SPOTLIGHT
SPOTLIGHT
spirits hail from the higher realms. This
is the reason why, without the practice of
spirituality, the Carnal Self is active in you.
It also explains why your other souls, alien
to the atmosphere of this world, are dormant
in your bloodstream. The Carnal Self is
responsible for bringing many negative traits
human beings.
Bulleh Shah, a famous Sufi, said, ‘It was
the Carnal Self which brought impurities in
me, otherwise I was not impure.’
A seeker of Sufism initially aims to purify
and tame his Carnal Self, while reviving and
enlightening the Spiritual Heart. The process
of purification and enlightenment of all the
celestial spirits begins with the Spiritual
Heart.
Prophet Mohammad perfectly illustrates
the essentiality of purifying the Spiritual
Heart in the following tradition:
‘O’ Son of Adam, there is a piece of flesh
in you. If it is set right, the entire body is set
right. If it is corrupted, the entire body is
corrupted. Remember well: it is your heart.’
[AL-BUKHARI; MUSLIM; MISHKAT SHAREEF ]
In the Koran, God mentions that faith
itself has to do with the heart.
‘The Arabs said, “We are Momin (true
believers).” Say unto them that you are not
Momin, rather you have accepted Islam; you
will become Momin when faith enters your
heart.’ [KORAN 49:14]
One of the greatest obligations for
Muslims is that when they accept the
religion, they must verbally proclaim the
Declaration of Faith (Kalima) and their hearts
must affirm it. The Declaration of Faith in
Islam translates to, ‘There is No Creator but
God.’ Could there be a better way to have the
heart verify one’s belief in God than for it to
invoke God?
In another important verse of the Koran,
God also commands Muslims to remember
him while they toss and turn in their beds.
[KORAN 3:191] When you toss and turn in your
bed, you do so while you sleep. How can you
fulfil this directive of God, when you yourself
are not in control of your body while you
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THE TRUE MEHDI • ISSUE 03 •
MAR 2017
sleep? Sufism, The Knowledge of the Heart,
has the answer.
Prophet Mohammad said, ‘My eyes sleep
but my heart doesn’t sleep.’ [SAHIH BUKHARI
VOLUME 2, BOOK 21, NUMBER 248 NARRATED ABU
SALMA BIN ‘ABDUR RAHMAN]
Sufis practise a method of utilising the
heart to invoke God, known as Dhikr-e-Qalb
(Opening of the Spiritual Heart).
Just as flint and steel are struck to produce
a spark and electricity is produced when
clouds collides, in a similar way, when God’s
name is repeated continuously, Divine
Energy (God’s light) is generated. Therefore,
Sufis synchronise the name of God with the
heartbeats in order to produce Divine Energy
in their very beings.
People, believing the heart to be a mere
piece of flesh, are sceptical about how it
could possibly say the name of God. His
Divine Eminence Gohar Shahi argues that
the tongue is also a piece of flesh, yet it
speaks. The power of speech is given to
the tongue through the Akhfah, a subtlety
located at the centre of the breast. Without
it, you cannot speak, even if your tongue is
medically sound. The fleshy heart can be
made to say the name of God through the
Spiritual Heart, which is the spiritual entity
that corresponds to it.
The difference between the Spiritual Heart
and the Akhfah is that the Spiritual Heart
is enclosed within 180 000 veils of vices. If
someone revives the Spiritual Heart, just
as the tongue speaks, the heart will also
remember God.
If someone is ignorant of the nature of
an egg, they will never believe that a chick
can be hatched from it. The three layers of
shell must be ruptured for the chick to hatch
from the egg. The Spiritual Heart, entrapped
in 180 000 veils, is like an egg. To hatch a
chicken egg, you need a hen to provide it
with the right amount of heart. To ‘hatch’
your Spiritual Heart, you need a Perfect
Spiritual Guide who can tear through the
180 000 layers with the correct intensity of
Divine Energy.
This is why the Koran says that those
who ‘open their breasts for Islam’ do so with
God’s light, and those whose hearts have
been kept heedless of God’s remembrance
are destroyed. [KORAN 39:22]
Without having to learn, a baby chick
chirps because chirping is in its nature. When
the Spiritual Heart is revived, without having
to learn, it will remember God because this
remembrance is in its nature. Those who
successfully manage to revive their Spiritual
Hearts often experience something inside
them repeating the name of God.
The Koran declares that on the Day of
Judgement, only one who has a purified
heart would be successful. [KORAN 42:88-89]
According to a Prophetic Tradition,
‘There is a means to cleansing everything.
For the heart, there is God’s remembrance.’
[SHU’ABUL IMAN 519; TARGHIB, VOL.2 PG.39; AL-
MUDAWI, VOL.2 PG.527]
Sufis spend years after obtaining Opening
of the Spiritual Heart in the practice of
invoking God’s name with their heartbeats.
Done correctly, it enlightens and purifies the
Spiritual Heart. The heart, being a pumping
station of blood, mixes Divine Energy with
the blood when an abundance is generated
from the invocation of God’s name. The
other subtleties, being located within the
bloodstream, are eventually awakened
through this method.
When your heart is fully enlightened,
the next step is for you to form a personal
relationship with God. A tenet of Sufism
is that God sometimes looks at the hearts
of his creation. Then, God does not look at
your body or your deeds; rather, he looks at
shining hearts and the intentions therein.
[SAHIH MUSLIM 2564] When God sees your
shining heart, he showers his mercy upon
you. This is when your connection with God
is established.
Sufism is all about strengthening your
inner being and allowing yourself to explore
your God-given potential. Sufis, having
enlightened their spiritual faculties, are able
to make spiritual journeys to different realms
and send their spirits to different localities
in the phenomenal world. Some of the elite
have been able to witness God’s splendour
through the soul in the forehead, Ana. Others
became recipients of special divine sub-
spirits, which allowed them to reach a stage
beyond human comprehension.
WHY DO SUFIS V ISIT
SHRINES?
Most people believe that the Main Human Soul
goes to the higher realms when one dies. Sufism
has the same belief. Knowing this, seekers of
spirituality nevertheless flock to the shrines of
Sufi Masters in order to obtain blessings from
them. This is because the supplementary spirits
of a saint often take the guise of him in the grave.
They bless people and glorify God while in the
grave, on behalf of the Sufi Master.
Some critics of Sufism within Islam consider
this practice to be evidence that Sufis are
polytheists; however, Sufis believe that the Sufi
Masters and their shrines are representative of
God’s mercy on Earth. They do not consider the
Sufi Masters to be their creator nor do they hold
them in the same regard as they do God himself.
THE TRUE MEHDI • ISSUE 03 •
MAR 2017
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