To keep the fast of the month Ramazan, and to abstain from eating, drinking, and sexual intercourse; this is the business of sheríât, “the law.” Fasting beyond the demands of duty; not filling the belly, but training it to a scanty diet; and restraining the body from what is bad: this is the business of taríkat.
The Zacat, “stated alms,” and the giving of the tithe, is the business of sheríât; but the distribution of food and raiment to the fakírs and performers of fasts, and the taking by the hand the distressed, is the business of taríkat.
To perform the circuit around the house of the friend of God,[26] and to be free from wickedness, and crime, and warring, is the business of the sheríât; but to perform the circuit of the house of the friend of God, to wit the heart,[27] to combat bodily propensities, and to worship the angels, is the business of taríkat.
To meditate constantly on the Almighty God, to place confidence in the instructions received, to discard from the heart the exterior veil, and to fix the view on the perfection of the celestial object of our affection: this is the business of hakíkat, “truth.”
To view the nature of God with the eye of the heart, and to see him face to face in every mansion and on every side, with the light of the intellect, and to cause no injury to the creatures of the All-Just: this is the business of mârifat, “true knowledge.”
To know the All-Just, and to perceive and comprehend the sound of the tasbíh, “rosary:” this is the business of kurbet, “proximity to God.”
To choose self-abnegation, to perform every thing in the essence of the All-Nourisher, to practise renunciation of all superfluities, and to carry in one’s self the proof of the true sense of the divine union: this is váśalet, “union with God.”
To annihilate one’s self before Deity absolute, and in God to be eternal and absolute; to become one with the unity, and to beware of evil: this is the business of touhíd, “coalescence with God.”[28]
To become an inmate and resident, to assume the attributes of God absolute, to divorce from one’s own attributes: this is the business of sacúnat, “in-dwelling in God,” and there is no superior station beyond sacúnat.
The terms kurbat, váśalet, vahed, and sacúnat are peculiar to the style of the lord Miyán Róshen Báyezíd, who places them higher than sheríât, térikat, and mârifat.