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NINEThe Spiritual PathIN THE SUFI MASTER RUMl's Table Talk, there is thisfierce and pointed passage:The master said there is one thing in this world which must neverbe forgotten. If you were to forget everything else, but were not toforget this, there would be no cause to worry, while if you remembered,performed and attended to everything else, but forgot thatone thing, you would in fact have done nothing whatsoever. It is asif a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specifictask. You go to the country and you perform a hundred othertasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, itis as if you have performed nothing at all. So man has come intothe world for a particular task, and that is his purpose. If hedoesn't perform it, he will have done nothing.All the spiritual teachers of humanity have told us the samething, that the purpose of life on earth is to achieve unionwith our fundamental, enlightened nature. The "task" forwhich the "king" has sent us into this strange, dark country isto realize and embody our true being. There is only one wayto do this, and that is to undertake the spiritual journey, withall the ardor and intelligence, courage and resolve for transformationthat we can muster. As Death says to Nachiketas inthe Katha Upanishad:There is the path of wisdom and the path of ignorance. They arefar apart and lead to different ends... Abiding in the midst ofignorance, thinking themselves wise and learned, fools go aimlesslyhither and thither like the blind led by the blind. What lies beyondlife shines not to those who are childish, or careless, or deluded bywealth.131