Now this is the second mode of cognizance of the Sufis, the first one being the way we interpret experience. And this one, the second one, is a mode of cognizance that is revealed rather than acquired. And it can only be revealed if one downplays one’s interpretation of the situations. One cautions them, and in fact that is very much in line with yoga.

But still, the situation serves as a trigger, to unleash that inner revelation. And so we must always remember this principle, and that’s the difference between Sufism and yoga, and Buddhism. And that is that while yoga, and Buddhism, emphasizes the deceptive nature of the world, as illusory and therefore one has to eschew any kind of reliance upon it, Sufism considers that it is in the physical world and also in the existential condition that God becomes reality.

So there seems some paradox here, of course, a complementary. But, you know these are signs, but those signs, those clues, as were already said, in which God reveals Him/Herself to us, but these clues are, for one thing, they are transparent so one can grasp what appears behind what transpires behind what appears. And secondly, there is a Sufi procedure which is called ta'wil which means conducting one’s experience back to its origin. That is, moving from the perceived to the abstract and then reversing things and moving from the abstract to the tangible. That’s awakening beyond life and awakening in life.

And therefore it’s true that at first one has to downplay one’s interpretation, at least caution oneself against its unreliability, and then eventually one’s insight is going to, what is the insight that’s revealed to one from inside, is going to alter one’s interpretation of the situations, until you are aware of your interpretation again but now it is corrected.