In the above stanzas taken from Sur Sasui Abri, Shah Bhitai uses verses from Holy Qur'an. Many other verses from the Qur'an of this nature has been used throughout the Risalo.
This lead us to the belief in the Islamic mysticism of Shah Bhitai. Since Bhitai contemplates chiefly on the Divine attribute of love, his mysticism has also been called love mysticism, as most of his surs
reveal. He contemplates too on the Divine attributes of beauty, compassion and munificence, signifying them by symbols which are taken from our own mundane world, familiar to the masses.
During the course of this journey called Life I have collected some "Gems", some 'pearls',
which helped me to know and 'remember' myself. A Chinese proverb says, "Gem cannot be polished without friction, nor the man perfected without trials. And the 'friction' in my life persistently goes on bringing pain and sorrow. And the trials and tribulations of my existence
has become my partners, my friends, my constant companions.
"Excuse me," said a very young ocean fish, "You are older than I so can you tell me where to find this thing called the Ocean?" "The Ocean," replied the older fish, "is the thing you are in now."
"Oh this? But this is water. What I'm seeking is the Ocean," said the disappointed young fish as he swam away to search elsewhere.
The man travelled on until he came to the Master in sannyasi robes. He spoke in the sannyasi language and asked, "For years I have been seeking God. I have sought Him everywhere that He is said
to be - on mountain peaks, the vastness of the desert, the silence of the cloister and the dwellings of the poor."
"Have you found him," the Master asked. "No. I have not. Have you?" replied the man.
What could the Master say? The evening sun was sending shafts of golden
light into the room. Hundreds of sparrows were twittering on a banyan tree.
In the distance one could hear the sound of the highway traffic. A mosquito
droned a warning that it was going to strike. And yet this man could sit
there and say he had not found Him.
After a while the man left disappointed, to search elsewhere.
Stop searching, little fish. There i'snt anything to look for. All you have to do is look.
Said the man, "All these mountains and rivers and earth and stars, where do they come from?" Replied the Master, "Where does your question come from?"
Search within not without.
Diogenes the Greek mystic was dining on bread and lentils. He was seen by
the philosopher Aristippus who lived in considerable comfort by fawning on the king.
Said Aristippus. "Learn subservience to the king and you will not live on lentils."
Said Diogenes, "Learn to live on lentils and you will not have to cultivate the king."
A village girl became an unwed mother and after several beatings from her parents and society, revealed that the father was the Zen Master living on the outskirts of the village.
The villagers angrily trooped to the Master's house rudely disturbed his meditation, beat him up, denounced him as a hypocrite and told him to keep the baby. All the Master said was, "Is that so".
He picked up the baby, made arrangements with the woman next door to look after the baby at his expense. His name was of course ruined and all his disciples abandoned him.
After a year, the girl could not bear the lie any longer, broke down and confessed that the father was the boy next door.
The villagers trooped to the Master, bowed profoundly to beg his pardon and asked to take the baby back. All the Master said as he handed back the child was, "Is that so."
A fisher man and his wife got a son after many years of marriage. The boy
was his parent's joy and pride. Then one day the boy fell ill and even
though a fortune was spent on medicines and treatment the boy died.
The mother was heart-broken. There were no tears in the father's eyes.
On being reproached by his wife for his lack of sorrow he replied, "Last night I saw a dream that I was a king and father of 8 sturdy sons. Then you woke me up. Now I am greatly puzzled. Should I weep for those boys or for this one?" The awakened man!
The normally very voluble Master one morning awakens and goes into silence. This unusual behaviour and anguished expression on his face prompts his disciples to enquire the reason.
Said the Master, "Last night I had a dream that I had become a butterfly, flitting from one flower to another basking in the sun and flying with the wind."
Asked the puzzled disciple, "So why the anguished silence, Master?"
Replies the Master, "If my dream of being a butterfly seemed so real, then why is it not possible that right now it is the butterfly dreaming that it has become a Master. And if I am just a dream of a butterfly, the end of
whom is in the awakening of the butterfly then all that I have been teaching you to be kind, to be compassionate, to be just, to learn the
scriptures - all have no meaning. The truth lies with that which remains as constant whether in a dream or in awakening. To seek that is the Way. Rest is for the fools."
And I asked myself the question that I had always been asking and the man has been asking since eternity, "Oh you, who so much are bothered with the affairs of this world, with the issues of this life, with the pursuit of joy and avoidance of sorrow, is the world real or a dream of a butterfly?"
A salt doll journeyed for thousand of miles and stopped at the edge of the sea. It was fascinated by this moving liquid mass, so unlike anything it had seen before.
"What are you," asked the salt doll. "Come in and see," replied the sea with a smile.
So the salt doll waded in. The further it went, the more it dissolved till there was only a pinch of it left. Before the last bit dissolved the doll exclaimed in wonder, "Now I know what I am ".
Dissolve your ego (which is nothing but your 'values,' your education, your 'shoulds' and your 'should nots', your scriptures, your morality, your so called religion, your seeking of pleasure and avoidance of sorrow, your planning for the future, your running to reach somewhere),
and discover your essence which was always there, which is all that you truly ever have.
A crow once flew into the sky with a piece of meat in its beak. Twenty other crows set out in hot pursuit and began to attach it viciously. When the crow finally dropped the meat, its pursuers left it alone and flew off shrieking after the morsel. Said the crow, "I've lost the meat and gained the peaceful sky." Said the Master,"When my house burnt down I got the moon at night."
When the sannyasi reached the outskirts of the village and settled under a tree for the night, a villager came running up to him shouting, "the stone! the stone! Give me the precious stone!" "What stone?" asked the sannyasi. "Last night Lord appeared in my dream that if I went to the outskirts of the village a sannyasi who would have just come would give me a stone which would forever make me rich."
The sannyasi rummaged his bag and pulling out a stone said,"He probably meant this one. I found it in the forest yesterday. Here, it is yours if you want it."
The man gazed at the stone in wonder. It was the largest diamond in the world. All night the man tossed about in his bed. At dawn he ran to the sannyasi and woke him
and said, "Give me the wealth that makes it possible for you to give away this stone."
Two Buddhist monks on their way to the monastery, found an exceedingly beautiful woman at the river bank. Like them she also wanted to cross the river but the water was too high. So one of them took her across the river on his shoulders.
The other was thoroughly scandalized. For two hours he berated the other for his breach of the Rule. Had he forgotten he was a monk? How dare he touch the women. Did he not remember he was a monk? And worse carry her over the river? And what would people say? Had he not disgraced their Holy Religion? Etc., etc.
At the end of the lecture the first monk replies, "Brother, I dropped that woman at the river side. Are you still carrying her?"
There exists a close connection between his physical and an unseen, invisible world which we may call supernal, and which can only be comprehended by the enlightened ones. Man does not live only this physical, outer life but he lives an inner life simultaneously. Our inner life is directly influenced by the way we live our physical outer life like "The Picture of Dorian Gray." The consciousness of evolving one's innerlife dawns upon us when we have lived an active,
untarnished earthly life, having performed with sincerity and devotion our worldly responsibilities. Bhitai propagates this idea as:
The Knowledge of God