Mansur

Shri Nathji also tells the story of the legendary saint Mansoor who was beheaded because he frequently said:

“Anal Haq”–“I am God.”

Shri Nathji concluded:

“It was not the voice of Mansoor that said ‘Anal Haq’-‘I am God’. The self or ‘I’ of Mansoor had been annihilated. It would have been wrong for Mansoor to have said that his limited self was God.

“Mansoor had so lost himself in God-consciousness and become so merged in God, that his own voice had been stilled, and the voice that came from him proclaiming: ‘I am God’ was not the voice of Mansoor–but rather the voice of God!”

Shri Nathji was fond of quoting the Persian verse of Mansoor:

“'Man nami goyam Anal-Haq yaar mi goyad bigo

Choon naa goyam bar sare bazaar mi goyad bigo'

 It is not I who says ‘I am God’, it is my Friend that makes me say so,

Why then should I not declare it openly in the bazaar!”

Shri Nathji had composed this beautiful couplet on the beheading of Mansoor:

“Zarre zarre kee zubaan par hai Anal Haq kee sadaa

Hazrate Mansoor par kab khatam ye aavaaz hai

“Each and every particle cries out: ‘I am God’

The voice did not end with Mansoor”

Shri Nathji had another beautiful illustration on the same theme:

 "Samundar men katraa fanaa ho gayaa

Fanaa ho ke laa-intahaa ho gayaa"

The drop of water perished in the Ocean

And perishing, it became of Infinite Dimensions.

 
“When a drop of water falls into the ocean, for a very brief moment it retains its individuality–the roundness of its shape–but after that it dissolves and mingles into the ocean. The voice that says: ‘I am the Ocean’ is not the voice of the drop, but rather the voice of the Ocean!”

“When man has obliterated his ego and has become absorbed in God-consciousness, the voice that speaks through him and says ‘I am God’ is not his own, but rather the voice of God.”

Mansur al-Hallaj whose full name was Abū al-Muġīṭ Husayn Manṣūr al-Ḥallāğ (born -  858; died - March 26, 922) was a Persian mystic, revolutionary writer and teacher of Sufism, most famous for his poetry, accusation of heresy and for his execution at the orders of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Muqtadir after a long, drawn-out investigation.

Al-Hallaj was born in Fars province of Persia to a cotton-carder. His grandfather was a Zoroastrian. As a youngster he memorized the Qur'an and would often retreat from worldly pursuits to join other mystics in study. Al-Hallaj was originally a Hanbali Sufi Muslim and later turned to be a Qarmatian Batiniyya.

Al-Hallaj later married and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, where he stayed for one year, facing the mosque, in fasting and total silence. After his stay at the city, he traveled extensively and wrote and taught along the way. He traveled as far as India, China and Central Asia gaining many followers, many of whom accompanied him on his second and third trips to Mecca. After this period of travel, he settled down in  Baghdad.

Among other Sufis, Al-Hallaj was an anomaly. Many Sufi masters felt that it was inappropriate to share mysticism with the masses, yet Al-Hallaj openly did so in his writings and through his teachings. He thus began to make enemies. This was exacerbated by occasions when he would fall into trances which he attributed to being in the presence of God.

During one of these trances, he would utter  Anā l-Ḥaqq "I am The Truth, " which was taken to mean that he was claiming to be God, since al-Ḥaqq "the Truth" is one of the Ninety Nine Names of Allah. In another controversial statement, al-Hallaj claimed "There is nothing wrapped in my turban but God, " and similarly he would point to his cloak and say, Mā fī jubbatī illā l-Lāh "There is nothing in my cloak but God." This type of mystical utterance is known as shath.

Statements like these led to a long trial, and his subsequent imprisonment for 11 years in a Baghdad prison. He was publicly executed on March 26, 922.

 Hallaj wrote many works in both prose and poetry. His best known written work is the Kitab al-Tawasin, which includes two brief chapters devoted to a dialogue of Satan (Iblis) and God, where Satan refuses to bow to Adam, although God asks him to do so. His refusal is due to a misconceived idea of God's uniqueness and because of his refusal to abandon himself to God in love.

Al-Hallaj believed that it was only God who could pronounce the Tawhid, whereas man's prayer was to be one of kun, surrender to his will: "Love means to stand next to the Beloved, renouncing oneself entirely and transforming oneself in accordance to Him. " He spoke of God as his "Beloved, " "Friend" "You, " and felt that "his only self was (God), " to the point that he could not even remember his own name. "

Mansur believed in union with the Divine, that God was within him, and that he and God had become one and the same. Mansur was cut into many pieces because in the state of ecstasy he exclaimed Ana Abrar-al Haq "I am the Abrar of truth". He was executed in public in Baghdad. They cut him into pieces and then they burnt his remains. He kept repeating "I am the Truth" as they kept cutting his arms, legs, tongue and finally his head. He was smiling, even as they chopped off his head. Al-Hallaj wanted to testify of this relationship to God to others thus even asking his fellow Muslims to kill him and accepting his execution, saying that "what is important for the ecstatic is for the One to reduce him to oneness. " He also referred to the martyrdom of Christ, saying he also wanted to die "in the supreme confession of the cross"

For his desire of oneness with God, many Muslims criticized him as a "'crypto-Christian' for distorting the monotheistic revelation in a Christian way. " His death is described by Attar as a heroic act, as when they are taking him to court, a Sufi asks him: "What is love?" He answers: "You will see it today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. " They killed him that day, burned him the next day and threw his ashes to the wind the day after that. "This is love, " Attar says. His legs were cut off, he smiled and said, "I used to walk the earth with these legs, now there's only one step to heaven, cut that if you can. " And when his hands were cut off he paints his face with his own blood, when asked why, he says: "I have lost a lot of blood, and I know my face has turned yellow, I don't want to look pale-faced (as of fear)... ."

The supporters of Mansur have interpreted his statement as meaning, "God has emptied me of everything but Himself. " According to them, Mansur never denied God's Oneness and was a strict monotheist. However, he believed that the actions of man when performed in total accordance with God's pleasure, lead to a blissful unification with him.