|
submit
articles |
| The Poverty of the Heart Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee Last night my teacher taught me the lesson
of Poverty: The Sufi Path takes the Wayfarer beyond the
world of forms into the formless, beyond the mind into the heart. On this
journey every desire is a limitation. An intending disciple said to Dhol-Nun the
Egyptian: "Above everything in this world I wish to enroll in the
Path of Truth." Dhol-Nun
told him: "You can accompany our caravan only if you first accept two
things. One is that you will have to do things that you do not want to do.
The other is that you will not be permitted to do things that you desire
to do. It is 'wanting' which stands between man and the Path of
Truth." Those who travel along this path are known
in the East as "dervish" (darwish in modern Persian), a term
which refers to their holy poverty: "the poor man is not he whose
hand is empty of provisions, but he whose nature is empty of
desires." This is a state of both helplessness and
freedom, for the Wayfarer, without desire or direction, has nowhere to go.
If everything must be given up, then even the desire for spiritual
progress is a limitation. The road that seemed to lead to a far distant
horizon is seen as just another illusion.
For the seeker who has followed the path of longing and placed all
his values in the idea of the quest, it can be very hard to give up this
last attachment. But not only
must this world be given up; any idea of spiritual transformation must
also be abandoned. Such total
poverty is the real patched coat of the Sufi. A dervish wearing a sackcloth coat and woolen cap once came to meet Master Abu Ali. One of Abu Ali's disciples tried to humour him, saying, "How much did you purchase that sackcloth for?" The dervish answered, "I purchased it
for the sum of the world. I was offered the hereafter in exchange, but
refused to trade." Spiritual poverty is to be totally naked,
to be a formless piece of wax in which He can stamp His Name. Because this
state is beyond desire, poverty cannot be sought.
Like everything that belongs to Him, it is given as a gift.
The path takes the wayfarer to where he can travel no further and
is left in a state of desolation and hopelessness.
Then, when the seeker accepts there is nowhere else to go -- when
the path seems to lead to a total dead end -- then there is freedom,
freedom born from the deep realization that there is nothing one can do.
It is in this newfound emptiness that spiritual life really begins. excerpt from Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee; The Call and the Echo: Sufi Dreamwork & the Psychology of the Beloved |
