Seek help in patience and prayer. For it is grievous except to the humble While patience ṣabr weans the lower self from familiar things maÌlūfāt prayer turns one's attention to the pursuit of intimate communications muwāṣalāt. Patience indicates fleeing from anything other [than God] and prayer indicates perpetual standing in the presence of the unseen. Seeking help by these means takes a great deal of rigor unless the Real discloses Himself to one's heart for in the transmitted tradition [it says] “Truly when God most high discloses Himself to something it becomes humble to Him.” When the Real discloses Himself He lightens and makes easy what creatures must take on. This is [true] because assuming responsibility for acts of obedience is a religious obligation taklīf that is a burden whereas the disclosure [of God happens] by witnessings and through realization taḥqīq and ends in communion tamām al-wuṣla and perpetual near- ness dawām al-zulfa. It is said “Seek help through Me for patience with Me and seek help from Me to preserve for you your prayer for Me so that the incoming wāridāt unveilings and awe will not overwhelm you so much that you will be unable to serve [Me].” Surely it is a great blessing from the Real that He decreases the onslaughts of ecstatic finding saṬawāt al-wujūd upon the heart at the time of unveiling; [thus] the servant is able to perform the acts of separation. There are several kinds of patience all of them praiseworthy. There is patience in God patience for God patience through God and patience with God. There is only one type of patience which is not praiseworthy and that is the type of patience which keeps one from God. Patience is beautiful in all abodes except in resisting you for then it is blameworthy.
