The Third: On the journey to the Intermediate Realm and the hereafter, it is to join one of the lines of the Sufi orders, and become a member of its luminous caravan on the road to eternity. The person is thus saved from loneliness and finds the friend­ship of the other members in this world and in the Intermediate Realm; and relying on their consensus and accord in the face of the attacks of doubts and fears, and seeing each of their masters as a powerful support and proof, he repulses through them those doubts and instances of misguidance.

The Fourth is to understand by means of the pure Sufi way the knowledge of God to be found in belief in God, and the pleasure of love of God within the knowledge of God, and by so understanding, to be saved from the desolation of this world and man's exile in the universe. We have proved in many of the Words that the happiness of both worlds, and pain-free pleasure, and intimacy untainted by loneliness, and true delight, and untroubled happiness are all to be found in faith and the reality of Islam. As is explained in the Second Word, faith produces the seed of a Tuba-tree of Paradise. It is through the training and nurturing of the Sufi path that the seed grows and develops.

The Fifth is to perceive through an awakening of the heart elicited by the Sufi path and remembrance of God, the subtle truths contained in the obligations of the Shari'a, and to appreciate them. Then the per­son obeys and performs his worship, not under com­pulsion, but with longing.

The Sixth is to rise to the station of reliance on God and the rank of submission to Him and winning

His pleasure, which are the means of obtaining true delight, real solace, painfree pleasure, and friend­ship untainted by loneliness.

The Seventh is, through sincerity, which is the essential precondition for travelling the Sufi way and its most valuable result, to be delivered from base qualities like implicitly associating partners with God, hypocrisy, and artificiality. It is also to be saved, through purifying the soul, which is like the surgical operation of the Sufi path, from the dangers of the evil-commanding soul and the perils of ego­tism.

The Eighth: Through the regard, sense of the divine presence, and powerful intentions of the Sufi path, gained by recalling God with the heart and reflecting on Him with the mind, this is to transform customary actions into worship and make mundane dealings into actions benefiting the hereafter. Utiliz­ing the capital of life, it is to make all its minutes into seeds that will produce the shoots of eternal happiness.