7.) Some
people refer to the spiritual condition of ‘fana’ as being a state or station of
annihilation. Is this the case, and, if so, what is being annihilated?
Use of the
term of ‘annihilation' in conjunction with the spiritual condition of fana is
misleading since nothing of substance actually is destroyed. What disappears is one's
awareness of the false self.
In effect,
one's consciousness is overwhelmed with an awareness of the beauty and majesty of the
Divine Presence. In this awareness, there is no room or place for that which is false,
since, of necessity, the false is bound to perish before the Reality of Divinity.
If Allah
wishes, one of the effects manifested through sincere commitment to the Sufi path is the
transformation of those aspects of the self which are the seat of our tendency to rebel
against the truths of created existence and spiritual reality. When these previously
rebellious facets of ourselves are spiritually transformed by the alchemical properties of
the barakah of Allah, then we come into a condition of purified readiness to receive
whatever Divinity wishes to reveal with respect to the manifestation of the Attributes of
Divine beauty and majesty in varying combinations and modalities.
When these
Divine Realities descend upon the ‘space' which has been prepared in accordance with
our spiritual capacity and station, then our false, illusory consciousness of what we
believed to be a realm of multiplicity recedes, and the experience of the attributive
unity of the Divine Presence comes into ascendency within our awareness. This condition is
known as fana.
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