At the very end of his talk about the awakening of the soul, Hazrat Inayat Khan makes a startling conclusion, like an unexpected musical flourish or coda that presents a melodic theme in an new and unexpected way.  He says,
There are two things, friends. There is individuality and personality. We very often mix them. A person is born an individual, but not a person. He is a separate being, an entity, but not a finished being. It is the finishing of human nature, it is the finishing of personality which is called spirituality.

Therefore, setting aside for a moment the question of whether our soul is awake (Are we on our feet and making coffee? Still struggling to sit up?  Or perhaps holding the pillow over our head and groping sleepily for the snooze button?), we might ask ourselves if we have ‘finished’ our nature, if we have made – or have begun to make – the transition from individual to person. “Spirituality’ is a word that often confuses us.  We might think it means to be pious or religious, or to have special powers like clairvoyance or clairaudience. If it simply means, as Hazrat Inayat tells us, the finishing of our personality, then the spiritual journey becomes somehow more understandable.

And yet, to be a person is not a simple matter.  We can not define a person according to some rigid standard, any more than we can define a virtue.  In one circumstance a certain behaviour might be right, and in another  it might be wrong. To a Sufi, a virtue is that which shows beauty and brings real happiness, and we could expect the same from a ‘person.’  Therefore, the behaviour of a ‘person’ has to be responsive to the changing world around us, and should strive to make each moment one of beauty.

Hazrat Inayat Khan distinguishes between nature, meaning the qualities or characteristics we are given by birth, and character, the behaviours we adopt to compensate for the shortcomings of our nature.  For example, one may have a talkative nature, and if one makes an effort to control that quality and be more reserved, this is a sign of character.  When we have developed our character sufficiently, we begin, usually without knowing it, to practice the art of personality.