Hakim Sanai
HAKIM SANAI: THIS NAME IS AS SWEET to me as honey, as sweet as nectar. Hakim Sanai is unique, unique in the world of Sufism. No other Sufi has been able to reach to such heights of expression and such depths of penetration. Hakim Sanai has been able to do almost the impossible.
If I were to save only two books from the whole world of the mystics, then these would be the two books. One would be from the world of Zen, the path of awareness: SOSAN’S HSIN HSIN MING. I have spoken on it; it contains the quintessence of Zen, of the path of awareness and meditation. The other book would be Hakim Sanai’s HADIQATU’L HAQIQAT: The Walled Garden of Truth — in short, THE HADIQA: The Garden. This is the book we are entering today.
THE HADIQA is the essential fragrance of the path of love. Just as Sosan has been able to catch the very soul of Zen, Hakim Sanai has been able to catch the very soul of Sufism. Such books are not written, they are born. Nobody can compose them. They are not manufactured in the mind, by the mind; they come from the beyond. They are a gift. They are born as mysteriously as a child is born, or a bird or a rose flower. They come to us, they are gifts.
– Unio Mystica, Vol 1, Chapter #1
Sanai, and his beautiful statements. People like Sanai don’t argue, they only state. They need not argue, their very existence is the proof; no other argument is needed. Come, look into my eyes, and you will know that there is no argument, only a statement. A statement is always true. An argument can be clever but is rarely true.
Sanai is one of my love affairs. I cannot, even though I would like to, exaggerate him. It is impossible. Sanai is the very essence of Sufism.
Sufism is an English word for tasawuf. Tasawuf means ‘pure love’. ‘Sufism’ comes from suf, meaning wool, and a Sufi means a person wearing a woolen robe. Sanai used to wear a black cap — a white robe and a black cap. No logic, no reason, just a mad person like me. But what can you do, these people have to be accepted as they are. Either you love them or hate them. Love or hate, they don’t give you any alternative. You can be for them or against them, but you cannot be indifferent to them. That’s the miracle of mystics.
– Books I Have Loved, Chapter #8
A very fundamental thing. Sanai says: IF YOU KNOW YOUR OWN WORTH you need not be worried what others think about you, whether they accept you or reject you. If you are worried about others’ rejection and acceptance, that simply shows one thing — that you don’t know your own worth, that you don’t know your own being, that you don’t know God resides in you, that you are an abode of the divine.
Hence you are worried what people are thinking about you — because on their thinking, on their opinion, will depend much. Your ego depends on others’ opinions: your being depends on nobody. That’s why the man of being is always a rebel, and the man who lives in the ego has to compromise very much with the society. The egoist has to compromise, because if he does not compromise, nobody is going to fulfill his ego. The ego needs others’ support, it needs props from others: the more people like you, the better and more polished and refined an ego you can have.
– Unio Mystica, Vol 2, Chapter #3