The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The servant is closest to his Lord during prostration, so increase your supplications therein.”
When one goes down in prostration he is not only physically at his lowest, his head making direct contact with the floor, but his head (representing his rational cognitive faculty) goes to a position lower than his heart, opening him up to the true center of spiritual cognition. For man, his ego becomes reduced to the lowest level during the ritual process of prayer and he loses himself in the greater recognition of God. Ironically, while man travels physically down, he ascends upwards towards the center of the axis mundi through his lowering of himself
“To know thyself is to lose thyself
Oh man, be like the moth who destroys himself in search of the primordial fire
And be not like the one who loses himSelf in philosophising
Only the one who knows his way knows the way”
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