The following is the first part of a talk given to a Sufi class in San Francisco on the evening of April 9th, 1926. It was the conclusion of a visit of approximately two weeks to the center where his Sufi work in the west had begun some fifteen years earlier. The word ‘mystic’ has been widely trivialised, applied without discrimination to many kinds of pretence and deception, but as we see here Hazrat Inayat Khan has a much higher understanding of the word.
Sufi Mysticism
Beloved Ones of God,
I shall speak this evening on the subject of Sufi mysticism. I have called it Sufi mysticism, but mysticism is the only one mysticism. Call it whatever you may, in fact it is this mysticism. If a person says, “This is Christian, Jewish, or Muslim mysticism,” that is an expression. But the spirit of mysticism is one and the same; you cannot divide it, cannot make it separate. But in this world of differences and distinctions we cannot help but give some name. If we don’t, someone else will. And it is just as well that we give some name that we prefer. Mysticism, therefore, is the essence of all knowledge, science, art, philosophy, religion, literature. It all comes under the heading of mysticism, for mysticism is the basis of all knowledge.
Medicine, such a clear science as medicine, as it has developed, as it is today, when you trace its origin you will find it has come from the source of intuition. It is the mystics who have brought it to the world. An English scientist* has discovered that Avicenna**, the great mystic of Persia, has given more to the world of medicine today than any discoverer of medicine in world history. We know science to be a clear knowledge based on reason and logic. But at the same time, where did it start, and how? First by reason and logic? First was intuition, then reason came, logic was applied to it. Before, it came by intuition. Furthermore, in the lower creation there are no doctors, but they are their own physicians. The animals know best if their cure is in standing before the sun, or bathing in the pool of water, running in the free air, or in sitting quietly in the shade of a tree. Would you believe if I were to tell you, I knew a sensible dog who used to fast every Thursday of the week? No doubt, people in India say he was an incarnation of a Brahmin, but it was a puzzle to me for the dog to know every Thursday.
People think mystic means a dreamer, an impractical person who has no sense of the worldly affairs of life, but I call that mystic a half mystic. A mystic in the fulness of the word must have the balance; he must be as wise in worldly matters as in spiritual things. People have, therefore, had a misconception of the mystic. They have called a fortune-teller a mystic, or a dreamer, or a medium, or a clairvoyant, or a visionary person. I do not mean that all these qualities are not in the mystic. But these qualities do not make a mystic. A real mystic should prove to be an inspired artist, a wonderful scientist, a powerful statesman. He must have the qualities of business, of industry, of social and political life, just as much as the material man. When people tell me, “You are a mystic, I thought you would not take notice of it,” I do not like it. Why should I not take notice of it? I take notice of every little detail. Only, every little detail does not occupy my mind so much that I take the first notice of it. To be conscious of God and unconscious of the world, that is not necessary. We see with our two eyes one vision. So we see both aspects, God and the world, as a clear vision at the same time. It is difficult, but not impossible.
One might ask, how do I describe mysticism? What is it? Mysticism is an outlook on life, that things that seem real to an average person, in the eyes of the mystic they are unreal. And the things that seem unreal in the eyes of the average person, in the eyes of the mystic they seem real.
God for the mystic is the source and goal of all. God is all, and all is God. And at the same time, a real mystic is not someone who says, as an intellectual student of philosophy says, that, “I do not believe in any God, but I believe in the abstract.” He is unpoetic, without ideal. He may have the truth, but it is a flower without fragrance. You cannot worship the abstract, nor can you communicate with the abstract, nor give, nor take something from the abstract. To worship nothing is nothing. You must have something before you to love, to worship, to adhere to, to look upward to, to place him high. And if you say, “God is everything and all,” it is true. But at the same time, what is it? Everything means in other words nothing.
The mystic says, “If you have no God, make one.” It is the man without ideal and without imagination who ignores God. A cup of water is as interesting as the ocean, or perhaps more when one is thirsty. A personal God is as important, or even more important than the idea of the abstract from which you gain nothing. We human beings have our limited mind. As far as we can grasp, the idea of God is that which we can conceive of God. For an instance, you have a friend whom you love and like and whom you wish to praise. And yet he stands above your praise. And what you can do is to say, “How kind, how good, how patient, how wonderful is my friend.” That is all. Your words cannot make him any greater. Your words cannot even express fully what you yourself think of your friend. And at the same time that is all you can do, to make a conception of your friend for your own understanding. The same thing is with God. Mankind cannot comprehend God fully. What he can do is to make one for himself of his own conception. In order to make comprehensible something which is unlimited, one makes it limited, for one’s own use. The mystic does not say, therefore, that, “My realization of God is higher than yours; therefore, I stand away from you.” I have seen a mystic walking in the procession with the peasants, a religious procession, himself singing hymns with them before the god of stone. He himself was greater than the god in the procession, and yet he was singing with the same reverence as everybody else. He never had any desire to show that, “My belief, my realization is higher, greater than the realization of the rest.”
And the idea of God as abstract is the intellectual conception of those who have studied philosophy. For the mystic he is a reality. The mystic does not think of God as abstract, but he knows God to be so. It is not knowing, but being.
To be continued…
*Referring to Dr. O.C. Gruner, a Sufi mureed of Hazrat Inayat, who later moved to Montreal.
**Avicenna or Ibn Sina (ca. 980-1037 CE) was a Persian physician, astronomer, scientist and philosopher who had a tremendous influence on the development of thought in Islam and in the West.
For sharing with the general public, the sentence, “Mysticism, therefore, is the essence of all knowledge, science, art, philosophy, religion, literature,” is an incredibly satisfying explanation of mysticism, in absolutely plain language. As long as the word ‘essence’ is emphasized, this sentence has the power to convey a clear trailhead for an earnest and openly curious person to begin (perhaps a lifetime of) exploring.
A wonderful post. Anticipation of part II has me on tenterhooks!
Really beautiful explanation of mystism. So simple and yet so very clear. This letter helps me a lot to understand this concept and also to explain to others about mystism. Many thanks