“I feel myself when I am by myself.”

The self has four layers: the body-self, the mind-self, the soul-self, and the Divine Self.

The body-self is made of food. It is born, grows, ails, and dies. When we look in the mirror, what we see is who we think we are. But this is only partially true.

The mind-self, made of thought, transcends the body. Thought can cross an ocean in an instant. As we think, so we are. We are constructs of consciousness. But this, too, is only partially true.

The soul-self lives beyond thought. The soul is pure luminous awareness, a wave in the cascade of light pouring out of the Absolute.

The Divine Self is the self of all selves. In it, we are all united forever. From it everything has come, to it everything returns, and within it all things live and move and have their being.

In forgetfulness, the body covers the mind, the mind covers the soul, and the soul covers the Only Being. In remembrance, the body reveals the mind, the mind reveals the soul, and the soul reveals the Only Being.

Remembrance comes with being alone. Withdrawal from the many discloses the One. More wonderful still is being alone in the crowd. Then, the One shows itself in everyone and everything. No others remain: one is always by oneself.

“Before you judge my actions,
Lord, I pray, you will forgive.
Before my heart has broken,
Will you help my soul to live?

Before my eyes are covered,
Will you let me see your face?
Before my feet are tired,
May I reach your dwelling place?

Before I wake from slumber,
You will watch me, Lord, I hold.
Before I throw my mantle,
Will you take me in your fold?

Before my work is over,
You, my Lord, will right the wrong.
Before you play your music,
Will you let me sing my song?”

In the end, all will be well. The veils will be lifted, the truth will be revealed, and the Infinite will have the last word.

Meanwhile, here on earth, matters remain unresolved. We are down in the trenches, struggling to realize our duties and desires, uncertain what tomorrow will bring.

Our days in these bodies are brief and fleeting. But this sojourn no accident. Our commission is from the Ancient of Days.

Only by dying before death can we live as we must here. Only by rising before the Rise can we soar in the depths.

We will know what the Invisible and the visible are to each other when we know the first as water, the second as salt, and our breaths as waves in the shoreless, floorless sea.

Chased by death, lured by beauty, the psyche calls out: Highest Friend! Be with me in this twilight. Guard over the dream in which I wander, and suffuse it with the beams of Your Glance. Let me lift a song up to You before my tongue disappears in Your Eternal Light.

“Why, oh my feeling heart
do you live and die?
What makes my feeling heart
now to laugh and to cry?
Death is my life indeed,
I live when I die.
Pain is my pleasure, when
I laugh then I cry.”

The sage speaks to his heart. Who planted you in my breast? What a strange amphibian you are—half angel, half animal, and all paradox! You are always hunting for form in the void, and for the void in form. Desire is your law and your way, but at the very brink of consummation a gulf of separation gapes in your core. Then, just as bewilderingly, in the depths of exile you sip the cup of union.

The heart answers. Your language lacks the words I need. My speech is entirely tears and sighs and drifts of melody. “Life” and “death” make no sense to me—which is which? Nothing ever began and nothing will ever end. All is one thing, endless and splendorous beyond reckoning even when clothed in the meanest of rags. Knowing is feeling, and feeling is the pulsing ebb and flow of the ancient juice. Would you rather be a stone?

“The essence of today’s Message is balance.”

God is the First and the Last, the Outer and Inner. To find God, look where the opposites meet.

The outward beckons. Colors and fragrances allure the senses. Hands look for wood, stone, or metal to mold. Towers rise up to the sky. Crowds gather, goods are bought and sold, armies clash, and councils convene. The soul loses itself in the story.

In time, as it must, remembrance breaks though. The cityscape goes pale and behind the orbs of the seer’s eyes a prismatic fountain wells up. The world is liquefied, ignited, evaporated, and at last dematerialized. The story of the earth is forgotten. The soul stands face-to-face with its transcendental Origin.

Will the soul reside forever in that placeless place? Or will it fall back to earth, as one awakening from, and forgetting, a dream too large to carry into time and space?

Or yet, somehow, will a balance be struck? When the soul enters the earth’s story without losing sight of its own light, and the source of that light, a holy mystery unfolds. The story of the earth becomes the story of God’s revelation.

“When my heart is asleep, both the worlds slumber.”

The Arabic word wujud suggests three meanings: existence, finding, and ecstasy.

Existence is something we commonly take for granted. You exist, I exist, the world exists, and that is all there is to it—or so it seems. But you and I only exist insofar as we are found to exist. The existence is in the finding. What is a material fact without a conscious witness? What is not known is not.

The mind is the surface of the heart and the heart is the depth of the mind. The knowledge of each is different.

The mind’s knowledge is indirect: the knower and the known stand at a remove. That which the mind perceives obtains a shadowy existence, a pale and fleeting reality destined soon to fade into oblivion. The world known to our minds is a dream world.

The heart’s knowledge is direct: the knower and the known converge in an uncanny union of spirit. This primal encounter is called love. Here, existence, finding and ecstasy are all one and the same. Discovery unveils the discoverer and the discovered in a single stroke, and the heart awakens to the Awake.

“The Message is a call to those whose hour has come to awake, and a lullaby to those who are meant to sleep.”

The Divine Face is shrouded in 70,000 veils of prismatic light and dappled darkness. Each veil is a cover on the bed of the sleeping soul. To throw off the covers and banish dreams is to meet the Eternal Sun.

The world would disappear if the totality of souls leapt from their beds at once. There are cloud castles still to be built here; night is not yet at its end. We are each to remain in the sleeping rooms of I-thou until the hour of our summoning before the Presence of I-Am-That-I-Am.

How melodiously the holy prophets and prophetesses intone the lullabies that exorcise our night terrors and becalm our nocturnal hours. Pacified by their ethereal hymns, we sleep well.

When the time is right, they will lift up their voices in another fashion. Like a peal of thunder, their beckoning call will compel us to sit up, and then to rise resolutely on our feet.

Sand will fall from eyes. Blankets will drop from bodies. Gazes will turn to the East. And dawn will break.

“The rapidity of my walk imagination cannot follow.”

The sleepwalking soul hurries here and there, and goes nowhere. The wakeful soul sits still, and travels beyond the stars.

Five companions accompany the soul on its pilgrimage to the Source: sensation, memory, imagination, will, and self. None but the soul reaches the goal.

Sensation is at first full of enthusiasm, but when forest turns to desert it begs off, making excuses.

Persevering in the desert, memory recalls fonder times. As its recollections gradually evaporate in the heat, however, memory finds at last it can’t go on.

Imagination endures longer, its hope spurred by a succession of visions of greenery. When each, in turn, is revealed as a mirage masking yet another tract of burning sand, imagination concedes defeat.

Will insists the march must continue. At last the desert has been crossed. A river appears, a canoe at its bank. In the absence of a paddle, there is no choice but to follow the current. Its work finished, will remains on dry land.

In time the river issues into the sea. Amidst crashing waves, the canoe capsizes. The self, gasping, manages to swim to the shore and save itself.

The soul drinks the sea and the sea drinks the soul. Soul and sea are now forever one being, companionless except for the fish that are its eyes and ears.

“By every hurt or harm that one causes me, one only makes me know him better.”

It’s all too easy to take offense. To flush red, glare, groan and snarl requires no insight. Reflection, on the other hand, is a science of the heart.

Much is to be discovered by looking beneath the surface. What first meets the eye is only the peel of the truth, not its kernel.

Why did the person do it?

Firstly, while the act might have seemed objectionable to you, the one who did it likely saw it in a different light. The person probably does not have all of the facts available to you, and vice versa.

Secondly, not only is the other person differently placed in the situation, the person is differently placed in life and being. You are separated by a gulf of divergent experiences traceable all the way back to infancy. In fact, even before birth, your souls were contrastingly tinctured by varying astral and spiritual influences.

And thirdly, as a rule a person who habitually causes suffering to others is himself or herself the sufferer of a wound, whether hidden or apparent. To chastise the person will not stanch the gash, though something else might.

The world is a theater of contrasts in which everyone has a unique part to play. If there would be heroes, there must be also villains. No villainy, however, is final, as change is constant, and every soul is bound at last to awaken to the Infinite.

“Art is dear to my heart, but nature is near to my soul.”

In the human being, the soul comes first. Before the mind crystallizes, there is simply a channel of life flowing from the Unseen into the visible world. The subtle template of the mind precedes birth, but it is only with incarnation that the terrestrial mind takes full form. As the mind grows, the give-and-take between what is within and what is without produces the fruit we call the heart.

In the macrocosm, primal nature comes first. Nature, you might say, is the soul of the universe, its original condition. Then comes humanity, Vulcan, who forges the raw stuff of the cosmos into novel forms, physical and noetic. When this transformation of material is inspired and inspiring, it is called art. In this sense, art is the beating heart of the universe.

Nature and art each have their incomparable magic. Nature is vast and intricate beyond all human imagining. Art is poignantly human. The first is redolent of being, the second, fragrant of becoming. Nature is the mirror of the soul and art is the lamp of the heart.

“My friends lull me to sleep, but my enemies keep me awake.”

The presence of a friend is pure ease. Friends think alike, and when they differ, differ amicably. With a friend one feels little need to watch one’s step; the friend is always ready to overlook or forgive missteps. The friend knows one’s heart.

An enemy is a different animal. Far from overlooking missteps, the enemy stands ready to pounce on the slightest false move. In fact, the enemy delights in making what is innocent look nefarious.

In this way the enemy teaches wakefulness. With enemies about, one is compelled to expect the unexpected and take nothing for granted.

Even if the enemy is outrageously harsh, there is usually a grain of truth in what the enemy says. We do well to listen. While the friend mirrors our persona back to us, the enemy mirrors our shadow. The first shows us what we wish to see and the second what we do not.

Perhaps there is no truth whatsoever in what the enemy imputes. In that case, one learns patience. All will be made clear at the great Reckoning. Till then, one learns not to be dependent on others’ esteem.

The real enemy is the selfishness within us. May it keep us awake on the path that leads to the Friend.

“Nothing new I say when I speak, I only renew the memory of things which may not be forgotten.”

Imagine falling asleep and waking up devoid of memory. This is a description of the human condition.

We are travelers from beyond time and space. We are extraterrestrials—in fact, extracelestials.

            My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless;

            ‘Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

But we’ve fallen into amnesia. We imagine our skin is the boundary of our being. We forget we are children of the void, siblings of the stars, and parents of a new universe.

We are like the lion cub that wandered away from its pride and fell in with a herd of sheep. Before long it too began bleating and eating grass. One day a lion found the cub. As the cub quivered in terror, the elder lion nudged it along to the shore of a lake. The cub looked into the lake’s mirror, and looked again. The face staring back was not the face of a sheep.

The Murshid is the lion that shows you that you are a lion.

“I neither defend the wrongdoer nor do I condemn him.”

Wrongdoing is unbeautiful action, action that mars the world rather than adorning it. Wrongdoing goes against the grain of the universe and yet is intrinsic to its unfolding story. It is against the background of the unbeautiful that the beautiful is distinguished.

By defending wrongdoing one makes oneself an accomplice. But neither is condemnation a simple matter. To condemn is to put oneself in the position of judge. Does one really have all of the facts? Is one’s impartiality beyond question?

Jesus said, “Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” To cast an accusation is to run the risk of hypocrisy. That which stirs our condemnation always exists in some degree within ourselves. Otherwise we would not recognize it in the world around us.

Acts of tyranny must be challenged if there is to be justice in the world. But solving the problem of the wrong and denouncing the wrongdoer are two different matters. No soul is wrong, but minds go wrong. What misguided minds need is healing, good guidance, and an open door to new possibilities.

“None need I remove to place another in my heart;
My heart is large enough to accommodate each and all.”

The heart is the container in the mind in which others find a place within the self. The more malleable the heart, the more numerous the presences it can contain. A rigid heart can hold only so much, and is prone to crack when stretched, whereas a flexible heart can expand to encompass multitudes.

The secret of expansion is witnessing the One in the many. Perceiving separate beings—beings imagined as separate from oneself, from each other, and fundamentally, from God—is exhausting. Perceiving the One shining out in innumerable names and forms, by contrast, buoys the spirit and deepens the contentment of the witness.

The voice of the One declares, “I am contained in no thing, but I am contained in the heart of the sincere worshiper who loves me.” The heart devoted to the All-in-All has room for each and all. “My heart has become capable of all forms,” sings Shaykh al-Akbar.

For the heart that beats for God, love is not a fixed resource. Love is God; hence there is no end to its supply.

A feeling arises, like the turning on of a light. A generous glow suffuses the universe. Everything is woven into everything else. Meanings succeed meanings in a vast regress as far as the eye can see. The Ancient Bird is on the wing.

This feeling must always be kept alive.

“My presence stimulates in your heart that feeling that must always be kept alive.”

The Murshid may teach the murid the ways of prayer, fasting, and vigils in the night. The Murshid may tell stories of the prophets and saints of long ago. The Murshid may speak of the invisible world. None of this, however, is of the essence. The essential work of the Murshid is to stimulate the heart of the murid.

This is a work, and yet it is not a work. There is no force in it. It happens naturally and effortlessly. The Murshid touches the heart of the murid not by doing, but by being. The Murshid’s words and deeds are the shore of an ocean of limitless depth.

The presence of the Murshid stirs a distant memory. The Murshid is of this time and this place, but also of the timeless and the placeless. The Murshid has a form, but is also formless.

A feeling arises, like the turning on of a light. A generous glow suffuses the universe. Everything is woven into everything else. Meanings succeed meanings in a vast regress as far as the eye can see. The Ancient Bird is on the wing.

This feeling must always be kept alive.

“I have not come to teach you what you know not, I have come to deepen in you that wisdom which is already yours.”

The sun, the moon, and the stars inhabit you. A worshipful angel stands hidden within your frame, and a visionary djinn. Animals and plants are entwined in your limbs. Earth is your flesh, water your blood, fire your heat, and air your breath. The Most High pervades you as scent pervades a flower.

When the Murshid comes, a stranger has not come. You have come to yourself. The I in you has come to the self in you. The I teaches what you have always known, but have long since forgotten. There is nothing strange in this knowledge, though it may bewilder your distracted mind. This knowledge is what your bones know, what your soul knows.

The Murshid comes to tell you what you already know in the deepest recesses of your being. You are nothing. And in this nothingness, the All-and-Everything has made its home.

“I am resigned to the past, attentive to the present, and hopeful for the future.”

What is done is done. The universal chain of causation has done its work, steered by destiny. To lament fate is to reject the unfolding disclosure of the Perfect Being implicit in the story of the universe in all of its varying episodes. Wisdom gently urges acquiescence to the perpetual flow of existence.

Acceptance of the past is one thing; lethargy is something else. What is done is done, but there is more to be done, and the time is now. This precise moment will never come again. Each instant calls for a new appraisal of the manifestation of the Hidden. The prophet Abraham was known to pray each morning, “O God, this is a new creation!”

On the horizon lies a future that gradually materializes as we approach it. To look to the future with hope is to walk with certain steps. Hope is trust in the kindness of the Creator, and the process of making oneself transparent to that kindness. Hope does not mean ignoring dangers. It means seeing both problems and prospects as steppingstones on the path that leads home.

“The scriptures have called Him the Creator, the Masons have termed Him the Architect, but I know Him as the Actor on this stage of life.”

God is the Maker, Molder, and Builder of the universe.

How is God the Maker? All effects have their causes, all causes have prior causes, and the entire chain of causation at last culminates in the Divine Being. Behind every effect there is a cause, but nothing stands behind the First Cause, Whose glory the angels eternally sing.

How is God the Molder? From the smallest snowflake to the vastest galaxy, an artistry of unfathomable proportions is everywhere to be witnessed. The soaring architecture of the universe reveals the workings of a limitless intelligence.

How is God the Builder? The cosmos is an emanation of the Divine Life. In this palace of mirrors, every face is a reflection of the Face of the One. The One wears countless guises and acts innumerable parts. Thus the world we know is built. In the world we are yet to know, all the masks and mirrors will be removed. Then one Face will be seen alone, the infinite Light revealed.

“When I open my eyes to the outer world, I feel myself as a drop in the sea; But when I close my eyes and look within, I see the whole universe as a bubble raised in the ocean of my heart.”

When we look out on the wide world, we feel small in comparison with the enormous vistas that surround us. To travel across a continent is a long journey, even by car. How much further are the planets and the stars! Our bodies are small, and the irises of our eyes are much smaller still. And yet, somehow, these little irises encompass faraway mountains, and even faraway stars! Our mind is yet smaller, so small it cannot be seen at all, and yet it encompasses not only all that we now see, but all that we have ever seen and heard and smelt and tasted and touched, and all that we can possibly imagine. At the center of the minuteness of our human condition is a vastness without end. We call it the heart.

When the heart looks out through the eyes of the body it is mesmerized by the rising and falling waves of the world. But when the eyes are closed the ocean turns inside out. The heart itself is now the sea. Every wave is the heart’s own churning, and the great wide world is so much froth and foam.

“My errors do not lull me to sleep, but they open my eyes to a deeper vision of life.”

To err is human. Becoming a complete human being does not mean becoming infallible. It means, instead, extracting wisdom from all experiences, including the experience of erring.

There are three principal conditions of the self: the imperious self, the self-critical self, and the tranquil self. Each responds to errors differently.

The imperious self is quick to point out others’ errors, but refuses to acknowledge its own. It is prepared to go to the most extreme lengths to conceal or justify its missteps and trespasses. With respect to matters of conscience, the imperious self is deep asleep.

The self-critical self, on the other hand, is acutely aware of its mistakes. In fact, it is often overwhelmed by their profusion. You might say the self-critical self is half-awake, painfully conscious of its errors but as yet unable to see its way past them.

When one makes amends, learns from experience, takes a turn in life, and trusts in the Divine Forgiveness, the tranquil self appears. The tranquil self is wide-awake, and walks with self-confidence and faith in the One.

When one has genuinely learned from one’s mistakes, one will not repeat them. Of course, one may yet make new and different mistakes—mistakes of a subtler kind. But one will learn from these too. In this way the vision of life continuously deepens.

“My soul often has the feeling of being stretched, held fast by the heavens and pulled continually by the earth.”

If the soul remained entirely in the heavens and did not incarnate, its life would be simple, clear, and serene, but it would lack the opportunity to undergo the journey of life. It would have innocence but not experience.

If the soul came to earth and gave itself over completely to the intoxication of personal identity and sensory experience, it would enjoy pleasures and suffer pains and become, all the while, oblivious to its own essential nature.

Some souls that incarnate remain firmly rooted in the inner spheres. Most, however, become so beguiled by appearances that they forget their invisible origin.

The Message comes to remind souls of the world of soul. This reminder is not a summons to leave the world of form. It is, instead, an invitation to reconcile form and formlessness, self and selflessness, this moment and the always.

The one who answers the Message will surely be stretched: gripped by the heavens and pulled by the earth. By means of this stretching, the heart grows. In time, it may grow so large as to fill the whole universe.

“We shall see who will endure to the end, my persevering adversary or my patience.”

In a battle of wills there is always the temptation to flee the encounter, or alternatively, to bend to pressure and make concessions soon to be regretted. Resoluteness comes either from egotism or conviction.

The resoluteness of egotism is the desire to always be seen to be right, or at least, to defeat one’s opponents. To the little ego, the nature of a disagreement is inconsequential; what matters is to have the last word.

The resoluteness of conviction, on the other hand, is concerned with principles. One’s desire to prevail is motivated by the justness of the cause one serves. Even if doomed to fail, one considers oneself obligated to make every effort.

The minor struggle in life is waged against external adversaries. The major struggle is against the inner foe: the little ego, the taproot of all selfishness, vanity, and ignorance. The Prophet Muhammad said, “Your worst enemy is your ego which lies between your two sides.”

The work of alchemizing the little ego, so that its narrow boundaries dissolve, is a work of patience. Success requires staying the course and abstaining from even the slightest compromise that obscures the light of the soul.

Assistance, when it comes, comes from the Light of Lights. Hence Dhu’n-Nun said, “Patience is seeking help from God Most High.”

“The rapidity of my walk imagination cannot follow.”

A sage walked through the city. She came back glowing, and said, “What a joy!” A pupil of the sage was keen to see the same sights. He followed the route she had taken, but came back seized with repugnance. He asked, “Why did you and I see such different cities?” The sage answered, “We walked in different rhythms.”

The mystic’s walk crosses the bridge between the visible and invisible. Yes, the mystic sees the ordinary sights: the gutter, the butcher’s shop, the vacant look in the eyes of weary commuters. But the mystic sees more as well.

The mystic perceives the intricate web of life. The stagnant water in the gutter once surged in ocean waves and flew through the sky in clouds—and will again. The flank in the window came from a cow whose mother loved her. But she suffered rough treatment, and was kin to cattle for whom ancient forests are being bulldozed (sealing the doom of their teeming inhabitants). Buried in the chests of the ennui-stricken office-goers are hearts capable of an emotion as vast as the universe.

The mystic’s stride encompasses all of this, and more besides. Pressing onward, the mystic surpasses the boundaries of the bounded world. Vistas of light, energy, and vibration blaze into sight as the molten undercurrents of the universe disclose themselves. As the mystic hurls toward the center of everything, Being unveils its mysterium tremendum: only I exist.

Being is not a destination to which the imagination can walk. But Being imagines the universe and walks in it.

“My deep sigh rises above as a cry of the earth, and an answer comes from within as a message.”

The most vital questions are not those that drift on the breeze of airy speculation, but rather the ones that spring direct from the earth of immediate experience. When the handful of clay that is one’s life mingles with the rich sediment of life upon life upon life, powerful questions—and ardent cries—naturally arise.

So long as one lives and breathes, every exhalation is followed by an inhalation. In the same way, every question asked of the Spirit is answered.

If the mind, the heart, and the soul are distracted, no answer will be discernible. If the mind is awake but the heart and the soul are asleep, the answer will come in rational form. If the heart is awake but the soul is asleep, the answer will come in moral form.

If the soul is awake, the answer will come as a message intimating the Message of God. It will come as a never-to-be-repeated disclosure and enactment of the Love and Beauty that indwell forever in the One.

“If anyone throws it down, my heart does not break; it bursts and the flame coming rises from it, which becomes my torch.”

The human heart does not stay enclosed in the breast of its owner; in the course of day-to-day life it passes from hand to hand. One person holds it gently, another squeezes it, and still another hurls it down.

When the seat of one’s emotions is thrown to the ground, the injury is felt. How it is felt depends on the condition of the heart. If the heart is weak and rigid, it shatters and falls to pieces. Its pride is all it knows, and when that pride is ruptured there is nothing left.

If the heart is strong and flexible, instead of breaking it bursts. The “I” shines out, triumphantly revealing the light and life hidden within the shell of the self. Life’s vicissitudes do not dim the spirit within, but rather intensify it, as fuel to fire, so that it glows ever more brightly as the surrounding darkness deepens.

There is no better guide on the path than the heart’s own florescence when it has died as lump of flimsy pride and resurrected as a clear instrument of the light that is forever.

“I have not come to change humanity. I have come to help it on.”

The purpose of the Sufi path is not to impose on the human mind a particular belief system. The purpose is to reveal what is already present within the depths of the mind—the heart; and to reveal what is in the depths of the heart—the soul; and to reveal what is in the depths of the soul—God’s own being.

To try to change a person is not necessarily a kind act, even if well intended. Each person is who he or she is. At the same time, a person’s experience is never final. We are all continuously changing as we pass through life. Helping one another along in the midst of change, outer and inner, is the way of kindness.

Just as it is preferable to help a friend along rather than to try to change one’s friend, when it comes to what is emerging in the experience of humanity as a whole, discerning assistance aimed in the direction of the unfolding horizon of beauty is helpful in a way that impatient repudiation can never be.

“Hail to my exile from the Garden of Eden to earth; if I had not fallen I would not have probed the depths of life.”

The story of the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden describes the descent of the soul from heaven to earth. The soul first experienced life in the heavenly spheres as an angel, then descended to the mental realm in the form of a djinn, and finally incarnated on earth as a human being.

Whereas angels float in an atmosphere of pure love and light, the human being lives in a world starkly defined by opposites. The free will in the angel is slight; in the djinn it is greater; in the human being it is a formidable force.

Because the human being is free, he or she is capable of great evil. By the same token, when a human being exercises freedom to good purpose—perfecting freedom through the free offering up of oneself—the beauty that is hidden in the depths of being is revealed in a manner otherwise impossible.

Humans are subject to profound spiritual amnesia, the forgetting of the essence of reality. But precisely because we forget, we are enabled to remember. And the remembering of the One is the unveiling of the One in the One’s constantly renewed manifestation of all that is, which is the purpose of the whole creation.

I regard every failure as a stepping-stone toward a success.

The journey of life is one of trial and error. One learns by doing. Whatever the result of one’s endeavors, no experience is wasted if one learns from it and moves on, determined to go further.

Seen from the surface, success is rewarding and failure is disappointing. From the deeper perspective of the unfurling of the mind and heart, however, the knowledge gained in success and the knowledge gained in failure are equally enriching.

Every traveler on life’s path will sometimes succeed and sometimes fail. The difference between those who travel well and those who do not lies in their attitude. In the pessimist’s eyes, a failure is a precursor to ever-deepening disappointment. For the optimist, it’s no more than a stepping-stone on the path to success.

Failure generally leads to failure, unless hope intervenes. Hope is the usher at the door of success.

And what is success? Obtaining one’s desire is one kind of success. But as soon as a desire is fulfilled, another springs up. Real success is the ever-expanding awakening of wisdom and love in the onward movement of life’s journey.

There is nothing else in life which pleases me more than pleasing others, but it is difficult to please everybody.

There are three reasons a person may have for trying to please another. The first is strategic: one wishes to win, or keep, a friend, and avoid making an enemy. Keeping the people around one happy, as far possible, generally has the effect of smoothing one’s life path.

The second reason a person may have for to trying please another is to be thought well of. Very often, one’s self-image is bound up in other people’s opinions. One thrives on positive attention and withers under censorious glances.

The third reason is honest altruism. This motivation transcends the dark insecurities that overshadow the mind. One wishes to please others because one realizes, deep down in one’s heart, that every other is another oneself.

But even if one’s motivation is the purest, pleasing others is not always easy. As Hafiz says, “Love seemed at first an easy thing—but ah! the hard awakening.”

Sometimes by pleasing one person one displeases another; there are cases when one cannot please both at once. The attempt to please everyone is a noble one, but in the end one must follow one’s conscience and do as one believes best.

I feel myself when I am by myself.

There are two selves, the self and the I.

Physical and social characteristics define the self. It was born on a certain day and will die one day. Meanwhile, it has eyes with which to see.

The I, by contrast, has no name or form. Birth did not create it nor will death destroy it. It is not so much the seer as seeing itself.

As others regard the self, so it regards itself. The I, on the other hand, gains nothing from others’ good opinion and is untouched by their scorn.

In the marketplace of the world, the self rises to the fore. In every encounter, it renegotiates its standing. Meanwhile, the I is dormant.

Only in the silence of solitude does the I emerge. There is, then, no more self or other, only the witnessing of what appears. At last one feels oneself.

The feeling of being oneself at first comes most naturally when one is alone. But the mystic learns in time to be alone in the crowd: to be, not merely a self among selves, but an I among I’s.

As long as I act upon my own intuition, I succeed, but whenever I follow the advice of others I go astray.

An eel would not do well to ask directions to the Sargasso Sea from a pike or a trout. Deep down in its viscera, it already knows the way. Its best course is to trust its instincts. The same is true of human beings.

A philosophizer asked a dervish what truth was. She pointed to his eyes. He asked what was falsehood. She tweaked his ear. Her point being: seeing is believing, and be wary of what you are told.

Whatever the question, the answer is already present. Only, it’s buried under a mass of fears and fancies. One needs to clear one’s mind to know what one knows.

Is counsel worthless then? Not necessarily. The Prophet Muhammad said, “The believer is a mirror of the believer.” A word or glance that confirms what one knows in one’s innermost core is a kind of light upon light.

For this reason, Guides in the Esoteric School do not give advice. They work instead to empower the murid’s intuition.

“Every soul stands before me as a world, and the light of my spirit falling upon it brings clearly to my view all it contains.”

Would there be a world if there were no witnesses? It is the perceiving of the world that makes it a world. And as there are many perceivers, there are, accordingly, many worlds.

Imagine a hermit’s dark cell. Light flashes in through two chinks in the roof. One beam has illumined a curl of smoke. The other transfixes a moth in flight.

Spirit is light. The soul is a portion of divided light. The mind is what is revealed in the beam of that portion.

Two minds may know one another, in some measure, by comparing their perceptions through conversation. But a soul knows another soul silently—by rising up to spirit and then, descending, alighting on it.

When the light of one soul irradiates another, it witnesses what the other’s mind contains. When love unites two souls in spirit, their lights converge in a double flame and two worlds become one.

I have learned more by my faults than by my merits. If I acted always aright, I could not be human.

We might have been created as flawless beings in a flawless world. But we were not, and for a reason. In a placidly perfect world, there would be no discovery. There is a unique perfection to be found in the unveiling of the Perfect within the imperfect.

Life is a school for the education of the heart. Every day there is a new lesson. Lessons not learned are repeated until understanding comes. Successes teach something, but missteps often teach more.

Of course, it is not faults themselves that are instructive. Awareness is what guides. When vigilance illuminates a dark passage through life, the path comes into view.

Coming to terms with one’s shortcomings brings humility and compassion. Observing that one does not always perceive situations in their entirety, one learns to think twice before making brash pronouncements. Recognizing one’s own capacity for error, one is moved to forbear with others in their fumblings.

A fall does not break or discourage me, it only raises me to a new life.

Saint Paul says, “what you sow does not come to life unless it dies” (1 Corinthians 15:36). A seed must break apart in the earth if it is to unfurl and send up a stalk. Destruction is intrinsic to the process of creation.

The journey toward the One comprises many stops and starts, and every ending is a new beginning. A fall, however bruising, may prove an advance. When one falls, one’s previous momentum comes to a halt, and a pause follows. What is born in that pause gives rise to new momentum.

The pause after a fall, therefore, is a crucial moment. In that moment, if the mind and heart draw courage from the soul, a new and higher mode of life will commence. The seedpod of the old self will crumble away, a trusting root will sink down into the earth, and a hopeful shoot will climb up toward the sun.

“I consider myself second to none since I have realized in myself the One Alone.”

Status is a worry that troubles many minds. Individuals and communities perpetually vie for dominance, scrambling to occupy higher echelons in the scheme of the world. Racism, classism, sexism, bigotry—these are all the byproducts of the common urge to be special. In the confused condition of the human mind in its worldly delirium, personal worth is imagined to depend on one’s rank in the pyramid of social perceptions. The rules of the game dictate that for one to be high, another must be low.

Thank goodness there is another way. Rather than looking up, enviously, toward “superiors,” or down, contemptuously, toward “inferiors,” Murshid advises: look within, to the indwelling completeness in the center of yourself. The same plenitude indwells in the center of every human being, uniting all lives in the one Perfect Being.