| |
world? It was as religious as India is. And just after the revolution, within five years, all religions simply disappeared. What kind of religion was this which took only five years to disappear? And when the atheists came into power, people simply surrendered to atheism. That religion was false; it was pseudo.
The same is going to happen in India. Any day this country will become irreligious; just let the irreligious people come into power, and all the temples and all the gurudwaras and all the mosques will start disappearing because this religion is not real religion.
In fact, the very idea of God as a person creates doubts in you. How many hands has he? What kind of face? Is he black or white? Does he look like a Chinese or an American? What height? Old or young? Man or woman? How many faces has he? A thousand and one questions and not a single question is answerable, because you have taken the very first thing wrongly. God is not a person at all.
God is this impersonal existence.
Keep this continuously in your heart -- that in Sufism God is synonymous with existence, synonymous with isness, the suchness of existence is God -- and then things will become easier for you to understand.
Now the story.
A MAN CAME TO BAHAUDIN NAQSHBAND, AND SAID, "I HAVE TRAVELED FROM ONE TEACHER TO ANOTHER, AND I HAVE STUDIED MANY PATHS, ALL OF WHICH HAVE GIVEN ME GREAT BENEFITS AND MANY ADVANTAGES OF ALL KINDS."
Bahaudin is one of the greatest Sufi Masters ever. He is of the same status as Buddha, Krishna, Mohammed, Christ. "Naqshband" means "a designer"; and he was a designer, and this story is a design. He used to create situations because people can only be taught through real situations. And he was one of the greatest designers.
Gurdjieff learned his devices from the Order of Naqshbandis, the followers of Bahaudin Naqshband. They are called Naqshbandis, "The Designers", still. No other school of human transformation has created so many devices. Bahaudin used to say that people are so asleep that if you simply talk with them, they will listen and yet they will not listen. They will only hear, and they will not listen. And
|
|
|