The expressions, ‘close’ and ‘to get closer’ have nothing to do with distance and place. God being closer to His slave means that He Himself sees all his needs, that He creates all kinds of activities in all his cells with power and knowledge, and that He is more merciful to him than his self is, and so on. The slave getting closer to God, however, is concerned with the steps taken on the way to being a slave He is pleased with. Extension in faith, development in knowledge, and sincerity in deeds are instruments making him closer to God.

Expressions like far, near, past, and future, are concerned with time and space. Beings that are material and that cover an area in space are near and far according to each other. God, high above material and space, is closer to His creatures anywhere in space than their selves are. Likewise, God above time is closer to any creature that He lets flow in the river of time than its self.

That God is close to His creatures and creatures are far from Him cannot be explained by the measures of time and space.

An example: You are closer to the book you are reading; it does not know what is written there, but you do. And the book is too far from you; i.e. it is well far from understanding, knowing and regarding you.

A word on the first page of the book is closer to another on the second page and far from the one on the tenth page. But the writer of the book is close to all of them in the same degree. All of them are together in his knowledge.

A hadith by God, which gives us a lesson about another point in closeness and distance: “My slave gets closer to me with non-obligatory worships…” This hadith gives us the lesson that getting closer is spiritual. Non-obligatory worships are worships, contemplations, supplications, and thanksgivings that the slave performs after he has performed his obligatory duties in order to get closer to his Lord, to better open his heart to elevated meanings and to spend his life more fruitfully on the way to acceptance of God.

Such a slave proceeds further each day to the end of getting closer to his Lord… And both this progress and getting closer are spiritual.

Let us imagine a great learned. Say all the pupils of this person are in the same place and take lesson from him in turns. When a pupil that has just started lessons sits before him and takes his lesson, there is a distance in this closeness, because this youth is far from understanding this great knowledgeable person. The more he grows in knowledge, the closer he will get to his teacher and the bigger his regard and amazement toward him.

In all the phases of the instruction the teacher is close to his pupil, is educating and developing him. Here, distance is not for the teacher but for the pupil. A lacking person who has become a disciple to a mature person of closeness to God is also like that. The more he develops spiritually the better he will benefit from his spiritual being. And the great person of knowledge is always close to his pupil following him on each step of his development. Distance is not for the great person, but for the disciple.

Let us switch to the truth from the examples: God is closer to His slave than he is, always managing his material and spiritual world. However, the slave, with his lacking qualities that avail within certain limits, is far from rightfully understanding God, all the names of Whom are endless.