Take a Step Towards Me

There is a new book from RSSB about a Sufi saint and master named Khawaja Moinuddin Chishti. This satsang is based on one of Moinuddin Chishti’s poems, titled “Take a Step Towards Me.”¹

Who is the ‘me’ in the poem? He writes the poem in the voice of the inner Master, the Shabd form of the Master, that power that is within each one of us. He writes as if the inner Master is speaking to each of us disciples.

He begins:

Take a step towards Me, I am your faithful Friend.
Bring all you possess – I am the purchaser of all.

So here the inner master is beckoning to each one of us: turn your attention in this direction, toward the eye centre within. He says, Just take a step towards this place where I am awaiting you.

‘Take a step’ means, yes, take action. Do something. It means there is something that we can do to move towards where he is. It is a ‘step’ that we can take anytime, in every moment, always available.

Each time we start a round of simran, that is taking a step towards him.

Each time, in the midst of the mind running here and there, if we pause and remember him, we are taking a step towards him.

Every day, when we sit down to meditate whether we feel like it or not, we are taking a step towards him.

Why does he say just take one step? Perhaps he knows that one step is what we can do. If he had instructed us to go inside, just go to Trikuti and I’ll meet you there, what would we do? So he gives us the step that we can take: Repeat simran and take the time every day to listen within.

As Hazur Maharaj Ji says in Spiritual Perspectives:

We are so tied down with the attachments of this creation that it becomes difficult for us to take even one step. We are so engrossed in this creation, so attached to this creation. Our roots have gone so deep into this creation that it is not so easy to uproot them. So even our one step is a great step…. So even our one step is sufficient for him to pull us.

“Even our one step is sufficient for him to pull us.” Just think about that for a moment. If you are looking around for a miracle, try to take that in.

In the opening line of the poem, Chishti says, “Take a step toward me. I am your faithful friend.” A faithful friend is one who never turns his back on you. That’s pretty rare in this life. A faithful friend always has your best interest at heart; whatever such a friend says or does or wishes, it always comes from wishing you well.

If we could only learn to entrust ourselves to the care of that faithful friend, the inner master, the Shabd, it would mean that whatever happens in our lives, every little bump in the road of life, we would totally accept it as the best, the right thing to happen. Just imagine! How relaxed and happy we would be! But this level of trust is hard to come by.

So Chishti asks us to have enough trust in the inner master to take a step towards him, and then he adds, “Bring all you possess.” Bring your whole self into the meditation. Try to gather up all the runaway tendrils of your attention, and put them all into the simran. And even if you’re keenly aware of your own worst shortcomings, you can trust this faithful friend.

So he says: “Bring all you possess. I am the purchaser of all.”

What does it mean, that he is the purchaser of all? As Hazur used to explain it, whoever the Lord has allotted to his care, each one of us, whether we’re good or bad, he has taken our responsibility. No matter how unworthy we may be, he can’t lose a single one of us.

There was an incident that happened with Rumi.

One time someone criticized Rumi’s disciples, saying that Rumi was a great spiritual master, but his disciples were not very good, not very spiritual. Naturally, the disciples were feeling sad about this. Rumi responded:

I’m not blind, but I possess the philosopher’s stone. That’s why I buy these counterfeit coins.²

The idea of the mythical ‘philosopher’s stone’ is that it will change even the worst, most impure, ugliest piece of metal into pure gold. Of course, this is just a metaphor for the Shabd.

Whoever we are, whatever we are, riddled with faults and totally unworthy, all that is needed is for us to come into contact with the Shabd, the power within, and we’ll be transformed into true disciples.

Some of us may look at ourselves and know for sure that we’re like counterfeit coins that he purchased when he initiated us. But it’s ok, because the Shabd can transform us. We only have to keep taking a step towards the Shabd, towards the eye centre, towards the inner master.

In the next verse, Chishti says:

If you have set your heart on seeing My wonders,
  come towards Me.
I am in the open market – present everywhere.

Here is his invitation again: come towards me. Again he beckons to us: Come toward the eye centre. If you want to see my wonders, he says, bring your attention towards the place where I am, the eye centre.

The truth is, we don’t know what the master is. The master is a mystery that we really can’t fathom. But, he says, if you want to know the master, there is only one way to do it: bring your attention towards the eye centre.

Then Chishti says in this stanza: I am in the open market – present everywhere. He says, this mystery that you seek to know, it’s right here, right now, available in the open market. All you have to do is to wake up, to have that awareness, to know and feel the divine presence everywhere, all the time.

But how can we wake up to this wonder?

All we can do is to follow his instructions, sit down every day and give our best to the meditation practice, and keep trying to bring our attention towards him at the eye centre. There is no other way.

In the next verse Moinuddin Chishti says:

If the weight of sins has made you despondent,
Come to Me – I am the physician of ailing hearts.

The weight of karmas does sometimes make us despondent…and we just feel dull, distracted, with the mind in a total rebellion.

We can even fall into self-pity, which Baba Ji calls the worst indulgence, which we cannot afford. So what is the solution in times like this?

Chishti says, “Come to me – I am the physician of ailing hearts.”

A physician’s only desire is to heal. He is not here to judge or condemn any one of us, only to help us get in touch with that ‘philosopher’s stone’ – the Shabd.

In the next verse Chishti says:

I do not remain in seclusion like the devout.
I am the Saqi of the tavern, I am the singer,
  and I am the ecstasy from the song.

He says, I’m not in seclusion; I’m not hiding; I’m right here, now, with you, in you, all around you. He speaks of a ‘tavern’ where the Saqi, the cup-bearer, is pouring out cup after cup of bliss for us.

Where is that Tavern where we will get drunk on the wine of Shabd? It is within us. There, he says, he is the one holding the cup for us, pouring out the bliss of Shabd for us to drink.

And, he says, he is also the singer, singing that melodious symphony of Shabd.

And if we happen to be experiencing bliss while hearing that Sound, he says, he is also the ecstasy we feel on hearing the Lord’s song.

In our bhajan practice, we may be sitting in darkness, listening for even the slightest echo of that divine Sound. Can we just enjoy it, whatever we hear, even if it is silence? Just enjoy the listening itself? As Baba Ji has said, the more we enjoy it, the deeper and deeper we’ll go into it.

And Moinuddin Chishti is reminding us here that regardless of what we hear, do we have just a little feeling of peace? contentment? happiness?

We have to know that this very feeling is the master himself. As Chishti says, “I am the ecstasy from the song.” It’s worth remembering that even that little feeling of peace in meditation is a real spiritual experience.

In the next verse, Chishti says

You seek me in the mosque.
Emerge now from these veils –
  I am present everywhere.

Moinuddin Chishti was a Sufi, a Muslim, and his disciples were Muslims, so he says: You seek me in the mosque.

He could equally have said, you seek me in the church, in the temple, in the gurdwara, in the synagogue, or even in the satsang hall. He asks us to ‘emerge from these veils’ that hide the reality.

As Baba Ji has often pointed out, what is wonderful about all these places of devotion is that we create an association with remembrance of the divine there, and because of that association, as soon as we enter the place of devotion, we may be reminded of that remembrance, that presence. Association is a powerful tool for working with the mind.

However, as Chishti says here, “Emerge now from these veils – I am present everywhere.” That divine presence that we seek is not limited to any place, any building, any geographical location.

As wonderful as it is to be at Dera any time we get the opportunity, we can’t help but remember how many times Baba Ji has said that someone sitting thousands of miles away, on the other side of the world, might be experiencing true darshan, while someone sitting in the front row of the satsang hall might not.

Chishti tells us to ‘emerge from these veils.’

But what are the veils blocking our vision of the reality?

What keeps us from experiencing and knowing that the Beloved we seek is present here, now, with us, everywhere?

Sometimes the obstructing veil might just be our own preconceived ideas.

The problem is that we’ve read so many books, listened to so many satsangs, that we have preconceived ideas about what a spiritual experience is supposed to be. And so we may miss the very experience that we are having.

In the next verse Moinuddin Chishti continues:

Forget your despair – do not weep over your poverty, O my lover.
For you, I am present everywhere as your Beloved…

He says: forget your despair; do not weep over your poverty. Yes, it’s true that, spiritually speaking, we may well be destitute, the poorest of the poor.

But He has confidence in us; if he initiated us, it means we can do it. As Baba Ji has so often said, the master wouldn’t have initiated us, unless he knew we could do it.

But what is the ‘it’ that we can do?

We can do what he has asked us to do. That is, we can follow his instructions, take action, and do the things he asks us to do. It doesn’t mean we can achieve results. Nobody ever said we could achieve results. Results are his to give when and as he pleases.

However, what is in our hands to do – that we can do – is to sit down to meditation, every day, and do our best. As Chishti expressed it, we can take a step toward him. We can keep taking that one step towards him. In every moment, one more step.

In the next verse, he says:

Never confide the secrets of your heart to anyone else.
In the seclusion of your soul,
  I am the faithful confidant of your secrets.

In this life, we are all wearing masks; we are all playing roles. Who is the being behind all those masks and all those roles? As Baba Ji has so often said, we have to come to terms with ourselves.

Chishti is saying here that the master is the faithful confidant, the trustworthy friend, who sits at the very centre of our being. We may not yet be able to see who we really are, behind all the masks we wear and all the roles we play. But the one who sits right within us sees and knows and loves us at the very depth of our being.

So now, Moinuddin Chishti asks us a probing question. He asks:

How long will you revolve
  like a point encircling the circumference?
Sit at the centre and know
  that I am the compass that surrounds you.

So the image here is of a big circle where we’re going round and round the outside of that circle. How long, he asks, are we going to go on and on, circling the outermost edges of the spiritual path? When will we stop running around and come into the centre?

When will we focus? When will we lose ourselves in that stillness at the centre?

He says: “Sit at the centre and know that I am the compass that surrounds you.” He gives us an intriguing image here. A compass is what you use to draw a circle. Probably we all learned to use a compass in primary school. It only works if you stick one point of the compass firmly, deeply, unshakably in the centre, and then the other point can draw the circle.

So what is Chishti telling us with this image of the compass?

Sit with your attention riveted at the eye centre, just as firmly, deeply, unshakably as that point of the compass. And what will happen? You will know and feel and experience that you are surrounded and enveloped by the inner master.

This metaphor of the compass is powerful, because it implies that the master and the disciple are not just connected; they are two aspects of the same thing.

Chishti is suggesting that if we can just bring our attention into that utter stillness, completely fixed at the eye centre, we will begin to feel the Shabd form of the master all around us, surrounding and enveloping us. And the tiniest little inkling may start to dawn on us that master and disciple are not two, but one.