Workbook 96 - Al Baqi- The Everlasting

Because I am changeable, I need somewhere enduring to return.

Al-Bāqī is traditionally rendered The Everlasting, The Eternal, or The One Who Remains. The Arabic root b-q-y carries the sense of remaining, enduring, and continuing after other things pass.

This volume begins where Al-Badīʿ ended. Becoming deliberate does not make life permanent. The self we carefully cultivate will still live through changing bodies, roles, relationships, communities, circumstances, gains, and losses. Al-Bāqī asks what remains our center when everything created is subject to change.

Love what is temporary without asking it to become eternal.