The Book of the Dervishes

From Idries Shah's THE SUFIS (1964)
THE BOOK OF THE DERVISHES

"If you know not these states, pass on, nor join the infidel in ignorant counterfeit . . . but all learn not the secrets of the Way." (Shabistari, Secret Garden, Johnson Pasha's version)

If there is any standard dervish textbook it is the "Gifts of (Deep) Knowledge"-- the Awarif el-Maarif -- written in the thirteenth century and studied by members of all Orders. Its author, Sheikh Shahabudin Suhrawardi (1145-c.1235) presided over the coalescing of theory, ritual and practice which took place in his time, established teaching schools close to the courts of Persia and India, and was Chief of the Chiefs of Sufis in Baghdad.

The book is of interest to us both because it shows the outward and early stages of attraction into the dervish corpus, because it contains the basic contents of thought and action of these mystics, and because of Lieutenant Colonel Wilberforce Clarke. Colonel Clarke was himself a dervish, probably of the Suhrawardi Order. He translated more than half of the Gifts, for the first time, into English, and published it in 1891... 

This admirable recension of essential parts of the Gifts begins in substance with the character of the Sheikh-- the Guide of the dervish. As far as the disciple is concerned, his first real step in his new life is the finding of such a person. The function of this director is to remove the rust, in the Sufi phrase, from the mind, so that eternal (objective) fact may be accessible to him. In a manner which adequately anticipates modern psychology, the Gifts early stresses the need for the Guide to be free from subjective reasons for seeking leadership. He must not seek precedence, being a Guide, or have a desire to be followed. The true leader will delay accepting applicants as disciples until he is sure that he has no such subjectivity.

The Guide must be able to determine the capacity of the disciple. He will have to deal with this disciple in accordance with his potentiality. If there is little promise, he will have to use severe methods, such as admonishment. He orders him to follow certain attitudes of mind in order to change his unbalanced concentration upon certain things.

Unless be has this perception, the Sheikh cannot be a Guide at all.

The Guide must have no desire for, nor part in, any of the property of the disciple. He can only accept material things from a disciple when he is impelled to use them for the common good. When a disciple wants to bestow his property on the Sheikh, the dervish teacher may take it, because he is able to exchange it for the tranquillity which the disciple needs. But if the disciple is still attached to property, he will be allowed to spend some.

The encouragement of the sincerity of the disciple is one of the major concerns of the Sheikh; as also the severing of undesirable attachments of mind. An important part of this activity is charity and distribution of material substance. The disciple should choose poverty rather than riches, though to the Sufi, poverty and riches are as one.

The Sheikh has to extend kindness and compassion. He abridges the austerities of the disciple as far as is possible within the needs of the work. Too strong privations may prevent the disciple from integrating himself with the dervish effort at first.

The effect upon the disciple of what the Sheikh says is a most important one. It is likened to a seed, and only from good seed can a good crop be raised. Pollution in the mind of the learner can stem from the Sheikh having a desire to influence the hearer, or any pride in himself. The Sheikh does not talk to a disciple without an objective reason. "Objective speech is when it means the same to the speaker as to the hearer."

Advice is given to disciples in a disguised or allegorical form, especially when it is a criticism. The inner development of the disciple is something which the Guide keeps secret. Expectation of developments on the part of the former is undesirable, and the Sheikh will explain that anticipation of certain states of mind will close the road to them.

The disciple must honor the Sheikh deeply. There in lies his hope. But, conversely, the Sheikh must not expect honored by the disciple. The rights of the disciple are always respected by the Sheikh.

The teaching Sheikh does not spend much of his time in association with the community. He allots times for retirements and movements (khilwat and jilwat). The teacher has his own special exercises. These are personal, for himself and others, and for devotion to the activity. He has to practice detachment from people as such.

He also engages in special acts of devotion and benevolence, in various forms, including religious ones.

Clarke now places the section dealing with the duties of the disciple or learner (the Directed One) after the functions of the Sheikh.... The first important point stressed is the necessity of the teacher to the disciple. The teacher's acceptance is the nearest thing to divine acceptance, and represents it as far as it can. The disciple's right to Sheikhly guidance is in part gained by a correct attitude toward his teacher. The Sheikh has this right of being honored. The disciple observes fifteen Rules of Conduct:

He must repose complete faith in his Guide in instructing, directing and purifying disciples

He must attend the teacher carefully and closely.

He is obedient to the Sheikh.

He abandons opposition, outwardly and inwardly.

He accords his will with the will of the Director.

He observes the thoughts of the Sheikh.

He refers his dreams to the Sheikh for diagnosis of his thoughts.

He is expectant of the words of the teacher.

He lowers his voice before the Sheikh.

He does not allow his selfishness to extend at large.

He addresses his teacher as O Sayed (prince) or O Maula (master).

He addresses his teacher with observance of the convenience of the time.

He must not speak of stages of mind and experience which are not his own; neither must he speak much to the teacher of his own stage.

He must conceal the miracles of the teacher of which he may learn.

He must reveal to the Sheikh his own experiences.

He speaks to the Sheikh in a manner which the Sheikh will understand.

... It is often the case that such an assembly of dervishes has no teacher among them. If this is the case, they are handicapped. They are able only to prepare themselves for the association of a master. They cultivate trust and patience and contemplation. They must eat together, so that they be associated outwardly as well as inwardly. They have to strive at all times to be not only in agreement with each other, but also in a state of complete equality, one with the other. No hierarchical organization or leadership is possible to them.

Travel, both physically and metaphorically, can be an important part of dervish activity. The dervish travels in his own land (internally) and also through the countryside and from land to land (externally). Some Sheikhs spend no more than forty days in one place. "On dead skins, by tanning, the effects of purity, of softness, and of delicacy of texture appear; even so, by the tanning of travel, and by the departure of natural corruption and innate roughness, appears the purifying softness of devotion and change from obstinacy to faith." Yet dervishes may not travel at all.

There are detailed programs for travel and the way in which its experience is utilized by the dervish. These are generally known as the Twelve Rules of Travel.

The "dance" of the dervishes, the subject of so much misinterpretation, is divided into audition and movement. The real dervish is not a musician, in the sense that he does not actually play instruments. Outside musicians or servers may do so. The Islamic authorities, "outward sages," deny the permissibility of these activities, but they are permitted and encouraged in special circumstances and in accordance with needs by dervish saints and spiritual directors. There are grave disadvantages, amounting to complete negation of the "work," inherent in the use of music and movement without an inner perception of what these are. Especially deleterious is any movement made during the audition of music, contrary to the custom when hearing music in a more lay situation, when movement is expected...

The remainder of the material presented by Clarke is best considered theoretical mixed with initiatory doctrine. The complexity is increased by the fact that many of the stages and experiences are conditional upon several factors. Sufism not being a static or simple proceeding, trying to freeze any stage can cause serious generalization and consequent distortion. For this reason the material is to be seen as primarily illustrative, yet not without internal motion.

Knowledge is represented in the dervish codex, as in current and ancient usage, as knowledge in general. The divisions of knowledge, and its gradation, are the subject of important Sufi "work," because each stage in the journey is characterized by its appropriate knowledge. The general assumption that knowledge can be divided into two sorts information and experience-- is not accepted by Sufis.

There are two forms, for instance, of aql, intelligence-- the intelligence of the ordinary man, and that of the religious one. The first is fit for this world and its affairs, the latter for the next world. This is characterized by guidance, sometimes referred to as illumination.

Then there is ordinary knowledge, contrasted with inner, or deep knowledge. The first may be characterized by piety, the latter by perception of the workings of a divine activity. There is another form of knowledge, that of the theologist, which deals in such things as commands and prohibitions .

These knowledges are pursued by three kinds of sages. The first is the sage of God, who has the three knowledges. The second kind of sage is he who contains the wisdom of the next world. The third path is that of the sage of this world. He knows only the outward forms of devotion.

The real knowledge is a kind of nutrition, like food. Deep knowledge (maarifat) is characterized by three subordinate forms of knowledge. The first is the wisdom of how each word or agent acts. The second is the recognition of each agent in the "work." The third is the recognition of the agent through thought. The man who recognizes instantaneously the meanings of happenings and actions, without ordinary reflection, is the arif, the Wise, the "arrived" Sufi, or the Mature One.

There are forms of understanding and reunderstanding knowledge.

These are described as: The Science of Inner Wisdom;

The Wisdom of Science;

The Science of the Wisdom of Wisdom.

These are the simplest terms in which the succession of refinements of knowledge and wisdom can be rendered.

The so-called mystical state (hal), and its relationship with the stage of the traveler, is the subject of the next section dealt with by Clarke.

The mystical experience, which in other systems is considered to be the be-all and end-all of the quest, is for the dervish nothing more than a prelude to the attainment of true association with objective reality. The way in which it is received and in which an interaction between it and the receptor takes place will determine whether it is producing a valid progress.

This is a most important consideration, because it sharply divides Sufism from all other so-called mysticisms, whether induced by drugs, or any other ecstatogenic cause.

"Stage" (makam) is the degree of permanent knowledge of truth (objectivity) which has been attained. Ecstasy, therefore, is or can be the instrument for the establishment of makam.

"The hal is a gift; the makam is an acquisition."

And the mystical state, according to the Sheikhs of Khorasan, "is the heritage of deeds. Like lightning it appeareth, and effaced becometh." Its manifestation is followed by concealment. It is transmuted, or transmutes the consciousness, providing contentment (riza). It is necessary to beware of the idea of progression or chronological development in these states, and Junaid has warned against this. He says: "From one hal one may advance to a higher one. From there he gains information wherewith he can amend his first state."

There is a ratification of each state, which makes possible advance to another, and also makes possible the permanency of progress, of stage. Without a certain methodology, state (hal) is sporadic and repetitious, useless.

The dervish conception of the nature of God is now given, although it appears in the original almost at the beginning of the textbook.

The Sufi does not worship anything but God, the Unique, One.

At the same time, the nature of God as understood by the Sufi is not susceptible to enunciation in the crude words which serve for other purposes. God's abode, for instance, is not where God is. The answer to the question is "He." He is in the time of "He." He made things resemble and suffice by means of"He."

There is no possibility of arguing the existence or place of God, because God is not susceptible to the criteria which are available.

This knowledge is the product of what is called certitude (yakina), which has a modus operandi of its own, not an intellectual one. Therefore Sufism has its own science whereby it approaches the question. This science relies upon practice, not speculation.

Dealing with matters which are generally termed "of the next world," the book stresses the dangers of assumption that this form of being will be something which we can conceive within the coarse perceptions which we habitually employ for crude measurement.

Attempts to reason out the relationship between the familiar and the concept of the next world will end in loss. When reason passes beyond its own limits, error results. Similarly, there is a limit to the efficient working of imagination and fancy. The imaginary picture evoked by the name of a person not so far seen may or may not approximate to the reality.

Two main forces are used by those who have no insight, to combat those who have. The first force is that of the Men of Power, who kill, punish and harm. The second is that of the People of Learning, who use deceit, hypocrisy and heresy.

"Steadiness" is a technical term which is associated with remaining steadfast, conscious of the presence of God, considering that God is watching. This causes awareness of oneself and what one is and what doing. In this condition the worshiper maintains an outward and inward adornment of rules. The inward knowledge on the basis of which this is done is called contemplation, watching (muraqiba). Those who are in this stage say, "Yesterday is dead; tomorrow is not born; today is in the agonies of death."

Those concentrating upon exercises connected with the past or the future are in a state of destruction. `The safety and the salvation of the people is in their being engaged in the ordinance of the time."

One of the specialist Sufic sciences is called the Science of State (Ilm-i-hal). The usage of this science varies in accordance with the capacities of the practitioners. There is no Sufi science greater than this, because it is the methodology whereby the gradations of hal are observed and applied. The science involves the interaction of states of mind and their relation to the physical happenings in the surroundings.

The Science of Certainty is the revelation of truth (objective reality) through special states by experience, not by cerebration as we understand it in the conventional world

There are three phases of the Science (practice and perception) of Certainty, allegorized by calling the Sun objectivity: The first, seeking guidance from the splendor and understanding of the heat of the Sun. The second, by actually seeing the body of the Sun. The third, the dispersing of the eyes' light in the light of the Sun itself.

There are three stages of "certainty," then, which Suhrawardi summarizes as: The Knowledge of Certitude, in which it is known, verified and evident; The Essence of Certainty, manifest and witnessed; The Truth (Reality) of Certainty, a double way in which there is a conjoining of the witnesser and witnessed. Beyond this point words do not suffice, and the dervish is accused of pantheism and more. An attempt at explaining produces the word sequence, "The seer becometh the eye, the eye, the seer." A distortion of meaning, originating from the attempt to enunciate the process in formal terms, is perpetuated by the reader, who cannot penetrate by the unaided intellect the real significance of the phrase.

The doctrine of essence, and its connection with the personality and the self, is a most important part of dervish study. There are, for illustrative purposes, two kinds of essence: The first is the essence of a thing, which is the inner essence (dhat) and the truth (hakikat) of that thing. Truth here means objective reality, the inner meaning. People normally see or perceive only the outward use of a thing, are ignorant of any ultimate function of that thing. A lamp, for example, gives light. It may be used for heating, or for decoration. But other functions of its true reality are imperceptible to the ordinary man. If, by a stretch of imagination, it were found through delicate scientific measurement that the lamp was giving off certain communication rays, this activity might be the expression of the true reality or essence of that lamp.

Then there is the human essence, called the rational essence (the human spirit) which is known as the "luminosity." This is the sum total of the grace (baraka, impalpable qualities) of the individual.

The perceiving of the operation and being of these elements is an extremely sensitive one. True, inner knowledge of the essence is hinted at in the religious life. Hence: "Hints as to the knowledge of essence are found in the links and conditions of the knowledge of God."

This assertion shows how all dervish teaching is based not on the concept of God, but on the concept of essence. There is a slogan which summarizes this, and which clearly establishes that the religious context of dervish thinking is merely the vehicle for the self-realization which is aimed at: "He who knows his essential self, knows his God." Knowledge of the essential self is the first step, before which there is no real knowledge of religion. Sufis are accused of paganism because they first apply themselves to this problem, retaining the religious context as a practical working shape, rather than as any indication of final and objective truth.

The means of appreciating the various stages and conditions of the essence and its progressive refinement are themselves an essential part of dervish activity. It is here that the dervish parts company with the mere theoretician. The latter says: "I will think this out;" the dervish: "I will prepare myself to perceive this, without using limited, obstructive thought, a childish process."

The "veiling" or interruption of the correct use of the human spirit (essence) is caused by an unbalanced indulgence in certain coarse sentiments which together constitute a pattern of imprisonment (conditioning) characteristic of most people. These "veils" or `blameable qualities" are listed as ten:

1. Desire. Desires based on ignorance of what should be, and on assumptions as to what is good for the individual. Austerity, correctly used, is the antidote to irrational desire . This is the stage of "I want a lollipop."

2. Separation. This is a type of hypocrisy, when the person uses rationalization to justify thoughts and actions which are centered upon himself, not upon an ultimate reality. The antidote is the practice of sincerity.

3. Hypocrisy. Characterized by self-pride, glorying in possessions, pseudoindependence, violence. This is overcome only by the practice of qualities which are reprehensible in the eyes of the people, but laudable in God's sight. They include submission of the right kind, humility and the poverty of the Fakir. These qualities are recognized only by correct assessment of the true worth of their opposites.

4. Desire for Praise and Love. Narcissism, which precludes objective assessment of oneself; lack of a balancing factor which amounts almost to self-contempt.

5. Illusions of almost divine importance. Countered only by the glory of the qualities of God.

6. Avarice and Parsimony. Give rise to envy, the worst of all characteristics. This can be dissolved only when the power of certainty (yakina) comes.

7. Greed and the desire for more. This is dangerous because it causes the person to be like the moth, insensately dashing itself against the candle flame. It is countered only by austerity and piety.

8. Irresponsibility. This is manifested by the desire to attain something which has been conceived in the mind. It is always in motion, like a globe continually turning. It can be made to depart only by patience.

9. Haste to Fatigue. This is lack of constancy of purpose, in its usual manifestation. This is what prevents people from realizing that there is a succession of objectives which will replace present, crude ones. "From this calamity it is impossible to escape save by the establishing of the ordered thanks." Exercises are employed to overcome this tendency.

10. Negligence. Slothfulness of a deep kind is shown by lack of awareness of the needs of a situation or an individual. Alertness is cultivated through remedies applied by the "Physicians of the Essence"-- the dervishes.

It will be noted that ordinary, contemporary psychotherapy attempts the treatment of some of these conditions, but only in order to guide the mind into a pattern which the psychological doctrine assumes is normal. According to the dervish, the conditions which have to be treated are due to an unharmonious state of the mind, groping for balance and evolution. It is impossible, from this point of view, to attempt to restore a mere equilibrium without a dynamic forward movement. The psychologist tries to make a warped wheel turn smoothly. The dervish is trying to make the wheel turn in order that it may propel a carriage.

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There are successive rarefications of true reality, each one appearing as absolute in its own field of perceptivity. "Breath is the result of spirit, spirit of order."

The angels, as other dervish teachers have stressed, are the higher developments of the mind. Some are spoken of here as being of the nature of jamal (beauty), others of the nature of jalal (grandeur).

The doctrine of "collection and dispersion" (jam' and tafrika) as expounded in this section deals with the relationship between life in the world and life in other dimensions. The Knower, the Complete Sufi, is in the world, yet not of it. He is in a state of correct harmony with the continuum of which apparent existence is only a minor portion. He is aligned with the body and the non-body, as they must be represented in ordinary exposition. He understands the modalities which give rise to the belief in the existence of creation and the absolute which underlies it.

"Shining and concealment" are the twin terms which deal with the manifestation and lack of perception of God in humanity. "Shining" means the breaking through of the sun of the reality of God from the clouds of humanity. The clouds are the aspect of hiddenness of this objectivity.

The famous romance of Majnun ("the madman") and Layla is used to allegorize the power of the "shining" and the inability of the traveler (madman) to sustain the brilliance of that shining without having passed through a necessary preparation. The tribe of the madman interceded with some of the people of Layla, asking that Majnun be allowed to be illuminated with the "sight of Layla's beauty."

Layla's tribe replied that there was no harm in this: "but Majnun hath not the power of beholding Layla's beauty." They brought the madman, and for him lifted a corner of Layla's tent. "Immediately his glance fell on the fold of Layla's skirt-senseless he fell."

Illumination cannot be sustained by someone who is not ready for it. At the best it will throw him into an ecstatic state in which he is paralyzed, as it were, and unable to consummate the contact. This is why, although dervish poets speak of being "mad for love," they emphasize that this madness is the result of preview, not of genuine experience. It is recognized that genuine experience must take an active, mutual, meaningful form, not a form of useless intoxication .

Inebriation mystics are those who stop short at this stage, and try to reproduce the experience repetitiously, or approximate them on paper or in emotional art. This is the stage at which much experimentation in mysticism becomes bogged down.

"Rapture" (wajd) and "existence" (wujud) refer to two states of which the first is the prelude to the second (Junaid). In rapture, the individual is immersed in a sensation which is opposite to the one which he formerly felt. He also becomes attuned to a form of cognition other than that to which he is accustomed. A person experiences this state when he is still at the stage when he is primitively linked with sensual qualities and has little understanding of any deeper perspective to them.

Existence is the name given to the state of "acquisition," when real existence, as opposed to simple physical existence, is perceived by the devotee.

"Period" and "moment" are two concepts which are associated with a moment of perception on contact, a momentary cognition, the instrument of fashioning further states of being. Several other concepts and exercises are associated with these two. One such is the exercise of the freezing of movement, temporarily stopping ordinary associative processes. Another is the use of the Pause of Time, and the Pause of Space, which enable the operation of constructive "time" to take place.

A Complete Sufi may be called a Master of Time, meaning master of starting and stopping, of modifying cognition. The individual who can operate in this sphere is called (by the sage Shibli) one who has o of escaped from being under the sway of hal., the mystical state of rapturous but but generalized joy.

Moment is the term given also to "breath." It stands for the physical exercises connected with breathing, and also for the illustration of the fact that Sufi development is a succession, like the pulsation of breath, not a static condition or irregular motion.

Thus: "Moment is a state in a place of 'stopping.' Breath is a state free from 'stopping.' 'Time' is for the beginner. Breath is for the finisher, completer."

"Presence" and "absence" (shuhud and ghaybat) terms which connote states of Sufihood which may be quite imperceptible to the ordinary man or woman. The dervish may be present as far as the invisible world is concerned, yet absent as far as the familiar one is concerned...

Shibli went to visit another great sage, Junaid. The wife of the latter was about to conceal herself modestly behind a screen. Junaid said, "Stay where you are-- Shibli is absent ." At that moment, Shibli began to weep. Junaid said, "You must now be absent, for Shibli has returned." Being absent or hidden means that the dervish is working in another dimension, and appears to be absent.

This is not the same as absentmindedness, which is not itself a constructive or positive state. Junaid's wife could not see Shibli's absentness; Junaid had to perceive it. Similarly, the ordinary man denies even the possibility of such a state, because he cannot perceive it. For him, is is not only absent, but hidden, concealed, like the concealment of Shibli.

Presence, of course, is another variety of absence, depending upon the point of view: "Present with God is absent to men." Some dervishes alternate between this polarity, perhaps slowly, perhaps instantaneously. When the complete alchemicalization has taken place, there is no duality. They are constantly in the state of presence, and they are not hidden from either world.

The methodology of the dervishes includes the use of exercises designed to produce tajrid (outward detachment) and tafrid (interior solitude). The correct balance of integration of the special faculties can be attained by "outwardly abandoning the desires of this world, and inwardly rejecting the compensation of the next world and of this world." This is tajrid.

Tafrid is not essential to tajrid. But it is associated with it, or may be so. It involves the "rejecting of the increase of deeds of himself, and the concealing of their appearance by regarding on himself God's favor and bounty."

This method illuminates the developmental shortcomings in ordinary religion, which focuses the attention upon the next world. This, for the dervish, is a primary stage, which has to be shed when the time of actual amal (labor) starts.

The obliteration and confirming of the slave's existence is the interpretation of the twin words mahw (obliteration) and isbat (confirmation). This schematic representation of an aspect of dervish being is widely misunderstood by laymen. Every obliteration is a confirmation-- obliteration of undesirable or negative qualities produces the activation of equal and opposite positive qualities. Superficial conjecture has labeled this theory and its processes as a negation of the intellect or mind of the dervish. By default, because dervishes are working and not theorizing or concerned with exegesis, this label has adhered to the words.

"Change" (talwin) and "rest" (tamkin) refer to attitudes of mind and body, as well as inner conditions. Rest is the term used for the permanency of manifestation of Truth. In this condition the dervish experiences a permanent tranquillity of heart which enables him to perceive true reality, or objective fact, generally called Truth.

Change is the exercise and also the condition of tranquillity of the heart, by the pursuance of exercises of presence and absence, as already noted, and other procedures...

Love is the great theme which runs through the ocean of Sufi poetry and the personal teachings of the masters alike. Love is essentially the creator of states of experience, which are themselves referred to as "gifts." There are two general forms of love-- Ordinary Love and Special Love. Those who have not followed the developments possible in this field of the Sufis constantly confuse the one with the other, in a blurring alternation which deceives their perception. Such people make, for instance, serious errors in assessment of individuals, groups and situations. Aware of this, they generally are at pains to try to retrieve their mistakes subsequently (rationalization), and in consequence may appear absurd to those who observe them, whether initiates or otherwise. Self-deception is a symptom of this form of love, whose sincerity is not questioned. Its quality is, however, subject to fluctuations imperceptible to the individual.

The comparisons between Ordinary and Special Love are listed. A perception of baraka (impalpable beauty, grace) in the form or apparent being of a thing is a quality of Ordinary Love. When this becomes profound (Special) love, it is transmuted into the self's inclination to viewing the beauty of the essence (dhat)-- not the form. The effect of love is shown by contrasting love which beautifies existence (Ordinary Love) with love which refines existence (Special Love).

Real love, of the essential type, is not general but specific. It may observe beauty in all forms, but its attention is actually directed upon the essence which is the only love in a final sense. A person does not love in this sense if his love is capable of distraction. This is illustrated by a tale:

A man once met a beautiful woman. He revealed his love to her. She said, "Beside me is one who is more beautiful than I, and more perfect in beauty. She is my sister." He looked to see this woman. Then the first one said : "Boaster! When I saw you from afar, I thought that you were a wise man. When you came near, I thought that you were a lover. Now I know that you are neither."

The wisdom of the dervishes portrays a characteristic of love which is so rare as to be almost unconceived by the rest of humanity. The lover thinks greatly of even slight regard from his beloved. But of his own regard for her, he thinks little. Seen in this light, the feelings of Ordinary Love reflect egocentricity.

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This particular work is suited to exposition outside its nominal cultural pattern partly because it is itself the product of a school which interlaces, crossing and recrossing the traditional Sufic stream over the centuries during which the dervish format has been familiarly overt. This interplay is important, because it shows how the Sufic stream meets, blends and recombines in a manner which superficial observation of the dervish orders would not expect.

Conscious Evolution

From Idries Shah's THE SUFIS (1964):

... Sufis believe that, expressed in one way, humanity is evolving to a certain destiny. We are all taking part in that evolution. Organs come into being as a result of the need for specific organs (Rumi). The human being's organism is producing a new complex of organs in response to such a need. In this age of the transcending of time and space, the complex of organs is concerned with the transcending of time and space. What ordinary people regard as sporadic and occasional bursts of telepathic or prophetic power are seen by the Sufi as nothing less than the first stirrings of these same organs. The difference between all evolution up to date and the present need for evolution is that for the past ten thousand years or so we have been given the possibility of a conscious evolution. So essential is this more rarefied evolution that our future depends upon it...

How are these organs developed? By the Sufi method. How do we know that we are developing them? Only through experience. In the Sufi system there are a number of "stages." The attainment of these stages is marked by an unmistakable if ineffable experience. This experience, when it comes, activates the organ in question, gives us a relief from our climb upward, and grants us sufficient strength to continue the climb. The attainment of stages is permanent. Until one of these stages has been reached, the photographic plate, as it were, may have been exposed and developed, but has not been fixed; and actual experiences are the fixative substance.

This is the meaning of mystical experience, which, however, when indulged in without proper harmony with evolution seems merely to be something sublime-- a sensation of omnipotence or of grace, but no assurance of where the happy or unhappy mortal is going next.

Sufis believe that Sufic activity produces and concentrates what might be termed a centrifugal or magnetic force. This force calls to similar force elsewhere. With the coming together of such forces, work continues. This is an explanation of the mysterious "messages" which Sufi teachers get, telling them to repair to such and such a place, in order to respond to the call of the force there which has become derelict (in the sense of abandoned) or needs their reinforcing.

This is as far as anything in Sufism can be explained in formal terms. As for the rest, the only valid thing is the Sufic watchword: "He who tastes not, knows not." (Rumi)

Our Master Jalaluddin Rumi

From Idries Shah's THE SUFIS (1964)

OUR MASTER JALALUDDIN RUMI

"He is enlightened whose speech and behavior accord, who repudiates the ordinary connections of the world." (Dhu l-Nun, the Egyptian)

... There are three documents by means of which Rumi's work can be studied by the outside world. The Mathnawi-i-Manawi (Spiritual Couplets) is Jalaluddan's masterwork-- six books of poetry and imagery of such power in the original that its recitation produces a strangely complex exaltation of the hearer's consciousness. It was forty-three years in the writing. It cannot exactly be criticized as poetry, because of the special intricacy of ideas, form and presentation. Those who seek conventional verse alone in it, as Professor Nicholson remarks, have to skip. And then they lose the effect of what is in fact a special art form, created by Rumi for the express purpose of conveying meanings which he himself concedes have no actual parallel in ordinary human experience. To ignore this remarkable achievement is like selecting the taste without the strawberry jam...

To the Sufi, if not to anyone else, this book speaks from a different dimension, yet a dimension which is in a way within his deepest self. Like all Sufi works, the Mathnawi will vary in its effect upon the listener in accordance with the conditions under which it is studied. It contains jokes, fables, conversations, references to former teachers and to ecstatogenic methods --a phenomenal example of the method of scatter, whereby a picture is built up by multiple impact to infuse into the mind the Sufi message.

This message, with Rumi as with all Sufi masters, is arranged partially in response to the environment in which he is working. He instituted dances and whirling movements among his disciples, it is related, because of the phlegmatic temperament of the people among whom he was cast. The so-called variation of doctrine or action prescribed by the various Sufi teachers is in reality nothing more than the application of this rule.

In his teaching system, Rumi used explanation and mental drill, thought and meditation, work and play, action and inaction. The body-mind movements of the Whirling Dervishes, coupled with the reed-pipe music to which they were performed, is the product of a special method designed to bring the Seeker into affinity with the mystical current, in order to be transformed by it. Everything which the unregenerate man understands has a use and a meaning within the special context of Sufism which may be invisible until it is experienced. "Prayer," says Rumi, "has a form, a sound and a physical reality. Everything which has a word, has a physical equivalent. And every thought has an action."

One of the really Sufic characteristics of Rumi is that, although he will uncompromisingly say the most unpopular thing--that the ordinary man, whatever his formal attainments, is immature in mysticism-- he also gives the chance to almost anyone to attain progress toward the completion of human destiny.

Like many Sufis cast in a theological atmosphere, Rumi first addresses his hearers on the subject of religion. He stresses that the form in which ordinary, emotional religion is understood by organized bodies is incorrect. The Veil of Light, which is the barrier brought about by self-righteousness, is more dangerous than the Veil of Darkness, produced in the mind by vice. Understanding can come only through love, not by training by means of organizational methods .

For him, the earliest teachers of religions were right. Their successors, apart from a few, organized matters in such a way as virtually to exclude enlightenment. This attitude requires a new approach to the problems of religion. Rumi takes the whole question out of the normal channel. He is not prepared to submit dogma to study and argument. The real religion, he says, is other than people think it is. Therefore there is no virtue in examining dogma. In this world, he says, there is no equivalent to the things which are called the Throne (of God), the Book, Angels, the Day of Reckoning. Similes are used, and they are of necessity merely a rough idea of something else.

In the collection of his sayings and teachings called In It What Is In It (Fihi Ma Fihi), used as a textbook for Sufis, he goes even further. Mankind, he says, passes through three stages. In the first one, he worships anything-man, woman, money, children, earth and stones. Then, when he has progressed a little further, he worships God. Finally, he does not say, "I worship God," nor "I do not worship God" He has passed into the last stage.

In order to approach the Sufi Way, the Seeker must realize that he is, largely, a bundle of what are nowadays called conditionings-- fixed ideas and prejudices, automatic responses sometimes which have occurred through the training of others. Man is not as free as he thinks he is. The first step is for the individual to get away from thinking that he understands, and really understand. But man has been taught that he can understand everything by the same process, the process of logic. This teaching has undermined him.

"If you follow the ways in which you have been trained, which you may have inherited, for no other reason than this, you are illogical."

The understanding of religion, and what the great religious figures taught, is a part of Sufism. Sufism uses the terminology of ordinary religion, but in a special manner which has always excited the anger of the nominally devout. To the Sufi, generally speaking, each religious teacher symbolizes, in his creed and especially in his life, an aspect of the way whose totality is Sufism. Jesus is within you, says Rumi; seek his aid. And then, do not seek from within yourself, from your Moses, the needs of a Pharaoh.

The way in which the different religious paths are symbolized for the Sufi is stated by Rumi when he says that the path of Jesus was struggling with solitude and overcoming lustfulness. The path of Mohammed was to live within the community of ordinary humanity. "Go by the way of Mohammed," he says, "but if you cannot, then go by the Christian way." Rumi here is not by any means inviting his hearers to embrace one or other of these religions . He is pointing to the ways in which the Seeker can find fulfillment; but fulfillment through the Sufic understanding of what the paths of Jesus and Mohammed were.

Similarly, when the Sufi speaks of God, he does not mean the deity in the sense in which it is understood by the man who has been trained by the theologian. This deity is accepted by some, the pious; rejected by others, the atheists. But it is a rejection or acceptance of something which has been presented by the scholastics and priesthood. The God of the Sufis is not involved in this controversy; because divinity is a matter of personal experience to the Sufi.

All this does not mean that the Sufi is trying to take away the exercise of the reasoning faculty. Rumi explains that reason is essential; but it has a place. If you want to have clothes made you visit a tailor. Reason tells you which tailor to choose. After that, however, reason is in suspense . You have to repose complete trust-faith-in your tailor that he will complete the work correctly. Logic, says the master, takes the patient to the doctor. After that, he is completely in the hands of the physician.

But the well-trained materialist, although he claims that he wants to hear what the mystic has to tell him, cannot be told the whole truth. He would not believe it. The truth is not based upon materialism any more than upon logic. Hence the mystic is working on a series of different planes, the materialist on only one. The result of their contact would be that the Sufi will even appear inconsistent to the materialist. If he says today something which he said differently yesterday, he will appear to be a liar. At the very least, the situation of being at cross-purposes will destroy any chance of progress in mutual understanding.

"Those who do not understand a thing," Rumi observes, "claim that it is useless. The hand and the instrument are as flint and steel. Strike flint with earth. Will a spark be made?" One of the reasons why the mystic does not preach publicly is that the conditioned religious man, or the materialist, will not understand him:

A king's hawk settled upon a ruin inhabited by owls . They decided that he had come to drive them out of their home and take possession of it himself. "This ruin may seem a prosperous place to you. To me, the better place is upon the arm of the King," said the hawk. Some of the owls cried, "Do not believe him. He is using guile to steal our home."

The use of fables and illustrations like this one is very widespread among the Sufis; and Rumi is the master fabulist of their number.

The same thought is often given by the master in many different forms, in order to make it penetrate the mind. Sufis says that an idea will enter the conditioned (veiled) mind only if it is so phrased as to be able to bypass the screen of conditionings. The fact that the non-Sufi has so little in common with the Sufi means that the Sufis have to use the basic elements which exist in every human being, and which are not entirely killed by any form of conditioning. And these elements are precisely those which underlie the Sufi development. Of these the first and permanent one is love. Love is the factor which is to carry a man, and all humanity, to fulfillment:

"Mankind has an unfulfillment, a desire, and he struggles to fulfill it through all kinds of enterprises and ambitions. But it is only in love that he can find fulfillment."

But love is itself a serious matter; it is something which keeps pace with enlightenment. Both increase together. The full potential fire of illumination is too powerful to be endured all at once:

'The heat of a furnace may be too great for you to take advantage of its warming effect; while the weaker flame of a lamp may give you the heat which you need."

Everyone, when he gets to a certain stage of mere personal sophistication, thinks that he can find the way to enlightenment by himself. This is denied by Sufis, for they ask how a person can find something when he does not know what it is. "Everyone has become a gold seeker," says Rumi, "but the ordinary do not know it when they see it. If you cannot recognize it, join a wise man."

The ordinary man, thinking that he is on the path of enlightenment, often sees only a reflection of it. Light may be reflected upon a wall; the wall is the host to the light. "Do not attach yourself to the brick of the wall, but seek the eternal original."

"Water needs an intermediary, a vessel, between it and the fire, if it is to be heated correctly."

How is the Seeker to set about his task of getting on the right path? In the first place, he should not abandon work and living in the world. Do not give up working, instructs Rumi; indeed, "the treasure which you seek derives from it." This is one reason why all Sufis must have a constructive vocation. Work, though, is not only ordinary labor or even socially acceptable creativity. It includes self-work, the alchemy whereby man becomes perfected: "Wool, through the presence of a man of knowledge, becomes a carpet. Earth becomes a palace. The presence of a spiritual man creates a similar transformation."

The man of wisdom is initially the guide of the Seeker. As soon as possible this teacher dismisses the disciple, who becomes his own man of wisdom, and then he continues his self-work. False masters in Sufism, as everywhere else, have not been few. So the Sufis are left with the strange situation that whereas the false teacher may appear to be genuine (because he takes pains to appear what the disciple wants him to be), the true Sufi is often not like what the undiscriminating and untrained Seeker thinks a Sufi should be like.

Rumi warns: "Judge not the Sufi to be that which you can see of him, my friend. How long, like a child, will you prefer only nuts and raisins?"

The false teacher will pay great attention to appearance, and will know how to make the Seeker think that he is a great man, that he understands him, that he has great secrets to reveal. The Sufi has secrets, but he must make them develop within the disciple. Sufism is something which happens to a person, not something which is given to him. The false teacher will keep his followers around him all the time, will not tell them that they are being given a training which must end as soon as possible, so that they may taste their development themselves and carry on as fulfilled people.

Rumi calls upon the scholastic, the theologian, and the follower of the false teacher: "When will you cease to worship and to love the pitcher? When will you begin to look for the water?" Externals are the things which people usually judge by. "Know the difference between the color of the wine and the color of the glass."

The Sufi must follow all the routines of self-development; otherwise mere concentration upon one will cause an imbalance, leading to loss. The speed of development of different people varies. Some, says Rumi, understand all from reading a line. Others, who have actually been present at an event, know all about it. The capacity for understanding develops with the spiritual progress of the individual.

The meditations of Rumi include some remarkable ideas, designed to bring the Seeker into an understanding of the fact that he is temporarily out of contact with complete reality, even though ordinary life seems to be the totality of reality itself. What we see, feel and experience in ordinary, unfulfilled life, according to Sufic thinking, is only a part of the great whole. There are dimensions which we can reach only through effort. Like the submerged portion of the iceberg, they are there, though unperceived under ordinary conditions. Also like the iceberg, they are far greater than could be suspected by superficial study.

Rumi uses several analogies to explain this. One of the most striking is his theory of action. There is, he says, such a thing as comprehensive action, and there is also individual action. We are accustomed to seeing, in the ordinary world of sense, only individual action. Supposing a number of people are making a tent. Some sew, others prepare the ropes, some again weave. They are all taking part in a comprehensive action, although each is absorbed in his individual action. If we are thinking about the making of the tent, it is the comprehensive action of the whole group which is important.

In certain directions, the Sufi says, life must be looked upon as a whole, as well as individually. This getting into tune with the whole plan, the comprehensive action of life, is essential to enlightenment.

Little by little, as his experiences increase, the Sufi begins to reshape his thinking along these lines. Before he had actual experience of mysticism, he was either a scoffer, uncommitted, or had a completely illusory idea of the nature of the experience, and especially of the teacher and the path. Rumi gives him meditations designed to overcome the overdevelopment of certain ideas which are current among the uninstructed. Man expects to be given a golden key. But some are faster than others in developing. A man traveling through the darkness is yet traveling. The disciple is learning when he does not know that he is learning, and as a result he may well chafe. In winter, Rumi reminds him, a tree is collecting nutriment. People may think that it is idle, because they do not see anything happening. But in spring they see the buds. Now, they think, it is working. There is a time for collecting, and a time for releasing. This brings the subject back to the teaching: "Enlightenment must come little by little-otherwise it would overwhelm."

The tools of scholasticism, used sparingly by Sufis, are being replaced by esoteric training, and this has to be done in accordance with the capacities of the student. The tools of the goldsmith, our teacher remarks, in the hands of the cobbler are like seeds sown in sand. And the cobbler's tools in the farmer's hand are like straw offered to a dog, or bones to a donkey.

The attitude toward ordinary conventions of life undergoes an examination. The question of humanity's inner yearnings is seen, not as a Freudian need, but as a natural instrument inherent in the mind in order to enable it to attain to truth. People, Rumi teaches, do not really know what they want. Their inner yearning is expressed in a hundred desires which they think are their needs. These are not their real desires, as experience shows. For when these objectives are attained, the yearning is not stilled. Rumi would have seen Freud as someone who was obsessed by one of the secondary manifestations of the great yearning; not as someone who had discovered the basis of the yearning.

Again, people may appear evil in one's eyes-- and yet to another individual they may seem fair. This is because in the one mind there is the idea of unpleasantness, in the other, the concept of goodness. "The fish and the hook are both present together."

The Sufi is learning the power of detachment, to be followed by the power of experiencing what he is considering, not just looking at it. In order to do this, he is instructed by the teacher to meditate upon Rumi's theme: "The satiated man and the hungry one do not see the same thing when they look upon a loaf of bread."

If a person is so untrained that he is influenced by his own bias, he cannot hope to make much progress. Rumi concentrates upon developing control; control through experience, not through mere theory as to what is good or bad, right or wrong. This belongs to the category of words: "Words, in themselves, are of no importance. You treat a visitor well, and speak a few kind words to him. He is happy. But if you treat another man to a few words of abuse, he will be hurt. Can a few words really mean happiness or sadness? These are secondary factors, and not real ones. They affect people who are weak."

The Sufi learner is developing through his exercises a new way of seeing things. He is also acting, reacting, differently in a given situation than he otherwise would. He understands the deeper meaning of such recommendations as this: "Take the pearl, not the shell. You will not find a pearl in every shell. A mountain is many times larger than a ruby." What seems almost trite to the ordinary man, perhaps passed on as a wise saw, becomes intensely meaningful to the Sufi, who finds in its depths contact with something that he calls "other"-- the underlying factor which he is seeking. What may appear a stone to the ordinary man, continues Jalaluddin, further developing his theme, is a pearl to the Knower.

Now the elusiveness of spiritual experience is glimpsed by the Seeker. If he is a creative worker, he enters the stage when inspiration enters him sometimes, but not at other times. If he is subject to ecstatic experience, he will find that the joyous meaningful sense of completeness comes transitorily, and that he cannot control it. The secret protects itself: "Concentrate upon spirituality as you will-- it will shun you if you are unworthy. Write about it, boast of it, comment upon it-- it will decline to benefit you; it will flee. But, if it sees your concentration, it may come to your hand, like a trained bird. Like the peacock, it will not sit in an unworthy place."

It is only when he is beyond this stage of development that the Sufi can communicate anything of the path to others. If he tries to do so before, "it will flee."

Here, too, the need for a delicate balance between extremes is essential, or the whole effort may be in vain. The net which is your mind, observes Rumi, is delicate. It has to be so adjusted as to catch its catch. If there is unhappiness, the net is torn. If it is torn, it will not be of use. By too great love and too great opposition alike, the net becomes torn. "Practice neither."

The five inner senses begin to function as the inner life of the individual is awakened. The food which is not a palpable food, spoken of by Rumi, starts to exercise a nutritious effect. The inner senses resemble in a way the physical ones, but "they are to them as copper to gold."

As individuals all vary in their capacities, the Sufis at this stage are developed in some ways and not in others. It is usual for a number of inner faculties and special abilities to develop concurrently and harmoniously. Changes in mood may occur, but they are not at all like the changes in mood which undeveloped people feel. Mood becomes a part of real personality, and the crudeness of ordinary moods is replaced by the alternation and interaction of higher moods, of which the lower ones are considered to be reflections.

The Sufi's conception of wisdom and ignorance undergoes a change. Rumi puts it like this: "If a man were entirely wise, and bad no ignorance, he would be destroyed by it. Therefore ignorance is laudable, because it means continued existence. Ignorance is the collaborator of wisdom, in this sense of alternation, as night and day complement one another."

The working together of opposite things is another significant theme of Sufism. When apparent opposites are reconciled, the individuality is not only complete, it also transcends the bounds of ordinary humanity as we understand them. The individual becomes, as near as we can state it, immensely powerful. What this means, and how it takes place, are matters of personal experience outside the realm of mere writing. Rumi reminds us in another place, talking of the written words: "The book of the Sufis is not the darkness of letters. It is the whiteness of a pure heart."

Now the Sufi attains some of the insights which are associated with the developing of an infallible intuition. His feeling for knowledge is such that he can, by reading a book, often sift the fact from the fiction, the real intention of the author from other elements. Especially threatened by this faculty are the imitators, who claim to be Sufis, and whom he is able to see through. Yet his sense of balance shows him how far the imitator may be of value in the cause of Sufism. Rumi comments upon this function in the Mathnawi, and this teaching is faithfully passed on by Sufi teachers when they find that the student has reached this stage: "The imitator is like a canal. It does not itself drink, but may transit water to the thirsty."

As he progresses on the path, the Sufi realizes how immensely complex and even perilous it is, unless carried out in accordance with the method which has been developed through the ages. Using a fable, the Mathnawi records this stage of the experiences. A lion entered a stable, ate an ox which he found there, and sat in its place. The stable was dark, and the ox's owner entered and felt around for his animal. His hands passed over the lion's body. The lion said, "If there were any light, he would die of fright. He strokes me thus only because he takes me for an ox." Read as an ordinary story, this vivid sketch might be passed over as just a version of fools rushing in where angels fear to tread.

The understanding of true meanings behind inexplicable worldly happenings is another consequence of Sufi development. Why, for instance, does a certain phase in mystical study take one person longer than another, even if he is carrying out roughly the same routines? Rumi illustrates the experiencing of a special dimension in life which veils the complete workings of actuality, giving us an unsatisfactory view of the whole. Two beggars, he says, came to the door of a house. One was immediately satisfied, and given a piece of bread. He went away. The second was kept waiting for his morsel. Why? The first beggar was not greatly liked; he was given stale bread. The second was made to wait until a fresh loaf was baked for him. This story illustrates a theme which recurs frequently in Sufic teaching-- that there is often one element in a happening which we do not know. Yet we base our opinions upon material which is incomplete. Small wonder that the uninitiated develops and passes on a "squint" which is self-perpetuating.

"You belong," sings Rumi in one verse, "to the world of dimension. But you come from nondimension. Close the first `shop,' open the second."

All life and all creation is seen in a new and comprehensive form. The worker, to use the imagery of the Mathnawi, is "hidden in the workshop," hidden by the work, which has, as it were, spun a web over him. The workshop is the place of vision. Outside it is the place of darkness.

The Sufi's position as one with greater insight into matters of the world and of the whole, as opposed to the part, gives him a tremendous potentiality for power. But he can exercise this only in association with the rest of creation-- first with the other Sufis, then with mankind, finally with all creation. His powers and his very being are linked with a new set of relationships. People come to him, and he realizes that even those who scoff have quite possibly come to learn rather than to score a point over him. He regards a great number of happenings as a sort of question and answer. A visit to a sage he considers to be the approach, "Teach me." Hunger may be a questing, a question: Send food." Abstinence from food is an answer, a negative one. And, as Rumi concludes this passage, the answer to the existence of a fool is silence.

He is able to pass on a part of his mystical experience to certain others, some of the disciples who come to him, and who are adapted by their past experiences for such a development. This is sometimes done by mutual concentration exercises (tajalli), and its practice may develop into the true mystical experience. "At first," Rumi told his disciples, "enlightenment comes to you from the Adepts. This is imitation. But when it comes frequently, it is the experience of truth." A Sufi may often, during many of the stages of the search, seem to be unheeding of the feelings of others, or otherwise out of step with society. When this is so, it is because he has glimpsed the true character of a situation behind the apparent situation visible only partially to others.

He acts in the best possible way, though he does not always know why he has said or done a thing.

Jalaluddin, in Fihi Ma Fihi, gives an illustration of just such a situation. A drunken man saw a King pass by with a highly prized horse. He called out some uncomplimentary remark about the horse. The King was angry, and summoned him to his presence later. "At that time," explained the man, "a drunkard was standing on that roof. I am not him, for he is gone." The King was pleased with the reply, and rewarded him. The drunk is the Sufi, just as is the sobered man. The Sufi, in his state of association with true reality, acted in a certain way. As a result he was rewarded. He had also performed a function in explaining to the King that people are not always responsible for their actions. He had, too, given the King a chance to perform a good action.

No ripe grape becomes unripe again, and human evolution cannot be stopped. It can be directed, however; and it can also be interfered with by those who do not know what true intuition is. Thus the teachings of the Sufis can become distorted; thus, too, can the Adept be treated if he allows himself to be seen too openly by the profane. As for actually preaching Sufic things to those without, Rumi, like other Sufi teachers, is prepared always to make a general invitation:

While the inner lamp of jewels is still alight, hasten to trim its wick and provide it with oil.

But he is in accord with the teachers who refuse to discuss the cult with all and sundry : "Summon horses to a place other than where grass is to be found; and they will question it"-- no matter what it is.

The Sufis oppose the pure intellectuals and scholastic philosophers partly because they believe that such training of the mind in obsessive and one-track thinking is bad for that mind and for all other minds as well. Equally, those who think that all that matters is intuition or asceticism are strongly combated by Sufic teaching. Rumi insists upon the balance of all the faculties.

The union of mind and intuition which brings about illumination and the development which the Sufis seek is based upon love, always love-- this insistent theme of Rumi is nowhere better expressed than in his writings, unless it be within the actual walls of a Sufi school. Just as intellectualism works with palpable materials, Sufism works with both perceptible and inner ones. Where science and scholasticism ever narrow their scope to take in smaller and smaller areas of study, Sufism continues to embrace every evidence of the great underlying truth, wherever it may be found.

This power of assimilation and ability to invoke symbolism, story and thought from the underground Sufic current has caused the outward commentators (even in the East) great excitement and new pastimes. They track down the origins of a story in India, an idea in Greece, an exercise among shamans. These elements they bear back delightedly to their desks, eventually to provide ammunition in the struggle in which their opponents are only each other.

The unique atmosphere of Sufi schools is found in the Mathnawi and Fihi Ma Fihi. But many externalists consider that they are confusing, chaotic and loosely written.

True, both books are partially guides which have to be used in conjunction with actual Sufic teaching and practice-- work, thought, life and art. But even one commentator who accepted the reality of this atmosphere as deliberately created, and who repeated the Sufi account of this in print, showed himself in personal contact to be rather bewildered by the whole thing. Still, it must be said that he considered himself to be a Sufi, although not admitted by any Sufic method. Under the influence of such men, the Western study of Sufism, now in a period of tremendous upsurge, has become a little more Sufic, although it still has a very long way to go. The "intellectual Sufi" is the latest fad in the West.

Sufism, of course, has a technical terminology all its own, and Rumi's verses teem with familiar and special varieties of initiatory terms. He describes, for instance, in his third great book, The Diwan of Shams of Tabriz, some of the concepts of mind and activities which are projected within a secret meeting of dervishes. Couched in rhapsodic verse, the teachings of Sufi being "in thought and action" are conveyed by a method especially devised for their projection:

Join the community, be like them, so see the joy of real life. Go along the ruined street, and see the distraught (owners of the "ruined houses"). Drink the cup of feeling, so that you do not feel shame (self-consciousness). Shut both the eyes of the head, so that you may see with the inner eye. Open the two arms of your self, if you seek an embrace. Shatter the earthen idol in order to see the face of idols. Why accept so great a dowry for a feeble hag-- and for three loaves why do you accept military servitude?

The Friend returns at night; tonight do not take a draught-- shut your mouth against food, that you gain the food of the mouth. In the assembly of the kindly Cupbearer, circle yourself-- come into the Circle . How long will you circle (around it)? Here is an offer-- leave one life, gain the Shepherd's kindliness. Cease thought except for the creator of thought-- thought for "life" is better than thought of bread. In the amplitude of God's earth, why have you fallen asleep in a prison? Abandon complicated thoughts-- in order to see the concealed answer. Be silent of speech, to attain enduring speech. Pass "life" and "world," in order to see the Life of the World.

Although the actuality of Sufi being cannot be assayed by the more limited criteria of discursive thought, this poem can be seen as an assembling of the salient factors in the Rumi method. He stipulates a community, dedicated to perceiving reality, of which apparent reality is only a substitute. This cognition comes through contact with others, by being engaged in group activity, as well as in personal activity and thought. What actually is fundamental comes only when certain patterns of thinking have been reduced to their correct perspective. The Seeker must "open his arms" to an embrace, not expect to be given anything while he stands passively awaiting it. The "feeble hag" is the whole array of mundane experiences, which are reflections of an ultimate reality that bears hardly any comparison with what seems to be truth. For the "three loaves" of ordinary life, people sell their potentiality.

The Friend comes at night-comes, that is, when things are still, and when the individual is not drugged by automatic thinking. The food which is a special nutrition of the Sufi is not the same as the ordinary food; but it is an essential part of the human intake. Humanity is circling around reality, in a system which is not the real system. It must enter the circle instead of following its perimeter. The relationship of the real awareness to what we consider to be awareness is as of a hundred lives to one life. Certain characteristics of life as we know it-- the predatory and selfish ones, the many others which are barriers to progress-- must be outbalanced by benign factors.

Thought, not pattern-thinking, is the method. Thought must be for all life, not for small aspects of it. Man is like someone who has the choice of traversing the earth, but has fallen asleep in a prison. The complications of misplaced intellectualism hide the truth. Silence is a prelude to speech, real speech. The inner life of the world is gained by ignoring the fragmentation implied by "life" and "world."

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It was when he was nearly forty that Rumi started his semipublic mystical teachings. The mysterious dervish "Sun of the Faith of Tabriz" inspired him to produce a great deal of his finest poetry, and to couch his teachings in a manner and form they were to retain throughout the life of the Mevlevi Order. His work done, the dervish vanished after about three years, and no further trace of him was ever reported. This "emissary from the unknown world" has been equated by Rumi's son with the mysterious Khidr, the guide and patron of the Sufis, who appears and then passes out of normal cognition after transmitting his message. It was during this time that Rumi became a poet. For him, although acknowledgedly one of the greatest poets of Persia, poetry was only a secondary product. He did not regard it as any more than a reflection of the enormous inner reality which was truth, and which he calls love. The greatest love, as he says, is silent and cannot be expressed in words. Although his poetry was to affect men's minds in a way that can only be called magical, he was never carried away by it to the extent of identifying it with the far greater being of which it was a lesser expression. At the same time, he recognized it as something which could form a bridge between what he "really felt" and what he could do for others. Adopting the Sufic methods of getting a thing into perspective, even at the risk of demolishing the fondest ideas, he himself assumes the role of critic of poetry. People come to him, he says, and he loves them. In order to give them something to understand, he gives them poetry. But poetry is for them, not for him, however great a poet he may be "What, after all, is my concern with poetry?" In order to hammer home the message, as only a poet with the greatest contemporary reputation could dare to do, he states categorically that in comparison with the true reality, he has no time for poetry. This is the only nutrition, he says, that his visitors can accept, "so like a good host he provides it." The Sufi must never allow anything to stand as a barrier between what he is teaching and those who are learning it. Hence Rumi's insistence upon the subsidiary role of poetry in the perspective of the real quest. What he had to communicate was beyond poetry. To a mind conditioned to the belief that there is nothing more sublime than poetic expression, such a feeling might produce a sense of shock. It is just this application of impact which is necessary to the Sufi cause, in the freeing of the mind from attachment to secondary phenomena, "idols." Rumi, the inheritor of his father's chair, now projected his mystical teachings through artistic channels . Music, dancing and poetry were cultivated and used in the dervish meetings. Alternating with these were certain mental and physical exercises designed to open the mind to the recognition of its greater potential, through the theme of harmony. Harmonious development, through the medium of harmony, might be a description of what Rumi was practicing. Studying such of his teachings as they can from the outside, many foreign observers have been bewildered by Rumi. One refers to his "very unoriental view that woman is not a mere plaything, but a ray of deity "

One poem of Rumi's, published in The Diwan of Shams of Tabriz, has caused a certain amount of confusion to the literalists. It appears to refer to Rumi's examination of all forms of current religion, old and new, and his conclusion that the essential truth lay in the inner consciousness of man himself, not in external organizations. This is true if we realize that, according to Sufi belief, the "examining" of these creeds is done in a special way. The Sufi does not necessarily literally travel from one country to another, seeking religions to study and taking what he can from them. Neither does he read books of theology and exegesis, in order to compare one with the other. His "journey" and his "examination" of other ideas takes place within himself. This is because the Sufi believes that, like anyone experienced in anything else, he has an inner sense against which he can measure the reality of religious systems. To be more specific, it would appear nonsensically cumbersome to approach a metaphysical subject by ordinary research methods. Anyone who said to him, "Have you read the book on such and such by so-and-so?" would be using the wrong approach. It is not the book, nor the author, but the reality of what that book and that man signify, which are important to the Sufi. In order to make his assessment of a person or his teachings, the Sufi needs only a sample. But this sample has to be accurate. He must, in other words, be placed into rapport with the essential factor in the teaching in question. A disciple, for instance, who does not thoroughly understand the system which he is following cannot convey enough of that system to the Sufi to enable an assessment to be made.

This is the poem in which Rumi speaks of the attaining of the rapport with the various faiths, and his reaction to them:

Cross and Christians, end to end, I examined. He was not on the Cross. I went to the Hindu temple, to the ancient pagoda. In neither was there any sign. To the heights of Herat I went, and Kandahar. I looked. He was not on height or lowland. Resolutely, I went to the top of the Mountain of Kaf. There only was the place of the 'Anqa bird. I went to the Kaaba. He was not there. I asked of his state from Ibn Sina: he was beyond the limits of the philosopher Avicenna. . . . I looked into my own heart. In that his place I saw him. He was in no other place. . . .

This "he" (which, in the original, could be either he, she or it) is the true reality. The Sufi is eternal, and his use of words like "drunkenness" or "grape" or "heart" is necessary but ultimately so approximate as to appear a travesty. As Rumi puts it:

Before garden, vine or grape were in the world

Our soul was drunken with immortal wine.

The Sufi may be compelled to use similes drawn from the familiar world at an early stage of transmission, but Rumi follows the standard Sufi formula very strictly. The crutches must be removed if the patient is to be able to walk by himself. The value of Rumi's mode of expression for the student is the fact that he makes this much more plain than most material available outside of Sufi schools. If certain external Orders have fallen into the habit of literally conditioning their followers to repetitious stimuli, marking time at a certain stage of development, retaining the attachment of the disciples to the "crutches," it is no fault of Jalaluddin Rumi.