Those who have said, “Our Lord is God,” then gone straight-the angels will descend upon them saying, “Fear not and grieve not, and rejoice in the Garden that you were promised.” Those who have said, “Our Lord is God,” is an allusion to the tawḤīd of attestation; then gone straight is an allusion to the tawḤīd of recognition. The tawḤīd of attestation belongs to the gen- erality of the faithful, and the tawḤīd of recognition belongs to the recognizers and the sincerely truthful. The tawḤīd of attestation is that you say that God is one. The tawḤīd of recognition is that you be one for God. Once Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī was standing in the station of knowledge and giving forth marks of the tawḤīd of attestation. A disciple said, “O shaykh! Do you recognize God?” He replied, “In the whole world is there anyone at all who does not recognize or know God?” At another time he was drowned in the ocean of the tawḤīd of recognition, incinerated by the fire of love. He was asked, “Do you recognize God?” He replied, “Who am I to recognize Him. In the whole world, is there anyone who recog- nizes Him?” Who am I in my passion for You that a rose should bloom in the clay of my house from joining with Your face? The tawḤīd of recognition, which was expressed here as going straight, is that you reach the utmost limit of realization in assenting, you stroll into the gardens of the realities on the footing of truthful- ness [10:2] and certainty, and you have a firmly fixed footing on the avenue of the Straight Path. You bind the collar of disengagement to the neck of solitariness, drink down the wine of love from the hand of the cupbearer of truthfulness, smell the rose of the recognitions from the garden of the subtleties, topple the celestial and terrestrial worlds, and say with the tongue of selflessness, “Adam set up the banner of passion in the world and toppled a hundred worlds of knowers. Having breathed for a time in his own soul he gambled away paradise and lost both worlds.” The Pir of the Tariqah said, “Companionship with the Real is two words: response and going straight-response to the Covenant, and going straight in loyalty.
