The Stations of the Heart

1. At-Tawba: Return to God
You want to return to God to clean yourself and to wipe away all your mistakes. When anyone wants to change everything from the outside to the inside and wants to live in this station, he needs to be clean and to walk in the way of God. You need to wash you entire body because you have lived in darkness and trouble.

When you want to listen to the voice of God, you must give your hearing to this voice. When He, Praised and Exalted is He, says to you, “Come and listen to what I say,” you must open your hearing because God wants to put holy words inside you. You must clean your hearing because God wants you to hear only His word. First He loved you and wanted you, then you loved and wanted Him, and then He caught you so that you could speak with Him.

First, you must say, “My God, I want to live with You in everything. Clean me and place me inside Your heart. Do with me what You want . I will listen to Your every word. I am Your servant. I want to be a special servant for You; nothing else do I want. I want only to see Your face. Give me love, and help me to know the meaning of this love. I do not know anything if You do not help me.

“ My beloved God, I am here , and I am at peace only with You. My soul is with You, and in my heart thee is no difference between anything inside or outside me. Clean me with Your water of truth because everyone who wants to see You needs this water.

“ Now I am beginning to remember Your name all the time. I do not lost any time. I pray to You. I know that you do not need this praying because this praying is only form me to myself. I ask You to help me to know the meaning of this praying, and to practice it. I am between Your hands. These hands are different from any other hand because they are very holy.

“ O my God, everyone needs to know, but who will understand if You do not care about him? I want to walk in Your steps. Give me a strong heart and a quiet heart, and make me polite.

“ When I reach this station, I am beginning to know You, and You are what I am. This is the truth. I have searched for a long time. Now I promise to continue in this way, and to not lose any minute because every minute is for You.

“ My Lord, help me to open my heart and soul, and to give my heart to anyone who wants to know You. Help me to show the flower inside my heart, so that anyone can take what they need from this flower because everyone needs the fragrance of this flower. This fragrance is different from any other because this is Your fragrance. Put it inside me and help me to know all the stations. This is what I want, nothing else. Keep me, and do not discharge me from this life.

“ There are two things in the world between the people – light and darkness. I hope to live all my life in the light, and to give everyone what You give me because You are the Mercy for everyone. You message is my message, and I will not leave this message if You help me. I want to return my soul to the place where it was when You made me, to the place that Muhammad, the father of my soul, showed me, may the blessing and peace of Allah be upon him. He is the guide of the love because his face is Your face. I will not refuse any order he give me, may the peace ad blessings of Allah be upon him, because this is what You want. I give everything to this guide because he is a prophet from You. Muhammad, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him, sent his sons to this world to give Your message to everyone who wants it. I thank my guide for this chance because he has put me here, and he knows the way of Your love. This is all I want. My God, fill my heart with love and mercy and politeness.

“ My tomb is broken and I rise up because my moon is ascending. I see everything in my heart, and my heart begins to speak to You because now my heart is Your house.


2. At-Taslim: Surrender to God
If anyone wants to walk in the way and to live in the garden, then he must leave his body, his heart, and his soul, and be only with God, to be with Him face to face. You cannot go left or right. You must walk straight and speak to no one, only to God. You must not see anyone, only God. You must not walk with anyone, only God.

When you live in the station, you wonder how you lived before you found the way. Now you can know yourself, and you can change everything from the outside to the inside, and see no difference between the two. There is no difference now between your self and your soul, and there is no difference between anything inside you because there is nothing, only He. He is she, and she is he because He returns everything to the first world – the world of the subtle (al-latif).

The return means that you change from the world of the thick body (al-kathif) to the world of the subtle soul (al-latif). You return your being to the place where it was when you were born. But there really is no place where you are born in your soul. You are really nothing and you come from the holy soul in the first world. This is the world of Allah. There is no place, no heaven and no earth, that can contain God because everything is from Him. If everything is from Him, why not give everything back to Him? Leave everything and give it to God, soul to soul and heart to heart.

When you reach this station, you reach the garden of surrender. This surrender is deeper than any other surrender because now you are surrendered in God. No one in this station feels troubles, and everything in your life is peace and love because now your life is the life of your God. This is the station of the secret love.

Remember until you know how to fill your heart with this love because this love is deep and it is full of the meaning of Allah’s holy word. This word does not disappear because it is from Allah. When you live in this station you are born many times, and you give the love to many faces because your face is the face of the love.

When you understand what I mean, you will understand the message – a very holy message which is a picture from the first world in which Allah made everything. I want you to return to live in this world. It is the world of angels and the souls. There is no difference between angels and souls.

You are the sun of truth. Know your sun (the deep light of your soul). If your sun rises, then you know why He put you in this world. You understand why He made you. He did not make you to eat and to sleep. He did not make you only to make money. You know what you message is in everything. Give everything and leave everything. When you give everything, you live in the garden of surrender (at-taslim), and this is the garden of knowledge. This is what I want. You could not have reached before. Open everything inside you, and then you find only Allah.

Listen to every message in every word in every book of the prophets. Then you will know the meaning of the truth. I ask God to give you the meaning of everything. Do not go left or right and do not lose any time because He will ask you about every minute. This is a holy message and this is what He wants from you. In this message you can know everything. This is the station of at-taslim – surrender to God.


3. Al-Adab: Politeness
Anyone who wants to live in the garden of the soul needs to clean his body of all the things he carries because he carries the qualities of God. God has ninety-nine qualities, but has only on name, a special name – Allah!

When you want to walk in the way, you need to be polite with all of these qualities with any person. When you speak, when you walk in the street, when you hear any voice from anywhere, know this is not the voice of the person, but it is the voice of God speaking. You must be polite because you are speaking with God. When you look at anything, you must know how to look at this thing. Listen to everything and look, but be silent because it is the picture of God, and it is very clean. You cannot see your picture unless you are married to Him.

Allah knows what the guide says to you, “You are the mirror and I can see myself in your heart. For this reason, I put the love inside your heart so that I can see myself in your heart. This heart must be clean because I want to live in your heart because it is the house of my God. This heart is also my heart, and you are the love, the secret love inside this heart.” You cannot know the meaning of this love unless you break your glass. When you break your glass, you wake up. This glass is your body, and after that you walk through these stations of the heart. Fill your heart with the love and the mercy and the peace, and give everything to your guide.

When you give to your guide, you give to yourself, not to anyone else because he is the mirror of God and you can see yourself in the heart of the guide. Do not refuse any order from him because the order he gives is not from him, but it is from God. Wash your body and heart with the water of the truth, and drink the wine. This wine is different from any other wine. It is the wine of love, the highest love, the wine of divine intoxication. No one can see God if he does not drink this wine because this is holy wine. When you drink from this wine you will want to live here all he time because there is no life without this wine. It is the wine of the truth, and the wine of knowledge, which is for every seeker to drink. It is necessary for our soul because your soul does not eat or sleep. How can she sleep after she knows the secret of the love, and how can she sleep after she knows the truth of God?

After that, be silent in this station because you sit with your God all the time. You have no time to site with anything else, only Him. There is no one in your world, only He because you understand what He is, and He will give you everything you want. How can you look left or right when you see the secret light? Continue to reach what He wants from your soul. Allah wants your soul to be clean, and He wants you to leave the self because you are beginning to walk in the way. Before this you lived with people on the outside, but now He wants you to change this soul and to see only His face, and to speak with Him with the language of the soul.

Now you live in a high station. Be silent all the time and look straight. Do not speak with anyone, only Him. He wants your soul to be only with Him. He does not like you to be with anyone else because there is no other. There is no beginning and no end because you are the beginning and there is no end to you. You are the mercy and you are the politeness, but know yourself well, and open your heart to know how you sit with the Beloved. He is the secret. There is no difference between you and Him, but know what He wants from you. You are the secret beloved, and He wants you to be special for Him in everything. He wants you to be His daughter, but this is a different daughter. This is the daughter of the truth. There is no difference between daughter and father, if you know what I mean. I do not mean an outside thing, but a deep meaning inside. Do not lose these jewels from the wisdom. If you do not keep them, you are lost and He will discharge you. What will you do for the rest of your life if He discharges you? But I will pray to Him, and I hope that you will be His daughter, the righteous daughter, the polite daughter. Do not refuse what He says because you are holy and He is holy.

This is the meaning of al-adab. It is a short meaning, but in this meaning you can find your picture. You can reach the way of the truth. Now I have said enough. I have given you holy words. I am afraid to explain any more about al-adab, the politeness. You cannot live without being polite. The politeness is necessary for anyone who wants to walk in the way. Catch anyone and put politeness in them. I hope have listened to me and have understood. I pray that God will help you to be polite all the time.


4. Al-Khawf: Fear of God
If you want to walk in the way of God, you need to know where you sit with God. You need to understand everything that God wants from you. If you are not polite with Allah, He will not give you any of the holy meaning. Above all, you must open your hearing for God’s voice. His voice is different from anything that you have known. Now you begin to speak with Him, and when you sit with Him you must give everything to Him. You must open every quality to hear Him and put everything in its place through the holy meaning. You must look at His face all the time because then you sit in the holy garden, the garden of meaning. If you lose time when you are with Him, you will not understand why Allah has put you in this place. Then you will not know the message, and you will not know what He wants from you. Allah gives you this station to learn the meaning of fearing Him.

What does it mean by fearing Him? Anyone who sits close to a king fears the power of the king. Yet Allah is not like a king who governs the earth. If anyone does anything wrong, an earthly king will punish him or kill him. Allah will not do what an earthly king would do, but He will discharge anyone from His garden who is not polite. It is very difficult for anyone who has lived in His kingdom to return to live outside. No one can continue to walk or return to what they had reached before, unless Allah wanted to give them another chance. This is what I mean when I say that you need to fear Him if you want to sit near the holy King, but the difference here is that there is no one, only He, and you are His picture. This picture needs to be clean, and full of the mercy, and full of the secret love, and you must know the meaning of the secret love. I say again and again, when you want to sit with God, be in fear of Him. Yet this is a different fear. You fear Him because you want to be special for Him, and to look only at His face. And there is no more body because your body is broken.

You travel on this holy journey all your time. You sit with your God face to face, but in your soul. Your soul has broken open and has changed. You wake up in another high station and want to reach the holy soul of God because this is the father of your soul. You are from Him and you want to return to Him.

If you do not know what I mean, clean your mind because you mind is the picture of your heart. There is no difference between your heart and soul and self if you are with God because He does not know numbers. He is al-Wahid. He is One. Lam yalid wa lam yulad. He begets not, or his He begotten. And there is no one like Him.

There is no one like Him, only His heart. Be the house for His heart. To understand and to reveal what He wants from you, you need to be with Him all the time, and to not lose any time, not one minute. Do not waste any time. Pray to God all the time, when you walk and when you work. Pray when you look at anything because in any quality you can see the face of Allah. Do not miss any prayer, and remember the name of God.

Do not think of other things when you sit in this station. Here you site between the fire and the garden. Remain in your place because He put you in this place. If you look right or left or behind you, you will fall down and you will touch the fire. This fire discharges you and returns you outside. Then you are lost for the rest of your time. You are like an animal, but an animal is better than you. You have carried the message, whereas an animal does not understand. Why do you not sit and be polite? Why do you lose your time? Why do you look right and left? Be special for Him. This station is very dangerous. Look at your qualities in this station. This is a high station that needs you to break your soul to change everything inside your soul. Do not refuse any order, and do whatever he wants. Listen when He says anything to your heart. Live with Him, for Him. This is what He wants from you. Continue to pray and to remember the name of God. Do not stand still, and be silent because He will speak to you. He loves you. Be with Him all the time. You have no time because every minute is from Him. He wants you to be clean, but what do I mean by clean? Give mercy to everyone and everything. You are the mercy, and everything is inside you. Listen to His voice because He speaks to you every moment. Listen and, if you can, do not refuse anything when you live in this station. I will ask Him to help you, and to give you what you want, and what He wants.

This is the fourth station of the heart, the fear of God, al-khawf. This station is more dangerous than any other station because your body has completely changed to be your soul. The body is like a glass, and when you are not polite, you will break the glass before your time.


5. As-Sidq: The Station of Righteousness
The right religion is special for Whom, to where and for what? Why do you want the religion? The religion is from God to God, to know the truth of Him, and to know yourself, and to know how you are with the face of Allah. This is a short explanation. The guide of he love says, “What God wants is to teach the religion to anyone who wants. He will give what He wants to give from His special religion. What Allah wants from me, I give. He speaks of good and give only what is good in the special religion. He gave me the order to give you this special religion and I put it in your heart. I am the servant, and He made me polite. After that he taught me everything I needed from the special religion. The truth is the essence of God. It speaks of the subject of the self and the subject of the soul and how to know yourself. Then he told me to teach you this subject of the truth of God because He loves you.”

Allah gathers the believers from everywhere to teach them how to live with Him when they walk in the way. Before you sit with Him, you must understand what he says. Listen to every word when he speaks because you are from Him. Then He takes your hand and changes you from station to station, from surrender to belief to divine insight (al-islam to al-iman to al-ihsan). If He had not given you the right religion, you would not know why you are in this world,. He made you to carry the holy message. Give the message of mercy and love to all those who want to change you because you live in the garden and he has lived in darkness. You are better than the angels, and the angels pray for you. But know the secret. You will not know if you do not follow every order in the holy books, and every order form all the prophets. Change every quality to be like the qualities of God. If you do not do this, then the order only lives on the outside.

The orders of Allah carry many, many meanings. Prayer is an outside order, also fasting in Ramadan and giving charity (az-zakat) are outside orders. But there is a deeper meaning in these orders.

The deep meaning in the right religion and the special religion is surrender (al-islam), to give everything for God. This is an inside meaning. It means to go beyond all that you have been and be special for God. Remember His name, and remember that there is no go but He. This is the first station in which you walk and say, “I am a Muslim.” But He needs you to obey His order. When you clean all the qualities in your body, this is al-islam. Do not steal. Be truthful. Be good to people, and help everyone to walk in the way, and be polite when you walk.

This is what He wants from you in every quality. Leave everything outside, and refuse all the qualities that are not from the truth. He wants you to stand facing Him in every prayer. Be sincere and empty yourself of everything but God. Speak only His words, and do only what He wants. There is nothing, only He. Leave everything that is not useful and walk in the way. If you change everything, then you are the holy book, and you are message. Send the message to everyone. Be the message, and give of yourself, and make yourself Him because first he wanted you, and He loved you first. Then He will take you and put you in the holy garden of the soul. This garden is different from the first garden. It is holy and full of meaning and wisdom.

In this station, you can say, “I am running to You, leaving everything I have known before, to be in Your presence. Keep me with You all the time, and help me to give Your holy mercy to anyone who needs it. Please help me my Lord, for there is no life without Your mercy.”

These are holy words spoken by the believer, the one who wants to give everything to God. There is no one who can feel this unless he lives in this life. Say, “I ask You, my God, to change every quality, to take me from station to station, and to teach me the holy meaning because I am nothing without You. I am like a camel lost in the desert who has not had a drink for many days. When he finds water, he drinks and drinks until his thirst is quenched. I am like the camel because I have found water in the garden.” Then He gives you the water to help you clean yourself of all unnecessary qualities. The only thing you must do is to pray and to open your heart. He wants you to believe in every order He sends, and he want s you to be certain in your heart when you are with this order. This is the first order, al-islam. The second order, which is the way of the heart and is special for the heart, is al-iman.

O my brother, listen to every word. Every order is from your God to help you to reach him. If you do not follow what He has sent you, you will not reach Him, and you will live outside His garden. You must leave all the unnecessary qualities of the human being outside, and put in their place special qualities for the soul. You need the real politeness to be with God and the prophets, with your guide and with your brothers and sisters. The picture of the guide is the picture of you brothers and sisters. The picture of your guide is the picture of the prophets, and the picture of the prophets is the picture of God. Know what I am saying. If you are not polite, you will not reach. I would like you to sit on the holy carpet, but understand what I mean.

This is the voice of Allah to you, and you must follow it if you want to have knowledge of Allah. Empty yourself of everything from your past and die to be in the Day of Judgment now. Then you are born again. Break you tomb and wake up from your sleep because you are the jewel, and you are the secret inside the jewel. You cannot know the secret if you do not break this jewel. You are priceless because he wants you. You are also very holy, if you know. You cannot reach until you break the glass inside you, and put everything outside except Allah. After that you can continue, if you are able, and I think you are because He would not have put you in this place if He did not want you. Give your self and your soul and everything that you have to God if you believer in what I say.

In this way, you need to be a believer all the time. This is the real station and a very deeply station. If anyone does not believer in the truth, he will not reach, and Allah will put him outside and discharge him from the holy garden. This is the fifth station of the heart, as-sidq, the righteousness.


6. Al-Haqiqat: The Station of Truth
You are the secret. If you know the deep secret, you can reach Him and sit in the holy garden. In the garden you will find the wine of the truth. Every heart needs this wine because the heart is the tree of God and three needs to drink His wine. You cannot drink this wine if you do not know its meaning. How would you know the way of the wine if you did not clean your house? Because He is the Holy House.

There are two things that make war in the heart – the family of light and the family of darkness. Clean your heart of the family of darkness, because many things come from the darkness. People tell you to not pray and to not remember the name of God. They want to catch you and to take you from the garden, but refuse what they want and what they say. This is the shaitan and your self speaking! In your heart, you want to continue to walk in the way of God, but the self (an-nafs) tells you that the way will make trouble for you. Do not listen to this voice. It wants you to go outside and to live in the darkness, but Allah wants you to live in the light, not in the darkness. Leave everything, and open you heart only to God to know the secret inside your heart. If you change your heart, then you are the qiblah (the direction of payer). Your heart is the qiblah, and you are the qiblah.

When you are in this station, you can pray from your heart. You face yourself when you pray because He wants you to know yourself. When you know yourself, you know God and you reach His place, which is no place because He is the beginning and the end. You can pray inside your heart when you live in this station. You are the truth, and your ear is the ear of God, and your eye is the eye of God. Your picture is the picture of God, and there is no picture now because you are a deep secret. Now you can reach and you can know yourself.

Always remember that you will not reach if He does not love you. First He loves you and then you love Him, yet there is no first. He can see everything in your face and He can hear every voice. When you speak, you should know how to speak with yourself. When you are in this station, there is no body because you have lost your body. It has become completely light. Where can another sit inside you? There is no room for another, there is room only for God. You can live in this station because it is the real life. The guide wants you to spend all your time with Him. Do not lose any minute because every minute is very holy, I live with my soul now. This is the holy light, if you know.

Praying is different here from any prayer before. You now pray in two ways – the ritual prayer for the self and the deep prayer for the soul. You live all your time in everything with your soul, but the real soul. This is from the truth. No on e can reach if he does not change everything from the outside to the inside, and there is no outside and no inside. Where is Sidi? Nowhere! Only He! There is no difference between you and Him because you have returned to the origin, and there is no origin.

Stay in this life. How can you leave after you know the truth of God? Your body is His and you are His mirror. Keep your body special for God. Do not give it to anyone. This is the language of love, a deep language. Know this language because it is the language of the soul. When you understand what I mean, you speak with God. And there is no voice but His.

Pray, but do not pray only with your body. Pray with your heart and soul. You live now in al-wahid al-ahad, not just one, but all one. Al-ahad is the divine oneness of God. All your qualities in this station are the qualities of Allah because your sun (soul) is rising, and it is a holy sun which contains every meaning. When the sun rises in your heart, you can see everything and know everything. He loves your prayer because when you pray in this station, you pray with your God face to face, ad there is only the face of the unity.

“ Oh my God, keep me in this station to pray deeply because my face is Your face. Help me to know, and do not discharge me back to the life I lived before I came to You because now I could not live without You.”

This is the way of the soul. My Beloved is inside me. What do I want after that? I want nothing. He stays inside, and I love Him and he loves me. The prayer now becomes deeper and deeper. I do not want to live without this wine because I receive all that I desire through this wine. When I walk in this station, how could I live without the wine of the truth? This is the true song. I understand every word I speak because I know my name, my real name. This is the secret. You can know every name from His name. When you put His name inside you and all the qualities inside your heart, you now the truth. My vision is very clean now, and my time is very holy now because it is all for Allah.

I thank my God, thank my Beloved because he knows the truth of me, and I know the truth of Him. He has given me the real wine, and He has given me politeness, and He has put mercy inside me. He has put everything from Himself inside my heart and has made me what I am. I see the unity when I arrive at the knowing. He made me a slave for Him and He has taught me every order and has made me the beloved for Him.

If He had not helped me, how could I know? If He had not helped me, how could I have reached? If He had not helped me, how could I live in this holy life, to know the deep secret inside myself, and to know Him well? This is my God all the time. This is the truth. What are you?


7. Al-Mahabba: The Deep Love
(The love of the Prophet Muhammad, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him)

My brother, listen to me! Listen with your ear, but with the hearing of God, to understand what I mean. See through my eyes and live with me in every quality. Be silent. Be quiet and open your heart to listen to what I say about the love. You love Him and you need this love. You cannot leave the love. How can you live without love? What would your life be life? If you do not love Him, He will discharge you and bring another into the net. The people who love Allah, Allah loves them. Listen to what I say form the lips of the Prophet Muhammad, may the blessings and peace of Allah be upon him. “Be the ear to your God, be the eye to your God, be the face also if you want to sit with God face to face.” If you sit near Him, you will find the mercy and the holy love. Throughout your life you will find no sadness because He has loved you from the beginning.

The meaning of the love and the religion are contained in the secret. What He wants from you is for you to be the servant of you Master, and to be polite when you sit near Him. You want Him to give you mercy and love from the mercy, so that after that you will know what He wants from the meaning of the mercy.

The heart must be very clean for His love. You cannot reach the secret of the love if you do not change every quality to be like the qualities of your Beloved. You must die with your Beloved if you want to reach the secret of the love. Clean you heart of everything that is inside it, and put your heart between the hands of God, and let Him do what He wants with it. How can you live in this world if you refuse the order he sends? The truth of the love is to give everything to your Beloved and to be empty of everything but Him. Then you have only the name of the deep secret love inside you.

He has given me this name, and this name rules my heart and cleans it of everything inside it but the Beloved. Then I say, “Stand inside the doorway of love all the time. Do not go left and right, or to any side. Know that you are not lost if you remember the name of God all the time, inside or outside.”

You give everything to Him when you put your heart in the fire of His love. Then you drink from the cup of the love and find everything and see all the secrets. When you speak with him, you speak with the lips of God. When you move, you move with the order of God, At every moment you stand facing God, You forbid anything but Him to live inside your heart because there is nothing, only He, and your heart is special for Him. Forbid any quality that does not live with Him to live inside you. Then you will not see anything but the face of Allah all the time. Your heart is full of love and you leave everything but Him. Then you begin to sing with God, and He gives you every secret.

When you live with these qualities, you must remove the shoes from your feet out of respect for your Master (Allah), as Moses (Musa) did, may peace and blessings be upon him. By these shoes, I mean the world (ad-dunya) because now you live in the holy valley. You are in the valley of love. You were put in this valley to be the eye of God, and to see everything through this eye.

There are two sides to His love. The first side is to see God in the human being. He wanted to see Himself in the human being, so He created him, and you are the mirror. Allah says, “I am the secret treasure and I loved you to know Me, so I made the human being, and you can know Me from your image.” The second side of the love is to see the human being in God. If you change everything and you clean yourself of all unnecessary qualities, then there is no outside and no inside because there is no first and no last. You have reached a high station and here there is no difference between you and Him because you have returned to Him, and you are from Him. He loves you to return to Him because He is the love. This is the bond between the human being and God and it exists all the time, but know what this means. You can find the love in the deep meaning of everything, and there is no end to it, and you cannot live without this love because it is your life with Him.

At last I say, “Love everything because when you love all things, you are loving God.” When you give, you give from God to God. Give mercy to your brothers and sisters all the time, and open your heart, and see what is inside your heart. If you see Him inside, then you live in the house of God. You can thank Allah because He has put you in His heart. Everything is from Him. Thank Him because He has put you in the holy garden. This is the garden of love. Know that the word I want to share with you is love and love and love.

From Sidi's book Music of the Soul, printed courtesy of Sidi Muhammad Press
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