By the grace of Allah (swt) I continue my sermon which I started
last Friday where I began the explanation on the three categories of people who
receive revelation. I told you about the first type of people, those who have
no merit and have no relation with God Almighty. Today, I will Insha-Allah
continue my explanations on the same subject.
So, the second type of people are those who have some relationship
with God Almighty, but that relationship is not perfect. The Promised Messiah
(as) provides the analogy that their dreams and revelations resemble the
experience of a person who, on a dark and very cold night, espies the glow of a
fire from afar and thus is able to avoid walking along a path which is full of
pits and thorns and rocks and along which serpents and wild beasts exist in
large numbers. But the glow of the fire cannot safeguard him against the cold
and death. If he cannot reach the warm circle of the fire, he is destroyed like
the one who walks in the dark.
Continuing the analogy, the third type of people are those whose experience of dreams and revelations resembles that
of a person who on a dark and very cold night not only finds the bright glow of
the fire and walks in its light, but who also enters its warm circle and is
fully safeguarded against the cold. This stage, the Promised Messiah (as)
mentions, is reached by those who burn up their passions in the fire of Divine
love and adopt a life of bitterness for the sake of God. They perceive death –
i.e. the death of their passions – ahead of them and run towards it and choose
it for themselves. That death can also refer to the natural death of man but
who the recipient of revelation accepts and welcome for he knows and fully
comprehend that this is the way which will inevitably lead him to his heart’s
content, i.e. God Almighty. Thus, death does not become a fearful instance but
rather a friend which he embraces so that He may see the countenance of God
with a heart filled with the hope of divine mercy and His (Allah’s) love.
These type of people, according to the Promised
Messiah (as) accept every torment in the cause of God and for the sake of God
they become the enemies of their ego and treading contrary to it (i.e. to their
ego) exhibit such power of faith that even the angels are surprised at the
strength of their faith. They are spiritual champions and all attacks of Satan
come to nothing in opposition to their spiritual power. This third type of
revelation is called perfect revelation. It descends upon perfect individuals
and resembles the ray of the sun that falls on a clean mirror. Then that ray is
magnified ten times and its light becomes unbearable for the eye.