Is it possible to make tawhid a practice in our daily lives? Perhaps. Thus, we must extract the concept of tawhid from the theological realm and apply it to the practical domain, within the sphere of everyday life.
Simple, isn’t it? What makes it difficult is, perhaps, our way of thinking, our faith, our psyche, or our personality construct.
Let’s speculate with numerous examples around us. Many people become desperate, feeling their lives are meaningless, and are willing to die by suicide just because of love. To their beloved, individuals like this always say, “I cannot live without you!” This is not an expression of true love, but rather an expression of the fragility of personalities of unstable souls.
Another example may be ourselves, or our neighbors, or our friends, who admire people of higher class, yet at the same time, belittle and scorn those less fortunate. These are souls blinded by glamour, cynical towards what they deem as inferior.
In everyday life, we often see people who always depend, or hang their lives, on others. When they want to do something, they always wait for others to do it first. At the most extreme level, they entrust their fate, their life and death, to others. They cannot do anything without the support of others. They truly cannot live without the involvement of others in their lives. These are individuals who always make others a factor in their lives.
Those are just examples of everyday practices far from the true purpose of affirming the Oneness of God. In Islamic theology, we are taught from early on about the obligatory attributes of God: that Allah is One, singular, indivisible. There is nothing like Him. There is no comparison to Him. Associating partners with Him, or equating others with Him, is considered as shirk, a major sin.
But at the theological level, tawhid, or the Oneness of God, ceases as an abstract concept. Therefore, the “process of proving” the Oneness of God through what we know as Sufism, the Sufi path, or tariqah, comes into play. And from there, we recognize phrases that hint at the evidence of the truth of God with all His obligatory attributes, especially as the One, the Singular.
“Whoever knows himself, then knows his Lord.”
“For the friends of Allah, there is no fear or sadness.”
“Allah is as His servant presumes Him to be.”
These are some phrases we know from the world of Sufism, tariqah, or the Sufi environment that culminates in wahdatul wujud (unity of existence). From Al-Hallaj, we know the phrase Ana al-Haq, “I am the Truth,” “I am God.” Or, from Sheikh Siti Jenar, we know the phrase manunggaling kawula-gusti, the unity of the Creator with the creation: “There is no Sheikh Siti Jenar, there is only Allah.”
Phrases sourced from the world of Sufism, tariqah, or the Sufi environment, suggest that delving into the knowledge of the Oneness of God will actually shape a person as a complete, independent individual. That is the figure of the Sufis, the friends of Allah, the beloveds of Allah that we have known all this time. They are never haunted by fear or sadness. They never depend their lives on anything else. Allah alone, the One, is sufficient as their protector.
So how do we, who are not engaged in the world of Sufism, follow the tariqah, become Sufis? Do we have to follow the same path?
Not everyone can embark on that path, indeed. Or have the opportunity to go through it. But we can borrow its results and make it a model of practice. The key word is factor. That is one of the considerations from the culmination of the process of affirming the Oneness of God: nullifying others. It means: never make anything else a determining factor in your life. Let yourself be the sole determinant in your life. That is what happens, for example, when the phrase Ana al-Haq is uttered from the lips of Al-Hallaj. He does not claim to be God, but because he has been able to nullify everything else, and only God exists within his entire being.
In everyday practice, it will look like this: we will never regard anyone else, or anything else, as a determining factor in our lives. Everything will depend on our own decisions and actions. Like the Sufis, then people are no longer haunted by fear, doubts, and sadness because they have succeeded in nullifying everything else as a factor in life.
With that, for example, there will no longer be expressions like “I cannot live without you,” or depending on others, or praising those we consider more refined while belittling or even disrespecting those less fortunate than us. Everyone will be treated with equal respect as creatures of God.
From some Sufi wisdoms, we know that there are ordinary-looking people, living their lives like everyone else, not appearing as more devout than us, and even visibly less fortunate than us, and we are surprised when years later they receive recognition as the beloveds of Allah. We never know there are people affirming the Oneness of God in their daily lives around us. And do not be offended if we are not made a factor in their lives. Because tawhid indeed negates everything else as a factor.
Translated from here.