The reception he met with was not favourable. Mian Mir at first repulsed him, but allowed himself at last to be overcome by the perseverance of the young man, and taught him Sufi exercises according to the rule of the Qadiri order of dervishes.[61] The stifling heat of Lahore did not suit the health of Mullah Shah, who accordingly resolved to spend the summers in Kashmir, returning to Lahore for the winter. He led this life for several years, till he had passed through all the stages of asceticism, but his spiritual guide would not lead him to the supreme goal of mystical science, which is termed "Union with God," or "knowledge of oneself."[62]
Mian Mir only spoke to him of it in an enigmatic way and said, "Do not cease to study thyself and thine own heart, for thy goal is in thyself."
In the year 1636 a.d. he returned again, as usual, from Lahore to Kashmir, and practised his austerities without relaxation, when one day, by the special favour of the Divinity, and without the assistance of any spiritual preceptor, "the desired image" revealed itself to him. By this expression is understood, in mystic phraseology, union with God, and the conception of Absolute Being, which is equivalent to the knowledge of one's self. When Mullah Shah thus attained the goal of his mystical aspirations he was in his forty-seventh year, and had been engaged twenty-seven years in the spiritual exercises of the Sufis. When he returned to Lahore, he informed his spiritual guide that he had attained union with God. The latter advised him not to divulge the fact, and not to give up his ascetic practices. In Kashmir Mullah Shah had collected round him a little circle of devoted disciples. The strong emotional condition into which Mullah Shah's new spiritual experience had brought him did not prevent him from doing his best not to offend against the religious law, and he was in the habit of saying to his friends, "Whoso does not respect the precepts of the religious law is not one of us."
Mullah Shah had always been of a retiring disposition, but in his present mood he carried his self-isolation so far that he closed the door of his house and only received his intimates at fixed times, when he dropped his habitual reserve. The spiritual power of Mullah Shah had become so great that every novice whom he caused to sit in front of him and to concentrate his mental faculties on his own heart, became clairvoyant to such a degree that his internal senses were unfolded, and the unseen world appeared to him.
Mullah Shah expressed himself in very bold terms regarding the manner with which he conceived God and His relation to humanity. Thus he said, "Since I have arrived at understanding the absolute Reality and that I know most positively that nothing exists besides God, existence and non-existence are in my eyes the same thing." In one of his poems he says, "The sage who knows himself has become God, be sure of that, my friend." In another poem, which caused a temporary estrangement between himself and the Sheikh Mian Mir, he said:
"My heart by a thousand tongues cries to me 'I am God.' What reproach of heresy can they bring against me that this utterance comes to my lips?
"Those who had attained union with God used to say, 'I am Absolute Being.'
"But I only say what I have heard from the mouth of Sheikh Mian Mir."
In the meantime the number of his adherents daily increased; persons of all classes in society became his adherents; even women became capable of mystical intuitions by the effect of his prayers and without having seen him. However, the increasing number of those who wished to approach him commenced to be inconvenient, and he said, "I am not a sheikh of dervishes who receives novices and builds convents."
"Neither the mosque nor the dervish-convent attract me, But the purity of the desert and the freedom of the open country."