Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part V — Page 317
APPE N DI X to B AR Ā H Ī N-E-A H M ADIY YA — PART F IV E 317 The flesh with which the bones are clothed is also a garment, as Allah the Almighty says: 1 اَنْوَسَكَف َمٰظِعْلا اًمْحَل This is because ت [ kiswah ], from which كَسَونَا [ kasaun a ] is derived, means garment too. Now, it should be remembered that the fifth stage is the highest stage of the spiritual journey. When the fifth stage reaches its perfec- tion, it is followed by the sixth stage, which is by way of a pure bounty, and is bestowed upon the believer without effort or toil; and his effort does not have the least involvement in it. And it is that, as the believer annihilates his soul in the path of God, he is granted a new soul. Since it is the eternal promise that whatever one will lose in the path of God, one shall find the like thereof. Therefore, those who lose a soul, find a soul. In the same way, since a believer dedicates his life to the cause of God out of his personal love, he is honoured with the Spirit of God’s personal love which is accompanied by the Holy Spirit. God’s personal love is a Spirit and works as a soul within the believer and thus it is itself a soul and the Holy Spirit is not something apart from it. There cannot be any separation between that love and the Holy Spirit. That is why we have mostly mentioned only God’s personal love without the mention of the Holy Spirit, inasmuch the existence of one essentially warrants the existence of the other. When this Spirit descends upon a believer, all the weight of wor- ship ceases to be a burden, and he is invested with such strength and pleasure that it prompts him to worship and remember God out of the natural urge and not through formal effort, and bestows upon him the passion of love. Such a believer perpetually stands at the threshold of God, like the angel Gabriel, may peace be upon him; and he is granted 1. Then We clothed the bones with flesh ( S u rah al-Mu’min u n, 23:15). [Publisher]