With this post we continue the longer text begun here. As noted earlier, the language may seem unpolished, but it is close to the natural speaking style of Hazrat Inayat Khan, which many students may appreciate, and the meaning is certainly clear.
And now coming to the actual subject, the difference between spirit and matter. Once a young Italian who did not believe in God or soul was traveling with me in the ship, and he thought perhaps I was a priest. He said, “Do you believe in anything?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “What is your belief ?” I said, “It cannot be said.” Since he was antagonistic he said, “I don’t believe in anything. If in anything I believe, it is in eternal matter.” I said, “My belief is not far from yours. What you call eternal matter, I call eternal spirit. What you have named matter, I have named spirit.” It is a dispute over words, the understanding is the same. The difference has come by disputing over words. What is spirit is the fine matter, and what is matter is the dense spirit. In other words, there are two names and one subject, call it water, call it snow. When it is crystallized, it is snow. If you don’t like to call it water, call its snow, if you wish to distinguish. You may call it with two names. There is no objection. It is a matter of choice. If one chooses, no matter. In Christian Science also it is said that matter is spirit just the same. If you choose to call it spirit, then matter is spiritual just the same. If you say both things, it is right too.
Truth is in understanding, not in expression. People have strengthened their claim of truth and have fought, and arrived at nothing. And very often those who do not fully understand the subject, they argue for the reason that they want to know it. But they don’t want to know honestly about it. It is another way, to argue; then they know the other idea also. They oppose the other one to see what the person says. Then they know the other idea also. It is a kind of robbery. They have a thirst for argument. Who will not understand will never understand, however much it is true. He who understands, you tell him and he will understand. It is a matter of evolution. Besides, there is a tendency in everyone to think that, “The other one must look at things as I do.” But it is impossible. If it is a friend, if it is a wife, a husband, a brother, a sister, or a companion, the other one must understand as I. But maybe they are at different stages of evolution, they cannot understand. Leave them alone. For some it is good to sleep, for others it is good to waken. It is no virtue to waken everybody. It is the greatest crime to make awake those who ought to sleep. To make everyone spiritual is not a right mission. The best would be to do help wherever a person is, not try to bring him to a certain pitch. He will come naturally. To put one on the right track, that is enough. Very often people who are interested in spirituality urge it on those in their surroundings. They are mistaken. Those who are urged are sometimes more spiritual. Man is a great mystery, and we know so little about it.
During my travellings in India, for nine years I travelled in the pursuit of the illuminated ones, to the living wise men of the East. And you would be surprised to know how different illuminated souls live under the guise of an ordinary person, that no one can ever distinguish them as different from others. Many of them are behaving in the same way as everybody does, sitting in the same places, saying the same things that anyone else would say. Neither they show any difference in outward appearance nor in speech or claims. And at the same time, if you could see them, they are as different from others as there is difference between earth and sky.
I will tell you about my own teacher. Once I met a learned man, a doctor of philosophy with a great many degrees. And I spoke to him on the deeper side of life. And he became so interested in me that he thought much of me. And I thought if I were to tell him about my teacher, how much more interesting it would be for him. If I make such impression on this man, how much more my teacher will be for him, how he will appreciate my teacher. I told him, “There is a wonderful man in this city; he has no comparison in the whole world.” “Yes?” he said, “are there such people? I would so much like to see him. Where does he live?” And I told him in such and such a part of the city. He said, “I live there also. Where is his house? I know all the people there. What is his name?” So I told him. He said, “For twenty years I have known this man, and you are telling me about him.” I thought, “In a hundred years you would not have been able to know him.” He was not ready to know him. If people are not evolved enough they cannot appreciate, they cannot understand persons. The greatest souls they cannot understand. They sit with them, talk with them; there is the contact of the whole life, but they do not see. Another person, in one moment, if he is ready to understand, he makes a benefit out of it. Imagine, he had known my teacher for twenty years and did not know him. I saw him once and became his pupil forever. One might ask, “Was this man not learned, not intellectual?” I say yes. Then what was lacking? He saw him with his brain. I saw my teacher with my heart. We pursue spirituality with brains; that is where we are mistaken. Spirituality is attained by the heart.
To be continued…