Chapter VI: Love, Longing, Contentment
(1) First cause. Man loves himself, his life his progress and his living long and dislikes his destruction, death and impediments to progress. For this reason love of God is necessary as he who knows himself and knows God knows this fact that he has got no existence of his own and that his existence, destruction, progress and everything are gifts from God and that he will return to God and live with Him. He gives his life and He takes his life. He gives him perfection and created causes or ingredients to give him perfection and created guidance for the use of these causes. The life of a man has got no existence of its own. If God had not kept his existence, he would not have been a thing at all. Had God not kept him alive, he would have been destroyed even after coming into existence. Only God is ever-living and ever-lasting. He exists by Himself and things other than God exist only through His grace and mercy. The man who loves himself should necessarily love one for whose cause he came into existence and (or whom his existence becomes lasting. This knowledge is necessary as without this knowledge there can be no love. The stronger the knowledge, the stronger the love. For this reason, Hasan Basri said : He who recognised his Lord, loves Him. He who recognised the world has adopted renunciation. How is it that man should love himself, but not love his Lord for whose cause he came into being ? It is seen that one sun burnt person loves shade but he loves also the tree that gives shade. Everything receiving power from God is like the shade of a tree or rays of the sun. As the existence of shade comes from the tree, so one's body, bodily organs and all his attributes and power come from God. In this condition, it is abominable to love oneself without loving his source God. He who does not know that he comes from God, can not love God. For this reason, the fools can not love God . Everything is the fruit or expression of
252 LOVE AND ATTACHMENT Vol-IV
His power and every being come from His being just as the existence of rays comes from the existence of the sun. It is very clear to the experts of soul, more clear than eye sight that when the physical body and the sun are united, light comes out from the power of God as the rays of the sun eye, figure come from the power of God. He who is near God is like angels. The more a man is near the angels, the more is his insight in the world; and the more he is near the world the more is his defects.