Having witnessed an extraordinary meeting of dervishes clad in rags saluting each other as royalty, Hazrat Inayat Khan continues his reflections upon the distinction between appearance and reality, and gives a glimpse of a majzub who had left appearance far behind.

Thus I compared our deluded life with the real, and our artificial with their natural being [i.e. the dervishes], as one might compare the false dawn with the true. I realized our folly in attaching undue weight to matters wholly unimportant, and how apt we were to laugh at the dreamer building his lovely castles in the air. I saw how our fleeting affairs are blown about as chaff is blown in the wind, while the imagination is difficult to alter. It is possible for the land to turn into water and for water into land, but the impression of an imagination can never change.

I felt that we were losing the most precious moments and opportunities of life for transitory dross and tinsel, at the sacrifice of all that is enduring and eternal.

When I became familiar with the strange life of the dervishes, I admired the best in them and was able to recognize the majzubs, who are the extremists among them. These are so absorbed in the inner vision that they are absolutely unconscious of the external needs of life. Sometimes they are both fed and clothed by others; their neglect of the physical self and their irresponsibility towards the world make it seem at first sight that they are insane, but at times, by their miraculous powers over phenomena, they are distinguished as majzub. They are understood to be the controllers of the elements, some with regard to certain portions of the land or water, and some even for the whole world.

Their thought, words, and actions are truly found to be those of God Almighty. The word is scarcely spoken before the action is accomplished. Each atom of the universe seems to be awaiting their command.

I once saw a majzub in Calcutta, standing in the street and gesticulating as though he were directing all the traffic. The passers-by laughed at his insanity. But for all his weird looks he had most brilliant eyes, shooting forth strong magnetic vibrations, which attracted me so much that I wondered if he was a majzub in the guise of a lunatic; this dissimulation is often practiced by them in order to escape contact with the world and all life’s cares. If they did not adopt this method it would be harder for them to study the natural hallucinations of humanity. As Sadi says, ‘Every man on earth has a craze peculiar to himself.’

The truth of this was shown to me by the way the majzub laughed at seeing the people in the street hustling and bustling along as if their small affairs were the only important things in the universe. I sent the majzub word, and asked him if he would care to come and honor me by his presence, but he sacrificed my request to the call of the children who suddenly came running and took him away to play with them. I understood that he preferred the society of children, the angels on earth, to association with grown-up sinners, who know nothing but the ego and its ulterior satisfactions. I waited patiently after this until I next saw him, and sent a message begging him to give my music a hearing. After that he came and when he entered the room I rose from my seat to do him honor and saluted him with both hands. His only answer was that he did not require this homage, as he received the same under different attributes and aspects from the whole universe.

In order to be quite sure of his majzubiat I asked him whether he was a thief. He smilingly replied, ‘Yes’, which conveyed to me that all good and bad attributes, as well as all names and forms, were considered by him to be his own, and that he was thus raised beyond good and evil as well as above the praise and blame of the world.

Then he sat down and began to discourse and act in such a manner that all in the room should consider him insane. But I told him in a whisper that I knew him well, that he could not fool me, and requested him to favor us with his inspiring words and blessings. He then began to speak of the journey he had made on the spiritual path, describing each plane as a fort he had to destroy with guns and cannon, until he arrived at the home of his Father and embraced his true spiritual Lord. And he went on to tell how at last the Father was also dead and he would inherit His kingdom in the end. 

It was all related in such a quaint language, that none of those present save myself could understand him, and even I only did so with a great mental effort. 

A majzub attains perfection through innocence and from childhood learns of the true inner bliss of which we are deprived by our most deluding knowledge of the outer world. Yet it is not the path for all to follow; but we can derive the truth of existence from it and lead a balanced life, as the Salik* do among the Sufis.

*Salik is a Sufi who follows a path of study. More may be found at this text of Hazrat Inayat Khan, and in this Letter to Mureeds.