Originally published in Sufi Journal Issue 39 (Autumn 1998)
Humankind has a tendency to suffer from two kinds of anxiety. The first involves psychological problems going back deep in one’s past, beginning as far back as one’s childhood, and is tied up with one’s ego. The second form of anxiety involves apprehension about death, arising from awareness that death and obliteration are inevitable. This fear is also referred to as ‘mortal anxiety’.
One of the teachings of Sufism is liberation from these two kinds of anxiety. Sufism teaches that as long as you remain yourself, you are naturally going to be anxious and depressed. The aim is for you to emerge from the domain of the ego, so that you may shed your anxiety and depression once and for all.
To come out of yourself, Sufism proposes two lines of approach: The first is to focus on Unity and Absolute Being with the aid of love, so that you are always conscious of God. As one Sufi poet put it:
I’ve remembered You
so much,
that I’ve become You
from head to foot.
You approached
ever so slowly,
as I disappeared
little by little.In the words of another poet:
The Beloved sat so long
before my impressionable heart
that it took on completely
His character and disposition.When a glass is filled with nectar, it takes on the color and fragrance of the drink.
These are mental exercises. However, the second approach is practical and involves service. This can take the form of service to the khanaqah or the serving of one’s fellow Sufis or any of God’s creatures, for when you exist for others, you cease to be conscious of yourself. When your attention is directed towards others, you stop concentrating on yourself.
Now, few Sufis keep their minds focused on God, and few are ready to really serve. If after ten to fifteen years on the Path, you were asked what you had gotten out of it and you replied, “Nothing,” you would be right. When you are urged to be present at the khanaqah once or twice a week, it is so that you may be reminded of your commitments and not forget them, for human beings are by nature forgetful.
If you fail to attend khanaqah meetings over a period of time, you will tend to forget the commitment you made when you first joined. Whereas if you attend regularly, you may find yourself declaring with Rumi:
I was weeping;
now I’m laughing!
I was dead;
now I’m alive!
The fortune of love
has arrived,
and I’ve become
the everlasting fortune!Most of the Sufis you come across nowadays are worried and depressed. They are all too ready to bend your ear with their anxieties and complaints, of how they have gotten nowhere. If you run into such Sufis, you can be sure that they have not done any work on the Sufi Path.