The Words | 26. Word - addendum | 494
(491-494)

Conclusion 

          The Four Steps in this way of impotence, poverty, compassion, and reflection have been explained in the twenty-six Words so far written, which are concerned with knowledge of reality, the reality of the Shari'a, and the wisdom of the Qur'an. So here we shall allude briefly to only one or two points, as follows:

Indeed, this path is shorter, because it consists of four steps. When impotence removes the hand from the soul, it gives it directly to the All-Powerful One of Glory. Whereas, when the way of ecstatic love, the swiftest way, takes the hand away from the soul, it attaches it to the metaphorical beloved. Only after the beloved is found to be impermanent does it go to the True Beloved.

Also, this path is much safer, because the ravings and high-flown claims of the soul are not present on it. For, apart from impotence, poverty, and defect, the soul possesses nothing so that it oversteps its mark.

Also, this path is much broader and more universal. For, in order to attain to a constant awareness of God's presence, a person is not compelled to imagine the universe to be condemned to non-existence and to declare: "There is no existent but He," like those who believe in 'the unity of existence,' nor to suppose the universe to be condemned to imprisonment in absolute oblivion and to say, "There is nothing witnessed but He," like those who believe in 'the unity of witnessing.' Rather, since the Qur'an has most explicitly pardoned the universe and released it from execution and imprisonment, one on this path disregards the above, and dismissing beings from working on their own account and employing them on account of the All-Glorious Creator, and in the duty of manifesting the Most Beautiful Names and being mirrors to them, he considers them from the point of view of signifying something other than themselves; and being saved from absolute heedlessness he enters the Divine presence permanently; he finds a way leading to Almighty God in everything.

In Short: Dismissing beings from working on account of other beings, this way is to not look at them as signifying themselves.


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The Words