“Those who support ‘duality’ (fragmenting existence; assuming there is a God AND there is everything ELSE) are contaminated!”
“Those who have not cleansed themselves of the contamination (of duality; the idea that there is a God and there is also me) shall not touch it (the knowledge – Quran… for they cannot understand it!)”
“Indeed, duality (assuming the existence of ‘others’ that are ‘apart’ from the One denoted by name Allah) is a grave atrocity!”
“Duality is the only offence that Allah will definitely not forgive; everything else may be forgiven if He wishes to!”
Those who want to be free of duality are encouraged to believe in the One denoted by the name Allah.
The Quran explains the two stages of believing in Allah as:
A. To believe in Allah (including faith in Allah with duality)
B.To believe in Allah in accord with the meaning of the letter ‘B’.
The former elucidates the need to cleanse from the explicit notion of duality resulting from the illusion of an external God.
The latter, entails the pure belief that is free of even implicit duality which is the coverttendency of doing shirq by equating one’s ego or assumed self to one’s Rabb (the al-Asma, i.e. the Reality of the Names that constitute one’s essential Reality).
Let us see how the paramount knowledge of reality revealed through Sufism (tasawwuf), to which many people scoff at, explains the misconception of implicit duality and how this topic is covered in the Quran:
This is directly from Hamdi Yazir’s translation (the international Sahih translation has been used here). Notice that the verse isn’t addressing the past, but it is talking directly to Rasulullah Muhammad (SAW) about the faith of the people around him at that time:
“That is from the news of the unseen which We reveal, [O Muhammad], to you. And you were not with them when they put together their plan while they conspired.
And most of the people, although you strive [for it], are not believers.
And you do not ask of them for it any payment. It is not except a reminder to the worlds.
And how many a sign within the heavens and earth do they pass over while they, therefrom, are turning away.
And most of them believe not in Allah except while they associate others with Him.” (Quran 12:102-107)
Now, let’s remember the very important verse and warning that made me write the book Mind and Faith – Chapter 4 (Nisa): 136 verse is revealed to Muhammad (SAW) and is in reference to the believers around him:
‘O you who have believed; Aminu B’illahi’ That is, ‘O you have believed, believe in Allah in accord with the meaning of the B sign.’
What does this mean?
It means: Among all the worlds that are constituted by the meanings of the names of Allah, your reality, existence, and being also comprise the Names of Allah. Your Rabb, your very Reality is the al-Asma (the Names). Therefore, neither you nor anything else around you is anything other than the manifestations of these Names. So do not be of those who fail to see this non-dual reality, and who give a separate existence to things (like God) they believe is ‘other’ than Allah. Such duality will only result in burning, both in this life and the next.
However, the eight verse of the 2nd Chapter (Baqarah) asserts the inability of the masses to conceive such truths as their manifestation (as the composition of the Names) is not as intellectuals:
“And of the people are some who say, ‘We believe in Allah (in accord with the meaning of the B sign) and the Last Day,’ but they are not believers (in accord with the meaning of the B sign).”
Hence, dismissing the eminent meaning entailed by the letter B simply as ‘implicit duality’ and not giving it the attention it deserves, has inevitable spawned the ‘God up in the heavens, and me on earth’ misconception, resulting at the point it has come to today.
Whereas…
The invalidity of duality has been made evident right from the very first letter; the letter B, of the first verse (chapter) called the ‘Basmalah.’ This truth, concealed by many Quran scholars due to the conditionings they receive throughout their training, was first made apparent by Hadhrat Ali approximately 1400 years ago.
Hadhrat Ali, the zenith of sainthood, pointed to this truth, considered to be a secret in his time, with his words:
“The secret of the Quran is in al-Fatiha (the opening chapter), the secret of al-Fatiha is in the B-ismillah, and the secret of the B-ismillah is in the letter B (ب). I am the POINT beneath the ‘B’ (ب)!”
This truth to which Hadhrat Ali was pointing, plays a key role in the Quran as a symbol of warning, initially encountered as the letter B, the first letter of the first verse ‘B-ismillah’, and then throughout the whole Quran.