The Circle
1- Material Aid:
Help your companions with food, money, or other needs. One of the great goals of Sufism is to develop generosity. Ibn Arabi writes, ” Spend from what Allah has given you. Do not fear poverty. No one who has been generous has ever died in destitution.”
2– Personal Support:
“If they are sick, visit them; if they are busy, help them; if they have forgotten, remind them.” Generosity includes emotional support as well as material help. According to an old Sufi saying, if one dervishes has a stomachache, all the other dervishes feel pain in their stomachs. The opposite is also true. One great sheikh said, “If I feed a piece of food to another dervish, I find the taste of it in my own throat.”
3- Respect:
Do not complain of another’s faults, either to them or to others. do not give advise when you know it cannot be acted upon.
4- Praise and Attention:
Praise is a good qualities of your companions and let them know that you care for them. We all need the strengthening power of praise and attention. The path is long and it is easy to become disheartened.
5- Forgiveness:
Forgive others for their failings. It is said that if we forgive others, Allah will forgive us. It is much easier to overcome our failings in the atmosphere of a forgiving community.
6- Prayer:
Pray for the well-being of your companions with the same fervor as you pray for your own. In learning to love each other, we learn to love Allah.
7- Loyalty:
Be firm in your friendships so that you can be depended upon by those who put their trust in you. Loyalty is easy in the first flush of enthusiasm for the path. It is a real achievement to maintain loyalty friendship when we begin to see each other’s faults.
8- Relief from discomfort:
Dont create awkward or difficult situations as that involve your companions. Dont be burden to others. We all need to learn to stop thinking only of ourselves, to think of others’ needs and circumstances, and even to put their needs before our own. If everyone does this, a marvelous, incredibly sensitive and supportive group atmosphere develops.
