...The divine Reality, when it "combines" with the creatures in a strictly conceptual mode, is hidden to the eyes of the spiritually veiled, who see only the creatures. Conversely, it is the creatures that disappear in the eyes of the masters of the Unicity of contemplation(wahdat al-shuhud), for they see only God alone. Thus, both God and the creatures hide the other...
... In the same way, when there is the
state of extinction (fana')
-- which the men of the way also call "union" (ittihad) -- the worshipper and
the Worshipped, the Lord and the servant, disappear together. If there is no
worshipper, there is no Worshipped; and if there is no servant, there is no Lord.
For, when two terms are correlative, the disappearance of one necessarily brings about the disappearance of the other, and therefore they disappear together.
(Mawqif 215, p. 100)
The pleasure and the love of God for His creatures constitute the original state. His pleasure and love are the means by which He has brought His creatures into existence and are the cause of that bringing into existence. He who knows that he possesses neither being nor act rediscovers himself in that original state of pleasure and divine love.
(Mawqif 180, p. 43)
But, in conformity to His wisdom it was right that afterwards the Prophet should be sent back form the vision of pure Unity and that he should return... toward the separative vision. For, He created man and jinn only that they should worship Him and know Him -- and, if they remained at the degree of pure Unity, there would be none to worship Him. In this separative vision, the Worshipped and the worshipper, the Lord and the servant, the Creator and the creature are again perceived.
(Mawqif 253, pp. 176-177)
The first "station of separation" corresponds to the state of the ordinary man who perceives the universe as distinct from God. Starting from here, the initiatic itinerary leads the being first to extinction in the divine Unity, which abolishes all perception of created things. But spiritual realization, if it is complete, arrives afterwards at the "second station of separation" where the being perceives simultaneiously the one in the multiple and the multiple in the one.
(footnote 57, page 205)
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