Sufi

What about our friend Jamal, our bass player friend? He's

a Sufi.

The Sufis are the mystical, devotional aspect of Islam.

It's a beautiful culture.

We're not talking about these beautiful souls.

Ignorance then is, according to the Báb, the great fault of the Sufis.

Footnote, yet the title Sufi connotes knowledge.

It means probably one who, like the Buddha on his statues, has a heavenly eye.

Prajna Paramita, divine wisdom, has the same third eye.

God in himself, says the Báb, cannot be known.

Though a reflected image of him is attainable by taking heed of his manifestations or perfect portraitures.

Some variety of Sufism, however, sweetly and strongly permeates the teaching of the Bulb.

It is a Sufism which consists not in affiliation to any Sufi order, but in the knowledge and love of the source of the eternal ideals.

I shall first of all ask how it came to pass that so many of us are now seeking help and guidance from the East, some from India, some from Persia, some, which is my own case, from India and from Persia.

Bahá'u'lláh's precursors, such as the Báb, Sufism, and Shaykh Ahmad.

So far as Persia is concerned, the reason is that its religious experience has been no less varied than ancient.

Zoroaster, Manes, Christ, Muhammad, Dhun-Nun, the introducer of Sufism, Shaykh Ahmad, the forerunner of Bábism, the Báb himself, and Bahá'u'lláh, the two manifestations, have all left an ineffaceable mark on the national life.

The Báb, it is true, again and again expresses his repugnance to the lies of the Sufis, and the Bábís are not behind him.

But there are traces enough of the influence of Sufism on the new prophet and his followers.

The passion for martyrdom seems of itself to presuppose a tincture of Sufism, for it is the most extreme form of the passion for God.

And to love God fervently, but steadily in preference to all the pleasures of the phenomenal world, is characteristically Sufite.

And actually that rabbi hosted our meditation teachers who came from India to the U.S. And we all, in the midst of all the chaos, the bombings, I, we all went to the synagogue and we all meditated together.

And that was one of the, I think, most profound, like when we all came together to meditate inside the synagogue with our Hindu teachers from India, you had the Sufis, you had everybody, and we all came into the synagogue and we were like, We were going to hold an intention for peace.

That to me was the single most like impactful thing I did during that period because, and I knew I could feel that everyone in that room genuinely wanted peace.

So it wasn't about like, I'm here, I'm performing this.

Just as the Christian type cannot be understood without reference to Christianity, so the Mohammedan type must be viewed in connection with the outward and inward development of Islam.

The word mystic, which has passed from Greek religion into European literature, is represented in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, the three chief languages of Islam, by Sufi.

The terms, however, are not precisely synonymous, for Sufi has a specific religious connotation and is restricted by usage to those mystics who profess the Muhammadan faith.

And the Arabic word, although in course of time it appropriated the high significance of the Greek lips sealed by holy mysteries, eyes closed in visionary rapture, bore a humbler meaning when it first gained currency about 800 AD.

Until recently, its derivation was in dispute.

Most Sufis, flying in the face of etymology, have derived it from an Arabic root which conveys the notion of purity.

This would make Sufi mean one who is pure in heart or one of the elect.

Some European scholars identified it with sophists in the sense of theosophists.

Describing this quality of his at its highest standard, Hazrat Muslim Maud, radi Allahu anhu, has written, rather he has stated in his address, "The Holy Prophet, sallallahu alaihi wasallam, placed such complete trust in Allah the Almighty that whenever he faced any difficulty or hardship, he looked only towards God and turned his attention away from everything besides Him.

There is no doubt that he was not the one who abandons the means, as some of the Sufis of today, that is, those Sufis who say that there is no need to use the means and that only trust in God is necessary.

He made use of the means because by abandoning the means is in effect to dishonor the creation of Allah the Almighty and to regard His creation as purposeless.

However, after making all the necessary arrangements, he placed his complete trust in Allah the Almighty.