The Drop and the Ocean

If we liken God to the ocean and the human individual to a drop, we can say that the function of Sufism is to carry the drop to the ocean.

A master of the Path is like a river linked to the ocean. The drop must commit itself to the river so that it can be carried to the ocean.

Needless to say, for the drop to reach the ocean with the help of the river, it must first meet many challenges. It must put up with a great deal of turbulence arising from its various encounters in the river so that it may eventually merge with the ocean in serenity and stability.

In certain circumstances, it is possible for the drop to merge directly with the ocean, a process referred to as ‘attraction’. In this case, however, the drop does not have the advantage of being able to guide others, because it has not itself traveled the path of the river.

Given that the river and the ocean are fundamentally one, annihilation in a master is considered to be the same as annihilation in God. Submission to a master means that the master blinds the self-seeing eyes - or the ‘drop-consciousness’ - of the disciple, and brings sight to one’s God-seeing eyes, or ‘ocean-consciousness’.

Only when the drop has submitted to the river, and ultimately the ocean, can it forget its ‘drop-ness’. When the drop finally merges with the ocean, it sees through the eyes of the ocean that it is the ocean.

The drop, of course, must be in contact with the river and the ocean in order to be absorbed in them. The remembrance (zekr) given by a master to the Sufi is the only means of bringing him into such contact that he may be snatched up by their attraction. If the drop merely settles on the bank of the river or the shore of the ocean, it will lose nothing of its ‘drop-ness’. It must throw itself into the water if it wishes to give up its self-existence.

This is why Sufism is said to entail becoming, and not simply hearing or reading.