Friday, June 10, 2011

Vigilance

Say to it: 'O soul! After death there will be no opportunity to repent, and there will be, after this life, only the Garden or the Fire. Choose, if you will, obedience, the consequence of which is triumph, contentment, immortality in vast gardens, and looking at the Face of God, the Generous, the Beneficent; or else disobedience, the consequence of which is degradation, humiliation, mockery, deprivation, and imprisonment between layers of fire.’ Endeavour to cure your soul with such reminders when it neglects obedience and inclines to rebellion, for they are useful medicines for the heart's diseases.
Know that vigilance is one of the most noble stations, high positions, and lofty degrees. It is the station of excellence [ihsan] indicated in the Prophet's saying, may blessings and peace be upon him: 'Excellence is to worship God as if you saw Him, for if you do not see Him, He sees you.’ Each believer has faith that nothing on earth or in heaven is concealed from God, that God is with him wherever he is, and that none of his movements or times of stillness are concealed from Him. But the important thing is that this awareness be permanent and that its results appear, the least of which is that he does nothing, when alone with God, that he would be ashamed of should a man of virtue see him. This is rare, and it eventually leads to that which is rarer still, whereby the servant is totally immersed in God, annihilated in Him and thus rendered unaware of all else, absent from creation through his contemplation of the True King, having arrived at a secure seat in the presence of an Able    Sovereign.