The Power of our Belief

"Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is." And the underlying belief of the nafs is in insufficiency and inadequacy - of being "without", rather than "within". When we look to the outside world, we see that we do not have it, so we see ourselves as "without" it. It is our first perception and reinforced as true by all around us who believe in it.

So belief in the world is belief in our perception of lack, of absence, for which the only cure is knowledge of God, which leads us back to the inner life and results in the disappearance of the universe. Then we live in the outside world, which is always changing, guided by our inner reality knowing the truth and behaving outwardly accordingly.

So be guided by those who lead to Heaven through transforming and guiding the inward understanding and who do not fall prey to the illusions of the existence of the outward world and give over their lives to the vain and futile struggle to change it according to their desires. Changing your inward IS changing your outward, for indeed, "as you believe, so shall it be."

- Ali Ansari

The Importance of Knowledge of God

I once saw a Christian monk gaunt through self-sacrifice and doubled over by the fear of God. I asked him to show me the path of God. He replied, "If you knew God you would know the way to Him. I worship Him although I do not know Him; you disobey Him though you know Him. With knowledge comes fear, yet you are self-assured; with heresy ignorance, yet I feel fear within me." His words moved me so deeply that since then I have refrained from wrongdoing.

-Abd'Allah bin Mubarak al-Marwazi, "The Kashf al-Mahjub"