At the conclusion of the first instalment, Pir-o-Murshid Inayat was speaking of the highest state, Sidratu’l Muntaha.

It is only in entering into this state and in coming out of it that such a one is conscious of it. It is the state of very deep sleep, which we all experience unconsciously. When someone has attained to God-consciousness, he experiences all the activity of the world. He experiences everything as the self of each being. If an elephant comes before him, he is the elephant. Whatever comes before him, he is. When the consciousness of the external self is gone, then whatever appears before him is his self. 

I knew a Majzub in Baroda, who was walking in the street at night, and a policeman, who was watching the street, said to him, “Who are you? Are you a thief?” The Majzub said, “Yes, I am a thief.” The policeman took him to the police station and there the Majzub spent the night, enjoying his experiences. In the morning the officer came and said to the policeman, “This is a Majzub whom you have arrested, not a thief.” The policeman said, “He said himself that he is a thief.” When the officer spoke with him, he recognized him as a Majzub, and he set him free. 

When he was asked, “Are you a thief,” he said, “Yes,” because whatever name or form comes before the consciousness of one who is lost in the Whole Being, he realizes as his self. This is the highest reach of mystical attainment. When the voice of God spoke with Moses or Muhammad and when the voice of God speaks with a person, what is the voice of God that speaks? The voice of God is the consciousness of the Whole Being that speaks to him who is God-conscious. God has no voice with which to speak to man, and therefore He speaks to those who are not able to hold communion with Him by the voice of him who is in communion with God. Such a one at that time is not conscious at all of his external self. 

When Muhammad was in that state the horse could not carry him and the camel could scarcely carry him with difficulty. When a person is dead, the body at once becomes very heavy, because the life, the consciousness, that lifts it, is not there. His consciousness had quite left his body and therefore it became very heavy. 

Once, when Muhammad was in this state, his wife, Bibi Ayesha, came into the room in which he was, and he asked her who she was. She said, “I am Ayesha.” He said, “I am Ayesha.” She thought that the Prophet never joked, and she said, “I am Ayesha, daughter of so-and-so,” naming herself, in the Arabic manner “daughter of so-and-so.” He said, “I am Ayesha, daughter of so-and-so.” She continued to name herself as the daughter of so-and-so, son of such a one, son of such a one, and at every name she spoke, he said, “I am such a one, and such a one.” He was moved at that time into the consciousness of the Unlimited Being, the Consciousness of all who live, and all who have been.

That One Being which lies beyond all things we have called God, and we have idealized as God. We say Allahu akbar, God is great, Thou art great. Al-hamdulillah. All praise be to God, glory to God. The religious person says, “We must worship God, we must pray to Him,” but can give no reason for his blind belief. The worldly person says, “Why should I worship what I neither see nor hear nor touch nor perceive by any sense?” The religious person’s blind belief will one day be lost. It lasts just so long as his hope lasts. When that is gone, his belief is gone also. 

To be continued…