Tasawwuf: Metaphysics - Murshid Sam's Living Stream

Tasawwuf: Metaphysics—Gatha with Commentary Series I
heart to this and considers the light, the more it will be, as the Christian Scripture says, “In him there
is no darkness.” This subject is also presented in the Sura on Nur (Light) in the Qur’an.
GATHA: Man fears all that is hurtful and harmful in any form, and more than all, man fears what he
calls death. As in the case of every object and condition that arouses fear, the fear is caused by ignorance,
so even the fear of death is caused by ignorance.
TASAWWUF: The literature brings out the teachings that Sufis do not fear death, that they see the
life in everything and everybody, and as the saying goes, “Where there is life, there is hope.” The
shadows over affairs arise from one’s own ignorance. As we see more clearly the darkness must
vanish.
There are some schools wherein the neophyte does concentrate on dying and death, but this is only
to make him afraid not of dying and death, but of his attitude, so that he can change his attitude and
outlook and thus rise above his former condition.
GATHA: Man is afraid if he is in the water, where even so helpless a creature as a fish feels safe. It is
not only the fact that man is incapable of remaining in the water that makes him afraid, but the water
is a strange world to him; he does not know what is in it. Many have died in the water of fright of
the water before having actually sunk.
TASAWWUF: There is a famous poem in which a little child asks: “Isn’t God upon the water / Just
the same as on the land” This child had been taught that God is everywhere and in everything. Its
purity kept it in touch with reality while the older people had been caught in the sway of nufs.
And if one were in danger of drowning one could surrender to God knowing that His Justice and
Mercy are in all things, in all events.
GATHA: This life of names and forms is therefore called by the mystics Maya, an illusion, which is
apt to being made into that which one would like to make it. When one fears, the world frightens
one, but when one clears one’s heart of all fear, the whole world of illusion turns into one single vision
of the sublime immanence of God.
TASAWWUF: In the condition of purification, or Safa, all shadows are removed from heart and then
Light manifests as of itself. The Light is always there, the Divine Presence is always there, the Divine
Faculties and Attributes are always there, though man is not always aware of it. That is why Zikr—
which means “remembrance”—is so often practiced to bear in mind that under all circumstances
one is in the presence of God; and why all disciples are taught “Akhlak Allah” at some stage in their
training.
Copyright Sufi Ruhaniat International 1978
These materials are given for individual study by mureeds
and are not intended to be shared outside the circle except by permission.
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