The Essence of Islam – Volume III — Page 66
66 Essence of Islam-III terminates at that stage, and the circle of human excel- lences is thus completed. When the pure minded seeker traverses the stage of fanā as it should be traversed, it is Divine practice that the breeze of Divine bounty immedi- ately conveys him to the stage of baqa and liqā'. It is thus obvious that all the travails and labours of this journey are up to the stage of fanā, and thereafter no scope is left for human effort, labour and striving. A bright flame of Divine love thereafter falls upon the pure love of the seeker after God, the Noble and Exalted. Through the union of the two, a bright and perfect reflec- tion of the Holy Spirit is generated in the human heart. At the stage of liqā' the light of the Holy Spirit is very bright and the extraordinary manifestations to which we have already referred proceed from the seeker because the light of the Holy Spirit always attends upon him and dwells within him. He is never separated from this light, nor does it ever depart from him. It issues from him with every breath, falls with his glance upon everything and manifests its illumination in his words. This light is called the Holy Spirit. But this is not the real Holy Spirit. The real Holy Spirit is in heaven. This Holy Spirit is a re- flection which dwells permanently in the bosom, heart and brain of the holy person and does not leave him even for a moment. [Ā'īna-e-Kamālāt-e-Islām, Rūķānī Khazā'in, vol. 5, pp. 63-72] Every true seeker naturally wishes to know what he should do to achieve this high stage of converse with the Divine. The answer is that this stage is a new existence at which one is given new faculties, new powers and a new life. This new existence cannot be achieved without the surrender of the previous existence. When the previous existence is wholly discarded through a true and real