On the reality of the Initiatic Pact (bayaʿa)

 

An edited version of something I said to someone in Messenger:

Here is the thing, if you have bayaʿa [i.e. an initiatic pact] with X and Y then why are you sort of shopping around among other turūq [i.e. Sufi orders], even from a perspective of curiosity? Look at it this way, a bayaʿa is like a marriage and the two parties to this pact are the couple, and “Its Hand is above their hands” (Quran 48:10). So would it not be the case that when someone shops around other turūq [and paths] and among other sheikhs [and masters], it becomes sort of like infidelity and straying in a marriage, even if there be no consummation? Stay loyal and in perfect fidelity to your bayaʿa and to the mashayikh [and gurus/masters] you have given hand to, unless you no longer have faith in them.

I will also add the following: I see the attitude of dharma- and/or tarīqa hopping among countless practitioners. On the one hand, there are legitimate concerns because not all paths do lead to the Truth (particularly given the saturation in these times with greedy charlatans everywhere). On the other hand, the impulse to tarīqa and dharma-hop is also influenced by the transactional attitude and epistemology of postmodern capitalism where people are always on the look out for the better product. But a spiritual Path is not a product or an item on a grocery store shelf, and so the permeation of such an attitude is nothing more than a projection of the collective ego (nafs) in these times – and one that will never get you near to the Truly Real, i.e. God -- not to mention being a reflection of the perpetual and chronic dissatisfaction (and so ungratefulness) of humanity towards where its Creator has individually placed it. Stay true to your bayaʿa because it is your contract of marriage with the All-High Itself!