While the parts change, the whole always remains the same. For every thief who departs the world, a new one is born. And every decent person who passes away is replaced by a new one. In this way not only does nothing remain the same but also nothing ever really changes.
Mystics love the paradoxa as they mess up the usual and habitual concepts of thinking. The order the mind wants to bring into the world only serves its own stabilization and protection. To lever out thinking by means of thinking is the most efficient technique in many spiritual teachings. Thinking creates oppositions, and with thinking these oppositions can be overcome or disempowered. An opportunity to stop and dive into silence and wideness…
The previous rule reflected on the unconditional willingness to change. What sense could the idea make that the whole is always the same, while we ought to be in permanent change and need to get aware that we are in permanent change?
The aspect of change takes care of differences. Life develops from one to the next, creates new forms all the time and enriches the universe. Yet every difference exists within a connectedness. All new things are linked with all that has been around before, or, in other words, in the new moment all is new. The change is only in the proceeding of time which produces new moments over and over again. One moment is different from the next. But our thinking is shortsighted – time is not a staccato of distinct points of time in one line but a flow with differences in staying identical. So in reality, these moments we talked about do not exist. They only serve to anchor our consciousness in its way out of the distortions of thinking. Though on close look, this anchor falls into the void. There is no counter position in the flow of life. And we only need it as long as we cling to the clumsiness of our thoughts. As soon as we are connected to the lightness of flowing we do not need concepts and explanations any more.
Then we open up or wake up for a closer look at the whole. The whole is our home. Change is our journey. It leads us through many regions in which we can feel at home, and others in which we feel alien. All these places and times belong to the whole, and Life leads us there to get to know it better. Gradually, on our travels in the outer and inner worlds, we start to realize that the same is hidden in all places and times, that they are just variations of the one big theme. Mystics often use images like the drop in the ocean or the sand grain on the beach. We are tiny particles and we are the immense whole. We are infinitely important and infinitely unimportant. All the things we consider so important for us, our little ego, are unimportant in the bigger reality, and the central aspects of life we hardly notice at all are of real importance for the larger reality.
What is the place of thieves and decent persons in this reality? The dying thief is the thief inside ourselves whom we do not need any more. The thief who is born anew is the next layer of a part inside of us who wants to steal or do anything harmful to others. Such layers will appear till we have finally seen, acknowledged and gracefully and lovingly dismissed these parts. Then thieves are no longer needed in our world as there is nothing to steal. We realize that all is ours as we are the whole, and nothing is ours, as we are just a tiny part.
The same is true for the decent person. It is the part inside of me, which wants to do everything in a nice and tidy way and does not want to hurt anyone. Also this part has to be overcome to give way for a broader view of humanity in which decency is no longer needed as everything has its rightness and is acknowledged in its essential being.
From the perspective of the whole, in the process of becoming conscious (which is the obligatory way for the single beings as well as for mankind) suffering and anxieties caused by unconsciousness get reduced. The fixation and attachment to roles and aspects of personality diminish. Instead, the space for love, joy and creativity grows. The whole stays the same in itself and changes and grows at the same time. It is the power of evolution inherent in the whole, which causes and nurtures this growth.
Even if it is a vanishingly small growth in relation to planetary or intergalactic dimensions happening on this tiny star in the vast space, it is of crucial importance for us to know about this power of growth, the power of spiritual evolution. We should allow it to work through us, in other words, we just need to open ourselves up to its activity and to strengthen it with our abilities and awareness.
For this can be our contribution to support the reduction of human suffering. The civilizations, societies and spaces of love in this world should not only be safeguarded in the way they exist, but should grow and enfold more and more to raise the level of consciousness to extend the blessings of love and wellbeing to people and to the whole of existence. Here lies our noble duty and innermost desire.
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
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