Contemplation
Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) has said: “Make your bellies hungry and your livers thirsty and leave the world alone, that perchance ye may see God with your hearts.” And he hath also said, “Worship God as though thou sawest Him, for if thou dost not see Him, yet He sees thee.”
God said to David: “Dost thou know what is knowledge of Me?” By “contemplation,” the Sufis mean spiritual vision of God in public and private, without asking how or in what manner. Abu `l-Abbas b. Ata hath said in reference to the words of God: “As to those who say ‘Our Lord is God’ in self-mortification and they ‘become steadfast’ on the carpet of contemplation.”
There are two kinds of contemplation:
One is the result of perfect faith: “I never see anything without seeing God therein.” Muhammad b. Wasi would exclaim! Here, God’s vision is for his creatures.
The other result of rapturous LOVE: In a rapture of Love, a man attains to such a degree that his whole being is absorbed in the thought of his Beloved, and he sees nothing else. Shibli would say, “I never saw anything except God,” i.e., in a rapture of Love and fervor of contemplation, one sees the act with the bodily eye and, as he looks, he beholds the Agent with his spiritual eye. One method is demonstrative (istidlalli), and the other is ecstatic (jadhbi).
Self-mortification & Contemplation
Mortification is not the direct cause of contemplation but is only a means to it. He who is most sincere in self-mortification is most firmly grounded in contemplation, for inward contemplation is connected with outward mortification.
Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) and Ascension
Allah The Almighty hath said of Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) at the time of his Ascension: “His eyes did not swerve or transgress” (Qur’an: 53: 17). When a lover turns his eye away from created things, he will inevitably see the Creator with his heart. God has said, “Tell the believers to close their eyes”(Qur’an: 24:30), i.e., to close their bodily eyes to lust and their spiritual eyes to create things.
Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) had told Hazrat Ai’sha that he did not see God on the night of Ascension, but Ibn Abbas has related that the Prophet said to him that he saw God on that occasion. Apparently, there seems to be a controversy, but in saying that he did not see God to Ai’sha he has been referring to his physical eye, whereas in stating the contrary, he was referring to his spiritual eye. Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) had spoken with each of them according to their insight.
Tasbih
Some Sufis have mistakenly supposed that spiritual vision and contemplation represent such an idea (surati) of God as is formed in the mind by the imagination, either from memory or reflection. This is utter anthropomorphism (Tasbih) and a manifest error. God is not finite; the imagination should be able to define Him, and the intellect should comprehend His nature.
Self -Will is Veil
When Moses wished, he did not see Him; when Hazrat Muhammad (SAW) did not want to, he saw Him. Our wishing is the greatest of veils that hinder us from seeing God. In Love, the existence of self-will is disobedience, and disobedience is a veil. When self-will vanishes in this world, contemplation is attained, and when contemplation is firmly established, there is no difference between this world and the next.
Contemplation is an attribute of the heart and cannot be expressed by the tongue except metaphorically.
“ I desired my beloved, but when I saw him I was dumbfounded and possessed neither tongue nor eye.”
Self-Conceit
Once Ali Hujwary reached Abu Sa’id, while he was reclining in comfort in fine clothes, he was tired, dirty, and in rags. He grew slightly skeptical of the true station of Abu Sa’id. Abu Sa’id once realized and enquired: how can you imagine a self-conceited person can be a Dervish? He told him, “I see God in all things; God sets me on a throne, and since you see yourself in everything, God keeps you in affliction: my lot is contemplation, while yours is mortification. These two are stations, and God is far aloof from them. A Dervish is but dead to all stations and free of all states. Ali Ali Hujwary had been deeply moved and begged leave of him, saying that I cannot bear sight of thee. He answered:
“That which my ear was unable to hear by report My eye beheld actually all at once.”
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