The most excellent of those who perform good deeds are those who most often remember God in all situations.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and spiritual awareness in performing good deeds.
Ibn Ata Allah's quote suggests that the highest form of goodness is not merely in actions themselves, but in the awareness of a higher power while performing those actions. It implies that true excellence in doing good comes from a consistent remembrance of God, regardless of the circumstances one finds themselves in, thereby elevating the quality and intention behind each deed.
In practice
During a sermon about the importance of spirituality in daily life.
Whosoever is determined to seek guidance and follow a path of right conduct must search for a shaykh from amongst those who have realization, one who follows a path methodically, who has abandoned his passions, and who has firmly established his feet in the service of his Lord.
Actions are but lifeless forms whose soul is the secret of sincerity in them
Extinction is the beginning of the path: it is traveling to God Most High. Guidance comes afterwards. What I mean by guidance is the guidance of God, as described by the Friend of God, Abraham: "Lo! I am going unto my Lord Who will guide me."
God Most High has said, "Is the reward of virtue aught save virtue?" . . . Know, O man, that the covenant of servanthood is incumbent upon you, and that the covenant of Lordship is incumbent upon His magnanimity, as He Most High has said, ". . . and fulfill your covenant, I shall fulfill My covenant."
. . . persist in that invocation until the unity of the world is subsumed for you in a single sphere, so that with the eye of your heart you will see naught in the two worlds save the One.
If you do not think well of Him because His qualities are beautiful then think well of Him because of the way He treats you.
To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
Perhaps loneliness had nothing to do with place or circumstance; perhaps it was in you; yourself. Perhaps, wherever you were, you took your little circle of loneliness with you.
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their society.
There can't be a pure myth, especially when the myth has been handed down in the oral tradition. As the stories are told, they change. If the stories don't change they just die.
No one is ever satisfied where he is.
It is very significant that some of the most thoughtful and cultured men are partisans of a pure vegetable diet
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