Sufism is fundamentally experiential. It is not based on intellectual premises. It is based on direct, personal experience. And so we seek not to discover the truth through book learning but, rather, through reading the manuscript of our own selves and thereby having a direct personal experience. Any faith based merely on speculation will be subject to doubt when the speculation upon which it is based is cast into question. But there is an essential conviction that comes with immediate inner experience, when mystical experience is of such a degree that it is more tangible than the outer world, which is the source of our consensus reality. When that realization is experienced, one arrives at a level of faith that goes beyond the faith of conventional religion -- having been brought up a certain way and, therefore, one believes certain articles of faith.
- Pir Zia Inayat Khan
2 comments:
You express yourself very well!
I can't take credit for what is posted here, I will edit the post to reflect that. This is from Pir Zia Inayat Khan. His quite a guy, about a year younger than I, he is the grandson of my first teacher. The last time I saw, which was at this gathering, it seemed quite clear that he received a complete transmission of the Chishti Inayati lineage.
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