The Way of the Seven Fold Secret by Lilias Trotter

For three of the great aims of the Sufis are, to follow
the Way, and to know the Truth, and to live the life of
God; and the question before them is how to progress
from step to step iQ reJ.ching these aims. This thought
of progress is bound up in the heart of the Brotherhoods.
And in all these things we find that God who understands
the love of progress that He has created in man,
has met man's desire in Christ, and has given Him the
power to draw us upward to the place where He has gone,
according to His prayer on the night that He was betrayed.
See how these three titles are linked like the links of
a chain.
"I am the Way" means a path prepared.
"I am the Truth" means to reveal the path.
"I am !he Life" means strength to tread the path.
"The Way" means progress, because always in a
road we leave behind us one thing after another and gain
new points.
"The Truth" means progress ,because, as in earthly
learning, we are always laying hold of new facts and
linking them with those that we understand already.
'' The Life" means progress because all life means
fresh power continually set free till maturity is reached.
Yet when we look more deeply into these words, we
see that they do not speak of a progress that is rigid,
such as man fixes when he says that this stage must follow
that in unchanging order. Look, in similitude, at
the difference between the way in which man makes a