In the first part of his short lecture, Hazrat Inayat Khan makes clear the need for harmony, and here he considers the results of disharmony, particularly in the mind, which he calls mental illness or insanity.

Now the question is, what is it that causes disharmony within oneself? It is weakness – physical weakness or mental weakness, but it is weakness. Very often therefore, one finds that it is bodily illness that causes disharmony and disharmonious tendencies.  Besides, there are many diseases of the mind which the scientist has not yet found. Today in the world there are two things. One thing is that a person who is too ill perhaps, is considered as an insane person, and then there are all other illnesses, which are not counted at all. These people are counted among the sane people, and as notice is not taken of the defects which are of the diseases of the mind, man never has a chance to notice them within himself. He is constantly finding fault with others. If he is in an office, if he is in a good position, if he is at home, everywhere he causes disharmony. Nobody knows, for to be treated as insane, he must first be called insane.        

The health of the mind is a question so little talked about in these days. In fact, as there come more solicitors, more lawyers, more barristers, more courts and more judges, so there come more [court] cases. Consequently prisons increase, and what is the outcome? After a person has gone to prison and comes back, he has forgotten where he was. He goes again in the same path, for the disease is not found out. In court a person is judged, but it is not found out, psychologically, what causes him to do this. One can find in these prisons thousands of people with whose minds there is something the matter, and if for a thousand years they were kept in prison, they would not improve. Nothing but injustice is awarded to them by putting them in prison. It is just like putting a person in prison because his body is ill. 

The cause of every discomfort and of every failure is disharmony. And what would be the most useful thing at the present moment in education is to give the sense of harmony, to develop it in children. It will not be so difficult as it appears to bring harmony to their notice. What is necessary is to point out to the youths the different aspects of harmony, in different aspects of life’s affairs.        

The work of the Sufi Message, a message which is of love, harmony and beauty, is to waken the consciousness of humanity to the true nature of love, harmony, and beauty. And the training which is given to those who become initiated in the inner cult is to cultivate these three things which are principal factors in human life.

To be continued…