Rule 22: Meditation in Daily Life

When a true lover of God goes into a tavern, the tavern becomes his chamber of prayer, but when a wine bibber goes into the same chamber, it becomes his tavern. In everything we do, it is our hearts that make the difference not our outer appearances. Sufis do not judge other people on how they look or who they are. When a Sufi stares at someone, he keeps both his eyes closed and instead opens a third eye – the eye that sees the inner realm.

Meditation in daily life is one of the issues in this rule. And this is an issue for every meditator who does not live in a closed monastery, an ashram or a retreat centre but moves around in daily life between office and tavern. How can I stay connected to inner silence when I walk through the “world” which is full of distractions, enticements and influences? How can I keep my equanimity and loving kindness when people around me are hectic and hostile?

So how can we turn the world into a church, temple or chamber of prayer? By not clinging to the outside of the world, to the glittering or disgusting occurrences which try to put a spell on us and want to draw us away from ourselves. Among these, the products of the advertising industry work most effectively as they are designed for this very reason to attract our attention with any means so that our brains cannot not be captured by them.  The least strongest impulses come from the charms of nature which is soft and mirrors the tenderness of our inside world.

So we have to become resistant towards the overflood of stimuli which bombard us as soon as we move through the normal craziness of city life. We can manage this by over and over again consciously getting in contact with ourselves, and the easiest way to do this is by observing our breathing. Then we realize: It is us who get engaged by the attractions and obstacles of the world outside. We are still more, behind all the goals we have, all the expectations, wishes and needs which keep our minds busy.

So we can create a distance to the actions around us and inside ourselves which makes us aware that there is even more to discover, something bigger and more significant. For in the inner chamber of prayer of silence, truth can appear, and also, what our true destination is. Then all our worries, fears and miseries get lighter.

When we meet other people, coming from this inner space which we carry with us all the time (but visit all too seldom), we do not need to gaze at their outer appearance, we do not need to judge and analyze the upmost layers of their insides, where their failures, weaknesses and shadow sides are stored. Instead, we can get into contact with the prayer room of our partner. This is a challenging and rewarding exercise which could add so much to the peace in this world. Inner peace which recognizes the peace in our fellow men strengthens the peace in them.


The rules are taken from Elif Shafak's novel “The Forty Rules of Love” (Viking 2010). They are inspired by the Sufi tradition and worded by the autor's imagination. www.elifshafak.com