A Sufi once remarked, “For me men are of two kinds: the friend who thinks well of me, who speaks what is good and who deserves the name friend; and the one who speaks ill of me and makes known my spiritual state.”

How different this way of thinking is to our ordinary understanding! To a lay person, one unfamiliar with spiritual wisdom, a friend is someone who is a friend to his personality and an adversary is one who is in opposition to his person. The terms “person” or “personality” indicate the composite body of an individuals likes, dislikes, inclinations, habits and character traits. So whoever is in harmony with our character or way of being would be considered a friend, and the one who seems to be in friction with our persona would be called an enemy.

But as unconventional as the Path of Spirituality is known to be so are the definitions of terms in its context. Where an ordinary person would categorise men into two kinds: friend or foe, the spiritual person just defines them as friends of different natures. Everyone is a friend of the Sufi. The one who is sincere, loyal and well-wishing is a friend and even the one who is apparently antagonistic, critical and vile is also a friend. One is a friend to the body and the other is a friend to the soul.

There is a Sufi adage which says: The one who has praised you has killed you!
This means that admiration and goodness may work towards fattening the ego. Criticism and censor, however, are the most effective tools in the way of deconstructing the ego to make the Real Self shine. So who can be a better friend than the one who helps you discover your True Self?

Mawlana Rumi says in the Mathnawi:

An empty mirror and your worst
destructive habits, when they are held
up to each other,
that's when the real making begins.
That's what art and crafting are.

A tailor needs a torn garment to
practice his expertise. The trunks of
trees must be cut and cut again
so they can be used for fine carpentry.

Your doctor must have a broken leg to
doctor. Your defects are the ways that
glory gets manifested. Whoever sees
clearly what's diseased in himself
begins to gallop on the Way.

There is nothing worse
than thinking you are well enough.
More than anything, self-complacency
blocks the workmanship.

Put your vileness up to a mirror and
weep. Get that self-satisfaction flowing
out of you! Satan thought, "I am better
than Adam," and that *better than* is
still strongly in us.

Hazrat Inayat Khan says:

When we think of that sense, that feeling, or that inclination which makes us affirm the
word 'I', we realize that it is difficult to point out what this 'I' is, what is its character. For it is something which is beyond human comprehension. That is why a person who wishes to explain, even to himself, what it is, points to what is nearest to him declaring: 'This is the one whom I have called "I"'. Therefore every soul which has, so to speak, identified itself with anything, has identified itself with the body, its own body, because that is the thing which one feels and realizes to be immediately next to one, and which is intelligible as one's being.

So what a person knows of himself as the first thing is his body. He calls himself his body, he identifies himself with his body. For instance if one asks a child: 'Where is the boy?', he will point to his body. That is what he can see or can imagine of himself.

This forms a conception in the soul. The soul conceives this deeply, so that after this conception all other objects, persons or beings, color or line, are called by different names, and the soul does not conceive of them as itself, for it already has a conception of itself: this body, which it has first known or imagined to be itself. All else that it sees, it sees through its vehicle which is the body, and calls it something next to it, something separate and different.

In this way duality in nature is produced. From this comes 'I and you'. But as 'I' is the first conception of the soul, it is fully concerned with this 'I'; with all else it is only partly concerned. All other things that exist, besides this body which it has recognized as its own being, are considered according to their relation with this body. This relation is established by calling them 'mine', which is between 'I' and 'you': 'You are "my"' brother, or "my" sister, or "my" friend'. This makes a relationship, and according to this relationship the other object or person stands nearer to or farther from the soul.

All other experiences that the soul has in the physical world and in the mental spheres become a sort of world around it. The soul lives in the midst of it, yet the soul never for one moment feels with anything that it is 'I'. This 'I' it has reserved, and made captive in one thing only: the body. Of everything else the soul thinks that it is something else, something different: 'It is near to me, it is dear to me, it is close to me, because it is related. It is mine, but it is not me'. 'I' stands as a separate entity, holding, attracting, collecting all that one has got and which makes one's own world.

As one becomes more thoughtful in life, so this conception of 'I' becomes richer. It becomes richer in this way, that one sees: 'It is not "my" body only, but it is also the thought that I think which is "my" thought; the imagination is "my" imagination; my feelings are also a part of my being. Therefore I am not only my body, but I am my mind also.' In this next step that the soul takes in the path of realization it begins to feel: 'I am not only a physical body, but also a mind'. This realization in its fullness makes one declare: 'I am a spirit', which means: body, mind and feeling, all together with which I identify myself- it is these which are the ego.

When the soul goes further in the path of knowledge it begins to find: 'Yes, there is something which feels itself, which feels the inclination to call itself "I"'. There is a feeling of 'I'-ness, but at the same time all that the soul identifies itself with is not itself. The day when this idea springs up in the heart of man he has begun his journey in the path of truth. Then analyzing begins, and he begins to find out: 'When this is "my" table and this is "my" chair, all that I can call mine belongs to me, but is not really myself.' Then he also begins to see: 'I identify myself with this body, but this is "my" body, just as I say "my" table, or "my" chair. So the being which is saying 'I' in reality is separate. It is something which has taken even this body for its use; this body is only an instrument.' And he thinks: 'If it is not this body which I can call "I", then what else is there that I can call so? Is it my imagination with which I should identify myself?.' But even that one calls 'my' imagination, 'my' thought, or 'my' feeling. So even thought, imagination, or feeling is not the real 'I'. What affirms I remains the same even after having discovered the false identity.

 Perfection is achieved by the annihilation of the false ego.  The false ego is what does not belong to the real ego, and what that ego has wrongly conceived to be its own being. When that is separated by analyzing life better, then the false ego is annihilated. A person need not die for it. In order to annihilate this body, in order to annihilate the mind a person has to analyze himself and see: 'Where does "I" stand? Does it stand as a remote, exclusive being? If it is a remote and an exclusive being then it must be found out'. The whole spiritual process is to find this out.

Once this is realized, the work of the spiritual path is accomplished. As in order to make the eyes see themselves one has to make a mirror to see the reflection of these eyes, so in order to make this real being manifest, this body and mind have been made as a mirror: that in this mirror this real being may see itself and realize its being independent. What we have to achieve by the path of initiation, by the way of meditation, by spiritual knowledge is to realize this by making ourselves a perfect mirror.

The annihilation of the false ego is its disillusionment. When once it is disillusioned then the true ego realizes its own merit. It is in this realization that the soul enters the kingdom of God. It is in this realization that the soul is born again, a birth which opens the doors of heaven.

Spiritual Exercise.

For this month try to eliminate from your understanding the false identifications that you have entangled yourself with.

Try to respond to life, situations and relationships rather than reacting to them. This means that look at your life and your relationships without the goggles of egotism. When you are just as you are and not as what you have identified yourself to be, that is when you will begin to interact with life naturally and life will respond to you as it is meant to respond. In other words you will have the chance to enter the realm of Divine Life rather than suffer in your self-created, illusory ego-world.

Though it may seem tough, but try to see the ones that you consider your “enemies” in the light of the spiritual discourse above and consider how you might improve yourself by looking into the mirror of their opinion of you.

To enhance and aid the spiritual exercises recommended above, you are advised to recite the Divine Names : Ya Wali Ya Dharr [Dh=Z]
Wali means Friend and Dharr means the Distressor. Bringing these qualities together means combining the element of friendship with the quality of seeming harm or distress. In other words seeing the Friend without the garb of animosity.
It would suffice to say these 11 times at any given time daily. Keep note of the clues that spring to mind while reciting these Divine Names.

“The Sufi also considers that every person is to him not only his brother but himself.”