|
The Sufi Movement has
two missions
to perform in the world, one as a duty to individuals searching after
the truth, the next duty, to bring about a better understanding among
people. Therefore these two missions depend on each other for their fulfillment,
without the progress of individuals the progress of humanity is difficult,
without the progress of humanity in general the progress of the individual
is also difficult. The Sufi Movement is not political, because beyond
the political to a Sufi there exists the mystical idea. In all ages in
the past the spiritual message was given by the prophet, for the words
of God came to humanity through the mediation of a mystic. When the law
is fallen in the hands of worldly intellectual people it will always prove
imperfect. It wants seeing further than the average eye to see the actual
condition of life, which those interested in life cannot see, for they
cannot help being partial when there is a question of their own interest.
The principal thing that the Sufi Message has brought to the world
is tolerance for all faiths existing in the different parts of the world,
followed by different people. This can be done by giving the idea of that
one truth which stands as the stem of religion, and all different faiths
as its branches. The true religion to a Sufi is the sea of truth and all
the different faiths are as its waves. The message of God from time to
time comes as tides in the sea, but what remains always is the sea, the
truth. Those who consider another on the wrong track they themselves are
also not on the right track, for the one who is on the right track finds
every road leading to the same goal sooner or later. The Sufi mission
does not make converts to a certain faith to the exclusion of all faiths.
A convert to the Sufi orders means a convert to all faiths of the this
world and bound by no particular faith. Faith to a Sufi is a free ideal,
not a captivity.
The Sufi mission looks upon the whole humanity as one body, all
races different parts of that body, all nations its organs, the people
the particles which make this body and the spirit of this body, God. As
the health and happiness of the body depends on each of its particles
being in good condition so the happiness and peace of the whole world
and the people therein depend on the condition of one another. The Sufi
mission does not invite people to believe in superstitions to take an
interest in wonderworking or to increase power or to investigate phenomena.
Its main object is the same which Christ has taught, love your neighbor.
To individuals the Sufi mission has a different duty.
The Murshid [Sufi Teacher] as a physician, first treats
the mureed [student], in order to make him better able to realize where
he is, what he is, what he wants to do, and how he must work to accomplish
it. What is worth while and what is not worth while, Murshid explains
to his mureed. It is not only study but it is exercise that Murshid gives
now and again as a prescription for the mureed. But still more important
is the contact of the Murshid. A moment's conversation with him is more
helpful than a whole year's study of books in the library for Murshid
is to kindle in the heart of the mureed the divine spirit which is man's
heritage. There is no particular discipline nor a particular faith which
is forced upon mureeds. Every mureed is free to think for himself. Murshid's
whole idea is to liberate the soul of the seeker after truth.
|