The exaltation (tasbih) of every manifestation of a Name, every divine reflection is its materialization and the purpose behind its creation. If you are of the qualified you will try to discern this. The Rabb is the Creator of the reflections that He wills to reflect.
It’s important to note that in the attempt to describe the mufarridoon it is not said they engage in exaltation (tasbih) or that they are patient or that they engage in hamd, but rather that "they remember (dhikr) Allah frequently.”
“Remember Allah while standing, sitting, or (lying) on your sides (i.e. experience Him in your being at all times)...”[1]
The exaltation of creation in general is different to that of man. This one is in reference to man as evident in the following verse:
“Indeed, we offered the Trust (living consciously of the Names) to the heavens (consciousness of the self, ego) and the earth (the body) and the mountains (the organs), and they declined to bear it (their Name compositions did not have the capacity to manifest it) and feared it; but Man (the consciousness to manifest the Names that compose vicegerency) undertook to bear it…”[2]
The effect of dhikr changes according to the state and elevation of the people. In the beginning it is done as mere vocal repetitions, but after some time it becomes the practice of the heart, rather than the tongue. In other words ‘contemplative dhikr’ is the first step of real dhikr, the stages prior to this serve as steps leading here.
Here are some hadith relevant to this topic:
“An hour of contemplation is better than a year of worship.”
“An hour of contemplation is better than seventy years of worship.”
“An hour of contemplation is better than a thousand years of worship.”[3]
When a person begins to contemplate he leaves this world… After this, his dhikr derives from the unknown (observing the Names in terms of their essence)… He no longer has any ties to the afterlife.
After this stage, ‘hidden’ (hafi) dhikr begins! Here, contemplation is even isolated from the meanings of the Names. This is the station of Absolute Oneness, Absolute Inseparableness that is contemplated and observed.
The station after this is that of the even more hidden (ahfa) dhikr. Neither words nor the pen has the power to say anything about this station. The Rabb knows it. It is with the Rabb, from the Rabb. It is the Rabb!
When a person begins to engage in the remembrance with the spiritual state of this mystery, it means he becomes wrapped with the veil of the Rabb. This is the kind of contemplation that the Rasul (saw) claims is better than a thousand years of worship. The other hadith are in relevance to the stages before this. As Bayazid al-Bastami said: “When I was at the beginning of the journey they called me ‘devout’; when I neared the end they called me ‘an atheist’!”
Be aware that it is crucially important not to abandon the physical-external aspect of the commands, for the Rasul of Allah (saw) never did! There is important scientific truth in the recommended practices of worship, which I have covered in The Mystery of Man.
Those who call Bayazid an atheist are like people who have a Geiger counter, a handheld device that measures radioactivity, trying to measure the radioactivity of a massive field, but the counter shows only a bunch of zeroes. Hence they deduce, ‘There is no radioactive material here”. But one among them who knows better says, “Perhaps there is radiation here, but at a level a lot higher than we assume. We may need a stronger device.” So they update their