Unless we are born in and raised in the presence of a holy community and under the guidance of a sheikh, we develop a set of ideas and standards other than the holy ones, other than the ones that take you to reality. And over time as we are growing up and reach young adulthood and then adulthood, these standards become our standards. And then when we run into either a wall or a dead end or a cathartic-like experience with our own standards and begin to realize that these standards don’t answer our deep-rooted questions, don’t resolve our deep-rooted issues, don’t come to take us out of our problems within the standards that we’ve established for ourselves; unless we run into some kind of real big problem, we’ll probably stay within those standards our whole life.
But for some of us that does happen. Something happens that pushes us into the direction of trying to find someone who can give us some insight into existence, some insight into reality, some insight into truth, some insight into why we find the way we are problematic and how to resolve that. Now, this shift can be difficult and can be traumatic. Let’s assume that the impetus to begin to look for a change occurs, and let’s assume that through Allah’s grace somehow we’re put into the path of someone who knows the truth and is willing to convey the truth to those who come into his presence. And let’s say we somehow find ourselves in front of such a person.
Now, not everybody in the beginning has the capacity and/or the foresight to begin to understand that they need to suspend the way they used to think. They need to suspend their system of analysis. They need suspend the way they interact with the world for a time to learn a new way. In other words, you can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a change to come. Sometime, somehow what’s been going on has to stop in order for the change to occur.
