also encouraged the people of Persia to adopt their viewpoint, and planted the seeds of freer thought and the "full dimension" in the field of Persian culture. Sufi teaching materials were easily remembered in poetic form (this was before printing), and easily passed into the general use of the culture. Even today children are taught to read by using the poetry of Saadi, Rumi or Hafiz; and the Divan of Hafiz is even used for divination by Persian housewives.

SYMBOLOGY AND LEVELS OF MEANING

"Under this guise of poetry, Mir speaks the sorrow of his heart. What poetry it is, my friends! — this lover's way of life"

A dervish teacher once likened Sufi stories, and hence Sufi imagery, to a peach. "It has beauty, nutrition, and hidden depths -- the kernel."

"But this is only as if the peach were lent to you. All that is really absorbed is the form and color, perhaps the aroma, the shape and texture.

"You can eat the peach, and taste a further delight — understand its depth. The peach contributes to your nutrition, becomes a part of yourself. You can throw away the stone -- or crack it and find a delicious kernel within. This is the hidden depth. It has its own color, size, form, depth, taste, function. You can collect the shells of this nut, and with them fuel a fire. Even if the charcoal is of no further use, the edible portion has become a part of you." (Idries Shah, The Sufis)

Even in this example, one can see the manner in which the Sufis employ symbols. They use a symbol to explain the function of symbols, then derive a many contexts and overtones from that symbol as possible, thus making it susceptible to a plurality of interpretations. The genius of Sufi symbology is that its psychological effect is to impress the unconscious. The efficacy and potency of the symbol remains latent in the individual on those levels which remain unconscious, ready to burst forth when time, circumstance, and experience have prepared the ground.

The dictum of the Sufis is that "the apparent is the bridge to the Real." If one takes their vision of mystical Truth as the attainment of union between the conscious and the unconscious, as modern psychology has suggested, then their ability to devise powerful symbols can be explained in an understandable way.

The Sufis stressed in the past, and even more in this age, an expansion of the "heart" quality, so that it might balance the "mind." Thus these two natures of man are made to complement each other in perfect balance, rather than war with each other, as is the case when either is predominant. One who was able to unite these two elements, which could be likened to reason and intuition, or to consciousness and unconsciousness, attained to the state of Perfection of Realization. The mystical teaching was that the "heart holds the key to the mystery of life," because the path of love led directly to God, Whose nature was pictured as Love. If God is taken to be Infinite Consciousness, latent in every individual, then it stands to reason that the way to achieve integration into Infinite Consciousness was through the latency, that is, through the intuitive faculty, which has been styled "unconscious" by psychology, but is really "below the surface. "Thus "The kingdom of heaven is within you," and the tradition in all religions is that God dwells "within the heart." Martin Lings says: