“They descend from God into his heart, without his being able to repel them when they come or to retain them when they go.” The Sūfī’s ‘path’ is not finished until he has traversed all the ‘stages,’ making himself perfect in every one of them before advancing to the next, and has also experienced whatever ‘states’ it pleases God to bestow upon him. Then, and only then, is he permanently raised to the higher planes of consciousness which Sūfīs call ‘the Gnosis’ (_maʿrifat_) and ‘the Truth’ (_haqīqat_), where the ‘seeker’ (_tālib_) becomes the ‘knower’ or ‘gnostic’ (_ʿārif_), and realises that knowledge, knower, and known are One. Having sketched, as briefly as possible, the external framework of the method by which the Sūfī approaches his goal, I shall now try to give some account of its inner workings. The present chapter deals with the first portion of the threefold journey--the Path, the Gnosis, and the Truth--by which the quest of Reality is often symbolised. [Sidenote: Repentance.] The first place in every list of ‘stages’ is occupied by repentance (_tawbat_). This is the Moslem term for ‘conversion,’ and marks the beginning of a new life. In the biographies of eminent Sūfīs the dreams, visions, auditions, and other experiences which caused them to enter on the Path are usually related. Trivial as they may seem, these records have a psychological basis, and, if authentic, would be worth studying in detail. Repentance is described as the awakening of the soul from the slumber of heedlessness, so that the sinner becomes aware of his evil ways and feels contrition for past disobedience. He is not truly penitent, however, unless (1) he at once abandons the sin or sins of which he is conscious, and (2) firmly resolves that he will never return to these sins in the future. It he should fail to keep his vow, he must again turn to God, whose mercy is infinite. A certain well-known Sūfī repented seventy times and fell back into sin seventy times before he made a lasting repentance. The convert must also, as far as lies in his power, satisfy all those whom he has injured. Many examples of such restitution might be culled from the _Legend of the Moslem Saints_. According to the high mystical theory, repentance is purely an act of divine grace, coming from God to man, not from man to God. Some one said to Rābiʿa: “I have committed many sins; if I turn in penitence towards God, will He turn in mercy towards me?” “Nay,” she replied, “but if He shall turn towards thee, thou wilt turn towards Him.”