The Duties Of A Disciple (Towards His Spiritual Guide)

(Excerpted from Futuwat namah by Khwaja Husayn Wa’iz Kashifi Sabzawari An Naqshbandi Translated by M. Nur Abdussalam)

If asked: How many are the duties of a disciple? Say: Eight:

1.      When he puts his hand in that of the spiritual guide, the disciple makes himself as a corpse. He restrains his hand from his own impulses. As Rumi has said (verse): 

If you are a disciple, be as though dead, like a corpse next to a corpse.
Bury the blindness of your eye in order to live forever.

2.      He should consider his spiritual guide his ruler in all things, great and small. He should not disobey anything commanded by the spiritual guide. Rumi says (verse):

When you have taken a master, lo! Submit (to him);
Go like Moses under the tutelage of Khidr.
The master is a mirror for the soul in distress;
Rail not, O soul, at the mirror’s image. 

3.      Even if the spiritual guide should give as much trouble and hardship as there are drops of rain, the disciple must not turn away from him. If he would obtain the fortune of both words, he must not falter. Rumi has written (verse): 

Since you have taken a master, be not faint-hearted;
Be not weak like water and mud;
If you become resentful at every annoyance,
How will you ever become an untarnished mirror? 

4.      The disciple must keep the secrets of spiritual master and not disclose them to the uninitiated. He should not place the familiar coin in a stranger’s hand. Rumi says (verse):

 The Prophet said that whoever concealed secrets
Would quickly be joined with is heart’s desire;
Learning the secret of the Absent befits
Him who can seal his lips from speech. 

5.      If he should see 100,000 persons who exceed his spiritual guide by 100,000 degrees, the disciple should not swerve away from him, nor should his belief become corrupted. He should not devote himself to another. As has been said (verse): 

Now that you have a tranquil heart, bind it to him;
Close your eyes to the whole world. 

6.      He must not object to anything the spiritual guide says or does. Rather he should consider all that he witnesses from the spiritual guide to be truth and to recognize its certainty, for no action of the preceptor is without design, even though the disciple not comprehend its purpose This is apparent in the story of Moses and Khidr. Verse: 

He who receives revelation and words from God
--Whatever He decrees is exactly correct—
“Slay that boy!” Khidr cut his throat.
Ordinary folk do not perceive the secret!
If Khidr scuttles a boat in the sea—
There are a hundred truths in Khidr’s deed. 

7.      The disciple must not conceal anything of his own secrets from his spiritual guide. To do so is a great betrayal. If a sick man hide his symptoms from the physician, he will never get well. Verse: 

Expose your inner secrets to you master and be relieved,
Just as one should not conceal one’s aches from the physician. 

8.      The period of a disciple’s service to his spiritual guide is at least four seasons. The median is a thousand days, and at most, it is limitless. What is better than that a person spend his life in the service of his spiritual guide? In essence, this means that the disciple should remain in service for as long as the spiritual guide thinks it appropriate; [and God knows best.]