Self-realization, mystical attainment, fulfilling one's spiritual potential, transcendental unity - these are a few of the terms which people use to refer to the goal of the esoteric journey. The words come much easier than does the reality, and the vast majority of us who make use of these phrases are speaking theoretically rather than from the gnostic side of the veil.

Many of us aspire to the phenomenology associated with such language, but few of us are successful. Many of us suppose we understand - at least in principle - the nature of the phenomenon, and, yet, the quest is frustrating in its essential elusiveness - as if we were being teased with the prospect of truths to be revealed just over the next horizon - although the very nature of a horizon is to engage us indefinitely.

We set off on our spiritual journeys with a backpack full of assumptions, and, if we are lucky, we might get to jettison our presumptuousness somewhere along the Path even if we never are able to realize our primary objective - and we become the wiser for this. We believe we know the gist of the methodology and basic requirements of the Way, only to discover that lived experience often plays out much differently than is described in the mystical travelogues.

I spent nearly seventeen years with an authentic shaykh (until he passed on to the next world), and I can quite honestly say that my 'happening' upon him was more a matter of Someone else's Design than it was my perspicacity. Why I should have been as fortuitous in this respect is a question which is steeped in mystery? - an enigma which becomes stranger in the light of subsequent events.

How do I know the individual alluded to in the foregoing was a true spiritual guide? In a sense, the answer to this question is: you had to be there.

There is no substitute for direct experience. Making judgments at a distance is a fool's game.

By the Grace of God, the seventeen years during which I traveled with my shaykh were close-up and personal. By this I mean that I spent nearly as much time with him as if I were a full-fledged family member.

In fact, on occasion, I probably saw more of him than his family did. Consequently, I had thousands of hours of exposure through which to arrive at conclusions concerning the nature of his character, adab, commitment and behavior.

He lived the life of a Sufi wayfarer. He engaged in more than seventeen, forty-day chillas (seclusions), during which he fasted by day, kept the night vigil, observed constant reading of the Qur'an, zikr, and contemplation during the waking hours of this rigorous practice, as well as isolated himself from other human beings. In addition, he did a dozen, or more, nineteen-day periods of seclusion.

When not doing chilla, he was involved in numerous activities and projects of service to others, and this included more than just attending to the needs of his mureeds. Furthermore, despite being under intense attack, for years, from many quarters (the university, the media, so-called Muslim leaders, government officials, and, even some of his own mureeds) due to the threat he represented in relation to their vested interests, I never saw him treat people - even those who considered him to be an enemy - with anything but integrity, diplomacy, nobility, empathy, kindness, compassion, tolerance, and forgiveness.

When my spiritual guide passed away, there were several things which were very clear to me. First, I had been inordinately fortunate to have been able to know him.

Like an iceberg, there was much more of his spiritual reality hidden beneath the surface than was visible to most of us who lacked the appropriate spiritual sonar facilities that would afford us any appreciable depth perception with respect to the structural beauty of his spiritual character below the water line of 'normal', everyday life. Yet, that which was visible was, nonetheless, a breathtaking example of human excellence.

Secondly, I also knew I was still in need of additional guidance. Consequently, as I made the adjustment to a life without ready access to a man of spiritual wisdom and accomplishment, I continued to be on the look-out for 'targets' of spiritual opportunity - although, in some ways, I was just as ignorant about how to go about doing this as I had been seventeen years earlier when, notwithstanding my blind groupings, I managed to stumble my way into the presence of an authentic shaykh.

After almost two decades with an authentic spiritual guide, I was a strange combination of ignorance and understanding. Among other things, this cloud of unknowing - which surrounded me like the dirt and debris that always swirled about the character 'Pigpen' in the cartoon strip, Peanuts - was dense with respect to the issue of how does one recognize a genuine shaykh.

There are many rules of thumb which people often cite as to how to go about the process of identifying spiritual authenticity. I have discovered there are so many exceptions to, lacunae associated with, and problems surrounding, those rules, that, for the most part, such sets of guidelines which have been developed for purposes of differentiating between the false and the genuine in the context of spirituality are relatively useless.

Evil is not rule-governed and linear. It operates through principles that are chaotic - that is, self-similar, but not self-same, and, consequently, the ways in which evil manifests itself is constantly changing, even while it stays much the same with respect to intention and purpose.

Furthermore, and, perhaps, more importantly, evil not only has a gift for mimicry but, as well, will utilize this gift, without remorse or moral squeamishness, in order to better serve its twisted intentions . Indeed, the capacity and willingness of evil to counterfeit the spiritual is the hook which baits the traps of deception, manipulation, exploitation, and abuse.

Realization of the truth concerning such matters can only come through lived experience and not through the long-distance application of some algorithmic, rationalistic or theological formula. Unfortunately, this means that in many cases, one may not come to the realization that an individual is not authentic until after one's life has become entangled in the palimpsest of camouflage which has been painted by a spiritual charlatan as he or she reinvents himself/herself to escape detection.

Shortly after my shaykh passed away, I was confronted - both with several candidates who alleged to be shaykhs, as well as the problem of what to make of such claims. In each of these instances, I approached the subjects for a closer look, and in both cases, I came to the conclusion - although Allah knows best - that these individuals were not authentic spiritual guides.

As it turns out, sometimes, with a little bit of effort, one can spot the mere amateurs who aspire to spiritual pretension. Such individuals have not, yet, become sufficiently adept in the black arts of misdirection, re-framing, manipulation, and deception to be able to avoid discovery.

Even here, however, the task is not often easy and straightforward. More specifically, one frequently also needs a bit of 'luck' - a bit of Divine illumination - for the right set of circumstances to occur which, if one is attentive, reveals the true character of intent emanating from such individuals, and in the absence of such 'occurrences', one might never be any the wiser about what is transpiring.

Those who have honed their expertise in the ways of spiritual guile, however, are often very difficult to expose. Such individuals are very aware - at least, on a certain level - about the nature of the game in which they are engaged, and, consequently, they are quite adept at disguising their intentions, motives, and purposes.

One such person infiltrated my life. The way in which this was done was so patient and so subtle that normal defenses concerning the new and unknown had long, since, been put to rest.

A woman called me on the phone. She asked if I was the person who was conducting a weekly discussion group about the Sufi Path at the university.

I said: "yes". She said she would come to the next meeting, and she did.

She came to those meetings for an extended period of time. Occasionally, but only very occasionally, she would make passing, oblique references to her shaykh, but, for the most part, she remained quiet.

Over time, a friendship developed with the woman and her family. There was a gradual transition from discussion group participant, to social acquaintance, independent of the group, to my becoming a part-time Islamic tutor for her two children, to being asked to say weekly Fatihas for the family.

Apparently, the woman's spiritual guide had told the woman to find me and attend the weekly meetings. In addition, the phantom shaykh had told the woman to have me serve as a tutor for her children and to read Fatiha for the family.

Nearly two years later, the shaykh enters, stage left. I, along with a number of other members of the university discussion group (which usually consisted of from four to eight people), meet with the shaykh who has been away in Pakistan, India, England, and other locations throughout this period of time that I have been becoming friends with the woman who had been sent to locate me - although I never knew any of this prior to my initiation.

The man was extremely knowledgeable about the Qur'an, Hadiths, Shari'ah, Islamic history, and the tradition of tasawwuf or Islamic mysticism. He told countless stories which were captivating, enchanting, and pack moral punches and spiritual insights.

He is easy to talk with ... unassuming ... humble ... self-deprecating. He is extremely insightful and generous about sharing what he knows - which is considerable.

He is very respectful of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and is constantly referring to him in loving terms, as well as to his own shaykh. He is very humorous and engaging, and it is all done with such effortless, charming efficiency.

Without question, I am drawn to this individual, as are a number of other people whom I have known for years. I begin to seriously think about taking initiation with him.

For seventeen years, I have been at the heart of activity in my previous Sufi Order. I had been a close associate of my shaykh who had entrusted me with many responsibilities.

Nevertheless, this is a new day, and a new situation. I am ready to start all over again - as just one, largely anonymous face among many in the sea of individuals who surround the new shaykh.

I ask the woman whom I have befriended, and vice versa, how do I go about this. She says all I have to do is ask the shaykh and let him decide the matter.

I do this, and the shaykh agrees to my being initiated into his spiritual silsilah, or chain of spiritual transmission. When the time comes, he calls me forward.

After the process is completed, he bids me to come nearer, and he begins whispering certain things into my ear - things which I am having a hard time digesting because I feel they are being said to the wrong person. Among other things, I am told that I am to become a shaykh in the silsilah.

In subsequent days, I am informed that the shaykh of my new shaykh is the one who, originally, told my new shaykh about me, and assigned his mureed - my shaykh - with the tasks of locating me, initiating me, making me a shaykh, and conferring upon me certain other spiritual responsibilities. I am totally unprepared for any of this, and, for whatever reason, although there were a number of my friends who got initiated the same night as I did, none of what happened to me, happened to them.

Presumably, if one is trying to fraudulently entice someone to take the step of initiation, then, the time for 'spiritual bribes' is before the fact, not after it. I was hooked, so to speak, the moment I asked to be initiated and, as was the case with my friends who took bay'at, or initiation with the new shaykh, nothing more needed to be said in order to elicit commitment.

I learned from the woman that she has known for more than a year - long before I ever met her shaykh - that I was to be initiated into their Oder and to be made a shaykh in the silsilah. She has been under strict instructions by the shaykh to refrain from divulging to me any of what she knows, and she has been very successful in discharging her duties in this regard.

I was entirely ready and fully expecting to start over again with a new shaykh. I was ready to go back to square one as far as spiritual discipline and methodology were concerned.

I was not anticipating any of what took place, nor was I encouraged to have such expectations - either by the woman who had been sent to make contact with me, nor by her shaykh. My mind-set and heart-set were geared in a certain direction, and, in a matter of moments, everything was turned upside down.