What is the single most important point that must be
understood by a person who wants to know?

It is that there is only One, Unique, absolute, infinite Existence. It must be more than an idea. One has to be so completely certain of it that one adopts it through reason and intuition as the basic unshakable fact of one's existence.

When it is like that in one's existence then every possible ramification that occurs to one is seen as not being outside The Existence, but as being an aspect of it.

Accept and completely adopt the idea that there is only the Unique, Absolute Existence, apart from which there is not. Then constantly, or as much as possible, keep it in mind. Then, as only He can adopt such an idea, you disappear in the face of the awareness of this idea (which is Him in any case who else could think of it?). Then your consciousness of this idea is your consciousness of His Existence; His consciousness of Himself. Then where are you? You never were.

He shows you He is yourself, then bit by bit He shows you how He is all that there is. These showings are His caprices, until all exterior existence is known as Him. He shows you He is you, then shows you (Himself) that all else is Him.

ln the instant, all so called progress is annihilated in Him.

Bulent Rauf (d.1987) was the president of the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society, the translator of several works of Ibn 'Arabi (Fusus al Hikam, The Kernel of the Kernel, etc.), and author, teacher and lecturer.