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| Inspirations: On the Path of
Blame Shaikh Badruddin of Simawna Translation and commentary by Tosun Bayrak al-Jerrahi The Human Being ...From the lips of the Prophet Muhammad
{peace be upon him} came the saying, Mutu qabla an tamutu (Die before you
die): leave this world with your own will before you are faced with the
necessity of leaving it at the end of your life. There are three steps to achieving eternal
life by dying to the world. The first step is to protect oneself
against the love, the ambition, the lust, the pleasures of this world,
whose attractions pull us down to it and whose illusions distract us from
Truth. The second step is to try to live in strict
accordance with the divine precepts -- not in a forced way but in seeking
and assuming the divine attributes, the beautiful names of Allâh, and in
making them one's character in sincerity. The most ordinary sort of
example of this is when a sincere man is dead and buried, beautiful
memories of him live on. The third and final step is to efface
oneself, all that one has done, and all that one was -- including the
divine attributes with which one has characterized oneself, such ass the
Living One, the Hearing One, the Seeing One, the Knowing One, the Speaking
One, the One with Power, the One with Will, the One Who Can Create -- all
and everything, and to realize that there is no existence except Allâh.
There is no you, but He and you are lost in Him, and you exist with Him.
This is truly dying before dying. Such a person is in continuous remembrance
and continually conscious; his consciousness extends this world into the
other. Therefore, he will be alive eternally. Continuous remembrance, total
consciousness, is the goal and the sign of the perfect man. It is also the
beginning, the means, and the key to perfection. Perfection is in Allah
and is from Allah, and man attains it in the measure of his closeness to
Allah. To come close to Allah is only possible
through loving Him, and to love Him is only possible through remembering
Him. The Beloved of Allâh, Muhammad {peace be upon him}, said: Man
remembers often the one whom he loves. Frequent remembrance of Allâh increases
His love in one's heart. If one's heart and mind are preoccupied with
other things, one will forget the Creator and Sustainer of that heart and
will neither remember nor love Him. It is impossible to realize the Creator
only with one's senses and one's mind. It is not easy to submit to Him
through reason. But if one remembers Him often, that remembrance will
penetrate into one's being -- into every part, every cell, deep into one's
essence, making one able to remember Him without effort, like a heartbeat.
Then the effort to be conscious will be replaced by the pleasure of
consciousness. That pleasure will bring the love of Allah. Allah says:
Remember Allah so often so that you will find deliverance from
heedlessness, and find happiness. (Juma', 10) And: Those who remember
Allah standing and sitting and lying on their sides... (Al-Imran, 191) are
the heedful who see the signs of the creation of the heavens and the earth
and know that they were not created in vain. Realization of this is the reward of
remembrance. The pleasure of seeing the harmony in the creation, the love
felt for the Maker of this creation, are the signs that Allah has opened
the eyes of one's heart and the gates of His Paradise. There are only two rewards that Allah bestows upon a human being that He never takes back. One is the pleasure given in the remembrance of Him; the other is the lifting of dark veils from the eye of the heart, so that wherever one looks one sees the Truth in the beauty and power of the Creator. Excerpt from the book: 'Inspirations: On the Path of Blame' |