Because Sufis want to understand the puzzles of life, they are seldom satisfied with outer appearances; they like to turn things upside down and inside out, and study matters from different points of view. That is the charm of such Nasruddin stories as when the Mullah searches for his key under the lamp-post instead of in the darkness where he dropped it. In the same vein, when Shamcher Beorse, one of the original mureeds of Hazrat Inayat Khan, was once beginning a talk, he quoted someone – supposedly Napoleon – who, on sipping his first cup of coffee in the morning, said with satisfaction, “Ah! What would life be without coffee?” – but then, after a pause, said reflectively, “On the other hand, what is life WITH coffee?”

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan sometimes shows a similar way of turning thought around. In a short talk about ‘The Other Side of Death,’ contained in vol. V of the Message Series, the reader might expect to find descriptions of disembodied spirits, celestial journeys, examining angels and solemn courts of judgment, but instead the Master leads us to think about life on THIS side of death. If a person has a happy and loving nature, he tells us, then in the next phase of life, when the body is discarded, that spirit will live in perfect happiness without limitation. On the other hand, if a person has a mind full of accusations, resentments and complaints, the experience will be of that, fully and completely. While we walk the earth the physical vehicle keeps us so absorbed that we are largely unaware of our mind, but when the senses are no more there to distract us, then the mind world alone remains. What is more, Murshid tells us that the will power is diminished after leaving this world, with the result that directing our thoughts becomes much more difficult. For better or for worse we will be obliged to live from the suitcases we have brought along as we departed from this plane.

Therefore, Hazrat Inayat tells us, what we may expect depends upon what we are now, and just as we clean and tidy the physical space where we live, so we should also regularly clean our mind. He said, “Our minds need to be dusted and swept just as much as our houses, and this we do by meditation and concentration, which wipe away all wrong impressions.”

Indeed, he takes the domestic metaphor further, describing our thoughts and impressions as the furniture of the mind world, and telling us that, “We must be masters of our minds as well as of our houses, and not allow them to be like a furniture warehouse with all the furniture mixed up together. We must direct where everything is to be placed, so that complete order may reign there.”

Anyone who has visited a second-hand furniture shop will surely have a memory of tables, mismatched chairs, awkward lamps and dusty cupboards all piled on top of each other, with various knick-knacks tucked in between, and will probably also feel a pang of shame in recognising that our own mind does indeed resemble this disorder. A thoughtful person might then ask themselves, “Is this where I want to live? Do I want to spend eternity in a gloomy furniture warehouse?”

Pir-o-Murshid Inayat advises meditation and concentration to clean the warehouse. No doubt to concentrate is hard work, especially at first, but when. one persists and begins to recognize the benefits, the motivation grows, for with concentration one becomes capable of directing the will, the divine heritage hidden in every soul.

As for deciding where to place the furniture, in the material world we might consult a home designer on some desirable arrangement, but in the spiritual world there is no better guide to beauty than prayer. The Sufi prayers and those of all the traditions have been given by great and loving souls who have made the journey themselves. Sincerely repeating the thoughts the prayers express is like following in their footsteps which lead us to the Eternal Goal. And if, as sometimes happens, we reach the stage of repeating the prayers in our sleep, then we can be certain that our future home will not be a furniture warehouse but a much more beautiful and orderly home.