It is a patient pursuit to bring water from the depth of the ground; one has to deal with much mud in digging before one reaches the water of life.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Love is life, and life is symbolized by water. When one wants to bring water up out of the ground one has to dig for it, and the first thing which one finds is mud. And if one is disappointed by that, one has fooled oneself, for beneath the earth is water; it can be found but one must have patience to dig for it, to dig deep enough to find the water.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter 37 – Friendship (1) )
Some say, ‘I have loved dearly once, but I was disappointed.’ It is as if a person were to say, ‘I dug in the earth, but when the mud came, I was disappointed.’ It is true that mud came; but with patience, we will reach the water one day. Only patience can endure. Only endurance produces greatness.
What, generally, people know about love is the give and take:’ if you give me twelve pence, I will give you a shilling.’ For as long as they see life in the form of business, in the form of give and take, they do not know love, and it is a great pity, when, after knowing something of love, the heart has turned cold and bitter. And what reason is there? The reason is this, that when one digs the ground one must dig until the water comes. But if one digs halfway, then there is no water, there is mud. But what is love? Love is a continual sacrifice. And what does sacrifice mean? Sacrifice means forgetting of the self.
( from Religious Gatheka, Number 43: The Religion of the Heart (2) [ unpublished ] )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
What is this mud? It is the impure human thought, due from the habit of mind being so dependent upon matter and form. Mind may act independent of all these forms, receiving its knowledge from essence. When the intuitive faculty is aroused, you can know all about the earthly conditions and find it possible to improve these conditions, whether directly connected with yourself or pertaining to the world at large.
Purity of thought means to let God do your thinking, to keep whole-heartedly in devotion to God, which brings all knowledge. So long as you place any value upon your intellect, your memory, your experiences, you cannot reach the highest state. These form the mud and clouds and phantasms of life.