Chap. IV. On the knowledge of the future world.
—Know, beloved, that we cannot understand the future world, until we know what death is: and we cannot know what death is, until we know what life is: nor can we understand what life is, until we know what spirit is.
—The following is an illustration of the duration of eternity, so far as the human mind can comprehend it. If the space between the empyreal heaven to the regions below the earth, embracing the whole universe, should be filled up with grains of mustard seed, and if a crow should make use of them as food and come but once in a thousand years and take but a single grain away, so that with the lapse of time there should not remain a single grain, still at the end of that time not the amount of a grain of mustard seed would have been diminished from the duration of eternity.—
AL GAZZALI ON PRAYER.
—Prayers are of three degrees, of which the first are those that are simply spoken with the lips. Prayers are of the second kind, when with difficulty, and only by a most resolute effort, the soul is able to fix its thoughts on Divine things without being disturbed by evil imaginations; of the third kind, when one finds it difficult to turn away the mind from dwelling on Divine things. But it is the very marrow of prayer, when He who is invoked takes possession of the soul of the suppliant, and the soul of him who prays is absorbed into God to whom he prays, and his prayer ceasing, all consciousness of self has departed, and to such a degree, that all thought whatsoever of the praying is felt as a veil betwixt the soul and God. This state is called by the Mystics “absorption,” for the reason that the man is so absorbed, that he takes no thought of his body, or of anything that happens externally, none of what occurs in his own soul, but, absent as it were from all such matter whatsoever, is first engaged in going towards his Lord, and finally is wholly in his Lord. If only the thought occurs that he is absorbed into the Absolute, it is a blemish; for that absorption only is worthy of the name which is unconscious of itself. And these words of mine, although they will be called, as I well know, but foolish babbling by raw theologians, are yet by no means without significance. For consider, the condition of which I speak, resembles that of a person who loves any other object, as wealth, honor, or pleasure. We see such persons so carried away with their love, and others with anger, that they do not hear one who speaks to them, nor see those passing before their eyes; nay, so absorbed are they in their passion, that they do not perceive their absorption. Just so far as you turn your mind upon your absorption, you necessarily turn it away from that which is the object of it.”
Again he says: “The commencement of this is the going to God, then follows the finding Him, when the “absorption” takes place. This is, at first, momentary, as the lightening swiftly glancing upon the eye. But afterwards confirmed by use, it introduces the soul into a higher world, where the most pure, essential essence meeting it, fills the soul with the image of the spiritual world, while the majesty of deity evolves and discovers itself.”
Omar Khayyam (Ghias uddin Abul Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim Al Khayyam) was born in Khorassan “the focus of Persian culture” and is supposed to have died A. D. 1123.
He was not affiliated with any Sufi order, but large parts of his works are full of true Sufi philosophy and are recognized as such.
The first part of the following quotations are taken from the translation by E. H. Whinfield in Trübner’s Oriental Series. The second part is extracted from B. Quarritch’s ed. 1879.
Motto: There is a mystery I know full well,