Having touched upon the preliminary stages of training, such as morality, courtesy, philosophy and devotion, Hazrat Inayat Khan now speaks of mysticism. The previous post in the series is here.

‘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.