The question whether sins ought to be remembered after repentance or forgotten illustrates a fundamental point in Sūfī ethics: I mean the difference between what is taught to novices and disciples and what is held as an esoteric doctrine by adepts. Any Mohammedan director of souls would tell his pupils that to think humbly and remorsefully of one’s sins is a sovereign remedy against spiritual pride, but he himself might very well believe that real repentance consists in forgetting everything except God. “The penitent,” says Hujwīrī, “is a lover of God, and the lover of God is in contemplation of God: in contemplation it is wrong to remember sin, for recollection of sin is a veil between God and the contemplative.” Sin appertains to self-existence, which itself is the greatest of all sins. To forget sin is to forget self. This is only one application of a principle which, as I have said, runs through the whole ethical system of Sūfism and will be more fully explained in a subsequent chapter. Its dangers are evident, but we must in fairness allow that the same theory of conduct may not be equally suitable to those who have made themselves perfect in moral discipline and to those who are still striving after perfection. Over the gate of repentance it is written: “All _self_ abandon ye who enter here!” [Sidenote: The Sheykh.] The convert now begins what is called by Christian mystics the Purgative Way. If he follows the general rule, he will take a director (Sheykh, Pīr, Murshid), _i.e._ a holy man of ripe experience and profound knowledge, whose least word is absolute law to his disciples. A ‘seeker’ who attempts to traverse the ‘Path’ without assistance receives little sympathy. Of such a one it is said that ‘his guide is Satan,’ and he is likened to a tree that for want of the gardener’s care brings forth ‘none or bitter fruit.’ Speaking of the Sūfī Sheykhs, Hujwīrī says: