There is a sufi story….
Two disciples came to a master; they wanted to attain to truth. The master gave each of them a dove and told them ‘Go to a place where nobody is witnessing you and kill the dove.’
The first one went just outside the house. There was nobody — it was a hot afternoon and nobody was on the road. He killed the dove, came back. The other disciple never turned up for three years. The master waited and waited and after three years the disciple came with the dove and said ‘I could not find a place where He was not the witness. I have tried all kinds of places, places where there was nobody watching. I had gone into deep dark caves where even if somebody was there he could not have seen it. But everywhere He was watching from inside me. So I closed my eyes but then He was watching from inside the door. In these three years I have tried all that was humanly possible. I am sorry — I cannot fulfill the mission.’
The master was very happy and he said ‘You are accepted and the first is rejected. You have found the very secret of meditation. Live always aware of this witness and God will become available to you. He is available.’
Zahira. That too is a sufi name for God. It means: the manifest one. Shahido means the hidden one who is looking from inside, Zahira means the manifest one who is manifest everywhere — in the trees, in the rivers, in the mountains, in people, in animals. God is both, the hidden and the unhidden. He is not only the inside, He is the outside too because He is all.
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