Third Point: This world is the realm of wisdom, the realm of service; it is not the realm of reward and recompense. The wage for deeds and acts of service here is given in the Intermediate Realm and the hereafter. Acts here produce fruits there, This being the truth of the matter, the results of actions that look to the hereafter should not be sought in this world. If they are given, they should be received not gratefully, but regretfully. For in Paradise, the more fruits are picked the more they grow. So it is hardly sensible to consume in this world in fleeting fashion the fruits of actions that pertain to the hereafter, which are lasting. It is like exchanging a permanent lamp for one that will last a minute and then flicker out.

It is because of this that the people of sainthood look on service, difficulty, misfortune, and hardship as agreeable. They do not complain and lament, but say: "All praise be to God for all situations!" When illuminations and wonders, unfoldings and lights are bestowed on them, they accept them as divine favours, and try to conceal them. They do not become proud, but offer more thanks and worship. Many of them have wanted those states to be concealed or to cease*, lest they spoil the sincerity of their actions. Yes, the highest divine favour for an acceptable person is not to make him realize the favour, so that he does not give up beseeching and offering thanks, or become complacent and start complaining.

It is because of this truth that if those who seek sainthood and follow the Sufi path do so for illumi­nations and wonders, which are some of the emana­tions of sainthood, and they are turned towards those and receive pleasure from them, they as though consume in transient fashion in this transient world the enduring fruits of the hereafter. This too opens up the way to loss of sincerity, the leaven of sainthood, and to sainthood eluding them.

This consists of four points.

First Point: The Shari'a is directly, with­out shadow or veil, the result of the divine address, through the mystery of divine oneness (ehadiyet) in respect of absolute dominicality (rububiyet). The highest degrees of the Sufi path (tar ikat)-and of real­ity (hakikaf) are like parts of the Shari'a. Or they are always like its means, introduction, and servant. Their results are the incontrovertible matters of the Shari'a. That is to say, the ways of the Sufi orders and of reality are like means, servants, and steps for reaching the truths of the Shari'a, till at the highest level they are transformed into the meaning of real­ity and essence of the Sufi way, which are at the heart of the Shari'a. So then they become parts of the Greater Shari'a. It is not right to think of the Shari'a as an outer shell and reality as its inner part and result and aim, as some Sufis do. Yes, the Shari'a unfolds according to the levels of men. It is wrong to suppose that what the mass of people ima­gine is the external aspect of the Shari'a is its reality, and to give the names of reality and Sufi path to the degrees of the Shari'a that are disclosed to the elite. The Shari'a has degrees which look to all classes.