I cannot tell you to leave the means of making a living or to stay away from trade and crafts. This is your livelihood. Only observe Allah’s rights and wrongs when doing these things.

Again, I cannot tell you to ignore your family and relatives, only to make sure that they do not take your focus away from Allah. I cannot tell you not to dress well, only urge that you do not do this to show off or claim superiority against the poor who cannot do that. Do not dress up to flaunt your body. This may lead you to falling into the pit of vanity. Otherwise, act basically according to the ayat (verse), “Qul man harrama ziynatallahillati akhraja li ibadihi wattayyibati minal rizq.” (“Say, who forbids adornments and good nourishment that Allah produced for his servants.”) (Sura A’raf 7:32) It is not forbidden to dress well and eat delicious food, but it is advised that you do not focus on them and fall into ghafla.

Clean and tidy up your hearts. This is much better than concentrating on outer garments. Allah’s gaze is not at your garments, but into your heart.

Do not fall into the bala (calamity; misfortune; trial) of vanity; know that pride and haughtiness are invitations for destruction. There is no way to the proximity of Allah for those who see everyone else lower and themselves higher. We are all poor creatures of Allah. Our beginning is a secretion considered a pollutant and our end is a rotting corpse, also considered a pollutant. The honor of our materiality is with aql (intelligence; mind; the power of understanding and discrimination). Aql is considered aql if it can take its nafs under control and keep it from transgressing the limits; otherwise it cannot be called “aql.” It happens like that in gemstones as well. A person without aql is left in a state of impurity without a gem in him, and this way he cannot proceed to a spiritual level or deserve a maqam (station; spiritual level).

What aql is supposed to do is save a person from ananiya (egotism). If it cannot save him from false claims, that aql loses its level of highness.

Knowing that we are created from earth and will go back into earth, the course we should take has to be one that is befitting the “between the beginning and the end” condition we are in. The divine preacher is present in each Muslim’s heart. If a person does not have preaching and advice from himself to himself, he will not benefit from any advice given to him by anyone else. How can the one who is unaware benefit from admonishment?

Please get your share of the advice that I am giving. “Whoever hides what he knows of the beneficial ilm will have a bridle of fire put on him on the Judgment Day.” Because I overpowered my nafs, it did not transgress. My person is happy now. When you, too, overpower your nafs and stop worrying about money, ancestral lineage, honor, property and possessions, you will be happy as well. My appeal to you is that if you do not check your nafs in every breath, they will not add you into the book of Insan-i Kamil (True or Mature Human Being in the intended sense by Allah).

When Allah sees that one of His servants is fit for love, He shows him his state of incompleteness and puts compassion and softness for all creation in his heart. He gets him used to being generous, his hand to being giving and his heart to being merciful. To make him abhor his nafs, He shows him his indecencies and makes his nafs lowly in his eyes.

Arifs (knowers, in the spiritual or inner sense) are in a constant state of melancholy, while the common people are joyful. But they [arifs] never fall into grief and they live a surrendered life. They speak less, cry a lot, laugh little and they want nothing but their real Beloved. They value nothing or hold nothing in importance except the annihilation of their indecencies and sins.

— excerpt from El Burhan ul Mueyyed (Confirmed Miracles), translated by Shaykh Taner Ansari