Love

The gift of Sufism. KAR AFFO AAJZAN. Mudhosh Qader. 50 God’s Nature and Will There is only one God. He has no beginning, he has no end. He has no gender. All beings arise from him and into him they return. He is formless and everywhere. He is in everything (animate and inanimate) and beyond. He is the inner controller and ruler. He fills all space. He controls both Good and Evil. There is none like him. He is fully aware of everything that happens in the universe, including private thoughts and feelings and nothing can be hidden from God. God is wholly free of form and words – his speech is beyond letters and voice - yet, he delivers his message by any letters and voice and tongue he desires. Hence, see God in all things and all people. Rumi said that God is all-pardoning, all-forgiving and terrible in retribution. He controls both good and evil in this world. Good and evil exist for man although from God’s perspective all are good as he controls both forces. God in actuality has no opposite. ‘I was a hidden treasure,’ God says, ‘and I wanted to be known’. So he created this world of darkness for his light to become visible. The affairs of this world are an illusion - Rumi says ‘This world is the dream of a sleeper’. So while all things appear in opposition, but to the wise they all work together and are not opposed. As Rumi says ‘Show me an evil in this world without good, or a good thing without evil.’ God gives us life, difficulties, helps us, and teaches us where necessary through pain. It’s his decision and discretion and it is based on what we need spiritually at that point of time in our lives. The good things that happen to us are not because of our ideas and plans but are our rewards as Gods blessings. Our ego makes us imagine that we are the cause of action – we need to control our arrogance and vanity because what God gives us he can also take away in a flash. Being wealthy does not imply happiness. Happiness is a state of mind that is free from the negative emotions of fear, guilt, sorrow and anger that wealth cannot purchase ('that is our abode and place of rest where the mind is most pleased and charmed' – this is in the presence and influence of a perfect master). Each of us is born with a Cup of Happiness and a Cup of Sorrow – we add or subtract to this with our good and bad deeds. For example, even for normal materialistic experiences, just because a man has the money and even if he has the time, it does not mean that he can set out on a splendid vacation every other month – he may thoroughly enjoy one and for strange reasons including personal tension, the others may be total failures even if he goes to the best of resorts. So his money cannot buy him these repeat experiences because they are not blessed by God. In this example, God did not allow him to drink from his Cup of Happiness as it was not due to him at that point of time. In a more spiritual context, God working through our master can make us drink from our Cup of Sorrow faster so that we become more spiritually mature and our desire for God increases. God has only one aim – to help us on the Spiritual path to return back to him. Everything else in this world is immaterial and is only a spiritual illusion. Our body is perishable – our soul is not. The only reality is God Himself. He wants us to see this Truth alone. The more we go away from this the more difficulties he creates for us. Not even a leaf can move without the Grace of God. 17 God teaches man through the opposites – pain and pleasure, happiness and sorrow. Rumi says: God turns you from one feeling to another and teaches by means of opposites, so that you will have two wings to fly, not one. Our degrees, position, titles and other worldly achievements are a spiritual illusion designed to distract us from the Path. If we clamour for these he tries to show us their impermanent nature through highs and lows in our life. If we give in to evil ways, he lets evil harm us. So this is the reality that we depend on him for everything. If you want something from God then shed your ego and beg for it. If you are genuinely a changed man, God will forgive you and grant you your wish. The path of the Sufi requires demonstration of inner strength through the spiritual choices made by the disciple. In this sense it remains true for the Sufi: I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul. Rumi says that the prophets did not attain prophethood through personal effort—they gained that fortune through Divine Grace (a love and a certainty which spring from direct knowledge and experience of God). Yet God still requires the prophets to live a life of personal effort and virtue and set an example to others. The prophets and the saints forsake their own desires and follow the desire of God. Whatever God commands, they do. Whoe

• published: 03 Feb 2017
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