As we sojourn through this existence we enter into many different phases in our life and many different situations in our life. We start out as infants who are totally dependent on our mother for sustenance, and for care, and we stay in that state of dependency for quite a few years. We then enter into school, become a student, and we are under the purview of our teachers, and we are dependent on them as to the information that we get as to how to deal with the world and with our situations. We, in most places, stay in school for an extended period of time and then we go out into the world.
The world becomes an interesting place for us because if we are on this path of Sufism, we find that most of the world is not paying any attention to the things that we have been taught are very important. Most of the world is busy trying to make headway in the world. Most of the world is trying to gain titles, to gain status, to gain power, to gain wealth, to gain the things that are sought after in the world of illusion.
Now, the only way that we could possibly have altered our path, so that we can tell the difference between the world of illusion and the truth of existence; the only way we could actually understand the temporary nature of this lifetime, and the fact there is a more permanent and eternal nature to existence, is to somehow have been taught about this and introduced to it. This is not something that happens to everyone, and to the ones that it doesn’t happen to the world is all they know. And people try to do the best that they can with what it is that they know.
Religion enters into most peoples’ lives and sets limits as to their public actions, sets limits as to the way they interact with others with understandings that you can only take your ego to a certain extent. You have to attempt to limit your desires and your needs, at least publically.
What we find in the world is that some take their desires to great lengths; others are able to control it more. And then, a very few begin to understand the lie that desire is, the lie that trying to accumulate the world is. Sometimes it can be very evident that people are broken in their attempt to accumulate the world. If you’ve ever seen what a hoarder’s house looks like, you can understand this.
I had a situation once where I was representing some people and their parents had passed, and I had to go over to their parents’ house and their parents were hoarders. And I walked into the house, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. They had newspapers stacked almost to the ceiling, and the whole house was full of newspapers, and they had created little walkways like a maze in between the newspapers so they could get from one room to another. But the house was full of newspapers, and you ask yourself, why? Why are they collecting newspapers? Because they are broken; because this is something that they think they need to do.
When you understand that people can be broken to that extent, then you begin to understand the kind of actions that people do in the world…
