Christianity has stressed the importance of the startsy, or el-
ders, who guide one’s spiritual and practical work. The pri-
mary texts of this tradition (called hesychasm) are contained
in the Philokalia. They represent an unbroken tradition of
practical guidance based on the teachings and disciplines of
the Desert Fathers, having been written between the fourth
and fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox
tradition. The texts show the way to awaken and develop at-
tention and consciousness, and they describe the conditions
that are most effective.
Many of the writings indicate the difficulty of accepting
the vocation of spiritual guidance and attempt to discourage
the false guide from destructive actions and consequences.
Nilus the Ascetic (d. around 430) writes:
But what if someone, not from any choice of his own,
is obliged to accept one or two disciples, and so to be-
come the spiritual director of others as well? First, let
him examine himself carefully, to see whether he can
teach them through his actions rather than his words,
setting his own life before them.... He should also
realize that he ought to work as hard for his disciples’
salvation as he does for his own; for, having once ac-
cepted responsibility for them, he will be accountable
to God for them as well as for himself. That is why the
saints tried to leave behind disciples whose holiness was
no less than their own, and to change these disciples
from their original condition to a better state. (Philo-
kalia, vol. l, p. 223)Not only is there a great temptation for the more advanced
monks to consider themselves as highly evolved spiritual
guides or directors, but the novice must face the temptation
of relying merely on himself and trusting his own judgment
when he has as yet insufficient material to understand the
guile and cunning of the “enemy.” The monk should bring
his thoughts and confessions to an elder so that he might
learn the gift of true discrimination. John Cassian (d. c. 435)
relates: “The devil brings monks to the brink of destruction
more effectively through persuading him to disregard the ad-
monitions of the fathers and follow his own judgment and
desire, than he does through any other fault” (ibid., p. 104).
But in confessing one’s thoughts and concerns there is
still the pitfall of following the pseudoguide. John Cassian
further encourages monks to seek out spiritual masters who
truly possess discrimination and not those whose hair has
simply “grown white with age.” He relates: “Many who have
looked to age as a guide, and then revealed their thoughts,
have not only remained unhealed but have been driven to
despair because of the inexperience of those to whom they
confessed.” Unseen Warfare, a text with roots in both the
Western and Eastern traditions of Christianity, echoes the
necessity of a qualified teacher: “A man who follows their
guidance and verifies all his actions, both inner and outer,
by the good judgments of his teachers—priests in the case
of laymen, experienced startzi in monasteries—cannot be ap-
proached by the enemy” (Kadloubovsky and Palmer, 1952,
p. 165).
ISLAM. It has been suggested that much of the wit, humor,
and fullness of the image of the spiritual guide in the writings
of the Desert Fathers and subsequent accounts of spiritual
fathers in early Christianity has been gradually diluted and
extracted through generations in an attempt to make the
writings more generally palatable. The S:u ̄f ̄ı master remains,
as in the case with various Buddhist guides, a robust and vig-
orous man, full of life, paradox, and humor.
Shaykh or p ̄ır. The shar ̄ıEah, or divine law, is meant
for all Muslims, but beyond that lies the t:ar ̄ıqah, or spiritual
path, for the mur ̄ıd (literally “he who has made up his will,”
i.e., to enter the path). In order to enter the path, it is essen-
tial that the adept find and be accepted by a spiritual master,
a shaykh (Arabic) or p ̄ır (Persian); as a h:ad ̄ıth (tradition) says:
“When someone has no shaykh, Satan becomes his shaykh.”
Many accounts are given of adepts who have undergone
seeming rejection and Abu ̄ se by the master who must test the
resolve and serious intent of the mur ̄ıd. After this testing
(sometimes the adept is made to wait for years), the mur ̄ıd
will only then actually begin on the path under the guidance
of his master.
The Sheikh would teach him how to behave in each
mental state and prescribe periods of seclusion, if he
deemed it necessary. It was well known that the meth-
ods could not be alike for everybody, and the genuine
mystical leader had to have a great deal of psychological
understanding in order to recognize the different talents
and characters of his mur ̄ıds and train them according-
ly. (Schimmel, 1975, p. 104)
The keen attention paid by the guide to the daily activities
of the adept gradually developed in the course of time to the
image of the shaykh “who acutely supervised every breath of
the mur ̄ıd.” The problem of finding and dwelling in the
presence of an authentic shaykh is particularly acute, for the
adept must choose a guide (or be chosen by a guide) who
possesses the qualifications for guiding that particular disci-
ple. “Not every sheikh is a master for every disciple. The disci-
ple must seek and find the master who conquers his soul and
dominates him as an eagle or falcon pounces upon a sparrow
in the air” (Nasr, 1970, p. 144).
The absolute necessity of a spiritual guide is so central
to the credo of Sufism that at least one biography of the S:u ̄f ̄ı
master Abu ̄ SaE ̄ıd ibn Ab ̄ı al-Khayr (d. 1049 CE) reports the
maxim that “if any one by means of asceticism and self-
mortification shall have risen to an exalted degree of mystical
experience, without having a P ̄ır to whose authority and exam-
ple he submits himself, the S:u ̄f ̄ıs do not regard him as belong-
ing to their community” (Nicholson, [1921] 1976, p. 10).
In this way the transmission of doctrine, method, and
exercises is secured in a continuous lineage traced back
through a series of dead pirs or shaykhs to the Prophet. The
appearance of Muh:ammad and his son-in-law, EAl ̄ı, at the
head of a list fits in more with necessary fiction than strict
historicity; the S:u ̄f ̄ıs maintained they were the legitimate
heirs of the esoteric teachings of the Prophet. Abu ̄ SaE ̄ıd’s lin-8710 SPIRITUAL GUIDE