[3:103] And hold fast to God's bond, together, and do not scatter; remember God's grace upon you when you were enemies, and He brought your hearts together so that by His grace you became brothers; and you were upon the brink of a pit of fire; but He delivered you from it. So God makes clear to you His signs that you might be guided.
The holding fast to His bond (s) is clinging to the traces of the intermediary (wāsi?a) - the noble one (ʿazīz) (ṣ) and this is by actualizing and staying connected to the Book and the Sunna.
It is rightly said that the elite (khawāṣṣ) are those spoken of in [the words] and hold fast to God's bond, while it is said of the elect of the elect (khāṣṣ al-khāṣṣ) 'and hold fast to God'. Whoever turns back from the presence of His signs (sawāniḥ) to his own choice and device, his own cognition and reasoning, his own knowledge and kind; and takes refuge in the shade of his own planning, seeking illumination by the light of his own intellect and cognition - he has the shade of divine solicitude (ʿināya) taken away from him and is left to his unfortunate state.
And do not scatter: Scattering or separation (tafriqa) is the most intense punishment, and it is the consort of polytheism (shirk).
And remember God's grace upon you when you were enemies: They were enemies when they remained with their worldly concerns, turning towards the narrowness of mortal human nature, and competing with one another as befits the stinginess of lower selves.
And He brought your hearts together in deliverance from the captivity of engendered things (mukawwanāt) and drove back the dangers from their innermost selves. Then what they sought became one thing together. If a thousand people were to be brought together in one pursuit, they would, in truth, be one.
So that by his grace you became brothers: His grace, which is His protection of you as brothers in agreement in aim and aspiration, annihilated from the worldly concerns of the lower self and hidden to stinginess and avarice.
And you were upon the brink of a pit of fire by your being held captive to the objects of your desire and bound by the shackles of your worldly concerns and whims.
But He delivered you from it by the light of contentment and being extinguished in the flow of the decree, and this, in truth, is a mighty position and a weighty rank. Included in all this is abandoning reliance on what is from your own virtues and piety, or the intellect, discernment, learning, and understanding; and fleeing to God, may He be glorified and exalted above everything other than Him.