Sufi: a brief explanation
June 25, 1973
Sufi is a unique word, a unique power. It is not a word belonging to any religion.
Sufi is a clear filtrate derived from the family of mankind. Transcending the state of silence, maunam, it is the resplendent essence of the clarity of wisdom that extends even beyond the Mauna Guru, the Silent Guru, as the resplendent essence of the clarity of wisdom, the explanation of the essence of absolute submission.
It does not belong to any religion.
After having filtered the essence of all four religions with wisdom, a Sufi separates right from wrong, extracting the truth — God — from all creation, while recognizing the abilities of all lives, observing the qualities of the creations, their wisdom, their perception, their awareness and intellect.
Looking inside them and filtering what is there within them—understanding all of their qualities, their intelligence, their actions, and their conduct, observing with wisdom and understanding the explanation of all of creation—a Sufi praises the majesty of God.
With compassion towards those lives, with love for the entirety of God’s creation, realizing how God gives the appropriate food to each creation and how He protects them —it is in this manner that a Sufi will give the explanation appropriate for the wisdom of each life.
Knowing them, he will give them the explanation and guide them to the good path. Knowing them, he will teach them wisdom, and through the compassion of God, he will lead them into that compassion.
There are six types of lives. Earth-life contains four hundred trillion kinds of lives. Water-life contains one thousand eight kinds of lives. Fire-life contains one thousand eight kinds of lives. Air-life contains two thousand eight kinds. Ether-life—the light-life that exists in the stars, the moon, and the sun—has one thousand eight kinds of lives.
During creation, all the lights of these lives were filtered and filtered and filtered from the power. Filtered and filtered, clarified and clarified into the Light known as the soul. Filtered and filtered and filtered into the life of the complete power that is called manu uyir, human life. Light. The resplendent life of man. The soul.
That is what came from God as the Nūr. It is called the completed life, the soul, manu uyir, human life. The Nūr is called the completed soul. It is directly connected to God.
Some of the lights that came from fire became heavenly messengers. The lesser lights became the heavenly beings. Lights of lesser power became the malā’ikah, the angels. Lights of even lesser power became the jinns and fairies. Lights of the least power were the satans.[1]
Even satan has some strength, but his strength has less power.
Section by section, lives with lesser powers were created. This is how the lives exist in creation. This is how the six types of lives exist.
The Light of the power known as the Nūr is the soul of man. The power of the soul of man is like the power that comes directly from the generator used to produce electricity for a city. The power of man’s soul is complete. Just as the power diminishes when electricity is transferred through a power grid to the wires in the cities and towns, the power of the other lives is less.
Lesser and greater, higher and lower—there are differences in the power of the lives in creation.
The life of a blade of grass, a worm, a bird, an animal, and man are not the same. Their souls are not the same. Man, the soul, has the ability to know all power, all heavenly beings and all celestial beings. He has the ability to control them and to summon them. Man’s wisdom and man’s soul have this strength. Such is the power of a true human being. Such is the power of his wisdom and his soul.
During creation, as the lives were filtered and filtered again and again and again and again and again, the residue—that which was not the complete power—was the stuff from which God created the jinns, the heavenly beings, the heavenly messengers, and the malaks, the angels.
The residue was of lesser power. That is how He created each, one by one, filtrate after filtrate, when He created the creations. Their powers were of diminishing strengths. Their levels of wisdom were of similarly diminishing strengths.
That which can subdue and rule all of them, that which can know all lives, love them and protect them, understanding both the good and the evil in their qualities, understanding and knowing all of this with the seven levels of wisdom, with patience, with God’s compassion, with the three thousand qualities of grace, with the ninety-nine names of the asmā’ul-husnā, with the nourishing qualities and the grace within those names, that which has the ability to protect all lives, the power to understand and to be able to heal all their illnesses is called the soul of man.
He who understands and knows all of them, realizing himself and God, understanding hell and heaven, all the lives, the creations, even satan and satan’s children; he who takes refuge in God’s silence and God’s completeness; he who lives in that refuge; he who dwells in that refuge; he whose understanding arises from within God’s justice; he who makes His glory and His explanation known; he who does not explain anything other than God’s explanation; he who does not praise anyone other than God; he who has established that state; he who has made that state firm, realizing ‘ālamul-arwāh, the world of pure souls, and all of everything; he who looks at everything with the fullness of that wisdom, seeing that perfection within God, seeing himself, God, and everything in that perfection, seeing it, knowing it, making the compassion within God’s qualities into his compassion; he who explains that refuge from within the refuge can be called a Sufi.
For he who is called a Sufi, the whole world has died. God is the only One who is alive. The whole world has died away from him. The illusion known as the world and karma have died away from him. The Light of God and His grace are deathless within him.
That state is called Sufi.
There are many more meanings of Sufi. This is just a word about it, a small part of it. If we could understand this much, if we could understand the reality of it…
For a Sufi, there are no differences.
For a Sufi, there is no world.
For a Sufi, there is no dance.
For a Sufi, there is no praise.
A Sufi does not take marijuana nor does he dance.
A Sufi is God’s qualities, [the embodiment of] God’s protecting qualities. He who has those qualities is a Sufi.
He does not have separations of religion, race, or scripture. He has none of them. He has only God, His three thousand qualities of grace and His state of perfection, pūranam.
He who has arrived at this state, he who has known the state of lā ilāha, nothing other than God exists, illAllāhu, You alone are Allāh, is a Sufi.
He who has made himself non-existent and who has no state of his own will understand the state in which God exists as God, the One Alone: this is the explanation of Sufi.
This is a small part of that which is called Sufi.
Right?
– M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen (Ral.)
[1] An explanation of satan was given at the end of this talk:
Shaitān and shaitān’s qualities are hell. God created shaitān and shaitan’s qualities as hell.
Of the six types of lives, it is the lowest form of life, the life discarded by wisdom. It was discarded from the soul at creation. Not all lives are the same. There is a difference between the life of man and other lives.
Satan is the energy, the residue, that was discarded after the life of man was filtered out. The Light known as the Nūr is a great Light. What separated from it, breaking away and breaking away and breaking away from it, are the lights of diminished power.
There is a great difference. They all have light and glitters, but of much less magnitude [than the Light of man].