The Sufi Message (which does not belong to the Sufis) is often spoken of as ‘The Message of Love, Harmony and Beauty.’  With this post, we begin a three part series in which Hazrat Inayat Khan explores the meaning and relationship of these terms.

How the words ‘love’, ‘harmony’, and ‘beauty’ delight the heart of everyone who hears them! One may wonder what it can be in these words that is able to exert such a natural power upon the human soul.

The answer is that if there is anything in life which appeals to the human soul, it is love and beauty. If one asks, ‘And what besides those?’ then the answer is, ‘There is nothing else’. Why is this? Because they are the very nature of life. Love is the nature of life, beauty is the outcome of life, harmony is the means by which life accomplishes its purpose, and the lack of it results in destruction.

When we reflect upon this whole creation we cannot but see that its purpose is to express an ideal of love, harmony, and beauty. Love could not have manifested itself if there were nothing to love, eyes could not have seen if there were nothing to see. What could love have done if there were no beauty? Love would have been silent. Love can only be said to exist after it has passed from silence into expression.

Now comes the question: what has made beauty? The answer is that it is love that has made beauty. When a Sufi calls you ‘Beloved ones of God’ he has this idea in his mind. Whatever God has created, He has created out of His love, He has created to be loved by Him, and therefore whatever He has created and all His creatures are His beloved ones.

The lover alone has the power to create,
and that which he creates is for the purpose of receiving his love.

We human beings have our prejudices; we like one, dislike another; we consider one worthy of high esteem, and another only worthy of low esteem, but to God they are all alike; they are His creation. It is just as it would be for a poet to have the little scrap of paper on which his song is written thrown away, or lost and not esteemed. How could he sing without his voice? So it is with the Creator; He cannot be pleased when His little scraps of paper are not appreciated.

God is love, and He has created man out of His love. How then can He be pleased if one has hatred or prejudice against a fellowman, because one forgets that however unworthy he may seem to be, he is nevertheless the beloved one of God? He has created him in order to love him. Therefore God, the Father and Mother of all beings, is equally pleased with all His creatures.

But is not one thing more beautiful than another, one person more than another, in either external or internal being? What is the reason of this?

The reason is found when we consider the work of an artist, of a poet, of a composer of music, of a writer. We can see that one composition is much more beautiful than another. One picture may perhaps be the best the artist has painted in all his life. The poet may wonder, ‘Have I written this verse? where can it have come from? It is so superior to all the others; it is marvelous how these words came to me.’

Just as we see this in the individual, so also do we see it in the work of the Creator. At the same time, love is the only power that has created, or that can create.

In this way God becomes the lover and the manifestation or object of love at the same time. In Sanskrit this is called by mystics Shiva and Shakti, or Purusha and Prakriti, or Ishwara and Maya, these three pairs of words. The one part is love, and the other part is beauty. Love has created beauty in order that it may be able to love. God is love; that is why He is called the Creator. The lover alone has the power to create, and that which he creates is for the purpose of receiving his love.

The Prophet has said, ‘God is beautiful, and He loves beauty.’ Now the word ‘beautiful’ does not refer to the form of God. God is formless. He has no personality until He manifests Himself to Himself. Therefore it is not His personality which is beautiful, for God is beyond that which in the ordinary sense of the word is called personality.

The Creator is more beautiful than the thing He has created.

What then is the source of God’s beauty? God is beautiful because He has created beauty. If there were no beauty in God, there could have been none in His manifestation. If there were no beauty in the thought of the poet, he could not write beautiful verse; if there were no beauty in the thought of the artist, he could never have painted the picture. One cannot see the beauty in the heart of the painter except in the beauty of the picture he has made. It is not only the picture which is beautiful, the heart of the painter was beautiful first. Consequently we become able to see the beauty not only in manifestation, but also before it was manifested; and before it was manifested it existed in love. In other words, we can see that the beauty was hidden in love; beauty is hidden in love, and the beauty that love has before it to love is its own beauty. Therefore, to whatever extent beauty is beautiful, so is love beautiful; even more so, for the Creator is more beautiful than the thing He has created.

All things that we make are the work of our hands. We are their creator, and we are greater than our hands. So it is with love. Love is greater than beauty, became love is the creator of the beauty that love loves in its life.

No doubt by loving, love becomes limited, limited as beauty; but then that is the purpose of love. If there were no beauty, His love could not have realized the latent joy of its own nature. The joy of its existence would die out.

As soon as we can think in this way, we come to see that the lover is vaster, incomparably vaster than the object he loves. The real love, the real beauty, is in the lover. The object that he loves is much smaller, although for the moment the lover is not aware of the difference. The lover thinks, ‘You are the object before which I bow. You are the object of which I think day and night, before which I am helpless. You are the object that I admire, that I adore.’ Yet he does not realize the vastness of his love, and indeed, strictly speaking, love is vaster than the lover.

To be continued…