This letter, written to Khwâja Muhammad Abdullah ‘sallamahullâhi ta’âlâ’, his murshid’s son, informs that everything occurring to mind or imagination and everything understood through kashf and shuhûd are creatures and that they are called mâ-siwâ:
Hamd be to Allâhu ta’âlâ and salâm to those slaves of His chosen and loved by Him! The valuable letter sent by the light of my eye has arrived here. “As if they were toys on the way of tasawwuf, all the things diverting the travellers have disappeared with the help of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Nothing is now continuous. Everything coming to my mind or imagination is disappearing as soon as I say the word ‘lâ’,” you say. You write many other similar things. You add that you have been struggling so that they will be annihilated and hoping that later on they will be annihilated spontaneously. My dear son! All the things coming to mind and imagination, even those pieces of knowledge found out through kashf and shuhûd, are mâ-siwâ, whether they are
âfâqî, outside of man, or anfusî, inside man. [In other words, they are the creatures of Allâhu ta’âlâ.] To set the heart on them means to waste the time on trivial things such as playing and toys. It is to play with useless things. If their annihilation is managed by struggling, this work is, ’ilm-ul-yaqîn. If they are annihilated by themselves, without struggling, the matter has exceeded the limits of a struggle and gone beyond the street of knowledge, and one has been honoured with fanâ. It is easy to say but difficult to attain these. They are attained only by those people whom Allâhu ta’âlâ has blessed with the lot. The things in the grade of
haqîqat are attained later. After fanâ the grade of ithbât is attained. After knowledge the ayn is attained. The tarîqat is of no value when
compared with the haqîqat. Nafy [to dispel the thought of creatures from the heart] is of no value when compared to ithbât [to attain to the Purpose, the Real Being]. For, while doing the nafy one is busy with creatures. But when doing the ithbât there is nothing besides Allâhu ta’âlâ. [In the âlam-i mithâl] nafy, when compared with ithbât, looks like a drop of water compared with an infinite sea. When the nafy and ithbât are reached one will attain to Wilâyat-i khâssa. After the wilâyat-i khâssa, one either does urûj, that is, goes up, or does nuzûl, that is, goes back down. If one does urûj, one has to do nuzûl again later. O our Allah! Increase the nûr which Thou hast endowed upon us! Forgive us our sins! Thou canst do everything. Salâm to you, to those who are on the right way and who have been following Muhammad Mustafâ ‘alaihissalâtu wassalâm’!