The parable tells the story of Prophet Moses when he was a seeker, earnestly and one-pointedly looking for a guide who could show him the way towards God-realization. Moses, or Mûsâ as he is called in the Qur’ân, is the archetype of a seeker, and he is accompanied by a little servant boy, his page – that some Sufis take as a symbol for the individual mind.
The parable begins with the determination of Moses to reach the eye centre, the place where the inner world and the outer world meet. And when Moses does reach what the parable calls the ‘confluence of the two seas’, what happens? The soul, symbolized here as a fish, plunges into the sea of the Essence and swims off happily!
So the parable opens with Moses saying to the little mind: “I will not stop until I reach the confluence of the two seas. Until then, I shall keep going indefinitely. Then, when both of them reached the confluence, they forgot their fish, which took off freely into the sea, as through a tunnel.” (Qur’ân 18:60–61)
The parable continues: “Then, when they had gone on further, he said to his page: Bring food to eat – we have tired ourselves out on this journey of ours. [The page] said: When we were sheltering near the rock, see, I forgot the fish, and Satan made me forget to tell you, and it took off on a strange pathway, a tunnel, through the sea. [Moses] said: That is what we were looking for!” (Qur’ân18:62–64)
Moses as seeker, accompanied by the individual mind, does not realize what he is experiencing – any more than the rest of us at the initial levels of consciousness. So we continue our meditation journey, plodding along, tiring ourselves out with grim effort, not realizing we have already found what we are looking for, and that the soul is already experiencing the bliss of the spiritual Essence!
The food of the mind and soul is the Divine Essence. And as soon as we focus on spiritual food, within, rather than on all the outward sources of nourishment and satisfaction in the world, we intuitively know where it is to be found and are able to retrace our way, back to the confluence of the worlds, the shores of the sea of the Essence.
And when we get there, who do we find? A guide.
The Qur’ân says: “Then they turned around and followed their footsteps back again. They found one of Our servants to whom We had given a grace from Us and to whom We had taught a science that emanates from Us.” (Qur’ân 18:64–65)
A science that emanates from God, sometimes called the science of the soul – taught to the messengers of God by God himself, says the Qur’ân.
So here the parable speaks of that amazing moment on the seeker’s journey in search of higher consciousness when one is blessed with infinite mercy and grace and meets a servant of the Lord, a Perfect Murshid or spiritual expert. And sooner or later, the seeker somehow understands or intuitively feels that this is the guide he/she has been looking for – that he is capable of initiating a seeker into the mysteries of Spirit and showing the way to the supreme level of consciousness.
Moses, of course, asks the guide: “May I follow you, so that you might teach me a little of this science of the right direction into which you have been initiated? [The guide] said: I tell you, you will never be patient enough with me. How would you endure things that are not within your knowledge? [Moses] said to him: If God so wills, you will find me patient, and I will not disobey any of your orders. (Qur’ân 18:66–69)
How keen we are to be obedient disciples when we are seekers, but how hard as disciples to contain our energy and our impatience and obey the Master by giving our attention to simply doing the daily spiritual practice, sitting quietly for fifteen minutes, half an hour, one hour...
And like many contemporary Masters, the man in the parable resists taking on seekers. He is not flattered by Moses’ request, nor is he in need of company or disciples. He challenges Moses, telling him outright that he will not have the patience and endurance necessary for confronting and assimilating things in the realms of mind and spirit, which can be totally overwhelming to anyone with limited consciousness.
But in the end he appears to relent and says to Moses, All right, but... “If you follow me, do not question me about anything until I mention it.” (Qur’ân 18:70)
What the parable hints at so far are the essentials of the quest for the way to Truth: persistence, patience, obedience, self-restraint, silence, and trust in the guide. And this applies to all seekers, whether we are initiated or not. The spiritual path demands tremendous persistence and patience, a willingness to surrender to the process, with a simple trust that everything we see, hear and feel, inside and outside, and everything we do not see, hear and feel, inside and outside, is totally and completely in the hands of God and our guide, and is given or withheld for our absolute best.
Surrendering like that, as the Moses parable exemplifies, involves self-restraint, silence and trust. So Moses must commit to containing his reactions in silence, mastering his curiosity and asking no questions unless the guide opens up the dialogue. And Moses’ patience and obedience are immediately put to the test… (Continued in Moses 4)
I originally wrote this first excerpt on Moses in the Qur'an
for the final chapter in a series of 3 unpublished books on Sufism
that I ghost-wrote, completed in 2006.
for the final chapter in a series of 3 unpublished books on Sufism
that I ghost-wrote, completed in 2006.
