Section I Speaking
of the unspeakable page 21
Chapter 1 How I am
using these words page.22
Chapter 2 An
apophatic formula page 27
Chapter 3 Unspeakable
terror page 34
Chapter 4 Openness
and surrender page 36
Chapter 5 Self-deception page 42
Chapter 6 Apophatic
flaw page 43
Chapter 7 Mysticism:
what can we say? page 45
Al-Qushayri:
I heard Shaykh Abu ‘Abd
ar-Rahman as-Sulami, Allah have mercy on him, say: I heard al-Hasan ibn ‘Ali
say: I heard ‘Ammi al-Bistimi say:
I heard my father say I asked
Abu Yazid about his beginning and his renunciation.
He said: “Renunciation has no
station.”
I asked: “Why?”
He said: “Because I spent
three days in renunciation. When the
fourth day came, I left it behind. The
first day I renounced this world and what it contains. The second day I renounced the world to come
and what it contains. When the fourth
day arrived, nothing remained for me other than God. I understood.
I heard a voice saying: ‘Abu Yazid, you will not be able to endure being
with us.’”
I said: “This is what I
want.”
I heard a voice saying:
“You’ve found. You’ve found!”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chapter 2
“This
nothingness is her falling into the certainty of knowing nothing and wanting
nothing. And this nothingness of which
we speak, called Love, gives her all.”
Marguerite Porete
(translated by Thomas Hall)
