As much of the world is presently celebrating or about to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus, it seems appropriate to post some of Hazrat Inayat Khan’s teachings on this beloved Master. He begins by addressing some of the common prejudices that divide rather than unite.
The Christ spirit cannot be explained in words. The omnipresent intelligence, which is in the rock, in the tree, and in the animal, shows its gradual unfoldment in man. This is a fact accepted by both science and metaphysics. The intelligence shows its culmination in the complete development of human personality, such as the personality, which was recognized in Jesus Christ by his followers. The followers of Buddha recognized the same unfoldment of the object of creation in Gautama Buddha, and the Hindus saw the same in Shri Krishna. Those who followed Moses recognized it in him too, and they have maintained their belief for thousands of years; the same culmination of the all-pervading intelligence was recognized in Muhammad by his followers.
No man has the right to claim this stage of development, nor can anyone very well compare two holy men both recognized by their followers as the perfect Spirit of God. For a thoughtless person it is easy to express an opinion and to compare two people, but a thoughtful person first thinks whether he has arrived at that stage where he is able to compare two such personalities.
No doubt it is different when it concerns a question of belief. The belief of the Muslim cannot be the same as that of the Jewish people, nor can the Christian belief be the same as that of the Buddhists. However, the wise man understands all beliefs, for he is one with them all.
The question whether a certain person was destined to be a complete personality, may be answered that there is no person who is not destined to be something. Every person has his life designed beforehand, and the light of the purpose that he is born to accomplish in life had already been kindled in his soul. Therefore, whatever be the grade of a person’s evolution, he is certainly destined to be so. Discussion of the lives that the different prophets have lived, as to the superiority of one over the other, seems to be a primitive attempt on the part of man. If without knowing the conditions of that particular time when the prophet lived, or the psychology of the people at the time, he is ready to judge that personality by the standards of today he does not do that personality justice.
When a person compares one particular teaching of a prophet with the teaching of another prophet, he also makes a great mistake, because the teachings of the prophets have not all been of the same kind. The teachings are like the works of a composer who writes music in all the different keys, and who puts the highest note and the lowest note and all the notes of different octaves into his music. The teachings of the prophets are nothing but the answer to the demands of individual and collective souls. Sometimes a childlike soul comes and asks, and an answer is given appropriate to his understanding; and an old soul comes and asks, and he is given an answer suited to his evolution.
It is not doing justice to either to compare a teaching, which Krishna gave to a child with one, which Buddha gave to an old soul. It is easy to say, ‘I do not like the music of Wagner; I simply hate It.’ but I should think it would be better first to become like Wagner and then to hate if one still wants to. To weigh, to measure, to examine, to pronounce an opinion on a great personality, one must first rise to his stage of development; otherwise the best thing is a respectful attitude. Respect in any form is the way of the wise.
Then there are simple people who hear about miracles; they attach great importance to what they have perhaps read in the traditions about the miracles performed by the great souls, but in this way they limit the greatness of God to a certain miracle. If God is eternal then His miracle is eternal. It is always there. There is no such thing as unnatural, nor such a thing as impossible. Things seem unnatural because they are unusual; things seem impossible because they are beyond man’s limited reason. Life itself is a phenomenon, a miracle. The more one knows about it the more one is conscious of the wonder of life, and the more one realizes that if there is any phenomenon or miracle it is man’s birthright. By whom are miracles performed? It is by man, who can do it and who will do it; but what is most essential is not a miracle: the most essential thing is the understanding of life.
To be continued…