This most important recommendation did not seem appropriate to my disposition and mental state. However much I pondered over which of them to fol­low, I remained perplexed and confused. They all had different qualities that drew me; one was not enough. While thus bewildered, it was imparted to my heart by God's mercy that "the head of these var­ious ways and the source of these streams and the sun of these planets is the All-Wise Qur'an; the true single qibla is to be found in it. In which case, it is also the most elevated guide and most holy master." So I clasped it with both hands and clung on to it. Of course with my deficient, wretched abilities I could not absorb the effulgence - like the water of life - of that true guide as was its due, but still, through it, we can show that effulgence, that water of life, accord­ing to the degree of those who receive it, those who perceive the truth with their hearts and attain to cer­tain spiritual states. That is to say, the Words and those lights, which proceed from the Qur'an, are not only scholarly matters that address the intellect, they are matters of belief that look to the heart, the spirit, and spiritual states. They resemble most elevated, valuable knowledge of God.

All the subtle inner faculties of those of the Com­panions and of the following two generations who possessed the very highest degree of the greater sainthood received their share from the Qur'an itself, and for them, the Qur'an was the true guide and sufficient for them. This shows that just as the All-Wise Qur'an states realities, so too it emanates the effulgences of the greater sainthood to those capable of receiving them.

Yes, there are two ways of passing from the apparent to reality:

One is to enter the intermediate realm of Sufism, and to reach reality by traversing the degrees through spiritual journeying.

The Second Way is, through divine favour, to pass directly to reality without entering the interme­diate realm of the Sufi way. This is the elevated, direct way particular to the Companions and those that succeeded them.

That is to say, the lights which issue from the truths of the Qur'an, and the Words, which interpret those lights, may possess those qualities, and do pos­sess them.