Among these Rind are to be found the so-called dancing dervishes. The idea is that dancing implies motion, and motion means life; dancing expresses the joy of life. And what is joy? Joy is the sign of a good soul, of a good heart. You always notice that when a convivial person, a good soul, a goodhearted man, comes into your life he brings delight to all. Whenever he speaks it is in good humor, and he brings pleasantness and joy. Being joyous himself he makes others cheerful. It is not hypocrisy; he is alive; he is joyous.

Take another person who comes weeping; he will make you want to weep too. Wherever he goes he brings gloom; he is taking misery along with him, and so he makes everyone else miserable. Now what does this mean? It just means that in the depths of his heart there is some decay. He is not enjoying life fully. The sign of life is having goodness, beauty, strength in your disposition, which means that you have some joy and are conscious of beauty, goodness, and joy. Having joy in your nature and disposition, you bring it to everybody you meet. Well, that is the state of the dervish. He says to himself, "If I may not dance, what shall I do?" Possessing the joy of the presence of his Beloved, he feels the sublimity of nature; he is conscious of all the motion going on throughout nature. It intoxicates him like wine.

Besides, there is a certain ritual among some dervishes, and they trace its origin to the time of Jelal-ud-Din Rumi, the great Persian poet. It is related how on one occasion Rumi, absorbed in the thought of all life as being one beauty, in the thought of the motion and rhythm of life, began to revolve; and while he circled round and round in front of his pupils, the skirt of his garment as it whirled produced such a beautiful effect that they stored it in their memory for ever after. So the dance celebrates this memory.

The teaching of Jesus Christ will be found among the dervishes; indeed, not only his teaching but his life too. If you wished to see a living example of Christ's life you could see it among the dervishes, for among them you will find some who have taken the vow of poverty and chastity, as in earliest times. There is no compulsion of any kind about it; they do not have to follow this life; it depends on whether they wish to follow the same kind of life that Christ lived. Wherever you travel in India or Persia, you will see this whenever you meet a true dervish.