ABSTRACT
The Goal. The Goal is the Knowledge of God, and the acquisition of this knowledge is the work of Divine Light alone, Perception or worldly intelligence having no lot or portion therein. The latter js represented as the sovereign of this world, and the perceptive faculties are the executive officers of his rule, to whom both the cultivation and devastation of the face of the earth is due. The idea is suggested by the following passage of the Coran : "When God said to the angels, I am about to place a vicegerent
in the earth, they said, Wilt thou place therein one who shall commit abomination and shed blood? Nay ; we celebrate Thy praise and holiness. God answered them, Verily I know what ye wot not of." (Cor. cap. 2, v. 28.) Which answer implies that God knew that although such might even be the conduct of the bulk of mankind, there would still be some who should receive the Divine Light and attain to a knowledge of Him; so that it is clear that the object Object of of the creation of existent beings was that God :~:~~~ should be known. ExiE.tence was made for man, and quiry. man for the knowledge of God. To the same purport is the answer given to David, "David enquired and said, Oh Lord! why hast thou created mankind 1 God said, I am a hidden treasure, and I would fain become known 1." The business of the Traveller then is to exert himself and strive to attain to the Divine light, and so to the knowledge of God; and this is to be achieved by associating with the wise. The received notion of the "stages" in the "road," in-The stages volves a paradox, the disciple who asks concerning :;~~~he them being told that there is not even a single stage, nay more, not even a road at all. This statement is differently explained by two sects, the Sufis and the Ahl i Wahdat, whom I shall call the Unitarians. The Sufis say that there is no road from man to God, because the nature of God is illimitable and infinite, without beginning or end or even direction. There is not a single atom of existent things with which
God is not and which God does not comprise: "Are they not in doubt concerning the union with their Lord 1 doth he not comprise everything?" (Cor. cap. 42, v. 54.) Nor is there aught that he does not comprehend with his knowledge: "Verily God comprehendeth all things with his knowledge." (Cor. cap. 42, v. 54.) The Traveller who has not attained to this Divine Light can have no lot or portion with God, but those who have reached it gaze always upon His face ; they go not forth by day and retire not to rest at night without an abashed consciousness that God is present every where; for with Him they live, and in Him they act.
