Faith Friday: Be Like an Ocean

Arabian Gulf, Qatar, 2011
Allah Most High bestows His mercy, compassion and grace upon the one who learns and acts with good intention. He brings him close by raising his level. He is pleased with him; He forgives his faults. 
When one is lifted to that level, one's heart becomes like an ocean. 
The shape and colour of that ocean do not change with the little cruelty and torment that men drop into it. The blessed Prophet (peace be upon him) says, "Be like an ocean whose appearance does not change, but in which the dark soldiers of your ego drown" — as the Pharaoh and his armies drown in the Red Sea. 

On that ocean, the ship of religion floats safe and sound; it sails upon that great ocean. The spirit of the one in seclusion dives into its depths to find the pearl of truth, brings to the surface pearls of wisdom and corals of grace, and spreads them abroad. 
Allah says, "Out of them come pearls and coral." {Surah ar-Rahman, 55:22}
To contain such an ocean, your appearance must be the same as your being; what you are must be the same as what you appear to be. Your exterior and interior states must be one. When this happens, there is no duplicity, sedition or disorder in the ocean of the heart. No storm or mischief can brew in that calm sea. 
The one who attains that state is in a state of complete repentance; his knowledge is vast and beneficent, his acts are all service to others, his heart does not flow to evil. If he errs or forgets, he is forgiven, for he remembers when he forgets and repents when he errs. He is in the proximity of his Lord and of himself. 
— excerpt from 'On Withdrawing from the World', The Secret of Secrets, Hadrat Abdul Qadir al-Jilani (may God have mercy on his soul)