Action Is The Transmutation Of The Heart

Someone said, “The most important is action (deed); words are not important.” I said, “I too would like to find someone who knows what action is and can see, so that I can show him action.” Now, you like words. One can converse with you since you are not a man of action. 

How could you comprehend what action is? As action you only understand prayers, fasting, reading spiritual texts, pilgrimage, alms, meditation, and devotion. But all these are not action. These are the means to reach true Action. 

It is possible that when you perform these activities they exert some influence over you and transform you in relation to what you were before. 

For example, as Quran says, prayer allows one to distance oneself from sin and error. Here it is, Action, is to avoid all of these bad habbits.  

Prophet Muhammad said one man to perform his namaz again. He obeyed. But Prophet said again, go perform your namaz again, you didn't do it properly. At the end of fourth, He said, "It's not right to perform namaz without serenity and purity of the heart."

When you are in a state of impurity you have not accomplished the prayer. So all these different forms and modes do not constitute Action. Action is the transmutation of the heart, passing from one state to another. 

Like the seminal liquid and the embryo passing from one state to another in the mother’s womb; first a clot of blood, then a fetus, then the face of a man who is endowed with life, enters the world and grows up. This transformation and growth is action and ascension. The meaning of Miraj (Mohammad’s journey to heaven) is the same as we have just mentioned. The seeker passes from one internal state to another. The second state is higher than the first; the third is higher than the second, ad infinitum.

The Maarif - Sultan Walad