The Only Truth

Hazrat i-Babajan
Embodiment of Truth

Bride of God: tender, hidden in the depth, sublime ...
and at the same time inflamed by the Light of Truth.
Her glance: entirely impersonal - a sword of Truth;
it could put aside all shadows, but it could scorch likewise.

Haqq (Truth) Allah ... doesn't mean: 'Truth of God' - since there is only one Truth - but instead: Truth leads to God; it aims at the Unity. If one has realized the Truth, there is no seperation any more.

To look into the eyes of Hazrat Babajan one had to give up every kind of craftiness and deceit, all delusion and self-delusion; on the other hand any trace of separation was entirely removed by the glance of her eyes.

"O Hazrat i-Babajan, wash my soul in Thy glance"

That is the story of Hazrat Babajan who was a woman dervish, a very wonderfull ecstatic being, a great Madhzub. She lived right in the open in the street (but later they built a little hut for her), and when people passed by she would look into their eyes. Because she was a curiosity, so, they came to look to see this dervish woman. At a small passage she set, her legs crossing the way. To each one who came she said, 'You cannot reach your destination without passing by me. Look into my eyes! If there is a grain of falsehood in your mind, you can't do it, and you cannot pass by me without looking into my eyes. If you step over my legs and you aren 't totally truthful, I will burn you!" So you have to know what you want to do. She should appear so frightful with it, that nobody risked to do it. So, that was Hazrat Babajan!

There's a word of Plotinus, the Greek philosopher, who said that to look into the sun you have to have eyes like the sun. Now, there's a further step in this practice and that is, instead of imagining light -I mean perceptible light, light that you can see - you're looking into truth, somehow, you're looking straight at truth, your being becomes truth. Facing whatever it is without any kind of hiding. Facing it with courage. Without any protection. Like the words of Babajan: "If you're lying, you can't look into my eyes, you can't pass" - that means, you can't go any further in your life. So, that's the test of truth. Because truth is also something like a light. Perhaps you know the story of the night on the bare mountain, the opera of Mussorgsky. When the light appears, the devils start hiding. The power of truth.                                                                         from meditations by PirVilayat Inayat Khan

Learn more about Hazrat Babajan:
Shepherd, Kevin : A Sufi Matriarch: Hazrat Babajan.
Cambridge: Anthropographia, 1985.