There are other ways in which we can feel exalted when we see a reason behind things that we hadn’t seen. Even the child, for example, with the — I don’t know if you have that in America, we have that in France, little children had little pictures — a face of a man hidden somewhere in the tree, and then, “Do you see it?” “No, I don’t see it.” “Yes! Of course!” That is the moment of exaltation, when you’re able to see it. And that is the exaltation, when you’re able to see the hand of God working through all things. Or the cause behind the cause, or the essence of wisdom, or you touch upon the depth of your heart.
It is like a bell that you ring in which you are not used to touching. A lot of people just live at the surface of their being, and they only hear the bell outside, and never listen to the bell inside. Imagine the exaltation when you reach a point when you actually experience the way the rocks are exalted, and the birds, and the whole of nature is exalted. That is because you are exalted; you are able to feel the exaltation of nature. Another feeling of exaltation is described by Abdul Qader Jilani when he says, “I am a bird from the heavens and I experience at present my visitation on the earth.” There is a time when you can touch a particular phase of existence in which one feels raised above limitation. In fact, that is the essence of exaltation. It is when you feel that you are raised beyond limitation by having touched a certain plane of existence that was always there, but you hadn’t really struck into the depth of your being.
Well, every form of intoxication passes. Everything is relative. So the girl gives up her dolls at some time, and as one progresses, the things that intoxicated one before don’t intoxicate one any more, and there is something else that intoxicates one. One is always changing, going from one wine to another — everyone is intoxicated by some wine or another. Hafiz said, “Oh, if those pious ones of long robes listened to my verses and my song they will immediately begin to get up and dance.” And then he went on to say, “Forgive me, O pious ones, for I am drunken just now.” And the dervish says, “If I cannot dance, what am I to do?” The dance of the soul is participating in the ecstacy of creation. That is like the dance of Shiva, or the dance of some of the Sufis who are absolutely enraptured by the ecstasy of creation. And the beauty of it is, of course, that you are led away from where you are into the unknown. That is, you leave the place where you are — that’s the meaning of ecstasy. Ecstasy means going away from the place where you are; it is being carried beyond your state. Murshid says, “Come to the mystic and sit with him when you are tired of all the other remedies that you have employed in vain. Come and take a glass of wine with him.”
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