In 1989 I was introduced to Sufism for the first time. And now that I think back, it was all about this one sentence…
I stayed with good friends of mine in Nijmegen and had a penetrating dream at night. In a beautiful forest I saw a beautiful woman with dark long hair and a nice sight. She seemed to feel at home, did her own thing. I was intrigued and shared the dream with my friends. When I described the woman in detail it suddenly became quiet in the room, my friends looked at each other in a strange way, turned their faces at me and at the same time shouted: Claudia!
Claudia was immediately called and we made an appointment to go for a walk. That afternoon I fell over my ears in love …
Claudia intrigued me just like the woman in my dream. I found out that she was a member of a group who drove every year in a caravan of cars to Spain. All up to a place where a teacher was giving lectures. A man who always wore sunglasses with those mirrored glasses . Claudia told me that he did this to emphasize that you always see yourself in your teacher. It was a Sufi master, she said. In her room in the house where she lived with several people I saw some prints of a sign that I didn’t know. It seemed to be an important symbol. A calligraphic Arabic sign that could not be other than the 1 I thought. And if that was indeed a 1 then this symbol should be for one god, or one principle. I was intuitively right.
One evening she showed me a book, written by one of the students of Gurdjeff. In this book he described his search for the teachers of Gurdjeff following the book “Meetings with remarkable men”. He wanted to get immediate knowledge from the same masters, from the same source, from where Gurdjeff had received his wisdom.
In every village where he ended up, he asked the people if they knew where this and that wise master lived. No we don’t, they replied, but we do know a bakery or carpet maker with that name. He was happy to have finally been arrived at the source after his long journey and efforts.
At the bakery or carpet maker, any form of mastery was denied and no one had ever heard from Gurdjeff. Instead, he got questions asked such as: what do you want with that knowledge? What are you actually doing here?
Disillusioned he went home, to find out that his neighbor was a Sufi master himself who was happy to share his wisdom with him.
What intrigued me in this was the fact that those Sufinmasters simply had their place in daily life and that they were not at all concerned with their identity or presented themselves as a teacher, or as an enlightened soul. My heart responded with joy, this is what I am looking for, and I was determined to discover Sufism.
After a long but interesting journey I ended up in a Suficamp in Switserland. There with the Sufi’s, who immediately felt like my brothers and sisters, I heard the sentence pronounced for the first time: ‘Being In The World But Not Of It’. Yes, yes, I felt as response, that’s it, that’s how it is …
That sentence has always remained nearby and always gives me food for thought. Not so long ago I realized that I had never asked myself the question: but from which world am I? When I made that question resonate in my heart, a loud and clear answer came, I don’t know where from. Somewhere from a place that has become increasingly accessible to me over the years. Something behind me, an entity with the best intentions for me, a soft but sturdy hand behind me, which I trust 100%.
You are of the world of light, said the voice. And sounded so clearly that I could not but take it for very real. So, if there is an instance in me (or outside of me) that is so sure of this, from now on I will assume that this is unmistakenly true; full stop. No more doubts about this, no more magic desire for an unreachable reality, no, I’m just from the world of light. Let’s see will happen when I take this as a matter of fact.
What happened was a slow but certain change of perspective. I no longer had to to enjoy the world to be able to experience the light, I was the light myself. The world became a lot more acceptable. More beautiful too. It became clear that the only reason I am here is because I want to be here. I even found out that even when things are never getting better in this world, which is true in a sense, suffering remains an inseparable part of life here, so, even if it never gets better, I would not want to be in any other place than here. Because the light is always there, I am always there. I don’t have to leave. I am not from this world, but just in this world. The fulfillment lays for me in being for 100% in the world and for 100% knowing that I am not of this world. It took a while, let’s say a bit more than 30 years, but I believe that I now get it 😀
