The disciple should ever practise the formula: “There is no God except Allâh”—vocally or inaudibly, whether he be alone or in company. Let him not for a moment step out of this fort. The fort is made of the negative “no God” and the affirmative “except Allâh” phrases; and it protects the pilgrim entering therein against the two highway robbers: the desire-nature and Satan. When the disciple unfolds the inner eye in the plane of Unity, he transcends affirmation and denial, as they are inconsistent with Unity. Affirma­tion and denial inhere in the nature of man, and a disciple does not attain to Unity unless he goes beyond human nature. Affirmation and denial are in themselves a form of polytheism, since a valid affirmation and a valid denial each need three elements—the affirmer, the affirma­tion and the affirmed; the denier, the denial and the denied. When a believer in two is a poly­theist, how can a believer in six be a monotheist? When the non-God has no existence, what is to be denied? When thou thyself art not, how canst thou affirm? . . This is the zenith of Unity, and the stage of the Perfect Ones … He who sees with the eye of Unity finds the non-God non-existent. . . .

Whenever Mohammad, transcending the realm of His mission, looked with the inner eye into the realm of Unity, He eagerly and yearningly wished His personality blotted out, the dividing line erased, and the human limitation cast away. But the Compassion of the Beloved would ever intervene, and bring Him back to the realm of His mission for the delivery of the message.—Letter 40.