The 10th c. CE Persian Sufi Abul Hassan Kharqani remarked, “I do not say that you should not make efforts and carry on spiritual practices, but that you should remember constantly this truth: that it is not you who are carrying on the practices but that you are the instrument in some Other Hand. Genuine spiritual practice starts when He acts through you, for your practice performed on your own account is like the trade of an agent who is entrusted with goods in which he carries on business, but which can be withdrawn at will by the master, rendering the agent penniless.

“Remember that God is ever with you, provided that your ego does not intervene. So long as your existence is not annihilated you shall not taste of His existence.”