As the rose blooms amidst thorns, so great souls shine out through all opposition.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Ghazali has said in his “Alchemy of Happiness” that the spiritual path is like shooting an arrow into the dark. … Those who set out on this path are therefore in constant warfare. They have to encounter opposition from their relatives, from their friends and acquaintances; they get into trouble with those who, in misunderstanding their their aims, misuse them; misjudge them and blame them for doing things and thinking in manners which are believed to be unjustified.
Think of Christ, whose thoughts were so contrary to the religious thoughts of his time. How difficult to pass from the thought of an ordinary person to the thought of Christ! What difficulties there are to face! But once you fight these difficulties, and the further you advance, the more you are drawn to the spirit by the spirit.
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‘Resist not evil’, the scripture says. When there is resistance to evil of other people, do not become angry with them. When you foster the same emotion, you add to theirs, and you increase the same fire in yourself. It is like infecting yourself with a contagious disease instead of curing it. Anger and bitterness will die out in time.
There was a small group of people in London who were working along spiritual lines. They felt a sort of rivalry against my little society, and they began to try to do us harm by telling stories against us and by setting others against us. My helpers came to tell me how we were being damaged in this way and asked if they should not do something to stop this. But I answered, ‘the best way to treat this is with indifference. Take no notice.’
And when they insisted that these doings would do us great harm I said, ‘Not at all. The only harm it could do would be if we allowed this harm to enter our circle. Let them do as they like and let us go on doing what we are doing!’ As the years went by they never heard us say a word against them; on the contrary, we welcomed them, we helped them, we served them in whatever way we could. In time this resistance completely vanished. We have been going forward, and they still stand where they were. Just a little indifference was enough!
What is the meaning of Joseph being put in the well? The meaning is a trial. For every promising soul, every righteous soul will have opposition and envy and jealousy. And the righteous and good, wise and beautiful will shine out some day.
( from The Supplementary Papers: Topic VI – Miscellaneous VII, Section 2 – Question Class )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
There are two attitudes to take in the face of opposition: one is to oppose the enemy with all the power at your command. If by the use of force you are unable to win, force should not be used. The reason is not only because of success or failure, although this also is important. The reason is that it is necessary for you to change your own nufs and also the nufs of another. If in strife you break down the nufs of another, and if — when by the power of God vouchsafed to you — this can be done, it is not wrong to use force, and it never has been wrong to use such force. Every prophet has followed this path, and no one can become a prophet unless he or she will do so.
But there are subtler souls and also sometimes gentle people who cannot be reached this way. Conniving persons who use no force but depend upon cleverness must be combated in another way. It is not wrong to say that loving one’s enemies and opposing them are necessarily different in action. In such cases, it is often wise to offer no resistance to evil. Then the enemy becomes like one rushing forward, not seeing the precipice over which they will fall.
There is another attitude to consider in offering no resistance to evil. This means to refuse to accept the opposition of another, to consider them not at all. This was the position of the Buddha, who overcame his enemies by refusing to recognize them physically, mentally, or spiritually. The result was that their thought could not cast any shadow over his mind. By this the Mahatma (that is to say, Buddha) shone through all the opposition. A shade, or physical obstacle, may block sunlight from a room but it cannot stop the sunlight.