A Letter From Ashiq
In The Name of Allah, The Most Compassionate, The Most Merciful
O you who seek truth , come, have pity on yourself. Find a cure for the sickness of ignorance by which you take your imagination to be reality and from which you suffer all your life. While you can, search for a cure day and night, until you feel secure from all that you fear.
You do see some people at peace, saved from the disease of ambition, though they have less than you do while you are in pain and oppressed by all that you have.
A day will certainly come when you will regret all this, but it may be too late. Seek wisdom now, start to learn and leave this ignorance which you take for knowledge. Seek the company of those who have come to know the truth and learn their language so that you understand what they say. Salvation is in a perfect man.
After you find the perfect teacher for you, let your love for him be your guide. It is from him that you will learn to find yourself and find the truth in your own being.
Imam Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, asked the Messenger of Allah (s): "What action can I take that is not totally lost and worthless?"
The Messenger (s) answered:
"Seek truth. You will find it in yourself, therefore know yourself.
Seek the company of the wise, who know.
Agree with what they say, for one understands only that with which one agrees.
Be sincere in what you say a single tongue should not speak two different words.
No deceit or fraud should enter into your thoughts.
Do not belittle anyone or anything for everyone and everything, in its being, wishes for the same thing.
Do not touch anything that is not yours.
Avoid crowded places, even in such places, try to be with yourself for that is the place where truth is manifested. That is where the truth is.
If you do all this, your sight will reach to the end of the worlds and to the end of the heavens and you will be one and complete.
Then your life will not be spent for naught and you will be safe from temptations and pain."
O seeker of truth , the path to truth is very short. It is closer to you than your jugular vein, yet there are seventy thousand barriers, all created by you.
The one who already knows, understands. What have I told you the one who is heedless?
He is not here.
And what does animal hear but noise?
It either runs away or comes here.
If you did not understand you are not here.
Let me tell you so that you can judge yourself. If you know, you would be with Man, not with animals shaped like men.
One day the inhabitants will leave this place. Your every cell will return to dust, and you will be left by yourself. Woe to the one who does not know himself! Then you will walk alone.
O you who wish to understand wake up from heedlessness, look at reality, admit that now you are drunk and that all you know is your imagination. If you hinestly seek truth , if you really wish to wake up, you must first attain the truth of dying before dying. You must die before dying in order to be alive. You must leave the imagination of this world so that you can arrive.
To learn constancy and love you have to suffer the beloved's hiding from you, and only if you are patient in suffering will you find faith. But if you claim you are faithful already, and exhibit yourself worshiping the one to whom you claim to be faithful, hoping to receive His reward...suddenly one day you may find yourself face to face with the truth that should have been worshiped. Only it will be too late. You will be dead. You will regret it, but to no avail.
I have gone there and came back and am giving you the news. Only when your soul is in human shape can you gain or lose. Take lessons from all you see, but never say, "Why is it not another way?"
They are but bits and pieces and they seem disconneceted. Try to gather them together; your reason is the means. Be in the now, but contemplate your end.
I know that this realm has an owner and the Sultan lives in the palace of your being. Know yourself so that you will not be ashamed when you meet Him. Don't look down on anything, don't try to take someone else's share, know right from wrong, just from unjust for the human being is built from the brick of lawful sustenance and the mortar of the advice of the wise. The human being is destroyed by that which is unlawful, by the chatter of the ignorant.
Be concious, take advice from what you see. Listen to your conscience and talk with with reason. Behave correctly even when you are by yourself. Know your place and be humble. Kneel and sit low in the presence of the wise. Do not speak before being asked. If asked, be brief and say which you know. Do not be selfish. Know that truth is with you always and everywhere. Be loyal to your friends and trustworthy to all.
Speak gently to the ignorant. Be polite and quiet in the presence of the wise. If you ask of a teacher, ask with respect. Never ask a question with an intent to test, and accept the answer and agree with it, even if it is not what you expected. If you reject, you will be rejecting yourself.
In this palace of your being there are many chambers with His secret treasures, but the palace is His. There is none other than He. If you accept yourself as His servant, behave as a servant, but if you have become the perfect man then you are sultan; all is yours and you have to keep it safe and secure.
If you do not know yourself, you are neither sultan nor slave. Be prepared, then to be put to shame and never to see the sultan of the domain. Then you are only the dust thrown hither and thither with each breath. Hold on to the one who knows so that you know also. Otherwise, you will be disconcerted and confused.
The purpose of coming to this world is to know yourself and know the truth . At this stage of your eternal life you must learn on differentiate truth from falsehood. Do not spend your one and only lifetime in vain.
If you call yourself a human being then climb to the summit of your being, where you will find reason, and seek. Look at the flat lands, the climbs, and the falls for there are many fearful chasms so that you will be secure from fear.
Those who are unable to discern truth from falsehood walk through this life blindly. They still run in circles today.
Each man is responsible for his own soul. For many, what they think they know is a veil preventing them from finding the secret. they ask each other, What is this place? Who built it? bewildered, the blind leading the blind.
The one who feels he is high peers down and looks for below. The one who os low keeps up and seeks it above.
From the time He gathered the souls and asked them: "Am I not your Lord?" until the coming of the perfect human being, one hundred and twenty four thousand blessed messengers came and passed.
Each said one thing and many took heed.
Then the last blessed one came and saw the builder within what He built, showed Him to us manifest in what He created. The one who sees, sees. What is it to the blind? If you are bind, find a guid who sees. But how do the blind know if someone else sees?
The truth you seek has neither before nor after, is not in the past nor in the future. It is in the now. It has no above nor below. It is where you stand. It has neither right nor left. It is the center. It is an ocean that fits into every existance, for everything that exists is from one existance.
The ones who see anything ugly in it are rejected, because the light comes from the flame as in a crystal chandelier, where each crystal reflects the light of the same candle. All creation is but one being. Alas, they speak different tongues.
It was not my intention to give you any advice, for often the truth is told and all who hear depart. Only the ones who are destined to hear, hear.
I do not speak of myself. It is the truth that speaks, out of compassion. The truth wills none to burn. Someone destitute with pockets full of gems, someone who refuses to put his hands in his pockets, cannot call tyrant the one who gave him the treasures, and the hands to hold them. He is the Justest of the just who said:
The one who does an atom's worth of good, will receive good.
The one who does an atom's worth of harm, will meet with harm.