Surely everyone is familiar with this piece of wisdom: “A Sufi lives in the world, but is not of the world.” Or, as Murshid Hidayat might have said, “The Sufi has the feet firmly on the ground, while the head is right up in the heavens.” So, if we are living in the world, what are we to make of the world’s problems? Certainly there are enough of them calling for attention: conflict, poverty, disease, and social injustice, to name just a few. Are there Sufi teachings that we can apply to particular difficulties? Or, as someone asked recently about a specific concern, “What is the Sufi attitude toward the environment?”
As a first reaction, we might think, “Yes, there should be a Sufi teaching–or perhaps a Sufi ‘policy’ about the environment. After all, we purify our breath by the five elements, we have beautiful meditations on nature, and we see the beauty of the Creator in the world around us. Obviously, Sufis should be environmental activists!”
Sufism does not mean goodness, kindness, or piety.
Sufism means wisdom.
But if we look more deeply into the question, we may discover a different way of seeing. During the early days of his work in the West, Hazrat Inayat Khan and his family were constrained to live in England because of the calamity of the First World War. Millions of lives were being sacrificed in what was misguidedly called ‘the war to end all wars,’ and one might have expected a spiritual teacher who preached love, harmony and beauty and the universal brotherhood of humanity to oppose the fighting. Indeed, one of the difficulties that the Message faced in those days was the suspicion of a nationalistic and very bellicose British society that Sufism must be some form of the popularly detested ‘pacifism.’ But Hazrat Inayat took great care to explain that the Sufi teaching is something different. In ‘The Unity of Religious Ideals,’ for example, we find this passage:
Very often the Sufi message, in its form of beneficence, is taken to be what is nowadays called pacifism, and those who do not favor the idea of pacifism say that it means peace at any price. Sufism does not teach that. Sufism does not mean goodness, kindness, or piety. Sufism means wisdom. All things in life are materials for wisdom to work with, wisdom cannot be restricted to any principles.
And on one occasion, when someone interested in some particular concept asked Hazrat Inayat if the Sufi philosophy believed in it, the Master replied: “The Sufi philosophy does not give any belief and does not oppose any belief…Sufism follows exactly this idea that is in the Bible, ‘Seek ye the kingdom of God first, and all these things will be added to you.’ Instead of troubling about these beliefs, the Sufi wants to go first straight to that central idea, and when he stands there, he sees the truth of al things.”
No doubt every student on the Sufi path must work in the world according to their own understanding, and the urging of their own conscience, and surely their spiritual practice will make their insight keener and their will stronger. As Hazrat Inayat says, all things in life are materials for wisdom to work with–but if we attempt to impose a particular name or form or tone upon wisdom, we willl discover, sooner or later, that we have abandoned wisdom for the sake of a concept, and the light of Sufism remains beyond that sort of limitation.