Sufism, Vol. 1 Sufis: The People Of The Path Chapter 6: The Passion for the Impossible, Question 1

The first question:

Question 1

I AM NOT CLEAR. IS BEING A SUFI A MATTER OF WILL? IS IT A BLESSING? OR IS IT SOMETHING ELSE?

The Sufis have a very beautiful saying. They say, 'God is not found by seeking, and never found by those who don't seek.'

First a man has to seek and then he has to surrender his seeking too -- because in the seeking the seeker goes on existing. The seeker is the ego. Of course, if you never start seeking, you Will never find. You have to be thirsty for God. You have to start moving, groping in the dark.

But don't become addicted to your groping. A moment comes when you start feeling that your will is not succeeding. But that moment comes only through will, effort, arduous effort. A moment comes when you start feeling that your will has failed, that you are utterly defeated. In that utter defeat is the victory. In that utter defeat you surrender. In that utter defeat you start crying. In that utter defeat you say, 'Now I cannot do any more. I am finished. Whatsoever I could do I have done.' In that moment, when you have this total failure, this feeling of utter defeat, you disappear. You are no more there. The seeker has disappeared -- through seeking.

To seek God is to seek the impossible. By seeking you cannot find it. If you can find God by your seeking then God will be something that you can possess, then God will be in your fist, then God will be your property -- then God will not be greater than you. That which you can seek is bound to be smaller than you, it cannot be bigger than you. The lower cannot seek the higher and the smaller cannot seek the bigger.

You cannot possess the infinite, the eternal -- that is absurd. But to understand that this is absurd one has to start seeking. You will not know it in any other way. One starts longing for God... that means that one is moving, desiring, longing, for God... that means that one is moving, desiring, longing, for the impossible. One day or other defeat is absolutely certain. In that defeat something transmutes, transforms. In that defeat the seeker disappears, will disappears -- surrender happens. You cannot surrender without that defeat. How can you surrender? Deep down you will continue thinking, 'I could have succeeded.' Or you may even think that this surrender is something that you are doing -- that you are the doer of the surrender too. But then it is not surrender. Surrender can happen only in utter defeat. Only utter defeat prepares you to surrender -- not a single hope remains, not a single ray of light in the dark night of the soul. You have put everything at stake, now nothing is left. You are empty.

In that emptiness... surrender. That emptiness flowers into surrender. In that emptiness you are not, something new arrives. The seeker is no more there, the will has disappeared, but the seeking is there, the longing is there -- even more so, because the energy that was involved in the seeker has also become longing. Now you are simply thirsty, knowing perfectly well that you cannot do anything. That moment of utter despair brings grace -- that's what Sufis call BARAKA, what Hindus call PRASAD.

When you have fallen flat and you cannot move even a single inch on your own, when you have again become a small child and you are crying and screaming for your mother, the mother comes. But you have to become helpless again.

The question is important. You ask: I AM NOT CLEAR. IS BEING A SUFI A MATTER OF WILL? Yes, in the beginning it is a matter of will. Each journey towards God starts in will but never ends in will. The first step has to be of will -- and will takes you a long way towards your utter defeat. Half the journey is done by will-power and the other half is done in surrender. Will leads to surrender.

This will look paradoxical to you. Will flowers ultimately into surrender because it is will which makes you aware that on your own you cannot do anything. You have done it. You have seen it fail. So the first step is in will, half the journey is in will. And when will has disappeared there is blessing, PRASAD, BARAKA.

So if you ask me definitively whether it is will or surrender, I will say it is both and neither. Will and surrender are like two wings of a bird. They both help, they both complement each other. Even while they are opposed to each other they are complementing. Their very opposition creates movement. It is just like your two legs -- they are opposed to each other. Through their opposition energy is created, and you can move. Will and surrender are opposites but deep down they are part of one whole.

Every seeker starts in will and ends in surrender.

Sufism

VOL. 1, SUFIS: THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH

Chapter-6

The Passion for the Impossible