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| | | Book Name: Sufis - The People of the Path, Vol 1 | Previous Next | |
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means wool.
It seems very strange. Why should wool become the symbol of Sufism? The scholars go on saying that it is because Sufis used to wear woollen robes. That's true. But why? Nobody has answered it. Why should they be wearing woollen robes? Mohammed says in the Koran that even Moses was wearing a woollen robe when he encountered God. When God spoke to him he was entirely in a woollen robe. But why?
There is a deep symbolism in it. The symbolism is that wool is the garb of the animals and a Sufi has to become as innocent as an animal. The Sufi has to attain to a primal innocence. He has to drop all kinds of civilisation, he has to drop all kinds of cultures, he has to drop all conditionings, he has to become again an animal. Then the symbol becomes tremendously significant.
When man becomes animal he does not fall back, he goes higher. When man becomes animal he is not just an animal. That is not possible. You cannot fall back. When a man becomes an animal he becomes a saint. He remains conscious but his consciousness is no more burdened by any conditioning. He is no more a Hindu and no more a Mohammedan and no more a Christian. He is in tune with existence as deeply as any animal. He has dropped. all kinds of philosophies, he carries no conceptualisations in his mind, his mind is without any content. He is, but he is no more in the mind. To be without mind -- that is the meaning of the woollen robe. To be like innocent animals, not to know what is good and what is bad... and then the highest good arises, the 'summum bonum'.
When you know this is good and that is bad, and you choose good against bad, you remain divided. When you choose, there is repression. When you say 'I will do this. This has to be done. This should be done', this becomes an 'ought'. Then naturally you have to repress -- you have to repress that which you have condemned as bad. And the repressed part remains inside you and goes on poisoning your system. And sooner or later it will assert, sooner or later it will take revenge. When it explodes, you will go mad.
Hence all civilised people are always on the verge of madness. This earth is a big madhouse. A
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