Commentary on
The Iron Rules

by Pir Zia Inayat Khan

Iron Rule 8

The next Iron Rule is My conscientious self, render your services faithfully to all who require them. This is a saying which is perhaps best described as the epitome of chivalry and the gallant spirit of helpfulness which defines the Knight of Light. I’m reminded of a story that’s told in the Rihla, the account of travels, of Ibn Batuta, who was, I think, an Andalusian traveler in the 14th century. He traveled from Spain throughout North Africa to Egypt, Anatolia, Syria, Persia, and then on to India and I think he disappeared in China if I recall correctly. He wrote an account of his travels which is similar in some way to the narrative of Marco Polo and is a very interesting, almost unique account of societies in that early age before there was much communication between nations. He tells a story about how he visited a city in Turkey, which wasn’t yet Turkey at that time. He was a bedraggled traveler who drifted into town looking very worn out. In that city there were guilds of spiritual knights called fityans. This word, fityan, means an order of chivalry, from the word futuwwa which means spiritual chivalry.

And you know that the origin of these groups is with Shaykh Abdul Qadr Jilani, founder of the Qadiri Order. He was the first shaykh to organize Sufism into a kind of institution, whereas up until then it was very cryptic and was passed on just secretly from heart to heart without any kind of definite organizational format. But he saw that in the outer world around him society was breaking down. Baghdad was giving rise to slums where there was constant gang warfare, and he saw that these gangs needed direction, so he instituted a chivalric order and that became the origin of the Sufi orders. Then, of course, other groups of knights sprang up who were not necessarily within the fold of the Sufi silsilas but were just committed to a pledge, a covenant of generous, noble conduct.

And so Ibn Battuta came to this town where there were two such groups, and one group first met him and saw that here was a stranger who needed care and they immediately approached him and offered him all kinds of services and quenched his thirst and gave him something to eat and began to lead him off to a place to stay. And then the members of another chivalrous group saw him and they tried to seize him, to take him away from the other group and provide their services and feed him superior foods. Then those two groups started fighting with each other, and pretty soon they forgot all about him and were locked in combat.

So that’s a good example always to keep in mind in this path of chivalry, that anything taken to extreme becomes a caricature of itself. That certainly is true in the application of the saying, render your services to all who require them. Everything in moderation, everything in context is very important to remember.

Now before going on, let me begin by sharing with you a wonderful passage from Creating the Person, on relationships that really elucidates this Iron Rule.

It is a most important thing in character building to become conscious of one’s relation, obligation and duty to each person in the world and not to mix that link and connection which is established between oneself and another with a third person. One must think of everything that is entrusted to one by every person in life as one’s trust. And one must know, that to prove true to the confidence of every person in the world is one’s sacred obligation. In this manner a harmonious connection is established with every person and it is the harmony established with every person which tunes the soul with the infinite.

It requires a great study of human nature, together with tact, to keep on harmonious terms with every person in life. If one has admiration for someone or a grudge against someone, it is better to express it directly instead of mixing it up with many connections and relations in the world. Friendship apart, even with an acquaintance this consideration is necessary to guard carefully that thin thread that connects two souls in whatever relation or capacity.

Dharma, in the language of the Hindus, means religion, but the literal meaning of this word is duty. It suggests that one’s relation to every person in the world is one’s religion, and the more conscientiously one follows it, the more keen one proves in following one’s religion. To keep the secret of our friend, our acquaintance, even of someone with whom for a time being one has been vexed, is the most sacred obligation. The one who thus realizes his religion, would he ever consider it right to tell another of any harm he has received from his friend? Never.

It is in this that self-denial is learned, not always by fasting and retirement in the wilderness. The woman who is conscientious of her duty, of her obligations to her friends, is more pious than someone sitting alone in solitude. The one in solitude does not serve God; he only helps himself by enjoying the pleasure of solitude. But the one who proves to be trustworthy to every soul she meets and considers her relation and connection, small or great, as something sacred, certainly observes the spiritual law of that religion which is the religion of religions.

Faults, everyone has faults. Oneself, one’s friend and one’s enemy, all are subject to faults. The one who wishes that his own faults may not be disclosed must necessarily consider the same for the others he meets. If one only knew what the relation of friendship is between one soul and another, the tenderness of this connection, its delicacy, its beauty and its sacredness, one could enjoy life in its fullness for one would be living, and in this manner one must some day communicate with God. It is the same bridge which connects two souls in the world which, when once stretched, becomes the path to God. There is no greater virtue in this world then proving kind and trustworthy to one’s friend, worthy of her confidence.

So we are offered here a teaching that is, at once, very simple and very profound. I think probably we all immediately feel the truth of this teaching, but it is a constant practice to remember it and apply it in life in all conditions. To remember that the connection that we have with each person is the very bridge which unites us with God and remember that that connection is something very fine.

In the brusque, everyday interactions that we maintain, which are frequently of the nature of business, there is a need to communicate something practical for the fulfillment of a function in life, and our tendency is to be so preoccupied with the business at hand, the transaction, that the thread of relationship, which is so subtle, which is at the heart of the transaction, is mostly ignored. An example of this is a commercial transaction, at the grocery store for example. How often we are preoccupied with the thought of our dwindling bank balance and the calories in the foods that we’re buying and all of these kinds of considerations, which are, of course, valid in their own sphere. But under the force of these considerations, the person with whom we’re exchanging glances becomes to us no more than an automaton, and within seconds or moments of leaving the store, the face of the person has probably been forgotten.

Yet something happened in that flash of a moment. Two souls came eye to eye and something was exchanged and some essential communion did take place, unconsciously. To what extent can one can make it conscious, feel its preciousness, within the customary limits of the situation? One doesn’t pour one’s heart out to the cashier, embrace the green grocer. One does exactly what the outer world expects one to do, and yet does so with the quality of awareness of two beating hearts, two living essences who are motivated in the essence of being by the same deep desire of the divine yearning. That need not be expressed dramatically, theatrically, but somehow one just sense that there is a moment of communion, that two fragments of one being are in proximity. Each context, each circumstance poses a different demand. And we have a special responsibility to each person. That is something Murshid emphasizes very clearly here. Our duty, our obligation to every person is distinct. And in understanding that distinct demand we understand how to harmonize with the environment, and when we fail to understand the distinct demand, then we mechanically impose our predisposition rather than naturally, organically meeting each new day.

Part of realizing the uniqueness of every relationship is in observing the teaching which Murshid has given here: “Do not mix that link and connection which is established between oneself and another with a third person.” That has many levels of meaning actually, for us to contemplate. One level of meaning goes back to something that we discussed earlier in the week, which is the tendency to speak about an absent person in the manner of criticizing and complaining. The underlying impulse is the wish to resolve a problem that we’re having with a person, but the resolution of the problem has been misdirected by directing it to someone who is not that person, and cannot represent them, cannot account for their reasoning, their thinking. We try to make that person a surrogate in order to rationalize our reaction, but the whole encounter is doomed to fail because it is not addressing the relationship itself. It’s a diversion, a red herring. That is one interpretation: if you have unsettled business with someone, although it may be the easy way out to take that up here and there elsewhere, the only ultimately satisfying way of resolving that would be with the person himself or herself.

Moreover, there’s another level of meaning which is actually related but quite different. Again, the teaching is, do not mix that link and connection which is established between oneself and another with a third person. At this other levels this means, treat each person, in thought, speech, and action, as being unique. For example to return to the metaphor of the cashier at the supermarket, do not simply stereotype the cashier as “a cashier,” the cashier that I knew from another store or the cashier from another experience. Experience each person as a unique individual. Although it’s a natural tendency, it requires examination and clarification. We are inclined—it’s simply part of the way that the brain works—to pursue associations that are ingrained in our experience. So if we, and very often this is to a large extent unconscious, see someone that even in a subtle way, by some aspect of the physiognomy, evokes another person in our life, we begin to have the same suspicions about that person that we had about the person whom they resemble. Of course we’re all familiar with this and it is really what is called prejudice. It is an innate bias to view people according to one’s preconceptions associated with other people that one believes that the person resembles. So the reminder here is do not mix that link and connection which is established between oneself and another with a third person. Don’t see anyone in the light of anyone else.

We have to ask ourselves, what is the demand? What does Murshid mean? He uses this word “demand,” not only here but in other places also; the demand that life makes of us and the demand that a particular person makes of us. What does he mean by that? Demand. It sounds very, well, unpleasant at first, to be subjected to demands. But if one studies more deeply one sees the gist of his meaning, that is, one has to distinguish between a person’s expectations of you and, more essentially, the demand that life is making of you in the channel of that person. There’s a difference. To meet the demand of every person doesn’t mean to submit to the things that they are insisting upon. In fact it may be that to properly meet the demand of that person, you have to do the opposite. But one must not simply react adversely.

So there are two things. On the one hand there’s what the person wants of you and is asking of you and insisting and sometimes really cajoling and using all manner of undue pressure. Not in all cases but in some cases we’re confronted with the kind of persuasive manner that we examined earlier in the week. And on the other hand there is one’s own reaction, which is probably flight or fight, either to stand up and push down the opposing force, or else remove oneself from the situation or become passively aggressive and resentful of the situation. That is the standard scenario when confronted with expectations that we know that we cannot fulfill, or should not fulfill, in the way that we are being asked—our reaction is just flight or fight.

But what I think Murshid is saying here is that neither the action nor the reaction is really what is meant by the demand of life in that moment. The demand means harmonizing with the situation. And harmonizing, of course, doesn’t just mean giving in. It could mean asserting oneself. But it does mean not merely reacting, but creatively acting relationally, affirming the truth, the Haqq. And you know that Haqq means Truth, but it also means a claim or a right, and as Shaykh al-Akbar Ibn Arabi said, “God places a right upon you.” In other words, God makes a demand of you in your relationship with God, and your spouse makes a demand of you, and every person makes a demand of you. And that word “demand” is the same word as the Truth. Truth itself is provoking you to respond. In other words, it is retrograde, it is atavistic just to turn away from the world in refusal. Life is making a demand. You are called, invited to participate in a symphony is the expression that Murshid uses, and it’s a matter of harmonizing oneself with every note, hearing every note, not attuning oneself to the same pitch, but harmonizing, acting in concert. So answering the demand of the person doesn’t mean just doing as you’re told, but it does mean seeking a higher resolution, seeking a deeper communion beyond the polarized grip of opposition that you’re confronting, striving to meet the person on another plane, even to the extent that you are unable to catalyze a shift in that person, even to the extent that you must be in an adversarial role, to be a noble adversary.

And there are wonderful stories in the classic literature, in the annals of chivalry of great nemeses, arch-enemies who spent their lives in combat, and at the end of their lives felt a respect and closeness to the enemy that they felt for no other person, and felt that they could completely understand and in the other’s position would have done the same; there’s a sense of deep communion, even in enmity. So that may be an example of meeting the demand by safeguarding, protecting, observing, considering, and respecting the delicacy and divinity of the thread of connection, however you are ranged in life. Endeavor to hold this rule up to the mirror of our conscience, notice how it resonates, where there might be resistance and wherever there is resistance, inquire deeply, reflect on each of the words and look to see what hidden meanings might be contained in the words, particularly if you examine the phraseology. “Render your services faithfully…” There’s a whole sphere of exploration as to what is meant by “faithfully.” It comes from the word faith.