On Pure Divine Love and Union

ZIKR LESSON. 2.11.07.

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim.

On Pure Divine Love and Union.

God said to one of His servants, "Do you claim to love Me? If so, know that your Love for Me is only a consequence of My Love for you. You love that which is. But I loved you then when you were not!"
Then He said to him, "Do you claim that you search to come near to Me and to lose yourself in Me? But I search for you much more than you search for Me! I searched for you in order that you should be in My presence without any intermediary, the Day when I said, "Am I not your Lord?" S 7. V 172; then, when you were only Spirit. Then, when you had a body, you forgot Me and I searched for you again, sending you My Messengers. All that was Love of you for you not for Me."
Again He said to him, " What do you think you would do if, when you found yourself in a state of extreme hunger, thirst and exhaustion, I called you to Me, offering you My paradise with its houris, its palaces, its rivers, its fruits, its pages, its cupbearers, after having forewarned you that near Me you would not find any of that?"
The servant answered, "I would take refuge in You against You."

Al-Quran Surah 34, Verse 41: But no, it is the jinn that they worshipped, and it is in them that most of them believed.

Amir Abdul Kader says that one night he was present in the Haram. Facing the Kaaba, he devoted himself to the Zikr. Soon people came and sitting to his right and left, began reciting the zikr too. The question came to his mind that which among them all was best directed to God. Soon after this thought had come to him , God inspired him with the verse, "Bal-Kaanu-ya’abudunal-jinna-aksaruhum-bihim-mu’minoon." It is then that he realized that the worship of these people was tainted by personal desires and anxieties inspired by passions. The realization made him understand the teachings of the spiritual masters that whoever invokes Allah through the fears of the fires of hell or in order to gain paradise, whoever invokes him in order that his share in the goods of the world be enlarged, or so that people should turn their faces towards him in order that he be glorified, or to avoid the evil, which an oppressor inflicts upon him, or further if he has heard a hadith of the Prophet according to which he who accomplishes a certain pious work, or recites a certain invocation will receive from God some recompense, whoever does this, his adoration is tainted, and it will not be acceptable to God except by virtue of His Grace and of His Generosity. Nevertheless, if the things which have been mentioned, do not constitute the aim of the pious act, and are only thought of as consequences of what is accomplished, without the specific purpose of obtaining them, there is no harm.


God said: Whoever hopes to encounter his Lord, let him do pious works and, in the adoration of his Lord, not associate any being with Him." S 18, V 110. The things which have been mentioned are the "beings" which are associated with God. God absolutely transcends all association. That is why He prescribed to all His servants that they adore Him with a perfectly pure faith, "deena-mukhlisina", which implies the desire for no other recompense than His Reality. Everything that one seeks in adoration other than God is an "associated", or unreal "ma’dum", or hidden "mastur" thing. The reference is to this in the verse, "But no, it is the jinn that they worshipped." The word jinn is etymologically related to the word ijtinan, which expresses the idea of being hidden. Everything which is other than Allah is "hidden" in non-being even if it appears to the spiritually veiled beings as being endowed with existence.*. But the sage does not concern himself with non-being. When the Divine Mercy grants knowledge to man of himself, then alone does his adoration become pure, and for him, paradise and hell, recompense, spiritual degrees and all created things become non-existent. He does not accord them any importance except to the extent that it is prescribed by the Divine Law and Wisdom. He then knows Who is the Sole Agent.
Abdel Kader.

* Ghayr-Allah is mukhfi or not apparent in Non-Existence but in Existence it is zaahir or manifest. Like Diversity is a play of existence, whereas Unity is its Hidden Reality.

To the Sufi awakened by adoration to the presence of the Beloved in all things and to the vastness of his or her own soul, expanded, dilated, shattered open again and again, saturated by Love, the entire universe reveals itself as the manifestation of Kibriya, Divine Glory and everything is seen as sacred. For the Sufi the whole purpose of human life is to adore, know and become one with this love beyond all barriers and dogmas, to be this Love..and to act..from its magnanimity and all-embracing tenderness. The Quran says that God has made the creation specifically to adore Him. Najmuddin Kubra said, "Man is God’s beloved and lover. Whoever knows anything else but God, is ignorant of himself and whoever knows himself knows his Lord in union "Tawhid" that transcends everything."
It is crucial for humanity’s future that as many of us as possible taste and know this love and union, and taste and know our own divine identity, and learn through adoration the glory of the heart and the glory of the universe revealed by love. Without this living, direct knowledge of the glory of the soul and the universe, and the passionate, calm, humble and wise action that flows naturally from it, the world cannot be preserved. Mevlana Rumi said: Wherever you are and in whatever circumstance, try always to be a lover and a passionate lover. Once you have possessed love, you will remain a lover in the tomb, on the day of resurrection, in paradise and forever. The crisis humanity is in today is calling us to become Divine Lovers, to possess this Love, its wisdom, strength and lion-hearted courage, its capacity to embrace and endure anything in the service of the Beloved.
Mevlana Rumi also said, "You must be alive in love, for a dead man can do nothing. Who is alive? He to whom Love gives birth." In a time as horrible as ours, the testimony of the deathlessness and magnificence of Love is priceless, a continual challenge to us to throw ourselves into the flame of Truth, a continual reminder of the glory and power we will become when nothing remains in us but that Love which is our secret and our origin.
Andrew Harvey, "The Return of the Mother".

The loveless heart may have all the religion and all the knowledge, yet it is dead. As the Bible says, "God is love." God is in the heart of each person, and the heart of each person is the highest heaven. When that heart is closed by the absence of love, then God is closed. When this heart is open, God is open, and one is alive from that time.
H.I.K.


One way to become alive to this Love or be born by it is to become alive to our pain. The spiritual journey is not taken simply to become blissful, because that would be to want God’s gifts instead of God. As mystical progress is made , one opens up much more profoundly to the grief of the world and the suffering of others, and as this opening takes place, one has less and less fear, because one realizes that beyond the pain and even along the pain is Divine Light. Every suffering has a meaning, and is taking whoever is experiencing it, to the possibility of a higher growth. Much of our fear of suffering comes from a feeling that we are going to be broken when we confront our real pain. What the mystic realizes is that no force of heaven or hell can destroy his divine truth. A mystic is therefore someone who goes into every kind of hell with faith. The mystical understanding is now so important because the world is becoming more and more violent and terrifying. All powers short of Divine understanding are not going to help. What is happening can terrify us and drive us into madness and violence, if we do not really become our true divine selves and try and work with all the suffering in which we live. Rumi reminds us, "Be grateful, not for the friend’s tenderness, but for his tyranny, so the arrogant beauty in you can become the lover that weeps." The narcissist in us should become a humble lover. Rumi asks, "What does it mean to be Love’s familiar? To become blood, to swallow down one’s own blood, And to wait at fidelity’s door with the dogs. In weeping the lover is like the clouds; In perseverance like the mountains; In prostration like water; In humility, like dirt in the road.

"Humble yourself, you’ll grow greater than the world.
Yourself will be revealed to you without you."

The Sufis say that to become one with the Beloved there are 3 stages: Purification, Expansion and Union.
It takes an enormous effort of love and faith to clear the mirror of the heart so the divine sun can be reflected in it.

"Let the star of Divine Light shining in Thy heart be reflected in the hearts of Thy devotees." H.I.K.

All the toys have to be taken away from your hand so that they are free to hold the precious diamond of Divine Gnosis. When you are purified enough and it is possible for
the Divine to take you and use you, at that moment the second stage, which is expansion, begins.

"Use us for the purpose that Thy wisdom chooseth and guide us on the path of Thine own goodness." H.I.K.

The state of expansion is expansion of the heart, expansion of what we thought we understood, and expansion of reason. One goes through states of exhaustion and anger, ecstasy and despair, until the process completely expands and shatters the sense of who one is, what the world is, what life is and what death is.
A sufi master once explained it as, "the divine takes the heart, opens it endlessly, tears it endlessly open, and when it is totally torn apart, torn open, ruined and shattered, totally expanded, then the whole universe can be placed within it. Then the Beloved, God is in the Heart, and the Divine Light is radiating in everything, because "you" do not remain. That is when the third stage of Union begins.

"Open our Hearts towards Thy Beauty and Illuminate our souls with Divine Light". H.I.K.

When expansion has destroyed you in Love, then what the Sufis call baqa can take place. Baqa means to dwell in the Divine Presence, in His Light, in the constant knowledge of the accompaniment of the Divine in all events. The journey into union progresses endlessly. In Union we become empty, free and blissful because the heart has been shattered and has become the Divine Heart Itself.


The Sufi considers devotion of the heart the best thing to cultivate for spiritual realization. It might seem quite different from what many think, but the ones who close their hearts to others, close their hearts to God. Jesus Christ did not say, "God is the intellect". He said, "God is love". If, therefore, there is a piece of God that can be found anywhere, it is not in any church on the earth, nor in Heaven above; it is in the heart of each person. The best place where you are sure to find God is in the loving heart of a kind person.
H.I.K