The Promised Messiah and Mahdi — Page 240
THE PROMISED MESSIAH AND MAHDI relationships of mutual dependence which God has established out of true and selfless sympathy for them. Everyone in need of help should be helped out of one's God-given capacity and one must strive for their betterment both in this world and in the hereafter. (Aa'enae. Kamalat-i-Islam, pp. 59-62 - Essence of Islam, Vol. 1, pp. 16-17) * 4. The reality of Islam is to present one's neck to God like the sacrificial lamb; to give up one's own designs and to be devoted to the designs of God and His pleasure; to lose oneself in God and to impose a type of death upon oneself; to be dyed in the personal love of God and to obey Him entirely for the sake of that love; to obtain eyes that see only through Him, and to obtain ears that hear only through Him, and to develop a heart that should be wholly devoted to Him, and to obtain a tongue which would speak only at His command. This is a stage where all search ends; human faculties complete their functions. and man's ego dies completely. Thereupon Divine mercy confers a new life upon the seeker through His living words and His shining light. He is honoured with the delightful converse of God and a fine light, which is not discoverable by reason and is not recognizable by the eyes, approaches close to his heart; as is said by God: We are closer to him than his jugular vein (50:17). In this manner, God honours mortal man with His nearness. Then the time comes when blindness is removed and eyes are given insight and man beholds God with his new eyes and hears His voice and finds himself wrapped in the mantle of His light. Thus, the purpose of religion is fulfilled and having beheld God, man casts aside the dirty garment of his lower life and puts on a garment of light and waits for a sight of God and of heaven, not merely as a promise to be fulfilled in the hereafter, but in this very life he achieves the bounties of sight and converse and heaven. As God has stated: Upon those who affirm, Allah is our. Lord; and are then steadfast, angels descend reassuring them, fear not nor grieve and rejoice in the Paradise which you were promised (41:31). This means that angels descend upon those who affirm that their God is One who possesses all perfect attributes and Who has no associate in His Being or His attributes; and after their affirmation, 240