Tolerance does not come by learning, but by insight; by understanding that everyone should be allowed to travel along the path which is suited to their temperament.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
The world is engaged in four different kinds of occupations. To one person some of them may be repellant and undesirable, while to another they seem desirable. Everyone has their own occupation in which they seem to be happy, but that of another seems to them useless, foolish or undesirable. In Sanskrit these occupations are called Kama, Artha, Dharma, and Moksha. The occupation of Kama is love, affection, attachment, or infatuation, to such an extent that nothing else matters in Life neither money nor position, nothing. Kama is the thing one wants; it is their one occupation.
Artha is the occupation in which one pursues money; wishing to be rich, to have property, to make trade prosper. Love does not appeal to these people. They call the lovers crazy, foolish, out of their minds. They believe that everybody will like them if they have money, and that it is crazy to pursue love!
Dharma is the occupation of pursuing duty. Such people say, ‘these things are not right. The right thing is to do our duty’. Perhaps they are interested in family, in family duty to parents, partners, or children, saying, ‘This is our virtue’; or in the people, the nation, the poor, or the rich. Whatever they consider their duty they give their life to it. They may be soldiers, teachers, or merchants; but they feel justified according to the way they do their duty. Those who are after money think those who pursue duty are fools. The lovers think they are fools too. For those who pursue duty the first thing is to convert people to their Church; to do something good for their nation, city or village.
The fourth occupation, Moksha, is different again. This means to work for paradise, for heaven, for heavenly peace. What is the use of bothering about one’s duty? The whole aim is heaven; that is the happiness to look for. All things will change, all will pass &mash; wealth, earthly love &mash; they are all changeable. But paradise, the happiness one can get in the hereafter after all the suffering here, that is the unchangeable. Those who think thus are pious. They suffer all their lives; they go through all kinds of pain; they are seeking for that paradise. The lovers may say, ‘How foolish; my paradise is on earth. My beloved is my love. What foolish people to sacrifice all this, and who knows what will come hereafter?’ But the others say, ‘We can create our own paradise with our wealth’.
The Sufis look on all with tolerance, and know that there is a path for everyone. The path of the lovers is for them, the path of the those seeking for wealth is for them, the seekers after paradise are following their path, it is all a journey. It is simply that there are four different routes by which the journey is made. The Sufis see the same goal at the end of each; the lovers have to meet the seekers after wealth, and both have to meet the ones who have done their duty. Therefore at the end of their journey there is a place where they can meet. What does it matter if one does not go by a certain path? Let all choose the way that belongs to their own temperament and tendency. Therefore the Sufis do not worry. They give no preference to one or the other. They see the journey of Life being made along one or other of these roads. The saying of Buddha, ‘Forgive all’, comes true. Forgiveness does not come by learning, it comes by understanding that everyone should be allowed to travel along that path which is suited to their temperament. As long as they are journeying with open eyes, let them journey.
The great thing is that we should journey with one single desire. There should be the single desire: whether to love a beloved, to collect wealth, or to do some good for the world of humanity, or to attain paradise. There should be the desire to journey to the goal. So many do not know which is the goal or what it is. One thinks wealth is the goal, another paradise, another the beloved. They do not see that there is still a further goal. They are naturally prompted by the desire to get to the goal, and yet they are not conscious of the further goal.
As it is said in the Bible: ‘Seek ye first the realm of God, and all things shall be added unto you.’
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: The Journey to the Goal )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
It is from the view of God that real tolerance comes. This is the stage of the enlightened who understand all. If people were all heart, they would find that they were also all eye. In Djabrut, if one can be said to have a body (let us call it a spiritual body), that body emits light and receives light from every portion of its surface. Its functions are not differentiated. Furthermore, as soon as one thinks of another, as soon as a person loves another, instantly they are as one. They may appear separate at other moments but then they are one.
This is hard to understand from the physical or mental points of view, for in these planes the life is very different; besides which, activity depends to a certain extent on our differences, even though these differences cause harmonies. Yet so long as there are differences there is the opportunity for disharmony.
The heart point of view of the sage is to regard all opinions as offspring of mind, and knowing that spiritual evolution is not a mental process — rather a sloughing of mind — it is not against any special opinion, thought, or belief that the sage is opposed, but against mental centering in itself. And the only way the sage can oppose it is to give all love and tenderness toward all people, regardless of opinions, knowing there is no such thing as right opinion and wrong opinion, that “opining” itself leads to difficulties.