I would like to begin by telling you a Sufi story. It's actually not a story told by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan, as far as I know, but maybe you've all heard this in one version or another. I think it's particularly appropriate to the subject which I'm going to be addressing this morning. The story is of a great Sufi who lived in a cave up in the mountains somewhere and who, as Sufis generally did in very ancient times, had very little to do with haunts of men, particularly avoiding courts and the seats of power at all costs. This Sufi, however, was very famous, and the Khalif in Baghdad heard about him and conceived an ardent desire to have him speak in the court. So he called one of his prime ministers and said, "Can't you go and find this man and ask him if he would speak to our court? It would be a great opportunity for him to speak to all the important people." The minister said, Well, I don't think there's much chance of that, but if you want I'll go and try." After great difficulty (because, among their other qualities, Sufis are very elusive) he finally managed to locate this famous Sufi in his cave, and went in, bowed low, and said "The Khalif has commissioned me to ask you if you wouldn't do us the great honor of coming to address the court." To the minister's great amazement, the Sufi said, "Yes, alright I'll come," and gave him a date.

So the minister went back and, among other things, was very happy to think of the great reward he would get from the Khalif for having negotiated this, without any trouble at all on his part. He announced it to the Khalif, who was overjoyed, and who then called together the most dazzling audience that had ever been seen. All of the nobles wearing their finery and jewels assembled in a splendid room in the palace. On the appointed date, the Sufi arrived exactly as announced, wearing his patched robe and looking very disheveled, and came into this brilliant gathering and looked them all over, and said, "Do you know what I'm going to tell you?" They all said, "No!", and he said, "Ignorant fools! How can I be expected to address people like you?" And walked out.

The Khalif of course was utterly mortified, for not only had his entire court been insulted, but he also had not had the opportunity to hear his teachings! So he sent for the minister and said, "You must go again. Please tell him how very sorry we are for having had an inappropriate audience. Ask him if he would please come again, and I promise we'll have a better audience." And the minister said, "Well, that's just going a bit far, but I'll try." And so the minister went up to the Sufi's cave, and he said "O great teacher, we're so embarrassed to have presented you with an inappropriate audience. If you will come just once more the Khalif promises that he will have a better audience for you." The Sufi said, "All right, I'll come again," and gave him a date. This time, the Khalif gathered together all of the most learned people from throughout the entire empire -- the great mathematicians, the scientists, the philosophers, everyone of great learning. This time, of course, there were no jewels or finery. Everyone was wearing dark robes and looking very serious indeed, and of course they had all heard what had happened on the previous occasion. This time, the Sufi came in, wearing his same patched robe, looked over the audience once again, and said, "Do you know what I'm going to tell you?" And of course, they all said, "Yes!" And he said "Splendid! Then there's no need for me to tell you!" And left.

Now the Khalif was feeling really frustrated he thought he would never get to hear these teachings. But he sent for his minister, and said, "Go once again, and tell him if he'll come just one more time I'll never bother him again. I swear. Just one more time." The minister went, and indeed, again to his amazement, the Sufi agreed. He said "All right, I'll come this one last time, but never again, you promise." On this occasion, of course, everyone knew exactly what had happened on the two previous occasions, and it seemed like an insoluble dilemma; but they got the audience together and everyone was very well prepared. The Sufi came into the room, looked over the audience, and said, "Do you know what I'm going to tell you?" Half of the audience shouted "No!" and the other half shouted "Yes!" So he said, "Excellent! Those of you who know, tell the ones who don't know!" And off he went again.

Now, I feel this is appropriate for this morning, because what I have been commissioned to talk about is what is particular to the message which is not found in other traditions. I think you know (what this is) as well as I do. I would like to say that I do think it's a very strange topic, because all of us say every day, at least in theory, "Raise us above the distinctions and differences which divide men." I quoted it in the old way that Murshid gave it: "men." Nowadays we say "us," so as not to be sexist, but I think in a way "men" is appropriate, because I think the distinctions and differences have divided men more than they have divided women throughout history; and if men had not been so much in charge maybe these things would not have been so important. But in any case, Murshid certainly meant by Men, "human beings." And if indeed it is an essential part of our path to be raised above the distinctions and differences which divide human beings, then why in the world would we have a meeting in which to discuss what is distinct and different about us from other human beings? This would seem to be exactly the opposite of what our path is.

In fact, if you were to ask me to say, as you have, What is it that is different about the Sufi Order in a nutshell?, I would say that the thing that is different about the Sufi Order and the Sufi Message is that we have no interest whatsoever in differences. And this in fact is, I think, unique in history. I've never heard of any other spiritual path that had no interest whatsoever in differences, no interest whatsoever in defining itself in terms of something distinct and something definite. This is also the most frustrating thing about the Sufi path, because we are, after all, human beings. And for a human being, a sense of identity is the most important thing, right? We all live in a culture that's in a permanent state of identity crisis, and we absorb this ourselves. We want to know who we are. It took me a long time to realize this, I thought it was just the normal condition of human beings.

I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, when French existentialist philosophy was all the rage, and of course, those estimable philosophers believed that identity crisis was the highest form of self realization. So I thought this was a normal thing, to be in this state, and it's only very recently that I've realized that this is really not the case. I realized it in India, three years ago, when I was traveling around by myself for the most part, and I saw that when I was by myself there in India, the Indians saw me and their hearts just went out to me, because I was by myself. They thought this was a terrible situation to be in, and they would just take me in. Literally, they took me into their homes and gave me a room and fed me, and couldn't do enough for somebody from the other side of the planet that they would never see again. The reason was that for them, being alone was something inconceivable. It really was. Of course, there are Indians who in the later part of their lives go off and live alone as Sanyasins but it's a purely voluntary act, and in fact they have all lived in the middle of an enormous social context. Their families are huge compared to our families, and they live right in the middle of that context all the time, and they have never for a moment wondered who they were. They've known exactly who they were from the moment they were born. We don't have this, and in the midst of the general problem that we have with identity, we have joined a spiritual path which has no definite identity. And it makes us nervous.

Pir Vilayat has referred to the many people who have "come in and gone out" (of the Sufi Order). Many of those people I've observed over the past twenty-three years; and the people who go often leave because they need something more definite, something more defined. They want somebody to tell them exactly what to do. It's very comforting to have that, but we do not have that. And it's not just because we haven't developed our curriculum yet. That's not the problem. The reason we don't have that is because it is not Murshid's way to have that. It is not Murshid's way to tell people what to do. It's not Murshid's way to have a training which will apply to all human beings no matter who they are, and that they can go through, and then finish, and have a certificate. I'm not saying it's a bad idea to have a certificate, but there isn't any course of study that we can offer because the message is at once radically individual and radically collective. It's radically individual because the path of each person is unique to that person, as unique as who that person is.

So there is no general course of study that you can prescribe for all human beings. The course of study, whatever it is, may involve meditation or it may involve getting a job. It has to do with that particular person, in that person's circumstances. It cannot be generalized in any way.

The other point I'd like to make in this regard is that the purpose of all of our spiritual training is a very clear and simple one, and it amazes me that it's only very recently that I've realized it. As I said, I've been following this path for twenty-three years, and for the last twelve years, I've been spending a good part of every year in Suresnes in the archives of Murshid's teaching, putting together these big brown books that I hope you are familiar with. This means that I'm completely plunged into Murshid's teachings, all day long, every day, for a good part of my life. I'm not saying that I know Murshid's teachings any better than anybody else, but I have had a very great exposure to them. So it's strange that there are a lot of aspects of Murshid's teachings that surprise me when I encounter them. We work year by year in our work; it's strictly chronological. So, for example, I'm very familiar with everything that Murshid said in 1923, because those are the first books that we put out. Right now I'm very familiar that everything that Murshid said in 1922, because the book I'm just finishing is the second part of 1922. Next year I will begin to be familiar with everything that Murshid said in 1924. But what he said in 1916, or in 1926, I only know by accident. Of course I read randomly, as all of us do, but I don't really know those things, because in the course of preparing those teachings for publication, you get to know them in way that you can't possibly know just by reading them -- you really get deeply into the teaching.

So it's surprising to me that only very recently have I realized what the goal of our training is. But Murshid says it plainly and simply in many places. I think one of the problems with the teachings that we've received is that Murshid says things too plainly and simply. We think in such a relatively complicated way, that we cannot absorb something plain and simple. We have to make it into something more complex than it is, and so those plain and simple things just pass us right by. We're in love with complexity -- we might as well admit it. There's no sense pretending that we like simple, plain things. We don't. We're educated people. We like things that are complex and interesting to us. And Murshid's way of teaching is the plain truth, as one might say; and often its form of expression is too plain and simple for us to realize how powerful and radical it is.

I consider Murshid one of the most radical teachers that there has ever been. A lot of teachers have been very radical -- Jesus was very radical. But Murshid is right up there on that scale. What he taught was not just a rehashing of anything. It was very radical. Radical comes from radix, which means root. He went right to the root of things, and exposed that.

The end of our teaching is to learn to hear the voice of God within. That's what all this is about. Nothing else. Once a person can hear the voice of God within and that voice speaks in the depth of every human heart, that person does not need any spiritual training. That person has reached the end of the spiritual training -- that's what it's for. Once you can hear that voice of God within, then there is nothing in life which is confusing. That is to say, your God within will tell you in every situation what is the right course to follow, and all you have to do is follow it. Now, I don't mean to say that it's very easy to hear the voice of God within, I don't want to claim that I have made very much progress toward this goal, although I've been doing all these practices all these years, and I hope that I've gone a little ways toward this goal. I am discovering how to be aware of that dimension of things, but it's very, very hard. And that's the reason why we can't just sort of approach it directly, although sometimes I think we could approach it a little bit more directly. Our way of approaching it is to take many different avenues, in the hope that in fact one of those will lead to that goal, and I think that's not a bad way to approach it. But I think it also is helpful if we have that directly in mind.

What is in the teachings that Murshid has given us that is not found elsewhere? That, of course, is a very difficult question, because one would have to know everything that is found elsewhere. People sometimes ask me what I do, and my standard is that I am a professor of comparative religion . Then they look rather puzzled, and they say, Well what exactly does that mean? And I say, It means that I compare religions for money. That's the simple truth of the matter: I get paid for comparing religions, which means that I'm a "professional religion comparer." To be a professional basically means that you get paid for doing something, but it also means that probably you're pretty good at it or people wouldn't go on paying you. So I have a certain amount of competence in comparing religions, which comes out of the fact that from very early in my life I had the fortune to be born into a family that was not religious at all. I had no religious training as a child; and when I was ten years old I got really interested in religion on my own and learned everything that I could about it, and have continued for the rest of my life.

I'm not saying that I know more about religion than anybody else, but I'm saying I know a lot about it! I've studied all different kinds of religions very intensively. But one of the things that study produces is a realization of how little I know about all these religions, how much there is to know about them, and that in fact I can never know any religion quite completely from the inside in the way that someone who was born into that religion can know it. I can know more about it, I often do. I can tell people things about their own religion that they never heard, which they sometimes they find very intriguing; but I don't know what it is like from the inside -- I can never know that. Of course, there are many religions about which I know nothing at all, so how could I possibly say what is here in the message that is not anywhere else? My basic response to that question is, well, it's the same answer as one of my favorite riddles. Do you like riddles? This one is very simple. It says, What is greater than God, the dead eat it, but if the living eat it, they die. Have you heard this riddle? Well, it's really nothing. What is greater than God, the dead eat it, but if the living eat it, they die? "Nothing" is the answer. Right? Nothing is greater than God, the dead eat nothing, but if the living eat nothing they die.

The trick of the riddle, of course, is that you think the answer has got to be something, and in fact it's nothing. And that's my first response to the question, What is in the message that is not found anywhere else? Nothing. There's nothing in the message that is not found anywhere else, because the Sufi message, as Murshid says many times, Sufism, or the Sufi message, is simply a word for wisdom. That's what it means. It's wisdom. What wisdom do we have that nobody else has ever had? It's a preposterous idea, that we would come up with some new wisdom here that nobody ever had. Wisdom, at least in the ancient world, meant knowing how to live your life -- what is the best way to live? It didn't mean being smart, it didn't mean having information. In fact as you can see from professors you've run into, these are people who have a lot of information, but how well do they lead their lives? Certainly not any better than anybody else. Since I live in the midst of such people all the time, seems to me (they conduct their lives) worse than other people, but maybe that's just because I know them better than other people.

So, knowing things and having information has no connection with wisdom whatsoever. A person with no knowledge could be very wise, and a person with wisdom, could have a lot of information, but it doesn't have anything to do with being wise. There really is no distinct thing that belongs to the message that is not found anywhere else in my opinion. However, what if you asked, What makes this person different from all other persons? Does this person have some quality that nobody else has? It seems very unlikely. What makes this person different from all other persons is the combination of qualities that you find in this person which is unique, just as their genetic code is unique. It's a particular combination of qualities. It is not something that isn't anywhere else, but it's that these things are put together in this place in a special way.

I think you could also say that the combination of things that you find in the message is unique. At least I've never encountered it anywhere else. The features that are the most unusual in the message, are, as already indicated, the idea that each person, each human being, has access to the deepest source of inspiration, which Murshid doesn't hesitate to call the voice of God within -- every single person can hear the voice of God within. This is a very unusual feature. Most religions and spiritual paths have taught that the great prophet can hear the voice of God. Some have even allowed a certain number of mystics, although it's a very common thing for the mystics to be thrown out, simply because they hear the voice of God. The reason for this is that it doesn't really work in an organization. The people who are good at administering things are not generally mystics. And mystics are not generally very good at administering -- oh, excuse me for saying that -- some mystics are not good at running things. But of course if the mystic is hearing the voice of God, is receiving divine inspirations, where does the administration get off asserting its authority? How can they compare themselves to God? The only solution is to get rid of the mystics so that you can run things properly.

I could give you this as a reading of religious history. Every religion begins with a mystical inspiration -- that's the only possible source of a religion. But by the third or fourth generation, people who share that kind of inspiration or who aspire to share in it are pushed to the sidelines, so that the organization can run properly. In that famous quotation from Shahabuddin, "The support system takes over." It's a perfectly normal thing. What is unusual then in the message is that is affirms the mystical capacity of every human being, which means that probably, with regard to the message, there never really will be a good organization. It's built into the situation. There's never going to be a really well organized "Message Delivery Company" or whatever.

The other thing that is very unusual about the Message is that Murshid said over and over again, in giving his teachings (which, by the way, he often said are not teachings, in the conventional sense of the word that these that you have to accept them) -- he said, "We have no dogma, we have no teachings." What are we doing, if we have no teachings? But he says it, and it's a paradox that we have to live with. He says there are no teachings associated with Sufism. Sufism is training in a point of view. So with regard to these so-called teachings, Murshid says that whatever you find valuable, take; whatever you don't like, just ignore.

Again, this is a very unusual approach to take, in the history both of religion and of spiritual training. You will not find very many people offering training who say, Well, just take whatever appeals to you, and whatever you don't like, just ignore it. The norm is to say, You have to toe the line! And if you do, then we'll offer you ... whatever it is that they're offering, enlightenment or whatever it is. If you toe the line. We don't say, Toe the line. In fact we don't even have a line!

This then leads to the other aspect, which is that Murshid originally called the first book that he published The Sufi Path of Spiritual Liberty. (Interestingly, this first book of instructions was first printed in Russian, although it wasn't written in Russian. Murshid didn't speak Russian and wrote it in English, but it was translated and published in Russian before it published in English.) So the other thing that is very unusual about our teaching is that it is a path of liberty, a path which designed to liberate you spiritually. Presumably every path is designed to liberate you spiritually, but this one is willing to liberate you even from itself, which is very unusual. No person can tell you what is right for you. Murshid says it plainly, I'm not making it up. No person, however high, can tell you what is right for you. That means that Murshid himself cannot tell you what is right for you, which is a little radical, I'm afraid.

I recently had the opportunity to address the assembled summer school of the Sufi movement, in Katwijk in Holland, and it was actually a wonderful occasion for me. I was talking about the way Murshid describes gaining access to the voice of God within and making a decision, and someone asked, "What if you get a negative answerer? I've developed a little meditative method for getting access to the answer, so what if you get a negative answer, but you have to make a decision anyway, and you the voice from within says no, then what do you do?" I didn't really know the answer but I made up something. Then the person said, "Well, I always just ask Murshid, and if I ask Murshid then he gives me the answer." That's very beautiful and it's pious, I would say. I don't mean pious in a denigrating sense. I think piety is a beautiful thing, but I think it's the radicalism of Murshid's teaching to say we really have to step beyond that. It will not be enough to ask Murshid, because that's the old trick, asking Murshid. Call it Jesus or Mohammed or whatever you want, that's the old trick, and we have taken a step beyond this: We must discover the sources of inspiration within ourselves. Otherwise, if someone tells us to do or doesn't tell us to do, it won't do it any good, whether we do it or we don't do it, because it has not come from that place within our selves.

This is really an aspect of spirituality that I have not discovered anywhere else. It may exist in other places, and I hope it does! I hope it exists in as many places as possible, but for me I have only discovered it in this particular place. But do Buddhists say that? I remember the Buddha said at one point, "I see now that all men (all human beings, he meant) are enlightened. I must tell them so." So this is our condition: we're enlightened without knowing it. We have to discover the truth about ourselves, which is that we are enlightened.

Now, I've said what to me is very unusual in our spiritual path, and I would love to hear what all of you think as well. It's really a project we could undertake collectively, to address these very important questions about our teachings, and to share what we've all discovered because we've all been studying and practicing for many years. So we have a great collective wisdom, and the thing now is to collect it somehow. We have to have a mechanism for collecting it and hope we can develop it.

Thank you very much.