The Sublimity of Spiritual Experience

The Sublimity of Spiritual Experience

1989 1 January 9 The Sublimity of Spiritual Experience (371) God does not manifest Himself in our world. The joy, therefore, that comes from realization of His existence and faith in Him is, in consequence, abstract in nature. But, in the next world, God will manifest Himself in all His glory, and the joys which God’s true servants will experience in Paradise will be a materialization of the joys they experienced in their worship in this world. According to the Quran, the paradise which believers will enter in the next world will be a “known provision” (Quran, 5:41). It will be in no way strange to them, for they will already have become acquainted with it in this world through their devotions, “God will admit them to the paradise He has made known to them,” or as the Prophet put it: “The people of paradise will know their dwellings even better then anyone of you knows his dwelling in his world.”

The inner states that one experiences when carrying out the will of God are not in one’s own power: one cannot of one’s own volition create this. Where, then, do they come from? They are the ‘provision’ of God without which the believing aspect of one’s personality cannot survive. When the Prophet Zakaria saw this ‘provision’ in the person of the Virgin Mary, which enabled her to know God and to do His will, he exclaimed, “Whence this gift?” “It is from God,” she answered. (Quran; 3:37).

Such states of mind are God’s rewards for good deeds, provided they have been the result of our own efforts. God does not hold back His supreme blessings, He grants them to us here and now. They descend upon us as soon as we prove ourselves worthy of them.

The sublime spirituality we experience when God approves of our actions are an introduction to the Heaven that God has promised to true believers. It is like being able to savour the fragrance of paradise while yet hovering on its threshold.

Death, which may be upon us at any moment, will deprive everyone of his worldly possessions. The realist will therefore look upon life’s vicissitudes as transitory and insignificant in nature. He will regard all men as God’s servants, regardless of their worldly status.