Knowledge.

Bismi'llah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim...for the sake of Prophet Muhammad saws and Sheikh Nazim may Allah protect his secret.

Sheikh Nazim says that Muhammad pbuh always asked to be increased in knowledge, and that we should do the same.He says that for every knower there is one who knows more.There are endless oceans of knowledge and endless horizons.There is knowledge which is for Allah alone and then there is knowledge for His Prophets, but not for others, and there is knowledge for His saints and then there is knowledge for ordinary people.

Here is a quote on the subject.

"God is knowledge; he is knowing; and he is being known. Since God has knowledge of his own essence, and since God is one, it follows that the essence of God is knowledge. And knowledge means that he knows himself, and is known by himself.-Ibn Sina, "al-Risalat al-Arshiya

Is that knowledge of the essence (which it is prohibited to think about in Islam) the heart of awareness of the Advaita Vedanta tradition? Sat Chit Ananda.Is that essence not our real selves and therefore the meaning of the hadith "Know yourself and you will know your Lord."? Is this not the reason why it is said God created man in His own image? Is this not the secret which Allah put in man .. what He blew into Adam from His Ruh when He created him and what distinguishes us from the animals and the rest of Creation?
Atman and is Brahman and Brahman is Atman ..is that not just another way of saying the same thing which was discovered by the ancients in India?

Be still and know God.

If only we could ..leap that existential barrier, as the Zen masters have been pushing students to do for generations.

But ... somewhere Nisargadatta says ... the only barrier to your self-realisation is ... sin.

Mmmm hmmm ....