اَلْطَرِيْقُ اِلَى الله - The way to God

اَلْطَرِيْقُ اِلَى الله هُو كَثِيرُ - وَلَكِنْ أَقْصَرُ وَأَسْهَلُ هُوَ خِدَمَةُ الْآخِرِيْنَ ، وَلَا يَزْعُجُ الْآخِرِيْنَ ، وَجَعَلَ الآخِرِيْنَ سَعِدًاء

One day a man asked a sheikh how to reach God. “the Way to God” the sheikh replied, “are many as they are created beings.  But the shortest and easiest is to serve others, not to bother others, and to make others happy.

If you wish to draw near to God, you must seek God in the hearts of others. You should speak well of all, whether present or absent. If you seek to be a light to guide others, then, like the sun, you must show the same face to all. To bring joy to a single heart is better than to build many shrines for worship, and to enslave one soul by kindness is worth more than the setting free of a thousand slaves. The true man of God sits in the midst of his fellowmen, and rises up and cats and sleeps and buys and sells and gives and takes in the bazaars, and marries and has social intercourse with others, and yet is never for one moment forgetful of God.

The above is from the saying of Abu Sa'id, a great sufi and poets, Shaikh Abu-Said was one of the earlier Sufi poets. He lived more than two centuries before Jelaluddin Rumi yet, like Rumi, much of his mysticism follows a similar path of annihilation in divine Love.

From my own small experience and knowledge there is a great truth in what has been said. Many others have said about the same things, for example Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty said "A sin committed does not harm an individual so much as looking down upon one's own fellow human beings".

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears - Glenn Clark