November 20, 2014
Some say that Love is the cause of service, but this isn’t true. Rather, the Beloved’s Will is the true source of service. If the Beloved wishes the lover to help, then the lover provides that help. If the Beloved does not will it, then the lover gives it up. Abandoning service is not the abandonment of Love. No, on the contrary, even if the lover performs no service, Love continues working through the lover’s heart. Therefore, the root of the matter is Love, and service is the branch.
(adapted from Fihi Ma Fihi,
translated by A.J. Arberry, p. 398)
***
The root of the matter is Love: this declaration is so profound and so simple yet so easily forgotten. In such forgetfulness we can confuse the importance of Love in regards to service, and even the larger scope of spiritual practice that service is traditionally a part of. With a better sense of clarity we can avoid such confusion and be led by wisdom as to how to approach service, or even the abandonment of service, to realize and rest in Love.
First, let’s examine what service is. For the lover, one on the path of Love, service involves actions and behavior performed with the intention and deliberate purpose of being a vessel through which the Beloved benefits others. This applies from fulfilling the duty of serving one’s family to the “kindness” of serving strangers. Islam holds that all beneficence comes only from the Beloved, Ar-Rahmaan Ar-Rahiim:
The Beneficent, The Mreciful. In Islam, it is implicitly understood that to approach the lover’s threshold of service one’s actions and behavior must be selfless: without any ego. One of the reasons for this is because of the blinding nature of the ego: “I” can have the best intentions of wanting to help someone but if this is done by what “I” think should be done, “my” thinking might overlook what the situation calls for. This happens more often than people realize. It is not uncommon for people looking to be helpful to do something that actually makes things worse, but they do such because they think they are being helpful. To this point, Jalaal ud-Diin Rumi states: Rather, the Beloved’s Will is the true source of service.
If the Beloved wishes the lover to help, then the lover provides that help.
If the Beloved does not will it, then the lover gives it up.
The Beloved’s Will is an unerring guide of when to serve (or not) and how. To realize the Beloved’s Will, we must restrain the ego, in particular our opinions. Traditionally, the approach to do this is not to educate the mind or cultivate it to embody keen and intuitive skills to decipher the Beloved’s Will. Instead, the approach is to bring the mind to a place of quiet. When the mind is quiet the awareness that emanates from the heart “sees” things as they are -- including what the Beloved wills. It is within the heart, the innermost essence, that the Beloved dwells and unendingly reveals Its Will.
We should remember that sometimes the Beloved wills or allows unbeneficial situations to manifest for reasons that don’t call for us to serve them. Sometimes it is better for us to not serve a situation in which we can be of service because a purpose we don’t (mentally) perceive is at work. For example, it may be better to not help someone caught up in a web of lies, to not interfere with that person suffering the consequences of lying so that person may finally come face to face with how lying is ruining one’s life. Such a determination is not to be made by the mind, as clever as it may seek to be. Instead, by quieting the mind we “hear” what the Beloved reveals regarding Its Will as to what to do or not do. To this end, many Sufi orders embrace prayer, meditation, and other spiritual exercises as daily practices to cultivate a mentally quiet approach to life. At times, solitude or being in retreat with those who rest unendingly in quietude of mind are utilized to the same end. It is important to cultivate a way of being that normally rests in mental quietude; if the mind regularly operates in a state of noise it may be exceedingly difficult to bring it to quiet when we need to listen to the Beloved’s Will.
When the Beloved’s Will indicates a call to serve, the lover sets to the task of performing the willed service with a code of behavior that meets the etiquette of beneficence. This etiquette takes root within the space of ethics and can blossom through the embrace of divine attributes. (One can look to the 99 Names of Allaah for some of these.) For example, to perform beneficial acts with a rude demeanor goes against the Islamic standard of service; but to offer such service with humility and gratitude (that the Beloved is using you to serve) is the Muslim way. Also, Muhammad (p.b.u.h.) would have a little talk with Robin Hood if he wanted to become a Muslim: although Robin Hood steals to serve the poor, in Islam it would not be acceptable to perform this service through immoral means.
Attention must also be paid to the deliberate purpose of benefitting others. Too often in modern times, the intention to serve is used to justify performing service that falls short of its intention. For example, one may justify committing selfish acts in service because one’s intention is to benefit others. The standard of deliberate purpose protects against this. If an act is performed with the intention of being helpful but is unhelpful, this is usually a sign that the one serving did not fully heed the Beloved’s Will. This doesn’t mean that we should get caught up in measuring outcomes: the task of the lover in service is to genuinely offer and perform what the Beloved wills, regardless of outcome. But to this end, if there is a fire and one is called to serve by helping to extinguish it, there needs to be a deliberateness of purpose that one comes with something that will actually help extinguish the fire, not something that will spread the fire but is later justified because one’s intention was to help.
Jalaal ud-Diin Rumi acknowledges three states in regards to service, which can be applicable to the larger scope of spiritual practice. “In the first they have no thought of Allaah at all, but worship and pay service to everything else: friends and lovers, wealth and children, stones and clods.” ( Fihi p. 356) In this state, one’s service is determined by one’s mind: either through ego-based thoughts and opinions, imitation of others, social norms, or mental guesswork. Usually there is some self-interest involved: one “serves” because of what one gets from it, how it makes one feel, how it makes one seem to others, for future favor, etc. There can be some benefit to others from this type of service, but it is not genuine service which is guided by the Will of the Beloved. Yet this service should not be belittled: with sincerity, this service can progress to the next state.
Jalaal ud-Diin Rumi shares this about the second state: “Once they gain a little knowledge and awareness, then they serve nothing but Allaah.” ( Fihi p. 356 - 357) We should not understand “a little knowledge” as facts, information, and concepts. In the Sufi context, we can understand knowledge as a “knowing” of the Beloved -- even if manifestations of the Beloved turn us toward such knowing, particularly the divine attributes. For example, if a person engaged in an act of selfish giving is touched by another’s deep gratitude, this can be an experience of knowing. Personal gratitude is an aspect of the divine attribute Ash-Shakuur: The Grateful who rewards every act of obedience. Thus, the beauty of personal gratitude can open one to the “larger” beauty of Absolute Gratitude; in experiencing this, one may be moved to serve That. In sincerely seeking to serve Absolute Gratitude, awareness will reveal that to do so the ego must be restrained since it is the ego that seeks to serve other things (including itself). Just this little “knowing” is enough to turn one to serve nothing but Allaah, where the Beloved is the sole reason for serving. Ironically, when a person serves only the Beloved, that person is also served by being a vessel through which Beneficence flows and graces with the “fragrance” of Beneficence.
I stress that only a little knowing is needed: one needs not amass volumes of scriptures, teachings, and experiences to be turned toward exclusive service of the Beloved -- one instance of knowing can facilitate such turning.
The second state leads to the third state:
Yet, after learning and seeing more they enter a state
of silence. They do not say, “I serve Allaah,” nor “I
do not serve Allaah,” for they have transcended both.
No sound issues from these people into the world.
( Fihi p. 357)
We can understand “learning and seeing” as living and knowing, which moves us beyond the space of the mind -- beyond the abode of concepts and words. Living the knowing of the Beloved moves us into the realm of the heart where we become quiet enough to hear the always-present guidance of the Beloved. Such guidance is not always something observable, sometimes it can be a “movement” that moves us for “unknown” reasons into complete harmony with the Beloved’s Will. In this state, it is no longer what “I” do or do not do; rather it is how the Beloved moves this body and mind to serve Its Will. Jalaal ud-Diin Rumi elaborates:
This is what ordinary people don’t understand. When
they render service in honor of Allaah’s glory, their
servanthood is still present. Even though it is for the
sake of Allaah, they still see themselves and their
own actions as well as Allaah -- they are not
drowned in the water. That person is drowned when
no movement, nor any action belongs to them, all
their movements spring from the movement of the
water. ( Fihi p. 83 - 84)
When one is filled by the waters of the Beloved, there is not even the space of a gasp of breath to have one’s own words, thoughts, and actions. There is nothing but the omniscient silence of the Beloved. The lover disappears, even if its form remains: only the Beloved is and moves the form as It wishes. This is the station of Oneness, the station of Love because even if the lover performs no service, Love continues working through the lover’s heart. This is not the cause or origin of service, rather its fulfillment, its “destination.” Obedience to the Will of the Beloved is an unerring path to this station. Yet, it is the Love of the Beloved that allows us to realize this indecipherable Will. In the beginning, our service may be loving (following the nature of Love), but if we are wise, we heed the guidance of Jalaal ud-Diin Rumi and other masters who teach us to let the Will of the Beloved be the cause, origin, and guide of service that unfailingly brings us to Love.
