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Usul-i

Din
Dar es Salaam, 29th September 1899

I am speaking to you about the Usul-i Din (i.e. the principles of Faith). The
Usul-i Din are like the kernel of a tree. Every man is ultimately inclined
towards the Usul or Essence.

When you are free, you must turn your thoughts to these questions: Who is
the Creator and what is Creation? Have you ever thought about these
matters? For instance, what would you say if you were asked who you are?
You might answer, I am the son of so-and-so. At the most, you might be
able to reach back several generations. A more thinking person might name
Adam as his first ancestor; but he will not be able to proceed further. You
must ask yourself: Where did Adam come from? That man who is a Sufi (i.e. a
mystic) will be able to capture this trend of thought.

You know that when rain pours onto the earth it gathers, drop by drop, to form
a river, which finally merges into the sea. All rain-water eventually reaches the
sea once again. The same is true of the soul. The soul too has its abode and
the abode of the soul is infinite.

That man who is not given to deep thinking, and who does not have the
ambition to rise high, is like a rain-drop which has evaporated from the
surface of the earth. The man who has the aspiration to a higher realm,
practices more and more ibadat (i.e. prayer), and also cultivates love in his
heart. But it is wrong to practise ibadat with a view to escaping from this
prison of the world and gaining paradise. For paradise too is a prison.

Those who knew better than you followed our way. For instance, Mansur took
this path. Paradise was ever-present for him. But he rejected it. Why should I
be content with paradise? he used to ask himself. I shall not rest till I taste
the Essence. Till then, I shall always strive ahead. For, what is the use of
anything, indeed, until and unless the origin, the essence has become
known?
Hazrat Ali has said, He who knows himself, knows God. Wherever I turn my
eyes, I see the Spirit as my Friend. When you look around, you merely see
the external form. All that you can see are hands, legs, face, eyes, etc. You
fail to see the Spirit behind it. You must constantly strive to see the Spirit.
Your aim should always be to reach the Spirit, not merely to obtain a feeling of
pleasure through ibadat. Mans real self has great dignity, but he abases
himself through his own willfulness. If somebody amongst you were to aim at
being like Pir Sadardin, Pir Shams or Mansur, you can indeed achieve such a
status; you can rise even higher. I do not say whether you will actually grow
that way, but I do know that if you were to follow our faith steadfastly, you
would certainly attain an exalted destiny. But you will only be able to rise high
if your heart and inner motivations were turned to Sufism (i.e. mysticism). But
you would require great spiritual courage for this; and I do not see signs of
this courage in you. Over the ages only a few have been able to rise to these
heights. Jesus, the Prophet Muhammad, Pir Shams - only these and a few
others were able to realise this goal. They all had the same dominant impulse;
they were all passionately in love with the Spirit; they were the friends of the
Spirit, and so they were able to reach this sanctuary.

There are many religions in the world, which are not Sufi. The followers of the
Shariat (i.e. the external forms of Islam), the Christians, the Jews, the Hindus
are not all mystics. Their intentions draw them downward; their aims are not
subtle; their eyes are set on paradise, on the pleasures of food, women,
physical adornment and other sensations of like nature. Such cravings are
those of one steeped in the Shariat (i.e. the material forms). Paradise too is
nothing but an image of this world. The yearning of the Spirit is another matter
altogether.

Mawlana Rumi declared that he had once existed in the form of inanimate
rock. From this, he evolved into plant life, from which, becoming a tiny worm,
he finally attained an animal existence; from the latter, he acquired a human
life. Where shall I go from hence? he asks himself. I shall soar like an angel
and hence I shall rise even higher. You must aim eventually at fana
(annihilation or absorption). Whoever has the will and tries hard enough will
be able to attain that state. But it is your shortcomings, which have put you in
bonds, so that you are imprisoned in this world. Your bad habits, like lying,
have put you in bondage, your gross desires for sensual pleasures have cast
you in chains. But the Spirit is never happy while in bondage.

Think about this example. If a bird is put into a cage, it will never be at peace,
though it may be provided with all its needs. It would rather roam in the open
skies. Even if you clip off its wings, it will still want to fly away. But once you
have forced it to grow accustomed to the cage, it will gradually lose the will to
break free. Your plight is exactly of this nature. When you were first encaged,
you had the drive to break free from your chains. But then you got habituated
to living a prisoners life; you began to enjoy what you were provided with.
Now you have lost the urge to enjoy the free open atmosphere outside. You
have got entangled in your family, in your children and their families in turn.
So you are now like the bird whose wings have withered, just as the
younglings of a bird whose wings have already withered will not be capable of
flying, even if they are set free, for they have been born prisoners. They do
not have the faintest inkling of what it means to be free.

In the same way, you have lost the very sense of faith; you do not know its
inner meaning; you are utterly ignorant of the significance of faith. There are
those among you who call themselves Ismailis, but they have no idea of what,
Ismailism is; they do not have the faintest knowledge of the faith: they are but
fools.

You should also set your heart on Sufism. You should aim at reaching even
further. Sufism is the Tariqat (path) for you; it will lead to the Haqiqat (truth).
The Spirit enriched by knowledge will rise higher, step by step. But one who
lacks the inner knowledge will complacently stay where he is. Such a person
remains impervious to my farmans. How can he ever bring himself to believe
them? Those who understand my farmans will find a certain flavour in them. If
you persist in disobeying my farmans, you will suffer. But one who performs
ibadat out of fear is not a real believer. The true fear is that of being cut off
from the presence of God.

Hazrat Ali once uttered a prayer in which he declared that he was not in the
least afraid of the tortures of hell, nor did he have any lust for the pleasures of
paradise. He was simply intoxicated with the love of God. This is the Haqiqat.
It is said that Hazrat Ali used to perform miracles; but even magicians perform
conjuring tricks. Hazrat Alis miraculous powers lay in his ability to help people
to arrive at the Haqiqat. That is the greatest miracle.

Those who have only superficial knowledge of the faith have fantastic notions
about me. They believe that my job is to heal the sick. This is not my task. My
task is to show you the Way to the Truth, so that you may achieve your real
destiny, which is the state of fana fillah. Fana stands for annihilation, fi
meaning in, and Allah being God. To be fana fiallah is to lose oneself in
Gods Essence.

You must keep asking yourself: What is God and why cannot I become one
with Him? You must have such ambitions and you should mediate over what
I am saying. For instance, Jesus became one with God. He was in love with
the Haqiqat. As a result, he was able to attain union with God. You must have
heard about the miraj (the celestial journey) of the Holy Prophet. People say
that he rode on a horse up to the heavens and that that was his miraj. This is
the foolish idea of the masses. God does not dwell only in heaven; He is to be
found everywhere. The night of Miraj is the one on which the Prophet
revisited his original home. Only the wise and the intelligent will understand
the parables of the prophets. The unintelligent ones will take stories at their
face value. The intelligent person will be able to recognise the true dignity and
grandeur of man. Man is he who is able to distinguish between good and evil.
Do you think that this task is too difficult for you?

It is not that only Hazrat Alis progeny can attain this status. Whoever is
determined enough will be able to reach the goal. It can come in stages
through repeated efforts. The essence of religion is to abandon false
conceptions. God is the Creator; He does not benefit from your worship. To
gladden Him should be your real aim. But He can only be glad when you are
glad; and you will never be glad till such time as you are able to throw off your
bondage. Freedom does not come through physical death or suicide. Death is
always followed by new forms of bondage, one after the other.
Would you not eventually set free a slave who might have served you loyally
for many years? How else can you reward him? He will never be satisfied if
you bestow wealth on him. He will have gained his hearts desire only when
you have released him from bondage.

Similarly, you are enslaved to the Creator. The Creator has boundless mercy.
Will he then never set you free? I am not saying that you will necessarily
attain freedom, even after death. It all depends on your courage and
determination to follow the Truth.

Your religion teaches you to think deeply and to apply your reason. Take the
example of a wilderness with swamps or pools containing water. At eventide,
the light of the setting sun is reflected in the water. An unthinking wayfarer
who is passing by that place might conclude that what he saw was the colour
of the water. A thoughtful person will realise that it is only the reflected
sunlight, which causes the glimmer; he will know that what he is really seeing
is the radiance of the sun. After sunset, the truth will become clear. Similarly,
when lightening strikes a tree or a mountain, you might think that the
lightening and the mountain are one and the same thing. That is the way that
an unthinking man looks at the world.

Once you are able to understand your real capacities and once you grasp the
truth, you will be able to attain freedom. In order to understand the status of
God, you must first understand your own status as man. What is the point of a
mans life when he busies himself night and day with good deeds and
accumulating wealth, and has to die in the end? What is the value of life-long
worship when it does not lead to liberty? The thinking man will never be
satisfied with partial achievement.

If you dress up a slave in fancy clothes, he will never be excited if he is


sensible; on the contrary, he will feel grieved. For the one thing he wants is
freedom; he wants to be free so that he can be the master. But if he is stupid,
he will enjoy what he has got; he will remind himself that as a slave, he enjoys
free provision. If he is set at liberty, he would have to provide for himself.
Therefore, he will prefer slavery. This is only an analogy - all men are in a
similar dilemma.
Do my Farmans make sense to you? It may be that you take me in a sense
different from that which I have in mind. You do not understand the inner
significance of your faith. You should recognise your own status with certainty.

In the person whose attire is already dirty, any additional filth will not worry
him. Since his robes were already dirty, further splattering of filth will hardly
make any difference. But for the immaculately dressed, any dirt caught in the
streets will make him most uneasy. Out of sheer embarrassment, he will
instantly go and change his clothes. The filth stands here for moral evil, such
as the appropriation of another mans property or wife. Such vices disfigure
mans inward condition. For the person who is morally pure, small vices will
appear large.

When one is meeting his loved one, he will always be agreeably dressed, for
fear that if he is not presentable, he may not be welcome. By the loved one
here, I mean God. The person who is groveling in filth night and day is a slave
who has no desire for freedom. What is the difference between the Haqiqat
and the Shariat? They are two different things altogether. One prefers the
Book, the fast and prayer; the other yearns for freedom. The two are worlds
apart; they shall never come together.

How can the ignorant one ever be happy? He cannot grasp the Haqiqat; he
does not want the Haqiqat; the ignorant one lets go of the Haqiqat. But the
one who is fond of Haqiqat follows a different road altogether, like Jesus, Pir
Sadradin, Nasir-i Khusraw, Pir Shams and Mawlana Rumi did in the days
gone by. Such a course is most difficult for the ignorant.

That man who is devoid of wisdom will lead an unrighteous life. But the wise
man will always choose his course after giving a lot of thought to it. The wise
person will say to himself: I am longing to be free; I shall search for freedom;
I will search for it, I shall continue to search for it; and I shall find it in the end.

When you bow down in the worship of God, you must implore Him to help you
attain your true home. Like a child separated from the mother, one must yearn
for reunion with God.
For those of you who have the Haqiqat as their aim, my Farman - inshallah -
will do a lot of good. They will be able to take in what I have said. But with
those who are weak from within, my Farman may create uncertainty and
doubt. I know that this would happen because their faith in the Haqiqat is not
strong. I understand each and every mind; those who are steeped in the
Shariat will never respond to my Farmans.

The sudden enthusiasm by which people are sometimes seized is hollow;


such people will remain impervious to my Farmans. Just as water evaporates
rapidly over a blazing fire, sudden excitement of the heart disappears in no
time.

I pray from my heart that God may grant such strength to you that you may
achieve freedom, that you may reach the Haqiqat and turn away from evil. I
pray that you may follow the path of righteousness, and have the gift of inner
vision of the Truth. This prayer means more than any other prayer.

Do not forget my Farmans; do not stop reading them when I depart. You
should study my Farmans in the same way as you do the ginans. Try to
interpret my farmans as you do the ginans. My Farmans and ginans are one
and the same.

When I depart physically from you, you should not think that the Imam has
left. Think of Hazar Imam as ever present. The Imam is not always physically
present; nevertheless you must understand him as present. I am forever with
you.

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