Rule 23: Your Life is a Loan

Life is a temporary loan, and this world is nothing but a sketchy imitation of Reality. Only children would mistake a toy for the real thing. And yet human beings either become infatuated with the toy or disrespectfully break it and throw it aside. In this life stay away from all kinds of extremities, for they will destroy your inner balance. Sufis do not go to extremes. A Sufi always remains mild and moderate.

My life is not mine. (Rumi)* 

The first half sentence of this quote questions a lot of what we are used to: We have received this life, we take it and make out of it what we want. What could it mean that our life is just a loan?

First of all, a loan is something, which the loaner can claim to be returned whenever he wants. The end of the loan is not in our hands. We forget about this easily. Further more, this means that we have to take care of the loan, that we have to treat it carefully to able to return it in good shape. Finally we owe gratitude to the loaner as long as he allows us to use what he owns.

Part of the careful treatment of this life, which was entrusted to us, is that we actively foster the growth of our consciousness. We can do this mainly by facing our inner reality to find out who we truly are. We encounter new aspects of this which was loaned to us and can increasingly make more use of it. We honor this life best when we allow it to become a piece of art by letting our talents which are part of the loan, evolve in a creative way. Finally we can return the loan, whenever the time has come, enriched with all the blossoms we have added.

When we see the enfolding of our life mainly as heaping up goods and other things we cannot come closer to reality. We are driven by the fear that things can offer us safety. By this, we give ourselves over to the sphere of objects. Secretly we know that things cannot liberate us from fears or make us happy. On the contrary, the more we have, the more we notice what we are lacking. The spiral of greed goes on by itself, almost without our activity. So we have entrusted the power of things and its immanent logic to run our life, a logic which is fuelled by our wanting to have more and more.

This is the scenario of an alienated experience of reality. This is a caricature of reality which is mirrored by opulent shopping centers and palaces of consumption. This is also the selling of our soul to the world of objects which throws us out of our inner balance. Our inner reality more and more moves away from ourselves while we run after success and self approval. Fascinated by the abundance of offers for happiness in the toy shops of the consuming society we forget about the meaning of our loan.

This way, we are lived by a life programmed by the mechanisms of the market, instead of directing our life ourselves. Life sometimes goes up, and sometimes throws us right down, like a merry go round. As we think, that the circumstances run our life, we make them responsible when it goes down.

The wise teachers, mystics and prophets are talking themselves hoarse since ages to free people from these meanders. In a contrary trend, the economic apparatus is growing immensely which has these abductions as center of its endeavors. Yet we can trust that in this field of tension a growth in individual and collective consciousness happens which strives to overcome these oppressions and compulsions. In as much as we look through the promises of the world of products as make-belief we allow a change in our needs and slowly change the system which is based on the old needs. We no longer allow prescribed desires to control our actions and motivations but follow the calls which come from deeper inside and around us and which want to express our true being.

On this way, we are looking for an alignment in our being and with the world in which we live. This way we tune in to a civilization and its growth and co create by this the development of the world as a whole, with each tiny step of our growth.

The feeling we find when we immerge in the sphere of alignment is the equanimity and balanced of a wise man. In this mood, we do not need any extremes, but we stay in connection with our inner center.

*  The Essential Rumi. Translation by Coleman Barks. New York Harper 2004, p. 41.

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

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

Rule 21: Acknowledging the Diversity of Creation

We were all created in God’s image and yet we were each created different and unique. No two people are alike. No two hearts beat to the same rhythm. If God had wanted everyone to be the same, He would have made it so. Therefore disrespecting differences and imposing your thoughts on others is tantamount to disrespecting God’s holy scheme.

This quote indicates how infinitely manifold God must be, how inexhaustible his/her creativity. Our individuality is an outcome of this creative power and forms a contribution to the diversity and beauty of this world. This we should be aware of when we start to doubt about ourselves or when we take over the doubt that others have about us. This does not mean that we are perfect and impeccable. We are unique beings in development, we are learning and integrating, learning and integration as long as there is life inside of us.

Of course we have our difficulties (and this is an important part of learning) to appreciate all aspects of this creation. We meet many things which are opposite to our taste, sensitivity and life plan. We experience friction here and there, and our edges get sharper by these confrontations. Our individuality gains contour and the difference to others gets more accentuated.

The other side of the coin is the adaptation and adjustment to others. In the different social interaction in which we move around we often align ourselves with our vis-á-vis. Our subconscious tells us how we should act in order to please the other person so that he or she is benevolent towards us. We take our own impulses back in order not to offend someone but to appear nice and likable. We renounce parts of our individuality in favor of alignment. So partners in a long term marriage tend to resemble one another, and dog owners take on the habitual patterns of their pets.

Still it is an expression of our individuality in which manner we adapt ourselves. Every person has a different way to adapt or resist alignment and does this in different situations and occasions.

So we should not see our individuality as a fixed and unchangeable image but as a construction which changes constantly. We form our assumption about who or how we are which can be inaccurate in the next moment. And the way in which we make such assumptions is again expression of our peculiarity.

As we have problems in accepting the mystery of our individuality as a gift and to appreciate it as unsolvable enigma we tend to impose our manner onto others by for instance assuming others should have to think or act as we do. Or by criticizing others about how they think or act. Or by dictating other people about how they should think or act, and so on.

We walk on the street in the city, the pavement is narrow, someone walking too slowly for our speed in front of us. Immediately a voice appears in our head which makes the other person wrong because he/she does not walk in the most appropriate way for us. When we allow the thought instead that this person might have more leisure than we have, we accept the individuality of the other person and open ourselves up for learning from the individuality of the other person and recognize a part of our individuality in doing so.

Or we are in a similar situation, but we are in no hurry but someone in our back wants to take over, and immediately we reject this person as someone who disrespectfully jostles and shoves. Instead we can use a different concept and take the behavior of the other person as opportunity to train our flexibility and our skill in giving way. We understand that someone can be in a hurry as we know this from our lives as well. Now we accept the other person and ourselves in our individuality and ability to learn and grow.

This way, we open our vision for the complex world of people in their different networks of relationships and ways to lead their lives and take it as enrichment rather than as restriction. When we achieve and enhance this skill we can feel an inner relief, an opening to the larger whole, beyond our limited mind which is only a tiny part of the peculiarity which we are.


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

Rule 20: Becoming the Flow

Fret not where the road will take you. Instead concentrate on the first step. That’s the hardest part and that’s what you are responsible for. Once you take that step let everything do what it naturally does and the rest will follow. Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.

Sometimes we cling to expectations, the further into the future the better till we get dizzy. We think: When we know what will happen in two, five or ten years, we can make the best decisions now. But the further we look into the future, the unsafer the ground gets. When you look at the smoke that arises from an incense stick you notice that the first range it takes, a few centimeters, goes right up, and then the smoke starts to curl in ever new patterns. This is an example from chaos theory which could prove that there is no possibility to calculate what would follow after the first phase of order, whether the smoke goes in this or another direction, the curls get smaller or bigger etc.

Similar is our experience with the future. What is more in distance gets fuzzy and uncertain and vanishes in unpredictability. But many have the unbroken urge to get to know what will happen then. So they consult fortune tellers and clairvoyants who should tell them what will be. Of course we should know that these prophecies are sometimes accurate and sometimes not. And we cannot know ahead which statements will be accurate and which fall among the error rate.

So we have to get involved with the mystery of future. The less we let our expectations take place and shape in our head, the easier we can accept what future has planned for us. The dominance of the linear time is an achievement of the latest centuries. In tribes who live in close contact with nature, a cyclical thinking prevails which is free of hierarchies of judgment. The spring is just different and not better than the summer, and the follow up of these seasons is one of the reliabilities.

Due to the small scale of the life circle the number of possible changes was limited. While we can chose among thousands of possibilities to spend our vacations in any degree of distance and while we can build up inner images and expectations with all those possibilities, the spacious radius for people from early stages of cultural evolution is defined by the strength of their feet and by the distance they can manage in one or at most several days to walk one way and back.

The more we have developed out of this form of living and of consciousness the more could happen in future, what blocks our plans and expectations. So we feel forced to invest more into the control of the future by trying to turn off all the risks which could linger there. And it seems that we succeed even less to control this future as by our very efforts to control it becomes even more complex.

When we dare the step from anxieties into wisdom, this means that we entrust ourselves with reality and its challenges. Reality does not allow control and does not follow our expectations. So it is advisable, to waive control and expectations as far as we manage to do so. In cases in which it is not possible we are controlled by an inner fear. When we accept this fear we can weaken its power and allow more of the trust into the flow of life.

For life flows whether we trust it or not. It takes us all along and carries us all the way whether we assume that the rudder is in our hands or we realize that the steering movements of our hands are also part of the flow. In realizing this, we are the flow.

The first step into the flow results from an inner decision. We may discover that in the deepest sense all decisions are not directed by our consciously experience of wanting but by sources beyond our recognition. Yet we can keep the “illusion” of conscious self aware decisions in order to keep up the social responsibility which is connected to the outcomes of any decision.

Sometimes we regret decisions and would prefer to reverse them as soon as we notice what went wrong. We feel overstrained with these decisions and want to avoid the consequences. But what has happened, has happened, history cannot be reversed. We should translate quarreling about the past which does not exist anymore into learning about how we can act differently now and in the future. When we trust the flow we know that we have the power to master all challenges which will come up during the journey, as every river masters the way to the ocean whatever obstacles it encounters.

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

Rule 19: Self Love Turns Thorns into Roses

If you want to change the way others treat you, you should first change the way you treat yourself. Unless you learn to fully love yourself, fully and sincerely, there is no way you can be loved. Once you achieve that stage, however be thankful for every thorn that others might throw at you. It is a sign that you will soon be showered in roses.

To the degree we learn to love ourselves our dependency from what we get is diminished. We become less needy and demanding in respect to our environment. Instead, we become open for unconditional giving and being present with other people. So it is a noble task to enforce the love to ourselves.

How should this work? There are so many things which are not okay with us, how should we love us with these shortcomings? Again we have forgotten someone’s birthday – should we love us for this carelessness? Again our temperament has overridden us and we have hurt someone. Again we have wasted our time uselessly. Again we have forgotten to turn off the stove, and the whole meal, the pots included have turned to coal. And so on and on. An endless list of errors, weaknesses, failures heap up day by day and shows us our imperfection. And even more, the lists of our daily lists, way back all the days and years and decades…

In the presence of these conclusive proofs brought to court against us – where it there a place for self love? Exactly these misfortunes and failures which happen to us are special occasions to accept ourselves instead of beating ourselves up. When we think back to our childhood in which we made so many errors: Of course we were blamed in order to improve. But had we not wished to be loved anyway and despite our wrongdoings? Only slowly we have learned that there are situations in which we will not get love and that this is our own fault caused by our imperfection. Only slowly we have learned that love depends on conditions. And for a long time we could not believe this because we entered this world full of unconditional love for these parents who have brought us into existence.

And of course we also did not have any guilt feelings when we spat the meal we did not like back to the table or when we tore the table cloth together with the porcelain dishes and the full soup terrine from the table. By the reactions of the grownups we learned that we lose their love when we do not act according to their ideas. It might return, but not for sure. We start a new phase of learning: Not a learning of how to direct the spaghettis into our mouths or how to deconstruct an alarm clock but another kind of learning. What do I have to do or what do I have to omit for love to stay? How are the conditions by which we are loved and how when we lose love? Thus we learn to adapt to expectations and needs of others, a kind of learning which is fueled by evaluations and judgments from others.

For love is life, and lovelessness threatens life. We secure our lives by adaptation. This is a skill we have taken on during our childhood. In as much as we have taken it on, we have lost our ability to love ourselves. Self love has been replaced by self criticism and self devaluation. We have erected a ruthless inner critic who punches us as soon as we have committed the slightest mistake. We start to scold ourselves when something went wrong before others could do so and hurt us even more. As soon as we act inadequately, we shrink and tense up and reduce our breathing volume and thus the life energy available to us.

In this manner, we meet the world and the other people, more or less crooked and diminished. Then they should love us, from their own crooks and distortions? This seems a quite implausible undertaking similar to blind people who intend to explain colours among themselves. Again we get the assertion that we are not loveable because we are so inaccurate. The scenery is complete: The love we would need does not exist and we have to be content with the bits and pieces we get at times from here and there. And at least it causes some relieve when we can lament or blame others for our misery.

We can escape from this corset only when we turn the tables and start with ourselves. We have to heal the wounds from our childhood for we only can recover physically when all roots of inflammation have been healed in our bodies. Healing means that we have to replace all the acts of unkindness then by love in the now. Then self love can grow and we regain our childlike innocence.

This does not mean to shut our eyes to our own shortcomings. Self love is not equaled with arrogance and smugness. In the same way that true love from parents does not make the children self centered and vain, true self love also heals the blindness towards one’s own mistakes. Good parents point out the failures of their children in a loving way. Thus we can learn to treat ourselves understandingly and lovingly. Then we take our mistakes seriously, do not devaluate ourselves but learn from what went wrong.

Sometimes we hear someone complaining that he or she has already learned so much on the way of self love and still the love to receive from others is so little. Isn’t this unfair, does it not contradict all teachings which state that you get everything back you give to others?

Such an attitude shows that the love to oneself is not fully developed but still attached to a part of the ego instead of unfolding towards the world. The fully developed “pure” self love would say: Take everything in life just the way it comes, and feel the power of love behind it. Even if you encounter bad experiences, accept them with tranquility; one day you will realize that there is something hidden inside these experiences which will further your growth one day.


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