From a Sufi teaching story [1]:
"How much of my life is being wasted while I wait? Waiting for someone to tell me what to do, or for something to happen which will change my condition and frame of mind?"
Babuji: A truly happy man is one who is happy under all circumstances.
According to the Sufis, man has better and more reliable inner senses and the capacities to educate them than constant emotional stimulus. [1]
(Unpacked: According to the Sufis, man has better and more reliable inner senses than those arising from constant emotional stimulus. And man's capacities to educate or train those senses include better and more reliable ways than such constant emotional stimulus.)
Thus, my understanding of levels of peace:
- At peace only when a desire is met. [2]
- At peace only when there is peace outside.
- At peace even when, or despite, no peace outside.
- At peace sometimes, and then steadily, as one's inner peace manifests more and more.
- Peace flowing out, and even pacifying the outside sometimes, and then always.
- Peace is actually eternal and everywhere at subtle levels, only awareness fluctuates - from subtle to gross levels.
(Normally, we move between the first two levels without knowing the other levels, or even absolute peace, is possible. With simple accumulation of spiritual practice one moves to deeper levels.
The fifth level is a siddhi from uninterrupted ahiṁsa per PYS 2.35 - ahiṁsa pratiṣṭāyām tat sannidhau vaira tyāgaḥ)
The Sanctuary of John the Baptist [1]
SAADI, THE SUFI author of the Persian classic, The Rose Garden, writes of a visit to the burial place of John the Baptist, in Syria.
He arrived there one day, exhausted and footsore. But then, as he was feeling sorry for himself, he saw a man who was not only tired, but had no feet. Saadi gave thanks to God that he, at least, had feet.
This story, on the obvious level, means "be grateful for small mercies." Its teaching on that level is found in all cultures. It is useful to help one to find a larger perspective in his situation when suffering from disabling self-pity.
The employment of such tales for emotional purposes - to switch the mental attitude and to make a person contented with, and perhaps even momentarily grateful for his lot - is characteristic of the conventional type of instruction.
Modern sophisticates say: "All that Saadi did was to inculcate so-called moral virtues - his work is outmoded."
Traditional, crude, sentimentalists may say: “How beautiful to dwell on the misery of others and one’s own comparative good luck.”
But Saadi, being a Sufi, included in his writings materials which had more than one possible function. This tale is one of them.
In Sufi schools, the piece is treated for what it is - an exercise.
The student may benefit from whatever "uplifting" moral may be the conventional interpretation.
But, without introspection, yet with self-observation, he should be able to say:
"I realize that changes in my mood are dependent on emotional stimuli.
"Do I always have to be dependent upon 'seeing a man with no feet' or reading about it before I realize that 'I have feet'?
"How much of my life is being wasted while I wait for someone to tell me what to do, or something to happen which will change my condition and frame of mind?"
According to the Sufis, man has better and more reliable inner senses and capacities for educating them than constant emotional stimulus.
The object of the Sufi interpretation of this lesson would be nullified if it caused people to start an orgy of self-questioning of an emotional kind.
The purpose of pointing out this Sufi usage of the narrative is for it to be registered in the mind, so that the student may in the future notice a higher form of assessment of his situation, when it begins to operate in him.
NOTES
[1] Idries Shah, Wisdom of the Idiots, pg.150, The Sanctuary of John the Baptist
[2] Daaji: therefore, zero desires => infinite peace
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