The Book of Unearthing the Heart


In the Name of Allah the most Beneficent the most Merciful

Know with certainty that the Salek’s (a spiritual traveler) most important concern should be the belief in ways of Sunnah and learning the wisdom of this path until rescued by:

1.    Coming to know Allah since Allah is the one who bestows with no vaunt and if people/nature take away, It still gives more and more and if It gives no one can take away
2.    Keeping Allah under watchful care so Allah watches you with care
3.    Splurging your life in Its worship since It will reckon
4.    Knowledge that is the straightness of your path
5.    Truth the indicator of right path
6.    Believing that the messengers are alive
7.    Forgetting not the obligatory acts worship, fasting and pilgrimage
8.    Being patient to reach the goal
9.    Purity of belief which is an everlasting treasure
10.    Boasting about people’s favors upon you but vaunt not
11.    Rejecting the companionship of ingrate
12.    Being selective on sources of revenues but offer funds and resources indiscriminately to all
13.    Cleansing emptying the heart to reach the desired goals
14.    Rejecting the hoodlums
15.    Considering chatter as the worst shortcoming
16.    Learning and teaching
17.    Seeking knowledge even afar
18.    Reduction of speech, food and sleep
19.    Patience during the hardship
20.    Never bemoaning the past
21.    Valuing life
22.    Gratefulness for health
23.    Boasting about hard-work (Jihad) and contentment during poverty
24.    Keeping your affairs to yourself
25.    Safeguarding respect better than accumulating wealth
26.    Being weary and avoiding the rulers, spending any time with them considering as excessive waste
27.    Forgiveness for anyone who deserves it
28.    Telling the truth and not criticizing and neat-picking others
29.    Thinking first talking next
30.    Never sharing one’s secrets with anyone
31.    Doing away the trials and tribulations by application of charity
32.    Consulting with wise ones
33.    Respect for elders
34.    Bearing no shame in learning
35.    Managing affairs such that there will never be failure
36.    Taking profit from speaking wisely and in a learned manner
37.    Not saying what you bear not to hear its response, or have to apologize for

Evil company worse than evil deed, righteous company better than righteous deed. Righteous companion shall remind you of your weaknesses and shortcomings so you succumb to excuse yourself, but the righteous deed can make you wonder/praise (with arrogance) about yourself!

Yesterday is gone and shall never come back and tomorrow cannot be trusted. Cherish the time since it is never late (it will come to you quite fast and constantly with no delays)

If you wish me evil and goodness for yourself, No evil shall come to me neither any good your way. (Do not assume any personal control on distribution of Allah’s blessings or wrath)

If you want to be adored and loved “listen” and if you want to have a clear vision “follow” and if you desire to rule and own a kingdom “cut-off”:
1.    Listen: listening to words of Allah and the messengers and wise people will cause you to perform righteous wholesome deeds which begets the love of the Creator and people
2.    Follow: if you follow the commandments of Allah or if you follow the reasonable requests of people, you shall rise above the “I & Them”, hence an un-obscured vision (blocked by yourself and others)
3.    Cut-off: disconnecting one’s self from all things in order to emancipate self, hence a ruler a king, not subject to anyone or anything including one’s person!

Talking about sugar shall not manufacture a sweet drink and where there is the sweetness of sugar no sign of words about sweetness! One has to proffer the heart to correction and purification of thoughts; therefore this heart can incubate the “workings of Shariah”. This heart as an incubator shall incubate light and value to manifest one’s self for eyes to see and in hidden. Vision becomes clear, secrets uncovered, new eyes found and path made clear from all obstacles. If you want:
1.    Shariah: Follow
2.    Truth: Cut-off
3.    Other than 1&2: Headache, troubles…

Advice: Self is an idol (only to be worshiped by you or to be cut-off/discredited and no other options). Willingly succumb to the whims of people is a belt of Zonnar. (Zonnar was a belt wore by Christians and Zoroastrians to mark them distinguished from Muslims. Here it means: following the desires of people is simply like wearing a belt saying I am a disbeliever) and all the truth I could fit into one sentence!

Advice: Cardinal concern for the heart is the reunion with the Creator, the rest are water and mud. Incessant praying and asking for worldly things is the way of quarrelsome men, Al-Haqq knows what the slaves need. (Water and mud in Farsi points to this world or the creation of human being from clay. It indicates the lowliness of the matter) (Al-Haqq is an attribute of Allah meaning the absolute Truth, in Its words, in Its actions, in Its purpose and all things related to It)

Advice: The seeker of knowledge is powerful and the seeker of wealth humiliated.

Advice: Knowledge is the crown for heads and ignorance chains of slavery around necks. What is the use of a knowledge contained to pen and paper? The real knowledge is the one that will rain upon the hearts the Truth.

Advice: Forsake not the obedience of the Lord, and if you did, make sure did not for profit. (Perhaps you may forsake the pleasure and obedience of your Lord out of weakness but never do it for money or gain)

And said: If all drowned between the Lord’s Throne to the Jupiter, the fire-branded insignia of incompetence, which is placed by the Al-Haqq can not be rinsed off.

And said: Likeness of a student to a teacher is that of smoke to fire or dust to wind.

And said: The happiest/best is a scholar that is obscured; wherever he is no one asks who he is? (No one ask who he is, since he is humble and melted away with the common folk with no trace of any remarkable importance) 

My Lord, obscurity is everyone’s tragedy and mine triumph.

And said: Trials are a gift from the Beloved, to complain about hardship is wrong. (In the midst of all trials there is Allah. Poverty, illness, war… in their midst is Allah remarkably visible for the heart that yearns to return to The Excellency for eternal love and eternal sanctuary)

And said: The best is the sin that causes you to grieve for repentance and forgiveness and the worst evil is the righteous deed that causes you to admire yourself. (Muslim falls victim often to his/her own arrogance, which stems from righteous acts of worship and surface piousness. Ansaari warns us that a sin better if it brings us lower in front of Almighty so we beg, than a religious act that will make us pompous)

And said: My Lord if we are lovers unveil the Hijabs and if I am a guest bless the reception.

And said: Whatever You farm irrigate to flourish, whatever Abdullah farmed drown to perish.

And said: My Lord I suspected (foolishly) that I know You, today I drowned that thought. (I truly love this short powerful expression of affection. If there is a day I come to believe that I understood Allah that is the precise moment of total deviation towards blasphemy and misguidance. Each day start the dawn with the understanding that you did not grasp much of anything about Allah the previous day! And yes! Start anew)

And said: My Lord, in Your presence what else can I seek, gazing upon I has left me wordless.

And said: Researcher seeks and talks the words, the one who found (Truth) absolutely silent. (Scholars and researches write and give talks and attend galas of receptions where they make much noise. A true believer who uncovers a secret of Allah, is pleasured into the depth of happiness where there are no words, hence silence)

And said: Whatever runs on the tongue, runs the loss.

And said: My Lord sinning next to Your Grace is an outrageous humiliation, since this Grace is ancient (known) and this sin denovo.

And said: A lover faces trials, and dangers prepared to ambush, constantly in the company of pain and melancholy

And said: My Lord, You forbade and destroyed, and You commanded to perform and blocked us to fail.

And said: My Lord if Iblis (Satan) taught man evil, then how can wheat feed man? (If Satan caused our father to eat from the forbidden tree, then how can eating of the food of this world cause us to do good?)

And said: Screaming about academic scholarship (in religion), habitual worship, wisdom obtained through experience and truth obtained through narration and writings.

And said: That which is You I seem not to grasp, and that which belongs to You can not find, Since what Your provisions for me is separate from others’, then why I am killing myself to obtain provisions from others?

And said: My Lord, burning in the fire being afar from You, then why the fire of hell?

And said: If the house is occupied this one sentence is more than enough. (If there is the truth in your heart about your Lord, then there is no need for any other and therefore stay silent)

And said: My Lord, if the flying stones to meet the dog approaching the goods, then I am lower than the rocks and dogs since busy with despair. (A hungry dog will never lose hope to get to the goods and merchandise to find something to eat. And the sign of this hope are the rocks flying at the animal to quell its sincere desire. But despairing man, lower than this dog, attempts nothing to grab what benefits him and therefore no one sees the flying rocks and he is left discouraged and he is left with nothing)

And said: Everything is done by It, all everyone else does is done by It. (We think people and things are doing actions around us, but the real truth is that Allah is doing it all)

And said: Craving like a pregnant woman for this world, is the one sure way of destroying someone.

And said: If you know that It knows then be brimful with regrets, if you do not comprehend that It knows then convert to be a Muslim (i.e. submit to Its will)

And said: Wealthy boasts about gold and silver, but the Dervish manufactures power from “We divide amongst them”. (Enclosed in quotes is a part of a verse in Koran Chapter 43:32 where Allah questions the affluent and wealthy people who claim authority in dividing the bounties and blessings amongst the people, and they are told that It is Allah who does the distribution of all things, wealth or natural resources health and what have you, and the wealthy are giving an upper hand on the poor to employ them and manage them in order for the society to operate properly. And the wealthy should not consider that they are carrying any authority nor assuming that they have anything more than the poor in the eyes of Allah)
 
And said: Beg from It, the one that wants to splurge and offer to you (Allah), Ask not from him who does not have and fears that you may ask.

And said: One runs and never reaches and one sleeps and reaches. For sure not everyone is inclined towards Its thread. (Allah’s guidance towards Itself is something The Excellency offers and no matter how much we run around, we may not find the thread of that guidance while some (prophets) they reach It in their dreams.)

And said: If you came to know the Creator then you have forsaken the creation and people, Until you lose heart for your life and property then you are not worth a strand of hay.

They asked: What would you say about the truth of this world? Said: What should I say… with much toil gaining a little, with much hardship managing to maintain and with much sorrow to let go.

And said: You are the slave of It since chained by the bondage of It, turn yourself facing towards It otherwise you are facing yourself, which is what you deserve (if forsaking It). (what better punishment forsaking Allah than one be left alone with one self day and night)

And said: If you have (wealth material or intellectual) tell not, if you don’t lie not.

And said: The one who owns wears (offering gratitude) and the one who owns not roars (ingrate) and sells i.e. any bliss that is not thanked for is loss for both worlds, any worship that is not filled with obedience then it is ruining the life…

And said: And fly off this world’s cage escape to the grace of your Lord.

And said: Splurge this world on people and be alive! Hurt no one and be humble.

And said: If the affairs are to be judged by words I am the crown of all preachers, and if judged according to deeds I am in need of more words. (He is discrediting himself claiming little actions worthy of praise in his life)

And said: One particle of cognizance (about the Creator) better than both worlds. 

And said: Preparing your luggage since the voyage (death) is near and burn the lamp of regret ablaze since the (reckoning) end is the darkest.

And said: Manufacture a crown from the independents from people and crown yourself and lid your eventual end with the light (from present actions)

And said: The seeker of this world is melancholy and seeker of hereafter like someone on payroll but the seeker of the Creator jubilee.

And said: Do not fool yourself with false sense of security, which will cause your doom, and safety shall come to you only when under the dust with Iman (belief) in your heart.

And said: Do not gaze upon the colors and skins (this world and its people), gaze upon the wealth of the Beloved.

And said: If you will to enter the door is wide open, else Allah needs nothing.

And said: If the Beloved is thrown out of the doors, can never be throw out of the bosoms. (People can remove all traces of Allah’s religions and belief and claim they are away from It, but in reality they can never remove Allah from their hearts, not one bit)

And said: My Lord, our dream is to discover You, uncovering you nothing to do with our arms. (There is no power or resource or ally to help a slave to find Allah, it is only Allah’s wish for a slave to find Itself)

And said: My Lord, everyone fears You and I fear self, all goodness I have seen from you and evil from my self.

And said: My Lord, although “despair not” is in Koran, but what cure there is for “withdrawn Pen”? (Allah in Koran declares that there should be no despair for any of the slaves of Its Creation but Ansaari asks what about his past actions recorded by a pen that is now at rest/withdrawn i.e. nothing can be done about them). Koran is the relic of the Beloved, and since the Beloved in alive and present today why should one bother with the relic? (This refers to reading Koran as if words in a magazine)  The sun of life is yellow i.e. ready to set, the accounts of life black with the ink of sins and death on its way shortly.

Advice: Remove the seal from the sack and seal your tongue, remove the affection from coins and place it on Iman (faith)

Advice: Additional dedication to worships (Salaat Nafilah) is the doing of old women, obligatory fasting is economizing on food and water, paying the pilgrimage is tourism. The real deal is the grasp of hearts. (Your heart or others’ this means to make someone in need happy in their heart by helping them or understanding one’s own heart)

Advice: If you fly in the air then your are no better than a fly, if you walk on water you are not better than on a twig, to grasp the heart (the miracle) is the real power.

And said: Whomsoever wants to help to remove Its sadness from our heart (can not) since the loss of Its love is our ache. (If someone wants to help you to remove the sadness which is being away from Allah, will fail simply the only way to remove this ache is by bringing Allah to you willfully which no one has the power to do so)

And said: To announce one’s deep vision and feelings about the Creator is madness, to sell religious grace is to be a dog, to buy religious grace is stupidity, to do good to people is salvation, extremism in Tasawwuf is disbelief, the circumference of this field dwells no one and these are the words of Abdullah Ansaari.

And said: things you are (a):
1.    Teacher: is to act like a wise sage
2.    Astrologist: To inform people of unseen and future
3.    Hypocrite Admiration of people
4.    Executioner: To hurt people’s hearts
5.    Cruel: Blaming the weak for their weakness
6.    Crazy: To announce one’s deep vision and feelings about the Creator
7.    Retailer: Hope to gain from obedience and good deeds for the Lord
8.    Stupid: To buy religious grace
9.    Well Digger: Sobbing for worldly things
10.    Lonely: Screaming and talking aloud
11.    Happy: Reducing one’s burden whether your own or others’
12.    Melancholy: Torturing one’s self
13.    Friend: willing and ready to do sacrifices
14.    Manly: Not accepting the dictate of affairs of this world
15.    Impolite: To feel as an equal
16.    Smart: To lose your self
17.    Without a trace: Have nothing to deny about anything to anyone

This path is called life and its far end is poverty and deprivation and no one can rely on it.

Life can be superior to death under 12 conditions:

1.    Being truthful with the Lord
2.    Just to people
3.    Renouncing the self
4.    Respecting to elders
5.    Extreme of kindness and affection for children
6.    Advising the friends well
7.    Clemency to enemies
8.    Good relations with sages
9.    Silence around the ignorant
10.    Humble around the scholars
11.    Harshness with those inventing new concepts in the religion
12.    Commanding the wise and well learned (or taking advise from wise and well learned)

And said: To be a Dervish is like being a fine filtered dust moist with some water, neither it sticks to the back of the heels nor harms or hurts the soles. (Traceless and harmless is the way of a Dervish)

And said: My Lord should I complaint about “what is” or “what is not”? If it is then there is nothing I can do about it and if it does not exist I am wasting my time.

And said: Shariah is doing away with evil and Truth is doing away with the self.

And said: My Lord if You even once uttered “My Slave”, my happy laughter shall echo pass Your lofty Throne.

And said: My Lord what kind of superior treatment is this for Your loved ones, whomever came to know themselves they uncovered You and if they found You they came to know themselves.

And said: The flowers of Paradise are like thorns in the feet of those who know You well, the person who found You what business and desire has for Paradise.

And said: My Lord to the greatness of that name that is You, and to the respect of the sanctuary of those attributes that You are, please find me.

Do(s) and Don’t(s):

1.    Belittle yourself lower than all other scholars
2.    Let the people have hope in things you have and can offer
3.    Be truly generous as if you are fulfilling a covenant i.e. let your generosity be as if you are returning a loan or repaying a debt do not be arrogant and pomp about it
4.    Health is a gift bestowed upon you
5.    Do not lookdown upon anyone
6.    Do not worship this world, because you are worshiping the enemy of Allah
7.    Be greedy in performing acts of worship, but do not count on them as your savior
8.    Do not familiarize the tongue with profanity
9.    Worry about and think about the answers to your words
10.    Make a free man your slave with good and kind deeds towards him
11.    Do not overwhelm anyone with praise
12.    Unless you are called/invited do not go
13.    Sell not what no one wants
14.    Forgive so other will forgive you
15.    What you have made secret do not make uncover
16.    Do not boast about your sins
17.    Eat of what Allah has given to you and fed it to others as well
18.    Do not destroy your words to profit from
19.    In travel your fine behavior and mood better than the safety of a place of rest
20.    No matter how little an enemy be weary of them
21.    Fear the friendly enemy
22.    Travel not with strangers
23.    Return what was left at your possession for safekeeping
24.    Reject away gossip
25.    Do not make people suspicious of yourself
26.    In matters of importance be committed and do not be weak
27.    Avoid the company and conversation with hoodlums
28.    Share your melancholy with some who can help you to reduce the sadness
29.    Do not divulge your secrets to women
30.     Do not offer a job/task to an untrained person
31.    Make your friends aware about their faults
32.    Upon one mistake or cruelty do not forsake a friendship
33.    If you enter someone’s home park your eyes away
34.    Test people in dealing prior to offering friendship
35.    The best thing is to have a good name
36.    Denial is the investment for trickery
37.    Do not fight or argue the governors
38.    Shariah is your body, cleansing your inner as your heart and truth is your life
39.    Do not accept disobedient subjects
40.    In worldly conquest make generosity and patience into weapons
41.    Cleanse your heart to reach the goal
42.    Behold your own faults
43.    Do not consult the enemies
44.    Visit the living and the dead
45.    Seek rest and comfort away from suffering
46.    Make seclusion your companion
47.    Make wealth your enemy
48.    Exert effort in what brings life
49.    Be active not to succumb to laziness
50.    Ask for provisions from your Lord to be a believer, ask others (for provisions) is to be a disbeliever

Generous righteous man is like an ocean and a miser like a brook, seek pearls in the ocean not in brooks.

Affairs of this world have nothing to do with prayers and fasting.

Wisdom: Abu-Jahl (enemy of Prophet Mohammad) came from the Kaabah and Prophet Abraham came from the idol house, the gift of guidance comes from Allah and the rest  bunch of excuses and tales.

Advice: Going to Hajj is like tourism feeding people is the righteous deed of men.

The governor of Haraat asked Ansaari to advise him or send someone to advise him, so the Sheikh responded: Anyone seeking this world has no advice for you and those seeking the hereafter will not converse with you, those coming to your house will not be able to advise you and those who can advise you will not come to your door.






Background:Open Heart Surgery.


© 2003-2002,  Dariush Gholizadeh