In the chaos that prevails around us, the most authentic hope comes from mystics and Sufis whose poetry and philosophy combines the virtuous message of formal religion with the transcendental values of love and harmony. The spiritual journey can be most simply described as a way to access the light of our soul — the beautiful light with which we came into the world. On this journey we make an inner relationship with this light of our divine nature — the spirit that is within each of us. Through this relationship, we come to know our true self and be nourished by the deeper meaning of our soul.
The mystical journey may begin with making a relationship with one’s inner light, but the mystic is drawn on a deeper journey towards love’s greatest secret: that within the heart we are one with the divine. The fire of mystical love destroys all sense of a separate self, until nothing is left but love itself. While the spiritual seeker is drawn to the light of this fire, the mystic is the moth consumed by its flames. Jalaluddin Rumi (which means daylight), the greatest Sufi master, summed up his whole life in two lines:
And the result is not more than these three words: I burnt, and burnt, and burnt
Several Sufis feel that the time was approaching when their esoteric knowledge, their maps of the unconscious, accumulated over centuries, would be spread to the West, which was now a spiritual desert. While the West has been developing its technological prowess, the dervishes have developed a sophisticated type of inner technology and spiritual engineering, their practices a way of moving towards self-realisation.
There is a growing feeling of an urgent need for serious spiritual catharsis. Sufism enables an individual to unpack the crate of bewildering paradoxes which buffet his mind and help restore balance and harmony. As the acclaimed modern Sufi Inayat Khan says, “The secret of life is balance and the absence of balance is life’s destruction”.
A mystical perspective remains meaningful for many people. Dr. H.J. Witteveen, the former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and an accomplished Sufi, says that we all have a divine spark in us and we can experience glimpses of the divine when we forget our limitations in the beauty of nature, or art, or in deep love. Pursuing such experiences, and letting them grow deeper, he says, can lead us into the cosmic realm and enable us to celebrate celestial love.
The well-known Persian poet Sadi says: “Every soul is born with a certain purpose and the light of that purpose is kindled in his soul.”
The inner joy one feels in pursuing a passionate goal is best described by Inayat Khan: “The soul’s true happiness lies in experiencing the inner joy, and it will never be fully satisfied with outer, seeming pleasures. Its connection is with God, and nothing short of perfection will ever satisfy it.”
Moin Qazi is a well-known banker, author and Islamic researcher. He can be reached at moinqazi123@gmail.com
