Thursday, February 9, 2012

O slave of Allah! Know that you are a wayfarer (salik) seeking your Lord




O slave of Allah! Know that you are a wayfarer (salik)seeking your Lord and ultimately   
one day you would meet Him, as said in a tradition: Whoever hopes to meet God
should know that the time of the meeting will come. And you should know that God, the
Exalted, by His perfect Might and Wisdom has destined two journeys for the Children
of Adam. One of them is involuntary (qahri), and the other one is voluntary (ikhtiyari).
As to the involuntary journey, the starting point is the father's loins (sulb); the second
stage is the mother's womb; the third stage is the physical world; and the fourth stage
is that of the grave, which is either a garden out of the gardens of paradise or is a pit
out of the pits of hell. The fifth stage is the Day of Resurrection, which is equal to fifty
thousand years of this world. After that stage you will reach your eternal home and
attain the real abode - that is, the abode of peace (dar al-salam)and the paradise of
security and peace, in case you are among the felicitous and the friends of the Haqq;
or your home will be the abode of fire and torture, if, God forbid, you should be among
the wretched and the enemies of the Haqq, as Allah has said: "On the Day of
Resurrection a group will be in paradise and a group in hell." Every breath that you
take is a step towards the stage of death. Every day of your life is equal to a parsang.
Each month is like a stage (marhalah)and each year like a station (manzil). Your
journey is like the movement of the sun and the moon - yet you are oblivious of this
journey and movement - and in your ignorance and forgetfulness you have failed to
make ready and equip yourself properly for the station (manzil)of the grave and the
onward journey to the station of the Day of Resurrection and your eternal and real
home.
But the voluntary journey is of two kinds: one is the journey of the souls and the hearts
toward the Almighty and All-powerful King of the world. The second is a physical
journey (safar jismani)in the earth of God.
-Adab al-Suluk: A Treatise on Spiritual Wayfaring by Shaykh Najm al-Din Kubra

1 comment:

  1. assalamualikum, orob. May Allah (SWT) guide has with hidaya before the time comes to leave this world.
    md. arab anees
    andhrapradesh
    India.

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