The Bowl of Saki Commentary
Commentary for:
Do not take the example of another as an excuse for your own wrong doing.
Commentary from Hazrat Murshid SAM (Sufi Ahmed Murad Chisti, Samuel L. Lewis):
The Bowl of Saki Commentary, copyright © 1981, 2012 Sufi Ruhaniat International. All rights reserved.
To the talib there are two ways for selecting an ideal, and they may not be different. One way is to follow some spiritual person who has gone before you, preferably but not necessarily a person who has been met on earth. The other way is to develop the intuitive faculty and listen to the heart within, knowing that it is truly the heart which is heeded and being positively sure you are not under the sway of nufs.
The difference between following nufs and following heart is simple. nufs always speaks in terms of self and not-self; heart recognizes only principles and not personalities. By following the heart there can be no mistake, but one should not be attached even to principles.