Arif-Essence

“Bismillahir Rahmannir Raheem”Al-Hamdu Lillaahi Rabbil ‘Aalameen was Salaatu was- Salaamu ‘Alaa Sayidinaa Muhammadin wa Aalihi wa Asabihi Ajma ‘een (tauheed- risalat- ahkirat and islam-iman-ihsan)

Arif 17

I. ESSENCE, ATTRIBUTE, AND NAME

The Absolute Essence (Dhát), or the Essence of God, is that to which names and attributes belong in their real nature, not as they appear in existence .

He exists, for He is self-subsistent. It is endowed with all the names and ideas which His perfection demands. Amongst these are infinity and incomprehensibility.

No words can express or hint what the Essence is, since it has no opposite or like.

The attribute (ṣifat) of a thing – that which conveys knowledge of its state to the understanding.

The attributes of the Essence are the forms of thought by which it is manifested and made known.

In the world of appearance we distinguish the forms from the reality underlying them, but the distinction is not ultimate:

the attributes in their real nature are identical with the Essence which manifests itself as “other,” i.e., under the aspect of externality, to our perceptions 

The creation of the world is just this manifestation, accompanied by division and plurality, of the Essence as the attributes, or of Being as the object of thought; and in reality the Essence is the attributes (al-Dhát ‘aynu ’l-ṣifát).

The universe is an idea—”such stuff as dreams are made on,” although the idea cannot properly be differentiated from the “thing-in-itself,”

Thought is the life of the spirit of the universe: it is the foundation of that life, and its (Thought’s) foundation is Man.(Through the power of the Almighty) existence is nothing but a thought.

Thought is the origin of existence and is the essence wherein God is manifested perfectly. Thought is the essence wherein He becomes manifest in perfection. .Thought is the origin of the whole universe, because God is the origin of all things,

“Mankind are asleep, and when they die, they awake,” i.e., the reality in which they were during their earthly life is manifested to them, and they perceive that they were asleep. Not that death brings a complete awakening.

Forgetfulness (ghaflat) of God prevails over those in the intermediate state (barzakh) and those in the place of Judgment and those in Hell and Paradise, until God reveals Himself to them on the Hill to which the inhabitants of Paradise go forth and behold Him.

Forgetfulness is the sleep . The universe has its origin in a thought, and for this reason Thought determines the individuals therein: all, whatever their sphere of existence, are determined by Thought.

Those who are forgetful of presence with God: they are asleep.

He who is present with God is awake according to the measure of his presence.

Although they are with God in respect that He is with all beings and says (in the Quran), “He is with you wheresoever ye be,” yet are they with Him in sleep, not in waking.

God reveals Himself to him and he knows God—that man is (truly) awake.

inasmuch as Sleep is the world of Thought.

Does not imply that the universe is unreal, but that it is reality in the cosmic consciousness which holds all the attributes of reality together.

In the unitive/fana state there is immediate perception of the Essence, but no mystic perceives the attributes as they really are: you can feel intuitively that you are He, that the Divine essence is consubstantial (‘ayn) with your own, and thereby attain to knowledge of the Essence;

you cannot, however, perceive and know the attributes of the Essence any more than you can perceive and know the qualities latent in yourself,which are only visible in their effects.

The Essence is imperceptible, in the sense of its being identical with the attributes .

The name (ism) objectifies the named (musammá) in the understanding, pictures it in the mind and keeps it in memory. 

It serves to make unknown things known; therefore, its relation to the named is that of the outward to the inward, and in this respect it is identical with the named.

God, is real Being; so we reach knowledge of God through the name Allah, in which all the Divine names and attributes are comprised .

God made this name a mirror for man, so that when he looks in it, he knows the true meaning of “God was and there was naught beside Him,” and in that moment it is revealed to him that his hearing is God’s hearing, his sight God’s sight, his speech God’s speech, his life God’s life, his knowledge God’s knowledge, his will God’s will, and his power God’s power, and that God possesses all these attributes fundamentally; and then he knows that all the aforesaid qualities are borrowed and metaphorically applied to himself, whereas they really belong to God.

The Divine names are either names of the Essence, e.g., al-Aḥad (the One), or names of the attributes, e.g., al-Raḥmán (the Merciful), al-‘Alím (the Knowing).

Each of them—except al-Aḥad, which transcends relationship—brings forth the effect (athar) inherent in that particular aspect of the Essence of which it is, so to speak, the embodiment.

Good and evil, faith and infidelity, all mundane life, thought, feeling, and action proceed inevitably from the Divine names .

When I want to talk to Allah I say prayers and when I want that he talk to me I recite quran- Hazrath Ali(ra)

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