Hakim Sanai Quotes and Philosophy
The Master Sanai lived during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and is reckoned as the earliest Afghan teacher to use the love-motif in Sufism. Rumi acknowledged him as one of his inspirations.
Attempts were made by religious fanatics to brand him an apostate from Islam, but they did not succeed. Characteristically, his words have regularly been employed since then by the spiritual descendants of these narrow clerics to bolster their own pretensions. By a quite familiar process, when Sufi terminology and organization had been adopted by the religious enthusiasts to the extent that the distinction between the Sufis and these superficialists had been blurred, the fanatics tried more than once to claim that Sanai was not a Sufi at all. The reason for this was that his thoughts could not be easily reconciled with narrow religiosity.
The Walled Garden of Truth, one of Sanai's most important works, is composed in such a manner as to give several readings for many passages.This effects a shift in the perceptions which is analogous to a change of focus on one and the same object. If one series of interpretation-method is used with this book, a most interesting framework of instructional material, almost a system, is revealed.
Sanai is also known for his Parliament of Birds, which is on the surface an allegory of the human quest for higher enlightenment. His Dervish Songs represents the lyrical presentation of Sufi experience.
Read: Rumi Quotes and Philosophy
Man Asleep
While mankind remains mere baggage in the world
It will be swept along, as in a boat, asleep.
What can they see in sleep?
What real merit or punishment can there be?
The Sealed Book
The human's progress is that of one who has been given a sealed book, written before he was born. He carries it inside, himself until he 'dies'. While man is subject to the movement of Time, he does not know the contents of that sealed book.
Means and End
'Ha' and 'Ho' are sounds which are of no further use when the knowers really know.
The Infant
Man does not notice that he is like an infant in the hands of a nurse. Sometimes he is happy, sometimes sad, at what happens to him. The nurse sometimes chides the child, sometimes soothes him. At times she spanks him, at others shares his sorrow. The superficial person, the stranger passing by, may think that the nurse is unmindful of the child. How can he know that this is the way in which she must behave?
How and Why
The essence of truth is superior to the terminology of 'How?'
or 'Why?'
Follow the Path
Do not speak of your heartache - for He is speaking.
Do not seek Him - for He is seeking.
He feels even the touch of an ant's foot;
If a stone moves under water - He knows it.
If there is a worm in a rock
He knows its body, smaller than an atom.
The sound of its praise, and its hidden perception,
He knows by His divine knowledge.
He has given the worm its sustenance;
He has shown you the Path of the Teaching.