Lamp and Moth: Two Paths of Divine Love - August 28, 1997

It is a warm Friday evening, 28 August 1997. A circle of seekers sits in quiet zikr as Shaykh Abu Anees Muhammad Barkat Ali (قَدَّسَ اللّهُ سِرَّه الْعَزِيز) opens a simple image—shama and parwana, lamp and moth—and turns it into a map of the heart. He invites the listeners to watch the moths: one dances around the naked flame, intoxicated yet safe; another throws itself into the fire and is consumed. Through this ancient poetic simile the Shaykh unfolds a living story about love that is both gift and test. We move with him into the truth that love is not our invention but a bestowal from Allah. The account is intimate and exacting: early love keeps two selves intact—lover and beloved—making admiration possible but incomplete. What is offered next is a perilous grace: annihilation. The Shaykh traces the path in stages—fana fi Shaykh, fana fi Rasul, and finally fana fi Allah—showing how the seeker must first surrender to a perfected guide, then be led through the Prophet’s presence, until only the Beloved remains. Each stage is told like a scene: the singing bird that cannot reach the ocean of union, the seeker who slips into the Shaykh’s shadow and loses the ‘I’, the astonishing moment when all of humanity seems to dissolve and only the beloved’s light remains. Along the way the Shaykh teaches adab (etiquette), warns against proud claims of love, and reminds us that true devotion is earned, given, and often hidden until God chooses to unveil it. The narrative deepens into a reflection on creation: why love a being that dies? The Shaykh answers with another image—the sugar hidden in a jar—urging listeners to seek the Maker within the made. The final counsel is precise and urgent: die before your death. To die to self is to discover the hidden Treasure. This episode reads like a parable and a manual, drawing listeners into a journey of heart and surrender, urging them to return again and again to these words until the flame has done its work.