The Varieties of Religious Experience - Penn State University

The Varieties of Religious Experience“Reflecting on my situation, I found myself tied down by a multitudeof bonds—temptations on every side. Considering my teaching,I found it was impure before God. I saw myself struggling withall my might to achieve glory and to spread my name. [Here followsan account of his six months’ hesitation to break away from theconditions of his life at Bagdad, at the end of which he fell ill with aparalysis of the tongue.] Then, feeling my own weakness, and havingentirely given up my own will, I repaired to God like a man indistress who has no more resources. He answered, as he answers thewretch who invokes him. My heart no longer felt any difficulty inrenouncing glory, wealth, and my children. So I quitted Bagdad,and reserving from my fortune only what was indispensable for mysubsistence, I distributed the rest. I went to Syria, where I remainedabout two years, with no other occupation than living in retreat andsolitude, conquering my desires, combating my passions, trainingmyself to purify my soul, to make my character perfect, to preparemy heart for meditating on God—all according to the methods ofthe Sufis, as I had read of them.“This retreat only increased my desire to live in solitude, and tocomplete the purification of my heart and fit it for meditation. Butthe vicissitudes of the times, the affairs of the family, the need ofsubsistence, changed in some respects my primitive resolve, and interferedwith my plans for a purely solitary life. I had never yetfound myself completely in ecstasy, save in a few single hours; nevertheless,I kept the hope of attaining this state. Every time that theaccidents led me astray, I sought to return; and in this situation Ispent ten years. During this solitary state things were revealed to mewhich it is impossible either to describe or to point out. I recognizedfor certain that the Sufis are assuredly walking in the path ofGod. Both in their acts and in their inaction, whether internal orexternal, they are illumined by the light which proceeds from theprophetic source. The first condition for a Sufi is to purge his heartentirely of all that is not God. The next key of the contemplative lifeconsists in the humble prayers which escape from the fervent soul,and in the meditations on God in which the heart is swallowed upentirely. But in reality this is only the beginning of the Sufi life, theend of Sufism being total absorption in God. The intuitions and all360