Physicians of the Heart

(The divine Names as relational potentialities within unity)

The Names exist as potentialities in the oneness of God. As hidden relationships within the divine field of being, they can best be understood in relationship with one another.

Names can be best understood in relational clusters. The Names exist as potentialities in the oneness of God. As hidden relationships within the divine field of being, they can best be understood in relationship with one another. The relational groupings we have emphasized are opposites, cognates (those that have the same root), those that are similar in meaning, and those that are similar in grammatical form. We have included one large chapter (Chapter 5) that offers a brief summary for each Name, and even here we found it important to cross-reference other divine Names. We have also included an alphabetical listing of the 99 Names for convenient reference (Appendix B). We refer to the 10 grammatical forms in the Arabic language as part of a “sound code” that gives a general meaning to every word. This is based on the word’s particular structure of stressed and unstressed vowels, doubled consonants, and the like. It is a fundamental element of Arabic grammar, and every Arabic dictionary is organized in this

Beginning in the Name of Allah

The words “Allah” and “God” refer to the ineffable reality, the essence of all things. Allah includes everything and depends upon nothing for existence. That absolute state is called dhat (often transliterated zat). That is the essence of all the Names. What we are looking into is a relationship between divine essence and divine attributes. The sifat, or attributes of Allah, the divine Names, have no independent existence of their own. They only exist as differentiated aspects of Allah. They are neither identical to nor distinct from the essence.

(Allah: etymology as radical love and dissolution)

The word “Allah,” according to some scholars, comes from the root waliha, and this root combines the vast concepts of total love and being passionately beyond all the constraints of mind. Combining these, we get the meaning “to fall madly in love, to utterly dissolve in an insane yearning.”

The word “Allah,” according to some scholars, comes from the root waliha, and this root combines the vast concepts of total love and being passionately beyond all the constraints of mind. Combining these, we get the meaning “to fall madly in love, to utterly dissolve in an insane yearning.

All this leads us to the affirmation, “Nothing exists except Allah, whose

existence is pure ecstasy, and there is no ecstasy to be found except the unrestrained ecstasy of total yearning and love.”

existence is pure ecstasy, and there is no ecstasy to be found except the unrestrained ecstasy of total yearning and love.

sound “Allah” and the sounds of all the wonderful Names of Allah to evoke a direct experience of the essence that is the greatest Name. Another fascinating subject is the combination of sounds that is used in the word “Allah.” There are the two syllables: “Al” + “lah.” Al is affirmation. It is the definite article in Arabic. If we are referring to a person as “the spiritual pole,” for example, we say al-qutb, the qutb.

(The sound of Allah: affirmation and negation beyond reason)

La is negation, the word for “no.” When you are making the sounds of affirmation and negation together, it points to something that is beyond reason. “Allah” both affirms and negates. It is like a Zen koan. Consider, the 6th Patriarch Hui Neng’s koan: “Think neither of the good nor the bad, but tell me what is your original face before your parents conceived you.” Affirmation and negation can be seen to cancel each other out. Taking affirmation and negation together, you can reach a still point that includes and transcends both components. This still point is an entry into the divine, into Allah. Allah (God) is presence, beyond all affirmation and negation.

Allah is an infinite Name that both transcends and includes all positive and negative aspects.

Pairing opposites, called tazweej by Shaykh ‘ibn ‘Arabi, is a process that leads to integration and transcendence.

Hu is called the secret of the secret, or the essence of the essence, because it is included unpronounced in an abbreviated form within the Name Allah.

It is like a repetitive series ending in three dots, which suggests it should go on forever, essence of essence of essence of essence… Mystics often try to describe the indescribable by using finite expressions to suggest the infinite. Sufis call this “H” sound the breath of infinite compassion, with which God created the universe. God’s love is the secret of hu. A sacred tradition (hadith qudsi) of the Prophet Muhammad, one where he speaks in the voice of Allah, says, “I longed to know myself so I created the heavens and earth with the breath of infinite

The word becomes individuated. The ilah reveals individuation, and individuation is an important aspect of divinity. The meaning of al-’ilah can be realized when you become integrated in your own sense of self and know it as a divine manifestation not separate from the real self.

We are playing with the individuated God, the cosmic presence, negation and affirmation, and what is beyond that. It is all streaming through this vibration.

There is a practice called irfan or ma’rifah, which means understanding at the deepest level of the soul. It is a meditation practice with the shape of this Name. One writes the Name Allah in letters of light. It makes an imprint of light in the center of the heart so that wherever the spiritual student looks and whatever sounds they hear, or whatever thoughts arise, all are perceived as coming from and going to Allah.

Literally this means angels, but heaven and hell and all the unseen spiritual worlds are contained in this realm.

There’s a hadith that says, “I am as my servant imagines me to be.” So, whether we imagine God to be Jesus, Krishna, the wind, or the universe, that particular formulation is just how we are imagining or idealizing God to be. The realm of lahut is the reality of God, as we know God. It is how we individuate it, and according to this sacred tradition God affirms being in that form.

Other names from the same root were used, such as Allat and Allaha. Even El in Hebrew is historically the same word as Allah.

Simply considering the sound of the word “Allah,” we notice that the initial “A” sound is a natural heart sound. It is opening out into the universe, into the infinite. The “L” sound in Allah is a shimmering or a tingling in the heart, called wujilat. The “LLLLL” sound in the practice of dhikr (remembering Allah through reciting the Name) has this effect on the heart. This thrilling sound is sometimes referred to as the “shimmering being.” Then you say “A” again, bringing the release of the heart, the relaxation of the heart.

(The Qur’an as ocean of meanings: inner light of all sacred texts)

This is an indication of why the Qur’an is called “the ocean of meanings,” in which each verse contains hundreds of thousands of levels of interpretation. Only the outward levels of meanings are called the Qur’an, or the recitation, but when the heart is opened to the inner levels of meaning, it is called al-furqaan, discriminating wisdom. The deepest meanings are called al-nujmaan, which means the light of a shower of shooting stars. These mystical meanings are experienced as a shower of lights falling from heaven directly into the human heart. Such a mystical light of direct experience is what each beautiful Name communicates at the deepest level. All the Names of the absolute, whether in Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, or other sacred languages, contain this essential light. The proof of this is contained in the Qur’anic verse, “We make no distinction between any one of the Books or the Messengers who bring them.”2 The reason no distinction is made between the sacred books is because they all point to the same essential reality. And this is true because they all come from the same source, called the Preserved Tablet (‘al-lawh ‘al-mahfoodh).

This is an indication of why the Qur’an is called “the ocean of meanings,” in which each verse contains hundreds of thousands of levels of interpretation. Only the outward levels of meanings are called the Qur’an, or the recitation, but when the heart is opened to the inner levels of meaning, it is called al-furqaan, discriminating wisdom. The deepest meanings are called al-nujmaan, which means the light of a shower of shooting stars. These mystical meanings are experienced as a shower of lights falling from heaven directly into the human heart. Such a mystical light of direct experience is what each beautiful Name communicates at the deepest level.

Only the outward levels of meanings are called the Qur’an, or the recitation, but when the heart is opened to the inner levels of meaning, it is called al-furqaan, discriminating wisdom. The deepest meanings are called al-nujmaan, which means the light of a shower of shooting stars. These mystical meanings are experienced as a shower of lights falling from heaven directly into the human heart. Such a mystical light of direct experience is what each beautiful Name communicates at the deepest level. All the Names of the absolute, whether in Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, or other sacred languages, contain this essential light. The proof of this is contained in the Qur’anic verse, “We make no distinction between any one of the Books or the Messengers who bring them.”2 The reason no distinction is made between the sacred books is because they all point to the same essential reality. And this is true because they all come from the same source, called the Preserved Tablet (‘al-lawh ‘al-mahfoodh).

This symbol, also called the Mother of the Book, ‘umm-ul-kitab, represents the universal message of unity that each sacred book contains at its deepest level, and true source. Just as, from one point of view, each of a mother’s children is different, from another point of view each child “contains” the same mother in his or her own way.

That the preserved tablet has been read as Sanskrit, Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, and so on, is an accident of history. Such readings occurred solely for the practical purpose of communicating with people belonging to a particular place and a particular time. Although sacred texts do differ from one another in some ways, like daughters of one mother, from a deeper perspective each book reveals the universal message in its own particular way.

The Prophet Muhammad said, “All of the creation, all that there is, is included in the Qur’an. And all the Qur’an is summarized in the opening chapter, al-Fatiha. All of al-Fatiha is summarized in Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim

Bismillah can literally mean “I yearn for the protection in the Name Allah.” But its deeper meaning could better be expressed, “In saying bismillah, I invoke the actualization, the presence, of Allah.” Seen in this way, the 99 Names of Allah come as an invocation. They are an invocation of the presence of Allah, through different Names, different qualities, and different emanations.

As travelers on the spiritual path, we are aiming to…

manifestation of God and the transcendence of…

All manifestation is pervaded by the same reality. There is an inseparability of the…

Shaykh Junayd teaches that the wonderful thing about the heart is that it is able to “turn.” The heart can turn toward the nafs and see a separation, and it can turn toward the ruh and see a total union. Both nafs and ruh have the meaning of “soul.” Sometimes they are called lower self (ego)…

The beautiful quality of the heart is it can simultaneously look at the separation and union of the soul. It can see both working at the same time. The heart has the capacity to accept simultaneously both your experience of separation from God and your feeling of union with the source. That is why…

A sacred tradition has Allah affirming, “The heavens and the earth cannot contain me, but the heart of my loving servant can.” Everything is taking place within the globe of the heart. It is in the infinite space of the heart that the…

There is a much-quoted sacred hadith in which the voice of Allah is heard to say, “I was a hidden treasure and wished to be known.” What could it mean to…

One answer is to say the hidden treasure is the unmanifest potential. Take the white light of the sun. When you put its clear light through a prism, it begins to differentiate. In this way you come to see the ultimate beauty and…

know was the pure essence that held all potentialities. But, viewed only as essence, the potential remains potential. It has not yet differentiated in all its capacities and…

Sacred sounds can affect the universe by activating the whole universal field. The absolute is like clear space, clear luminosity. Consider a glass of clear water…If you put a drop of cherry essence in it, it becomes red. If you put a drop of mint in it, it becomes green. When you put a given sound in it, the whole field of the absolute…

Understanding this means to see that the divine Names are not independent existences. They are interrelationships, or nisab, as ‘ibn ‘Arabi says. They describe interrelationships within the unity of existence. Consequently, the divine Names are all doors to a single essence, to Allah. The Names evoke relationships that reveal God’s presence. They describe, for instance, the lover’s relationship with the beloved. It is a relationship between two individuated aspects of a single whole, not a connection between two fundamentally or intrinsically separate things.

They dissolve and resolve the deities into what is called the dharmakaya, or what Sufis would call Allah. It all dissolves in the formless, just as the divine Names all dissolve in Allah. Tibetan deities are ultimately insubstantial, from the point of view of the all-pervading reality. It appears to us as simply a different way of getting at the same truth.

Many great Sufis have said they are the cure for every ill. There are several beautiful traditions of the Prophet Muhammad that recommend reciting the whole list as a practice. It says whoever enumerates them all by singing the full set will receive great benefit.

We need to continually remember that the divine Names, as described by Shaykh ‘ibn ‘Arabi, are a network of intertwined relationships with the divine, and can never be isolated entities.

is important for a physician of the heart to know, for example, that to amplify the effect of a Name, it should be chanted along with a Name that expresses its opposite, when possible. And, it is also important to learn that Names that share a similar divine quality often cooperate together in a systematic process of growth.

(The ego’s two wounds: shame and divine abandonment)

In each layer of the psyche, human beings identify with an idea of self that they have constructed themselves. This false idea of the self configures and coalesces around an intense sense of being wounded, an impression that is stored in the ego. Each Name of God and each relational cluster or family of divine Names provides a unique opportunity for psychological and spiritual growth. Because our psychological perspective is integral to the discussions of specific Names and clusters of Names throughout this book, we want to briefly summarize it at the outset.

throne—the ‘arsh, or Heart Throne. God as an individuated entity takes a limited form, which nevertheless embodies perfection. It is not the cosmic self but the individuated self. Al-lah is the cosmic self. Al-’ilah is the individuated self. The individuated self is embodied in the heart. It is a ray of the infinite sun, so to speak. Philosophically, these two types of self can be characterized as the impersonal God and the personal God. In conveying spiritual teachings to the West, the aspect of divine individuation has often been bypassed.

We would even go as far as to say that this important aspect of God’s nature has been trespassed. God, as an individuated being, is the theme that can crack the ego’s shell. If students can find the way to connect with that individuated value, then cosmic value can enter from just that point of light. It is quite ironic that Westerners often suffer from a lack of individuality, even though many think they are trying very hard to individuate. What happens is that people tend to be isolated, and they think that being isolated is being individuated. This mistaken notion is idealized in the hero in the western movie, who walks into the sunset alone. Individuality is essential, but when you isolate yourself in your constructed sense of self, the result is to become disconnected and alienated. Such disconnection in your relationships leads to suffering, in the East or the West.

When teachers ask their students to bypass the dimension of individuation and go directly to the absolute, what happens is often a big mess. The students try to jump at the teacher’s direction, and many even have an experience of the absolute, but…

Hazrat Inayat Khan emphasized individuation when he said in his widely known Sufi invocation that we should orient ourselves to be “United with all the illuminated souls, who form the embodiment of the Master, the Spirit of Guidance.” This recognizes an important principle. By orienting in this way, the traveler on the spiritual path affirms there is only one Spirit of Guidance…

of…

It is quite ironic that Westerners often suffer from a lack of individuality, even though many think they are trying very hard to individuate. What happens is that people tend to be isolated, and they think that being isolated is being individuated. This mistaken notion is idealized in the hero in the western movie, who walks into the sunset alone. Individuality is essential, but when you isolate yourself in your constructed sense of self, the result is to…

When someone says, “Jesus is God,” or “Buddha is the ultimate reality,” they are calling out to that divine individuation. We should not skip over that point. There is a progression. You should move through the process of individuation, and this ultimately will allow for a full merging with the universal cosmic absolute. Having emphasized the principle of individuation as it relates to our quest for wholeness as human beings, we now need to direct our attention to the structure of the human ego. The overall ego structure is made of many layers. In each layer, the ego appears as a separated and isolated…

We will explore some aspects of the ego structure by examining the wounds that the ego bears, and by considering some very central issues of self-value. As we see it, the ego bears two major wounds. Because of the excruciating sensitivity of these deep wounds, the ego sets out with great determination to defend them from being touched and thereby activated. The way you defend your wounds from being touched by the experiences of your life creates and reflects your specific personality structures. There is a major wound of humiliation, of shame. It is caused by your overall relationship with humanity, and by your relationship with your own family in particular. Children often feel like failures because there was something the parents needed them to fulfill, and it was something that the child could not do. Confronting this failure, the child feels very unworthy and very shamed. Your act of self-identifying with this shameful and isolated condition is because of the intensity of your wound. It is a defensive act. However, self-identification with your own perceived deficiency isolates you. Configuring your sense of self in this way disconnects you from the joy of an ongoing relationship with the divine source, a relationship that is the birthright of every soul. The second wound, the deepest layer of wounding, is experienced as being caused by your relationship with God. There is a profound feeling that even God has abandoned you. In this place, you feel you have been abandoned because you have failed to fulfill your divine destiny. You ask the question, “Why have you forsaken me?” And the ego gives its answer: “There must be something wrong with me for me to feel so abandoned.” Human beings thus feel put to shame by both the worldly and the heavenly. At the level of worldly relations, we call it the “family hole.” There is something missing in the household and you should have fixed it but you didn’t. Mom’s still unhappy. Dad’s still unhappy. Children believe they are supposed to manifest what the family really needs: to be the most loving, the strongest, or the most intelligent person. They were supposed to be whatever was required to fill the family hole. Since that is an impossible task, they feel shame. Not having healed the deficiency felt in the family, they do not feel worthy of happiness. The ego, or basic sense of self, narcissistically identifies…

By orienting in this way, the traveler on the spiritual path affirms there is only one Spirit of Guidance and that there are many individual points—the…

relationship with the divine source, a relationship that is the birthright of every soul. The second wound, the deepest layer of wounding, is experienced as being caused by your relationship with God. There is a profound feeling that even God has abandoned you. In this place, you feel you have been abandoned because you have failed to fulfill your divine destiny. You ask the question, “Why have you forsaken me?” And the ego gives its answer: “There must be something wrong with me for me to feel so abandoned.” Human beings thus feel put to shame by both the worldly and the heavenly. At the level of worldly relations, we call it the “family hole.” There is something missing in the household and you should have fixed it but you didn’t. Mom’s still unhappy. Dad’s still unhappy. Children believe they are supposed to manifest what the family really needs: to be the most loving, the strongest, or the most intelligent person. They were…

narcissistically identifies with a powerful sense of deficiency, and in so doing it disconnects from the greater reality. It disconnects from source. We call this secondary narcissism. Primary narcissism carries a much deeper wound. “I failed the divine.” There is a sense of not fulfilling the soul’s destiny, not fulfilling what God wants you to do. Each soul comes into existence with a purpose connected to the cosmos and the great being. Often children feel they have not been allowed to fulfill the purpose with which their soul entered. Their environment demanded that they give up their own purpose in order to make Mom or Dad happy. As a result, children feel they were never allowed to fulfill God’s purpose, and now, because of that, they are incapable of fulfilling it. They feel both wronged and deficient. They feel that they are not being helped to fulfill what their soul came to do. Perhaps their soul came to…

obstacles. One obstacle is trying to fill the family hole, and this leads to a sense of failure. And the other obstacle is trying to fulfill the divine purpose, but because the ego is trying to accomplish this goal from the place of fundamental isolation, this quest also leads to a sense of failure. Since you cannot fulfill God’s wish, and you cannot fulfill the family’s wish, you always feel like you are a failure, you always feel deficient, and you narcissistically maintain yourself in self-identification as “the lowest of the low.” Once you get stuck in this identification, it is very painful. But to let go of the identification, to break its grip, may open up a nightmare for you. As long as you identify with your perceived deficiency, you don’t fully feel the pain. It is muted. When you disengage from the identification, the pain hits you in a massive way because now the protective layer of your defenses has been broken. Then you feel the shame, the humiliation. You feel that everybody is better than you, that you are lesser than all. The deepest narcissistic wound in the ego structure is this sense of failure and worthlessness and shame. Such a deep wound can ultimately only be healed by

(Grace heals the wound: the dawning of self-value)

A wonderful thing occurs when you reach your deepest wound and, at the same time, find the courage not to defend against the intense feelings that are aroused by reaching it. Then grace comes with a healing touch of love and divine generosity. Then the layer of ego containing the inner child feels that he or she is being loved all the time. You experience constantly being created by God. You are valued. Now there is a profound sense of the preciousness of your soul, right in this very embodiment. It is an individual light of empowerment. It is the light of self-value or inner worth. The divine Name al-’Aziz expresses such true worth. It comes up as a theme of healing in Chapter 8 (Divine Forgiveness) and elsewhere.…

you can’t feel strong. When you feel full of worth and value, because you have identified your self with the eternal reality of the soul, strength arises spontaneously from within. It is something to be cherished, and it gives you the courage to be, the strength and dignity to protect the divine quality within, and to honor it throughout your life. When you let down your ego defenses, you are able to see that you don’t personally have the power to do what needs to be done in order to heal the wound of being disconnected from God. The dawning of this light of self-value comes when you truly surrender the healing into God’s hands. Psychologists observe that there is a primary narcissism, but they don’t know exactly how it is generated. That is because psychology doesn’t know what happens in the womb, which is where the answer lies. We should not forget that all souls are emerging from their origin in the divine womb of love, the rahm. When a soul enters incarnation, this earthly realm is experienced as a kind of disconnection from the divine source. The Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa described birth as a kind of reverse samadhi, just the opposite of the experience of merging with

the God reality. Only through the gracious touch of the all-compassionate and loving being of God can there be a healing for your alienation from the divine source and for your shame at having gotten stuck in the lesser identity at this deepest layer of narcissism.

the one.

Because the soul now experiences interference with its connection to the divine, entering the earthly realm is like entering disconnectedness. The disconnection may be in a very minute way, a very subtle way, but it is present. We can easily say that all sin, or error, arises from our…

you can’t feel strong. When you feel full of worth and value, because you have identified your self with the eternal reality of the soul, strength arises spontaneously from within. It is something to be cherished, and it gives you the courage to be, the strength and dignity to protect the divine quality within, and to honor it throughout your life. When you let down your ego defenses, you are able to see that you don’t personally have the power to do what needs to be done in order to heal the wound of being disconnected from God. The dawning of this light of self-value comes when you truly surrender the healing into God’s hands. Psychologists observe that there is a primary narcissism, but they don’t know exactly how it is generated. That is because psychology doesn’t know what happens in the womb, which is where the answer lies. We should not forget that all souls are emerging from their origin in the divine womb of love, the rahm. When a…

Human beings generate primary narcissism through the experience of disconnectedness from God. When the ego is engaged in a narcissistic identification with limitation, based on disconnection from the source, you doggedly hold onto this limited identity in your heart. And it remains constant no matter what realm you may enter. If this ego enters the dimension of the all-seeing one, the identity that is revealed there…

Because of this narcissistic identity, the negative aspect that is aroused when divine qualities are introduced is very important for physicians of the heart to understand when making…

The divine Name needs to be consciously drawn into the specific wounded places in the layers of ego, so that each human being can ultimately overcome their stubborn sense of separation and disconnection. Each of us may have a thousand blind spots, but there is one that is primary. It has to do with a visceral feeling that something fundamental is missing in you. When your soul comes into this incarnated realm, it is full of divine qualities. Due to what is missing in the family, one or more aspects are blocked. These could be intelligence, creativity, compassion, peace, or something else. These blockages occur before the development of the ego—connection with these qualities is lost in the womb and in the first stages of incarnation. There is no recognition in the ego about what the particular missing qualities may be. All the ego knows is that there is something fundamentally missing. It doesn’t…

Because the soul now experiences interference with its connection to the divine, entering the earthly realm is like entering disconnectedness. The disconnection may be in a very minute way, a very subtle way, but it is present. We can easily say that all sin, or error, arises from our disconnectedness with the divine. So in this one sense, sin does come with our birth.

So in this one sense, sin does come with…

you can return. The sincere desire is developed to seek back to the source of all. The pain of separation creates the longing. And since it requires you to acknowledge that you don’t really…

Self-surrender is important. Inner wholeness requires each of us to make space for the generous manifestation of loving compassion. Human suffering serves the purpose of wholeness as well. It is a way of return and a means to see that there is something beyond your immediate scope. Knowing there is something beyond your ability to know enables you to bring in the divine. Otherwise, you may remain stuck in a grandiose view of your ego-self, and quite forget about the God reality. Truly speaking, recollection of self would be dhikr (zikr) or remembrance of God. Because in its essence the soul is an activity of God, the soul would then have the remembrance of God activated within it. But the…

There is a mystery about remembrance, about that dhikr which is the recollection of self. You are reconnecting with a whole process of continuously becoming. There is a famous tradition where…

known.” Allah’s great loving wish to be known brings forth something new. It is the manifest reality. The perfection that manifests in the individual soul was always there. It was pure potential energy, so to speak. What incarnation brings is the possibility of a new form that can continuously…

“Remembering” suggests getting back to where you were. But this kind of remembering is not a static thing. It is not like two pieces of a train connecting. Dhikr is a generative process. The one who remembers Allah is constantly in a connected flow of the divine power. Our aspiration is to work with the sacred Names of Allah in just this kind of connected way. Recitation of the sacred Names can be a great vehicle for healing wisdom to manifest in your life. The Names are best recited aloud for a certain period of…

in the very vibration of the sound. The quality of God that is evoked moves…

By listening to the sound you make when you recite the Names, you begin to gradually bring the tone of your voice into harmony with their essence. Often you will be asked to let down your defenses around a wounded place so that a particular quality of God can reach you. It is important to feel the sound in your body. That will give you a vehicle to sense your own resistance to a particular quality and your own profound resonance with it. Recollecting self, through reconnecting with your ultimate source in the God reality, is the culmination of the individuation process. You realize how you have been stuck in a fixedness of ego, but now you see that your real self is in constant motion, and the fixedness breaks. The ego surrenders its stubborn clinging to an idea of itself that is isolated and deficient, and comes into a continual influx with being…

likeness. It is immortal and filled with divine qualities. Such union, or continual remembrance, produces a wholesome fluidity of being that is the…

(The sound code: Arabic grammar as spiritual architecture)

The Sound Code at the Heart of the Arabic Language

Asignificant part of the meaning of the 99 Beautiful Names of God is conveyed by a sound code that is embedded in the grammatical structure of the Arabic language. In this chapter we will examine what the sound code looks like, how it occurs, and why it is so important. From the grammatical point of view we should also note at the outset that almost all of the 99 Names of Allah in the form they are given on the list express activity. They are active participles. In other words, God is a verb.

This meaning necessarily must be understood no matter how the rest of the meaning of the word is elaborated.

This sound code is a significant key for a deepening understanding of the 99 Names. To our knowledge, the kind of analysis we are presenting here has not been done before in English. To familiarize the reader with this approach, we will begin with some concrete examples of how the sound code works. Then we will systematically present most of the divine Names grouped into formal categories.

The divine Name al-Basir has three seed letters: B-S-R. This root has the basic meaning: seeing inside or having insight into. The three seed letters can grow in several ways. If we put a long “aa” sound after the first letter and a short “i” after the second letter, we get baasir, with a specific meaning of the one and only source of deep insight. But if we add a short “a” after the first letter, double the middle letter, and add a long “aa” after the middle letter we get bassaar, which would mean something like “the divine one who perceives everything all the time without interruption.”

Theoretically, any three seed letters can grow into any of the three forms we have just given and into more forms as well. Let’s take some further examples to see how this principle works for the 99 Names.

The divine Name al-Basir has three seed letters: B-S-R. This root has the basic meaning: seeing inside or having insight into. The three seed letters can grow in several ways. If we put a long “aa” sound after the first letter and a short “i” after the second letter, we get baasir, with a specific meaning of the one and only source of deep insight. But if we add a short “a” after the first letter, double the middle letter, and add a long “aa” after the middle letter we get bassaar, which would mean something like “the divine one who perceives everything all the time without interruption.

Fa’eel: a/ee. The syllable stresses are short/long. It traces the manifestation from transcendence into infinite particularization. All-pervading, it flows into each and every thing. “The All…”

The quality is to penetrate to the deepest place, the most subterranean reaches of the heart. It permeates even to the deepest so-called “unholy” place. The Sufi poet Hafiz said, “If you want to see the face of God, sift the dust in a bar-room floor.”

Fa’eel: a/ee. The syllable stresses are short/long. It traces the manifestation from transcendence into infinite particularization. All-pervading, it flows into each and every thing. “The All

The quality is to penetrate to the deepest place, the most subterranean reaches of the heart. It permeates even to the deepest so-called “unholy” place. The Sufi poet Hafiz said, “If you want to see the face of God, sift the dust in a bar-room floor.

The more mature a spiritual traveler becomes on the path, the more fully they understand how sobriety and ecstasy naturally go together.

Its root means “sweetness,” as well as “special” and “rare,” like an eagle among birds. Al-Mu’izz is the one who can take us to the state of al-’Aziz. Repetition of Ya Mu’izz is an antidote for attachment to reputation and a remedy for the habit of self-aggrandizement. We recommend that it be paired with its opposite Name, al-Mudhill (25).

The magnetic centers in the body used in spiritual practices of the Sufis are called lata’if.

Al-Ghafur is a healing salve for human beings’ deep sense of being wounded that is due to self-identifying with shame and unworthiness. It shares the same root as al-Ghaffar

As-Samad is the continuity of eternity. It is the circumference of the circle that expands eternally, whose center is everywhere. It is infinite expansive space.

As-Samad is the relationship between al-Ahad, the one of the one, and al-Wahid, the one of the many.

Love’s Mysteries

(Love’s mysteries: the Names as a family of love)

Because all the divine qualities emerged out of the infinite heart of Allah as an act of love, it would be no exaggeration to say that the entire collection of divine Names are members of the love family.

Remember that before birth we are all in this rahma. The rahma reaches from womb to womb. In the manner of a Sufi meditation, lie down and imagine yourself in the grave while feeling this earthly cycle of traveling from a womb of love to a womb of love. Murshid Samuel Lewis of San Francisco often shouted at his students, “Allah is your lover, not your jailer!” We can now see he was just saying, “Allah is Allah.”

Ar-Rahman has a masculine, sun-like quality and ar-Rahim has a feminine, moon-like quality. Together they indicate the union, or holy communion, of the male and the female. When they are truly brought together in your practice, you are led to the transcendental yet all-inclusive divine love or rahma

The qualities of ar-Rahman and ar-Rahim address the deepest wound in the human psyche, a wound formed as far back as your own experience in the womb, well before the ego developed. The wound is engendered by an experience of disconnection with God. In this wounded consciousness, you identify with a deficiency that you feel makes you unlovable. Such narcissistic self-identification leads to defensiveness, self-loathing, shame, hate, rejection, and a deep sense of being abandoned by God. When you finally navigate your way to the bottom of this inner hole, or perceived deficiency, there is nothing that you can actually do. Every action you take generates a sense of alienation, of woundedness, and defiance. Only the grace that comes from the intervention of the deep loving mercy and loving compassion of the rahma can heal this primary wound and allow you to become fully connected with the source.

Al-Barr is perfect unconditional love. It is like the pure love that a mother has for her baby. Al-Barr can be described with synonyms such as merciful, compassionate, very benign, or good. But if we take it as being “good” we should understand it more in the Platonic sense of the Good, like a sun that is all-encompassing and complete in its essence. Such goodness contains what are conventionally viewed as the opposites of good and bad. The Greek equivalent is agape

One is serene in all these aspects of one’s being. With this serenity or equanimity one is able to accept without reaction what is perceived as a blessing or a nonblessing.

This kamal quality balances the extremes of power (jalal) and beauty (jamal). The heart is the treasure house of all the divine Names. It is the perfect container created in the essence of all human beings in God’s creation of the prototype of humanity, Adam.

Remember that before birth we are all in this rahma. The rahma reaches from womb to womb. In the manner of a Sufi meditation, lie down and imagine yourself in the grave while feeling this earthly cycle of traveling from a womb of love to a womb of love. Murshid Samuel Lewis of San Francisco often shouted at his students, “Allah is your lover, not your jailer!” We can now see he was just saying, “Allah is Allah.

So the very essence of the human being is intimacy or nearness with Allah. Invocation of Ya Barr is a general tonic that helps humanity awaken to this intimacy.

Between the breaths, everything is wiped out and then recreated.

It must be a strong power of love because it can forgive anything, and it can forgive everything all the time.

It is always a challenge for us to be halim because, in the midst of frustration and anger, the last thing that generally comes to us is al-Halim. However, we might find that in the midst of such upheaval there is a dark place we may go that is like dark matter in physics. Dark matter is the basic ingredient from which creation can take place. In this place, we can create. But most often we create our own nightmare. We recreate our continual dream, and it perpetuates our false self and our alienation. We can either create this dream, which is the mess we usually make, or we can release our attachments and wait for divine guidance. It is possible for us to find the way to wait in this dark place and receive grace and guidance.

Then creation can happen in the direction of evolution rather than in the direction of self-serving. Al-Halim is the place where true dreams can arise, and the dreams here really are visions. They are full of inspiration and guidance. Then the creation that flows from them will be meaningful. It will be evolutionary, and it will have a feeling of salvation.

Seen in this psychological context, al-Halim has to do with salvation rather than what we might call enlightenment or revelation. Salvation comes through grace, not through work. And for grace to happen, you have to reach that place that feels like the greatest sigh of relief, like Abraham’s “Ah.” Even though in one sense you may be broken, you know yourself as unbreakable even in the midst of suffering. You release and wait on the divine to come and touch you. In this place one might say, “Humanity could not break me, even though my relationship with the world disconnected me from the divine. Yet I am broken because I am disconnected from the divine.” When you reach that state of deep surrender, a certain yearning and longing happens such that you feel “Now I turn to You. Where are You? I cannot cross this ocean of darkness to reach You. Only through Your grace can I be transformed, can I be touched.”

It is called “fear and trembling.” This is no ordinary fear. There is fear of annihilation, but there is also fear of losing reality. It all goes to the survival instinct, which is located in the perineum, the lower center. “I’ve got to survive, I’ve got find my way, I’ve got to know what is my destiny. I’ve got to go home.” All of those survival issues start to come up. And the terror is that a tidal wave is going to erase everything so that you will never know your direction or your soul’s purpose.

It is a deep seemingly irrational terror. “I am all alone. Where have you taken me? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you thrown me into this?” We often avoid this dark place by daydreaming, by going to sleep, or by hypnotizing ourselves with our stories. We repeat our stories continuously. Or we engage in watching a lot of television, narcotization, and concern about conventional standards of what life is and what we should do, or about what offers apparent safety in existence. Ultimately, the ring of terror is released, and the abyss, the deep, is waiting. In this deep place you find infinite patience and an infinite sigh of relief. Whenever the relative world comes to get you, you sigh, and the sighing releases the relative world from catching you. It releases the mind from gripping you, and you dip again into the abyss.

We are attached to al-Wadud in the same way we would be attached to a lover. It is the most deeply penetrating connection we have.

are physically pegged to Allah in our depths.

It emphasizes deep penetration, going right into the heart of things, into the essence. It is as if we are saying, “All appearances notwithstanding, what do you really love in your heart, and in your heart of hearts, and then in your secret heart?” Such love, al-Wadud, attaches each one of us to the universe. It is the peg that holds down the tent of existence.

“All appearances notwithstanding, what do you really love in your heart, and in your heart of hearts, and then in your secret heart?”

“All appearances notwithstanding, what do you really love in your heart, and in your heart of hearts, and then in your secret heart?

With ar-Ra’uf, human beings use a calm inner strength to help others when conditions are at their worst, and everyone is panicking. There is a manner of serenity that allows you to overcome hostility, anger, and hate. That calm has a way of going deeply into the essence, and it has a soothing or pacifying effect on others.

You should invoke Ya Ra’uf to overcome the deep place that an accuser is coming from, and not as an effort to overcome their accusations against you. It allows you to become capable of getting into the heart of the one who is directing the hostility toward you. You recognize the negative environment but get past that by penetrating deeply inside. Jesus said, “Resist not evil.” There is no resistance, no conquering, no giving life to the impressions by reacting to them. This is illustrated in a Zen story about a monk who was accused of getting

With ar-Rauf, you don’t deal with the outward stuff but simply go to the inner heart of the person who is directing all of that hostility.

Just the sound of the word ra’uf has a frequency in the heart that is gentler than the wings of a butterfly. It is a kind of love that has conquered any defenses the ego might put up. There is no longer anything to defend against for this love to flow within you. You have surrendered your defenses and worked to overthrow whatever nightmares and pains these defenses have been protecting. So ar-Rauf touches the deepest wounds there are. It goes to the place within you where there are sensitive hurts and wounds that you have lived your whole life defending from being touched. But this simple love can reach it. It is so quiet that it can penetrate the armor. It is even subtler than what we generally understand by compassion. It is a gentle perfume.

(The secondary narcissistic wound: shame and its defenses)

(Secondary wound in detail: soul deficiency and its defenses)

What we call the secondary narcissistic wound arises because we feel shamed. We feel somehow we have failed to fulfill what our family or society has required of us. What makes it narcissistic is our self-identification with the deficiency of this wounded condition. The result of this identification is that we feel deficient in our sense of self, in the sense of our very soul. Because this wound is so tender, it usually is defended by our whole personality structure. We develop strategies so that the wound won’t be touched, because it is very delicate and vulnerable. It is not like a wound that happened through gross encounters or hurts. It is a wound in the delicateness of the soul. As a child, in our soul, we felt that nobody could see what we were trying to do. We felt like a failure because we were not able to heal mother or to heal father.

Both kinds of activity mean that the delicate wound is activated. We could say that all aggression is coming as a defense against deep shame, deep vulnerability, and deep woundedness. And we would further say that everybody is trying to cover up this shame, because the pain is so devastating that when they reach it they don’t know how to handle it. It can even lead to suicidal impulses.

We’ll offer a metaphor here in reference to the subtle body. An oil lamp has a wick that holds the moisture of the oil. You light up the wick, and there is a flame. The flame comes down through the lata’if or chakras. The moisture is like the perfume. It is not the oil, itself, but the scent of the perfume.

(Fana: refinement of the nafs, not its destruction)

The explanation of fana, or self-effacement, is not the destruction of the nafs, or lower self. What happens is the nafs becomes ever more refined. And there are many grades of nafs. At the highest level, the ego covering becomes so sheer, so thin, so latif that it is the thinnest sheer membrane. It becomes so transparent you may not even know it is there. That is what fana feels like. And a real physician of the heart can tell what is inside the mysterious realm of the heart by looking into how your nafs is covering your heart. Originally the ego is a delicate, transparent membrane. It gets thickened and calcified by beliefs, ideas, and images and becomes a thick membrane.

Our aim is not to kill the ego but rather to allow for its transformation. In giving birth, the cervix of the mother is effaced, not annihilated. It softens and becomes transparent.

Trying to take people to the absolute too fast is inappropriate. To work with them properly, their membrane needs to be intact.

(Al-Mudhill: bottoming out as the precondition for rising)

Further Psychological Considerations Al-Mudhill is usually experienced in our psyches as the humiliator. Consequently, it is very much connected with shame in the personality structure. Dhalil, a form of the same root, means not only being shamed but also includes in its meaning the feeling that you are the lowest of the low. This is the deepest humiliation. After you have been brought face to face with that stage of self-identity that has to do with being the lowest of the low, then you are able to rise. You cannot rise until you hit the feeling, “I am worthless. I am the most shamed. I am the most devalued.” That is the core of alienated identity. It constitutes the deepest level of the paranoia. Having reached the bottom, you are isolated in the lowest domain of existence, where because of a deep woundedness a kind of narcissistic self-identity is generated from the feeling, “I am the least of the least.” There is the pervasive but deeply hidden feeling of “I am unworthy and I don’t have what it takes.” What happens is your whole personality structure is created as a defense against having to feel this sense of deficiency. So unless you find the key to fully penetrate into this most defended place of self-identification, you cannot rise. Anything that stops short of this deepest place will leave you still needing to defend against feeling some hidden deficiency. We see that al-Mudhill is the Name of the one that takes you to the domain of the lowest of the low, which is the original ego identity. And that’s the place of shame. The shame there is two-fold. There is the shame that comes from feeling rejected by humanity. The other shame is an anguish of soul that comes from feeling rejected or abandoned by God. When you personally bottom out in such a place, it is natural for you to feel like doing nothing about all this negativity, because after all, you have identified with being the lowest of the low, so there is no escape. Now al-Mu’izz comes to the rescue.

that death is a vehicle of spiritual transformation.

“When have I ever grown less by dying?”

“When have I ever grown less by dying?

There is a memorable hadith where a Bedouin says to the Prophet, “What if I do this really bad thing?” And the answer is, “Allah forgives.” “But what if I do it again and again and again?” “Allah continues to forgive.” Then the Bedouin says, “Doesn’t Allah ever get tired of forgiving?” And the Prophet Muhammad says, “No, but you might get tired of doing that same thing over and over again.”

The very concept of forgiveness, even in English usage, is to give up the grudge, to let go of that revenge fantasy. Forgiveness comes by giving that away.

We use the finite to experience something of the infinite in order to try to describe the indescribable. Mystics and poets perpetually engage in this sort of hopeless and wonderful activity.

We understand al-Mutakabbir as the path to vastness. It is going beyond, constantly going beyond limitation, just as the Buddhist Prajna Paramita mantra says: gate, gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha. It is a process: beyond, and beyond that, and beyond that… Al-Mutakabbir has the sense of a continual action. It is not like a state. When you reach an apparent boundary, it always goes beyond.

Usually these boundaries, or these limitations in the mind, are a defense mechanism against a sense of deficiency. The ego feels deeply deficient in its core, and the core of this ego deficiency cannot be resolved by any actions that the ego itself undertakes. The resolution of the core problem of the ego deficiency comes through awakening to the presence of Allah.

In prescribing Allahu Akbar, physicians of the heart are aiming to dismantle the totality of the defense structure, and in this way make space for the experience of the infinite presence of God. Repetition of this wazifah does not leave you helpless. On the contrary, it is often offered as a powerful practice of protection in all circumstances. The ultimate aim of the practice is the dissolution of the entire defensive structure in the personality, which means sooner or later the spiritual traveler will encounter the absolute.

When the ego gets attached to any of those stages, either to the fullness or the emptiness, it becomes trapped. For example, it then needs to come toward fullness by emptying out.

The fear-based personality feels unsafe in existence. It is not protected, not preserved, not guided, and it is petrified of being shattered or broken. So it builds up enormous complex systems of defensiveness. It builds a false citadel. It wants nerves of steel, and takes that metaphor as a mark of those who are brave. Actually, such nerves of steel don’t do much except defend against encroachment, and they deteriorate in time.

Real courage is not an activity of ego. It arises from an inner sense of divine protection and it has much more power than does anger. Such a one is standing for truth, flowing in the truth. It may come as a kind of divine wrath that is not angry but that burns away ignorance.

(Hidden ecstasy and suroor: the secret fire of love)

Hidden ecstasy is contracted into the secret place of the heart. On the practical level, it is an ecstasy that has no external signs such as laughing or crying. It is so internal or quiet the ecstatic might not even know that he or she is experiencing it. Suroor is sirr, a secret. And there are two more meanings of suroor. One meaning is to produce fire. This fire, ‘ishq’allah, is an ecstatic, all-inclusive fire of love that burns but doesn’t consume. Another form of the root of suroor is surrah, the umbilical cord. A final meaning of suroor points to the secret that the lover shares with the beloved. It is a kind of pillow talk, called munaajaat. There is an intimate conversation between two lovers who trust each other with the deepest secret of their hearts, a secret that is preserved by the intimacy of union.

Allah is the perfect Name to set forth with on a voyage to the ecstasy that is identical with all existence itself, because it is totally inclusive. It is the essence of all the jamali and jalali Names—the Names of beauty and the Names of power.

ecstasy. This voyage to ecstasy calls on all the senses. Beauty is contemplated through hearing, tasting, feeling, and so on. The spiritual traveler is thus taken into a realm of divine intoxication. On the other hand, contemplation of the divine Names of power takes the lover toward sobriety. As one’s path continues, it is ever more evident that intoxication and sobriety are inseparable.

Then the totality of one’s personality structure gets replaced by this jeweled structure we have called the stupa. Christian mystics have called it the Holy Grail. Muslims and Jews may name it is as the reality of the Holy Temple. The Tibetans call it the wish-fulfilling gem. It is the totality of blessed individuality. If you reach that station, as the agent of God’s creativity you can generate and manifest and actualize anything that the great heart of the universe desires. This is the wish fulfilling jewel: “Be” and it becomes. Kun fa-yakun. It is the ultimate body of bliss that generates blessings. It is what all humanity longs for.

When you are in the body of the personality, you are constantly generating what is familiar. You just keep doing it again and again. The familiar body is quite small. But from the embodiment of the stupa, you can function beyond the limitations of what we have already known, and in a blissful way. In this grand sense, we all are creators, generators, and actualizers. It is all an expression of the unlimited abundance of divine love.

in the midst of this commonplace reality. And, as we shall see, there are many other ways

There is dayyoom and there is dayyamoom: continuity into the absolute and continuity into the relative. It is a nonstop process, so it would be a serious mistake to fix on a preference between the two. If a person gets stuck on the absolute, void of all Names, it can be a dangerous state. And to get lost in the attributes may also be dangerous. In the first instance we may despise this world and embrace a kind of asceticism. The other pole of attachment leads to a kind of spiritual materialism. If we don’t disintegrate, we cannot be reborn in a new form. Every day we need to dissolve in the absolute whatever form or images or ideas arise. Then we can resurrect in a different form, a different state, with different feelings and different energies.

The ego dissolves, and a state of sweetness is born in the sacred heart. The quality is honey-like. Whatever the universe has done to you before now, or whatever humanity has done, generated only bitterness within and made an obstacle in your way. Now there is a great and profound sweetness, and when it arises you simply want to return home. You just want to melt. And when that melting takes place, the honey opens up the heart, the mind, and the body.

(The seven levels of nafs: from craving to purification)

The structure of narcissism in the human ego can be seen in the seven levels of the nafs.

“An-nafs ul-’ammaarah drives toward degradation, except for the divine loving compassion of Allah, for Allah is Ghafur and Rahim.”89 Even though this nafs drives toward degradation,

can be transformed into craving Allah instead of your own self-degradation. Each one of us has this nafs that is always running, but we have the choice of choosing, as Yusuf did, to elevate it through calling out “Ya Karim” instead of our version of “O baby, light my fire.” At this gross level of nafs, there is a sexual addiction that never ends. Al-Karim’s quality of divine abundance is here viewed in the context of addressing sexual craving. Such craving can only be satisfied with al-Karim. God is infinitely abundant; it is God that can fill you with self-respect, and you realize this is the only thing that can satisfy your craving.

Shaitan (Satan) appears and speaks, and many souls reproachfully accuse him saying, “You promised us differently.” He replies, “I don’t have any power over you. I called you and you listened to me. I had no authority. Don’t blame me; blame your own soul [nafs].”

It is the blaming and self-reproaching nafs that is referred to here, and it doesn’t matter whether you blame Shaitan or blame yourself; you are still blinded by this nafs, and unable to find the depth of your being.

When you call the Lover, the answer comes, “I am there.” Then Shaitan’s game is up, so to speak.

An-nafs ul-mulhimah is the third level of nafs. Its meaning is connected with ilham. Ilham is considered to be direct guidance from God without an intermediary. God sends such guidance to your heart directly, but God does this through the membrane of the nafs. At this stage, there is less density in this membrane, and that is what allows an-nafs ul-mulhimah to be called the inspired nafs or the enthused nafs.

An-nafs ul-mulhimah is the place of the white light of spiritually ecstatic experiences. The nafs becomes inspired as a result of the intensity of such ecstatic experiences. It becomes enthused. How a person responds to the challenge of this enthusiasm or arousal is the crucial thing to understand.

The nafs then can distinguish between taqwaa and fujoor. Taqwaa is to be conscious of the infinite presence of God in everything, all the time. Fujoor literally is a tear, or ripped place, in that God-consciousness. A well-balanced nafs is innate.

And then the verse talks about shukoor, gratitude for our hearing and our sight and our understanding. The healthy response to divine inspiration is gratitude. Gratitude is the response of a healthy soul. But how should you meditate on what should be faced and resolved, in order to arrive at such divine gratitude? A key is offered elsewhere in this surah.100 We read that both spiritual and material gifts are being continuously offered by the divine abundance. Meditating on this reality helps generate gratitude, and true gratitude helps you avoid distorted versions of pride, suggested by the ego in its grandiosity.

Khidr is the prototype of the Murshid or spiritual guide; he is working under direct divine guidance.

In the Qur’an it is described as “O soul in complete rest amidst trials of extreme hunger and extreme anxiety.”102 This is the opposite of the typical condition of impatiently rushing about full of stress and harried. Such people are always complaining that there is never enough time.

Their hearts opened due to their intimacy or nearness to Allah. That is the outcome of the bayat, the dhikr, and the ecstasy. Its effect is to open hearts to the immediate presence of the divine. This passage is a wonderful summary of the essence of an-nafs ul-mutma’innah.

has sent down the sakeenah to the hearts of those who have attained certainty.” But the core of this transmission is expressed in 48:10 where it refers to the bayat. In reality, the bayat is truly made with Allah. It literally says that the hand of Allah is over the hand of the Rasul, or Divine Messenger. This is the mystical reason why bayat is so valuable and can have deep consequences. This inner meaning is felt flowing through bayats in all traditions everywhere.

You salivate and want it, but it doesn’t nourish you or satisfy your hunger. The more you eat, the hungrier you get. And it causes humiliation because of what you have to do to get it. It is a picture of the suffering caused by the lower self, an-nafs ul-’ammaarah.

Also contrasted with radiyyah is sakhita. It means to despise. It is to deem a gift as little, to not appreciate. There is a hadith: Appreciating and being well pleased (mardaah) with divine perfection is from Allah, and deeming it little or insignificant is from Shaitan.

The Prophet said, “Have no fear, God is with us.”

There is a type of person who gives his or her whole life yearning for mardaah, the good pleasure of Allah. Literally, they devote their whole soul (nafs) to yearning for the pleasure of Allah.113 That really expresses the nature of this sublime level of the nafs. They give their all, and Allah is well pleased with that soul. Allah is ra’uf (full of gentle loving-kindness) for such lovers. God gives ridwaan to them.

An-nafs ul-zakiyyah means a pure soul; it is the highest and last grade. “How happy is the one who purifies her [the nafs].”115

The boundless joy in such a state of abundance of the soul is al-Ghaniyy, which is an infinite treasure house of blessings.

This represents the purification that his nafs underwent to be able to pass a line described in the Miraj story as the lote tree that divides finite reality from infinite reality. This is the line that the Archangel Gabriel couldn’t cross. As the angel said, “I took you through the six heavens, but I couldn’t pass this tree lest my wings burn.” The rational mind cannot pass this barrier, but the nafs that is entirely purified can. It is purified even of the rational mind. Muhammad beheld the divine reality on another occasion near the lote tree, beyond which none can pass.123 The lote tree is the tree of nothingness that stands near the Garden of the Abode—the highest heaven.

(The seventh heaven: nafs dissolved, yearning fulfilled)

The greatest sign is the nafs that isn’t there, because it is dissolved in the reality of the divine self. As the sacred hadith affirms: “I become the eye with which one sees.” The question of who is seeing whom is not really answerable. The seventh heaven is the garden of unity. This is the culmination of the Miraj story. An-nafs ul-’ammaarah begins as greed. That yearning is built into every cell. But the flame of greed can ultimately become transmuted and spiritualized. The paradox is to be able to stay with the passion for the goal when the quest isn’t yet fulfilled. All yearning ultimately directs you toward the light, the source of all, the treasure house of all existence and ecstasy. The journey through the seven stages of the nafs leads the soul to the realization of Ya Ghaniyy, the divine Name that expresses the infinite treasure house of being.

When the qualities of power and beauty (jalal and jamal) are balanced, we get kamal, which is perfection.

the Muslims are told: “Even if they have cursed you, forgive them and overlook their misdeeds because God loves those who do this.”

Through heightened insight into reality, he or she sees the infinite worth, or karam, of every individual. God is all in all.

The causatives direct us to see God working through what appear as secondary causes.

That is quite a different way of looking at prayer. It is not a letter to Santa Claus. The purpose of asking is to penetrate the darkness, to dig through obstruction and reach water. In a parallel way, we don’t praise Allah because Allah desires to be praised, but because the act of gratitude transforms our condition and opens us to God.

(Al-Qarib: nearness, listening, and the answering of deepest need)

The muqarraboon are the ones who are near, or who continually draw near. “There are companions on the right and left hand, and those who are beyond heaven and hell; they are the ones who draw near.”144 A sacred hadith goes on to say that they become ever nearer to me until I become the eyes through which they see, the ears through which they hear, and so on.

Al-Qarib means truly listening, and not simply desiring an answer to your request. Such a standard of listening implies that if you, as a lover, are caught up in paying attention to the distance between you and the beloved, you are not in a position to be close enough to get the answer which is there.

“It is We who made you in the first place and We know the dark whisperings that your own soul [an-nafs ul-lawwaamah] whispers to you, for We are nearer to you [‘aqrab] than your own jugular vein.”145

Those of us who are stuck in an-nafs ul-lawwaamah are caught up in the internal voice of blame, criticism, comparison, and judgment. This voice brings up all the past regrets and future fears. These worries all come from listening to the dark whisperings of the nafs, rather than listening to al-Mujib, who is answering our deepest need.

“When my servants ask you concerning me say that I am really very close. I answer every call when anyone calls me, so listen and seek an answer from me.”146

The child calls, but there is no response. Because there is no response, a very deep hunger comes, a deep, deep starvation. And that starvation usually is centralized at the solar plexus. When that person goes deep within and opens up their system, this deep hunger appears. It is a hole they will often try to fill up with food. It is a very common occurrence that whenever this hunger comes, they eat. They are narcissistically trying to get love, trying to find relationships, trying to get acknowledgment, and in general trying to fill up this deep hole of starvation. When the student is allowed and encouraged to go through their deep hunger, then al-Mujib begins to awaken. The student is able to recognize their deepest longing from day one, their basic need for love.

Emotion is not enough for a baby; they need a depth of love. The absolute may be viewed as a field. As it manifests, it gets denser and denser, until it meets the child’s need with utmost love. If this basic satiation doesn’t happen, deep inside around the stomach, there is a gut-level feeling that this universe cannot fulfill them. Usually there is deep despair in the psyche. The student is sure that their need will never be fulfilled.

Now the center begins to open. It opens first as an infinite hole that feels it cannot be satisfied by anything. It is like a hungry ghost. You can eat and eat and take in whatever you like, but there is no response and no satiation. Intense dissatisfaction is burning in the center, around the diaphragm. In their unconscious, this feeling is very powerful.

It is the abundance that pervades everywhere, the kawthar. Now the center of abundance secretes sweetness, and inner milk start to flow in the system. A person feels complete satisfaction. You feel that the whole universe is really very giving, very responsive to your deepest wants and needs. You begin to secrete a kind of honeyed gold. When the center of infinite abundance opens up, a fountain of abundance secretes whatever the heart desires, and manifests the quality that you need in your daily life.

“The outpouring of the sublime” is a simple phrase in English to express the divine quality of al-Majid. “Glorious” is a reasonably good synonym. The basic picture in the sound code is that al-Majid is a manifestation of a particular kind of superabundance into each thing and every thing. The Qur’an refers to the ‘arsh, or divine essence, which is also called the Heart Throne, as majid. Al-Majid must therefore include in its meaning the transcendental source of this sublime quality as well as its manifestation.

(Al-Majid: the superabundance that illuminates all horizons)

Al-Majid is like the light of the rising sun. When it arises it illuminates your mental horizons and you are lost in admiration. Meanings become inexhaustible. The wider the horizon of your experience, the farther your spiritual eye can

The amazing source of the Qur’an is the transcendental source of all wisdom, whether written down or not. And in this instance, the Qur’an is just one historical instance of the superabundance of al-Majid. This passage strongly implies that the Torah is al-Majid as well as the Buddhist sutras, and so on.

They are overly literal, though they may style themselves as “realists.” Caught in a life that is heavy and onerous, they fail to see the wonder that is manifesting in the universe. Prayerful

In other words, tamaajada is to glorify yourself rather than God.

If people have this shadow, where they feel compelled to mention their own glorification, and be in competition to see who is the greatest, they most likely have serious issues of abandonment.

Their attitude of competition is a cover over a deep wound of disconnection. One way that a person defends against the feeling of deprivation is by denying it, and that leads directly into pride.

Painful experiences of scarcity coagulate into a defining attitude of self, an attitude that is based on a sense of deficiency.

bitter, shut-down, and resigned to do nothing about their state because they feel they deserve to be deprived and are unworthy of anything better.

The vacuum, or hole, that occurs when the soul is thwarted in some way attracts and invites ideas and emotions of scarcity, lack of support, lack of recognition, or lack of abundance to arise. The mind tries to fill up this gaping hole and, in the process, projects meanings—conceptualizations to which it becomes emotionally attached.

(Al-Wahhab, ar-Razzaq, al-Fattah: three modes of divine abundance)

Another way of expressing the relationship is to say that al-Wahhab is like being freely given fish from a fisherman; ar-Razzaq is like learning the skill of fishing; and al-Fattah is like all the fish that you will ever get as a result. All three are ever-continuing gifts from Allah, but they embody a developmental sequence, and there are important nuances about the nature of each gift.

The fourth form of the root is ‘awhaba, which means to give a gift out of superabundance, fullness, power, ability, or capacity.

A shadowy root form, wahhibtu fidaka, literally means “I make myself a ransom for you.” In other words, I will sell myself into bondage and give away everything for your sake, in order to make you happy. In ordinary human affairs, this is indicative of a kind of codependency that generates martyrdom or self-sacrifice. It is also a product of a lack of felt abundance.

shadowy form of the word, rizqah, means a wolf or bird of prey, a predator. Under the guise of giving sustenance, rizqah takes it back. Strings are involved in the giving, such as special interest lobbyists might employ. With such a wolf, or rizqah, there is no “free lunch.” Their predatory attitude uses the quality of generosity as a cloak over ulterior motives. There is another shadowy form, raaziqiyy, that means to be weak and dependent on others. They think, “I don’t have the capacity to make use of what opportunity presents to me, or I just don’t know how to make use of it. Someone should do it for me.”

In the psychological realm, a person who has a lot of distrust and impatience must force things to happen. He or she feels, “I am entitled; I’ve got to have what is my right. If not, then I collapse, because if I don’t get it, I feel like I must not be entitled, and therefore I am unworthy.” Their response is to either force things to open their way, or collapse into self-pity.

It is essential for the physician of the heart to understand that the ego, because of deeply painful experiences, creates a separated and isolated identity. The deep pain is an occasion for self-pity, and, as there is the wish to avoid feeling the pain so much, it engenders a contraction into a defensive structure, which is expressed in different ways in the whole personality. The ego identifies itself with an idea of self it constructs because of self-absorption. It is a narcissistic identification with the painful experience, such as scarcity, which we are considering here. The defense that is created can be based either on grandiosity or hopelessness.

(Personal enlightenment: knowing your real self in existence)

When you specifically heal the woundedness regarding your own soul, a great personal enlightenment takes place. It is possible to speak of personal enlightenment and of impersonal or universal enlightenment. Personal enlightenment hits the specific constellation of the individual. It dissolves that individual constellation and then heals it. You begin to know your real self in this existence. You know it individually, and you can navigate life with balance, clarity, and grace. The other kind of enlightenment is cosmic in scope; it has to do with the absolute. Individual enlightenment has to do with the individuated soul.

At one level, the feeling that the universe is not available may have originated in the feeling that one of your parents was not available. This evolves into a feeling that you are not entitled to anything, that no door will open for you. You have asked and been rejected. As a consequence, you have self-identified with that wound and feel hopeless and worthless. Calling on Ya Fattah turns this around and asks for the universe to open to you so that you can overcome difficulties. Being in a hopeless state may also be a result of lack of trust, and Ya Wakil might be indicated. But, in the sense we are talking about in relation to the Names in the abundance cluster, we are looking at an attitude of entitlement that has arisen from the experience of scarcity. The physician of the heart is aiming for the student to realize that actually there is enough. Ya Kafi is a divine Name that is often used in healing, though it isn’t included on the canonical lists of 99 Names. In the Qur’an we read ‘a laysa allahu bi kaafin, “Isn’t Allah enough for you?”155 Al-Kafi is that abundance of God that is more than enough. Let’s briefly review some of the conditions to consider when prescribing Ya Wahhab, Ya Razzaq, and Ya Fattah. Ya Wahhab addresses a human disability that appears in the form of passivity, stuckness, and inertia, especially in the mental sphere. There is a belief and feeling that the abundance of the universe just isn’t flowing in your life. Invocation of Ya Wahhab activates that flow. Your aggression toward the universe or God, which is a feeling that arises from a sense of entitlement, responds to Ya Fattah.

The Beatitudes of Jesus point to the same apparently counter-intuitive idea that to be empty of self is to be full of God, and to be puffed up in your sense of self is real poverty. The only way to realize wealth is to realize the inexhaustible treasure house of abundance. And to fully know that divine abundance, we need to realize the complete inner poverty of our own grasping ego-self. “Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

In such a state, the centripetal force of the formulation of the ego is still revolving around woundedness, around what you need but haven’t received. It’s not safe to show your need.

There are people who are afraid to ask for help, even when they actually need help. They are afraid they will be rejected. In psychology, this is known as rejecting object relation. The child has the mother and father, and these beings appear to be abundant, but the child is feeling needy because he or she keeps being rejected. The child then feels weak and small, while believing the others are mighty. The child will sometimes deal with this by saying, “I don’t need anybody. I’m going to make it on my own.” The child does this because the moment they reach out to others, they are bound to feel their smallness, their insignificance. So they deny their need. Or they might identify with their neediness. But in both cases they will not reach out. Their state has to do with being wounded around scarcity, and it is about entitlement.

The experience of wealth on the inside is different. It is like the hidden treasure of Allah. There is no need to show it off. It is enough to just be it.

For the problems of false humility and the like, we recommend encouraging spiritual greed, and at the same time, calling on Ya Ghaniyy to transform this greed into greed for the Kingdom. It might be asked how spirituality could possibly be greed. Yearning is built into every cell, and yet we have failed to harness it and fulfill it. We need to be able to stay with the passion for the goal through all the unfulfillment. We can awaken the flame of greed until it reaches the truly spiritual. When that occurs, we are directed toward the light of al-Ghaniyy, the source of all, the infinite treasure house of all existence and ecstasy. That is what Sufi poetry often does. It tweaks that sense of desire and meets people where they are. So it speaks of drug-induced or alcohol-induced or sexually induced ecstasy. Speaking in the common vocabulary is a far more useful device than encouraging people to lie about their inner state and be in a state of denial. Sufi poetry starts with human love, for example, and builds up to the portrayal of divine love. At the end of the story of the two greatest lovers, Majnun and Layla, he sees her and says, “You are not the Layla that I worship.” In other words, the particular form is just a representation of the reality. Greed and yearning are connected. Inherent in greed is the yearning. We have yearning and more yearning. There’s a thirst in every cell. It is called ‘ishq, the wine of love, and ‘ishq is a universal attraction. Every cell is yearning to realize itself as God, and that is the full richness of al-Ghaniyy. When every part regains its integrity, the wholeness of who you are connects with the richness that God has created in every particle that exists. To cultivate the inner richness, the paradox is that it is beneficial also to cultivate the material. When such integrity is restored, there is an experience of boundless bliss.

The personality fizzles out, and the luminous essence of each individual merges with the infinite. In that merging with the infinite, something of the individuated being remains intact. It has become an individuated part of the whole. It exists in the whole but without boundaries around it. The one and only being is your basic nature; it is what you are made of, but you are also a very specific constellation.

(Diamond-like witness consciousness: weaving relative and absolute)

Within that pure awareness there is an awakening. You realize you are a unique being with a unique frequency, a unique soul, a unique history, and a unique evolution, a being that is beautiful and delightful. You develop a consciousness that can unify and integrate the absolute and the relative. That is the great witness consciousness, the consciousness described in the previous chapter as mushaahidah. Pure awareness lacks differentiation. It is aware only of unity and oneness. The moment it enters differentiation, it becomes witness consciousness. It becomes diamond-like consciousness, a consciousness that unifies the relative and the absolute. This is the middle ground where the human being resides. We weave the relative and the absolute together. We are like the spiders who are at work unifying the spiderweb.

The human disability to be addressed here is that of trying to force things and not allow a natural maturation from one state to another. Zen Buddhists call it “pushing the river.” It is the nafs that is pushing itself forward, rather than letting the power of God do the unblocking.

It is in this dark place that you have been swallowed up where you are able to give up your clinging to the desires of the lower self. If you are Jonah, you give up your aspiration to escape to Spain, and instead remember Allah. You are ready to be sent forth anew. In the story Jonah was just trying to escape from the inner call of God that had instructed him to go forth and deliver a message to the people of Nineveh.

“Just go ahead. Cast me out.” He was willing to accept the consequences, willing to go into the ocean deep and into the belly of the whale. That too was a stage of fana.

Al-Warith can be seen in throwing yourself into the sea, in getting swallowed up by the whale, letting go of all attachments, and dwelling there in remembrance. The opening of all blockages and getting spewed out is al-Ba’ith.

Human beings experience existence as a place of duality. This is natural, because creation is based on the principle of duality, not on the principle of unity. For creation to occur, something separate is conceived and made.

(Al-Warith and al-Ba’ith: dissolution and resurrection as a pair)

Al-Ba’ith allows each one to experience the emerging, to experience incarnation. Earlier, they were experiencing dissolution and integration into essence. Now they are absorbed in integrating essence into life, into existence. They are coming from the source of all to the relative. Before they went from the relative to source. At the time in a student’s progress when they need to learn to unify and unite all the fields, they should recite the two Names together as a pair: Ya Warith, Ya Ba’ith.

The spiritual wayfarer experiences dissolution and integration simultaneously. He or she has the ability to disintegrate the personality as well as embody the personality and in this way can accomplish integration into the fullness of being.

You develop the structures that were missing in your personality. This is the journey activated by al-Warith and al-Ba’ith. Through stages, it leads to the dissolution of the false personality and the awakening of the body of resurrection, which is the essential personality. Even the physical body is thoroughly enlivened. Many seekers don’t want to be in the world. What they really want is to get away from the world and reach the source. For them, returning from the source is extremely challenging because they fear reentering all the limitations that obscured their vision before.

The more you dissolve the false personality, the more you emerge in an essential personality. It is made of elements of grace and beauty and other divine qualities. For a seer, it may manifest as a jeweled structure. You feel transformed, as if the absolute is awakening you from the sleep of the dead into a living body. The new self is an individuated structure that is made of elements that are truly beautiful, like the 99 Names of Allah, jelled in embodied forms.

God’s Omniscience and the Secret of Every Heart

“The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.” “The people of knowledge are the heirs of the prophets. They leave behind knowledge as their inheritance. One who inherits it inherits a great fortune.”

“Among the many types of knowledge is that which is ignorance.” This is a good indication that al-’Alim is all-inclusive.

When we feel the things we are lacking and identify with this deficiency it brings up personal fears, and questions like “How much wealth do I actually have?” become very worrisome. Al-Hasib is God’s action of accounting for the full meaning of everything. Nothing goes unrecorded, and nothing is ever lost. From the standpoint of how human beings can realize this quality, it is to become completely accountable. To become honestly accountable allows for a fresh beginning. It means taking full responsibility for one’s actions, words, and even one’s thoughts.

If you sit judging yourself every night, asking “What did I do right or wrong, and how can I correct the wrong?” you soon become exhausted and confused. It leads to a huge superego that can drive you crazy.

“How can conscientiousness be aroused and at the same time freed from the shadow of the superego’s assertion of dominance?”

Ar-Raqib means to fully give loving attention, and at the same time to possess the inner quietude that makes real concentration possible.

(The superego as false God: distinguishing inner voices)

The superego is always present: watching, calculating, and judging. The superego assumes the part of God and plays the judge. It believes that it is the Muhsi, the Hasib, and the Raqib. Students confuse this voice with the voice of knowledge, of conscience, and of guidance. Really it is the voice of the false controller, the commanding self, and the blaming self.

When the superego is playing God, the student is caught in a realm of the unconscious that is particularly difficult to disengage from in order to witness objectively. The superego is like an octopus. It has tentacles in every domain. You can find it in the domains of the heart, the body, the mind, and even the divine. In each of these

domains there is a voice that diminishes you. Whether it is a gross or subtle voice, it is saying the same thing: you are no good and you have it all wrong. The student mistakenly associates this voice even with the emanations of the divine reality.

A person in the grip of this force becomes so belittled that they are incapable of doing anything. What also may occur in this confused state is utter grandiosity, where you blame yourself for everything that happens in the universe. Both of these conditions are paralyzing to the self.

They can then be shown how the superego is the oppressor and the dominator. It causes them to regress, and it prevents them from opening up and having the courage to walk their walk, in just the way a child becomes inhibited. The superego stymies the wisdom to examine and truly cultivate the higher octaves of self-awareness.

To have a seeker honestly face an-nafs ul-’ammaarah, for example, is painful. It is at the heart of boring, sober Sufism.

Instead, suggest a process. For example, they may go from seeing images, to seeing lights and colors, to seeing essential states, to seeing luminous beings. The attributes of God all have a palpable presence, a living presence. They have depth, texture, color, and sound. And the presence of the divine quality changes how you are experiencing yourself and reality. On the other hand, the fakery of the superego is dead, deadening, and distorted. It brings mental and emotional disturbance rather than pristine presence.

The student may then be inspired to move past self-criticism and do a simple accounting of what is happening in their life. Then the time is ripe for the counselor to recommend the invocation of an appropriate Name or Names that are particularly connected with their condition.

All knowing stems from one source, but the usual course of human consciousness is to drift in one domain of being or another and to become lost in a particular domain. Students become trapped in these limitations by identifying whatever is occurring in a given realm with their sense of self. However, once consciousness takes root in the source, you can see the thoughts, feel the emotions, and sense the sensations without identifying with them. All these become like passing clouds. You witness them passing. You begin to perceive the patterns of what they are. And you remain present.

So as the diamond-like body of witnessing arises, it begins to excavate your hidden agenda. This knowing faculty does not invalidate your hidden agenda, but it gives it space to be present, and such spaciousness allows you to be guided to see why you so desire what is in your hidden agenda.

It then guides you through that particular treasure to more and more fulfillment, all the way to the source of all.

The merely ecstatic realms are not to be confused with this realization. There are influences of emotion in the ecstatic realms, and there is a sweet kind of

am the Wine of the Holy Sacrament; my very being is intoxication; those who drink of my cup and yet keep sober will certainly be illuminated; but those who do not assimilate it, will be beside themselves and exposed to the ridicule of the world.”236

This state is different from the state of merging with the absolute. In the absolute, you let go of the witness consciousness and you unite with pure awareness. Pure awareness lacks differentiation. Pure awareness sees only unity and oneness. Actually, it is not a final stage but a birthing stage, and it is necessary for the dissolution of the personality. The moment pure awareness enters afresh into differentiation, it becomes witnessing consciousness. It becomes the embodiment of the Spirit of Guidance, the inner guide. What emerges is a medium of witnessing that unifies the relative and the absolute. Human beings reside in the middle ground between the relative and the absolute. We have the innate potential to weave them together into a kingdom. As our journey through the Names of knowledge, wisdom, and guidance continues, we will have occasion to revisit in a variety of ways this place of inner guidance.

The moment pure awareness enters afresh into differentiation, it becomes witnessing consciousness. It becomes the embodiment of the Spirit of Guidance, the

inner guide. What emerges is a medium of witnessing that unifies the relative and the absolute.

The diamond body of guidance is made of pure rahma, pure love. The inner guide is a manifestation of Allah’s perfect love—ar-Rahman, ar-Rahim.

(Al-Haqq: the ground of being and matrix of all knowing)

The divine Name al-Haqq directs our attention to the nature of reality. It is the very ground of being, a field that is both active and potential, known and unknown.

This cosmic entity filters the absolute into all the differentiated domains. It gives you the capacity to know not only what there is to be known, but also to know what needs to be known. Its way of knowing moves consciousness into different centers and different depths, and according to such movement, it reveals.

When you are able to allow knowing and not knowing equally into the ground of your awareness, the diamond body moves to an absolute dimension. True wisdom, al-Hakim, is the heart center of the diamond body in the absolute dimension. When knowing becomes centered in the heart with a wisdom that is discerning and healing, then the Names of guidance, such as ar-Rashid and al-Hadi, enter the picture. Al-Haqq is the matrix of all. It is how Allah knows Allah, and thus it is almost a synonym for Allah.

We can describe al-Haqq as a spiderweb matrix of light and dark, of form and emptiness.

You are at the nexus of knowing and not knowing. The Spirit of Guidance is attracted into that in-between space. This witnessing place at the heart center of the known and the unknown is the beginning of wisdom. Awareness of God, or taqwaa, can originate in the space where you are not clinging to knowing. There are two components of wisdom: knowledge and practice. ‘Imaan is the highest kind of knowing. It is a certainty that is both inward and outward. ‘Amal is ability and skillful practice. ‘Amal is also described as sulh, which is the nexus between knowledge and practice.

We think that there has been a kind of paradigm shift. In the past, people were first trained how to behave in society, and then they were taught what constituted the roots of such behavior. Finally, they were encouraged to find the inner experience of unity with humankind from which it is all derived. Now we are in a world where we can’t effectively teach that way. So our method of teaching is to look for the inner experience that will inform a person’s understanding of how to behave in the world.

Most human beings are thoroughly encased and insulated. We experience ourselves as an island separated from the whole. We are individualized rather than individuated. We wanted to individuate, but instead we ended up isolated. Because of this isolation, the ego or personality structure lacks resilience and becomes quite narcissistic. Such an ego is a solid structure, and you need a bulldozer as well as laser beams to make a dent in it. Each one of us is trying to survive as an ego! Consequently, initiating our relationship with a flow of inner inspiration can only happen as a kind of miracle, something massive and powerful. This is the stage of ilham—the noun form of al-Mulhim.

What they ultimately need to develop, and what is later seen in the quality of ar-Rashid, is the clarity of the diamond body of awareness discussed in Chapter 23, The Ground of All Knowing and the Dawning of Wisdom. This luminous accommodation of wisdom is the individuated being. It can integrate, unify, and explain the relative and the absolute.

The ego needs some encouragement and nurturing to gain the confidence to move through its various experiences. And that is a large part of what the spiritual guide does. At this point the quality of ar-Rashid fully enters the picture. It is a guidance that is particularly focused on what they need in their development, which stabilizes and balances them.

Then, as the student’s experiences get more embodied and actualized, the natural maturation of their process is to become engaged with the way of life of a spiritual community, or sangha. You naturally feel that you want to walk a walk that is grounded in your deep experiences, and you seek the community with which that can resonate.

Your soul has been touched by the flames of the burning bush, and its fire has aroused the yearning to live the truth behind the experience.

The function of the spiritual guide, or Murshid, is to represent a clear and balanced capacity of knowledge and wisdom. They take the student and say, “What you saw is only part of you, and part of the great being, and it has a meaning.” Their quality of guidance decodes the hidden realm all the way to the absolute and shows how the absolute differentiates itself in myriads of forms in the inner and outer worlds.

Their relationship with the teacher no longer has so much transference involved in it, and it has become more vivid. They begin to see the teacher as another human being. Now, when the student looks at the teacher without so much projection, there is continuing love, honoring, and respect.

In general terms, these domains can be called the boundless ever-potent reality of the transcendental absolute, all the possible accommodations of the heavens or different planes of existence, and the mystery of the constant transformations of all material things. In Buddhist terms, these domains are called dharmakaya, samboghakaya, and nirmanakaya. The stage of al-Hadi is the stage of actualization. Gradually a time comes in your spiritual process when you begin to feel a kind of citadel settling into your consciousness. You feel rooted in your process no matter what happens. You continue steadily like a camel crossing the desert, even in the face of a sandstorm. The blessings of the divine are manifest in daily life. This is the realm where the daily bread of heaven comes into the daily bread of breakfast. It is the landing of the essential domain in daily life. Ego consciousness can’t accomplish this stage. When the essential domain we have called the Holy City comes, there is a great relief and ease in knowing that the kingdom of heaven is with you, that you can enter by meditation, by relaxing, by feeling, by sensing, by invoking. At this point the ilham has become fully integrated into the rhythm of everyday life, and it is no longer just an isolated experience. The experience has been tamed.

It turns everyone into a narcissist. In the Greek myth, Narcissus didn’t have a sense of self so he looked into the pool to see who he was, and he fell in love with the image. The image we are talking about here is the image of the ego. We hold on to the ego because the ego is the image of the beloved.

They plummet into a giant hole and experience no direction and no sense of self. Ya Hadi is the wazifah that is most appropriate when the student is approaching this stage: to actualize insights, to walk the walk, and to move from states to stations, from hal to maqaam.

have been shaped and limited by our family constellations. Here is Mom and here is Dad, and their unhappiness and misery, which we have internalized. Ultimately, we let go of all these structures we have used to provide our identity. When the spiritual traveler lets go of it all, they fall into a vast emptiness. There is no ground and no identity. Not shrinking from this, you begin to feel you are landing somewhere. Where you are landing is in the absolute, and you experience the essential state. You become established in the light of freedom, and what emerges from within you is the being of light that you are.

With the landing of the holy city in you, you experience the everyday kingdom in which you live as precious and holy. It is equally beautiful and magical and filled with all virtues as the inner world. That is what taqwaa means. It is to live in this awareness of the presence of Allah in your own heart. In the words of the Prophet Muhammad, “There are those who act in the world as if they see God.”

The holy city protects itself from those who just seek bliss but are unwilling to forego their ego attachments. If a person loses the frequency of being that is in harmony with the holy city, then they are in self-imposed exile. The temple of God, which

the human body, should be treated with great respect. If the soul is not purified of its identification with its limited notion of ego-self it cannot sustain being at home in this accommodation.

In dream work, a counselor may work with someone for years, and then hear about a dream from their childhood where an angel of light came to them and gave them guidance.

That is pure gold for the physician of the heart because you can affirm it and kindle the flame of al-Mulhim.

The issue you must deal with in this case is the loss of the basic trust that was connected with their initial experience of inspiration. They have lost a basic trust that they can be nurtured by Being itself. Because they got very disappointed so early, they have never been able to trust that there is some goodness or love that will come to them. In the long run, the teacher wants to help the student be drawn into the experience of the inner world but also to value everyday life. They need to move from being tossed about from experience to experience to becoming established in a station of realization that is not so dependent on circumstances.

(Al-Mulhim: the danger of inspiration before discernment)

The stage of al-Mulhim is dangerous terrain because people are beginning to hear an inner prompting but they cannot sort out the voice of the nafs, or the ego-self, from the voice of Allah. There is no ability to distinguish between what is genuine guidance and what is the product of fear, inner confusion, and ego-blindness.

Inspiration passes through the globe of the heart, which according to a hadith is covered with 70,000 veils of darkness and 70,000 veils of light. You think you are serving God, and your intention may be to serve God, but who is the God you are listening to and what are you really serving? Understanding is obscured because of the coverings over your heart.

Gradually, children, whose very nature is to be born as the light of the soul in its glory, lose the spark within and the sense of their essence. At some point, generally from seven to nine years old, the child fully separates from that identity and forms an ego identity. I am such and such. Then, when push comes to shove, you hear them saying, “This is me and this is how I am, and I know myself, and you don’t know me and you don’t love me,” and so on in this vein. In the core of the ego there is a crystallized sense of an identity, and this identity is godly.

This luminous accommodation of wisdom is the individuated being. It can integrate, unify, and explain the relative and the absolute.

Fortunately, your experience of disconnection actually connects you intimately to that very attribute of being you feel is missing in yourself: You first discover your relationship with a divine quality by experiencing its lack. It is like a hole or a blocked door. The necessary response to your discovery of deficiency is to focus your active attention on awakening that missing divine attribute as an essential aspect of

your real self. We recommend consistent prayerful and contemplative invocation of the 99 Names of Allah, combined with devoted attention to using the Names as agents for bringing healing wisdom into your life and, if you are working as a physician of the heart, as active agents in the lives of those you are counseling. A physician of the heart should pass on some simple guidance about the way to use the 99 Names of Allah, such as the following: They are best recited aloud with a devotional feeling of calling out to the source of all perfection while also knowing that God is in the very vibration of the sound. The quality of God that is evoked moves in and through you. By listening to the sound you make when you recite the Names, you begin to gradually bring the tone of your voice into harmony with their essence.

(The 99 Names as birthright: divine qualities inherent in the soul)

We begin with reality—being, itself—the essence of all essences, the pure nature of all things, which becomes differentiated. These differentiations—human beings call them love, joy, happiness, and so on—are

embodied and magnified to the maximum of what is possible through the 99 Names of God. Each Name is a glorious emanation of being, an archetype that both represents and manifests a quality. Its presence makes clear the nature of the particular quality and its connection with each person’s body, mind, and sense of self. The divine qualities are inherent in the human soul, which is an activity of God. Like a ray of the infinite sun, the soul is individuated and yet not separate from the source. It is this immortal essence in human beings that is “created in the divine image and likeness.” Every human being is born with many of these divine qualities intact, and everyone has the potential to develop the qualities that have not been realized. It is our God-given birthright of perfection.

There is no child born who is immune to becoming disconnected in this way. The “fall,” the trauma of disconnecting, appears to be part of incarnating in this reality. From another perspective, we can say that the soul is bound up with certain karmic consequences, positive and negative. Our causal conditioning brings with it the loss of certain qualities but also the empowerment of other qualities. The path of realization partakes of both grace and karma. The grace reflects what the soul has already evolved into. The karma is connected with what the soul has not learned yet, and what it came to Earth to learn.

We begin with reality—being, itself—the essence of all essences, the pure nature of all things, which becomes differentiated. These differentiations—human beings call them love, joy, happiness, and so on