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Qur'an 2:116

Wheresoever you turn, there is the face of Allah (indivisible consciousness).


Hadith Qudsi

I was a hidden treasure and I longed to be known. So I created the Creation so that I may be known.

When I Allah love my servant.... I become the hearing with which he hears, the seeing with which he sees, the hand with which he grasps, the feet with which he walks, the tongue with which he speaks.


Imam Muhammad Ibn 'Ali AL-Baqir 11th century

Travel beyond the confines of this life and see the vastness of His kingdom beyond space. Let your ear listen to what it has not heard before, and your eye see what it has not seen, until it leads you to where you see the One of the world and all the worlds. Express your passion for the One from your heart and soul until you see the Reality with the eye of certainty. There is only One and nothing but Him, He is Alone and there is no God but Him.


Sa'd Al-Din Mahmud Shabistari 1250 - 1320

You fancy this world is permanent of itself and endures because of it's own nature, but really it is a ray of light from the Truth, and within it the Truth (consciousness) is concealed.


Sayyid Haydar Amuli - 14th century

The Ocean is the same Ocean as it has always been of old; the events of today are it's waves and it's rivers.


Hadith

In the begnning was Allah, and beside Him there was nothing - and He remains as He was (ever-still never changing consciousness).


Imam Abu'l-Qasim Al-Junayd 910 AD

Divine unity (tawhid) is the return of man to his origin (consciousness), so that he will become as he was before he came into being.


Imam Ja'far Al-Sadiq - 8th century

In the death of the self (ego mind) lies the life of the Heart (consciousness).


Ali Ibn Talib 600 - 661

Work for this life as though you are going to live forever. Work for the Next life as though you will die tommorrow.


Ibn Ali-Farid 1181 - 1235

I was sent from my Self as a messenger to myself. And my essence (consciousness) testified to myself by my signs.


Kabir 1450 - 1518

All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.


Ali Abu Talib 600 - 661

Asceticism is not that you should not own anything, but that nothing should own you.


Abu'l-Hasan Ash-Shadhili 1175 - 1258

The Sufi sees his own existence as particles of dust made visible by a ray of sunlight (consciousness): neither real nor unreal.


Sayyid Haydar Amuli 14th century

Your soul attains to perfection when it returns to it's original sublime state, according to the individual capacity of each person. Thus the soul divests itself of all illusion and refines itself with the subtlety it's own secret by means of spiritual exercises aim at purification of the outer and inner from all obscurity and impurity.


Ali Ibn Talib 600 - 661

Allah possesses a drink which is reserved for his intimate friends (awliya): when they drink they become intoxicated, when they become intoxicated they become joyful, when they become joyful they become sweet, when they become sweet they begin to melt, when they begin to melt they become free, when they become free they seek, when they seek they find, when they find they arrive, when they arrive they join, and when they join there is no difference between them and their Beloved (consciousness).


Introduction to Sufism - Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi in his Epistle on Unity

None grasps Him save He Himself. None knows Him but He Himself... He knows Himself by Himself... Other-than-He cannot grasp Him. His impenetrable veil is His own Oneness (indivisible consciousness). Other-than-He does not cloak Him. His veil is His very existence.

He is veiled by His Oneness in a manner that cannot be explained. Other-than-He does not see Him; whether prophet, envoy, or prefected saint or angel near unto Him. His prophet is He Himself. His envoy is He. His message is He. His word is He. He has sent word of His Self by Himself, from Himself to Himself, without intermediary or causality other than Himself...Other-than-He has no existence and so cannot bring itself to naught.


Amir 'Abd al-Kader

The absolutely Non-Manifested cannot be designated by any expresssion which could limit It, Separate It, or include It. In spite of this, every allusion alludes only to Him, every designation designates Him, and He is at the same time the Non-Manifested and the Manifested.


Allah is in Himself the non-being and the being, the inexistent and the existent. He is at the same time that which we designate by absolute non-being and by absolute being; or by relative non-being and relative being... All these designation come back to God alone, for there is nothing which we can perceive, know, write or say which is not Him.

Paraphrased: Allah is neither this nor that.


Mawqif 193, p. 111

Abu Sa'id al-Kharraz said: I have never known Allah, May He be exalted! - except through the coincidence in Him of the opposites (duality appearing in non-duality). "He is the First and the Last, the Apparent and the Hidden." (Qur'an 57:3)

Source material: The Key to Salvation: A Sufi Manual of Invocation

Your Saying "God is Most Great" does not mean that He is greater than something else, since there is nothing else alongside of Him, so that it could be said that He is greater than it... Rather, the meaning of Allahu Akbar is that He is much too great to be perceived by the senses or for the depths of His Majesty to be reached by reason and logic, and indeed, that He is much too great to be known by an other-than-Him for truly, no one knows God but God (only your consciousness can be conscious of it's consciousness). (p. 119)

... the gnosis of God is intermediate between immoderation, which is ascribing human characteristics to God, and negligence, which is denying any attributes to God... The Truth lies in the balance between the two extremes. (p. 162)

He is the First and the Last, the Outward and the Inward and He is the Knower of all things. (p. 182)

(Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn `Arabi)

The Divine Being is not fragmented, but wholly present in each instance, individualized in each theophany of His Names, and it is invested in each instance with one of these Names that He appears as Lord. (p. 121)

Questioner:

How do you know God?

Abu Asa`id al-Kharraz:

By the fact that He is the coincidentia oppositorum.

Corbin's commentary:

... the entire universe of worlds is at once He and not-He (huwa la huwa). The God manifested in forms is at once Himself and other than Himself, for since He is manifested, He is the limited which has no limit, the visible which cannot be seen. This manifestation is neither perceptible nor verifiable by the sensory faculties; discursive reason rejects it. It is perceptible only by the Active Imagination (Hadrat al-Khayal) at times when it dominates man's sense perceptions, in dreams or better still in the waking state (conscious of one's consciousness).


Ibn 'Ata'illah al-Iskandari, in his Hikam

Behold what shows to thee His Omnipotence, (may he be exalted): It is that He hides Himself from thee by what has no existence apart from Him.

The world is essentially the manifestation of God to Himself. Thus it is expressed in the sacred saying (hadith qudsi) which brings back the idea of creation to the idea of Knowledge: 'I was a hidden treasure; I wished to be known (or to know) and I created the world.' In the same sense Sufis compare the Universe to a combination of mirrors in which the Infinite Essence contemplates Itself in a multiplicity of forms, or which reflect in differing degrees the irradiaiton (at-tajalli) of the One Being.


Muhyi-d-Din ibn 'Arabi

In his Fusus al-Hikam in the Chapter on Jacob

In truth all possibilities are principially reducible to non-existence('udum) and there is no Being (or, Existence) other than the being of God, may He be exalted, (revealing Himself) in the "forms" which result from possibilities as they are in themselves.


Amir 'Abd al-Kader

And He is with you wherever you are. (Qur'an 57:4)

If Allah - May He be exalted! - was not, by His very Essence, which is the Being of all that is, "with" the creatures, we could not attribute being to any of these createres and they could not be perceived either by the senses, by the imagination, or by the intellect. It is their 'being with' which assures to creatres a relation with Being. Better yet, it is their being itself. This 'being with' embraces all things, whether they are sublime or lowly, great or small. It is through it that they subsist. He is the pure Being by which 'that which is' is. The 'being with' of Allah consists therefore in the fact that He is with us through His essence; that is, through that which we call the divine Self (huwiyya), universally present.

Indications of this divine 'being with' are contained in the following verses:

And He is witness of all things (Qur'an 34:47)

And Allah, behind them, encompasses them (Qur'an 85:20)


Fakhruddin Iraqu

Every image that appears on the slate of existence is a picture of the one who drew the image. (Footnote 18, p. xviii)


Jalaluddin Rumi

I am nearer to you than yourself to yourself.


In everything there is a sign that points to the Oneness of Him.


God created suffering and heartache so that joyful-heartedness might appear through its opposite. Hence hidden things become manifest through opposites. But since God has no opposite, He remains hidden... God's light has no opposite within existence, that through its opposite it might be made manifest.


That Oneness is on the other side of descriptions and states. Nothing but duality enters speech's playing field.


Thy Attributes cannot be understood by the vulgar without analogy, yet analogy increases the mistaken idea of Thy similarity with the creatures.


The beauty of the Unseen Form is beyond description -- borrow a thousand illuminated eyes, borrow!


Love makes forms in separation. But at the time of meeting, the Formless shows His head ands says, "I am the root of the root of sobriety and intoxication; the beauty you see in forms is My reflection. Now I have removed the veils, I have displayed Beauty without intermediary. Since you have become so interwoven with My reflection, you have found the strength to view the Essence alone."


We and our existences are nonexistences. Thou art Absolute Existence showing Thyself as perishable things.


Persist in that invocation until the unity of the world is subsumed for you in a single sphere, so that with the eye of your heart you will see naught in the two worlds save the One.


All pictured forms are reflections in the water of the stream; when you rub your eyes, indeed, all are He.


The unique God has manifested His sign in the six directions to those with illuminated eyes.
Whatever animal or plant they behold, they contemplate the gardens of divine Beauty.
That is why He said to them, Wheresoever you turn, there is His Face (Koran II 115).


All of these are symbols - I mean that the other world keeps coming into this world.
Like cream hidden in the soul of milk, No-place keeps coming into place.
Like intellect concealed in blood and skin, the Traceless keeps entering into traces.

And from beyond the intellect, beautiful Love comes dragging its skirts, a cup of wine in its hand.
And from beyond Love, that indescribable One who can only be called "That" keeps coming.

The earth has the external shape of dust, but inside are the luminous Attributes of God.
It's outward has fallen into war with its inward; its inward is like a pearl and its outward a stone.
Its outward says, "I am this and no more." Its inward says, "Look well, before and behind!"
Its outward denies, saying, "The inward is nothing." The inward says, "We will show you. Wait!"


There's a strange frenzy in my head, of birds flying, each particle circulating on its own. Is the one I love everywhere?


Lo, I am with you always means when you look for God, God is in the look of your eyes, in the thought of looking, nearer to you than your self, or things that have happened to you. There's no need to go outside. Be melting snow. Wash yourself of yourself. (Jalaluddin Rumi)


What do we mean by saying that God is not in heaven? We do not mean that He is not in heaven, but that heaven cannot encompass Him. He encompasses heaven. He has an ineffable connection with heaven just as He has an ineffable connection with you. Everything is in His omnipotent hands; everything is a manifestation of Him and subject to His control. So, He is not outside the heavens and the universe but is not totally inside them either, that is, they do not encompass Him but He encompasses them totally.


Someone asked where God was before the earth, skies, and Divine Throne existed. We said that the question was invalid from the outset because God is by definition that which has no place (is non-spatial, spirit without space)


All creatures, day and night, make manifestation of God. Some of them know what they are doing and are aware of their manifesting, while others are unaware. However it may be, God's manifestation is confirmed.


Ibn `Arabi

The "Sigh of Compassion" flows through the things of the world like the waters of a river and is unceasingly renewed.


His creation springs, not from nothingness, from something other than Himself, from a not-Him, but from His fundamental being, from the potencies and virtualities latent in His own unrevealed being.


Everything we call other than God, everything we call the universe, is realted to the Divine Being as the shadow to the person. The world is God's shadow... The shadow is at once God and something other than God. Everything we perceive is the Divine Being in the eternal hexeities of the possibles.

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