When difficulties fall upon us, we try to put the blame on circumstances, or someone else, or the broken government, or even the weather. It is often the last option to consider that perhaps we ourselves might be the source of the problem, for that would imply a duty of responsibility, and a need to discipline ourselves. And when good fortune befalls us, very often the first impulse is to give ourselves the credit – because, we assume, we are talented, or lovable, or intelligent, or come from a good family – or for some other imagined superiority.

From the point of view of ‘unity’, though, whatever occurs must be according to the will of God. By the grace of the Creator human beings have been entrusted with a certain latitude of free will, but no matter how free we think ourselves to be, we are never outside of the wish of the One.

The sincere seeker, therefore, has to find a path of equilibrium, on the one hand developing the will as a sacred inheritance and directing it according to our understanding of the principles of love, harmony and beauty, and on the other hand, recognising that whatever occurs has been sent by the Divine, to whom we owe our gratitude.

One form of concentration that helps seekers to remain conscious of this tightrope, a form found in many places in the East, is the repetition of ‘Masha Allah’ or ‘Mashallah’, an Arabic expression that means ‘God willed it.’ It is typically said whenever something positive occurs as a way of denoting power and beauty, and expressing awe. When this is spoken consciously and not mechanically (as is no doubt often the case, for human are humans all over the world) it may protect the speaker from unwarranted pride, and help prevent feelings of jealousy from others. One might feel envious of a neighbour’s good fortune, for example, but if one genuinely sees it as something bestowed from Above, for reasons only the Divine knows, then we are less likely to blame our neighbour for being lucky.

It is, of course, not necessary to adopt this Arabic expression as part of our daily speech, for that risks becoming an affectation, but we could certainly cultivate the feeling behind it. Many today pride themselves on their cosmopolitan view of the world, trekking to exotic locations for holidays and becoming connoisseurs of many different cuisines and styles of dress; if we wish to truly benefit from our global village, we could simply try find all that is good and admirable in the cultures around us, and emulate that goodness in our daily lives. That would be a great step forward, preparing us for the real spiritual work. As Hazrat Inayat Khan says in Gayan Boulas : Beyond goodness is trueness, which is a divine quality.