There is a big difference between belief and faith.
The belief is something we take from someone, it is not our personal, real experience.
A drop does not know, cannot not see, invites the other to believe in the ocean, but neither has ever diven in its waters. They are separated from each other.
The belief has always limits since it arises in the mind; and the mind, we know, wants to divide, to separate, to keep us in the judgment, not in truth. This means isolation, incompatibilitiy.
If a person sees that the wall is yellow, he will say it is yellow; if we also can we see it, we will not need to believe what he says, we will see it too.
If instead we cannot see the colors, and he speaks about yellow, we will not have a direct experience, we can only believe his words.
“Who knows, knows and to whom does not know you can not explain, because he has to see to understand, ” said Bayazid Bastami (may his secret be sanctified) one of the great Sheikh of our order.
The term kafirun erroneously translated as “infidel”, it means “to be covered“, “veiled to the truth.” It refers to those who is wrapped into his belief, closed inside his own thoughts and opinions: he would like to believe but he cannot touch the truth directly.
Faith is something completely different from belief: it is born in the heart.
Those who take the truth from another and believe without being able to see, will reach to a point where they will have to defend or fight for it. In this way he runs the risk of becoming fanatic or violent.
However those who seek the truth and the ways to experience it, following the example of who did it before him, he risks is to become a lover. These are the mystics.
Only the mystics of all traditions do not discuss among themselves, they always agree, because they experience, see and speak of the same thing.
When you meet it is for sure not for a religious meeting, but to pray together.
The question is not really whether to accept or not to accept a belief, but to embrace a system that is living, through which to experience under the guidance of someone who knows and sees, the master.
Then it becomes possible to become that truth and to transmit it on to your children and to those around us, not before.
Allah says in the Holy Quran: “Have faith oh people.” It means: “Look in your heart that there is something bigger, trust that above you there is a loving plan that covers everything.
You have to have faith in that principle, against all reason. There is a Father that brought you here and that takes care of you, you cannot even slightly imagine how. “
There are armies of angels who turn to us constantly with this message. You have to look in the right direction to be able to listen to it.
We can not know the truth if it is not in us. Because it has to resonate within our hearts, like a music.
We should not be an echo of the truth of someone else. We get inspiration from others but we need to ensure it becomes real for us, for our heart. Only then has a power.
Otherwise we cannot walk together.The invitation is to identify the prophet to whom you feel closer and embrace his tradition; you will getin the heart the light to see.
If we all speak to us about honey and we have never tasted it, how can we know it?
Indeed, the flavor has already been given to us, but we have forgotten.In the Sufi way we have a powerful tool to remember it: the dhikr. After a certain number of repetitions of the Divine Names, you can have literally the taste of honey on the tip of the tongue.You can have faith only through a direct experience of God. All religions have failed because they stopped to the belief, they stopped looking for the experience.
They fight each other and they bring division even within a same religious affiliation.There are millions of faithful who believe the opposite to each other: some believe in millions of gods, the other in one God, and others do not believe in any god. If the belief was true, and therefore one, everyone should believe in the same thing.The belief is a model that is close to the truth; it is the invitation that can help at first, but after you have to go further to get the direct knowledge.
Only then we become human beings. The belief alone does not make us such.The military who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima was a believer; even those who blow themselves up, causing havoc in the Middle East they believe to be good believers. But for sure none of them ever read the sacred texts, because all forbid it. And none of them is not even a mystic who sees, otherwise he would know that to take away the life is the greatest sin that can be committed and goes against the will of God.
