PART II: CONFESSIONS

CHAPTER 4
MY INTEREST IN SUFISM
'Well-makers lead the water; archers bend the bow; carpenters hew a log of
wood; wise people fashion themselves.' - Dhammapada.
At Ajmer I visited the tomb of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti, the most celebrated Sufi
saint of India. The atmosphere of his last resting-place was in itself a phenomenon; a
sense of calm and peace pervaded it, and among all that throng of pilgrims I yet felt
as if I were the only one present. At nightfall I went home and said Tahajud, the
midnight prayer.
And lo! at the end of my prayers there came to me a voice, as though in answer to
my invocations. It was the voice of a faqir calling the people to prayer before
sunrise, and he sang, 'Awake O man, from thy fast sleep! Thou knowest not that
death watcheth thee every moment. Thou canst not imagine how great a load thou
hast gathered to carry on thy shoulders, and how long the journey yet is for thee to
accomplish. Up! up! The night is passed and the sun will soon arise!'
The unearthly quiet of the hour and the solemnity of the song moved me to tears.
Sitting on my rug with my rosary in my hand, I reflected that all the proficiency and
reputation which I had achieved were utterly profitless in regard to my Najat or
salvation. I recognized that the world was neither a stage set up for our amusement
nor a bazaar to satisfy our vanity and hunger, but a school wherein to learn a hard
lesson. I then chose quite a different path to that which I had followed until then; in
other words I turned over a new page in my life.
The morning broke and the birds began their hymn of praise to God. I heard men
and women pass by below, some going to the mosque, others to the temples, and the
general masses to the toil that yields their daily bread. Then I too fared forth and,
lost in thought, not knowing my destination, made my way towards the jungle, with
an inner yearning to be apart from the world and give an outlet to the thoughts and
emotions with which my mind was so occupied.
Thus I arrived at a cemetery where a group of dervishes sat on the green grass,
chattering together. They were all poorly clad, some without shoes and others
without coats; one had shirt with only one sleeve and another lacked them both. One
wore a robe with a thousand patches and the next a hat without a crown. This
strange group attracted my attention and I sat there for some time, noticing all that
was going on yet feigning to be utterly indifferent.
Presently their Pir-o-Murshid or Master came towards them, even more scantily
dressed than they, and with a group of dervishes circling round him as he
approached. Two of the latter led the odd procession, and with each step they cried
out loudly, 'Hosh bar dum, nazur bar kadum, khilwat dar anjuman!' Be conscious
of your breath and watch every step you take, and thus experience solitude in the
crowd!

When the Murshid arrived at the assembly of his disciples each one greeted the
other, saying, 'Ishq Allah, Ma'bud Allah!' God is love and God is the beloved! It
was this very greeting which later unveiled for me the Bible words that God is love,
and also the verse of the Arabian poet Abulallah, who says,
Church, a Temple, or a Ka'ba stone,
Qur'an or Bible, or a martyr's bone,
All these and more my heart can tolerate
Since my religion is of love alone.
The solemnity of the sacred words they uttered found their echo in my soul,
thereupon I watched their ceremonial with still greater attention. Naturally at first
sight their dire poverty was puzzling, but then I had learned before I saw them how
the holy Prophet had always prayed to Allah to sustain him in his life among the
Mesquin or dervishes, who voluntarily choose this humble way of living. The queer
patches on their garments reminded me of the words of Hafiz, 'Do not be fooled
thyself by short sleeves full of patches, for most powerful arms are hidden under
them.'
The dervishes first sat lost in contemplation, reciting charms one after the other, and
then they began their music. I forgot all my science and technique while listening to
their simple melodies, as they sang to the accompaniment of sitar and dholok the
deathless words of the Sufi Masters such as Rumi, Jami, Hafiz, and Shams-i Tabriz.
The rhapsody, which their ecstasies conjured up, seemed to me so strong and vital
that the very leaves of the trees seemed to hang spellbound and motionless. Although
their emotions manifested themselves in varying forms, they were regarded with
silent reverence by all that strange company. Each one of them revealed a peculiar
mood of ecstasy; some expressed it in tears and others in sighs, some in dances and
yet others in the calm of meditation. Although I did not enjoy the music as much as
they, still it impressed me so deeply that I felt as if I were lost in a trance of harmony
and happiness.
But the most amazing part of the proceedings came when the assembly was about to
disperse. For one of the dervishes arose and, while announcing Bhundara or dinner,
addressed them in the following terms, 'O Kings of Kings! O Emperors of
Emperors!' This amused me greatly at the time, while I regarded their outward
appearance. My first thought made them merely kings of imagination, without
throne or crown, treasury, courtiers, or dominions those natural possessions and
temporal powers of kingship.
But the more I brooded upon the matter, the more I questioned whether
environment or imagination made a king. The answer came at last: the king is never
conscious of his kingship and all its attributes of luxury and might, unless his
imagination is reflected in them and thus proves his true sovereignty. For instance, if
a baby were crowned and seated upon a throne he would never comprehend his high
position until his mind evolved sufficiently to realize his surroundings. This shows
how real our surroundings seem to us, and yet how dead they are in the absence of
imagination. And it also reveals how fleeting time and the changes of matter make
all the kings of the earth but transitory kings, ruling over transitory kingdoms; this

is because of their dependence upon their environment instead of their imagination.

But the kingship of the dervish, independent of all external influences, based purely
on his mental perception and strengthened by the forces of his will, is much truer
and at once unlimited and everlasting. Yet in the materialistic view his kingdom
would appear as nothing, while in the spiritual conception it is an immortal and
exquisite realm of joy.
Verily, they are the possessors of the kingdom of God and all His seen and unseen
treasure is in their own possession, since they have lost themselves in Allah and are
purified from all illusive deceptions. 'It is by them that you obtain rain; it is by them
that you receive your subsistence,' says the Qur'an. And Omar Khayyam said,
Think in this battered caravanserai,
Whose doorways are alternate night and day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp,
Abode his hour or so, and went his way.
They say the lion and the lizard keep
The courts where Jamshed gloried and drank deep;
And Bahram that great hunter, the wild ass
Stamped o'er his head and he lies fast asleep.
Thus I compared our deluded life with the real, and our artificial with their natural
being, as one might compare the false dawn with the true. I realized our folly in
attaching undue weight to matters wholly unimportant and how apt we were to
laugh at the dreamer building his lovely castles in the air. I saw who our fleeting
affairs are blown about as chaff is blown in the wind, while the imagination is
difficult to alter. It is possible for the land to turn into water and for water into land,
but the impression of an imagination can never change.
I felt that we were losing the most precious moments and opportunities of life for
transitory dross and tinsel, at the sacrifice of all that is enduring and eternal.
When I became familiar with the strange life of the dervishes I admired the best in
them and was able to recognize the Majzubs, who are the extremists among them.
These are so absorbed in the inner vision that they are absolutely unconscious of the
external needs of life. Sometimes they are both fed and clothed by others; their
neglect of the physical self and their irresponsibility towards the world make it seem
at first sight that they are insane, but at times, by their miraculous powers over
phenomena, they are distinguished as Majzub. They are understood to be the
controllers of the elements, some with regard to certain portions of the land or
water, and some even for the whole world.
Their thought, words, and actions are truly found to be those of God Almighty. The
word is scarcely spoken before the action is accomplished. Each atom of the
universe seems to be awaiting their command.
I once saw a Majzub in Calcutta, standing in the street and gesticulating as though
he were directing all the traffic. The passers-by laughed at his insanity. But for all
his weird looks he had most brilliant eyes, shooting forth strong magnetic
vibrations, which attracted me so much that I wondered if he was a Majzub in the

guise of a lunatic; this dissimulation is often practiced by them in order to escape

contact with the world and all life's cares. If they did not adopt this method it would
be harder for them to study the natural hallucinations of humanity. As Sa'di says,
'Every man on earth has a craze peculiar to himself.'
The truth of this was shown to me by the way the Majzub laughed at seeing the
people in the street hustling and bustling along as if their small affairs were only
important things in the universe. I sent the Majzub word, and asked him if he would
care to come and honor me by his presence, but he sacrificed my request to the call
of the children who suddenly came running and took him away to play with them. I
understood that he preferred the society of children, the angels on earth, to
association with grown-up sinners, who know nothing but the ego and its ulterior
satisfactions. I waited patiently after this until I next saw him, and sent a message
begging him to give my music a hearing. After that he came and when he entered the
room I rose from my seat to do him honor and saluted him with both hands. His
only answer was that he did not require this homage, as he received the same under
different attributes and aspects from the whole universe.
In order to be quite sure of his Majzubiat I asked him whether he was a thief. He
smilingly replied, 'Yes', which conveyed to me that all good and bad attributes, as
well as all names and forms, were considered by him to be his own, and that he was
thus raised beyond good and evil as well as above the praise and blame of the world.
Then he sat down and began to discourse and act in such a manner that all in the
room should consider him insane. But I told him in a whisper that I knew him well,
that he could not fool me, and requested him to favor us with his inspiring words
and blessings. He then began to speak of the journey he had made on the spiritual
path, describing each plane as a fort he had to destroy with guns and cannon, until
he arrived at the home of his Father and embraced his true spiritual Lord. And he
went on to tell how at last the Father was also dead and he would inherit His
kingdom in the end.
It was all related in such a quaint language, that none of those present save myself
could understand him, and even I only did so with a great mental effort.
A Majzub attains perfection through innocence and from childhood, learns of the
true inner bliss of which we are deprived by our most deluding knowledge of the
outer world. Yet it is not the path for all to follow; but we can derive the truth of
existence from it and lead a balanced life, as the Salik do among the Sufis.