We distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong by our own experiences. One man has a good experience from a certain thing and at once calls it good; another has a bad experience from the same thing and calls it bad. A person who may seem very bad to some is called good by his friend. In a person who leads a merry life one may be sure, by looking carefully, to find some good, such as may not be found in persons of great repute for their holiness and spirituality.

Man is born with such a critical tendency and has so much developed this tendency that he easily seeks what is bad in everything. The Sufi takes the contrary way; he seeks for what is good in everyone and everything. The way of morality is to think that if someone has done us some good it is very great, and if we have done good to someone to think that it is very little and that we might have done more. If a person has done something bad to us we should forget it as soon as possible, and if we have done something bad we should think that a great fault. If we see something that seems bad to us we should overlook it, disregard it, forgive it. This is the only way of happiness and peace.

We must never think, "You did so much good to me, I do so much good to you." That makes all goodness and kindness a commercial transaction: you give me a hat, and I give you a pair of gloves!

If someone finds fault with another, he will try to get us to agree with him. He will say, "That person is doing this. Is it not dreadful?." If we say, "Yes, yes, it is terrible", our fault will be as great, or greater, than his.

Whatever is said or done echoes in the world as in a dome, and what good or bad a person does comes back to him. It may not always come back from the same person to whom he did good or harm. It may come from quite another side, because the universe is not many beings, but one Being. If a man does harm to a person who did nothing to him, that person is receiving back what bad he once did to another. However, that does not justify you, as an individual, in doing harm. When good is done, it also comes back as good, maybe from another side.

Only the Murshid who is responsible for his mureeds, or the father who is responsible for his children, may say to the face of the mureed or the child, "My child, this is not right for you", but he may not tell it to others.