It seems that every day our world is more disordered. People suffer from storms and floods, droughts, epidemics, famine, political oppression, civil unrest and warfare. The list could easily be expanded. In quiet moments we might suppose that there is such a thing as normal life, but mostly we know normality by its absence. Confronted with such instability, like dervishes who leave the settled life in pursuit of truth we are forced to consider what is really necessary. If we have electricity for only a few hours a day, we will be obliged to prioritise our use of it. If drinking water is limited, we will sip it sparingly. If there is no food, we will hope there shall be some soon. And as we reflect on the necessary, we might recollect that one wing of the Sufi emblem represents independence, while if we manage to develop indifference to what we cannot change, we will have unfolded the other wing.

To the 14th c. Persian Sufi Mahmoud Shabestari, the theme of what is necessary was very important, but for him it had a more profound and philosophical sense than the simple requisites of life. He contrasted the necessary with the contingent, meaning that which is dependent upon something else for its state or even its existence. If we wish to make use of our difficulties for a spiritual purpose, we could examine whatever seems to be lacking at the moment from this point of view: is it contingent? Derived, and therefore transient? Or is it necessary? Clearly the contingent is unreliable, for it may change without warning; it is only the necessary that warrants trust, and when we study this with care, we discover that God alone, or in this context perhaps we could say Al Haqq, the Truth, is necessary. All else will come and go.

Someone might object, and say, what about the precious gift from the Creator, our body? Surely that is necessary? But the body is only a means to an end; it is needed to help us accomplish a certain purpose, but in the meaning of the Sufis, it is contingent, for it is composed of elements that will some day be dispersed, often without warning. As to what the intended purpose might be, we can find a clue in the practice of the external Zikar, in which we say, “This is not my body, this is the temple of God.” When we worship with every action, with every breath, we are fulfilling the purpose, but when we confuse the temple with the Necessary object of worship, we can be sure we have gone astray. Do we worship the stones of the church, the temple or the mosque? Or do we worship the Unseen? In Vadan Boulas, Hazrat Inayat Khan put it this way: Outward things matter little; it is inward realization which is necessary.