The Dervish, who studied at the feet of the great Sufi teacher, was told to perfect his knowledge in sensitivity exercises. He was then to return to his Master for further instructions. He retired into the forest and began to concentrate on inner contemplation with great strength and diligence until almost nothing could disturb him.
However, he did not concentrate well enough on the need to hold all objects equally in his heart, and his desire to succeed in his exercise was somewhat stronger than his decision to return to the school from which he was sent to meditate.
And so it turned out that one day, when he was concentrating on his inner Self, a faint sound reached his ears. Annoyed by this, the dervish looked up at the tree branch from which the sound seemed to be coming and saw a bird. The thought flashed through his mind that such a bird had no right to interfere with the exercises of such a dedicated person. As soon as he realized this thought, the bird fell dead at his feet.
It should be said here that the dervish was not so far advanced on the Sufi path as to understand that there are trials along the entire path. All he could see at that moment was that he had achieved a level of power that he had never had before. He was able to kill a living creature, or maybe even it was killed by some other force outside of him for interfering with his self-absorption!
“I must really be a great Sufi,” thought the dervish.
He got up and walked towards the nearest town. When he got there, he found a nice little house and decided to ask for something to eat there. When a woman opened the door at his knock, the dervish said:
“Woman, bring me food, because I am an advanced dervish, and there is merit in feeding someone who is on the path.”
“As quickly as I can, venerable dervish,” the lady answered and disappeared inside.
But quite a long time passed, and the woman still did not return. With each passing minute the dervish became more and more impatient. When the woman returned, he told her:
“Consider yourself lucky that I did not direct the dervish’s fury at you, because doesn’t everyone know that misfortune can come from disobedience to the chosen one?”
“Misfortune can really come if you are not able to prevent it through your own experience,” said the woman.
“How dare you answer me like that?” - shouted the dervish. - And what do you mean by this?
“I just want to say,” said the woman, “that I am not a bird on the edge of the forest.”
At these words the dervish was dumbfounded.
“My anger does not harm you, and you can even read my thoughts,” he muttered.
And he asked the woman to become his teacher.
“If you did not listen to your own, original teacher, then you will fail with me too,” said the woman.
“Well, at least tell me how you achieved a higher level of understanding than me?” - asked the dervish.
- Listening to my teacher. He told me to pay attention to his lectures and his exercises when he called me. At all other times I had to view my worldly tasks as exercises. Thus, although I did not hear about him for many years, my inner life constantly expanded, giving me such powers as you saw, and many others.
The dervish returned to the tekkiya (training center of the Sufis) to his teacher so that he could guide him further. The master refused to discuss anything with him, but simply said when he appeared:
- Go and serve under the leadership of such and such a garbage man who cleans the streets in such and such a city.
Since the dervish considered his teacher to be very high, he went to this city. But when he arrived at the place where the scavenger was working and saw him standing there covered in mud, he did not want to approach him and could not even imagine himself as his servant. While he stood there undecided, the scavenger said, addressing him by name:
- Lajavard, what bird will you kill today? Lajaward, what woman can read your thoughts today? Lajaward, what unpleasant duty will your teacher assign to you tomorrow?
Lajavard asked him:
- How can you read my mind? How can a scavenger do things that a pious hermit cannot do?
Scavenger said:
“Some pious hermits can do these things, but they don’t do them for you because they have other things to do.” To you, I look like a garbage man because that's what I do. Because you didn't like the job, you didn't like the person. Because you imagine that holiness consists of bathing, bowing and meditating, you will never achieve it. I achieved the abilities that I have now because I never thought about holiness - I thought about duty. When people teach you duty to your Master or duty to something holy, they are teaching you duty, fool! All you can see is “duty to man” or “duty to the temple.” Since you cannot concentrate on duty, you are as good as lost already.
And Lajaward, when he was able to forget that he was a servant of a scavenger, and realized that being a servant is a duty, became the man we know: the Enlightened One, the Miracle Worker, Sheikh Abdurrazad Lajawardi of Badakhshan.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru