We continue with Hazrat Inayat Khan’s longer text on nature’s religion, begun here.  Many academics and philosophers have compared religions on the basis of their outer forms but in these lines Hazrat Inayat helps us to look for the inner similarities.

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 that give death and destruction such as thieves, robbers, tigers, and lions in countrysides 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 found in 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 one another? Language can hardly express it, and it is hard to understand.

The same difficulty arose at the time of Mohammed. 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, 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.

To be continued…