Khwaja Gharib Nawaz Quotes
01. “Death is a bridge which expands the passage for a lover to reach his beloved (God).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
02. “God rains misfortune and misery upon the heads of those whom He loves.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
03. “The path of Love (of God) is such a path that whoever stepped into it, he lost himself.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
04. “Perfection in Faith is evidenced by three things: (1) Fear, (2) Hope, and (3) Love.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
05. “The highly prized gift for a dervish or hermit is his association with other dervishes or hermits, while his greatest loss is to remain away from them.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
06. “The perfection of an Aarif consists in burning his individual self (Nafs) to ashes.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
07. “A dervish or hermit is one who would never disappoint a needy.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
08. “One of the signs of an Aarif is that he remains characteristically smiling at all times.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
09. “The seer regards Death as a friend, luxury as an enemy, and the constant narration or remembrance of God as a glory.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
10. “Devotional approach to the saint and friendship with the hermits or dervishes attract blessings from the High.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
11. “For a follower of the path of Truth, it is worse than a sin to disdain or look down upon any one.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
12. “The Almighty God will erect on the Day-of-Judgment curtains the thickness of which will take 500 years to cross over between the hell and the man who feeds a hungry person.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
13. “There is impurity below every human hair, hence water must touch and reach the root of every hair. If a single hair shall remain dirty purification is not complete and is impaired.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
14. “Keep handy your equipment for the last journey and think of death as hovering over your head at all times.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
15. “For an Aarif it is an ordinary miracle that he ascends beyond the Heaven by taking only one step and reaches the ‘Veil of Divine Glory’. But God alone knows the secret implications of that stage. He cannot say where it leads him ultimately to, and what he perceives in that mysterious state when he returns.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
16. “Those devoted to the path of the ‘knowledge of God’s realization’ (Irfaan) have nothing to speak of except God.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
17. “By attaining perfection in the observation of ‘Shariat’ (Islamic law) through a pious conduct, one reaches the stage of ‘Tariqat’ (the path leadings to Divinity) and then onward he passes on to ‘Maarifat’ (enlightenment) and lastly to ‘Haqiqat’ (attainment of summon bonum of human existence).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
18. “Realization of God comes to him who keeps vigilance and forgets recollection of ‘Self’.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
19. “Only two things are enough for one desirous of establishing himself on the path of ‘Tariqat’, viz. (1) devotion to and worship of God and (2) obeying His commandments.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
20. “Whatever one has received is the reward for service rendered by him to his Pir (spiritual preceptor) hence a mureed (disciple) should not transgress the behests of his Pir, but he must take to heart the lesson which his Pir imparts to him and try to act up to the same thoroughly.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
21. “To cast a devotional look towards one’s Pir (spiritual preceptor) and to serve him faithfully are comparable to the devotion to God.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
22. “He is a hardened sinner who commits sin and yet simultaneously entertains the belief that he is one of the God’s ‘chosen few.’”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
23. “A sin committed does not harm an individual so much as the looking down with contempt upon one’s own fellow beings.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
24. “The worldly people work under worldly limitation, the seekers of the world-hereafter drink deep into the love of God which keeps them always happy and free from cares, whereas those devoted to the path of Maarifat, look to nothing else except the Divine Light which drowns them.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
25. “Patience is tested through resignation to sorrow, sufferings and disaster without murmur or disclosing one’s pains to others.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
26. “When the Aarif becomes silent it means that he is talking to God, and when he closes his eyes it means that he is knocking at God’s door.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
27. “He indeed is a true devotee, blessed with the love of God, who is gifted with the following three attributes: (i) River-like charity, i.e., his sense of charity has no limits and is equally beneficial to all the creatures of God who approach him, (ii) Sun-like affection, i.e., his affection may be extended indiscriminately to all like sunlight and (iii) Earth-like hospitality, i.e., his loving embrace may be open to all like that of the earth.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
28. “There are no rituals or ceremonies to be performed in Sufism, nor are there academicals dissertations which may be easily acquired by reading, but, according to men who are lovers of god and the Sheikhs of Tariqat, Sufism means scrupulously maintained moral behavior which one must observe towards all the creatures of God.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
29. “That man is a true devotee of God who resigns with pleasure to the misfortune that comes from his Beloved (i.e., God).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
30. “The seer is one who rises in the morning with events of the night entirely defaced from his memory (in other words, he remains deeply engrossed in the contemplation of God’s glory) and who may say things on the one hand and forgets their recollection on the other.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
31. “He is an Aarif or seer who is visited every day by a hundred thousand flashes of light (inspiration) from the Heaven.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
32. “Concentration on the implications of drawing and discharging breath is part of the seer’s (Aarif’s) worship.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
33. “Those having insight into the ‘essence of things’ are endowed with light like the sun and they impart illumination to the whole world.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
34. “Verily he is the seer of the ‘essence of things’ whose will is able to create the desired phenomenon, and whose craving for ‘light’ is satisfied by Divine response in any desired way.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
35. “Making rounds of the holy Kaba through the medium of heart and physical body is of no avail because he is the seer of the ‘essence of things’ whose mind is constantly making rounds of the Heaven and the globe and all that transcends them.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
36. “Certain Sheikh or dervishes have, enumerated 100 stages on the path of Truth and they say that 17 out of them pertain to the revelation and miracles. If any aspirant on reaching the 17th stage makes a demonstration of his capacity for revelation and miracles, then he will not be able to reach his ultimate destination by covering the remaining 83 stages. It is therefore necessary for a seer not to disclose himself or his secrets before the world before attaining all the 100 stages, and then too in very rate and exceptional circumstances. According to Khwajagaan-e-Chisht (i.e. those following the Chishti ‘silsila’ of Sufis), there are only 15 stages, out of which the 5th stage is that of the revelation while further advancement is subject to the identical condition laid down hereinbefore.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
37. “Verily he is an Aarif who is clothed with three qualities- firstly, piety; secondly conduct eliciting respect, and thirdly modesty.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
38. “Human perspiration is not impure (Hadith).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
39. “The best way of evading the fire of hell lies in feeding the hungry, providing water to the thirsty, removing the wants of the needy and befriending the miserable.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
40. “When you enter a mosque, put first your right foot therein and when you leave then out your left foot first.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
41. “A hermit must possess such a Divine light that may enable him to prove and justify by instant demonstration if an exception were taken by anyone to anything about the biographies of the ‘chosen’ Walis and prophets (God’s recognized devotees and messengers).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
42. “True friendship or love (of God) lies in maintaining His constant recollection in heart and not in expression by speech.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
43. “There are four cardinal virtues of the individual self; firstly, refraining from begging in the state of penury; secondly, showing the attitude of the well-fed when feeling hungry; thirdly, maintaining cheerfulness in the time of sorrow, and fourthly, befriending the enemy.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
44. “The more one learns about the ‘essence of things’ the more he wonders.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
45. “The heart of a lover (the true devotee of God) constantly burns with the fire of Love so much so that whatever (passion) intrudes upon its sanctity is burnt to ashes.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
46. “One who does not perform devotion to God is engaged in the career of eating a sinful earning.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
47. “Of all the worships, the worship that pleases the Almighty God most is the grant of relief to the humble and the oppressed.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
48. “Repentance for the evil done should have so much efficacy that the angel of the ‘left’ side (who records one’s sins according to Islamic belief) may remain suspended for 20 years. This means that after repentance one must at least of a period of 20 years scrupulously shun the committing of a sin and thus dispense with the necessity of recording them by the relative angel altogether. This must not, however, be taken to mean that penitence is rendered a spent force on the expiry of 20 years so that the man becomes free to commit sin thereafter. Emphatically no. It is a truism that the mind of one who has abstained from committing a sin for 20 years, is so much purified that it will spurn even the idea of committing a sin, not to say of being actually tempted to commit one. For argument’s sake, even if it is conceded that a penitent regains freedom to commit a sin after the expiry of 20 years, it should not, however, mean that he is bound to exercise such freedom. The course of action pursued by him continuously or incessantly for 20 years will destroy the very root of incentive in which the sin has its origin, and even the ‘self’ in him would not be able to disturb his resolution.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
49. “He is the knower of the path of love (of God) who relinquishes attachment to both the worlds.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
50. “When the Aarif who has attained perfection comes within the region of communion, he easily traverses one lack stages and perseveres to press on further. If he fails to proceed further, it is a thing to be marveled at, and the net result is that he is still on the verge and no further. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
51. “Performance of charity is the key of attaining the estate of philanthropist.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
52. “In the matter of realization of God and ‘self’, no distinction is made between an Aarif and a Saalik; they both reach the same and identical destination. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
53. “The association with the pious and godly persons is better than doing a good deed even, and the association with ungodly and vicious people is worse than doing an evil act. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
54. “When the river pursues its course, the flow occasions force and noise, but when it ultimately merges into the sea, it rests in supreme peace. The same is true of the individual ‘self’ covering various stages on its onward journey to merge itself in the Universal Self. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
55. “The heart was essentially created for making rounds of the love of God. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
56. “He is the knower of the path of love (of God) who relinquishes attachment to both the worlds. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
57. “A seer of the ‘essence of things’ is characteristically mute and meditative. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
58. “For the seer or dervish who follows the true path, it is the greatest sin if his heart does not melt with the fear of God when the name of God is uttered before him, or when His scripture is recited before him. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
59. “Those who are true lovers of God, give away both of the worlds for the sake of their ‘beloved’ and even then they feel that they have done nothing whatever. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
60. “An Aarif cannot attain the climax of Irfaan (knowledge of God’s realization) unless he maintains recollection of the implications of the passage covered by him in the course of his development. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
61. “The Pir helps to enlighten the disciple as to his virtues and vices. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
62. “The greater the degree of presence of one’s mind, attended by deep devotion and overwhelming sense of failings and shortcomings, which an individual can bring to bear upon the performance of Namaaz, the closer is the proximity to God attained thereby. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
63. “The devotional visit to God’s Kaaba is as good a reward as one thousand years of worship and devotion to God. The piety resulting from the Haj itself is over and above this. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
64. “It is a pious act to look at God’s scripture (i.e. Quran), greater is the piety in reciting it even if it be but one letter. It will banish ten vices and enable ten virtues being recorded in lieu. It improves the eyesight and would impart immunity to the eyes against all mishaps. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
65. “Three things are dearer than all other things of the world. Firstly, the savant who says according to what he has digested; secondly the person who does not succumb to avarice, and thirdly the Aarif who is always singing the praises and glory of his ‘beloved’ (God). “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
66. “According to those well versed in the doctrines of the seekers of true path, penitence or Toba assumes shape in the combination of three things:- (1) moderation in food with the resolve of fasting, (2) moderation in speech in order to save time for singing the praises of the beloved (God) and (3) moderation in sleep in the interests of preserving more time and energy for His devotion. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
67. “The test of a true devotee’s mind is that it is always, and to all intents, strictly obedient to the will of God and is constantly afraid of behaving in a manner which is apt to displease. Him resulting in the withdrawal of His grace. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
68. “The stage of perfection in Irfaan (knowledge of the realization of God) is reached when the seer enlightens the hearts of other people with the Divine Light. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
69. “The resignation of the Aarif is indicated in his reposing unflinching faith in the mercy and grace of god and God alone, and that he should not be attracted to anyone else. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
70. “Knowledge is comprised up to an unfathomable ocean and enlightenment is like a wave in it, then what is the relation of God and man? While the ocean of knowledge is sustained by God alone, the enlightenment pertains to man. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
71. “The estate of a hermit settles upon him who has no earthly belongings which might excite his sense of attachment. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
72. “The best time for the seer or dervish is indicated by the absence of all cares from his mind. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
73. “The Aarif or seer is always over head and ears in the ocean of happiest expectation. If he stands up, the guiding force is the love of the ‘friend’ (God); if he sits down it is to meditate over His glory and if he sleeps, it is the sweet remembrance of Him which lulls him to rest. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
74. “Prosperity departs from the home of one who tells a lie on oath and he is soon ruined. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
75. “The estate of the hermit (i.e. Faqr composed of fast, contentment and worship) does not frighten him who is blessed with the love of God. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
76. “It is an elevated stage on the path leading to the realization of God that the seeker of the goal can witness the Universe and its panorama through his two fingers only. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
77. “When the Aarif meditates over a thing, he attains a state of absorption in which even if thousands of angels assuming wonderful forms try to attract him, he would remain entirely undisturbed for the time being. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
78. “The resignation of the Aarif consists of constantly remaining thankful to God and wondering at His dispensations. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
79. “The obedience of the Mureed (disciple) to his Pir will then be sweetened when the Mureed would feel cheerfulness and stimulation in the course he thus follows. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
80. “Death is a bridge which expands the passage for a lover to reach his Beloved (God). “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
81. “The Aarif is defined as one who banishes all thoughts from his mind and indulges in only one pointed meditation of God’s glory in order to acquire nearness with Him who is Himself ONE without the second. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
82. “He is an Aarif whom unseen wisdom enlightens to enable him to reveal mysteries to solve all thorny problems and to meet all arguments successfully. He is always swimming in the ocean of interpretation and is capable of extracting the pearl of secrets and of ‘light’ and to present it to those who are competent enough to test its genuineness. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
83. “Severance of connection with wealth and property is one of the inferior achievements of an Aarif. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
84. “Love of God transcends and is above all passion for others. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
85. “It amounts to devotion and worship on the part of a son to cast a look on the faces of his parents. All the sins committed by the son who kisses the feet of his parents are extinguished. Khwaja Bayazeed Bustami (may God’s peace and grace be upon him) once said: “Whatever position of distinction I have attained, it is a legacy bestowed upon me by my parents.” “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
86. “There are four cardinal virtues of the individual self, firstly, refraining from begging in the state of penury; secondly, showing the attitude of the well-fed when feeling hungry: thirdly, maintaining cheerfulness in the time of sorrow, and fourthly, befriending the enemy. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
87. “It is a pious act to look at God’s scripture (Quran), greater is the piety in reciting it even if it be but one letter. It will banish ten vices and enable ten virtues being recorded in lieu. It improves the eyesight and will impart immunity to the eyes against all mishaps. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
88. “The mouth of a human being is regarded as sanctified irrespective of his personality, i.e., be it that of a true and faithful Muslim (Momin), or an unbeliever (Kafir), be he purified or impure. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
89. “Realization of God comes to him who keeps vigilance and forgets recollection of ‘self’. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
90. “Love of God transcends and is above all passion for others. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
91. “One of the signs of an Arif is that he remains characteristically smiling at all times. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
92. “For the seer or dervish who follows the true path, it is the greatest sin if his heart does not melt with the fear of God when the name of God is uttered before him, or when Quran is recited before him. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
93. “A devotional approach to the saint and friendship with dervishes attract blessings from the High. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
94. “Concentration on the implications of drawing and discharging breath is a part of the seer’s (Arif’s) worship. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
95. “That man is a true devotee of God who resigns with pleasure to the misfortune that comes from his Beloved (i.e., God). “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
96. “The Almighty God will erect on the Day of Judgment curtains the thickness of which will take 500 years to cross over between the hell and the man who feeds a hungry person. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
97. “The path of Love (of God) is such a path that whoever stepped into it, he lost himself. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
98. “The soul of him who performs ablution before going to bed always soars high in the heaven (Arsh), taking a bird’s eye view of the lower regions. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
99. “The more one learns about the ‘essence of things’ the more one wonders. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
100. “When the river pursues its course, the flow occasions force and noise, but when it ultimately merges into the sea, it rests in supreme peace. The same is true of the individual ‘self-covering various stages on its onward journey to merge itself in the Universal Self. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
101. “Only two things are enough for one desirous of establishing himself on the path of Tariqat:
(1) devotion to and worship of God and
(2) obeying His commandments. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
102. “Just as the sunshine increases gradually in the morning so does the Divine Light expand in one who says Ishraq prayers.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
103. “The Arif or seer is always overhead and ears in the ocean of happiest expectation. If he stands up, the guiding force is the love of the ‘friend’ (God); if he sits down, it is to meditate over His glory and if he sleeps, it is the sweet remembrance of Him which lulls him to rest. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
104. “Even the angels in the heaven pray for him who, having performed his morning Namaaz remains sitting there engaged in the meditation of God. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
105. “The heart of a lover (the true devotee of God) constantly burns with the fire of love so much so that whatever (passion) intrudes upon its sanctity is burnt to ashes. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
106. “Incessant recitation of praise of God (Al-Hamd Sharif or The Deum) is the infallible remedy for the fulfillment of one’s needs. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
107. “Without saying prayer, in other words without performing Namaaz, none can approach God because Namaaz is the climax in the process of such approach for the pious. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
108. “The Arif is defined as one who banishes all thoughts from his mind and indulges in only one pointed meditation of God’s glory in order to acquire nearness with Him and who is Himself One without second. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
109. “The highly prized gift for a dervish is his association with other dervishes, while his greatest loss is to remain away from them. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
110. “When the Aarif meditates over a thing, he attains a state of absorption in which even if thousands of angels assuming wonderful forms try to attract him, he would remain entirely undisturbed for the time being. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
111. “He is an Arif or seer who is visited every day by a hundred thousand flashes of light (inspiration) from the Heaven. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
112. “If all the rules of prayer are not followed properly, it is struck back on the face of him who offers such a prayer (Hadees). “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
113. “A sin committed does not harm an individual so much as the looking down with contempt upon one’s own fellow beings. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
114. “When the Aarif becomes silent it means that he is talking to God, and when he closes his eyes, it means that he is knocking at God’s door. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
115. “Offer your repentance quickly before death arrives and hurry up to perform the Namaaz before its final hour passes. “
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
116. “He indeed is a true devotee, blessed with the love of God, who is gifted with the following three attributes:
(1) River-like charity, i.e., his sense of charity has no limits and is equally beneficial to all the creatures of God who approach him,
(2) Sun-like affection, i.e., his affection may be extended indiscriminately to all like sunlight, and
(3) Earth-like hospitality, i.e., his loving embrace may be open to all like that of the earth.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
117. “Namaaz is like a trust committed to human care by God, and as such it should be zealously guarded. Namaaz is the climax or destination of the faithful, and lastly, Namaaz is the secret relationship existing between the worshipper and the worshipped.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
118. “The best way of evading the fire of hell lies in feeding the hungry, providing water to the thirsty, removing the wants of the needy, and befriending the miserable.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
119. “The resignation of the Arif is indicated in his reposing unflinching faith in the mercy and grace of God and God alone, and that he should not be attracted to anyone else.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
120. “For an Arif, it is an ordinary miracle that he ascends beyond the Heaven by taking only one step and reaches the ‘Veil of Divine Glory’. But God alone knows the secret implications of that stage. He cannot say where it leads him ultimately to, and what he perceives in that mysterious state when he returns.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
121. “To cast a devotional look towards one’s Pir and to serve him faithfully are comparable to the devotion to God.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
122. “It is incumbent on the follower of the path leading to Divinity (Tariqat) that he must first divorce or renounce the physical world, and then the second world thereafter and ultimately his own ‘self (Nafs), when alone he can pursue his right path, failing which he should abandon the enterprise of Sufism.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
123. “Patience is tested through resignation to sorrow, sufferings, and disaster without murmur or disclosing one’s pains to others.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
124. “It amounts to devotion and worship on the part of a son to cast a look on the faces of his parents. All the sins committed by the son who kisses the feet of his parents are extinguished. Khwaja Bayazid Bustami (may God’s peace and grace be upon him) once said, ‘Whatever position of distinction I have attained, it is a legacy bestowed upon me by my parents.'”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
125. “He is the knower of the path of love (of God) who relinquishes an attachment to both the worlds.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
126. “The graveyard is the place for picking up a lesson. In such a solemn surrounding, one should not indulge in laughing or burst into laughter or eat or drink or do any other worldly thing.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
127. “Three things are dearer than all other things in the world. Firstly, the savant who says according to what he has digested; secondly, the person who does not succumb to avarice; and thirdly, the Arif who is always singing the praises and glory of his Beloved (God).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
128. “The test of a true devotee’s mind is that it is always, and to all intents, strictly obedient to the will of God and is constantly afraid of behaving in a manner which is apt to displease Him resulting in the withdrawal of His grace.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
129. “The seer regards death as a friend, luxury as an enemy, and the constant narration or remembrance of God as a glory.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
130. “A sin committed does not harm an individual so much as the looking down with contempt upon one’s own fellow beings.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
131. “There are no rituals or ceremonies to be performed in Sufism, nor are there academical dissertations which may be easily acquired by reading, but according to men who are lovers of God and the Sheikh of Tariqat, Sufism means scrupulously maintained moral behavior which one must observe towards all the creatures of God.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
132. “Knowledge is comprised unto an unfathomable ocean and enlightenment is like a wave in it; then what is the relation of God and man? While the ocean of knowledge is sustained by God alone, the enlightenment pertains to man.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
133. “The estate of a hermit settles upon him who has no earthly belongings which might excite his sense of attachment.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
134. “It is the greatest sin not to perform the obligatory prayer at its proper and appointed time or to say two obligatory prayers simultaneously at one and the same time.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
135. “Those who are true lovers of God give away both of the worlds for the sake of their Beloved and even then, they feel that they have done nothing whatever.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
136.”God rains misfortune and misery upon the heads of those whom He loves.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
137. “The association with the pious and godly persons is better even than doing a good deed, and the association with ungodly and vicious people is worse than doing an evil act.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
138. “According to those well-versed in the doctrines of the seeker of the true path, penitence, or Toba, assumes shape in the combination of three things:
(i) moderation in food with the resolve of fasting.
(ii) moderation in speech in order to save time for singing the praises of the Beloved (God) and
(iii) moderation in sleep in the interest of reserving more time and energy for his devotion.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
139. “Those having insight into the ‘essence of things’ are endowed with light like the sun, and they impart illumination to the whole world.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
140. “A seer of the ‘essence of things’ is characteristically mute and meditative.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
141. “The stage of perfection in the knowledge of the realization of God (Irfaan) is reached when the seer enlightens the hearts of other people with the Divine Light.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
142. “In the matter of realization of God and ‘self’, no distinction is made between an Arif and a Salik; they both reach the same and identical destination.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
143. “By attaining perfection in the observation of Islamic Law (Shariat) through pious conduct, one reaches the stage of the path leading to Divinity (Tariqat), and then onward passes on to enlightenment (Marifat) and lastly to the attainment of the high point of human existence (Haqiqat).”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
144. “For a follower of the path of Truth, it is worse than a sin to disdain or look down upon anyone.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
145. “He is an Arif whom unseen wisdom enlightens to enable him to reveal mysteries to solve all thorny problems and meet all arguments successfully. He is always swimming in the ocean of interpretation and is capable of extracting the pearl of secrets and of ‘light’ and to present it to those who are competent enough to test its genuineness.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
146. “The devotional visit to God’s Kaaba is as good a reward as one thousand years of worship and devotion to God. The piety resulting from the Haj itself is over and above this.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
147. “He is a hardened sinner who commits sin and yet simultaneously entertains the belief that he is one of God’s ‘chosen few’.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
148. “It is an elevated stage on the path leading to the realization of God that the seeker of the goal can witness the Universe and its panorama through his two fingers only.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz
149. “Of all worship, the worship that pleases the Almighty God most is the grant of relief to the humble and the oppressed.”
— Khwaja Gharib Nawaz