Hazrat Inayat Khan gave a number of short teachings about religions and prophets around the world as a means to help widen the understanding of his western students, who were mostly raised in the Christian faith.

The Hindu religion is one of the most ancient in the world, and to it almost all the religions of the past may be traced. The primitive religion of sun worship, which came and went in the world, still exists among the Brahmins. They greet the sunrise after bathing in the river; and they are purified by its most inspiring rays. Besides the sun, they worship the moon and the planets, regarding each of them as a special god, signifying a particular power of the one God.

The mythological religion of the ancient Greeks, the gods and goddesses of the old Egyptians, all are still found today in the religion of the Hindus. They count among their gods almost all the animals and birds known to man; and all the different aspects of life are explained in their myths, which teach man to see the divine Being in all. The great powers of the Almighty are pictured as various gods and goddesses, to whom special powers are attributed. Some worship these. Even such savage animals as lions, elephants, or cobras are considered sacred, by which the moral of loving our enemies is taught.

The fire worship of the Zoroastrians may be recognized in the Yaj and Yajna* ceremonies of the Hindus. The idea of the Christian Trinity may be traced in the idea of Trimurti** in the Hindu religion. The prostration at prayers, which exists in Islam, may be seen in its complete form in the Pranam and Dandavat^† forms of Hindu worship.

Besides all these objects of worship, they are taught the worship of the Guru, the teacher. They see the first Guru in the mother and father, then every person with whom they come in contact who teaches them anything, they esteem as their Guru; until they have developed in themselves the worshipping attitude which in the end they show to the real Guru, who helps them in their spiritual awakening. The following verse, from the Hindi by Sundardas^††, gives an idea of what the Chela thinks of his Guru:
I have enjoyed my life on earth, O Guru, by thy mercy.
Thy words have drawn me closer to God.
As with the rising of the sun darkness disappears,
So thou hast cleared away the darkness of ignorance from my soul.
Some adore the earthly beings and some adore the heavenly,
But I revere thee, O holy Guru!

*’Yaj’ = to worship; ‘Yajna’ is a ceremony of sacrifice and prayer before a sacred fire.
** ‘Trimurti’ = the trinity of supreme divinity in Hinduism, usually represented as Brahma, the Creator, Vishnu, the Sustainer, and Shiva, the Destroyer.
^† ‘Pranam’ is a reverential salutation to the divine presence which may be offered to a person or idol. ‘Dandavat’ is a specific form of pranam in which the feet, knees, hands and head all touch the floor in respect.
^†† Sunderdas was a 17th c. CE mystic, poet and philosopher born in Rajasthan.