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kings always used before their names 'Al Mutawakkil ala Allah' -
he who trusts in God.
EMOTIONAL CRAVING
People who are interested in the miraculous will either 'consume'
wonder-tales from emotional craving, or may allow them to operate
as alternative ways of thinking about things, to exercise the part
of the mind which says: 'stereotyped reactions are constricting'.
The automatic and emotional reactions alike are part of the
secondary self and do not represent perception of truth.
Sirri al-Saqati, who died in 867 of the Christian Era, said:
True wisdom is: non-attachment to self and devotion to
Truth.'
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Continuous versus Effective Activity
CONTINUOUS activity, labels, a conditioned sense of importance or
progress, the attainment of lesser goals on a shallow plane, these
tend to be the body and bone of many a human system whose
members expect much more of it than it can deliver.
Since it supplies social needs, keeps people occupied and re-
lieves strains, it is believed to be-not just that, but something
of a higher order.
On the other hand the teaching method and the study which is
discontinuous, which does not use the reward-and-punishment
motif, which works with whom it can and when and where it can -
the Sufi way - is regarded by the children of automatism as less ful-
filling, less interesting, less attractive.
It would be less important, and should be less interesting,
if there were an alternative. That is to say, if it were possible to
achieve insight, fulfillment, illumination, know yourself, higher
consciousness, and so on, through the mechanical organisation. In
such a case there would be no need for the Sufi system: it would
be irrelevant and ineffective.
But these are not the alternatives. It is only when this is under-
stood that people can approach the Sufi study and can profit
from it. Until then they are always hankering after either:
*A system which will be revealed to them if only they will
endure the confusions of the Sufis;
Themselves being able to force order out of what they un-
consciously imagine to be the chaotic state of the Sufi pro-
jection;
*or something to which they can transfer which may resemble
the Sufi one to them, but which offers the kind of stimuli which
they crave.
This is no new problem. But it must be stated constantly. If it is
learned, real learning outside of the strait-jacket and blinkers of
shallower activity can begin.
But how is this done, where do we start?
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It is done by lodging the idea firmly in the mind with at least
as much durability as the fantasies which oppose it and which
masquerade as fact; we start by making sure that we have ab-
sorbed the statement, and that we don't just gobble it up and ask
for the next piece of attractive news.
HUMANS AS DEMONS
Remember what Rumi said, and you will see how people chain
themselves with their desires, which are not the same as their
potentialities:
Humans are demons and lust is their chain
It drags them to the shop and field
This chain is composed of fear and anxiousness
Do not see this creation as chainless:
It pulls them to effort and chase
It pulls them to the mines and to the sea.
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Capacity comes before Opinion
Q: Some people say they can learn through studying books,
others that there isn't anything worthwhile in books, and others
that they haven't found the right books yet. What are your re-
actions to this sort of thing?
A: I can't do better than repeat an old story told by a Sufi.
He described how at one time he looked for books and did not
find them; then he found them and thought that everything was in
them; then he decided that there was nothing in them. Finally,
but only after going through all these phases - and phases they are
- he realised which were the books useful to him, and what their
use really was.
What had been wrong was his attitude of accepting or rejecting
books before he himself attained the capacity to study the matter
properly. He was forming opinions without first developing ordi-
nary capacities further; and asking for things without being able
to profit from them.
He should have started with more common sense.
Rumi speaks of people who rely upon the written word as
sometimes being no more than donkeys laden with books. Why do
people always wonder whether books are any good, without won-
dering whether they are themselves in a state to profit from them?
When I was first taught this, I was given this saying, so that by
calling it to mind I could again experience the shallowness of the
discussions about books, as carried out in so many circles:
'Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.'
If you write the question down and look at it, you will, I think
(and hope) at once see that it is not a question about Sufi learning,
but about books. This person is concentrating on the idea of
books, not the ideas in the books.
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Greed
Sanctified
SUFI study is in some ways more difficult, in others easier, than
other forms of study involving man's development of himself.
It is more difficult, for instance, because many of the approaches
and behaviour-patterns needed by Sufic study are not naturalised
in ordinary culture: they have not been needed by societies in
order to form and sustain themselves up to a certain point.
It is easier, again, to approach many Sufi patterns because we
already have the analogy of thought-patterns and behaviour- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]