I was once in the presence of a very great saint and mystic [said Hazrat Inayat Khan]. He was a classmate* of my Murshid. He performed many miracles and was much revered for his great love of humanity, and he advised everybody.

Someone came and said to him, “Please tell me the way to concentrate my mind. When I am in meditation a thousand thoughts come.”

He said, “What thoughts, my brother?”

The man said, “I have so many things to do. There is my house, my business, my office. All these thoughts come when I wish to think of God.”

The mystic said, “Every thought that comes, picture it as a thought of God. You cannot give an hour to God, as if that were a business, and give the rest to you office.”

*’Classmate’ in the sense of being in the same Sufi tariqa. Another way to say it would be ‘Pir-brother.’