Hazrat Inayat Khan now begins to consider ‘Divine love.’ The previous post, concluding the tale of Laila and Majnun, is here.

Love is directed by the intelligence. Therefore each person chooses his object of love according to his evolution. That appears to him most deserving of love which is in accordance with the grade of his evolution. There is a saying in the East. ‘As the soul is, so are its angels.’ The donkey would prefer thistles to roses.

The consciousness which is awakened to the material world has its object of love only in earthly beauties. The consciousness active through the mind finds its object in thought and among the thoughtful. The consciousness awakened through the heart loves love and the loving ones. And the consciousness awakened in the soul loves the spirit and the spiritual.

Silent love, which is the divine essence in man, becomes active, living, on seeing the vision of beauty. Beauty may be explained as perfection, perfection in every aspect of beauty. Not love alone is God or the essence of God, but beauty also, even in its limited aspects, shows itself as glimpses of the perfect Being. The mineral kingdom develops into gold, silver, diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, showing perfection in it. The fruit and flower, their sweetness and fragrance, show perfection in the vegetable kingdom. Form, figure, and youth show perfection in the animal kingdom. And it is the beauty of personality which is significant of perfection in the human being. There are some people in this world whose life is absorbed in the pursuit of gold and silver, gems and jewels. They would sacrifice anything or anybody to acquire the object of their love. There are others whose life is engaged in the beautiful vision of fruits, flowers, flowerbeds, and gardens. Perhaps they have no other interest besides. There are some who are absorbed in the admiration of the youth and beauty of the opposite sex, and nothing else seems to them worth more. There are others who are won by the beauty of someone’s personality, and have entirely devoted to the one they love both their here and their hereafter. Everyone has his object of love according to his standard of beauty, and at the same time each one loves the perfection of the divine Being in a certain aspect. When the seer sees this, no one, wise or foolish, sinner or virtuous, remains blameworthy in his sight. He sees in every heart the needle of the compass that turns to one and the same Being. ‘God is beautiful and He loves beauty,’ as it is said in the Hadith.

Man is never capable of loving God in heaven when his sympathy has not even been awakened to the beauty of the earth.

A village maiden was on her way to see her beloved. She passed by a Mullah who was saying prayers. In her ignorance she walked in front of him, which is forbidden by the religious law. The Mullah was very angry, and when she, returning, again passed near him, he scolded her for her mistake. He said. ‘How sinful, O girl, on your part to cross in front of me while I was offering my prayer.’ She said, ‘What does prayer mean?’ He said, ‘I was thinking of God, the Lord of the heavens and of the earth.’ She said, ‘I am sorry, I don’t know yet of God and His prayers, but I was on my way to my beloved, and thinking of my beloved, I did not see you praying. I wonder how you who were in the thought of God could see me?’ Her words so much impressed the Mullah that he said to her, ‘From this moment, O maiden, you are my teacher. It is I who should learn from you.’

To be continued…