Shaykh Salih al-Ja’fari commenting on the lines from the Salat al-Azeemiyya:
…and join him with me, just as You joined the spirit with the soul, outwardly and inwardly, in wakefulness and in sleep and make him, O Lord, a soul for my body in every aspect…
Join, in my essence, between his perfect attributes ﷺ and my deficient egotistical attributes, like you joined between the perfect soul and the deficient ego. When one obtains this joining, one obtains effacement because his ﷺ perfect attributes are like the day and the egotistical attributes are like the night, thus the shining of the sun of his luminous perfection effaces the pitch darkness of the oppressive egotistical attributes.
Then his ego is moved from the darkness of egoism, which does not witness anything other than itself, to the light of day of his ﷺ discernible lights, thus becoming dazzled by them. {…and We erased the sign of the night and made the sign of the day visible…}-Quran 17:12.
He then witnesses him ﷺ with the eye of insight thereby obtaining by that the joining of witnessing and after that one obtains the joining of reality.
The first joining is [actually] in the dream state, which is the greatest means to the joining of witnessing, then the joining of witnessing leads to the joining of reality.
[Shaykh Ahmad ibn Idris] indicates to the first station in his saying (and in sleep) and the second in his saying (inwardly) and to the third in his saying (in wakefulness) and the fourth witnessing is the highest witnessing is indicated by his saying (And make him, O Lord, a soul for my body). As Sayyidi Abu’l Abbas al-Mursi said, “If the Messenger of Allah ﷺ was absent from me for the blink of an eye, I would not consider myself from among the Muslims.”
