With this instalment we reach the conclusion of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s reflections on his life, and on Eastern training in spirituality. The previous post in the series is here, and the series begins with this post.

But it is well to remember that such utter trust should never be reposed in a Murshid until the self has gained entire confidence in him, and every doubt has been subdued. When once this confidence is given, there should be nothing on earth which could break or cast it down for the whole gamut of eternity. There are some who consider it most humiliating to be guided by another, but they are greatly mistaken, for in the light of truth there is but One. The intercourse between Murshid and mureed is preferable to any other fellowship in the world, when one considers that a friendship in God is the only true friendship that endures forever. ‘Sprinkle with wine thy prayer-rug if thy Pir-o-Murshid says so. The guide is not unmindful of the customs and ways of the Path,’ says Hafiz.

A Murshid is a gateway unto the unseen Master and a portal unto God, the Unknown. But yet in the end neither God, Master nor Murshid appears in the most dazzling light of divine wisdom, which alone is ‘I Am.’

‘Everything shall perish except the face of Allah.’
    – Quran

Mysticism is the last grade of knowledge, which can only be rightfully achieved by passing through all these preceding stages, and it is only then that it is a mystery no more. Once it is known one realizes by one’s past delusions how far and remote has been the goal, and how long the journey unto its distant shores. One beholds for the last time the mountains of virtue one was forced to scale in order to seek its rose-crowned heights, and then they vanish away like a dream in the morning.

‘Everywhere Thou art, nearest of all Thou art,
 and yet nowhere Thou art, O all-pervading Self.’
   – Zahir

It is degrading the name of mysticism when people claim to be Christian or Jewish mystics, for mysticism is pure from distinctions and differences. My Pir-o-Murshid once gave me a goblet of wine during a trance, and said, ‘Be thou intoxicated and come out of the name and shame! Be thou the disciple of love and give up the distinctions of life! Because to a Sufi, ‘I am this or that’ mean nothing.’

All mystical powers such as clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought reading and prognostication, psychometry, telepathy, ecstasy, and various other spiritual manifestations from the world beyond, are disclosed in one glorious state of vision.

The life of the mystic, both the inner and the outer, is shown as a wondrous phenomenon within itself. He becomes independent of all earthly sources of life and lives in the Being of God, realizing His presence by the denial of his individual self; and he thus merges into that highest bliss wherein he finds his salvation.