Re: What draws people near to God?
Brother muqawwee123 - Salam
That is a brilliant question …
What draws us near to God is intimacy with His Names … If we reflect on His Names and do Dzikr on them bringing them into our hearts - then we have put Him (i.e. His Names) in our heart (literally remembrance, but here a metaphorical switch takes place).
The way people draw near to God is by getting Him to draw near to you … If God comes near to us, then we are effectively coming near to God. Belief in God focuses on our separation with Him … it is an intellectual exercise … We need this belief to be able to bear the pressure of getting close to Him.
**The task is to approach Him without losing oneself … Tawheed is to mark our separation … Yet we get as close as possible **… Our “orbit” should be tight, but not too much so … we should observe adab by keeping distance and observe **love **by drawing near … If we are too far then our condition is like “mars” a barren cold land or further still like gaseous planets … if we approach too near then we burn like Venus and Mercury only very dense solids exist there … life is where the balance is - neither are we too hot and solid nor are we cold and gaseous - but we are warm and liquid …
The stages are well established:
1> Understand Him
If one has to approach Him without losing oneself to keep Tauheed intact, then what kind of closeness ‘Fana Fillah’ represent. The terminology suggest that there would be no separation after one goes through the stage of ‘Fana Fillah’.