Text of a Speech by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, Master of the Nimatullahi Order, presented in the Three-day International Conference of Swami Vivekananda’s Centenary Celebrations (Global Vision 2000) in Washington D.C., August 6, 7 & 8, 1993.
I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to present this paper as part of Swami Vivekananda’s centenary celebrations. I should say from the outset that I believe in the Unity of all forms of spirituality and therefore wish to express my sincere thanks and gratitude to the organizers of this conference for the chance to participate in it.
Since the key theme of this part of the conference is “Religion and Spirituality as Unifying Forces,” I would like to address the following two questions in this paper: First, what is Unity from the Sufi point of view? And second, how can one achieve such Unity?
Sufism is founded upon the ground of Islam, and Islam is based on the principle that “There is no god but God.” Sufis have interpreted this principle to mean that there is only one Being and whatever exists is a manifestation of that Being. For Sufis, however, this principle — which is commonly referred to as the principle of the Unity of Being — is not a matter of just faith or indoctrination. One does not become a Sufi merely by professing a belief in the Unity of Being. Rather, it is a matter of experience. One cannot truly understand the Unity of Being until one experiences such Unity on the deepest level, until one profoundly realizes that every particle of this universe is the manifestation of God.
Because experience constitutes the only meaningful way of discovering and understanding the Unity of Being, the intellect will be of little help on the Sufi path. Indeed, rather than leading one to experience such Unity, the intellect draws one in the opposite direction, towards the world of multiplicity.
The spiritual world is different from the intellectual world in both its aim and method. The aim of the spiritual world is to discover the Unity of Being on an experiential level, to manifest the Divine nature that lies within us. And the method of spiritual practice is nothing other than love. Love is the binding principle of the universe and the only reliable guide of humanity in its search for the Truth. On the most basic level, love manifests itself in the bond between a man and woman; on the most sublime level, it manifests as the unconditional love of a human being for all of creation, leading one to experience the true reality of the Unity of Being.
When this occurs, according to the Sufis, all conventional distinctions between the different religions, between good and evil, belief and unbelief, benevolence and wrath disappear. For endowed with God’s eyes, the lover comes to see that there is, was, and always will be only one Being — though manifested in thousands of different forms and guises. When the illusion of individual being is removed, one comes to see that there is nothing but God; and like the Sufi martyr Hallaj may even be driven to utter such a seemingly blasphemous statement as, “I am Truth.”
As the end of the twentieth century approaches, we are witnessing a world that is becoming increasingly aware of its multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-religious make-up. In such a world, it is no longer possible to attain the kind of artificial, external unity that was created at various points in the past through the dominance of particular cultures, races, or religions. If true Unity is to be attained in this global society, we must come to accept what Sufi masters have always insisted upon: that there are as many paths to God as there are people and that all these different paths ultimately lead to the same place: the Absolute Truth, which is, in fact, one and the same for everyone. As Rumi, the great Persian poet and Sufi, put it:
A flower is still a flower
no matter where it grows,
And wine is still wine wherever
it may flow.
Anything less than this will only lead to increasing disharmony and disunity in the world today.
Rumi has illustrated this point in a simple story: Four men from different lands, each speaking a different language, are jointly given a coin by someone. Each man wishes to buy grapes with the coin, but since they speak different languages they do not realize this and begin to quarrel with one another over what to buy, each demanding (using his own word for grapes) that the others buy grapes, none understanding that it is what they all already want. Finally, someone arrives who knows all the four languages. He buys them grapes, thereby ending their quarrel. Rumi points out that people quarrel about words because they don’t understand the true meanings referred to by such words. Only a person of God, well-versed in the language of the heart, can save humanity from its disagreements and conflicts over the outer aspect of things and guide it toward the realm of their true significance and meaning.
Of course, this insight—that there are as many paths to God as there are people—is by no means unique to Sufism. Indeed, it is the hallmark of all true spirituality. Krishna, speaking in the Bhagavad-Gita, says: “Freed from passion, fear and anger, filled with me, and taking refuge in me, purified in the fire of wisdom, many have entered into my being. But however they approach me, I welcome them, for whatever they take is mine.”
It is only through love that human beings can acquire such an insight. Only through the binding force of love can humanity leave behind its differences, its condition of multiplicity, and arrive at a state of Oneness. Only through love can one come to see that all acts of worship, when performed with sincerity of heart, lead to the same end, come from the same source.
Again, Rumi has illustrated this point in his beautiful tale of Moses and the shepherd: Moses, in his many travels, was passing through the desert one day when he came upon a shepherd addressing God. “O You who decide all things,” the shepherd beseeched God, “where are You that I might become Your servant, sewing Your shoes and combing Your hair? That I might kiss Your delicate little hands and massage Your little feet, and sweep out the small corner of the room where You lay Your head. O You to whom I offer all my goats in sacrifice, You from whose remembrance come all my sighs and cries.”
Hearing such misguided babbling, Moses approached the shepherd to rebuke him and let him know that he had become an infidel by uttering such blasphemous nonsense. “Shoes and socks and such things are suitable for one like you,” Moses corrected the ignorant shepherd, “but how could such things ever be fitting for the blazing Sun, for the One on high? He has no need of such services. To whom do you think you are speaking—one of your relatives? Performing such tasks may be praiseworthy in relation to us, but in relation to the holiness of God, who is the Creator and not created like us, they are a pollution and irreverence, blackening your very soul.”
When the shepherd heard this rebuke from one who was the Prophet of God, he became deeply ashamed of himself and repentant for the blasphemies he had expressed. With a burning heart, he tore his garments and fled into the desert. Suddenly, a revelation came to Moses from God, “You have separated My devotee from Me! Were you not sent to unite people, to bring about Union, or is your purpose to cause separation and disharmony? Upon each person I have bestowed a special way of behaving, a particular form of expression. What, for one, is deserving of praise, for another is deserving of blame. In regard to one, a thing may be honey, in regard to another poison. For the people of Hind, the practices of the Hind are praiseworthy; for the people of Sind, the practices of Sind. I remain independent of all purity and impurity. I did not ordain worship of the Divine for any profit to Myself but as a kindness to My devotees. I am not glorified by their glorification of Me; rather, it is they who become glorified and blessed by such glorification.
Know that I do not look to one’s outward speech but at what lies within. I look into the heart to see if it be humble, even if the words spoken seem to lack respect.
The heart is the substance, speech only an accident: it is the substance which is the only real object for Me. I desire a burning heart, not mere words and conceptions. Light a fire of Love in your soul, Moses, and burn away all expression and thought. For those concerned with outward conventions and practices are of one sort, while those being and spirit burn of another sort entirely.
“The creed of Love,” Rumi interjects here, “stands apart from all religions. For lovers, the only religion and creed is God.”
Moses, smitten with remorse but taken from himself by God who now illuminates his heart with Divine mysteries, sets out to find the shepherd in the desert and let him know that permission has come from God for him to worship in whatever way his burning heart desires, that his apparent blasphemy was in fact true religion. Upon being told this by Moses, the shepherd exclaims that he has passed beyond such concerns now, having become bathed in his heart’s blood. As a result of Moses’ rebuke, he lets the prophet know he has been spurred on a journey of a hundred thousand years, passing beyond the sky to a state beyond description.
Rumi ends the story by advising us not to forget that the image we behold in the mirror is but our own reflected image, and not the image of the mirror. When it comes to God, Rumi stresses, whatever words we speak in praise of Him will be as inadequate and unseemly as those of the shepherd to Moses. Were we to see things as they really are, we would immediately recognize this: that God accepts our praise at all when it is sincere, despite its unavoidable inadequacy in terms of Him, is entirely due to His indulgence and mercy. Thus, to mock or reject another’s worship of God only reveals one’s own ignorance and arrogance.
This story is remarkable in many ways. Here, one can find a description of the essence of man’s mystical and spiritual quest. Rumi tells us three things: First, that the only necessary provisions on the path of God are love and sincerity. Second, that people who approach spirituality through any other than love, like Moses in this story, are bound to create disharmony and conflict in the world. And third, that the language of love is much deeper, much more universal than any other language known to man. It is true that Moses was a prophet of God, but even he had to be introduced into the mysteries of love in order to understand the shepherd’s language.
If, however, it is only through love that we can realize within ourselves the truth of the Unity of Being, the obvious question becomes: how do we attain such a state of love? In regard to this question, Sufis have cited the Koranic verse, “He loves them, and they love Him” (V:54), to indicate that God’s Love must always precede ours. Until God loves a devotee and remembers him, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for the devotee to remember and love God. At the same time, Sufis also cite the sacred Tradition that says, “My devotee draws ever closer to Me by means of acts of remembrance until I love him. And when I love him, he sees with My eyes, hears with My ears, speaks with My tongue, grasps with My hand, and walks with My feet.” That is, although God’s Love must always precede ours, we must nevertheless invoke His name and remember Him as much as possible if we are to draw His attention to ourselves.
For the Sufis, then, human beings ultimately learn how to love by means of the remembrance of God. Remembering God, of course, has nothing to do with the self: to remember God is not to remember oneself. Remembering God means letting go of one’s ego, allowing God to take over one’s being. It means getting rid of one’s selfishness and self-absorption. It means serving humanity without expectation of anything in return.
Unfortunately, we live in an era where more people remember jingles from commercials and the theme songs of television shows than remember God. All the so-called values in our current societies are geared towards promoting the self and its idols. Human beings may no longer be idol-worshipers in the traditional sense, but the traditional idols have simply been replaced by our modern material goods and ambitions. Our objective is not to realize God within, to attain Divine attributes, but to satisfy our desires, to accumulate ever more and bigger things. It is hardly surprising, given such a state of affairs, to see the rise of national, religious, ethnic and racial conflicts in every corner of our world. Perhaps more than any other time, the lack of external harmony in the world reflects the lack of internal harmony in individuals. This derives from the basic unsatisfied desire of individuals to love and be loved. We have forgotten how to love and lost sight of the Unity of Being all because we have forgotten how to remember God in our everyday lives.