Hazrat Inayat Khan now begins to explain the Sufi understanding of the words ‘mind,’ heart’ and ‘spirit.’ The previous post in the series is here.

Thought, memory, will and reason, together with the ego as the fifth and principal factor, constitute the heart. It is these five things that may be called the heart; but in definitely naming the different parts of this heart, we call the surface of it mind, and the depth of it heart.

If we imagine this heart as a lantern, then the light in the lantern makes it the spirit. We call the heart a lantern when we do not think of the light. However, when there is a light, then we forget the word lantern and we call it light. When we call the heart spirit, it does not mean spirit void of heart, as it does not mean light without lantern, but light in the lantern.

The right use of the word spirit, however, is only as the essence of all things. The essential light and life from which all has come – that is the spirit. But we use the word spirit also in a limited sense, just as light is the all-pervading light of the sun and at the same time the light in the lantern, which we call light also.

People call a part of the breast ‘heart.’ The reason is that there is a part in this body of flesh that is most sensitive to feeling; and naturally – as man cannot grasp the idea of a heart outside of the body – he conceives this idea of the heart as being a part of his physical body.

The ego stands separate from the four faculties of thought, memory, will and reason. It is just like four fingers and a thumb. Why is the thumb not called a finger? Because the thumb is the whole hand. These four are faculties, but the ego is a reality. It holds and accommodates within itself the four faculties; and in order to distinguish it as different from them, we call it ego.

As the surface of the heart is known by the imagination and thought, so the depth of the mind, which is heart, is known by feeling.

To be continued…