You know that here in this world there is no “yours and mine.” Someone will leave us, and most we will leave. Our last wealth is two yards of grave. That too if it is given to us. Our physical system is the food of worms in the grave. Our ego turns into particles of dust. And the particles of ego are trampled by men, dogs, cats, donkeys, cows, buffaloes under their feet.
How many great kings’ heads and their crowns, how many great Nimrods, Pharaohs, Shaddads, Qaruns have passed away. The earth swallowed them and turned them into particles of dust, and today upon those very particles made from the brains and bodies of Nimrods, Pharaohs, Shaddads, and Qaruns, we walk, we spit, and we spoil them with our filth.
My friend!
In my youth I had read an incident.
A man enclosed in the shell of his ego did much austerity. In his own thought, he advanced Allah’s works. Begging from people he built temples. Lived life like kings. And became pleased giving dry bread to Allah’s creation. Leaving the conscious world, when he knocked at the door of the unconscious, Hazrat Iblis received him. In the guise of a noble, long-bearded elder, finely dressed,
Iblis said: your joys, charity, worship and austerity have pleased Allah. Now you will be given a journey of the heavens. The man bound in the shell of ego closed his eyes and the journey began. Flight went from low to high, then descent from high to low.
When the eyes opened, on a garbage heap where there was nothing but stench, foul odor and filth, that man lay smeared.
Hazrat Qalandar Baba Auliya (may Allah’s mercy be upon him) says:
When a servant takes a step for Allah, he thinks I have done a favor upon Allah. Why does he not think that Allah provided him sustenance for nine months in his mother’s womb, after birth for two years arranged food without effort, provided air, water, oxygen, all means of life, did not take a single coin. Gave health, children, honor and dignity, gave intellect to do business.
A servant after birth lives seventy (70), eighty (80) years. Struts on Allah’s earth. Rebels. Knows nothing of Allah. Sets a higher price upon Allah’s spread provisions than upon Allah Himself. Still Allah remembers him at every step.
My friend!
I too am a man like you. I have written all this because through the grace of my noble Murshid, a few realities have been unveiled to me. Those realities which I came to know, I want you also to form relation with them.
For a traveler walking on the path it is easy that, taking effect from a faithless environment, he leaves the path. But once a traveler strays from the path, he never again finds guidance.
My son!
You know how much I love. I also know how much you love me. We both are travelers of perception. It does not matter if one traveler is one station ahead, the other one station behind. Both travelers will find the sign of destination only when they keep walking and do not spoil the path.
To be continued……
By Beloved Khawaja Shamsuddin Azeemi RA from his Booklet: Beloved in My Arms