Submitted by SALAAM - Presider on
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People have different motives for attaining knowledge. Some attain it to gain power, occult or psychic, some for inspiration, and some out of curiosity, to see if there is really something behind the wall that stands between human perception and the life unseen. In reality, none of these motives are true ones to have for spiritual attainment.
Life in the world may be likened to a journey, and the real desire of the soul is to reach the goal.
The soul is the point whence life starts and where it ends; and all religions at different times have taught man the way that seemed most desirable, the way to make his journey easy and joyful. One person goes to Mecca on horseback, the other riding on a camel, another travelling on foot. The experience and joy of each is different, though all journey to the same goal. So it is with us.
All the virtuous and wicked and wise and foolish among us tread the same path and reach the same goal in the end; the difference being that some go with closed eyes and some with open, some on the back of an elephant, and some, weary and worn, journey on foot. The mystics, therefore, try by the study and practice of the deeper side of life to make this path of life's journey smooth.
Amir says, "Beware, O travellers, the path has many charms; men and robbers and thieves are all along this path."
The real robbers and thieves are our attachments and temptations that rob us of our life, every moment of which is an invaluable privilege, thus bringing to us all disappointments and sorrows, which are not natural and do not belong to us.
The path of this journey is within ourselves; just like the wide space beheld by the eyes, which do not seem more than an inch wide, yet miles of horizon can be reflected in them, so is the true nature of the soul. It is so wide, and there is a path that runs from the body to the soul, from man to God. A person sitting at the gate will perhaps sit there for a thousand years, and never get to the goal, but he who leaves the gate behind and proceeds further will arrive at the goal by contemplation and meditation.
The Sufi's aim is not power or inspiration, though both come as he proceeds. His only aim is to tread the path until he can arrive at the end. He does not fear how long it may take, he does not worry about what sacrifice he will have to make. He desires one thing alone, be it God or goal, the attainment of which is his perfection.
Though one sees different desires in different people, yet when one studies them keenly one finds they are all different paths leading to one common goal. When one realizes this one's accusations, complaints, and grudges cease at once. However, there is also a natural tendency in man to find the easiest and quickest path to reach the desired goal, and there is also the tendency to share his pleasure, happiness, or comfort with others, and it is this that prompted the prophets and reformers to help mankind on its journey to the goal. Those that follow in their footsteps, forgetting that moral, drag people by the neck to make them follow them, and this has brought about the degeneration of religions.
Christ said, "In my Father's house are many mansions." The Prophet Mohammed has said, "Every soul has its peculiar religion"; and there is a Sanskrit saying, which perhaps deludes those who do not understand it, but which yet means the same thing: "As many souls as there are, so many gods are there."
The Sufi, therefore, never troubles which path anybody takes, Islam or Kafir; nor does he worry which way anyone journeys, the way of evil or of righteousness. For every way to him seems leading to the goal, one sooner and one later, one with difficulty, one with ease. But those who walk with him willingly, trusting in his comradeship, are his mureeds and call him murshid, and he guides them, not necessarily through the same path he has chosen for himself, but through the path best suited to them.
In reality the goal is already there where the journey begins. It is a journey in name; it is a goal in the beginning and in the end. It is absurd to say, "How wicked I am..." or "How undeveloped I am for reaching the destination !" or to think, "How many lives will it take, before I shall be ready to arrive at the goal?"
The Sufi says, "If you have courage and if you have sense, come forward. If now you are on earth, your next step will be heaven." The Sufi thinks, "From mortality to immortality I will turn as quickly and as easily as I change sides in sleep."
Hazrat Inayat Khan
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