As you read these words on the screen of whatever apparatus you use, do you feel hopeful? Do you sense the buoyant lift of wind under your wings? Do you feel some spark of light in your heart when you think about the future? You will be rewarded if you do. A scientific study published recently has shown that optimists live longer than pessimists. In other words, our attitude affects our health.
This will be no surprise to the students of the inner life. It simply confirms the inspiring thoughts that Hazrat Inayat Khan offers us in this text about optimism. Indeed, speaking of health, he makes the point that illness is often prolonged by pessimism. On the other hand, optimism, he says, brings success, for it aligns us with the creative spirit with which God made the universe. But the question that we might ask ourselves is, can we apply this wisdom to our own life? Can we be more optimistic than we are? Or, if we fall in the other camp, can we transform our gloomy pessimism into something brighter?
No baby is born without belief and hope. When the mother says, ‘Here is milk, drink,’ the baby doesn’t say, ‘Are you sure? How can I trust what you tell me?’ Such doubt could never survive. This means that our attitude is something we have built, but usually without much attention to our responsibility. As Hazrat Inayat says, Nothing is man’s nature, except what he makes for himself. As the whole nature is made by God, so the nature of each individual is made by himself. And as the Almighty has the power to change His nature, so the individual is capable of changing his nature if he only knew it.
We CAN change our nature, then, but how? The first step must be, to take a realistic look at how we usually approach the world around us. We carry many unexamined assumptions and preconceptions which inevitably colour our perceptions. If we assume that some venture will fail, then the chance of success is small. If we refuse to accept limitations, we may find ourselves emerging into the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Therefore, if we would like to be more optimistic, we must first make a careful study of the way we look at life.
And then, assuming that we discover we are not always positive, is there a way to change the polarity of our thinking? The solution is simple to say, if not to do–we must open the heart to love. Love is life, it is is our true essence, and if it is flowing, we are alive and full of hope.
As it says in Vadan, Talas, “Loveless is lifeless; loving is living,” and in Gayan, Boulas, “Optimism is the result of love.”