56

sities, and to worship the angels, is the business of
tarikat.

To meditate constantly on the Almighty God, to
place confidence in the instructions received, to dis-
card from the heart the exterior veil, and to tix the
view on the perfection of the celestial object of our
affection : this is the business of hakikat, '* truth."

To view the nature of God with the eye of the
heart, and to see him face to face in every mansion
and on every side, with the light of the intellect, and
to cause no injury to the creatures of the All-Just:
this is ihe business of m&rifat, *' true knowledge."

To know the All-Just, and to perceive and com-
prehend the sound of the tasbih, " rosary :" this is
the business of kurbet, " proximity to God."

To choose self-abnegation, to perform every thing
in the essence of the All-Nourisher, to practise
renunciation of all superfluities, and to carry in one's
self the proof of the true sense of the divine union:
this is vds'alel, iC union with God."

To annihilate one's self before Deity absolute, and
in God to be eternal and absolute; to become one
with the unity, and to beware of evil: this is the
business oftouhid, " coalescence with God."1

To become an inmate and resident, to assume the

of the Kabah, in his heart, is encircled by the Kabah. — (Transact, of
Lit. Soc. of Bombay, vol. I. p. 151.)

1 We see here the fundamental ideas of that mysticism which was
formed into a particular system by the Sufis, of whom hereafter.