Are you deceiving Me?

Are you deceiving Me? By My Might and My Majesty, I will deprive you of (tasting) the sweetness of remembering Me, and I will exclude you from My proximity and from getting pleasure through your supplication.”[^2] My dear, the fact that our wretched hearts are deprived of the sweetness of remembering Allah, the Exalted, and that the enjoyment of supplication to the Sacred Essence is not tasted by our spirit, and that we are prevented from reaching the proximity of His Threshold and deprived of the manifestations of His Beauty and Majesty, is because our hearts are sick and faulty, attracted by the world, stuck to it and wrapped in the veils of the darkness of nature.

And this fact deprives us of recognizing Allah's Majesty and of discerning the lights of His Beauty and Glory. As long as our look at the beings is Satanic and independent, we shall never drink of the wine of intimacy, not attain the pleasure of supplication.

As long as we believe that in the world of existence there can be glory, might, majesty, greatness and dignity for any created being, and as long as we are wrapped in the veils of the created specifications [ ta'ayyunāt ], the dominion [ sultān ] of the Majesty of Allah, the Glorified, will not manifest in our hearts. So, of the disciplines of takbīr is that the sālik should not stop at its outer form, or be satisfied with its wordings and with mere pronunciations of the tongue.

First, he is to prove to the heart, with the power of argument and the light of divine knowledge, Allah's Glory and the confinement of greatness and majesty only to the Sacred Essence of Allah, Most High, informing it of the poverty, humility and helplessness of all the possible dwellers and all the corporeal and spiritual beings.

After that, with the power of austerity, frequent intimacy [ murāwadah ] and complete familiarity, he is to enliven the heart with this divine grace and grant it spiritual and intellectual life and happiness.

When the sālik realizes the poverty and the humility of the possible (the creatures) and Allah's Greatness and Majesty, and puts that before his eyes, while his contemplation and remembrance reach their assigned limit, and the heart attains familiarity and tranquility, he will see with the eye of insight the effects of Allah's Glory and Majesty in all beings, and the diseases and faults of his heart will be cured.