Excerpt from a Speech by Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh, the late Master of the Nimatullahi Order, Presented in the Three-day International Conference of Swami Vivekananda’s Centenary Celebrations (Global Vision 2000) in Washington D.C. August 6, 7 & 8, 1993.

“…The spiritual world is different from the intellectual world in both its aim and method. The aim of the spiritual world is to discover the Unity of Being on an experiential level, to manifest the Divine nature that lies within us. And the method of the spiritual practice is nothing other than love. Love is the binding principle of the universe and the only reliable guide of humanity in its search for the Truth. On the most basic level, love manifests itself in the bond between a man and woman; on the most sublime level, it manifests as the unconditional love of a human being for all of creation, leading one to experience the true reality of the Unity of Being.

When this occurs, according to the Sufis, all conventional distinctions between the different religions, between good and evil, belief and unbelief, benevolence and wrath disappear. For endowed with God’s eyes, the lover comes to see that there is, was, and always will be only One Being–though manifested in thousands of different forms and guises. When the illusion of individual being is removed, one comes to see that there is nothing but God and like the Sufi martyr Hallaj may even be driven to utter such a seemingly blasphemous statement as, “I am Truth.”

As the end of the twentieth century approaches, we are witnessing a world that is becoming increasingly aware of its multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-religious make-up. In such a world, it is no longer possible to attain the kind of artificial, external unity that was created at various points in the past through the dominance of particular cultures, races, or religions. If true Unity is to be attained in this global society, we must come to accept what Sufi masters have always insisted upon: that there are as many paths to God as there are people and that all these different paths ultimately lead to the same place: the Absolute Truth, which is, in fact, one and the same for everyone. As Rumi, the great Persian poet and Sufi, put it:

A flower is still a flower no matter where it grows,

And wine is still wine wherever it may flow.

      Anything less than this will only lead to increasing disharmony and disunity in the world today.

      Rumi has illustrated this point in a simple story: Four men from different lands, each speaking a different language, are jointly given a coin by someone. Each man wishes to buy grapes with the coin, but since they speak different languages they do not realize this and begin to quarrel with one another over what to buy, each demanding (using his own word for grapes) that the others buy grapes, none understanding that it is what they all already want. Finally, someone arrives who knows all the four languages. He buys them grapes, thereby ending their quarrel. Rumi points out that people quarrel about words because they don’t understand the true meanings referred to by such words. Only a person of God, well-versed in the language of the heart, can save humanity from its disagreements and conflicts over the outer aspect of things and guide it toward the realm of their true significance and meaning.

      Of course, this insight–that there are as many paths to God as there are people–is by no means unique to Sufism. Indeed, it is the hallmark of all true spirituality. Krishna, speaking in the Bhagavad-Gita says: “Freed from passion, fear and anger, filled with me, and taking refuge in me, purified in the fire of wisdom, many have entered into my being. But however they approach me, I welcome them, for whatever path they take is mine.”

      It is only through love that human beings can acquire such an insight. Only through the binding forces of love can humanity leave behind its differences, its condition of multiplicity, and arrive at a state of Oneness. Only through love can we come to see that all acts of worship, when performed with sincerity of heart, lead to the same end, come from the same source…”