The Sufi Objective
Composed and written by
Ali Dede.
If someone tells you that you are wrong,
it is best if that person describes your mistakes,
and suggests to you the means to correct your errors,
especially if he is a Dervish, who can base his
appreciation on the essence of the Sufi Tradition.
(Ali Dede.)
786
I dedicate this book to those whose
Objective is to Be:
In the Radiance of the Creator.
In remembrance of
BOGAUDDIN NAQSHBANDI OF BUKHARA.
This book has been put together in the hope of helping the
reader to focus, or remember,
the Objective of the Sufi, whether he is on the Road of the Sufi
already or may be some day.
“Sufi is the NAME... of the Realized Human Being.”
(Idries Shah – Sufi Thought and Action – pg. 72)
I have freely taken from the immense and wonderful literature of
the Sufi Tradition of all times,
as found in the books of the Great Masters of Sufism.
The True Objective of the Human Being is One.
But if one were to ask 100 people, who are not Sufis, what that
Objective is, there would probably be 100 different answers.
Let us listen to the Great Masters of the Sufi Tradition, and have their
Illuminated Perception
be our guide towards that Objective.
(Ali Dede.)
TRUTH
The Prophet Muhammad said that Truth has declared:
“I am not hidden in what is high or low
Nor in the earth nor skies nor throne.
This is certainty, O Beloved:
I am hidden in the hearts of the faithful.
If you seek me, seek me in these hearts.”
(Jalaluddin Rumi)
It is narrated that once Mevlana Rumi said to his son:
“If people ask you what is your path, then reply:
“My Path is to eat very little,
nay my Path is ‘to die’, that is to be annihilated into the
radiance of the Divine”
Taken from Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi
“Each Perfected Man is in a sense the same as each other one.
This means that, correctly attuned through the energy of the School,
a disciple can come into communication with all the Great Ones,
just as they are in communication with each other, across time and place.
We have renewed the substance of the Tradition of the Ancients.
Many among the dedicated dervishes have not done this, and we must leave
them to what they want to practice. Do not engage in disputation with them.
“You to your way, and I to mine.”
The duties and practices of the School form one whole Truth,
the manner of teaching and the participants form one hand, in which
the ignorant may see only the dissimilarity of the fingers, not the combined
action of the hand itself.”
(Bogauddin Naqshabandi of Bukhara)
“You may follow one stream. Realize that it leads to the Ocean.
Do not mistake the stream for the Ocean.”
(Sayed Jan-Fishan Khan of Paghman)
“If you take what is relative to be what is absolute, you may be lost.
Take nothing rather than risk this.”
(Simaqi)
DISCIPLES AND SAGES
“Disciples in power are less than children.
Sages are like a firm wall.”
DOMINION
“Dominion of the world from end to end
is worth less than a drip of blood upon the earth.”
(Saadi de Shiraz)
LIGHT
“The true lover finds the light only if, like the candle, he is his own fuel,
consuming himself.”
(Faridudin Attar)
THE STRAIGHT PATH
“I have never seen a man lost who was on a straight path.”
(Saadi de Shiraz)
THE ROAD
“I fear that you will not reach Mecca, O Nomad!
For the road which you are following leads to Turkistan!”
(Saadi de Shiraz)
THE TEACHER
“The ruler is a Shepard and his flock is the people.
He has to help them and save them, not to exploit and destroy them.
Is the Shepard there for the flock, or is the flock for the Shepard?”
(Hakim Jami)
FOLLOW THE PATH
“Do not speak of your heartache -- for He is speaking.
Do not seek Him – for He is seeking.
He feels even the touch of an ant’s foot;
If there is a worm on a rock
He knows its body, smaller than an atom.
The sound of its praise, and its hidden perception,
He knows by His Divine knowledge.
He has given the worm its sustenance;
He has shown you the Path of the Teaching.”
(Hakim Sanai)
LOVE
“Ordinary human love is capable of raising man to the experience
of real love.”
(Hakim Jami)
I AM
“Every clique has a theory about me.
I am mine; what I am, I am.”
(Omar Khayyam)
THE BARREN TREE
“No one throws a stone at a barren tree.”
(Saadi of Shiraz)
LEARNING
“None learned the art of archery from me
who did not make me, in the end, the target.”
(Saadi of Shiraz)
“Heart to Heart is an essential means of passing on the secrets of the Path.”
(Rudbari)
“Pass from time and place to timelessness and placelessness,
To the other worlds. There is our origin.”
(Amini(k)i)
“You hear my words;
Hear too, that there are words other than mine.
These are not meant for the hearing with the physical ear.
Because you see only me, you think there is no Sufism apart from me.
You are here to learn, not to collect historical information.”
(Qandahari)
THE STATE
“Justice and fairness, not religion or atheism,
Are needful for the protection of the State.”
(Hakim Jami)
EFFORTS
“Tie two birds together.
They will not be able to fly, even though they now have four wings.”
(Jalaluddin Rumi)
A SUFI
“He is a Sufi who is able to reconcile opposites.”
(Idries Shah)
SIN
“Sin against God is one thing; but sinning against man is worse.”
(Sufian Thauri)
CLASS
“The lower classes of society are those who fatten themselves in life
in the name of religion.”
(Ibn-el-Mubarak)
SUBORDINATES
“Almost every day I am reminded of Saadi’s reflection that there is no
senseless tyranny like that of subordinates.”
(Idries Shah)
IMPROVEMENT
“If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give
him money, power, flattery, gifts, honors.
If you want to make a wise man happy -- improve yourself!”
(Idries Shah)
UNKOWN
“There are, literally, thousands of wise people, unknown to the ordinary
man. They teach in a manner which is not recognized as teaching by the
herd. They continuously influence man.
People who respond to authority figures and weird things are not unable to
make any contact with them. Other people lack information and preparation.”
(Idries Shah)
“I”
“Contemplate much less the “I shall progress”, than the “I stand in my way”
(Idries Shah)
THINKING THAT ONE KNOWS
“People who think that they know all are insufferable – rather like
those who imagine that they know nothing.”
(Idries Shah)
TALKING
“I want you to take care of yourself, because the next time I see you I want to
talk to you, not about you. And when I no longer have to talk to you, I want
to be able to talk about you, for the edification of others.”
(Idries Shah)
VIRTUE
“If your own vice happens to be the search for virtue, recognize that it is so.”
A MOTTO OF THE HUMAN RACE
“Let me do what I like, and give me approval as well.”
RAW MATERIAL
“Listen to Man: he thinks that he prizes himself above everything else. And
yet he treats himself and his fellows as the cheapest raw material in the world.”
(Idries Shah)
PERCEPTION AND OBJECTIVE TRUTH
Suppose almost no human being could tell hot from cold.
People would then not be able to make use of heat or cold.
They would be at its mercy.
They would find that water sometimes scalded them, sometimes was nice
and drinkable. Why this should be and how they could avoid dangerous
water and select good water might become a ceaseless search.
While they were searching, the behavior of water – and a good many other
things – would make no sense; would seem to be motivated by a
capricious Fate.
They would become superstitious about it. They would be attracted to
anyone who could tell them something about it,
or who seemed able to do so.
The fact would be, however, that they lacked an organ of perception,
nerves which could signal to them when there was heat and when cold.
They would likely to be in such a permanent state that they would
actually conflict with anyone who told them this,
though, because it would seem so trite, it would also seem patronizing.
And, alternating with their credulity towards “teachers” of the heat-cold
problem would be a demand to be “shown”
evidence indicating what was going on.
Someone might say, as we do, that the first necessity is to develop
the perceptive organ, and that any argument which was left could come
late. But the vicious circle would still be there: “Tell me now,
demonstrate it now.”
Again, since the organ of touch involved in distinguishing heat
from cold is specific and cannot be easily described even to someone
who has other senses, a lot of time and effort is wasted. People think that
they can be told what “touch” is like.
When it comes down to it, they can only experience it. Speech merely
provides the aid to training “touch”
(Idries Shah)
A VIRTUALLY UNKOWN
PRINCIPLE OF HUMAN ORGANIZATION:
GROUP STUDIES PARADOX
Tradition avers, and experience verifies, one of the least known and strangest
facts about group studies. Learning groups collect around an individual or a
doctrine, or both. Because virtually all human actions are motivated by greed or
fear (“whip or carrot”), these are the mainsprings of all study groups. But these
negative characteristics, although they alone caused the individuals to find,
enter and persist in the group, are a distinct barrier to learning.
The level of greed and fear, because these emotions disturb the learning
and “digesting” processes, must be reduced to tolerable proportions.
It is always hard, and sometimes impossible, to do this without introducing
new people who have lower than average levels of these two characteristics.
Such people are almost always found in the general population, not
mainly interested in the “spiritual” purpose of the group which their
presence can help. The only method of attracting them to the group
in order for them to fulfill this function is if they are contacted and
interested on an ordinary “human” not greed – or fear based footing.
‘This is the paradox. This, too is a real reason for people who are
“magnetized” into an esoteric or spiritual grouping to establish lines
into the general population which are in areas and on subjects free
from the bias of the group. The extent to which this can be done will
determine the future of the group and the interaction of the committee
“groupists” and the members of the general population.
Each provides something which the other lacks. Through their interaction a
healthy community may form. Neither, on their own, will be able to develop
into a more advanced organism.
If members of the group are unable to accept that their progress depends on
those they often tend to regard as less than elite, they will
become a narrow sociological group, with highly attenuated, even lost
potential. If the members of the population at large -- the other category
in the two-fold process being discussed) look askance at the group
minded people, their own insularity will increase and their potential
even for maintaining their situation will be impaired.
The reason for this is that, as with, say, a chemical process, the influence
exercised on each element by their having brought into contact
cannot be abolished by failure to sympathize or to continue in contact.
The refusal to accept that there may be merit, or even decisive value,
in others outside their ranks can poison the prospects of those who
reject this information.
Failure to take sufficiently seriously the
inherent value of a spiritual group (which has shed the very factors
which brought it together in the first place in favor of the real,
deeper unifying factor beyond) has a similar adverse effect on the
“outside” or uncommitted scoffer.
Most groups, since they are to strongly rooted in selfishness and
hope and fear, and because they are almost never organized by specialists,
fail to reach the stage where the transformation already referred to may take
place and produce the group which may now be called a learning organism.
(Idries Shah – taken from – Seeker After Truth)
“One cannot learn from someone whom one distrusts.
Yet plenty of people, again perhaps because of self flattery,
“follow” those whom they do not entirely trust.
To the Sufi such people may be followers: they cannot,
in that condition, be pupils.”
(Idries Shah – pg 10. – Sufi Thought and Action)
FOUR STAGES
In Sufi parlance, the four stages are conceived as:
1. Being in contact with, and partaking of the nature and behavior
of ordinary humanity.
2. Being in harmony with a Teaching Master.
3. Being in contact with the Founder of the Teaching.
4. Being in harmony with Absolute Truth.
(Idries Shah – Pg 14 – of Sufi Thought and Action)
FOUR LEVELS OF PERCEPTION
The four levels of Perception, again corresponding to the above
cited Four Stages, are in the Sufi formulation:
CONCENTRATION
RENUNCIATION
PERCEPTION
ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE
The aspirant’s description changes as he climbs the “Ladder of Four Rungs”.
First he is an Abid (a worshipper),
Then a Zahid (renouncer),
Then an Arif (knower),
And finally a Muhibb (Lover).
Love is the word used for the
highest stage of development.
(Idries Shah – pg 14 & 15 - Sufi Thought and Action)
“There are those who have preferred power to enlightenment.”
(Hoda Azizan – pg 134- Sufi Thought and Action, Idries Shah)
“Although the true Sufi teacher is other-worldly, he has a major task; the
need to present himself as thoroughly acceptable in every way, in every action,
in all respects, as acceptable to the ordinary members of the wider
community in which his work is set”
(Hoda Azizan – pg 134- Sufi Thought and Action, Idries Shah)
“The false Sufi makes little progress with normal people, just as the
legitimate Sufi makes real progress with virtually nobody else.”
(Hoda Azizan – pg 134- Sufi Thought and Action, Idries Shah)
“DEAR FRIEND:
“Your heart is a polished mirror. You must wipe it clean of the veils
of dust which have gathered upon it, because it is destined to reflect
the light of divine secrets… which will fall upon it if you wish for Him,
from Him, with Him… If only the lamp of divine secrets is kindled
within your inner self, the rest will come, either all at once or little
by little… Then you will see the sun of inner knowledge rising from
the horizon of divine reason…”
“Some you already know, some we will tell you here. Read, listen,
and try to understand.”
(From Abdul Qadir Gilani’s – The Endowment of Divine Grace)
“Your heart will never succeed as long as there is anyone else besides God
Almighty in it. Even if you were to prostrate to Him for one thousand years
on a pile of burning coals, as long as your heart seeks someone other
than Him, your devotion will be to no avail. Your heart will be of no
consequence as long as it finds love in other than its Lord. You will not
enjoy His love unless you drop everything else.”
(From Abdul Qadir Gilani’s – The Endowment of Divine Grace)
“Something of the atmosphere in a dervish Order’s school can be felt
by this statement, which is a verbatim extract from a preliminary discourse
by Sheik el Mushaikh (Sheikhly Sheikh) addressing a number of
candidates for admission to the Azamia (Greater) Order recently:
“The Object of the Sufis is to refine themselves to such an extent that they
attain the irradiation (anwar) of what we call the several attributes of God
or Beautiful Names.”
(Taken from pg. 300 – of The Sufis by Idries Shah)
“The full dynamic of the Organ of Evolution becomes operative only when
something akin to detachment has been attained. This happens only when
certain educational preparations have been made. Before the stage of conscious
development various indisputable experiences mark certain stages of advance.
Those give the individual both proof of his progress and strength to continue
to the next stage.
Unless he receives these illuminations in correct succession, he will stay at
a stage of partial awareness or occasional concentration power.
One of the least desirable results of such out-of-sequence
development is when the candidate is not weaned form dependence
upon his instructor.
When what we have called the Organ of Evolution is developed and working,
the functions of instinct, emotion and intellect are
transmuted and work in a new key.
A fresh and ever-widening series of experiences is open to the dervish.”
(Pg. 304 of The Sufis – Idries Shah)
Abu Yaqab Khwaja Yusuf al Hamadani was born in 1048
near Hamadan. He died in Bamiyin at the age of ninety-five.
His tomb is in Merv, in Turkmenistan.
He occupies a position of extraordinary importance in Sufism,
since he represents the “top link” from which the chains of several major
Orders are suspended. In other words, he is the common starting point
for the lines of transmission of the Yasaviyya, the Naqshbandiyya, the
Khwajagan, and the Bektashiyya.
“In divine remembrance (zikr), he used
the technique of retaining the breath, which he carried to such
lengths that he would sweat profusely”
(Masters of Wisdom of Central Asia – Pg. 10 – by Sh. Hasan Shushud)
TO THE HUMAN BEING
First feel the need to BE and do not stop until you find the person
who will guide you towards activating in yourself that which is capable
of perceiving BEING.
After years, with dedication and effort you will be able and it will be possible
for you to perceive when there is and when there is not His Life.
If you are constant and finally without distractions you will be able to perceive
your NON-EXISTENCE, and the Total EXISTENCE
of he who taught you to perceive;
you will BE in Him.
That will only be the first step towards THE OBJECTIVE.
Now your guide will ask you to BE in the Founder of the Order
to which his chain of teaching belongs;
who will after a time deliver you to Muhammad:
He will take you to BE
ONLY IN THE RADIANCE OF THE CREATOR!
THIS IS THE WAY OF THE SUFI
FOLLOW IT, WITH GOD’S BLESSING.
(Ali Dede.)
Wa’il al-Hadrami said that Tariq b. Suwaid asked the Prophet
about wine and he forbade him. When he told him that he made
it only as a medicine he replied, “It is not a medicine, but is a
disease.” Muslim transmitted it.
Abdallah b. Umar reported God’s messenger as saying, “If anyone
drinks wine God will not accept prayer from him for forty days….
An Nawwas b. Saman reported God’s messenger as saying, “A creature
is not to be obeyed when it involves direct obedience to the Creator.” It is
transmitted in Sharh as-sunna.
(From page 786 of Mishkat Al-Masabih)
The Objective of the contemporary organism
called an Order (Sufi Order), agreed by all Masters,
is to provide circumstances in which the
member can attain the stabilization
of his inner being comparable or identical
with those of the early transmitters.
(Page 294 of The Sufis – by Idries Shah)
REPORT ON PLANET EARTH SINCE THE TIME OF ADAM
Since the time of Adam, Man has been progressing from being more animal-like
to less. He and his planet are still in great difficulties; he destroys his fellow men,
and what has taken centuries for men and women to build with great efforts, and
destroys wildlife, rivers, oceans, forests and even the air he breathes.
Many do not even notice this process of destruction. Some do.
Some of the people have adopted what the Prophets
have taught man since the beginning of life on that planet.
These have progressed, especially when they have absorbed the full
and deeper parts of the prophetic message sent to mankind.
Some have developed an inner consciousness similar to that obtained
in other Galaxies; these beings are called Wise Men or Saints.
They have helped others in the same direction. According to the
time in which these events have taken place, they have been born and
have lived in very many different religious contexts.
In the time of the last Religion to appear on this planet, there have been,
more than at any other time, many developed human beings.
These provide hope and help mankind constantly from wherever they are and
will continue to do so, for all time.
(Ali Dede.)
PRACTICAL STEPS IN SUFISM
(Anonymous Extract)
We could say that the first step is to develop that part of man whose
origin is extra-terrestrial and which lives after physical death.
The second step is the acquisition of a permanent existence
together with a higher individuality.
In Sufi expression the first is the stage of illumination, and the second
is that of the “invisible authority”
“Close your lips, close your eyes, close your ears, If you do
not see the SERR of God, then laugh at us.”
(Maulana Jelaluddin Rumi)
The Object of Shanghal (practice), Dhikr (repetition of God’s
names) and Mruaqaba (introspection) are to enable
the mind to retain in itself the remembrance of “other-than-God”.
(page 68 of the The Secret of Anal – Haqq)
“He who saw me in the beginning became a true believer, and he
who saw me in the end became a Zindiq (one in error).”
(Saying of Junayd)
“When your I-ness gets out, His I-ness comes in and exhibits His
Jamal (beauty) on your unaware self.”
(page 90 – The Secret of Anal Haqq)
“The Ulama first attend to the body, thereby trying to purify the heart.
This is a long process. The Prophets attend to the heart first, and open its eye.
The Tajalli of God dawns on the heart unexpectedly; but it dawns on the
hearts of those who are prepared for it.”
(page 110 The Secret of Anal Haqq)
“Do not give up dhikr, for fear that you are doing it to get rid of carnal
temptations; you may reach God through and by the blessings of dhikr.”
“He who seeks a way contrary to the Prophet’s will never reach his destination.”
(Pages 111 & 135 – The Secret of Anal Haqq)
“Hiss-i-Mushtarik (common sense) is the sense that joins the five external
senses with the five internal.”
“Although people say “one”, yet they bang on many doors, as they entertain
hopes from this man and that; and the Sufi says one, and he runs away from the
shadow of his own self.”
(page 148 – The Secret of Anal Haqq)
“Whatever you say while you are self-conscious, it is the untimely
crowing of the cock.”
(page 150 – The Secret of Anal Haqq)
Huzur is a Secret?
If a man can Be a Sunset,
If a man can Be a rose,
If a man can Be His Teacher,
If a man can Be Bogaudin,
If a man can Be the Prophets,
If a man can Be Muhammad,
Then man can Be; in God
Then man can Be!
(Ali Dede.)
786
I hope that the content of this book has arrived at the
deepest part of your Being, and that it will help you to
Remember the True Objective of the Human Being.
(Ali Dede.)
To be published by the same author:
Advice from a Dervish to his Children and Grandchildren
Remembering
The Secret of the Heart
The Naqshbandi Order in the Year 2012
Rugs and Kilims from Afghanistan