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THE TREE THT fELL

TOTHE ST
Autobiography of a Sufi

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Lbr of Congres Ctalognginl'ubliarion Oara
Muhaiy.addcn, M. ~z
TheU!hat fl to rc "':autbiogaphy of a S I M. R. Bwa Muhaiyaddecn.
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bW 0-914390678
1. Muhaiyddccn, M. R. Bw. 2. Sfs Biography. I. 1idc.
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Copyrighr C2003
by The 8z~zMuhaiyaddccn Fellowship
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EoroR's No
A 'udu bilhi minash-shaitinir-rajim.
Bismilihir-Rahminir-Rhim.
It is said that if all the trees in the world were made into pens and all the
oceans were made into ink, one could never fnish writing about the
mysteries of God.
Indeed, one of God's great mysteries is the story of Muhammad
Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen @. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen@ was reluctant to
speak of himself; m emphasis that only L ha a tue history. He
did, however, over a period of furteen years, relate fragments of his story.
These stories touched our hearts and woke the gently sleeping seed of
love and wonder within us. With this love we gathered together some of
thee frents in an attempt to piece together this great jourey of God's
Qutb@.
In 1942 Bawa Muhaiyaddeen@ wrote ma book he titled Gun1 Mani
that the fruits of the ofWisdom which he had established in the East
would fll in the West. Here, dear reader, is a tiny portion of some of
these equisite fuits.
As-salmu 'lum, may peace be upon you all.
Rabia Miller
IX
Ccnh!mmalria
lNTODUOlON
Bismi/hir-Rahmanir-Rahim.
Ligt "Electromagnetic radiation that cn be detected by the human eye.
In terms of wavelength, electromagnetic radiation occurs over an extremely
wide range, fom gamma rays with a wavelength of 3 1 0-14 centimeter to
long radio NVC measured in millions of lcilometers. In that .pectrum the
wavelengths visible to humans occupy a very small segment of this
spectrum ...
W
If w possessed the full range of vision with which to see the enrire
spectrum how very difrent our perception of existence would be.
Similarly, if we were to gain full awareness of ourselves, full conscious
ness, w would perceive other beings, so unlike us in their makeup that
we, the creatures of darknes, trapped in space and time, cannot register
their eistence with our earthbound sense. Beyond created matter, they
live in the relm of divine light, existing within and consisting of God's
qualities. The prophets, the angels, the qutbs. the saintl exist within
and as the Light of Alla.
The 'face' of Allah is His Light, the Nir Muhammad or Light
Muhammad, through which Allah manifsts all creation, fm the refined
paradise of His qualities all the way to ction of matter and darkness.
From rime to time God assigns one of these beings which are of Hi
aspect to take bodily frm for the purpose of transmittng eplanations of
truth to His cations born into this world. Over millions of years
countless numbers have come, appeared on earth, and, under extreme
duress and with gret dfculry, gvGod's eplanations, then disappeare
again back into His frmless Lgt. Always they have come with the same
message: "The Cretor is One. This is truth, His Oneness. This is reiry;
there is only One and God uthat One." The languages, the name, change
from culture to culrure, the truth does not. There is the One who creates
else.
xi
Ccnh!mmalri
xii THE TREE THAT P(;TO THE WEST
All else, that which human science measures, counts, and clculates,
the space and rime of it, is ultimately an illusion both wth1n our minds
and outside ourselves. Not real, not permanent, similar to a projection on
a screen.
When an artist prepares to do an oil painting, first the pTpared canvas
is covered with a dark wash of paint B background then the subject is
created from dark to ligt with shadows frst then gradual layering of paint
to the lightest applied lat, an illusion of form created according to the
artist' s ability.
Creation, matter or form, is something like this. Earth, fre, water, air,
ether, the paints of creation, the illusion masterfully and exquisitely done
by the one true Anist, and within that illusion we perceive that we exist,
the creatures of darkness, our bodies, thoughts, desires, attachments and
beliefthe limits of our perption. From Light we are bor, but we live
and die, never knowing the Artist, believing this world and ourselves to
be the limits of relity.
Yet God with infinite mercy sends His messengers to tell us over and
over again: No! What we think is not the truth. We are blind and deaf
and dumb, sleeping soundly in our dreams in the darknes. His mesengers
tirelessly explain that there is a way to discover that truth which is reality,
the One. The way is built into the heart, a hidden secret, and a point the
revelation of which stretches even to ete1ity, ad f beyond, transcending
the senses and frm.
To reveal this secret one must frst believe that God doe eist beyond
the illusion. Then dedicte one's self exclusively to Him, yearn only to
know Him, intend only to fnd Him, focus fercely upon this intention,
and surrender, surrender, surrender!
If one accomplishes complete surrender what will happen theW is the
disappeaance of this cworld. First to @ is sound. Silence. Then sigt,
gone. Awarenes, remaining, perceives another sight which see anywhere,
anything intended is viewed within. This relm also disppears.
But then, oh then! All worldly eistence frgotten, awareness awestruck
and wide-awake:
The Explan<tion begins. Silent, yet a spoken word, the Qur'an recites
itselfy explaining that which you have never heard. Transfied, awareness
becomes that which is explained, W the explanation expds so does
awareness, so fst, >ealted. Rising through realm upon realm of Wisdom's
revelation, where frmless beings eist as divine qualities.
Then, transported awareness hears, "There is no space W time! TheT
Ccnh!mmalri
lnttedoct.en W
is only one Thing, and I am That!" Then Light Simultneously 1nes
becomes Voice become Light beome One.
The fnal perception of awareness is becoming the Light. That which
has cease to exist cnnot perceive the One. Only Allah can know Allah.
The explaining Voice is clled Muhaiyaddeen or Wisdom, it eplains
all the mysterie of the divine rlms to our aronished soul. The Mesenger
is God's Light, called Nur or Light Muhammad. This Light is the 'edge'
or h` of the One imo which individuated awareness disappears. ltis
this Light through which creation is created. God's Light shines frth,
creation is. Follow the Light to its source and the One m. This One is
Reality; it is The One. There is no other.
book is about the 'history' of Muhaiyd. Which Muhaiyaddeen
should w speak oP I will tell a little about the one I know In 1963, I
experienced what is described above, quire suddenly. I had no previous
conscious knowledge of any of it. It happened.
My consciousness eventually retured to a world seemingly devoid of
any knowledge of this One. I quickly learned that to speak of it W not
acceptble or wise; people merely thought I had lost my mind.
Not knowing what to do or where to turn I began to earnestly pray to
that One: What am I to do here alone, a stranger in a strange land? Please
send someone! Pleae send someone! For eight years I pled. I beged. I
cried. Then in 1968, following awareness's inner instruction, I located his
name: Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. Ir whe! I was certin
and, it w he! I never doubted for a second even though he w rwelve
thousand miles away and I hnever heard of him.
It whe. more
/
of another wmof ngplese come, please
come, time with letters exchanged, promises made and i n 1971 on
October 11 at 4:45 p.m. Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyardeen ariv
in Philadelphia.
He spoke. I sat transfiXe and openly stared at this miracle. Stunned.
Every word he spoke W an description of the experience I had. To
my perception he had manifested from that One and he spoke only of
that One. I knew then and I know now that this w not an ordinary
human being. This was an extraordinary being sem by God. Every word
he said wtrue whether it wan explanation of God or an explanation
of how the world worked or how the mind of man worke. Every example,
every story ended in God and there Wthousnds of eample and storie
and songs and discourse, all about the One.
Everything he saw turned into an example; the platic trash
Ccnh!mmalri
xiv THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
bags w used in America to pur our rhe garbage and the story would end
in God. He spoke morning, noon and night. He sang beautiful glorious
songs about and to God. When people came for the frst rime he would
tell them everything about thcmscves. It N the 1970's and when 'gurus'
came he would scold them severely for deeiving naive Americans for
money. Begging him not epose them (which he had jusr done), they
would cry, shaking with fear and run away. Slowly the audience grew,
mostly longtime spiritual searchers from the Philadelphia area. Word got
around, someone very speial is here. Come listen. For nine months we
sat happily ar his feet, soaking up whatever we could hold within oursdve.
Then he retured to Sri Lk. Some of us followed, ro Colombo, to
Jafna, to Perideniya, all places spoken of in this book. What we saw and
experienced there could fll books also. We saw the thousan.ds of desper
ately poor he and heale. We saw people possessed by demons, and I
guarantee you demons arc real; we saw things dificult to imagine, yet we
saw them, and him, rising above it all, te only tue human being I have
ever seen. W taught Hindus in Jaffna, Muslims in Colombo, Christians
and Jew in America, speaking Truth their perspetive, but it would all
end in the One as the only reality.
Llm he defined as purity, Muhamad, the Light of the One. We
learned new meaning fr new languages, Tamil and Arabic. We learned,
we studied, ad loved him.
He wlove, caring fr us in a wnone of us had ever kOand
thrived on the purity of that love and lerned and grew as human beings.
He taught u the same Trth that had been red through the ages by
the prophets: worship only the One God, L for all live as you do
your own.
The stories mthis book may seem fntastic to some, confing to some,
spanning as they do a time fame of hundreds, even thousands of years,
but pleae remember our sense of rlity uliner, the relm of God's reality
unor. The relm Muhaiyadden live fom is not subjet to the time-space
rules we eperience, so I tetf that whatever is said in this book is true.
\knew, lived with, and loved many of the people spoken of in these
stories and they told M the stories also, such as the elephant story with
Araby, Ameen ad Dr. Ajwad. Most of these wonderfl people have pased
on and w sorely miss them.
There ae furthe. explanations I could give about him, things he told
us here and there on very .are occsions, a he seldom spoke of himself,
for, no matter how eceptional the creation, it im only God who is the
Ccnh!mmalria
Introduction 7
eceptional One. A true human being, having known that One sees all
else as in5ignifcant-an ant man he called himself. A deeply overwhelming
sense of humiliry comes from being in God's presence, what clse could
one feel? In the remembrance of God's Light, any awareness of one's self
u an acute embarrassment.
What purpose or reason for existence could this erth world off er to
someone like him? Why stay? It can be summed up in one word: Dury.
What dury? When one has experienced God and retured frged a
one with God, changed and fully aware that else i flse, one must tell
others. There is an impulse, a compulsion to do so, combined with
compasion for all lives as they go about in ignorance of this glory. One
must tell them; it is dedication, dury, ad gratitude, fr how could one
leave Hi glorious story untold?
This is the work of the prophets and the qutbs, those true human
beings, so diferent from M) who spend their every moment in conscious
remembrance of that One. Their awareness stretche the full spectrum of
God's Light, it comes fom Allah to chis world we live in, and extends
back to Allah, the One.
Al-hamdu l/lh, all praise, all worship is due to God, the creator of all
things. May Allah's peace forever be upon 1 beloved and most worthy
servant Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen. 7mt.
Carolyn Fatima Andrews
"Secretary"
1
THE WAYOFTHE WORLD
P
rOusjewele lights of my eye, may God protect you. Many things
happen during our lifetime my children, and I am thinking about
something, something I experienced which I f compelled to speak
about now. There are many resons why God has created ) and there is
a period of time when we should try to understand these reasons, and to
understand fom this what our dutie are and why we should cary them
out. There might be many such explanations.
It had always been my intention to fnd out what my Father NHb like,
to know who God N to understand H nature. I wanted to discover
some way to see Him and undertook to work hard at this with the
clarity of my wisdom. No I am etremely old, but earlier, fr long periods
of time I searched and searched. With this searching I came to certain
understadings, one of which I want to tell you now. There are certain
things I can never disclose, some secrets I canot nm, but I can tell you
some of my experience. I stared the search for my Father when I N
still very young. 1 scarchcd and scarchcd and searched, trying hard to
understand, yet all I learned concerne the world. I saw only the world,
the gurus just taught me about the world. They would say. If you do
such and such you V rech God," and 1 would wit. 1 would practice
with more earnetness and than they did. Watever they taught, what
ever eff ort they made, I exerted myself a hundred times more.
They taught me miracles and M<4W<b> magic and tricks, they caught
me certain mental powers, but it happened that I had to teach r/em
what these things were all about. I had to expose the faws in what they
taught and say, "I did not come in search of this. I cme 1 understand
what my life is about, who my Father is, I came to the story of my
Father."
Then 1 lefr the gurus and went into the four religions. The leaders of
thcsc religions claimed rhar God existed only in their religion. 1 studie
each of them. 1 studied hard, very hard, but the God I had within my
I
2 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
wisdom N not to be fund there. 1 became obsesse, absolutely obsessed
to see my Father, and so I lcf and went to the jungle, staying in caves,
searching for Him in so may diff erent places. I mer creatures called jinns
and firie who were attracted to me in numbers as I roamed about with
them. Fairies L fy to a certain extent, but they cannot :o beyond a
specifc limit, and I did not fnd God with them. I did learn some of their
tricks, bur when I realized none of this N God I left rhem to keep
searching.
I went through indescribable difculies, coundes troubles and great
danger until I came to the point where it N imperative to understand
who my Father was. At that moment I heard a sound, "My son, approach.
No one who has ever roamed around searching for Me D ever found
Me. I exist everywhere, I am in everything, there is no reason to wander
around in search of Me since I exist everywhere. Come, look here, do you
see all the messengers, My vice-regents and prophets who lef the world,
look they are here," and when I looked I saw the prophets sered in groups,
may the peace and blessings of God be with them all, each wirh families
and followers gathered around them. "There were groups and groups of
rhem, all praying to God. When I looked ar their state and heard rheir
sound praising God, when I saw their stare of light, it seemed incedibly
beautiful, it was wonderful. How V I begin to describe it to you? In that
place ther were all kinds of fowers and ft, there were amazing perfume
so beautiful to smell, and many diff erent things you could never imagine,
like the beings fying around above these prophets and their followers.
When I saw all this the sound cme again, "Do you understand?" The
Voice called me by name and said, L you understand?"
I replied, "I understand a little."
The Voice asked, "Do yurecognize these prophets?" and I did recog
nize them becuse I hsc:n them before. I saw that one was a messenger
of God I had seen before, another N a vice-regent. When the Voice aked
if I recognized them I could say ) to c of the prophet pointed out
to me. Then the Voice said, "Look again," and I saw another space above
that space where there another prophet, and another space above that
one, and then I could see all seven heavens with the prophets and their
disciples in those hevens. When I went beyond the fourth heaven I could
sec seven heavens more above it and all those who were gthered there,
eleven heavens altogether, seven heavens below and eleven above making
eighrcn, the eighteen thousad universes.
I exlaimed, `LGod, I understand this, but I have not seen You. I
Ccnh!mmalri
The ao|the otld J
have heard Your Voice, but I have not seen You. 1komu,bur 1want to
sec You."
The Voice replied, "You can see Me if you see them. Look at the
prophets and you will sec Me." Then a range of understanding wgiven
to me: certain sounds spread from that Voice, each sound carrying with it
a particular fragrance, a particular light, fragrances and light which muck
me. Teach blow fell it gave me life and strength, it raised me higher and
higher. each fagrance and each light touched me it lifted me up, it
strengthened me. But how can 1 describe something you cannot even
imagine? While I was being raised higher and higher, I looked at each
sound, seeing into all the atoms and non-atoms of the eighteen d1usand
universes. My whole body was resplendent with light, and I could see
evcryrhing, everything in cStrnr
Then it was all pointed out to me, "There is awwa the beginning,
rhc rime of creation, there is dvny, the world, and over there is kbrmb,
the realm of God. See the world of the soul, the world of hell and the
world of heaven. This is the world of souls, this S the world of hell and
this is the world of grace where God and His plenitude exist." The three
worlds and their meaning were revealed to me, and I understood them.
1spoke, "This is what You have crearcd, but I want to see You. 1want
to see my Father." I looked again and wherever 1tured 1 saw a blinding
light, everywhere I turned I heard S sound and His speech.
hS S Myself, My son. Wherever you lok you whear My voice,
wherever you turn you will hear My sound. This is My form, there is no
other frm. Nothing is greater than 1.everything I crted cn be contained
in a particle within a particle. How could that contain Me? 1 am so large,
so etensive, that I cnnot be contained by frm. The world Sjut a particle
within a particle, how could you contain Me in that? This is the reason I
am called 7u. Hais resonance, it S sound and that sound is Myself;
light and the sound of that m are Myself." So many explanations O
given to me then.
Many more things were revealed afer that, and as I was speaking to
some of the prophets the sound came again, "Look, look over here, this is
what is called prayer." I looked and saw rhar the earth contained gold; I
saw the nine kinds of precious gems shimmering and sparkling, spread
through many diff erent place in the earth. The Voice asked, "Do you
understand this?"
I said, "Andavan, L God, this is Your rhmt, Your grace, all this is
the wealth You created.
4 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
The aM came, "No, thee are merely the glitters of illusion. It is
true they jewels, it is true they shine, but you cannot compare them
to Me. My value i s inestimable. Tee things are valuable in the world
and I have given them the name jewels. Whoever fnds them thinks they
valuable, but they only the sparkling gems of illusion. Neverthe
less, there is a sparlde within you which is wisdom. Whoever wants to see
Me must make that wisdom radiate, ma it shine like those precious
gems. That is valuable. You can only see Me if you have wisdom, and
only if that wisdom shines like light. This radiance must be lit up in the
heart, this is the light which can see Me, this is valuable. Now do you
undersrad?fl
And I replied, "I do underand .
Then rhe Voice continue, "Look over here, look at something else,"
and I saw that all the gems were being covered over with earrh. More and
more eath covered them, then little shining pebbles starred rising up to
the surfce of the earth, little white pebbles, like the quart you usc in
building construction.
Ther ^ so many of these pebbles all making a lot of noise shouting,
.. . We W jewels, we Wjewels, come se us!" and many, many people starred
collecting them, taking them home to put in a safe place. The jewels were
actually deep in the earrh while the quartz which shone like glass on the
surface N sought by mne. Everyone was buying quart.
"Did you see that, do you understand what it means? Do you know
what thee precious gems are?" asked the Voice. "They are the future. It
means that in the future trth, wisdom, goodness, you and I will be buried,
hidden in the erth, just a real gems U hidden deep in rhe earth. Truth,
gnanam, divine wisdom and light will be hidden deep within, covered up,
while worthless thing, the glitters of illusion and satan wiU be on the
surfce like those shining pebble. The people of the world will value thee
pebbles, they will say they H precious. They will wear them and praise
them, like quarz, but the truth which is the real jewel will be hidden.
They will keep these worthless things as dear to them at the time of
destruction, the time when the world is destroyed.
"ln the future truth will be hidden, wisdom will be hidden, the learned
will be considered fols and decent people will be thought of as criminals.
Criminals will be said to be good and good people will be called dishonest,
the learned will be called fools, the virtuous will be called prostitutes,
prostitutes will be described as virtuous, what is bad will be called good
and what is good will be clled bad. Everything will change, people will
Ccnh!mmalri
The Way of the World 5
wer sinful clothing and tey will not yearn fr God, the truth or heaen.
They will bury them ad serch fr the things of hell, fr visions of the
mind, of the body and the gliners of the world. This is what will happen,
so Cy wed the Voi.
"Now look over there, beyond this," and I saw a rtain place of
worship. May people were going in drse in gudy clothing with bright
makeup. On their they had new and diferent kinds of powder,
diferent d of makeup. Dressed this way they went to worship God,
but inside the building they were not worshiping Him, they were writing
love leners to ech other, pasing the letters around the church, looking
everywhere in all directions, taking out their mirrors to put on more
lipstick, more makeup, brngng out box of powder to dab on their fces.
No one followed those who were reciting the prayers and singing, no one
wa imereted in the hymns. There were cwof people stnding outide
that building a well, and beyond them were more crowds. The peron
leading the prayers made wild, ecessive movements, jumping up and
down, making terrible fc beyond description.
The Voi said, "Lok, this is the future. This is not prayer. Remember
the prayers you saw before and see how they pray no. You cn see the
diferen. Do you see how they praying to Me? Thee B the prayers
of illusion, they not true prayers. This is the way satan prays, do you
see? This is what Whappen. Uthe future thee gliners wcout sying
they jewels. During the period befre the end of the world satan's
people, magc, the earth, rk, best, ghosts and illusion wlll claim to
be gods. They will push themselves to the font inisting, 'I M god, there
is no other god but me.' Torpor, intoxicant, magic, fr and m will
boast they are gods, visions of the body and the mind will claim they M
gods. You must understnd this is going to happen. The peple of the
world will h certain force to destroy the truth, to destroy devtion
and faith, to destroy the qualities of God and heaven. They will change
everything, they will change true prayer saying there is no God, they will
manift injustice and doubt the eten of L. They will prefr the
prayers of satn, of hell. They wW chant manns, declaring their impor
tace. You must escape fom this."
Then I cried out, LGod pleae protect me. How long will this lat?"
and the period of time N disclosed to me. This wsixry years ago, and
since that tme I can see these change taking pia. I h observed these
change occurring in the last sixry }.
Then the Voice said, "Lo k over there." I sw millions and millons of
6 W THAT fELL TO WET
idols and gods placd in dark caves, surrounde by countless numbers of
disciples. The were so dark they had to put an endless number of
candles and oil lamps there for the people to fnd their way in to see their
gods. There were fve or six hundrd priest in chuge of cleaning the statue
and maintaining them in numerous cs, each pitch dark and flled with
millions of dmmncgods which mfrightl, ghasdy in zggcc.None
of them looked human, they looke like monkeys with a monkey's teeth,
their fces w the fces of lions, tigers, bulls, fe, wolves and dogs.
Some had beks like a bird or fce like a horse. They all had the teeth
and fce of animals. It is impossible to describe these gods, yet people
were circling aound them, making off erings to them: some slaughtered
goats or bulls ad ofred them to the gods, feeding them their blood;
some put brandy, beer and other alcoholic drinks in font of them; some
people who were actually being sacrifced to thee gods cried out fr help,
yelling and shrieking some people circled around them, ofering all their
wealth and property. These gods had black which looke like vampies
with teeth for sucking blood They would reach out to snatch a man, suck
his blood and devour hlm alive.
The Voice said, "Do you see? Thee are the gods who wiJI rule the
world in the future. Look at them, they will all be destroyed by My @.
They belong to satan's tribe who will cpture the world claiming they are
god, and they will change everything. s is going to happen in the
future." When I loked at each idol it w terrifying. Every off ered being
w cut and sacrifced in a ghatly manner, the blood sucked fom them.
I w unable to look at this terrible spect2cle any longer, then the Voice
said, "Look over tere," ad I saw four people walking along, shouting
out loud about anything that came to their mouth. "G speak to them,"
the Voice commanded.
Now the fur had fllen into a well, they were all scrambling onto
ech othe's shoulders yelling, "Pick me up, bme up, get me out of here!"
I w told to look into the wl and watch them awhile. I could see each
of them reaching out for aother, gbbing him, trying to throw him up
and out of the well.
Suddenly the Voice said, Lk` and I saw a woman approach who
had a cemin magic :bdkIbr, a frce of illusion.
She cme right up to the wl and aked, "What's the problem, how
did you fll into this well?"
"We fell into the wl co le how t climb our of a well," they said
co her, co maya or illusion, who btken the form of a woman.
Ccnh!mmalri
The Way of te World 7
"All right, get out of there," she said, lifng them from the well and
giving them a little food. They ate, found another well and fll in. They
did this becuse they thought if they leed how to climb out they would
be able to save anyone else who fll in. This second well was muddy, and
once agin the woman h to sae them. Next they went to an orchard
where she told them c water the te . When they agreed to do this she
gave m of them a pot-there ua point I am t to make hmen
they went over to a pond, srarting fght and argue.
The frst one said, "This relly is a large orchard, how many time do
you suppose we will have to fll our pots to water the whole thing?"
Then I came along and asked m, "What are your names?"
"Our nae Know-it-all Fol, Unwitting Fol, Plain Fool and Blind
Fool," he replied. Thee were the names of the fur fols.
Now Know-it-all Fool asked the others again, "What should we do?
I'll have ro think about this, but in order to think, I need a throne to sit
on. If I'm going to give you advice I must be seated at a higher elevation

o
t you.
"All right, what you say is true," they @m,and Unwiting Fool ran
to the edge of the pond, bringing back a stone about the size of a marble.
He said, "Right, sit on this throne and preach to U-

"You idiot, how V I sit on that?" he asked.


Then Plain Fool brought back a tiny seahell ad said, "Very well, sit
on this and prech to us."
"The three of you are amazing idiots," said Know-it-all Fool. "Arrange
all the pots one on top of the other, and I will sit on them." Tey were all
earthenware pors, and they put them one on rop of the other. Then he
climbed to the top and sat down. Naturally, a as he sat on them
they all broke and crashed down. He fll into them, trapped inside, the
last pot hanging around his neck. He yelle, "My brothers, br;ak this pot
and pull me out," and so one of the fols ran to the pond to fnd a big
stick. The word for pot in Tamil L also mean skull, and when Know-it
all Fool told them to break the pot around his neck they thought he N
telling them to brek his skull. They smashed his hed with the stick until
he fell unconscious among the broken por.
Plain Fool said, "Hey, give me that stick," as he snatched it away fom
Unwitting Fool, "You have only fed his legs. Look, just his legs H
sticking our, watch me, I will free his whole body," and he landed a sharp
blow smack in the middle of Know-it-all Fool's rer end.
All the pots broke even more now, but the blow Nso hard that Know-
8 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
it-all Fool fl almost unconscious again as he started moaning, "Water,
get me some water."
When he herd UUnwitting Fool ran to get some water mmhads,
although by the time he ce back there w nothing lef. PEain Fool said,
"How c you bring enough in your hands?" and he ran to bring water
on a small lea
Then Blind Fool said, "How V you bring him out of his faint with
that much water?" and he ran back to get some in a tiny seahell. You sec,
thee events wil actually m place in the future.
Net they decided the only way t reive Know-it-all Fool to put
him into the pond itself, ad they carried him W to drop him into the
pond. u his strugle t cg he swllowed water, was gasping for breath
and drowning until he managed to blurt, "Get me out of here," as the
wave puhed him back t the bank of the pond.
Since all fur of them had lost their pot, they were worrie the woman
might be angry with them if they did not water the trees in the orchard.
They thought, "We will carry the pond to the garden, that is the only
thing to do. We'll lif it out and bring it to the orchard then it will be easy
for u and the der lady will praise us." They broke of some thin, spiny
branche of the munga the drumstick tree, made fur sticks with them,
and then tried to pick up the pond on the end of these four tUOt. Ps
tey prese down on the sUOs it made them bend. made them think
they were lifing te pond.
Someone who passing by along the road aked, "What are you
trying to do?"
They ed, "We're trying to carry the pond to the rchard, so it
will be easy to water."
"How L you crry a pond?" asked the passerby, "If you cn carry
this pond you can carry the whole world, how 1 you do that?"
"Idiot, how dare you try to advise us! You obviously don't understand
our brilliant idea. This is our kingdom which means you cn't understand
what we're trying to do. We rule here; if imbeciles like you try to advise
us we'll beat you up." They picked up their sticks to hit the passerby,
yelling, "People like you must be detroyed beause you O trying to ruin
our idea. Don't ever Qto advise us again, we're going to crry this pond
to the orchar." Then tey showed the paserby how their sUOs move,
"Lksee how the pond is moving." The paserby trie to eplain to them
it N only the sticks moving. not the pond, but they kept hitting him
until he ran away.
Ccnh!mmalria
The Wayof cWorld
9
Then the Voice said to me, "No do you understnd? U the future,
people like thee four fools will govern the world, people who wise
will be unable to rule at that time beause they will be chased away.
Ignorant people like the fools who throw people into a well to practice
rescuing them wrule the world. People like them will Uto ca pond
V an orchard. This will be their kind of wisdom. Those who are virtuous
or devoted, those who have beautifl qualite and pray to God will have
no place in this world as it comes to an end. Thi world will become satan's
kingdom where everything is made into a god. They will see to it that
God ufrgotten and that fols mKnow-it-all Fool, Unwitting Fool, Plain
Fool and Blind Fool rule the world. Understand that this is the time when
the world will end, when people will not believe in Go."
Many, many such things were revealed to me. What is the sigifcce
of the orchard? The orchard is a garden which represent the heart, a grden
of fruit, a garden of Rowers; there are many kinds of fruit to tate and
many Rowers to smell in this garden of our heart. The woman told them
to u truth fm the pond of gace and wisdom, she told them to pour
it on the fruit and et, but they could only destoy the truth. They tried
to carry the pond itself which represents the world. flsehood. Instead of
bringing the water of wisdom to the garden, they brought ignorance,
falsehood, lies, intoxicants, torpor and birth.
The Voice said, `U the future, you must try to ecape fom the world
which will belong to them. TMy children mut try to escape fom them.
If you sty with them they will murder you or chase you away, they will
destroy you or make you disappear. Escape from these people," the Voice
commanded. Everything wa revealed to me, everything wexplained to
me as I went beyond, frther and frther, to see my Father. I had so many
experiences. At the end of the world magic, mantras, tantras, diferent
frms of worship and prayer, idols and satan w manifst. This is the
word of Go which wrevealed to me. It will happen. Only a very little
truth will remain, just like the time when the gmwere buried deep in
the earth and cheap glass stones beame precious. Swamis, gurus, religious
leaders and many gods will be the flse glitter, the surfce stones, stones
you usc to make a road. Tey will be nothing more than gravel on the
surfce of a road while the preious jewels sty buried deep below the erth.
Falsehood, ignorance, flse wisdom, darkness, torpor, satan, and maya
or illusion will all rise to the surfce. They are even accepted now in the
world today, and this i sa sign of the frthcoming destruction. This is the
reaon the seaons are changing, the reason why fods asuch detructive
Ccnh!mmalri
10 THE TRl E THAT fEl TO THE WEST
storms h appered. Bccwc te truth of God, the wonders of God and
the prayers of God a disappearing, the seasons have been chaging. In
the past it w not like this in America. Now there a terrible foods,
certain detructive winds and new, appalling disease have appeared. Little
children die of dise older people ae developing new kinds of
cacer ad about seventy-fve percent of the population have poor eyeight.
Unjust people have becme the leaders of nations, evil people are
praised, truth hidden, the corrupt are praised while good people a
humiliare. is dton, the tme of deuction when what is good
is insulte and evil i selted. All Uw No to me by my Father when
I wa young, cler sigs which I see now. Young children no longer listen
to their parent, they do whateer their minds tell them to do. They usc
marijuana, coDcand alcohol which make evil qualities maifest-their
good thougts dispper ad they manifst evil. The four virtuous quaities,
modety, sincerity and fea of wrongdoing, are disappearing. This
i the way destructon approche. When I look around I sethis happening
everyhere, in London, Americ, Ceylon and many other places as well.
Everything has become artifcial, everything seems copied. Studies and
learning are not original, prayer is not original, conduct i not original,
clothing is not origina or natural, even nature becoming artifcial. The
things we do a changing &om their origina, natural state to an unnatural
state. Our prayers a becoming unnatur. There is no pure wisdom,
everything is artifcill, unnatural and copied; all this signife the end. The
seven levels of consciowness or wisdom are disappearing Do.levels with
which human beings cn come to understand by wing the wisdom they
aready have. Ghoss, demons, fmine, disease, poverty, problems, wars,
quarrels, the&s, flsehood, murder ad detruction prevail now.
My children, you mwt serch fr your Father with truth. He has no
form. He exists a the heart within the heart. He is the gracious One, the
marvelow, luminow One who eists as wisdom within wisdom. We must
fnd rruc prayer, w need wisdom, w need the qualities of God. We mwt
search for them becwe the time of destruction is very close and w mwt
escape. Understand that if you search for the truth you will have trouble
and many problems, yet your Father will always protet you. Lnot worry
about the difcultie, jwt serch for your Father during your lifetime. For
this you need ii n, you need the faith, certitude and determination m
whatever sufring you undergo, your Father will save you. No matter what
sufering you may km you mwr never waver in certitude or fith. Your
wisdom must never change.
Ccnh!mmalri
hcWayof thcotId 11
God S frmless, He

S the One who eists wherever you look, He S


with you day and night. He is here every moment; you mun have the eye
which can sec Him and the fith to search for Him. Wisdom S the Q.
You need certirudc and determination to search for Him. His qualities
are the grace with which you can sec Him. Do not let go just because of
pain or sadness or sorrow. God's truth is like a shore for all suffering. The
waves of the ocean try to break past that shore, but they cannot. Wave
cannot be still, they come with the intention of breaking up the shore to
destroy the world, yet they can only strike the shore and retur to the
ocean. In this way, truth is like a shore, grce is a shore, truth, wisdom
and the qualities of God a shore for the ocean of maya. The wave of
maya will sla aginst them, but they cn only retur to maya. Disease,
povert and troubles will strike you, however if you have the truth, they
cnnot penetrate, they will recede. They come to brek you, they will hit
you, but they cnnot destroy you. The proft and losses of the world will
try to destoy you, yet if your fith, your certirude and wisdom strong
they do recede. They will keep coming time aer time, but if your fith is
strong and you take no notice of tem, nothing ca happen to you.
You must have our Father's grace, His wisdom, His patience. You must
acquire His plenitude, not the glirrers of maya, the magic, the mantras,
the forms and words like the om and am and sam or jam of yoga, words
which are merely like the jam you cat. The world puts everything imo
this jam promising you it is y yet it is really bitter or salty or sour,
and once you eat it you have to eliminate it. This is only a bathroom thing;
do not acquire it. If you cat that jam believing it to bswet, you will end
up having to eliminate it in the bathroom. Do not acquire the habit. God,
our Father, is very tasty. His light is plentiful and you must to acquire
this truth.
My children, there are so many thing that happened to me during
my life. I am only telling you one very small point I remember. I have
given you just a little decription of what really happened, these les ons of
mine, what I eperienced, what I went through. When I sarche for my
Father I found that treasure, and this is the reson why thc thing you
offer me are unacceptable. 1cnnot accept your srudies. If you bring me a
god I cnnot accept it, if you bring me magic I cnnot accept it, if you
bring me a guru I cannot accpt it. Why not? Because I have had all this
experience, I have had the experience of thiskind of magic, this kind of
srudy, I have seen the guru, leaned the mantras and thrown them q.
What 1 ofer may be hard for you t accept, nevertheles if you acquire
/2
THE TREE THAT FEU TO THE W
wisdom, you will accept it. If you have had thee experience and know
the cruth fom this eperienc, cyou accept anyhing bur that cth?
With your idea of truth fom the experience you have had, you might
not accept my truth. It might be hard for even a of you to accept it,
yet if you have wisdom, if you cly understand, you will accept it.
The things you want cbe bought in a store; it 1 easy to buy things
fom a store or the supermarket, but the teasure you need to purchase
fom your Father m Q hard to acquir. If you go to the supermarket
you pick out something and pay fr it. Uthis world you 1 buy a manta
for ffty or a hundred dollars. For an additional hundred and rwenry-fve
dollars they migt say they will show you the light. That's cthey
are supermarket produce, bur the real Light, what you must buy fom
your Father Himself is hard t find. To do that you nee to search for
wisdom, you need to acquire the qualitie of LO.You ned to understand
and refect on this with wisdom. Now the seasons are changing and
detruction is cming closer. In the little time you have lef you must try
to escape, U to reach our Fther and merge with Him. A fewchildren
must try because if they succeed they might be able to prevent this
destructon, this fmine and great danger. There are a children who
might be able to prevent this.
May LOgrant you the wisdom to travel the path of truth. Now that
saran's rule is almost established, since his rule predominates today, you
have to bvery caeful, you have to think each thought deliberatcly, using
wisdom. Always have fith, certitude and determination because this is
the power of LO. Everything you see on the outside is ilausion, merely
small powers, but LO 1 te power within us. To understand this
power you need wisdom and the qualitie of Go; with these ro you can
understand His power. My children, jewels of my eye, please think hard,
try to walk the right path. It is my duty to reveal my own experience to
you, and it is with your own eperience that you must search for your
Father. That is a good thing to do.
This is the way thing + I had this experience I have described, and
there is so much more that I have seen ad heard. All the glitters of the
world are supermarket things that will end in rhe bathroom, they will
become the kingdom of hell. Please therefore, refet on what I have told
you, refect w U wisdom beuse that will be a W good thing to do.
Am in.
jul 1Q, J/Q
Ccnh!mmalri
Ccnb!emdI:
2
THE PATH OF OU
INTERVIEWER: Coud Bawa tell us something about his life
BAWA MUtADDEEN: My brother, most of my lif is over now,
and I do not usually concr myself with the story of my life, a life devoted
to the love of my children. Living that way, I have had to /ce many
Utmct:cs :nthe world~ 1tis quite har to direct my children alCng a good,
rrue pth with good, true wisdom, and since I am dedicated to guiding
them, involving myself entrely in their lives and their prQre8s I do not
notice what happens to me.
Duty seems to be my only purpose. 1do not look for comfrt :nlife,
I do not look for happiness, I do not try to create my own history~ I care
only that the qualities of my children be the quaities of Go and the
prophets who came before us. My purpose is to teach my children the
way of the prophe1 who advised M in the past. My dedication is to bring
my children's qualities to the exalted level the prophCts have described.
This is my history, this ha become my history.
I came to Philadelphia fr the frst time in 1971 when I wa invited
here by my child Bob Demby, who is now one of the presidents of this
Fellowship, and a others. At that Ume lived in a hoe on 46th
Street, tDcn1returned to Sri Lanka a year later. When I came back on my
second visit I stayed, frst at the same house, rhen later in 1973 we moved
to this Fellohip House, and now it is 1979. 1sy awhile, coming and
going back to Sri Lank until the children here cry and write so many
letters begging me to reu1 I come back to comfort them. This is what
I ha been doing in the Unite States.
I do not say much about myself or my hisrory. Even in Ceylon, in Sri
Lanka, my whole purpose is to direct my children to a good, true path. I
go to the fm in Puliyankulam beca\ we have to work the frm to fed
our children there. Sometime children come fom hr away who ar ill,
and we h to look afer them, other people come possese by ghost
15
16 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
and demons to be cured, others come who U detitute, penniless, and
we help them. I work on the frm day and nighr to give the proceeds to
the poor. Any money after epenses I give to the poor. Attending to the
needs of the children, doing my duty to them, serving God by urging them
to walk on God's path has been my duty, and I do this kind of work in
both Sri Land Atnerica. Three-uarters of the Atnerican children here
have been to Sri Lak with me, they have seen the amount of work 1do
there. I do not really like to talk about myself, I would rather spend time
doing my duty instead of tlking about myself. If you ask me to talk about
myself I wiU tell you what I have eperienced, and if I mention those
eperiences, you will fnd most of it is suffering, most of it is pain. What
1see in this world looks like pain and suffering to me.
There i s only one place where there is peace, a place inside the qalb,
the inner hert, where Alit'iNiyan, our ealted Lord who is God,
lives with the Ra|the Prophet Muhammad .They live together there
in the same place where all the prophets live who came as witnesses to the
eistence of God, the mighty One. This is the place, the only place where
you cn fnd peace and comfort. Anywhere else you look in the world
seems to be just pain a sufring. If you are dedicated to perfrming
your duty in the world you have to do it without attachment, without
partiality or favor, you must do it without selfhness or thought of proft.
You have to love all living things and treat them as your own life,
recognizing the hunger of others as your own, recognizing the happiness
of others as your W} the peace of others a your own, the joy of others
as your W-
When a man does his duty this whe sees in life is difculty and
hardship. A man in this stare muse burn himself down to give light to
others. He must be like the * in a candle, buring himself down to
give light to others. That is his duty. In u state, what comfort is rhere
for rhe candle to enjoy, what happines doe the candle enjoy? What can
we say? This u the state of a person who wants to do his duty ro God, he
has to burn himself down to gve light to the others in the world, and
that i my life.
INTERVIEWER: Why did you choose to have the Fellowship's location
in Philadelphia? Is there any signifcance in this?
BAWAMUtADDEEN: The lady from Califoria seated behind you
cme to see me in Sri Lk back in 1V6U. She cme to see me almost
twenty years ago, staying with me in Jafa for six months. Even at that
Ccnh!mmalri
TePath of Dury 17
time I was doing the same dutie at the Fellowship there in the ashram,
and what I did N excy what I described before. I would tke her with
me when I went into the jungle to gather healing herbs for the people
who were sick, and we worked on the frm. At the end of .six months I
said to her, "1 i s time for you to go bak to Americ, I might come to
America later on. You go back, attend to your dutie and it .s possible, if
Allah wills, that I will come to Americ in the future." I told her this in
1960, but in 1950 I wrote a book in which I mention I will bgoing to
America. This book has a story about a tree plante in an arid deert, a
srory where I mention I will be going to the west. That N in 1950, and
accordingly, in 9/ four or fve of my children invited me with love and
urgency to come to America.
Before I arrived at 46th Street in Philadelpma fr my frst visit, Bob
Demby, Clyn Se, Zoharah Simmons and some others sitting hee
arranged for me to come.
They formed a society for that purpose, to invite me here. I did not
come to Philadelphia with the idea of establishing a fellowship. There is
only one Fellowship and that is Allah's. There is only one fmily and only
one Fellowship. The whole world is one Fellowship. We Mthe children
of Adam, and Allah is in charge of that Fellowship. I did not come here
to etablish a fellowship, I cme here to se my brothers and sisters, to se
my children, this is the reaon why I came.
When I arrived they clled the house I lived in a fellowship; the
fllowship is a house, this is what they c a fellowship. When you give
birth to a child you give the child a name, do you not? In the same way,
thee children found a nae for this house. There are may kumof nae.
There the ninety-nine names of Alah which are His qualities and
actions, His virtuous conduct, His love, His dutie, they ar the ninety
nine wt or powers of P .Then there Uthe three thousd graciou
atributes and His countless, limitles sounds of grace to which you give
names. You give name O everyone who is born, do you not? In the same
way, these children gave thi s house a name they liked. They described it
W Suf and gave it a nae. Suf has a profound mening, Fellowship also
has a deep meing. But the name they _is not difrent &om anything
else. They merely gave it a name just as you name a child when it is born.
There are sixteen or sevemen branche which use the name fllowhip.
But the whole world is just one Fellowship, and there i sonly One who is
in charge, Allah alone. So what L you say about the signifcance of a
name?
Ccnh!mmalri
/8 TH TRE THAT FELL TO IHWET
He uthe One in charge, He is the One responible for all three worlds,
for awwal duny ad kh~ the time of creation, thi s world and the
realm of Go. Allah is in charge of these thre, the uivcnc of the n/
where the souls began, the dunyiwhich is this created world, and akhirah,
where w return to Him. fis the ruler of thee thre Fllowships. They
have merely given this place a name. They call it a fellowship, bur the
only One ultimately responsible fr it is Allah.
INTERVIEWER: What happns to this Flowship when you O no longer
here to lead you.r children?
BAWAMUHAIYADDEEN: Allah will be here, will He not? This is not
my responsibility, is it? That entire rkn, the tiny diacritical mark which
is the world, is supported by the a/ithe letter which is One, Allah. He u
here no matter what happen. There is no reaon fr us to mQthis burden
which i H ofce and H reponsibility. We say al-ham l il/i h, all praise
belongs to You, twakkul-'l/i h, whatever happens is Your will. It is not
my work O be concered with what will happen.
My brothe, there ninety-nine wi of Allah which Wthe powers
He use to administer His rule. If you take one tiny particle of any one of
His ninety-nine qualities, cut it into a hundred million pieces, then pick
one of these piece to examine, you will see ninety-nine particles inside
revolving around each oter without touching, ninety-nine particles r
without touching each other. Then if you mone of thoe hundre million
panicle, divide that particle into ffty million pieces and take one of these
particles to examine with a microscope, again you will see ninery-nine
particle revolving around each other without touching. If you take that
particle, divide it into fve million pieces and rake one of these patice,
you will ninety-nine particle agin revolving around ech other without
couching. If you take one of those particles, divide it into fve hundred
thousand pieces, you se d ninery-nine revolving around each other
without touching. If you take one of those patices, divide it into ffty
thousand piees and pick ay one of these paricles, again you see the
niner-nine revolving around each other without touching. Then if you
cake one of those particles, cut it ino six thousand, six hundred and sixty
six piec and cake one of Uc panicles to eamine, you :ee the ninety
nine revolving around one another without touching. If you take one of
those particles, cut it into three hundred and thi.rteen pieces and select
any one of these particle, again you will see the ninety-nine revolving
around each other without touching. If you take one of those piees, cut
Ccnh!mmalri
The Path of Duty 19
it into ninety-nine particles and take one of thee particles, again you se
ninety-nine revolving around mother without touching.
Then if you tke one a/i one Arabic letter (|),te 'a,' and cut it open,
you will see the ninety-nine paticle inside revolving one around the other
without touching. If you one sound fm this, cut it open, and if
you keep cutting and examining, you find the power increaing, more
sound, more power, more light. And if you keep cutting, go frther in,
that light will pull you in, that power will draw you in and that which is
you will die. Beyond this you B dead, you no longer exist. Your wsdom
dies, everything dies, you are drawn into it and that power alone remains.
is t reponsibility, He alone exist there. And since this `u > my
brother, what do you have to do in this world? Only your duty. Whatever
will happen tomorrow is twakkul-'i , you surrender the responsibility
to Him; whateer happens now, you say al-hamu l/i h, all praise bdongs
to You, L God.
INERVIEWER: As-salu 'likm, may the peace of God bwith you.
BAWAMUtADDEN: m 'likmu-sli m, and may the pece of
God also be with you. Lt M unload our bu.rens and give them to Allah.
Put them on His ship. He is responsible for everything. Unload your
burdens and leave them in His cre for perfect peace. This will give you
peace.
Ocober 5. 1979
3
THE TREE THAT FELL
TO THE WE
L
et me tell you a story about the man who wated to plant a tree in
the desert. Once there w a wise man living in the deert who noticed
there wa no water, there were no 1 no shade and no place for
tavelers and animals to sit and ret. He thought to himse "I will plant
at least one tree to ofr shade to those who come by."
And so he planted a seed, but everyone who came past ridiculed and
mocked him, "Who is this idiot, this madman trying to plant a m m
the desert? How will a tr ever grow here? There is no water here, and
not only that. there are sadstorms, there is lighming and thunder. He
must be really crazy!"
But the wise man kept watering the young plant with the water he
brought from maway, guarding ir carflly. Soon root begn to @
then branches. It grew higher and higher until it could draw up irs own
food and water through the rots. Soon animals and wayfrs came to
sit under the tree because it w the only place there was to rest, but they
lef it dirty with their excrement and grbage. Even so, the wise man just
kept cleaning it up, continuing to take care of the tee.
The tree grew from the depths of the earth to the highest heaven,
bearing eellent, encies fruit which satisfe dte hunger, mnand ftigue
of those who ce. Ir branches and leaves gave shade and ret to those
who were tred, but once the tree w discovered, people stare fghting
about it, claiming it a their tr and their &uit. So the wise m: who
had cred fr the te lef saying, "You can have the proft of this tree.
Birds like parrots and mynahs would come to eat the &uit high up on
the tree, then people put up nets to trap them, to stop them fom eating
even though these people could only reclt the fruit on the lower branche.
The Wsame people who h ridice the wise ma fr planting the
tee now claimed it w theirs. Their envy had made tem ridicule him,
and their mand jealousy made cclaim the as their own. They
fught and fought to suclt an extent they wanted to cut it don so that
21
Ccnh!mmalri
22 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
other people would not beneft fom it.
That tree w such an amazing tee, growing all the way from awa/
to ikhir from the time of creation to the realm of God. There wso
much fruir, that jinns and firies, birds and human beings could all eat
from this tree. Whoever came could take some and be satisfed. Even the
fruit that fell of the tree N eaten by animals, insects and worms in the
earth.
Evemually they cut the tee down. Beause the tree had. reached up to
the heavens, it fell fom the eat the west, and now the fruit and the
honwere a beneft in the west. The trunk remained in the eat, but the
taste, rhe fruit and Aowers fell in the west where the people were able to
proft from its amaing Havors.
The things I wrote about'in Guru Mani back in 1942 all happened;
what is lcf in the east the trunk and roors of the tree. Some people
have collected these parts of the tree and preserved them, but the fruit,
rhe beneft fell in the west. When God does something He knows what
happens in the preent, what happens in the future, what happened in
the past and what is happening at this very instant. This 1 all in the book,
it is history now.
Whateer you do for God who is our Creator is known to Him befre
you do it. Befre you do something He has already said you would do
this. P the present He tells you what will happen in the future, at the
end He tells you what happened at the begnning. He reveals certain secrets
ahead of rime about birth, deth and what is happening now. He warns
you about what will come in the future. He knows the dury you will do
and the reward you will receive for it. He tells you this ahead of tme, and
you have to do it to fulfll His word. You must understand this. There is
a deep mening here.
Even though there may be only a small group of children now in the
west, God has gven you rhe taste of this fuit, the ripe fruit of gnanam,
that divine wisdom from the kingdom of God, becuse the tree fell here.
The kingdom of God belong to you. very careful not ro let it go.
Preserve it, do your duty and know the taste. This is not jwst a game, this
is not magic and not a mantra, this is something you should not neglect.
Try to savor the taste with your wisdom, do this dury. This is the right
thing to do, children, pleae do it.
Ma
y
24, 1V/Q and FbTUI r 20, JV/
Ccnh!mmalri
Cnh!
4
BAWA MUHADDEEN@A
A YouNc B
W
hen I was young I misbehaved a lot, I was small for my age
and quite naughry. When I N six or seven the disciple, who
had long beards and were ff or sixry years of age, used to sit
in a 1with the sheikh before them, and I always tried Osit right be
two of them. The sheikh would close his eyes to meditate, reite or study,
but I knew nothing about the things they were studying. And so I would
look around clly, then quickly, quietly pinch one of the disciples to
or three rimes, really hard! The frst one would look around a.nd wipe his
eyes, then I would pinch the other one. My only occupato1 was to pinch
and wait to see what happened next. If a disciple sta.rted reiting certain
verses with great concentration, I would creep up to him and bite his C_
then sit back down, vquiet, until I crept up to bite someone else's C.
Some of the di sciples would actually c in pain. If the 5heikh opened
his eyes and found them crying he would ask, "What happened, why are
you crying?" but not one of them would open his mouth tG say anything,
and I would look down, my head hem as though I T meditating deeply.
The next day I would sit berween rwo others and do the same Ung. I did
this repeatedly; when I fnishe one mund would start all over on the
frst group of disciples. Once the sheikh saw me hiring som eone's C and
said, "You'd better sit beside me." I sat at his side and when he wquiet,
I was very quiet. Because his disciples NT fcing me I made grotesque
fces, griWning at them, crying to make them laugh. I did thing like that.
Occasionally the sheikh took for a walk, then I would make a run
at the disciples, butting them with my hed fom behind, and of curse
they would fall. I did many naughry things like that which were quite
natucal at this stage. Even though I did all these bad things, when the
sheikh asked me question I could give appropriate answer, better than
all the other disciples although I did not study. This was God's grace-I
did not study but I could answer his questions. The other disciples could
25
Ccnh!mmalria
26 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
nor <r his quetions, but whenever he aske me somerhing I wa able
ro give a suirable anser.
Yet when msheikh gave me a book to red, I could not read it. He
loved me so much, ad he would sy lovingly, "Plese read thls." I kc
the book by heart and I would recite it from memory. The sheikh
understood this w unique; he also understood I had no fear and he
respected me fr this.
Many people eame to see the sheikh, people with diseses or childless
people who wanted children. Once a woman eme crying, flling at the
fe t of the sheikh, `L naan, Lgret lord, I want children, yet I have no
children and it is so painful fr me."
The sheikh replied, "You must live a your detiny determine, and
there W no children in your destiny. The sheikh ke eing; he
told her she had to live as her destiny rule, he also told her that what he
said w correct becuse he ke everyone's meveryone's destiny. The
woman brought ofring of gold, pleding with him for a child, but the
sheikh said, "There U no children in your detiny because if you have a
child, you will die."
The woman wt and cried, pouring sand on her hed, cursing her
detiny, `L my sheikh, you have given me a death sentence."
The sheikh gmto, "You will live fr only eight months of your
pregnancy if you have a child, you will die in your ninth month. Asking
for a child is asking for death." The woman kept bering her head, crying
and cursing her destiny, and I watched all this.
Even though I w naughty I did have great compassion for people,
and so I said to her, "Plese don't cyou will have a boy and live a long
time, you L @now." The sheikh became very angry when be heard me
say this. I repeated my words, "You will give birth to a boy and live a long
rime, don't worry, you can go. You will live forty or ff years." I said the
words that came to my mouth.
Larer the woman conceived a child, and a she wa ready to give birth
her husband cme to tdl the sheikh, who pronounced, "What I sid wa
her destiny can never bchanged. The words I unered cannot be changed
beuse it is God's detiny. Sinc she bcnceived she will mein her ninth
month. What I say will happen." Then the woman died with the child
still inside her body.
As the sheikh ad I w wl g along wsaw a funeral procession.
When I asked him, "What's happening over there? I have never seen
anything like this before."
Ccnh!mmalri
Baw MmuydeeoGAa Yem8oy 27
The sheikh replied, "What is happening is what I said would happen."
I did not understand and asked again, "What uhappening?"
'Janih, a mm,this is the lady who ak for the fvor of a child."
"Is that who it is? Then let her get up," I said, "Let her get up, let her
sit straight up." Her body strted to move. "Let Allah raise her up, let her
sit up." They had to put the funeral bier down a her body started moving.
The sheikh, sw people and I were there wtn. 1 soon as the
bier w placed down on the ground the woman got up, looked at me,
and my fc must have seemed differem because she just shook her hed
withoU reognizing me. They dismantled the bier and thrw it into the
grave along with the other fneral thing that cannot be used again.
^ the funeral things went to the grave except the woma, she was not
buried.
I can remember she was about twenty-four years old when the child
wa born, and they came to the sheikh with ofering of gems 4one tray,
gold and fruit on another tray. The sheikh w extremely _ He pointed
ro me and said, "Give this to him."
Bur I said, "Take it to the sheikh, \ it to the sheikh."
The shei kh said, "No, this is fr you, you u it."
I told them, "No, it ufor the sheikh and fr God, it is foryou and for
God, not for me. I don't ko anything at ."
After that the sheikh tried to hurt me. He tried pushing me down the
mountainside, but when he did his arm w suddenly paralyzed. Although
he was a very great sheikh envy overcame him, and he intende< me harm.
Just before he died he spoke, "I did not realize who you . You are the
Qutbuz-zamn, the Qutb, the supremely enlightened being of this era, but
I did not realize it. You will be rhe sheikh, a mother ro m the children."
I wa very young at the time, only eleven, and answered, "I am only a
boy with no idea how to do that." But he understood this, saying those
words just as he was about to die. They split a rok burie the sheikh,
and then the people whom l had pinched ad whose I had bitten
be good. I wa eleven
y
old at the time.
I did many naughty things. After this a king who w childless looked
aer me, but all those who looked aer me, who loved me and tried to
wme, of them passed 8To who trie to Kme for my wealth
were united in their effort, yet those who raised me in love all pas ed away.
We all do naughry, obnoxious th`Mgs. A child who unaughty in his or
her youth will be good later on, a child who i quiet when he is young
will misbehave latr on. Very ofen a child who behave Wely on c
28 THE TREE THATFELL TO THE WEST
grow up to misbehave. Those who eat too much when they are young
lose weight later on, and those who ear just a litde when they B young
ofen become ft when they grow up. Even our actions change as we
mature, we do less W we grow older.
There wa a time when I did not ear, bur I ear no, I eat a lor no I
have been eating a lot rr ten or een yers. U a bird ears a single seed it
flls ir belly, does it nor? U that not food? A bird and a man G similat
beause they both fll their stomachs. Fr a bird ir rakes only a se. Man
also flls m stomach until he usatisfed, like the bird. The real , the
real food however, is minute, only an atom in size. We give hay to the
naf, the base deire, becuse te 1fwant bulk, but the actual riz within
any food is just an atom from God, and that i swhat satisfes, what make
even water given as rizq enough. When God gve an atom, a particle as
nourishment, it is enough. We have to think about c and every life,
analyze and study every living thing. Human beings must analyze the
actions, qualitie and goodness in all living things.
When you split open the truth and analyze it, you discover the seret,
and you will fnally rize God. When you understand the truth you
understand that secret. You have to analyze the truth, 5Qlit it open,
understand it and then analyze whatever you attache to. Focus your
attention on it, analyze it. Attdents U like magnets, che poison in
your life that kills you. They detroy God's truth, His qualiries and His
justice. If you attached, that attachment will kill you. Detroy whatever
it is you are attched to or it will kill your very life. Whatever mind, desire
and the world want, all this must be controlled, and whatever wisdom
loves must be fed with goodness. This will be good for you life.
embr29, 1981
Ccnh!mmalria
Cnh!mria

BAWA MUHDDEEN@
TE KING
QUESTION: Can you describe the path to God?
BAWA MUHAIYADDEEN: That is a good question, a question I once
asked long ago during a time in my life when I was wealthy, rich with
money and land. Let me tell you a bit of that history.
There was once a king who had been childless for many years, ruling
eighteen regions, each approximately the size of Pennsylvania. Because he
had no children he pledged himself ro God, vowing to perform service 1
Him for twelve years; in return, he hoped God would reward him with a
child. Over those twelve years he built a number of churches, temples and
mosques, doing his ducy in each of these places of worship.
Among the Iing's many relatives and friends were three prominent
fmilies who served B overseers for certain areas on the land. Since these
three families were childles as well, they had also pledged themselves to
God's service for telve years, hoping they would be given children. Finally,
the king and the families came the end of their twelfth year of service
to God. Each year this king and these three fmilie took pa in a fstival
ar rhe Murugan temple. 1:was the Ing's custom make his vows at the
Bawa shrine which on a mountain just above the Murugan temple,
but below the mosque.
The night befre the fetival the king had a vision which told him to
go ro the Bawa shrine where he would fnd a child on the sleps leading
up to it. On the day of the festival the king w walking Owards the
staircase leading to rhe shrine when his friend, a rbrmar a rich merchant,
and his wife were also walking there, a little ahead of the king. The
merchant and his wife who were childless had also been praying to God,
doing service to Him for twelve years, hoping to have a child. The driver
of the L they had hired to bring everything they neeed for the festival
walked behind them, carrying a huge sack.
they climbed they saw a baby lying on the steps, and when they
31
32 THE TREE THAT FELL TO TE WE
looked more closely they discovered an ugy child, flthy, covered with
oozing sores, the fies buzzing around and sitting on them. The smell
terrible; they were disgusted. Even though they had prayed to God for a
baby, Q soon W they saw this child they walked arowtd it ad continued
on their way. The driver, however, put down hhevy sacadwent over
to the baby, noticing that although the baby flthy and covered with
sores, it * wrapped in a white silk blanket. He picke the child up,
embracing it to his heart.
The rich merchant looked back, yelle at the driver and told him to
put the baby down, get on with his job. "Wy have you picked up this
flthy corpse of a baby? Put it down and get back to work!"
But the driver replie softy, "This child is alive; someone, perhaps his
mother, abandoned him. How cn we just leave him here?''
The merchant orderd, "Either you leave it here or 1will get someone
else to do your job!"
The driver ans, "Well then, I don't your job, rather have
the baby. Hire anyone you like, I could never leve the baby here mc`
And so the merch ad his wif found another man coming up the path
whom they hir mctheir goods, then continued on to the temple.
Meanwhile, the king bstarted up the steps and noticed the driver
with a baby. "Could this be the child meant fr me? he wondered, but
continued on to the temple we he met mfriend, the merchant, telling
him about his vision. The merchant said he had seen a child on the steps
leading to the shrine, but it dting. covere with oozing sores. He
told the king that the driver had taken the child. Now the king thought
to himself, "I H a man with a baby, and God said there a baby here
fr me, it must have been that baby." He retraced his steps looking for
the driver.
When he fund him ad the child he rvolted thinking, "Thi s
di sgusting child probably not ment for me, but he ak the driver
anyway, "Will you gve me this child?"
He replie, "Thi s chil d doe not belong to the right class for you."
The king thought briefy adae, "Ye, that must bso," then con
tinued on hisway up the mountin to make his +
The baby wa, in fct, really met fr the king. nevertheless the driver
took it home to his 1 other children. The moment they reached his
house the sores on the baby disappered. He beame a hppy. beutiful
child, smiling ad gining weight quickly. Menwhile the rich merchat
displeased with the new driver and called upon his friend, the king,
Ccnh!mmalri
BaWa MmdoGmKg 33
asking if he could send for the previous driver and put him back in his
old job. He did not to do it himself becaue he thought the driver
might refuse him. The king summoned the driver, since it the
king. he could not refuse.
The net day the driver cme co the palace holding the baby in his
arms, and the king a beautiful baby, smiling and happy with a clear,
pale greenish complexioned skin, light radiating fom mfce. He smiled
at the king who melted at once. "This is indeed the child God ment fr
me," he thought as he asked the driver, "myou give me this child? I
will give you anything you wt fr him."
The driver replied, 1 w gve you my life if you ak, but not this
baby. Thischild was given to me by God, and even if I B made a begar
I cannot give him up."
The king said, "You W right, this child N given by God, and since
he was, he can be my child, yours, and God's child too. You must
understand that I can cenainJy look after chis baby better than you can,
so why not come to live here in my palace? I will gve you a job and you
will see him every day." The driver thought about it and agreed it would
be best for the child. Placing the baby in the king's cutody, he cme m
live at the palace where the king betowed wealth ad land on him, letting
him see the infnt every day.
I N actually that child. They put me in a solid gold cradle stdded
with gems ad silver. They _me everything imaginable in te world,
athat is why the king's relative beame jelous. They scarre a rumor
that the driver had found a baby in the jungle and put him on te steps
along the king's path to et money from him, then they hatched a
plot t both the driver and myself, planning how to divide our welth.
While this was going on the driver suddenly die and everything
king h given him beame mine. Now the king's fmily bee even
more jealous. They hire asasins to kill me, but when they cme up
my cradle I suddenly becme invisible; evry time they tried me
they could not lnd me.
Thre months later the king died, leaving me the whole kingdom ad
all his wealth, yet as the property and wealth acumulated, the difculte
also multiplied. The rich met and mwif card fr me until I N
one-and-a-half yers old when the merchant and his wife killed in
a acidenL Then their fortune also beme mine, mountin of gold, @
and silver, more land than cn be imagined, and > a Br treasurer
N appointed as trtee of my holding. By then I could a litde, but
34 THE TREE THAT FELL THE WEST
I w in great danger. Now God sent me a guru who tok me away. He
hid me in a cave on top of a mountain where he concealed the key to my
treasury beneath the bark o!a rree. While I lived in that cave the assassins
searched fr me in vain; whenever they tried to climb the mountain it
would seem to grow higher and higher, they could never reach the top.
Only the guru approached me as I ran around and played every day.
Even though the gur was so busy, he always brought my food and fruit
himself This went on until I w fve years old and quite naughty. Ncar
the cave there w a pond flled with crocodiles. I would amuse myself by
catching them and climbing up on their backs to ride around the pond. I
liked that, riding among the lotus fowers, pasing the time quite happily.
While I wa playing in the pond during my sixth year, one of the
assassins fnally caught sight of me, f up, seized me and threw me into
the dam. I remember it w at one end of the pond. This killer and two
other threw me into a crumbling section at the middle of the dam and
started to cover me up with sand, burying me until just a little area of my
fce remaine uncovered. 1 they were about to close up hat last little
place, a snake appeared and bit one of them who died on the spot. It slid
towards rhe second assasin, bit him and he feU dead too. When the third
one trie to run away he suddenly became blind, and I could hear the
guru calling my name a he cme running frantically to dig me out. The
sna had already disappeared by the time he fnished washing me in the
pond. I kept asking him to bring the dead men back to life again. But he
said it wa God's command that they should die, and when I asked him
to restore the blind man's sight, he replie agin that it w God's command
that he should be blind.
Once I w wahed clen I ran to the dead men and brought them
back to life; then I went to the blind man and gave him his sight back.
They grovele at my feet, beging frgiveness. "Why did you do this?" I
asked.
"Because of your land," they explained, "That land w meant for us
and we want it back."
I said, "That may be true, but whose property is it anyway? Te person
who owne ir until lately is dead now. Well never mind, if you want it
you cn have it. Bring the rrustee to me," and they T to get him.
I instructed him t rransfer the land to them, but he commented,
"Until you ae twenty-one you have no cnrrol WCthe money or the land."
I argued, "I am of , tcn give my property to anyone I want," but
he would not he of it. Then I said, "Well you cn have W share too, if
Ccnh!mmalria
Bawa Muaydden@ meKing 35
you like." Of course that silenced him immediately, and I divided the
property giving some to the rrustee, some to the assassins, some to others.
Everyone got what they wanted, but I reserve a small piece oHand, about
the size of Pnnsylvania, for the people who live there to fm.
At the age of seven I lef this place for another mountain, going to
study with another guru. I stayed there fr eighten yers, sometime doing
things other than studying. l liked to tee, pinch and bite the other
students, I like to do that. I did learn thing, but ldid mischievous things
too. That wmy mischief, biting and pinching, but knowledge w my
destiny and I did receive it. lwould fght with the guru, contradict, even
argue with him until he becme suspicious of me. What he said Wright,
but sometimes I would bet him down, override what he said. He became
so jealous he deided to kill me, instructing his disciples to throw me of
the mountain, and one day they did push me over the ege. I rolled down
over and over fr two miles, but I did not die. It seemed a funny kind of
game to me, because m l was aware of as I came hurtling down the
mountain w a hand stretched out to support me. When I got to the
bottom, I climbed back up the mountain to the ashram, arriving there
before the others. They thought this Wa miracle. The arm of the man
who had actually pushed me W now paralyzed, and he aked a of
the disciples to masit, to bring it back to life, but it wstiEI paralyzed.
When he asked me to try, I seized it, yanked it viciously, bit it and the
arm becme normal. They relize this was Allah's busines, mysteriou,
hidden business.
Things like this happened again and again. Whatever l said would
happen did happen, even if the guru said it would not. Uthe guru sid to
someone who came to see him, "You are going to die now, your time is
ending," I would interrupt. "No, he will not die, God will protect him,"
and the person would not die; if he did, he would come back to life a
soon as the relatives strted to wail. The guru's word had him die, but
with mine he was restored to lif agin.
,
Finally dguru himself pushed me down a well, but God saved me
from it and the guru's hands were paralyzed. He wareally a very exalted
sheikh, acrually a saint, yet jealousy and pride overtook him: as the
arrogance of 'I' came in, he w losr. When 1 came back to the ashram
after I escaped from the well, the guru was describing a dream to his
disciple. "In my vision I saw a huge uprooted tree, its 1 main branches
broken of It had been pulled out by a violent storm, hurled into pitch
blackness and tossed about in the dark. A fre erupted in thar terrible
Ccnh!mmalria
J THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WE
dess, burning the to a cisp." He aked the disciple if they could
explain this vision, and they took to their books trying to ofer interpre
tations which made no sense.
I said, "I'll give you an eplanaton of the deam. You are our guru,
yet your hert ha chaged. your state hchang. This means you will
be mabout by `U,the angel of deth. Even though you resembled
a tree, giving comfort and shade to cne, that state came to an end.
The angel 'Izra'II@ wiU toss you around now; you are about leave this
world."
I continued, "I have also had a vision. Let me tell you about it. There
was a m . one genuine tre of truth for the whole world. A gren parrot
cae to sit on that tre. When the parrot stated fying over the top of
the te it ch ino a dove and few to another tre close by, a tree
with vicious mm where focks of crows lived. They came fom every
branch of the mwhen they sw the dove, attacking it mercilessly, circling
around agin and agin, peking at it, bitng the dove. The agony the dove
endured cnnot be described. It few here and there, desperately trying to
hide among the branche of the tree, but its thorns pierced it, there w
no place to hide.
"Noticing the agony of the I changed myself into a parrot and
few out to save it. The crows atcked me, but I changed into the form of
light and in this frm I rescued the dove. 1I took the dove in my hand,
a light ce fom my hd By means of this light I could se that all the
crow had been burne up. Then I told the dove, 'You should not have
come to live here aong the crows; you so badly injured you will not
Ir. You went to that 1 where you becme entangled among the
crows. Becuse you did not stay in your proper place your life is over, your
life has no come to an end.' I wtced the dove, held it and saw its soul
leve the body a I encae it in light, sending it to heaven. The soul of
the dove travele in the frm of light."
I told my dto the guru, whose hands were paralyzed, saying. "I
believe this U.Utreure, is about you. At frst you were like God's
parrot who would convey tsound. that time you had no laguage
of your W+ The parrot could attract the sound of God and trasmit it,
sying only the words of God. Becuse you did not have that within
you, you were a vehice fr God's sound, but then the e of the world
entered you. Envy, arrognce and thoughts of the world came in, the
arrogance of 'I' cme in and you becme a dove. You few to the hm of
ceation, you herd the b ]m hum the sound of creation, went to
Ccnh!mmalri
Ba Mudeen@ te Kg J7
that place of hm and became something else. The crows belong to satan.
Whcrcvcrycuhcwycu cundcnIythccrows who mc:okyou. You
lost your position and your state.
"Because !could change myselfinro a parrot who transmits the sound
of God, I was able to come to your place; perhaps !wI|Ireplace you because
you changed. Just as you were saved from the crows when I rrscued you
from all your difculties, you were also saved &om satan and bqualities.
Because you h the form of light agin, you received the .ult, the
treasure of God's welth. Beause you acended in that cage of light, God
will accept you, He ha accepted you. This is the vision I saw and this is
. .
"
Its mearung.
Everyone embraced me, kissing my hands and my feet, and rhe guru
said, "God has given my dault to you. Now death is drawing ncar me,
my arms arc paralyzed. It must be your hands that lift me up for burial,
then you have co be sheikh to these sixty-thre students.
"
My sheikh reained the use of his arms and died. !buried him with
my own hands and became the sheikh. Although !was che youngest of
the sixty-tee, within a month they had received light. Some of them
had been there for thirty or forty years. Until then they had not reeived
that dult, that treasure, but within a month they acquired it and were
able to fly. !lef them to travel the world.
I was about twenty-fur or twenty-fve years old when I joine the
Zabir, Hindu religion to learn who God is. They gave me many tides,
but I lef to join Jarc, the Hanal or Zoroastrian religion where I also
received many tides, then I lef them for the Injil or Christian religion.
They gave me many tides too, yet I went on to Furqiin, the religion of
Islam where they also gave me many tides. No one gave me a tide chat lee
me see God. I received status, food and physical comforts, studied the
Puranas which are the Hindu scriptures, the Bible and the Qur'an. Then
I understood ct the power to realize God does not lie with thee outer
examples. The truth is found inside, and I went within myself co learn
about it.
My children, if you go within yourself to study, if you Uto tell the
truth from the inside, the world will never accept you, no one will accept
you. lllusion, intellect, desire, blood tie, even the earth will not accept
you. You will become d.red, and when you are tired everyone opposes you,
your fod, your thought, your vision, your body, your brothers and sisters,
your religion and race, your studies and tides all turn aginst you. You
have ro keep running frther away, and as you fee this is a sig you B
Ccnh!mmalria
38 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WT
leaving the world and approaching God. When everyone else says they
cannot accept you, He will accept you, He will give you happines. During
this fight you will fy without tie, without relatives, wives, children,
brothers or sisters; you will be alone with God who will accept you. When
you die within Him, when you surrender everything to Him, no one eists
but God. You do not posses anything. Lalone eist, only God's history
exist, you hae no history of your own. There is no other experience, there
is no one else to praise, no one to blame. You must understand that only
God will accept you becuse you must become God's history.
This is my experience. My history contains so many experiences, and
I cannot say if I have wisdom or not, I canot say if 1 a man or a
beast, 1 cannot say if I am a monkey or a man. 1do know 1 just a
small ant man, 1know with certainty I am a small ant man, but I cannot
say I have wisdom. I have experience, I have absolute certitude in God. I
do know that He is amazing, a great mystery, and that He alone never
changes.
My dear, dear children, pleae understand this. Go within and cut your
own path. There is much more to my history. It is a long story, a thing of
wonder, but I am reluctant to tell it, I do not L to wit. You cannot
assess me accurately. If a doctor tries to examine me he is unable to
understand my body, it is a mystery. My heart is a mystery, my breath is
a mystery, my bones and ner H mysteries, my head and my speech
mysteries. I canot banalyze. Even when 1go to buy a pair of slippers
my feet do not ft the slippers of this world. That is just the way it is. 1am
diferent from you.
In the fmily of man, my history is discrded. I have merely told you
a tiny dot because 1do not to reveal more. If you chose to stay here
and learn just Umuch of my story it will be good fr you. 1 am a small
ant man now. May the children realize this and le fm it.
Many people have aske me to reveal my full history. I told them only
that I have lived in Egpt and 1m in Jerusalem and India, and once 1
w in the mountins of China, now I am in Ceylon. Elsewhere I stayed
in a jungle among the monkeys. I have been to many, many places. This
is my Purina, my history. To understand it you must look fm within
because what you see now with _ureye i s wrong when I look at what
you know with meye it appears wrong. I cn interpret much fom the
things you hstudie, yet you cnnot see what I observe. What I see
appears astonishing to you, and what you sec appears atonishing to me,
so what L we do?
Ccnh!mmalri
Ba MmdeeoG:heKing 39
Come inside ad look with my eyes, or else I must look wih yours. If
you want to acept me, you have to put your eyes inside mine, then I can
say, "Yes, I sec as you see." I have seen what you see now before, but you
have not yet seen what I see now. That is the difrence, a great diference.
You have the eyes I once h, but you have not yet acquired the eyes I see
with now. I see that what you look at is flse, that what I see is the truth.
Still, because of the way you sec now, I cnnot say that what you see i
wrong, yet when you are in my state you will understand the diffrence.
May Go protect us, may He gve us His @, may He forgive us. 0
Go, beloved 7 ,grant us Your sight, Your vision. Plee betow Your
eyes of grace on us and grant Your protection. Amin, imin, imin, 0
protector, pleae help us, iimin.
Dumbe 9, 1973
Cpyph!mma ria
6 THE DMNE As EMBLY
0 uring my searc for God in this world I spent rnty-one years
on the frst level, the state of thrat I went loking for God in
temple, chure and mosques, going without fod, drink or sleep
for renry-one yeaiS. fthrough these y1met many priests, so-called
swis and sol ed yogis, but my experience with them made it clear co
me that what the said rsembled truth without salt, it w tsteless. When
1 asked them if they had seen God te could not describe Him, their
words had no taste. They told me the only way to God w t meitte,
and so I climbed a hill in the junge, sat down under a tree, closed my
eyes and spent frry-onc years meditating. Although I never saw God
during those frry-onc y of mectation, I saw may thing, glitters,
light and other astonishing marvels here in this world. Whenever I held
such things up to the weapon my guru had given me, they would burn
up and disappear.
I mer so many deitie, swamis and holy men in my fr God
who would sek my help, while they were unable to ofer any help to me.
They would ak fr my proteton, they would beg me not to detroy them.
Beause Uc no one who could give me what I wD, I retired to
the Himalayas fr rwdvc j.There on top of a mountin I stod on
one leg, touching an icicle which was rather like the root of a L + 1stood
on that leg for rwelvc years, hoping to sec God. If you were to Ostanding
in this yog posture you would not CC be able to twist your body into
this position.
When I had stood there fr relve years I woke up to fnd myself
encased in ice and surrounded by dense fog. I used the weapon the gt
had given me to break through the ice that covered me, then I saw an
amazing scene. I saw many people, some who had been te for a long
time, some who were standing on rwo feet, some who were sleeping and
who had just been resting there fr several years. Most of the people
41
Ccnh!mmavria
42 THE TREE THAT FELL TOTHE WEST
who had come then could not endure it, they lef aer awhile. I also saw
dead people scattered all aound me, some whose Besh and heatts wen
gone, some who Wmen skeletons. Tey were the people who had come
to practice j@ but they were dead. Speaking to my W mind I said,
"Now my mind, you have wasted my time. I have wasted seventy y
trying to fnd God, yet I have not heard His sound, Hi s voice or His
resonance. We have both wasted our time, my mind, and these people
have also wated theirs and have perished in the process. God is not hen,
I must seah frther," and I climbe down from tere.
Then I hc a voice and held up the weapon my guru had given me;
when I did this I heard a sound like a chant, not a magic chant, not a
deceptive chant. This was the moment my heart received divine wisdom.
I was lit with divine wisdom, I was light and saw everything, everything
in existence. All the myterie of God were revealed to me. Realizing His
mystery ad the s of His creation, I saw L Himself a a divine,
brilliant Ef lgence.
This wa the stge at which I became a teacher in all four religions,
trying hard t learn the m=ninof these religions. From each of the four
I selected sixty people who had reched very high states of luminous
wisdom, and I became their teacher, enlightening them with deeper
wisdom. I met them in their difrent religions, in theit temple, churhes
and mosque, giving them the understading of Go's divine truth. I tugt
them the truth ad reality of God which they wen searching fr. The
people are still mw, they are not dead. They might have discrde their
physical bodies, but they are alive although hidden. They might have
become immottal.
Thee beings form an asembly whih re this earth. Just as there is
a Congress in this country, thee people frm a congress of God, an
assembly of God, and as the Congs in this country consi sts of a Senate
and a House of Representative, this Divine Assembly, which ha many
saint, is also divided into different houses of reponsibility. Cetin pans
of the Divine Assembly UC in charge of disee, how it is cuse, why it is
caused. Another Qof the asmbly is reponsible fr the production and
distribution of fod, another goup is reponsible for the propagation of
knowledge and wisdom, srill another group, Ucmessengers of God, the
gninis and saint bring me m from God to thisworld. They come to
the mountaintops to look afer the physical and spiritual needs of people.
Others H saint who descend t the world O conduct the afirs of the
world; this is the way the world i s run.
Ccnh!mmavri
The Divine Assembly 43
Whoever gives up the body to emer the realm of wisdom enters this
congress, this Divine Assembly of God, conductng the afirs of all the
eighteen thousand universe. The asembly urponsible fr rain, how and
where it come, how it is controlled; they are reponsible for food, who
grows it. where it is gown, how it is distributed; they watch over diseae,
fmine, plagues and petilence, how they come, how they B controlled.
All aspect oflif conducted by thoe beings who make up this assembly
which also has certain divine angels: Jibril or Gabriel, MIIci 'il or Michael,
'Izra'il or the angel of death, Israfi l or Raphael, Munkar and Nakir, Raqib
and 'Arid, may the peace of Lbwith all of them. These angels bring
the commandments of God to the as embly for discussion, and once the
issue U disussed, the decisions are put imo efect.
I too have a connetion to this assembly. I was made the head of it,
the sheikh of this assembly. It is not something I wamed or accepted, but
it has been bestowed upon me. Be that as it may, I do not L to discuss
it further, let us Cabout something else.
My beloved children, over the past fur hundred y no one from
the world hjoined masembly, and the reson I have cme t the world
during the past hundre yis to enlist members fr it. During Ucourse
of my mission in thi s world I brought with me and distributed enough
things to fll aship so big it could hold millions of smaller ships. This is
how much I have brought here and given out during my mission, y
during this lat hundred years only sixteen-and-a-half people hbecme
truly human. In my hundred years here I have been able to transform only
sixteen-and-a-half people into true human beings. How many millions of
people there are on this earth, nevertheless of all the millions, only these
few have acepte what I have to ofer. Some what I have on my
ship, except that when they come to me, they have such a huge load on
their own ship they cannot accommodate whar I give them.
No one seems to be ready to accept what I brought; instead, everyone
tries to load me dW with the things they alredy h. they try to sell
me their things, although I cnnot buy what they want to sell. Een though
some people have a deire or an intention to accept what t ofering,
their storehouse is full, and thee is no room for what I want to give them.
When they n out to take it, they drop it a they realiz they cannot
store it. Some say, "Show me your God, show me the God you talking
about. We have a god we cn see. Look Bawa, look at this god we have,"
and they show me their dog god, their Krishna or whatever god they have.
They say, "Bawa, you talk about an invisible God, where is your God?"
44 Y THAT FELL TO THE WEST
I H+ "Even though you cn see your god, C you talk to it, will
it mto you?"
They reply, "No, wcannot talk to it, but at least we can CC it." All
they wat is something they can see with their physical g. Then they
ask agin, "Where i s this God you are talking about?"
I reply, "He is within you, He is within me, He is here, He is there,
He is everywhere. If you want Him you must contain Him within a cerain,
specifc vesel. Look here, take thi s light I givin
g you. This light is a
priccless diamond. Its worth is beyond etmate. If you hold up this light
you see where LO is. soon a this diamond of ligt focuse on
Him it beams out its mesage immediately. You cannot see LOwithout
the power of this ligt."
"Where i t light" tey ask, "Show U this light, show your LO.
But when I try to do that, I notice they bring four difrent rypes of
continers to hold what I am trying to give them. The frst vesscl is
a
strainer, much like the fber mesh of a coconut tre, the second container
resemble a buflo, the third seems to be broken pot and the fourth
resemble a swa. Everyone who come bring one of these fur containers
to hold what I am ofg.
When I tell them, `LO is W divine netar whose equisite tate you
w neer tire of" when I invite them to drink this divine honey, ad
when I hold it out to them, trying to pour it into them, their vessc does
not hold it. Tothose who come with the mind of a strainer I say, "Come
here child, here is the honey, Dcrc uthe nectar." But when I pour it into
them the honey spills through it; only the dross, the dirt, is lef behind.
Then when they look at it they say, "What's this? I sec only garbage
here!" and they leve.
Next come those who have minds like a broken pot. I say, "Here, hold
m, drink it." I pout the netr into their pot, they Ca few steps, look
into the pot and fnd it empty.
Everything I pour flls through the hole of the pot. This broken pot
of the lower mind which has no determination cnnot hold it. Then they
scold me, "Where is this thing you have been telling about? I cannot
CC it, you H mistaken, you h not rlseen God," and they leave.
Now those with the mind of a buflo arrive. I point to the ocen of
divine net the lake of equisite cm water, urging them to drink its
essence, but instead of wkng along the lakeshore and drinking crefully
at the shore, wout O the middle, jumping up ad d.churning
up mud, dirQing the water. They come back fom the middle of the
Ccnh!mmavri
T Di Assembly 45
lake and "Where is clen water you talk about, where i that
equisite taSte? Twc see is dirt!" They the one who dirty the
water and they the one who come back to ask the question. They
take the frst three steps of ascending consciousnes, s .kiriyai and
yom, distrbing the purity of Udivine nectr with these three steps.
They also leave.
The furth kind of person come like a certin swa, U beutifl bird,
pure white in color with a long beak. This paticula y !hey say, is
hard to fnd in the world. Uyou mix water ad milk together, this bird
dips its bek in and strains out the milk, leaving the water behind. It h
the integrity and the ability to distinguish milk &om water Those who
arrive like this wable to discriminate the worldly from the divine.
They clly extract the divine, leving illusion behind. In the guru's
words and in whatever is in your own mind and wisdom, the uUmixture
of pure milk and water. Whoever c make the distnction between the
to and into himself the essence of purity, the essence of truth, ha
reched the srton of a gni, a divinely wise being.
Only someone who h the discriminating ability separate relity
&om uity csee himself or herself, see God and merge with t.
That person alone is able to se the truth, to undertand illusion. He sees
his own lif, he sees the lives of others and ccommunicat with all of
them. He chear the difrent prayers and meictions of various beings
on earth, he understnds the nature of these prayers, these medications,
he hers the sounds coming from their prayers. He is able to tune mcrs
to the sounds of agels and heavenly being, to understad their prayers
and meditations. He malso rune hisca to her the voice of God coming
&om within himsel Although most people see things with two Q, m
divinely wise being see with ech pore of his skin. Each pore uan eye he
csee with. He bbillion of por superchaged with divine light, a
these pores see all around him, behind, in &ont, on all sides. W ses
heaven, mand everything. everg in existence. He ses everything
clearly, in totality. Nor a single living being is missed by thee eyes becue
each hair follicle, each pore on the skin is an eye.
When you charge yourself with the battery of wisdom ech pore is lit
with light, like a light bulb. If thee lights switche on the whole
city is complete light. You W like the sun, always bright, never night, a
state in which there is no day and nigt, it is always day. Pecious children,
may God grant you that kind of wisdom. Many of you come here aking
me to give you what I have, but if you bring these thing of yours with
46 THE TREE TT FELL TO THE WEST
you, there uno room fr what I have to gve. Drop thee thing. There u
no room in your storehous fr 0O. Come empty and openhanded, then
you C store whatever I give you. Ma you attain this kind of wisdom.
A min.
]a1uar 9. 1972
Ccnh!mmavri
1
Cnh!mria
7 THE RoKY MouNTAN
I
n ar11 t, the world of souls, God gve peace to all living things, but
they forgot this peace when they ce here to Uu world. May that
same peace emerge within m of them again, and may 1mbw that
pec. May that peace be within M all, my children, all my brothers
and sisters. May we all h that pece.
Perhaps I can tell you a fewincident from my life, my history. During
my lif I searce to fnd where, voand ho I could fnd peace, srenity,
traquility and euality. The world said I would fnd it her, there, in that
tree, this philosophy, that religion, in thi cave or on that mountain. t
person or goup in turn said I would fnd pece in all those difrent places,
and so I went to each one of them searching for peace. They said if I
meditted I would fnd peace, they said ifl chated mantra I would have
pece, then they said ifl performed miracles I would have everything. They
said, "If you eperience the df nt fature of these miracles you will
fnd peace."
I tried m and every thing, one by one, but I did not fnd pece. I
studied all the religions, Zbir, that i s Hinduism, Jabrat or fr worship,
Injil, a name fr Christianity, and Furqan, another name fr U.I trie
to fnd peace in whatever they talked about.
Cra religious leders, some mb1juor messengers and some gurus
said I had to travel the path of religion, study the religons. did that.
Others said, "You can't find pece tere, @to the jungle." But wherever
I looke I saw fgting mumct, separation ad a sense odim nncc.
Wherever I looked mi swhat I saw, not a single race or religion without
fghting, without murder. At lat I said, L this is hopeless, where can I
go, what religion ca I tur to, where can I go?" When I loked at the sea
I saw one creture eating another, creatures fghting with each other, the
bigr ones eating the smaller one. When I went to the jungle it w the
sae, when I went to the city they were also fghting and when I went to
the religions 0ON the sae fghting in each religion. Within each r
49
Ccnh!mmavri
50 THE TEE THAT FELL TO THE WES
I found similar fghtng too. Een among member of the same race they
fught and devoured each other.
Then a gnini a wise msaid, "Are you searching for pece? Go to a
cave high up in a mountin, sit there, meditate, worship and pray, then
you will fnd peace."
I said, L do you think so? All right, I wiU go." I went there, to a tll
mountin, sa and prayed a long while. Five yeas, six y, eight yers,
ten years went by, but when I use my eyes I still fund it was all fghting.
In the jungle, in the city, everyone w fghting, there was murder
everywhere. I said, "What doe this men? There is no place where LOis
not, yet there is no place without fghting amurder, no place without
sin. Where will I fnd peace now, where cI go?" I thought, "I have been
sitting in this place for ten years and it i s no different here."
1I whaving thee thoughts, the rocky mountain I was sitting on
began to speak, "They are all stone-bene, each of them murdering
someone else." The rocky mountin said, L man, come here." Then it
asked, "Where do you think you are? Pyou sitting inside tis cave on
te mountain, you meditatng inside this rocky mountin cave? You
think you are sittng here meitating to fnd pece, but you have grown a
rocky mountain inside yourself harder than this mountain on the outside.
There is a rocky mountain you mgrown inside yourself where you have
nurtured arrogance, you mnurtured pride, yet you m that peace ad
equality. Youkeep searching fr peace for yourself. you keep serching for
tranquility fr your you searching for serenity ad quiet fr yoursel
But this mmountain you are growing inside you is an immense cve.
You are not sitting inside me, you sitting in the cve you have made
for yoursel Wh.atever you have grown inside yourself is te cyou
sitting in. You are in the cave you have built yourself, but you say you are
sitting in a rocky mountain cave.
"First break down that rocky mountain you have inside you, break
down that karma, armce, selfshness and pride which all inside,
break them down. This rocky mountain of the world is inside you; frst
break that down. You are sitting beneath the mountain of the world: that
wocld and that rock mountain inside you, and you are sitting there
inside them. You have pride, conceit, your name, your fme, your tide
and your miracles, and in the middle of m this you keep rrying to fnd
peace and serenity.
"But thee teru wepon, the wepons of murder, inside you.
These weapons wQcuse m the trouble still inside you. If you c
Ccnh!mmavri
7eRNou>mn 51
throw away this world and these wepons, then you will discover where
peace and tranquility are, you will discover where justice and honesty U
you will discover the t.ruth telling you where huma being live, where
animals live.
Ly frst become a true hbeing. If you bome a uue human
being all living things will bow down before you. If you become Go all
living thing will worship you. If you become a gntni, a wise human being.
you will be something peaceful for all living things. You will be a source
of pece fr all living things. If you become tuth you will be food fr
everyone, and all your words will create peace. If you become justice you
will bring unity and peace to the wisdom of others. If you fnd all this
within yourself you will know the kingdom of heaven within your own
sdf, you will have the kingdom of Go inside. Then the kingdom of the
world and illusion, the kingdom of hell will disappear for you, ad when
they leave, you will fnd peace.
"You will also fnd that eeryone is your brother or sister, alive in that
one place in your heart. In this light of purity which is your heart, in this
light of the soul you will fnd aU your brothers and sisters living in that
kingdom. You wil l fnd mne in that kingdom of gninam, of divine
wisdom, in that kingdom of your Father, that kingdom of the soul, that
kingdom of Go.
"Yet without thring away the world and thee illusions, you sit her
on this rock mountain and say you have meditated for ten years. You say
you have not seen anything. You are ffty yers old. For ffty yers you have
been sitting on this mountain witin you, and you have only t on this
outer mountain fr ten y.Whoever it was who went into that mountin
inside never came out, never escaped from it. Come out fom that rocky
mountain of the world and fnd peace and tranquility. 1long W you do
not break up this mountain and throw it away, you will not fnd pece.
"You have fur sections within you. You have to cross over the path of
earth where you are assaulte by gales and storms. Then there is the sea of
lif. You have to cross over the ocean of water. Then the winds and storms
of the air bear you down, storms which c make the land a G and the
sea into land. You have to cross over this sea of storms and gles until you
come to fre. All your thoughts and everything you sec are the fres that
can destroy other being, they can bur other people. Your thoughts, your
intentions, what you sec, thee Wthe things that kill others and detroy
them. These spirits, thee words can kill, they can destroy or cause pain
and sufering to others.
Ccnh!mmavri
52 Wttt7 tt1L t t
"Thee four sectons are there inside you, and you hto throw them
away, overcome them. There is a ffh thing, torpor, ether or outer space.
You can be enchante by illusin, by maya, by what you see, and you L
make others feel the fscination of these illusory deires. The enh is your
body, water is the mcmpose by the liquid part of your body, consi s
of the thoughts and intcnticnsin your body, thcspirits, fre i te strong
het which cme from ech feeling of anger, jealousy or pride, feling
which attack and hurt others and ether u torpor, the selhshne which
detroys your lif. You have to overcome thee fve, you have to go beyond
these fve.
"These fve things take fve frms, and they also rake the form of fve
religions. 1long as you do not understand this and overcome them, you
sufer. Understnd this, know it and emerge from these fve. 1 long a
you do not, you cannot cros over the world and overcome it, you cannot
fnd peace. You must understand thee fve, know them and go beyond.
Only then will you fnd peace. Understand them, discover what the
religions are, what prayer is, what truth is, who you are, who God is, what
peace is, what justice is, what conscience is, what lif i s and who your
family is. Discover whether ware one or many. Where did the six kinds
of lif come from, are they within me or do they exist on he outside in
others? Earth lif, fre lif, water life, air life, ether life, light life-are they
inside me or do they live somewhere else?
"Investigte this and you will underscad that the water lives are inside
you, germs and viruses which live in water are within you. Next are the
lives that live in the air and live that live in the earth which exist as aror,
as viruses, a cells. What was inside you, God brings outside and keeps it
outside. The fsh and the other creatures, the water beings of the sea
and the animals in the jungle W all Ning things within you. These six
kinds of lif which are inside you arc also visible on the outside.
"What exists on the inside takes form on the outside, Vhat exists on
the oucside is found within. You must understand this. Once you
understnd this, you will not kill those lives that come from inside you.
Once you know these live came from you, you vill not kill them, you
will not eat them becuse they pan of you. Instead, you Vil send them
to their respective sections to let them develop there. You will let them go
to their respective place and you w epe. Then you will have less weight
inside you, the world will be less, you will be free of the world. Send
everything from the air, from your mzf, your base desires, back to the air.
Send everything that lives in fre back to the fre, send those qualities to
Ccnh!mmavri
The R Mout 53
the fre. Give back God what live in God and send te thing that live
in illusion c illusion. Then you who cme from God can go back to God,
you will live in Hi. Then you cfnd pece. First go back. Understand
this, lean this and you will fnd peace."
This uwhat the rock mountain said, then contnue, "You did not
understand that. Now I am;mly a stone, but you a stone made of
clay; lam a roky stone, you are a day stone. At let I can be used for
something while you made of clay and cnnot be used fr anything. I
c be used to build bridges or houses, bur you a sof lump of clay
which cannot be used for anything. If you do not understand that, you
will not b of use to the world or to God, you V not serve any good
purpose.
"First learn to be a tue man. There is no use just sitting here. You
not sitting inside me, you sitting in the roky moun rain within yourself,
you are sitting in the cof your arrogance, karma and illusion. Now go,
understand about those cve. The jungle is inside you, the city is inside
you, the mountain is inside you, the animals H inside you. Now @,
hunt all this down, discover it and complete that understanding. Then
you w fnd peace."
This is what the rocky mountain told me. May w undenake ro
understand this. I give you my love, my love you. I did her what the
rocky mountain said ad set about studying these thing, one by one, all
over again. I did my reearh into these Bwhat happens in the c,
in water, the _ ,the insects, rhe birds, the monkeys, what they do, what
kind of unity they have. I looked at reptiles and ant, observing what they
were doing. I wandered around wondering where I could fnd peace.
The mountain had told me ro search and study in the religions; > I
went \ rhe religions. There I found fur people, a thief a madman, a
drunk and a swai or gal sitting around under a rree. They sat there
with their beards and mustaches, each talking in his own language saying
a, ooh or something else in his own tongue. I had the thought, "Thee
are four _nun u, fur wise men from the four religions, perhaps I Clearn
something from them." I went over to the tree and stood there watching.
The si who wa holy man had a Bible, the drunk had old book,
one of the Pui , the Hindu scriptures, the madman held a piece of
paper and the thief had a bag with a pair of scissors and some other
instruments. The thief kept looking at the thing in his bag which he held
B if it were a little book, something he kept reading nonstop.
Since these four individuals happened to be there, I thought I should
54 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
stay around t see what went on. They N started string at each other
and bean to yell, they begn to fght. the four men starre to fght
pas ersby notice, "0 the four samis a fghting," and a grat crowd
gathered to watch. I thought, "If I get involved in this I might have to
fght with them," so I deided to ke p out of i t and just observe what
went on.
Now the four of them stood up to w away, the drunk stumbli ng
this way and that, spitting and making difrent noises, the madman
making funny noise too. The gnini w M; even though he was called
a gnt. he had a kind of madnes too. They were all crazy, the thief w
crazy, the madma w c,swami w c and the drunk w crazy.
The si w acting strangely, doing this and that, making various signs,
tking to someone. He held up the Bible then raised his hand, talking to
someone in the sky. The drunk stumbled around walking everywhere,
apparently loking for something, picking up anything he thought might
be valuable. He kept looking at the paper in hishand. This man's madness
w obsession for money. He strted preparing his accounts, writing
checks, "The train is mine, the shop is mine, the world is mine," he w
counting, writing it down saying, "They're all mine." It w the desire
for money that drove the drunk mad.
The madman had an obsession for a certain woman. Thinking a
photograph of the woman w on a piee of paper, he picked it up ad
started kising it holding it to his heart and then embracing it. All four
were going through performancs in their own deluded way. The thief w
obsesed with miracles, the drunk w obsessed with money, the swami
holding the Bible talke in a crazy way, ad the madman w obsessed
with women.
The thief, wa also a philosopher who believe in miracles. He had a
pair of scissors. He held the scssors to a dry leaf ad said, "0 leaf you
were so beutiful when you frst cme here, you had such lovely color,
but now you a dry and tomorrow you will be dust. He started to cut it
up saying, "No you a fnished, you a nothing." Then he bent over,
"Tomorrow I will be dust too; you will become dust and I will also be
dust. There's no point in any of U, what c we do?" He looked up, he
looked down, he picked up a leaf. The madman held up a paper looking
fr the picture of a woman. The drunkard w looking for money. The
swami holding a Bible tlked to someone up above saying, "I am great, I
coming there too."
The fur of them were walking along the same ro, not letting anyone
Ccnh!mmavri
The Rc Mountn 55
else pass them by, all acting the same wEach had a difrent obsession,
but they were acting the same way; one wa obsese with M woman, one
with money, one with philosophy and one with spiritual knowledge. Ech
of them ha dominating thought which had made him insane.
Then I head a sound, "Do you understad? Lyou tee fur
people, do you understand them? This is what the religions are like.
Understand m; it is madnes. They have a certain reson fr teir
madness, something happene M their lives and they wt mad. This is
what is clled religion. Lyou understand that?
"However, there is a tue rligion which cme fom God's decree, fm
something He commanded. You must lea this fom within. The other
is seen on the outside. Find out what is inside and lean it with claity.
This is the rel religion. To understnd the words of God within that
religion is the truth. When you fnd this truth you will fnd peace, and
that peace is God. Then the unity you see in thi s place i s the unity of
God's kingdom. This i s the kingdom of peace wher you accept everyone
as if they were your own. You think of all living thing as your own life,
and see all bW as your W+ This is peace. The love that comes when you
think of all live a your W is paradise, the kingdom of God.
"Understding that stte is prayer. Chum everything and etract peace
fm it. This is the way to have peace. Paradise is God, man and the truth
living together. Only when this stte is etblishe within you do you fnd
pece, and then the peace of all living thing is your peace and ese, the
pece of all lives is dwelth, the joy of your life. When you understand
this state, that is wisdom, the state oflove, the state of God.s qualities. 1
long W you fil to know this or undersrand it, you do not have peace in
your lif. You have the sufring of hell, you have mental pain. You sufr
and experience torture in lif ad die an undying death. Your lif goe on
but you not dead, you die inch by inch. This is a ter ible disease which
tortures you. Think about it. When you understnd this, when you realize
this you wil l recognize that the peace of others is your peace.
"You will see the lives of others within yourself and the joy in their
lives will be your joy. You will know God's joy and taste it litde by litde.
Until you know this, you are like these madmen, each with a different
reason fr his madness. Each man h a reon, a sourc, of mmadness.
Everyone i swalking along the same road but each with his own insanity.
"You must have the clarity to fnd that one treasure, God, P M.
the truth, wisdom and mening fm ech thing, one by one. On that
day you will have your peace and the pece of others. If you do not do
56 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
that you will not fnd peac in this world, in the kingdom of L, in the
kingdom of souls, in your own life or in the kingom of heaven.
"You c only fnd that peac once you have discrded everything.
What remains will be God's qualite, the fur virtuous qualitie of modety,
reserve, sincerity ad fear of wrongdoing, good conduct, sabir inner
patience, mr absolute contentment, m mm-m . urust in God,
and alhamu l/, ofing praise to f w.Just Wge be churned
and etracted fom milk, churn yourself and etract these qualities. You
cn make ghee fom milk step by step, then when you melt the ghee it i s
like a mirror in which you can see yourself
"In the sme w you have to churn the fve element within you ad
chur your fve sense with wisdom etract imin, absolute faith, and
the truth that u God . Churn your het with wisom, churn the fve de
ment, the fve senes ad etract the truth. Then when you melt this truth
you will see that God is a mirror and that you the form seen in that
mirror. God i s the mirror in which you see your frm. Once you chu
the heart, your beauty and form are sen there in that mirror, and within
that beauty you see into each and every thing in eistence . You will see
that peace. Th is what you have to fnd, yet as long as you study the
rdigions without knowing that, you will not r the station of truth.
Religions practice for many diferent reasons, but God has said just
one word. The es ence, the replendence in all the religions is just one
poim.
"God's essenc, His rmt Hisgace or mercy, rises up step by step.
First it w in the earth, then it grew lager and it grew again. Then it rose
up, it stretched and came up, it ascnded, it g ad then it emerged.
God's ramt grew and grew and g in the religions roo, until fnally it
emerge. First it gros i nthe religions, then it g in m and become
God. You mut go through the four religions, extract the truth from them,
le about insin, a human being, and etract what is within him; in t
you can fnd the truth. Step by step His rohmtgrows. Gods word grows
and fourishes.
These mc thc words given to me many, many years ago, and then
wherever I went, I found all thee madmen. Whichever road I traveled I
found madness, the kind of madnes stemming fom difrnt thoughts.
They all had a certain stubbornness or obstinacy about a particular thing,
either an obsesion about color, race, religion or any kind of diference.
They all had something, y if they lost their money or had a bout of
diarthea, the madness would leave. No one accepts you if you have no
Ccnh!mmavri
c Roc Mountain 57
money. The religions will not accept you. P long as you physical
strength, physic beauty, money, a home, property, only do do they
accept you. If you have something they accept you, but if you do nor have
anything they fnd u tey wnot acept }uaccpt you beuse
they can gin something fom you; otherwise they will not accept you.
This is wr mpens mthe world. Only if you chu yourself to etc
everything about man and God, only if you collect the truth yoursef
you able to understand it. That uthe truth. This mens your wisdom has
to penetrate everything to fnd clarity with imn, with absolute fith. To
do rh.s you need faith, certitude, determination ad tm. ft in God.
You mut have the qualitie of :u01, inner patience, :bokr, absolute
conrenrmenr, twakku/l , trust in God, ad ubumu b. ofering
all praise to God. You need wisdom, the wisdom to learn how to acuire
thee qualitie, how O know thee things and find clarity.
Open your heart! You have to open your herr, discard this duny this
world, ad remove all the veils of the world. Kep God and His kingdom
within yourself, keep God's justice within you. You must know today the
judgent God will pass on you tomorrow. Know your fult ad try to
correct them. Befre He raises you on Judgent Day, before He passe
judgent on you, jude yourself while you are here. Would that not be a
good thing O do? Befre there is an inquiry in the hereafer about the
good ate bad you have done, would it not be a good ideto understd
the good ad the bad you have been rsponsible fr while you were here?
Before you judged redy for heven or hell in the hereer, should
you not recogize the good thing ad the bad things you actually do here
now, and ever aer aoid evil, acept the good ad live on in thoe good
qualities?
If you investigate yourself you ca discover where you are and lern
what is good. If you have that judgent here instead of there, later on
you wil1 not be found guilt becue this is the same inquiry which tkes
place aerwards. Throw away the evil, the sin which stems fom ech
thought, mlook, ech intention, and keep just the ones that good
and use them. csin will not touch you, c!w||not appea. If yoW @
on doing this throughout your life, if you make mjudgment on yurself
durn you l, you build your W heen and have the rit to be one
with your Father. Rcni both the sound and the light of your Father
in your actions. Keep seeing m,kep checking this during your lif ad
you will never separate from your Fther in this world or the he.
s is peac, ad understanding this is wt you have to lean.
Ccnh!mmavria
58 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
Everyone ce here to len this. Think about it. Everything you se
ua guru. f God's cretion, all the creature made by the Creator m
here fr you to study Ugood and the bad, to have clarity abcut the thing
that are good and the thing that mbad, to know what truth is, what
flsehoo to know what good, what evil, what food good, what
kubad. Some thing poisonous and some thing anot. There
are good human beings and bhuman beings, good animals and bad
animals. You mto lea how to understand all this.
I give you my love, my precious children. Thee words gven to me
during my lif mthe words I telling you now. This is the way W fnd
cQin ywlif. Instd of waiting fr tomorrow's Judgent Day,
your judge yourelf while you mstill 8w. The courthouse, God's
house, mad hell mall wmyou. God's hou, the house of heven,
the house of judgment, the house of paradise, the house of hell, the house
of peace m wm you, and you MM know which is which. If you
build the right thing inwardly, you will fnd peace.
May you think about this. I give you my love, jeweled light of my

.These mcerrin words given to me in the course of my experience.


A-mLu au mmmay the pee and blessing of God be with you. A min.
1 mzz, J
Ccnh!mmavri
Ccnb!emdla
8 WH BAWA MuHADDEEN@
HEAD WHILE IN MEDITATION
D
uring my meditation I found myself praying high up above the
world somewhere, a stton high above mc world. 1 could see it
beneth me. UAmeric they show you a globe they cth.e world,
and this is the way it app to me, a globe. I wpraying high up above
it. While I pray every atom seemed to emerge fm a certain source.
Eerything wsilent and still until somebody touched or prodded it, then
atm would emege. There wno plac where mmnot happen.
son a a cuse or bi fr acton wprnt, the atom wouLd projet only
what had alredy happe. While I wsete in meiton I saw U.
Suddenly the station where I wa praying changed; what had been the
world was split in y ad I wthrown down onto a mountain of ice. l
found myself upside down seted in meitaton, my hdclaspe m_cmc:,
but my head wdown and my fetwere up. The place I win resembled
a _v, yet the space wa not oppressive, it seemed open, but I could not
speak. 1 stye in this state fr about an hour, looking at :ll the thing
that had happened befre, te te I had been here, what I did earlier.
My life had not lef me although my body had turned in to a block of
glistening ic which shone like cystl, like a glistening palace of ice. My
body still had lif, and within it I could see every thought emerging as a
shakthi an energy. The =. the soul, had not departe, and 1 could see
myself speaking.
I was at the center of a sound that cme fom eere. All the
creations and all they had done cme back to my memory. Everything
spoke, telling me what it wor what it did. I would each thing and
pour a different kind of medication on each. l fund these medications
creted a different efct on each of them. One might cause unconscious
ness, another prevent unconsciouness. Some medications epose what
had happene elier, sme medictons red what would happen later
or what ce in b. Some medictions cook thing to the brink of
death.
61
62 THE TREE THAT FELL TO TE WET
They wnall speaking about such dUngs. Each rime a certain cretion
was nudged by something it would relate it erlier experience. Each atom,
each cell, each viru emerged to communicate with me, eplaining that if
you take one chemicl ad apply it to another, such and such an efct
would ocur. They explained that you c take something from one of
rhe fve dement and give it to another element, you ctake something
from earth and give it ro fre, you ctake something fom the sun, fom
water, air or ether. 1we took something fom each of them and gave it
to something else, certin atoms had dfr ways of speaking.
Then the stte of the jinns, the fries, angels and prphets were shown
to me, w0 the meaning of ech stte revealed. All these thjngs were
revealed as I calked to te. The sound coming from within seemed to
be a solid rocklke frm, even though it was speech. It cme from a state
in which the body did not move or shake. No matter where anything
orignated, the sound emerged only when I prodded or tappe it, whether
it wheat, the soul or een a stone; unless I touched it the atom would
not come forth.
For that reason, if you want to analyze something, whether it is the
nh, the soul, or anything else, you have to prod it, you b to make
contact with your wisdom befre it will emerge. There are seven levels of
wisdom. To investigte every point at each level of wisdom you have ro
make contact with it, tap or nudge it. This applies to anything you want
to analyze in this world. Otherwise, a natural investigation must ripen by
itself If this natural invetigation matures by itself, ripens by itself, it will
fll just a ripened fruit flls naturally fm a tree. Once it reache a certain
maturity it drops by itself, and in the same way, when a man's soul, his
state, his prayer, his meditation, his wisom and his investigation reach
maturity, they drop by Ucc.Then where do they go? They go straight
to God. If that power ha nor been achieve, they have four hundred
trillion, ten thousand spiritual qualitie. Reearch and invetigton show
each difrent quality. Then you have to give it a particular chemical to
change that qualiry, you have to make contact, tap it awake and give it
the right chemical, whatever the research dictates.
Certain medictions you g to people who are insane make them
dn; some make them unconscious and they nor aware of their
surrounding. Some medictions awaken memories, thing that happened
before are revealed to a patient and come back to rum again and again.
Yet only what happened befre is revealed, not what will happen. What
will happen in the future, what is about to happen u not shown, nor are
Ccnh!mmavri
Wt Bawa Muaydde@ He Wile in Meditation 63
the four virtuous qualities of modesty, reserve, sincerity and fear of
wrongdoing. Only the things that alredy over are awakened. It could
be love, money or whatever, thee memorie come back. This what that
chemical bring back, this drowsiness evokes those memorie.
There is aothe medicton which make a:person epansive, it c
hunger; another one loks a person usilence, he doe not speak, he merely
sit with h head bowed. This is the nature of that chemical. tmight
cty, he might just sit staring of into the distance or with his e fxed on
something. His attention doe not wander. Certin medications make
peple want to t ther hair out or pull of an arm or a leg, some chemicls
make them do this.
Each chemicl produces its own efet. Some make a person use flthy
language, some create anger, some make a person bite or scold or curse.
Each chemical has some efft, continually turing the mind upside down,
always producing what happened earlier; still. thee chemicls do not take
the person to a place where he thinks about the life that is to come, how
he should conduct t life. Chemicals keep turing mmback to f the
past, what happened befre, what is over and done with. Tqdo not
take mto a state of clarity where he can think and plan hisfture. This
cannot be done with chemicls.
What do you have for that, what do you usc to make a person
contemplate the future? With words, with wisdom and love you have to
diminish WQtendencie and tke Uperson to anot place. Youhave
to make him want to leave the wrong place by giving cerrain explanations
and saying, "Do this, do that, come here, look at this.n You must interest
him in the alternative, and while he is busy with the thing you a trying
to show him, you also Qto divert the other inuences. understnding
from this invetigtion aise, as he keeps on diging into ec explanation
and the understanding becomes crrect, it will engage him. The wisdom
of these qualities will attact him, the essence of these qualities or actions
will attract him.
What I saw at that time, in fct, were many difrent kinds of analysis
and research. If you reWh the right state by yourself the world cnnot
swallow you; with the right kind of investigtion different things can be
understood. In that investigative stte you c hear the sounds of many
things. You c also send out your own sound. In this state, you a able
to emit or re sound.
I saw much more, but that ua|I I c remember. There were many
things I saw during this meditation, things about scienc, the methods of
64 W1 TREI THAT FELL TO THE WEST
science, about the chem.icals or shaHi: within thing, the energies that
were trying to change the world, to reuce all the good qualitie, to keep
your attention foued on things which happened in the past, thing which
were over long ago, instead of rrying to consider the fture and what you
should do with your lif.
Psychologists and scientfc rerchers are only concerned with what
happened in te past, with women, 2 wealth or whatever occupied your
attention before. But if you rlly invetgate properly and :nd the right
point .... Ua &uit Mit Mb itel Wothat atom come t &uition
the &uit &lis. When. a pearl ripens in the oster and i s mature it loosens
by itel When every point mature in the right stte it releaes itelf fm
the world, it shake itself fee of the world and fls away. Every thought
shake itself fee of the world and u away. Pmquality develops to
maturity, it is released and m that i s lef is God's power, nothing else.
Everything else mr
I have frgoten the rest of what I saw. Is this sort of thing repoTed in
the research and investigations of science, to be upde down in a state
ike 1glistening crystal of ic, head down, feet up? Later on, the position
ws corrected, my head ce up agin, yet when I frst uH

m_upside
down 1thought, L it's all over, they going to bury me in this grave."
This what I thougt, but they did not, although I did think everything
ws fnished. My form remained W it + I could hear things and I could
even snd out mes age. My I ad bdwere not together, but exrende
or at my side. My body positioned fr meditation even though it was
upside down, head d, signifing the way a child is positioned in the
womb with it head down, feet up. When a baby is in the womb, at frst
the head is up and the feet down; later, when it Uready be born,
te head _mdown. It correct itself befre it comes out. When you pray
you sit erect; still, uyou reach the maturity, the ripeness of that, perhaps
you do mH upside down and emerge the other way. This is the way it
seems to me, I do not ko I rl saw this and it looked so beautiful
Those were the eact words spoken to me.
Before a chick hatche from the @it has a cerin sound, a certain
voice, it makes a sound inside the @ . it pecks at the shell trying to
come out, trying to crack it open, it makes that sound and the mother
hen appears to help it come out. The sound the chick make inside the
eg can be heard only by the mother hen. In the same way, the sound
coming fom a heat flled with the tenderness of true prayer cbe he
only God. Even in your dreams, if you have a nightmare and shout,
Ccnh!mmavria
What Bawa Muaiyadden@ Heard Wile m Medirarion 65
the person lying beide you will not her it, although to the dremer it i
a terrible sound W he ss in the terror of his nightmare. gkind
of fear stragled sound might come from the dreamer at that time,
sometimes even waking him up. Just W a person lying beside the drer
may not hear what he shouts mmnightmare, the Wwthat @out fm
your qaib, your inner heart, the words that @outfrom your wisdom are
heard by God alone. Even someone beside you will not know. And W a
chick make a sound inside the @which is music to the hen's ear, once
Ushell cracs and te chick comes out, the sound i quite dift, it
cannot CI make the 5e sound ain.
When you a a little your sound umfrent, yet once you cO,
your sound, your life and your conduct change. A different wind blow
across you, your food is different, the level of heat changes, your
environment is entirely changed. When you are connecte to God, when
you are deep mprayer, m worship, in J` Jor fikr, the remembrance or
contemplation of God. when you are in that state of connection to Go,
it `u bCutifl. If you do your praer in the right w,with deep feling.
the sound coming from you i beautiful. Whenever you do your prayer in
the right w there is a beautiful sound, but if you change, if you move
away from that place of prayer and come back into the world, it Ulike
th.e chick once it brks U shell and comes out. When you go into a
state of prayer your sound is difrent, but once you cthat prayer your
sound Udiffernt. Once you leave there, the sound ulike a chicks afer it
breaks the shell. The world surrounds you, your desire, your cravings,
your hunger, many things make that sound entirely different, and then
you start fghting. you quarrel about your house, your property, anything.
If you refect on u you will u how much subdety there is in
each of these points.
If I am a man, my children will become true men too, human beings.
They will be children, of wisdom, and uthey are children of wisdom they
will be children of Lbecuse they will have the qualities of God, they
will be God's fmily. Ten tere i no far.
In His divine words fm His divine sound God rold c gghco, "I
created Adam who knows thing even the heavenly being do not ko
has the ability to know thing the angels and heavely beings a
incapable of knowing."
Jinns and firie ha only thirty-six tthwa or potentialities, een
thogq ae cpable of ehanging one form for another. They c
change their form, they have many abilities, they c even fy, but the
Ccnh!mmavria
66 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WET
children of Adam@ know thing the heavenly beings d not know. In the
blink of an Q, these beings can fy all around the world and come back
to where they started. They L create the world within themselves md
they can cancl the world within themselve, they can throw it away. Thee
beings created with earth, fre, water, air ad ether, fve angels which
for the world.
Some beings are creted with fre. There earth lives, fre lives, air
lives, water live, ether lives and then there is the life of man which is a
lif of light. Fire lives and light live different. The lif olight comes
from God. It h to come fm God becaue it emerges from God, this
life of an iman, of a true human being. The others come from creation,
from earth, fre, air and ether, bur the life of light comes from God
Himself.
God kept just one of His powers for Himself and gave all the other
ninety-nine to the childen of Adam. He told the angels, "Only when a
son of Adam strays does he cme under your control. If he becomes weak
you might be able to overcome him, bur when he stays in his original
state you are not his equal. If his wisdom weakens, if his faith weakens,
when his wisdom, his hn, his certitude, faith and trust in God are weak,
then perhaps you L get the upper hand. long W he is stng and
remains in his original state, you can never conquer him. I kept only one
power for Myself and gave all the other ninety-nine to the children of
Ada.
`U the blink of an eye a person can go around the world once, he can
throw the world away from himself or create it for himself. How doe; he
do that? Each of you cretes things inside your body. Man L create the
world inside him or eliminate it, thar is his stte. He ha the understanding
to do this. In the blink of an eye he can bring the world into being in
himself or eliminate it."
These are the divine words that came fom Allah, words which came
fm Allah to His prophets. And He said more, "There is a Judgment Day.
I have given everything to man. I have given everything to him and I will
not investigate or punish him until that Judgment Day. I have allotted his
r, his food and the water he needs. When the food and water set aside
for him are fnished, 1will make My inquiries. I do not punish, 1do nor
kill or hurt anyone, each individual dos whatever he doe to himself I
do not se.ek anyone our, I do not do anything to anyone. Someone wlio
has lost his strength, who is weak in fith, fls under the contol of satan,
of demons or ghost. Someone whose strength of iman fails, whose fith,
Ccnh!mmavria
`a: bav Muhaiyaddeen@ Hed While in Meditation
certitude and decenninacion flter, this person bring destruction upon
himself. To lose your fith in God is itself detruction.
"When a forest is dry you do nor need a fame to make it catch fre,
the forest can create a fre by itself. Similarly, che man who ha gone atray
m a forest in his heart which creates a fre, a fre that burs the forest
inside him and bus h coo. Pople destroy themselves; you do nor need
soldiers or armies t detoy people who have committe somany mistake,
they bring their own destruction upon themselves.w
Now when you look at what is happening today, when you look at
thi s world, it is the time of destruction when insin will destroy insin, man
will destroy ma. This is not God's trial, this is what happens when huma
beings tum into animals. One goup become animals, one grup beome
satan. You see this happening in the world today everywhere you look. It
is very hard to fnd a country where there a true human being. Ic seems
to be the time when human beings kill each other, when human beings
eat each other. This u what w see. Faith in God has been Jost.
God does nor destroy man, nevertheless human beings say, "I am in
charge, I a acnqueror, I a a destoyer, I rule. And so man destroys
man. God dos not do this. You csee it with your own eyes at the present
time. Just turn and look at the world, that is what you se.
You must try to escape fom the state of the world. Brotherly unit,
sisterly unity, you have co foster peace in your fmily. Sisters and brothers
must live in unity, live in harmony. Sons and daughters, grandsons and
granddaughters, neighbors, those bor with you, may you all live in a stte
of shinti, of peace, a state of unity. May you all come together in unity
and march co your Father's kingdom. May you bring that state of pece
and tranquility to your heart.
Once you die and a laid in the grave, none of your relative go with
you, none of the members of your race go with you. They just leave you
there. What cakes you beyond the gave is the good and the bwyou were
responsible for before you died. If you have not done anything good in
this lif, you will nor have a companion to twith you lacer. If you do
not have true love you cannot have true unity, and chis is the reason you
cannot proceed beyond. You need help to go beyond the grave, and that
help consists of the good actions, good thoughts and the help you offer co
others while you a here. Even though you might have done evil, these
are things chat c liberate you, these a things that are vital for your
journey beyond the grave. Think about chis.
These a the things that give you the great victory of your life, the
68 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
victory that peace will bring. May you strugle hard for this. Every child,
think deeply about it. A min, imin. A-si u 'li kum. May the peace of
Go bcinyour heart, now and always.
juL 31, 1985
Coprgh!c mavri
Cnh!mria
q
-
THE TRUE VAUE
OF EERIENCE
I
famnow and because my life is dedicted to helping others I can help
many fmilie with my work on the frm. When I frst came to this
hit jungle I had to clea, then I had to dig the mwith nothing
but a spade bere I could plow it and make drainage ditche. I @rice
and vegetable fr the people, supplied fdder fr L and goats, I even
put a fence around the land.
I have worked at many jobs. 1haVbeen a baer, a laundryman, once
I worked a a slave. I have also practiced medicne. I have eorcsed demons
and taught divine knowledge. I have done many difrent jobs, yet while
I was doing all this I have never filed to cout God's commands. I d
God's work. and when I leave here I will continue to do His work. 1do
God's work, but I also do the world's work, the world that you, my
children, need. I teach only what I know and what I have experienced,
only what I have leed fom personal experience. If I have not profted
from a paticula thing. I do not teach it. Since I tate eery ingredient of
Uc food, if it is poisonous I will not offer :tto you, if :\has a sweet taste
I will recommend it. Once I have teted, examined and discarded the
wrong, poisonous things from my own experience, I give you the best
tasting food.
My children, every word I utter comes fom my personal eperienc.
If I tried to ofer you something I have not eperience, it would be like
informacion found in a book, it would be of no use to you, it would be
doubtful. What 1give you is the wisdom and knowlege of my experience
so that it will be useful to you in ti world; I utter each word without
any doubt. That is it tte.
twould like each of you, my cildren, my sons and daughters, rolearn
and absorb kowle through personal epeiece. muno other
way to fnd God. God-man, man-God. This me if a tue human being

is there, God i also there, ua true human being i not there, God i s not
there. If a human being becomes the prince of God, that person will see
7I
Ccnh!mmavria
72 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
the divine radiance of LO becuse LO and the true human being are in
the same place, and there, at that place, the human being is a divine
radiance who knows the world and everything in it. Like the sun, he can
light up the whole world with the divine light he ha within himself. a
light which knows everything. This huma being knows both day and
night, he knows every limitles aspect of creation.
What you W on the outside is nothing but ilusion and doubt. You
nee light toovercome illusion, and you only have this light with direct
aperience, as I did. No one ha ever given this importat explanation in
fur __m. not in hundred million years, but this is my personal,
direct experience. My children, please relet upon this and understand it
well. It is M drem. The only truth is what wisdom see. May P
help you. Ami
T0wbw 1,, 1/z
Ccnh!mmavri
Cnh!mria
] ( ) LIFE IN TE ] UNCLE
I
have inscribed my words on the ashram walls so ofen they several
inches thick, but they h not impresed themselves the depth of
an atom on peple's hea. Once people leave me tey forget evrything.
If ir were not for the who are seeking the tuth, I would @ back to
the jungle to live.
It is superior to live m the jungle. There, lions, tigers and bc
surround me at night to protect me and do service tOmc. In the daytime,
when I sing or meitte, snakes, pe, birs and other being surround
me. It is a happy lif in the jungle. Even though the animals cannot speak
they bow their heds down and listen attentively. Elephant are lhougrful,
they look at the gound, and ecept fr a slight swaying movement they
stand still, listening caefully. Then when I fnally open my eyes and see
them, it i s such a wonderful sight!
There ua something ne and wto be lerned fom the animals.
Some snakes li sten with their hoods open, some with their hoods closed
and heads bent low, as if they were bowing. There u much truth to be
learned from sights like thee. You L see the gof God within them,
see how it penetrate their lives.
I 1 look into their heart and r the wonder of God's power
within them. How gret is the power of God! There is so much to learn
there, so much to learn about the Qw of God by looking at each and
every one of the animals. Although they ae unable to speak and people
consider thcm tD bc unintelligent, I h not seen God's po relecred
in human beings B I saw it in all the animals when I win the jungle,
there where the power of God i s so evident. When I look into the heart
of these animals, I see lif reonating, I see it pulsing in them. do not se
the material world in their heart, just the power of L. The eternal
world does nor live in these hearts because animals live moment by
moment, they do not worry about tomorrow's m . Nn they ae hungy
they serch forthe fod they need right then. They do not concer them-
75
Ccnh!mmavria
76 TH TREE THAT FELL TO THE WT
selve about killing or desuoying anyrhing for tomorrow, they do not think
of planning an arrack, rhey d not think of revenge. This means that when
they hear mreonance of God it piercs their hearts like a pointed shaf.
They bend low in quiet reverence when they hear chat sound.
In the heat of the animal we call man hWr, thoughts of the world,
of today, tomorrow and yeterday cloud the power of God. God's power
i wl e of by such thought, by thought of killing someone, of harming
someone or raking revenge. These thoughts form a wall in front of God's
power, and therefre power reces fther and frther away. The sound
of God bounce off this wall of thought, unable to penetrate the inner
depth of a man's heart, like a sund echoing of the side of a mounain.
All earthly thoughts defet this sound when it comes, preventing it from
resonating inwa
This is the reaon it is easier to live with animals in cher original srate
Uto live with a atifcial animal called man. Ifi live with real animals
they can learn from me and l cn learn from them, but if I live with this
atifcial aimal ma, half-baked man like a Shaker-Maker coy, I learn only
sorrow beause that power has been diverted away fom him. Like an echo,
it does not peneuate, it cannot resonate within.
What 1leaed from the animals, what the animals lerned from me
the gand praise of God, and this makes life in che jungle infnitely
better. If you compare these animals in their original, complete state with
the half-baked animal which man has become, you discover that these
original animals have a magnet which attracts the power of God. Plastic
man does not have this. You think of a platic now becuse he behaves
as if he were stuck together and clored with piec of plastic; he isa plastic
man, just stuck together and flle with air to give him shape. If you do
not pump air into him he is a shriveled scrap of platic. Even if you fll
him with air, onc there u a le he will be thrown in the trash. There is
no point believing in plastic man beuse eventually he will be thrown
away and put on a garbage truck.
When I look at thee 1 kinds of animals, I sec the most dangerous
one come in the shape of ma. If you save yourelf fom this animal calle
man and go back to the original animal, you will C they have the power
of God in chem. If a man commune with them and learns fom these
animals, the subject u God's greatness. All praise belongs to God, hue if
you tk co platic man you learn about everything except God, and all
praise uofred to the mand the things of the m.Even the mention
of God, the hint of God, docs not enter the conversation;
praise is
Ccnh!mmavria
Life in the Jungle 7
ofred to man and the eath. And so you sec, if I go back to the jungle I
L think about God, I C have some rest and peace there.
You tell me which is better for me, this lif with you or lif in the
jungle? Certinly, if someone is here who ha that sense of God within
him, it is worthwhile spending time with him, otherwise my time is wasted.
I might just well spend time with a piece of wood or animals in the
jungle.
When a man want to tame a monkey he does by weaning the
monkey from its natural qualities and habits, and by teaching it his own
instead. He wiU say, "Hey monkey, turn a somersault, and the monkey
will turn a somersault. Or, "Hey monkey, go over to this man and bring
me that picture," and the monkey will go to the man with its hand held
out to bring back the picture. Or, "0 Hanuman, you money! Imitate
me." Then the Ucwill W like a cowherd and will pick up a stick and
strut around. Then the monkey will imitate him. In this way, the trainer
impose new habit on the monkey to earn a living for himsel He become
z sheikh to the monkey.
Similarly, a man with the qualities of a wild monkey must fnd a true
sheikh and be tamed. First he must discard his own attributes, and then
adopt the qualities and ideals of the sheikh. Only uhe gives up his own
habits L he learn the habits of the sheikh. If he docs this, the sheikh L
put a chain around his waist, as a monkey trainer chains a monkey, ad
change him. The sheikh wiiJ say, "Come here, look at God," just as if he
were training a monkey. He will say, "Come, I'll show you God; now do
a somersaulr," and he will make the earth itelf turn a somersault and do
all kinds of tricks. He will show mman the truth that is God. He will
shake up the monkey mind and the earth, jolting them and dislodging
them, and in this way the man C be m from them. The :heikh will
shake up the whole world, showing that man the sham of the earth and
revealing the truth that is God.
The sheikh can only uncover this tuth if the man gives up his original
monkey antics and accepts the teaching of the sheikh. If a man L imitte
what the guru does, like a monkey, the guru will show him what to do,
but if he does not copy what the guru does, there is no poinr wasting
time with him. If a man cannot even do what a wild monkey does, what
is the use of wasting time with him?
If a monkey U accidentally fom a tree and is caught by a man and
then later escapes to go back to the other monkeys. they will not accept it
back. They will bite the monkey and try to R it. Or if a trainer cannot
Ccnh!mmavria
78 THE TREE THAT FEl TO THE WEST
train a monkey, if it wll not listen ad le the tricks it i s taught, the
trainer discrds ir, and chases it away. This is a disaster for the monkey
because the other monkeys will not acpt it back and the tainer will also
nor accept it. 7 it cn do is wander around the jungle until some bigger
aimal catches and kills it.
And so if a man leaves his community behind, if he leaves the world
to join dgur, then does not lea to accpt the truth he has fund, he
will be discarded by the guru, by God and the truth; he will also be
disced by the world. If hdoes not learn what he needs to le once
he has left his own kind, then lea the gD God and mrare birrh, he
will be subject to many births; he will end in hell. He is not accepte by
God, and he is not accepted by his W people. Death will come and he
will take many births. Just as a monkey is killed if it trie to leave his trainer,
neither the truth nor ignorance accepts the man who leave his sheikh.
His birth is ruined. The monkey is in limbo when it flls to the ground,
it is rejeted by everyone, and a man is in the same position. You must
understand this clearly.
If I had a good man, a god-like man to talk to, I would not have
think this way. Thee thought would not rise, but in the absence of one
such being I spend my rime with a piece of wood, a cigarette or something
like that. This i s the way I have to spend my time, looking here and there
because I have not fund that person.
When tneeded water in me jungle, I had to go to little ponds where
sometimes there were dangerous crocodiles. A I approached they would
run towards the banks of the pond, their jaws wide open and ready to
devour me. But when I strted walking into the water they would just
stand there, watching without movement. Normally these dangerous
croodiles seize anything that mo in the water, but I would wade in up
to my knees, a drink or have a bath, and then go and stand at the
edge of the pond singng a song in praise of our Creator. The crocodiles
would gather around, all the animals would appear, even frogs would hop
right up to the edge of me pond, m gaing intently, listening careflly,
without even a ripple of water. The power of God, the sound of God, has
a C which pierces the heart of every living thing.
\hen I would end my song and walk away, perhaps to climb a tree, if
1looked back a little later I cou.d see mem still there, waiting awhile, men
gradually going back to meir routines. There were many wonders like this
to be seen in the jungle.
If a man with the qualities of God goes mere, all the animals < his
Ccnh!mmavria
1ihnthe Jungle 7
companions, they protect m. But if a man with animal qualities goe
there he is afraid because he ' ujust like them, and they wilE devour mm.
This ` u what it w like in the jungle when I lived there. My children,
think about what I have said and understand the point I am making. May
Go protect you all. Amin.
Sumbe 1Q, 1/z
Cri!e a' eria
1 .1 BAWA MuHADDEEN@
AND TE ELEPH
0 ne hot day when I wvisitng Dr. Ajwad's home at UUniversity
of Peradeniya, I decided wwould Ca little trip to the riverside
where the air was cooler. Wewent by mwith Dr. Ajwad, his wife
Ameen, his sister Arahy and a few others to the river where we saw a
number of elephants, ten or twelve, some m the river. A I starte to get
out of the ) three elephants cme quickly towards me, two off to one
side of the m but one straight at me. This one W the front of the c
raised its trunk and draped it across the windshield, while I sat back down
in the c.
The mahout kept trying to get the elephant away fm the car, but it
would not move. Now everyone around me beame fightene strted
screaming because they thought the elephant wgoing to attack me. A
they kept shouting with anxiety te other two elephats cme up t the
1 one lying down beide it, the other trying 1 fr it head inside the
window where I wsittng. When I patted it on the head Helephant
strted to cry, tes fell fom its eye. The mahout begn to bet it, ordering
Uelephant to get up, but I solded the mahout, "Don't beat this elephat,
it is making a complaint. Let it stt its LC and then it will get up."
I listened to the elephant for some time, comfottng it. By then a
number of tourists bcome over to the car taking pictures, and the
mahout decide to capitalize on this. He tied to grup the elephants
scenically aund the 4H so that the tourisr would tke more pictures.
No one knew what I wsaying to the elephant. In fct I wcmfrting
it, "Be patient, don't cry, you hyour duty to do; I have also had to go
through so may difcultie. Once when I wa king wit a vat kngom,
people tried to kme fr it, they ucto bury me alive just fr tthat wt
and te land. They tie to dmme too, but God saved me. I did have
so many toubles in those y,everyone tormente me, but your Creator
doe eist. Do the duty He creted you for, go now, d you. duty and
know that God will take c of you. Some people want to take your
81
Ccnh!mmavri
82 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
picture, the world loves to do that, they love O see the outer frm. They
do not know who you are or who I inwardly, they know only what
they see outwardly. Go now, be at peace, I mMt get out of the . When
I said this the elephant got up, raised its hed, trumpeted loudly in salute
and bowe its head don low befre me. Everyone wwatching the
elephant lef. You might think an elephant is unaware of God, but how
else did it know enough to come O me? Even the earth is aware of the
pW of God.
I take of four to fve hundre sic people in Ceylon, a poor
country. Many poor people come to me fm along distance away. I treat
their illnesse, their minds, drive away their demons, mand clothe
them, 1even give them the ticket money to come see me. This is the reaon
I have a farm, O help the por and make enough for it upkeep. I used to
get up every moring Wfur o'clock to @to the fm. Although sometime
I would stay there as long W forry or ff dy, Mmly I would come back
to the ahram at nigt and I would have no ret, there would be crowds
of people to artend to. I frmed to earn the money to feed these people. 1
could have told frtunes and made quantities of money. I could have told
them what w in their mind, their hert or their body, but I would not
do that. I labored using my body instead.
My children, a snake instinctively knows that God exists. When atiger
suddenly appeas before a true man it bows down. Even a .rock knows a
true man. A true man does nor need to advertise. Not advertising by itself
i proof he is a true man. Everything b life. A drop of water is alive, a
spark of fre is alive, ad if we in the right place, if we become a true
huma being even a blade of _will recognize it. This is the way things
are; this i the truth.
Lbz,, 1Vd0
Ccnh!mmavri
1 2 THE Cow
T
he cow in photograph N given to me by a European man. l c
wa a vicious cow that no one could get nea. With me she would
kneel down to pay homage, then when it N rime to milk her, I
had to stand in &one of her to keep her &om kicng the milkma. I would
blow cigareue smoke at her to calm her down, and she would open her
mouth to breathe it in. This cow gave eighteen pints of milk at each
milking, however she had to be milked B eactly m `m the morning
and three in the aernoon.
The picture N taken in 10, bur soon aer that the people who
were looking aer the cow
while I was qsold her
without asking me. The
cow shed a lot of tears that
day, and from the moment
she lef their hands, mis
fortune befell the people
who had sold her, fom that
day on they had nothing
but difculties.
T for my black berd,
it is only in the last three
ys that my beard tured
white. This is due to the
amount of work I do here
in Ceylon. If I were in
Americ it might T black
a
gm
.
Auust , 1/z
8S
Cpyph!mma ria
1 '
}
BAWA MuHADDEEN
AND TE SNAKE
0 ne day when I w praying in the jungle I had spread a small piece
of cloth as a prayer mat in front of me. My prayer mat was just a
small piece of blanket which I spread before me to pray the
nghrib, Uevening prayer. While I prayed a snake appered right in font
of me, but because I N fused on my prayers I did not see it. The cobra
lying fat out in font of me as I bowed down completing my frst
takarthe frst prayer cycle. I Njust about to get up to strt my secnd
rakatwhen the snake coiled itelf up right at my head, coiled itself with
its hood spread in a striking position. At the frst akatit had been sliding
to me in a stight line, however when I saw it during the second
takatit coiled and ready to strike.
Afer my frst rakatI had just caually notice it stretched out, but I
did not pay attention to it because my concentration N elsewhere. t
ever, aer my seond rakat. my second prayer cycle, when I stood up I
sa it coiled with it hood spred out and ready to stike. I rose from the
second akat,started the third ad saw the cobra sll in a striking position.
I finished my three frd or obligatory akan,prayed the 1 nnun, the
cutomary mkaz, othe n or optional akm,seven m 't, seven
prayer cycle, gave my toM to the angels and recited the fur verses
making up the F ah While I did all this the snake remained coiled,
poise to strike, although at some point it dropped it hed onto the ciled
section of its ~allowing me to fnish m my prayers, waiting like chat
until I completed my prayers.
When I finished the prayers I pulled the piee of blanket that served
as my prayer mat away from the snake, folded it up ad aked the snake,
"Where did you come from?" It spread its hood again. Then I continued,
"Becaus I was the one praying you kept yourself from stiking, but if it
had been somene else, the outcome would have been entirely diferent.
You should never appear in font of someone who is praying. If you ever
see someone praying chis way again, you must leave." The snake uncoile
itself and slid away.
85
d 1HL18LE1HA1 fkLtIC IH51
On another ocion when I was praying, the same kind of snake
presented itself in front of me. It happened in a house whe.re no one had
stayed or prayed fr ten years because it w said there Hcobra inside.
I had been walking along a road one day when someone complained to
me there a house with a snake inside, and I agreed ro investigate. I
said, "I will stay in that bouse today and pray there." The walls of the
house were made of mud with a hole in one of d1em where the snake
lived. At ubdprayer, the night prayer, frst I prayed the four stnahor
customary m. then the four ford or obligatory prayers, not thinking
about the snake because I w coocemrating on my prayer. While I was
in the middle of a prostation the snake came out of its hole and stationed
itself in fom of me. It a cobra with an enormous head which waited
there, motionless, while I completed a total of seventeen muof prayer.
Then when I fnished my prayers I aked ir, "Who are you?" It was a
rh ni.an elemental spirit which had hidden itself away as snake in that
house for about ten years. I clle to the snake, "There is no point sraying
here, you have to lee." It shook its hood tice and I said, "Get our of
here shattn, you satn, or I will have to kill you, go!"
1it lef it shrieked like a person, "Aaooo!" making this wailing sound.
Once it had lef I left, ad about eight months later when I came back
along that road people told me the snake was no longer in the house.
When you pray, even though a snake or anything else should appear,
if you focus on anything but your prayer it is nor prayer because your
concentration has to be one-pointed. 1you pray, if you shout, "There's
a cockroach!" your attention is focused there, not on God. What kind of
prayer is thar? This is not prayer.
'Umar ibnul-Khartb@, the second caliph following the Prophet6,
was assassinated while prostrating in prayer. His own groom, the man who
looked aer his horse, was the assassin. Although the sword had penetted
his body, 'Umar@ maintained that prostration until the prayer was com
plete, he did not feel the sword. He knelt in prostration with the sword in
his body. The sword could not be pulled out. He rose and prostrated again,
a if unaware of anything else. This w his level of concentration. It w
only possible to remove the sword aer the seond prostration, and it w
God's decree that it happened this way. That is the level of conccntracion
we must have in prayer.
This is just a small piece of my W history and my experience. May
Allah help us all. Amin.
Ar 28, 1974
Ccnh!mmavri
Ccnb!emd er1 :
How BAWA MUHAIADDEEN@
BECE A BEGGAR
A
bout ff years ago there wa certain man, a barber, working on
a mette of about fv hundred to a thousand peple. The estte
collecte ten cents a month fom each person working there to
pay the barber's salary. Tis <who had a wife and W children w
deeply devoted to God. One day he developed typhoid fever. To save him
I had to beome a barber becuse he would have been dismissed without
pay if he had been unable to work. I had to tke his place and do his job
fr him.
tsid to him, 1 have come to sty awhile. Since there i s no one else
to do your job I will do it for you." I treated his typhoid fever, made him
well and did his job working as a barber for about three months. 1n those
days hairstyle were difrent, people wore their hair in a variety of ways,
and we had to cut or shave their hair to suit the stle. During the three
months I did this the "new barber" was greatly respecte and liked.
I took care of the clerk, a powerful person on the estate, wdays in a
He cme from a paln fmily which is considered to be an inferior
L1. When he ake me where I w fom, what my backg,round w,
questions like that, I told him, "I leaned this trade recently, I am not a
barber by birth. I acquired the skill a little while ago, this is my job fr
now." He did not wea his hair with a knot at the back. it wcut in an
unusual style, but 1 trimmed it nicely in a way that he liked, and he was
very happy with the results.
He ak, "Where is the old barber? He did not know how to cut my
hair this way. What is he doing now?"
I told him, "The barber is etremely with typhoid ,and I
flling in for him. His saa is so low it is not enough to buy his monthly
rations, not enough to support his wife and M children. Because thing
are difcult for him, I working to support us both. We need IW
&aarc now. Since this is the 1y could you plese try to get him a raise?"
The clerk sid he would speak to his employer, an Engli shman, and Qto
89
90 THE TREE THAT FEJ.L TO THE WEST
get the raise. The clerk explaine to m superintendent that one salary
wbeing used for 1 fmilies, and could they increase the contributions
of each person by fve cents so that he could get ffeen cents from ech of
them. The Englishman agreed and it put into efect.
In those days the av salary wa thirty cents a day. The barber wa
now receiving ffteen cents a month from m working person on the
estate. He recovered fom the fever in months, and for three months
I worke to earn his salary fr him, gving him time to recuperate. His
pay varied, sometime as little a seventy, eighty or a hundred rupes a
month after epenses, but usuaJiy he had a hundred rupees lef to support
mfnily. He mbcertin epese, soap, powder, sharpening the razor
and so on. At the end of three months I said, "My job is over now, you
have a incce of half your slary for your support; you L live happily.
The job I Cme for is fnished," and I took my leave. He kept begging me
not to leave, and so I said, "Cme sec me in Kathirakamam next time
you go there." He and his wife both wept and cried aking me to stay, but
I said goodbye and lef. He did conc to sec me later.
I used to do U fuendy, roaming aound, doing jobs for people.
In one place I worke as a laundryman fr someone, in another place I
cleaned toilets carrying buckets of waste fom lauincs. No swami or 'i m,
no wise man or any of the 'ma: the learned teachers, could C imagne
the kinds of jobs I have done. I d not ko whether any of you could
do this type of work either. No matter what was needed, I could ft right
in and do it. Aiy, alas, I had so much trouble. lf I were to think about
compiling a record of m the jobs and gthe professions I have had in my
life, it would sound like a succession of Puranas, epic tales, so many
Purinas. WeU, I cnnot reaJiy cthem difcultie. God assigned me these
jobs, and I went to do them; that is all
Even the rokiet of hearts would weep if they heard my story.
Sometimes I worked a a swami. I _ out manua. I worked as an
asuologer aa a temple priet. I have been a poet, a huner and a beggar.
When I was in the Asoka Gardens in Nuwara Eliya there a man fom
Talawakdlc who beg ng for fod, and there were two Muslims who
aJso cme ther having difcult a well. An Indian whoe name dul
Rahmin had a large store in Nuwara Eliya which sold dried fsh and
provisions. I took the Muslims to that shop and told the shopkeeper
to give them some dried fsh beaue they were in such dire need, giving
him ffeen cent, a silver ten-cent coin and a silver fve-cent coin. "Keep
this money," I said, "And give them food." I retured to Nuwara Eliya
Ccnh!mmavri
Ho Bawa Muhaiyaddeen BeCe B Beg 9 I
somewhat later ad I realized the shopkeeper had prospered and become
rich. Then I brought a stack of betel nut for the two Muslims who were
still chere co sell, etablishing chem in chi s trade. Soon they too became
rich. They becme suppliers for the big tea ettes in the area. Both were
devout, praying regularly to Allah, and they thougt of me constntly as
well.
One day I wcoming towards the town when I saw the beggar about
to drown himself in the river becuse he could not fnd any food, not
even gruel. I brought him to the 1 shopkepers and put them in charge
of m, asking if they would give him some provisions ad teach him how
to sell thee thing, how to make a living as a shopkeeper. They hugged
aembrace me, flling at my fet. "Pleas help this man," I told them.
The man would put drie fsh in a basket which he carried on his head,
going aound the tea ettes to sell the fsh, houe by house. At the end of
the day he would bring the money back and hand the day's earnings over
to the shopkeepers. When I retured net time I told che shopkeepers to
keep the begar, who wfuent in , as their employee in the shop
itself, and he became cheir cahier.
In V1 there wa a civil disturbance which :s part of the Ceylonese
history of Singhalese ad Muslim riots. The Singhalese and Muslims have
been deeply antagonistic to ech other over the years. During the 11
incident the two Muslim shopkeepers were driven out of their shop by
chis beggr, and he subsequently acquired a whole block of shops, m the
way fm the bridge to the end of djuncton. He had killed the older
Muslim and his wife, while the younger brother and his wife escpe into
the jungle. I saw this fom m ay, ad I came and looked at this in
person while I N proceing to Kandy. From che middle of the war, I
decided I had to del wich chis.
By chen the old begr had acquired a large share of the bus:nc: there.
He was a big wholesle supplier, very wealthy, and had brought his brother
in
Q
a panner. 1 came down from Jilani to the shop where he had frst
started to work, where he had a quantity of tea, sugar and many things he
could have given me. I presented myself there as a beggar and beged,
:
.
Yah, sir, plese give me one cent, thplese give me a penny." I beged
for one cent. He did not recogniz me. I arrived early in the morning just
Q he unlocking che shop door to open his business. '.iyo, alas, please
give me one cnt," I beged. Actually, I had strted out with fve cents in
my pocket, but had given two pennies to another beggar on my way, and
so I had three cents lefr. All I asked him for wa one cent.
Ccnh!mmavri
92 THE TREE THAT FEl TO THE Wl ST
He began t shout at once, "Hey you Muslim devil, you evil begar,
get away fom hc Listen you begar, don't you dcome around here
to make me look at your ugly fce this early in the morin
g
!
"
He used terrible words, flthy words. He had a really dirty mouth. Yet
I continued to beg humbly, ro, plese give me just one cent." He yelled
at me agin, ad I pleaded, "I have come early, ayah, please give me a
little money, just one cent," but he contnued to abuse me .
Finally, he went into the shop t get a basin of dirty dishwater from
the day befr, water the cofe and teacups bben we in. He took
this pan of fthy water yelling. "Get our!" and threw it all ver me. The
flthy water fet very cold becus it wso early in the moring.
I kept pleding, 'y h, please give me one cent." Water wa boiling
inside on the stove fr tea, ad now he took a basin mof boiling water
and threw that at me too.
By this time people b gthered around who began to scold the
shopkeeper, ro, it's a sin to boiling water."
Bur he wa so prejudicat Muslims he yelle, "You Muslim pig.
you dare \ come erly m the moring to lghr with me!"
When the boiling water hit me it felt a if my whole body wbung,
but it cooled down and did not blister. Then I said to the man, "l a
new begar, bur you are an old beggr, aren't you, aen't you? You an
old beggar and a new begr. You frgotten that you an old
beggr. You have only forty days lef and yet you have frgotten who you
ae. I will not @until I receive money fom your had." He wa so angry
now he kept swearing mflthy words, the least of which were you son of
a female dog. He kept shouting abuse at me so furiously I could not @a
word in, but I wa laughing to myself a I said, "I a new beggar, you
are an old beg You have forgotten. Unles you give me a cent I will
not leave this place." He raged on.
Soon tucks arrive fom Colombo, and the laborers began unloading
sacks and sacks of four, ric and other provisions. There w a Muslim
laborer who wunloading some of the .shopkeeper wgetting
more and more angry. The laborer ce to me and said, "Acr I unload
these sas I will get my slary, ad then I will give you the money."
By now the shopkeeper was picking up coconuts stacked in a corner
of mshop and hurling them at me; yet not one of them struck. He must
have thrown ffry or a hundred of them at me which I gathere together,
piling all the broken cconut in a hep announcing, "These belong to
me now."
Ccnh!mmavri
How Baw Muaiyadeen@ BCe a Beggar 93
Tis man, angrier and angrier, shouted, "You thief, you trying to
steal my coconut now?"
I said, "Tese mine. All the coconuts inside the shop yours,
bur all the coconuts thrown with my name on them belong to me. They
do nor belong to you beuse they were thrown `m my name.
He picke up an iron bar rushing out to asault me, but he slipped
and fll aginst a which lay bete n us; his leg gave way beneath
him W he fell and struck his head on the concrete of the road. The iron
bar dropped from his hand. Both his le and his hed N injure, and
now all the people watching outside tried to give me money, but I said,
H mut gve me the money." Everyone all aound wanted to give me
money ecept this man.
While he wa lying on that flthy mhe yelled out, "Even if I die
and you die, 1wnot give you one cnt of my money."
The peple gthered tere humbled rhemsdves befre me, beging me
to rake their money, ` the money we give you and = Uman is
so angry."
My answer was, "He was a begar onc upon a rime; he must know
who I am." Then I spoke to him, "You are nothing but a wild man of the
jungle who 8an ungrateful wretch. When you tried to commit suicide by
jumping into the river, I saved you and introduced you O the man who
ran this shop. I set you up in busines long ago, I etabli she you in this
very shop a cashier, but you killed the owner of the shop and his wife!
You begar of old, have you frgotten? No you have acquired these
shops ad you have frgotten me, you have frgotten me! The C1spot
where you trie t commit suicide uwaiting fr you ad your wif. It u
calling you. W,you have to go there frty days fom now."
He was furiou and terrible oaths. To this day I remember his
disgusting words. He swore that way even though his head, his leg.
everything, w injurd. Then the Muslim laborer who had been unloading
the sacks fll at my fet, "This is an insult to all our Muslim people."
I aswere, t is an old bgwho should beware."
The laborer at my fet agin, "I wiU gve you some money. They
owe me ten or fften rpee fr my work. I will give you every cent of it.
Plese come Wme, this uan insult to all our people, please, don't stay
here any longer." He took me to a man who makes vai, a spicy bean
savory, ad said, "Give him whatever he wat on my credit. I will come
back to settle it later with my pay." then he went back to ww.
1sat there another hungry begar cme along who said, '}ro, I'm
Ccnh!mmavria
94
t tt7 tt1 t
so hungy, plese give me some m Tt e shopkeeper had wref
to give this begar ay fo. Remember, I still b1 left which
I gve the wseller telling him to give the bgsome food which he
took and are.
Now the wseller aked me what I wanted, "I don't want anything,
I'l just waiting to sec an ed ro that shopkeeper, the one who fell down.
When the laborer had fnished unloading to or three trucks for which
he w paid nine or ten rupees, he ce to see me, gave me about ten
rupees and bought some proisions which he packed up for me. I told
him, "No marter what happens, be patent. Now plese leave."
He , "Why did you approach that man? Does he ko you?"
"That man kc me very well some time ago. He could not have
reached this lel of succswithout knowing me. does not know me
now, but in frry days he will know me again."
Then I tok my leave ad contnued on the road uphill . This laborer
had m young daughters of marriageable age on a estate called Nanu
Oya where they lived near the lwy station in Nuwara Eliya. I went to
that estate to give all the provisions the man had packed for me to his rwo
children. I gve them the ten rupee W well, telling them, "Your fther
kd me to give you this." They k= me to sit down and wait but 1
said, "I have to go somewhere. Your fther told me to give these things to
you. Aren't you m married yet, would you like to be married?" They
laughed shyly.
On this estate there wa langini, an overseer, a man who had earned
an important position whom I had saved earlier on from difcult
situation. I went to him now to talk about his son, to arrange a marriage
berween his son and the laborer's daughter. The langdni agreed to the
marriage. We fund a 0b, an ofcia from the mosque, bought the
wedding fnery ad went back to the laborer's house, who by this time
had unloaded Tmore truck and won his wy home to the girls. When
rhey saw him they ra to him, "Someone came ro give us this bag of pro
visions and the ten rupees said you sent."
The man wsurprised he ake, "How did he know I had children,
how did he know I lived on this estte? He must be a great saint, see what
he hdone."
He started to cry, the rwo girls cried a they around the estate
searching for me, "We mut see the saint, we must see the saint. When
will he come again, where did he go?"
Although I had to go altogether about eigt mile, I took care of all
Ccnh!mmavri
How 8awMuhaiyaddeen@ 8oa8@ 95
this in twenty minute, then cme back to the ette with the bridegoom
ad the kbbc, telling the laborer, "I have brought you a bridegrom for
your daughter." He fell at my feet and wept. "Here i the bridegroom, I
said, "And here u the kbbc.Then I provided the fhuU. the marriage
neO, which they ted around the girl's nek. Beaue there N another
daughter of marriageable age in the house I told him, "You cannot leve
this girl alone in the house. Do not go to work mmorrow and I will bring
another bridegroom."
Now the bridegroom's fther said, "My cousin ha son, a good man,
should we arrange their marriage? I approved, and righ\then and there
we took the girl to thi s cousin to be maried.
"Good, I replied, "Both girls married, now you can live happily."
The laborer put his hands together, humbly paying his respects, and
said, "You have settled my to daughters, I am most grateful."
I smd, t have something else O q and I leavng now, but I will
return in forty days to del with that other situation." There was a railway
bridge on the estte which spanned the river at the point where the road
lef the estte. On the forteth day I cme to stand on this bridge watching
the river. The former begar came m bathe bringing his wife, a younger
brother, the brother's wif and their children, his older brother, the brother's
wife and their children, in , all his younger brothers and their fmilie.
They all followed him, coming to bathe. They lef the children on the
banks of the river and went into the water, bur one child who had been
lef on the riverbank ran into the river where the current began to pull
him under. The shopkeeper rushed to save him and wdragged under,
his wife rushed to the child and w draged under, the younger
brother wdraged under, then the older brother wdragge under, and
his wife who also tried t s them wdraged under too. They were all
sucked inro the middJe of the river where thee wa steep drop, like a
waterfl, they were pulle mthis and drowne. The whole fmily,
including wives and children were m drowned.
soon as the townspeople heard of the drowning, the other mer
chants and tailors cme running to his shops, looting all the goods. Before
the last cj wsilence everything in the shops wgone. The matter
wfnished now. The laborer came ro me and said, 'ry it all happened
just as you said it would."
I stood on the main road in font of the shop and shouted, "H! :
old begar i s gone. The new begar i here, listen to what he says and
seize your opportunity now that it has come!" The ded merchant had
Ccnh!mmavri
96 THE TREE THAT FEl TO THE WEST
persecmed the etate laborers who were very poor. When tey used to come
to his shop to ask fr prvisions on credit becuse they did not have any
money, he would refuse. Not only that, he would lif up the women's skirts
and kick their backsides. He did so many other ny, mum thing, he
kicked the men a W, and so the estate workers tembled at the very
mention of his name. But they had no choice, they had to buy their goods
from him. This wthe reason this had to be done.
I did not about his ethnic descent, I cred about his cruelty, espe
cially bdtng asault on women; he would C go to the estate itself
and do thee thing. If he did give people goods on credit, he would chase
afer them aound the estate trying to frce them to give him the money,
even though they did not h any. Uthey did not have it he would bet
them and kick them. If the husband w not home he would drag the
wif from the house, humiliate and kick her. This wthe reason I had to
go there.
Now it i fnished. All his shops are destroyed and new shops have
been built there. This i s the nn I had to go a a beggar to that place, I
had to beg fr one cent. I c still remember the vile words he used to
berate me with, I remember the flthy dishwater he poured all over me
and the scalding water too. I have not frgotten the coconuts either, how
I kept the one he threw at me which I took to the merchant who sold
vi, and gve them to him. The shopkeeper did hurt me a little, I had
a small injury on my frehead where a fment from one of the smashed
coconuts had riccheted of the ground and struck my fce.
I beged for jusr one cent, and because of that one cent all thi s
happened. I just ak for one cent, even though I already had lve cents
and later trecents in my pocket. "I h three cents, pleae give me one
cent more, my mater."
The qualitie of that period have kme now. By the rime I arrived in
Jaffna those qualitie gone. I have been mof them fr the last ffeen
yea.
A< ,/, /\/
Ccnh!mmavri
Cpyph!emaeria
1 ) HowBAwA MUHADDEEN@
BECE A BAKER
I
w in the hill counQ of Sr Lk 1 visit a man working on a tea
etate who w deatly ill. This man, a @1devotee of God, worked
in the teahop owned by a European. I cured him and made him well,
then as I pre ed on my way I came upon another man who had fllen
when he went to take a bath at the waterfall nea town. People were
stnding around watching yet not doing aything, ad he wa in severe
pam.
This man wa baker at a bakery which supplied bread and cakes to
the English people who lived there. He had a large business. I thought,
"This ua good m, and I lifed him up and aske him where he lived.
I fund out that he owned the bakery. He had no wife or children, and
people were trying to m his money and si his property.
It wChristmas, buines Wvery good, aalthough I did not know
a thing about bang cakes or about bang anything, I g him some
medicine and said, "Now I will be both a dotor and a baker." Then I
cook over te bakery.
At that time I did not have much of a beard, I wa quite healthy, a
vigorous person. When t inquired in detail how they made their baked
goods, what they described wnot much to my liking, and I looked back
to see how they would have done ch i frmer time. Using my inner
wisdom, I could how they made these things long ago, amd I found it
wbetter.
Te we murhuge tble !nthe tccmwhere they kmdmthe dcug
by hand. First they made gul pans, a kind of mf:. or bun. I do not believe
you have ever eten these; they ae not made now. They are quite Ly. I
made these buns and the cakes from a very fne grain. The English people
who bought these ckes liked them so much they uto give them away
a presents. During the four months it took the man to recer, I <the
owner of the bakery, doing everything. The aowner hbeen in debt
for the four he had bought, but by the time I fnished there, the debe for
99
Ccnh!mmavri
I 00 THE TRF THAT FELL TO THE WE
the four had been settle. Not only that, I had also received a much a
seven thousand rupee in preents.
The hed of the ; a European, paid his laborers the equivalent in
Ceylon rupees of tenty-fve cents a day, while the women ere only
twelve cnt a day. In 1914 the Gret War had begun, i n 1915 there
were Singhalese and Muslim riots in Ceylon. This incident must have
occurred in 1918 or 1919. At that tme the British were in charge of the
tea estate, but the laborrs were people from Cochin, from Malaysia and
some fm Java. Those fm Malaysia and Java occupied the highet
positons on dette. Malaysias adthe English were the inspectors
and on the police force; they were the superintendents of the estates.
I settle about four thousand rpee of debt. I settle all the debts
and bake buns, bre and a new biscuit or cookie made from a cerain
kind of semolina, a larger grain. Today I doubt whether you could fnd
this four, ad who would bbothered to make this cookie even if I told
them how? We ha truck the size of a cement uO.A whole truckload
of Sour, about fur hundredight, which is just under four hundred and
ffty pounds, cot one rupee at that time. Flour in those days wa only
used as paste to glue thing together. But I used it to make thee cookie
and people ate whatev,er I made. I put ginger esence in some, jamine
and rose in others, sor I made with cinnamon. I etracted the essence
and used them in the bi
\
cuits. They had a wonderful fagrance and peple
were rlfond of them.
In the fur monts I worke tere big crowds came to our shop,
thronging ther as they mto the other good store. We would sell a
hundre cookie fr 6y cent. The semolina biscuit cst sventy-fve cent
for a hundred. The gul gmwere made of four, sugar, @and turmeric.
We would spred U m on the table, then keep wahing it with
@ until it wa ready to be put in a bag which was a kind of mold we
baked them in. Each bag cst two-ad-a-half cnts to make. We made
many difrent kinds of c, we paid of his loan, ad his money box
wa so oowing he had to deposit the money in a bank. Uthose das
they had silver rupe coins; his six-fot-long. money box wa full of these
silver coins, it wa completely full of bags with coins we stacked there. In
fct, although there wa very little money in the country at that time, this
box wa overBowing.
The British would sometimes order a many a seventy akes, paying
up to ff rupee for each one. They would order a cake, we would send
it out ad they sent back the money. Wedid not st a price, they themselv
Ccnh!mmavri
How Bawa Muhaiyaddeen@ Becme a Baker 10/
would decide it was worth ffy rupees. They were very pleaed with the
cakes, and it might have cost M only to-and-a-half rupees to make,
including labor and materials. A barrel of egs cost sixrupees, a gallon of
mik weight cents, a rooster or hen cost ten or twelve L at that time,
and you culd buy a goat fr a dollar ff. Grape sugr, which we used at
that time for the baked goods, cost one rupee for a hundredweight, one
hundred and telve pounds. Both beet sugr and grape sugar cst one
rupee, and the 8our at that time did not have insects in it. Both the sugar
and 8our came to the shop in big barrels, ten or twelve day.
All this went on fr fur months until the baker w :nally better,
then he td me and
I told him, "I'll mmy lee now, your debts
are paid." Meanwhile, the people who worked there had been given a w
in pay. The owner had been paying them mto seven rupes a month
which I raised to tenry rupees, and in spite of the salary increae there
was still a huge proft.
Dunbn29, 1976
How BAWA MuHDDEEN@
Losr His ANGER
I
n V these words came from God, "Who are you to puni sh My
creations? There is no one on mwithout fult, the cretures on
earth have fults. is the reson I sent the prophets. A those who
followed J have fults because they H connected to saran. I t
Adam away so that he and those who came afer him could be rid of their
faults ad retur to Me in a pure state. They have come to the world to
corret their fults.
"I sent you to help them, to correct them, I sent you there to help
them overcome their fults. D you here to help them improve or to
destroy them? I sent you to protect them. D you protecting them or
destroying them? Everyone who has come to earth has fults; you were
sent down to help rid them of their faults, not to punish them." This is
what God said to me.
I replied, "0 God, if a man commits an offense once, twice and then
three time, I cannot bear it, I become angry. I cannot bear to see this and
anger overhelms me. Take this anger from me. When I see injustice, I
cannot help my anger. Please take it &om me." I aked this of God m
1V aer a certain incident; then my anger abated, little by Little, over a
period of tenry or teny-fve years. Befre that, could Araby or Gnaniyar
have sat here fr even a day? Could Dr. Ajwad or Dr. Makar have sat
here for a.ny length of time? No, they could not.
In those early days if sick people or someone who was possesed came
to see me, they had to sit at a distance. I would take of their problems
in about fve minutes just by looking at them, then they would m leave
together. They never approached me. They woltd arrive, I would look at
them and they would leave. Now that I have become an tn n, a huma.n
being, you cn all be here. Look, everyone sits around me on all side. It
could not have bee. like this before.
Now I do not say the things I used to say. Since VI have improved
a lot, yet once in a while if I cannot bear a situation, the old. words will
103
104 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WE
come ad uthose words come, that uthe end of the situation. There is
no cure for this. But now I a good man, a good man with so much
m,compasion and mercy. When a child is hurr I cQ. I lie down, I cry
and ak Go to help that child. I so loving now, I think I am good
M4 but I do not know you think No I really a very good
man, and because I good it u possible for all of you ro be here. In
the erly days my voice squawke lke a WWhng bird becuse ^ M1
used to tlking to people. My voic ha improved just reently.
My children, no one on earth has performed the miracles Bawa
Muhaiyaddecn h. U the last eight hundred y there b not been a
single person who ha perfrmed a many miracle a Bw Muhaiyaddeen.
This is the truth. Y I d not undemand anything. I a fool, a fol
ad a good man. If you beome a fol in the world you d bme a
good man. I give you my love. G do your prayers and recite mzr the
remembrance of Go.
Zugt13. 1982
Ccnh!mmavri
Cnh!mria
1 7 RouNDING
S
ometime you ask me to @ rounding, to @ for a drive in the car
with you, to get fresh air in my lungs and some exercise. !go, but
the resons !go are diferent fom yours. What is the difrence? When
gwith you to a particular part of town it is to analyze the air in that
district. 1 the air blows over towards me !analyze where it is coming
fom, what the air is like, what the qualities of the neighborhood, its culture
and its people are like. 1the air blows past any neighborhood it is fltered
through the minds and qualitie of the people who live there, and when ir
reaches me can identifY the essence of the qualities in those minds, what
they think, the 61th they contain and the characteristic of rhat neighbor
hood. !investigate the yQof odors, what causes the stench, and by means
of this smell !can discover the narure of the area.
You see, if there M a pond used by both animals and people, you can
smdl ir even at a distance. The air above it carries the smell the areas
nearby, conveying the qualities and nature of those who the pond,
sending the stench of fsh or the ranknes of the animals to places near
the pond. Even uthe air is pure to begn with, when it pase oer the
pond it absorbs the impurities there ad carrie them to pure aea.
Simply blowing across the pond, the air picks up impuritie ad carrie
them everywhere close the pond. People who live there do nor have to
@ all the way to the pond to smell it, becuse the smell of its qualities
and thought come mthem on the wind.
What you see when you go fr a drive and what !see on that drive are
quite difrent. I tell my brother, "Take another road, do not @ the old
way. "!go somewhere else to look at a new neighborhood, it people, its
characteristic, and I analyze the smell of the air. From this I understand
the condition of people's minds. ! understand what they are like, what
kind of problems they h.what their problems and strugles are; this is
the reason I @ for a drive.
When awind crosses the ocean it carries the ocean smell \u the shore.
107
J 08 THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WE
It bring it coolness, it salty smdl ad taste, its odor and the smell of its
purity or polluton. In the same way, when I go somewhere I cn smell
the aea's purity or it polluton, I ctdl what it leaders M like, I m
tell the nature of its poverty, it welth and the tendency for good or bad.
From tee things I cunderstand what sort of place it is.
The mhmay dft ceristics, the dep sea, bays, shallow
inlet, cove, sandy shoals. mud fts where the water beome
stgnat, there pols where the water is clea ysmells foul because
of m fsh living in it, there some small rivers running fm sea to
land, all with a difrent Mc Although the ocea is huge, it is divided
into many smaller oone gvi n of a difrent smell. The air is
the sae air, the ocen is the same My but the smell vaie W the wind
pases over it: ddeep se smells df t fom the shore, a bay smells
dift fom mud fat, fowing rivulet smell df t fm sandy shoals.
It is tue it is one 4 but it bmany chaeristic. The same wind
blows, but it bring different smells fom different sections; W that wind
travels ove mpat of the se it picks up the characteristics of the are,
it purit ad changing W it move.
This is the reon I go to new plac, I discover something about the
area fom it smdl. Now wsay tat Whuman, wall nee , we all
mthe truth W W, but just W the oe b bays, inlet, mud fat,
harbors ri ver, and the wind 'ick up these smells, human beings also
mdifrent characteristics which the wind picks up when it pases over
them. There difrenc in their actons and knowledge, their qualitie
ad the path tey fllow. The children of L all crete alike, but
just W the is the same oc with difering Wy the mind of man
is divide into vaious W What comes fom thee different place is
what I smell when I go rounding. when I go for a dv.
The smell of the M change in difrent places. A bay i s difrent,
a harbor is df t, small pools with oysters and cabs diferent, even
their naes arc difrent. The deep se smells difnt fom the shallows
at U shore, the salt hsmell dift fom ce pools. In the same
wy, there is a specifc smell coming fm the qualitie of whatever the
mind of a human being as oiae with, wheer it chooses to sty. My
children, I visit all the place mdr this smell. You might also cll
it runding, but this is mreson I go rounding. Yours is difrent. You
go to enjo the view. I go to analye the nature of the place by smelling
the air that come fom tere.
when I watch television it is difrnt. You watch to see a story,
Ccph!mmavri
Rounding 109
I watch to analyze how the county functions, to learn something about
the qualities human beings have, something about the qualitie of the
accors. I analyze how mis relCt to the world and whether what they
is true or f. I separate what belongs ro tuth from whar belong to
flsehood, I determine uwhat they say is true or flse. I see what et in
the heart of cOperson to know if what they portay is correct. I GC the
reality of the world, see irs act, bur you only see the ace. That is the
difrence. You see the road and the people on it, bur I ee the smell
to understand their hearts, their minds, their actons and their narure. This
is what I see when I sit in the 1+You mit rounding. but your rounding
i s very different fom mine. Pleae think about this.
Mo 1?73
Cnh! m uia
THE MEANING OF HIS NAME
B
H mens fthe, a ttle given to somene who is te fther of wisdom
for all malind. Muhaiyaddeen is a nae given to the Qutb@, the
being who bring the divine explanation, who has perft wisdom.
The name Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyaddeen is a name of light
which w given to the Qutb!, it is just one of his title. Muhammad
me the primal Ligt which ce as a gif fom God to all mankind.
Raheem is te name of te being who unL the primal Ligt and
it. This means that Bawa is the primal fther of mankind emanating fm
the primal Light which is then made manifst. Muhaiyaddeen uthe name
given by Allah to one who breceived the pure Light of God. He is the
one who gives the cc light of wisdom, the clarity of imn, of faith,
certitude and determination to the heart of man.
That is the meaning of the names which given only to someone
who ha the qualitie of these names. The name must bappropriate fr
that person and that person must be a fther fr all mand. He must
have the capacity to give pece to the heru of his children, he must guide
these children along the right path with the benevolence of the m, the
path of perfect purity, and be must make them understand the differenc
between hm and hrim, what is peritted and what u not.
When the names work together in unity, with perfet qualitie, the
name Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyadden is appropriate fr that
person.
ju 25. 1?83
Ill
1 9
A
ACCIDEN
M
y child, think about this. According to his destiny a certain
person was about to die, and I had to vmfor his own sake.
He was hurrying ro his car to @somewhere when his brother
beged me to stop him. "I'll galong in the cr," I sid, because that wa
the only way to save him. He would not let ayone else .rive his car.
Pariyii, a fewother disciples and I got into the car.
We were driving fom Jafa to Colombo, a distnce of about two
hundred mile. 7te 1 of Chavakacheri he almost hit something, agin
at Kodikaman he almost hit something, and then at Kilinochi I convinced
him to trn aound. On our way back, at Kodikaman onc more, he fnally
did hit something. The car swerved out of control three times, once into
a truck, once into a cr and we crashed at last.
1 I put out my hand to save him I received a terrible blow on my
head. The skull bone ce loose and my teeth became loose. hap
pene because I had ro save him. No one else was hurt. I told te others
in the car to hold my hed frmly while I pushed the bone of my skll
and my teeth back into place. Befre the acident I did have beautiful
teeth, ad today a fent of my skull is still missing.
I had to have this acident to save the man, but now there wan't a car
to mme to the hospital. The police wanted to fe charges against him.
I said, "Never mind, I have to leave," and eventually someone did cme
to drive me back to Ja.f na. My nose wa bleeding because of the fractured
skull, and we went right back to the ahra where Achi ad Rameb,
two devoted disciple, wiped the blood athrough the night. The net
morning crowds of anious people cme there to fnd out what had hap
pened, but I said, "Don't worry, nothing happened to me," and I went to
t.he fum at Puliyakulam.
In a separate incident, there was another accident in which I had to
save someone else. He came close to death three times and the fourth time
he crashed, but I received his injury. Look at my head, there is one frrow
113
Ccnh!mmavri
114 TH TREE THATfELL TO TE WEST
here and another one there. The bone in my nek were dislocated, my
right arm was broken and my lef arm roo. While I wa unconscious they
picked me up and took me somewhere, then to the hospial in Kandy
where I knew the dotor in c. I had put hlm throug medical school.
He wvery concerne and mme ro stay on, bur I told him, "No, I
have to go to Dr. Ajwad's house.
He said, "Then you will have to sign a release saying you want to leave
and you arc able to leave.
reached Dr. Ajwad's house that night, bur I could nor walk because
my hip wa injured and my nose w still bleeding. The man who had
cuse the acident mme there and lef. Dr. Ajwad and h.is wife Amen,
each on one side of the bed, looke after me all night long. What wthe
treatment fr these multiple factures? Faith in Go, that is all. My nek
bones are dislocated, my head is still uneven, and although they put
makeshif splints on carm, I still feel pain in the knot where a broken
bone healed. Sinc the time of thi s accident my strength has decreaed, I
have bmany illnese and I get pneumonia too.
7l this happened to me becuse I undenook to save someone, but
Go i sthe One who saves us. Acidents possible. The whole world is
Bacidem, everything we is an accident. Think about right and wrong:
the wrong uan accidem, and only the right Vprotet us. Acident might
be caued by our speech or by our fod. Our whole life is &ubjt to
accident, B accident i possible with m breath. You might not know
this, but there is the possibility of an accident with each breath. Pleae do
not fel about what bhappened t you, my child.
What happened i just one of a million kinds of accidents. Look,
still alive. If you like, feel my head and you will understand. See how my
hed udemed a if it were made of platc. No one else could have surive
this kind of accident. My skul wbroken, my neck wtwisted, no one
mwould have survived. Een I I cnnot walk correcdy, !bend and
twist to one side.
This doe not fighten me, neither should you worry about anyrhlng.
It is a small thing that i sover now. Wehave more time to rech our Fther,
and on the day when we do there will be peace. Eeryone around us will
be sad that we leaving the world, but we will be happy beause we are
going to sec our Father. Some will feel sad when we leave the world, but
there may be some who wil l of us, L he i sa terrible man, let him go.
It is just as well he lef the world.
Others will weep fr us and say, `Lwhat a good man, why did he
Ccnh!mmavri
Acc|dentt 115
have to leave?" Sr, the only thing we need to do while we are here i s
whatever good we 1) and then move on. Please do not be sad, everything
wiU work out well. As-sali mu 'li may the peace of God be ~|th
y
u.
Sumb z9, 1986
" JQ .~
W
hen !was very young I had a kitib, a book, a huge doth book
about one-third the size of a mattres, Uinks fr the lettering
made of dyes extracte from red, yellow and green leaves of
plant. Each Qof the book wdivide i nco fur setions with a df t
dye on ech. The book wso heavy-it must have weighe between ffy
and sixty pounds-and !wso small !had to carry it on my head. The
alphabet whieroglyphic, with symbols of animals like chickens, roosters,
horses, lions and tigers, but the book deale with everything on et. I
had ben carrying it around with me fr some time when !arrived in the
Himalayas where !cae across an acetic sitting there somewhere nea
the fothills. I traded this huge, heavy book for a smaller one which dealt
with henly objects, the sun, the moon and the stars, thing like that. !t
wa smaller, lighter book which I took with me.
This second book wwritten mancient Tamil, a script not seen much
today, which w also interspersed with symbols of the stars, the moon
and perhaps some animals. It cannot be eaily read or understood, and
although the lettering and symbols were intricate, !could bring the car
acters to life. I could understnd their meaning even though I did not
know how to read or write. I only had to ask the meaning and it was
revealed. If I wanted to know what was written there !could summon
symbol and ak, `Pyou the truth, is this the truth written about you or
is it a lie?"
This bok wthe only p ion !had ecept fr what my mother
had given me, tbi h or prayer beads consisting of one hundro and three
light and dark green precious stones with a diaond the size of a thumb
worth ten-and-a-half million rpee. There were m other large stone,
one on both sides of the necldace, each worth about three hundred
thousand rupees at the time, the ochers worth eighty or ninety thousand
rupees apiece. It i sdifcult to imagine how much they would all be worth
now. The large stone, a pure, uncut diamond the size of a thumb, was
/17
Ccnh!mmavria
!Id THE TREE THAT FELL TO THE WEST
iridesent. It provide ligt fr me at night, shining with a geen mo.
!kept the m min a box.
When I cme to Kkuv, the home of my discple Pariyari, I had the
book and the box, but te were only seventeen jcl lef becuse !had
given the rest ato difrent poor people so that their daughters could
be mmno. !also kept a supply of kmuD. of fagrat musk, in the box.
When I lve in the mountins I had gven a tribe of people the right to
look aer the deer, and they would collect the mtm r, which h great
medicinal value, fom these animals ad sell it. It was their only income,
yet, an act of devotion, they would always s some of it for me.
Whenever ! needed AJ nthey would be made B of it, and bring
me some. Even though they were in the Himalayas and I wa in Ceylon,
in Jilani, they would ko when !needed some. I would come to the
town of Balangoda t meet them, and they would give it to me.
Then in 14Z I g this bx t Pariyari telling him, "Everything in
the box eept the kaJ nwhich I need for medicine is fr you. It ha
enoug fr you and generations of your deendants to live on." But he
did not realize its vw, ad later on when I asked him, "Where is the
box that henough fr you and generations of your fmily to live on?"
he could not fnd the box or its contents. I said to him, "You have lost
thousands and thousnds and thousands of dollas." This happened in his
old house in Kokuvil. Someone must have stlen it. There a constnt
fow of people through Uhouse day and night, ten to ffeen thousand
use to come to see me regularly. Possibly when we went to get some
mrthe box might have been left open and someone must have seen
the briUiance of the stones.
My father and mother had put that necklace around my neck when I
wbon ad at night it ue to gv me enough light to travel by. Even
climbing a mountin it @enough light for me to proceed. It gave off a
certain kind of luminoity during the day and at nigt it beme a light.
When !gave it to Pariyari I told him he could have everything in the box
exept the km0. but the box vanished. Later in 14 when ! moved
from Kokuvil to Kondavil, I asked them again where the box N&
reminding them it contine everything they ad their descendant would
ever need, but they were genuine deotees, not intereted :Dwealth, and
so they had been creless with it.
All I had lef when I went to Kondavil was the book !took with me.
hcrcmany amazing events fom this time, so much that if someone
wanted to write my lif story it would fll bok aer book afer book with
Ccnh!mmavri
The Book and the Box /19
no end to the story. When I le Kondavil in 1956 I went to Jafa, frst
to a rented house on Second Cross Street fr a y, then to another street,
Chiviyatheru for six months, ad fnally to downtown Jafa.
I kept the book Nthis time unrl one day an astrologer to borrow
it. I said, "All right, mit but bring it back." He took it, and cme back
soon afer to tell me the book had been stolen. If you NC1C L small
sections of that book and publish them a individual books, you would
make thousands ad tousands of dollars. That man who took it, acLally
it wthe astrologer's younger brother, could not have understood any of
it becuse it written two or three t.ousand ]ago in 0scripts.
This thef cuse his fmily many difculties.
There many amaing t Uhappened even `mthat shorr space
of time, but there is no time now to tell you everything. Perhaps later I
will tdl you more. Once I strt to describe a thing, I have to begin at the
beginning and take you to the end, but how L I do this? I do not know
how the whole story can btold.
Auust 31. 1?71
Cnh! m uia
21
A TRIP TO KR
S
ore people wamed to sec the place clled Kattagama, also known
a Kthirakamam. I aked a disciple of mine named Kandaiya
arrange fr a * big enough to hold eighteen peple on a tip fom
Jafa. I sid, You arrange fr the M and I will pay for it." We had to
buy huge sacks of provisions beause we would need to cook our own
meals once we got to Kathirakamam. While I was making these
arrangements in Jafa, Kandaswami, which `u another name for the
preiding deiry of the temple, Ntelling the priest, the karal, that Bawa
was coming. He instructed the priest to make sure we would be received
there properly. In Tamil this deiry is calle Lord Murugan, Kanda or
Kandi.
It was not the sttue that spoke, but the priest N told I N coming.
By the time we were setting out fom Jafa, the priest had been told I
N coming and he was waiting fr us; he had come fom the temple out
to the path wwould take, watching fr us.
Just as Kandaiya brought the * he suddenly devdoped a fever and
headache. "Swi," he said to me, "I have a headache and fver, please
mthe others, but let me sty home." cother disciple N coming
on the trip and someone dse * the driver.
I told Kandaiya, "Give me the fever and you get into the van. You
have, afer all, gone to this touble to arrange for the * and deliver it
here, you should not miss the trip. Give me the fever and get into the
+ And so now I had the fever. From the moment lef, the fever
N so hig I culd not lif my head. When we arrived at Anwadhapura,
a hundred and twcnry-fve miles from Jafna, the others got out of the
va for a cup of tea, but the hN so high I could not moe my head.
From Anuradhapura wwm to Putta on the et coat where w
stopped, about seenty-to mile north of Colombo. By then it seven
thirty or eight at night, I needed to distribute food to everyone in the
N) and I sent Pariyari and one of the others to fnd some medicinal oil
121
122 THE TREE THAT PELL TO THE WEST
for my hed, but G when I rubbed oil on my head the wcd not go
down. I @out the parcels of mwhad brought, everyone ate, packed
up what wlef and st of once more towards Colombo. From there W
continued along the coat to Galle where warrived at about one o'clock
in the morning.
We stopped the in Galle where there is ret house. I aked the
others to go the ret house, but I said, "I will stay in the beuse I
have a fever, I am not fe ling well."
They protested, "How can we leave you here with a fver and a
headache?"
I replied, right, in that we will give the fever to Shiva. I said
to Shiva, "Kandaiya brught this fver fm Malia to Jafa, Bawa Aa
brought it m the
Y
fom Jafa to Galle. I h had it for so long I have
had enough of it. Now it is time fr you O on the fr and hedache.
Take charge of dfer and mhedache!" Immeiately the fver and
headache lef, and then I wable tke a sip of water, something I could
not do before that. I drak some cold water and managed to pick my hed
up. I told the people who were still proteng, "Look my headache and
fver are gone, now you cgo to the ret house." One person still insisted
on staying wit me and I said, "All right, you sleep over there ad I will
sit hee in the fnr of the vn." I sat in the M to do the work I had to
d and told them, "G t slep, I wlhonk the hom at fur i nthe moring
when you have to get up."
At four o'clock I sounded the horn; they came and wset off along
the south coast fm Galle to a plac clle Matara. There Va devotee
of mine named Sandraearam Pullai who oned a shop there where w
stopped for the other to bathe and refh themselves with fod. Mean
while, the priest W Ktm a had been reminde fr the second or
third time that I w coming; he kept seching fr me, but I NW still
nowhere to b sen. When Wfnally d U Ktiraa te priet
wstanding on the road, outside, waiting for us. He had been given our
descripton and certain sign he culd use to identify us.
He approached us, paid his respect and asked, `U this your name?" I
replied it V and he said, "Lord Murugn ordered me
t
receive you.
He showed Maround, @ the history of the temple and behave very
respectl y.
There small lodge, ret houses around the temple which were
fully ocupie, although he somehow had vacate one, prepared it, cleaned
it and made it ready for us. Even though rhe government ^W trying to
Ccnh!mmavri
A nyto Iathlnm 12
improve the water situaton, the river ner the temple wdry at the rime,
and so I told Patiyari and the others to help me dig for water. We placed
stcks down and srned digng. We dug to a depth of about one-and-a
half fet when water welled up. Then we blocke the hole kep the
eatth from flling in, and as much water W neeed u. This w
the only source of water rlut dy for m the houes in the atea and for
anyone who needed water.
They went to the temple to pray, then etne back and ate. They
knew I had lived ner here earlier and wanted to see the places where I
used to live. I had told them there were rwo or thre difrent plac where
I use to sty. The kar the priest, would not leave us; he would go
and do his work, and when fnishe cme back and stay with us. I told
them I u to live at a place clled Vallimalai, the name means Valli
Mountain, sugting we could go there, bur the karpal autioned us
saying that nine people had gone ter befre and never reture. When
he sid this everyone w frightened. "Never mind, I said, "Get some
Hour, some coconut and water, and let's go. We will u !he 1 dogs
sttioned at the entrance to the temple with M+
=
They replied, "The dog ate used to staying at the temple, they w
not come with M m strays. Ho can we expect stray <ogs to show
us the way?w
I said, "If we h to be shown the way they will come. Don't worry,
come along," and we proceeded to fnd the rwo small fmale dogs, each
about a fot in height. I told one of the disciple who had come with me,
"Tell one of the dogs to come with M and be our guide. The dog imme
diately wk on ahead of us. Everyone laughed, they could not believe
it The dog ran ahed for about a mile on the lef side of the road, crossed
to the right and cme running back, W though she wscouting the land.
Then she etne up to me looked staight at me. I told her, "Right, go
ahead, keep doing that.
In this jungle ene is ad that wild elephants will attck. Some
one said, "There's Mually a python around here."
But I replied, "Tell it to go ad it will." They thought they saw an
elephant. I sid, "It will go away, if you tell it to go it will go." We could
heat the sound of branches being broken by elephants. I told them not to
worry, jut to keep going. Wewent on for renty-six miles until we found
a well. It w no almost dawn. We had lef in the early moring ad
had gone rwenty-six miles, there were rwenty-six mile still to go since the
total distnce wa f-rwo mile. We had told the people at the temple
Ccnh!mmavri
/24 THE TREE THAT FELL THE WEST
we would retur by lunch, to have our meal ready. But everyone wa
exhausted hy tere as they slumped dto ret. They slept and the
dog slept. When I woke them up I told them to bring me the four, water
and some jagery, a swet that I mixe into a sugry paste, giving each of
them a small ball of this. "Eat it," I said, "We have t go."' I gve a little
bit to the dog which she rfed.
Now cne complained, "We cn't another step, our legs Q
ded, we cn't move. Weae to wek tomoe ahead or go back. Wewould
rather lie down here and die!"
I merely ansered, "Well you are alive now, aren't you? Get up and
walk." I put some jagery in front of the dog agin. but she would not
ear, she just looked at my fce. I said, . is that what it is, you want me
to eat frst, do you?" I took a bit of the jagery, put it in my mouth, then
the dog sted eating at once. We drank some water, ate the food and I
said, "Now we rhed, get up, we stll h tenty-six mile to go,
and then we have to be back by noon." Qasid they so ehausted
that they could not move, but I ordered ddog. "Get up, ,et up!" and I
told the others, "The dog and I going to run, let's see if you ca keep
up with us. I starte running with the dog at my heels, going quite a
.istance while the others ce plodding and panting behind us.
Finally Piyi cught up with me and appealed, "Ai, fther, pleae
stop awhile, the rest of us will drop dead at this rate, plese .stop awhile to
let us catch up, otherwise w will all die."
I said, f right, but come, run, run, run. I'm running, my dog is
running. why cn't you rn? That hill over there i s not v away,"
then the others came panting along. They thought we had arrived at our
detination, but I sted running again with the dog we I and ran and
ran. We climbed a mountin. Do you kno how long it took us to C
twenty-six mile? Only hminute. We had walked forsix hours to cover
the frst stge and cvere the secnd twenty-six miles in lv minute.
We rached the top of the mountain where we sw something beautiful, a
pecock dancng. Aer we watche t awhile they wante to bathe in a
small pool frme by a rivulet of water coming from a cack in a rock.
"Be cf," I told them, "Do not immerse yourself in this water becuse
the pool goe down to the netherworlds. You will never come back if you
step in." Then an elephant ce to suck some water up into its tunk and
bathe. When it went athey all dragged themselves up to the rock and
drak ad bathed. It wvery refeshing because water fowing fom rocks
is like ice water.
Ccnh!mmavri
A Trip Kathir 125
They were relieved and happy, bur we had frther to @. Now the
fotpath leding thrugh the jungle had leopards on one side, bers on
the other and elephant might be anywhere. I kept going becaue we had
to climb up bt the cve wher I used to live, but t people
wer lg g behind. part of the junge i a fl of leopards, bears
and elephant. Ordinary people cnot ever come here. They wll kll the.
I am the only one who could ever sty here. I tured around to yell at the
straglers who shoute, 'ro, help M elephants, leopards and b are
going to kill us. We can't move, we can't take another step. We so e
hausted."
I . 7right," and told the other, "Wecan't just lee the behind.
It is obvious that you not met to see this at this time. We cnnot
leve them. WeWtum back." We ccste on the mfce on a set wher
I used to sit, a set of nwith two smaller stools on both side where I
would put my fe t. We sat there and chewe some betel while wewatche
a lepard playing with her cubs. I said, "Lok how happy they B playing
together." Pariyari playl y Ulittle pebble at the cubs. I said, "Now
you have had a chance to play with leopar cubs. You h even tossed
pebble at them.
Net I said, `fright, let me show you a secret. There is a L inside
that crevice wheou cn her everything happening in Kathirakmam,
you cn hear the swamis doing g3, ofring pr and chancing. you
can her the drums." The space inside this oreembles a cone-shaped
amplifer, like the one on the old graophones. To get into that small
crevice you have to climb down 1 or three steps. When we did thBt I
sid, right, put your er rigt ther and liste. There, can you her it?"
"Oh yes," they replied, "We can her eing." It Y about nine
o'clock. Piwere being performe W Kamam, they could hear
the drumbeat, people chanting and people reciting.
Now it wa ten o'clock and time fr u to return. I gave them food,
again the four mixed with jagery, and told them to ct. Then we started
of. "I going to run, let's see u you can tun along with me. Wehave to
ther by twelve." The dog and I I out in font and they behind.
They had bathe, they had eaten, drunk water and were refrehed. We
I stopping hay wher they caught up to us. Then I started of at
once for the wll, the frst stopping place, ad they I behind u covering
the twenty-si mile in ffeen minute.
Twoof them had been cr ng pot of water fr everyone. They were
so overjoyed with what they eperienced one of them balance a pot of
J 26 THE TREE THATFELL TO TE WT
water on mhed, dancng W happines , but te pot fll of ad broke.
Tis ment one pot of Wat= W lost and the peron who * in charge
of the other pot mit There N no water t drink. By the time we
got the wthe 1 stg ers said they could not move aother step.
Stetching out on the gound they said, "My fher, we have walked
seventy-fve mile, please don't make u go on, jut leave W here to die
instead, pleae don't frce us to go ay frther."
There wone glass of te left which I share with everyone, one sip
fr each of + then I sid, "Riglu you t, get up," and I spoke to the
dog, "Get up and tke these two to Katam. We will fllo you."
The dog got up, dtwo of them got up; the dog Ty te + The men
stoQtnow and becming stonge. About h t Kathirakma
one of them mothe dog to his shoulde put he on his head and began
to run. They reched there by twelve noon, bathe in the water hole at
Katam ad lay down t ret. Mee I Nbringing the oters
along who very thirsty becuse had no water. They would walk
for awhile, stop and rf to budg. I promise some juice fm
crtin jungle ftuit, and I fund one or to and @them some. Slowly
they got up, Pariyiri frst Mgradually the others folJowed. I sem them
on ahead, leving me with Saa i and Clerk. If I walked Mof
them fr a mile, I would fnd them draging a mile behind me; so I tried
making them walk i nfont of mcwhile I went beind to make sure they
would keep wk. We wand walke and wk, it N WQhot
and we were w on stone and sand. It seme as if it would never
end. We had so many blistr on our fe t we could not even wer our
sandals. By now P and the othes my mI
He cae back wit water drink, ad the three of us drank some. We
ft better and fnally reche Kathiam at half past telve.
The dog WsU ther lying on the ground with everyone else. Once
bathed I told them, "Go ad pray in the temple `uyou To the
dog I said, "Your duty i s now, go sry where you supposed to
sry. I w call you if I need you." She left and when the man who had
carried he on m hed went inide the temple to pray, the dog stood at
his side. This made him so happy he thought he should give her some
.He intended to bring the dog back with m, but when he arriv
he had frgotten her.
Later when I N giving out the mhe said, "My fther pleae, the
dog _ us so much strength, I must feed her.
I ctcd. "She will not come with you." He pleaded, asking me to
Ccnh!mmavri
A Tripto Xmmm !27
keep some kaside, saying he would bring the dog. He went back to
the temple to pray ad te dog at m side again, but somehow he
frgot to bring her back. happened once, rwic and a m tme. I
<,"What are you doing, you have le mte t bring te dog bck.
Do you intend share your mwith her? Why not give i to the other
who are hungy."
He a, "I don't know what happens, something make me frget.
This time I will defnitely bring that dog, will not frget"
I told him, "That dog i s not a dog who w your fod, this unot
a dog who will eat the fod you offer."
"No my fther, she will eat it, she will et it!"
I said, 7rigt, .

He went to pray at the temple. The dog stood


at his side, but he ce back frgetting her. I repeated, "This dog will not
eat, you will never see he agin G uyou @in search of her. You had
better give your fod the others who are hungy."
Again he insisted, "No my fther, plee, it may be the ffh tme, but
I will bring that dog. Lt me @.
,
He went back, saw the dog, but when
he approached he could no longer fnd her; he sw bonce, but then he
could no longer fnd her and he retured.
Now I eplaine, "She is not a dog. she i s a female deity, the fmale
idol in the temple who is the consort of Lr Murugn. You cnnot bring
a fmale deity wit you. You c bring a dog along with you, but nor a
female god. Youwill never meet this dog agin. Don't you rali ze who she
is, can't you see who she is?"
He wept bearing hishead ad chet, "0 my fther, why didn't you tell
me sooner, why didn't I know this before? I have missed such an
.
opportunaty.
I sid, "Well you did Cher on your head, did you m We were
going t Vallimalai, t Valli Mountain. This wValli whom I aske to
guide M ad she did, but you said she wa dog. and so she cme a a
dog: He cried ad sobbed, weeping with disappointent. "Never mind,"
I said, "Serve the kt everyone."
There was another pathway leading to a shrine ealled Sella
Kta close by which we went to se, one of the placs I had
lived in befre. Four of went, Kandaiya, Clerk, one mor and myself
leaving Piyari behind to cook. There are two mountins ad a river in
this plac with a comfrtable rok set at about a man's height above the
river. We did not cthe regular path but a hidden one insted, and w
fund the rok I used t lie on under a tee, a mlike a be, it loked
Ccnh!mmavri
1 28 THE TREE THAT FEU TO
like a bed. The surfc of this rock is wso sof and smooth, and there
is another rock beside it make a pillow. It wa a long rime sinc I had
been there. I lay down ad fet very happy.
In another place cloe by there = vnmshaped like a swing where I
used to sit ad swing up ad down, but now I lay down on that rock and
as the old habit and attitude cme back, I sang a song. When the sound
cme from me you could her it coming fom everywhere-here, there,
there and there, the sme music cming fom everywhere all around. One
man, Kandaiya, seid my fo t, aother claspe my hand, another held
my other hand, m fring I might vanish because my old thought had
come back. They heard my song as they held onto me, and I didthink of
leaving. O I trieto move away I fund my foot N held tight, I
tried to release one hand, but the other w also held tight. They were
sitting around the be on the gound, holding me, their m closed in
the sweetnesof the music surrounding them, nerly uncnsious, dazed
and enchanted. Every rme I tied to loosen my hand so that I could slip
away they would wake up. I trie three rime, bU they held me so righdy
I could not move. Finally my had and leg were locke in a position that
made them numb; I sang for frty-fve minute, but my lcg were numb
and I had to stop.
I spoke, "Very well, it does not seem to be the right time fr me to
come, perhaps another um."Te could hear me talking to someone,
they realized I could see someone. Then I said, "All right, I am not going
now, you L let go of my hands and leg. Piy is looki for us, and
a wild buff alo is about attack him along the way. must go to protect
him, release me, we must go back now."
I wsittng on another sct high up, like the one I had sat on before
at the rock fce, a Pai yari ce along. I could see two buflo fghting
and U third one eyeing Pariyari, waiting to attack. Waving my hands I
yelled, "Stop, stop there!" but he did not hear me, he just kept coming,
and I climbe down the mNow you need to know if a buflo stands
motionles, irs C pricked up, this is a sign it is wild, a tame buflo does
not do that. A tame buflo fl irs C up and down, but wild buflo
stands motionless, its ers straight out. This one w standing there
watching Pariyiri like that, ad then it went stight fr him, it wgoing
fst. Its body wft about thre fe t across, but I raised my hand to stop
it, and the buflo wdiverted by my r hand. It went crahing of
through the shrubbery.
Then Priyari arived and I said, "You fool, why did you come all this
Ccnh!mmavri

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