Until we lose ourselves in the Vision of God, we cannot be said to live really.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
We wrongly identify ourselves with the physical body, calling it ‘myself.’ And when the physical body is in pain we say, ‘I am ill,’ because we identify ourselves with something which belongs to us but which is not our Self. The first thing to learn in the spiritual path is to recognize the physical body not as one’s Self, but as an instrument, a vehicle, through which to experience life.
Every soul seeks after beauty; and every virtue, righteousness, good action, is nothing but a glimpse of beauty. Once having this moral, the Sufis do not need to follow a particular belief or faith, to restrict themselves to a particular path. They can follow the Hindu way, the Muslim way, the way of any Church or faith, provided they tread this royal road: that the whole universe is but an immanence of beauty. … Therein lies the whole of religion. The mystics’ prayer is to that beauty, and their work is to forget the self, to lose themselves like a bubble in the water [ like a drop in the ocean ].
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Mind, Human and Divine )
As life unfolds itself to us the first lesson it teaches is humility; the first thing that comes to our vision is our own limitedness. The vaster God appears to us the smaller we find ourselves. This goes on and on until the moment comes when we lose ourselves in the Vision of God. In terms of the Sufis this is called fanā ( effacement, pronounced fuh-NAAH ), and it is this process that was taught by Christ under the name of self-denial. Often people interpret this teaching wrongly and consider renunciation as self-denial. They think that the teaching is to renounce all that is in the world. But although that is a way, and an important step which leads to true self-denial, the self-denial meant [ here ] is the losing oneself in God.
There is a [Hadith] which says: ‘Mutu qabla an tamutu’ [ موتوا قبل أن تموتوا — Muiz ], which means, Die before death. A poet says, ‘Only they attain to the peace of the Lord who lose themselves.’ God said to Moses, ‘No person shall see me and live.’ To see God we must be non-existent.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: The Freedom of the Soul, Part 1 )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
That is to say, the limited life is not life. Mortality, which says life and death are two, not one, is not life. From one point of view, we die not only daily but with every breath. Attachment is birth and freedom from attachment is death. Therefore one must become free from every sort of attachment or clinging. One must become free.
And how does one become free? It is through apprehension of God which comes through God’s Grace given to those who lose themselves in God. God’s Grace is everywhere but we shut it out by our attachment. Detachment brings Grace and Grace brings detachment; they are One, not two.
Baqā (buh-QAAH), or Awakening to the Real Self, is not something phenomenal or super-phenomenal. It is living with open eyes, with open consciousness, with understanding. It belongs neither to time nor space nor relativity. Until it is actually experienced, all consideration of it is vain. By shutting out self, one discovers it automatically.