A seeker once sent a list of burning questions across the desert to a silent mystic — and the answers that came back became one of the great spiritual texts of the world. This is Part 5 of Garden of The Secret, and here we finally reach those questions. We begin with the very first one: What is thought? It sounds simple. But by the end you’ll see why the thinking mind — brilliant as it is — can never, on its own, arrive at the Truth, and why a seeker has to be made ready before the light can dawn.
As I mentioned before, I won’t be translating all the poems — this book runs to about 1,000 lines of verse. I’ll just take the message of each section, explain it in contemporary language, and relate it to the same meaning in other spiritual traditions.
I’m translating these poems myself, because I’ve found that many of the existing English translations are hard to understand, especially for people who don’t have a good background in Sufism and Persian literature.
Shabestari opens the section by explaining why this book was written.
In the year 1317 AD, Shabestari was sitting in a gathering of Sufis when a messenger arrived from another city — a fine and noble man, he says.
The messenger brought a letter: a series of spiritual questions sent by a well-respected person in that city, someone looking to clear up a number of teachings he wanted to understand.
The messenger read out the long list of questions, and by the time he finished, more people had gathered to see what was going on.
One of the old disciples in the gathering — who had heard the Master explain these teachings many times — asked Shabestari to give the answers, so that everyone in the world could benefit from them.
Shabestari says: although I have already explained and written these things in many letters, I’ll do it again, since you ask. And he begins to answer the questions in the form of poetry — saying that all of it came to him as an intuitive message. Everyone knows, he says, that I am not a poet; and although I can write poetry, I have barely written any — because meaning can’t be held in words, and theory can never explain the mysteries.
He even goes on to say that he is ashamed to call himself a poet — that in hundreds of ages there will never be a poet as great as Attar (a renowned Persian mystic who wrote many great books of spiritual poetry).
He ends by saying that although he has no intention of his own — nothing coming from his ego — to speak these things, they will be spoken anyway, because it is meant to happen.
When he asks the divine in his heart, “What should I name this book?”, he receives the name “Garden of the Secret” (or Flower Garden of Mystery).
As I asked the Lord a name for this letter The answer was "This is our Flower Garden" Lord declared a name for the letter So all hearts become illuminated by that
In the writings to come, I will take one of the questions each time and explain Shabestari’s answer, along with my own interpretation, in a more contemporary language.
Question 1
Firstly, I wonder what "Thought" is What is the nature of "Thinking" Where does Thinking start And where does Thinking end
Answer 1
Thinking is transcendence from illusion to Truth To see the Absolute Whole in the partial
Here Shabestari isn’t trying to explain the process of thinking from a psychological angle. What he wants to say is that the reason man was given the power of thought is to enquire into his own true origin and nature — to travel from being a small, limited person all the way to the Absolute Whole.
The ultimate truth of the universe — Consciousness, or the Divine nature that the Buddhists call “Buddha nature” — is present in every particle of this universe. Even modern science has found that every particle contains the whole universe in some way. When someone is awakened, and his eyes are opened to the ultimate Truth, he sees this divine nature in everything.
If thinking is not synced with the heart’s intuition, one can end up a mere theoretical philosopher who gets nowhere. Logical thinking understands things in fractions; you arrive at an understanding by adding one thought after another. But once you enter the inner kingdom of God — the spiritual realm Jesus spoke of — you’ll know things in a completely different way. You won’t be able to grasp those things using logic, going from point A to point B. Here are a few quotes that help bring this home:
“The intellect says: ‘The six directions are limits, there is no way out.’ Love says: ‘There is a way, and I have traveled it thousands of times.'”
— Rumi
“This Self cannot be attained by instruction, nor by intellectual power, nor even through much hearing. It is attained only by the one whom it chooses; to such a one the Self reveals its own being.”
— Katha Upanishad
“The intellect, however high it may soar, never touches God in His nakedness. To know Him truly, one must be led into the desert beyond all knowing, where the soul is stripped of every image.”
— Meister Eckhart
There’s a distinction the Sufis make that lands right here. There are two kinds of knowing. One is the knowledge you acquire — the kind you gather from books, teachers, and reasoning. The other is direct knowing, real gnosis — the kind that comes only from tasting a thing for yourself. You can read a thousand pages about the sweetness of honey, memorize every chemical it contains, and still not know honey — until a single drop touches your tongue. All the thinking in the world is only reading about honey. Realization is the taste.
Rumi said it better than anyone. When the intellect tried to explain Love, he wrote, it lay down helpless, like a donkey stuck in the mud — and in the end it was Love itself that had to explain love.
Thinking is a part of the whole, and a part cannot comprehend the whole. Through logic alone you could think for millions of years, moving from one point to the next, and still never see the ultimate truth — unless your mind is guided by the Divine in the form of the heart’s intuition, which opens up when one is fully devoted to the spiritual path.
The philosopher only sees the surface of things, so he keeps wandering from one point to another — trying to explain, reaching conclusions, then changing those conclusions, going in circles.
The superficial world exists through opposites and duality. Logic works by comparing things — good and bad, right and wrong, light and darkness, hot and cold, and so on. But even though creation is a limited manifestation of God, there is nothing in all of creation you can compare with the Divine — and no opposite by which to define it. So how can you ever know it by thinking?
The Sufi Attar has a beautiful poem that explains this in mysterious language:
The whole world is but You—you are not within the world. The universe is wholly You—yet You are not contained within it. What sea is this, this boundless, surging sea? All are lost within its depths, yet no trace of it is found. What path is this, with neither beginning nor end? It is the road of self-annihilation, yet no caravan travels there. It seems a vision, a shimmering mirage, Like a chameleon—revealed, yet never hidden. Whatever you behold dissolves into nothingness; All things are That—not this, nor that. Strange indeed is the Beloved's secret work: The world is filled with Him, yet He is not in the world. Every heart is full of Him, and in Him the heart is lost; He dwells within the soul, yet is not the soul itself. If He appears outwardly, nothing exists but Him; If inwardly, not even a hair remains apart from His revelation. What a wondrous mystery—that every single atom is He. What can I say? It is only This—not that. Within my heart abide a hundred worlds of mystery, Yet no tongue can tell even one of their secrets. What then can Attar say in such a place? The tongue falls mute; speech ends, and all expression fails.
And then Shabestari ends this section by saying:
The limited cannot comprehend the absolute How can you know it then? Alas that the ignorant man in the desert Seeks the sun with the candle's light
The conclusion of this section is that the absolute truth of the universe — which is man’s own real nature — cannot be known through the limited process of thinking. But as you progress on the spiritual path, your logic can be refined by its integration with spiritual intuition, and through that you can realize things that could never be realized by the ordinary process of thought.
Unless one is ready, no amount of reading and acquiring knowledge can make one realize the truth. For someone to become qualified to see the ultimate truth, he has to go through a deep transformation and purification. One must free the mind from its conditioning and limitations, and be willing to question everything — even one’s own existence.
For one to experience higher realms of consciousness — even from a purely physiological point of view — the brain and nervous system must be strengthened through spiritual practice and meditation. Forcing yourself to higher levels of progress when you are not ready is dangerous.
Think of it like electricity. A thin, worn wire can carry a small current safely — but push a high voltage through it and it melts, or bursts into flame. The energy that awakens in the higher states is exactly like that current, and an unprepared body and nervous system are the thin wire. This is why the traditions insist on years of practice, purification, and discipline before the real voltage is allowed to rise. The practices aren’t there to impress anyone, or to earn spiritual points. They are there to thicken the wire.
This has been explained again and again in Sufism, Yoga, and many other traditions. Have you heard of philosophers who lost their minds and went mad? The experience of someone who has lost their mind and the experience of someone spiritually awakened can sometimes look very similar — but the spiritual person reached it consciously, through a great deal of preparation. Without that, he too could have lost his balance.
There have been many people who tried to force themselves into higher states of consciousness — through powerful practices like Kundalini Yoga without proper guidance, or through drugs — and lost their mental balance; some of them never recovered from it.
In Sufism and Yoga, a Spiritual Master holds a very special and irreplaceable place. Hafiz says:
Don't go into the ruins without the Master, even if you are the Alexander of your time.
Hafiz invokes Alexander the Great here — an arrogant king who conquered the whole Persian empire and much of the rest of the world — to make a point: even if you believe you are that capable, that powerful, that knowledgeable, do not step into the realm of the unknown without the help of a Guru. He is talking about the real spiritual journey, the entry into the inner realms of consciousness — meant for serious seekers, not for weekend spiritual tourists. Be careful, he says: this is no child’s play. You need a Master to show you the path.
And notice what kind of danger he means. It isn’t that God is cruel, or that the path is booby-trapped. It’s that the inner realms are vast, and the seeker who wanders in alone — without someone who has already walked the whole way and back — can mistake a lower experience for the final one, get dazzled by powers and visions, or simply lose the road. A Master is not there to give you the truth. No one can give you that. He is there to keep you from getting lost on the way to it.
One must be ready before he can enter the realm of higher consciousness — he must reach a certain level of mastery and balance before he can speed up the inner journey.
Without balance, increasing the speed is dangerous. If you are not ready, you won’t be able to grasp the truth — even if Shabestari, Jesus, and Buddha told it to you in person!
That reminds me of a beautiful story…
A spiritual seeker once went to a Master, asking to be guided to the truth.
“Master, please teach me. I want to realize the truth.”
The Master said: I have only one teaching for you. Everything in the universe is a manifestation of the supreme reality of God. Me, you, everyone, and everything else — all of it is only a manifestation of the supreme spirit. That is my teaching.
“What?! But I could read this in the scriptures myself. I thought you were going to tell me some secret teaching,” said the seeker.
“That’s all I have to teach you!” said the Master.
Very disappointed, the seeker left. After a while, he went to another Guru and asked to be taught.
The Guru said: You need to serve and work here for 12 years, and then I will teach you. The seeker accepted the apprenticeship. The teacher asked one of his disciples, “What work do we have for this person?” The disciple said: cleaning the cow dung.
The seeker went on working and serving in that spiritual center for 12 years — so absorbed in the work that he almost forgot how many years had passed.
After 12 years, the teacher called him and said, “Today I will give you my secret teaching! You have worked and served selflessly here for years, and purified your mind and shrunk your ego — and now you are ready!”
Then he took him up into the mountains, somewhere beautiful beside a waterfall. They both sat down, and the teacher said: “Listen… everything in the universe is a manifestation of the supreme spirit. Me, you, and everyone and everything else are only a manifestation of that supreme consciousness.”
Upon hearing this, the seeker entered a high state of consciousness and experienced the ultimate truth. After some time, he came out of his meditative state and bowed down to the Master with gratitude.
Then he said: “There is one thing I don’t understand. Twelve years ago, another teacher told me the very same thing you told me today — so why couldn’t I realize the truth when I heard it back then?”
The teacher said: “At that time, you were not ready for the truth. But by working, serving, and doing your practices — by reducing your ego over these last 12 years — you became capable of realizing it.”
Becoming small, and letting go of one’s egoistic desires, is a necessary and difficult step in spiritual progress.
Just as Jesus said:
“The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”
This is why spiritual progress to the higher levels is so difficult, and why so few people make it. Everybody wants to become big, to become someone — and nobody wants to become small! Yet it is by forgetting your current limited self, and becoming selfless, that you find your true Self.
As long as one clings to his small self — the ego, the limited personality — he can never find his true Self.
So, to conclude: moving toward self-realization asks you to let go of your craving to be significant, to be famous, to become anyone at all. It asks you to see that you don’t really know anything — not even yourself — and to be willing to set down even your knowledge. It asks you to understand the limit of intellectual knowing, and then to use the very mind and thinking process itself to transcend thinking altogether, and fall in love with God, and with Truth.
And here is the quiet paradox at the heart of it all: you use the mind to reach the end of the mind. You think, you question, you seek with everything you have — not to arrive at one more clever conclusion, but to walk the thinking mind right up to its own edge, look over, and let go. What catches you on the other side was never a thought at all. It was Love. It was the Truth you already are.
📖 Read the Full Series: Garden of The Secret
Introduction · Part 2 · Part 3 · Part 4 · Part 5 – Thought · Part 6 – Reflection of God · Part 7 – Who am I?