Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan continues his explanation of the ego, begun in this post. The Tenth Sufi Thought, referred to below, is : ‘There is One Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real, which raises the mortal to immortality, in which resides all perfection.’

As one becomes more thoughtful in life, so this conception of ‘I’ becomes richer. It becomes richer in this way, that one sees, ‘It is not ‘my’ body only, but it is also the thought that I think that is ‘my’ thought; the imagination is ‘my’ imagination; my feelings are also a part of my being. Therefore, I am not only my body, but I am my mind, also.’ In this next step that the soul takes on the path of realization, it begins to feel, ‘I am not only a physical body, but also a mind.’ This realization in its fullness makes one declare, ‘I am a spirit,’ which means: body, mind and feeling, all together with which I identify myself – it is these that are the ego.

When the soul goes farther on the path of knowledge, it begins to find that, ‘Yes, there is something that feels itself, that feels the inclination to call itself ‘I’.’ There is a feeling of ‘I-ness’ but at the same time, all that the soul identifies itself with is not itself. The day when this idea springs up in the heart of man, he has begun his journey on the path of truth. Then analyzing begins, and he begins to find out, ‘When this is ‘my’ table and this is ‘my’ chair, all that I can call mine belongs to me, but is not really myself.’ Then he also begins to see, ‘I identify myself with this body, but this is ‘my’ body, just as I say ‘my’ table, or ‘my’ chair. So the being who is saying ‘I’ in reality is separate. It is something that has taken even this body for its use; this body is only an instrument.’ And he thinks, ‘If it is not this body which I can call ‘I’ then what else is there that I can call so? Is it my imagination with which I should identify myself?’ But even that he calls ‘my’ imagination, ‘my’ thought, or ‘my’ feeling. So, even thought, imagination or feeling is not the real ‘I’. What affirms ‘I’ remains the same, even after having discovered the false identity.

We read in the tenth Sufi thought that perfection is achieved by the annihilation of the false ego. The false ego is what does not belong to the real ego and what that ego has wrongly conceived to be its own being. When that is separated by analyzing life better, then the false ego is annihilated. A person need not die for it. In order to annihilate this body, in order to annihilate the mind, a person has to analyze himself and see, ‘Where does ‘I’ stand? Does it stand as a remote, exclusive being? If it is a remote and exclusive being, then it must be found out.’ The whole spiritual process is to find this out.

Once this is realized, then the work of the spiritual path is accomplished. As in order to make the eyes see themselves, one has to make a mirror to see the reflection of these eyes, so, in order to make this real being manifest, this body and mind have been made as a mirror, that in this mirror this real being may see itself and realize itself as being independent. What we have to achieve by the path of initiation, by the way of meditation, by spiritual knowledge, is to realize this by making ourselves a perfect mirror.

To be continued…