Duty[edit]
A certain sufi was asked, People come in for companionship, discourses, and teaching. Yet you plunge them into activity. Why is this?
He said, Though they --and you-- may believe you have come for enlightenment, they mainly desire engangement in something. I give them an engagement to a means of learning. Those who become totally engaged are they who sought out only engagement, and who could not profit by self-observation of themselves so uselessly engaged. It is, therefore, not the deep respectors of actvity who become illuminated.
- The questioner said, Who, then, is it who does become illuminated?
The Sufi replied, The Illuminated are those who perform their duties adequately, realizing that there is something beyond.
- But how is that 'something beyond' to be reached?
It is always reached by those who perform adequately. They need no further instruction. If you were doing your duty adequately, and were neither neglectful nor fantastically attached to it, you would not have had to ask the question.
Related: Practice