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