Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya Part V — Page 295
APPE N DI X to B AR Ā H Ī N-E-A H M ADIY YA — PART F IV E 295 being for the sake of this sustenance, without which he cannot live, just as a fish cannot live without water, and he considers even a moment of separation from God as his death. His soul remains ever prostrate upon the threshold of God, all his comfort lies in God, and he is certain that if he were to be separated from the remembrance of God even for the blinking of an eye, it would be the end of him. Just as food rejuvenates the body and grants vigour to the eyes, ears, and other faculties, in the same way, at this stage, the remembrance of God Almighty—that is inspired by the fervour of love and adoration— helps to sharpen one’s spiritual faculties. The eyes are thus blessed with very clear and subtle visionary powers, and the ears are able to hear discourse of God Almighty, and those discourses flow through one’s tongue with great purity, clarity, and exquisiteness, and one also con- tinuously experiences true dreams,1 ٭ which come true as clearly as the breaking of dawn. By virtue of the relationship of pure love which they have with 1. ٭ Many ignorant people are under the delusion that since they, too, at times experience true dreams and have a true revelation, then what is the distinc- tion between them and these exalted people, and what superiority do they enjoy? The answer is that the faculty of experiencing true dreams or revela- tions is granted to common people only to a degree in order for them to have a specimen of the subtle phenomena that transcend this world, so that they may not be deprived of accepting them, and the argument may be completed against them. Otherwise, if the people had been completely ignorant of the concept of revelation or true dreams, they would perforce reject them and could not be held fully answerable in this regard. So while the philosophers of today deny the existence of true dreams and revelations even when they can see their specimen, then what would have become of common people if they had experienced no specimen of the kind at all. And the fact that many people occasionally have true dreams and experience true revelation does not take anything away from the glory of the Messengers and the Prophets, be- cause the dreams and revelations of the common people are not free from the haze of doubt and ambiguity, and also are not as numerous. Just as a destitute person who has a penny cannot say that he too has money and is therefore at par with the king on account of that penny, so also is it foolish to claim equality in the case described above. (Author)