Broadly speaking, there are four stages: =Nâsût=, =Malakût=, =Jabarût= and =Lâhût=, each leading to the next. =Nâsût= is the animal nature, and functions through the five senses--_e. g._, eating, contacting, seeing, hearing and the like. When the disciple controls the senses to the limit of bare necessity, and transcends the animal nature by purification and asceticism, he reaches =Malakût=--the region of the angels. The duties of this stage are prayers to God. When he is not proud of these, he transcends this stage and reaches =Jabarût=--the region of the Soul. No one knows the Soul but with the divine help; and Truth, which is its mansion, baffles description and allusion. The duties of this stage are love, earnestness, joy, seeking, extasy and insensibility. When the pilgrim transcends these by forgetting self altogether, he reaches =Lâhût=, the unconditioned state. Here words fail. Religion is for the desire-nature; the Path, for the heart; Truth for the Soul. Religion leads the desire-nature from =Nâsût= to =Malakût=, and transmutes it into Heart. The Path leads the Heart from =Malakût= to =Jabarût=, and transmutes it into Soul. Truth leads the Soul from =Jabarût= to the Divine Sanctuary. The real work is to transmute the desire-nature into Heart, the Heart into Soul, and to unify the three into one. "The Lover, the Beloved and Love are essentially ONE." This is absolute monotheism.... "The motive of the faithful is superior to their acts." Acts by themselves are of no value: the importance lies in the heart. It is said that the traveller on the divine Path has three states: (1) Action.[11] (2) Knowledge. (3) Love. These three states are not experienced unless God wills it so. But one should work and wait. He will do verily what He has willed. He looks neither to the destruction nor to the salvation of any one. [11] _lit._, walking or moving. One who wishes to arrive at the Truth _must_ serve a Teacher. No one can transcend the bondage and darkness of desires unless he, with the help of the Divine Grace, comes under the protection of a perfect and experienced Teacher. As the Teacher _knows_, He will teach the disciple according to his capacity, and will prescribe remedies suited to his ailments, so that "There is no God except =Allâh=" be firmly established in his nature, and the ingress of the evil spirits be cut off from his heart. All the world seeks to tread the Divine Path. But each knows according to his _inner_ purity, each seeks and aspires according to his knowledge, and each treads the Path according to his seeking and aspiration.--_Letters 56 & 57._ [The following extracts from "_A Series of 28 Letters_" may throw further light on the subject. The =Sûfî Mulk= (or =Nâsût=,) =Malakût=, =Jabarût= and =Lâhût= severally correspond to, if they are not identical with, the physical, astro-mental, causal and spiritual planes of modern Theosophical literature.--_Trs._]