Unless you are empty, you will not contact truth – and truth is another name for God. I am using the word truth so that even atheists are not offended, but truth and God are synonymous, interchangeable, they mean the same thing.

Then what is truth if it is not a tradition? It is a revolution, it is a turning in. Tradition looks backward, tradition looks at others, tradition wants something to be given. Revolution looks inward. Nothing has to be given to you from any source; you already have it, it is already the case. Just turning in, just looking in, waiting, watching, going inward to the core of your being – and it is there.

Sufism is an inner journey. By revolution I don’t mean a political revolution. Political revolutions are not revolutions at all; they only substitute one slavery for another. The only revolution there is, is religious. The only revolution there is, is turning away from tradition and turning inward to the source of your being.

Knowing “Who am I?” is the only revolutionary step – the first and the last, the alpha and the omega.

That’s the meaning of becoming a Sufi, or becoming a sannyasin. Sannyasin is my name for the Sufi: one who is fed up with the outside world, who has known its frustrations, who has known its utter futility, who has known all the anxiety and anguish of it and is ready to dive deep within oneself to know “Who am I?” Because unless one knows oneself, all knowledge is useless.

The foremost, the most fundamental thing, is to become aware at the core of your being. And it is a miracle to become aware of it, because at the core of your being you are always pure, always innocent, always virgin, always celibate. At the very core of your being, you have never left the Garden of Eden, you are still in paradise.

That is the name of Hakim Sanai’s book, the Hadiqa. It means The Garden – the garden of God, paradise.