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Main Index
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| | | Book Name: Sufis - The People of the Path, Vol 1 | Previous Next | |
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in the deep unconscious so you cannot figure it out -- what it is, from where it is coming. You feel it as if it is coming from you. It is not coming from you.
Man cannot take the initiative. How can man take the initiative? Man is so impotent, man is so helpless. Man cannot start the journey on his own unless he is pulled, unless some magnetic force starts pulling him towards some unknown goal. You can choose only that which you know. How can you choose God? You can take the initiative for other things, the worldly things, because you know them. You can have an idea of how to purchase a beautiful house or how to have this woman as your wife or this man as your husband or how to have more money, more power, more prestige -- you can choose these things. How can you choose God? You have not even had a glimpse, not even in your dreams. How can you choose something so utterly unknown to you?
But you are not unknown to God. He can choose you. Whenever he chooses, a great desire arises in you to find him. That is an indication that he has chosen you. You have become a Sufi -- chosen as a friend by God.
That is also beautiful.
The fourth possibility is from the Greek word 'sufiya'. 'Sufiya' means wisdom. Wisdom is not synonymous with knowledge -- knowledge is through scriptures, through others, borrowed. Wisdom arises in your own being; you are a light unto yourself. Wisdom means that you know, not that you believe. Knowledge is belief. Somebody says 'God is' and you believe. You believe the man, hence you believe that he must be saying the truth. Jesus says 'God is' and you believe; I say 'God is' and you believe -- then it is knowledge. You love me, you trust me, you start believing -- but it is knowledge.
And a man becomes a Sufi only when he has known. When he himself has known, when he himself has touched the reality, when he himself has seen the face of God, then he becomes a Sufi. He has become wise. He is no more just knowledgeable, it is his own experience now.
The English term 'philosophy' comes from the same root 'sufiya' but it has gone astray. Sufi also comes from the same root 'sufiya' but it has not gone astray.
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