Excerpts from Demonstration of the Truth

Chapter One

It should be noted that throughout history human beings in every time and place—in accordance with the requirements of their inherent nature and their adaptation to the circumstances at hand—have always had an urgent need to establish laws: those that maintain order and peace in society with respect to their material lives, and those that enable them to acquire self-knowledge and knowledge of the metaphysical world. Accordingly, on the basis of this principle, from the time humans first appeared on earth to the present educators called prophets have manifested in every era, each of them promulgating divine precepts on God's behalf according to the level of intellectual understanding and development of that era; these precepts have been named the celestial books [sacred scriptures]. . . . As previously mentioned, given that each of these laws has two aspects, we can conclude the following: the first aspect, which constitutes the foundation of material life and allows for the establishment of peace and order as well as the moral education of the society, is called the exoteric level, while the second aspect relating to spirituality, the other world, and the metaphysical is called the esoteric level.

Chapter Two

All interactions between persons and things can be conceived of in terms of the object of entrustment (the trust), the one that entrusts (the trustor), and the one to whom something is entrusted (the trustee). The existence of beings, for example, is something with which the Necessary Being (the trustor) has entrusted the world of possibilities (the trustee). Similarly, life and maturity, willpower and reason, knowledge and virtue, station and rank, piety and reverence have all been entrusted to human beings by God. The failure to fulfill one's duties toward any of these therefore amounts to a betrayal of that trust. Accordingly, to neglect health is to betray life; to be capricious is to betray maturity; to be obsessive is to betray willpower; to be narrow-minded is to betray reason; to be base is to betray virtue; to remain ignorant is to betray knowledge; to be oppressive is to betray station and rank, to engage in debauchery is to betray piety; to be blasphemous is to betray reverence. . . .

Chapter Five

The Ahl-e Haqq faith rests on four pillars—purity, rectitude, self-effacement, and self-abnegation—that are described as follows:

• Purity has been set forth categorically and as such bears a universal meaning that is applicable to anything that is capable of purity. The Ahl-e Haqq must therefore be pure both inwardly and outwardly in every sense; externally, their bodies, clothing, home, livelihood, and food, and inwardly, their thoughts, words, behaviors, and actions should all be completely pure, clean, and sincere.
  
  
• Rectitude is to follow the straight path, which is to observe divine prescriptions and avoid divine proscriptions; in sum, the straight path refers to serving God and refraining from lies and transgressions. . . .
  
  
• Self-effacement is to rid oneself of all pride, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, impulses of the imperious self, passionate uprisings, and moral vices, and to be entirely resigned to destiny while seeking nothing but divine satisfaction; in sum, to lose oneself and become annihilated in God, or as the mystics and philosophers would say, to have completed the stage of contentedness and to have reached the level of resignation, which is the ultimate stage of mysticism.
  
  
• Self-abnegation is to serve, help, and devote oneself to God's creation without any pretense, such that it could be said we 'seek our own suffering for the comfort of others.' [Ostad Elahi then elaborates on a more specific meaning of this fourth pillar—namely, that a spiritual student should reach a level where he becomes 'the embodiment of divine will and action.']