Bayazid Quotes

I stood with the pious and I didn’t find any progress with them. I stood with the warriors in the cause and I didn’t find a single step of progress with them. Then I said, ‘O Allah, what is the way to You?’ and Allah said, ‘Leave yourself and come.

I never saw any lamp shining more brightly than the lamp of silence.

I went to a wilderness, love had rained and had covered earth, as feet penetrate snow, I found my feet covered with love.

When Bayazid was asked how old he was, he replied, ‘Four years.’ They said, ‘How can that be?’ He answered, ‘I have been veiled from God by the world for seventy years, but I have seen Him during the last four years. The period during which one is veiled does not belong to one’s life.’” On another occasion someone knocked at the saint’s door and cried, “Is Bayazid here?” Bayazid answered, “Is anybody here except God?

You will not be a mystic until you are like the earth— both the righteous and the sinner tread upon it— and until you are like the clouds— they shade all things— and until you are like the rain— it waters all things, whether it loves them or not.

Quien conoce a Dios, (ya) no dice “Dios”.

[A sannyasin returning to the West, expressed sadness at the thought of leaving Osho.] Osho : Sadness is also good. One has to learn that everything is good. Sadness goes to the very depths of your being, reaches to the very centre, penetrates you to the very heart. God comes to you in everything, in different forms and different ways. Sometimes He comes as sadness to give you depth. Sometimes He comes as happiness to create ripples of laughter on your surface. Sometimes He comes as life, sometimes as death, but only He is coming through different forms. Multi are His forms, many are His ways, and millions are His faces. One has to learn to recognise Him in whatsoever form He comes. When He comes as sadness, remember that is also His image. Maybe this is needed right now. There was one sufi mystic, Bayazid, who used to pray to God every day, expressing thanks and gratitude. Sometimes there was nothing to be thankful for. One time he and his disciples were hungry for three days. But again, that evening, Bayazid thanked God. One disciple said, 'This is too much. We cannot tolerate it! For what are you thanking God?' Bayazid had been saying, 'You are so good, my Lord. Whatsoever we need, you always give us.' The disciple said 'Now it is going too far. For three days we have been hungry and have been thrown out of every village, and people have been out to kill us. And You are saying "Whatsoever is needed, you always give us"! Now what has He given us for these three days?' Bayazid laughed and said, 'He has given us three days' poverty, and hunger and people who are after our lives. Whatsoever is needed, He always gives. This is needed. This must be needed because He knows better than we.' This is the religious attitude. The religious attitude is very alchemical - it transforms everything. The baser metal is immediately transformed into gold once you have the religious outlook. The religious outlook is the philosopher's stone. You touch anything and immediately it becomes gold. So touch your sadness with a religious, grateful heart, and suddenly you will see that even sadness has a beauty to it. A silence will immediately settle around you and you will feel thankful that He has given sadness to you. He always gives in the right moment whatsoever was needed. You may not understand. Sometimes you may even misunderstand, but that doesn't make any difference. For these few months that you will be away, try to recognise Him in every form...

I saw my Lord in my dreams and I asked, How am I to find You?", He replied, "Leave yourself and come

The term for this concept is wahadat al-wujud, or the Unity of Being, first coined by one of the greatest philosophical minds in history, Muhyiddin ibn al-Arabi (1165–1240 C.E.). Seeking to provide a firm philosophical basis for the Sufi conception of the divine, Ibn al-Arabi began by addressing the fundamental flaw in the doctrine of tawhid: If, in the beginning, there was nothing but God, how could God have created anything, unless God created it from himself? And if God did make creation from himself, wouldn’t that violate the oneness and unity of God by dividing God between Creator and creation? Ibn al-Arabi’s solution to this problem was to confirm what Sufis like Shams and Bayazid had been saying all along: If God is indivisible, then nothing can come into existence that isn’t also God. At the very least, Creator and creation must share the exact same eternal, indistinguishable, inseparable essence, meaning everything that exists in the universe exists only insofar as it shares in the existence of God. Therefore, God must be, in essence, the sum total of all existence.10

Another great Sufi Master, Bayazid Bistami, deliberately picked up and ate a piece of food, breaking his fast, during Ramadan (the month of fasting), in order to scandalize his students, and cause the unworthy to leave him alone. Very many well-read students of Sufism are highly familiar with stories such as this, but when they come across a Master who acts in unexpected and surprising ways, they run away. This is precisely the opposite of what all their reading taught them is the correct course of action in such situations.