On Another Aspect of Human Nature that Leads to the Path of Wisdom
When the lips are closed, then the heart begins to speak; when the heart is silent, then the soul blazes up, raising its flame, which illuminates the whole life.
It is this idea that shows the mystic the great importance of silence, which is gained by repose. It is so little known to the general public what repose means. Every person who experiences repose feels that they need it when tired; but if they were not tired, they would never see the necessity of repose. Repose has many aspects.
There is a type of repose that happens when a person retires from the action of everyday life and finds themself alone in their room. They breathe a breath of thankfulness, which means: “After all the interesting or uninteresting experiences, ‘I am just now alone by myself.’” It is not an ordinary feeling; there is a far deeper feeling behind it. The meaning is the certainty that there is nothing to attract your mind and nothing that demands your action. At that moment your soul has a glimpse of relief, the pleasure of which is inexpressible.
However, the intoxication of life that everyone suffers from makes it difficult to appreciate that moment of relief, the relief every person expects when retiring after the actions of daily life, rich or poor, tired or not. Does this not teach us that there is a great mystery in repose, a mystery that a person very often is ignorant of? Besides this, we always find a thoughtful person reposeful by nature, and a reposeful one, thoughtful by nature. It is repose that makes one more thoughtful, and it is continual action that takes away even that thoughtfulness from a sensible person. People working in the telephone or telegraph or post office, upon whose mind there is a continual demand, in time, develop impertinence, insolence, lack of patience.
They do not become less sensible, it only means that they lack repose, which weakens their sense of control and makes them give in to such things. This shows that repose is not only necessary for a person who walks through the spiritual path, but for every soul living on the earth, whatever be their grade of evolution, whatever be their standard of life. This is the one thing that must be developed in nature. This is not only for grown-up people, but also something that should be taught from childhood. Education today thinks so much about the different intellectual things the child will want in life, so little about the repose, which is the greatest necessity for a child. Sometimes cats and dogs prove more intuitive than humankind. Are animals capable of more things than a human being? No, humanity is more capable. But people do not give themselves time to become more intuitive; they do not give enough time to it.
It often amused me to see in New York, where one easily becomes exhausted by the noises of trains and trams and elevators and factories, that at that moment when a person has a little time to sit in a train or subway, they are looking at newspapers; all that action is not enough. If not in the body, then there must be action in the brain. What is it? It is nervousness, a common disease that has almost become normal health. If everybody suffers from the same disease, then this disease may be called normal. What is called self-control, self-discipline, only comes from the practice of repose, which is helpful not only on the spiritual path, but also in a person’s practical life, in being helpful and considerate.
The mystic therefore takes this method of repose, and by this they try to prepare themself to tread the spiritual path. The spiritual path is, as I have said, not an outward path, it is an inward path one has to tread. Therefore, the laws and the journey through the spiritual path are quite contrary to the laws and journey through the outer path. To explain in plain words, what the spiritual path is, I should say, “It begins by living in communication with oneself.” This is because it is in the innermost self of a person where the life of God is to be found. This does not mean that the voice of the inner self does not come to everyone. It always comes, but not every person does hear it. Therefore, to begin their effort in this path, the Sufi begins to communicate with and address the self within. When once you have addressed the soul, then from the soul comes a kind of reproduction, as the singer could hear their song on a disc, which has been produced from the voice.
Having done this, you have taken the first step in the direction within. When you have listened to what this process reproduces and what this process awakens, a kind of echo in your being, of either peace or happiness, light or form, whatever you have wished to produce, is produced as soon as you begin to communicate with yourself. Now you can compare the person who says, “I cannot help being active, being sad, being worried, as it is the condition of my mind and soul,” with the Sufi, who communes with their own self. It is not long before the self begins to realize the value of this inner communication.
This is what the Sufis have taught for thousands of years. The path of the Sufi is not to commune with fairies or an occult concept of God. It is to commune with your deepest, innermost self, as if to blow your inner spark into a divine fire. You do not stop there; you still go further. You then remain in a state of repose, and that repose could be brought about by a certain way of sitting and breathing and by a certain attitude of mind. Then you begin to become conscious of some part of your being that is not the physical body but above it. The more you become conscious of this, the more you begin to realize the truth, which is a sure truth of the life hereafter. Then there are no longer your imaginations, nor your belief; it is your actual realization of the experience that is independent of physical life. It is in this state that you are capable of experiencing the phenomena of life. The Sufi therefore does not dabble with different wonder-workings and phenomena. Once you realize this, your whole life is a phenomenon. Every moment, every experience brings to you a realization of that life you have found in your meditation.
Undated
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