If you love your Lord, you love His servants.

If you love your Lord, you love His servants. 

Once, Abu Yazid al-Bistami, one of the greatest saints of old, was drawing nigh to the door of his Lord, to the Divine Presence with the power that he had developed in his heart through years of self-discipline and meditation. 

When he finally attained the threshold of the Door to the Divine Presence, he called out, “O my Lord, please open the door and let me see You!" The answer came through his heart: “O Aba Yazid, you cannot see Me. It is an easy thing to come to the door but it is not easy for the door of My Divine Presence to be opened for you. It has a price." Abu Yazid replied: “O my Lord, what is the price? I am even willing to sacrifice my life for it. Only let me come to You.” He heard the reply: “O Aba Yazid, My price is that you have to go back and become a refuse heap, a place where My servants throw their garbage,” meaning, “Carry the burdens of My servants.” 

If you carry people’s burdens making no discrimination between, you can never say, “This one is white; that one is black; this one is yellow; that one is red; nor this one is Muslim, that one Christian, this Jewish, that Buddhist.” No! All are human beings. Once you accept this fact and go and become a carrier of people’s burdens, Allah said, “I will open My Divine Presence to you.” 

Abu Yazid al Bistami went back and for seven years worked to carry people’s burdens by taking their sins on his shoulders. He was coming to his Lord and praying: “O my Lord, I come to Thee. Whatever You will to do with me, do! As for others, leave them in rest and peace. If You will punishment―while I know there is no punishment―but if You will it, let me alone receive Thy punishment and let everyone else go free. I shall take their punishment on myself. O Lord ! Make my body as wide as hell and as deep that I might enter that space and fill it and so no one else may enter.”

This is for love of God. If you love your Lord, you love His servants. What benefit is there in loving my Lord or in loving my master if I don’t love his devotees? That is not true love. True love is to love both your master and his followers. This is the proof that love is true. If you love your Lord with a true love, you must love everyone without discrimination, for He created all of them. But where do you find such love on earth? This frame of mind only exists with saintly people and their followers. Outside this saintly circle, everyone is fighting one other in enmity and hatred. For that reason, wherever you go, you must be messengers of peace, love and respect.