Last night, for some reason “to be or not to be?” kept floating through my head. When Hamlet was talking about it he was contemplating taking his life, but “to be or not to be?” has other implications.
In Islam there is a Canon Law called the Shariat. It tells you how to act or, at least, it’s supposed to tell you how to act. Whether it appropriately represents, or does not represent how to act is an entirely other question, but let’s assume that there’s a law that appropriately tells you how to act within the world. And why do you need to know how to act within the world?
Because in our animal nature, if we don’t control it, we will not act inappropriately; we will not do what we’re supposed to do. It started with the Ten Commandments, it’s quite simple: don’t kill people, don’t tell lies, don’t bear false witness, honor your mother and father, things like that; how to interact within people. It gives you the laws of being. But in Sufism we’re trying not to be. La ilaha illa Allah – I do not exist; only God exists. So we go from Shariat for being to what for not being? What is it to disappear? What is it to become not?
Bawa used to say, “Become like me.”
Well, that also means don’t be like you. Something has to happen. There needs to be a transformation…
