Welcome to Part 4 of my journey through Garden of The Secret, a 700-year-old Sufi masterpiece by Shabestari that maps the path of inner spiritual ascension. In the earlier parts we walked through the nature of thought, discernment, and the question “Who am I?” In this part we turn to the guides themselves — the Prophets, Masters, and Gurus — and why, on the path to God, love and devotion matter more than rules and outer form. Along the way we’ll look at what enlightenment actually means across the traditions, and at the nature of consciousness itself — the silent awareness that is your true Self.
In this Path the realized Masters Are protectors and guides
In this section, Shabestari first talks about the Prophets, Ascended Masters, and Gurus as guides, and the fact that each one of them, according to their achieved level of perception, explained things in a different way — and because of this diversity, people can become confused and argue about who is more right. This is an age-old misconception of religious knowledge. People always argue to prove whose religion is better, and the mystics like Shabestari say STOP — this is wrong, this is not spirituality, this is not being religious, this is ignorance.
Not only is argument wrong, but it also pushes you away from the ultimate truth. And after all, spiritual traditions like Sufism say that for each individual there is one path to God — that the most important thing is your intention, your love, and your devotion, not what religion you follow.
Rumi once narrated a story to demonstrate this.
Moses and the Shepherd
One day, Moses was crossing the wilderness when he came upon a simple shepherd, lost in prayer. But the shepherd wasn’t praying in any formal, religious way. He was talking to God the way you’d talk to someone you loved and ached for:
“O God, where are You? I miss You so much. If only I could find You — I would throw my arms around You. I would sew Your clothes and mend Your shoes, I would comb Your hair, I would wash and massage Your tired feet, I would bring You my goat’s milk to drink. O God, I only want to take care of You.”
Moses was horrified. He stopped and shouted at the man. “Who do you think you are, speaking to the Lord of all creation like this? God has no body — no hair to comb, no feet to massage! This is blasphemy. Stop, before His wrath destroys you!”
The shepherd’s face fell. Ashamed, frightened, certain now that he had sinned, he hung his head, fell silent, and wandered off into the desert with his heart broken.
But once Moses had gone on his way, a revelation came down to him from God. And God was not pleased — with Moses.
“You have driven My lover away from Me,” God said. “Did I send you to join people to Me, or to cut them off? Of everything you could do, never be the cause of separation. Separation is the worst of all sins.
“I have given every soul its own way of worship. I have given each one their own words, their own gestures, their own language of love. What sounds like blasphemy in one mouth is the purest devotion in another.
“I never asked for worship because I need it. I lack nothing. Worship adds nothing to Me — I asked for it as a kindness to the worshipper, for it is they who are purified and blessed by it, not Me. I am beyond pure and impure.
“So do not judge by the words, or by the rules, or by the past. Look at what is burning inside the heart, here, now. If the heart is humble and true, then even ‘wrong’ words reach Me perfectly. The heart is the essence; words are only tools — and the tool never matters more than the hand that holds it.
“What do I want with polished, careful phrases? I want the burning. I want the longing. Light a fire of love in the heart, and let it burn every thought and every word to ash.
“O Moses — the people of careful words are one thing, and the people of burning love are another. The nation of the lover is not like the other religions — for the lover’s nation, and the lover’s religion, is God.”
Moses understood. Humbled, he went back to find the shepherd, and told him:
Great news! Great news! A new command has come down from the Almighty: Seek no etiquette now, no proper form — whatever your longing heart desires, say it!
Now, this is the logic behind all the proper devotional ways of approaching God — and no system has elaborated on it better than Hinduism, specifically in the path of devotion, also called Bhakti.
In its ultimate nature, God is formless and beyond any definition or quality — beyond name, form, thought, and language. So how can you possibly communicate with something that is beyond thought and language itself?
You reach the formless by worshipping its countless forms. Most of the world has misunderstood Hinduism, thinking Hindus worship thousands of different Gods. But the system explains it very clearly: God is one indivisible Being, beyond name and form — and yet that one Being can manifest in any form it wishes. A human form, like a divine incarnation; a luminous divine form; even an animal form. Why? Because it can. Why not?
Some worship God as a father, some as a mother, some as a lover, some as a child, some as light, and some as a symbolic or animal form. And anyone who worships with this understanding — whether he worships the Lord of the universe in the form of a flower, an elephant, or in the form of a divine being — as long as the worship is done with love, God manifests itself to him. It’s not about which form of God is better. It’s about which one evokes the most devotion, surrender, and love in you. It is better to worship God as a cow with love than to worship it as some heavenly power mechanically, in a dry and soulless way — because, as Rumi just showed us, worship is about you. It benefits you. It is there to make you meditative, and to make you fall in love.
Who are the Guides and Masters?
In most spiritual traditions, a spiritual master is someone who has already journeyed the way to the ultimate enlightenment and freedom, and can guide others to that place. But not always are people who are considered Masters fully enlightened.
The truth is that those Masters who have achieved the ultimate are very rare. Of course, there are some who have achieved some higher states of consciousness or have some spiritual powers, but they cannot be considered Enlightened Spiritual Masters. Logically, depending on where they are, they can only guide people to where they are!
Different classes of Masters and Prophets
Here Shabestari talks about different classes of Masters and their level of realization:
When they realized their own greatness They talked about knower and known One drowned in the ocean of unity and said "I AM GOD" Another talked about dimensions and details of the ship One only acquired the superficial knowledge So he talked about the beach and dry land…
This is the story of the different types of religious and spiritual teaching that were expanded by different teachers in history, according to their level of perception.
If we understand that even the highest Gurus and Prophets we worship had to use their own limited vocabulary and symbolism to explain things, it helps us realize something important: even when a seer or a prophet received or channeled a message, it was filtered through their own level of perception, their own mind, their own vocabulary. It wasn’t as if God materialized a pre-filled book out of the sky. The channeling is always filtered through the channel’s mind — that’s why not all channels are the same. This, of course, needs a deeper understanding of mysticism and the spiritual channeling process.
A religious teacher should not be confused with a Spiritual Master. A teacher is usually someone who knows things in theory and can pass the information on to others. And the truth is, they might have a tremendous, impressive amount of knowledge and still not have made much spiritual progress. That’s why discernment is needed. I see many people who, when they get impressed by a teacher’s knowledge, assume that teacher is enlightened — while that teacher might be no different from an Artificial Intelligence model that can hand you the very same answers.
But a Spiritual Master is someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery over a higher state of consciousness, by experience — and whose very presence is enough to bless one’s mind and soul on the spiritual journey. As a matter of fact, there have been many spiritual masters in history who barely spoke a word, and yet their presence alone created tremendous transformation in people.
A Master almost always belongs to a tradition and comes from an authentic lineage of masters.
A teacher can only give you information, but a Master can guide your inner spiritual journey through the inner spiritual realms, because not only does he have knowledge, but also spiritual capabilities that a philosopher lacks.
How can you find one?
A Spiritual Master or Guru is not someone you can easily find, unless you are ready for it and somehow destined to find one. It’s always been said that it’s the Master who finds the student, not the other way around.
You may have heard, “When the student is ready, the Master will appear.” This is very true. If you are not ready, no matter how much you search, you won’t find a real one! Even if you see one, you won’t be able to follow him, because your current state of mind and your karmic baggage will not allow you.
How can you become ready? It’s simple.
Rumi said the following when he wanted to demonstrate that the more thirsty you are for the ultimate truth, the more it will reveal itself to you: “Seek water less, acquire thirst. Water will gush from above and below.” So the first principle is a genuine thirst for spiritual realization, or God. To put it in one simple sentence: when that desire becomes your highest priority in life, God — or the Universe itself — comes and takes your hand and guides you on the path.
Another vital quality on the spiritual path is honesty — honesty with others, of course, but more importantly, honesty with yourself. Are you seeking God or Enlightenment for its own sake, or are you on the spiritual path for name, fame, or power? Are you honest about your blind spots? Are you developing your character? A lot of spiritual seekers walk the path for the wrong reasons — some because someone told them to, some because they think they’ll acquire supernatural powers, and so on. So it’s important to be honest with yourself.
And lastly, you shouldn’t sit idle waiting for a master to come — you need to prepare yourself to the best of your ability. Commit yourself to the spiritual practices and meditation, that you probably already know, or start learning some. Do the things that you already know are the right things. Commit yourself to follow and apply the teachings of the great Masters and Saints — things like honesty, forgiveness, patience, compassion, service, and selflessness. Remember, before you can become a Spiritual person, you need to become a good human.
Need more on this? I’ll give you a quote from the great Master, Swami Sivananda Saraswati:
There is only one religion – the religion of love, the religion of unity and oneness. The essentials of all religions are the same: Serve, love, give, purify, meditate, realize; Be good, do good, be kind, be compassionate; Enquire 'who am I' know the Self and be free. Love all, serve all, serve the Lord in all. Speak the truth, be pure, be humble, Concentrate, meditate, attain Self-realization. These are the essentials of all religions. Customs, conventions, ceremonies are non-essentials. Do not fight over petty non-essentials. Be tolerant, be catholic, have a broad outlook. Respect all Prophets, all Saints, all Messengers. All Saints speak the same language.
If you feel you need a Guru or Spiritual Master in your life, purify yourself every day, follow the formula above, and keep asking the universe for it.
What is Enlightenment?
By the way, let me explain a little about the relative meaning of Enlightenment, because you’ll hear this word a lot in this series. Enlightenment can never be explained or understood by theory, but we can talk around it, and how that affects one who achieves it.
Enlightenment, or self-realization, is a state of consciousness or perception beyond normal human consciousness, when one realizes his/her true nature, and becomes free from duality and bondage of this world.
One achieves total freedom from suffering and achieves the ultimate joy and peace. According to countless spiritual traditions, our real nature is one pure consciousness beyond the limitations of body and mind, and once one is enlightened, he or she goes beyond he or she! Got it?
What I wanted to say is that he or she can never become enlightened! The body can never become enlightened, the body is just a vehicle that you temporarily ride in this life, it is not you, once it dies it will cease to exist, but you won’t!
Enlightenment is something that happens in consciousness, it is just like waking up from a dream or illusion. Here the illusion is that you are the mortal body, mind, or personality, and when you realize you are beyond all these, eternal, unchangeable, you’ll achieve the ultimate freedom and joy.
Enlightenment has been explained in different ways in different systems. In Buddhism, it is called Nirvana; it literally means something like “being blown out,” just like a candle flame that disappears into nothingness — but that nothingness is not really nothing. It is something beyond all things that can be imagined, or known by our material understanding. Because there’s no thing, concept, or idea that can explain it, and it can never be defined, it is called nothingness.
There’s an old Sufi story about a man who spent years trying to think his way to God — reading, reasoning, arguing, turning the great questions over and over in his mind. One afternoon he was walking through the bazaar, the sun blazing straight overhead, when he saw a young woman holding up a lit candle, peering around as though she’d lost something. “What are you searching for?” he asked. “The sun,” she said. “I’m looking for the sun with my candle.” He laughed at how foolish she was — and in that very instant it struck him. That was exactly what he had been doing all these years: trying to find the infinite Sun of God with the tiny candle of his own mind.
Omar Khayyam also has a poem that symbolically explains this:
My heart was never deprived of knowledge Few of mysteries remained unrevealed to me I kept thinking day and night for 72 years At the end it was revealed that nothing was revealed
The Sufis usually call Enlightenment Fana Fillah — it means dissolving into the cosmic consciousness (God). It is where you become awakened and realize you were always one with the cosmic consciousness, so your small i (identity, ego) disappears into your real “I.”
In Yoga and Vedanta the same freedom goes by other names — Moksha, liberation, or Samadhi, the Self resting alone in itself. The names change from tongue to tongue. The thing they point at does not.
And the Sufis add something tender right here. After Fana, the dissolving, comes Baqa — the abiding. When you die as your false self, you are reborn as the divine. Only now it is no longer “you” who lives — it is God who looks, and loves, and moves through what was once you.
This is what Jesus meant when he said the kingdom of God is within you, and that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is reborn. Most people have a very shallow understanding of this and think being reborn just means changing your religion, becoming a Christian, and being baptized by a pastor. But being reborn is really a very high stage of spirituality that few ever experience. If you are truly reborn, nothing of your old self and identity will remain — and that is the end of suffering, and the beginning of eternal bliss.
What is consciousness? What do higher states of consciousness mean?
You may have noticed I mentioned “the higher states of consciousness” multiple times. Let’s talk a little about that. Consciousness is the true nature of human beings. Before everything else, including the mind and thinking, consciousness IS. Consciousness is pure awareness. It is beyond and prior to body, mind, and identity.
Consciousness is sometimes called the Witness, because it is the real witness of all other things, including the mind. That’s why with a little progress in meditation you can clearly see that you are separate and beyond your mind and thoughts. And that makes you wiser and more powerful and courageous.
As one grows spiritually and in consciousness, one realizes more and more that he or she is not made of mortal flesh and the ever-changing mind, but of pure consciousness that is beyond all these — and the more one experiences this, the more free he is from the suffering of body and mind.
Consciousness cannot be known by the mind, because it is the real knower of all things. Consciousness is not the known, but the knower. Remember that poem from the previous sections that says “I am your eyes, no wonder you can’t see. I’m your soul, no one sees the soul!”?
That’s exactly what this means. Consciousness is the divine in man. One who knows his true Self, knows God.
Remember that line we saw earlier?
One drowned in the ocean of unity and said "I AM GOD" Another talked about dimensions and details of the ship
Shabestari is pointing to a real person — a great Sufi named Mansour Hallaj, who achieved a high state of self-realization and said “I am God.” The extremist Islamic leaders of his time considered it blasphemy and executed him, very much in the way Jesus was crucified, maybe even worse.
And the tradition says that even as they were killing him, Hallaj was praying and laughing — because the limited human identity, the one that turns hateful or vengeful, the one that suffers, did not exist in him anymore. There was no Hallaj there anymore; there was only divinity. The Bible tells us that Jesus, in the very same way, prayed for the Lord to forgive the ones who were crucifying him.
Not every culture has the awareness to welcome such great beings, that’s why in the past there have been certain countries and areas where more of the great Masters were concentrated.
This True Self, this consciousness, cannot be known by thinking about it, because IT IS YOU, before you can think about any secondary thing. If you can stay long enough in your True Self awareness, the Pure Consciousness, in the inner silence, without any thought, you’ll realize who you are.
Consciousness is sometimes called IS-Ness, because it is pure existence — it’s just the IS, just pure awareness. There is no difference between divine spirit and consciousness in man.
When Moses asked God, “Who are you?”, God said, “I AM THAT I AM.” That I AM, in man, is God. Sometimes consciousness is also called “the I AM Presence.”
And the sages of India said the very same thing, in their own tongue: Aham Brahmasmi — “I am Brahman.” So’ham — “I am That.” The burning bush in the desert and the cave in the Himalayas are pointing at one and the same fire.
You may have heard that according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, when God created man’s body, He blew His spirit into him, and he became alive — and that man was made in the image of God. This is not about physical likeness to God!
This just means that God, or the highest consciousness, is present in man, as his true Self. And this can be realized by anyone if one strives for it!
When one sees God as his or her true nature, he sees it as the true nature of everything. No one needs to tell him that he should respect others and not harm. This is the true core of religion.
Realizing your true nature is the real aim of every authentic spiritual process. If it doesn’t teach you that, it’s not an authentic spiritual process or a true religion.
“Your real nature is as the one perfect, free, and actionless consciousness, the all-pervading witness — unattached to anything, desireless and at peace. It is from illusion that you seem to be involved in a world of suffering.” — Ashtavakra Gita
What does achieving a higher state of consciousness mean?
A higher state of consciousness simply means realizing more of this truth of your true nature by experience, and in turn becoming more free, peaceful, and joyful.
According to Hindu cosmology, Consciousness in its nature is Truth, Awareness, and Bliss (Sat Chit Ananda), which means Consciousness is the only Truth in existence; it is pure consciousness that is conscious of everything, and when someone realizes this, he or she becomes Blissful!
The great Sufi master Aṭṭār said the following on the subject:
"One who Drinks off your Cup of Love, One drop Till the Last Day He will be Wonderfully Drunk!"
Stay tuned for the next parts, where things get more interesting. And if you liked this, please share it with others!
📖 Read the Full Series: Garden of The Secret
Introduction · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4 · Part 5 – Thought · Part 6 – The Right Thought · Part 7 – The Universe Became Man · Part 8 – Who am I?