Among the Sufis . . . it has always been required that the intending participant practice certain requirements to fit him or her for higher learning. In modern societies, equivalent and often exactly similar prerequisites are found. Because so many familiar institutions with clearly laid out requirements already exist in contemporary cultures, it should be easier, not more difficult, for people to understand, given real desire, the requirements. These include: humility, dedication, abstinence, restraint, obedience.
Unless you exercise these virtues you will get nowhere in banking, the Army, medicine, politics, human service or anywhere else in many forms of mundane endeavour. If, on the other hand, you want to escape these tiresome preliminaries and flee into Sufism, then we know what you are like, and we cannot talk to you at all. To say yes to the Sufi way is to say no to imagined escapes.
It is no accident that Sufis find that they can connect most constructively with people who are well integrated into the world, as well as having higher aims, and that those who adapt a sensible attitude towards society and life as generally known can usually absorb Sufi teachings well indeed. . . the world itself, as well as special attitudes, properly understood, constitute the Sufi school.
Remember the words of Maghribi, who said to a monkish individual: What you are seeking in your retreat / I see clearly in every road and alley-way.
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