Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan continues to expand on the theme of love. The previous post is here.

The Sufis say that the reason of the whole creation is that the perfect Being wished to know Himself, and did so by awakening the love of His nature and creating out of it His object of love, which is beauty. Dervishes, with this meaning, salute each other by saying, Ishq Allah Mabud Allah – God is love and God is the beloved. A Hindustani poet says, ‘The desire to see the beloved brought me to earth, and the same desire to see the beloved I am taking with me to heaven.’

As love is the source of creation and the real sustenance of all beings, so, if man knows how to give it to the world around him as sympathy, as kindness, as service, he supplies to all the food for which every soul hungers. If man knew this secret of life, he would win the whole world, without any doubt.

Love can always be discerned in the thought, speech, and action of the lover, for in his every expression there is a charm which shows as a beauty, tenderness, and delicacy. A heart burning in love’s fire has a tendency to melt every heart with which it comes in contact.

Love produces such a charm in the lover that while he loves one, all love him. The magnetism of love is thus explained by a Hindustani poet: ‘Why should not every heart be melted into drops before the flame that my heart has sustained all through my life? As I have all my life shed tears with the pain of love, the lovers make pilgrimage to my mournful grave.’ It was to teach this lesson of love that Christ said, ‘I will make you fishers of men.’ ‘Everyone is drawn to me, to become my friend, but none divines what it is in my heart that draws him,’ said  Jalaluddin Rumi.

Love is inherent in every soul. All the occupations of life, however important or unimportant, in some way or other tend towards love; therefore no one in the world can be called entirely loveless. Love is the one thing that every soul brings to earth with it. Yet after coming to earth man partakes of all the qualities of lovelessness. If it were not so, we would have been as bitter, as jealous, as angry, as full of hatred when we were born as we are now. The infant has no hatred. A little child that we have scolded will in a few minutes’ time come and embrace us.

To love, to adore, to worship someone with whom we are connected neither by birth, race, creed, nor in any worldly connection, comes from the love of the soul. Sometimes people fall in love at first sight, sometimes the presence of someone draws a person like a magnet, sometimes one sees a person and feels, ‘I might have known him all my life.’ Sometimes one speaks with another person and finds an intimacy of understanding as if the souls understood each other. All of this is accounted for by the idea of soul-mates.

To be continued…