What A Branding

"Do you not see that I pray to try to please Him? But he who thinks that he has pleased Him has put a price on His Pleasure."

"Those who testify to my saintliness do so from their good opinion of me, while those who testify against me of my unbelief do so from zealous defense of their religion (ta`assuban li-dinihim). He who zealously defends his religion is dearer to Allah than he who has a good opinion of anyone.

"Love (mahabba) is from the seed (habba) of the heart. The seed of the heart is its pith (lubb), and the pith is the place of the subtlety (latifa). The subtlety is the place of Allah, and the place of Allah is the complete freedom (tamalluq) with Him."

"Faith and unbelief are different only in name, because in the Reality there is no belief and no unbelief. The place where they meet is the place where they are dissolved in the Essence Itself, the Reality, al-Haqiqa."

"The long-awaited revealing of a well-kept secret

is becoming clear to you.

A dawn is breaking on your darkness.

Your own heart is the veil covering the Secret.

If you had kept yourself

He would not have been revealed to you.

But when you destroy your own heart

He enters it and discloses His holy revelation.

So, guarded by this revelation,

an ever-nourishing dialogue will follow

Its verse and prose delicious to Us both."

"And already love had engraved Him in my heart with its red-hot iron of desire-what a branding!"

~ Mansur Hallaj