In this section of Kashf al-Mahjub, Shah Shuja al-Kirmani teaches that the people of merit (فضل) truly possess merit only so long as they do not regard it in themselves; the moment they perceive their own merit, it ceases to belong to them. He extends the same principle to the friends of God: their sainthood (ولایت) endures only while they remain unaware of it and is voided the instant they lay conscious claim to seeing it. The concept distills a core Sufi teaching on self-effacement, in which a spiritual station depends on the absence of self-regard, and any conscious awareness of one's own virtue or nearness to God annuls that very virtue.