On Death without Life, and Life without Death

The Shaikh (may Allah be well pleased with him, and grant him contentment) said:

I was feeling very depressed one day, and my soul was in turmoil. Then someone said to me: “What do you want?” I replied: “I want a death without life and a life without death.” I was then asked: “What is death without life and life without death?”

I said: “Death without life is my dying to my own species of creatures, so that I do not see them as the source of injury or benefit. It is my dying to my own self, my passion, my will and my desire, in this world and the hereafter, so that I do not live or exist in any of these. As for life without death, that is my living by the action of my Lord (Almighty and Glorious is He) without my having any existence in it, while the dying therein is my existence with Him (Almighty and Glorious is He). This has been the most precious purpose I have held before me, ever since I became conscious.”

– Revelations of the Unseen, Sixty-Fourth Discourse