O you who have faith, respond to God and the Messenger when he invites you to that which will give you life, and know that God comes between a man and his heart, and unto Him you will be mustered. In the tongue of the folk of allusion, response is of two sorts: one is the response of tawḤīd, and the other the response of realization. TawḤīd is that the faithful say “one,” and realization is that the rec- ognizers be one. TawḤīd is the attribute of the travelers, and realization is the state of those snatched away. The first is the attribute of the Bosom Friend, the second the attribute of the Beloved. The Bosom Friend was a traveler and stood before the Exalted Threshold in the station of service: “Surely I have turned my face toward Him who originated the heavens and the earth, un- swerving” [6:79]. The Beloved was snatched away, sitting in reverence at the top of good fortune. The Beginningless Presence addressed him, “Peace be upon thee, O Prophet, and God's mercy and His blessing.” The traveling of the wayfarers lies in the outward response of following the Messenger. The attraction of the snatched away lies in the secret core's response of contemplating the Knower of Unseen Things. This is why that master of the Tariqah said, “Respond to God in your secret core and His Mes- senger through your outwardness when he invites you to that which will give you life. The life of the souls is through following the Messenger, and the life of the hearts is through contemplating the unseen things.” May I be a ransom for the men dwelling in the Unseen, their secret cores roaming in all that is there! The reality of life will not be turned over to anyone among the folk of creation without the response of tawḤīd and the signet of realization. Hence this call of exaltedness came from the prophetic presence: “I have been commanded to fight the people until they say 'No god but God.'” When He invites you to that which will give you life. In reality the folk of life and the living are those who are pure of backsliding, far from suspicion, famous for friendship, released from the ruling power of the soul, their hearts joined to the Patron, their secret cores adorned with awareness of the Real, alive in the breeze of intimacy, having found the beginningless reminder and reached the Friend The Pir of the Tariqah said, “O God, nothing other than recognizing You is happiness, and nothing other than finding You is life.
