A Sufi once heard a man saying, “I have lost a key. Has any one found it anywhere? The door of my house is shut and I am without shelter in the street. If the door remains closed, what shall I do? I shall be for ever miserable. What shall I do?”
“Who wishes you to be miserable?” asked the Sufi. “Since you know where the door is, go and stay near it, even though it be closed. If you sit near it for a long time, there is no doubt that some one will open it for you. Your condition is not so bad as mine. My soul is consumed in stupefaction. Of the enigma that bewilders me there is no solution. There is neither a door nor a key for me.”
Would to God the Sufi could set out in all haste and find the door either open or closed! None can know, none can even imagine, the real state of things. To the man who asks, “What shall I do?”, reply “Do not do what you have done. Do not behave as you have behaved up to this moment.”
Whoever enters the Valley of Bewilderment finds himself at every moment in a state of grief. How long shall I endure this affliction? Others have lost the way in this wilderness, how shall I get a clue to the road? I do not know it, but would to God I knew it. Aye, if I knew it, I should be in a state of stupefaction. Here, the cause for a man’s complaint is the source of thanksgiving. Infidelity has become faith and faith infidelity.