Every habit makes a line in man's mind, and the continuation of that habit wakens that line from sleep; in other words it gives the line sensitiveness, which is the feeling of life; and in time man indulges in his habit. If a person takes a liking to a certain phrase of music its every repetition gives him a renewed joy; when someone enjoys a certain poetry it cannot be repeated to him too often; if anyone likes a certain dish, in time he has a craving for it. Not only praise or flattery does man enjoy, but even insults, if they have made a deep line on his mind; he will try to tease others or offend somebody, in order to receive an insult. He may not outwardly seem to enjoy it, and yet he will revel in it.

If a person becomes accustomed to sit on a certain rock in a garden he forms a habit of going and seeking the same rock every day; if someone has a liking for the scenery of a certain place he longs to see it every day. Of course it depends upon the depth of the line; the deeper the line the more one lives in it. When talking, a business man explains things in terms of pounds and shillings, an architect in the terms of his compass and tools. Every person has his own language and that language is made of his words which come from the deeply engraved line of his mind.

Therefore, the work of the mystic is to be able to read the language of the mind. As the clerk in the telegraph office reads letters from the ticks, so the Sufi gets behind every word spoken to him and discovers what has prompted the word to come out. He therefore reads the lines which are behind man's thought, speech and action. He also understands that every kind of longing and craving in life, good or bad, has its source in deep impression. By knowing this root of the disease he is easily able to find out its cure. No impression is such that it cannot be erased.

The mystics have two processes in dealing with these lines. One process is to renew this line by putting in some other color and therefore changing one impression into another impression. No doubt this needs great knowledge of mental chemistry. Another way that the mystic takes is to rub out the line from the surface. But often, when the line is deep, it takes the rubbing out of a great portion of the mind to destroy one line. Naturally the mystic becomes tolerant of every sort of dealing of others with him, as he sees not only the dealing as it appears, thoughtful or thoughtless, cold or warm, but the cause which is at the back of it.

By reading the human mind a mystic gets insight into human nature and to him the life of human beings begins to appear as a mechanism working. The mystic learns from this that life is give and take. It is not only that one receives what one gives but also one gives what one receives. In this way the mystic begins to see the balance of life; he realizes that life is a balance, and if the gain or loss, the joy or pain of one outweighs that of another, it is for the moment, but in time it all sums up in a balance, and without balance there is no existence possible.