O serene soul, return to thy Lord, approving, approved! Three hundred sixty gazes come from the Holy Dominion and with each gaze the request, “Re- turn!: Is it not yet time to come back to Me and make do with Me? Is it not yet time to be Mine? “O falcon taken to the sky, come back, don't go! My fingers hold the end of your thread! “And beware! When you come, do not come by way of this world, lest your feet sink in the mud, and do not come by way of the soul, lest you not reach Us. The heart has access to Our Threshold, and nothing else has any road or access.” A great man was asked, “What is the road to the Real?” He said, “It is not step by step, rather heart by heart, and spirit by spirit. Go by the spirit to reach the Threshold, go by the heart to reach the Gate.” The blood of the sincerely truthful was purified and made into a road- unless the spirit takes a step in this road, you will have no access. Happy will be the day when they break this cage and call back the captive bird, removing the cus- toms of dust-dwellers from the road of those given proximity. The satan concealed in the form of Adamic nature will leave and the angelic substance will show the face of its beauty. Enemy will be separated from friend. My dear, do not suppose that Azrael has been sent to turn you away from what you are. He pulls the wrap of human nature away from the heart's face and looks at the heart's scars. If he sees the mark of recognition in the scars of servanthood, he goes back with respect and says, “I cannot intervene in this quarry, for these goods belong to the Real.” He says, “O Exalted Lord! I do not have the gall to intervene there.” Such a man is one of those concerning whom the Splendorous Qur'an reports, “God takes the souls at the time of their death” [39:42]. My dear, be careful not to be one of those whose souls Azrael is ashamed to take. Rather, be one of those into the presence of whose spirit Azrael does not dare to enter.
