As-Salaam alaikum,
They told you to say it, but did you ever stop and let it say you? - 'La ilaha illallah': You recited it a thousand times, but have you ever let it destroy you, because this is not a phrase. It is an explosion, a fire meant to burn away every idol inside you. Sheikh Ibn Arabi, may Allah sanctify his secret, said to say 'La ilaha' is to erase the illusion, to say 'illallah is to return to the only Real. So, the question isn't have you said it? The question has it undone you yet?
They told you 'La ilaha illallah' means there is no god but God, but they didn't tell you that the first half, 'La ilaha is meant to hurt. It is not polite, it is not peaceful, it is a blade.... a sacred denial, a demolition of everything you ever trusted, because La ilaha doesn't just say there is no god .... it says there is no you, no certainty, no meaning outside of what is real.
Ibn Arabi said the first word of the [Kalimat] Shahada is not affirmation, it is negation. You cannot know the One until you say goodbye to all false ones - and who are the false ones: the god of status, the god of control, the god of been seen, wanted, praised, the god of your own idea of god.
To say La-ilaha is to tear down the alter of ego and stand inside the rubble, trembling. This is why one can say it with the tongue for years and never feel a thing, because they never meant it, they never let it burn. 'La-ilaha' is not a phrase, it is a funeral, a letting go of all the names you whispered at night that were never His.
So, when you say it again next time, don't chant it, don't perform it - stand in it, let it collapse you, let it make room for the only Name that remains. After the fire of 'La-ilaha, what's left? Silence, ashes, space - And then 'illallah .... not a concept, not even a comfort but a pulse of Reality that was always there, waiting under the rubble of your illusions. Ibn Arabi said the Real does not enter where the false still resides. illallah is not just the second half of a sentence, it is the breath after drowning, the light after blindness, the knowing after unknowing. It doesn't replace the false gods; it makes them irrelevant.
They told you to say it, but did you ever stop and let it say you? - 'La ilaha illallah': You recited it a thousand times, but have you ever let it destroy you, because this is not a phrase. It is an explosion, a fire meant to burn away every idol inside you. Sheikh Ibn Arabi, may Allah sanctify his secret, said to say 'La ilaha' is to erase the illusion, to say 'illallah is to return to the only Real. So, the question isn't have you said it? The question has it undone you yet?
They told you 'La ilaha illallah' means there is no god but God, but they didn't tell you that the first half, 'La ilaha is meant to hurt. It is not polite, it is not peaceful, it is a blade.... a sacred denial, a demolition of everything you ever trusted, because La ilaha doesn't just say there is no god .... it says there is no you, no certainty, no meaning outside of what is real.
Ibn Arabi said the first word of the [Kalimat] Shahada is not affirmation, it is negation. You cannot know the One until you say goodbye to all false ones - and who are the false ones: the god of status, the god of control, the god of been seen, wanted, praised, the god of your own idea of god.
To say La-ilaha is to tear down the alter of ego and stand inside the rubble, trembling. This is why one can say it with the tongue for years and never feel a thing, because they never meant it, they never let it burn. 'La-ilaha' is not a phrase, it is a funeral, a letting go of all the names you whispered at night that were never His.
So, when you say it again next time, don't chant it, don't perform it - stand in it, let it collapse you, let it make room for the only Name that remains. After the fire of 'La-ilaha, what's left? Silence, ashes, space - And then 'illallah .... not a concept, not even a comfort but a pulse of Reality that was always there, waiting under the rubble of your illusions. Ibn Arabi said the Real does not enter where the false still resides. illallah is not just the second half of a sentence, it is the breath after drowning, the light after blindness, the knowing after unknowing. It doesn't replace the false gods; it makes them irrelevant.
