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The
Meaning Of The Miraculous |
In Idries Shah’s book, Wisdom of the Idiots, you will find
the following story: Hidden Miracles Someone asked Fuwad Ashiq, a senior disciple
of Bahaudin Naqshband’s: “Can
you tell me why it is that the Maulana conceals
his miracles? I have often
seen him in places when others have testified that they were with him
at the time elsewhere. Similarly,
when he cures someone by means of prayer, he may say, “It would
have happened in any case”. People
who ask him favours, or who are favoured by his interest, gain great advantages in the world,
but he denies his influence, or else attributes such events to coincidence
or even to the work of others.” Fuwad said: “I have myself observed this many
times: indeed, since I am so often with him it is now a matter of my
daily experience. The reason
is that miracles are the operation of ‘extraordinary service’. They
are not done to make people happy or sad. If they impress, this impressing is going
to make the childish person credulous and excited, instead of making
him learn something.” It is clear from this story that our attitude
toward The Miraculous is a major factor in our spiritual progress (or
the lack of it), so we need to go into this a little more deeply and
extensively even than the quoted story. It is a peculiar fact that throughout my
own life as a Sufi, people have reported similar miracles about myself,
including that I, like other genuine Sufis, am sometimes reported to “answer
prayers made to God” or that I seem to know what virtually anyone
has been doing, saying or even thinking, giving me a share in the all-knowingness
of the Divine Being. Like Naqshband (and
other realized Sufis), I too generally downplay the miracles associated
with my personal self, which is for the same reason. If I were too readily and excitedly labeled
a “miracle worker”, I would be inundated day and night
by greedy and desperate people seeking advantageous miracles and I
would be unable to do my actual Divine Work and complete my mission
here on this confused and unhappy Earth of pitifully undeveloped, ignorant
and pretentious human beings. Another
aspect of all this is that I have seen arrogant persons who are disrespectful
toward myself (because they regard themselves as my spiritual superiors
and competitors), willfully ignoring and denying obvious miracles that
happen within and around my presence because to identify such miracles
would destroy their position in the light of the fact that no miracles
happen within and around their presence. The
sword of the miraculous therefore has two cutting edges:
A --
Those people who should not identify miracles with a Sufi
because it would not bring them into real learning and development even
though they are ready to be excited or greedy about miracles.
B --
Those people who should identify miracles with a Sufi
because it would end their competitive arrogance and possibly help them
enter for the first time in their life into genuine learning and development. Sometimes
I am asked how I regard my own miraculous quality (when I am not hiding
it or downplaying it). What
I would like to say, from the standpoint of a Sufi, is this: The Divine
Being and only That Being is miraculous. Inner spiritual oneness with the Divine
Being will therefore tend to trigger what we Sufis or Godmen regard
as innocent miracles. Yes, innocent. One does not feel like a seperative ego
or bodily self who is deliberately working miracles or seeking to achieve
domination over others as a kind of Top Dog (Head Nafs). The Nafs, the doglike
nature, of greedy and desperate spiritual seekers is usually aching
to have miracles worked on its behalf or to be itself regarded as miraculous. The socially ambitious or doglike human “spiritual” person
is most definitely not innocent. Miracle-mongers therefore, just like miracle-deniers,
are useless to their own learning and development. Their only hope of progress is to learn
from the Sufi, the attitude of the Sufi. This attitude is that as a Sufi, one experiences miracles as side-effects of
carrying on the Sufi task. It
is like being a captain at the helm of a ship he is steering on a certain
course. That the wake, the side-effect waves of
the passage of his ship, may be upsetting or entertaining the little
boats he passes by does not mean he is personally watching the wake
his vessel is generating or that he is trying to make impressive waves
to overwhelm little boats. The
perspective of the captain is on the big picture and the right direction. This
is the kind of innocence that needs to be understood. It
is about having a Higher Perspective. I can
also tell you (or anyone) who wants to hear it that if I or any Sufi
become temporarily egomanic and try to deliberately,
egocentrically force a miracle for some personal, undivine purpose, it more
often than not cancels itself out and is actually blocked by the Divine. The
Divine is therefore not available for undivine purposes. Any
Sufi has had at some point in his or her life to learn how this works. We can always review this principle at
any time by making experiments. So
what does all this mean? It
means, among other things, that the miracle we want is rarely the miracle we need,
if a miracle as
such is actually needed. Often
it is not a miracle that is needed, but rather a wise acceptance of destiny,
deeper study and meditation or correct self-effort, discipline or just
doing some hard or difficult work because it is what is required. For instance, I am writing this article
with a normal effort. I
am not trying
to make my thoughts miraculously appear on computer screen
or paper. If some thought
needs to miraculously appear somewhere like the famous “prophecy
of warning on the wall” for someone, then that will indeed happen,
but it is not that I would personally, egocentrically think to myself, “I
need to produce a warning on that person’s wall”. On
the other hand, I might in a state of Divine Oneness become aware of
a Divine need for someone to get a helpful miraculous message, in which
case this awareness might connect with the miraculous appearance of
some writing. If someone
then asks me, “Did you make that miraculous
writing appear on so-and-so’s wall?”, I
would acknowledge a kind of impersonal and innocent responsibility
for it within myself, but outwardly I would tend to say, “Who
can say where it came from? More
importantly, did the person getting the miraculous warning really understand
it, heed it and act rightly upon it? The purpose of the miracle
is more important than the sensational phenomenon of a miracle.” In
conclusion, keep in mind that I would not confirm my seemingly miraculous
presence on Earth if I were not remaining anonymous here and writing under a pseudonym. Try to understand what is really going
on in and around the |