d highest class is that of the fully initiated who have
passed through the stages above-mentioned, and whose minds are closed to
everything except God. Such an one is wholly denuded of self, so that he
no longer knows his own experiences and practices, and, as though with
senses sealed, sinks into the ocean of the contemplation of God. This
condition the Sufis characterise as self-annihilation (Fana).

But he who is bereft of self-consciousness is none the less aware of
what is without him; it is as if his consciousness were withdrawn from
everything but the one object of contemplation, _i.e._, God. While he
who is completely absorbed in the contemplation of the object seen is as
little capable of theorising regarding the act of contemplation as
regarding the eye, the instrument of sight, or the heart, the seat of
joyful emotion. Just in the same way a drunken man is not conscious of
his intoxication, so he who is drowned in joy knows nothing of joy
itself, but only knows what causes it. Such a condition of mind may
occur with regard to created things as well as with regard to the
Creator Himself, only in the latter case it is like a flash of
lightning, without permanence. Could such a condition of the soul last
longer, it would be beyond the power of human nature to endure and would
end in overwhelming it. So it is related of Taury that once in a meeting
he heard this verse recited:--

In my love to Thee I attained to a height where to tread
causes the senses to reel.

He immediately fell into an ecstatic condition and ran into a field
where the newly-cut stubble cut his feet like knives. Here he ran about
all night till the morning, and a few days afterwards died.

In this highest condition of ecstasy the soul is to be compared to a
clear mirror, which, itself colourless, reflects the colours of the
object seen in it. Or to a crystal, whose colour is that of the object
on which it stands or of the fluid which it contains. Itself colourless,
it has the property of transmitting colours. This exposition of Sufistic
ecstasy by Ghazzali shows that in his time, far from being on the wane,
such phenomena were on the increase. For when a man of such
comprehensive mind, such a deep thinker, so well versed in the knowledge
of men and especially of his fellow-Moslems, speaks so plainly and
without doubt upon the matter and seeks to explain it psychologically,
this idea must have already taken deep root and spread wide