In the first post of this series, Hazrat Inayat Khan recounts how a visit to the tomb of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti gave rise to a night of deep reflection; his spiritual searching was answered by the song of a dervish heard in the pre-dawn silence. Now he tells of what followed, when he went forth into the day, walking and thinking. He refers in various lectures to the incident below, but this is perhaps the most complete description of what was a transformative experience.

Thus I arrived at a cemetery, where a group of dervishes sat on the green grass, chattering together. They were all poorly clad, some without shoes and others without coats; one had a shirt with only one sleeve and another lacked them both. One wore a robe with a thousand patches and the next a hat without a crown. This strange group attracted my attention and I sat there for some time, noticing all that was going on, yet feigning to be utterly indifferent.

Presently their Pir-o-Murshid or Master came towards them, even more scantily dressed than they, and with a group of dervishes circling round him as he approached. Two of the latter led the odd procession, and with each step they cried out loudly, ‘Hosh bar dam, nazar bar qadam, khalwat dar anjuman!‘ – Be conscious of your breath and watch every step you take, and thus experience solitude in the crowd!

When the Murshid arrived at the assembly of his disciples, each one greeted the other, saying, Ishq Allah Mabud Allah! – God is love and God is the Beloved! It was this very greeting which later unveiled for me the Bible words, that God is love, and also the verse of the Arabian poet Abul Ala, who says,
Church, a Temple, or a Kaba stone,
Quran or Bible, or a martyr’s bone,
All these and more my heart can tolerate
Since my religion is of love alone.

The solemnity of the sacred words they uttered found their echo in my soul; thereupon I watched their ceremonial with still greater attention. Naturally, at first sight their dire poverty was puzzling, but then I had learned before I saw them how the holy Prophet had always prayed to Allah to sustain him in his life among the miskeen or dervishes, who voluntarily choose this humble way of living. The queer patches on their garments reminded me of the words of Hafiz, ‘Do not be fooled by short sleeves full of patches, for most powerful arms are hidden under them.‘

The dervishes first sat lost in contemplation, reciting charms one after the other, and then they began their music. I forgot all my science and technique while listening to their simple melodies, as they sang to the accompaniment of sitar and dholak* the deathless words of the Sufi Masters such as Rumi, Jami, Hafiz, and Shams i-Tabriz.

The rhapsody which their ecstasies conjured up seemed to me so strong and vital that the very leaves of the trees seemed to hang spellbound and motionless. Although their emotions manifested themselves in varying forms, they were regarded with silent reverence by all that strange company. Each one of them revealed a peculiar mood of ecstasy; some expressed it in tears and others in sighs, some in dances and yet others in the calm of meditation. Although I did not enjoy the music as much as they, still it impressed me so deeply that I felt as if I were lost in a trance of harmony and happiness. 

But the most amazing part of the proceedings came when the assembly was about to disperse. For one of the dervishes arose and, while announcing bhandara** or dinner, addressed them in the following terms, ‘O Kings of Kings! O Emperors of Emperors!’ This amused me greatly at the time, while I regarded their outward appearance. My first thought made them merely kings of imagination, without throne or crown, treasury, courtiers, or dominions – those natural possessions and temporal powers of kingship.

But the more I brooded upon the matter, the more I questioned whether environment or imagination made a king. The answer came at last: the king is never conscious of his kingship and all its attributes of luxury and might, unless his imagination is reflected in them and thus proves his true sovereignty. For instance, if a baby were crowned and seated upon a throne he would never comprehend his high position until his mind evolved sufficiently to realize his surroundings. This shows how real our surroundings seem to us, and yet how dead they are in the absence of imagination. And it also reveals how fleeting time and the changes of matter make all the kings of the earth but transitory kings, ruling over transitory kingdoms; this is because of their dependence upon their environment instead of their imagination. But the kingship of the dervish, independent of all external influences, based purely on his mental perception and strengthened by the forces of his will, is much truer, and at once unlimited and everlasting. Yet in the materialistic view his kingdom would appear as nothing, while in the spiritual conception it is an immortal and exquisite realm of joy. 

Verily, they are the possessors of the kingdom of God, and all His seen and unseen treasure is in their own possession, since they have lost themselves in Allah and are purified from all illusive deceptions. ‘It is by them that you obtain rain; it is by them that you receive your subsistence,‘ says the Quran. And Omar Khayyam said,

Think in this battered caravanserai,
Whose doorways are alternate night and day,

How Sultan after Sultan with his pomp,
Abode his hour or so, and went his way.

They say the lion and the lizard keep
The courts where Jamshed gloried and drank deep;

And Bahram that great hunter, the wild ass
Stamped o’er his head and he lies fast asleep.

*A double headed drum, often used in qawwali music.
**Also, langar, or the distribution of food.

To be continued…