The third state, Huqeequt, or the state of truth is the state of inspiration or greater natural knowledge. The Sufi now lives no more in faith but in subjective truth and spiritual power; he has seen the similarity of God’s nature and his own; all antinomies are destroyed, even sin disappears from his reflections.
The fourth and last state is Marifut or union of spirit and soul with God. “Union (with God) is reality, or the state, truth and perception of things, when there is neither lord nor servant.” Still “the man of God is not God; but he is not separate from God.” At this stage man’s “corporeal veil will be removed, and his emancipated soul will mix again with the glorious essence, from which it had been separated, though not divided.”[45]
Aziz ibn Muhammad Nafasi in a book called al-Maqsadu ‘l-Aqsa or the “Remotest Aim,” (trans. in E. H. Palmer’s Oriental Mysticism) marks out the journey a little differently from that already described.
When a man possessing the necessary requirements of fully developed reasoning powers turns to them for a resolution of his doubts and uncertainties concerning the real nature of the Godhead, he is called a talib “a searcher after God.”
If he has further desire for progress he is called a “murid” or “one who inclines,” and he places himself under the instruction and guidance of a teacher and becomes a “traveller.”
The first stage of his journey is called “ubudiyah” or “service” and is as described above.
The second stage is ishq or “love.” He loves God. The divine love filling his heart, it expels all other loves and brings him to the third stage, Zuhd or “seclusion.” He occupies himself exclusively with contemplation of God and his attributes, and comes to the fourth state, Marifah or “knowledge.”
When settled he is come to the fifth stage, wajd or “ecstasy.” He now receives revelations and soon reaches the sixth stage, that of hagigah or “truth,” and proceeds to the final state, that of “wasl,” or “union with God.”
He has now finished the journey and remains in the state he has come to, still going on, however, progressing in depth of understanding. Finally he comes to “the total absorption into Deity.”
The Zikr, or ecstatic exercises belonging to the training on this journey, will be explained in our second part: Symbols.