Su-Fi people think that in our ordinary state we are asleep / hipnotized / trance. In this state of sleep / hypnosis / trance, many of us live our entire lives without being aware that something more is possible. We imagine ourselves to be fully conscious and fully developed. This illusion prevents us from seeing our situation and, especially, ourselves as we really are.

“If a man in prison was at any time to have a chance to escape, then he must first of all realize that he is in prison.”

Sanai explained: “Humanity is asleep, concerned only with what is useless, living in a wrong world. Believing that one can excel this is only habit and usage, not religion. You have an inverted knowledge and religion if you are upside down in relation to Reality. Man is wrapping his net around himself. A lion bursts his cage asunder… ” Sanai of Afghanistan, The Walled Garden of Truth, written in 1131 A.D.

“This universe that you see, containing the human and the divine, is a unity; we are the limbs of a might body. Nature brought us to birth as kin, since it generated us all from the same materials and for the same purposes, endowing us with affection for one another and making us companionable. Nature establishes fairness and justice. According to nature’s dispensation, it is worse to harm than to be harmed. On the basis of nature’s command, let our hands be available to help whenever necessary. Let this verse be in your heart and in your mouth:

I am a human being, I regard nothing human as foreign to me. Let us hold things in common, as we are born for the common good. Our companionship is just like an arch, which would collapse without the stones’ mutual support to hold it up.”

Seneca, letter 95.