Living Light

Amidst the crowd gathered I was the first to take the bowl of poison offered and drink, Afterwards you gave me golden serpent arm bands, I knew they marked your slaves and took them gladly, For thus was I able to see and cast out the demons hidden among the people. Then I saw myself hung on the cross, it seemed like years,  In tears I was taken down, each nail I felt withdrawn.   Laying helpless in your arms I die that I may live Only for you.    

 The great Sufi Abd'l Qadir Gilani taught utter, complete and uncompromising annihilation of limited self into the Divine Perfection.  This annihilation is catalyzed buy those times when we feel we are being crucified or shattered by the pain of life.  Abd'l Qadir says about these times we should become 'like a dead body in the hands of the body washer' , or 'like a polo ball under the mallet of the polo rider' .  So God the Exalted will not be with you unless all your desires and your will are smashed. And when they are smashed and nothing is left in you and you are fit for nothing but Him, God will create you afresh and will give you a new will-power wherewith to will. ( Futuh al-Ghaib, 6 th Discourse, pg 28). So then at the other end of these "dark nights" he says we will come out "reborn".  This is the degree of 'non-self', of surrender he advocates. Here one becomes the hollow reed and our every action is divine action, n...