... friends, heavens, the earth, gardens, palaces, sciences, works, food, drink ... the saint knows that these are desires for God and all those things are veils. When men leave this world and see the King without these veils, then they will know that all were veils and coverings, that the object of their desire was in reality that One Thing ... They will see all things face to face."2 In order to embrace the love of God, Sufis must disregard the material world that the rest of us so readily and unquestioningly inhabit. The Sufi mystical path has several stages and is open to each and every Muslim who wishes to connect their soul with the divine. The whole of life is spiritually one in its source, goal, beginning and end, with the divine manifest in all our souls (though the soul was created before, and is separated from the body). ...

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