VOLUME VII

THE SUFI MESSAGE

OF

HAZRAT INAYAT KHAN

IN AN EASTERN ROSE GARDEN

PREFACE

The present edition of this book, which consists of a collection of lectures delivered by Hazrat Inayat Khan during the years 1918-1920, is the fifth, the first having appeared in 1921.

As the title of the book suggests, its contents are varied. Some of the subjects have also been discussed in other volumes in this series, namely in Mental Purification (Vol. IV) and The Alchemy of Happiness (Vol.VI), but mostly in another form or context.

Eleven hitherto unpublished lectures have been added to the twenty-nine, which were included in the earlier editions.

LOVE, HARMONY, AND BEAUTY

How the words "love," "harmony," and "beauty" delight the heart of everyone who hears them! One may wonder what it can be in these words that is able to exert such a natural power upon the human soul.

The answer is that if there is anything in life, which appeals to the human soul, it is love and beauty. If one asks, "And what besides those?" then the answer is, "There is nothing else." Why is this? Because they are the very nature of life. Love is the nature of life, beauty is the outcome of life, harmony is the means by which life accomplishes its purpose, and the lack of it results in destruction.

When we reflect upon this whole creation we cannot but see that its purpose is to express an ideal of love, harmony and beauty. Love could not have manifested itself if there were nothing to love, eyes could not have seen if there were nothing to see. What could love have done if there were no beauty? Love would have been silent. Love can only be said to exist after it has passed from silence into expression.

Now comes the question: What has made beauty? The answer is that it is love that has made beauty. When a Sufi calls you "Beloved ones of God" he has this idea in his mind. Whatever God has created, He has created out of His love. He has created to be loved by Him, and therefore whatever He has created and all His creatures are His beloved ones.

We human beings have our prejudices; we like one, dislike another; we consider one worthy of high esteem, and another only worthy of low esteem, but to God they are all alike; they are His creation. It is just as it would be for a poet to have the little scrap of paper on which his song is written thrown away, or lost and not esteemed. How could he sing without his voice? So it is with the Creator; He cannot be pleased when His little scraps of paper are not appreciated.

God is love, and He has created man out of His love. How then can He be pleased if one has hatred or prejudice against a fellowman? Because one forgets that however unworthy he may seem to be, he is nevertheless the beloved one of God? He has created him in order to love him. Therefore God, the Father and Mother of all beings, is equally pleased with all His creatures.

But is not one thing more beautiful than another, one person more than another, in either external or internal being? What is the reason of this?

The reason is found when we consider the work of an artist, of a poet, of a composer of music, of a writer. We can see that one composition is much more beautiful than another. One picture may perhaps be the best the artist has painted in all his life. The poet may wonder, "Have I written this verse? Where can it have come from? It is so superior to all the others; it is marvelous how these words came to me."

Just as we see this in the individual, so also do we see it in the work of the Creator. At

the same time, love is the only power that has created, or that can create.

In this way God becomes the lover and the manifestation or object of love at the same time. In Sanskrit this is called by mystics Shiva and Shakti, or Purusha and Prakriti, or Ishwara and Maya, these three pairs of words. The one part is love, and the other part is beauty. Love has created beauty in order that it may be able to love. God is love; that is why He is called the Creator. The lover alone has the power to create, and that which he creates is for the purpose of receiving his love.

The Prophet has said, "God is beautiful, and He loves beauty." Now the word "beautiful" does not refer to the form of God. God is formless. He has no personality until He manifests Himself to Himself. Therefore it is not His personality, which is beautiful, for God is beyond that which in the ordinary sense of the word is called personality.

What then is the source of God’s beauty? God is beautiful because He has created beauty. If there were no beauty in God, there could have been none in His manifestation. If there were no beauty in the thought of the poet, he could not write beautiful verse. If there were no beauty in the thought of the artist, he could never have painted the picture. One cannot see the beauty in the heart of the painter except in the beauty of the picture he has made. It is not only the picture which is beautiful, the heart of the painter was beautiful first. Consequently we become able to see the beauty not only in manifestation, but also before it was manifested; and before it was manifested it existed in love. In other words, we can see that the beauty was hidden in love; beauty is hidden in love, and the beauty that love has before it to love is its own beauty. Therefore, to whatever extent beauty is beautiful, so is love beautiful; even more so, for the Creator is more beautiful than the thing He has created.

All things that we make are the work of our hands. We are their creator; and we are greater than our hands. So it is with love. Love is greater than beauty, because love is the creator of the beauty that love loves in its life.

No doubt by loving, love becomes limited, limited as beauty; but then that is the purpose of love. If there were no beauty, His love could not have realized the latent joy of its own nature. The joy of its existence would die out.

As soon as we can think in this way, we come to see that the lover is vaster, incomparably vaster than the object he loves. The real love, the real beauty, is in the lover. The object that he loves is much smaller, although for the moment the lover is not aware of the difference. The lover thinks, "You are the object before which I bow. You are the object of which I think day and night, before which I am helpless. You are the object that I admire, that I adore."" Yet he does not realize the vastness of his love, and indeed, strictly speaking: love is vaster than the lover.

When people begin to learn the lesson of love they are apt to be frightened at the pain and difficulties and troubles, which they will have to face on behalf of love. When they compare their condition with that of the beloved, they think the beloved is much better off than they: "The one who takes my thought, who gives me pain, who wounds my heart, is much happier. When I compare myself with the beloved I think he is much the happier." And they go on thinking, "If I were the beloved it would be much better." Every soul experiences that thought, but once he has risen above it, then he begins to know love. The soul that has not escaped from this fails to realize the fullness of love.

There is another side to love, and that is selfishness, and the lover must escape from this. The true lover says, "I will give everything, I will endure all things, all tortures, all torments that may have to be faced in life. I will bow in humility before whatever befalls me. I will give all that I have. I will bear all things, believe all things, hope for all things, and endure all things." But the other side of love says, "Are you crazy? Have you lost your senses? You are foolish. Why this complaining? See how happy the beloved is? Be happy like him and be in his exalted position, instead of in this humility and degradation. Enter into this greatness and not into that destruction!" Then he proceeds to reason, and at length he understands. The one thing leads to destruction, the other promises safety. But in destruction there is the hand of God, while in safety there is the hand of Satan. All things that are selfish are taught by that power and by that knowledge which is the enemy of mankind. Satan is an enemy because he leads man away from the purpose of his life. He seeks to make the lover change places with the beloved and say, "Your position is better than mine; now I would like to be like you." And perhaps he will wait all his life to gain the coveted position, and it never comes because the beloved would not surrender the wealth when the chance was there.

The life of a person is quite changed after being melted in the fire of love. The fire of love will exalt him so that his power will even influence animals and birds; the wise and foolish will be attracted to him alike. Once he is purified, burned in the fire of love, he will become the attraction of every soul, of every being, invisible as well as visible. It is only the advice of Satan that keeps him from that. The master is he who suffers. We often reflect upon how Jesus Christ washed the feet of his disciples. What beauty there is in that service, in that humility? Should we find that beauty in a proud man? Could a proud man win the hearts of the world for centuries and centuries? The proud man is led by Satan, he becomes egoistic, selfish, cold; everyone in his presence will freeze, for his presence is like ice and cannot impart comfort.

But how forgiving is he who has been through all suffering! Was there anything else in Christ’s life but forgiveness and tolerance? Always forgive, always tolerate, he said. It was because the love in the heart of the Master was so great that it appealed to everyone. Love was all the philosophy that his fishermen could understand, and if love were placed before philosophy and religion how devoted would the devotees become. The animals and the birds would be attracted by the power of man’s heart aflame with love. As it is, man only frightens love away at the least suspicion of its appearance, and so love never wants to come nearer.

How often is the word "love" used in everyday life for what is nothing but an amusement, a pleasure, a pastime, a degraded thing. Love is so much higher. It is not a thing that you can give to a person, or of which a person may say, "I can develop it." He cannot learn it, he cannot study it in a book; there is only this one thing to be done: to allow it to grow in the heart. A person cannot live without his heart, and the heart cannot exist without love. However loveless and cold a person seems to be, however wicked and cruel, he nevertheless has love, though it is hidden. There is a thick wall built round it. It has no means of coming out; it is continually kept within this shell, and it is uneasy and restless. That is why man becomes cold an unhappy, always wanting he knows not what, because he does not understand the only true inclination. The power of love has become captive in a thick shell, a shell of coldness, the frozen part of love, and this shell refuses outlet to the stream of love, the divine power, which seeks to emerge through the heart. When a man does not give this love an outlet he becomes a burden to others. His presence becomes disagreeable to his surroundings, his influence becomes a burden to himself. For this reason some people even go mad. Not knowing what they want in life, they always blame others for not having loved them, and sympathized with them, or been kind to them. They do not realize that the key lies in themselves. In their heart lies the power to open and melt anyone’s heart. It is our own power that can bring another to our feet.

Whoever learns this truth ceases to blame anyone for being cold to him, unkind to him, unsympathetic towards him. He finds that the cause lies in himself. By seeking the sympathy and good feeling of another person he covers up his own heart and stops it from expressing itself. The power of love is ever wishing to come out to impress itself upon its surroundings, and yet it is as if the doors were being ever closed to prevent God from coming out to fulfill the purpose of His own creation.

How beautiful are the words of the Prophet: "The shrine of God is the heart of man." How true that is! Is God to be found in a mosque, or temple, or church, or in any place where people sing hymns and offer their prayers? Can He be found where there is no love? He is not to be found in the houses that men have built for worship. These are only schools for children, and their playgrounds. Children like playing with toys, and yet they are preparing themselves for something else. When man has come to know the real beauty of God, he will find that it dwells only in one place: in the heart of man. God is love, and He is found in the heart of man.

He who understands this can worship God even in man. For when he abides by this philosophy he will always be aware that in every aspect and at every moment he may be injuring or hurting the feelings of God, that he is in danger of breaking the shrine of God in breaking the heart of his fellow-man.

It might be thought that the philosophers and mystics and sages, who are so near and close to God, might take too much liberty with the world. But they are, on the contrary, the most tender and sensitive towards mankind. They are ready to share anyone’s trouble, to share anyone’s sorrow, to share everyone’s depression and despair. They are ready to console any and every person with their words, to help with their service, and to give their sympathy always to those who need it. They shrink at no sacrifice of time, money, pleasure, or comfort. As Christ teaches, "Whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain."

What does all this teach us? It is all a lesson in sympathy for one’s fellowman, to teach us to share in his troubles, in his despair. For whoever really experiences this joy of life, finds that it becomes so great that it fills his heart and his soul. It does not matter if he has fewer comforts or an inferior position than many in this world, because the light of his kindness, of his sympathy, of the love that is growing, the virtue that is springing up in his heart, all fill the soul with light. There is nothing now that he lacks in life, for he has become the king of it.

Such a person becomes a healer, a real healer. He heals a person with his glance, with a kind word, with his hand, by his comfort, by his nature. What a healing that is! Unpretentious, unassuming; the real healing is when a man is in sympathy with another’s trouble and gives him a helping hand. He is the possessor of the true wine. He who can send from his eye the glance that proves the sympathy and help he is anxious to give, what a healing power he has! Is it not like a young bird being taken in beneath the brooding wings? There cannot be a more beautiful process of healing than this among all the different methods by which people have endeavored to heal.

Some may ask what, then, should be the object which one should love in this life?

Is there any particular object that a man can be recommended to love? Is it best to love one’s parent or friends? To love one friend only, or to love just one beloved of the opposite sex? Should one love something in the abstract, some spirit, some ideal, some name, or something, which is beyond man’s nature? Or should one love something idealized as the God whom one worships? There are many, who say that there is no love which is useful but the love of God. All other forms are worthless. Another says that he or she can love no one who is of the opposite sex, having once been disappointed in this way. Another will say, "I will love no human being; I can love my dog or my cat better. They do not disappoint men, whereas I was once disappointed in man." Another says, "I love my money, because if I am in need that is the only friend that comes to my rescue. The deposit I have in my bank does more for me than anyone can do. Why than should I not love my money?" And still another person says, "If God is all, if He is to have all love, then why not love the chair, or the table, or a book, or the work that a person does a work of art, a piece of music; is it not the same?" But all these questions are voiced by hearts, which have once been disappointed, once broken. They broke and became closed, and once the doors of the heart are closed there is no light to guide its path. That is what is so beautiful in the little English song, "The light of a whole life dies when love is done." There is no light when love is done. When love is done, the heart is closed.

So often one meets with people who complain that the love on the part of the lover failed to satisfy and caused their despair and distress. What does the Sufi, what does the sage learn from this? He learns that it is those who love who gain. Those who have loved and not gone forward are those who have lost. The reason why they have gone back before reaching their destiny has been that they were dependent upon the object of love which disappointed them. The Sufi is aware of this great pit on the path. Whenever the lover, who was attracted by beauty, falls from his love, it is because he depended on the beauty. It was the beauty that he loved, and he could only stand as long as that beauty remained his ideal. The lover rises again when he consults with himself and says, "I will make such an ideal as will allow my life to become self-sufficient. The ideal will be my excuse, but in reality I will raise my love. Whenever love was broken it was only because the ideal did not prove to be as the lover expected it to be. I will therefore avoid blinding my eyes with the external life, but will build the path on which to travel in my own heart. That ideal will suffice and provide everything that the beloved may lack." This lover is the real lover, because love has a beauty too, and he produces from his own love the beauty, which perhaps the beloved lacks, and he no longer notices the lack in his beloved. From this time on, the beloved becomes his love because he has made a beloved in his thought, in his imagination, and he can continually add to the beauty of the manifestation.

In this manner the song of love and beauty has been sung in all periods of history. Sa’di of Persia, Dante of Italy, and all the great ones who have loved and appealed to the heart of man, all of them have left words which still pierce through our hearts today because of the greatness of their ideal. They have themselves created their ideal in their own hearts. For all such there can no longer be any question of the beloved proving unworthy of love. The lover has become the creator of the love. Did not God create love? Have not we inherited this beauty of God? Can we not create love also? That which one can create can always be depended on.

There is another side to this question, and it is that the ideal of love, which is created by man, is according to his evolution. If he is material, he will appreciate material beauty in a person or object. He cannot help this. It is not his fault. It is right for him to admire that which directly appeals to him. One person will prefer beauty of mind, of virtue, of personality, of some good manner, of some goodness, which appeals to him. He values a beautiful personality, a sympathetic presence. Another person will perhaps like a soul because he finds in it his ideal of inspiration, intuition, peace of mind, and joy.

Therefore one cannot point to any particular object as the only object worthy of love, because beauty is only according to a person’s evolution. He who is of lower evolution cannot love a higher object. But a person of higher evolution can love the lower as well as the higher. He who once loves cannot hate. The one who hates is he who cannot appreciate. Hatred is found in the lower grades of evolution, not in the higher; and the higher the evolution develops, the less the hatred and prejudice become. In the higher realm there is no poison, for the object is higher, the standard is higher, the sphere is greater. As high as one sets one’s ideal, so high does one reach, and it is by raising the standard of beauty step by step that one rises up and up into the highest heaven.

It is by walking along and keeping ever on the path of love that even from the lowest depths the soul can reach the highest heaven. Man can even raise his ideal to that height in which he becomes able to love God the Formless, God the Nameless, who is above all goodness and virtue; not even He can be restricted to virtue, for He is beyond goodness.

There are sages who are moved to tears just by saying to themselves one word of essential truth, of abstract truth. What could have this effect? Is there some pain concealed in it? Is anything said to evoke sympathy? No, it is their ideal that is so high that they see the ideal beauty in the truth. The truth of being has become beautiful to them. Their beloved has become God, and when a word of truth is spoken in their hearing they are moved to tears. To these sages everything is a real manifestation of the beauty of God. If they hear music, in that music they feel God, in that music they see God. If they are standing before a picture, in the beauty of that picture they see their Beloved. If they are standing in a crowd, with all manner of faces, to them the whole picture is one harmony, one vision of the sublime, and they can see the whole beauty there. Whether it be desert, or sea, or sky, or land, whatever it is that is before their eyes has a vision of beauty to offer to them. And it is in this way that the whole of manifestation has become for them an immanence of the beauty of God.

NATURE’S RELIGION

Although it is no exaggeration to say that there are numberless religions in the world. And every religion has so many different sects and churches and chapels that this life is not long enough to study them. Indeed it would be impossible even to count them in one lifetime – yet that which should really be studied proves to be something very different, for the thinker perceives that these many different religions have sprung out of one religion. Religion may begin in the East or the West, in the South or the North, yet it will always end in many religions. The more we ponder upon how all can have come from one, the plainer becomes the fact that all are expressions of one religion. And this religion is nature’s religion.

The question as to what exactly this religion really is and how one may get to know it, can only be answered by those who have raised themselves beyond the limitations of ceremonial and dogma in which they are always first instructed. But rising above a religion does not mean giving up the religion. It means being fully benefited by the religion. Those who say they have given up their religion are not above it; those alone are above it who have arrived at a full understanding of the spirit of religion. As soon as the spirit of religion has become manifest, then indeed are the eyes blessed. The distinctions and differences of castes and creeds and religions all vanish away in one moment of time.

Once this is perceived, there ceases to be anything to criticize; it is all one what form of worship is to be used, what church is to be attended, what book is to be read. From now on it is seen that there is no such thing as a heretic, no such thing as a heathen, no difference between Kufr and Muslim. But until this truth is perceived, there is always the thought: "Whatever religion, or belief, or faith I have or hold, the scripture that I read, the church that I attend, is the only scripture, the only church, the only faith. This that I have understood and regarded as mine all through my life, this is the only path."

It is like a person in pursuit of a bird. He looks at the branch of the tree, which is still shaking after the bird has flown from it. He says, "Oh here is the bird," but he is only looking at the branch trembling hither and thither after the bird has sat there just for a moment. He calls the branch the bird. Another person may see a branch moving, but this time the branch is so strong that the bird could not possibly have moved it. Not understanding this, he thinks the bird sat on that branch. Thus it is with the truth.

Instead of understanding the spirit of the truth people have taught that religion lies in the name of the teacher. Importance is given to the name of the teacher, to the scripture, to the house in which worship is customary, to the priests or clergy who officiate. Prominence is given to being Brahmin or Buddhist, to belonging to certain communities formed in the name of a particular religion, to the castes set up, to the families formed, to those associations made in order to follow one particular creed, or ceremony, or law. Finally the loyalty to that particular religious system becomes its life, and this leads to the neglect-not only neglect, but actual hatred-of the religion followed by others. It is in this way that all wars and differences that have existed in all ages have arisen.

When one studies nature, one finds that nature cannot create itself without expressing its religion. The origin of all religion is love and beauty. If there were no love or beauty religion would never have existed, because beauty is the beginning of worship and prayer. The beginning of prayer and the first step of worship is admiration.

A child knows nothing about religion, and yet from the very first it is attracted to something that is beautiful, something that it can like. As it grows older it is only the form of its desires that changes; it still seeks to acquire the object of beauty. As it grows older still, it comes to recognize beauty in intellectual things. It is beauty that man bows down to. When a man gives honor and respect and reverence to another it is still because of the beauty which he perceives in some form or other in a person, and he has a natural inclination to bow before this beautiful living thing. Prayer and worship are acts of bowing to beauty, acts necessary to satisfy the predisposition with which every soul is born, the predisposition which is called love. And it is the innate desire of love to satisfy itself by admiring and bowing before someone, to respect someone, to have veneration for someone, to worship someone.

Man goes step by step from simple worship to the worship of the Most High, as he realizes a higher and higher ideal. We can see this when we study the history of religions. It is the desire to pay respect, the desire to idealize that has made man worship idols or trees. Some people consider a certain tree sacred. And even in bowing before trees the desire of love is satisfied, its desire to humble itself, its desire to pay respect and reverence; and by this means the love of the heart has its outlet. Such people are not evolved enough to know where God is. He is not before their eyes as this idol is. How can He who is not seen be known? Therefore people bow before beautiful flowers, beautiful herbs, beautiful trees in the forest. Others bow before rocks that have a certain form which attracts them and produces in them the desire to pay homage to this particular rock, thus bringing satisfaction to the soul’s desire to bow and pay respect.

Then, as intelligence developed still more, people would perceive that sometimes they were higher than the rock before which they had previously bowed. They thought, "That rock is low; we can touch it; we can reach the top of it; there are a thousand others like it." Therefore they come to think, "It is best to worship the sun, because there can be nothing higher than the sun. We cannot get near it. There is nothing as bright as the sun. when the sun appears, does it not take away all our gloom and worries and all the fears of the dark night also? It takes away all the conditions of death and destruction such as thieves, robbers, tigers, and lions in country-sides and villages; all clear away when the sun rises, and a new life begins; and with it come strength, vigor, energy and enthusiasm to go out into the world. This is the one thing that takes away fear, and when it goes away we are afraid again and hide in our little villages."

And this worship of the sun lasted a long time. In places like Persia, and in places like eastern Russia where there is not always sun but always need of a fire, the people sought refuge from the cold weather by sitting near the fire. The light of the fire becomes company in loneliness, the heat of the fire brings comfort, the light takes away fear, the heat purifies everything that comes into it. So that is why, in those countries which are cold they call fire sacred, and bow before it in obedience to the same innate yearning to bow and pay respect.

But man ascended still higher until he began to think, "No, no; the sun, which goes away and comes back, appears and disappears, is not constantly with us. So I will seek something that is constantly with us." And what is that? Surely it is the imagination. Surely it is a spirit that is God. In Mongolia and China and in all those Eastern countries where numberless gods are worshipped, they say, "The one thing that abides with us, day and night, in trouble and sorrow, in joy and sadness, is that spirit which is God."

Then comes the time when the ruling power is seen in every object, in every being, in every plant, in every star, a controlling power ruling so many diverse objects. Thus it came about that the heroes were respected, kings were worshipped, and even every planet or star was thought to represent a separate god. This ideal of worship was developed among the Greeks and Hindus.

Then we come to the Semitic race, the race from which the beginning of the Bible is to be traced, the children of Israel. Abraham noticed people around him worshipping idols, people worshipping symbols, and people worshipping sacred cows, or beasts, or birds. He pondered on God, thinking, "No, if Thou art anywhere, Thou must be somewhere within me, and I want to find Thee." Once, lying awake, he repeated His name, and as he thus thought about Him he sought some sign of that One who is really worthy of worship. Again, in his visions he saw the star, and arose to ask, "Art Thou the God?" And the answer came from within, "It is not He. It comes and goes, for it is not stable nor steady. An object that is worthy of worship must be constantly before one." Then, next day, he saw the moon and asked, "Art Thou the God?" And the answer came, "No, for the moon takes its light from the sun." Then he saw the sun and asked the same question, and the answer came, "No, that which appears or disappears, however perfect in its light and form, cannot be the eternal God." And thus he perceived that God is a higher ideal than the sun, or moon, or anything that words can ever express; a God who is unseen and without form and without name, altogether beyond man’s conception. That is how the ideal of one God began.

This great ideal came through different prophets, and was expressed in different ways. If Moses said, "One God; no other gods but Me," Jesus Christ taught that there is not only one God, but also one Life; the whole of manifestation is one. The sun is not what we see; there is the sun, there is the manifestation which we see, and there is that which proceeds from the sun--all three aspects of the one. "I and my Father are one." "That which proceeds from the Father and the Son is one:" these sayings contain the three aspects, and they create a puzzle in man’s mind; he can remain in this puzzle all his life. There is the thing itself, there is its manifestation, and there is that which proceeds from it, always this trinity in one. In all ages the message was given with truth and wisdom as each messenger came, but how could all understand the truth when not everyone has even been able to understand another? Language can hardly express it, and it is hard to understand.

The same difficulty arose at the time of Mohammad. He said to his people, who were the worshippers of so many gods, "There is no god but the one God." They asked, "Where is He? Is He in our temples? Is He in the Ka’ba?" He said, "No, His temple is in man’s heart." "How far away is He?" "He is nearer to you than yourself." "In what can we find Him?" "In all things and all beings." "What is His sign?" "He is beyond all signs and yet all are His signs. He cannot be restricted to one center or one form or one name, because all names are His names, all forms are His form, all in heaven or earth are His beings, and there is only One!"

If you want to find Him you will find Him in the higher intelligence. When intelligence manifests itself on the surface, that is God. In manifesting Himself, He has assumed various forms; through each of these He seeks gradually to attain to the same state of absolute being. Every form: rock, animal, bird, man, everything, is always striving to climb to the surface. The Bible tells us to raise our light on high; it is covered under a bushel. The bushel is the manifested part of our life; all these forms that cover the inner intelligence, which in its original aspect is the root of being, are the bushel. The inner intelligence, the light, has become veiled under the manifestation, and it is the desire of nature to unfold it again, so as to allow it to behold its original being, which it does through all changes that take the form of death and destruction.

This great truth, so difficult to express, must needs be uttered by every prophet, every teacher, every saint who has brought the message, in that language which their hearers could best understand. If the teacher perceived that the method used by the hearers was good, he would advise them to continue in the same mode of worship. He would advise them to continue to go to such a temple or such a church, until they were able to perceive what is the real truth hidden behind all these things.

Having grasped the idea of God, there comes the question of the mode of worshipping Him. Religion offers many ways of worship; but various religions offer many modes of worship which have become the law of each religion, and how can that law be obeyed by the whole world? Let us ask the ministers of any religion, of Islam, of Christianity, of Buddhism, of Hinduism, whether their own law can become the law for the religion of the whole world. Though each one of them will say yes, yet surely it is not meant to be so. All men are not alike; the tendencies of every people differ; their habits are not the same. For instance the law of the Hindu is to go to the Ganges in the morning and bathe in it. How would that do in London? How could one bathe in the Themes in December before offering one’s prayers? Everybody will agree that no one could do such a thing. Again, a Muslim obeys the law of leaving his shoes outside the mosque, and then goes to wash his hands and feet, and make his ablutions in running water; then he stands on the marble floor of the mosque, and offers up his prayers. If the same mode of worship were to be the law for Russia, where there is so much cold and snow underfoot, to prostrate oneself on the marble would mean to be frozen to death in one day. And then one would never live to take the name of any religion again.

In this way we see that one faith and religion and law cannot be promoted and advocated in the same way in all different lands and places. The different faiths are bound gradually to become unrecognized and forgotten. Those who wish to promote their own customs would cease even to imagine such a thing, could they realize that every person has a different temperament, that every form of religion is a form of worship of the same God. Nature teaches every soul to worship God in some way or other, and often provides that which is suitable for each. Those who want one law to govern all have lost sight of the spirit of their own religion. And it is in people who have not yet learned their own religion that such ideas are commonly found. Did they but know their own religion, how tolerant they would become, and how free from any grudge against the religion of others!

So it is too with the manner of worship. It does not matter in what way a person offers his respect and his reverence to the deity he worships. It only matters how sincere he is in his offering. In one house of God we find that people do not wear hats; in Hindustan, Persia, and Arabia they put on turbans to go to the mosque. That is their custom. It makes no difference whether one person prays standing, another sitting, another kneeling, another prostrating himself, another in company with other people and another alone. All that matters is that the heart of the worshipper is pure, that the mind is connected with God, that there is sincerity and earnestness.

There is a story that a farmer’s boy, who was taking care of his father’s cattle in the jungle, had heard a teacher of religion in his village. This teacher was teaching about God and glorifying the name of God. The young boy was so impressed that when he went to the jungle next time he experienced that innate tendency to worship someone, and so in the jungle he began to say aloud, "Oh, God, I have heard so much about You; You are so good and kind that I feel that if You were here by me I would take such good care of You, more than of all my sheep, more than of all my fowls. In the rain I would keep You under the roof of my grass-shed; when it was cold, I would wrap You in my blanket, and in the heat of the sun I would give You a bath. I would put You to sleep with Your head on my lap, and I would fan You with my hat, and I would always watch You and guard You from wolves. I would give You bread of manna, and buttermilk to drink; and to entertain You I would sing and dance and play my flute. O God, come and see how I would tend You." Then Moses, the Messenger of God, came up and heard all that the boy said, and answered, "Oh boy , how foolish is this conversation! God, the unknown and unseen, who is in the heavens, the one before whom there is no might, no strength that can stand, He is almighty; the power is all His. He is beyond form and name and color; He is beyond the perception and comprehension of man."

The boy was disheartened, and afraid of what he had done. But the next message from God to Moses was: "We are very displeased indeed with you that you have alienated a devotee who did not know us. If he did not know us as you do, at least he knew us as far as his mind could grasp. All our devotees picture us in different forms and according to different qualities of love, and we receive their love through whatever form or garb it is directed to us. They are all our creatures and we receive it even if they worship the sun. We have sent you to unite our children to us, and not to separate them from us."

How we would hesitate to air our wisdom did we but realize that the first step of approach to God is sincerity and earnest love for Him! We should never call anyone heathen or pagan. We should never consider anybody in this world as unworthy. We do not know in what form a person is worshipping God. We do not know the earnestness in man’s heart; yet that is what is really important.

It is not only the learned, or so-called educated and enlightened persons, who perceive the meaning of the law of right and wrong. Even among savages there is some sense of it, because it is an instinct; it is the law by which the savage lives. We may think many people are doing wrong, yet we do not know what is wrong for them and what is not wrong; we do not know what is right for them and what is not right. We ourselves may be doing many things that we think right, but really are wrong to others; and others do things that appear to us to be wrong, and yet are acting rightly in their case. It is just a matter of looking at it from the other person’s point of view.

How few there are in this world, who stop to think whether the actions of another are right for him! We are so ready to accuse another, and we are so ready to hide our own faults. Did we but look at right and wrong from his standpoint, we should find that the meaning of right and wrong would change. It is wrong for a little child to go out without asking its parents, because perhaps it will meet a motorcar from which it cannot protect itself. But would the same thing be wrong for a grown-up? It is only during the age of childhood that the act is wrong, later it is right.

Did we but study the object of life, we should come to understand the nature of right and wrong. And once we knew the nature of right and wrong we would not need to consult the law of the scripture, for that law itself would then begin to reveal to us its own truth. Nature herself can tell us what is right and wrong for us and for another person.

The secret of it all is found in the answer to the question: Why is man here? The answer is, that he is here to attain the satisfaction of his innermost desire. And what is that innermost desire? It is first joy, then peace. But the attainment of each is contrary, because joy comes from activity of life, and peace comes from rest.

All this activity that a person experiences and enjoys by his senses, is a glimpse of joy. The greater joy comes when he can experience through his inner self also, through his mind. For there is another joy, that of the mind when it is delighted with a thing of truth or delicacy, or a beautiful thought. Beautiful music, beautiful verse, beautiful imagination, all bring delight. It is perhaps a greater joy that the joy of a delicious dish, for some persons would give anything for a verse which they would never give for a delicious dish.

But there is a still greater joy, that of the heart, the innermost being of a person; the joy when this heart can express itself and experience love. There are many in this world who only live in the body; their heart is dead, their mind is dead; they seek their highest joy only in the body. But there are others who live in mind as well as in body. It is like the difference between a thoughtful man and an ordinary man. When a man is thoughtful he has become a different man. This idea is expressed by the word "gentleman." There are very few who could be truly called gentlemen, though many pass for such. The gentleman is he who is beginning to live in his mind, whose mind is becoming alive, who enjoys life too, yet is not delighted merely with the experience of the senses.

But he whose heart is awakened is higher than a gentleman. Such a one can sympathize with another; his sympathies are awake to consider another, to think for another, to serve another, to sacrifice for another. He is not merely a gentleman, he is a saint. The power of sympathy and love takes away the gross self, which used to demand all for itself. Once that is taken away, man thinks in a far higher way. "Whatever I can do for another, that will I do. I will sacrifice all I have; the loss is no matter; it is a satisfaction." To satisfy the heart, what a thing it is! This also is a part of joy, but it is not peace.

Joy is experienced by worldly attainment; peace is the attainment of heaven. In the ordinary sense we call it peace to be at rest in an armchair, on cushions, or in bed. But when the body is on a comfortable couch, does that mean that the mind is resting on cushions also? Cannot the mind go through torture at the same time? If that be the case, of what benefit is the peace and comfort of the body? The whole being must have peace. The mind must have peace from anxieties, worry, and from the greed that gives us ambitious desires and that we call "wrong" and "sin." When all this has gone, the mind is at rest. Then, when the heart is at peace and had done its work of love, the heart has enough; it ceases to be interested in any particular object in life, but is equal towards all. When there is no demand there is peace, and this peace helps towards peace of the soul.

These are the two desires, which we hold. It is when we do not know the manner in which to attain these two desires that sometimes the joy of one part of our being takes away the peace of the other. Or the peace of one part of our life takes away the joy of the other part of our being. It is when man once knows this that he is able really to master himself, to manage his life’s affairs as he wishes, to have a better idea of what is right and what is wrong, and of what is sin and what is virtue.

This knowledge is gained through a study of life rather than of books. If we only knew how much the study of life can tell us! One could go into the British Museum and read every book in the building, and yet not obtain satisfaction. It is not study, it is not research, it is not inquiry which gives this knowledge; it is actually going through the experiences of life, witnessing life in its different aspects and in its different phases or spheres; that is what reveals the ideal of life.

A man may know about the whole world’s doings, saying to himself, "In the morning I will go from my home to the office, and will find out all about the world from my paper before I go." But all he has learned is what the newspapers feed him with; for how often next day is the news of today contradicted! Still he is satisfied, thinking he has learned so much about the world in the morning. And in the evening he is ready to discuss these topics at the dinner table. The next day there is again something fresh; but is that knowledge?

How wonderful is the sight that is given to us, how marvelous is the mind, how great a treasure is the light of the soul! Can these be intended only for things like that? If we only knew the value of our life, the value of our soul, we would give the precious time that is ours to keen observation with calm perception, combining the attitude of a student with the care of a scientist.

Look not on life as a person would watch a play on the stage. Rather look upon it as a student who is learning at college. It is not a passing show; it is not a place of amusement in which to fool our life away. It is a place for study, in which every sorrow, every heartbreak brings a precious lesson. It is a place in which to learn by one’s own suffering, by the study of the suffering of others; to learn from the people who have been kind to us as well as from the people who have been unkind. It is a place in which all experiences, be they disappointments, struggles, and pains, or joys, pleasures, and comforts, contribute to the understanding of what life is, and the realization what it is.

The do we awake to the religion of nature, which is the only religion. And the more we understand it, the greater our life becomes, and the more of a blessing will our life be for others.

THE PERSONALITY OF GOD

That ethical view of God, which conceives of Him as a personality, is really a conception of the self; the divine love, power, and inspiration are really within oneself. But when someone who has truly studied and understood the subject of God’s personality begins to talk about it, he is apt to destroy the religious beliefs of many besides his own. Not only is he apt to go astray himself, through failing to assimilate the knowledge from the ethical point of view, but he will also confuse others in their faiths and beliefs.

After reading a few ethical books and after considering the Christ-idea and the idea of God from the ethical point of view, a person may go and talk to a friend who has simple faith in Jesus Christ and has never considered ethics or science or philosophy but has always held a picture of the Lord before him, fearing to displease the Lord, devoted to him. He may say: "There is no such person as Jesus Christ. He never came to earth; it is a myth; it is only an ethical ideal." What happens? The plant of devotion, the ideal in the heart the plant that grows and develops more and more is broken by him. And his friend is driven either to shut the doors of his heart, which should be protected, or to give up his faith. To yield is to go astray, and yet not to yield maybe to go astray also.

There is a danger, then, of an ethical point of view destroying one’s own religion and understanding; but there is an even greater danger of its doing so to the religion of others.

The Sufi always tries to keep the ideal of God, not only as a philosophy, but as a religious philosophy. It has always been clothed with religion so that the ideal of a Master, a Savior, of God might be presented not only as a bare truth. For of all those who have the ethical point of view there may perhaps not be one in a thousand who has experienced trouble, distress, sorrow, and the pains of life in such a way as to be able to use this ethical knowledge in his life. The majority of people with an aptitude for study obtain the ethical knowledge, but proceed to criticize their own religion or that of others, and endeavor to destroy the faith which others have; such is human nature.

It is human nature to take others and lead them astray from their path. It is rare for anyone to ask himself, "Have I gone astray? I will at least not mislead another." The true parent would think like that. He would say, "My children shall be happier; they shall not make the mistakes which we have made." So once the love of human kind has developed in the heart of man, he begins to understand other people as the parent does his children, and to say to himself: "If others lead you astray, at least I will not do so."

In reality the ideal of God is a bridge connecting the limited life with the unlimited. Whoever goes over this bridge passes safely from the limited to the unlimited life. The bridge may be taken away, it is true, and one may yet swim across the chasm; but one may be drowned too. The ideal of God is a safe bridge, which takes you safely to the goal.

There are four paths or stages that lead a person to spiritual knowledge, from the limited to the unlimited.

The first stage is Shariat. This is where the God-ideal is impressed upon mankind as authority, as fear of God. This really means conscientiousness, not fear as is usually thought. If we love, we do not wish to displease; love does not force us to act, but it asks us to be conscientious and take care not to cause the least disharmony with the one whose happiness we want. The first lesson is to idealize someone who is above the personalities of the earth, more than mortal, a protector more than a father; a guardian, a king, mightier than the nations; richer than all the super millionaires in this world. Wonderful though the goodness is that we see in a mother, causing us to realize how kind and merciful she is, it is nothing compared with the perfection of the kindness and mercy of God. That which attracts us in the mother is limited; unlimited mercy and kindness are only to be seen in God. We perceive that all things that give protection, peace, fear, or love are only found in their perfection in the one ideal, and that is in God.

The one who realizes this offers his prayers to God, worships Him, thinks of Him, and holds the God-ideal in his mind. And a kind of connection comes to be established between him and the ideal, so that in times of depression, of despair, of sorrow and helplessness he has the ideal within immediate reach. He can say, " I know someone greater, a greater friend than anyone in the world, to whom all respect and worship and humility are due."

This stage of Shariat is that in which a person asks himself what will please Him, or displease Him. He learns his religion from his parents, from his friends. A good action pleases, a bad action displeases, and pride displeases most; he learns everything very easily by seeing what displeases another. How easy it is; and yet they sill go to a clergyman or to a priest, to ask what pleases God. And all the time it is just what pleases man that pleases God, and therefore if we please all around us, we please God; if we displease them, we displease God. A man who has attained to this stage realizes what reward comes to him when he pleases the world, and what happens when he does not. Just think of the peaceful state of the one who has done some good to another, what condition is his when he retires to bed at night; what joy, what peace, what sense of safety! Whereas the person who has harmed another, stolen something, caused trouble or pain, his punishment is with him also. The reward and the punishment can be seen in our own day; there is no need to wait for heaven or hell; every day is heaven or hell once we realize what reaction our own works bring upon ourselves.

Then next stage is called Tariqat. In this stage one finds what it is that really matters. What it is that is really wrong, and what it is that is really right; how some wrong is hidden under what people call right, and right is hidden under what we call wrong. It is now that a man begins to understand the nature of things. What the whole world calls wrong may be right. Although he pleases the world, at the same time he thinks of the pleasure of God first. He goes on until instead of finding the pleasure of God in the world, he also finds it in his own being, by his own conscience, by his own intelligence. He also begins to be able to say, "Yes, it is true there is a Creator, it is true I am a creature; but what has God created me from? Whence has He created the whole world? Is it from Himself or from substance, and if substance has existed, where did that come from?

Having begun to think in this way he begins to find that if there is any substance, it is something that He made of Himself. One can see that by considering one’s own thoughts. When a person notices that a thought has come to him to do a certain thing, where was it before? How did it arise? Surely, his mind has in that case created something out of nothing, or out of himself. Mind is one thing, thought is one thing, but at the same time the thought is of the mind, the mind has created the thought, and yet the thought is not another substance, it is the substance of mind itself. But the mind as the knower of the thought and the creator of the thought stands at the back of the thought, and when the thought has disappeared the mind is there just the same. When the thought has gone the mind is still there. So it is with God. He has created all things; they are sustained a certain time and then lost from the sight of man, but at the same time they have come from Him, they are lost from Him, and He remains the same.

This then is the second stage, when a man begins to understand the Creator.

The third stage is that of Haqiqat. It is in this stage that man begins to realize the truth of the whole being and he will think: "The one whom I have called God, whose personality I have recognized, and whose pleasure or displeasure I have sought, has been seeing His life through my eyes. Has been hearing through my ears. It was His breath that came through my breathing. His impulse, which I felt, and therefore I know that this body, which I had thought to be my own, is really the true temple of God. I did not realize that this body was the shrine of God." Not knowing that God experiences this life through man, one is seeking for Him somewhere else, in some person aloof and apart from the world, whereas all the time He is in oneself.

It is not meant that such a person should set to work to break people’s beliefs, and say that God is both in heaven and in his body. Someone would answer, "If God is in my body, I will no longer worship that God; I thought God was pure and in the heavens, but if He dwells in my body, I cannot bear that idea for one moment." That person will be frightened and go astray. That is why in India it is considered a great sin to awaken anyone who is asleep. If a man is asleep, do not wake him; let him sleep; it is the time for him to sleep; it will not do to wake him before his time.

Thus a mystic understands also that a person who is taking his time to wake up must not be awakened to give him the mystic’s idea. It would be a sin, because he is not prepared to understand it, and his beliefs would be shaken. Let him go on thinking God is in Benares; let him think He is in the temple of Buddha; let him think He is in heaven; let him think He is in the seventh heaven above the sky. It is the beginning; he will evolve in time and arrive at the same stage. The rest he is having just now is good for him. The awakening comes, all in its good time.

This explains what is meant by saying that Sufism is a religious philosophy; the philosophy is clothed with religion, that it may not break the ideals and faiths and beliefs of those who are beginning their journey towards the goal. Externally: the religion, inwardly: the philosophy. The one who wants to understand will understand. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

It also explains why people in the past have pictured their philosophy in myths, as did the Hindus and the Greeks in their stories of gods and goddesses. Even in the carvings in wood and stone, as at Elephanta and so many other places, truths are represented in pictures, which convey to the seer and the reader the truths underlying all religions.

The forth stage is Marefat. This is the knowledge, which enables a person who has arrived at it to call God "Truth." He applies no other name to God but only truth; in the end of his journey he has found the divine light which is truth, the light illuminating his whole being, the whole universe; and even if a thousand universes were there, they would be illuminated by it.

In the Bible it is said that first there was the Word, and there was Light. That means, that the first or highest knowledge is the truth. Light gives knowledge, words give knowledge; in fact, they are knowledge. The Qur’an says that Allah is the light of the heaven and the earth. That means the illumination to which one attains.

The story of Aladdin, who went in search of the lamp, teaches the same lesson. In the end man arrives at the stage where in the shrine of God he finds the light, the light of truth which illuminates all his life, the light that suffices the whole being. When this light comes, all the fear of God, the confusion, the puzzle, are gone, because all such things are due to lack of light. Whatever difficulty might be before us would not dismay us if there were a light for us to see through it. That which breaks the heart or brings despair is a difficulty, or a trouble through which we cannot see. This means that our trouble in life is always lack of light and nothing else; that every difficulty can be solved, and if we understand the nature of our difficulty, we can see our way through. It is the lack of light, which prevents our seeing into our trouble, as well as the way out of it, and it is the light, which gives us the power to see into our difficulty as well as showing the way out of it.

Therefore what we need in our life is the lamp of Aladdin. That is what is gained at the fourth stage of development, which is called Marefat.

SILENT LIFE

When we look at the universe we find there are two aspects of existence: firstly, life; secondly, the condition which compared with what we call life seems to be lifeless. The one aspect of existence we call life, the other aspect we overlook. We divide it into periods and call it time, or we compare it with objects and call it space.

We say than an object is alive, when it shows some activity and consciousness, meaning that it can move and see and think. An object that cannot see and is not active, we call dead. Whatever seems to be devoid of activity and consciousness is called a thing. When it has consciousness and activity, it is called living.

What is the source of this consciousness and activity? The circulation of the blood, the energy of the movements of the body, the activity of the nerves and muscles, if we could only know what it is that keeps them in action! A person may say that it all goes on mechanically like a clock, but the clock is not the source of the movement. The mind is the source of the clock; the mind has made the clock, has thought about it, has wound it; it continues to depend upon man to keep it going. Therefore behind ‘clock’ is ‘man’. Even if it only wants winding once a year, still there is man behind it, whom we do not see.

It is the same with the whole mechanism of nature: all is mechanical and runs according to certain laws, and yet there is a source or origin of things hidden behind it all. As the artist is hidden behind his art, as the scientist is hidden behind his invention, as the mind is hidden behind the body, as the cause is hidden behind the action, so there is always one

aspect of life which is hidden behind that other aspect which alone is recognized as life.

Both science and religion show that consciousness has evolved through different stages, from mineral to vegetable, from vegetable to animal, and from animal to humanity. It is regarded as the achievement of modern science that this thought has been reached, but its source lies in the traditions of the past. Rumi’s Masnavi tell us the experience of consciousness from the mineral up to the plant:

I died as a mineral, and rose a plant,

I died as a plant, and rose again an animal.

I died as an animal, and rose a man.

Why then should I fear to become less by dying?

I shall die once again as a man,

To rise an angel, perfect from head to foot.

Again, when I suffer dissolution as an angel,

I shall become what passes the conception of man.

Science today stops at man, but the poem says that from man I shall rise to be an angel, and from angel I shall ascend to that stage of being which passes man’s comprehension. This poem was written in the thirteenth century.

This proves Solomon’s saying, ‘There is nothing new under the sun.’ When man discovers something today he in reality only brings to light something which existed in the past, either as history or as tradition. Even before Rumi, one finds this idea in the Qur’an.

What can we learn from this? Every activity, which we call ‘life,’ has sprung from a source that is silent. It will always be silent; and every activity, however different in aspect, peculiar to itself, and unlike others in its effect, is still the activity of a tiny part of that life which is as wide as the ocean. Call it world, universe, nation, country, race, community, one individual, or only a particle, an atom-it’s activity, its energy springs in each case from one inseparable and eternal silent aspect of life. And it has not only sprung from it, but it also resolves itself into it. One throws a pebble into the water, water that is still and calm. There comes an activity, it comes for one moment, and then it vanishes. Into what does it vanish? It vanishes into the same silence in which the water was before. Water is a substance that is active by nature, and the silence, the stillness, the calmness that it shows is just the original state, the effect of its original source. This means that the natural inclination of every thing and every being is silence, because it has come from silence, and yet it is active, because it is activity that produces activity; and its end is silence.

Therefore sages, mystics, and philosophers who have probed into the depths of life have seen that what we call life is death, and that what we call no life is the real life.

A Hindustani poet says, ‘Raise your eyes, friend, from what you call life to that which perhaps you do not recognize as life, and then you will find that what you had once called life is nothing but death, and what you thought was nothing, is really life.’

When one comes to the essence of the teachings of Christ one will see that from beginning to end the whole attitude of the Master is to tell mankind that there is a life beyond, which is higher than this which one calls life. And which yet is not life; that is to say, higher in quality, not beyond in time.

The life one recognizes is only the mortal aspect of life. Very few have ever seen or been conscious of the immortal aspect at all. Once one has realized life, that which one has hitherto called life is found to be only a glimpse or shadow of the real life that is beyond comprehension. To understand it one will have to raise one’s light high from under the cover that is hiding it like a bushel. This cover is man’s mind and body; it is a cover that keeps the light active on the world of things and beings. ‘Do not keep your light under a bushel’ means that we are not to keep the consciousness absorbed in the study of the external world, and in its pleasures and enjoyments. Man is always apt to say that the religious thinker is a dreamer, lost in vague ideals, having no proof of what he believes, and far from what he himself would call the reality. He never thinks that what he calls real has in its turn become unreal to the one to whom the silent life has become reality. Can you call this life real which is subject to such changes every moment? Every activity and the object of everyone’s life-riches, power, love, friendship, childhood, youth, health, pleasure, displeasure, happiness, and poverty-all change sooner or later. Can anybody think that such things are reality? What can one call all this that is subject to change, whose source is seen and whose end is unseen, which is subject to death and destruction, after which it is seen no more? Is that reality? Or are not the realities perhaps really behind the scene, from whence everything came and to which everything goes?

Perhaps many of us have experienced at some time or other, in our own home, or in a church, a temple, or other religious place, how there is a kind of silence as we sit there. Compared with a bazaar, a market, or a factory there is no activity. If under such circumstances we noticed the condition of our own self, of our mind, of our thoughts, of our body, and have felt any comfort, have we then asked ourselves why we felt comfort and rest? Then, take another experience: We may be a few moments or a few hours in the woods, away and apart from everybody. It may seem as if even the trees and the leaves are keeping silence. The feelings that we have at such a time cannot be expressed in words. These feelings cannot be called pleasure, because what we are accustomed to in pleasure or in joy is not the same. We can only say, ‘That peculiar pleasure, that peculiar joy.’ There is no name for it, and yet it is a true experience of the soul.

Then there is a still greater and deeper experience: When a person is in a wilderness, near rocks in the desert, where there is no sound even of birds or beasts, when there is absolute silence. In the East, did not all the prophets from the time of Abraham, Moses, David, and in the time of Christ and Mohammad, all the prophets of the Old Testament and the New, and of the Qur’an, receive their inspiration from the same source? The history of Moses on Mount Sinai, the Prophet of Nazareth in the wilderness, the Prophet Mohammad on Ghar-e Hira, did they not all drink from the silent life? Though God is in all activities, forms and names, it is His other aspect: solid, firm, eternal, all sufficient and powerful, all-intelligent, undivided and inseparable, from which the inspiration came as a perfect inspiration, so that the world could take it as the sacred Word, in all ages and in all times.

Then, coming to the cause of idol-worship, a person might wonder about the old custom of Brahmins and Buddhists, who went into the temple of Buddha or Krishna, and sat before an idol which neither spoke to them nor took notice of them. He might think, "What could they gain? It has a mouth and speaks not, it has hands yet cannot move.’ And so people mocked at them. Scoffed at them, and called them heathen and pagan. But they did not know of this silence that was impressed upon the worshipper. This human form sitting before them, silent and quiet and not speaking, or hearing, or thinking, absolutely quiet; just think what it means.

When a man is among friends he may get tired; sometimes he enjoys their society, but when he does not enjoy it, he thinks, I am drained of all vitality.’ Why is this? It is the impression of their minds that has been produced in his mind. Perhaps someone has insulted him, or snubbed him, or told him this or that, and he goes among his friends bringing all his troubles with him; and then he leaves still saying, ‘I am tired.’ If he is working in a factory, it is reasonable to be tired in body; but why should he be tired in society where people are laughing and chatting? It is because their condition of mind is not like his.

But before the idol, there is perfect harmony. See, here is someone sitting quiet. A quiet human form which does not speak; what rest! It may not help, but it does not disturb. It keeps the worshipper silent; that was the idea.

What do we learn from this? Every effort was made by the teachers of religion to waken men to that aspect of life that is overlooked in ordinary life, which they call ‘life.’ The purpose of concentration, contemplation, meditation, all that is the essence of religion or mysticism or philosophy, is nothing but this one thing: to attain to that depth which is the root of our life.

A Marathi poet has said, ‘O mind, my restless mind, my mind with its thoughts of a thousand things which it supposes will make it happy, saying, "If I had that, I should be happy; if I had this, I should feel life was not wasted." O, my mind, will you tell me who in this world is happy?" The mind says, "if I had the wealth which I see others have, I should be happy." But are these others happy? They in their turn say they would be, if they had something still higher!

The secret of happiness is hidden under the veil of spiritual knowledge. And spiritual knowledge is nothing but this: that there is a constant longing in the heart of man to have something of its origin, to experience something of its original state, the state of peace and joy, which has been disturbed. Yet, it is sought after throughout its whole life, and never can cease to be sought after until the real source has at length been realized. What was it in the wilderness that gave peace and joy? What was it that came to us in the forest, the solitude? In either case it was nothing else but the depth of our own life, which is silent like the depths of the great sea, so silent and still. It is the surface of the sea that makes waves and roaring breakers; the depth is silent. So the depth of our own being is silent also.

And this all-pervading, unbroken, inseparable, unlimited, ever-present, omnipotent silence unites with our silence like the meeting of flames. Something goes out from the depths of our being to receive something from there, which comes to meet us; our eyes cannot see and our ears cannot hear and our mind cannot perceive because it is beyond mind, thought, and comprehension. It is the meeting of the soul and the Spirit.

Therefore the idea of understanding the spiritual ideal is to attain to that state of being, of calm and peace and joy and everlasting happiness, which neither changes nor ceases to exist. It is to realize what is said in the Bible, ‘Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven.’ Those words do not tell us to remain imperfect as everybody on earth. No, they mean the idea of all perfection, all unity, no separation. It is the opposite of the idea that religion should keep part of humanity separate, saying, "You do not belong to our church, our mosque, our temple!" It is the opposite of loyalty to this particular sect or community, or to that particular sacred book, to this particular teaching, or to that particular truth. Is not the source of all truth hidden in every man’s heart, be he Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or Jew? Is not each part of that life which we call spiritual or divine? To be just this or that is the same as not going further that this or that. The bliss found in solitude is hidden within every human being; he has inherited it from his heavenly Father. In mystical words it is called the all-pervading light. Light is the source and origin of every human soul, of every mind.

The Sufi looks upon life as one life, upon all religions as his religion: call him a Christian and he is that, call him a Muslim or a Hindu and he is that; call him whatever you like, he does not mind. A Sufi does not think about what people call him. Who calls him Sufi? It is not he. But if he does not call himself something, someone else is sure to find a name for him. Cats and dogs do not declare their names; it is man that gives them a name. If you call yourself "New Thought," it will be made into the name of a new sect some day. If you call yourself ‘Higher Thought,’ that will be a sect one day; call yourself what you will: philosophy, theosophy, religion, mysticism, it is only the one thing, it is nothing but the constant longing of the soul of the human being. After experiencing all the different aspects of the life of activity, the longing to attain to that state of peace or calm seems in the end to be the only object that the soul wishes to achieve.

A person may keep thinking that perhaps he will be happy when he is a king, or rich, or an officer; then he will gain his desire, and as long as he has not got it, the sweetness of the thought lies only in the hope. As long as there is hope there is sweetness; after fulfilling the desire, the hope has gone. Then he hopes for something else. It is hope that is sweet, not the object. The object is never sweet; it is the sweetness of the hope that makes the object seem sweet.

"If I could reach that height!" a man says. So long as he has not reached that height, the dream of reaching the height, of one day experiencing that position, experience, or imagination, the dream of being comforted by it, so long he has the sweetness of the hope. But when it has come, the sweetness is finished. Then begins a new hope, always hoping, hoping. And still behind it all is that one inclination, common to all, the inclination of which he does not know the nature. No person would live did he not have the hope of something for which he was waiting.

Hope is the only food of life. Then reason says, ‘Yes, I am looking forward to my change from this place to the next; to get my inheritance some day; then I shall be all right; I shall be all right when I get that position, that house, that comfort.’ Man has always something before him, imagining, building, preparing and holding it in the mind all the time, and yet when he does get it, there is always another hope.

It is only those who are blessed by perceiving the origin and source of all things who awaken to the fact that the real inclination of every life is to attain to something which can not be touched or comprehended or understood. The hidden blessing of this knowledge is the first step to perfection. Once awake to this fact, man sees there is something in life that will make him really happy and give him his heart’s desire. He can say, "Though there are many things in life which I need for the moment, and for which I shall certainly work, yet there is only that one thing, around which life centers, that will satisfy me. It is the spiritual attainment, the religious attainment, or, as one may even call it, the attainment of God." Such a one has found the key to all happiness, and has found that all the things he needs will be reached because he has the key to all. "Seek, and ye shall find: knock, and it shall be opened unto you… Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you." This kingdom of God is the silent life; the life inseparable, eternal, self-sufficient, and all-powerful. This is the life of the wise, whatever be the name given to it; this is the life which the wise contemplate. It is the face of this life that they long to see; it is the ocean of this life that they long to swim in; as it is written: "In Him we live and have our being."

These are the ones who are really happy, who are above all unhappiness, above death and the destruction of life.

THE WILL, HUMAN AND DIVINE

The will is the same: whether it be human or divine. The only difference is that in one aspect it is the whole, in the other aspect it is a part. In one aspect it is almighty, in the other it has only a certain might, or a certain power; in one aspect it is unlimited, in the other it is limited.

The difference between the divine and the human will is like the difference between the trunk of a tree and its branches; and as from the boughs other branches and twigs spring, so the will of one powerful individual has branches going through the will of other individuals. In a tree there is a trunk, and there are some prominent or large branches, from these there spring many smaller branches. So there are powerful beings, the masters of humanity. Their will is God’s, their word is God’s word, and yet they share branches, because the trunk is the will of the Almighty. As the branches grow, so we too grow; as the branches develop, we develop; as the branches flourish, we flourish; as the branches bear fruit, we bear fruit; as the branches are capable of rising, we too rise. Whether the branch be large or small, every branch has the same origin and the same root as the stem. Therefore, whether a person be holy or wicked, wise or foolish, he has in his innermost spirit the same essence and the same power that the wise have.

There is no reason for anyone to feel discouraged by his weaknesses or deficiencies, or by his actions that have dissatisfied him, or by anything in life that has failed. He should forget the past that has failed him, and begin to construct  and mould his future as he would wish it to be. Considering that as a branch is not separate from the bough, and the bough is not separate from the stem, so with all our limitations we are not separate from the will of the Unlimited One.

In Sufi terms these two aspects of will are called Kaza and Kadr. Sometimes we think, ‘If I could see that friend it would be so pleasant’, and at the same time there comes a desire, ‘If I could have some nice flowers’, and then a friend comes bringing a bunch of our favorite ones. Or we may desire to have fish to eat, and the cook brings a savory dish of fish. Sometimes this is due to the strength of one’s own will, and sometimes it is the soul working in harmony with the divine will. One only knows when it is in harmony with the divine will and when not by noting the results, and the one who knows beforehand is the seer.

Sometimes things are accomplished without the least effort. When it is the divine will it is like something floating on water; it advances without effort. Problems and actions may be achieved in a moment then, whilst at other times the smallest problem cannot be solved without great difficulty. One finds that some persons are very clever and experienced in industrial work or in politics; and they have striven very hard to attain their goal, and yet have accomplished nothing; they are always a failure. And there are others who take up a thing, and without much effort, without much worry on their part they complete it and attain their goal.

All this is accounted for by harmony with the divine will. Everyone experiences such a thing at some time or other. When things are in harmony with the divine will, everything is there; we just glance towards a thing and it is found, as in the saying, ‘Word spoken, action done.’ When we strive with all the material in our hands and yet cannot achieve our desire, that is when the matter is contrary to the divine will. Our success or failure all depends upon the harmony or disharmony of our individual will with the divine will.

But if our individual will is a branch of the divine will, if its source is the same, how can it ever be out of harmony? Sometimes the hand sympathizes with the foot, at other times it does not. We hurt ourselves many times just because of disharmony; we may cut ourselves, our fingers for instance. If then, I, who am one with the divine person, can cause harm to myself, and suffer thereby, why should it not be possible that the human will should be out of harmony with the divine, so that the divine suffers thereby? It is possible to act in a way contrary to the divine will, even though one is only a branch of it. In a fountain there is a big stream which flows up and then breaks into many drops. The stream is like the divine will, and the different drops like the wills in us. One drop goes higher, another lower, one falls to the left, another to the right, one goes north, another south. But the source of all this activity is one; it is one thing that turns into so many, scattering in all directions. Thus from unity there has come variety.

The sages have therefore taught the part played by contentment. It is said, ‘Resist not evil,’ and yet how many give in to evil instead! The real meaning of the scripture is: suppose a person is angry with us, if we partake of his anger we resist him; the fire he sets alight in our minds we allow to become alight in ourselves, and we have resisted. Do not resist evil in that way. Do not partake of the evil of another. If you are quiet and calm, your calmness and quietness will have a greater effect on the other than his anger, so that true resistance is practice of contentment. Patience is the best quality that man can cultivate. We are always apt to become excited or annoyed when another person does not understand us. Why get excited if he cannot understand us? If a person is foolish or cannot do things right, by becoming excited we make him still more foolish, still more stupid. We cannot help him in that way, and we partake of his quality by allowing ourselves to oppose him. If we kept our mind tranquil, if we had patience, we should keep in harmony. Harmony is the greatest thing to learn in life. All the disagreements between couples, friends, people in business and politics, comes from lack of patience. If we just had patience and contentment, we could teach ourselves much better.

Contentment teaches resignation. But this resignation is not exactly what people mean by fate. The true recognition of fate is like the drop realizing that it is foolish to fight against the ocean. Why want to fight it? If the drop does not resign itself, of what profit will it be? Why believe what we think is right, and no one can be right who thinks otherwise? We should remember that another person does not see as we see, because each one sees only a reflection of the highest Ego that works in man though he is unconscious of it. To him it is right, but to the other it need not appear right. It is only right for that one person, for that one moment; later it may not appear so. The limited being cannot claim the perception of the Unlimited; thus we cannot regard our own will as being the universal Will unless our will is in harmony with the will of God. We should therefore practice harmonizing our will with that of our fellow-men, by tolerance, patience, endurance; because in this world every ego is working for itself, however near or dear another may be. Everyone thinks, ‘What can I make another person do for me?’ He wants everybody to be in harmony with his way of life. That is why there is a world full of rebellion, like the thorns in the rose bush.

It may seem a great sacrifice and torment to practice patience, but it is the only way to get out of the whirlpool; it is the only way that one can conquer life’s difficulties. If anybody has ever conquered, he has only done so by this means; never by the means of resistance, but always by the way of resignation. All teachers have taught this way, saying, ‘Prostrate thyself on the ground; prostrate thyself before God; kneel down.' Some of us fail to appreciate this, but the messengers do not leave anything unspoken; it is we who do not understand what they say. People fight for their religions; if we were just to learn the one instead! The question should always be: have we learned our own religion? To have learned it means to practice it and see its benefit. However fast we may try to run away from it, we will still find this lesson to learn. We have to make ourselves strong and prepared to withstand all that befalls us. Therefore we must develop our willpower first by such morals, and be able to harmonize our will with others.

One thinks one can develop will-power by fighting, but that is not so, because by fighting we make very little progress; by fighting with ourselves we progress a hundred times more. Our greatest enemy is ourself. All weakness, all ignorance keeps us from the truth of our being, from all the virtues hidden in us and all perfection hidden in our souls. The first self we realize is the false self. Unless the soul is born again it will not see the kingdom of heaven. The soul is born into the false self; it is blind. In the true self the soul opens its eyes. Unless the false self is fought with, the true self cannot be realized. Therefore endurance is necessary, patience is necessary.

If only we could fight with ourselves so that we became able to give pleasure to others! Sages are as harmonious with a pious person as with a wicked one, as harmonious with a wise man as with a foolish, with a rich as with a poor man. We feel friendly towards some, not towards others; we get on well with some, but with others there is always disharmony while with others again everyone feels peaceful and happy.

The lions could not harm Daniel because of the harmony of his will with the universal Will. The lions represent the destructive elements in the human mind. They represent wars, disappointments, rivalries, jealousies, envy, passions, and so forth, in different horrible guises. Our ego is the lion of lions, and if this is conquered, then these external lions-different egos around us-are conquered also, and wherever we go, with anyone, whether foolish or wise, good or bad, we now have peace.

To learn the lesson of how to live is more important than any psychic or occult learning. Everyday we think we have learned the lesson, but if we had the world would have become a heaven for us now. We may seek the higher knowledge or the higher things, but the very smallest thing, the control of all the creatures of the mind, which seems as nothing compared with the higher knowledge, once learnt and acted upon is greater than all. This is a great step; yet how difficult to gain this, how reasonless it seems! But when we pause to think of the difference between ourselves and animals, we see the greatness in this simple thing of yielding the will. If there is one animal in a place and another one comes to it, the first one wants to bite or bark, or even drive him out of his sight. A dog will do that even if he has finished his dinner and does not want to eat the food that has attracted the hungry dog to the place.

There is an Eastern parable of a dog going to a certain town. His journey was a very long one, taking two or three days as a rule, and yet he arrived before sunset on the same day. The dogs of that town were all very surprised to see him so soon. ‘Yes, it was a very long journey,' the dog said, ‘but I attribute my speed to the kindness and help of my fellow-dogs. Since I left home, Whenever I felt tired and tried to stop for a moment to rest, four or five would run up and bark at me and want to bite me. So I had to run on without staying to rest in that place, or to search for food. And so it went on at every place I came to, until in the end I have arrived here at my destination.’

This illustrates the animal nature. Man’s selfishness shows itself in wanting to get the better of his fellow-man. If we developed humanity we should do differently. We should be satisfied with a slice of bread if there were another in need, but as it is, it happens that even when we are fed ourselves, we do not wish anyone else to share the food. The human heart can only be really satisfied by knowing that the other person is happy. True pleasure lies in the sharing of joy with one another. From the day that we realize this we begin to act as human beings; hitherto we have not done so even though we have human forms.

Sages have always repented of all things that make them animal. It is human beings that repent; the animals are pleased with everything they do. The Bible says, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.’ This has to be done all day long. Once one has realized it, the kingdom of God is at hand. The sinner can become righteous at any moment if he makes up his mind; the difficulty is to make it up. The next thing is to carry it out. Revolutions and harmony, war and peace, are all parts of the whole being. But contentment and perfect resignation open up a harmonious feeling and bring the divine will into harmony with our own. Our blessing now becomes a divine blessing, our words divine words, our atmosphere a divine atmosphere, although we seem to be limited beings; for our will becomes absorbed into the whole, and so our will becomes the will of God.

MIND, HUMAN AND DIVINE

The mind is not the brain, but that faculty, that intangible and imperceptible activity of which the brain is merely a vehicle. Man limits things that are unlimited and beyond his power of measurement, and therefore he has pictured God in human form or given sacredness to the forms of animals. A person of larger mind has a larger view, and perhaps sees good in everybody, whereas one with a mind always wanting to find some evil will be able to find a trace of evil even in a good person. That means that man is accustomed from childhood to measure and understand things according to his way of understanding, and to examine them in the limited way peculiar to himself.

The Vedantas, which represent the ancient philosophy of the Hindus, using Sanskrit, the mother of languages, employ the word Manu or Manushi for ‘man.’ Mana is mind, and the English word ‘man’ has the same origin. This shows that the origin of man’s being is his mind; and his external form is so much before his eyes that it hides the other aspect of his being, which seems, in comparison to this, to be invisible. His body is here, but his mind may be in China; the real he is not here.

In the story of the Prophet’s life his journey to heaven is related. It is said that a heavenly animal came down to earth and took the Prophet to heaven. This means that the Prophet visited heaven in his mind. It is the state of mind which is heaven; it is the state of mind which is hell; it is the state of mind that makes one great, or feeble, or insignificant, strong or weak. In the Hindu writings it is said, ‘Your success or failure depends entirely on your mind. If your mind has failed, no one can bring success; but even if everything has gone wrong, and your mind is set on success, the success is there!’

The more we think of the mind, the more we understand the nature of the human being. The tendency to sin or virtue, the temperament, the attitude towards right and wrong, failure and success, in fact all changes in life, are entirely dependent on the condition of the mind. The dream tells the state of the mind at the time; the mind is in full play when a person is asleep. It is not free during the waking hours because of the occupations of the day. The dream will show the state of a patient’s mind. It is a disturbance of the mind that produces coma.

Whatever a man desires, that desire informs us of the state of mind he is in, and those who understand the mind well, know the mind of another simply by studying the desires and tendencies of his life. Love of a rose, a lily, a jasmine, of sweet, sour, salt, or savory things, expresses the particular tendency of a person’s mind, the mood he is in. Modern education omits the study of the truth which teaches us that unity comes from nature’s variety, whereas the sole aim of the mystic is to keep near to the idea of unity and to find out where we unite.

There is an Arabic saying, ‘If you wish to know God, you must know yourself.’ How little man knows while he is in the intoxication of individualism! He thinks, ‘I am a separate being; you are another; there is no connection between you and me, and we all have our own joys and free will.’ Did man but know it, his life is dependent not only on the objects and things that keep the body alive, but also on the activity of a thousand minds in a day. Every time a man laughs it is the reflection of his mind, controlled by the power of another person’s mind. Why does he feel sometimes sad, sometimes glad, sometimes cheerful, sometimes enthusiastic, sometimes tired without reason, sometimes depressed and exhausted? We meet so many minds throughout the day and night which are reflected in our own mind; and so the thoughts are changed, seemingly without reason, yet the whole activity of life depends on these thoughts and is changed according to them.

Who than can say, ‘I am an individual, independent and free, I can think as I wish, and I can do what I wish?’ We are not doing what we wish; we are not thinking what we wish. There are various thoughts around us in the form of men and animals and entities which influence our mind and feeling and thought; we cannot escape them. No one can escape being affected by another person’s mind. There is always some person stronger that us, and always someone weaker than ourselves. We are connected with one another. Our lives are tied together, and there is a link in which we can see one current running through all. There are many globes and lamps, and yet one current is running through all.

The mystic seeks to realize this constantly and to impress it on his mind in whatever he may see. What, for him, are the waves of the sea? Are they not the sea itself? Their individuality exists only in so far as one wave rises and falls. It rises and falls, but it merges into the sea. The new wave is a different wave altogether. What, for him, is the tree? There is one stem; the leaves spring from it, change their color, and drop off. But at the same time the life of the whole tree depends on the root and stem, and any damage done to either of these affects every branch and bough, every part of the tree. What, for him, is the body? Eyes, nose, head, which of them is his self? The hand has a separate name, the fingers have separate names; every part has a different name. Myriads of thoughts, myriads of imaginations, myriads of feelings! Can we ever number their variety? The different emotions, the different kinds of sorrows, the different grades of joy, can we ever distinguish them or classify them? Our being has so many aspects, but what is it after all that calls itself ‘I,’ ‘me?' It is one, not many. It is simply that if we had no body or mind, we could not realize that we exist. Through all this variety one realizes, ‘I am one.’

The same ideas work further in the mind, until man finds that oneness which exists behind all these numerous names and forms, and in which he will unite with his Lord. This shows that the experience of individuals, the thoughts, feelings and knowledge of individuals and the experience of nations, of races, throughout all ages and periods of history, have not belonged only to individuals, not even to the multitude, to the nations, the races, but have always gone back till they came to that depth where they were assimilated with what is called the divine mind.

All the different minds are the different leaves of one tree. Some minds are branches, some are boughs of the tree, and there is only the one source to which all are attached. No object or life can exist without one central point in which everything meets and joins together; and that meeting-ground is the divine mind. The Brahmins therefore taught people to bathe at the place where rivers meet; the purification of life was symbolized by bathing at Sangam. Those who really understood knew that this pictured the divine mind, that in life purification lies in touching that depth of life’s sea in which the myriads of forms and names all join. The activity of all beings is directed form that center. The Qur’an says that no single atom moves independently of the hand of God. That is, no activity of any kind takes place, either here or in the starry space, without the impulse from within, from that depth of life where all minds and the effects of all activity unite.

Coming now to the moral side of the subject, we may ask in what way we should carry on our life. Should we be satisfied by depending on one power working? That would be just like paralysis of a part of the body. The hand would not move. Just think, where have our thoughts and impulses come from?

Should we then act upon every impulse that comes? Should we not take action in every case, seeing they all come from God? No, for it is the realization of the mind that makes things right or wrong, good or bad, spiritual or material. It is your own thought; not the action. It is as you make it. Although the impulse is from within, if it is wrong, you have made it wrong; if it is right, it is because you make it so. The law justifies you. There is no other law. It is your law.

Every mind whether stupid or wise, wicked or virtuous, loves goodness and beauty. What is good? Good is that which is beautiful, what you admire, what you cannot help admiring. You admire the beauty of a person’s kindness, beauty of action, feeling, and thought. Nobody tries to see ugliness or to follow the path of evil. Is there anyone who will say, ‘Please do not be kind to me; please deceive me?’ No one likes to be fooled. Wickedness is to seek to gain and not to give; but even the wicked person is still awake to beauty.

The mystic is guided by his own mind. That which we seek in life we must give to another; if it is kindness, give it; if goodness, give it; if service, give it. The whole secret of happiness in life lies in this. When we seek happiness in the kindness of another, it means that we depend on the kindness of another person to make us happy; and as long as we look to another to make us happy, we keep expecting that which we ought ourselves to have given. Not till then do we know what justice is.

The world is a dome, where every action is the echo of another. Do good, it will come back. If not from one person, it will come from another. That is the echo. You do not know from which side it will come. It will come a hundred-fold more that you give.

If we give love, will we get coldness? If we do good, can we get evil? We cannot be a judge of the action of another until we ourselves are selfless. Only then will justice come to us; only then will we understand the nature of justice. Self is the wall between us and justice. There is only one thing that is truly just, and that is to say, ‘I must not do this.’ But when we say this to another we may be wrong.

The mystic develops his mind in this manner, purifying it by pure thought, feeling, and action, only following this one line of thought. Pure means free from sense of separateness. Whatever difference in principles of right and wrong religious faith may show, no two individuals will ever differ in this one natural principle. Every soul seeks after beauty; and every virtue, righteousness, good action, is nothing but a glimpse of beauty.

Once having this moral, the Sufi does not need to follow a particular belief or faith, to restrict himself to a particular path. He can follow the Hindu way, the Muslim way, the way of any Church or faith, provided he treads this royal road: that the whole universe is but an immanence of beauty. We are born with the tendency to admire it in every form, and we may not blind ourselves by being dependent on one particular line of beauty. We will not get it from another. Give it. Let us make our action, our thought beautiful, and let others profit by it.

How is the perfection of mind reached that we have to touch? It is reached through contemplation, through realization and understanding of the one current running through the whole of life. We begin to contemplate on that. The mind, which we call in religious language the Almighty, and in mystical terms the divine mind, is the depth of life, the depth of activity, with which all activity and every activity is connected.

Therein lies the whole of religion. The mystic’s prayer is to that beauty, and his work is to forget the self, to lose himself like a bubble in the water. The wave realizes, ‘I am the sea,’ and by falling into the sea prostrates itself before its God. As it is said, ‘Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.’

WILLPOWER

When the mind inquires into the nature of willpower, it becomes a question whether it is a power of the mind, a power of thought, or a power of the brain. Those who cannot see beyond the power of the brain, call it brainpower; those who cannot see beyond the mind, call it a power of the mind. Those who cannot conceive of the existence in man of anything above the feelings, consider willpower to be a power of feeling. A Sufi understands it to be the divine power.

It is the Divine Will that is manifested throughout the whole universe, which has created the whole universe; and it is part of the divine will that manifests itself through us. Everything we do in life is governed and directed by that power. Were it not that there is but one power to govern and direct, how would it have been if one foot determined to go the North, and the other to the South? Our two eyes might have turned in opposite directions, one to the West, the other to the East, had there not been one willpower behind them to direct their gaze towards one object. When lifting a certain thing, one hand might have gone up and the other down, had there not been one willpower to govern both, and cause them to join in the one movement. This shows that each individual has one willpower, which governs several organs of our physical existence as well as our thoughts and imaginations; all are directed consciously or unconsciously by the one power. We could not have accomplished one single thing in life had willpower not been at work.

But there are two ways in which the willpower works: firstly, when it is lighted with the light of intelligence; secondly, when it is not so lighted, but works by itself. When it works by itself, we call it accidental. We do things accidentally which we have not intended to do. But when willpower makes our mind and body work consciously, then the light of intelligence is followed and the willpower is acting consciously. This is the difference between various happenings. In the one we are conscious of what we are thinking, we are conscious of what we are speaking and of what we are doing in proportion to our willpower and to the light that is thrown upon it from the light of our intelligence. But we have acted without willpower when we have to say, "I have done something I should not have done; I have said something I should not have said; I have thought something which I should not have thought." When a person says, "What I did is terrible, I said something I should not have said," it means that during the time he said or did it the willpower was there, but the strength and light of intelligence had not fallen upon it to the extent to which they should.

There are two aspects of our being: the willpower or governing power, and the vehicles, the mind and the body. Both are governed and controlled by that one governing power. In one aspect of our being we are king, in the other aspect we are minister, and in a third aspect we are servant. We are minister when our mind works, and we are servant when the body works. We are king when the willpower works.

When this power loses its control over the mind, then our thoughts become disordered. They dwell in any regions and wander on any lines, even those which our moral standard has perhaps not drawn for them. And our body also works in a disorderly way when the power of the will is lost. Therefore all illnesses, all failures, all disappointments and faults in life are caused by just one thing: weakness of willpower.

Man, not knowing this, sometimes considers the will-power to be a power of thought and mind. He does not know that behind mind there is something else. When the will is behind it, the body is powerful too. There was a well-known Indian fakir who was able to lift an elephant. How can a man lift an elephant? However strong he may be, what comparison can there be between the two? What power is at work? It was his willpower that was greater than the elephants.

The great and wonderful things that man has done in this world that we see around us, are all the outcome of man’s will. Animals, with all their strength, have not that will. Therefore puny man stands before the elephant and says, "Sit down," and the elephant sits down; "Stand up," and the elephant stands up. With all the strength in its body, still the elephant listens to him. That is how the fakir lifted the elephant. Man makes tigers, lions, horses work; he even makes his thought and will act through inanimate things; even through objects his will-power can be manifested. But when man does not realize its effect upon living creatures, how can he experience his power over objects?

Jelal-ud-Din Rumi, in his Masnavi, speaks of fire, air, water, earth, and ether as beings, while man calls them things. To man they are things, to God they are beings, obedient servants. Whatever He wishes, they do. As the servant acts according to his master’s desires, so these elements act as God desires. Further, not only does the will of God work through elements, but the will of man also, in proportion to the power of his will. A loaf of bread given with willpower can cure a man’s disease more successfully than a medicine, if there is enough willpower with it. The lesson of Christ, that if one has faith even as a grain of mustard one can remove mountains, can be understood after one has realized that it is the willpower which does the work.

In the East there are superstitions which have a mystical meaning. When a person goes into a new business, or goes on a journey, his relatives give him flour or rice in his hand, or some betel nuts, with the wish that he may meet with success. The token itself is nothing; but behind it there is willpower, and the person who received it has believed; therefore he has responded to the willpower attached to the gift. There is a harmony. The one who wishes to have good luck receives it.

Nevertheless, it is not to be inferred from this that a man should be prepared to believe in superstitions or become superstitious. Is it to show that he must know the value of willpower, and use it in his profession, his business, his home, in all things. It is not a desirable thing to have willpower; is it not desirable to have physical strength? If we are satisfied with feebleness of body, it may be that we are also satisfied to be without willpower.

All light is for us, inspirations is for us; why not use it as long as we know how to use it to make the best of life? If one wishes to abuse power, one may abuse bodily power, fighting everybody, boxing and wrestling. But that is another part of life. Power is necessary and should be developed; but when man is anxious to develop power, either of body or of mind, he ought to remember that the will power is behind it all; that if the will is developed the physical and mental power can easily be obtained. The willpower governs the body and the mind.

Now coming to the question of the will of man as opposed to the will of God: which is which? We understand the difference when we perceive that the nature of willpower differs only according to whether it exists in its fullness, or whether it is limited. The willpower in its fullness is divine power; the willpower in its limited state is the individual will. And if there is anything that can be called the source of the whole creation, it is the divine will, it is the will of the absolute Being. If we do not desire to call it will, we may call it force, strength, or might. But force, strength, might, energy, are all dead words. Force can be without intelligence, energy without intelligence, mind without intelligence; but will means force, energy, might, with intelligence. Therefore it is called divine will instead of divine energy. A person with a materialistic mind would call it energy. But why energy? Is our intelligence energy? It is beyond energy. Is our will only energy? It is energy with intelligence. Therefore divine will is energy, but with divine intelligence. In all there is intelligence.

If we observe nature keenly, we see how divine wisdom is working. The animals and birds of tropical countries have fur and feathers, which differ from those one finds in the Himalayas and other cold region. They have suitable bodies, suitable skins; their life, their whole existence is adjusted to the place where they live.

Man’s desire, the desire of his senses, is matched by the possession of every sense, every organ of sense, each suited to gratify the desire of his being. The eye meets the requirement of the sense of sight. With all our intelligence and great research no one can make a new eye so adaptable and fitted for the purpose. This wisdom makes us understand and believe that behind all this there is an intelligent God and Creator, not only a life or energy of force. It makes us ask why anyone should want to call Him force or energy, and not God.

The light which we see of the stars and planets is not their own. It is the light of the sun, which illuminates the planets and is reflected from them. It is the same light that they receive which they reflect. So it is with man. It is the will of God that is reflected in man. Although every star is not necessarily a sun, yet its light ultimately comes from a sun. If man has divine light in him, why should he commit sin or do evil, and why should there be anything that we call wrong or a sin? If it is God’s will, how can it be sin? We understand this when we consider the difference between wrong and right, sin and virtue, good and evil. These differ with different people. It depends upon the standards of each one’s evolution; it depends on the goal or ideal, which each one has placed before him. That is why the Prophet said, "The religion of each person is peculiar to himself." It is a great fault on our part when we accuse another person of an untrue or false belief, an untrue or false religion. We do not know that perhaps he has a religion, which is suited to himself. His evolution or attainment in life, his temperament, his standard of morals are different. Therefore we ought, if only we could, to keep to our own religion. The standard that we believe in for our own good is quite enough.

Our intelligence and experience of this life on earth create within us a world of experiences; and these experiences teach us, by comparing one with the other, that this one is for our happiness; that one is not. That, which is for our happiness, we call virtue; and that, which does not contribute to our happiness we call vice. In this way the world which we make into our own is a world of personal experiences, either in our own lives or seen through the lives of others. Therefore it is quite natural that a person in Tibet should have a different religion from a person in France; and a man in Persia a different one from a man in Colombo. Although mankind is the same everywhere, a man’s religion is his experience in life, and therefore his own evolution, his own experience, added to the temperament of the people with whom he lives. He can see what is good for him, and what is not; what is right and what is not right; what gives him happiness, and what keeps him from it. The world itself becomes a scripture or book to the soul. If he does not consult it, he is thoughtless. But the one, who consults with the world that he has created within himself, is wise. Sometimes, in his world he has decided a certain thing is a sin or evil, and yet when it comes to an action, thought or speech, he cannot follow the moral he has already made for himself, either because of the weakness of his mind or body, or because of the weakness of his will. He fails to fulfill the law of his own world, of his own scripture that he has written. Thus he falls, and that is considered by him to be sin. It is the same with virtue. We have our own sins, our own virtues, which we have made from our own experiences.

If a child throws a knife at somebody, it has not committed a crime, because it has not yet set that action down as a crime in its world of experiences; it has not gathered it into that world. It only becomes a crime when the child knows it to be criminal. After that it becomes responsible for its deed. Judge not, that ye be not judged; for with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged. We judge others according to our world of good and bad; the same world, the same scripture that is our religion judges us also, when we do wrong. And no one would do wrong if his will-power helped him to do right, for how could he do something which the scripture of his own heart tells him to be wrong, had not his willpower failed him? Therefore those who repent after their crimes, faults, and failures show thereby that it is not that they wanted to do or have these things, but that their willpower failed them. The willpower was not strong enough to help them to carry out their own standard of good, as it should help all men through the journey of life.

PERSONAL MAGNETISM

Everyone sees how great is the influence of personal magnetism upon success in everyday life, profession, business, family, and daily occupations.

Sometimes we notice that we go to a shop to buy a certain thing, and there is something about the manner of the salesman that impels us to decide to visit the same shop the next time we need that kind of article. Even if it is a long way to the shop, we prefer not to go to one, which is nearer. Similarly it sometimes happens that a person goes to a hotel or boarding house or restaurant, and someone treats him in such a way that he decides to return to that place rather than visit another.

So with doctors, solicitors, barristers, scientists, professors, and teachers of all kinds. A doctor may be well versed in his knowledge, he may have a great many degrees, but if he lacks this personal magnetism, instead of curing patients he may make them worse. Sometimes a doctor cures the patient before giving him the prescription. Just by a word of kindness, by a manner, a tenderness, a sympathy he makes the patient feel so much better that the disease which before was too much to bear, appears to be curable after all. Half the pain has gone with just seeing the doctor, such a difference does personality make. It is a great healer.

Then there may be a solicitor or barrister who antagonizes his client as soon as he sees him, and so the latter does not wish to go to him next time. Another person will impart courage and hope; his personality, his speech, everything, will show that he is the man to follow, to go to for help.

In family life disagreement or agreement often arises for the same reason. The father, mother, husband, or wife may have personal magnetism, which can hold the family together. When this magnetism is lacking, a person finds it better to be among friends than to be with a relative; he would rather go out that stay at home. The home becomes a strange place, because there is not that magnetism for which he lives. It is as if in mid-winter a person comes to his room and finds it cold because there is no fire there; he wishes that he were somewhere else where there is a fire. Personal magnetism can create beauty around one, can attract one, and can make a person attractive to his fellowmen, serviceable to them. It is soothing; it is healing.

What is this personal magnetism? Is it a development of psychic power or occult power? Is it an education, or is it refinement? The answer is that education helps personal magnetism, because knowledge is light, and light is beautiful, and it always helps. But this is not personal magnetism. People may be very well educated and at the same time very disagreeable. Sa’di says that an educated man who does not put what he has learnt into practice, is like a donkey loaded with books: he is carrying them on his back, but he does not know it or act accordingly. He has a load of knowledge, which serves no purpose. If his education has not made a man human, what is the use of education? It is just learning for the purpose of earning money.

One may think, if magnetism is not education, is it them psychic power? Not necessarily, though it is the natural psychic or occult power that we call personal magnetism. It is not necessary to attain this kind of power by a certain practice or study; one should already have it; and when it is used in the right way it is personal magnetism.

Is magnetism then politeness? Is it polish? As polish is the fashion today, every person learns it when he mixes with people; but this is not necessarily personal magnetism, though he may think he has a winning manner. If there can be any real explanation of personal magnetism, it is the making of one’s own personality into that which one expects from others. A man usually makes the mistake of expecting things from others and not doing them himself. For instance a man is very pleased if he is well received in a friend’s house, if he is spoken kindly of, and treated well, if his vanity is satisfied by the action of others. He is very glad if others have a good opinion of him and overlook his defects. But seldom does he pause to do the same himself.

If we only tried to give to others all the things we demand from them. If we overlooked their bad points instead of expecting them to overlook ours; if we only thought, ‘How inconsiderate I was that time when I spoke so rudely to so and so.’ If we only gave others all that we would like them to give us, that would create a personal magnetism; if we did to them all the things that we expect from them!

The word ‘gentleman’ in the English language is a very good one in this respect. It has come to refer merely to dressing well; but the ideal behind it is good. It is the ideal of gentleness, and gentleness is the essence of personal magnetism. There cannot be a better lesson than that given in the Bible where it is said, "Blessed are the meek, blessed are the poor in spirit.’ But the difficulty is that man pays little attention to all these things; he thinks they are too simple. And at the same time if you ask him the meaning of ‘poor in spirit,’ he will find it very difficult to answer. Not many will know what that means. It may be understood by comparing the spirit of man with the spirit of an animal. If a tiger is lying in a certain place, and you want the tiger to get up, he will roar. If a man is lying there, and you say, ‘Will you please let me sit there,’ he will say, ‘Certainly,’ because his spirit is poorer than the spirit of the tiger. And that is also the difference between a man and a gentleman. The gentleman is he who shows that poorness of spirit in himself, a spirit of accommodating another, letting another sit in his place if he wants to. He feels that it does not matter if another person sits in his place; it is really better. There is a person who, if we talk roughly to him, returns our words four times more rudely and coarsely. There is another person who, if we talk roughly to him, bears it an perhaps does not give an answer at all or perhaps he understands and consequently avoids a fight or quarrel in his search for peace. It is written, ‘Blessed are the peace-makers.’ This is not merely the kind of peace, which prevents fighting and bloodshed and strife. We may make this kind of peace many times a day from morning to night. There are a thousand matters about which we can quarrel and get annoyed with one another. So throughout our daily life, at all times, there are opportunities of making peace.

We always admire a person who shows gentleness in his movements, in sitting, walking, in his voice or words, in his thought; we admire it consciously or unconsciously. There is always a charm in gentleness, and yet man neglects it when the time comes to practice it. That which should come first comes last. If only man realized how much he likes gentleness on the part of others! If a person has gentleness of voice or expression or word, it is so charming, so winning; we know this so well and yet we always forget it at the critical moment.

Poorness of spirit comes from meekness. Meekness is mildness, which is contrary to mildness or meekness. Our eyes naturally always enjoy softness of color rather than striking tones, because of the aggressive power in the latter, which our eyes cannot bear. We experience the same thing with the sun and moon. We do not like to look at the sun, and in India we enjoy the moonlight nights so much, we wish the moon shone every night. Why? Because it is mild; it shows meekness. Our power is the power of light; our strength of speech, thought, and action is of the same kind and the same nature as the light of the sun and moon respectively. If the light is too strong, it irritates; if it is mild, it soothes. So if we treat everyone with gentleness, our personality is always welcome wherever we are. The same gentleness in our speech will always give us success, and we will always have friends. If only we had control over our words; if only our words were always of that meek nature!

Among the musicians and poets of the East special attention is given to education in meekness and mildness. There is a Sanskrit saying, ‘Art becomes twice as graceful when art and mildness go together.’ How true it is. When we admire the art of the artist and say how beautiful it is, and he answers, ‘O, it is nothing, it is your kindness that cause you to admire it,’ his magnetism becomes great.

From a king down to the most ordinary person, it is mildness that wins the whole world. people of all positions in life and all grades of evolution can do such a great work with this one little possession. Sa’di says, ‘If your word is sweet, you conquer the world; wherever you go you win men’s hearts.’ Is it not what Christ means when he says to the fishermen, ‘follow me, and I will make you fishers of men;’ that is, ‘I will teach you those manners of humanity by which you will win everyone you may come in contact with?’ Do you think a person can become a fisher of men by his cleverness, by his artificial polish? False is false, gold is gold. The true gold will last; the false gold will lose its brilliance.

Polish is just like false gold. A person may wish to win wife, husband, father, brother, all by his cleverness, by his polish, but he will prove to be false even on a very unimportant occasion. Polish may please the eyes, but it cannot please the heart. One can polish one’s actions, but one cannot polish one’s heart; the polish of the heart comes from the feeling. When the action of the heart is not in harmony with the roughness of the feeling, the feeling will come out all the same. All that is real will come out; the polish is only beautiful for a moment. It may show a person to be very gentle and clever for a moment, but it does not last. His friends will leave him in a short time. The relatives will all know in time that it is just external, all cleverness, not that which will last forever. It is the truth that lasts for always. All the beautiful qualities should be true qualities, not false, because the value lies in the true and not in the false.

In ancient times people of great descent, royal princes, people of educated and reli