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Unconditional Love and Path, Practice, Teacher
Summer 1996


"Sohbet" is the Arabic word for the Sufi tradition of spiritual discussion and instruction, particularly in the presence of the Murshid or Spiritual Guide. The following questions and answers are from a conversation shared between Sheikh Din Muhammad Abdullah and some of his students in February 1995.

STUDENT: Can you talk a little bit about unconditional Love? How is it possible to Love someone if they are giving you a tough time?

SHEIKH DIN: I am glad you asked that question. I say it all the time, "We need to have more discussions about Love!" We, as a society, have actually let Love fall into the background. We desire it, but we do not discuss it enough. We need to talk about Love at work; we need to talk about Love at church; we need to talk about Love in our families; we need to talk about Love with our friends; and we need to have Love up front. It is what our "glue" is made of.
     The reason why we have a hard time Loving someone when they are giving us a hard time is because we take the way they are acting personally. So our outlook and the way that we treat that person in return isn't really Love. It might be affection or it might be business, but it is not Love.
     Here's how business works. "I'll scratch your back, if you scratch mine." That's business! The better I try to scratch your back, the better I know you'll try to scratch mine. That is business. It is not Love. Business hides itself in interpersonal relationships and calls itself "Love." When people start comparing their respective equity in how much they pay attention to each other, it becomes business. "Hey! What about me?" So you can see that the person's attention (who so called "Loves" the other person) isn't really on the other person at all. It is upon oneself, and it is hidden under the banner of "Love."
     True Love is giving without worrying, measuring or wondering if I am gonna get mine in return. Furthermore, it is not necessary for me to have something in return. That's real Love. Love is an outpouring expression. Love does not worry about status, titles and others' behavior. Love doesn't worry about whether a person has a "membership card to get inside," or whether they have their membership button, or whether they know a secret password. It is not conditional on any of the aspects that we fearfully set up for ourselves in the world of business, which is about an exchange.
We are so consumed with business behaviors because we are afraid of our own lack. We are afraid that unless I set up conditions for "me," I ain't gonna get any. And then we "Love" the same way, under that set of neuroses - which isn't really Love. It is not an open gate.
     Now, I did not say that Love was "mamsy pamsy," or that Love was weak. When I start to talk like this, I am frequently challenged, "What about when you need to really come down on somebody? What about when you really need to take a stand?" Well, true Love can do that too.
     All I that I am saying is that true unconditional Love is the giving of Love without having the requirement, without having the preoccupation, without having the need to have to get something in return. Love is for Love's sake. It is Love for God's sake. When you learn to Love in that way, you learn to be at peace even when you are getting a hard time. It does not mean that you like the hard time, and it does not mean that you are necessarily going to put up with the hard time, but the hard time doesn't disturb your peace because you are not taking it personally. You are not measuring how much that person is doing for you.
     I understand that what I've said sounds very ideal, and it would be a much more ideal world if we could practice it and everyone were consciously trying to practice together.
     One of the reasons for having Spiritual Community is to form an agreement among the members of the Community that we are going to practice Loving. We are going to make an effort to consciously Love. Our intention is to practice. That is why members of the Community find that they can trust each other in Love -because they have somebody that will Love them even when they "screw up." In other words, without being exactly sure what "screwing up" means, even if you were to "screw up," you don't have to go away, and you are not going to be abandoned. You can still be here, and even after you have been reprimanded and corrected, there is still a place for you.
We do not usually have much experience of this. We live for approval and under the fear of disapproval, for as far back as we can remember. "What will get me attention? Who do I have to please?" That is not Love. Love is unconditional support. Love is being known, being seen, being supported for who I am, without having to try to change it. When I learn to Love somebody else for who they are, to see them, to truly support them, without having to make them be different, then I am Loving unconditionally, and the hassles that they create do not disturb my peace.
     The remarkable thing about unconditional Love is that if you Love somebody that way, they will generally start to change, and you don't have to design the agenda for them of how they need to change. Their life and your life improve when you Love and are Loved that way. We long to be Loved that way, so we should try our best to Love that way -"unconditionally," like the word says. We make it conditional when we make it be about ourselves. And that is our disease, our ego centeredness and our addiction. "What about me? Mine? I, me, mine. I, me, mine. I, me, mine."

STUDENT: You asked us why we are here. There are a number of reasons. I think for me it all comes down to that for a long time, I have been trying to navigate my way along the "Path" and I try to be a participant, but in reality, I take these naps. I call them "naps." It is where I'm just floating. I do not want that in my life any longer. I want to be conscious. I think I am a long way from being a full fledged participant, but I want to be awake. Specifically, the practices in the Community have a tremendous amount of appeal to me, and I think that is a way for me to stay awake.

SHEIKH DIN: There are three things that make one braid, that create one thread in spiritual life, and you really cannot separate the Path from the Practices from the Teacher. It is a braid that makes one thread. Here in the West, we are very readily attracted to the "Practices." They appeal to us, because they are something we can do.

STUDENT: So that we can be a "human doing," as you have been saying?

SHEIKH DIN: Right. If you look at the stories of the wise sages from the East and from other cultures, in order for a student to study with a Teacher, oftentimes the student would be tested. Or at least they would have to demonstrate their willingness, sometimes for years. The rule of thumb was often twelve years. "First show me that you are willing for twelve years to be under my service, then I will teach you a mantra."     
I can tell you all kinds of epic stories and fables from the different scriptures about what happened to those prospective disciples in those twelve years. They weren't even initiated. Sometimes they didn't even get anything from the Master to do. All they had to do was to come around the Community, whatever the Master's Community was - whether it was the household or the compound of the Master. It was up to the prospective student to demonstrate their intention for twelve years, that they would be a fit practitioner, and that they would be loyal and honest to the Master.
     Were you here the other night when I was talking about how in the mystic Mevlevi Sufi Order, previous to 1925 in Turkey, students were required to demonstrate their interest and intention for following the Path by sitting in one spot for three days and not leaving? But now we are more of a "McDonald's" kind of society "Hey, wait a minute, I gave you my order, how come you didn't get it right?" We drive up in our car, yell for a hamburger into a microphone, drive around to the window on the other side, and then we're pissed off at the clerk if they didn't get the order right. "I told you that I wanted special sauce, and I told you how I wanted you to do it!" There is a lot of retraining that we need to do on that account.
     On the Path, we relearn to become a human being. We learn how to become comfortable in being. Even in this discussion now, we have something to focus on. We have something to "do" again. I have been talking, thus allowing people to "be in their heads" listening to me. They can be evaluating whether they agree with me or not, whether they like what I am saying, or whether they would say it differently, whether they think I am really far out, or whether they think I am really far off. All that dialogue going on inside gives us something to "do."
     I happen to be the centerpiece at the moment, but if you noticed, before I started talking, I just sat quietly for a little bit. I was taking time to collect myself, and one could feel an ambient anxiety in the room. "What is going to happen here? How are we supposed to be?" We often forget how just to "be." What would it mean if we were to just sit here? If you have ever gone into a sweat lodge with Native Americans, you might find that you do a lot of sitting and there's nothing being said, because if you ain't got nothing to say, why bother to talk? On the other hand, we try to fill up the space. We're afraid of the space. We need something to do. Part of the way that I teach and train, especially at the beginning, is I do not give a student a lot of stuff to do. My "waiting period" is to have a student come and learn to be in a relationship with me, and to find out what it means to just be around for a while. It's okay!
     For instance, you are already a "master" at doing. I looked through your books downstairs between your office and your library in the family room. You have many incredible personal growth and self help books. So you have no shortage of information on stuff to do that would be "good" for your spiritual and personal life. Those books are full of techniques, but the difference between me and those books is that they are not alive. They are not breathing. There is not the living medium there. So one of the ways the Teacher teaches how to be on the Path is to have you just come around and "hang out." Then, mysteriously, a lot starts to happen. Things happen around someone who is "plugged in." After that, other things may be prescribed as to what to do.
     A good doctor doesn't just write a prescription over the telephone. You do not walk into a good doctor's office and say, "Hey listen, Doc, I'm too anxious. Why don't you give me a `script' for some Valium?" "Okay, no problem. Is there anything else you'd like?" A Spiritual Teacher should not act that way either. One of the words for "Teacher" in Arabic means "physician." Getting to know the student requires an "examination." The exam allows us to determine the proper amount of the application of "this or that."
     Another issue is that we are very used to joining clubs and organizations. It seems that in the West, once we've joined, we want to know immediately "how to be a member" - what clothes do we wear, how do we act, what do we say, when do we show up, what's the uniform and so on. We adopt the language of the club, and we do all the necessary things to "fit in." However, some of those behaviors are really a detriment to spiritual growth because we become lost in the "doing." We lose our True Self. When we adopt practices, methods or techniques without those practices being grounded in us - in other words, internalized from practical experience, they do not last!
     Do you know how many people I have met in the last twenty-five years that were so called "meditators"? Do you know how few of them still meditate? Ask them, "Do you actually meditate every day? Is that still part of your personal life? Do you still pray every day?" "No, I used to. I used to be a vegetarian. My spirituality used to be important to me"!
     Where is the ground? Is the ground tilled properly so that the sprouting seed can take hold? Or did the seed sprout up on top of the soil because the ground was too hard? When a good rain comes it will just wash the seed away. It is such a shame when the "spiritual seed" sprouts, but the environment is such that it cannot take hold and actually become the mighty tree - the way it is supposed to happen.
     I think that alternative approaches to religion in this country in the last two or three decades have made the mistake of trying to recruit people and then train them in techniques before the ground is ready. It is like planting a garden before you have tilled the soil in the spring. The tilling to me is the relationship to the Path and Teacher with Love. Then there is something soft in which to plant. As a matter of fact, the Sufis often talk about the "softening of the Heart," or the "tenderizing of the Heart." The people who are in our Community can distinctly tell you that there is a visceral and palpable sensation that they have from being around me. The hardened Heart actually becomes softer.
     When there is a need for a specific practice or technique, now there is a place to plant it. The student naturally responds, "Oh thanks, I can really use that!" Not like, "Hey, I tried that mantra a couple of times, and it doesn't work for shit." (Laughter). When Joy arrived here this morning, we asked her about her trip. She said, "Well, I got up at 5:00 AM, and I meditated first before I got on the road." I felt so "joyful" to hear that, you know? She doesn't know what I am thinking inside, but I was remembering how we had conversations when she said, "God, this meditation is really hard, and I don't know if I like it." But now, here is person that is saying, "I want to meditate!" The desire for spiritual practice is present. It might still be hard, and sometimes she might miss it, but that's okay. However, now there is actually a person who wants to do it.

STUDENT: Can I say something? When I first started talking with Sheikh Din, I would talk about something missing in my life. I wanted something. I wanted something, some intangible thing, and we had a lot of conversations about it. At one point he said to me, "Well, maybe you need a Spiritual Teacher. Have you ever thought about having a Spiritual Teacher?" We had some more conversations about that, and I thought, "Okay, that's what I need." I also have all the same self help books our hosts have. As a matter of fact, I was looking at your books! I am the queen of "if I'm in need of something, I'm going to get on it and get it done." So, Sheikh Din says, "Maybe you need a Spiritual Teacher." Meanwhile this whole Community [School of the Prophets] is starting to form, and I went to another ashram .. .

SHEIKH DIN: That's a good idea!

STUDENT: . . . and I went to a Buddhist temple, and I went to a "this," and I went to a "that," and I showed up at "this," and I showed up at "that," and what I saw was .. .

SHEIKH DIN: You even got a book on "How To Pick A Spiritual Teacher"!

STUDENT: I did! Absolutely! And it was great, because I met a lot of interesting people, but what I realized was, in the ashram, everybody was sitting around meditating in front of a picture. Everyone was sitting around talking about Buddha, or something that was not "there." I mean, it might have been there for them, but it was not there for me. So finally, after I looked everywhere else - you know, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz - I finally came back and went to Murshid and said, "Well, maybe you're it." (Laughter).

SHEIKH DIN: In his own very polite and loving way kind of went, "Duh! Welcome home." That is exactly what I was looking for, you know. Now I was going to really be accountable. Somebody was really going to "see" me.

OTHER STUDENT: Are you sorry that you did all of that?

STUDENT: Not at all. Absolutely not. I needed to go those places. I needed to look at those pictures. I needed to know that other people had Paths that resonated for their Hearts, and that was good. It did not mean that it was my Path. In other words, their Teachers resonate for them through a picture. Now I know what that means, because now I have a picture of my Teacher which resonates for me. But it did not come from the picture! It came from our real relationship, and that is what invested the picture with its meaning. I am the kind of person who typically exhausts all the ways to figure it out myself before I will surrender to asking for help.

OTHER STUDENT: So you went down that path.

STUDENT: Completely - that was all a part of it. That was all an absolutely essential part of it. And the great thing about all of it was, that during all that search, during all those times when I would call Murshid up on the telephone and say, "Oh, I went to the ashram in San Francisco," he would ask, "Yeah, what happened there?" And I'd tell him. Then I would tell him that I went to this other place, and did this other thing, and he would say, "Okay, you are doing your thing." There was great respect for it. There was never any sense of "eventually she is going to come back and figure out that I am the one." As a matter of fact, he kept kind of saying, "Keep going. Keep going." My sense was that he was coming out of a place of Love for me. If I was going to find "it" out there, I was going to be respected for that, and he was going to support me. I could "come home" whenever I wanted to, and there was going to be a place for me, with whatever I brought, whatever level of skepticism, doubt and fear. You know, all the stuff that I still carry some of, but certainly less than when I finally decided to surrender. So there was no loss. There was certainly no loss. I do think of it as kind of funny in a way now, but I couldn't have known that then. I couldn't have known that what I was looking for was already here, or I would have just gone, "Oh!"
     Have you ever heard that phrase, "You can't solve a problem at the level where it's born"? Like if I have a problem with something and the solution is already here, then it is not a problem. For instance, if I need a knife and there is a knife, then there is no problem. But if I need a knife and I cannot find the silverware drawer, then I have got a problem! I had to go looking for the tools. My sense is that if I had found them in those places at that time, I still would not have had the humility or the sense of being loved enough to ask how to use them. I needed someone who was right there demonstrating: "You know this is the tool. You can pick it up if you want, and here are ways you might use it. Here is how you might hold it." I needed somebody who could kind of hold my hand. I wanted that. I was just afraid to ask for it. I was always taught before that I had to figure it out myself.