Fakir
A
fakir (
Persian: فقیر ) is a
Sufi or
Hindu ascetic mendicant, especially one who
performs
feats of
endurance or apparent
magic.
[Dictionary.com & Wiktionary.org] Derived from
faqiri (
Arabic), Lit: poverty.
[God Speaks, Meher Baba, Dodd Meade, 1955, 2nd Ed. p. 305] The word is usually used to refer to either the spiritual recluse or eremite or the common street
beggar who chants
holy names,
scriptures or verses. Its current
idiomatic usage developed primarily in
Mughal-era
India, where the term was injected into local idiom through the
Persian-speaking courts of
Muslim rulers. When used referring to somber spiritual miracle-makers,
fakir is applied primarily to
Sufi, but also
Hindu,
ascetics.
Many
stereotypes of the great fakir exist, among the more extreme being the picture of a near-naked man effortlessly
walking barefoot on burning coals,
sitting or
sleeping on a
bed of nails,
levitating during bouts of
meditation, or "
living on air" (refusing all food). It is also used, usually sarcastically, for a common street beggar who chants holy names, scriptures or verses without ostensibly having any spiritual advancement.
It has become a common
Urdu and
Hindi word for a beggar. When applied to Hindu mystics, the term is essentially a non-Indian word for:
*
Sadhus
*
Gurus
*
Swamis
*
Yogis
In the
Fourth Way teaching of
G. I. Gurdjieff the word
fakir is used to denote the specifically
physical path of development, compared with the word
yogi (which Gurdjieff used for a path of
mental development) and
monk (which he used for the path of
emotional development).
[The Fourth Way: Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff, P.D. Ouspensky, Random House USA, 2000 ]*
Dervish*
Yogi
