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BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: Illnesses can be treated in many ways, but no matter how many different treatments are used, they may still fail to heal the patient. In order for a treatment to work, first of all, even if the patient does not have faith in God, he must have faith in the doctor and in whatever treatment he suggests. Secondly, the doctor who is performing the treatment must have faith in God; he must have God’s qualities, His love, and His patience. The doctor must give all responsibility to God, instead of thinking that he is the one responsible for curing the patient. When these conditions exist, when the patient has faith in the doctor and the doctor has faith in God, then the treatment becomes very easy and the illness will be cured, at least to a certain extent. Sometimes an illness will not be cured because the patient doesn’t have faith in himself, in the doctor, or in the medicine, and he doesn’t even have faith in God. When such a state exists, a cure is very difficult, perhaps impossible. All human beings are essentially the same, but their minds differ, and those different thoughts bring about different kinds of illnesses. Each human being has a wide variety of thoughts, qualities, actions, and behaviors. All of these have to be changed, one by one. Consider the work a tractor does. For each different job you want done, you need to attach a different part. If you want to haul some materials, you must attach a trailer. Even though the tractor does the pulling, it needs the trailer to hold the materials. On the other hand, if you want to cut grass with the tractor, you have to attach a mower to do that. For digging up the earth, you need a plow, and to break up what you have plowed, you need a small tiller. For furrowing or breaking up the sod, you need a circular attachment called a disk. If the soil is too high in some places and too low in others, then you need yet another attachment that levels the ground. For each job, a different attachment is needed. The tractor itself does not change, but the attachments have to be alternated to suit each different job that must be done. Just as a farmer knows the tractor parts and can attach whichever one is needed, an insan kamil, a perfected, God-realized teacher, has the wisdom to know the different qualities and potentialities within the heart of a man, and he can attach whatever is required. He will plow up the various qualities that are within a person, then clear them and level them out. To do that, he may have to change parts repeatedly. Sometimes he may have to attach patience, sometimes the inner patience or forbearance known as sabūr, and sometimes shakūr, or contentment. At other times, he may have to attach tawakkul ‘alallāh, surrendering all responsibility to God, or al-hamdu lillāh, giving all praise to God. He might need to use the part called love, or he might have to attach wisdom. He might also attach on the part called medicine. There are so many parts for treating man’s afflictions. That which has to be treated with wisdom, the insan kamil treats with wisdom. That which has to be treated with love, he treats with love. Whatever has to be treated with faith, he treats with faith. Sometimes the treatment might be a suggestion or thought. In situations where the mind is not functioning correctly, he might have to treat the mind by tricking it. If somebody is possessed by a demon, he might even have to use the magic appropriate to that demon and exorcise it. For every situation, he will use whatever is needed. If the grace of God is the only thing that will treat an illness, then he will use the grace of God to treat it. Sometimes gnanam, or divine wisdom, may be the only treatment that will help. Meanwhile, the patient must have faith. When the doctor feels the need to change the treatment, the patient, with his faith, must cooperate. The tractor also needs that kind of faith. It should not say, “O, why must I have all these different contraptions? Why do I not have just one thing?” The tractor should know that each different attachment serves a particular purpose. That is the faith required of a tractor. It must accept that the farmer, in order to clear the ground and plant his crop, needs to change the parts one by one. Only then will there be a good harvest. In the same way, if you want to make a man’s life better, you need a doctor who has wisdom, an insan kamil, a divinely luminous one. That doctor will know each aspect of the human being he is treating and will apply the different treatments as required. There are many things inside each human being that have to be changed, one by one. The patient must have faith that the doctor, like the farmer, knows exactly what is required and will change the parts and supply what is appropriate as the need arises. The patient’s job is to maintain his faith as the parts are being changed repeatedly. From Questions of Life-Answers of Wisdom, Session 23, p. 253 Bawa Muhaiyaddeen Fellowship Family Newsletter May-Jun 1997 “M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen- a Sufi mystic, can best be remembered for his efforts to bring unity through understanding to the faithful of all religions.”
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