The third part is the development of teaching skills, and the fourth and final part is the attainment of the highest level of God-knowledge, in which the seeker-now a master-can actually aid others in making the transition from this life to the next at the time of death.

While Hafiz spoke little about the fourth part, he spoke in great detail about the first three parts. In regards to annihilation, he wrote:

Love is

The funeral pyre

Where I have laid my living body.

All the false notions of myself

That once caused fear, pain

Have turned to ash

As I neared God.

What has risen

From the tangled web of thought and sinew

Now shines with jubilation

Through the eyes of angels

And screams from the gust of Infinite existence

Itself.

Love is the funeral pyre

Where the heart must lay

It's body. (Ladinsky, 69)

Therefore by relinquishing one's...
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