The difference between the Prophets among the Hindus and among the Beni Israel that can be noticed, is one: the Hindu Prophets claim to be God themselves. The reason was that the people in India, owing to their philosophical evolution, were ready to accept the divine in man; but, on the contrary, in Arabia and Palestine even the prophetic claim aroused such opposition against the Prophets that their lives were in danger and their mission became most difficult for them to perform.

After the claimants of Godhead there have been many reformers in India, to whom people responded without much difficulty, but in the Near East it has always been difficult, and will always be so. It is for this reason that the ancient school of esotericism, the ancient Order of the Sufis, found it difficult to exist under the reign of orthodoxy. The lives of many great Sufis have been made victims of the orthodox powers which reigned.

Sufism, therefore, which was as a mother of the coming reform in the religious world, was protected by Persia, and, in the end, found a greater freedom in the land of India, where the Hindus respected it and Muslims followed it without the slightest hesitation. In the houses of the Sufis the followers of all religions met together in friendliness and in the feeling of brotherhood.

The Sufi Message which is now being given in the Western world is the child of that mother who has been known for many years as Sufism. The Sufi Message which is being given to the world just now, therefore, connects the two lines of the prophetic mission, the Hindu line and that of Beni Israel, in order that they may become the medium to unite in God and Truth both parts of the world, East and West.

It is the same Truth, the same religion, the same ideal, which the wise of all ages have held. If there is anything different, it is only the difference of the form.

The Sufi Message given now has adopted the form suitable for the age. It is a Message without claim; and the group of workers in this Message, and those who follow it, are named the Sufi Movement, whose work it is to tread the spiritual path quietly, unassumingly, and to serve God and humanity, in which is the fulfillment of the Message.