The action of every illness or weakness is more manifest in its impression on the mind. There are many people who after an illness that has lasted some time become so impressed by it that even after their cure the impression remains. Therefore to those who suffer for many years from an illness, their illness becomes natural, becomes a part of themselves, and the obstacle to their cure is not the illness but the impression engraved on the mind.

So it is with weakness or a defect of any sort. Very often a person confesses, "This is my defect, but I cannot help it." If there is any weakness or defect, it is merely in the impression. When a person says, "There are moments when I lose my temper," or when a person says, "I would like to tolerate, but I cannot stand that person," his weakness is nowhere but in the impression he has in his mind. Therefore the best cure for every illness and weakness is denial of the same. Affirmation deepens the impression, and contemplation of it makes it worse. There is no harm in denying one's illness or weakness, for that is not telling a lie, as it does not exist in reality, it is merely a shadow. Truthful confession of something which is unreal is worse than a lie. One must first deny that to oneself, and then to others.

The Sufi, whose ideal through life is the realization of God and His perfection, after realizing his ideal cannot say, "I cannot tolerate" -- or "endure" or "stand" -- "anybody"; and he cannot say that he cannot think, act or feel as he thinks right. The idea of the Sufi is always to suggest to oneself that which one wishes to be, that which one would like to be; and when he finds he failed to think, speak or act as he wishes to, he must think the condition of the process is to fall several times before one gets one's balance, instead of thinking, "It is my weakness, I cannot do otherwise."

Those who walk toward the perfection of power and wisdom take every step forward with a new hope and new courage; and weakness, to them, was a story of the past, it does not exist any more, they don't recognize such a thing as existing. They can't accept themselves being what they don't wish to. They picture themselves as their ideal, what they would like to be. Some time or other in their lives -- if not sooner, later -- they certainly succeed in moulding their life to their ideal.