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Main Index
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to be risky, to follow this madman. One can never be certain where he will lead you.
Vivekananda hesitated. And Ramakrishna said, "Before you ask a question, you should be ready to receive the answer! Are you a coward or something? Why did you ask in the first place?" And Ramakrishna jumped -- he was that kind of madman, like Zusya -- and he touched Vivekananda with his feet on his chest, and Vivekananda fell into a kind of trance.
When after one hour he woke up, he was a transformed man. He bowed down, touched the feet of Ramakrishna, and said, "Excuse me, I am sorry. It was so childish of me to ask such a question. It is not a question -- it is an adventure. And thank you! You have given me a taste of something of which I was not aware at all."
This is the way of the Sufi. He creates a situation. The situation is his lab. In that situation he slowly slowly persuades you, seduces you, really, to go into the beyond. Yes, it is a seduction -- because who will be ready to go into the beyond? The mind wants to cling to the known; the known is familiar. With the known we are skillful, efficient; vie can tackle it. To go into the unknown is certainly risky. And we will be like children. All our expertise will be left behind. All our knowledge will be of no use there. Who wants to go into the unknown? But God is not only unknown but unknowable. God is available only to those who gather courage and go into the unknown.
The Sufi Master helps you to gather courage. The Sufi Master, by THIS example, by his being, by his presence, creates the longing for the impossible. Stirs your heart. Gives a new life release to your breathing. Pulsates you with a new passion for God. But this is not philosophy. He does not solve a question at all. Yes, he helps you to dissolve all questions, but he never solves a question.
So the first thing to be understood is: Sufism is practical, very very down-to-earth. Sufism likes people like Zorba the Greek, because they are the people who can become Zorba the Buddha -- only they are the people who can become. The people who have become very very clever in playing with words, philosophizing, abstraction, rationalizations,
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