4:49 Hast thou not seen those who deem themselves pure? No, God alone deems pure whomsoever He will.
Do not praise yourselves, do not approve of others deeming you pure, do not look at your own good deeds, give no weight to your own traveling, and consider yourselves lower than everyone low.
A friend asked, "Which group is it
who have stolen the ball of reality from the world's creatures?"
I said, "Why do you ask for the marks of that group, for they
do not show themselves to themselves for showing.
They never walk on the edge of making claims,
not do they ever sleep in the circle of meaning.
More wondrous is that their worthlessness and abasement
makes them like Christians and Jews in people's eyes."
Yes, at the threshold of a generous man, the more abased you make yourself, the more exalted you become. Your abasement is not despair of the Friend. Rather, it testifies to your truthfulness and straightness.
The Pir of the Tariqah said, "O God, I lament at my abasement, for I have seen no one with misery like mine. I lament at the burning because You are lost to my spirit. There is no one in the world to have pity on my days and time. O God, I wept so many tears in longing that I sowed the seeds of pain with my eyes' water. If I find endless felicity, I will approve of all this pain. If my eyes fall upon You once, I will not have seen myself with those eyes."
No, God alone deems pure whomsoever He will. When God's deeming pure reaches someone, its mark is that he is released from companionship with the scatter-hearted ones who have stooped to the path of demons and idols [4:51] and he does not again open himself up to them. But you should not fancy that the worshipers of demons and idols are simply those idol-worshipers. Anyone who is at ease with the caprice of his own soul and remains bound to what his soul desires is a man of idols and a servant of demons.
The creatures are at ease in the ruins of their own makeup-
wink once and throw the creatures into turmoil! [DS 696]
In the tongue of the folk of allusion, placing your foot on your own soul and bringing your caprice under your own severity is the tremendous kingdom concerning which God says,