Essential Sufism

Foreword HUSTON SMITH

The Sufis are the mystics of Islam. Every upright Muslim expects to see God after death, but the Sufis are the impatient ones. They want God now—moment by moment, day by day, in this very life. And they are willing to undergo the disciplines that make that possible. This book presents selections from a multitude of saints and sages whose hearts were opened through the Sufi path.

Three modes of union with the divine turn up in every religious tradition and all three are present in Sufism. One of these is ecstatic. It requires a special visitation that lifts the soul out of its body—ex (out), statuo (to stand), ecstasis (to stand outside oneself)—and transports it to a higher, distinctly different level of consciousness that relativizes our normal register dramatically. The experience can be so intense that it sends the body into convulsions.

Sufis honor their ecstatics, but they refer to them (affectionately) as “spiritual drunkards” because their God-intoxication dissociates them from the ordinary world.

Introduction SHEIKH RAGIP ROBERT FRAGER AL JERRAHI Know, O beloved, that man was not created in jest or at random, but marvelously made and for some great end. AL-GHAZZALI

Sufism is often described as a path, suggesting both an origin and a destination. The aim of Sufism is the elimination of all veils between the individual and God. Traveling this path, one can acquire knowledge of Reality. God is the ultimate reality, not this phenomenal world of multiplicity.

To understand Sufism, we must understand mysticism. The Greek root myein, “to close the eyes,” is also the root of “mystery”; the mystic’s goal is not to be reached by the intellect or by ordinary means. Fundamentally, mysticism is love of the Absolute, the One Reality, also called Truth, Love, or God. According to Sarraj’s classic definition of Sufism, “The Sufis are people who prefer God to everything and God prefers them to everything else.”

For the Sufis, not only love but also self-knowledge leads to knowledge of God. The Sufi philosopher Al-Ghazzali says, “Real self-knowledge consists in knowing the following things: What are you in yourself and where did you come from? Where are you going and for what purpose are you tarrying here awhile? In what does your real happiness and misery consist?” Many pitfalls, both real and imagined, render us unable or even unwilling to seek this inner knowledge.

According to many Sufis, however, the essential Truths of Sufism exist in all religions.

The fruit of the tree is the Truth, or God.

One who practices Sufism is called a Sufi, or dervish, or faquir. Sufi has several meanings in Arabic, including “pure” and “wool.” (Early Sufis wore simple wool cloaks in addition to seeking inner purity.) Dervish is a Persian term derived from dar, or “door.” It refers to one who goes from door to door. (Many dervishes used to go from house to house, begging for food or lodging.) It also means one who is at the threshold (between awareness of this world and awareness of the Divine). Faqir is Arabic for a poor person. In Sufism this does not refer to those poor in worldly goods, but to those who are “spiritually poor,” that is, those whose hearts are empty of attachment to anything other than God. They realize that they have nothing, that they can do nothing, that they are nothing without God. They rely on nothing in this world, only on God.

The Foundations Of Sufism

Islam, the Arabic word for “submission to God’s will,” is the religious tradition taught by the prophet Muhammad. The goal of Islam is to be in harmony with God, to attune the individual’s will to God’s will. The initial revelation of the Koran (or Qur’an) occurred in the year A.D. 610. The Islamic era dates from A.D. 622, the year Muhammad fled from Mecca to the city of Medina, persecuted by the city’s leaders, who opposed the monotheistic and democratic teachings of Islam.

In the words of my first Sufi teacher, Muzaffer Ozak, “Sufism without Islam is like a candle burning in the open without a lantern. There are winds which may blow that candle out. But if you have a lantern with glass protecting the flame, the candle will continue to burn safely.” Most Sufis believe that the great religions and mystical traditions of the world share the same essential Truth. The various prophets and spiritual teachers are like the light bulbs that illuminate a room. The bulbs are different, but the current comes from one source, which is God. It is the same light; each of the individual bulbs receives electricity from a single source. The quality of the light is always basically the same, and so is the original source.

Sufism proposes that all the great religious and spiritual teachers were sent by one God. They were all true teachers, and what they taught was true. Their teachings originated from the same Divine Source. There is no fundamental difference among all the spiritual teachers and what they have brought; however, just as some bulbs give more light, some teachers have illuminated more of humanity than others.

Many saints are hidden. That is, their outer lives do not look any different from the lives of their neighbors, although their inner lives are radiant with the Divine Presence. It is said that God hides the saints and lovers of God so that people will think that everyone else might be a saint and will therefore love and care for one another.

The writings of the saints may inspire you deeply, but to become a mystic, you have to go to a mystical school. In Sufism, this generally means to study with a teacher and a group of Sufi seekers who follow in the traditions of one of the Sufi orders. Sufi groups generally meet several times a week for prayer, meditation, Sufi discourses, and other spiritual practices. You cannot teach yourself Sufism or develop spiritually by yourself any more than you can become a doctor or an engineer by yourself.

The Creed Of Faith

1. The first article of faith is to believe that there is one God and that God is transcendent of all creation. God is before the before and after the after. God is all-powerful and needs nothing from anyone or anything. God is the owner of everything: everything that you can see and everything that you cannot see.

Sufis maintain that you don’t look for God in Mecca or Jerusalem but in your heart. The paradox with which Sufis struggle is that God is very close, but humanity is far from God. Faith brings the seeker closer.

2. God’s angels are instruments of Divine will. They form a series of ever more luminous beings, a hierarchy between humanity and God. This hierarchy can be viewed as an…

One of the sayings of the Prophet analyzes the differences between human and angelic natures: “God created the angels from intellect without sensuality, the beasts from sensuality without intellect, and humanity from both intellect and sensuality. So when a person’s intellect overcomes his sensuality, he is better than the…

3. The Sufis believe in four great Books: the Torah brought by Moses, the Psalms of David, the Gospels inspired by Jesus, and the Koran revealed to Muhammad. The Sufis also believe that in addition to these scriptures, there have…

4. Each prophet brought the same truth from the same Divine source, and therefore we have to believe in all of them. Those prophets who have…

5. God has sent humanity here to earth to learn, and when the Day of Resurrection comes, God will examine everyone’s life. God will then calculate the balance of good and bad…

6. The Sufis believe in fate or destiny, that nothing happens without God’s will. Human will exists within the…

7. Because the Sufis believe in God’s will, they believe that all things that come to us, good and bad, pleasant…

8. Life does not end with death. Life in this world is like a dream, and our true life…

The Five Pillars Of…

The five pillars of Islam are bearing witness, daily prayer, fasting during the month of Ramadan,…

Bearing Witness, or the Confession of Faith. Entrance into Islam begins with the recitation of these basic tenets of Islamic faith: “I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness…

Daily Prayer. Five times a day there is a call to prayer; at dawn, noon, midafternoon, dusk, and night. The prayers interrupt daily activities in order to reorient…

Everything has both outer form and inner meaning. This is especially true in prayer. The beginning of the formal Islamic prayer is called the tekbir. Facing Mecca, Muslims put their hands up to their ears, palms forward, and say, “Allah hu Ekber,” “God is Greater.” God is greater than anything and everything that God has created. As they…

Fasting. Each year all Muslims who are able to do so fast from dawn to sunset for the month of Ramadan. During the fast, they are supposed to abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and making love. It is a difficult practice, intended to help Muslims remain aware of the conflicting forces of their lower and higher natures. Al-Ghazzali describes the outer and the inner mystical levels of fasting as follows:   The fasting of the general public involves refraining from satisfying the appetite of the stomach and the appetite of the sex… . The fasting of the select few is to keep the ears, the eyes, the tongue, the hands, and the feet as well as the other senses free from sin. The fasting of the elite among the…

Charity. Each year, at the end of the month of Ramadan, every household is asked to give one fortieth, or two and a half percent, of its accumulated wealth to the poor. It is said that all things originate from God; having goods and money is seen as custodianship, in that one retains the right to possessions by…

Pilgrimage to Mecca. The Kaaba, the shrine in the heart of the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, is the most holy site in Islam. It is a stone cube said to have been built by the prophets Abraham and Ishmael. All Muslims are required to make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lifetime, provided they can afford to do so. There are a set of rigorous observances to be followed at the time of pilgrimage, which occurs during a specified week each year. The pilgrimage is a time in adult life when devotion to the spiritual…

But some do, if God wills. By the same token, some people do become successful on the spiritual path and reach the level of constant awareness of God. The end result is in the hands of God. Some people reach this final spiritual state in forty days, others in forty years. And for some, a whole lifetime of effort is not enough. The best path is to let go and surrender to God’s will.

Sufis consider Jesus to be one of the greatest prophets that God has sent and call him the Spirit of God. But God has blown Divine Spirit into the spirit of all human beings, beginning with Adam. We all contain God’s Divine Spirit; however, that Spirit manifests fully only in the great prophets and Divine Messengers.

THE FOUR STAGES OF SUFISM There are four stages of practice and understanding in Sufism—shariah (religious law), tariqah (the mystical path), haqiqah (Truth), and marifah (Gnosis). Each is built upon the stages that go before.

First is the shariah, which is the basic foundation for the next three stages. The shariah consists of teachings of Islam, basically the morality and ethics found in all religions. It provides guidance to us for living properly in this world. Trying to follow Sufism without following the shariah is like trying to build a house on a foundation of sand. Without an ordered life built on solid moral and ethical principles, mysticism cannot flourish. In Arabic, shariah means “road.” It is a clear track, a well-traveled route that anyone can follow.

Second is the tariqah, which refers to the practice of Sufism. Tariqah literally means the path in the desert that the Bedouin would follow to travel from oasis to oasis. This path is not clearly marked like a highway; it is not even a visible road.

Third is haqiqah, or Truth. Haqiqah refers to the inner meaning of the practices and guidance found in the shariah and tariqah. It is the direct experience of the mystical states of Sufism, direct experience of the presence of God within. Without this experience, seekers follow blindly, attempting to imitate those who know, those who have attained the station of haqiqah. The attainment of haqiqah confirms and solidifies the practice of the first two stages. Before haqiqah all practice is imitation. Without the deep inner understanding that comes from experience, one follows mechanically the teachings and practices of others.

Fourth is marifah, or Gnosis. Gnosis is superior wisdom or knowledge of spiritual truth. This is a deep level of inner knowing, beyond haqiqah. More than momentary spiritual experience, marifah refers to an ongoing state of attunement with God and with Truth. It is the knowledge of Reality, attained by a very few. This is the station of the Messengers, the prophets, and the great sages and saints.

At the level of Truth (haqiqah), there is “no mine and no yours.” The advanced Sufis at this level realize that all things are from God, that they are really only caretakers and that they “possess” nothing. Those who realize Truth have gone beyond attachment to possessions and beyond attachment to externals in general, including fame and position. At the level of Gnosis (marifah), there is “no me and no you.” At this final level, the individual has realized that all is God, that nothing and no one is separate from God.

What is lawful at one level may not be lawful at another level of understanding. For example, the outer practice of fasting is required by religious law, but according to the Sufi path, one of the essential reasons for fasting is to develop self-discipline and to control the insatiable ego. If a person is proud of fasting, the fast is still technically lawful, but in terms of the Sufi path, the fast is a failure.

Another example comes from the famous story of Mansur al-Hallaj, who was killed for publicly saying, “Ana al Haqq,” “I am Truth.” One of the ninety-nine Attributes of God is Truth, and, according to the law, it is absolutely forbidden to call oneself God.

Opening The Heart

Love. For the great Sufi teacher and poet Rumi, love is the only force that can transcend the bounds of reason, the distinctions of knowledge, and the isolation of normal consciousness. The love he ex- perienced was not only sensual pleasure; it might be more fully described as love for all things, for creation itself. Love is a continually expanding capacity that culminates in certainty, in the recognition that there is nothing in this world or in the next that is not both loved and loving.

Thou didst contrive this “I” and “we” in order that Thou mightest play the game of worship with Thyself, That all “I’s” and “thou’s” should become one soul and at last should be submerged in the Beloved. Rumi

Remembrance. One of the basic Sufi practices to open the heart is remembrance. Abu-Hamid al-Ghazâli, in his book Invocations and Supplications, notes that remembrance has four basic meanings. First, it is an act of constantly striving to be mindful of God. In this sense, it is the opposite of heedlessness. Prayer is also remembrance. Prayer invites the Sufi into God’s presence.

Second, remembrance is the repetition of a mystical formula or Divine Name, such as “There is no god but God,” “Allah,” “Life [ya Hayy],” or “Truth [ya Haqq].” This practice of invocation requires sincerity of intention, awareness, concentration, instruction, and authorization or initiation into the practice. This repetition is the remembrance of the tongue. Third, remembrance means a temporary, inner state in which awareness of God overwhelms the person and he or she becomes truly divorced from all concerns for the world, at least for the moment. This is the remembrance of the heart. Fourth, remembrance is a deep and stable inner station in which invocation and mindfulness have become constant. This is the remembrance of the soul.

The remembrance of the tongue is the beginning and is often just mechanical repetition. As the meaning and power of the words repeated begin to sink in, hearts become filled with joy, longing for God, and other spiritual feelings. This state is the remembrance of the heart. Longing for God is also a sign of God’s Presence within. Longing itself is a sign of God’s Presence. This state is the remembrance of the soul.

The Prophet said,   God has made a polish for everything that tarnishes. And the polish for the heart is remembrance.

Living In The World

One basic Sufi principle is to live in the world and still pursue the highest mystical goals. To serve others is, in a real sense, to serve God, and this service is considered by many saints to be the highest form of worship. It is not enough simply to love or to know. We have to act on our love and our knowledge.

Love and Service. To be a dervish is to love and serve others. The dervishes seek to love one another, to speak kindly, to show gentleness to one another, and also to serve one another. That is actually the duty of the human being.

The highest state for any human being is to be found worthy of becoming God’s servant and an instrument through which God serves creation. God has said, through Muhammad, “When I love a servant, I, the Lord, am his ear so that he hears by Me, I am his eye so that he

sees by Me, and I am his tongue so that he speaks by Me, and I am his hand so that he takes by Me.”

Gratitude. The best way to express gratitude to God is to worship God. God conceived this incredibly varied creation and chose to give people this human form. God might have chosen any form. Humankind cannot thank God enough for creating humanity in a human form, not even by worshiping God day and night.

TRANSFORMING THE SELF The goal of all mysticism is to cleanse the heart, to educate, or transform, the self, and to find God. The lowest level of the self is dominated by pride, egotism, and totally self-centered greed and lust. This level is the part within each person that leads away from Truth. The highest level is the pure self, and at this level there is no duality, no separation from God. The self is actually a living process rather than a static structure in the psyche. The self is not a thing. The Arabic term is related to words for “breath,” “soul,” “essence,” “self,” and “nature.” It refers to a process that comes about from the interaction of body and soul. When the soul becomes embodied, it forgets its original nature and becomes enmeshed in material creation. This creates the self.

According to many Sufi teachers, there are seven levels of the self. They are seven levels of development, ranging from absolutely self-centered and egotistical to purely spiritual. The Commanding Self. The first level has also been described as the domineering self or the self that incites to evil. The commanding self seeks to dominate and to control each individual. At this level there is unbridled selfishness and no sense of morality or compassion.

At this level people are like addicts who are in denial. Their lives are dominated by uncontrollable addictions to negative traits and habits, yet they refuse to believe they have a problem. They have no hope of change at this level, because they do not acknowledge any need to change.

The Regretful Self. People who have not developed beyond the first level are unaware and unconscious. As the light of faith grows, insight dawns, perhaps for the first time. The negative effects of a habitually self-centered approach to the world become apparent to the regretful self.

At this second level, people do not yet have the ability to change their way of life in a significant way. However, as they see their faults more clearly, their regret and desire for change grow. At this level, people are like addicts who are beginning to realize the extent of their addiction and just beginning to understand the pain they have caused themselves and others.

The Inspired Self. At the next level, the seeker begins to take genuine pleasure in prayer, meditation, and other spiritual activities. Only now does the individual taste the joys of spiritual experience. Now the seeker is truly motivated by ideals such as compassion, service, and moral values. This is the beginning of the real practice of Sufism. Before this stage, the best anyone can accomplish is superficial outer understanding and mechanical outer worship.

The Contented Self. The seeker is now at peace. The struggles of the earlier stages are basically over. The old desires and attachments are no longer binding. The ego-self begins to let go, allowing the individual to come more closely in contact with the Divine.

The Pleased Self. At this stage the individual is not only content with his or her lot, but pleased with even the difficulties and trials of life, realizing that these difficulties come from God. The state of the pleased self is very different from the way we usually experience the world, focused on seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. A Sufi story illustrates this:

Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna once shared a cucumber with Ayaz, his most loyal and beloved companion. Ayaz happily ate his half of the cucumber, but when the sultan bit into his half, it was so bitter he immediately spit it out. “How could you manage to eat something so bitter?” the sultan exclaimed. “It tasted like chalk or like bitter poison!” “My beloved sultan,” answered Ayaz, “I have enjoyed so many favors and bounties from your hand that whatever you give me tastes sweet.” When a person’s love and gratitude to God reach this level, he or she has reached the stage of the pleased self.

The Self Pleasing to God. Those who reach the next stage realize that all power to act comes from God, that they can do nothing by themselves. They no longer fear anything or ask for anything. The Sufi sage Ibn ‘Arabi describes this level as the inner marriage of self and soul. The self pleasing to God has achieved genuine inner unity and wholeness. At earlier stages, people struggle with the world because they experience multiplicity. A broken mirror creates a thousand different reflections of a single image. If the mirror could be made whole again, it would then reflect the single, unified image. By healing the multiplicity within, the Sufi experiences the world as whole and unified.

The Pure Self. Those few who attain the final level have transcended the self entirely. There is no ego or separate self left, only union with God. At this stage, the individual has truly realized the truth, “There is no god but God.” The Sufi now knows that there is nothing but God, that only the Divine exists, and that any sense of individuality or separateness is an illusion.

The Role Of The Teacher

A teacher is like a physician of the soul. Seekers need teachers because few have the knowledge of spiritual medicine they need to cure themselves and fewer still have the self-knowledge to diagnose themselves correctly.

In another common metaphor, a teacher is a spiritual alchemist who can transform the dervish’s soul into pure gold.

Although the sheikh is often referred to as the sun and the dervishes as planets, the sheikh is also like a mirror or a transmitter. That is, the light and blessings that flow from a sheikh are not his or her own. They come from God. Sufi Orders. Every Sufi teacher has been authorized by his or her own teacher. This is why a Sufi order is referred to as a silsila, a chain. Each order contains an unbroken chain of sheikhs, each trained, initiated, and confirmed as a teacher by his or her own sheikh. This chain reaches all the way back to the prophet Muhammad, and through him to God. There are no self-appointed “masters” in Sufism. The chain is also like a pipeline, in which each sheikh is a section of pipe. The blessings that come to each dervish flow through the pipeline. They flow through the sheikh, but they are not from the sheikh.

Patience is essential for both teacher and student. It is one of the Divine Names, or Attributes, and it is mentioned more often in the Koran than any other. A common Sufi metaphor for patience is that of ripened fruit. Unripe fruit tastes bitter and may cause indigestion. When the fruit ripens, it will become sweet and nourishing, and its ripened seeds will have the potential for rebirth.

Before he passed on, the Prophet told his Companions, “I will leave you with two teachers after I am gone—a speaking teacher and a silent teacher. The speaking teacher is the Koran. The silent teacher is death.”

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK This book contains a wealth of stories, anecdotes, and poetry. If you try to absorb it all at once, you are likely to develop intellectual indigestion. Instead, read a little at a time, or skim, letting your eyes run over several pages until you come to a passage or a poem that strikes you. You might make a check mark or write a short note in the margin beside those pieces that touch you.

PART 1 The Many Faces of Sufism

CHAPTER 1 The Sufi Way

The Sufi way is not a path of retreat from the world but a way of seeking the Divine while still actively engaged in the world. Engage-ment in the world provides opportunities for spiritual growth, opportunities to practice love, awareness, generosity, and nonattachment. The Sufi approach is summarized by Sheikh Muzaffer, a modern Sufi teacher: “Keep your hands busy with your duties in this world, and your heart busy with God.” Our hearts have become frozen, armored against the pain and suffering we have all experienced in this world. With the help of a devoted teacher and sincere brothers and sisters along the path, we can defrost them.

The Sufis are those who have preferred God to everything, so that God has preferred them to everything. Dhu-l-Nun

The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it. Bayazid Bistami

Whatever you have in your mind—forget it; whatever you have in your hand—give it; whatever is to be your fate—face it! Abu Sa‘id

It is necessary to have a guide for the spiritual journey. Choose a master, for without one this journey is full of trials, fears, and dangers. With no escort, you would be lost on a road you have already taken. Do not travel alone on the Path. Rumi

PART 2 Living in the World

CHAPTER 2 Daily Life

A scrim is a piece of stage scenery on which the background of a set is painted. When lit from the front, it is opaque and creates the illusion of being whatever the play demands: a wall, a street, a mountain range, a view of paradise. But when lit from behind, it becomes transparent, almost invisible, and the actual stage behind it can be seen. This world is like a scrim, a temporary creation, beyond which can be seen the stage on which (at another time) other plays will be mounted and other actors will perform their parts. We tend to see the world as if it were solid, permanent, and substantial. Seen through the eyes of Truth, however, it becomes transparent. When our vision pierces the scrim, we begin to see life as it is, through the eyes of the Creator. Only then can we view the real universe. There are, it is said, seventy thousand veils between ourselves and God. These are habits and ideas that prevent us from remembering and being aware of our direct connection with the Divine. Each time we pierce a veil, we come a little closer to our own spiritual center. Each time a painted image deludes us, we drift farther away from ourselves. The task before the Sufi is twofold: first, to develop the ability to recognize and remember the Truth; second, to help others to do the same. As one evolves, the two tasks merge and become, ultimately, the same.

Look to what you do, for that is what you are worth.

Sufis are absorbed somewhere all the time; they don’t notice good or bad. We should be able to sleep in the street when there is no other possibility. Why not? The street is also a part of Him, made by Him. Sufis don’t say, “I do this or that.” THEY DO IT. Irina Tweedie

“What is worldliness?” He answered, “Everything that makes you heedless and causes you to forget your Lord.” Therefore the goods of this world are not harmful in themselves, but only when you let them render you forgetful, disobedient, and unaware of the Lord.

CHAPTER 3 Self-Deception and Self-Knowledge

You cannot see the back of your own head, no matter how intently you stare into a mirror or how quickly you turn around. Even the most clear-sighted have blind spots. These places to which we ourselves are blind are often astonishingly visible to others. The sword of self-knowledge, the ability to see oneself clearly, spans the abyss of ignorance. Below its stretched length blaze the swirling fires of ego while fogs of delusion and self-deception flow in from every side. In spite of the dangers, there is guidance to help us traverse that blade’s edge. Those who have gone before have left signposts: teachings and writings that instruct us in ways that awaken, that train the capacity to remember, that enable us to hold ourselves correctly as we move toward the light. There is a human tendency to overlook our own obstacles, to ignore them or deny their existence even when we have seen them clearly. Therefore, it is difficult for us to achieve and sustain spiritual clarity without someone other than ourselves leading us beyond our own ignorance. Systems, rules, practices, and stories embody much of the accumulated wisdom of those who have come before. Even though these resources are available, and have been proven to be invaluable, we all seem to have an endless capacity for deflecting the deepest truths, stepping carefully to one side or the other in order to avoid true self-recognition.

Arrogance and conceit in a person may be recognized by three signs:   1. When alone does he feel gloomy, and in company feel happy? 2. When people praise him, does he perform more worship? 3. When they speak badly of him, does he perform very little worship? al-Ghazzali

CHAPTER 4 The Lower Self

Sufism is concerned with the ways of following a spiritual path and with what gets us off track. There is an element in us, the nafs, that tends to leads us astray. This Arabic term is sometimes translated “ego” or “self.” Other meanings of nafs include “essence” and “breath.” In Sufism, the term nafs is generally used in the sense of “that which incites to wrongdoing.” This includes our egotism and selfishness, our greed and unending desire for more things, our conceit and arrogance. Perhaps the best translation for this part of us is the “lower self.” The lower self is not so much a thing as a process created by the interaction of the soul and the body. Body and soul are pure and blameless in themselves. However, when our soul becomes embodied, we tend to forget our soul-nature; we become attached to this world and develop such qualities as greed, lust, and pride.

Why the struggle? If we were of a single mind, there would be no struggle. But our minds are split. Even when we are convinced of what is right, our lower self tries to get us to do the opposite. Even when we see clearly, our lower self leads us to forget. How the lower self operates, how to understand it, and how to work with it is vital for our soul’s remembering. If we use it to work on ourselves, this material is precious beyond price.

The dervish replied, “I am a wealthy man because I am content with whatever God sends me. You are a beggar, because no matter how much you possess, you are always dissatisfied, and always begging God for more.” Sheikh Muzaffer

The lower self does not want anyone to receive anything from anybody else, and if

it is aware of someone receiving a special boon, it seeks to destroy it. Rumi

The lower self is like a thief who sneaks into your house at night to steal whatever is valuable and worthwhile. You cannot fight this thief directly, because it will mirror whatever force you bring against it. If you have a gun, the thief will also have a gun. If you have a knife, the thief will have a knife as well. To struggle with the thief is to invite disaster. So, what can you do?

The only practical solution is to turn on the light. The thief, who is a coward at heart, will then run out. How do we turn on the light? Through the practice of remembrance, awareness, and heedfulness. Sheikh Tosun Bayrak

CHAPTER 5 The World, Mirror of the Divine

There are two approaches to the world in almost every tradition. One is that heaven is separate from this world, accessible only after death. The other is that heaven (and hell) are here right now.

A Bedouin was once asked how he could believe so strongly in a God he could not see. The man replied, “If you see the tracks of a camel in the desert, do you have to wait to see the camel itself before believing it exists?”

The task for the Sufi is to polish the mirror of oneself so that one can catch the reflection of heaven during life—unmisted, undistorted, and in all its glory.

CHAPTER 6 Wisdom

What is wisdom? The prophet Muhammad defined wisdom as follows: Do what you should do when you should do it. Refuse to do what you should not do; And, when it is not clear, wait until you are sure.

Act as if there were no one on earth but you and no one in Heaven but God. al-Antaki

Wealth and poverty are divine gifts. Wealth is corrupted by forgetfulness, poverty by greed. Qushayri

The Prophet answered, “Seek truth. You will find it in yourself; therefore, know yourself. Seek the company of the wise, who know. Agree with what they say, for one understands only that with which one agrees. Be sincere in what you say—a single tongue should not speak two different words. No deceit or fraud should enter into your thoughts. Do not belittle anyone or anything, for everyone and everything in its inner being wishes for the same thing. “Do not touch anything that is not yours. Avoid crowded places; even in such places, try to be with yourself, for that is the place where the truth is manifested. That is where the truth is.” Ibn ’Arabi

O my Lord, if I worship You from fear of Hell, burn me in Hell; and if I worship You from hope of Paradise, exclude me from Paradise. But if I worship You for Your own sake, do not withhold from me Your Eternal Beauty. Rabia

CHAPTER 7 Hadith, the Words of the Prophet

If your words are truthful, if you are good-tempered, if you are moderate in taking food, and if you are trustworthy, then you are rich and should not regret the possessions that you may not have. These four qualities are enough possessions and wealth for a wise person. The signs of misfortune lie in four conditions: eyes that have never experienced tears, a heart that is cruel and hard, long chains of desires that never end, and wishing for an extremely prolonged life.

If you want to live more freely, borrow less.

Avoid noise, excessive talking, too many questions, too many answers, and wasting your wealth.

Be kind to people whether they deserve your kindness or not. If your kindness reaches the deserving, good for you; if your kindness reaches the undeserving, take joy in your compassion.

Heaven lies under the feet of mothers. None of you truly believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.

An hour of contemplation is better than a year of prayer.

Two believers that lend support to each other are like a pair of hands that wash each other clean.

Whenever God loves a devotee, He subjects him to ordeals. Should he endure patiently, God singles him out; should he be content, God purifies him.

PART 3 Love and an Open Heart

CHAPTER 8 Spiritual Experience

There are times when the veils between us and God are thinned, times of rich and rewarding spiritual experience. The most profound spiritual experience might come to us at any time, anywhere. God has revealed, through the prophet Muhammad, “There are seventy thousand veils between you and Me, and there are no veils between Me and you.” Sometimes we feel God’s presence directly. More often that presence manifests indirectly—as an opening of the heart, a burst of joy, an expansion of love, or feelings of deep compassion. We also may deeply experience God in sorrow, during times of loss as well as times of joy.

For thirty years I sought God. But when I looked carefully I found that in reality God was the seeker and I the sought. Bayazid Bistami

We have placed in you a substance, a seeking, a yearning, and We are watching over it and won’t let it be lost, but will bring it to its destined place. Rumi

If in thirst you drink water from a cup, you see God in it. Those who are not in love with God will see only their own faces in it. Rumi

Lovers converse with people only as much as they need to. For the most part, they prefer to be alone and by themselves. for they yearn for intimate communion with

the Beloved. They are constantly in meditation. They do not enjoy excessive conversation and always prefer not to talk. They do not understand conversation about anything other than God. When they encounter misfortune, they do not grumble and complain. They know that misfortune comes from the Friend, and see the benefits contained in seeming misfortune. Divine Love has possessed them, and they have plunged lovingly into the fire of love. Going barefoot, bareheaded, and poorly clad does not worry them at all. They hear no word but the words of God. They never cease from the remembrance of God. Everywhere they behold God’s Beauty. Their aim is God alone, and their desire is God’s good pleasure. Sheikh Muzaffer

The sight of someone eating will not appease your hunger. The spiritual experiences of others cannot satisfy your yearning. Traditional

The Sufi is pleased with all that God does in order that God may be pleased with all that he does. Abu Sa‘id

CHAPTER 9 Opening the Heart

Dear friend, Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veil of dust that has gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect the light of divine secrets. al-Ghazzali

There is a polish for everything that takes away rust; and the polish of the heart is dhikr, the invocation of God. Muhammad

Truth has been planted in the center of your heart, entrusted to you by God for safekeeping. It becomes manifest with true repentance and with true effort. Its beauty shines on the surface when you remember God and do the dhikr [recitation of Divine Names]. At the first stage you recite the name of God with your tongue; then, when your heart becomes alive, you recite inwardly with the heart. Abdul Qadir al-Jilani

The heart is the treasury in which God’s mysteries are stored; Seek the purpose of both the worlds through the heart, for that is the point of it. Lahiji

CHAPTER 10 Contemplation and Knowledge

Those whose desire to see is strong enough will discern the hand of the designer in the symmetrical pattern of the leaves, the paint strokes of the artist in the strata of the rocks, the blueprints of the engineer in the placement of the stars.

If I only knew that I had taken one single step in sincerity, I would give no value to anything else. Bayazid Bistami

There are three agents that destroy religion: an ill-tempered scholar, a tyrannical leader, and an ignorant theologian. Muhammad

CHAPTER 11 Love

Study without love leads to a shallow, superficial understanding. Real mastery comes from love.

One of the most important functions of a teacher and a Sufi group of sincere seekers is to provide a safe place to risk loving. We also fear love because it may transform us. And it is so. For the true lover, the sense of self dissolves so that lover, love, and beloved become one. The ego is afraid of losing control, and even more afraid of dissolving, and comes up with reason after reason for refusing to let go, refusing to let ourselves love fully. We can let ourselves be inspired by the words of those who have become lovers.

Leave everything and cleave to love! Turn your heart from all else; feel love in your whole being! Take love as your guide to the land of being so that you may reach the True Beloved, enter the Paradise of God’s essence, behold the beauty of the Friend, gather the roses of the garden of Union. In the way of love, the lover sacrifices himself but finds the dear one. All the saints who have drunk of the wine of love have sacrificed themselves thus in the way of love. Sheikh Muzaffer

Love is a special, pleasurable pain. Whoever has this in the heart will know the secret. They will see that everything is Truth, and that everything leads to Truth. There is nothing but Truth. In the realization of that, they will be overcome. They will sink into the sea of Truth. Sheikh Muzaffer

The secret of madness is the source of reason. A mature man is insane for Love. The one who has his Heart together Is a thousand times stranger to himself. Rumi

The heart that is free of love sickness isn’t a heart at all. The body deprived of the pangs of love is nothing but clay and water. Jami

When a heart finds repose with the beloved, how should it ever desire another? Did you ever see a moth flying to the sun, when all its hope lies in the candle flame?

It is pointless to spread a hundred bunches of fragrant herbs before the nightingale, who only wishes for the rose’s balmy breath. Once the water lily has been caressed by the sweet warmth of the sun, will it ever show any interest in the moon? When a soul thirsts for a draught of clear water, it has no use for sugar. Jami

PART 4 Sufi Teachers

CHAPTER 12 Teachers and Students

A synonym for Sufism in Arabic is “path” (or tariqah). This term does not mean a road that anyone can follow. It refers to a path in the desert from one oasis to the next. It is a trackless path; the sands shift constantly. You need a guide to get to that next oasis because, unless you have traveled that way often, you could never find your way by yourself. A Sufi teacher is a guide who has traveled the spiritual path, who knows the way and its pitfalls and dangers.

The true teacher knocks down the idol that the student makes of him. Rumi

How can you criticize your brother’s faults if your words create a rift between the two of you? You must realize that alienation of the heart only results from mentioning a fault already known to your brother. To draw his attention to what he is unaware of is compassion itself. Someone who draws your attention to a unpleasant habit, or a negative feature of your character, so that you can cleanse yourself of it is like one who warns you of a snake or scorpion under your robe—he has shown concern lest you perish. If you disapprove of that, how great is your folly! al-Ghazzali

Maturity cannot be achieved alone. There is a need for guidance and discipline. The path is unknown, the night is dark, and the road is full of danger. Dangers include preoccupation with selfishness, false visions, misinterpretations of mystical

states, arrest in development, fixation in a particular state, appeal to various drugs to create false mystical experiences, and, not infrequently, overwhelming anxiety and insanity. Mohammed Shafii

Then there arises the question of how to find the real teacher. Very often people are in doubt; they do not know whether the teacher they see is a true or a false teacher. Frequently a person comes into contact with a false teacher in this world where there is so much falsehood. But at the same time a real seeker, one who is not

false to himself, will always meet with the truth, with the real, because it is his own real faith, his own sincerity in earnest seeking that will become his torch. The real teacher is within, the lover of reality is one’s own sincere self, and if one is really seeking truth, sooner or later one will certainly find a true teacher. And supposing one came into contact with a false teacher, what then? Then the real One will turn the false teacher also into a real teacher, because Reality is greater than falsehood. Hazrat Inayat Khan

thief entered the house of a Sufi and found nothing there to steal. As he was leaving, the dervish, sensing his disappointment, threw him the blanket on which he had been lying. Sa’di

Whoever travels without a guide needs two hundred years for a two-day journey. Rumi

PART 5 Sufism in Action

CHAPTER 13 Practices

Without guidance, without the ability to discriminate, without some form of help, you can easily waste your time or even hurt yourself. In any living spiritual tradition, there exist as many practices as there are physical exercises and kinds of equipment in a health club. Those who have achieved some level of enlightenment will almost always feel a need to pass on to others those practices that proved to be most beneficial for their own growth. Students will also ask for help from those who have gone before. From this combination of needs and generosity, whole systems of teaching and learning evolve.

I performed the ablutions, as Hamid has taught me. He had said, “If you do not have water, then wash with sand; and if you do not have sand, then wash with a stone; if a stone is not available, then cleanse yourself with intention so that you approach the moment as free of the past as possible.” Reshad Feild

We must always be in a state of preparation. Preparation is the art of staying awake. If you are awake, then one day you may see into the real world. You cannot expect to come into that world if you walk around like a sleepwalker in a dream. You cannot wake up by reading books that tell you you are asleep. You may not even wake up just because a teacher tells you that you are asleep. You can only wake up if you want to, and so begin to work on yourself to cut away all the rubbish in order to come upon the nature of who and what you are. Reshad Feild

“I’ll wait until I’m more powerful and then uproot it.” But the longer he waits and leaves the tree to grow, the larger and stronger it becomes while he only becomes weaker, and its uprooting becomes more difficult. Abu ’Uthman al-Maghribi

CHAPTER 14 Sufi Humor

One aspect of Sufi humor is the way in which it juxtaposes two views of life: one conventional and acceptable, the other a little out to the side, sometimes upside down. Often, it can open the floodgates of understanding more deftly than any other method. This “set-breaking” aspect is well understood within the Sufi tradition.

be lent anything!”   All the men in the tea shop were criticizing a certain man named Abdul. They all said that he was just a good-for-nothing vagabond. One of the leading men of the town said, “That man is a cabbage.”

Everyone nodded in agreement except Hodja. “That’s not true, my friend. A cabbage can at least be cooked and eaten and used by the body. But of what use is Abdul?”

CHAPTER 15 Virtues

FAITH Faith is something easy to speak of, but difficult to practice. We often place our faith in everything but God. We have faith in our lawyers when there is legal trouble and place even greater faith in our doctors when we are sick. We have faith that our money will protect us, faith that our own intelligence will save us from difficulties. That is, we seem to have faith in creation, but not in our Creator. One of the Ninety-nine Attributes of God is ya Salaam, or Peace. Salaam also means safety, security, and health, wholeness. If you lean against a rotten tree trunk, it will not support you. You can rely only on that which is truly healthy and whole, and that is God. Nothing else provides completely trustworthy support and security. And so, the only real peace comes from faith in God.

To completely trust in God is to be like a child who knows deeply that even if he does not call for the mother, the mother is totally aware of his condition and is looking after him. al-Ghazzali

HUMILITY Humility might be defined as “taking one’s true measure” and then not hiding from the truth of that realization. Humility, Sufis aver, is a state that is achieved, not through practice, but through awareness.

Even if you see yourself as a part of all creation and lasting for eternity, you, as a single human, are still but a drop in a vast ocean. That ocean is held by gravity to a small sphere orbiting a tiny star among billions of others. Your time as a separate drop, however

important you may seem to be in your own world, is so brief that the ocean itself may be unaware of your existence, your forming, or your dissolving.

GRATITUDE Gratitude transforms us. It opens our hearts and brings us closer to God. Unfortunately most of us are unconscious of the many blessings we receive and rarely feel gratitude. Or if we do feel gratitude, it is often extremely short-lived. I have been amazed by observing older dervishes serve one another. Even when serving a glass of water or a cup of tea, the one who is serving is attentive and grateful for the chance to serve. The dervish who is served receives whatever is served with real gratitude, as opposed to taking it for granted. This is all done quietly, with no outer show or fanfare.

The prophet Muhammad said, “Gratitude for the abundance you have received is the best insurance that the abundance will continue.” There is another old saying, “Count your blessings.” There is more truth in it than we generally realize.

Whoever does not express his gratitude to people will never be able to be grateful to God. Muhammad

If someone gave you a beautiful, expensive new hat, wouldn’t you be grateful for the generous gift? But shouldn’t you be even more grateful to the One who gave you the head to put that hat on? Sheikh Muzaffer

POVERTY The poet Gary Snyder says, “The truly affluent are those who do not need anything.” That observation does not refer to your material wealth, but speaks about the condition of your heart.

What the Sufis mean by “poverty” is lack of attachment to anything but air, food, and sleep. A heart that is full of the things of this world has no place for God. An empty heart has space to long for God to fill it.

All that you need from the world is something lawful to satisfy your hunger, something with which to cover yourself, and a roof over your head. Let these be the only things you ask from this world. Ibn ’Arabi

Patience Patience is one of the Ninety-nine Names of Divine Attributes mentioned in the Koran. It is one of the most frequently mentioned Attributes in the Koran. It is said that patience is half of faith. Patience is a spiritual state. It is a real accomplishment and one that is not easy to attain. Without patience we can do nothing well; with patience, difficult tasks become easy. If we are impatient, we are no longer in the present; we are busy wishing for a future that has not yet come.

Generosity If everything flows from God and everything returns to God, do you truly own anything? Are you not but a steward, taking care of that the portion of this world under your care, which is to be preserved and protected and possibly shared?

PART 6 In Touch with the Divine

CHAPTER 16 How to Know God

The goal of all mystical experience is to know God. Sufism pro- vides us with a variety of means, including service, love, and self-discipline. The paths to God are as numerous as there are seekers. And yet all these paths have common elements, as we are more alike than we are different. The more motivated we are, the more effort we tend to devote to the goal, and the more likely we are to succeed. Do we really want to know God? How badly? How much are we willing to do in order to attain the goal? As one modern teacher, Sheikh Tosun Bayrak, has said, “If the search for God is not the most important thing in your life, you are not ready to join us.”

One day a man asked a sheikh how to reach God. “The ways to God,” the sheikh replied, “are as many as there are created beings. But the shortest and easiest is to serve others, not to bother others, and to make others happy.” Abu Sa‘id

O seeker, know that the path to Truth is within you. You are the traveler. Going happens by itself. Coming happens to you, without you. There is no arriving or leaving; nor is there any place; nor is there a contained within a container. Who is there to be with God? What is there other than God? Who seeks and finds when there is none but God? Sheikh Badruddin

You’ve been walking in circles, searching.   Don’t drink by the water’s edge. Throw yourself in. Become the water. Only then will your thirst end. Jeanette Berson

CHAPTER 17 Prayer

Prayer is an integral part of all the world’s religions. Prayer takes many forms. There are inner and outer forms of prayer. There are silent prayers and prayers that are spoken, chanted, or sung aloud. There are fixed, formal prayers, and spontaneous prayers, inspired by the heart. Behind all real prayer is the sincere heart, longing for God, longing for connection to the Divine. It is said that everything in the universe is in prayer. All of creation is worshiping God. Only humanity, because we have free will, has the option of praying or not. So, for us, real prayer does not come automatically; it is an achievement.

Some people believe that to miss one of the five daily formal prayers is a sin that will be punished in the Hereafter. The Sufis believe that prayer is an invitation from God, an invitation to the divine presence. Therefore the missing of the prayer is its own punishment. It is like missing a banquet, in this case a banquet for the soul.

The high road to God for your spirit, by which your prayers can reach God, is the polishing of the mirror of the heart.

Whoever remains veiled is like the owl and the sun. If the owl cannot see in the sunlight, it is because of the weakness of its eyes, not because of the sun. He speaks foolishly who does not know that God is manifest in humanity. If you want the mirror to reflect your face, you must hold it straight and keep it bright. Whatever increases the brightness of your heart brings nearer God’s manifestation of Himself to you. Sana’i

CHAPTER 18 Remembrance of God

In Arabic, repetition and remembrance are the same word. It is said that remembrance of God begins with the repetition of God’s Names by the tongue. Then, the repetition of the tongue descends and become the remembrance of the heart. Finally, the remembrance of the heart deepens and becomes the remembrance of the soul. At first, you chant the Divine Names, then they chant themselves, then God chants through you.

Implicit in the term remembrance is the notion that we are coming back to what we once knew, what we have already learned. The Sufis believe that our souls were in the world of souls for thousands of years. There, bathed in God’s presence, our souls experienced the Divine more fully and deeply than we can imagine. In practicing remembrance, we are seeking to recapture a small part of that blessed state.

have seen nothing more conducive to righteousness than solitude. He who is alone sees nothing but God, and if he sees nothing but God, nothing moves him but the will of God. Dhu-l-Nun

I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty. Kabir

CHAPTER 19 Service

Service is a form of worship—and also a powerful method of self-transformation. Most service that we offer is selfish; it is service for the sake of reward: money, praise, or fame. By service, the Sufis mean service “for God’s sake,” without any thought of reward.

Serving God—what more beautiful thing is there to do! The only real joy is to be a servant of God, and that means being awake all the time to the needs of the moment. If we are asleep, then we will never know what is required of us. We cannot have any preconceived ideas of what service means. We never know from one moment to the next what will be asked of us. When you enter the path you put yourself in the street of service for the rest of your life. There is no going back. Do not think that you can be of service only when you want to be of service! You must be awake to the needs of the moment, God’s needs, not to your own needs. Only then may you be granted the privilege of being of service. Sheikh Muzaffer

PART 7 Faces of the One

CHAPTER 20 God

At the center of Sufi prayer, of service, and of daily life, one truth resounds—there is nothing, created or uncreated, that is not God.

If you walk toward Him, He comes to you running. Muhammad

All the energy and power within everything is locked in its smallest particle; in every atom the divine power is hidden. Yet the whole is not visible, for the fire is hidden within the flint, and within the seed is the entire tree. Sheikh Badruddin

CHAPTER 21 Satan

In Islam, Satan is identified as the single angel who, setting himself apart from all other angelic beings, refused God’s command to bow down before Adam on the day of his creation.

For this, he was banished from Heaven and was taken away from the presence of God. No more does the eye of God enlighten him; no more will the touch of God give him joy. But in spite of this punishment, he has never lost his love for God. He alone, of all the beings in the cosmos, loves God without gain, without hope, without even the possibility of feeling loved in return. Thus, seen objectively, this unrequited love is the most pure of any. The Devil serves without reward.

Even while bearing the burden of eternal separation, the Devil has taken on the thankless and usually misunderstood task of creating obstacles for human beings. What few realize is that, through rising above these obstacles, we are able to rise to where he cannot go, stepping over him in our ascent toward our own higher natures. The Devil toughens us, forces us to remain awake, and offers lessons as no other angel can. Would we ever have learned to walk if our parents had continued to carry us everywhere? Our troubles and temptations, even if truly given to us by the Devil, are still ultimately gifts of God.

The Devil keeps hammering his subtle persuasions until the learned man becomes convinced that he should set about teaching people. Then the Devil intimates to the scholar, “You should embellish your thoughts with pretty language and impressive conceits. Also play up your qualifications. Otherwise your words won’t have much effect; they won’t reach people’s hearts and they will not succeed in attaining the truth.” al-Ghazzali

PART 8 Transformation

CHAPTER 22 Self-Transformation

The goal of self-transformation is to remove all the veils between us and God. The final veil is the “I,” the sense of separateness we each carry. To remove this is far from easy. Ask yourself, “How can I take ‘I’ out of me?”

The first step is to say, “God,” and nothing else; the second is intimacy; and the third is to burn. Attar

CHAPTER 23 Death

For Sufis, death is not a transition; it is stepping across a threshold and being given another chance to reawaken. Life, as well, offers a spectrum of opportunities, that, if taken, allow one to recover awareness of one’s full identity. Huston Smith calls Sufis the “impatient ones,” those who are not willing to wait to be reunited with Divinity at death but hunger for union now. “Why the rush?” the rest of us might inquire. Who looks forward with equanimity to his or her own death? If you accept the premise that life and death are both gifts, then the prospect of death can become more a source of wonder than a cause for fear.

One dies when, by Allah’s will, one’s borrowed time ends. One’s material being—which is called life—ending at an appointed hour, loses all its character and qualities both good and bad, and nothing remains. In their place Allah comes to be. One’s self becomes Allah’s self; one’s attributes become Allah’s attributes.

That is what the Prophet of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) meant when he said, “Die before dying.” Ibn ’Arabi

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for, it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that does all the work. Kabir

Addas, C. The Quest for Red Sulphur: The Life of Ibn ’Arabi. Cambridge, England: Islamic Texts Society, 1993.

William Chittick and Peter Wilson, the distinguished translators of the classic Sufi work Divine Flashes, by Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi, describe their own work as we would describe ours:

Poems from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks (HarperSanFrancisco, 1995), are not included in this volume because that book serves as a companion to this one. We have, however, taken a number of selections from other collections of Rumi’s work.