Water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or 0 degrees Centigrade. That means that at 33 degrees Fahrenheit water isn’t frozen. It may be cold but it’s not ice. It means at 32.1 degrees it’s not frozen. Frozen is an altered state of water, and water doesn’t know frozen until it’s frozen, so for water to talk about ice is conjecture until it hits 32 degrees Fahrenheit.
Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, prior to that it’s hot but it’s not boiling. And when it’s boiling things begin to happen to water that don’t happen to it prior to its boiling. Steam is given off, it becomes a gas; it’s no longer water. Gas is an altered state; it’s different than water.
Men live their lives and they cannot imagine death, it doesn’t occur to them. When they die, they’re no longer alive, it’s an altered state; something dramatically has changed. “La ilaha illa Allah” is translated, “I do not exist; only God exists; only Allah exists.” Well, how much do I not exist? To what extent do I not exist? How much of me is still there when I say, “La ilaha illa Allah?”
There’s the story of a great master who had been in bed and he was surrendering, and he was traveling through the spheres to the point where he would totally disappear as his mortal self. And his wife walked into the room just before he had gone, and she began to shake him, calling him by his name, and he heard it and he recoiled from all of the traveling that he had done to disappear, back to being in his mortal state.
What is the strength of our own ego and how devious is it in telling us that it doesn’t exist? What is the strength of our own ego and how devious is it in telling us it doesn’t exist? Do we think that because we say, “La ilaha illa Allah, La ilaha illa Allah, La ilaha illa Allah,” that we somehow disappear? Or are we in the midst of religion where we repeat for the sake of ritual, and we say things because we are told we will be rewarded?
Rabia said she does not desire heaven nor is she afraid of hell; she’s only looking for Allah. It’s a very powerful statement because it means she’s not attached. Who is it that looks for heaven? Our egocentric-self looks for heaven. Why? Because our egocentric-self looks to be rewarded.
“Islam” means “surrender”. Surrender to what degree? We all need courses in the difference between absolute and trying; between absolute and on the way to. We need to be able to differentiate the difference between striving and not striving, being. We should understand that as long as we are in the act of striving, we are. Who’s striving? What’s striving? Who’s trying? What’s trying? When do we get to the point where we aren’t trying, we are, we have disappeared and we are no longer connected?
The state of absolute surrender is different than the state of religion…
