I happened upon this story about a Sufi mystic, as you do. As I write ‘as you do’ playfully it strikes me that I tend to see a whole lot of things that come my way as coming my way for a purpose. As if they are being sent my way. I am always looking for meaning in serendipitous encounters. Do they really have ‘meaning’? I don’t know… but what I do know is that it is through this alertness to what is coming my way from nowhere that I have ended up with learnings or experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise…

I believe very much in applying oneself to knowledge be it reading the masters, studying known works, and so on which this story poses something of a counter to. But I am also a believer in the power of intuition, what comes from the inside so to speak. Now how these two are connected is a different story…

Bayazid al-Bistami, a famous Persian Sufi mystic from the 9th century, spends years copying religious and philosophical texts, searching for spiritual truth and divine knowledge. One day, as he is working on transcribing ancient manuscripts, a Khidr or a mysterious figure in Islamic tradition, appears before him.

The visitor asks Bayazid what he is doing. Bayazid explains that he is copying and studying these texts to gain wisdom and understanding of the divine. The visitor says: "Why do you spend your life copying words about what you seek, when what you seek is within you? You are the text you are trying to understand. Study yourself, and you will find all the wisdom you are looking for."

This revelation transforms Bayazid's approach to spirituality, leading him to turn inward for direct mystical experience rather than relying solely on textual knowledge.