There is amongst seekers a constant yearning to find sanctuary, to find sanctuary in our Lord, to find peace, to find peace in our Lord. And there are many methodologies which try to explain ways to obtain peace.
There was once an Arab praying with the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). The Prophet was finished and the Arab finished a little later and as he was walking out the Prophet said to him, “You did it wrong, go do it again.”
And he went and did the prayer again and he walked out and the Prophet said, “You did it wrong, go do it again.”
The third time the same thing happened and the Arab said, “What did I do wrong?”
He said, “You have to do the prayer until you find peace in each section of the prayer. You have to find peace while you’re standing. You have to find peace while you’re bowing. And you have to find peace while you’re kneeling. And if you don’t find this peace then the prayer isn’t really being done.”
So, is the point of prayer to pray or is the point of prayer union? Is the point of prayer to recite words, or is the point of prayer to change states? Is the point of prayer to mimic or is the point of prayer to delve into reality and leave the illusory nature of our existence?
Well, this little story brings to the fore the question: how do you find peace? I mean we could be left alone out there with our little book with instructions on how to pray, but the instruction book on how to pray just tells you when to bend, when to stand up and what words to say. It doesn’t have an index or a back page that says, “And this is how you find peace while you’re doing that.”
And that’s what we need, we need that little Appendix, that’s the right word, on how do we find peace while we’re doing that. Well, this is part of the overall question of; how do you find peace?
And this has to do with what’s going on inside of us. There is this constant hum of the world that goes on in our head, and this hum of the world is a recitation of all that is problematic, of all that is anxiety producing, of all that makes us uncomfortable, of all of our desires that we think will make us happy, of how we’re going to obtain and fulfill those things which are going to make us happy.
It’s this incessant, consistent, constant drone and as we say (insert foreign language here) in the back of our head was, “And what he did to me yesterday I have to do something about.”
We are in the midst of more than one conversation at the same time and for the most part, the drone overwhelms all of our conversations. Now, the interesting thing about that constant inner-dialogue that goes on, whether it’s a dialogue of despair, a dialogue of attempt at a joy, a dialogue of anger, a dialogue of remorse it’s about what happened and what we’re going to do about it. It’s in the past and it’s in the future. What you will notice is it’s not now and why isn’t it now? Because the mind can’t be now.
Sufi’s are called, “Sons of the Moment” which means they’ve left the past and they’re not looking into the future; they are now. And how do we get to now? We have to somehow figure out how to do a practice that brings us into the moment, and if we don’t have a practice that brings us into the moment, then we are constantly going to be lost in the illusory nature of the past and future. The past and future don’t exist, all that exists is now.
