and no one below. Sufi means knowledge of the divine at this level, the purity and annihilation of the self, the obliteration of ego and persona leaving God alone, the totality, nothing exists but Him. Why creation? Because what God did at creation we must enact within ourself, we must eliminate all the darkness, the negativity from ourself so that only light remains. Why ascension? Because we must do what Muhammad, what the prophet of God did when he harnessed all the forces of mind and desire to make his winged flight to God.

First creation. There was a period which cannot be described correctly as a period of time because time did not exist, there was an extension of darkness enclosing everything. God was a timeless, spaceless, vibrant darkness housing everything which roamed and clamored restlessly inside Him, the non-material waiting to be born, the truth unmanifest. For unimaginable ages He existed alone in that state, the totality praising totality immersed in its own completion; then He wanted to be known, and from that intention to make His truth and justice known, all that is emerged. A light began to stir within Him, the nur, the radiant light of His plenitude, kept resonating in luminous praise within Him until it emerged, reciting the splendor of His grace and wisdom. When God looked at this in amazement He

95