Uncovering of the veil

The Apostle(saw) said,"If you knew God as He ought to be known,you would walk on the seas,and the mountains would move at your call".Gnosis of God is of two kinds : cognitional(ilmi) and emotional(hali).Cognitional gnosis is the foundation of all blessings in this world and in the next,for the most important things for man at all times and in all circumstances is knowledge ofGod,as God has said:I only created the genii and mankind that they might serve Me(Quran li,56),i.e that they might know Me.But the greater part of men neglect this duty,except those whom God has chosen and whose hearts He hath vivified with himself.Gnosis is the life of the heart through God,and the turning away of ones inmost thoughts from all that is not God.The worth of everyone is in proportion to gnosis,and he who is without gnosis is worth nothing.Sufis regard gnosis (marifat) as more excellent than cognition (ilm),for right feeling is the result of right cognition,but right cognition is not the same thing as right feeling.
                           Whatever notion of God can be formed by reason,God is in reality something different.How, then,is there any room for reason to arive at gnosis by means of demonstration ? Reason and imagination are homogeneous,and where genus is affirmed gnosis is denied.                                                          Therefore,when reason is gone as far as possible , and the souls of his lovers must need search for him,they rest helplessly without their faculities, and while they so rest they grow restless and stretch their hands in prayer and seek a relief for their souls; and when they have exhausted every manner of search in their power,the power of God becomes theirs.They find the way from Him to Him,and are eased of the anguish of absence and set foot in the garden of intimacy and win to rest.
     And reason,when it sees that the souls have attained their desire,tries to exert its control,but fails.when it fails it becomes distraught.And when it becomes distraught it abdicates.Then God clothes it in the garment of service (khidmat) and says to it :While thou wert independent thou wert veiled by the faculties and their exercise,and when these were annihilated thou didst fail,and having failed thou didst attain.God causes man to know Him through Himself with a knowledge that is not linked to any faculty,a knowledge in which the existence of man is merely metaphorical.Hence to the gnostic egoism is utter perfidy.His remembrance of God is without forgetfulness,and his gnosis is not empty words but actual feeling.



Kashf ul Mahjub