The Attachment Called Grace

A studious and dedicated seeker after truth arrived at the tekkia of Bahaudin Naqshband.

In accordance with custom, he attended the lectures and asked no questions.

When Bahaudin at last said to him: ‘Ask something of me,’ this man said: -
‘Shah, before I came to you I studied such-and-such a philosophy under so-and-so. Attracted by your repute I journeyed to your tekkia.

‘Hearing your addresses I have been impressed by what you are saying, and wish to continue my studies with you.

‘But, since I have such gratitude and attachment to my former studies and teacher, I would like you either to explain their connection with your work, or else to make me forget them, so that I may continue without a divided mind.’

Bahaudin said:

‘I can do neither of these things. What I can do, however, is to inform you that one of the surest signs of human vanity is to be attached to a person, and to a creed, and to imagine that such attachment comes from a higher source. If a man becomes obsessed by sweetmeats, he would call them divine, if anyone would allow it.

‘With this information you can learn wisdom. Without it you can only learn attachment and call it grace.’

‘The man who needs malumat (information) always supposes that he needs maarifat (wisdom)

If he is really even a man of information, he will see that he next needs wisdom.

If he is a man of wisdom, he only then is free from the need for information.’

~ by Shaykh on March 1, 2008.