People very often mean by piety, orthodoxy, a religious appearance, or a great goodness. Really speaking piety means purity. Piety is the healthy state of mind, the person of healthy mind is really pious. That mind is pious which fears not, which is beyond life's anxieties and worries, which is above reproaches, which by its innermost joy makes even the body feel light. The pious feels exalted, for piety is purity from all things and conditions of earthly life which pull man down to the earth. When man feels light in his body and joyful in his heart his soul becomes exalted, and that is the sign of piety. If there is not this feeling in man, however much good there be in him, it is of no use, his learning is of no value, his religion, his prayer, all in vain.

Religion, prayer, or meditation, are all methods by which the joy which is within man, which is man's divine heritage, may be brought to the surface. Sufis have used different words from those of the orthodox in expressing their spiritual ideas. Therefore instead of calling man pious they call him Khanda Pishani, the "Smiling Forehead." It means that, if his lips do not smile, his forehead smiles. How true it is that before man cries or laughs his eyebrows give warning of what is coming. That is what is meant by the word "expression" in the English language.

There is an inner joy, a divine feeling, which rises up as water from a fountain and shows itself in many forms, in smiles, in tears, in words, in silence. Man expresses it in dancing, in singing; his voice, his word, his gesture, all express piety. Hafiz has said in sarcasm to the long-faced pious, who have become so out of orthodoxy and who look at singing or dancing with contempt, "If the heads of the pious would hear my words sung, they would get up and begin to dance." Then he goes on, saying, "Hafiz says things sometimes through drunkenness which he ought not to have said. O pious one, I pray you will overlook it all." The Sufi's piety is the divine joy which is the soul's real treasure, and it does not matter in what way it is achieved, religiously or irreligiously, as long as it is achieved; it is the thing the Sufi values most.