Book of Healing - Healing Through Knowledge - Death before Death
Death before Death
Tags: Death, Annihilation, Die before you die
1. Mawlawi-yi Ma'nawi (Mawlana Rumi) says:
Ay khunuk an ra kih pish az marg murd Ya`ni u az asl-i in raz buy burd Felicity be to the one who died before death! i.e. he traced the origin of this vineyard. (Mathnawi, IV, 238).
This is a clear allusion to "Die before you die!", as it is said: "Reckon your deeds before you will be reckoned with and weigh yourselves before you will be weighed and die before you will die" (Ahadith-i Mathnawi, p. 116). The personal and gnostic Resurrection is alluded to in this command.
2. Why is the mention of "Death before Death" necessary in connection with "Healing through Knowledge"? It is necessary because, all the obstacles to spiritual progress and upliftment and the roots of spiritual diseases are firmly rooted in the carnal soul. Only the death of this carnal soul can make all these defects disappear and it is the last means of the proximity of God and annihilation in Him (fana' fi'llah).
3. You know that the wise Qur'an is multi-dimensional. Hence, reflect on this Qur'anic verse: "And (remember the time) when Musa said to his people: O my people! you have surely been unjust to yourselves by taking the calf (for a god), therefore turn to your Creator (penitently), so kill your (idolator) people (fa'qtulu anfusakum)" (2:54). Another meaning of "fa'qtulu anfusakum" is "die before you die physically" and exterminate carnal desires. (see: Mufradat, p. 407). This shows that there is a wisdom-filled allusion to "Die before you die" in the glorious Qur'an.
4. Since it has always been the sunnat (law) of God, the Knowing, the Seeing, that He does not speak to any human being without a veil (42:51), how can the places where there are great secrets in the noble Qur'an, be without a veil? Thus, in the Qur'an, the great secrets of knowledge, wisdom and spirituality are behind veils. Therefore, the holy Qur'an emphatically invites us to think and reflect. Among these veils, one is in the form of reprimand, just as the seventy men of the children of Israel were reprimanded (2:55), while in their story there is a great treasure of secrets (2:55; 7:155).
5. Today the people of the Book (Jews and Christians) are certainly very clever in worldly matters, but strangely enough, they do not even know the alphabet of the Divine law, i.e. the law of religion. If they were wise, accepting the chain of the Prophets, they would have believed in the Prophet Muhammad, may peace and salutation of God be upon him and his progeny, and tried to see the miracles of the Qur'an, which is the guardian of the previous books or the Book (5:48) and accepted it at once, wholeheartedly and respectfully. For, the stages of spirituality and annihilation in God of those upon whom He has showered His special favours (4:69) are mentioned in this unique and blessed Book, namely the Qur'an.
6. It has been decided by Divine law that those fortunate people who, walking on the straight path were overtaken by spiritual lightning, thunder and quake, etc., become dead with respect to the carnal soul, but are revived in a new life, with respect to the soul of faith and intellect. This is the meaning of dying with respect to the carnal soul before dying physically, numerous examples of which are mentioned in the glorious Qur'an.
7. One of the easiest examples of how God, the Omnipotent revives the dead, is that He seizes the soul of each one of us during sleep and then by sending it back gives us life (39:42), which we customarily call wakefulness. Similarly, a true Sufi, or darwish, or a true lover, being effaced and enraptured in Divine remembrance, also becomes annihilated for a while, just as someone who is possessed by a jinn or fairy loses his "I" partially or totally, as if he had died temporarily, and when the jinn leaves him he becomes alive again.
8. There is also a wisdom-filled allusion to self-mortification and "Die before you die!" in the way, God, the Omnipotent, brought a dead person to life and demonstrated His perfect power, as a result of the slaughtering of an ox by the children of Israel. For the ox or cow is the symbol of the soul of gluttony. Thus it is only after the slaughter of the ox of the animal soul with the dagger of spiritual exercise that, a mu'min with high ambition, can enter through the door of spirituality with a pure soul.
9. Hazrat `Isa, may peace be upon him, says: "He who is not born twice will never enter the kingdom of heaven" (Ahadith-i Mathnawi, p. 194). That is, after physical birth and maturity in this world, spiritual death and spiritual birth are extremely important, as Mawla-yi Rum says:
Chun duwum bar adami-zadah bi-zad Pay-i khud bar farq-i `illat-ha nihad When man is born twice, he places his foot on the head of causes (i.e. he subjugates the causes of nature) (Mathnawi, III, 3576).
10. As is known, jihad is of two kinds, the physical and the spiritual. Similarly, shahadat or martyrdom is also of two kinds, the physical and the spiritual. Thus where shahadat is mentioned in the Qur'an, both kinds are meant by it, as is evident from verse (3:143): "And certainly you used to desire death before you met it; so indeed you have seen it and you look (at it)". Reflect carefully that this is mainly addressed to the spiritual martyrs, who had seen the scene of their death.
11. The ultimate aim of this subject is that, every mu'min should be sure of the miracle of annihilation in God (fana' fi'llah) and attain this supreme rank progressing on the straight path, through knowledge and action, as it is said in verse (28:88): "Everything is perishable but His Face. To Him belongs the Command (hukm) and to Him you shall be returned". If someone says that the wood is burnt out but the heat of the fire remains, then everybody can easily understand this. Thus the above verse which is related first to the microcosm (personal world), says in the language of wisdom that, by true and ardent love, spirituality, vision and gnosis, which are in the Face of God, the status of annihilation in God is attained and after this annihilation is His Command, namely, the Word of Command and return.
12. Question: Where has the human soul come from and when it is successful, where will it go?
Answer: It has come from the world of command and the Word "Be (kun)" (17:85; 36:82) and it will return there. For it is the original abode as well as the stage of annihilation (fana').
13. Annihilation does not mean the extinction of a thing, rather, it means the changing of a thing from one state to another state. Thus annihilation in God, means to die from the carnal existence and become eternally alive in the light of God, as implied in verses (55:26-27): "All those souls which are on the earth of the personal world are going to perish and only the Face of Your Majestic and Benevolent Lord will remain. Man in himself is an independent world, in which, in the form of souls, dwell innumerable people, who have to perish in the Face of God and have to return to the presence of God, the Exalted, as a Single Soul" (6:94; 31:28).
Nasir Hunzai,
Friday, 2 Dhi'l-Qa'dah 1408
17 June, 1988.
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