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QUESTION: The children from Boston have a question. One of the children had two accidents. The first happened at about two o’clock in the afternoon, when she was walking along the street. Someone came up and stole her bag from her, and she was very shaken. The next day, again at two o’clock, in a different part of the same town, another person came up behind her and hit her over the head. Again she was upset, and although it didn’t shake her faith, still, she was concerned. BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: Good. One snatched your bag, the other stuck you on the head. This is not a big wonder. After all, you were going only in search of God, in search of that one treasure. If you go in search of that treasure in the right way, you will realize how many people inside of you are beating you up. There are so many dangers within you, so many beatings, so many people grabbing things from you, so many people biting you. Many enemies are right there inside of you. Compared to the inner enemies, these outer matters are very trivial. If you lost your faith through worrying about these two small things, how can you overcome all the enemies within? Your faith, certitude, and strength must prevail so that you can chase away all the people on the inside. These experiences were just meant to show you what lies waiting inside. That was a tiny pat on your head, that’s all. In the Tamil epics there was a saint named Pattanathar. He was a recluse, a wandering mendicant. He would roam about the streets all day, not caring where he was going. If somebody gave him something to eat he would eat, otherwise he went hungry. But one day he went into a garden, saw some nice cucumbers, and felt a desire to eat them. So he sat down, plucked two or three, and started to eat. Immediately, the guard ran up to him shouting, “Hey, you rogue! You came and stole from my garden!” And he beat the mendicant mercilessly. After his thrashing, Pattanathar sat down. Soon he said, “All right, now, beat some more and keep on beating. Let the one who ate the cucumber receive the blows. He is the one who asked for that cucumber. He is the one who wanted it. Beat some more! Beat some more! Let him get the beating, let him get thrashed. Go on, beat some more!” The guard began to wonder, “What is this? The more beating he gets, the more he asks for.” Then he beat him some more. But Pattanathar just kept on shouting, “Let the one who had the desire for the cucumber get the beating. Let the one who ate it receive the blows.” So the guard continued beating until he was too tired to deliver another blow. Pattanathar’s body was moaning and groaning from the pain. “Ah, are you groaning?” he said to his body. “You wanted to eat that cucumber and you did. You had that desire, didn’t you? All right, now you have to groan. Now you have to accept the punishment. In the future, do not yearn for these things. Do not desire them.” Then Pattanathar sat down under a tree. “From now on, wherever I go, I will only eat if somebody brings food to me and offers it with a melting heart. Otherwise, I will not eat,” he said firmly. “If someone brings me food and does it with good feelings and a melting heart, I will eat that food of love. That will be my only food, not this food of beatings.” In the same way all things that happen to us are the food of beatings. We must not worry about such things. Whatever comes to us is meant to correct us, to improve us. Any difficulty that befalls us is meant to help us go one step forward. As long as we have absolute certitude in God, then no matter what dangers, difficulties, troubles, or suffering come to us, they will only make us move forward. These things help us to progress, to move forward on the path. Never forget your goal. So, if you receive a blow on your back, that is a signal for you to go forward some more. It is a sign to progress.
Article Source: http://www.wisdomarticles.com
Muhaiyaddeen, M.R. Bawa. Questions of Life – Answers of Wisdom. Philadelphia: Fellowship Press, 1991. 125-127. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was over 120 years old before he passed in 1986. He wrote many books on wisdom and God, but The Golden Words of a Sufi Sheikh (www.religionspirituality.org) stands apart. Through his wisdom comes explanations of life’s mysteries.
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