The One who administers at the level of acts, is the One who forms the level of acts; Allah, the Absolute Being! Because He forms the level of Acts and is the Absolute Administrator of it, He takes the name Rabb.

Rabb means the administrator, trainer, discipliner. But this is nothing like a mother disciplining her child, or a teacher training his student - this kind of approach is like a quicksand. It will only bog you down further into the pit of duality – the dualistic conception of “me and the one who trains and disciplines me… me and a god outside of me…” etc.

So how are we to understand the disciplinary role of the word Rabb?

RABB means the owner of the station of Rububiyyah, which is the compositional qualities denoted by the Names comprising existence and the manifestation of their effects.

When we look at it from this point of view, we will see that your Rabb is no other than the Name composition/divine qualities comprising your essence. However, these divine names express themselves through you in the form of compositions, and this compositional structure is your unique constitution as an individual.

Indeed, in respect to your compositional constitution, the names comprising your essence and their specific proportions, you are a servant of your Rabb. In respect of the attributes of your being and your absolute essence you are not different to or separate from Allah. 

Once you get to know your essence and your attributes, you will see that all of the meanings that manifest through you are the results of the divine names, and that’s when the path to knowing thyself will be opened to you. Then you will begin to know yourself in terms of your essential being and as the various forms and meanings in existence. 

Knowing one’s Rabb is knowing ‘man’ in terms of his compositional constitution.

It is the administration and ruling of Allah that is in full effect behind the seeming form of every human being.

Your Rabb is your unique composition of the Names and meanings of Allah!

Your Rabb and my Rabb are both different and the same! They are different in regard to their compositional constitution, but they are the same in respect to their essence, the essential reality of their compositions. 

He who knows his Rabb knows Allah, in regard to His names and meanings. That is, he will know Allah at the level of the Names. However, the name Allah is the totality of all of the levels; Absolute Essence, Attributes, Names, Acts, etc. So, when you know your Rabb you know Allah at the level of the Names.

Even though the meanings of the Names belong to that Essence, you can observe that essence behind the curtain of the Names.

But how about knowing this Essence at the level of the Attributes rather than watching behind the curtain of the Names?

As long as you are confined to your compositional boundary and conditioning, even though you may know your essence at the level of the Attributes you will never go any further than just knowing.

Indeed, he who knows his Rabb knows Allah!

Knowing your Rabb doesn’t free you from hell! You must go beyond just knowing; you must overcome the boundaries of your Rabb, i.e. your compositional make-up!

But this is only possible through first knowing your Rabb, then knowing the One denoted by the name Allah, and escaping the limits of your Rabb in compliance with the commands of Allah.

Thus, to become “moralized with the morals of Allah” is to observe and witness that within your constitution and essential reality, there is no other than Allah, and that all the divine names that are manifest in the domain of Acts are in perfect balance, perfect state, and everything is exactly the way it is intended to be.

This observation is only possible after foregoing your delusional individuality, your relative illusory identity, and your sense of “I”.

You must witness that there is no other existence besides that of Allah… You must be freed of your delusive conception of ‘others’ spawned from your conditioned sensory perception, the limited five senses.

You must see that the entire existence is a single wholeness. When someone speaks of the One, the Absolute Reality, you must see that One within your own being. Only then you can experience the reality. Otherwise it is merely knowing, learning, accepting and imitating, no application and experience!

To experience this, to feel this, to observe this at the level of acts, the illusory identity, the ‘person’ must dissolve! There is no other way around it!

Once the ‘inexistence’ of the person is understood with certainty, all of the attributes, the temperament, the personal nature pertaining to that program also dissolves.

But without this liberty one cannot experience “unity”. First cleanse yourself from your ego-identity, then the meanings of the Names will express themselves through you as actions. 

What do we mean by cleansing?

Essentially there is nothing to cleanse, as it doesn’t exist in the first place!

The purpose of cleansing yourself from your ego is to balance the meanings that you express. To strengthen the weak expressions and lessen the forceful ones. When the heavy forceful meanings are lessened, you make room for newer expressions to come through!

For example, stinginess is an attribute resulting from the weak expression of a particular meaning. So, when this weak expression is strengthened the resulting output, in this case ‘stinginess’ is lifted, the person is cleansed from this attribute. In fact, as it strengthens, the opposite quality is produced and the person becomes very benevolent, giving and philanthropic… This process is achieved with the practice of dhikr. Dhikr intercepts the automated brain program and re-programs it.

So how do we express our inactive dormant qualities, strengthen the weak ones, and balance the deficiencies to allow new expressions to take place?

How to become moralized with the morals of Allah?

There are two ways:

1. From the outside in

2. From the inside out

The first is relatively easier to achieve. The most effective way is to find someone, a master, who has already achieved this, and submit to him. Constantly following his orders, doing things that go against your comfort zone, conditionings and egoistic tendencies allows one to move to a higher more refined level. Consequently, new meanings will begin to reveal and express themselves.

“The hue of Allah! And what can be better than being colored with the hue of Allah?”[1]

The second way is much harder to achieve. One must have a very comprehensive and deep contemplative intellectual ability. So that through extensive research and study he can discover the meanings within his essence and take their hue and hence be colored with the hue of Allah. 

In order to know thyself, one must first discover and understand the meanings of the known names of Allah and then the infinite unknown names within his own essence…

Any and every action done without consciously knowing why, how and for what purpose it is done, is the outcome of your ‘nature’, based on your ‘program’. And every counter action of a behavior you put forth as your nature, will lead to suffering. 

The individual Hell is nothing other than the state of being stuck within the stifling boundaries of one’s nature, temperament, conditioning, personality, ego-identity! These constitute the fuel of hellfire. When you act according to someone’s make up and temperament you are only fueling their hellfire. Yet due to their programming, they will actually take pleasure in it! 

On the other hand, when you invite them to an area that is outside their comfort zone - their deeply ingrained identity program- and ask them to accept certain things that go against their set ways, even though they may at first be extremely discomforted by this, eventually when they start accepting it with tolerance and grace they will have entered the state of paradise. For when one reaches the station of acceptance all suffering will end.

Anything that gives one a sense of internal burning, leads them into a state of suffering or depression is undoubtedly conflicting with their ego-identity and nature, that is, the essential reality of the person is overshadowed by and repressed by these programs.

If and when he can overcome these limitations, he will be free from all suffering and classify as one of “those who are freed from hell while in this world”. Otherwise his suffering will not end for a very very long time, neither in this world nor in the hereafter.

The grace and blessings of Allah and the intervention of the Rasul of Allah (saw) is the progression from the state of being the “servant of one’s Rabb” to being the “servant of Allah”. That is the evolution from the dependency on one’s compositional limitations, the restriction of his personality and programming, to reaching and experiencing his infinite limitless Self. It is the divine invitation to be freed of one’s illusory restraints and experience his authentic reality.

If Allah wills for his servant to taste the grace of infinity, He will allow him to be freed of his captivity to his ego-identity conditioned self, i.e. annihilate his illusory personality (“die before death”) and allow him to unite with his essential Self! Thence the servant will unite with Allah!