He set in it unshakables from above it and He blessed it. In form the unshakable mountains are the pegs of the earth, but in reality the friends are the pegs of the earth. It is through their blessing that rain comes from heaven and plants from the earth, and through their supplicating God trial is repelled from the people. The mountains are the pegs of the earth in terms of form, but God's friends are the pegs of the earth in terms of reality. The arrangement of the work of the world is tied to the towering mountains, but the straightness of the states and means of people in terms of meaning is tied to the blessedness and supplication of the friends. In body they are present with the people, but in heart they are absent from the people and present with the Real. Abū Yazīd BasṬāmī said, “It is forty years that I have not spoken to anyone. Whatever I have said, I have said to the Real, and whatever I have heard, I have heard from the Real.” It is from here that MuṣṬafā said, “I spend the night at my Lord; He gives me to eat and drink.” He was present with the people in his person for the sake of discharging the Shariah and expanding the creed, but in his secret core he was with the Real because of the overpowering force of love and the continuity of contemplation. When love overpowers, the lover does not become separate from the beloved. Master Abu ʿAlī Daqqāq said, “Paradise has no business with me, and hell has nothing to do with me, for there is nothing in my heart but joy in the Real's subsistence.” Whatever is other than the Friend, break its snare! Whatever is other than passion, name it “sorrow”! * In my love for Buthayna I desired that we two be alone on a raft in the ocean.