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 realit y without entering the intermediate realm of the Sufi way. This is the elevated, direct way particular to the Companions and those who 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 characteristics, and do possess them.

Fifth Point

We shall demonstrate through five small examples that the Words both instruct in the realities, and perform the duty of guide.

F  i  r  s  t    E  x  a  m  p  l  e  :  I  myself  have  formed  the  conviction  through experiencing, not ten or a hundred times but thousands of times, that just as the lights proceeding from the Words and the Qur’an give instruction to my mind, so do they induce a state of belief in my heart and produce the pleasure of belief in my spirit, and so on. The same goes for worldly matters: just as the follower of a wonder-working shaikh awaits saintly assistance from him to answer his needs; so I have awaited from the wondrous mysteries of the All-Wise Qur’an that they answer my needs, and this has  been  achieved  for  me  on  numerous  occasions  in  ways  I  had  not  hoped  or anticipated. The following are only two minor examples:

The First: As is described in detail in the Sixteenth Letter, a large loaf of bread appeared in an extraordinary way to a guest of mine called Süleyman, at the top of a cedar tree. For two days the two of us fed off that gift from the Unseen.

The Second Example: I shall recount a very insignificant yet gratifying incident that occurred recently. It was this:

Before dawn the thought came to me that some things had been said about me in a way that would cast suspicion into a certain person’s heart. I said to myself: “If only I had seen him and had dispelled  the disquiet from his heart.” At that moment,  I needed part of one of my books which had been sent to Nis, and I said to myself: “If only I had got it back.” Then after the morning prayer I sat down and lo and behold!, that same person entered the room with that very part of the book in his hand. I said to him: “What is it you are holding?”