Tuesday, July 24, 2007

The Hikam of Ibn Ata’Illah - Chapter 10

Hikam 89

Our Lord is far above the servant dealing with Him in cash, and His repaying him in credit.

Hikam 90

It is reward enough for worship that He has accepted you as worthy of it.

Hikam 91

Reward enough for workers is what He discloses unto their hearts in His worship, and that which He shows them of His kindliness.

Hikam 92

Whoever worships Him for something they hope from Him, or obeys Him to keep chastisement from coming to themself, has not given His attributes their due.

Hikam 93

When He gives to you He shows you His kindness, and when He denies you He is showing you irresistible power.

So in both He is disclosing Himself to you, and drawing nigh with His loving kindness unto you.

Hikam 94

Being withheld from only dismays you because you cannot comprehend what Allah means thereby.

Hikam 95

He sometimes opens the door of worship for you, but not the door of acceptance, and sometimes afflicts you with a sin that turns out to be a means to reach Him.

Hikam 96

How often a sin that bequeaths humiliation and neediness is better than worship that bequeaths exultation and haughtiness.

Hikam 97

Two blessings that nothing that exists may do without, and every single created being requires: the blessing of being brought into existence, and the blessing of made to continue.

Hikam 98

He has blessed you first by creating you and second by unceasingly preserving you.

Hikam 99

Your need is intrinsic to you, while the means to fulfill it only appear in order to remind you of what you have overlooked of it.

For intrinsic need cannot be set aside by things that occur to it.

Hikam 100

Your best moment is that in which you see your neediness, and in which you are returned to your lowliness.

Hikam 101

Whenever He alienates you from His creatures, realize that He wants to open for you

the door of intimacy with Him.

Hikam 102

Whenever He releases your tongue to ask, know that He wants to give to you.

Hikam 103

The duress of the gnostic never departs, and he finds no rest in anything but Allah.

Hikam 104

He has illumined outward appearances with the lights of His created vestiges;

And illumined inmost hearts with the lights of His attributes.

This is why the lights of created vestiges set at night, but the lights of hearts and inmost souls never set.

And why it has been said: ‘The daytime sun goes down at night, But the sun of gnostic hearts never goes down.’

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