Secret of Secrets

Here is a chapter from a book entitled 'The Secret of Secrets' (Sirr al Asrar) which consists of a
series of discourses by Hazrat Abdul Qadir al-Jillani (Ghous Pak) (RA). It is translated by Shaykh
1992. ISBN 0946621 29 2. It is an important and invaluable work for Sufis and those aspiring to the
Sufi Way and no doubt Shaykh Tosun has performed a valuable service in making this work
available in English..

Allah says: Whoever is blind in this world, will be blind in the hereafter. (Sura Bani Isra'il, 72)
It is not the blindness in one's head but the blindness of the eyes of one's heart that will that
are blind, but their hearts which are in their breasts. (Sura Hajj, 46). The only cause of the
heart becoming blind is heedlessness, which makes one forget Allah and one's function,
one's purpose, one's promise to Him, while one is in the world. The principle cause of
heedlessness is ignorance of the reality of the divine laws and orders. What keeps one in
this stage of ignorance is a darkness that completely covers one from outside and fully
invades one's inner being. Some of the properties of this darkness are arrogance, pride,
pride, envy,miserliness, vengeance, lying, gossiping, backbiting and so many other hateful
traits. It is these traits that reduce the best creation of Allah to the lowest of the low.

To rid oneself of these evils one has to cleanse and shine the mirror of the heart. This
cleansing is done by acquiring knowledge, by acting upon this knowledge, by effort and
valour., fighting against one's ego within and without oneself, by ridding oneself of one's
multiplicity of being, by achieving unity. This struggle will continue until the heart becomes
alive with the light of unity - and with that light of unity, the eye of the clean heart will see the
reality of Allah's attributes around and in it.

Only then will you remember the true home from which you come, Then you will have the
yearning and longing to return to the true home, and when the time comes, with the help of
the Most Compassionate, tha tspirit which is pure in you will go to join Him.

When the attributes of darkness lift, light takes its place, and the one with the eye of the soul
sees. He recognises what he sees with the light of the Name of divine attributes. Then he
himself is flooded by light and becomes light. These lights are still veils hiding the light of the
divine Essence, but the time comes when these too are drawn back, leaving only the light of
the divine Essence itself.

The heart has two eyes, one lesser the other greater. With the lesser eye one may be able to
see the manifestations of Allah's attributes and Names. This vision continues throughout
one's spiritual evolution. The greater eye sees only that which is rendered visible by the light
of unity and oneness. Only when one comes to the regions of Allah's intimacy does it see, in
the ultimate realm of the manifestation of Allah's Essence, the unity of the Absolute.

In order to reach these levels on this earth in this life you must cleanse yourself from your
worldly attributes, which are egoistic and egotistical. The distance you must travel in your
ascent towards these levels depends on the distance that you have put between yourself and
the low desires of your flesh and your ego.

Your attainment of the goal you wish for is not like a material things arriving at a material
place. Neither is it like knowledge leading one to a thing that becomes known, nor like
reason obtaining that which is rational, nor like the imagination joining with that which it
fancies. The goal that you wish to obtain is the realisation of your emptiness of all else
except the Essence of Allah. This attainment is a becoming. There is no distance, nor
closeness nor farness, nor reaching, nor measure, nor direction, nor dimension.

He is all Glorious, all praise is due to Him, He is Most Merciful. He becomes visible in what
He hides from you. He manifests Himself as He puts veils between Himself and you. His
being known is hidden in His not being known.

If any of you reach that light which is suggested in this book, while you are here in this world,
try to balance your book of deeds. It is only under light that you can see what you have done;
what you are doing. Do your accounting, make it balance. You will have to read your book in
front of your Lord on the day of Last Judgement. That is final. You will not then have the
chance to balance it. If you do that here, while you have the time, you will be of those that are
saved. Otherwise pain and disaster is your lot in this life and in the life hereafter. This life will
end. There is the pain of the grave, there is the Day of Last Judgment, there is the balance
that will weigh the smallest sin and the tiniest of good deeds. Then there is the test of that
bridge, thinner than a hair and sharper than a sword, at the end of which is the Garden,
under which is the Fire and so much hardship, and for so long when this life ends.