hearings arise in their innermost secrets as the words arise. This is His saying: “No newly arisen reminder comes to them from their Lord without their listening to it” [al-Anbiyāʾ 21:2]. Some turn away after listening, while others remain with what they have heard. This is a station that not everyone knows. There is nothing else in existence, yet it is unrecognized and unknown.
It pertains to the names of God Most High in their multiplicity. Each name has a tongue; each tongue has speech; and for every utterance there is a hearing on our part. The entity of speaker and listener is one. If it is a call, we answer and comply. It is part of His speech when He says to us: “Call upon Me; I will answer you” [Ghāfir 40:60]. Just as He spoke and we listened, when He placed the power of speech in us He commanded us to speak, so that He, Most High, would hear.
Some of us speak through Him, as in the saying: “God said upon the tongue of His servant, ‘God hears whoever praises Him.’” All the speech of the possessor of this station is on another’s behalf. Some speak through themselves, as they imagine, although in reality it is otherwise. God is at the tongue of every speaker. Just as there is none in existence but God, so there is no speaker or listener but God.
Just as we divided our speech between those who speak through God and those who speak through themselves, so too with our listening. Some of us hear through their Lord, as in His saying: “I am his hearing through which he hears.” Others hear through themselves, as they imagine, although the matter is otherwise. This is divine listening, and it pervades all audible things.
(Spiritual Listening)
As for spiritual listening, its object is the scratching of the divine pens upon the Tablet of Existence, preserved
