Northstar

Counsellor March

The Human Heart - Shrine of God - 2

from: Hazrat Inayat Khan:

'In an Eastern Rosegarden'

(see also Topic)

You can listen to all themes here



Some may ask what, then, should be the object which we should love in this life? Is there any particular object that a a human being can be recommended to love? Is it best to love our parents or friends; to love one friend only or to love just one beloved of the opposite sex?

Should we love something in the abstract, some spirit, some ideal, some name, or something which is beyond the nature of a human being? Or should we love something idealized as the God whom we worship?

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 me, whereas I was once disappointed in human beings.'

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 then 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 gone'. There is no light when love is Gone. When love is gone, the heart is closed.

So often we meet with people who complain that the love on the part of the lover failed to satisfy and caused their despair and distress. What does a Sufi, what does a 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.

A 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.


In the union of two loving hearts

is the Unity of God.

 

Vadan - Boulas


(Maheboob Khan, Hazrat Inayat Khan‘s brother, has composed music to a row of aphorisms of Hazrat Inayat Khan in the middle of last century, as this ‚How Shall I Thank Thee‘. Mohammed Ali Khan, Hazrat Inayat Khan’s cousin, has sung this song around the year 1956 in a concert in Zürich – here you can listen to it)


Gayan as E-book - click here

Vadan as E-book - click here

Nirtan as E-book - click here

(these E-book are free of all charge - use their treasures well!)