Tawhid doesn’t descend into you. It is to be naughted.

‘Tawhid’ refers to the unitary nature of existence. It’s expressed by the quote from the Koran: There is no God but God. I had to read this a few times before I began to understand its implications. The quote is from Rumi, a Persian mystic.

Rumi seems to be saying that God doesn’t give to us something we don’t already have within. As the Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart said, truth is found, not through a process of addition, but through a process of subtraction.

We place a barrier between ourselves and the world, between ourselves and everyone else. We compare everything inside our skins to everything outside them. What lies outside the boundary of the skin is ‘other.’ What’s inside it is me. Through the conditioning of the world, we learn to compare what’s inside to what’s outside.

The fundamental condition of I, or me, is that I’m hungry for something: a mate, money, a better job, love, recognition. This is the kind of hunger I’m talking about. If I’m hungry, then I must be lacking in some respect. If I lack, then I’m limited. If I’m all these lacks and limits, then I’m inadequate. The impulse is to acquire, to have, to attain, to keep.

The idea of Tawhid – the oneness of being – is very different. It erases the boundary between myself and the world, and between you and I. If I’m one with everything, then there is no inside, no outside.

As Rumi says, I really don’t need to be hungry for things like happiness and love again. I don’t need to fill myself up. I’m not lacking. I’m not hungry because I’m not inadequate.

But then, you may ask: why do I have this individual body? Why is it that I suffer from low self-esteem, from ambition and loneliness? Why do I suffer from hunger expressed a little higher up on the hierarchy of needs? These are really metaphysical questions which are beyond the scope of a short post like this. Yet a part of the answer can be provided. Millions of years of conditioning has convinced you to see yourself as an I, defined by a separate skin, with a name, a birthdate and ends in space and time. Of course, we can’t deny that we have bodies and that those bodies need food, clothing and shelter. But we’ve invested in another kind of ‘body,’ a person, which has many abstract wants that we’ve confused with needs. And we don’t get these needs for acceptance, belonging and recognition met, we feel bad.

The solution Rumi gives us has to do with naughting. He says that we already are everything, have everything, and have attained to our highest state. Truth doesn’t come to us from outside. It is already within. No one can give it to you. You must find it for yourself, within yourself. And no one can take it away but you.

So what does Rumi mean by naughting? The same thing that Eckhart meant by subtraction. In our case, we don’t have to build a new house of belief. We tear down the house that’s already there. Then, we become aware of what always was. Or rather, of what always is, because time isn’t. Time itself is one of the ideas to be naughted. If there’s only a unity of existence, then there’s a unity of past/present/future which can only be found in the now. So to naught is to live in the present.

The other belief to be subtracted is the sense of a separate self, which is expressed in the idea of a boundary; any boundary. The boundary between you and me, between you and God, between you and everything else. We then become aware of what we already always are. And this is limitless. In such a reality, there’s no inadequacy, no self-esteem which limits our picture of ourselves, rising and falling with our sense of reputation or achievement, of what others think of us, or even of what we think of ourselves.  No guilt to trap us into a past to which it points, no fear to worry us over a future which never comes.

You are submerged in an ocean of peace, not peace which you can become, but which you already are.

© 2025 by Michael C. Just

Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.

You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23

Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002

Four of his short stories have recently been published online:

Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)

The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW

I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October

Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within