In the series on mysticism, Hazrat Inayat Khan here continues with the theme of the preparation of the heart and the development of goodness, begun in this previous post.
Goodness is natural. For a normal person it is necessary to be good. No one needs teaching to live a good and righteous life. If love is the torch on his path, it shows him what fairness means, the honour of the word, charity of heart, righteousness.
Do we not see sometimes a young man, who, with his boisterous tendencies, finds a girl whom he begins to love, and if he really loves her he begins to show a difference in his life, he becomes gentle, for he must train for her sake; he leaves off things he was never before willing to leave off. And in the same way, forgiveness–where there is love, it is not a very difficult thing. A child coming before his mother, having offended her a thousand times, asks her forgiveness, and it does not take a moment for the heart of the mother to forgive. Forgiveness was waiting there to be manifested. One cannot help being kind when there is feeling. That person whose feeling goes to another person, or who sees in his child the need for his feeling, he strikes a note of sympathy in every person, because he finds that point of contact in every soul he meets–because he has love.
There are people who say, “But is it not unwise to give oneself in an outgoing tenderness to everyone, because people are not trustworthy?” But I should say, “If a person is good and kind, this goodness ought to be manifested to everyone. The doors of the heart should not be closed.” A mystic like Jesus Christ said, “Love your friend,” and he went as far as to say, “Love your enemy.” It is the same path a Sufi treads. In his charity of heart towards his fellowmen he considers it is the love of God, and in showing love to everyone, he considers this as giving love to God.
In this method the Sufi and the Yogi differ. The Yogi is not unkind. He says, “I love you all, but I had better stay away from you, for your souls are groping in darkness, and my soul is in the light. With your friendship I shall spoil my soul. So I had better keep away and love you from afar, from a distance.” The Sufi says, “It is a trial, but it is to be tried. I shall take up my everyday duties as they come to me.” Although knowing how little important the things of the world are, and not giving too much value to these things, he is attentive to his duties towards those who love him, who like him, depend on him, follow him. For those who dislike, despise him, he tries for the best way to meet them all. He lives in the world and yet he is not for the world. In this way the Sufi considers loving man as the main principle in the fulfilment of the purpose of his life.
How true it is that those who love their enemies and yet lack patience remind one of this picture of their life, which is a burning lantern with little oil. It cannot endure. In the end the flame fades. The oil in love is patience. Besides this, in the path of love, what is the oil? From beginning to end unselfishness, self-sacrifice from beginning to end. And he who says ‘give and take’ does not know love, he knows business.
One says, ‘I loved dearly once, but I was disappointed,’ as a man might say, ‘I dug in the earth, but when the mud came I was disappointed.’ It was true that mud came. But with patience he would have reached the water one day. Only patience can endure. Only endurance makes great. The only way of greatness is endurance. It is endurance which makes things valuable and man great.
The imitation of gold can be as beautiful as real gold, the imitation of the diamond as bright as a real diamond. The difference is that one fails in the test of endurance, and the other can stand it. Yet man must not be compared to objects. Man has something divine in himself, and he can prove this by his endurance in the path of love.
And now, the question is, whom should one love, how should one love? Whatever one loves, whether it be duty, human beings, art, friends, an ideal, or his fellow-creatures, he has certainly opened the door through which to pass in order to reach that love which is God. The beginning of love is an excuse; it leads to that ideal of love which is God alone. Many say, “I can love God, but not the human beings.” It would be the same if we said to God, “I love you, but not your image.” Can one hate the human creatures in which God’s image is to be found and yet claim love of God? If one is not tolerant, not willing to sacrifice, can he claim the love of the Lord?
The first thing to teach is the broadness of the heart, and the awakening of the heart is the inner feeling. If there is a sign of saintliness, it is not the power of words, not a high position, either spiritual or intellectual, not magnetism, that can prove that saintly spirit which only expresses itself in the love of their creatures; it is the continuous spring of love from that divine fountain situated in the heart of man. Once that fountain is open, it purifies the heart, it makes the heart transparent to see the outer and the inner world. The heart becomes the vehicle for the soul to see all within and without; man not only communicates with another person, but also with God.