On a Sunday evening at the beginning of June, 1924, Hazrat Inayat Khan met with a group of mureeds in the large house on Anna Paulownastraat in the Hague, and gave the following class, which can be of great value even for students of long experience.

This evening I should like to speak a few words to my mureeds on the subject of  the mureeds’ obligations. There are five necessary obligations for a mureed who conscientiously realizes mureedship as something sacred and worthwhile in his life.

The first obligation is devotion: devotion first to truth, to the cause which brought you that, to the teacher whom you have given your confidence, and to humanity for whom you prepare yourself to be best servants. If this first obligation is lacking, then a great deal is lacking. When this first step is rightly taken, then the whole journey is right. When there is weakness, the safety of the journey is not secure.

Going over the ideas often and often
opens communication with the owner of the idea.

The second obligation is contemplation: contemplation upon ideas which you will read in the Gathas and Gathekas*; for it is not only going over them once, but going over them often and often which opens communication with the owner of the idea, and where you come in touch with the creative spirit of wisdom, rather than the words which you read in the Gathas. If one reads them once and thinks: I have understood, one may remain in the thought of satisfaction, but thereby one gains little. It is the contemplation on an idea which works as seeds sown in a fertile ground and will bear in the soul the desired fruit. But when the seed is sown and is not watered, it will die out. And so is contemplation upon ideas which are not only simple ideas as the words outwardly suggest, but creative in nature and character.

And the third thing necessary is meditation. Whatever be the exercise prescribed to you of holding a thought in mind or breathing rhythmically or of repeating a phrase a certain number of times, this all comes under the heading of meditation. If it is not the last meditation, it is perhaps the first. If you will do the exercise at a certain appointed hour regularly every day, it will become a part of your nature. It may seen apparently mechanical–but what is our life in the world? What it is maintained by? By mechanism. In spite of all goodness and sincerity we may have, if we do not maintain rightly the mechanism of our being, we cannot be happy, we cannot accomplish anything. The value of goodness and sincerity is great, but the value of mechanism is not any less. When you practice in meditation you only wind the subconscious mind. After this winding it goes on working along the same line, the same idea. In spite of all you do outwardly, inwardly your subconscious is continuing upon the same idea and is sure thereby to bring about desired results. It is therefore an error to ever think that this is something mechanical and to say: I cannot go on with it. One might just as well say: This body is mechanical, I no longer must live in it.

When a person is unaccustomed to these practices, they seem new and strange and it is likely that a person thinks: All these things belong to another world. It is not so. All belong to this human world. These are artificial methods, but we are artificial people. If our lives were not artificial, there would be no need of artificial methods. We would have been blessed as birds are in nature with that freedom, happiness and peace. But we human beings with our evolution have made ropes to tie our hands and feet. Now it is necessary to break them and set ourselves free. This is the meaning of meditation; an artificial method adopted to discern our natural being.

The fourth thing to remember is exaltation. If a person has no imagination, he cannot reach exaltation if life will not help exaltation. Why a person is a poet, an artist, a musician is through imagination. Lack of exaltation comes by a pessimistic attitude in life, a hopeless condition where one has made a wall of hopelessness. I expect from my mureeds to rise above this paralysis, to be hopeful every day, in whatever condition; to keep the imagination active in spite of all bad experiences and failures. Failures are only to teach us to make a success. Besides, thinking about the hopeless side of our own nature keeps away that exaltation. We must open the door to exaltation which is the most sacred. For an instance, a little silence, an offered prayer is a natural exaltation that comes to you. If you deny it, if you think: I feel nothing, then you mar it. Every spiritual tendency has a natural exaltation, it turns the key of the fountain of exaltation which is called in Sanskrit wajd,** which means “secret of joy”. Even the simple things of life: food and walk, swimming and running give joy to a person. And more is coming out of prayer. Silence is most precious in itself. Of course, in spite of all shortcomings, falls and infirmities, we must hold on to that sacred side of life, not be drowned and pulled down, but allow ourselves to be lifted. Sacred feeling is always to be found: if we touch it, never to lose it. All things that pull us asunder are like storms. It is still to cling to that vow of a sacred idea in which is all virtue, religion, piety and exaltation, one’s life’s safety and security.

Besides this is another ideal for a mureed to consider: that is to express in life all that benefit which he derives from his practices and studies. Not by correcting people of their faults, nor by disputing about right or wrong, nor by pretending to be wiser than others, but in a most humble way bringing to others benefit even without their knowing; they must only realize some benefit not knowing from where. In this way to try to help our fellow-men is the fulfilment of our life’s purpose.

God bless you.

*Gathekas and Gathas are a collection of teachings by Hazrat Inayat Khan to give inquirers and students a fundamental understanding of Sufi thought.  The Gathekas are intended for the interested inquirer, and the Gathas, although now published and publicly available, were given for the study of those who have taken initiation.

**This Sufi term for ecstasy is in fact Arabic.