The following is taken from a longer talk given at a home in California in April, 1926.
In every person there is more or less a faculty of perceiving impressions, and that is the first step toward intuition. The finer the person, the greater his perception. But everyone at times feels the conditions of the place, the character of the people he meets, their tendencies, their motives, their desire, their grade of evolution as an impression. If you ask, “Why do you feel like this?”, he cannot always give an explanation. Sometimes he will say, “From the features,” or “from the atmosphere,” or “from what he has said.” But really speaking it is a feeling which is beyond description. A fine, sensitive, intelligent person always gets an impression on seeing a person.
Another wonderful thing about intuition
is that one is blessed with intuition according to his sincerity.
The next stage is intuition. By intuition one feels the warning of a coming danger, the promise of success, warning of a failure; if there is any change to take place in life, one feels it. Very often not having self-confidence, one loses the intuitive faculty. One fears very often if his intuition is right or wrong, and in this way one loses self-confidence. If one thinks, “Maybe my intuition is not right, and by following my intuition I will fail,” one takes another way. That is the way of reasoning, of logic. Naturally his intuition becomes blunted after some time. If one has not made use of that faculty it disappears. A person who is capable of perceiving intuition then loses that faculty. Another wonderful thing about intuition is that one is blessed with intuition according to his sincerity. If a person is earnest, sincere, sympathetic, kind, that person is blessed with intuition. And if these qualities are lacking, intuition is lacking too. Those who have no intuition, they have difficulty also in attaining to the spiritual ideal, because the spiritual belief does not come from an outer experience, by reason and logic; it is a belief that springs from within in the form of intuition. And if the intuitive faculty is not developed, that person’s belief is not strong. In the first place a person who lacks intuition lacks belief too. And if he has belief, that belief is not strong enough, because it is not built on a sound foundation.
And the next step in the path of intuition is what men call inspiration. Poets, writers, musicians, thinkers, philosophers can make use of this faculty; others have it but they do not know how to use it. That which one cannot create in ten years in the form of art, poetry, or music, by inspiration one can create it in a few moments. It is a natural flow. You have no difficulty in working it out; inspiration comes already arranged, there is very little to be done by the brain and by the mind. Besides, everything that comes through inspiration is living, and is most beautiful, most harmonious compared to the art of poetry or music that is the outcome of the brain. Music of the ancient times, such as Wagner* and Beethoven, their works are still living. And no matter how often you hear them, you always thirst for them. The modern music has not that appeal. And the same thing is with the ancient art. There is something living in that art, and today with all the progress in art, that something living is missing. The same thing with poetry. In Persia we had great poets such as Hafiz and Rumi and Sa’di, whose works are today studied and highly esteemed by millions of people in the East. And they consider that without their works there is no humane culture. That is the foundation of humane culture in the East. After that many poets have tried to write such works as the works of Rumi and Hafiz, but they have not yet succeeded after many centuries. It seems that inspiration is lost. Whenever it comes through, inspiration is living and life-giving, and it will always last and one will never get tired.
What you really want is attracted to you
and you are attracted to what you want.
One might ask, “What is the theory of inspiration? Where does one find it? Where does it come from?” My answer is that there is one treasure house where all the knowledge collected and experienced and learned and discovered by human beings is stored. And that treasure house is the divine mind, a mind with which all minds are linked. There is no experience that does not remain, or that is not recorded in that treasure house. Every good or bad experience we have, we make, every new thing we learn, every discovery we make, it is all stored in that treasure house. But one will say, “How does one find it? If we have a large store, perhaps hundreds and thousands of things, it is difficult to find anything we want on a moment’s notice.” The power of mind, the power of the will is such that if one has sufficient power of will, one finds anything one wants to find. It is said about those of powerful will that when the person wanted to buy some piece of furniture of a certain kind, he started from his house, and the first street he went in he saw in the show room the same piece of furniture exhibited. In other words, he was taken to it. What you really want is attracted to you and you are attracted to what you want. And the same way with the poet, the musician, the thinker. When he is deeply interested in what he is doing, then he has only to wish, and by the automatic action of the desire, his wish becomes a light. And this light is thrown on that divine storehouse. It is projected on the same object that he wants to find. Such is the phenomena of the will and inspiration, that no sooner an inspired soul is moved by the beauty and harmony of life and wishes to express his soul, the light of his soul shines on that particular object or that particular knowledge. And it comes instantly to his mind, expressing through his mind outwardly. And all that is brought from within in this way is perfect, is harmonious, is beautiful, and has a wonderful effect.
In the ancient times the Shah of Persia expressed the desire to have a history written of the past of Persia. And they said, “We have lost the records, and it is very difficult to trace back the accounts of the kings who lived before.” And there was a poet, Firdausi. He said, “I will write the history of Persia.” He was inspirational. People were amazed. They said, “How will he do it?” But he sent his soul, so to speak, in the past, and his soul became a receptacle of the knowledge of the past. He expressed it in the form of poetry. This book is called the Shah Nameh of Persia, which was brought by inspiration.
*Richard Wagner was not exactly an ‘ancient’ composer for the times when this lecture was given; he died in 1883, a year after Hazrat Inayat Khan was born.
Wow – this post really resonates with my heart; thank you, Hazrat Inayat, for the ‘road map’, and you, Nawab Pasnak, for sharing it!!
Very happy that it moves you, Howard, and thank you for being in touch.