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Ten million people might come to the guru, claiming that they have the strong faith, certitude, and determination called iman.(1) But when the guru strikes each person's 'strong' stick of iman against the water of wisdom over and over again, all of them will break. After three or four beatings against that water of wisdom, they will either crack in half or shatter into splinters. Only one stick in ten million will withstand the force of the water of wisdom. What is this stick of iman? The absolute faith that the guru, in his every word and act, is teaching you and showing you the way to God. A person may claim to have strong faith, but as soon as sorrow hits him, his faith is shattered. Or when he is told, "Don't go in that direction, go this way," he loses his faith. Or if he is reprimanded, his faith is broken. If he is denied what he desires, he abandons his faith. If, to learn some point of truth, he needs to be separated from any of the things he clings to, his faith disappears. In any of these circumstances, his iman vanishes. This is how he responds to any of these lessons. Many, many people say they have faith or say they want to study wisdom, but when you strike their sticks of iman against the water of wisdom, they all break right away. Question: What must we do to keep the stick of iman from breaking? Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: You must, with total certitude, stay focused on one point. If your faith adheres only to that single point, the stick wont' break. You must want only that one thing—to merge with God. You must not be looking at or desiring anything else. Only then will the faith remain intact when it comes up against wisdom. Dr. Ajwad Macan-Markar: It isn't so much that we don’t take time to focus on that one point, but rather that all these problems come and trouble our minds, and that makes us waver. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen: So, the main thing is to have iman. We need to have the steadfast faith and the certainty to realize that the things we see as sorrows actually are part of God's creation and His essence. All these things that we interpret as being good or bad come from Him. They are just a part of life. They are in His charge. He is taking care of everything, at all times. That's His work. He created us, He feeds us, and He gives us everything in our life. He is our protector and our judge. Every single issue that comes our way is His to take care of. So, tell yourself, "I don’t need to worry about this problem. This is not my responsibility. I have absolute faith that God is in charge of everything in my life. I hand over all the responsibility to Him." Therefore, when things come along and afflict you, it's not your job to worry. Your job is just to carry on doing your duty. That kind of certitude is good. It shows that you trust God so completely that you can hand over everything to Him and trust in Him alone. Only after you make your certitude firm and surrender to God in this way will true worship come to you. When your faith is this strong, you will know what true prayer is. The wavering occurs only because your faith and certitude are not strong, because you haven't surrendered in the right way. Surrender doesn't mean just to go along with the guru's words. Surrender means to hand over all your needs and wants, all your worries and problems, all your thoughts and ideas, and all your visions, and deposit them all in God's bank. (2) You don't just blindly go along with something. That's not really surrender. Once you've handed over everything to that bank, you are no longer keeping anything within you. Even your profits and losses are now in the care of the bank. You keep nothing. You're empty. God is the manager. He is responsible for everything. So, emptying yourself, giving everything over to God and remaining empty, is surrender. It's not just passively bowing your head to the ground and saying, "I surrender." That's not what it is. To hand over all the things you're concerned about, to empty yourself and become naught—that is surrender. Do you understand this? When you have fear, when you fight against the words of the guru because you feel like you're being thrown into the fire, when you begin to mistrust his words, then you are no longer a disciple. If you're a true disciple, your ego must perish. The 'I' has to step aside, and you must follow those words implicitly, trusting in his wisdom. Nothing but those words should be left in you. Only then will you be a disciple. Even if you think you've surrendered to the guru, as long as you haven't gotten rid of your fears and mistrust, you will really be resisting, because to you, following his words would seem like walking right into fire. But if you look at it carefully, you will see that the only fire that exists is whatever fire is within you. The fire is coming from your own ideas, which you're still clinging to. If all the 'I' in you is dead, there won't be any fire. Consider the story of Prophet Abraham. Nimrod had him thrown into a pit of fire. (3) But Abraham didn't see or feel any fire, because there was no fire in him. The only fire that existed was the fire in Nimrod. So, in the past when difficulties came to you, if you had died to yourself as Abraham did, you wouldn't have encountered any fire. What you ran up against at that point was the fire that was within you. You felt it because you couldn't leave your 'I' in the guru's bank and just follow his words. You were holding on to your own ideas and starting to have doubts about his words at that time, and then, when you came into his presence, you began to have even more doubts. If you can't die to his command and just follow it, you're not a disciple. I may be hard to do, but if you want to rise higher, you must do it. When you are thirsty, you must work very hard to dig a well. You have to dig deep down until you reach clear water. If you try to dig your well in the soft ground by the seashore, only salt water will come. You need to go inland and dig all the way down to the water level. Doing that can be very difficult. It is even more difficult to find a true guru. A true guru is very rare. But should you find such a one, you will also find the water that will quench your thirst, the pure water that will clear you and cleanse you and bring you satisfaction. Until you totally accept the words of the guru and act upon those words of wisdom, you will never attain the high state you seek. You will continue to experience the fires that you yourself are kindling. But if you merge with his words and die to those words, then there will be no fires to burn you. Until then, wherever you go you will have doubts, and you will be burned by them. Until your 'I' dies, the fires you yourself have set will burn you, and you will end up back where you came from. If the guru tells you to walk through a jungle full of snakes, and you are bringing up a snake within you, you will be afraid of any snakes you see there. But if you don't have a snake in you, then none of those snakes will come to harm you. Whatever you have inside is what you see outside. If all the things that you keep inside were to die, you would have no difficulties on the outside. November 26, 1977 Footnotes: 1) Iman (pronounced ee-mahn) goes beyond faith. It includes the absolute certitude that there is only one God and that He is in charge, and there is total determination to accept and follow His guidance. 2) You have to put all your thoughts, your intentions, your prayers, your sadnesses and difficulties and pains—any concerns you have, anything you're searching for—into the bank. Put your mind and your life in the hands of the bank. Do this with total faith and trust that all will be safe and protected. If anyone wanted to rob you, they would have to rob the bank. But God is the manager, and it's His responsibility to protect all that you put in His hands. So surrender everything to God, and then you'll receive the check of God's grace from the guru. The value and glory of that check is so great that you can cash it whenever you need anything. It's like money in the bank. (From an unpublished discourse by Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, March 13, 1977.) 3) In the book My Love You, My Children: 101 Stories for Children of All Ages, Bawa Muhaiyaddeen tells the story of Abraham smashing people's idols to pieces, and in their outcry, the people demanded that Nimrod have him burned in a pit of fire. But God commanded the fire to be cooled and to provide safety for Abraham.
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