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52 AN INTRODUCTION TO SUFI DOCTRINE

individual beings returns to its Divine Source; on
“that day” God alone is “absolute King”: the very
essence of ¢ free-will”, its unconditioned basis, is
thenceforth identified with the Divine Act. In God
alone do freedom, action and truth coincide,! and that
is why some Sufis say that at the Last Judgment beings
will judge themselves in God; this agrees with the
Quranic text which says it is man’s members which
accuse him.

Man is judged according to his essential tendency;
this may be in conformity with the Divine attraction, or
opposed to it or it may be in a state of indecision
between the two directions, and these are respectively
the ways of “those on whom is Thy grace ”’, of * those
who suffer Thy wrath” and of “those who stray”, who
are dispersed in the indefinitude of existence and may
be said to be turning round and round. In speaking of
these three tendencies the Prophet drew a cross: the
“straight way >’ is the ascending vertical; the “Divine
wrath > acts in the opposite direction, and the dispersion
of “those who stray” is in the horizontal direction.

1. Freedom being everywhere what it is, that is, without inner constraint,
it may be said that man is free to damn himself, just as he is free to throw
himself, if he wishes, iato an abyss; but as soon as man passes to ac.ion
freedom becomes illusory in so far as it goes against truth : to cast oneself
voluntarily in:o an abyss is to deprive oneself by the same act of freedom to
act. It is the same for a mn of infernal tendency : he becomes the slave of
his choics, whereas the man of spiritual tendency rises towards a greater
freedom. Again, since the reality of hell is made of illusion—the remoteness
from God can only bz illusory—hell cannot exist eternally beside Bliss,
although it is unable to conceive its own ead, this inability bzing, as it were,
the counterfeit of Eternity in the states of damaation. Thus it is not without
reason that Sufis have insisted oa the relativity of everything created and have
affirmed that after an indefinite duration the fires of heli will grow cold ; all
beines wilt finally be reabsorbed into God. Whatever modern philosophers
may think, there is a contradiction between freedom and the arbitrary; man
is free to choose what s absurd, but inasmuch 2s he chooses it'he is not free.
In the created freedom and action do not coincide.

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