General Secret of the Sujud

According to the people of gnosticism and of heart, this secret is to be forsaking oneself and closing one's eyes against anything except Him; and, with a Jonahian mi'raj -which took place by sinking into the stomach of the fish -one can pay attention to his origin without seeing the veil. And, in putting the head on the dust, there is a hint at seeing the Beauty of the Beautiful in the inner heart of the dust and the origin of the world of nature.

Its hearty disciplines are to find one's reality and the original root of one's existence, and to place the brain, which is the center of the sovereignty of the soul and the Arsh of the spirit, at the lowest threshold of the State of Holiness, and to consider the world of dust as the threshold of the Master of the Kings.

Thus, the secret of the position of the sujud is to give up oneself, and the discipline of putting the head on the dust is to debase one's most high position, regarding it to be lower than the dust. Should there be in the heart a cause for these claims, in respect of the states of the salat, which are a reference to them, they are, to the people of knowledge, hypocrisy. And, as this state is the most dangerous one, the salik to Allah will have to cling to the skirt of the care of Allah, the Most High, by means of his personal disposition and inmost nature, humbly and servilely asking forgiveness for the shortcomings. But this is a dangerous state which is out of the obligations of people like us.

As we have explained in The Secret of the Salat these states in details, we refrain from repeating them in this thesis, satisfying ourselves with relating the hadith narrated in Misbahush-Sharai `ah concerning the relevant discipline.

* Book: Adabus Salat "The Disciplines of the Prayer". By: Imam Khomeini.