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Petama Topic August 'Our God Part and Our Human Part - 3' from Hazrat Inayat Khan: 'Healing Papers' |
A person sees that his coat is worn and poor, and he says, 'I am poor.' He sees that his coat is grand and he thinks, 'I am grand.' It is not he who is grand, it is his coat. Whatever is before the soul, the soul recognizes as 'I'. But what is 'I'? The coat is not I, because when the coat is taken off, the self remains. When we are not experiencing through the senses the consciousness still remains. A Sufi, by inactivity of the senses, by different postures and practices, produces stillness; and then by the repetition of the name of God he merges his consciousness in the all-embracing Consciousness, in God. This has been understood by the Greek philosophers; it has also been understood by the Vedantists. A Sufi keeps to the adoration, the reverence that he has for God; he bows and prostrates himself before God. And he gives the beautiful name of Beloved to God. He understands that by saying, 'This too is God', he glorifies God; he does not reduce Him. With all his humility, with all his devotion, he realizes his oneness with the highest Being. It is difficult to separate God from a human being; in reality there is no separation. God's action and human action are the same; God's action is perfect and human action is imperfect. We upon earth are dependent upon so many things. First of all we must eat. If we did not need to eat, we would not have to work; we could sit with our friends and think of God or of something else. Then we must sleep; and there are so many other necessities. There is a verse of Zahir which says, 'The seekers have lost themselves before they sought Thee'. And the great poet Amir says, 'Do not say that a human is God for he is not God. And do not say that a human is separate from God, for he is not separate'. It is not difficult to have occult or psychic powers; to be virtuous is not difficult, nor to keep our life pure. But to be merciful, to be compassionate, to be human, is difficult. God has many names: the Great, the Almighty, the Sovereign, but He is mostly called the Merciful and the Compassionate. In these qualities we are never perfect, and we never shall be. We should go into our room at night and repent of what we have done, of all the thousand bad thoughts we have had of friends and enemies. A Persian poet says, 'The whole secret of the two worlds is in these words: with thy friends be loving, with thy enemies be courteous'. If we have understood this then this world is nothing; and if we have recognized that it is a passing thing, why not let others enjoy themselves while we look on? Why not let others put on a beautiful dress, while we look at it? Why not let others eat a good dinner, while we watch or stay in the kitchen and cook it? Why not let others sit in the carriage, and we pull it, instead of sitting in it ourselves and making others draw it? Keeping our life noble means being merciful and compassionate. But it is the tendency of every human to take what is best from another; even in friendship there is that tendency. All are seeking their own enjoyment and want to leave the worst to another; but if we are a seeker of God we should take the opposite way, even if it is contrary to all the world. There are three courses: The first is renunciation - this is the way of the saints and sages. It means following in the ideal and accepting whatever troubles and sorrows and ill-treatment may result. The second is selfishness, which means being more selfish than the rest of the world. The third is the greatest and the most difficult. It means having all the responsibilities, all the cares of life, friends and everything, and being as unselfish, as good as possible and yet just selfish enough not to be trampled upon. If a person is turning round in a circle, the first time he goes slowly, the second time he goes faster, the fourth time he goes faster still, and the fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth time he will fall down. The first time he experiences the joy of turning, the second and third and fourth times he experiences it more and more, till at last he is drunk with it and falls down and experiences it to the full. This is what the universe has been doing, night and day, from the creation till now. In every activity there is an intoxication. Whatever we do we wish to do more and more, whatever the action may be. If a human being is a patriot he will be more and more patriotic. A singer will sing more and more songs until he loses his voice. If a person gambles he will want to do it more and more. If a person has been drunk or drugged he will want more and more of whatever drink or drugs may be. Hafiz says, 'Before sunrise the wine was poured out. The wine was borrowed from the eyes of Saki, the wine-giver'. Saki is the manifestation, which so intoxicates us that we believe that this is all that exists until we have become so enslaved by it that we cannot free ourselves any more. Thoughts have words, feelings have voice, words have forms, voice has soul.
Vadan - Talas (these E-book are free of all charge - use their treasures well!) |
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