The mystic was back from the desert. “Tell us,” the people said, “what God is like.”
But how could he ever put into words what he had experienced in his heart? Can God be put into words?
He finally gave them a description - so inaccurate, so inadequate - in the hope that some of them might be tempted to experience it for themselves.
They seized upon the description. They made it sacred text.
They imposed it on others as holy belief.
They went to great pains to spread it to foreign lands. Some even gave their lives for it.
The mystic was sad. It might have been better if he had said nothing.
