KNOWNG GOD

How shall a man know God? Not by the senses, for He is immaterial; nor by the intellect,
for He is unthinkable. Logic never gets beyond the finite; philosophy sees double; book-
learning fosters self-conceit and obscures the idea of the Truth with clouds of empty
words. Jalaluddin Rumi, addressing the scholastic theologian, asks scornfully:

"Do you know a name without a thing answering to it?
Have you ever plucked a rose from R, O, S, E?
You name His name; go, seek the reality named by it!
Look for the moon in the sky, not in the water!
If you desire to rise above mere names and letters,
Make yourself free from self at one stroke.
Become pure from all attributes of self,
That you may see your own bright essence,
Yea, see in your own heart the knowledge of the Prophet,
Without book, without tutor, without preceptor."


This knowledge comes by illumination, revelation, inspiration.

"Look in your own heart," says the Sufi, "for the kingdom of God is within you." He who
truly knows himself knows God, for the heart is a mirror in which every divine quality is
reflected. But just as a steel mirror when coated with rust loses its power of reflexion, so
the inward spiritual sense, which Sufis call the eye of the heart, is blind to the celestial
glory until the dark obstruction of the phenomenal self, with all its sensual
contaminations, has been wholly cleared away. The clearance, if it is to be done
effectively, must be the work of God, though it demands a certain inward co-operation on
the part of man. "Whosoever shall strive for Our sake, We will guide him into Our ways"
(Kor. 29.69). Action is false and vain, if it is thought to proceed from one's self, but the
enlightened mystic regards God as the real agent in every act, and therefore takes no
credit for his good works nor desires to be recompensed for them.