As is proved in many of the Words, and as vera­cious authorities (muhakkiktri) of the Sufi path like Imam Ghazali and Imam-i Rabbani said: "The degree of acceptance gained by following a single of the Prophet's (PBUH) practices cannot be won through a hundred personal practices and supererog­atory acts of worship. And just as a single obligatory act is superior to a thousand acts taken from the Prophet's practices, so a single of those practices is superior to a thousand practices of Sufism."

The Fourth: Some extremist Sufis suppose inspi­ration to be like divine revelation and of similar kind to revelation, and fall into an abyss. It has been proved most definitely in the Twelfth Word and in the Twenty-Fifth Word on the Miraculousness of the Qur'an, how elevated, universal, and sacred is divine revelation, and how insignificant and dull inspira­tions are in comparison.

The Fifth: Some Sufis who do not understand the essence of the Sufi path, in order to strengthen the weak, encourage the slack, and to lighten the hard­ships and weariness arising from strenuous service, find the lights, illuminations, and wonders, which are not sought but given, to be pleasurable, and they become captivated by them and fall into the abyss of preferring them to worship, acts of service, and reci­tation of supplications. It is mentioned briefly in the Third Point of the Sixth Allusion in the present trea­tise and proved decisively in others of the Words that this world is the realm of service and not the realm of reward. People who seek their recompense here, both transform enduring, perpetual fruits into a transitory and temporary form, and find permanence in this world pleasing, so they do not yearn for the Intermediate Realm. Quite simply, they love the life of this world in one respect, since they find a sort of hereafter within it.
    The Sixth: Some of those who embark on spiri­tual journeying fall into an abyss by confusing the shades and shadows and partial samples of the sta­tions of sainthood with its fundamental, universal stations. As is proved clearly in the Second Branch of the Twenty-Fourth Word and in others of the Words, the sun becomes numerous by means of mir­rors and thousands of its similitudes possess light and heat like the sun itself, despite their paltriness in relation to the actual sun. In exactly the same way, the stations of the prophets and the great saints pos­sess shades and shadows. Those who journey with the spirit enter these, and see themselves as greater than those great saints, or even to have advanced further than the prophets, and so fall into an abyss. However, the way to avoid this is to always take the principles of belief and fundamentals of the Shari'a as one's basis and guide, and to look on one's illu­minations and visions as opposed to them.