#bayazid

Bayazid, a Sufi mystic, has written in his autobiography, “When I was young I thought and I said to God, and in all my prayers this was the base: ‘Give me energy so that I can change the whole world.’ Everybody looked wrong to me. I was a revolutionary and I wanted to change the face of the earth.

“When I became a little more mature I started praying: ‘This seems to be too much. Life is going out of my hands–almost half of my life is gone and I have not changed a single person, and the whole world is too much.’ So I said to God, ‘My family will be enough. Let me change my family.’

“And when I became old,” says Bayazid, “I realized that even the family is too much, and who am I to change them? Then I realized that if I can change myself that will be enough, more than enough. I prayed to God, ‘Now I have come to the right point. At least allow me to do this: I would like to change myself.’

Attraction and Importance

 Q: The great Sufi Bayazid is reported to have said: ‘All that I desire  is that I shall have no desire’. This looks like the kind of ‘mystical’  remark which Eastern thinkers are famous for making. Does it mean anything at  all? If it does, what is the meaning?

 A: Desire means, for ordinary people, wanting something, and it is  always concerned with selfishness, however much concealed or socially  sanctioned. It has often been noted, for instance, that people who seem to be  altruistic are in fact obtaining satisfactions from this posture. Now,  according to the Sufis, you cannot be paid twice for the same thing. In this  context, this statement means that if you desire something and take pleasure  in feeling that desire, you have been paid. Even if you are deeply  emotionally stirred in what seems to be an other than pleasant way from  desiring, you are still being ‘paid’ by the emotional stimulus.

 The Sufis also hold that desire of this kind holds people back: they obtain  satisfactions or feed their desire until they are either satisfied or  chronically dissatisfied. But, they continue, beyond this there is a way of  progress, understanding, perception, which is ‘veiled’ (obscured) by desire.  For this reason, Bayazid seeks the avoidance of desire.

 Mundane things, and this includes emotional stimuli which are often  imagined by very devout people to be religious, are pursued by means of this  desire, this coveting. It is evidenced by the fact that the thing desired  acquires a great importance in the mind of the victim, rather as one desires  possessions, importance, recognition, honours, successes. To distinguish real  objectives from secondary ones the Sufis have said: ‘The importance of  something is in inverse proportion to its attractiveness.’

 Seeker After Truth

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The Man Who Was Aware of Death

 There was once a dervish who embarked upon a sea journey. As the other passengers in the ship came aboard one by one, they saw him and — as is the custom — asked him for a piece of advice. All the dervish would do was to say the same thing to each one of them: he seemed merely to be repeating one of those formulae which each dervish makes the object of his attention from time to time.

The formula was: ‘Try to be aware of death, until you know what death is.’ Few of the travellers felt particularly attracted to this admonition.

Presently a terrible storm blew up. The crew and the passengers alike fell upon their knees, imploring God to save the ship. They alternately screamed in terror, gave themselves up for lost, hoped wildly for succour. All this time the dervish sat quietly, reflective, reacting not at all to the movement and the scenes which sur­rounded him.

Eventually the buffeting stopped, the sea and sky were calm, and the passengers became aware how serene the dervish had been throughout the episode.

One of them asked him: 'Did you not realize that during this frightful tempest there was nothing more solid than a plank be­tween us all and death?'

'Oh, yes, indeed,' answered the dervish. 'I knew that at sea it is always thus. I also realized, however, that I had often reflected when I was on land that, in the normal course of events, there is even less between us and death.'

The Man Who Was Aware of Death

This story is by Bayazid of Bistam, a place to the south of the Caspian Sea. He was one of the greatest of the ancient Sufis, and died in the latter part of the ninth century.

His grandfather was a Zoroastrian, and he received his esoteric training in India. Because his master, Abu-Ali of Sind, did not know the external rituals of Islam perfectly, some scholars have assumed that Abu-Ali was a Hindu, and that Bayazid was in fact studying Indian mystical methods. No responsible authority, however, accords with this view, among the Sufis. The followers of Bayazid include the Bistamia Order.  

 Tales of the Dervishes

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What qualifies to be called as intensity? What is the difference between intensity and interest?

An interest can be lost, but never the intensity. Interest comes from the mind. Intensity comes from the being. After a while, maybe short or long, you get fed up with your own interest. With intensity, it is a thirst of your being. It transcends the rationale of your logic. Intensity is a call from deep within.The more you have to wait for it, the more the thirst grows, the more the fire flares…

Atracción e importancia

P: Se cuenta que el gran Sufi Bayazid dijo: “Todo lo que deseo es no tener deseo”. Este parece el tipo de comentario místico que ha dado fama a los pensadores orientales. ¿Tiene algún significado realmente? Si lo tiene, ¿cuál es?

R: El deseo significa, para la gente común, querer algo; y está siempre relacionado con el egoísmo, por más escondido o socialmente sancionado que esté. Se ha señalado a menudo, por ejemplo, que gente aparentemente altruista está de hecho obteniendo satisfacción de esta postura. Ahora bien, de acuerdo con los Sufis, no puedes ser pagado dos veces por la misma cosa. En este contexto, esta declaración significa que si deseas algo y derivas placer al sentir ese deseo, ya has sido pagado. Incluso si estás profundamente conmovido por lo que parece ser una forma de deseo no placentera, estás siendo “pagado” por el estímulo emocional.

Los Sufis también sostienen que el deseo de este tipo retrasa a la gente: obtienen satisfacciones o alimentan su deseo hasta que están satisfechos o crónicamente insatisfechos. Pero, continúan los Sufis, más allá de esto existe un camino de progreso, comprensión, percepción, que está “velado” (oscurecido) por el deseo. Por esta razón, Bayazid busca la evasión del deseo.

Cosas mundanas, y esto incluye estímulos emocionales que a menudo son imaginados como religiosos por las gentes devotas, sonta un perseguidas por medio de este deseo, de esta codicia. Ello es evidenciado por el hecho de que el objeto deseado adquiere una gran importancia en la mente de la víctima, del mismo modo que uno desea posesiones, importancia, reconocimiento, honores, éxito. Para distinguir a los objetivos reales de los secundarios, los Sufis han dicho: “La importancia de algo está en proporción inversa a su atractivo”.