In a recent post to the Glimpses department, Sirkar van Stolk recounted the way in which Hazrat Inayat Khan reacted to an eclipse of the moon, and also gave some interpretation of the possible explanation for this. Since we live in an age when, as the Master said, “materialism is ever on the increase,” it can be difficult to understand how something as physically remote from us as a shadow falling on a rock in space can affect our consciousness. But this lack of understanding is precisely a consequence of focusing too tightly on the material aspect of creation.
The physical flesh of your body is not ‘you.’ It is composed of so many grams of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and so on, arranged in a particular manner, but that is not ‘you.’ There are billions of humans in the world, whose chemical composition is more or less indistinguishable, and yet their natures and characters are distinct. So, if ‘you’ are not summed up by your matter, if your structure does not fully explain you, perhaps that is also the case for all of our environment. Perhaps ‘the moon’ is not simply the mass of rock whirling in space – or to turn it around, perhaps the rock in space (and all the surrounding circumstances – its movement, its placement, its relation to other bodies and so on) is merely a vehicle carrying something more intangible, as your body also carries something intangible and even divine. And the same reasoning could apply to the sun; is it merely an incandescent ball of gases? Or is that the physical form used by a larger, finer consciousness?
Therefore Hazrat Inayat’s reaction to the eclipse should not be so surprising. As we evolve and become more sensitive, we become more aware of the inter-relation of the ‘seen and the unseen’ beings. And if there is a lesson for us in the anecdote, we could perhaps learn to see that life is all pervading, and the condition of one individual inevitably affects all, whether we recognise it or not.
That is why we can never really be happy if our brothers and sisters are unhappy. Our own life does not stop at our skin, and so neither does our responsibility.
Yes dear murshid Nawab, I didn’t understand why our dear Pir-o-Murshid reacted in that way, and thank to your keen explanation now I see the reason of it. The last two lines are the core and reason of existence of the Sufi Message; otherwise, too many practices and meditation and singing and so on, thinking merely in ‘our’ improvement is like the capital sin of the gluttony which finally destroys us. Thank you again!