The other form of the Sufi path is that of the Salik. The Salik is a person who believes that he can be a sage and at the same time follow his worldly occupation. His work is making his life amidst the responsibilities of everyday affairs, and at the same time he does this for a higher purpose; his mind is fixed on higher aspirations even while in the world. Every act in all the affairs of life is directed towards higher aspirations, and finally every thought in everything he is doing is directed towards this higher aspiration. So you find that the Salik is a worldly man, with the responsibility of a home or profession or business or trade, and yet when he has attained to that height he can be made a murshid; he can be a teacher. It is not necessary to renounce the world and become a monk; he can be a murshid even though he is still working in the world.

It is not that a murshid gives his knowledge to someone else. It is not possible to give one's knowledge that way, so the murshid does not profess to be able to do this or that. His work is to help another person to find out for himself, to discover for himself what is true and what is not. There are no doctrines to impart, there are no principles to lay down, there are no tenets according to which his pupils must order their lives. He is just a guide along the path. He is the one who kindles the light that is already in the pupil. He does not stand before the pupil as a priest; he is as a brother, a colleague, a friend. As he is just a human being he is limited, exactly as the pupil is; he is as liable to make mistakes and to have failures as anyone. He enjoys no special authority, nor is he one who stands apart in holiness. He will say, "I am not more holy than any other person; if he is not holy, no more am I." No, the murshid is the friend of the mureed; he is a friend on a path which the mureed has not yet trodden. So he can advise him if the mureed desires to be guided, and he can be his friend if the mureed desires him to be a friend. He can solve the mureed's problems; he can show him how to understand what kind of life is best for him; he can show him what truth is and how to attain to it.

The sage in the East is regarded everywhere with respect, whether he be a murshid, a sadhu, a sanyasin, or a saint. The name does not signify. One will hear that Hindu and Buddhist and Sufi sages are all different from one another. Well, that is true; they can be different just as in Western countries there are differences in the churches. For all that, there is really no difference between the sadhu, the sannyasi, and the saint. Both Hindu and Muslim will bow before the sage whether he be Buddhist, Vedantist, or Sufi. No one makes any distinction. Every sage is just a person on the path of truth, and no people respect him, though the feeling which one receives form a sage may be a little different in each case. But they all bring with them a light and an inspiration which are quite remarkable, as I know form my own experience.

When one is in the presence of a Varagi everything seems faded and pale, as if nothing in life had any value; it seems as if one had risen above all weakness and above all earthly goods. One receives a feeling of Kingliness, as if one were above everything; it seems as if all else was just a hindrance. That is the feeling one gets.

In the presence of a Sannyasi the feeling is different again. One has a sense of inspiration, of revolution. All the problems of life seem to be settled at once in his mere presence. It is like a light illuminating one, so that one begins to feel things and look upon them differently. The feeling one gets in the presence of a Buddhist sage is a moral experience. One gets a feeling of self sacrifice, of gentleness, goodness, and sympathy for every living creature.

When one is in the presence of a dervish of the Sufis one gets a feeling of ecstasy, which Omar Khayyam calls wine. It is an atmosphere charged with magnetism; there is a sense of intoxication, a spiritual intoxication which could never be compared with any effects of wine of the worldly kind.

Lastly, when one is in the presence of a Salik one feels as if one's eyes had been opened so as to perceive all the beauty there is in the world, the beauty of inner planes, the beauty of outer planes, the beauty of the whole manifestation of life. It is as if the curtain had risen upon a stage as soon as one had arrived and one found the stage full of every imaginable beauty. Some wonderful beauty had hitherto been hidden, and now it is all opened out before one.

For those who expect wonder-working from a sage, who expect him to prove that he is a sage, I say that it is the very presence of a real sage which beings such great joy and deep peace. One need never seek a greater wonder than this evidence in order to know that one is in the presence of a true sage.