Hazrat Inayat Khan now expands upon the idea of a living voice that may be heard in certain places. The previous post in the series is here.

The secret of the idea of a blessing to be found in holy places lies in the principle that the holy place is no longer a place, but it has become a living being. The prophets, having proclaimed for ages the name of God and the law of the divine Being in the Holy Land, make it still living and it has attraction for the whole world.

It is said that for ages roses have sprung up on Sadi’s grave and that his grave has never been without them. It is credible, for in ‘The Rose Garden,’ he has written from the thought of beauty, and that beauty of his thought, once voiced, is still continuing, though the mortal body of Sadi has perished. If this maintained roses in the place of his burial for centuries, it is not astonishing.

People often wonder why the Hindus, with their great philosophical minds, with their deep insight into mysticism, should believe in such a thing as a sacred river. Besides being symbolical, there is another meaning to it. The great Mahatmas live in the heights of the Himalayas where the Ganges and the Yamuna streams rise and then take different directions till they unite again and become one. This is really a phenomenon, deep in its symbolism as well as in its actual nature. It is symbolical that the rivers begin as one and then turn into duality, that after the two streams have been separated for miles, they are attracted to each other. Then they meet in a place at Allahabad, called Sangam, which is a place of pilgrimage. This gives us in its interpretation the idea of the whole manifestation, which is one in the beginning, then manifests as dual and unites in the end.

Besides this, the thoughts of the great Mahatmas flow with the water and come into the world combined with this living stream of the Ganges. This brings the vibrations of the great ones and speaks as a voice of power, of awakening, blessing, purity and unity to those who hear it. Nevertheless, those unconscious of the blessing have also been blessed by bathing in the sacred river, for it was not only water, but also a thought besides, a most vital thought, a thought of power with life in it. Those who have perceived this have perceived its secret.

In many poems in the Sanskrit language, one reads how, in the waves of the Ganges and the Yamuna, the seers heard the voice of the evolved souls and felt the atmosphere of those advanced beings as a breath current coming through the water.

There is a tank in Mecca called Zamzam, from which the prophets of all ages have drunk. They did not only drink water, they received from it what had been put into it, and then they charged it with what they had to give to it. Even now, pilgrims go there and receive that water as a blessing.

To be continued…