The disciple, in their life, has other attachments. They are not a disembodied being. They study, they work, they have a family, responsibilities. This is the very fabric of existence that Allah has decreed for them. When they come to the zāwiyah (Sufi lodge) of El Aroui, touched by the sweetness of the Presence and the love of the fellowship, they are often tempted by a dangerous illusion: that of wanting to abandon everything, to shed all their commitments to remain in this haven of peace. They believe that this is the shortest path to Allah.

Know that this is not the most effective solution; on the contrary, it is an escape and a failure disguised as piety. The Ṭarīqah Shādhiliyyah is, par excellence, the path of the right measure, the religion of moderation. It embodies the prophetic saying: “Work for your life in this world (dunyā) as if you were to live forever, and work for your afterlife as if you were to die tomorrow.” The accomplished person, the successful disciple, is one who builds their life on balance and equity. They fall neither into the excess of materialism nor into the excess of an asceticism that would render them unfit for life. We repeat this constantly to our disciples: whoever has a business, a trade, or studies, must continue them. Do not let anything fall, for the Path is not meant to make you miss anything that is destined for you.

The spiritual Path does not consist of locking yourself away, cutting yourself off from the world, and becoming a social “cripple,” an invalid incapable of managing your own self and its basic needs. If that had been the model to follow, our pious predecessors—the Companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and the saints who followed them—would all have done it. Yet, they were merchants, artisans, heads of families, and leaders within their communities. They were in the heart of the world, but the world was not in their hearts.

Here, we must distinguish between several levels of spiritual seeking. The one who abandons their worldly life (dunyā) to devote themselves exclusively to acts of worship, forgetting their earthly duties, is not an ʿĀrif (a Knower of God), but an ʿĀbid (a devotee, a worshipper). The one who leaves everything, who emigrates far from their responsibilities to live in destitution, is called a Zāhid (an ascetic). These two stations, though respectable, are infinitely inferior to that of the ʿĀrif bi-Llāh, the Knower of God.

The goal of the Path is not to make you devotees or ascetics in this reductive sense. The ʿĀrif is the one who takes from everything its legitimate share. They lack nothing, for they are the master of moderation (wasațiyya). They know how to organize their person, their time, their energies. They give every rightful claimant its due: its due to God, its due to their family, its due to their work, its due to their own body. They are a microcosm in harmony, reflecting the harmony of the macrocosm. Take the example of prayer (ṣalāt): Allah prescribed it for us five times a day, at specific moments. It does not last all day. Between the prayers, we attend to our other occupations while striving to be God conscious through a personal remembrance of Allah accompanied by the witnessing of divine light. Such is the divine rule. One who deviates from this rule, who abandons everything under the pretext of devoting themselves to God, will not only fail in their worldly life, but they will also never reach the station of true Gnosis (maʿrifah).

Our supreme model, the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), worked, traded, and managed the affairs of the community, and then he took time for intimate worship with his Lord. In the same way, you are asked to take time to be with Allah—through secluded dhikr (remembrance), meditation, reading the Qur’an—but without this annihilating the rest of your worldly affairs.

To believe that you will rid yourself of your worries by remaining cloistered in the zāwiyah is a grave error in judgment. Your body may be here, but your spirit will be elsewhere, constantly preoccupied with the problems you have fled. You will never be like the one who came with a peaceful mind, having organized and settled their affairs. That one leaves their work without their work missing them, because they have mastered it and are not its slave. You, on the other hand, may have left your job or your studies, but they have not left you. They will continue to haunt you, to obsess you. Your mind will be back where you are from while your body is here.

When you try to perform your wird (daily litanies), every Astaghfirullāh ("I seek God's forgiveness") you utter will be a veil hiding a thought for your studies, for your work, for the problems you left unresolved. The entire duration of your stay here will become a source of distraction and turmoil, and you will derive absolutely no spiritual benefit from it. You will be like one trying to fill a pierced vessel with water. This is what our experience, spanning several decades of guiding souls, has invariably shown us.

There are those who come from abroad having truly "stripped themselves bare" (mutajarrid). This does not mean they have abandoned everything, but that they have settled their affairs. They have taken official leave, ensured their family's sustenance, and paid off their debts. This person has brought order to their life. They come with a free heart and a serene mind. That person succeeds. Even a married man with children, if he is organized, if he has earned his wife's blessings and prayers and provided for her needs, he comes and he succeeds. He comes, take the Light, and return home transformed and fortified. When such a disciple sits for dhikr, no mental obstacles (ʿawāʾiq) come to disturb him. His heart is a pure vessel, ready to receive the divine effusions. It is to such a person that Allah shows to his wife dreams of good augury (ruʾyā ṣāliḥah) while he is far away from her. This kind of seekers is the Barzakhī, al-Badal, the one who can stand in the isthmus between the visible and invisible worlds, a spiritual facet of the Truth on earth.

And then there is the other. The one who comes leaving catastrophes behind them: debts, family conflicts, an abandoned job, worried parents. That one has not come seeking Allah. They have fled from fatigue, problems, and responsibilities. They are a fugitive (al-fārr). Their arrival is not part of the quest for Gnosis (maʿrifah). We do not work with them on that level. Our first task with them is to send them back to their problems, to help them structure their nafs (ego-self), not to teach them the Knowledge of the Creator. Do not confuse the two! A palace is not built on a swamp. The first step is to drain the swamp. The true champion (fāris) is the one who confronts their reality, not the one who flees from it. The Qur’an says: “So flee to Allah” (51:50). Fleeing to Allah means fleeing from disorder to order, fleeing what displeases Allah for what pleases Him. It means: return to your problems and solve them in a way that satisfies God.

This fugitive (al-fārr), we call them by their real name: a failure (fāshil), not an ʿĀrif. How can they claim to want to manage their relationship with the Creator of the worlds when they are incapable of managing their own daily life? If someone tells you, "You are a failure," and it affects you neither one way nor the other, if you take it lightly, then know that you are officially the greatest of failures.

The day you have resolved this fundamental question, when you have brought order to your material and relational life, then Gnosis (maʿrifah) will come to you wherever you are. You could sit with the Shaykh for just a brief moment, and you would leave transformed, because you will have acquired the modality, the "how-to" (al-kayfiyyah). Our role is to remove the "failure" and put in their place a person who is successful in their life.

Coming to the zāwiyah is coming to Allah and His Messenger (PBUH), but only after having fulfilled one's duties with the utmost care and the best arrangement. It is at that moment that one can step forward with a purified heart and say "Allah" with a truthful word. Never forget that one of the fundamental conditions of repentance (tawbah) is the restitution of violated rights (radd al-maẓālim).

Reflect on the example of our Lady Maryam (Mary), peace be upon her—yes, you who might wish to use her as an argument against my words. She was a woman, not a man; she was not legally responsible for a household. It was her uncle, the prophet Zakariyyā (Zechariah), who was in charge of her. When he saw that her sustenance came to her miraculously from God, he understood that she held a secret. He asked her for help; he asked for the "modality" (kayfiyyah) so that he too could have a child. What did she advise him? A retreat (khulwa) in the prayer niche (miḥrāb) of three days, not a century! And what did Zakariyyā do? He went out to his people and asked for their help through tasbīḥ (the glorification of God). He had no problems with the people; he had not fled from any conflicts. On the contrary, he was respected. And because he was respected and had no disputes with them, they helped him in his spiritual quest. If he had been an indebted fugitive and asked them for help, they would have become angry with him.

You came here, you took a portion of the divine Light. It is a trust, a responsibility. Now, return and use this Light to help people, to repair your own world. The great Sufi rule says: “Remain where Allah has established you” (Aqim ḥaythu aqāmaka Allāh). He has established you where you are from, with studies, a family, and attachments. That is your battlefield, your field of spiritual struggle. It is there that you must prove yourself.

If we took a spiritually sick individual who has problems with their parents, their job, their spouse, and we gave them another family and moved them to another country, another city, another house, the problem would remain entirely the same. Because the problem is not in the place or the people surrounding them; it is within them. The famous adage is glaringly true: “One who lacks a thing cannot give it” (Fāqid al-shayʾ lā yuʿṭīh). You, who give advice to others, first look at your own state! You are the one most in need of advice. Your advice will never bear fruit in others, because the seed has not first germinated and borne fruit within you. One first studies to become a teacher, and only then can one teach.

You came to take the Light; you must now return to repair your environment. This begins with an act of supreme humility: asking for forgiveness. Asking forgiveness from the people you have wronged through your negligence, your immaturity, or your flight. Whether it be your spouse, your parents, your colleagues, or even your child who is but a copy of yourself. In doing this, you are not purifying others; you are purifying yourself through this interaction. This is the polishing of the heart through friction with reality.

Concerning your work, your studies, you believe that time was not on your side, that the conditions were bad. When you return with this new perspective, you will realize that the problem was not time, but your own laziness and lack of discipline. And by rectifying this, you will begin to see the Light everywhere: in your work, in the textbook, in the solving of an equation, in the patience required to face a difficulty. This Light was already there, but you had your back turned to it.

The only obstacles (ʿawāʾiq) that stand before you are you yourself. It is the way you live, the way you interact with the society that surrounds you. The instruction is therefore clear: go back and sort yourself out. Settle your situation (rigel nafsak). Be a person of integrity in your worldly life (dunyā), and you will be a person of faith in your spiritual life (dīn). Be a champion on the battlefield of your daily life, and you will be a Knower in the Presence of your Lord. The Path begins not with a flight from the world, but with a sanctification in the heart of the world. Succeed there while carrying my light, and you will succeed here. Such is our Path, and there is no other.