Covenant

Many people believe our covenant with God is forged exclusively in this world. From the Sufi perspective, this belief is not completely accurate.

According to practitioners of the Sufi path, our covenant with God first took place prior to our coming into the present physical/material realm of being. What transpires in this world is about whether or not we will honor our original, pre-creational covenant.

Undergoing initiation into a given Sufi Order or taking exoteric religious vows is not a first-time contract between us and God. In a sense, these processes are re-creations of events which, as suggested above, already have occurred.

Initiation is an example of just one of the many things we must do in order to abide by, or to honor, the conditions of the pre-creational undertaking. Such activities both serve to confirm the original covenant as well as help us to work our way toward remembering what we have forgotten.

Sufi masters indicate the original agreement was somewhat like a challenge to our spirits. More specifically, prior to coming into this world, our spirits were asked, in effect, whether we always would recognize God.

Our spirits were asked whether we always would submit to God. Our spirits were asked whether we always would love and cherish God. Our spirits were asked whether we always would obey God.

Our spirits were asked whether we always would remember God. Our spirits were asked whether we always would worship and praise God. Our spirits were asked whether we always would be thankful to God.

According to Sufi masters, everyone who was brought into existence in this world answered: "Yes!", to all of the above. In fact, God only gave physical/material existence to those spirits who answered the challenge in an affirmative fashion.

However, when our spirits were brought into association with our bodies and placed in this world through birth, we became mesmerized by the intense effects of worldly existence on sensation, emotions, and thinking. As a result we quickly forgot: who we are; or, from where we had come; or, to what we had agreed in our original covenant.

As outlined previously, when we become initiated or we take religious vows, supposedly, this constitutes a first step along the path to regaining our spiritual identities and memories. The deep and tragic irony of this step, however, is that no sooner do many of us confirm our original covenant through the process of initiation or the taking of vows, then we start to forget again as we continue to be dominated and preoccupied by the addictive impact of the world on our systems.

Many of us may be skeptical of the idea we have made a covenant with God prior to created existence which we, subsequently, have forgotten. Nevertheless, we should reflect on the fact that the very same thing happens all over again, before our very eyes, in the present world.

In each case, the story is the same. Our addictions to sensations, worldly gratification and the false self have led us to forget our true selves and our covenant with God.

One of the most fundamental struggles confronting our life in this world is to remember not only what we promised to God but to remember the act of promising itself. One of the most basic tasks we must fulfil in the life of this world is to honor our pre-creational covenant.

Like someone who has suffered a massive cerebral stroke, we must undergo a program of rehabilitation in order to regain our spiritual memories and faculties. We must seek out those, such as the Sufi masters, who specialize in the requisite therapeutic procedures.

Slowly, we must be brought to the point where we can recognize God in all things. We must be trained to overcome our spiritual aphasia, as well as to regain the use of our tongues so that, once again, we may praise God continuously.

We must be helped to reactivate our atrophied capacity to love and cherish God. We must be shown how to exercise our muscles so that we may have control over our locomotor system in order to be able to obey God in all things.

We must be given treatment which induces our amnesia to lift so that our remembrance of God may be clear and steady under all circumstances. Our faculties for eternal gratitude and submission to God must be re-educated. We must be given remedial programs which will help bring us up to speed with respect to how we ought to worship God in an unceasing fashion.

We are not doing God any favors by seeking out, and entering into, these kinds of rehabilitation program. God, in fact, is doing us the favor by subsidizing such free clinics and staffing them with individuals who are not only skilled, knowledgeable experts, but who are individuals possessing, by the grace of God, tremendous compassion, patience and love. They have unbelievable bedside manners.

In any event, entering into spiritual rehabilitation programs of the foregoing sort is a matter of personal integrity. We made a covenant with God. We made promises to God. The issue is straightforward: will we honor our word?

God challenged us prior to our coming into material existence. We accepted that challenge. We were given physical existence.

Now, we are being asked by God to put our money, so to speak, where our mouth is. Were we bluffing or were we sincere when we made the original covenant with God? Time will tell.