An Obstacle in the
Path of God-Realization

A certain American scholar having studied Islam, once wrote a book on the subject in which he observed that the greatest concern of Islam was Allah.

This is one hundred percent true. The door to realization is open only for one who makes the one God his sole concern. This being so, the greatest obstacle in the path of realization is man’s failure to make God his sole concern. As far as the realization of God is concerned this is undoubtedly the most important thing.

In essence, one who makes something his sole concern never allows his attention to deviate from that thing. He goes to bed thinking about it and he gets up in the morning thinking the same thoughts.

That thing so dominates his mind that almost all other things get eliminated from his consciousness. Man thinks on that same topic. He speaks with others on that same topic. He reads about that same topic and he has discussions about that same topic, to this extent that his heart and mind find solace only by delving further into that same topic. He thinks of it both when he is alone and when he is in public, he does not fail to mention it whatever the occasion.

This is what it means to make something one’s sole concern. The person who makes God his sole concern is destined to experience the realization of God. One who is not able to make God his sole concern will certainly never attain to the realization of God. It does not matter whether or not he repeats God’s name on the beads of his rosary.

The real obstacle to the attainment of realization is man’s holding something else to be greater than God. Considering someone greater is sometimes done consciously and sometimes unconsciously, but the result is the same, that is, failure to arrive at the high realization of God. Any man or woman who desires to have an elevated realization of God shall have to pay this price of diverting his or her attention away from all other things and making the one God his or her only concern. In reality, it is a psychological sacrifice. Only one who is capable of making this sacrifice shall receive that divine blessing which is known as maarifah, or realization.