How we ask these questions, how deeply the answers are directly relevant to our lives, what we think, what we feel, what we spend our time doing, all determine the nature and value of the investigation we undertake. It might take a whole life of inner examination to find satisfactory answers, or, as it happened to Ibn 'Arabi, God might reveal everything between fajr; the predawn prayer and the first light of dawn. Whether we recognize it or not, it is our connection to God which inspires the questions and ultimately reveals the answers, but the work is our own; the effort we make in conjunction with the gift we've been given, His grace, establishes the kind of answers we receive. We can choose to live without God, we can choose to dedicate our life in service to Him, we can sit astride the fence, we can be filled with gratitude, we can be miserable, what we choose is what we get. For anyone with an open, melting heart who is moved by the need to search for the truth, God will always provide answers which go beyond the merely worldly, the merely psychological, the merely religious. He will not refuse a pure, sincere request, an inquiry inspired by the longing to know. He is the knower who has filled us with the need to know, and He alone can give answers to satisfy that need, all it takes is a single drop of His light.

88