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BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: What plans are we making to go on pretending to the world that we are something we are not? Our grandfathers, their grandfathers and their grandfathers, and so on, for generations back, all deceived the world. This is the way of the world. The pretense that one generation leaves unfinished is carried on by the next. Whatever work the grandfather fails to accomplish, the father comes to finish. The father comes to fool the grandfather. Then, to fool the father, the mother comes. And then we come along to fool the mother. After that, this world comes to fool us. The world comes to dupe the world. And recently certain spiritual fathers called gurus have come to deceive the world. How shall we set about trying to outwit these gurus who have come to deceive the world? Can you give us any suggestions? The one-span stomach comes to trick every one of those gurus. To trick the stomach comes hunger, to trick hunger comes food, and to trick food comes hell. If you want to escape from being fooled by hell, what should you do? How can you escape? Suggest a way. Tell us please. Sandra? Sandra says she does not know. If she knew she would escape. STUDENT: By trying very fervently to follow what is in your heart. BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: You must first know what is inside the heart, the right and the wrong. Everything is inside there. The mind comes to deceive man, and to fool the mind the monkey comes. Desire comes to trick that monkey, and illusion comes to trick desire. The earth comes to deceive illusion, and death comes to confound the earth. Then to outwit death, a succession of rebirths comes. Now what do we need to outwit birth? We must find out. Everyone is within us. Truth is only one, but there is the duality of right and wrong. The right path is good; the wrong path is bad. We must understand them both and then choose the right path. But if you want to go on that good path, you have to ask the way from someone who knows. Don't try to go on your own. Keep asking directions. If you inquire at each point from someone who knows, and then go that way, you will be on the right path. However, if you want to go on the wrong path, you will not need to ask directions. You can just watch other people and start running that way. That will surely be the wrong path. Do not look at the world and run behind it; do not look at a book and run the way it tells you to. Try looking at yourself and run in that direction. And before you run, try to understand your senses. Do not run after happiness and comfort; understand what sorrow is and what joy is and then walk warily. Do not believe that everything is tasty; before you eat you must know that some things are wrong, and some are bad for you. In everything, you must know the right and the wrong. Don't marvel at the things you see in the world; the world is only a small dot, a small point; look at yourself, understand yourself, and marvel at what you see there. Do not look at others and ridicule them; look at yourself and ridicule what you see there. Do not be angry at others; be angry at your own ignorance. Do not find fault with others; look at the faults in your own actions and the faults in your life, and understand them. Neither praise nor ridicule another person's meanings and intentions. Your eyes are the sores and wounds of your life; let them see and understand who you are. Your mind is your hell. Your thoughts are the screens and veils in your life that will hide the truth from you. Your desire is your hypnotic fascination with torpor. And the joy you feel when you see something is a disease that will kill you later. Your birth will be the cause of your death. So realize yourself and look at yourself. Split open your qalb, your innermost heart, and look inside. If you understand yourself, then you will discover a way, a plan. And if you know the plan, then the danger of your birth will be dispelled. Do not close your eyes and meditate; control your eyes and control the millions of animals within you heart and then mediate. Do not close your mouth and meditate; control the many qualities that are deceiving you and then meditate. Do not worship seeking to find joy out of your own sorrows; throw away both joy and sorrow and worship God from the place where no joy or sorrow exist. Do not hurt anyone else with bad words or even with your thoughts; all the animals you are bringing up within you will scold you and torment you with the very words and actions you used to hurt others. So cure yourself of that hurt inside of you. Do not become a slave to those animals within you; drive them out. Let them go where they want to go, and you go where you need to go. They must obtain their freedom from you, and you must obtain your freedom from them. At that moment you will obtain the qualities of God and understand the mystery of your birth. You will see the explanation of your own history and understand this world and the hereafter. Then you will have freedom and bliss forever. Reflect on this a little. This is the real freedom in our lives. Muhaiyaddeen, M.R. Bawa. Questions of Life – Answers of Wisdom Volume 1. Philadelphia: Fellowship Press, 1991. 147-149.
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