free from one’s resentment but is loved, cherished, and sacrificed for, as they are lovable and a manifestation of the Exalted Truth.
Creation must be observed, but only as a divine manifestation, without attributing independence to it. One should follow the ordinary channels of events and causes, transforming them into occurrences without burning the causes, yet not becoming attached to these channels, causes, or even oneself.
In the station of renouncing greed from creation, the individual shares their blessings with all and keeps their troubles to themselves, never inflicting harm on others. Rather, they have the capacity to endure others’ harms, absorb them, and transform them into love.
The pressure arising from the power of concentration, eliminating dispersion and distraction, detachment from creation, the strength of concealment, and adhering to the principle of skepticism—ensuring others do not believe one has traversed a path or knows something—along with residing in the zero zone, prompts the individual to turn inward, explore their essence, and manifest their divine nature, thus living fully.
Concentration for love and affection is achieved when all sensory and mental faculties, including reason, are focused on the heart and surrendered to it, enabling the heart to manage the senses and mind. The heart must not be detached from the sensory faculties but present within them. A greeting, expression of devotion, or sacrifice that is merely physical or habitual, lacking concentration, detachment, and intention, will not yield satisfaction or fidelity. Concentration and detachment must focus the senses and reason on the heart’s management, stabilizing them to avoid obstructing or diverting the heart’s movement and presence.
Greedless love for others, without expecting kindness or anticipating favors, is the substance of the journey and the traversal of spiritual stations. This love, indifferent to others’ good or bad behavior, cherishes the essence of manifestation and extends affection to all through pure, greedless love, driven by divine will or aspiration.
One who renounces greed from others is not tainted by arrogance or hypocrisy.
Renouncing Greed from Oneself
The second station of renouncing greed is renouncing greed from oneself. This means one should not be harsh on oneself or undertake asceticism to become worthy of paradise or gnosis but should treat oneself with gentleness and ease. Being harsh on oneself to gain paradise or gnosis is akin to pressuring one’s child to provide money.
In life, effort and asceticism are necessary, but one should not attach a “purpose” or “until” to them, nor demand anything in return. Work should be desired for the love of it, not for ancillary benefits. One devoid of love becomes anxious about themselves.
Liberation from oneself and renouncing all forms of selfishness initiate the renunciation of greed. If one succumbs to selfishness, and their life—even their worship—takes on a selfish hue, they have drunk the hemlock of their own demise and struck a steel hammer upon their fragile journey.
In renouncing greed from oneself, the individual seeks liberation from themselves, performing every act for the Exalted Truth and in the path of surrender and delegation to Him. They bring their actions solely for Him, striving to submit themselves to God, reserving nothing for themselves, and wholly delegating their affairs to the Exalted Truth, not to themselves.
The foundation of renouncing greed is built upon relinquishing selfishness. The individual must gradually wash their hands of themselves, seating only Truth in their heart and soul, and abandoning self-centeredness.
To achieve this, one must practice relinquishing oneself and avoid standing upon themselves. When one resolves to let go of themselves, God comes to their aid, casting a stone into the vessel of their soul to break it.
A selfish person harbors unwarranted expectations and heavy demands from others, even from God. If one frees themselves from themselves and embraces forgiveness and sacrifice, they discover within themselves varying degrees of being a “possessor of breath,” “possessor of inspiration,” “possessor of care,” “possessor of aspiration,” and “possessor of the secret.”
Renouncing Greed from the Exalted Truth
The third station of renouncing greed is renouncing greed from the Exalted Truth. This station, the valley of bestowed guardianship, is traversed through the spirit and the energy of gnosis.
In this station, one can attain the essence of the Exalted Truth. The true beloved in this station of unity finds the love of Truth, not merely love for Truth. Approaching this station is bone-crushing, and seeking it entails being worn to threads.
The greedless human addresses God: “O God, if You wish to test me, test me. Pour upon me every affliction, let every enemy dominate me. If You wish to take me to Hell, take me. But You will not see in me the slightest trace of anything but love, and I love You in every state, whether in mercy or in wrath.” In this station, the attainer not only worships their God without greed for paradise but, even if placed in the midst of Hell, does not harbor the slightest ill will toward Him, continuing to love God and proclaiming: “Glorified and Holy is our Lord, the Lord of the angels and the Spirit.”
The servant, in pure love and renunciation of greed, does not barter or act as a leech before God. Anyone less than this harbors greed in their heart.
Intimacy with the Exalted Truth is attained only when the wayfarer trusts and holds a good opinion of God, turning away from all else. One who attains intimacy with God achieves inner purity. The vessel of such a pure-hearted person holds nothing but God, and their heart clings to nothing but Truth. Such a person is pure of all but God, their inner vitality and attachment are to Truth, and their heart is a heart of Truth.
Inner purity is formed through trust in Truth and detachment from all but God. If one attains inner purity, nothing but God resides in them, and their heart is a barren desert to all else. In this station, if they love, it is only for God; if they strive, it is only for God; if they have intimacy, it is only with the Exalted Truth. In a word, they live the decrees of God.
The true beloved’s love is pure and free from greed, thus embodying pure goodness and mercy for all phenomena, harboring no trace of injustice, condition, or demand.
Inner purity is of two kinds: descending and ascending. Descending inner purity is exclusive to the beloveds, whose hearts are divine, and their purity is God-given, entirely unacquired and wholly bestowed. Descending inner purity exists in some non-human phenomena, such as agate, turquoise, peridot, and ruby.
The second kind is ascending purity, possessed by loving wayfarers. Among phenomena, mountain stone, when polished to yield marble, possesses ascending purity. Lovers are purified through created means, while beloveds are filled with purity by the Exalted Truth.
Determining whether one with gnosis is a loving wayfarer or a beloved with descending inner purity requires testing, based on which they can choose their guide and become their companion and servant.
One who lacks intimacy with the Exalted Truth and inner purity does not possess the framework for the journey or gnosis.
The Nature of Devotion
The heart, the center of inner gravity, is the origin of inner perfections, including affection, love, and devotion, and is subject to the law of attraction and absorption, undergoing the most profound transformations. An individual’s heart determines their distinguished identity and character.
The heart can draw the doubting intellect from uncertainty and harm, leading it to assurance, virtuous behavior, and good character, transforming calculation into sacrifice and forging a flourishing, pure, wise, and devoted intellect.
A devoted mind is free from turbidity, malice, and resentment, and is content with all, as it neither demands nor expects from others, nor have others suffered harm or injustice from it to claim anything from it.
With this purification, the heart can embark on a journey toward Truth through its inner essence, driven by loving attractions, until it reaches the divine and lordly presence, where God resides in the servant’s heart. A devoted intellect is the starting point of finding God.
One must purify themselves from the tainted mental God and find a God who is an external personality, accessible for encounter—a God who is all existence and has brought creation into manifestation. The Exalted Truth is the entirety of reality, possessing existence, essence, and independence, while His creation has neither essence, independence, nor existence, but is mere manifestation. Such a God resides in the heart—a God whose finding or separation from Him is impossible without the heat, movement, pressure, pain, and passionate pangs of love, intimacy, and tangible proximity.
For one who seeks proximity and is granted permission to attain it, their possessions are continually taken through losses and showers. Consecutive failures burn their possessions, afflictions and retribution strip them of comfort, safety, honor, and security. At the peak of estrangement, absence, and immersion, not only does no one accompany, support, or understand them, nor do they remember them, rendering them obscure and isolated, but they, in pursuit of divine decrees, are torn apart by arrows of accusation and blades of slander—which to them are the beloved’s caresses—wounding them piece by piece. Their illuminating pangs are plundered through force, claims, and preemption in the name and for the sake of others.
The pain of these interconnected, excruciating, and prolonged afflictions fortifies the individual, granting them courage and boldness, and a steadfast heart that finds affection. Affection is an inner state resulting from the warmth and heat of suffering and enduring hardships. The greatest catalyst for affection is pain. Thus, affliction is sought for those of guardianship, and affection must be bestowed by God through suffering.
This intention for proximity and blessed resolve is nourished and empowered through asceticism, fairness, sincerity, chivalry, expansiveness, remembrance, intimacy with the Exalted Truth, patience, and living in the moment.
Living in the moment means valuing the fleeting moments of life by passing them through with purity, affection, love, and expansiveness.
Asceticism entails filling the will and soul, shedding all weakness and frailty with gentleness and ease to attain sincerity, purity, and sound, assured beliefs, maintaining a good opinion of God, abandoning slander and complaints against His works and the system of creation, and aligning with the Exalted Truth through truth-seeing and gnosis of God’s reality and the optimality of the creation’s system, not only in general but in every detail.
In this station, the servant holds a good opinion of the Exalted Truth, considering everything that befalls them as their own good, the good of the collective system, and the embodiment of God’s sincerity, care, and love.
If one, through intimacy and remembrance, gains assured trust and knowledge of the Exalted Truth, permission to enter the station of pure love may be granted from the Exalted Truth, for all good is in God’s hands, and He alone is the bestower of good.
The pure lover, through love, the shedding of determinations, and the renunciation of impurities and greed, attains ecstatic unity and, by reaching all good, becomes the confluence of all blessings. Such a person possesses sincerity and infallibility and becomes a well-wisher of people through divine guardianship.
To reach this station—the station of the spirit, great divine grace, and essential love—permission for entry is required. The permission for success in entering this station is issued by the Exalted Truth. Thus, one must know God, trust Him, and hold a good opinion of Him.
Descriptive and active love has acquired foundations, while essential love is bestowed and granted by God’s permission. Its prerequisites, such as suffering and enduring afflictions, are like plowing the soil and sowing seeds, and God’s care is like rain upon it. Love is the result of the Exalted Truth’s affection for the servant. God grants love to those He loves, igniting their inner furnace and making their heart pulse. Essential love sets fire to the lover’s existence, stripping them of all possessions—wealth, life, attachments to loved ones, titles, names, and respect.
The essential lover wholeheartedly and greedlessly embraces every injustice from the beloved in serene tranquility, without regret, sorrow, or grief, seeing it as the grace of the Exalted Truth. Their heart holds nothing but purity, affection, and mercy. They neither crack the glass of another’s heart nor break the stature of any phenomenon, though love brings them fire and blood, and the lover is set ablaze by love.
The lover is referred to one of God’s saints, who is united with the Exalted Truth. In the material realm, the true beloved saint is a descent of the Exalted Truth. The attainment of unity between lover and beloved begins with intimacy and proximity to the beloved’s body, then to their mind, intellect, and scientific knowledge, culminating in heartfelt and spiritual unity in bodilessness.
The unity of love is the convergence of two spirits in bodilessness. In the loving journey, the lover and beloved transition from two bodies to one, and to one sensory experience, through harmony among the inner essence, mind, and body, uniting them in a cohesive body—the beloved’s sensory experience—through the power of concentration. The lover’s body and the beloved’s body, as well as the inner mind and senses, become so aligned and sincere that nothing seems unnatural to them. If the mind and inner essence perceive anything as unnatural or are not at ease and sincere with it, they distance themselves from it, diverting the path to bodiless unity. The lover then reaches bodilessness to attain unity.
It is the lover’s love for the beloved that causes their unity, and ultimately, in bodilessness, nothing remains of the lover, and all that exists is the beloved. In such unity, the lover realizes that God is in everything and beyond everything, and thus loves all things without attachment or greed. This unity is the mode of connection in life and a unique bond with the Exalted Truth.
For attaining unity, gender is not a criterion; rather, affinity, similarity, inner attraction, divine nature, proximity, and nearness with the intention of connection, unity, and becoming one are significant. To achieve this proximity and unity, one must reach affinity and similarity in all things, such that both parties share the same taste, imagination, and sensation.
For bodiless unity, the systems of the body—mind, thoughts, heart, emotions, beliefs, behaviors, inclinations, desires, lifestyle, and diet—must become similar and unified. The systems of respiration, digestion, behaviors, physical exercises, and even the physique of both parties must align in proportion and beauty. They must speak harmoniously about the same matters, and when apart, one must imaginatively place themselves in the other’s position, striving to transfer all their possessions to them through sacrifice and doing what the other accepts.
Attainment can be to the Exalted Truth or His beloved. Since the novice wayfarer neither knows nor perceives the Exalted Truth, they must first win the heart of God’s beloved through fulfilling divine decrees, sincerity, expansiveness, love, gentleness, forbearance, wisely enduring the beloved’s whims, avoiding injustice, gnosis, and discernment, adopting the garb of creation, and drawing near to those endowed with special guardianship through will, choice, devotion, affection, charity, and need, to achieve attainment.
Gentleness and Ease with Oneself
Gentleness and ease mean respecting and honoring oneself. Such a person can also honor others.
They should be kind to themselves, pursue their desires, and avoid injustice or harm to themselves. They must practice greeting themselves, just as it is fitting to first greet their God each morning, saying, “Peace be upon You, O God.” After greeting God, one may greet themselves and hold themselves in esteem. They should cherish themselves, deeming themselves dear, honorable, respected, and great. They must honor themselves through cleanliness and beauty, considering each day a wedding night—a union with the bride of existence and the beloved of love. Respect for oneself should be taught to children from an early age, as this is the starting point for reaching inner inclinations, discovering one’s essence, prior possessions, and prerequisites for proximity. One should pamper themselves and treat themselves with affection, placing a cushion for themselves and saying, “Please, be seated.” They should consider themselves their own guest. They must honor themselves and not neglect their greatness, for respecting oneself is also respecting the Exalted Truth.
If one does not honor themselves and fails to manifest their humanity, religion cannot guide them to create a mark upon themselves or fulfill their potential. A human must respect their cells, nerves, muscles, and even their knowledge and learning, then go to the prayer rug to see if they can perform the call to prayer, the prelude, the night prayer, or recitations and invocations, and experience vision, observation, and unveiling. One who deems themselves insignificant or diminishes themselves cannot attain unveiling, mysticism, or proximity. The human essence must be fortified for knowledge and worship to take effect; otherwise, it is like a design on the sands of the shore, erased by a single wave. All phenomena of existence and God reside within the human essence, but one must honor themselves to reach this greatness. One must grow and see their true greatness without becoming arrogant or harboring false self-aggrandizement.
Each person must become something from their own essence, not from elsewhere. The prayer of such a person can be an ascension. One who finds themselves considers themselves a manifestation of the Exalted Truth—a manifestation that encompasses all of God’s names and attributes in a modal sense. One who does not see themselves as a manifestation of the Exalted Truth flits like a fly over every act of worship, burdened by such heavy heedlessness that they are unaware of how they worship and take solace in it, for they lack human character, and their soul is that of a fly or animal. Such a person does not respect others, buzzing one-sidedly at everyone like a fly. Having diminished themselves, they cannot comprehend or respect the character of society or individuals.
By attaining sincerity and good character with God’s creation, one can advance their spiritual movement toward awakening the intellect and igniting the heart’s driving engine. The possessor of a heart, through the power of concentration, unifying and utilizing their energies and care systematically according to natural and creational principles, and the ability of concealment, expands. The greater one’s aspiration and power of concealment, the more their blessings increase, filling them so fully that they have no demands from God’s creation, themselves, or the Exalted Truth.