Contemplation

“It is the spiritual heart’s disposition about the meanings of things in order to achieve what is desired. It is the lamp of the heart, which shows good and bad, benefits and harms. The heart without contemplation falters in darkness.”¹⁾

“The mind obtains new beams of knowledge by making use of the past knowledge and current observations, and we call it ‘thinking.’ Thinking becomes ‘contemplation’ when we strive more in this process.”²⁾

“Contemplation means systematic thinking resulting from the combination of past knowledge and what is currently observed for the sake of knowing God by the heart.”³⁾

“Reflection is the way of the enlightened spirits who relate everything to wisdom through study and the observation of one’s inner and outer world.”⁴⁾

“Deep contemplation means a person’s forcing oneself to think about one’s own inner world, constantly scrutinizing things that exist and take place, and opening to more immense and deep thoughts by taking all of these into consideration time and time again. The original Arabic word tafakkur is inflected in the form of tafaul, which denotes burdening oneself. That is a person’s making serious effort to realize something and forcing oneself to achieve something, and giving the willpower its due in this respect. For this reason, we can say that with respect to its word formation, the word tafakkur expresses an act of thinking that is systematic, deep, and constant, rather than thinking in a simpler sense.”⁵⁾

“Imagining or reflecting on unbelief is not unbelief, and picturing or reflecting on misguidance is not misguidance. For imagination, conceptualization, picturing, and reflection are different from confirmation by reason and acceptance by heart; they are voluntary to certain degree. It is hard for the free will to control them so that we should be answerable for them. Confirmation and acceptance are deliberate, for they depend on certain criteria and intentional reasoning. In addition, just as the former are not the same mental activities as confirmation and acceptance, neither are they the same as doubt and hesitation. However, they may pave the way to doubt if they are repeated unnecessarily and become established.”⁶⁾

“The All-Loving prevails in those who follow the path of love to God, and the All-Wise in those who follow the path of contemplation and reflection.”⁷⁾

“Reflection is brighter and more comprehensive than love, and leads to the Name the All-Wise.”⁸⁾

“Loving beautiful things in their Maker’s name and in a way reminding you of their Creator is a pleasant reflection and will turn your view, which adores beauty, toward the sources of a far more elevated, sacred, and subtler beauty. You will turn from those beautiful works toward the beauty of Divine acts, then to the beauty of Divine Names, and then to the beauty of Divine Attributes and the Majestic One’s matchless beauty. This love is pure pleasure, an act of worship, and a reflection.”⁹⁾

“… reflecting [on creation and God’s signs in the universe] is like light, for it removes or melts your frozen heedlessness to and unawareness of [God]. Being careful and attentive is like fire, for it burns your ‘dried rubbish’ of doubt and suspicion [about Him]. However, when you are contemplating in your soul, in your soul, in your private mind, make a deep examination with detail. When you reflect on the outer world, do so briefly and superficially, for you only need to understand the foundations upon which it is based. for the splendor of art becomes more evident and more dazzling when looked on and examined as a whole. The outer world is very spacious and has no shores. If you dive into it, you may drown. O friend! If you go deep in your inner world but make a brief and fast journey in the outer world, you can approach unity. If you only make a brief and superficial examination of your inner world while going into detail during your travels in the outer world, the diversity of things will engender confusion and doubt. This will strengthen your ego and ingrain heedlessness in you, developments that will make you incline to naturalism and, eventually, away from the diversity of things and to misguidance.”¹⁰⁾

“Sometimes contemplating for one hour is better than a year of worshipping.”¹¹⁾

“The two means of … spiritual journeying are repeating God’s Names and reflection…”¹²⁾

“The functioning of the heart happens through dhikr (recitation of one or some of God’s Names) and contemplation.”¹³⁾

“It should also be known that problems may not always be sorted out by talking. Speaking over some problems might get the crisis grow worse. A believer’s speaking should be wisdom and silence should be reflection. If our words are wise, we may speak. If not, we must remain silent and wait for the appropriate time. There are some situations where one has to stop and think. For, wisdom develops in the bosom of contemplation. If there is wisdom in our speech, we may talk. Otherwise, everyone saying something in public, as they wish, will only cause noise. Just as people know how to speak relevantly, they must also know how to be patient and silent.”¹⁴⁾

“Believers have preliminary knowledge and wisdom about God, may He be glorified and exalted. As a result of their contemplation by making use of this knowledge and wisdom, new rays of knowledge appear in their hearts. The mind becomes active both on the outer world and inner world. In this way, knowledge of God increases and reaches the level of one hour of contemplation, which is worth of a thousand years of worship. As a matter of fact, Imam Rabbani draws attention to this point and states, ‘A moment of life enlightened through the connection with God is preferable to thousands of years devoid of such light.’ Yes, living for a minute in such a light, which full of His knowledge, is better than living a dark and corrupt life for thousands of years. So, even if prescribed Payers are observed in that thousand years of unworthy life, an hour with contemplation with the knowledge of God is considered much better than that.”¹⁵⁾

Belief

Compassion

Comprehension

Consciousness

Enthusiasm

Knowledge

Thankfulness

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